Why the "Arab Peace Initiative" is Both a Good Thing and a Scam

By Barry Rubin

There's something very strange about this alleged new Arab League peace initiative and I find no serious addressing of these issues in the media coverage. A step toward efforts by Arab states to move toward proposing a possible peace with Israel is a good thing. Especially touted is an idea, mentioned by Qatar’s representative at the Washington meeting, to accept an agreement that small border modifications could be made to the pre-1967 lines.

Here's how the Associated Press reported on this, with the headline, "Arab League sweetens Israel-Palestinian peace plan":

"The Arab League's decision to sweeten its decade-old proposal offering comprehensive peace with Israel has placed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a bind and swiftly exposed fissures in his new government."

In other words, you'd have to be a fool or a knave to reject this deal and the issue has divided Israel's government. Yet chief negotiator Tsipi Livni was right to have reacted positively to the proposal and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be right to ultimately reject it.

After all, there are a lot of unaddressed points in the coverage that make me strongly suspect that this is a public relations’ stunt to convince America and Western opinion that the Arab states want peace with Israel when not all of them do so.

And that’s one of the key questions. At the meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry there were representatives of the Arab League, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinian Authority.

But Arab League bureaucrats can’t agree on anything. Only a vote of the Arab League’s almost two dozen members can establish an official position. So this was not an Arab League plan at all. To represent it as an official Arab position is, then, untrue.

Indeed, we already know that the Palestinian Authority (PA) opposes this formula. At any rate, the United States cannot even get the PA to negotiate with Israel and yet fantasies of comprehensive peace are spread around by it. The mass media is cooperating in this theme, seeking to make Kerry look good at least.

Then there is the list of countries involved. I have no difficulty in believing that the governments of Bahrain, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia are ready for a deal. Jordan has already made peace; Saudi Arabia proposed a reasonable offer a decade ago a decade ago (before it was sharply revised by hardliners before becoming an official Arab League position), and Bahrain’s regime is desperately afraid of Iran and has become a semi-satellite of the Saudis.

But what about the other three countries? Are we to believe that the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt, the Hizballah-dominated regime in Lebanon, and the quirky but pro-Hamas and pro-Muslim Brotherhood regime in Qatar have suddenly reversed everything that they have been saying in order to seek a compromise peace with Israel? Highly doubtful to say the least.

In other words, the reportage ignored the interesting detail about the three most radical regimes (Qatar's regional policy is radical; not its domestic policies) suddenly making a concession to Israel that had been previously unthinkable?  It's sort of like taking for granted, say, Joseph Stalin's supposed embrace of capitalism or France's rulers proclaiming that American culture is far superior to their own.

And let’s also remember the radical forces not present. The Syrian rebels will be holding the Arab League seat are dominated by Islamists. Hamas itself, which governs the Gaza Strip, will refuse to abide by any such agreement. Remember that this group represents at least one-third of Palestinians and perhaps a plurality over Fatah, which governs the PA. Tunisia's Muslim Brotherhood-dominated leadership have even written into the country's new constitution that it can never make peace with Israel!\.

Finally, there is a curious lack of mention over the demand, enshrined in the previous “Arab Peace Initiative” about what is called the “right of return.” Namely, to satisfy PA demands Israel would have to accept the immigration of hundreds of thousands of passionately anti-Israel Palestinians who had lived in the country 60 years ago (or their descendants) and who have been fighting all that time to wipe Israel off the map.

Is the "right of return" as a condition for making peace still in the small print? I don't see that anyone else has asked that rather important question. Presumably it is still there. Consequently, what is in fact a suicidal offer to Israel is made, by selective reporting, to make it sound like an attractive offer. But if the demand for a massive immigration of hostile Palestinians is indeed dropped that in fact is the real news. Of course, the PA would passionately denounce such a step and since it has said nothing on the point one might assume that this demand still stands. 

Then there are the citizens of these Arab countries—stirred up by Islamists and radical nationalists--who would seek to overthrow them if they believed their rulers were going to make peace with Israel. And there has been no hint from these regimes before and no statements now back home in Arabic to indicate any dramatic change of heart.

This supposed new plan, then, is a bluff. None of the above points have been explained in the Western media. Suddenly, we are to believe, for example, that the Muslim Brotherhood has turned dovish! Well, of course, because the U.S. establishment has been arguing they were already dovish.

That doesn’t mean it is a bad thing as a sign of the times. I believe that the Arab states of the Persian Gulf would like to see the Arab-Israeli conflict decline and even end. Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates no longer profit from this battle. They are frightened of Iran and revolutionary Islamists, and the Shia Muslim challenge in general. Such governments view Israel as a positive strategic factor given these real and big threats. You might add Algeria, Morocco, and Jordan to the list of moderates.  Iraq doesn’t care anymore, while the Kurds in Iraq and Syria are almost pro-Israel.

And if these countries feel that saying or pretending to agree that peace with Israel is a good thing for their image in the West that is positive also. (Unfortunately, though, they know how easily they can get away with double talk.)

But if you factor in the Islamist-ruled places—Egypt, the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Tunisia, and soon Syria—into the equation the picture looks different. And if you add public opinion and the efforts of revolutionary Islamists who would denounce any such deal as treason things look totally different.

If even Saudi Arabia were to make peace with Israel what would happen internally? There would be riots, revolts, new manifestations of the currents represented by Usama bin Ladin, an escalated subversion from Iran. Of course, the monarchy knows this very well.

On top of that, remember that these governments know that they cannot depend on the United States to get them out of a jam in the face of their rivals and enemies. Indeed, many of them believe—with real reasons--that the Obama Administration is helping their enemies.

In other words, to speak in English in Washington to make the Americans happy is one thing; to do things in practice is something else entirely. This supposed initiative, then, will not go anywhere.

It is, however, interesting to compare this development with the total refusal of Arab states to make such a gesture when Obama asked them to do so back in 2009. Is the change due to the relative moderates' greater fear of Islamist overthrow? Of Iran getting nuclear weapons? A response to Obama's reelection?  Of the radical, pro-Islamist forces trying to lull America and the West into an even deeper sleep so that they think more Sharia states will not make for more radical regimes?

One can almost hear the radicals' reasoning: We have to keep the Americans at bay until we consolidate power at home and we have to keep the Americans handing over billions of dollars to finance the fundamental transformations we intend to make.

What it does show once again, however, is that the strategic picture in the region has changed dramatically. The Arab-Israeli conflict is a minor issue compared to the Islamist threat at home and from neighbors, the Iranian threat abroad, and the Shia challenge to these predominantly Sunni Muslim, conservative or nationalist, monarchical or dictatorial regimes.

Here is the paradox of the situation. The very threats that make some governments wish the conflict would go away are the same threats that stop them from actually doing something about it.

This article is published on PJMedia.

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Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His next book, Nazis, Islamists and the Making of the Modern Middle East, written with Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, will be published by Yale University Press in January 2014. His latest book is Israel: An Introduction, also published by Yale. Thirteen of his books can be read and downloaded for free at the website of the GLORIA Center including The Arab States and the Palestine Conflict, The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East and The Truth About Syria. His blog is Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

The Truths About Terrorism Whose Names They Dare Not Speak

By Barry Rubin

The current conventional wisdom about terrorism, Islamism, and the Middle East is being bent, but not broken, by two events. On one hand, there is the Boston bombing; on the other hand, developments in Syria and to a lesser extent Egypt. What’s happening?

In the Middle East, the misbehavior of Islamist movements is becoming more apparent. In Egypt, there is the repression of the Muslim Brotherhood regime, which may actually intend to create a non-democratic Sharia state! Parallel behavior in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Tunisia, and Turkey is under-reported but occasionally surfaces.

The most important single story at the moment, though, is Syria. Basically, the Obama Administration has woken up and recognized what was easily apparent two years ago: They are helping to put radical, anti-American Islamists into power! They are helping to provide them with advanced weapons which might be used for activities other than what is intended!

When the government wakes up it nudges the media to get up also. What is quite startling is the extent to which the mass media is responsive to government policy, at least this government’s policy. I want to explain this carefully in order to be fair.

Take this article in the New York Times, which can be summarized as saying that Islamist rebels’ gains in Syria create a dilemma for the United States.  Now this is an article about U.S. policy so naturally it describes how that policy is changing.

Yet at the same time, one wants to ask: Why haven’t the policy consequences of this situation been described continuously in the past? If a big truck is headed straight at you on the highway, might not the media sitting in the front passenger seat shout out a warning? Does it have to wait for the driver to notice and then it can say something?

And even so the diffidence is astonishing. It is good that the newspaper notices that the rebels are largely comprised of, "Political Islamists inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood and others who want an Islamic-influenced legal code." But why even now one can say “Islamic-influenced?”

For many years they have made it clear that they seek a total Islamic (in their interpretation) state. It is the precise equivalent of describing Chinese Communists more than sixty years ago, as they approached victory in their country’s civil war, as “agrarian reformers.”

This story also parallels the much larger-scale debate about the Boston bombings. There’s a long piece in the New York Times about the Boston bombers. The lead gives the flavor of its argument:

“It was a blow the immigrant boxer could not withstand: after capturing his second consecutive title as the Golden Gloves heavyweight champion of New England in 2010, Tamerlan Anzorovich Tsarnaev, 23, was barred from the national Tournament of Champions because he was not a United States citizen.”

The title of the piece is, “A Battered Dream, Then a Violent Path.” In other words, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was not allowed to win a boxing championship because he wasn’t a U.S. citizen. Blocked by bad treatment from America, he became more Islamic and turned to terrorism.

Of course, it is vital to develop an accurate picture of the terrorists’ background and explain the factors providing a personal motivation. On the other hand, it is something quite different to suggest that if the United States was nicer to Muslims and perhaps gave people citizenship more easily, there would not have been terrorism in Boston.

Why is this fundamentally dishonest in the way it is being presented in most of the public debate? Because the voices enhanced by control over the most powerful microphones focus in on the political theme they want to push, excluding other factors in the context of their topic.

Where to begin? The article includes a photo of the future terrorist as a baby in Dagestan with his parents and his uncle. His uncle is wearing a Russian army uniform. Now again in the photo he is a baby but the point might be raised: Isn’t Tamerlan Tsarnaev more a product of Russian than of U.S. conditions? After all, his family was involved in a conflict against the Russian state; he and his brother were largely shaped by that environment. He went back and forth to Russia and took instruction from terrorist groups which had arrived at al-Qaida from that basis.

But the authors cannot focus on this issue. Why not? Well, obviously they want to blame America first but also there is a big land mine there. Pointing out that immigrants—legal or otherwise—may bring with them hatred, grievances, and cultural formations inimical to America that makes a point in the immigration debate which would be the exact opposite of what they want.

Of course, different people bring different attitudes. It is the job of the immigration system to profile the immigrants to decide who is going to be a good citizen or even who should be let in. Was it a mistake that Tamerlan’s brother did become a U.S. citizen pretty easily? No, it was neither a mistake nor a conspiracy. It was the way profiling was defined that made it possible. 

To have a serious discussion about why some immigrants become loyal, productive citizens and others become terrorists would be an important discussion. But it cannot happen at present because it would have to include factoring in such things as personal responsibility, gratitude to one's adopted country, and even--totally unthinkable--the need to keep in mind the  immigrant's original home. The latter point is not to make it a focus to block people from the Middle East.

On the contrary, those who wanted to flee or had to do so were often motivated because they wanted to live in a democratic, free country and not under revolutionary Islamism. If you are in the United States, you will be meeting a lot more such people, especially from Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria very soon.

A second point would be to stress the benefits that the Tsarnaev brothers and their family were given. Among them were welfare payments, a scholarship, acceptance without bias into American society, permissiveness even when they violated its tenets and laws (beating up his girlfriend),  not doing anything to them despite suspicion of being potential terrorists (unlike what would have happened in Russia), and so on. Against that long list of things, the article had to focus on the one setback as they key to everything.

Here, too, however, the articles of the New York Times article cannot go. For to step into this territory would require considering the failure of a historic policy to assimilate immigrants that has been replaced by Multiculturalism; the abandonment of patriotism and the distaste for America and its society daily expressed by the citizens of Boston met by the Tsarnaevs; and the idea of entitlement and the welfare state that pervaded their concept of America.

Yes, there is ample material for biographical and psychological writing. But what about, for example, this potential lead for the article:

Tamerlan Tsarnaev found in America a society that did not require him to become loyal to the country, to understand how well it treated his family, and how he could actually spend his time reading terrorist sites on the Internet while his beaten wife worked 80 hours a week and his family collected welfare. Spoiled by good treatment from America he became more Islamic and turned to terrorism.

Why is such a theme inconceivable? Because of the reporters’ politics and ideology. Deborah Sontag has won lots of awards. But in my neighborhood she’s best known as the reporter who covered Israel at a time when it was beset by the worst Palestinian terrorism. And then, after the Palestinian leaders had rejected peace and a two state solution, when they were fostering the deliberate murder of civilians she concluded that they, “blocked by bad treatment from [Israel]…turned to terrorism.”

The journalist Joan Walsh explained this ruling ideology from a different angle. All this stuff about Islam and Chechens “In the end, it’s not important.” She added:

“I really do think that this whole discussion…proves once again that race is entirely a political and social construct….We really don’t want to acknowledge these boys have as much in common with Timothy McVeigh and – actually, more to the point, with school shooters. The Columbine killers, James Holmes then really they do with hardened jihadis….They are a product of America as well as a product of alienation.”

One wonders why Walsh didn’t say: They are a product of America as well as a product of alienation, Islam, and a radical revolutionary Islamist movement.”

She couldn’t say that as that would transcend her ideology and make her unpopular in her milieu. Her internal cultural-intellectual censor wouldn’t let her do that.

Reducing the motives for terrorism into psychobabble is to disarm one’s society from being able to combat terrorism. It is amazing to see a democratic society’s intellectual assets turn to the task of systematic obfuscation as even the most ridiculous arguments flourish.

For example, people who go on suicide terrorist missions don’t get to be hardened jihadis because they don’t live long enough. And the whole point is that they can behave that way because they don’t need to be “hardened.” They can already:

(1) Settle into an identity that fits with revolutionary activity and terrorism;

(2) Get huge encouragement from an existing movement that even rules entire countries;

(3) Receive direct training from terrorist forces that operate in safe havens;

(4) Don’t believe that their identities and grievances are mere constructs. One doesn’t fight and die for a construct.

I am strongly reminded of a discussion many years ago with a brilliant CIA psychiatrist who laid the foundation for understanding the thinking of modern terrorists. One of the things he did was to divide them into two categories. There were those whose parents would, at least generally, approve of their violent acts and those that wouldn’t.

He didn’t mean here that the individual parents would cheer them—though that was possible—but that they were approved of by their social-intellectual milieu.  That’s why Islamist terrorists are numbered in the tens of thousands and people like Holmes and McVeigh can be counted on the fingers of your two hands.

A few days ago I asked a first-rate, veteran journalist with much experience in this area whether she had ever interviewed parents who denounced their children’s actions. She replied, “No. And if they did they’d know enough to keep their mouths shut.” Of course, that would be because in Palestinian society they would be themselves isolated and renounced for opposing jihad or at least armed struggle.

In the Boston case, the Tsarnaev brother’s mother cheered them and blamed America. What is in play here is not alienation from America but hatred of it based on a pre-existing template, combined with a willingness to take its benefits as if they were owed to oneself.

Note: The title of this article is drawn from Oscar Wilde, "The Love that Dare Not Speak Its Name."  That's a phrase from his poem about homosexuality in Victorian England. Every society has such things forbidden to discuss. The problem for American society is that its official quarters act as if the country is still in its Victorian Age and that race, gender, religious bias, and homosexuality fall into that category. In fact, there are quite a different set of unspeakable truths, taboo concepts for American society, defined by a new version of intellectual repression called Political Correctness.  

This article is published by PJMedia.

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Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His next book, Nazis, Islamists and the Making of the Modern Middle East, written with Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, will be published by Yale University Press in January 2014. His latest book is Israel: An Introduction, also published by Yale. Thirteen of his books can be read and downloaded for free at the website of the GLORIA Center including The Arab States and the Palestine Conflict, The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East and The Truth About Syria. His blog is Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

How to Get My Books (Well, 13 of Them) For Free

By Barry Rubin

In order to download our books for free:

1.      Please go to: http://www.gloria-center.org/pt_free_books/.

2.      Select the book you want & click on the PDF icon under download formats.

3.      Open it & then right-click click save as.

4.      Alternately, you can click on the title of the book, and then select the PDF icon at the top for the full book or download individual chapters (for those books that this feature is available).

In addition, our books are also available for free download on Smashwords in different e-book formats including Kindle & others: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/GLORIAcenter. Simply click on the title and you should see a list of available download formats.

 If you are interested in reading more about Syria, you're welcome to read my book The Truth About Syria online or download it for free. 

If you are interested in reading more about Egypt and radical Islamist movements, you're welcome to read my book Islamic Fundamentalists in Egyptian Politics online or download it for free.

If you are interested in reading more about the Arab-Israeli conflict, current regional situation you're welcome to read my book Tragedy of the Middle East online or download it for free.

If you are interested in reading more about the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, you're welcome to read my book The Arab States and the Palestine Conflict online or download it for free.

If you are interested in reading more about the politics and warfare in the Persian Gulf area you're welcome to read my book Cauldron of Turmoil online or download it for free.

If you are interested in reading more about anti-Americanism, you're welcome to read my book Hating America - A History online or download it for free.

If you are interested in reading more about Turkey’s history—during World War Two--you're welcome to read my book Istanbul Intrigues online or download it for free.

If you are interested in reading more about moderate movements in the Arab world and their radical enemies you're welcome to read my book The Long War for Freedom-The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East online or download it for free.

If you are interested in reading more about how dictatorships work and how that system has dramatically changed  you're welcome to read my book Modern Dictators-Third World Coupmakers, Strongmen, and Populist Tyrants  online for free.

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If you are interested in reading more about why studying our personal genealogies is so important to understand our own lives and my grandparents' town of Dolhinov you're welcome to read my book Children of Dolhinov: Our Ancestors and Ourselves  online or download it for free.

How Much Did U.S. Policymakers Learn about the Middle East in Forty Years? Some Proof

By Barry Rubin

Consider this quotation:

“Israeli pessimism seems largely if not entirely unwarranted. It seems based on an extraordinary lack of understanding of what happened in the Arab world in the last year and a half. Rather than girding their loins for the fifth, sixth, seventh Israeli-Arab wars. The Israelis might examine more carefully than they seem to have done so far the alternative of a peaceful accommodation with the Arabs."

This is not a reference to the "Arab Spring." No, it's from a dispatch sent from the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia, January 9, 1975. It concluded that the lack of peace in the Arab-Israeli conflict was Israel’s fault. That dispatch could be published—as we will see in a moment—word for word today, 38 years later, with just as little accuracy. 

The dispatch reflects the unshakable premise--well, from time to time it does decline or disappear for a while--that the Arab side really wants peace, that Israel is not so much threatened but paranoid, that Israel doesn't think enough about making peace, and that conditions in the Arab world demonstrate that peace is possible or even imminent.

What was happening at that point in time? The PLO was energetically pursuing terrorism, including deliberate operations against Israeli civilians, and openly declaring that it would never make peace with Israel and that if it got a West Bank-Gaza Palestinian state it would use that as a springboard for wiping out the remainder of Israel. 

Lebanon was a country where the PLO could operate with complete freedom of action, controlling the south and launching cross-border attacks whenever it pleased. Syria and Iraq were ruled by radical Ba’thist regimes dedicated to Israel’s destruction and sponsoring terrorism. Egypt was about to be engaged by Israel in secret negotiations while constant behind-the-scenes discussions were being held by Israel with Jordan.

Yes, in Egypt President Anwar al-Sadat was thinking about the usefulness of peace with Israel as a solution to Egypt’s woes. But let’s also remember that after he made peace Egypt was isolated by every other Arab states and denounced by them (and the PLO). And of course Sadat was assassinated. And of course while the peace treaty survived, much of it wasn’t implemented. Of course, though Israel did seize the opportunity of making peace with Egypt at the price of material concessions.

The PLO only took about two decades more and being on the verge of extinction before it agreed to negotiate. And then it broke its commitments and rejected a two-state solution.

And what was the name of the supposedly hard-line, closed minded prime minister of Israel at that time who just refused to take the obvious steps that would have allegedly brought peace? Answer: Yitzhak Rabin.

A serious paradigm would understand that for deep-seated structural reasons the Middle East was not on the verge of comprehensive peace then and the same applies to today.

Now the Washington Post has published an editorial entitled, “John Kerry’s efforts in Middle East could lay groundwork for success.”  Yes, once again we are on the verge of progress! Yet in a real way the editorial is realistic. The success predicted for Kerry merely maintains the status quo of not having peace. Expectations have been considerably lowered yet the fiction must be maintained that peace is almost at hand and thus this issue should be a very high priority for U.S. diplomacy.

The editorial begins by saying that, yes, a U.S. obsession with the Arab-Israel conflict today seems strange with other issues seeming to be more serious:

“Syria’s civil war… gets worse every day. So does Egypt’s domestic political and economic turmoil. The terrorists who assaulted the U.S. Consulate in Libya have yet to be corralled; Iraq is on the verge of splitting into sectarian pieces; negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program are going nowhere.”

You foolish little people who lack the gigantic brains and profound wisdom of such geniuses who live thousands of miles away from the deadly consequences of their political positions. Because despite the fact that the “peace process”:

“Has proved resistant to the diplomacy of President Obama and numberless previous secretaries of state, but also is not, for now, the source of any of the fires raging across the region.”

And both sides, the editorial continues, put forward preconditions—Abbas “deftly,” since he must be praised even for blocking progress toward peace in a move that he’s been doing for years. 

And yet, there’s supposedly something brilliant in what Kerry is doing:

“In pursuing a new peace process in spite of the leaders’ resistance, Mr. Kerry is making an assumption that Mr. Obama has rejected elsewhere in the region: that by leading from the front, the United States can force events and impose solutions. If his goal is a final agreement on Palestinian statehood, he has almost no chance for success.”

Ah, so the goal of peacemaking isn’t to make peace?

“”The initiative could still prove useful, if it is carefully crafted. Encouragingly, Mr. Kerry is beginning with an economic initiative, what he described as `specific steps that we could take to . . . expedite the goal of economic growth in the West Bank.’ He is talking to Mr. Netanyahu about Mr. Abbas’s objective of prisoner releases and to Mr. Abbas about refraining from further action at the United Nations targeting Israel. He appears to have persuaded Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan to postpone a potentially provocative visit to the Gaza Strip.”

This is absurd. First, Israel has put forward the goal of economic growth in the West Bank for years. It’s nothing new and indeed there has been for several years the appearance of growth which has now once again fallen apart. Economic development always founders because no one in their right mind would invest in an economy ruled by corrupt kleptocrats who keep insisting that they are about to go to war again. In 2009 it was common to claim that economic growth was raising living standards in the West Bank. Now, however, everyone knows that the economy is doing badly. Why? Because the flow of aid has been reduced. In other words, "economic growth" is purely due to sending in money to pay a regime over-heavy with security forces, plus a bit of speculative construction of luxury apartments.

Second, Netanyahu had rejected the prisoner releases already. There have been literally dozens of such releases previously during the last two decades with no lasting effect whatsoever, except that many of the released prisoners return to terrorist activities.

Third, Abbas' great compromise is not to seek membership as a state in more UN bodies. He won't keep that promise long and he is busy on a different diplomatic front. For example, Turkey has announced that it will send an ambassador to Palestine; Guatemala recognized a Palestinian state. Kerry only closed off one way of exploiting the PA's gain at the UN that had been achieved due to Obama Administration incompetence.

Fourth, Israel's entire experience during the 1993-2000 "peace process" era is ignored: the yielding territory to Palestinian groups brings more, not less problems; that Israeli concessions do not make it more popular or ensure that its sacrifices are accepted internationally.

Fifth, Erdogan has already rescheduled his trip to the Gaza Strip. And, if the editors only read their own newspaper they would see that Erdogan has been systematically showing that the Turkey-Israel rapprochement supposedly engineered by Obama and Kerry is a joke.

Sixth, it appears as if PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has finally been pushed out of office so the corruption (which makes it impossible to improve Palestinian living standards) and doctrinaire revolutionary ideology of Fatah can be unfettered. This behavior by the PA is a slap at the Western donors, showing that it ignores their wishes, though that doesn’t even factor into the editorial. Without Fayyad and given the battle beginning over the succession to "President" Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian decisionmaking process is paralyzed.

Seventh, there’s no consideration of the regional situation already mentioned in the editorial. If radicalism is triumphing in Egypt and Syria; the United States can’t or won’t protect its ambassador to Libya or go after those responsible from being murdered in a client state; if Iraq is falling apart showing that any Arab regime’s commitments cannot be expected to last; if Iran is likely to get nuclear weapons then Kerry’s piddling little game-playing is worthless. The PA is hardly going to risk "moderation" with Islamists everywhere ready to denounce such a move as treason.

Eighth, there's still the little matter of Hamas ruling the Gaza Strip. The PA cannot commit the Palestinian side in any decision. Moreover, the U.S. policy of the Bush era--show PA prosperity while weakening Hamas so Palestinians could see the moderation pays--was dismantled by the Obama Administration which reduced punishing Gaza to a minimum.

We have radical Islamists running Egypt, Tunisia, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, the Gaza Strip, and Turkey but on the other hand we’re working to get more investment on the West Bank!

Here are the two latest developments in the current Middle East:

The U.S. government has concluded that the Syrian regime used sarin, nerve gas, against its own people. If the rebels win they may well have that weapon. The leading forces on both sides have sworn to wipe Israel off the map.

In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood government seeks to force the retirement of lots of judges it doesn't like. If that happens--and the judges will be replaced by Islamists who are now judging on the basis of a Sharia-compliant constitution--there will be no remaining institutional barriers against the Brotherhood regime doing what it wants.

Back to the editorial which concludes:

“These measures could serve to ease tensions [tensions continually raised by the Palestinian leadership whenever it wants to get something—BR], make life better for Palestinians [the newspaper would be better advised to consider why the last effort to make life better for Palestinians has just collapsed—BR] and lay the groundwork for a day when serious negotiations about Palestinian statehood will be possible [and why isn’t it possible now? How about the assumptions you refuse to examine about why there isn’t peace—BR]. If that is the aim, Mr. Kerry’s diplomacy could prove worthwhile.”

There is a curious error in the last sentence. Who cares what the “aim” of Kerry’s diplomacy is? Good intentions are not a measure of results. We are just seeing the same formula that has failed repeatedly in the past being once more mindlessly applied.

So in many ways the conventional wisdom has not progressed in 40 years. 

It is often forbidden to consider that the lack of peace is due to the Arab side. 

It is often forbidden that given regional and Palestinian political conditions Israel's policy response is very rational.

It is often forbidden to consider that diplomatic efforts will not bring progress. 

It is often forbidden to conclude that the region is become a worse and more dangerous place. 

And it is often forbidden to consider that—although this editorial goes as close as any mass media organ dares—there just isn’t going to be formal Israel-Palestinian peace for a long time to come.

If you are interested in reading more about the Arab-Israeli conflict, current regional situation you're welcome to read my book Tragedy of the Middle East online or download it for free.

If you are interested in reading more about the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, you're welcome to read my book The Arab States and the Palestine Conflict online or download it for free.

This article is published on PJMedia.

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Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center  and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

Common Sense About the Syrian Mess

By Barry Rubin

"I know what the world thinks of us, we are Communists, and of course I have said very clearly that we are not Communists; very clearly."              --Fidel Castro, 1959

U.S. policy toward Syria has changed but it is too late. A senior State Department official said at the meeting just concluded of opposition groups: "We have to help the moderates, people like [Chief of Staff of the Free Syrian Army] Salim Idris….” 

This is what I proposed two years ago but I have to admit that I almost never saw anyone else who suggested that the strategy should be to help the non-Islamists with money, weapons, and diplomatic support.

Unlike Castro, the Islamists in Syria never lied about their goals and ideologies. Now the Islamists are far more powerful and well-armed than anyone else, courtesy of U.S. policy. Oh, and there's one more problem. Many or most of the Free Syrian Army's troops, that is the supposed non- or anti-Islamist alternative, are also Muslim Brotherhood supporters.

So what’s there to do with revolutionary Islamists controlling Syria and sooner or later, though it might take a couple of years, taking over the whole country or at least gaining recognition as the legitimate government of Syria while the regime holds out in the northwest of the country?

That’s okay, says the main line of U.S. policy. We don’t care if they are America-hating fanatics who want to impose Sharia, suppress or even massacre Christians, and commit genocide against Jews. Just as long as they aren’t affiliated with al-Qaida.

Beyond this, there’s mostly wishful thinking. Compare these statements by a Turkish diplomat and a Saudi newspaper:

“Once Assad is gone, al-Qaeda won’t stay long in Syria.”

"We know that there are radical forces like [al-Qaida] but do not overestimate them.”

But it seems impossible to get the mainstream debate to recognize the fact that the problem is not merely al-Qaida but other radical Salafists and another Muslim Brotherhood government.

What kind of situation would another Egypt bring about in the Middle East?

What will happen within Syria which historically is a far more radical entity (for historical, political culture, and geopolitical reasons) than Egypt?

What will be the fate of all those modern-oriented women, liberals, Alawites, Christians, Druze, and Kurds?

Going beyond the largely worthless current debate on Syria let's look ahead into the seemingly inevitable future. We can reasonably assume that the Assad regime might last another year or two but it will either retreat to the Alawite areas by then or have fallen totally. There is by the way another possibility. Rebels make advances in Damascus, then use the opportunity to announce the establishment of a provisional government there. The United States and other countries then recognize it--despite Assad's continuing hold on much of the country--as the legitimate government of Syria.

Whatever happens, there will be a Muslim Brotherhood regime in Syria and Obama will support it. The Salafis will not rule but they will kill people, intimidate non- or anti-Islamist forces, and probably be the main force in various local areas of the country.

Many conservatives and Republicans favor more intervention which means in practice working even harder to install an Islamist regime in Syria. That's a terrible idea. With few exceptions they never seem to grasp the point about supporting the non-Islamist forces and not just the Syrian rebels in general as if they were glorious freedom fighters.

A few other people favor supporting the Assad dictatorship to keep the Islamists out of power. This is another terrible idea. Aside for morality and the impossibility of saving Assad, no Western country is going to adopt such a policy. Whatever its past, the Assad regime had in effect become an Islamist regime, a Shia Islamist regime, and its fall will weaken Iran and Hizballah.

The problem, of course, is that its fall will also strengthen  the Sunni Islamists. According to estimates by my colleague, Dr. Jonathan Spyer:

--Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, has about 6,000 fighters.

--The Syrian Islamic Front (dominated by Ahrar al-Sham) has about 13,000 fighters.

--The Syrian Islamic Liberation Front, which seems close to the Muslim Brotherhood, (including the Farouq Brigade of Homs; Suqour al-Sham of Idleb, and Tawhid Brigade of Aleppo) has about 40,000 fighters. It is not clear whether these groups are under the Brotherhood's discipline. If they aren't then the situation is even worse since that means the Salafist forces are stronger than they seem.

Even this numerical advantage understates the Brotherhood’s power because its political leadership is centralized while Jabhat al-Nusra is spread thinly across the country and the Syrian Islamic Front is a loose coalition of different Salafist groups.

But the Brotherhood won't suppress even the most extremist ones, that is al-Qaida, as long as they don't attack the new central government and don't disrupt the country too much. The Brotherhood will let them attack, massacre, and bully the country's Alawites, Christians, Druze, political moderates, and non-Islamist women.

The too-late proposed Western strategy is to strengthen non-Islamist forces in Syria and to create safe zones, for minorities and to keep out Salafists, near Syria's borders. This looks good on paper but it won't work for several reasons.

First, the non-Islamist forces are too weak to hold any territory. his might be influenced by the successful creation of such a zone for the Kurds in northern Iraq. Yet the Iraqi Kurds were a well-armed, coherent ethnic group that was sufficiently united and had favorable terrain. These conditions don't apply to Syria, or at least only for Syrian Kurds and Druze, not for the Sunni Muslim majority or Christian minority. The setting up of safe zones on, say, the Jordanian and Israeli borders will simply be an attractive target for Salafists who will mobilize popular support by branding the "moderates" as the traitorous tools of infidels and attacking them. Non-Islamist forces are also at this point unreliable and some of those groups touted as "moderates" seem to be closer to the Brotherhood.

And then we will once again be told that the Islamists and lots of Muslims only hates the West because it invades their countries and intervenes against them. Incidentally, don't be surprised when after the revolution the victorious Islamists will claim that the West was behind the old dictatorship--a lie--and that not giving the rebels even more weapons was a Western stab in the back that further merits hatred.

Given these realities, then, the task of Western policy will be based on the understanding that they will not be able to shape events in Syria. It could have been different if a proper policy had been followed earlier.

The best that can be done now would be to help Christians either to survive or flee; to assist Druze and Kurds protect themselves by strengthening the former's militia and the latter's autonomy; and even, as a purely humanitarian strategy if Assad has fallen, to help Alawite civilians not guilty of war crimes to escape.  Otherwise, thousands of people could be massacred.

There are other important issues that simply are not being fully discussed:

Will Western countries allow those in threat of being killed to be granted political asylum for thousands of Druze, Christians, Alawites, and moderate Sunni Arabs? Or will they insist that everything is great in Syria and even push back the refugees who have already left the country?

Will Western countries correct the disastrous policy toward Egypt and actually help moderate Sunni Arabs, or at least anti-Islamist Sunni Arabs, to organize for elections and political influence so that the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists don't steamroller over them?

Will Western countries give additional help to Israel, having helped to bring it a new and more energetic enemy on its border, or Jordan, a moderate regime that the West usually takes for granted?

Will Western countries do a better job than in Libya about collecting advanced weapons so they aren't use for terrorism against Syria's own people, a Syrian Kurdish autonomous zone, Israel, Jordan, and Iraq?

People will continue to debate increased Western intervention but--and U.S. policymakers now partly understand this--to deal with the strategic disaster that's been created, in part by them.

If you are interested in reading more about Syria, you're welcome to read my book The Truth About Syria online or download it for free.

This article is published on PJMedia.

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Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His next book, Nazis, Islamists and the Making of the Modern Middle East, written with Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, will be published by Yale University Press in January 2014. His latest book is Israel: An Introduction, also published by Yale. Thirteen of his books can be read and downloaded for free at the website of the GLORIA Center including The Arab States and the Palestine Conflict, The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East and The Truth About Syria. His blog is Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.