By Barry Rubin
What could be more boring, you might ask, then a press conference following the meeting between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Qatar Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jabr al-Thani? Well, a little document like this is a gold mine of interesting stuff that either won’t be covered or won’t be understood in the mass media.
Qatar, though tiny, is a very interesting country. On one hand, it hosts al-Udayd air base which is vital for the U.S. presence in the Gulf. On the other hand, it hosts and owns al-Jazira television which incites anti-Americanism. To make matters worse, Qatar has been the Gulf Arab state closest to Iran, which hosted the anti-American and radical summit led by the Iran-Syria bloc.
So Qatar is hedging its bets rather well. In public, Hillary isn’t going to complain about this stuff. Did she do so in the private meeting? Perhaps, though the jollity of al-Thani, a member of the ruling family, seems to belie any tough words from the secretary of state. But this is going too far:
“Qatar is a friend and an ally of the United States, and the partnership between our two countries is a model of the new beginning based on mutual respect and mutual interest that President Obama called for in Cairo.”
A model? Well, is that signaling countries like Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia that they can be praised as a model partner if they were to bash the United States more and cozy up to Tehran?
One matter the two leaders discussed was Yemen, which has become a headquarters for anti-American jihad, notably the recent plane bombing attempt. Hillary said the United States is working with Qatar, also thanking Qatar or its “efforts to facilitate an end to the crisis in Darfur and to promote security and stability in the broader Middle East as well as Africa.” As Egyptian and other Arab leaders will tell you, they consider Qatar a major contributor to regional instability.
Hillary also praised Qatar for its help in Israel-Palestinian peace (more on this in a moment), Iraq, and Iran. And finally—it’s impressive Clinton could say this with a straight face:
“Let me express our appreciation to His Excellency and to His Majesty the Emir and his country for their actions in combating hunger and poverty and disease across the region and the world.” No I don’t think Qatar, given its massive wealth, has been one of the planet's main philanthropists.
One other thing Clinton said is rather disturbing. It is now in the Obama Administration talking points to say that the Palestinians "deserve" a state. This is quite a stupid formulation for it implies that it is theirs no matter what they do and nothing more is required of them.
In this approach, having a state isn't something to be earned by showing you are moderate, ending terrorism and incitement, truly accepting Israel's existence, providing strong security guarantees, and resettling your refugees in your own country. According ot the U.S. government, Palestinian statehood is an entitlement. So why shouldn't the Palestinians demand that they get all the compromises and concessions and give nothing themselves? The world owes them a state. By such policies the Obama Administration undermines its own leverage on the issue. One more nail in the already studded coffin of the peace process.
Now, what did Thani say in response to all of this. Yemen? Sure, what’s required there is a peaceful solution, not defeating the terrorists and the Iran-backed rebels. Remember, Qatar is more on Iran’s side than any other Arab states except for Syria. Palestinians? Here’s his suggestion:
“But the most important things is how we can do a unity governments [sic] between the Palestinians so they can concentrate how to deal in the peace process….”
What’s this mean? Why that the Palestinian Authority should go into a coalition with Hamas, a step that would ensure no progress could possibly be made since the latter is dedicated to Israel’s destruction and the creation of a radical Islamist state allied to Iran.
This doesn’t mean Qatar simply took a hard line on the issue. It advocated negotiations and while bashing Israel a bit Thani also said something very important: “and it’s an opportunity with this Administration to bring us together to a long-lasting peace between us and Israel.” By Arab standards that’s a significantly dovish thing to say (I wonder I that phrase will be quoted on al-Jazira, which is not allowed to criticize the Qatari government. Somehow I doubt it.)
Finally, an intriguing hint from Thani about Arab countries having given Clinton some kind of “letter o guarantees” relating to the peace process back around October and waiting or a U.S. response. What’s that about?
What does Thani say about Iran? The solution to the nuclear weapons’ drive must come through dialogue. Nothing he said would bother Tehran.
As for Clinton, her remark that the United States was “disappointed” by Tehran’s rejection of the U.S. proposal and “deeply disturbed” by repression makes it sound like the United States is still more involved in engagement than with pressure.
She, too, said something astonishing, regarding Iran:
“Now, we’ve avoided using the term `deadline’ ourselves. That’s not a term that we have used because we want to keep the door to dialogue open.”
What? The Obama Administration has repeatedly stated that it was setting a deadline by the end of 2009 in which sanctions would be raised unless Iran changed its approach. This statement can only be read in Tehran as a backing down by Washington.
Her saying, “We have already begun discussions with our partners and with likeminded nations about pressure and sanctions,” doesn’t sound like this is a high-priority activity. We’re in no hurry and we’ve just started talking. We’ll get back to you some time.
I wrote this predicting that the Iranian regime would pick up on this remark and sure enough in less than a day it came back in pleased triumph. Ramin Mehmanparast, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman responded:
"We share the same idea with her. Deadlines are meaningless. We hope other countries return to their natural path, too."
In other words, we're glad the United States is giving us all the time in the world to develop nuclear weapons.
Clinton also confirmed my worst fears about the kind of limited sanctions the administration envisions: “Our goal is to pressure the Iranian Government, particularly the Revolutionary Guard elements, without contributing to the suffering of the ordinary Iranians who deserve better than what they currently are receiving.”
In other words, Clinton is saying, we’re going to make sure the sanctions don’t really damage the Iranian economy and at most limit the income by a tiny percentage of those getting rich within Iran itself.
I'm going to predict--and I've analyzed this in more detail here--that any sanctions on Iran from the Obama administration are going to be slow in coming and incredibly ineffective, even in comparison to what was expected a few months ago. For more on this issue, see my detailed analysis.
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). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Monday, January 4, 2010
The Suicidal Rules of Arab Political Debate: How Relatively Moderate Regimes are Robbed of Self-Defense
By Barry Rubin
It’s always interesting to analyze those little stories that show so clearly the rules of Arab politics and debate, themes which never quite find their way into the Western media, which only see these issues in a Western political and intellectual framework. Yet if you want to understand Middle East politics it is imperative to comprehend such realities.
The example here is a statement by Egyptian Minister of Legal Affairs Mofid Shehab attacking al-Jazira television for, in his words, “instigating civil war” in Egypt. Al-Jazira has been complaining that Egypt is building a steel barrier along its border with the Gaza Strip to block Hamas from smuggling in weapons and other things.
Shehab complains:.
"A number of Arab satellite stations, and [al-Jazira] especially, have placed themselves as responsible for the sovereignty of our country, and as usual have poisoned the public against the state."
Here are some of the rules. The more militant a group is in fighting Israel or the West, the better. All Arab regimes are supposed to help these groups without reservation, even if it damages their infrastructure and drags it into an unwanted war (Lebanon in 2006; Jordan in the 1960s).
Egypt is building the barrier because it views Hamas as an enemy of the Egyptian regime and national interest in two respects. First, Cairo sees Hamas as an instrument of Iran and its bloc, a grab for regional power of Persian, Shias, and Islamists to the determinant of Arabs, Sunnis, and Arab nationalists.
Second, because Hamas is aligned with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood which wants to overthrow the regime. If Hamas succeeds in entrenching itself in the Gaza Strip, that will be an inspiration to the regime’s enemies at home, while the arms’ smuggling will also eventually provide more guns for terrorists within Egypt.
Consequently, the Egyptian government would like to see Hamas fall from power in the Gaza Strip and be replaced by a Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority regime. But given the constraints of Arab politics, it will not do too much to bring about that outcome. Similarly, the Egyptian government would be happy in theory if the Palestinians made peace with Israel, ended the conflict, and obtained a state. Again, though it won't do much toward that goal other than insisting the United States has to make it happen.
The above is basic and normal national interests’ stuff. Yet not one word of this—or at least very little--can be expressed by Egypt. After all, Hamas is fighting Israel and Western influence, so that has to be good. It is “Islamist,” piously Muslim, so that has to be good, too. Iran and Syria can speak and act freely; Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan cannot.
Shehab expresses his views in an interview with al-Ahram, a regime-controlled newspaper. Clearly, Hamas’s use of statist repression isn’t something repugnant in principle to the Egyptian government. And so Shehab switches the target from Hamas itself to foreign news media which is assumed to be the instrument of another state rather than merely reporting facts.
The goal of these television networks, explains Shehab, is, “To engender a civil war and inflame the Egyptian and Arab streets, and cause a clash of official authorities."
That is, calling attention to the wall is intended to stir up Egyptians against their own government. How come they’re restricting rather than helping Hamas in its battles? Since Shehab’s government cannot answer that question within the bounds of permitted discourse, it has to focus on the mere raising of the issue as the problem.
Shehab then raises another issue in his arsenal: al-Jazira and other Arab media attacked Israel during the Cast Lead operation in the Gaza Strip in early 2009. They now criticize Egypt. Therefore, according to this logic, they are comparing Egypt to Israel, which is unacceptable: "They have launched a war against the Egyptians just as they did during the barbaric attack on Gaza a year ago."
The mythology must be maintained that all Arabs are always on the same side and that all Muslims are always on the same side. The good guys are good guys who cannot be criticized; the bad guys are always bad guys who must always be criticized. Indeed, Shehab then turns to the ultimate weapon, the atomic bomb of propaganda: attacking Israel and America:
"Why didn't Al-Jazeera have a single word of condemnation to say about the weapons, missiles, and smart bombs that were sent from Al Udeid Base [in Qatar]to Israel in order to bomb the residents of Gaza?"
This is quite a startling lie for a cabinet minister of a “moderate” government “aligned” with the United States and receiving massive amounts of American aid. Shehab, obviously with permission from the highest levels of the Egyptian government is trying to “inflame the Egyptian and Arab streets, and cause a clash" of the Arab masses with the United States.
And of course it is untrue, a lie that could lead to terrorist murders of Americans. There was no U.S. equipment shipped to Israel especially in order to be dropped on the Gaza Strip, especially not from Qatar (which is singled out here because it is the master of al-Jazira). In other words, the proper response for any criticism by Arabs or Muslims is: Oh yeah! Well, you’re a murdering Zionist agent and a lackey of American imperialism!
This is, one must remind oneself, the end of the twenty-first century’s first decade while in the Middle East it is just like being in the 1960s. And the early 1960s at that.
Indeed, Shehab continues, this specific report is a Zionist operation to discredit Egypt:
"This civil war network is first and foremost an Israeli tool. It transferred reports on the Egyptian construction on the border from the news agencies in Israel and has begun to weave its usual plot."
Of course, Israel is happy that Egypt is building this wall. Precisely at the moment when Egyptian and Israeli interests align, the Egyptian government has to step up its verbal attacks on Israel.
The minister does note indirectly that the barrier is being built to avoid a repeat of the time in January 2008 when many Gazans broke through the border defenses as Hamas gunmen shot at Egyptian soldiers. "I ask all Egyptians, and all those who support their homeland, are you willing to accept the violation of your country's sovereignty?"
Shehab thus indulges in a bit of Egyptian patriotism, which is permissible though usually only as a secondary factor which doesn’t enjoy the same level of legitimacy of the other arguments. In short, a more moderate state, at least, is not quite able to pursue its own interests.
They can go against the current when necessary but always at a cost. Egypt made peace with Israel, for example, but faced years of boycott, President Anwar al-Sadat was assassinated, and the peace cannot be a warm one. Saudi Arabia can seek Western help in the fact of Iraq’s seizure of Kuwait but the cost is the rise of Usama bin Ladin and years of terrorism.
Already criticisms and demonstrations are starting against the Egyptian wall in various countries. The claim is that the structure is unacceptable because it “helps” Israel. The fact that it also helps Egypt as much or more is not considered to be relevant.
Thus, one sees in this little item, as in hundreds more, how crippled the Arabic-speaking world is by its own form of Political Correctness. Such a doctrine is incompatible with democracy at home, full peace with Israel or a real alliance with the West. The question for the future is whether it is compatible with the survival of the Arab regimes themselves in the face of a challenge from Iran and revolutionary Islamists.
It’s always interesting to analyze those little stories that show so clearly the rules of Arab politics and debate, themes which never quite find their way into the Western media, which only see these issues in a Western political and intellectual framework. Yet if you want to understand Middle East politics it is imperative to comprehend such realities.
The example here is a statement by Egyptian Minister of Legal Affairs Mofid Shehab attacking al-Jazira television for, in his words, “instigating civil war” in Egypt. Al-Jazira has been complaining that Egypt is building a steel barrier along its border with the Gaza Strip to block Hamas from smuggling in weapons and other things.
Shehab complains:.
"A number of Arab satellite stations, and [al-Jazira] especially, have placed themselves as responsible for the sovereignty of our country, and as usual have poisoned the public against the state."
Here are some of the rules. The more militant a group is in fighting Israel or the West, the better. All Arab regimes are supposed to help these groups without reservation, even if it damages their infrastructure and drags it into an unwanted war (Lebanon in 2006; Jordan in the 1960s).
Egypt is building the barrier because it views Hamas as an enemy of the Egyptian regime and national interest in two respects. First, Cairo sees Hamas as an instrument of Iran and its bloc, a grab for regional power of Persian, Shias, and Islamists to the determinant of Arabs, Sunnis, and Arab nationalists.
Second, because Hamas is aligned with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood which wants to overthrow the regime. If Hamas succeeds in entrenching itself in the Gaza Strip, that will be an inspiration to the regime’s enemies at home, while the arms’ smuggling will also eventually provide more guns for terrorists within Egypt.
Consequently, the Egyptian government would like to see Hamas fall from power in the Gaza Strip and be replaced by a Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority regime. But given the constraints of Arab politics, it will not do too much to bring about that outcome. Similarly, the Egyptian government would be happy in theory if the Palestinians made peace with Israel, ended the conflict, and obtained a state. Again, though it won't do much toward that goal other than insisting the United States has to make it happen.
The above is basic and normal national interests’ stuff. Yet not one word of this—or at least very little--can be expressed by Egypt. After all, Hamas is fighting Israel and Western influence, so that has to be good. It is “Islamist,” piously Muslim, so that has to be good, too. Iran and Syria can speak and act freely; Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan cannot.
Shehab expresses his views in an interview with al-Ahram, a regime-controlled newspaper. Clearly, Hamas’s use of statist repression isn’t something repugnant in principle to the Egyptian government. And so Shehab switches the target from Hamas itself to foreign news media which is assumed to be the instrument of another state rather than merely reporting facts.
The goal of these television networks, explains Shehab, is, “To engender a civil war and inflame the Egyptian and Arab streets, and cause a clash of official authorities."
That is, calling attention to the wall is intended to stir up Egyptians against their own government. How come they’re restricting rather than helping Hamas in its battles? Since Shehab’s government cannot answer that question within the bounds of permitted discourse, it has to focus on the mere raising of the issue as the problem.
Shehab then raises another issue in his arsenal: al-Jazira and other Arab media attacked Israel during the Cast Lead operation in the Gaza Strip in early 2009. They now criticize Egypt. Therefore, according to this logic, they are comparing Egypt to Israel, which is unacceptable: "They have launched a war against the Egyptians just as they did during the barbaric attack on Gaza a year ago."
The mythology must be maintained that all Arabs are always on the same side and that all Muslims are always on the same side. The good guys are good guys who cannot be criticized; the bad guys are always bad guys who must always be criticized. Indeed, Shehab then turns to the ultimate weapon, the atomic bomb of propaganda: attacking Israel and America:
"Why didn't Al-Jazeera have a single word of condemnation to say about the weapons, missiles, and smart bombs that were sent from Al Udeid Base [in Qatar]to Israel in order to bomb the residents of Gaza?"
This is quite a startling lie for a cabinet minister of a “moderate” government “aligned” with the United States and receiving massive amounts of American aid. Shehab, obviously with permission from the highest levels of the Egyptian government is trying to “inflame the Egyptian and Arab streets, and cause a clash" of the Arab masses with the United States.
And of course it is untrue, a lie that could lead to terrorist murders of Americans. There was no U.S. equipment shipped to Israel especially in order to be dropped on the Gaza Strip, especially not from Qatar (which is singled out here because it is the master of al-Jazira). In other words, the proper response for any criticism by Arabs or Muslims is: Oh yeah! Well, you’re a murdering Zionist agent and a lackey of American imperialism!
This is, one must remind oneself, the end of the twenty-first century’s first decade while in the Middle East it is just like being in the 1960s. And the early 1960s at that.
Indeed, Shehab continues, this specific report is a Zionist operation to discredit Egypt:
"This civil war network is first and foremost an Israeli tool. It transferred reports on the Egyptian construction on the border from the news agencies in Israel and has begun to weave its usual plot."
Of course, Israel is happy that Egypt is building this wall. Precisely at the moment when Egyptian and Israeli interests align, the Egyptian government has to step up its verbal attacks on Israel.
The minister does note indirectly that the barrier is being built to avoid a repeat of the time in January 2008 when many Gazans broke through the border defenses as Hamas gunmen shot at Egyptian soldiers. "I ask all Egyptians, and all those who support their homeland, are you willing to accept the violation of your country's sovereignty?"
Shehab thus indulges in a bit of Egyptian patriotism, which is permissible though usually only as a secondary factor which doesn’t enjoy the same level of legitimacy of the other arguments. In short, a more moderate state, at least, is not quite able to pursue its own interests.
They can go against the current when necessary but always at a cost. Egypt made peace with Israel, for example, but faced years of boycott, President Anwar al-Sadat was assassinated, and the peace cannot be a warm one. Saudi Arabia can seek Western help in the fact of Iraq’s seizure of Kuwait but the cost is the rise of Usama bin Ladin and years of terrorism.
Already criticisms and demonstrations are starting against the Egyptian wall in various countries. The claim is that the structure is unacceptable because it “helps” Israel. The fact that it also helps Egypt as much or more is not considered to be relevant.
Thus, one sees in this little item, as in hundreds more, how crippled the Arabic-speaking world is by its own form of Political Correctness. Such a doctrine is incompatible with democracy at home, full peace with Israel or a real alliance with the West. The question for the future is whether it is compatible with the survival of the Arab regimes themselves in the face of a challenge from Iran and revolutionary Islamists.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Casualties and Solutions in the Israel-Palestinian Conflict, 2009
By Barry Rubin
If you launch a West Bank operation to defeat a terrorist war (against international complaints); build a security fence (despite international criticism); and fight a defensive action in the Gaza Strip (despite international condemnation) the result is that fewer of your citizens are murdered.
And that outcome is far more important than the international criticisms and slanders.
In 2009, Israel suffered the lowest number of casualties during the last decade. A total of 15 Israelis were killed last year, down from 36 in 2008. Nine of the 15 were killed during Israel’s offensive into Gaza (four soldiers killed by Hamas fire; five civilians killed by Hamas rockets). One soldier was killed later in a Hamas cross-border attack and five civilians were killed in terror attacks from the West Bank. Another four soldiers were killed in the Gaza war by friendly fire.
Compared to 2,048 rockets fired from Gaza in 2008, only 566 were shot off in 2009, mostly in the very beginning of the year before the Israeli operation in Gaza was completed.
Oh, by the way, on January 1 the Washington Post covered the story of this report about low Israeli casualties but didn't mention anything about the security fence or the operation in the Gaza Strip as having made this possible. It did mention the PA's limited security cooperation with Israel on the West Bank as a factor because Palestinians can be given some credit but Israel building a security barrier or using force for defensive purposes doesn't fit the narrative.
Almost no Palestinians were killed on the West Bank for the simple reason that they were not waging warfare against Israel. The restraint of the Palestinian Authority paid off in terms of low levels of violence and successful economic development.
A far larger number of Palestinians were killed in Gaza, though far fewer civilians than is generally claimed. This was the result, of course, of Hamas reopening the war in late 2008, despite Israeli pleas to continue the ceasefire.
Regarding the Palestine Committee on Human Rights’ figures, which are uncritically used by virtually all the media and NGOs, 1415 Gazans were killed in the fighting (previous lists counted 1417 or 1434). The group claims that of this number, 926 were civilians, including 313 children and 116 women; 255 were non-combatant police officers (they count only 10 of them as combatants). According to this report, 236 combatants were killed, representing 16.7 percent of the total deaths.
The blog Elder of Ziyon, among others, has done extensive documented research on this issue.
7 of them were either duplicates (5), killed by Hamas (1) or blank (1.) This leaves 1408.
After doing detailed studies of Hamas and Palestinian media accounts, Elders of Ziyon was able to identify specifically 661 of these 1408 as combatants. This included police and others who were praised by Hamas or Palestinian media as heroic fighters and members of military formations. Here's another detailed study.
No doubt, a higher figure could be arrived at with more information from Hamas and other Palestinian sources. In addition, many civilians who were killed were acting at the time as voluntary or involuntary human shields for Hamas fighters. All of those who died—whether civilian or armed—did so as a result of Hamas’s decisions to wage war on Israel and to hide among and behind civilians as its military strategy.
Equally important, Israel’s strategy should be recognized as being as successful as possible in defending its own citizens. Since the Palestinian side—both Palestinian Authority and Hamas—refuse to end the conflict, no such strategy can be perfectly successful.
The principle of asymmetric warfare used by Palestinian groups dictates continuing the conflict no matter how high the costs and losses and no matter how low the possibility of military victory. The battle is to be continued in order to wear down the adversary and bring in outside political forces which will be mobilized for the Palestinian side precisely by the appearance of suffering and the reality of continued strife.
One hopes that the year 2010 will see less suffering on both sides. But we should—especially if we want to minimize that suffering and solve the conflict—recognize from where that suffering arises and how it can be mitigated by defensive measures, maintaining Israeli strategic credibility, weakening terrorist forces, and realistic diplomacy
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). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
If you launch a West Bank operation to defeat a terrorist war (against international complaints); build a security fence (despite international criticism); and fight a defensive action in the Gaza Strip (despite international condemnation) the result is that fewer of your citizens are murdered.
And that outcome is far more important than the international criticisms and slanders.
In 2009, Israel suffered the lowest number of casualties during the last decade. A total of 15 Israelis were killed last year, down from 36 in 2008. Nine of the 15 were killed during Israel’s offensive into Gaza (four soldiers killed by Hamas fire; five civilians killed by Hamas rockets). One soldier was killed later in a Hamas cross-border attack and five civilians were killed in terror attacks from the West Bank. Another four soldiers were killed in the Gaza war by friendly fire.
Compared to 2,048 rockets fired from Gaza in 2008, only 566 were shot off in 2009, mostly in the very beginning of the year before the Israeli operation in Gaza was completed.
Oh, by the way, on January 1 the Washington Post covered the story of this report about low Israeli casualties but didn't mention anything about the security fence or the operation in the Gaza Strip as having made this possible. It did mention the PA's limited security cooperation with Israel on the West Bank as a factor because Palestinians can be given some credit but Israel building a security barrier or using force for defensive purposes doesn't fit the narrative.
Almost no Palestinians were killed on the West Bank for the simple reason that they were not waging warfare against Israel. The restraint of the Palestinian Authority paid off in terms of low levels of violence and successful economic development.
A far larger number of Palestinians were killed in Gaza, though far fewer civilians than is generally claimed. This was the result, of course, of Hamas reopening the war in late 2008, despite Israeli pleas to continue the ceasefire.
Regarding the Palestine Committee on Human Rights’ figures, which are uncritically used by virtually all the media and NGOs, 1415 Gazans were killed in the fighting (previous lists counted 1417 or 1434). The group claims that of this number, 926 were civilians, including 313 children and 116 women; 255 were non-combatant police officers (they count only 10 of them as combatants). According to this report, 236 combatants were killed, representing 16.7 percent of the total deaths.
The blog Elder of Ziyon, among others, has done extensive documented research on this issue.
7 of them were either duplicates (5), killed by Hamas (1) or blank (1.) This leaves 1408.
After doing detailed studies of Hamas and Palestinian media accounts, Elders of Ziyon was able to identify specifically 661 of these 1408 as combatants. This included police and others who were praised by Hamas or Palestinian media as heroic fighters and members of military formations. Here's another detailed study.
No doubt, a higher figure could be arrived at with more information from Hamas and other Palestinian sources. In addition, many civilians who were killed were acting at the time as voluntary or involuntary human shields for Hamas fighters. All of those who died—whether civilian or armed—did so as a result of Hamas’s decisions to wage war on Israel and to hide among and behind civilians as its military strategy.
Equally important, Israel’s strategy should be recognized as being as successful as possible in defending its own citizens. Since the Palestinian side—both Palestinian Authority and Hamas—refuse to end the conflict, no such strategy can be perfectly successful.
The principle of asymmetric warfare used by Palestinian groups dictates continuing the conflict no matter how high the costs and losses and no matter how low the possibility of military victory. The battle is to be continued in order to wear down the adversary and bring in outside political forces which will be mobilized for the Palestinian side precisely by the appearance of suffering and the reality of continued strife.
One hopes that the year 2010 will see less suffering on both sides. But we should—especially if we want to minimize that suffering and solve the conflict—recognize from where that suffering arises and how it can be mitigated by defensive measures, maintaining Israeli strategic credibility, weakening terrorist forces, and realistic diplomacy
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). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
The "Why Can't Everyone Just Be Friends" Narrative of the Israel-Palestinian Conflict, Evenhandedness Gone Mad
By Barry Rubin
It’s a heartening story just made for this season and the Western media : two seriously injured children, one Israeli and one Palestinian, becoming friends together in a hospital, with an innocence that transcends the hatred of their peoples. The New York Times article is written precisely balanced, two families, two causes, absolutely identical. Oh how foolish is this unnecessary conflict. What folly drives humanity!
On one level, who can object to such a story, so fair, balanced, so humane and touching? Nowadays, to treat Israel on an equal footing with the Palestinians is rare enough and thus should be sufficient.
Yet something bothers me about this story, everything it leaves out and misleads about.
First, the basic tale. Orel was injured by a rocket fired from Gaza at Beersheva. Marya was injured in an Israeli missile which killed a terrorist leader. Both are eight.
The Times picks up the story:
“In a way, a friendship between two wounded children from opposing backgrounds is not that surprising. Neither understands the prolonged fight over land and identity that so divides people here. They are kids. They play.
“But for those who have spent time in their presence at Alyn Hospital in Jerusalem, it is almost more powerful to observe their parents, who do understand. They have developed a kinship that defies national struggle.”
Yet what does this leave out, at least in part? First, how they were injured isn’t precisely the same. Orel was hit in an unprovoked Hamas attack deliberately intended to kill Israeli civilians; Marya was hit as a regrettable accident by an Israeli attack against a terrorist who had murdered other Israeli civilians and who could only be stopped in that manner.
By the standards of the United Nations, the Hamas attack had no practical implication while the Israeli assassination of a terrorist sponsored by his local government (and hence immune from any arrest) was a war crime.
The article notes, regarding Marya and her father, that “the Israeli government, which brought him here for emergency help, wanted him and his children either to return to Gaza or to move to the West Bank.”
So is the reader being told to praise the Israeli government for bringing an entire family of what could be called “enemy citizens” to its country, supporting them financially, and giving their daughter free medical care, or criticize it for wanting them to go elsewhere? This is something remarkable, an astounding humanitarian gesture and a show of responsibility and apology, demonstrating a lack of hatred on the Israeli government’s part. Why is this passed over so lightly?
Clearly, Hamas would never so treat an Israeli. Indeed such a wounded Israeli would almost certainly be murdered or held hostage. The Palestinian Authority might turn over such an Israeli to the Israeli government but would not bother or dare to give treatment.
The article continues:
“But attention in the Israeli news media produced a bevy of volunteers to fight on his behalf. Marya would not survive in either Gaza or the West Bank. The government has backed off, supporting Mr. Aman on minimum wage and paying for Marya to go to a bilingual Arabic-Hebrew school nearby.”
In other words, after more than a half-century of conflict, terrorism, and hatred from the Palestinian side, individual Israeli citizens and the Israeli media—far from preaching hatred—demanded that a Palestinian be given free treatment, supported with their tax money, and allowed to stay in Israel as long as the family pleased to do so. How does this compare with the international slander of Israelis as monsters, haters, and war criminals? Again, the article gives the necessary facts but no hint of what this means.
There’s more:
“Volunteers who help are often religious Jews performing national service. Some ask Mr. Aman how he can live among the people whose army destroyed his family.”
This shows that even national religious Jews (Datim) who are very nationalist and whose community furnished many (most?) of the settlements and settlers hold such humanitarian views. They are conscious of what their country has done and of how the Palestinians might feel about it. That’s also remarkable.
The father responds:
“I have never felt there was a difference among people—Jews, Muslims, Christians—we are all human beings. I worked in Israel for years and so did my father. We know that it is not about what you are but who you are. And that is what I have taught my children.”
And so, of course, Palestinians can share such sentiments. Yet according to polls, this is hardly typical and what would Mr. Aman say if he were in Gaza, either out of conviction or peer pressure? In Israel the equivalent point of view can be given every day; in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, hardly ever.
Then the article plays a bit of a trick:
“But Mr. Aman has no official status and is also raising a healthy and bright son in a hospital room. He wants residency or a ticket to a Western country where his children will be safe and Marya will get the care she needs.”
Why does he want a ticket to a Western country “where his children will be safe”? Obviously, most Palestinians would love a visa to live in Europe or America; clearly the children would be safe there from the kind of war that crippled one daughter.
Of course not. If the family were to return to the Gaza Strip, they would be made to pay for having accepted Israeli hospitality and treatment, especially since Mr. Aman made such a statement to the media. Either Hamas (and their own neighbors) would harm them or he would be forced to renounce Israel as a horrible country that never did a good deed. No hint of this is offered in the article.
But the article is intent on its “evenhandedness”:
”Asher Franco, an Israeli Jew from Beit Shemesh who has been coming to the hospital for six months for his daughter’s treatments, was a recent visitor. They greeted each other warmly. A manual worker and former combat soldier, he was asked about their friendship. `I was raised as a complete Zionist rightist,’ he said. `The Arabs, we were told, were out to kill us. But I was living in some fantasy. Here in the hospital, all my friends are Arabs.’”
Notice he didn’t say we were raised to hate Arabs but only that the Arabs wanted to kill Israelis. That statement of course is quite true. Note, too, that Mr. Aman does not say that he was taught to hate Jews, even though that is the central point of Palestinian political culture.
The last word is givein to:
“Ms. Elizarov, Orel’s mother, noted that in places like Alyn Hospital, political tensions do not exist. Then she said, `Do we need to suffer in order to learn that there is no difference between Jews and Arabs?’”
Israelis don’t need to suffer because they already know that there is no difference and all are human beings. After all, Israel brought the family into Israel, supplied free medical care, paid to support the family, gave free schooling to the children, while Israeli citizens demanded that all of this be continued supported by a free Israeli media.
It is, of course, the Palestinian side—regimes, media, people—that need to learn this, have not done so, are not about to do so, and sustain the conflict.
The problem is that I know if a Palestinian suicide bomber got into my son’s school and blew himself up, killing and maiming dozens of children, there would be celebrations in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. The terrorist would become a hero, his picture emblazoned on posters. Candy would be handed out; mosque sermons would celebrate his accomplishment; the media would cheer. Outside of a general formal condemnation of terrorism, no Palestinian politician would utter a sincere word of criticism; no citizenry would be horrified and speak publicly against such behavior. And all this would apply throughout the Arabic-speaking world.
I also know that every day the Palestinian media pours out hatred for Israelis, extols past terrorists and urges young people to become future ones, and rejects Israel’s right to exist. Nothing comparable occurs in Israel, not from any significant political figure, not in any media, not in any synagogue or in any school.
If you have any doubts, here is the head (“president”) of the Palestinian Authority leading the celebration just last week of the fiftieth birthday of a Palestinian terrorist, Dalal Mughrabi, who killed 37 Israeli civilians, including ten children, in 1978. This event, and many more like it, receive no coverage in the Western mass media and it takes place, of course, in an atmosphere where glorifying past terrorists is encouraging future ones.
So is everything really so equal? Are both sides really teaching to hate? No, not at all. In this article, at least they are treated as being equal. In much of the media, especially outside the United States, Israel is being treated as the party responsible for all these problems. The truth, of course, is the exact opposite. When will the Western media have the courage and honesty to write that truth?
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). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
It’s a heartening story just made for this season and the Western media : two seriously injured children, one Israeli and one Palestinian, becoming friends together in a hospital, with an innocence that transcends the hatred of their peoples. The New York Times article is written precisely balanced, two families, two causes, absolutely identical. Oh how foolish is this unnecessary conflict. What folly drives humanity!
On one level, who can object to such a story, so fair, balanced, so humane and touching? Nowadays, to treat Israel on an equal footing with the Palestinians is rare enough and thus should be sufficient.
Yet something bothers me about this story, everything it leaves out and misleads about.
First, the basic tale. Orel was injured by a rocket fired from Gaza at Beersheva. Marya was injured in an Israeli missile which killed a terrorist leader. Both are eight.
The Times picks up the story:
“In a way, a friendship between two wounded children from opposing backgrounds is not that surprising. Neither understands the prolonged fight over land and identity that so divides people here. They are kids. They play.
“But for those who have spent time in their presence at Alyn Hospital in Jerusalem, it is almost more powerful to observe their parents, who do understand. They have developed a kinship that defies national struggle.”
Yet what does this leave out, at least in part? First, how they were injured isn’t precisely the same. Orel was hit in an unprovoked Hamas attack deliberately intended to kill Israeli civilians; Marya was hit as a regrettable accident by an Israeli attack against a terrorist who had murdered other Israeli civilians and who could only be stopped in that manner.
By the standards of the United Nations, the Hamas attack had no practical implication while the Israeli assassination of a terrorist sponsored by his local government (and hence immune from any arrest) was a war crime.
The article notes, regarding Marya and her father, that “the Israeli government, which brought him here for emergency help, wanted him and his children either to return to Gaza or to move to the West Bank.”
So is the reader being told to praise the Israeli government for bringing an entire family of what could be called “enemy citizens” to its country, supporting them financially, and giving their daughter free medical care, or criticize it for wanting them to go elsewhere? This is something remarkable, an astounding humanitarian gesture and a show of responsibility and apology, demonstrating a lack of hatred on the Israeli government’s part. Why is this passed over so lightly?
Clearly, Hamas would never so treat an Israeli. Indeed such a wounded Israeli would almost certainly be murdered or held hostage. The Palestinian Authority might turn over such an Israeli to the Israeli government but would not bother or dare to give treatment.
The article continues:
“But attention in the Israeli news media produced a bevy of volunteers to fight on his behalf. Marya would not survive in either Gaza or the West Bank. The government has backed off, supporting Mr. Aman on minimum wage and paying for Marya to go to a bilingual Arabic-Hebrew school nearby.”
In other words, after more than a half-century of conflict, terrorism, and hatred from the Palestinian side, individual Israeli citizens and the Israeli media—far from preaching hatred—demanded that a Palestinian be given free treatment, supported with their tax money, and allowed to stay in Israel as long as the family pleased to do so. How does this compare with the international slander of Israelis as monsters, haters, and war criminals? Again, the article gives the necessary facts but no hint of what this means.
There’s more:
“Volunteers who help are often religious Jews performing national service. Some ask Mr. Aman how he can live among the people whose army destroyed his family.”
This shows that even national religious Jews (Datim) who are very nationalist and whose community furnished many (most?) of the settlements and settlers hold such humanitarian views. They are conscious of what their country has done and of how the Palestinians might feel about it. That’s also remarkable.
The father responds:
“I have never felt there was a difference among people—Jews, Muslims, Christians—we are all human beings. I worked in Israel for years and so did my father. We know that it is not about what you are but who you are. And that is what I have taught my children.”
And so, of course, Palestinians can share such sentiments. Yet according to polls, this is hardly typical and what would Mr. Aman say if he were in Gaza, either out of conviction or peer pressure? In Israel the equivalent point of view can be given every day; in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, hardly ever.
Then the article plays a bit of a trick:
“But Mr. Aman has no official status and is also raising a healthy and bright son in a hospital room. He wants residency or a ticket to a Western country where his children will be safe and Marya will get the care she needs.”
Why does he want a ticket to a Western country “where his children will be safe”? Obviously, most Palestinians would love a visa to live in Europe or America; clearly the children would be safe there from the kind of war that crippled one daughter.
Of course not. If the family were to return to the Gaza Strip, they would be made to pay for having accepted Israeli hospitality and treatment, especially since Mr. Aman made such a statement to the media. Either Hamas (and their own neighbors) would harm them or he would be forced to renounce Israel as a horrible country that never did a good deed. No hint of this is offered in the article.
But the article is intent on its “evenhandedness”:
”Asher Franco, an Israeli Jew from Beit Shemesh who has been coming to the hospital for six months for his daughter’s treatments, was a recent visitor. They greeted each other warmly. A manual worker and former combat soldier, he was asked about their friendship. `I was raised as a complete Zionist rightist,’ he said. `The Arabs, we were told, were out to kill us. But I was living in some fantasy. Here in the hospital, all my friends are Arabs.’”
Notice he didn’t say we were raised to hate Arabs but only that the Arabs wanted to kill Israelis. That statement of course is quite true. Note, too, that Mr. Aman does not say that he was taught to hate Jews, even though that is the central point of Palestinian political culture.
The last word is givein to:
“Ms. Elizarov, Orel’s mother, noted that in places like Alyn Hospital, political tensions do not exist. Then she said, `Do we need to suffer in order to learn that there is no difference between Jews and Arabs?’”
Israelis don’t need to suffer because they already know that there is no difference and all are human beings. After all, Israel brought the family into Israel, supplied free medical care, paid to support the family, gave free schooling to the children, while Israeli citizens demanded that all of this be continued supported by a free Israeli media.
It is, of course, the Palestinian side—regimes, media, people—that need to learn this, have not done so, are not about to do so, and sustain the conflict.
The problem is that I know if a Palestinian suicide bomber got into my son’s school and blew himself up, killing and maiming dozens of children, there would be celebrations in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. The terrorist would become a hero, his picture emblazoned on posters. Candy would be handed out; mosque sermons would celebrate his accomplishment; the media would cheer. Outside of a general formal condemnation of terrorism, no Palestinian politician would utter a sincere word of criticism; no citizenry would be horrified and speak publicly against such behavior. And all this would apply throughout the Arabic-speaking world.
I also know that every day the Palestinian media pours out hatred for Israelis, extols past terrorists and urges young people to become future ones, and rejects Israel’s right to exist. Nothing comparable occurs in Israel, not from any significant political figure, not in any media, not in any synagogue or in any school.
If you have any doubts, here is the head (“president”) of the Palestinian Authority leading the celebration just last week of the fiftieth birthday of a Palestinian terrorist, Dalal Mughrabi, who killed 37 Israeli civilians, including ten children, in 1978. This event, and many more like it, receive no coverage in the Western mass media and it takes place, of course, in an atmosphere where glorifying past terrorists is encouraging future ones.
So is everything really so equal? Are both sides really teaching to hate? No, not at all. In this article, at least they are treated as being equal. In much of the media, especially outside the United States, Israel is being treated as the party responsible for all these problems. The truth, of course, is the exact opposite. When will the Western media have the courage and honesty to write that truth?
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). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
Friday, January 1, 2010
What We've Been Doing in 2009 and Will be Doing in 2010
By Barry Rubin
As a new calendar year begins, it seems appropriate to give you, gentle readers, some accounting of what I’ve been doing this year and the one coming up. Some of these are academic books and thus expensive but you can always get discounts and also have your institutions or libraries order them.
1. Guide to Islamist Movements, is a collection of 55 articles on Islamism in about that many countries, including leaders, ideologies, groups, and activities.
M.E. Sharpe, the publisher says:
“This is the first comprehensive guide to today's most important, yet least understood transnational ideology-political Islamism. The two-volume set covers the movement's diverse groups, ideas, and activities around the globe-from political participation to revolutionary terrorism-and responding government policies and repression.”
For more information and how to buy at a big discount
2. I also edited a book on Lebanon which, if you don’t mind my saying so, includes some terrific chapters. For more information and to order:
A number of you have asked about the paperback and it will be out next September 20.
3. Finally among books available right now, I edited a Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East which contains chapters analyzing most of the wars in the region during the last three decades
http://www.gloria-center.org/publications/conflict-insurgency.html
A paperback will be published in February or March 2010 as part of the Routledge Paperbacks Direct program. It will be available on their website and the GLORIA site at £22.50/$39.95.
2010
4. In May, Palgrave-Macmillan will publish a book I’ve edited on Muslim Brotherhood groups both in Europe and the Middle East in both hardcover and paperback.
Here’s the URL for Muslim Brotherhood book.
And here is the Amazon url:
Other items to be published for 2010:
--Introduction to Israel, which is both a textbook and a basic text for general readers from Yale University Press,
--and my co-authored book on Germany and the Middle East, with special attention to Nazi-Arab relations, using new archival material.
--In addition, Sharpe will be publishing our eight-book introduction to the Middle East which includes culture, future, economics, governance, media, religion, and women. I tried to pick topics that don’t usually get covered.
--I’ve also just finished a four-volume collection for Routledge called the West and the Middle East with about 80 articles, two volumes on Europe-Middle East and two on U.S.-Middle East relations.
Finally, my book on Dolhinov—my grandparents’ home town--will be put into final form soon. Its theme is about how big historical events affected a small town and individual people. For me, it was a labor of love, to say the least.
As a new calendar year begins, it seems appropriate to give you, gentle readers, some accounting of what I’ve been doing this year and the one coming up. Some of these are academic books and thus expensive but you can always get discounts and also have your institutions or libraries order them.
1. Guide to Islamist Movements, is a collection of 55 articles on Islamism in about that many countries, including leaders, ideologies, groups, and activities.
M.E. Sharpe, the publisher says:
“This is the first comprehensive guide to today's most important, yet least understood transnational ideology-political Islamism. The two-volume set covers the movement's diverse groups, ideas, and activities around the globe-from political participation to revolutionary terrorism-and responding government policies and repression.”
For more information and how to buy at a big discount
2. I also edited a book on Lebanon which, if you don’t mind my saying so, includes some terrific chapters. For more information and to order:
A number of you have asked about the paperback and it will be out next September 20.
3. Finally among books available right now, I edited a Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East which contains chapters analyzing most of the wars in the region during the last three decades
http://www.gloria-center.org/publications/conflict-insurgency.html
A paperback will be published in February or March 2010 as part of the Routledge Paperbacks Direct program. It will be available on their website and the GLORIA site at £22.50/$39.95.
2010
4. In May, Palgrave-Macmillan will publish a book I’ve edited on Muslim Brotherhood groups both in Europe and the Middle East in both hardcover and paperback.
Here’s the URL for Muslim Brotherhood book.
And here is the Amazon url:
Other items to be published for 2010:
--Introduction to Israel, which is both a textbook and a basic text for general readers from Yale University Press,
--and my co-authored book on Germany and the Middle East, with special attention to Nazi-Arab relations, using new archival material.
--In addition, Sharpe will be publishing our eight-book introduction to the Middle East which includes culture, future, economics, governance, media, religion, and women. I tried to pick topics that don’t usually get covered.
--I’ve also just finished a four-volume collection for Routledge called the West and the Middle East with about 80 articles, two volumes on Europe-Middle East and two on U.S.-Middle East relations.
Finally, my book on Dolhinov—my grandparents’ home town--will be put into final form soon. Its theme is about how big historical events affected a small town and individual people. For me, it was a labor of love, to say the least.
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