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By Barry Rubin
P.J. Crowley, State Department spokesman and its answer to Pollyanna (Note 1), looks at the advance of America’s enemies and gives the advice that their strategy isn’t working. Ah, but it is.
Crowley responds to the following question about the joint visit of the Saudi king and President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, self-styled leader of the Resistance to American interests in the Arabic-speaking world, to Beirut.
“Do you see this as an effort, with your help, to distance Syria from Iran?”
For goodness sakes! People in the region see the visit as the exact opposite: the Saudi acceptance of Syrian (and hence of Iranian also) hegemony in Lebanon. It is the seal of Saudi approval for Lebanon’s surrender to the Iran-Syria bloc, but at the same time trying to preserve some remnant of Saudi influence.
It's just like Turkey. Iran and Syria pull Turkey into their orbit and the U.S. government and British prime minister congratulate Turkey for being a good influence on Iran and Syria!
Crowley responds to the question:
“Well, we have made clear that Syria’s relationship with Iran is of concern to us. And to the extent that Syria wants to advance its relations within the region and around the world, it would be much better for Syria to distance itself from Iran and move in a more constructive direction.”
Why better? The United States does maintain some sanctions on Syria but Washington is engaging Damascus. The Obama Administration puts no obstacle in Syria’s way regarding its reestablishment of Lebanon as a satellite; does nothing about Hizballah which now bullies the UN “peacekeeping” force at will; has actually helped the Syrian- (and Iranian) backed Hamas in the Gaza Strip; and pretty much ignores Syrian organization and helping terrorists in Iraq who kill Americans.
Meanwhile, Europe is moving toward giving Syria what it wants, while Syria’s protector Iran is advancing toward nuclear weapons. (Iran faces tougher sanctions but these have no negative effect on Syria.)
So why should Syria distance itself from Iran? In fact, the two countries are constantly tightening their relations and now (virtually unnoticed by the U.S. and UK governments) have brought the Turkish regime into the alliance.
Crowley makes a statement that can only provoke gales of laughter in the Middle East:
“The relationship between Syria and Iran gets Syria very, very little….”
Let’s see, how about this list: billions of dollars in Iranian aid, free weapons and political support for Syrian clients Hamas and Hizballah, backing for Syrian ambitions in Lebanon and among the Palestinians, religious cover to sanctify Syria’s non-Muslim rulers as Muslim, and soon a nuclear umbrella! This is not the entire list by any means.
Meanwhile, as Assad triumphantly enters into Lebanon—a country he had to flee due to U.S. pressure a few years ago—the U.S. government doesn’t even notice that it has suffered a defeat.
The clueless Crowley urges Assad to listen to Saudi King Abdallah, who presumably will have some moderating effect on him. P.J. doesn’t get it. The situation is the exact opposite: Abdallah looked at a weak and confused U.S. policy and then decided to listen to Assad.
Note 1: A literary character famous for being naïve and engaging in wishful thinking.
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, at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Our Circulation Hits 17,000 Subscribers/20,000 Readers Daily
Thanks to all of you for reading and especially for subscribing. I try to keep a balance of stories on different topics and also not deluge you with too much material. Many suggestions for stories and tips come from readers. So thanks for that also. Hope you keep reading and finding ideas and information of value. Barry
Friday, July 30, 2010
Albert the Alligator and the British Ambassador
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We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, upper-right hand corner of this page. 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
Once upon a time in an intellectual galaxy now seemingly far away, liberals and conservatives shared a common view. There were the forces of democracy and the forces of totalitarianism (or, if you prefer, authoritarianism) that threatened the world, took away freedom, and held back both economic and social development. The goal of Western foreign policy was to help those favoring liberty against the tyrants and would-be tyrants.
Naturally, there were different views about how to do this, for example should some dictatorships be backed against those deemed worse, but the basic template was the same.
Then came a turning point which can be symbolized by a line in Walt Kelly’s comic-strip “Pogo.” A dialogue balloon destined to shake the world: “We have met the enemy,” said either Pogo the possum or Albert the alligator, “and he is us.” Kelly later wrote that he originated this line in 1953 in an essay opposing McCarthyism but it really took off in a 1972 cartoon, perfectly timed for the "1960s," the era whose ideas rule us today in much of the West.
The sentence was a parody of Oliver Hazard Perry’s message—“We have met the enemy and they are ours”—describing his naval victory during the War of 1812. So what had once been a triumphant shout of American victory was transmuted in a post-Pogo world to symbolize a vitriolic yell of self-induced anti-Americanism.
And so if there are evil forces in the world, they are said either not to be evil at all (mislabeled as so by false Western propaganda) or were only made to behave that way by our (Western, American, democratic, capitalist, etc) sins. In other words, the guilty party is the democratic victim whose bad behavior created the monsters. In this spirit, a supposedly great American intellectual claimed America was the cancer of the world. Formerly, it had been known as the last, best hope of humanity.
How often do we see this worldview evinced nowadays? After September 11, America was said to be the cause of the terrorism that struck it. After the bloody July 7 attacks on British mass transport, a top British intelligence official said the terrorism happened due to Britain’s involvement in the Iraq war. President Barack Obama has made this a constant theme, most recently putting the Turkish trend toward Islamism (without admitting it exists) on the shoulders of European states that didn’t admit Turkey into the EU.
So nowadays, the most common way of dealing with radicalism, repression, terrorism, and such things in the Third World is to blame it on democratic states so often victimized by such issues.
The latest contribution to this genre comes from British ambassador to Israel Tom Phillips who said Israel’s sanctions’ regime on the Gaza Strip “was breeding radicalism.”
He claimed it had driven “Gaza into a Hamas-controlled tunnel economy, and the Palestinian Gaza private sector has been almost completely destroyed….Young boys on the streets [have had] no role models apart from the Hamas guy in the black shiny uniform on the street corner...creating, in psychological terms, another generation of people that are not going to feel that friendly about Israel.”
The message is that the problem is completely due to “us.” The other side doesn’t actually exist. It has no history, no worldview, no ideology, and no goals. The “other side” is merely a blank screen or mirror, reflecting back what we do.
This is, of course, a racist and imperialist vision. It denies the others any culture or history or mentality of their own. If one is only a victim always, one has no volition, higher intelligence, or ability to affect history.
Can somebody just be a sincere revolutionary Islamist or radical nationalist who wants to seize state power, wipe you out, and implement his own program for achieving utopia?
The truth can be found by examining the sequence of events. For instance, Islamist Iran is not radical because it has been isolated; rather, it has been isolated because of its radical behavior. Same thing with Syria.
In the case of the Gaza Strip, the publicly known facts should be recalled. Let’s count the number of times Hamas was treated generously and not driven toward radicalism.
The participation in elections of Hamas in Palestinian elections was clearly illegal, since that group did not accept the Oslo Accords, recognize Israel, or cease using terrorism. Yet despite all of this, the United States actually urged, and Israel accepted, its participation. (1)
When Hamas won the elections, neither the United States nor Israel tried to intervene or reverse the results. Again, they didn’t “drive” Hamas into radicalism by denying it that electoral victory. (2) True, the Palestinian Authority tried for a while to hang on, but in the end it signed a power-sharing agreement with Hamas. (3) But then Hamas staged a coup, killed fellow Palestinians, and seized power. Yet even then there was no move by Israel or the United States to unseat the new regime. (4)
After repeated Hamas attacks on Israel and Israeli retaliation a ceasefire was signed. There were restrictions on supplies but they regularly flowed into Gaza. (5) There was, for example, a border industrial area that provided jobs for Gazans from Israeli companies until Hamas attacked it.
Finally, near the end of 2008, Hamas tore up the ceasefire and launched a massive attack on Israel. Israel defended itself. After the resulting war in which Western countries made sure Hamas would not be overthrown (6) the sanctions’ regime we've seen until recently was implemented by both Egypt (which feared Hamas’s revolutionary Islamism and status as an Iranian client) and Israel.
This is not a picture of Gazans being driven to radicalism, it is a story of how the consequences of a radical policy unfolded, forcing Israel to react.
There’s more. Ambassador Phillips, and the many others who speak about events around the world in similar terms, simply fail to comprehend how a dictatorship works. They think that if you engage hardline ideological revolutionaries they will moderate. If you offer to trade with them, a process of materialism will set in so that the once fire-breathing radicals will be transformed into luxury-loving bourgeois.
Suppose Gaza didn’t have a “Hamas-controlled tunnel economy” but merely had a Hamas-controlled normal economy, would that be better? And why should one believe that the economy wouldn’t be controlled by the dictatorship, because Western governments or companies were doing business there? But that is equally true of Syria, Iran, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and ideological dictatorships in other parts of the world. Has this turned them toward love and moderation?
Oh, and let's remember that the main purpose of those tunnels was to import weapons for attacking Israel. Hamas will take advantage of any openings to bring in more arms and things that can be used for fighting (cement for military installations; pipes for rockets). It will tax and seize assets to build up its military machine. The more satisfied are people's material needs, the less reason they will have to oppose the Hamas regime.
This Phillips-Pogo view also ignores the political mechanisms of ideological dictatorships. Hamas doesn’t wait for young boys to see its cadre as role models. Here’s what it does:
--Pays people with money obtainable, including that siphoned off from aid and trade, to recruit them and make them the arms of the regime. The more commerce, the more money Hamas has to spend on indoctrination, organization, and weaponry.
--Arrests and intimidates opponents so they don't provide alternative role models. In the Gaza Strip there aren’t that many moderate role models. Wealthy businessmen? Fatah gunmen? Corrupt figures against whom people voted for Hamas. Maybe the dedicated UNRWA teacher offers an alternative role model? OK, but how many of these are also radicals?
--Control all institutions including mosques, media, youth organizations, schools, and so on which all actively and intensively preach the same message. Support Hamas; kill the Jews; be a Jihad fighter. The regime isn’t going to let external institutions or countries that oppose its Islamist radicalism have influence in its territory. Hamas would rather sacrifice benefits to its people than give up authority to those it knows want to overthrow the regime.
Phillips’ line that it is Israel’s policy which is creating “another generation of people that are not going to feel that friendly about Israel” is rather ludicrous in light of this reality. After all, the same thing is happening on the West Bank where there is no sanctions’ regime in place, Western aid flows lavishly, and supposed moderates are in control. Whatever Israel does, incitement and indoctrination will continue at the same level from those who hate Israel because it exists.
Here’s the truth: revolutionary forces that use terrorism, preach a totalitarian ideology, create dictatorships, and have genocidal goals are responsible for war and conflict in the Middle East.
No matter how intensely Western democracies flagellate themselves, no matter how much they appease and concede, that basic and deadly fact will not change. No, let me correct the end of that sentence: the cost will become more dangerous, bloody, and deadly.
Speaking of alligators, it was another Briton, Winston Churchill, who said that an appeaser is someone who feeds the alligator--ok, nitpickers, I know he said crocodile but they differ only in the roundness of the snout--in hopes that it will eat him last.
Our problem is that contemporary appeasers also hope the alligator will eat us first.
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, at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, upper-right hand corner of this page. 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
Once upon a time in an intellectual galaxy now seemingly far away, liberals and conservatives shared a common view. There were the forces of democracy and the forces of totalitarianism (or, if you prefer, authoritarianism) that threatened the world, took away freedom, and held back both economic and social development. The goal of Western foreign policy was to help those favoring liberty against the tyrants and would-be tyrants.
Naturally, there were different views about how to do this, for example should some dictatorships be backed against those deemed worse, but the basic template was the same.
Then came a turning point which can be symbolized by a line in Walt Kelly’s comic-strip “Pogo.” A dialogue balloon destined to shake the world: “We have met the enemy,” said either Pogo the possum or Albert the alligator, “and he is us.” Kelly later wrote that he originated this line in 1953 in an essay opposing McCarthyism but it really took off in a 1972 cartoon, perfectly timed for the "1960s," the era whose ideas rule us today in much of the West.
The sentence was a parody of Oliver Hazard Perry’s message—“We have met the enemy and they are ours”—describing his naval victory during the War of 1812. So what had once been a triumphant shout of American victory was transmuted in a post-Pogo world to symbolize a vitriolic yell of self-induced anti-Americanism.
And so if there are evil forces in the world, they are said either not to be evil at all (mislabeled as so by false Western propaganda) or were only made to behave that way by our (Western, American, democratic, capitalist, etc) sins. In other words, the guilty party is the democratic victim whose bad behavior created the monsters. In this spirit, a supposedly great American intellectual claimed America was the cancer of the world. Formerly, it had been known as the last, best hope of humanity.
How often do we see this worldview evinced nowadays? After September 11, America was said to be the cause of the terrorism that struck it. After the bloody July 7 attacks on British mass transport, a top British intelligence official said the terrorism happened due to Britain’s involvement in the Iraq war. President Barack Obama has made this a constant theme, most recently putting the Turkish trend toward Islamism (without admitting it exists) on the shoulders of European states that didn’t admit Turkey into the EU.
So nowadays, the most common way of dealing with radicalism, repression, terrorism, and such things in the Third World is to blame it on democratic states so often victimized by such issues.
The latest contribution to this genre comes from British ambassador to Israel Tom Phillips who said Israel’s sanctions’ regime on the Gaza Strip “was breeding radicalism.”
He claimed it had driven “Gaza into a Hamas-controlled tunnel economy, and the Palestinian Gaza private sector has been almost completely destroyed….Young boys on the streets [have had] no role models apart from the Hamas guy in the black shiny uniform on the street corner...creating, in psychological terms, another generation of people that are not going to feel that friendly about Israel.”
The message is that the problem is completely due to “us.” The other side doesn’t actually exist. It has no history, no worldview, no ideology, and no goals. The “other side” is merely a blank screen or mirror, reflecting back what we do.
This is, of course, a racist and imperialist vision. It denies the others any culture or history or mentality of their own. If one is only a victim always, one has no volition, higher intelligence, or ability to affect history.
Can somebody just be a sincere revolutionary Islamist or radical nationalist who wants to seize state power, wipe you out, and implement his own program for achieving utopia?
The truth can be found by examining the sequence of events. For instance, Islamist Iran is not radical because it has been isolated; rather, it has been isolated because of its radical behavior. Same thing with Syria.
In the case of the Gaza Strip, the publicly known facts should be recalled. Let’s count the number of times Hamas was treated generously and not driven toward radicalism.
The participation in elections of Hamas in Palestinian elections was clearly illegal, since that group did not accept the Oslo Accords, recognize Israel, or cease using terrorism. Yet despite all of this, the United States actually urged, and Israel accepted, its participation. (1)
When Hamas won the elections, neither the United States nor Israel tried to intervene or reverse the results. Again, they didn’t “drive” Hamas into radicalism by denying it that electoral victory. (2) True, the Palestinian Authority tried for a while to hang on, but in the end it signed a power-sharing agreement with Hamas. (3) But then Hamas staged a coup, killed fellow Palestinians, and seized power. Yet even then there was no move by Israel or the United States to unseat the new regime. (4)
After repeated Hamas attacks on Israel and Israeli retaliation a ceasefire was signed. There were restrictions on supplies but they regularly flowed into Gaza. (5) There was, for example, a border industrial area that provided jobs for Gazans from Israeli companies until Hamas attacked it.
Finally, near the end of 2008, Hamas tore up the ceasefire and launched a massive attack on Israel. Israel defended itself. After the resulting war in which Western countries made sure Hamas would not be overthrown (6) the sanctions’ regime we've seen until recently was implemented by both Egypt (which feared Hamas’s revolutionary Islamism and status as an Iranian client) and Israel.
This is not a picture of Gazans being driven to radicalism, it is a story of how the consequences of a radical policy unfolded, forcing Israel to react.
There’s more. Ambassador Phillips, and the many others who speak about events around the world in similar terms, simply fail to comprehend how a dictatorship works. They think that if you engage hardline ideological revolutionaries they will moderate. If you offer to trade with them, a process of materialism will set in so that the once fire-breathing radicals will be transformed into luxury-loving bourgeois.
Suppose Gaza didn’t have a “Hamas-controlled tunnel economy” but merely had a Hamas-controlled normal economy, would that be better? And why should one believe that the economy wouldn’t be controlled by the dictatorship, because Western governments or companies were doing business there? But that is equally true of Syria, Iran, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and ideological dictatorships in other parts of the world. Has this turned them toward love and moderation?
Oh, and let's remember that the main purpose of those tunnels was to import weapons for attacking Israel. Hamas will take advantage of any openings to bring in more arms and things that can be used for fighting (cement for military installations; pipes for rockets). It will tax and seize assets to build up its military machine. The more satisfied are people's material needs, the less reason they will have to oppose the Hamas regime.
This Phillips-Pogo view also ignores the political mechanisms of ideological dictatorships. Hamas doesn’t wait for young boys to see its cadre as role models. Here’s what it does:
--Pays people with money obtainable, including that siphoned off from aid and trade, to recruit them and make them the arms of the regime. The more commerce, the more money Hamas has to spend on indoctrination, organization, and weaponry.
--Arrests and intimidates opponents so they don't provide alternative role models. In the Gaza Strip there aren’t that many moderate role models. Wealthy businessmen? Fatah gunmen? Corrupt figures against whom people voted for Hamas. Maybe the dedicated UNRWA teacher offers an alternative role model? OK, but how many of these are also radicals?
--Control all institutions including mosques, media, youth organizations, schools, and so on which all actively and intensively preach the same message. Support Hamas; kill the Jews; be a Jihad fighter. The regime isn’t going to let external institutions or countries that oppose its Islamist radicalism have influence in its territory. Hamas would rather sacrifice benefits to its people than give up authority to those it knows want to overthrow the regime.
Phillips’ line that it is Israel’s policy which is creating “another generation of people that are not going to feel that friendly about Israel” is rather ludicrous in light of this reality. After all, the same thing is happening on the West Bank where there is no sanctions’ regime in place, Western aid flows lavishly, and supposed moderates are in control. Whatever Israel does, incitement and indoctrination will continue at the same level from those who hate Israel because it exists.
Here’s the truth: revolutionary forces that use terrorism, preach a totalitarian ideology, create dictatorships, and have genocidal goals are responsible for war and conflict in the Middle East.
No matter how intensely Western democracies flagellate themselves, no matter how much they appease and concede, that basic and deadly fact will not change. No, let me correct the end of that sentence: the cost will become more dangerous, bloody, and deadly.
Speaking of alligators, it was another Briton, Winston Churchill, who said that an appeaser is someone who feeds the alligator--ok, nitpickers, I know he said crocodile but they differ only in the roundness of the snout--in hopes that it will eat him last.
Our problem is that contemporary appeasers also hope the alligator will eat us first.
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, at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
The Palestinian Authority Struggles to Sabotage Any Chance for Peace
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We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, upper-right hand corner of this page. 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
Shouldn't this farce teach us a lesson? The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, the United States and others have telephoned Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas and begged him, pleaded with him:
Oh, please please--one can imagine them saying--negotiate with Israel so we can give you a state as soon as possible. We will give you a lot of gifts if you do it, so we can then bestow even more goodies on you!
And Abbas says "No!"
Why? Why if Palestinians are so eager for a two-state solution, for a country of their own, for ending the "horrible" "occupation" (which mostly ended in 1994-1996), putting a stop to the "suffering" of their people, putting a stop to violence, enabling their children to go to school, raising living standards, and all the other benefits of putting an end to this long-standing conflict?
Why? Why? If it is Israel that is blocking peace is Israel's government ready to negotiate--and has been for more than a year--while the PA says no?
Because it is precisely the PA, and Hamas of course, that is sustaining the conflict. It refuses to make peace because:
--It still hopes for total victory.
--It believes that if it can sabotage a negotiated agreement there will be an imposed one giving the PA everything it wants without compromise or concession on its part.
--It doesn't want to end the conflict forever, accept less than 100 percent of British mandatory Palestine, and give up the demand that Palestinians can go live in Israel in order to subvert that country.
--It fears that any compromise will ensure that the PA, or the individual leaders who make a deal, is branded as a traitor.
And here, too, is the PA openly thwarting President Barack Obama, who publicly bristles at the tiniest Israeli disagreement, yet seems to accept this disrespect without demur.
Sooner or later, there will probably be direct talks--as there were from 1992 to 2000--and the PA will simply ensure that these fail. But it is fascinating to see how long Abbas will hold out. When he first came to Washington, about 15 months ago, Obama urged him to negotiate with Israel. Abbas refused. Last September, almost 11 months ago, Obama announced there would soon be direct talks. Abbas refused.
Yet I'll bet most Western journalists and academics would (wrongly) say that Abbas wants a negotiated peace and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn't.
Moreover, the Arab League meeting was a step backward. It is generally being reported as giving the green light for Abbas to negotiate with Israel. On the contrary, it is the exact opposite: it sets preconditions. This is a defeat for U.S. policy and may be the deathknell for direct negotiations this year. After all the flattery, distancing from Israel, and going easy on Arab regimes, the Obama Administration has failed to get them to deliver what his three predecessors obtained easily without such measures: direct Israel-Palestinian talks.
What is needed is a paradigm shift in the West to bring public views--in private, government officials often admit that the Palestinians are the problem behind the failure to achieve peace--into line with daily observable reality.
We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, upper-right hand corner of this page. 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
Shouldn't this farce teach us a lesson? The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, the United States and others have telephoned Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas and begged him, pleaded with him:
Oh, please please--one can imagine them saying--negotiate with Israel so we can give you a state as soon as possible. We will give you a lot of gifts if you do it, so we can then bestow even more goodies on you!
And Abbas says "No!"
Why? Why if Palestinians are so eager for a two-state solution, for a country of their own, for ending the "horrible" "occupation" (which mostly ended in 1994-1996), putting a stop to the "suffering" of their people, putting a stop to violence, enabling their children to go to school, raising living standards, and all the other benefits of putting an end to this long-standing conflict?
Why? Why? If it is Israel that is blocking peace is Israel's government ready to negotiate--and has been for more than a year--while the PA says no?
Because it is precisely the PA, and Hamas of course, that is sustaining the conflict. It refuses to make peace because:
--It still hopes for total victory.
--It believes that if it can sabotage a negotiated agreement there will be an imposed one giving the PA everything it wants without compromise or concession on its part.
--It doesn't want to end the conflict forever, accept less than 100 percent of British mandatory Palestine, and give up the demand that Palestinians can go live in Israel in order to subvert that country.
--It fears that any compromise will ensure that the PA, or the individual leaders who make a deal, is branded as a traitor.
And here, too, is the PA openly thwarting President Barack Obama, who publicly bristles at the tiniest Israeli disagreement, yet seems to accept this disrespect without demur.
Sooner or later, there will probably be direct talks--as there were from 1992 to 2000--and the PA will simply ensure that these fail. But it is fascinating to see how long Abbas will hold out. When he first came to Washington, about 15 months ago, Obama urged him to negotiate with Israel. Abbas refused. Last September, almost 11 months ago, Obama announced there would soon be direct talks. Abbas refused.
Yet I'll bet most Western journalists and academics would (wrongly) say that Abbas wants a negotiated peace and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn't.
Moreover, the Arab League meeting was a step backward. It is generally being reported as giving the green light for Abbas to negotiate with Israel. On the contrary, it is the exact opposite: it sets preconditions. This is a defeat for U.S. policy and may be the deathknell for direct negotiations this year. After all the flattery, distancing from Israel, and going easy on Arab regimes, the Obama Administration has failed to get them to deliver what his three predecessors obtained easily without such measures: direct Israel-Palestinian talks.
What is needed is a paradigm shift in the West to bring public views--in private, government officials often admit that the Palestinians are the problem behind the failure to achieve peace--into line with daily observable reality.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
How Not to Conduct Diplomacy: A Case Study: UK PM in Turkey
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We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, upper-right hand corner of this page. 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.
Note: This article was published in PajamasMedia. If you reprint please use my title but link and give credit to them. For my response to Andrew Sullivan's dishonest attack on the article see here.
By Barry Rubin
British Prime Minister David Cameron’s July 27 speech in Turkey will not live on in history. But it should, as an example of the decline of Western diplomacy, of suicide by Political Correctness, as a textbook example of how not to conduct international affairs.
It crossed my mind that the speech was written by the Foreign Office for the express purpose of making Cameron look foolish, but then I realized that he and his top advisors probably have no idea why it was such a disaster.
Suppose you are the British prime minister going to Turkey, or to just about any country, what should you say? The theme should be: We can cooperate and do mutually beneficial things. Here’s what I can do for you, here’s what I’d like you to do for me. And here’s what you must not do in order to reap the benefits of my friendship and favor.
Obviously, you need to dress that up in appropriate language. But everything should be conditional. The message to be delivered is that it is in your interest to respect my interests.
Cameron did the precise and exact opposite. His message was: The UK needs Turkey. Turkey is wonderful. Its behavior has been perfect. We are desperate for your help.
What is the effect? A man goes into a bazaar, points to a carpet and says: That is the most beautiful carpet I have ever seen. I must have it no matter what the price! How much is it?
In addition, Cameron committed some other howling mistakes, several of which will amaze you. So please stick with me as I explain and document this. You won’t be disappointed. And remember this is not just a matter of one speech, it is a fitting symbol for the entire contemporary Western diplomatic approach to the Middle East and much more to the world as well. By the way, it is doomed to fail miserably.
Before we begin, remember that this is no longer the old Turkish Republic. Cameron is lavishing praise on an Islamist-oriented regime which has aligned itself with Iran and revolutionary Islamist groups. And all of Cameron’s pandering, as if he were a Western barbarian in the court of the all-powerful Ottoman sultan, is driving a knife into the heart of a Turkish opposition which is genuinely friendly toward the West and horrified by the current regime’s subversion of Turkish democracy.
Cameron began by saying:
“I’ve come to Ankara today to establish a new partnership between Britain and Turkey. I think this is a vital strategic relationship for our country.”
Note the cringing here. A proper prime minister might have said: “I think this is a vital strategic relationship for our countries.” In other words, the speaker would stress there is a mutual benefit. Instead, this polite approach makes it sound as if Turkey is doing the United Kingdom a favor by having a strategic relationship to it while Turkey doesn't need Britain at all.
And this is precisely the interpretation put on such things in the local context: The Turkish regime can take its Western alliances for granted while taking the side of the West's radical Islamist enemies.
And here it is again:
“People ask me why [I’m visiting] Turkey and why so soon. I’ll tell you why. Because Turkey is vital for our economy. Vital for our security. And vital for our politics and diplomacy.” So Turkey holds all the cards and the West can do nothing but give concessions in hope of winning favor in its eyes. One should remember that a major theme of Iran, Syria, and this Turkish regime is that nothing can be achieved without them and so the West must bow to their will and do everything they want. Cameron is feeding this monster.
According to him, there are no problems with Turkey on security:
“Turkey is a great NATO ally. And Turkey shares our determination to fight terrorism in all its forms – whether from Al Qaeda or the PKK. [But not, he fails to mention, from Hamas or Hizballah!] But perhaps more significant still is the fact that Turkey’s unique position at the meeting point of East and West gives it an unrivalled influence in helping us get to grips with some of the greatest threats to our collective security.”
Look, you don’t go to a country and criticize it (unless the country is Israel. Now why is that?) but you don’t tell them that everything they are doing is great because if that’s true they will keep on doing it and know there is no cost. Turkey under this regime is not a pro-Western state helping the West against its “Eastern” enemies—as Turkey was between, say, 1950 and 2000—or is it a neutral meeting ground. At present, Turkey is on the enemy side.
He continues:
“Which Muslim majority country has a long-established relationship with Israel while at the same time championing the rights of the Palestinian people? Which European country could have the greatest chance of persuading Iran to change course on its nuclear policy?”
Now this is after the Turkish regime trashed the relationship with Israel and stabbed the United States and UK in the back by cutting its own deal with Iran and even voting against sanctions at the UN. This is the policy Cameron praises! And then after all these things he adds:
“Whether in Afghanistan or the Middle East, Turkey has a credibility that others in the West just can’t hope to have. So I’ve come here to make the case for Turkey to use this credibility, to go further in enhancing our security and working for peace across our world.”
Does this include Turkish regime support for Hamas and Hizballah, alignment with Iran and Syria? He should be hinting gently that Turkey is losing its credibility because of the regime’s behavior. And therefore Turkey needs to change its behavior, a point that the opposition will be arguing in the next election. By this time I can see the opposition tearing it hair out as another Western leader heaps praise on the regime. And have no doubt the regime will use all this in next year’s elections:
Extremist? Transforming Turkey toward Islamism? What do you mean? The West loves us!
Cameron then goes on and makes it clear that Turkey would be doing the EU a favor by joining it, not the tiniest hint of leverage, that Turkish membership might depend on the regime’s behavior. He could have said:
While I, of course, support you, the path would be easier if…. Followed by some polite and proper hints done with full British charm.
But it gets worse. Cameron is about to insult several of Britain’s closest allies, including Germany and France, by making opposition to Turkey’s entrance into the EU as a form of racism and Islamophobia. For example, he says that opponents are:
“The prejudiced. Those who willfully misunderstand Islam. They see no difference between real Islam and the distorted version of the extremists. They think the problem is Islam itself. And they think the values of Islam can just never be compatible with the values of other religions, societies, or cultures.”
All these arguments are just plain wrong. The problem precisely is the version of Islam embodied in the current Turkish government. There could be other perfectly pious Muslims ruling Turkey (and Iran, Syria, or the Gaza Strip for that matter) who would interpret Islam in a way relatively compatible with the values of other religions. But not the Islamists!
He also complains of those who “see the history of our world as a clash of civilizations as a choice between East and West. They just don’t get the fact that Turkey can be a great unifier. Because instead of choosing between East and West, Turkey has chosen both.”
But he doesn’t comprehend that the current government of Turkey sees the world as a clash of civilizations. Its foreign minister even wrote a book to that effect, which has never been translated and which the regime is doing its best to conceal. This is not the Turkey of Kamal Ataturk and his successors but rather (at least temporarily) a country ruled by the successors of those who opposed Ataturk.
If I were a German or French journalist my headline would be: Cameron Calls German (or French) policy bigoted and anti-Islamic.
Yet Cameron sails on into even worse grounds. He actually praises a Turkish policy which has gone to the brink of war with Israel, sponsored a flotilla run by radical Islamists intending to create a violent confrontation, and is allied with a revolutionary terrorist group. One has to quote it to believe he actually said the following:
“Turkey’s relationships in the region, both with Israel and with the Arab world, are of incalculable value. No other country has the same potential to build understanding between Israel and the Arab world. I know that Gaza has led to real strains in Turkey’s relationship with Israel. But Turkey is a friend of Israel. And I urge Turkey, and Israel, not to give up on that friendship.
“Let me be clear. The Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable. And I have told PM Netanyahu, we will expect the Israeli inquiry to be swift, transparent and rigorous. Let me also be clear that the situation in Gaza has to change. Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions. Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp.
“But as, hopefully, we move in the coming weeks to direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians so it’s Turkey that can make the case for peace and Turkey that can help to press the parties to come together, and point the way to a just and viable solution.”
In other words, Turkey is 100 percent right, I have no criticism of Hamas’s behavior, we should accept a permanent revolutionary Islamist, terrorist, genocidal, statelet on the Mediterranean. No problem. And we can ignore the Turkish regime's pro-Hamas policy and provocative behavior because without abandoning that approach Turkey can still play a productive role! This is the diplomatic equivalent of insane behavior on Cameron’s part.
And does Israel want this regime to mediate between it and the Palestinians? Even the Palestinian Authority doesn't want that: it knows that the Turkish regime is allied with its Hamas rivals, for goodness sakes! Doesn't Cameron know this?
I don’t want to take up too much of your time but I cannot let this next gem pass. True, Cameron urged Turkey to continue internal reforms (but there’s no hint of the anti-democratic nature of the regime’s manipulation of such reforms, for example, to seize control of the courts) and the massive repression of dissidents.
He suggests that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons and he even criticizes the Turkey-Iran deal. But note the illogical leap:
“Even if Iran were to complete the deal proposed in their recent agreement with Turkey and Brazil, it would still retain around fifty percent of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium. So we need Turkey’s help now in making it clear to Iran just how serious we are about engaging fully with the international community.
“We hope that the meeting held in Istanbul between the Turkish, Brazilian and Iranian Foreign Ministers will see Iran move in the right direction.”
That meeting is a conference of Iran’s supporters! Why would it lead Iran in the right direction? How about Turkey’s opposition to sanctions? And again note the beggar’s worldview: “We need Turkey’s help....” Why should Turkey help? What will you give the regime in exchange for its alleged help? What behavior will you overlook in exchange for its alleged help?
This regime wants to help Iran, not against Iran.
Finally, remember that Cameron is a Conservative, the successor of Winston Churchill. That's how deep the appeasement disease has penetrated the Western ruling class.
PS: If you are interested in a good critique of this speech and Cameron's following speech in India from the point of view of speechmaking technique see 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 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, at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, upper-right hand corner of this page. 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.
Note: This article was published in PajamasMedia. If you reprint please use my title but link and give credit to them. For my response to Andrew Sullivan's dishonest attack on the article see here.
By Barry Rubin
British Prime Minister David Cameron’s July 27 speech in Turkey will not live on in history. But it should, as an example of the decline of Western diplomacy, of suicide by Political Correctness, as a textbook example of how not to conduct international affairs.
It crossed my mind that the speech was written by the Foreign Office for the express purpose of making Cameron look foolish, but then I realized that he and his top advisors probably have no idea why it was such a disaster.
Suppose you are the British prime minister going to Turkey, or to just about any country, what should you say? The theme should be: We can cooperate and do mutually beneficial things. Here’s what I can do for you, here’s what I’d like you to do for me. And here’s what you must not do in order to reap the benefits of my friendship and favor.
Obviously, you need to dress that up in appropriate language. But everything should be conditional. The message to be delivered is that it is in your interest to respect my interests.
Cameron did the precise and exact opposite. His message was: The UK needs Turkey. Turkey is wonderful. Its behavior has been perfect. We are desperate for your help.
What is the effect? A man goes into a bazaar, points to a carpet and says: That is the most beautiful carpet I have ever seen. I must have it no matter what the price! How much is it?
In addition, Cameron committed some other howling mistakes, several of which will amaze you. So please stick with me as I explain and document this. You won’t be disappointed. And remember this is not just a matter of one speech, it is a fitting symbol for the entire contemporary Western diplomatic approach to the Middle East and much more to the world as well. By the way, it is doomed to fail miserably.
Before we begin, remember that this is no longer the old Turkish Republic. Cameron is lavishing praise on an Islamist-oriented regime which has aligned itself with Iran and revolutionary Islamist groups. And all of Cameron’s pandering, as if he were a Western barbarian in the court of the all-powerful Ottoman sultan, is driving a knife into the heart of a Turkish opposition which is genuinely friendly toward the West and horrified by the current regime’s subversion of Turkish democracy.
Cameron began by saying:
“I’ve come to Ankara today to establish a new partnership between Britain and Turkey. I think this is a vital strategic relationship for our country.”
Note the cringing here. A proper prime minister might have said: “I think this is a vital strategic relationship for our countries.” In other words, the speaker would stress there is a mutual benefit. Instead, this polite approach makes it sound as if Turkey is doing the United Kingdom a favor by having a strategic relationship to it while Turkey doesn't need Britain at all.
And this is precisely the interpretation put on such things in the local context: The Turkish regime can take its Western alliances for granted while taking the side of the West's radical Islamist enemies.
And here it is again:
“People ask me why [I’m visiting] Turkey and why so soon. I’ll tell you why. Because Turkey is vital for our economy. Vital for our security. And vital for our politics and diplomacy.” So Turkey holds all the cards and the West can do nothing but give concessions in hope of winning favor in its eyes. One should remember that a major theme of Iran, Syria, and this Turkish regime is that nothing can be achieved without them and so the West must bow to their will and do everything they want. Cameron is feeding this monster.
According to him, there are no problems with Turkey on security:
“Turkey is a great NATO ally. And Turkey shares our determination to fight terrorism in all its forms – whether from Al Qaeda or the PKK. [But not, he fails to mention, from Hamas or Hizballah!] But perhaps more significant still is the fact that Turkey’s unique position at the meeting point of East and West gives it an unrivalled influence in helping us get to grips with some of the greatest threats to our collective security.”
Look, you don’t go to a country and criticize it (unless the country is Israel. Now why is that?) but you don’t tell them that everything they are doing is great because if that’s true they will keep on doing it and know there is no cost. Turkey under this regime is not a pro-Western state helping the West against its “Eastern” enemies—as Turkey was between, say, 1950 and 2000—or is it a neutral meeting ground. At present, Turkey is on the enemy side.
He continues:
“Which Muslim majority country has a long-established relationship with Israel while at the same time championing the rights of the Palestinian people? Which European country could have the greatest chance of persuading Iran to change course on its nuclear policy?”
Now this is after the Turkish regime trashed the relationship with Israel and stabbed the United States and UK in the back by cutting its own deal with Iran and even voting against sanctions at the UN. This is the policy Cameron praises! And then after all these things he adds:
“Whether in Afghanistan or the Middle East, Turkey has a credibility that others in the West just can’t hope to have. So I’ve come here to make the case for Turkey to use this credibility, to go further in enhancing our security and working for peace across our world.”
Does this include Turkish regime support for Hamas and Hizballah, alignment with Iran and Syria? He should be hinting gently that Turkey is losing its credibility because of the regime’s behavior. And therefore Turkey needs to change its behavior, a point that the opposition will be arguing in the next election. By this time I can see the opposition tearing it hair out as another Western leader heaps praise on the regime. And have no doubt the regime will use all this in next year’s elections:
Extremist? Transforming Turkey toward Islamism? What do you mean? The West loves us!
Cameron then goes on and makes it clear that Turkey would be doing the EU a favor by joining it, not the tiniest hint of leverage, that Turkish membership might depend on the regime’s behavior. He could have said:
While I, of course, support you, the path would be easier if…. Followed by some polite and proper hints done with full British charm.
But it gets worse. Cameron is about to insult several of Britain’s closest allies, including Germany and France, by making opposition to Turkey’s entrance into the EU as a form of racism and Islamophobia. For example, he says that opponents are:
“The prejudiced. Those who willfully misunderstand Islam. They see no difference between real Islam and the distorted version of the extremists. They think the problem is Islam itself. And they think the values of Islam can just never be compatible with the values of other religions, societies, or cultures.”
All these arguments are just plain wrong. The problem precisely is the version of Islam embodied in the current Turkish government. There could be other perfectly pious Muslims ruling Turkey (and Iran, Syria, or the Gaza Strip for that matter) who would interpret Islam in a way relatively compatible with the values of other religions. But not the Islamists!
He also complains of those who “see the history of our world as a clash of civilizations as a choice between East and West. They just don’t get the fact that Turkey can be a great unifier. Because instead of choosing between East and West, Turkey has chosen both.”
But he doesn’t comprehend that the current government of Turkey sees the world as a clash of civilizations. Its foreign minister even wrote a book to that effect, which has never been translated and which the regime is doing its best to conceal. This is not the Turkey of Kamal Ataturk and his successors but rather (at least temporarily) a country ruled by the successors of those who opposed Ataturk.
If I were a German or French journalist my headline would be: Cameron Calls German (or French) policy bigoted and anti-Islamic.
Yet Cameron sails on into even worse grounds. He actually praises a Turkish policy which has gone to the brink of war with Israel, sponsored a flotilla run by radical Islamists intending to create a violent confrontation, and is allied with a revolutionary terrorist group. One has to quote it to believe he actually said the following:
“Turkey’s relationships in the region, both with Israel and with the Arab world, are of incalculable value. No other country has the same potential to build understanding between Israel and the Arab world. I know that Gaza has led to real strains in Turkey’s relationship with Israel. But Turkey is a friend of Israel. And I urge Turkey, and Israel, not to give up on that friendship.
“Let me be clear. The Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable. And I have told PM Netanyahu, we will expect the Israeli inquiry to be swift, transparent and rigorous. Let me also be clear that the situation in Gaza has to change. Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions. Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp.
“But as, hopefully, we move in the coming weeks to direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians so it’s Turkey that can make the case for peace and Turkey that can help to press the parties to come together, and point the way to a just and viable solution.”
In other words, Turkey is 100 percent right, I have no criticism of Hamas’s behavior, we should accept a permanent revolutionary Islamist, terrorist, genocidal, statelet on the Mediterranean. No problem. And we can ignore the Turkish regime's pro-Hamas policy and provocative behavior because without abandoning that approach Turkey can still play a productive role! This is the diplomatic equivalent of insane behavior on Cameron’s part.
And does Israel want this regime to mediate between it and the Palestinians? Even the Palestinian Authority doesn't want that: it knows that the Turkish regime is allied with its Hamas rivals, for goodness sakes! Doesn't Cameron know this?
I don’t want to take up too much of your time but I cannot let this next gem pass. True, Cameron urged Turkey to continue internal reforms (but there’s no hint of the anti-democratic nature of the regime’s manipulation of such reforms, for example, to seize control of the courts) and the massive repression of dissidents.
He suggests that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons and he even criticizes the Turkey-Iran deal. But note the illogical leap:
“Even if Iran were to complete the deal proposed in their recent agreement with Turkey and Brazil, it would still retain around fifty percent of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium. So we need Turkey’s help now in making it clear to Iran just how serious we are about engaging fully with the international community.
“We hope that the meeting held in Istanbul between the Turkish, Brazilian and Iranian Foreign Ministers will see Iran move in the right direction.”
That meeting is a conference of Iran’s supporters! Why would it lead Iran in the right direction? How about Turkey’s opposition to sanctions? And again note the beggar’s worldview: “We need Turkey’s help....” Why should Turkey help? What will you give the regime in exchange for its alleged help? What behavior will you overlook in exchange for its alleged help?
This regime wants to help Iran, not against Iran.
Finally, remember that Cameron is a Conservative, the successor of Winston Churchill. That's how deep the appeasement disease has penetrated the Western ruling class.
PS: If you are interested in a good critique of this speech and Cameron's following speech in India from the point of view of speechmaking technique see 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 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, at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
Andrew Sullivan Attacks Me Without Bothering to Consider What I Wrote
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We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, upper-right hand corner of this page. 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
One of the amazing things about the intellectual scene today is that people attack you without any reference to what you actually say. It is as if you were talking to someone deaf who has his hearing aid turned off. You want to explain that there must be a misunderstanding only to find that the person doesn't care: he just wants to scream insults at you so that nobody actually considers whether you are making an accurate point.
When I was growing up, someone considered your actual arguments and responded to them with rational arguments of their own. Some of us still do that. I wrote a serious and sober analysis of what was wrong with the UK prime minister's speech in Turkey, focusing on the basic misunderstanding of proper diplomatic leverage.
Instead, Andrew Sullivan writes:
"Barry Rubin joins the chorus from the neocon right claiming that `Turkey is on the enemy side.'"
Let's consider this sentence. First, rather than argue the facts he merely throws in two words intended to get people to demonize me and not listen to anything I say: neocon right. Hey, nothing more need be said! But the central question should be whether the original statement was true or not, right?
Then there's that word "joins." I've been studying Turkey now for 35 years. I've been there about 25 times. Regarding the direction of the regime, I've been saying the same thing for about two years, long before there was a collapse of Turkish-Israel relations.
If I've joined anyone it's the Turkish socialists and liberals. Here's one of many examples: a Turkish woman from the left who angrily told me, "We've been warning the West about these people for years and the West just won't listen."
In fact, though, I think I was the first person to say that the Turkish regime (NOT Turkey) has gone over to the other side. I have written literally dozens of articles proving it. I have quoted Iran's leader and Syria's government as having publicly stated it. Might Sullivan want to consult the evidence I have compiled? Of course not.
And then he makes a remarkably revealing illogical argument:
"It was once a given on the right that keeping Turkey close to the West was essential in defusing Islamism and winning the war on terror. But once Turkey took on Israel, that ended, because the war many neocons are waging is for Israel, right or wrong, not the West at large."
This has an implication of antisemitism, doesn't it? He's saying that people are only angry at Turkey's rulers because they have fallen out with Israel, referring mainly to the flotilla issue. This makes me think of the argument in the 1930s that people were only critical of Germany because they were Jews or only cared about Jewish interests.
Yes, it has been a given on both left, center, and right that keeping Turkey close to the West was essential. Yet what if the Turkish regime is no longer close to the West? Everyone's opinion is still the same, it's the situation that's changed. To ignore that change is incredibly dangerous. Indeed, I'd say that Turkey's change of sides (perhaps temporary) is the biggest defeat suffered by the West in the Middle East since the Iranian revolution.
So how to keep Turkey close to the West? Act to constrain the current regime and, in appropriate ways of course, to help the opposition win the elections a year from now. Cheering the current regime, letting it claim that the West accepts its policies, assists that increasingly dictatorial government to remain in power.
And if it does fall as I hope? Oh, dear! Then Turkey would have a socialist prime minister instead of a right-wing Islamist one. Seems to me that's what Western liberals and the left should prefer.
As for the claim that it's all about Israel, in fact, I have been talking for months about:
--Internal repression in Turkey, including the arrests of hundreds of peaceful dissidents on charges of attempting to overthrow the government with violence. Turks have been writing eloquently about this issue.
--The regime's campaign to bring the media and court system under government control. The regime and its supporters have bought up much of the media and intimidated the rest. It is now proposing constitutional changes to cripple the judiciary. People in Turkey are scared. Many say they no longer recognize their country.
--Turkish regime support for Iran and its nuclear weapons' program. This now includes cutting a separate deal with Tehran against U.S. wishes and voting against sanctions. The prime minister has stated that Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons, therefore calling President Obama a liar.
--Close Turkish cooperation with Syria. The regime does not have a "pro-Arab" policy (ask the Egyptian, Jordan, or Saudi governments in private), it has a pro-Arabic-speaking Islamists policy.
--The regime's engagement with Hamas and Hizballah and support for these two revolutionary Islamist groups. As I have pointed out, the regime does NOT support the "Palestinian people" but merely Hamas, a fellow Islamist party.
Much of my material has come from the Turkish opposition, mainly Kemalist secularists and democratic socialists.
Yet none of this matters, right? It's only all about Israel, we are supposed to believe, and talking about everything else is just an excuse!
Sullivan has, however, taught me something important: why such people must keep harping on Israel. Forget about the canary in the coal mine analogy. The Israel card's use is to make people blind, to shut them up, to throw out every other issue and piece of evidence.
They hope that anti-Israel passion (plus dark hints of a Jewish conspiracy) will keep people from actually looking at what's happening. In the phrase of Professor Richard Landes, Israel is a weapon of mass destruction. And the Jews have filled this function many times before in history.
On top of this, my article's theme and tone are quite different from his claims. Here are the key sentences from my article:
"Suppose you are the British prime minister going to Turkey, or to just about any country. What should you say? The theme should be: We can cooperate and do mutually beneficial things. Here’s what I can do for you; here’s what I’d like you to do for me. And here’s what you must not do in order to reap the benefits of my friendship and favor.
"Obviously, you need to dress that up in appropriate language. But everything should be conditional. The message to be delivered is that it is in your interest to respect my interests....
"Cameron then goes on and makes it clear that Turkey would be doing the EU a favor by joining it, not the tiniest hint of leverage, that Turkish membership might depend on the regime’s behavior. He could have said:
"While I, of course, support you, the path would be easier if…. Followed by some polite and proper hints done with full British charm."
Does that sound like a call for war?
Mr. Sullivan: There is something in diplomacy between war and appeasement. It is called carrots and sticks, costs and benefits, quid pro quo. Cameron's speech was a mess because he abandoned that principle and resorted only to simple-minded flattery. Middle Eastern peoples--Muslim or otherwise--know what that signals: weakness, which invites ridicule and aggressiveness.
Sullivan also ignores my point--which I think is rather significant--that Cameron foolishly insulted France and Germany by strongly implying that the only reason they oppose Turkey's EU membership is because they are bigots. If Sullivan had been Britain's prime minister I guess he would have called them "neocon rightists."
If Cameron had not mentioned Israel at all I would have written precisely the same article on all these points.
Sullivan continued:
"Keep it up, prime minister. Advance the interests of Britain, and resist the war of civilizations the far right wants to gin up. We will only defeat Islamism if we keep an open hand stretched to Islam. Isolating and demonizing Turkey's evolution as a regional Muslim power - prepared to be Israel's ally if Israel stops the persecution and colonization of the Palestinans - is about as dumb a geo-strategic move as one could imagine."
The issue is not a "war of civilizations" but a war of ideologies. Is Sullivan really so dense that he doesn't understand that the people most similar to him in Turkey hate and fear the current regime? Doesn't Sullivan understand that the governments of most Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East don't want the West to support the Islamists?
(Here's a list: Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait. And even the Palestinian Authority and the democratic forces in Lebanon. These are almost all Muslims, too, aren't they? And then let's add the majority of Muslims in Turkey and in Iran as well!)
Turkey is not evolving into being a regional Muslim power as some kind of national project. This is in fact the policy of one party in Turkey which has less than 30 percent support according to recent public opinion polls, with probably twice as many Turks favoring non-Islamist opposition parties.
And what does deifying the current Turkish government have to do with keeping an "open hand stretched to Islam"? Almost all Turks are Muslims, they just aren't political Islamists. That's why the West gets along with Egypt, Jordan, and even Saudi Arabia, for example, who are all Muslims but not on the side of Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah.
It was a Socialist leader who once said that antisemitism was the socialism of fools. Today, the insane use of Israel as the cause of all issues and problems is the tool used to make fools on the left support the most reactionary forces on the Middle Eastern extreme right. And then, to make it laughable, they do so in the name of fighting evil rightists!
Incidentally, don't think I didn't notice Sullivan's sleazy little trick: he didn't link to my article so those reading his blog item could easily check out what I actually said rather than what he claimed. That's the kind of behavior that tells a great deal about Sullivan's intellectual dishonesty.
Update: Sullivan apparently read this article and added the link. I hope he learned something.
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, at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, upper-right hand corner of this page. 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
One of the amazing things about the intellectual scene today is that people attack you without any reference to what you actually say. It is as if you were talking to someone deaf who has his hearing aid turned off. You want to explain that there must be a misunderstanding only to find that the person doesn't care: he just wants to scream insults at you so that nobody actually considers whether you are making an accurate point.
When I was growing up, someone considered your actual arguments and responded to them with rational arguments of their own. Some of us still do that. I wrote a serious and sober analysis of what was wrong with the UK prime minister's speech in Turkey, focusing on the basic misunderstanding of proper diplomatic leverage.
Instead, Andrew Sullivan writes:
"Barry Rubin joins the chorus from the neocon right claiming that `Turkey is on the enemy side.'"
Let's consider this sentence. First, rather than argue the facts he merely throws in two words intended to get people to demonize me and not listen to anything I say: neocon right. Hey, nothing more need be said! But the central question should be whether the original statement was true or not, right?
Then there's that word "joins." I've been studying Turkey now for 35 years. I've been there about 25 times. Regarding the direction of the regime, I've been saying the same thing for about two years, long before there was a collapse of Turkish-Israel relations.
If I've joined anyone it's the Turkish socialists and liberals. Here's one of many examples: a Turkish woman from the left who angrily told me, "We've been warning the West about these people for years and the West just won't listen."
In fact, though, I think I was the first person to say that the Turkish regime (NOT Turkey) has gone over to the other side. I have written literally dozens of articles proving it. I have quoted Iran's leader and Syria's government as having publicly stated it. Might Sullivan want to consult the evidence I have compiled? Of course not.
And then he makes a remarkably revealing illogical argument:
"It was once a given on the right that keeping Turkey close to the West was essential in defusing Islamism and winning the war on terror. But once Turkey took on Israel, that ended, because the war many neocons are waging is for Israel, right or wrong, not the West at large."
This has an implication of antisemitism, doesn't it? He's saying that people are only angry at Turkey's rulers because they have fallen out with Israel, referring mainly to the flotilla issue. This makes me think of the argument in the 1930s that people were only critical of Germany because they were Jews or only cared about Jewish interests.
Yes, it has been a given on both left, center, and right that keeping Turkey close to the West was essential. Yet what if the Turkish regime is no longer close to the West? Everyone's opinion is still the same, it's the situation that's changed. To ignore that change is incredibly dangerous. Indeed, I'd say that Turkey's change of sides (perhaps temporary) is the biggest defeat suffered by the West in the Middle East since the Iranian revolution.
So how to keep Turkey close to the West? Act to constrain the current regime and, in appropriate ways of course, to help the opposition win the elections a year from now. Cheering the current regime, letting it claim that the West accepts its policies, assists that increasingly dictatorial government to remain in power.
And if it does fall as I hope? Oh, dear! Then Turkey would have a socialist prime minister instead of a right-wing Islamist one. Seems to me that's what Western liberals and the left should prefer.
As for the claim that it's all about Israel, in fact, I have been talking for months about:
--Internal repression in Turkey, including the arrests of hundreds of peaceful dissidents on charges of attempting to overthrow the government with violence. Turks have been writing eloquently about this issue.
--The regime's campaign to bring the media and court system under government control. The regime and its supporters have bought up much of the media and intimidated the rest. It is now proposing constitutional changes to cripple the judiciary. People in Turkey are scared. Many say they no longer recognize their country.
--Turkish regime support for Iran and its nuclear weapons' program. This now includes cutting a separate deal with Tehran against U.S. wishes and voting against sanctions. The prime minister has stated that Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons, therefore calling President Obama a liar.
--Close Turkish cooperation with Syria. The regime does not have a "pro-Arab" policy (ask the Egyptian, Jordan, or Saudi governments in private), it has a pro-Arabic-speaking Islamists policy.
--The regime's engagement with Hamas and Hizballah and support for these two revolutionary Islamist groups. As I have pointed out, the regime does NOT support the "Palestinian people" but merely Hamas, a fellow Islamist party.
Much of my material has come from the Turkish opposition, mainly Kemalist secularists and democratic socialists.
Yet none of this matters, right? It's only all about Israel, we are supposed to believe, and talking about everything else is just an excuse!
Sullivan has, however, taught me something important: why such people must keep harping on Israel. Forget about the canary in the coal mine analogy. The Israel card's use is to make people blind, to shut them up, to throw out every other issue and piece of evidence.
They hope that anti-Israel passion (plus dark hints of a Jewish conspiracy) will keep people from actually looking at what's happening. In the phrase of Professor Richard Landes, Israel is a weapon of mass destruction. And the Jews have filled this function many times before in history.
On top of this, my article's theme and tone are quite different from his claims. Here are the key sentences from my article:
"Suppose you are the British prime minister going to Turkey, or to just about any country. What should you say? The theme should be: We can cooperate and do mutually beneficial things. Here’s what I can do for you; here’s what I’d like you to do for me. And here’s what you must not do in order to reap the benefits of my friendship and favor.
"Obviously, you need to dress that up in appropriate language. But everything should be conditional. The message to be delivered is that it is in your interest to respect my interests....
"Cameron then goes on and makes it clear that Turkey would be doing the EU a favor by joining it, not the tiniest hint of leverage, that Turkish membership might depend on the regime’s behavior. He could have said:
"While I, of course, support you, the path would be easier if…. Followed by some polite and proper hints done with full British charm."
Does that sound like a call for war?
Mr. Sullivan: There is something in diplomacy between war and appeasement. It is called carrots and sticks, costs and benefits, quid pro quo. Cameron's speech was a mess because he abandoned that principle and resorted only to simple-minded flattery. Middle Eastern peoples--Muslim or otherwise--know what that signals: weakness, which invites ridicule and aggressiveness.
Sullivan also ignores my point--which I think is rather significant--that Cameron foolishly insulted France and Germany by strongly implying that the only reason they oppose Turkey's EU membership is because they are bigots. If Sullivan had been Britain's prime minister I guess he would have called them "neocon rightists."
If Cameron had not mentioned Israel at all I would have written precisely the same article on all these points.
Sullivan continued:
"Keep it up, prime minister. Advance the interests of Britain, and resist the war of civilizations the far right wants to gin up. We will only defeat Islamism if we keep an open hand stretched to Islam. Isolating and demonizing Turkey's evolution as a regional Muslim power - prepared to be Israel's ally if Israel stops the persecution and colonization of the Palestinans - is about as dumb a geo-strategic move as one could imagine."
The issue is not a "war of civilizations" but a war of ideologies. Is Sullivan really so dense that he doesn't understand that the people most similar to him in Turkey hate and fear the current regime? Doesn't Sullivan understand that the governments of most Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East don't want the West to support the Islamists?
(Here's a list: Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait. And even the Palestinian Authority and the democratic forces in Lebanon. These are almost all Muslims, too, aren't they? And then let's add the majority of Muslims in Turkey and in Iran as well!)
Turkey is not evolving into being a regional Muslim power as some kind of national project. This is in fact the policy of one party in Turkey which has less than 30 percent support according to recent public opinion polls, with probably twice as many Turks favoring non-Islamist opposition parties.
And what does deifying the current Turkish government have to do with keeping an "open hand stretched to Islam"? Almost all Turks are Muslims, they just aren't political Islamists. That's why the West gets along with Egypt, Jordan, and even Saudi Arabia, for example, who are all Muslims but not on the side of Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah.
It was a Socialist leader who once said that antisemitism was the socialism of fools. Today, the insane use of Israel as the cause of all issues and problems is the tool used to make fools on the left support the most reactionary forces on the Middle Eastern extreme right. And then, to make it laughable, they do so in the name of fighting evil rightists!
Incidentally, don't think I didn't notice Sullivan's sleazy little trick: he didn't link to my article so those reading his blog item could easily check out what I actually said rather than what he claimed. That's the kind of behavior that tells a great deal about Sullivan's intellectual dishonesty.
Update: Sullivan apparently read this article and added the link. I hope he learned something.
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, at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Rock Band Symbollizes View that Syrian Dictatorship is Preferable to Israeli Democracy
By Barry Rubin
My daughter will gladly tell you that I don’t know a huge amount about contemporary music, though she was impressed that I knew who Kurt Cobain was. Yet you don’t have to know about this specific band to realize what a perfect example this story is of contemporary thinking.
Gorillaz, a major British band, cancelled its concert in Israel during June and then played in Syria during July. “For us it’s just a wonderful experience,” said one member, Damon Albarn. Their theme was pollution, he explained: “I think the world is becoming like a plastic beach. It’s not a prediction, it’s something that exists now. We’ve got to accept that it’s got to be cool to recycle.”
Syria, of course, is a dictatorship where dissidents are arrested and tortured, where no freedom of speech or assembly exists, where Kurds are massacred. The regime killed an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 civilians in its own city of Hama in 1982. Syria supports terrorist groups attacking in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, and for many years Turkey. Syria has imposed an imperialist yoke on Lebanon, a country that never threatened it. Its media feature the most vicious anti-Western and antisemitic propaganda. You can read more about this in my book, The Truth About Syria.
Yet Syria and its support for murderous guerrillas is regarded by these gorillas of Gorillaz as superior to democratic Israel. Indeed, Israel even has a better recycling program than Syria, a regime whose main act of recycling has been with Stalinist and fascist principles and institutions.
What better symbol of the topsy-turvy nature of Western values and thinking nowadays.
My daughter will gladly tell you that I don’t know a huge amount about contemporary music, though she was impressed that I knew who Kurt Cobain was. Yet you don’t have to know about this specific band to realize what a perfect example this story is of contemporary thinking.
Gorillaz, a major British band, cancelled its concert in Israel during June and then played in Syria during July. “For us it’s just a wonderful experience,” said one member, Damon Albarn. Their theme was pollution, he explained: “I think the world is becoming like a plastic beach. It’s not a prediction, it’s something that exists now. We’ve got to accept that it’s got to be cool to recycle.”
Syria, of course, is a dictatorship where dissidents are arrested and tortured, where no freedom of speech or assembly exists, where Kurds are massacred. The regime killed an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 civilians in its own city of Hama in 1982. Syria supports terrorist groups attacking in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, and for many years Turkey. Syria has imposed an imperialist yoke on Lebanon, a country that never threatened it. Its media feature the most vicious anti-Western and antisemitic propaganda. You can read more about this in my book, The Truth About Syria.
Yet Syria and its support for murderous guerrillas is regarded by these gorillas of Gorillaz as superior to democratic Israel. Indeed, Israel even has a better recycling program than Syria, a regime whose main act of recycling has been with Stalinist and fascist principles and institutions.
What better symbol of the topsy-turvy nature of Western values and thinking nowadays.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
It's Optimism Day at Rubin Reports!
By Barry Rubin
Some readers think I'm pessimistic. Not at all. The good guys will win; truth will out; democracy will triumph. It just takes a while, and a lot of struggle.
Meanwhile, ponder this:
Israelis are among the happiest people in the world, according to a new Gallup Poll. The four Scandanavian countries are first. But, hey, they're happy if they get to see any sun at all so there's low expectations. High suicide rate weeds out the unhappy; high alcohol consumption rate makes survivors happier. Only kidding, Scandanavian readers.
They are followed by seven countries that are almost all the same level of happiness of about 62 percent happy people: Holland, Costa Rica and New Zealand, Israel, Canada, Switzerland and Australia. The United States, where only 57 percent of the population are happy, was in 14th place, tied with Australia. The United Kingdom was in 17th pace, with a score of only 54 percent.
Also Israel has a higher birth rate. When people decide to have children that's a real sign of faith in the future.
And none of these countries have wars or are wrongly hated. That means Israelis are even happier and just get pulled down because people think they shouldn't express too much happiness.
True story: Me walking down street in Tel Aviv.
Run into friend who asks, "How are you?"
"Great!" I say.
"What?" says he. "Don't you read the newspapers?"
Other polls show year after year that Israelis are extremely optimistic. So don't worry. Read Rubin Reports, then be happy. Which reminds me that I'm happy and optimistic that I have you as readers.
We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.
Some readers think I'm pessimistic. Not at all. The good guys will win; truth will out; democracy will triumph. It just takes a while, and a lot of struggle.
Meanwhile, ponder this:
Israelis are among the happiest people in the world, according to a new Gallup Poll. The four Scandanavian countries are first. But, hey, they're happy if they get to see any sun at all so there's low expectations. High suicide rate weeds out the unhappy; high alcohol consumption rate makes survivors happier. Only kidding, Scandanavian readers.
They are followed by seven countries that are almost all the same level of happiness of about 62 percent happy people: Holland, Costa Rica and New Zealand, Israel, Canada, Switzerland and Australia. The United States, where only 57 percent of the population are happy, was in 14th place, tied with Australia. The United Kingdom was in 17th pace, with a score of only 54 percent.
Also Israel has a higher birth rate. When people decide to have children that's a real sign of faith in the future.
And none of these countries have wars or are wrongly hated. That means Israelis are even happier and just get pulled down because people think they shouldn't express too much happiness.
True story: Me walking down street in Tel Aviv.
Run into friend who asks, "How are you?"
"Great!" I say.
"What?" says he. "Don't you read the newspapers?"
Other polls show year after year that Israelis are extremely optimistic. So don't worry. Read Rubin Reports, then be happy. Which reminds me that I'm happy and optimistic that I have you as readers.
We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.
Silly Statements on the Left and Right Show How the Middle East Drives Men Mad
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We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, upper-right hand corner of this page. 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
It is really amazing how dealing with Israel and Jewish issues makes people stupid. And that’s true on both sides of the political spectrum. Indeed, statements are made that are so obviously and ludicrously wrong in the fact of easily visible evidence that it is downright astonishing that people aren’t laughed at for making such statements.
Here are two from recent hours.
Oliver Stone, left-wing filmmaker suggested that it is absurd to talk so much about the Holocaust since more Russians than Jews were killed. (Perhaps Stone is a racist—I’m just being ironic—since the nation that suffered the greatest losses from fascism was China.)
According to Stone the reason for the focus on the Holocaust is:
“The Jewish domination of the media….There’s a major lobby in the United States. They are hard workers. They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington. Israel has f***** up United States foreign policy for years.”
Note the easy way that Stone (it’s called antisemitism, by the way) conflates Israel and the Holocaust. There is no lobby over the Holocaust, now is there?
Moreover how can Stone—like many others such as Walt and Mearsheimer—talk about a pro-Israel domination of the media while the media has been, arguably for the last thirty years, so antagonistic toward Israel?
We constantly hear that anti-Israel views are censored and rare when anyone with eyes and ears can see they are in the overwhelming majority in academia and the mass media. The fact that these people cannot convince the majority is not due to a conspiracy or repression but to the inability of their weak and false arguments to convince Americans otherwise.
The most powerful lobby in the United States is the American people and as polls show—despite all the elite efforts mentioned above—overwhelmingly pro-Israel.
And how can one speak of Israel’s domination of the U.S. government at a time when there is the most (I’ll explain the awkward phrase in a moment) un-Israel-dominated presidency in memory?
I won’t take the time to point out in detail here the ludicrousness of saying that Israel has dominated U.S. policy but I’ve talked about that in numerous books.
Now at almost precisely the same time we get another statement that just doesn’t hold up. I am not comparing the two in moral terms but only in the ease with which they can be shown to be wrong and how they illustrate the two ends of the political spectrum.
The David Horowitz Freedom Center has announced the launching of a major campaign, “Warning Americans about the consequences of President Obama abandoning Israel.” The announcement adds:
“Israel's very existence is at stake and the threats of a second Holocaust have never been greater--all at a time when America, Israel's one great trusted friend and ally has embarked on a course of outreach to America's and Israel's enemies. The American people must be alerted to the dire nature of this threat.”
While I certainly have my criticisms of Obama’s policy he is scarcely abandoning Israel, a country not about to collapse by the way. U.S.-Israel defense cooperation has continued at high levels. Bilateral relations are in good shape now and this will probably remain true for many months to come, though not necessarily for the rest of Obama's current term in office.
The United States has indeed reached out to enemies in a self-damaging way. But let’s put it in perspective. The engagement with Iran wasted a year but failed and has been abandoned in practice. The reaching out to Syria has led nowhere and is fairly inactive at present. While the administration has helped Hamas by forcing changes in Israeli sanctions, it has not engaged with Hamas or Hizballah.
If you talk to Israeli policymakers and officials in private, whatever their concerns and discontents, they are far from panicking about bilateral relations.
Part of the reason, of course, is constraints on the Obama Administration which fall far short of Stone’s fantasies but are real: congressional and popular support for Israel being the main one.
There is also the extremism of those enemies which forces even the Obama Administration to recognize large portions of reality. Iran refused any compromise and insists on being provocative; Hamas and Hizballah won’t moderate; Syria continues to support terrorists in Iraq and acts aggressively against Lebanon. All of these factors have maintained or even increased their hate-America propaganda even under Obama. For that matter, the Palestinian Authority won’t even listen to Obama’s pleas for direct talks with Israel.
By the way, the extremism of the extremists has been a major factor in U.S. policy, far in excess of any Jewish control. Remember that a lot of Arab regimes sided with the USSR in the Cold War, for example, which had a big effect on U.S. policy, as did the aggressive policies toward other Arab states of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s Iran. These are points that Stone in his ignorance has no clue about.
What is needed now is sense in analyzing the Middle East, not engaging in fantasy stereotypes based on ideological preconceptions.
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, at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, upper-right hand corner of this page. 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
It is really amazing how dealing with Israel and Jewish issues makes people stupid. And that’s true on both sides of the political spectrum. Indeed, statements are made that are so obviously and ludicrously wrong in the fact of easily visible evidence that it is downright astonishing that people aren’t laughed at for making such statements.
Here are two from recent hours.
Oliver Stone, left-wing filmmaker suggested that it is absurd to talk so much about the Holocaust since more Russians than Jews were killed. (Perhaps Stone is a racist—I’m just being ironic—since the nation that suffered the greatest losses from fascism was China.)
According to Stone the reason for the focus on the Holocaust is:
“The Jewish domination of the media….There’s a major lobby in the United States. They are hard workers. They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington. Israel has f***** up United States foreign policy for years.”
Note the easy way that Stone (it’s called antisemitism, by the way) conflates Israel and the Holocaust. There is no lobby over the Holocaust, now is there?
Moreover how can Stone—like many others such as Walt and Mearsheimer—talk about a pro-Israel domination of the media while the media has been, arguably for the last thirty years, so antagonistic toward Israel?
We constantly hear that anti-Israel views are censored and rare when anyone with eyes and ears can see they are in the overwhelming majority in academia and the mass media. The fact that these people cannot convince the majority is not due to a conspiracy or repression but to the inability of their weak and false arguments to convince Americans otherwise.
The most powerful lobby in the United States is the American people and as polls show—despite all the elite efforts mentioned above—overwhelmingly pro-Israel.
And how can one speak of Israel’s domination of the U.S. government at a time when there is the most (I’ll explain the awkward phrase in a moment) un-Israel-dominated presidency in memory?
I won’t take the time to point out in detail here the ludicrousness of saying that Israel has dominated U.S. policy but I’ve talked about that in numerous books.
Now at almost precisely the same time we get another statement that just doesn’t hold up. I am not comparing the two in moral terms but only in the ease with which they can be shown to be wrong and how they illustrate the two ends of the political spectrum.
The David Horowitz Freedom Center has announced the launching of a major campaign, “Warning Americans about the consequences of President Obama abandoning Israel.” The announcement adds:
“Israel's very existence is at stake and the threats of a second Holocaust have never been greater--all at a time when America, Israel's one great trusted friend and ally has embarked on a course of outreach to America's and Israel's enemies. The American people must be alerted to the dire nature of this threat.”
While I certainly have my criticisms of Obama’s policy he is scarcely abandoning Israel, a country not about to collapse by the way. U.S.-Israel defense cooperation has continued at high levels. Bilateral relations are in good shape now and this will probably remain true for many months to come, though not necessarily for the rest of Obama's current term in office.
The United States has indeed reached out to enemies in a self-damaging way. But let’s put it in perspective. The engagement with Iran wasted a year but failed and has been abandoned in practice. The reaching out to Syria has led nowhere and is fairly inactive at present. While the administration has helped Hamas by forcing changes in Israeli sanctions, it has not engaged with Hamas or Hizballah.
If you talk to Israeli policymakers and officials in private, whatever their concerns and discontents, they are far from panicking about bilateral relations.
Part of the reason, of course, is constraints on the Obama Administration which fall far short of Stone’s fantasies but are real: congressional and popular support for Israel being the main one.
There is also the extremism of those enemies which forces even the Obama Administration to recognize large portions of reality. Iran refused any compromise and insists on being provocative; Hamas and Hizballah won’t moderate; Syria continues to support terrorists in Iraq and acts aggressively against Lebanon. All of these factors have maintained or even increased their hate-America propaganda even under Obama. For that matter, the Palestinian Authority won’t even listen to Obama’s pleas for direct talks with Israel.
By the way, the extremism of the extremists has been a major factor in U.S. policy, far in excess of any Jewish control. Remember that a lot of Arab regimes sided with the USSR in the Cold War, for example, which had a big effect on U.S. policy, as did the aggressive policies toward other Arab states of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s Iran. These are points that Stone in his ignorance has no clue about.
What is needed now is sense in analyzing the Middle East, not engaging in fantasy stereotypes based on ideological preconceptions.
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, at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
Devastating Secret Documents on Afghan War Tell Us What We Already Know
By Barry Rubin
A whistleblower has released thousands of documents on the war in Afghanistan. What do they tell us? Three things we already know, in fact all of which have been written about on this blog for the last year.
First, the war is not winnable in the framework put forward by the Obama Administration. The idea of reforming Afghan society, creating a strong and honest central government, and building a powerful military while winning the hearts and minds of Aghans isn't going to work.
The goal should be the far more modest one of keeping the Taliban and revolutionary Islamist groups from gaining power, which can be achieved by supporting a range of forces in the country, unfortunately often corrupt and undemocratic ones.
Second, a lot more civilians are being killed than we hear about. War, especially this kind of war, makes that unavoidable. The difference, of course, is that the U.S. and its allies kill civilians by accident; the Taliban kills them on purpose and follows strategies intended to get civilians killed.
This is precisely what has happened for Israel in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip but the world--and often Western countries--want to pretend this is something peculiar to Israel rather than inevitable under these conditions. Indeed, Israel does better at avoiding civilian casualties than does the United States and European countries involved in such conflicts. If this was admitted, the UN dictatorship-led condemnations, the misled boycott movements, and all the rest would disappear.
Third, the documents reveal that Pakistan's government, and certainly the army and intelligence, have been working with the Taliban. Despite receiving billions of dollars of U.S. aid, Pakistan has generally protected al-Qaida and the Taliban while sponsoring terrorism against India.
To a large extent, Pakistan is on the other side in the current international conflict. It fights the Taliban only when the local branch of that group threatens the regime itself. The government shields terrorists, helps Iran on obtaining nuclear weapons, and even actively assisted in India's equivalent of September 11, the Mumbai attack.
All of these points were clear using analytical methods and publicly available sources. They have been, however, largely ignored. Now that so many internal U.S. government reports saying the same thing have been made available, reaching these conclusions should be unavoidable.
A whistleblower has released thousands of documents on the war in Afghanistan. What do they tell us? Three things we already know, in fact all of which have been written about on this blog for the last year.
First, the war is not winnable in the framework put forward by the Obama Administration. The idea of reforming Afghan society, creating a strong and honest central government, and building a powerful military while winning the hearts and minds of Aghans isn't going to work.
The goal should be the far more modest one of keeping the Taliban and revolutionary Islamist groups from gaining power, which can be achieved by supporting a range of forces in the country, unfortunately often corrupt and undemocratic ones.
Second, a lot more civilians are being killed than we hear about. War, especially this kind of war, makes that unavoidable. The difference, of course, is that the U.S. and its allies kill civilians by accident; the Taliban kills them on purpose and follows strategies intended to get civilians killed.
This is precisely what has happened for Israel in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip but the world--and often Western countries--want to pretend this is something peculiar to Israel rather than inevitable under these conditions. Indeed, Israel does better at avoiding civilian casualties than does the United States and European countries involved in such conflicts. If this was admitted, the UN dictatorship-led condemnations, the misled boycott movements, and all the rest would disappear.
Third, the documents reveal that Pakistan's government, and certainly the army and intelligence, have been working with the Taliban. Despite receiving billions of dollars of U.S. aid, Pakistan has generally protected al-Qaida and the Taliban while sponsoring terrorism against India.
To a large extent, Pakistan is on the other side in the current international conflict. It fights the Taliban only when the local branch of that group threatens the regime itself. The government shields terrorists, helps Iran on obtaining nuclear weapons, and even actively assisted in India's equivalent of September 11, the Mumbai attack.
All of these points were clear using analytical methods and publicly available sources. They have been, however, largely ignored. Now that so many internal U.S. government reports saying the same thing have been made available, reaching these conclusions should be unavoidable.
UN Out to Lynch Israel? Hey, They're Not Even Subtle About It!
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We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, upper-right hand corner of this page. 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
The UN is sending a committee to Israel to follow up on the biased Goldstone Report. The report, you might remember, found Israel guilty because Palestinians who are seeking to destroy Israel said so. Oh, and the report's staff and leadership were rather intensely prejudiced themselves.
Now it turns out that the coordinator of the committee, Ahmed Motala, a South African lawyer, is not exactly non-partisan. In fact, during the very fighting he is asked on to judge now, he'd already made up his mind. On January 5, 2009, he wrote on a South African site
“The war in Gaza and the killing of innocent Palestinians is not about Hamas, but entirely about the forthcoming elections in Israel….What better way to gain the support of the Israeli electorate than to…kill innocent civilians….The costs of victory in an election in Israel are being paid for by the blood of innocent Palestinians.”
Now this is the kind of nonsense written about Israel that should permanently bar anyone dumb enough to say such things barred permanently from dealing with the issue. The war had nothing to do with the elections but with the fact that--despite Israel's government pleas--Hamas publicly tore up the existing ceasefire and began firing dozens of rockets at Israeli civilians.
If someone can't even understand this, they are hopeless. For one thing, they have turned Israel from a democratic country to a land ruled by comic-book villains. Mu-ha-ha! chortled Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Let's kill some Palestinian children in order to get more votes!
Motala's whole understanding of how international affairs works is defective. But he got caught. Suppose he had never actually written these words but merely said so to colleagues in conversations? He'd be the key person deciding that Israel was guilty of war crimes and incapable of investigating itself (because it was concealing that demonic murder-for-votes scheme).
But that's far from all. What about the chairman of that same Goldstone follow-up committee, Christian Tomuschat? On one or two occasions he did work for then PA leader Yasir Arafat, advising him on how he could more effectively get his way over Israel. In a 2002 study he did, Tomuschat hs already said that countries cannot investigate their own militaries, precisely the issue he is supposed to decide on as a fair and neutral judge in this situation. Oh, and in 2007 he stated that Israel's targeted killings of terrorists who had murdered Israelis was an act of state terrorism.
Mr. Tomuschat insists he is unbiased and refuses to resign.
But when you have the Jordanian businessman appointed by the UN secretary-general (who is a relative moderate compared to some of his recent predecessors) as vice-chairman of the UN Global Compact talking about Zionist conspiracies to control the world and dominate America (no doubt he won't be removed from that post by the UN) this is just one more example of the true scope of the insanity.
Doesn't this kind of thing get it across to people--and especially to anti-Israel Jews as well as leaders of various Western countries--that the lynch mob is running wild, following old patterns of Jew-hatred, and possibly one day going to come after them? Don't they see that they are ruining all the basic principles on which democratic law has been based: a fair hearing, equal treatment, impartial judges?
Monday, July 26, 2010
Faked Photograph Shows How The Middle East Hasn't Changed Much
By Barry Rubin
Ah, the good old days. It's March 1958. In Egypt, President Gamal Abdel Nasser is mobilizing the Arab street to overthrow more traditional or moderate regimes, spouting anti-Western demagoguery.
One of the main such is in Iraq, the government of Nuri al-Said.
How can the Iraqis compete with Nasser, knowing that they have to counter his propaganda or die? Simple! The Israeli boogy-man. (How things have--not--changed!) So an Iraqi newspaper publishes the photo below, a clumsy forgery to "prove" Nasser is really a Zionist agent who just held a meeting with Israeli General Moshe Dayan.
It didn't do the Iraqi government any good. A few weeks later, a coup throws out the monarchy and the British-allied regime, replacing it is a radical Arab nationalist government with a lot of Communist influence. Nuri is brutally murdered. The Arab nationalist regime then massacres the Communists and five years later is itself overthrown. And so on.
Ah, the good old days. It's March 1958. In Egypt, President Gamal Abdel Nasser is mobilizing the Arab street to overthrow more traditional or moderate regimes, spouting anti-Western demagoguery.
One of the main such is in Iraq, the government of Nuri al-Said.
How can the Iraqis compete with Nasser, knowing that they have to counter his propaganda or die? Simple! The Israeli boogy-man. (How things have--not--changed!) So an Iraqi newspaper publishes the photo below, a clumsy forgery to "prove" Nasser is really a Zionist agent who just held a meeting with Israeli General Moshe Dayan.
It didn't do the Iraqi government any good. A few weeks later, a coup throws out the monarchy and the British-allied regime, replacing it is a radical Arab nationalist government with a lot of Communist influence. Nuri is brutally murdered. The Arab nationalist regime then massacres the Communists and five years later is itself overthrown. And so on.
The scapegoating of Israel, falsification of material about that country, and prostituting of media in such campaigns is nothing new. But the game has now become worldwide. Those engaged in such pursuits might ponder how such efforts didn't save those who engaged in them in the past.
I've found many fascinating items in the U.S. and British government records that show the Middle East hasn't changed so much. But in those days before Photoshop, doing a credible job of faking photos was harder, as you can see. Thanks to Professor Michael Doran who came upon this in the National Archives.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Believe It Or Not: Terrorists Found Guilty, Victims Actually Defended!
By Barry Rubin
A U.S. court in Puerto Rico has just awarded $378 million to relatives there of people killed in the 1972 terrorist attack on Israel’s airport. I was the chief witness at the trial on the connections between the Japanese Red Army, which carried out the attack, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and North Korea, the state sponsor. You can read more about the case here and here, as well as the judge's full decision here.
A U.S. court in Puerto Rico has just awarded $378 million to relatives there of people killed in the 1972 terrorist attack on Israel’s airport. I was the chief witness at the trial on the connections between the Japanese Red Army, which carried out the attack, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and North Korea, the state sponsor. You can read more about the case here and here, as well as the judge's full decision here.
Attacks like this continue to this day, sponsored by Iran, Syria, and other states, as well as groups like Hamas, Hizballah, and even Fatah still. One wonders whether they will have their day in court, too, and be subjected once again to the isolation and contempt that they deserve. The present moment is featuring large amounts of sympathy for the perpetrators, diplomatic engagement, and constantly criticizing their victims.
Even now, the British prime minister is in Washington trying to explain how one of the Libyan murderers of scores of Americans and others in the Lockerbie plane bombing was released on “compassionate” grounds on the claim that he was dying, only to make a “miraculous” recovery on reaching Libya. Remarkably, this release coincided with a big oil deal between Libya and a British company called BP.
Western intellectuals and experts are clamoring for engagement with Hamas and Hizballah even though the blood is not even dried on their hands. At the UN, the sponsors of terrorism and their friends have far more power than their targets. And attacks are carried out with more cleverness in an era of profound credulity. So Hamas can start a war and use civilians as human shields in order to reap political as well as military benefits, while the Turkish regime organizes a theatrical jihad attack in which even video tape of the event showing the militants' aggressive violence is not considered proof by many for what actually happened.
Such anarchy in wonderland world cannot long endure.
Such anarchy in wonderland world cannot long endure.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Briefing in a Minute: The Middle East Right Now
By Barry Rubin
Snippets on the latest developments and themes in the region:
--Israel will deploy Iron Dome defense against rockets, mainly from the Gaza Strip, in November.
--EU "foreign minister" Ashton and--separately--Turkey and Syria--call for complete end of any blockade on the Gaza Strip. Ha! Great minds think alike. Why shouldn't Hamas have all the weapons it wants?
--Syria bans face veils in universities. Promoting revolutionary Islamism is fine as a foreign policy campaign but we wouldn't want them to take over our country and shoot the rulers, right?
--U.S.-Israel relations are quite good, the best at any time during the current presidency, and this could be expected to continue into early 2011 at least.
--The U.S. government has upgraded the Palestinian Authority representatives in the United States to the level of a general delegation, allowing them to fly the Palestinian flag in Washington DC. If this had come after the PA accepted direct negotiations with Israel that might have been understood. But once again we see the fatal pattern: first give a unilateral concession in hope that the other side will reciprocate. Shall I list the occasions on which that approach has failed during the last 18 months? You can develop your own list. That's not the way to do foreign policy.
--The new sanctions against Iran are definitely causing some pressure on and within the country though short of stopping the nuclear campaign it should weaken Tehran's ability to carry out its policies to build up militarily and advance further in regional influence.
--Have Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah signed a secret mutual assistance and alliance
--President Husni Mubarak's illness and the potential change of power in Egypt bears close watching. It is not official but does seem likely that Gamal Mubarak will be the next president. He has some good characteristics--pragmatism and moderation--but his age, lack of military experience, and limited charisma are against him. What Gamal would have to do, then, is to form a close partnership with key members of the elite and get the top people behind him.
There would then follow a period of several years in which either the elite would stand together behind Gamal or split, thus endangering the regime's future. If Gamal did not rule well and consolidate his support, there could be some kind of coup against him. In addition, the Brotherhood could gradually grow in power to fill the vacuum and exploit the discontent. The Brotherhood cannot take over for some years to come. The danger is a longer-term one.
Events could go either way and we will have to watch them closely. It is clear, though that Egypt's regional power is at about the lowest point in 60 years, though its determination to oppose Iran, Syria, and Hamas--if it feels American support is firm--is strong.
The Terrorist Whose Daughter Was Cured
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By Barry Rubin
This is a remarkable story in human terms but there is an extremely important point for understanding the Middle East embedded in it as well.
On June 14, Palestinian terrorists opened fire on a police car travelling on a road, en route from Beersheba to Jerusalem. One policeman, Yeheshua Sofer was killed. Two others were wounded. Sofer was due to be married in three months. It took a month but members of the cell were finally captured. They spoke quite freely about this attack and others they had planned for killing Israelis.
During the interrogation, one of the leaders remarked that only two weeks earlier his six-year-old daughter had been given a free operation in Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem to remove a tumor from her eye. The operation had been paid for by an Israeli organization.
Reading this, I recall a number of similar past instances. In one famous case, the Palestinian who later attacked Israel had been saved from injuries inflicted by another Palestinian in a quarrel. There have also been examples of terrorists playing on the sympathy of Israelis claiming they needed medical attention--especially in one bloody attack on the Gaza-Israel border--not to mention the use of women and children to smuggle weapons or even to carry out suicide attacks.
The Western reader--if he doesn't go in for some elaborate theory in which somehow Israel is still to blame--might see this and other such cases as examples of human ingratitude, the kind of thing often found in private life. There is also a psychiatric explanation: the person involved is in some way deranged, causing him to behave in an "illogical" manner.
Yet beyond irony and insanity, both falling short of the needed explanation, this kind of situation is important because it challenges the common Western theme of kindness and concession as inevitably leading to moderation and peace. There is another misleading flip side of this view, too: the concept that what seems like inexplicable violence or "fanaticism" is a direct response to ill treatment.
Thus, for those locked into the kindness breeds kindness model (which often does work in personal life), terrorists must be shown to be suffering from poverty or personal suffering (even though statistics show this to be untrue) or understandable outrage at bad treatment (ignoring the possibility of their engaging in alternative behavior, like making a compromise peace or building a democratic society).
Yet the main missing explanation explaining such behavior is ideology and world view. If you think that the divine being has ordered you to wipe out Israel and the Jews (or Christians and the West also), if you have no self-critical facility whatsoever, if you believe (and are told by the West) that you are always a victim, if you put a priority on revenge rather than improving your situation, and if you view your opponent as sub-human (racism is more frequently deployed by elements in some parts of the "Third World" against the West than vice-versa nowadays, whatever was true in the past), then your conscience will be untroubled by having your daughter healed as a gift and trying to kill the maximum number of Israelis thereafter.
Where have things been different? Obviously, one can insist on one's dignity and right to have a country of one's own without developing such behavior. We have seen this in dozens of cases over previous decades. You don't have to invoke such names s Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King Jr or Mahatma Gandhi in this case. Quite average nationalist leaders far from sainthood have pulled it off repeatedly.
Indeed, such an approach is not only more moral but more effective. After all, if you are willing to compromise with your opponent, the latter might be more willing and able to give you more of what you want. If the Palestinian movement had adopted such an approach--which is still lacking to this day--there would have been a Palestinian Arab state in 1948 (UN partition), or in 1979 (Anwar al-Sadat peace initiative) or in 2000 (Camp David/Clinton plan), or at many other times in history.
Of course, there are cases--fewer but genuine--of individual Palestinians saving the lives of Israelis who would otherwise have been murdered. But here's the catch: those people have to hide their identities from other Palestinians while to kill Israeli children deliberately, even in 2010, makes one a hero.
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By Barry Rubin
This is a remarkable story in human terms but there is an extremely important point for understanding the Middle East embedded in it as well.
On June 14, Palestinian terrorists opened fire on a police car travelling on a road, en route from Beersheba to Jerusalem. One policeman, Yeheshua Sofer was killed. Two others were wounded. Sofer was due to be married in three months. It took a month but members of the cell were finally captured. They spoke quite freely about this attack and others they had planned for killing Israelis.
During the interrogation, one of the leaders remarked that only two weeks earlier his six-year-old daughter had been given a free operation in Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem to remove a tumor from her eye. The operation had been paid for by an Israeli organization.
Reading this, I recall a number of similar past instances. In one famous case, the Palestinian who later attacked Israel had been saved from injuries inflicted by another Palestinian in a quarrel. There have also been examples of terrorists playing on the sympathy of Israelis claiming they needed medical attention--especially in one bloody attack on the Gaza-Israel border--not to mention the use of women and children to smuggle weapons or even to carry out suicide attacks.
The Western reader--if he doesn't go in for some elaborate theory in which somehow Israel is still to blame--might see this and other such cases as examples of human ingratitude, the kind of thing often found in private life. There is also a psychiatric explanation: the person involved is in some way deranged, causing him to behave in an "illogical" manner.
Yet beyond irony and insanity, both falling short of the needed explanation, this kind of situation is important because it challenges the common Western theme of kindness and concession as inevitably leading to moderation and peace. There is another misleading flip side of this view, too: the concept that what seems like inexplicable violence or "fanaticism" is a direct response to ill treatment.
Thus, for those locked into the kindness breeds kindness model (which often does work in personal life), terrorists must be shown to be suffering from poverty or personal suffering (even though statistics show this to be untrue) or understandable outrage at bad treatment (ignoring the possibility of their engaging in alternative behavior, like making a compromise peace or building a democratic society).
Yet the main missing explanation explaining such behavior is ideology and world view. If you think that the divine being has ordered you to wipe out Israel and the Jews (or Christians and the West also), if you have no self-critical facility whatsoever, if you believe (and are told by the West) that you are always a victim, if you put a priority on revenge rather than improving your situation, and if you view your opponent as sub-human (racism is more frequently deployed by elements in some parts of the "Third World" against the West than vice-versa nowadays, whatever was true in the past), then your conscience will be untroubled by having your daughter healed as a gift and trying to kill the maximum number of Israelis thereafter.
Where have things been different? Obviously, one can insist on one's dignity and right to have a country of one's own without developing such behavior. We have seen this in dozens of cases over previous decades. You don't have to invoke such names s Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King Jr or Mahatma Gandhi in this case. Quite average nationalist leaders far from sainthood have pulled it off repeatedly.
Indeed, such an approach is not only more moral but more effective. After all, if you are willing to compromise with your opponent, the latter might be more willing and able to give you more of what you want. If the Palestinian movement had adopted such an approach--which is still lacking to this day--there would have been a Palestinian Arab state in 1948 (UN partition), or in 1979 (Anwar al-Sadat peace initiative) or in 2000 (Camp David/Clinton plan), or at many other times in history.
Of course, there are cases--fewer but genuine--of individual Palestinians saving the lives of Israelis who would otherwise have been murdered. But here's the catch: those people have to hide their identities from other Palestinians while to kill Israeli children deliberately, even in 2010, makes one a hero.
Moreover, it is also misleading to conclude that people want to wipe out Israel because it is doing something so horrible--that there is a proportionality at work here--as to justify such treatment. Again, the problem lies in the ideology and worldview of the radicals, as well as their expectation of total victory, that drives the process. Israelis as a whole discovered this between 1992 and 2000. Sympathy, an attempt to provide a balanced narrative, aid, payments, concessions, compromises, offers all failed. Indeed, not only did they fail but in many respects these actions made things worse--at least more dangerous--for those who tried that method.
One of the times I came closer to being killed so far was when an Arab driver returning from taking supplies to the Gaza Strip or bringing workers into Israel so they could make living smuggled in a suicide terrorist. Six months after the day I saw the dead killed by that attack in the street around the corner from my home, a high-ranking U.S. diplomat told me--with pomposity and a slur on Israel that would have marked him as a vicious antisemite if he weren't a Jewish careerist--that no terrorist had ever come into Israel that way.
Incidentally, and this is an absolutely true story, the day before the March 1996 bombing, I had passed by a woman in full Islamist dress (by no means normally dressed for an Israeli Arab Muslim woman who might merely wear modest clothing and a hijab) outside the Dizengoff Center mall looking at the door (and possibly checking out the security) about 20 yards from where the suicide bomber blew himself up some hours later. I thought to myself: what a great democratic and open country this is that in the midst of a terrorist bombing campaign she could walk through Tel Aviv without anyone bothering her in the least. I wondered later if this was coincidental or part of the terrorist operation. If you want to compare the reality of Israel from the way it is portrayed in biased media and academic writings, ponder that story.
These stories are in no way to say that you don't treat children with eye tumors, or not let people make a living or send in supplies, or look askance at people merely because they belong to a specific national or religious group.
But you also don't let wishful thinking take over your mind and don't let hopes of gratitude bolster your expectations in an irrational manner.
And you never ever strengthen individuals or organizations who want to kill you and wipe you out on the basis of believing that generosity will make them moderate.
This basic calculus, of course, does not apply just to Israel's situation but to a West facing attacks by revolutionary Islamists--including the September 11 terrorists and those in Britain's tube or Spain's railroad attacks--as well. The idea that compromises, concessions, flattery, and gifts are going to buy popularity or immunity will simply not work.
Note to Western leaders, academics, and journalists reading this: Remember to condemn the people who commit deliberate terrorist murders and refuse to make real peace, not the ones who operate for free on the "enemy" side's children and take risky concessions to try to achieve peace.
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, at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
Friday, July 23, 2010
No, Israel Is Not About to Attack Iran Now, Here's Why
This article was published by PajamasMedia using their title. I want to make it clear that in saying "will" Israel attack Iran, they are giving a headline to an article saying that this is not going to happen in the near future. I'm not saying it will never happen.
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By Barry Rubin
How do you know someone has no idea what they’re talking about? Answer: They predict that Israel is about to attack Iran.
From the perspective of people in Israel who are closely following these issues, this idea is ridiculous. Understanding why this is so tells us a great deal about the situation.
First, it is too early to consider such an option in strategic terms. As long as Iran has not completed its effort to obtain nuclear weapons, the less there is to be gained by destroying uncompleted facilities or processes that are not yet at their full capacity. The earlier one attacks, the easier it is for the Iranian regime to rebuild.
Second, the whole Israeli strategy has been based on winning the maximum amount of Western support against the Iranian nuclear program. Israel worked hard to encourage the United States and the Europeans to put tough sanctions on Iran. Now we are in the sanctions’ era and these governments want to see whether the sanctions are going to have any effect.
Clearly, they are hurting the Iranian regime. People often don’t understand the purposes for imposing international sanctions. Ideally, the goal is to change the behavior of the targeted regime. But that’s not all. Sanctions are supposed to reduce the ability of an enemy regime to do what it wants to do. The fewer assets Iran has, the less it can put into military efforts.
In addition, the pressure of sanctions is to open up splits within the regime’s leadership and between the regime and the population. The people ask: Why are we suffering? Because of bad leadership and policies. Other members of the elite ask: Why are the top rulers and their policies leading us toward the regime’s downfall and the loss of our wealth and power?
This is happening to some extent in Iran today.
Moreover, sanctions are intended to isolate the regime, so that it loses allies and trading partners. This is happening to a lesser extent, because the U.S. government is in effect making a deal with Russia, China, Turkey, and Brazil to break the sanctions in exchange for giving them formal support.
Will sanctions stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons? Almost certainly, the answer is “no.” Yet, from Israel’s standpoint, this effort must be given every chance. Only if the Western countries are satisfied that every diplomatic and sanctions’-related effort has been fully tried—and very probably not even then!—would they support military action.
A third factor is a fundamental reality of international affairs: there is no compelling reason for Israel to act now and it has other problems to deal with. Iran’s obtaining a deliverable nuclear weapon is at least two, probably three, and perhaps four years off. Why do something now? There’s no motive to do so. The idea that something must or will be done immediately is a fiction among those who really don’t know much about the situation but perhaps have a thirst for action, a hunger for some decisive event that will easily and neatly solve the whole problem with one blow.
Leaders want to postpone tough decisions where the possibility of a catastrophic mistake as long as possible and one can hardly blame them.
Fourth, even if Israel wanted to attack now—which it doesn’t—such an action would not enjoy U.S. support and cooperation. During the current period, U.S.-Israel relations are very shaky, despite the fact that they are all right at this particular moment, though for how long is an open question. The Obama Administration tends to oppose the use of force, deplore unilateralism, dislike taking a strong lead, and seeks to distance itself from Israel more than was true for its predecessors.
If the decision of a lowly local zoning board in Jerusalem to build a few apartment buildings set off a huge storm in bilateral relations, what would an Israeli attack on Iran do?
Don’t forget, too, that U.S. troops are in both Iraq and Afghanistan, with periodic hints from the U.S. side that precipitate Israeli action could endanger them. Yet two or three years from now, those soldiers, or almost all of them, will be gone from the region. If that is going to coincide with Iran getting nuclear weapons, all the more reason to wait.
Finally, there are an increasing number of voices in the Israeli political, military, and intelligence establishment arguing that Israel should not wage a preemptive attack on Iran at all for a variety of reasons. When one adds up all these factors, it is rather clear that no such attack is imminent.
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, at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
Please be subscriber 16,951. Put your email address in the box, upper right-hand of the page.
We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, upper-right hand corner of this page. 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
How do you know someone has no idea what they’re talking about? Answer: They predict that Israel is about to attack Iran.
From the perspective of people in Israel who are closely following these issues, this idea is ridiculous. Understanding why this is so tells us a great deal about the situation.
First, it is too early to consider such an option in strategic terms. As long as Iran has not completed its effort to obtain nuclear weapons, the less there is to be gained by destroying uncompleted facilities or processes that are not yet at their full capacity. The earlier one attacks, the easier it is for the Iranian regime to rebuild.
Second, the whole Israeli strategy has been based on winning the maximum amount of Western support against the Iranian nuclear program. Israel worked hard to encourage the United States and the Europeans to put tough sanctions on Iran. Now we are in the sanctions’ era and these governments want to see whether the sanctions are going to have any effect.
Clearly, they are hurting the Iranian regime. People often don’t understand the purposes for imposing international sanctions. Ideally, the goal is to change the behavior of the targeted regime. But that’s not all. Sanctions are supposed to reduce the ability of an enemy regime to do what it wants to do. The fewer assets Iran has, the less it can put into military efforts.
In addition, the pressure of sanctions is to open up splits within the regime’s leadership and between the regime and the population. The people ask: Why are we suffering? Because of bad leadership and policies. Other members of the elite ask: Why are the top rulers and their policies leading us toward the regime’s downfall and the loss of our wealth and power?
This is happening to some extent in Iran today.
Moreover, sanctions are intended to isolate the regime, so that it loses allies and trading partners. This is happening to a lesser extent, because the U.S. government is in effect making a deal with Russia, China, Turkey, and Brazil to break the sanctions in exchange for giving them formal support.
Will sanctions stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons? Almost certainly, the answer is “no.” Yet, from Israel’s standpoint, this effort must be given every chance. Only if the Western countries are satisfied that every diplomatic and sanctions’-related effort has been fully tried—and very probably not even then!—would they support military action.
A third factor is a fundamental reality of international affairs: there is no compelling reason for Israel to act now and it has other problems to deal with. Iran’s obtaining a deliverable nuclear weapon is at least two, probably three, and perhaps four years off. Why do something now? There’s no motive to do so. The idea that something must or will be done immediately is a fiction among those who really don’t know much about the situation but perhaps have a thirst for action, a hunger for some decisive event that will easily and neatly solve the whole problem with one blow.
Leaders want to postpone tough decisions where the possibility of a catastrophic mistake as long as possible and one can hardly blame them.
Fourth, even if Israel wanted to attack now—which it doesn’t—such an action would not enjoy U.S. support and cooperation. During the current period, U.S.-Israel relations are very shaky, despite the fact that they are all right at this particular moment, though for how long is an open question. The Obama Administration tends to oppose the use of force, deplore unilateralism, dislike taking a strong lead, and seeks to distance itself from Israel more than was true for its predecessors.
If the decision of a lowly local zoning board in Jerusalem to build a few apartment buildings set off a huge storm in bilateral relations, what would an Israeli attack on Iran do?
Don’t forget, too, that U.S. troops are in both Iraq and Afghanistan, with periodic hints from the U.S. side that precipitate Israeli action could endanger them. Yet two or three years from now, those soldiers, or almost all of them, will be gone from the region. If that is going to coincide with Iran getting nuclear weapons, all the more reason to wait.
Finally, there are an increasing number of voices in the Israeli political, military, and intelligence establishment arguing that Israel should not wage a preemptive attack on Iran at all for a variety of reasons. When one adds up all these factors, it is rather clear that no such attack is imminent.
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, at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
New York Times: Not Just Anti-Israel But Pro-Islamist.
By Barry Rubin
The New York Times--with the exception of some honorable reporters in the field (you know who you are)--never ceases to amaze one in the spectacularly biased writings of those back at headquarters. Here's one that's particularly remarkable, a real piece of advocacy in which the reporter does everything possible to justify flotilla ships trying to run the blockade of the Gaza Strip.
He also selectively discusses the IHH sponsor of the previous flotilla, leaving out all the evidence (presented in my articles and elsewhere) of its radical and terrorist connections, including U.S. court documents. I explained this for the Times more than five weeks ago but they paid no attention and they still cannot find any of this evidence!
The article even includes a pro-IHH video without any balancing video, of which a number are easily available. There is virtually no hint that the militants on board had earlier shouted slogans advocating genocide for Jews, declared their intention to be Jihad martyrs, or attacked and kidnapped the arriving soldiers.
In addition, this article was written after Germany banned the IHH's local branch for supporting terrorism but doesn't even mention this fact. (Yes, I know the German government said it was a separate group but that is a purely formal organizational point.)
And on top of that the article was also written after the terms of the blockade were changed, with the approval of the U.S. government and personal endorsement of President Barack Obama no less. These new regulations only exclude military and dual-use items. There is no mention of the fact that circumstances have changed and thus any new flotilla ship can hardly be humanitarian since there is no limit on consumer goods.
Nor does it mention that the purpose of the flotillas--even before, but most obviously now--is not to help the people of Gaza but to ensure the easy import of weapons and militarily useful goods for a radical, antisemitic, anti-American repressive regime that opposes a two-state solution and openly proclaims its intention of committing genocide on Israel's Jews.
If this kind of thing appeared on a left-wing blog (or an Iranian or Syrian newspaper) it would at least not be surprising. But this is the New York Times. I no longer write a response like this one to correct errors in the Times coverage, but rather to point out that this is not the great newspaper (whatever its flaws) that once was considered America's best. It is, at least on issues concerning Israel (again with honorable exceptions) a propaganda sheet, a shill for totalitarian and mendacious forces.
For other examples, see the Times' remarkably deceptive portrayal of an Egyptian antisemitic extremist as a moderate, or the imbalance in its op-ed page. If you want to read a serious, balanced, full-service print newspaper pick up the Washington Post instead.
Are there still journalism classes where an article like this would be presented as a horrendously bad example of what newspapers should do?
Note: If you want to think you're helping Palestinians, promoting peace, and being fair--or even being merely moderately anti-Israel--at least have the decency to back the Palestinian Authority (PA) and oppose Hamas. The PA is corrupt, still riddled with radical elements, sometimes involved in terrorism, and unready for a real two-state solution. But at least, unlike Hamas, it isn't a client of Iran intent on maximizing terrorism, subverting all non-radical Arab regimes, indifferent to the well-being of its own people, crushing women's rights, expelling Christians, destroying American influence in the region, deliberately endngering civilians for propaganda purposes, seeking war at the earliest possible opportunity, and intent on committing genocide.
The New York Times--with the exception of some honorable reporters in the field (you know who you are)--never ceases to amaze one in the spectacularly biased writings of those back at headquarters. Here's one that's particularly remarkable, a real piece of advocacy in which the reporter does everything possible to justify flotilla ships trying to run the blockade of the Gaza Strip.
He also selectively discusses the IHH sponsor of the previous flotilla, leaving out all the evidence (presented in my articles and elsewhere) of its radical and terrorist connections, including U.S. court documents. I explained this for the Times more than five weeks ago but they paid no attention and they still cannot find any of this evidence!
The article even includes a pro-IHH video without any balancing video, of which a number are easily available. There is virtually no hint that the militants on board had earlier shouted slogans advocating genocide for Jews, declared their intention to be Jihad martyrs, or attacked and kidnapped the arriving soldiers.
In addition, this article was written after Germany banned the IHH's local branch for supporting terrorism but doesn't even mention this fact. (Yes, I know the German government said it was a separate group but that is a purely formal organizational point.)
And on top of that the article was also written after the terms of the blockade were changed, with the approval of the U.S. government and personal endorsement of President Barack Obama no less. These new regulations only exclude military and dual-use items. There is no mention of the fact that circumstances have changed and thus any new flotilla ship can hardly be humanitarian since there is no limit on consumer goods.
Nor does it mention that the purpose of the flotillas--even before, but most obviously now--is not to help the people of Gaza but to ensure the easy import of weapons and militarily useful goods for a radical, antisemitic, anti-American repressive regime that opposes a two-state solution and openly proclaims its intention of committing genocide on Israel's Jews.
If this kind of thing appeared on a left-wing blog (or an Iranian or Syrian newspaper) it would at least not be surprising. But this is the New York Times. I no longer write a response like this one to correct errors in the Times coverage, but rather to point out that this is not the great newspaper (whatever its flaws) that once was considered America's best. It is, at least on issues concerning Israel (again with honorable exceptions) a propaganda sheet, a shill for totalitarian and mendacious forces.
For other examples, see the Times' remarkably deceptive portrayal of an Egyptian antisemitic extremist as a moderate, or the imbalance in its op-ed page. If you want to read a serious, balanced, full-service print newspaper pick up the Washington Post instead.
Are there still journalism classes where an article like this would be presented as a horrendously bad example of what newspapers should do?
Note: If you want to think you're helping Palestinians, promoting peace, and being fair--or even being merely moderately anti-Israel--at least have the decency to back the Palestinian Authority (PA) and oppose Hamas. The PA is corrupt, still riddled with radical elements, sometimes involved in terrorism, and unready for a real two-state solution. But at least, unlike Hamas, it isn't a client of Iran intent on maximizing terrorism, subverting all non-radical Arab regimes, indifferent to the well-being of its own people, crushing women's rights, expelling Christians, destroying American influence in the region, deliberately endngering civilians for propaganda purposes, seeking war at the earliest possible opportunity, and intent on committing genocide.
Israel is a Normal Country. But Normal Countries Are Becoming an Endangered Species
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We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, upper-right hand corner of this page. 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
The latest gimmick in the never-ending discussion over Israel is whether it is a “normal country.” My answer is “yes” with one exception: it is the one country in the world on which people who know absolutely nothing feel free to put forward the most absurd, biased, or outdated views. Yet that is an external, not an internal distinction.
To be frank, the question of whether Israel is a “normal country” is a trick question. As I said, the answer is “yes” but the problem is that the definition of what a normal country is has changed.
For example, it is now held to be evil and racist—rather than merely stupid—if a country doesn’t allow unlimited immigration, even illegal immigration—of anyone who wants to live there. It is now claimed to be illegitimate if a country has any religious component, or if it is identified with a single coherent people. A country that defends itself or perhaps even has enemies is labeled abnormal, too.
What is remarkable about the demonization of Israel today is that it combines two different and profoundly contradictory strands that look amazingly strange in the conditions of this era.
The first is that of the old pseudo-leftist radicalism of the 1960s-1970s era in which Israel was portrayed in semi-Marxist language as imperialist, aggressive, evil, and to be wiped out even in genocidal fashion.
The second is that of the 1990s’ peace process era in which the Palestinians are portrayed as moderate, yearning only for peace and a state of their own and Israel falsely portrays the situation as one of great threats to itself.
Issue number one is that those two “narratives” haven’t been introduced to each other. How do those in the second group—including Jewish opponents of Israel—reconcile themselves with the first group, who are after all the people they are supporting.
Issue number two is that this is the era of Hamas, Hizballah, Ahmadinejad, September 11, the bombing of the London underground and bus, and therefore the nature of the threat and extremism is most apparent.
Perhaps, then, the people in the second group should pay some attention to their allies and the goals they are pursuing, the situation in the Middle East, and other such things. You don’t need to listen to what Israel is saying so much as to listen to what those who hate and want to destroy it are saying.
[Note by the way that Israel is among the world's most successful countries for integrating people from very diverse socio-economic background, racial appearance, differences in level of religious observance, and national origin. Of course, these people had an identity in common and were integrated into a new society and culture--it is now argued with too much harshness in the state's early years--quite well. The model of normality some are attempting to impose now, however, is to take in people without limit and deliberately not integrate them but to leave them as separate communities with a minimum in common. This will ultimately lead to their being mutually hostile communities.]
Of course, none of this is applied to non-Western nations, countries quite content to have a single people (or at least a single dominating group), common culture, main religion, and strict control over who becomes a citizen. They may use against foreigners and for their own benefit the tools of words like "racism," "Islamophobia," and "multi-culturalism" but they are not stupid. They intend to survive.
These countries and ideologies are, in fact, more racist and xenophobic--but never criticize themselves or are criticized as such--than the countries always criticized as allegedly racist and xenophobic.
As I have previously remarked here, this factor of changing definition explains both why many love Israel in the West and why many hate it. The phrase “canary in the coal mine”--something that warns about imminent contemporary threats and dangers, is often used to express this point about Israel. But there are other canaries in the coal mine—Lebanon, Georgia—whose falling over is being ignored. Israel, because it can and will defend itself, is the eagle in the coal mine.
World War One was called the war to make the world safe for democracy. Today's war against Israel is one to make the world unsafe for democracy and the nation-state. To the extent that those in Western democratic states join it, they may ultimately end up being neither Western nor democratic over time.
One should not exaggerate the problem in the West but it is a considerable one, the greatest internal challenge most have faced since 1945. The medicine prescribed for modern countries by large elements of their elites is not a vitamin but a suicide pill. As the dosage increases and the patient starts to exhibit unpleasant symptoms, he may realize what is happening and punch the incompetent or ill-intentioned doctor in the nose.
In my introduction to our new book, Israel: An Introduction, to be published in February by Yale University Press (inquiries welcome for using it as a text in high school, college, and adult education courses), my main theme is that when one gets beyond the political turmoil—which looks a lot more abstract when one actually lives in Israel—the country is quite normal and very much of a success story. That doesn’t mean it has no unique features of its own, but that’s true for every country on closer examination.
One of those features is the Israeli love of self-criticism (the true national sport) and reflection. But that factor which many (especially in the Arabic-speaking world) see as a weakness is in fact a strength. For these qualities make it possible to correct mistakes and fix problems to a greater extent.
Of course, there are still many problems and shortcomings which I could list at length—see, I told you!—but that’s true for all countries even if they are swept under the rug. Indeed, sweeping real problems and practical solutions under the rug is the hallmark of a score of other countries in the region.
I wasn’t joking in this article's first paragraph saying that the main “abnormality” is the nonsense said and written about Israel. David Ben-Gurion expressed the fundamental pragmatism that would shape the country when he said, to put it into contemporary language, that what's most important was not what the other nations said but what the Israelis did. Still true today.
Perhaps there should be a Normal Country Movement for those who don’t want to be reduced to mere geographical dimensions, housing within themselves a Balkan cacophony of countries and nations certain to quarrel. That’s a recipe for conflict, not of living happily ever after. When people ask me if I worry about Israel’s survival, my answer is: No, I’m worried about the survival of everyone else.
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, at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, upper-right hand corner of this page. 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
The latest gimmick in the never-ending discussion over Israel is whether it is a “normal country.” My answer is “yes” with one exception: it is the one country in the world on which people who know absolutely nothing feel free to put forward the most absurd, biased, or outdated views. Yet that is an external, not an internal distinction.
To be frank, the question of whether Israel is a “normal country” is a trick question. As I said, the answer is “yes” but the problem is that the definition of what a normal country is has changed.
For example, it is now held to be evil and racist—rather than merely stupid—if a country doesn’t allow unlimited immigration, even illegal immigration—of anyone who wants to live there. It is now claimed to be illegitimate if a country has any religious component, or if it is identified with a single coherent people. A country that defends itself or perhaps even has enemies is labeled abnormal, too.
What is remarkable about the demonization of Israel today is that it combines two different and profoundly contradictory strands that look amazingly strange in the conditions of this era.
The first is that of the old pseudo-leftist radicalism of the 1960s-1970s era in which Israel was portrayed in semi-Marxist language as imperialist, aggressive, evil, and to be wiped out even in genocidal fashion.
The second is that of the 1990s’ peace process era in which the Palestinians are portrayed as moderate, yearning only for peace and a state of their own and Israel falsely portrays the situation as one of great threats to itself.
Issue number one is that those two “narratives” haven’t been introduced to each other. How do those in the second group—including Jewish opponents of Israel—reconcile themselves with the first group, who are after all the people they are supporting.
Issue number two is that this is the era of Hamas, Hizballah, Ahmadinejad, September 11, the bombing of the London underground and bus, and therefore the nature of the threat and extremism is most apparent.
Perhaps, then, the people in the second group should pay some attention to their allies and the goals they are pursuing, the situation in the Middle East, and other such things. You don’t need to listen to what Israel is saying so much as to listen to what those who hate and want to destroy it are saying.
[Note by the way that Israel is among the world's most successful countries for integrating people from very diverse socio-economic background, racial appearance, differences in level of religious observance, and national origin. Of course, these people had an identity in common and were integrated into a new society and culture--it is now argued with too much harshness in the state's early years--quite well. The model of normality some are attempting to impose now, however, is to take in people without limit and deliberately not integrate them but to leave them as separate communities with a minimum in common. This will ultimately lead to their being mutually hostile communities.]
Of course, none of this is applied to non-Western nations, countries quite content to have a single people (or at least a single dominating group), common culture, main religion, and strict control over who becomes a citizen. They may use against foreigners and for their own benefit the tools of words like "racism," "Islamophobia," and "multi-culturalism" but they are not stupid. They intend to survive.
These countries and ideologies are, in fact, more racist and xenophobic--but never criticize themselves or are criticized as such--than the countries always criticized as allegedly racist and xenophobic.
As I have previously remarked here, this factor of changing definition explains both why many love Israel in the West and why many hate it. The phrase “canary in the coal mine”--something that warns about imminent contemporary threats and dangers, is often used to express this point about Israel. But there are other canaries in the coal mine—Lebanon, Georgia—whose falling over is being ignored. Israel, because it can and will defend itself, is the eagle in the coal mine.
World War One was called the war to make the world safe for democracy. Today's war against Israel is one to make the world unsafe for democracy and the nation-state. To the extent that those in Western democratic states join it, they may ultimately end up being neither Western nor democratic over time.
One should not exaggerate the problem in the West but it is a considerable one, the greatest internal challenge most have faced since 1945. The medicine prescribed for modern countries by large elements of their elites is not a vitamin but a suicide pill. As the dosage increases and the patient starts to exhibit unpleasant symptoms, he may realize what is happening and punch the incompetent or ill-intentioned doctor in the nose.
In my introduction to our new book, Israel: An Introduction, to be published in February by Yale University Press (inquiries welcome for using it as a text in high school, college, and adult education courses), my main theme is that when one gets beyond the political turmoil—which looks a lot more abstract when one actually lives in Israel—the country is quite normal and very much of a success story. That doesn’t mean it has no unique features of its own, but that’s true for every country on closer examination.
One of those features is the Israeli love of self-criticism (the true national sport) and reflection. But that factor which many (especially in the Arabic-speaking world) see as a weakness is in fact a strength. For these qualities make it possible to correct mistakes and fix problems to a greater extent.
Of course, there are still many problems and shortcomings which I could list at length—see, I told you!—but that’s true for all countries even if they are swept under the rug. Indeed, sweeping real problems and practical solutions under the rug is the hallmark of a score of other countries in the region.
I wasn’t joking in this article's first paragraph saying that the main “abnormality” is the nonsense said and written about Israel. David Ben-Gurion expressed the fundamental pragmatism that would shape the country when he said, to put it into contemporary language, that what's most important was not what the other nations said but what the Israelis did. Still true today.
Perhaps there should be a Normal Country Movement for those who don’t want to be reduced to mere geographical dimensions, housing within themselves a Balkan cacophony of countries and nations certain to quarrel. That’s a recipe for conflict, not of living happily ever after. When people ask me if I worry about Israel’s survival, my answer is: No, I’m worried about the survival of everyone else.
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, at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
News Flash: Using My Testimony, Court Fines North Korea $378 Million
By Barry Rubin
A Puerto Rican court has awarded $378 million to the relatives of people killed in the 1972 terrorist attack on Israel’s airport. I was the chief witness at the trial to explain and document the connections between the Japanese Red Army, which carried out the attack, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and North Korea, the state sponsor for the attack. See here and here.
Attacks like this continue to this day--and attempts are made every day--sponsored by Iran, Syria, and other states while the murderous efforts are implemented by groups like Hamas, Hizballah, and even Fatah. One wonders whether they will have their day in court, too, and be subjected once again to the isolation and contempt that they deserve. The present moment is featuring large amounts of sympathy for the perpetrators, diplomatic engagement, and constantly criticizing their victims.
Even now, the British prime minister is in Washington trying to explain how one of the Libyan murderers of scores of Americans and others in the Lockerbie plane bombing was released on “compassionate” grounds on the claim that he was dying, only to make a “miraculous” recovery on reaching Libya. Remarkably, this release coincided with a big oil deal between Libya and a British company called BP, maybe you've heard of it.
Western intellectuals and experts are clamoring for engagement with Hamas and Hizballah even though the blood is not even dried on their hands. At the UN, the sponsors of terrorism and their friends have far more power than their targets. And attacks are carried out with more cleverness in an era of profound credulity, so that Hamas can start a war and use human shields only to reap benefits, while the Turkish regime organizes a theatrical jihad attack of which even video tape of the event is not considered proof by many for what actually happened.
Such anarchy in wonderland the world cannot long endure.
A Puerto Rican court has awarded $378 million to the relatives of people killed in the 1972 terrorist attack on Israel’s airport. I was the chief witness at the trial to explain and document the connections between the Japanese Red Army, which carried out the attack, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and North Korea, the state sponsor for the attack. See here and here.
Attacks like this continue to this day--and attempts are made every day--sponsored by Iran, Syria, and other states while the murderous efforts are implemented by groups like Hamas, Hizballah, and even Fatah. One wonders whether they will have their day in court, too, and be subjected once again to the isolation and contempt that they deserve. The present moment is featuring large amounts of sympathy for the perpetrators, diplomatic engagement, and constantly criticizing their victims.
Even now, the British prime minister is in Washington trying to explain how one of the Libyan murderers of scores of Americans and others in the Lockerbie plane bombing was released on “compassionate” grounds on the claim that he was dying, only to make a “miraculous” recovery on reaching Libya. Remarkably, this release coincided with a big oil deal between Libya and a British company called BP, maybe you've heard of it.
Western intellectuals and experts are clamoring for engagement with Hamas and Hizballah even though the blood is not even dried on their hands. At the UN, the sponsors of terrorism and their friends have far more power than their targets. And attacks are carried out with more cleverness in an era of profound credulity, so that Hamas can start a war and use human shields only to reap benefits, while the Turkish regime organizes a theatrical jihad attack of which even video tape of the event is not considered proof by many for what actually happened.
Such anarchy in wonderland the world cannot long endure.
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