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By Barry Rubin
The BBC has just broadcast a program entitled, “Syria's Bashar al-Assad: A leader who cannot be ignored.” This precisely echoes Syria’s main propaganda theme: it is the center of the Middle East, the leader of the resistance (to Israel and the West), the key to peace and the anvil of war.
This is rubbish. In fact, the title inspired me to think: Bashar “the giraffe” Assad is a leader who can—and up to a point, of course should—be ignored. He is the tail on Iran’s dog, an ally who won’t cross Tehran on any major issue. Bashar is intransigent on negotiations with Israel. He takes concessions from the West and gives nothing in return. He is being allowed to get away with recapturing Lebanon; sponsoring Hamas and Hizballah; and killing Americans in Iraq through insurgent terrorists he sponsors there.
U.S. attempts to engage Syria have failed. Syria is too weak to go to war with Israel. It has not even succeeded—despite numerous efforts—to revenge itself for Israel’s bombing of its plutonium reactor (built in partnership with Iran to help Tehran’s nuclear program) or the killing of two important people (one a Hizballah leader; the other a Syrian general who worked on the nuclear program and was liaison to Hizballah) in some of the most secure territory in the country.
So Bashar cannot do much more mischief than he’s doing now and, at any rate, won’t offer anything in return any way.
I can’t think of anyone more worthy of being ignored in the region.
Even Human Rights Watch took time off from its relatively single-minded obsession with bashing Israel to point out that Bashar has done nothing to improve the human rights' situation in his dictatorship during the ten years he has run the family business. Yet there are still those in the West who rhapsodize about Bashar being a reformer based on absolutely nothing.
Incidentally, here's a good joke told by a close observer of the region. When he heard that al-Jazira was introducing an English-language service a few years ago, he thought, "But they already have an English-language al-Jazira. It's called the BBC!" Another pointed out that an al-Jazira editor was so vitriolically anti-American that when he was fired there he immediately got a job with the BBC's Arabic-language service.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Middle East 101: Understanding Regional Political Logic
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We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, upper-right hand corner of this page. By check: "American Friends of IDC.” “For GLORIA Center” on memo line. Mail: American Friends of IDC, 116 East 16th St., 11th Floor, NY, NY 10003.
By Barry Rubin
A reader asks why Egypt insists on tying restrictions on the Iran’s nuclear program with putting restrictions on Israel’s program, including demanding Israel join the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), that the doors to Israel’s Dimona reactor be opened to international inspectors, and that Israel must declare that it has nuclear weapons.
The reader adds that he knows Israel won’t do this so what’s the point of Egypt making a demand which makes it more likely Iran will get nuclear weapons and thus endanger Egypt and its interests? On one level, then, Egyptian policy doesn’t make sense.
For those who don’t know, by joining the NPT Treaty countries (like Iran) have received certain benefits. In exchange, they have to submit to inspections and basically promise not to develop nuclear weapons. Iran has broken these commitments. Israel never made them in the first place so Israel’s actions are quite in accord with international law.
At any rate, I responded by explaining that it was easy to understand the Egyptian government position: The regime wants everything without making any concessions itself. That isn’t just a goal; that’s its negotiating position. In addition, by putting the emphasis on Israel’s arsenal—which doesn’t threaten the current regime—Cairo looks good in Arab and Muslim terms. Will it actually work? Hey, that isn't important! It works in other ways: strengthening the regime's credentials at home and in the region. And that's what's important!
He responded: These despots don’t seem cunning to me at all.
But that’s flat wrong. They are very cunning and if you understand why and how then you can understand the Middle East. Conversely, those who don’t get it understand nothing.
Here is the order of priorities and methods that make up what might be called the Middle East version of pragmatism. It goes like this:
The most important priority is regime survival, which means the current rulers staying in power. The people’s well-being and country’s interest is secondary at best. To stay in power, a dictatorship needs to generate foreign enemies, reduce freedom, and monopolize economic power. This is in many ways the opposite of the Western democratic framework that a government which provides freedom and material benefits is the one most likely to stay in power.
To ensure regime survival, the dictatorship must protect its Muslim and Arab credentials. Using these two pillars in various combinations, the rulers mobilize the people to support them. A key way to do this is anti-Western and anti-Israel demagoguery: the government portrays itself as a champion of Islam and Arabism against the West.
What the West thinks or says in response is pretty unimportant to a populace which already views those countries as enemies or the regime can ensure this through propaganda. Suppose the United States distances itself from Israel or Israel makes concessions, for example. How will the Arab populaces know this? They will be told that nothing has happened, it is all a trick, or it is far from enough. Rather than prove that they are good guys, these developments are interpreted as merely proving they are weak and frightened.
In these dictatorships, the main purpose of the army is to support the regime and not to threaten it with a coup. This is more important than the military being able to win wars. The main purpose of the educational system and media is to glorify the regime, not to improve the society and help correct its mistakes. The main purpose of the economy is to provide the regime with assets with which to reward friends and punish enemies, not to create general prosperity or raise living standards.
This approach is not democratic and neither provides rapid progress or better lives for the people. But if you start with the original premise—keeping the regime in power comes first—everything makes sense.
Now that you’ve absorbed this lesson, let’s move to a more advanced stage. Here’s a paraphrase of a letter from another reader which parallels the first one:
“Given that Israel is not the only country in the Middle East that feels threatened by Iran's nuclear ambitions, and that Israel is likely to be the only country that has the political will to do anything about the situation, doesn’t this give Israel a considerable strategic advantage?
“It strikes me that a number of demands could be made upon Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan in exchange for Israeli action against Iran, starting with:
“--An end to media, trade and academic boycotts against Israel
--"An end to indoctrination and propaganda
--Concrete steps to share the burden of the Palestinian refugee issue”
Now this is a very good question. But the answer is: No. Why? Because there is very little or no give and take. If the Arab regimes get something from Israel, they will not give anything in return (I’ll qualify that point in a second). If they don’t get anything from Israel, they will not give in order to get an advantage. They will let events go as they may.
The precise same point, by the way, applies to U.S.-Arab state relations. Of course, the United States saved Kuwait in 1991 and Kuwait likes having U.S. military forces around. But there has been no effort to promote pro-American feeling or to help out much on such issues as the Arab-Israeli conflict or the efforts to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons.
Why is this? Are the regimes stupid? No, they are following their interests as they perceive these things to be. Similarly, they are not irrational. True, in the end they may pay a high cost for their policy, but up until now they have survived pretty well. The exception is Saddam Hussein in Iraq who just kept going too far.
Of course, too, they can expect in this case that Israel or the United States will attack Iran for their own reasons, or at least the U.S. policy will contain Tehran without their having to do anything. They certainly have seen the West often desperately trying to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict without them having to do much to help. If the West fails, the regimes can get gifts by complaining how much they are suffering; if the West succeeds, they don't have to do anything any way. The more you think about it, the more sense their stance makes.
And they have another reason for acting this way: the West lets them get away with it. When they have to choose whether to be more afraid of the United States or their internal rivals, neighbors, and people conditioned to accept radical ideologies, it is easy for them to pick the second option. It is often more risky to be moderate, to work with the West, then to defy it. Thus, being intransigent and defiant, using radical rhetoric, maintaining hardline positions, is the rational alternative. They are acting logically.
If you tell them that they would be better off if they went to a more Western-style system, they would reply that this is not their culture. But there are also additional factors: their masses might not like it; their rivals at home and abroad would take advantage of it to portray them as traitors. The Arab elites very carefully watched what happened in the Soviet bloc in the 1980s. The West cheered a revolution toward freedom; the Arab regimes shivered at the thought of anarchy and their own downfall.
So, is this system pragmatic? Well yes and no. It is NOT pragmatic in terms of keeping people happy through freedom and high living standards. It is pragmatic in judging that demagoguery and control are alternative means of, if not happiness, passivity or outright support for the regime. It is NOT pragmatic in terms of maximizing material profit because that isn’t the regimes’ goal. It is pragmatic in terms of its own goal: stability and regime maintenance.
Homework: Apply this model to Palestinian politics. In this framework, why isn’t the Palestinian Authority as eager for a complete peace settlement and an independent state through compromise as one would expect using a Western model of politics?
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, upper-right hand corner of this page. By check: "American Friends of IDC.” “For GLORIA Center” on memo line. Mail: American Friends of IDC, 116 East 16th St., 11th Floor, NY, NY 10003.
By Barry Rubin
A reader asks why Egypt insists on tying restrictions on the Iran’s nuclear program with putting restrictions on Israel’s program, including demanding Israel join the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), that the doors to Israel’s Dimona reactor be opened to international inspectors, and that Israel must declare that it has nuclear weapons.
The reader adds that he knows Israel won’t do this so what’s the point of Egypt making a demand which makes it more likely Iran will get nuclear weapons and thus endanger Egypt and its interests? On one level, then, Egyptian policy doesn’t make sense.
For those who don’t know, by joining the NPT Treaty countries (like Iran) have received certain benefits. In exchange, they have to submit to inspections and basically promise not to develop nuclear weapons. Iran has broken these commitments. Israel never made them in the first place so Israel’s actions are quite in accord with international law.
At any rate, I responded by explaining that it was easy to understand the Egyptian government position: The regime wants everything without making any concessions itself. That isn’t just a goal; that’s its negotiating position. In addition, by putting the emphasis on Israel’s arsenal—which doesn’t threaten the current regime—Cairo looks good in Arab and Muslim terms. Will it actually work? Hey, that isn't important! It works in other ways: strengthening the regime's credentials at home and in the region. And that's what's important!
He responded: These despots don’t seem cunning to me at all.
But that’s flat wrong. They are very cunning and if you understand why and how then you can understand the Middle East. Conversely, those who don’t get it understand nothing.
Here is the order of priorities and methods that make up what might be called the Middle East version of pragmatism. It goes like this:
The most important priority is regime survival, which means the current rulers staying in power. The people’s well-being and country’s interest is secondary at best. To stay in power, a dictatorship needs to generate foreign enemies, reduce freedom, and monopolize economic power. This is in many ways the opposite of the Western democratic framework that a government which provides freedom and material benefits is the one most likely to stay in power.
To ensure regime survival, the dictatorship must protect its Muslim and Arab credentials. Using these two pillars in various combinations, the rulers mobilize the people to support them. A key way to do this is anti-Western and anti-Israel demagoguery: the government portrays itself as a champion of Islam and Arabism against the West.
What the West thinks or says in response is pretty unimportant to a populace which already views those countries as enemies or the regime can ensure this through propaganda. Suppose the United States distances itself from Israel or Israel makes concessions, for example. How will the Arab populaces know this? They will be told that nothing has happened, it is all a trick, or it is far from enough. Rather than prove that they are good guys, these developments are interpreted as merely proving they are weak and frightened.
In these dictatorships, the main purpose of the army is to support the regime and not to threaten it with a coup. This is more important than the military being able to win wars. The main purpose of the educational system and media is to glorify the regime, not to improve the society and help correct its mistakes. The main purpose of the economy is to provide the regime with assets with which to reward friends and punish enemies, not to create general prosperity or raise living standards.
This approach is not democratic and neither provides rapid progress or better lives for the people. But if you start with the original premise—keeping the regime in power comes first—everything makes sense.
Now that you’ve absorbed this lesson, let’s move to a more advanced stage. Here’s a paraphrase of a letter from another reader which parallels the first one:
“Given that Israel is not the only country in the Middle East that feels threatened by Iran's nuclear ambitions, and that Israel is likely to be the only country that has the political will to do anything about the situation, doesn’t this give Israel a considerable strategic advantage?
“It strikes me that a number of demands could be made upon Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan in exchange for Israeli action against Iran, starting with:
“--An end to media, trade and academic boycotts against Israel
--"An end to indoctrination and propaganda
--Concrete steps to share the burden of the Palestinian refugee issue”
Now this is a very good question. But the answer is: No. Why? Because there is very little or no give and take. If the Arab regimes get something from Israel, they will not give anything in return (I’ll qualify that point in a second). If they don’t get anything from Israel, they will not give in order to get an advantage. They will let events go as they may.
The precise same point, by the way, applies to U.S.-Arab state relations. Of course, the United States saved Kuwait in 1991 and Kuwait likes having U.S. military forces around. But there has been no effort to promote pro-American feeling or to help out much on such issues as the Arab-Israeli conflict or the efforts to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons.
Why is this? Are the regimes stupid? No, they are following their interests as they perceive these things to be. Similarly, they are not irrational. True, in the end they may pay a high cost for their policy, but up until now they have survived pretty well. The exception is Saddam Hussein in Iraq who just kept going too far.
Of course, too, they can expect in this case that Israel or the United States will attack Iran for their own reasons, or at least the U.S. policy will contain Tehran without their having to do anything. They certainly have seen the West often desperately trying to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict without them having to do much to help. If the West fails, the regimes can get gifts by complaining how much they are suffering; if the West succeeds, they don't have to do anything any way. The more you think about it, the more sense their stance makes.
And they have another reason for acting this way: the West lets them get away with it. When they have to choose whether to be more afraid of the United States or their internal rivals, neighbors, and people conditioned to accept radical ideologies, it is easy for them to pick the second option. It is often more risky to be moderate, to work with the West, then to defy it. Thus, being intransigent and defiant, using radical rhetoric, maintaining hardline positions, is the rational alternative. They are acting logically.
If you tell them that they would be better off if they went to a more Western-style system, they would reply that this is not their culture. But there are also additional factors: their masses might not like it; their rivals at home and abroad would take advantage of it to portray them as traitors. The Arab elites very carefully watched what happened in the Soviet bloc in the 1980s. The West cheered a revolution toward freedom; the Arab regimes shivered at the thought of anarchy and their own downfall.
So, is this system pragmatic? Well yes and no. It is NOT pragmatic in terms of keeping people happy through freedom and high living standards. It is pragmatic in judging that demagoguery and control are alternative means of, if not happiness, passivity or outright support for the regime. It is NOT pragmatic in terms of maximizing material profit because that isn’t the regimes’ goal. It is pragmatic in terms of its own goal: stability and regime maintenance.
Homework: Apply this model to Palestinian politics. In this framework, why isn’t the Palestinian Authority as eager for a complete peace settlement and an independent state through compromise as one would expect using a Western model of politics?
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Does the Palestinian leadership still desire to eliminate Israel?
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We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, upper-right hand corner of this page. By check: "American Friends of IDC.” “For GLORIA Center” on memo line. Mail: American Friends of IDC, 116 East 16th St., 11th Floor, NY, NY 10003.
By Barry Rubin
An Arab reader asks: Does the Palestinian leadership still desire to eliminate Israel?
Answer: If we are talking about Hamas, of course yes, there is no doubt about that and shouldn't be. The Palestinian Authority (PA) is a more complex case. Many PA leaders know that they cannot destroy Israel and that the cost of trying would be very high for them. A number of them, in their private thoughts or personal preferences, would like a lasting two-state solution. Prime Minister Fayyad is one of the few who has apparently abandoned this idea in his behavior as well.
But in another part of their minds many PA leaders think that destroying Israel is the right goal and can be done in the long term. What is especially important is that they still teach their people this idea and do not break publicly with it. How much effort has been done in Arabic by the PA to promote the idea of a permanent solution in which two states live side by side in peace since the 1993 Oslo agreement?
Remarkably little. Media, textbooks, mosque sermons, leaders' speeches rarely speak in these terms when made in Arabic. Thus, the continued domination by this doctrine provokes violence, conflict, radicalism, and legitimacy for Hamas.
Why do they behave this way? Some hold radical ideological views and see themselves and Fatah as a revolutionary organization. This is a doctrine that all of its internal documents confirm. Others simply understand that if they were to become genuinely and explicitly moderate in their long-term goals, their enemies and rivals would use this against them. They would be seen, or treated, as traitors. Their careers would be over, and there would be some danger to their personal survival as well, though this last point shouldn't be overstated.
In this regard, several clear categories can be seen among Fatah leaders. The largest single group is former Arafat loyalists who very much believe that they can have the fruits of moderation and of radicalism simultaneously, they can maintain the PA and even cooperate a bit with Israel at present while retaining the option of violence and not giving up their hope of future total victory. That is why the PA is a partner at present for maintaining the status quo but not for making a comprehensive peace
Another grouping is led by PLO radicals who also speak of wanting to wipe Israel off the map but are patient about doing so. To make a generalization, the older generation among them hate Hamas; the younger are willing to cooperate with it in a third intifadah.
The number of real moderates genuinely ready for a permanent two-state solution that would be peaceful and stable is very small.
What is especially pernicious is the doctrine that even if the PA leaders themselves don't struggle to destroy Israel, they will make no concession that will close the door to a future total victory by another generation. This makes it impossible to have a peace agreement.
A critical element here is the demand for a "right of return" in which all refugees and their descendants who wish to do so must be allowed to live in Israel as part of any peace agreement. This doctrine, accepted by 82 percent of Palestinians according to a recent poll, serves as a bridge between a two-state solution and a future total victory. It is a lie to argue that Palestinians only advocate a one-state solution because the two-state solution is blocked by Israel. On the contrary, the one-state (Arab, Muslim) solution is a critical element in Palestinian ideology that blocks any two-state solution.
Again, this is not to claim that all PA leaders are hardliners who want violent conflict. Many do enjoy economic wealth and power in the PA that they don't want to risk by returning to all-out conflict. But this analysis shows why the status quo is easier to maintain and a peace agreement is harder to reach than many Western observers think.
One of the worst of many bad ideas promoted in the West is a merger between the PA and Hamas. This would guarantee a majority of leaders who wanted a violent confrontation and a struggle until final victory no matter what the cost.
It is argued that the creation of an independent Palestinian state would automatically make the PA moderate. Eager to keep their own state they would not risk it through continuing the conflict with Israel. They would become preoccupied by accumulating wealth.
This might be true--well, no, not really, I'm just being polite--yet there is ample reason to doubt it. After all, this was the argument made in the 1990s for the PA under Arafat and it clearly didn't work. Having a state might in fact further inflame the determination to gain total victory. Hamas would be a factor as would Syrian and Iranian subversion. Competing factions would probably strive against each other by outbidding each other in militancy, a common feature in Arab states.
Again, while one could argue these points it is a very high-level risk not only for Israel but for Western interests. A two-state solution could work under proper conditions but these should be proven, not assumed.
We will truly know that a two-state solution is possible, desirable, and workable when there is a clear change in the stance of the PA leaders.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, upper-right hand corner of this page. By check: "American Friends of IDC.” “For GLORIA Center” on memo line. Mail: American Friends of IDC, 116 East 16th St., 11th Floor, NY, NY 10003.
By Barry Rubin
An Arab reader asks: Does the Palestinian leadership still desire to eliminate Israel?
Answer: If we are talking about Hamas, of course yes, there is no doubt about that and shouldn't be. The Palestinian Authority (PA) is a more complex case. Many PA leaders know that they cannot destroy Israel and that the cost of trying would be very high for them. A number of them, in their private thoughts or personal preferences, would like a lasting two-state solution. Prime Minister Fayyad is one of the few who has apparently abandoned this idea in his behavior as well.
But in another part of their minds many PA leaders think that destroying Israel is the right goal and can be done in the long term. What is especially important is that they still teach their people this idea and do not break publicly with it. How much effort has been done in Arabic by the PA to promote the idea of a permanent solution in which two states live side by side in peace since the 1993 Oslo agreement?
Remarkably little. Media, textbooks, mosque sermons, leaders' speeches rarely speak in these terms when made in Arabic. Thus, the continued domination by this doctrine provokes violence, conflict, radicalism, and legitimacy for Hamas.
Why do they behave this way? Some hold radical ideological views and see themselves and Fatah as a revolutionary organization. This is a doctrine that all of its internal documents confirm. Others simply understand that if they were to become genuinely and explicitly moderate in their long-term goals, their enemies and rivals would use this against them. They would be seen, or treated, as traitors. Their careers would be over, and there would be some danger to their personal survival as well, though this last point shouldn't be overstated.
In this regard, several clear categories can be seen among Fatah leaders. The largest single group is former Arafat loyalists who very much believe that they can have the fruits of moderation and of radicalism simultaneously, they can maintain the PA and even cooperate a bit with Israel at present while retaining the option of violence and not giving up their hope of future total victory. That is why the PA is a partner at present for maintaining the status quo but not for making a comprehensive peace
Another grouping is led by PLO radicals who also speak of wanting to wipe Israel off the map but are patient about doing so. To make a generalization, the older generation among them hate Hamas; the younger are willing to cooperate with it in a third intifadah.
The number of real moderates genuinely ready for a permanent two-state solution that would be peaceful and stable is very small.
What is especially pernicious is the doctrine that even if the PA leaders themselves don't struggle to destroy Israel, they will make no concession that will close the door to a future total victory by another generation. This makes it impossible to have a peace agreement.
A critical element here is the demand for a "right of return" in which all refugees and their descendants who wish to do so must be allowed to live in Israel as part of any peace agreement. This doctrine, accepted by 82 percent of Palestinians according to a recent poll, serves as a bridge between a two-state solution and a future total victory. It is a lie to argue that Palestinians only advocate a one-state solution because the two-state solution is blocked by Israel. On the contrary, the one-state (Arab, Muslim) solution is a critical element in Palestinian ideology that blocks any two-state solution.
Again, this is not to claim that all PA leaders are hardliners who want violent conflict. Many do enjoy economic wealth and power in the PA that they don't want to risk by returning to all-out conflict. But this analysis shows why the status quo is easier to maintain and a peace agreement is harder to reach than many Western observers think.
One of the worst of many bad ideas promoted in the West is a merger between the PA and Hamas. This would guarantee a majority of leaders who wanted a violent confrontation and a struggle until final victory no matter what the cost.
It is argued that the creation of an independent Palestinian state would automatically make the PA moderate. Eager to keep their own state they would not risk it through continuing the conflict with Israel. They would become preoccupied by accumulating wealth.
This might be true--well, no, not really, I'm just being polite--yet there is ample reason to doubt it. After all, this was the argument made in the 1990s for the PA under Arafat and it clearly didn't work. Having a state might in fact further inflame the determination to gain total victory. Hamas would be a factor as would Syrian and Iranian subversion. Competing factions would probably strive against each other by outbidding each other in militancy, a common feature in Arab states.
Again, while one could argue these points it is a very high-level risk not only for Israel but for Western interests. A two-state solution could work under proper conditions but these should be proven, not assumed.
We will truly know that a two-state solution is possible, desirable, and workable when there is a clear change in the stance of the PA leaders.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
Hizballah Prepares for War Based on Using Civilians as Shields
By Barry Rubin
The Israeli army has released for the first time sensitive intelligence data on how Hizballah is digging into southern Lebanon. The deliberate strategy is to store weapons and put defense positions right next to civilian houses. In the event of a war, Israel will have to choose between giving Hizballah a tremendous advantage or killing civilians.
Or as a Lebanese person remarked privately, "Hizballah is painting a big fat target on all the Shi'a down there."
This strategy is the fruit of the world reaction to the 2008-2009 war in the Gaza Strip when Hamas was rewarded for using civilians as human shields. Despite the care Israel took to avoid damaging civilian property or endangering civilian lives, there was a strong anti-Israel response. Given that behavior, others will no doubt follow this approach in future, thus leading to more suffering for civilians and stronger radical totalitarian movements, which will also oppress people where they hold power.
Remember this material when Hizballah sets off the next war and the inevitable media and other complaints against Israel begin: These condemnations will be based on--and will, in turn---reinforce a cynical and vicious deliberate effort by terrorist groups.
By the way, remember how the UN promised Israel in 2006 to keep Hizballah out of southern Lebanon with a reinforced UNIFIL force? What a joke. Hizballah does whatever it wants and no one interferes.
In the Strategic World Cup that's Hizballah 1, World 0. It's also a big zero for international guarantees to Israel. Remember that as well when you next hear that Israel "defies" the "international community" and refuses to put its survival into the hands of others who make big promises and then break them.
By making these points I am not suggesting there will be a war between Israel and Hizballah in the near future, certainly not this year. It is quite possible that Iran wants to hold Hizballah in reserve to use only if Israel attacks Iranian nuclear facilities. At any rate, Hizballah is too busy taking over Lebanon to want a war for the next year or possibly two.
You can read about the intelligence data on southern Lebanon here and here. Iran has also named a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officer named Hossein Mahadavi to be a liaison and perhaps in part commander of Hizballah.
The Israeli army has released for the first time sensitive intelligence data on how Hizballah is digging into southern Lebanon. The deliberate strategy is to store weapons and put defense positions right next to civilian houses. In the event of a war, Israel will have to choose between giving Hizballah a tremendous advantage or killing civilians.
Or as a Lebanese person remarked privately, "Hizballah is painting a big fat target on all the Shi'a down there."
This strategy is the fruit of the world reaction to the 2008-2009 war in the Gaza Strip when Hamas was rewarded for using civilians as human shields. Despite the care Israel took to avoid damaging civilian property or endangering civilian lives, there was a strong anti-Israel response. Given that behavior, others will no doubt follow this approach in future, thus leading to more suffering for civilians and stronger radical totalitarian movements, which will also oppress people where they hold power.
Remember this material when Hizballah sets off the next war and the inevitable media and other complaints against Israel begin: These condemnations will be based on--and will, in turn---reinforce a cynical and vicious deliberate effort by terrorist groups.
By the way, remember how the UN promised Israel in 2006 to keep Hizballah out of southern Lebanon with a reinforced UNIFIL force? What a joke. Hizballah does whatever it wants and no one interferes.
In the Strategic World Cup that's Hizballah 1, World 0. It's also a big zero for international guarantees to Israel. Remember that as well when you next hear that Israel "defies" the "international community" and refuses to put its survival into the hands of others who make big promises and then break them.
By making these points I am not suggesting there will be a war between Israel and Hizballah in the near future, certainly not this year. It is quite possible that Iran wants to hold Hizballah in reserve to use only if Israel attacks Iranian nuclear facilities. At any rate, Hizballah is too busy taking over Lebanon to want a war for the next year or possibly two.
You can read about the intelligence data on southern Lebanon here and here. Iran has also named a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officer named Hossein Mahadavi to be a liaison and perhaps in part commander of Hizballah.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
NY Times Op-Eds: An Analysis
By Barry Rubin
I've talked several times about how biased the New York Times editorial and op-ed pages have been against Israel along with their failure to present mainstream Israeli views. The blogger Soccerdad has now documented this point by surveying Times columnists and op-eds during February, March, and April 2010. He has done so in a scholarly manner, summarizing and quoting from each item.
My count is that of 16 columns, 12 of them were hostile to Israel and pretty nonsensical in their claims and conclusions (9 of these written by Jews), four reasonably sympathetic to Israeli interests, and one of them neutral. Many of the hostile ones are written by regular Times contributors who thus have generally more access to the page. I guess that only a 3 to 1 ratio is better than what I would have expected, though the editorials push the imbalance further.
The problem with the hostile ones is that they are often so ignorant (a shout-out to Tom Friedman and Roger Cohen here, plus an anti-Israel Jewish academic too obscure to bother naming who has no clue as to any of these issues or qualifications to discuss them) or blatantly misleading. During these three months there were no Hamas or Fatah op-eds so I suspect that a survey of other months would show even more of a slant.
I've talked several times about how biased the New York Times editorial and op-ed pages have been against Israel along with their failure to present mainstream Israeli views. The blogger Soccerdad has now documented this point by surveying Times columnists and op-eds during February, March, and April 2010. He has done so in a scholarly manner, summarizing and quoting from each item.
My count is that of 16 columns, 12 of them were hostile to Israel and pretty nonsensical in their claims and conclusions (9 of these written by Jews), four reasonably sympathetic to Israeli interests, and one of them neutral. Many of the hostile ones are written by regular Times contributors who thus have generally more access to the page. I guess that only a 3 to 1 ratio is better than what I would have expected, though the editorials push the imbalance further.
The problem with the hostile ones is that they are often so ignorant (a shout-out to Tom Friedman and Roger Cohen here, plus an anti-Israel Jewish academic too obscure to bother naming who has no clue as to any of these issues or qualifications to discuss them) or blatantly misleading. During these three months there were no Hamas or Fatah op-eds so I suspect that a survey of other months would show even more of a slant.
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