Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Tuesday, August 7.
1) "Victim of this, Victim of that"
Mitt Romney's comments about the role culture plays in economic success has led to counterclaims that it is Israel's occupation, not Palestinian culture that is responsible for the Palestinians' economic problems. We saw it in the Washington Post editorial Mitt Romney's less than successful trip abroad:
His comparison left out restrictions on Palestinian trade, workers and goods imposed by Israel over many years, and, more to the point, he reflected an alarmingly simplistic view of complex questions.
As one of the most successful businessmen and industrialists in Palestine today (there are many of us), I can tell Mr. Romney without doubt or hesitation that our economy has two arms and one foot tied behind us not by culture but by occupation. It’s hard to succeed, Mr. Romney, when roadblocks, checkpoints and draconian restrictions on the movement of goods and people suffocate our business environment. It is a tribute to the indomitable spirit of our Palestinian culture that we have managed to do so well despite such onerous constraints.
From comments like these one might get the impression that Israeli arbitrarily set up checkpoints for the sole purpose of making life miserable for the Palestinians.
The number of Palestinians working in Israel is steadily growing. Lawfully employed Palestinians in Israel today number about 60,000, of whom some 13,000 work in industrial zones and in the settlements. All told, more than 100,000 Palestinians are estimated to be employed in Israel approaching the record number employed in 1992.
Since the benchmark was 1992, it has to be asked why was this number not steadily increasing since Oslo Accords were signed in 1993. The answer is that after the increase in terror, especially in early 1996, Israel imposed restrictions on Palestinian travel. After Netanyahu's election in 1996, terror decreased and consequently so did Israeli restrictions.
Similarly, after Arafat launched the so called Aqsa intifada in September, 2000 and claimed hundreds of Israeli lives, Israel imposed many restrictions anew. There was nothing "draconian" about these restrictions; they were necessary elements of self-defense. It's also worth observing that the post-Oslo security measures implemented by Israel showed that one of the fundamental premises of the peace process was overly optimistic. Israel assumed that with the peace process the Palestinians would fight or, at least, discourage terror.
In the wake of the steady disintegration of the Assad regime, Syrian opposition activists reported that several towns, such as Amouda and Qabani in Syria’s Kurdish northeast, had passed in mid-July 2012 without a fight into the local hands of a group called the Free Kurdish Army. Thus emerged for the first time in modern Kurdish history the nucleus of an exclusively Kurdish-controlled enclave bordering the predominantly Kurdish areas of Turkey. After largely sitting on the sidelines of the Syrian revolution, political groups from Syria’s Kurdish minority in the northeastern region appear to have moved decisively to claim control of the Kurdish-populated towns. The Free Kurdish Army was formed from the Democratic Union Party (PYD), a group with historical links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK. The PKK, it should be remembered, is regarded by both Turkey and the United States as a terrorist organization fighting the Turkish government for Kurdish autonomy. The Kurds are reportedly concentrating their efforts on wresting control of Qamishli, the largest of the Kurdish cities, from the Syrian government. Kurdish forces have already captured the city of Ayn al-Arab in the Aleppo Governorate, where they are flying the Kurdish flag. ... Turkish observers have commented that the geopolitics of the Middle East are now being reshaped as the emergence of a “Greater Kurdistan” is no longer a remote possibility, posing enormous challenges for all the states hosting large Kurdish populations: Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran.4 Kurdistan is a potential land bridge for many of the conflicts erupting in this part of the region. It provides a ground route for Iraqi Kurdistan to supply the Syrian Kurds as they seek greater autonomy from Damascus. But its use will depend on which power dominates the tri-border area between Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. This area could equally provide Iran with a corridor for moving supplies to its Syrian surrogates and even to Hizbullah in Lebanon. Perhaps this is why some commentators see Kurdistan as the new regional flashpoint in the Middle East.
The rest of the article provides extensive historical and social background of the Kurds.
Michael Rubin writes about other implications of the recent Kurdish assertiveness with regards to Turkey.
3) Ozy-Annan-Dis
Jonathan Schanzer catalogues the many failures of Kofi Annan, in The Cost of Kofi.
That Annan failed should not come as a surprise. His default is failure: Whether it was Annan's professed failure to notice that his own son was profiting from the Oil for Food scandal in Iraq, the failure to prevent a genocide in Rwanda, or the failure to prevent mass murder in Srebrenica. Of course, Annan did not start the war in Syria, but perhaps he made things worse by legitimizing Bashar al-Assad as an equal partner in his peace plan, despite Assad's direct role in the slaughter of thousands. Annan made things messier still by bringing in Iran as an interlocutor, even as the world sought to isolate the Mullahs for their nuclear program, not to mention their deadly support for the regime in Damascus. In the end, Annan's blunders contributed significantly to a prolonged and deadly stalemate from February 23 to July 31, the length of his tenure.
Schanzer concedes that the violence in Syria is not Annan's fault, but under his watch the killing has continued. Annan is a product of the UN. It was his job as head of UN peacekeeping forces that provided the exposure that allowed him to be elected Secretary General, even though he failed miserably in the former capacity. At the UN nothing succeeds like failure.
(Ironically, Annan married the niece of Raoul Wallenberg, a man who actually saved lives at great risk in the face of murderous tyranny.) Barry Rubin interviewed Ammar Abdulhamid, a pro-democracy Syrian activists currently living abroad, about the current situation and hopes for the future of Syria.
Question: What do you see emerging in a post-Assad Syria? The activist in me wants to see a democratic decentralized entity emerge that is capable of responding to the developmental needs and aspirations of the people, irrespective of their religious, national, or political background, in each province, region, and district. The analyst in me has to grapple with the possibility of inheriting a failed state composed of warring fiefdoms, and of the need to find ways to put the pieces back together again, a process that would take years. It was from the beginning clear to me that the transformation of Syria will prove a much longer process than most of us have expected or wanted. But our dream for a democratic state will guide us through the thin and thick of it all.
We can easily find truly disturbing commentary and actions by members of the Egyptian Brotherhood, or by the Tunisian Rachid Ghannouchi, the intellectual guru behind the ruling Nahda Party. But we can just as easily find words and deeds that ought to make us consider the possibility that these men are neither Ernest Röhm and his fascist Brownshirts nor even religious versions of secular autocrats. Rather, they are cultural hybrids trying to figure out how to combine the best of the West (material progress and the absence of brutality in daily life) without betraying their faith and pride.v We know that in Iran, under theocracy, once die-hard members of the revolutionary elite have become proponents of evermore liberal democracy. Fundamentalists became fundamentalist critics. The Islamic Republic's controlled elections created a powerful appetite for real ones. In Arab lands, militant Muslims who once espoused violent revolution now back representative government. They do so, in part, because they know how powerful the appeal of democracy is among the faithful. They also do so, as Iraq's Shiite clerics have made clear, because they are certain that free Muslims voting can't do worse than the Westernized dictators before them. Democracy is thus a means to keep Muslims more religious whereas theocracy actually secularizes society.
Gerecht even explains Turkey's - which would seem to be a counterexample to his thesis - growing radicalism as a response to previous liberal governments that persecuted its minorities.
Of the greatest importance is the fact that Islamist elements have been defeated (in the Sunni case) or held at bay (in the Shia case). Things can certainly get worse but some stability seems to have been achieved at this time. Another key factor is that Iraq is acting more “normally” as a state by minding its own business. It is not subverting neighbors or trying to take over the Middle East. Iraq also has decent relations with the West. This is a country that is trying to deal with its own problems. And if there is factionalism and corruption, at least it appears to be clear that no force can monopolize power and establish a repressive dictatorship. Call it chaotic pluralism as an alternative to Islamist dictatorship. And, yes, that appears to be the best that can be expected in those countries not still dominated by traditionalist monarchies. It is certainly preferable to the “Turkish model.” Yet I don’t expect many people in the West to appreciate that point.
Neither Gerecht nor Rubin is discussing a near term political horizon, but just what is the preferable first step on the long road to democracy.
Iranian officials said the virus attack, which began in earnest on Sunday afternoon, had not affected oil production or exports, because the industry is still primarily mechanical and does not rely on the Internet. Officials said they were disconnecting the oil terminals and possibly some other installations in an effort to combat the virus. “Fortunately our international oil selling division has not been affected,” said a high-level manager at the Oil Ministry who asked not to be mentioned for security reasons. “There is no panic, but this shows we have shortcomings in our security systems.” There were some reports that the virus had forced widespread Internet shutdowns. “The ministry has disconnected all oil facilities, operations and even oil rigs from the Internet to prevent this virus from spreading,” said another Oil Ministry official who asked to remain anonymous, because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the attack. “Everybody at the ministry is working overtime to prevent this.” His assertion about the extent of the shutdowns could not be independently verified.
But while antisettlement advocates saw it as a significant shift in policy that could undermine the prospects for a two-state solution — and the United States and other foreign governments immediately raised concerns about the move — a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argued that it was simply a matter of resolving technical problems such as improper permits and mistakenly building on the wrong hill. “One can be critical of the Israeli settlement policy, that’s everybody’s right, but you can’t tell me that the Israeli government has built new settlements, and you can’t tell me this is legalizing unauthorized outposts,” said the Netanyahu spokesman, Mark Regev. “These decisions are procedural or technical. They don’t change anything whatsoever on the ground.”
To support her reporting, Rudoren gets two statements from two anti-settlement Israeli organizations, one the Palestinian Authority (“Netanyahu has pushed things to a dead end yet again.” ) and a disapproving statement from the State Department.
President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority embraced reconciliation with the Islamist movement Hamas on Monday, agreeing to head a unity government to prepare for elections in the West Bank and Gaza. His move was welcomed cautiously by a broad range of Palestinians who are fed up with the brutal split at the heart of their national movement. It promised to upend Israeli-Palestinian relations, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning Mr. Abbas that he could have peace with Israel or unity with Hamas, but not both.
Bronner only cites the government of Israel as opposing the deal. The State Department dismissed the unity deal as an "internal matter."
Now these unity deals don't ever seem to work out. However, the differing treatment of these two stories illustrates a disturbing dynamic. "Settlements" are automatically designated an obstacle to peace. Any Palestinian objections to existing or potential settlements are taken at face value - by the media, even by the American government - though it isn't at all clear that the Oslo Accords forbid them.
However, a Fatah-Hamas deal demonstrates a blatant rejection of the premise of the peace process - that the PLO would reject terror. No NGO's who have reporters' attention object to this. The State Department yawns.
In the end the Palestinian Authority's objections and actions are what drives the peace process, not the documents they signed with Israel. As long as Palestinian obstructionism continues to be tolerated and rewarded, there will be no peace.
4,000 Americans died so a democratic Iraq could ban travel to Israel
More than 4,000 Americans died so that Iraq could have a parliament, and one of the first actions that parliament is taking is to ban travel to Israel.
The bill was proposed following a number of incidents at the Bagdad airport. A local security officer working there said the passport had caught a number of Iraqi officials carrying passports with Israeli entry visas. The officer, speaking on a condition of anonymity, reported that the passports of some nine high-profile Iraqi politicians were clearly marked with Ben-Gurion Airport stamps as well.
According to the source, the politicians made their first trips to Israel after the Iraqi elections, held on January 2010, until around October that same year. The officer claimed that during questioning of the Iraqis, it was discovered that they were operating as envoys to Israel on behalf of Iraqi politicians.
In response to the report, Iraqi Parliament Member from the National Iraqi Alliance Mohammad Redha al-Khafaji declared that some 50 parliament members have already put their John Hancock to a bill proposing to ban such trips to Israel. Khafaji emphasized that in the past, Iraqi senior officials had visited Israel secretly.
Meanwhile, a member of the parliament's judicial committee said these signatures do not necessarily mean that such a law should be passed.
Forbidding a citizen from traveling is against the Iraqis' right to freedom, as written in the constitution. However banning travel to Israel has nothing to do with politics, she told Al Jazeera, explaining that Iraq has never had any diplomatic or political relations with Israel, nor has it acknowledged the State of Israel.
The West suffers from two delusions. One is that having elections means you have a democracy. And the other is that if an Arab or Muslim country has a democracy, it will no longer seek to destroy Israel.
They forget that after World War II, the allied powers occupied Japan and Germany for a number of years to root out the toxic effects of Nazism and fascism, before turning those countries over to their own citizens who were ready to behave in a democratic way. Neither of those occupations had any time limit, but when it was time to end them, the allies (at least on the Western side of the Berlin Wall and in Japan) ended them.
Of course, to be able to do that without turning your troops into target practice dummies you first have to utterly defeat the other side militarily to the point of surrender. Has any country surrendered to a Western power since Japan? Not that I can recall.
Ibrahim Ali, an Egyptian lawyer who works with Islamist groups, has claimed that thousands of leading Islamists from around the world are preparing to return to Egypt in the next few days in light of the regime change. According to the Egyptian Al Masry Al Youm, Ali predicted that:
‘3000 leading figures of the Jama’a al-Islamyia and Egyptian Islamic Jihad groups will return to Egypt in a few days, as their names have been dropped from the “wanted” list maintained by Egyptian security forces.’
The article then quotes Ali’s list of where the individuals are coming from, citing many countries well-known as breeding grounds for radical Islam – alongside London:
‘They are coming back from Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia, Somalia, Kenya, Iran and London’.
The Jewish Agency for Israel is denying a report that appeared in Friday's Haaretz and Yediot that claimed that 25 Tunisian Jewish families were making aliya, but the agency did say that 40-50 Tunisian Jews have made aliya since that country's regime change in January, and the Israeli government is encouraging them.
Israel is planning to offer Tunisian Jews interested in emigrating following the recent uprising in the country a special absorption package, but members of the community said on Thursday that they were unaware of any significant change in their situation.
“They’ll receive a year of no-questions accommodation at an aliya center, and other benefits on top of what others get,” said Jewish Agency for Israel spokesman Haviv Rettig Gur.
Earlier Thursday, the Immigrant Absorption Ministry announced that the government would debate the details of the package, which will purportedly offer NIS 10,000 to Tunisian Jews in addition to benefits awarded to other olim.
“The regime change in Tunisia as a result of the Jasmine revolution... has brought about the Islamization of the government and rise in anti-Semitism,” stated a ministry document quoted by Israeli media. “There has a been an increasingly worsening attitude by the authorities and society toward the Jewish community.”
Elad Sonn, the ministry spokesman, confirmed the wording of the document and said it was based on “information from the Jewish Agency.”
Roger Bismuth, president of the Jewish community in Tunisia, said he had not noted a change in the government’s attitude toward Jews, nor did he know of plans by community members to leave the country en masse, although he didn’t rule it out entirely.
“I doubt anybody has heard anything like that,” he said by phone from Tunis on Thursday. “It might be true, there’s so much gossip going around.”
Bismuth is the captain who can't abandon the ship until everyone else leaves. I'd bet on most Tunisian Jews making aliya in the near future - with some possibly going to France or the US. Why would anyone hang around to find out whether the Islamists are going to end up in charge?
what happens if a year from now it is clear the Arab Spring caused an Islamist takeover of the entire region? I'm not saying I know it will happen. But what if?
I'd bet on it happening. And I'd be happy to see the remaining Jews in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon etc. make aliya to Israel. But I'd bet on us being in a more precarious position because of it, unless all these Islamist regimes decide they had better worry about their home fronts before trying to destroy Israel.
Saudi Naval officer: What if the Arabs had recognized Israel in 1948?
A Saudi Naval officer asks an interesting question that should be asked a lot more in the Arab world: What would have happened if the Arabs had just recognized Israel in 1948?
If Israel was recognized in 1948, then the Palestinians would have been able to free themselves from the hollow promises of some Arab dictators who kept telling them that the refugees would be back in their homes and all Arab lands will be liberated and Israel will be sent to the bottom of the sea. Some Arab leaders used the Palestinians for their own agenda to suppress their own people and to stay in power.
Since 1948, if an Arab politician wanted to be the hero and the leader of the Arab world, then he has a very easy way to do it. He just shouts as loud as he can about the intention to destroy Israel, without mobilizing one soldier (Talk is cheap).
If Israel was recognized in 1948, then there would have been no need for a coup in Egypt against King Farouq in 1952 and there would have been no attack on Egypt in 1956 by The UK, France and Israel. Also there will be no war in June 1967 and the size of Israel will not be increased and we, the Arabs would not have the need for a UN resolution to beg Israel to go back to the pre-1967 borders. And no war of attrition between Egypt and Israel that caused more casualties on the Egyptian side than the Israeli side.
After the 1967 war, Israel became a strategic ally of the US because before this war, the US was not as close to Israel as people in the Arab world think. The Israelis fought in that war using mainly French and British weapons. At that time, the US administrations refused to supply Israel with more modern aircraft and weapon systems such as the F-4 Phantom.
The Palestinian misery was also used to topple another stable monarchy, this time in Iraq and replacing it with a bloody dictatorship in one of the richest countries of the world. Iraq is rich in minerals, water reserves, fertile land and archaeological sites. The military led by Abdul Karim Qassim killed King Faisal II and his family. Bloodshed in Iraq continued and this Arab country has seen more violent revolutions and one of them was carried out in the 1960s by a brigade that was sent to help liberate Palestine. Instead it made a turn and went back and took over Baghdad. Even years later, Saddam Hussien said that he will liberate Jerusalem via Kuwait. He used Palestinians misery as an excuse to invade Kuwait.
Read the whole thing. I wonder how many other Arabs realize just how badly they messed this up.
More than 30 people were killed in Sanaa, Yemen on Friday, and more than 100 (some reports say 200) were wounded after troops opened fire on demonstrators in Yemen's capital.
According to witnesses, pro-regime "thugs" opened fire on protesters calling for the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh from houses close to the square at Sanaa University.
Medics said more than 30 were killed and more than 100 wounded.
"Most of the wounds were to the head, neck and chest," one medic said.
Thousands of people have camped out in the square since February 21, demanding the departure of Saleh, who has been in power since 1978.
The Friday bloodbath came after five Yemeni protesters were wounded in an attack on Wednesday night by masked men on the Sanaa University sit-in.
Anti-government activists told AFP that the attackers wielding guns, clubs and daggers were "thugs" loyal to the regime.
Witnesses said that dozens of people were injured when police and loyalists of the ruling General People's Congress party attacked protesters in the square with live rounds and tear gas on Sunday.
How many no-fly zones can the West impose at once in the Arab world?
The good news is that a different American President may be able to restore America's standing in 2013... if there's anything left to restore.
But the 22-member league's decision also tells us a lot about Arab views of U.S. power. Throughout the Libyan crisis, we've heard from pundits and politicians that the Iraq war tarnished brand America beyond repair, and made U.S. leadership non grata in the Mideast. Both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have insisted that the U.N., NATO, the Europeans, Arabs, anyone but Washington take the initiative on Libya.
The Arab League is begging them to reconsider this abdication. With the unsurprising exceptions of Iranian client Syria and Libya's neighbor Algeria, the group took the extraordinary step of calling publicly for American intervention in the affairs of an Arab state. Though the League formally asked the U.N. Security Council to approve a no-fly zone, there's little doubt that the U.S. would carry the military and political burden in imposing one. The Arabs know this well, and their message couldn't be clearer. Maybe they even thought Mr. Obama meant what he said in calling for Gadhafi to leave power.
The weekend decision confirmed what we've heard privately from Arab leaders for years about America's continued engagement in the Middle East. The only people who suffer from an "Iraq syndrome" are American liberals and the Western European chattering classes. The pro-Western Gulf or North African allied states have nothing to gain in seeing American influence or military power devalued in their region—either by others, or as is the current fad in Washington, through American self-abnegation.
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For the proverbial "Arab street," the defeat of the Libyan uprising would be a dispiriting coda to this springtime of democratic revolutions. If he survives, Gadhafi will have taught other dictators that the next time young people demand accountable leadership, turn your guns on them and exploit American diffidence.
Beyond those pressing worries lie bigger Arab concerns over the changing power dynamic in the Middle East. New and unpredictable regional players are a neo-Ottoman Turkey and especially an Iran determined to get nuclear weapons. However much the Arabs like to complain about America, they know the U.S. is a largely benign force and honest broker.
Propelled by a strong domestic economy, the Turks have built their recent regional standing through trade and a political shift from its longstanding alliance with the West. Tellingly, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan opposes a no-fly zone. "We see NATO military intervention in another country as extremely unbeneficial," he said. Turkey had no such qualms when NATO came to the rescue of Europe's besieged Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo, but in the 1990s Ankara saw America as an ally, not a potential competitor.
The Sunni Arab states fear the nuclear ambitions of Shiite Iran as much as Israel does. It's not lost on them that while democratic uprisings toppled two Arab regimes friendly to the U.S. and threaten several others, Tehran has squelched the opposition Green Movement without inhibitions. The nuclear program, meanwhile, is Iran's secret weapon to become the dominant regional power.
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Not by coincidence, Saudi Arabia and fellow Gulf states on Monday sent military forces into Bahrain to help put down an uprising by the majority Shiites against the Sunni monarchy, which yesterday declared a state of emergency. The Saudis fear that the Bahrain contagion, perhaps fueled by Iran, will spread to them.
But their intervention also reflects a lack of confidence that America will assert itself in the region. Remarkably, the Saudis ignored U.S. advice not to intervene in Bahrain. They don't believe they can count on the U.S. to stop an imperial Iran. When the U.S. fails to lead, every nation recalibrates its interests and begins to look out for itself first.
While the "international community" fiddles, Gadhafi's troops continue their march eastward, yesterday taking the strategic town of Ajdabiya, the last significant population center before Benghazi. His victory would be a tragedy for Libya's people. But it would diminish America's global standing as well, which is an outcome that makes Arabs as nervous as it ought to make Americans.
Breaking: Saudi army opens fire on Bahraini demonstrators
Citing al-Manar (which may or may not be reliable - that's Hezbullah's television station in Lebanon), Israel Radio reports that Saudi troops have opened fire on and killed five Bahraini demonstrators. There have also been verbal volleys between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Remember Niall Ferguson, who burst onto the scene with a surprising Newsweek column ripping Barack Obama?
Here he is again talking to London's Daily Telegraph. He makes six key points in this interview:
* China will be the largest economy in the world by 2021 * No guarantees the euro will still exist * The U.S. could europeanize itself, or it could revitalize itself * Tiny possibility we get western-style democracies in the Middle East * More alarming to think about a "restored caliphate" * Germany's love of European integration under threat
The Washington Post reports that the United States played a major role in training young democracy activists who were involved in the recent uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.
The revolutionary roar from the Arab street, shaking the palaces of the privileged, toppling presidents, has echoed around the globe, dominating the headlines and airwaves for weeks. But behind this story of political upheaval lies another, quieter story of outside organizations that, with U.S. government and other money, tutored a young Arab generation in the ways of winning in a political world.
All involved emphasize that what has happened sprang from deeply rooted grievances in the autocratic Arab world, not from outside inspiration. But they say the confidence-building work of democratic coaches, led by the U.S. but also including Europeans, was one catalyst for success.
That success, meanwhile, points up a core paradox: A U.S. government that long stood by Mubarak and other Arab leaders as steadfast allies was, at the same time, financing programs that ultimately contributed to his and potentially others' downfall.
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It's estimated more than 10,000 Egyptians since 2005 have participated in USAID-financed democracy and governance programs, carried out by NDI, IRI and 28 other international and Egyptian organizations - not only political training, but also projects to prepare judges, build PTA-style school associations and otherwise deepen civic involvement.
The American democracy promotion campaign dates back to the 1980s, when Poland's Solidarity movement was one beneficiary. But for Egypt, 2005 was the watershed year, when Campbell's NDI opened a Cairo office and through Egyptian groups trained 5,500 election observers to monitor a referendum giving Mubarak another six-year term, his fifth.
From Egypt's polling places that September, NDI-paid teams reported election violations via innovative cell-phone texting in code, deciphered by headquarters computers.
The report was immediate: Widespread manipulation of the polls, and a turnout of a mere 23 percent, shattering the myth of 90-percent landslides for the "popular" Mubarak. [Note who was President in 2005. Hint: Not Obama. CiJ]
"It had the effect of showing the emperor had no clothes," Campbell said. "Egyptians could make a difference. They could change things."
The government reacted, restricting NDI and IRI operations in Cairo, ordering host hotels to cancel training sessions, putting security men in institute offices.
But Mubarak couldn't be too tough on the Americans, donors of $1.5 billion in annual military and economic aid. And the democracy promoters carried on, often sending Egyptian proteges abroad for sessions.
And you thought Shimon Peres was our only politician who is detached from reality.... Defense Minister Ehud Barak told the Wall Street Journal on Monday that Israel may seek another $20 billion in assistance from the United States to cope with the fallout from the democratization of Arab countries that's currently going on in the Middle East.
You can continue reading this post - which is my latest column for David Horowitz's NewsReal blog - here.
Here's a video of a demonstration from Yemen on Saturday with a helpful English translation.
Let's go to the videotape.
Yemen is one of the countries where the Obama administration is wishing the demonstrators will go peacefully off into the sunset. That does not appear likely.
A Washington Post report claims that the 'Palestinians' aren't rising up because the only party they want to rise up against is Israel... and because - oh, by the way - the economy there is pretty good.
In Ramallah, as shoppers and cars jammed downtown streets, Jabaiah ticked off the reasons he saw for the quiet: Abbas, elected in 2005, is not an autocratic ruler who has seized and held power for decades; Palestinians in the West Bank enjoy a measure of free expression; and their standard of living is better than in many neighboring Arab countries.
The split between Hamas and Fatah also had a chilling effect on attempts to demonstrate against the leaderships in the West Bank and Gaza. Anti-government dissent in either place is often viewed as support for the rival faction - a sensitive point in the divided society. Hamas seized power in the Gaza Strip in 2007 in a brief civil war, routing Fatah, which is the ruling party in the West Bank.
"If I want to demonstrate in the West Bank, it's automatically interpreted that I served the interest of Hamas, and in Gaza that I served the interest of Fatah," said Khalil Shikaki, a Palestinian analyst and pollster. "Most people who want to revolt - not too many at this stage - hate both Fatah and Hamas and see them as failing in the tasks of building a democratic entity that respects freedoms and implements the rule of law."
Demonstrations in support of the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia were broken up by Palestinian Authority security forces in the West Bank and Hamas police in Gaza, with some protesters arrested and beaten, an indicator of concern that the protests could turn against the authorities. The "Day of Rage" on Feb. 25, initially called by Fatah, was apparently called off for the same reason.
The 3:00 am call has now come and we now know that the answer to Clinton's ad was none of the above (Hat Tip: Instapundit).
Since the winds -- and fires -- of change began to sweep North Africa two months ago, first in Tunisia, then in Egypt and now in Libya, the Obama administration has distinguished itself by its utter ineptitude in dealing with what is both a crisis and a historic opportunity to change the governments and the culture of the Arab world.
The intelligence community failed to see the revolutions coming. The president adopted a strangely dispassionate, disinterested stance -- hanging his spokesmen, both in the White House and at the State Department, out to dry.
"The president puts out statements on paper sometimes," said new White House Press Secretary Jay Carney last week, in reply to a reporter's question about what was taking Obama so long to weigh in on Libya. Carney also blamed a "scheduling issue" for the lack of a rapid response.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton -- "someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world" -- came off like she'd literally woken up at 3 a.m. and stumbled out to face the cameras armed only with a mouthful of platitudes. Sounding more like a grief counselor than secretary of state, she said:
"The world is watching the situation in Libya with alarm. We join the international community in strongly condemning the violence in Libya. Our thoughts and prayers are with those whose lives have been lost, and with their loved ones . . . We are working urgently with friends and partners around the world to convey this message to the Libyan government."
The Maria Dolores, a US chartered ferry hired to evacuate American citizens from Tripoli to Malta, was too small to sail in rough seas and had to delay its departure. To add insult to injury, the White House even misspelled the name of the country as "Lybia" on Twitter.
And UN ambassador Susan Rice? She blew off a Security Council meeting on the Libyan crisis in order to attend a UN panel discussion on "global sustainability" in South Africa. The Roxy had better amateur nights than this.
Once again, President "Present" has signally failed to lead, preferring instead to hide behind a fog of "consultations with allies." True, on Saturday he finally -- in a phone call to German Chancellor Angela Merkel -- called for Khadafy to step down, and also took diplomatic action against the beleaguered regime, issuing an executive order that blocks property and other transactions.
Insiders say that Obama hesitated to take a public stand against the doomed dictator for fear that US diplomats might be taken hostage. But a great power can't conduct a robust foreign policy in fear; that way lies the path of Jimmy Carter, whom Obama is coming more and more to resemble. As Christopher Hitchens pointed out recently, America is starting to look like Switzerland in its international irrelevance. Is that what Obama meant by "fundamental change"?
You can add Oman to the list of countries where there are protests against an autocratic regime.
Peaceful protests, demanding higher wages, more jobs and an end to corruption, among other things, have spread to other parts of Oman since Friday, according to reports reaching here.
A woman blogger, who writes Random Ramblings about Life in Salalah under the name of Dhofari Gucci, has written: "Protesters gathered outside the Governor's office after Friday prayers and evidently they have not moved and won't until their demands have been fulfilled. I sent my brother to investigate. They've been chanting ‘People want an end to corruption'."
According to another witnesses, life is going on as usual in the other parts of this southern town, where Lulu Hypermarket opened their 87th outlet and the National Geographic exhibition was also launched.
"We hardly felt protests are being held in town," a Muscat resident who is in Salalah said over the phone on the condition of anonymity.
The peaceful protests, however, are spreading to other towns as well. Reports coming in say that there were peaceful protests in Shinaz as well as Sohar.
The first of the protests was held in Muscat on January 17 followed by another at the Muscat ministerial enclave on February 18 - named Green March - during which the protesters gave a message for the country's monarch Sultan Qaboos Bin Saeed.
The government last week announced that the message has reached the country's leader. There were no protests reported in Muscat after that.
However, on Saturday, people, mostly youth, held peaceful marchs in Shinaz, Sohar and Salalah. The demands made through banners and slogans are: 1) An end to corruption in the government; 2) More jobs for people in need; 3) increase in salaries for the poor, widows and divorced women; 4) Lowering prices; 5) An end to financial and administrative wasta (influence) in the government and private sector.
The protests have been peaceful and the security agencies have not interfered.
This is tame compared to some of the other protests.
Bernard Lewis on the explosion of outrage in the Muslim world
94-year old Bernard Lewis is probably the World's foremost expert on Islam. This week, before an invited audience at the home of US ambassador to Israel James Cunningham, he had a lengthy conversation with Jerusalem Post editor David Horowitz, parts of which are reprinted in Friday's JPost. Even the 'excerpts' are quite long. I will give you a very small excerpt of the excerpt and suggest that you read the whole thing.
Broadly speaking, the notion of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is much disputed – from being perceived as essentially benign, unthreatening, even secular, according to one remark (later corrected, by US National Intelligence Director James Clapper), to being perceived as a radical and terrible threat. How would you judge it?
To say that they’re secular would show an astonishing ignorance of the English lexicon. I don’t think [the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt] is in any sense benign. I think it is a very dangerous, radical Islamic movement. If they obtain power, the consequences would be disastrous for Egypt.
I’m an historian. My business is the past, not the future. But I can imagine a situation in which the Muslim Brotherhood and other organizations of the same kind obtain control of much of the Arab world. It’s not impossible. I wouldn’t say it’s likely, but it’s not unlikely.
And if that happens, they would gradually sink back into medieval squalor. Remember that according to their own statistics, the total exports of the entire Arab world other than fossil fuels amount to less than those of Finland, one small European country. Sooner or later the oil age will come to an end. Oil will be either exhausted or superseded as a source of energy and then they have virtually nothing. In that case it’s easy to imagine a situation in which Africa north of the Sahara becomes not unlike Africa south of the Sahara.
As we look at this region in ferment, how would you characterize what is unfolding now? Can we generalize about the uprisings that are erupting in the various countries? Is there a common theme?
There’s a common theme of anger and resentment. And the anger and resentment are universal and well-grounded. They come from a number of things. First of all, there’s the obvious one – the greater awareness that they have, thanks to modern media and modern communications, of the difference between their situation and the situation in other parts of the world. I mean, being abjectly poor is bad enough. But when everybody else around you is pretty far from abjectly poor, then it becomes pretty intolerable.
Another thing is the sexual aspect of it. One has to remember that in the Muslim world, casual sex, Western-style, doesn’t exist. If a young man wants sex, there are only two possibilities – marriage and the brothel. You have these vast numbers of young men growing up without the money, either for the brothel or the brideprice, with raging sexual desire. On the one hand, it can lead to the suicide bomber, who is attracted by the virgins of paradise – the only ones available to him. On the other hand, sheer frustration.
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Tell us more about the nature of the Arab masses, their sense of their own religion, their sense of the agenda that Islam sets out for them.
Well, you see, two things have happened. One is that their position on the whole has been getting worse. The second, which is much more important, is that their awareness of that is getting much greater. As I said before, thanks to modern communications, they can now compare their own position with that in other countries. And they don’t have to look very far to do that. I have sat with friends in Arab countries, watching Israeli television, and their responses to that are mindboggling.
What is so striking to them?
One particular instance that I remember: There was a little Arab boy whose arm was broken by an Israeli policeman during a demonstration and he appeared the next day on Israeli television with a bandage on his arm, denouncing Israeli brutality. I was in Amman at the time, watching this. And sitting next to me was an Iraqi, who had fled Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and he looked at this with his jaw dropping and he said, “I would gladly let Saddam Hussein break both my arms and both my legs if he would let me talk like that on Iraqi television.”
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If we have different potential Islamic paths that these peoples could now go down, how strong is a more moderate Muslim tradition? How likely is it that that would prevail? I ask you that because of your bleak characterization of the Muslim Brotherhood which, again, some experts claim is relatively benign.
I don’t know how one could get the impression that the Muslim Brotherhood is relatively benign unless you mean relatively as compared with the Nazi party.
There are other trends within the Islamic world which look back to their own glorious paths and think in other terms. There is a great deal of talk nowadays about consultation. That is very much part of the tradition.
The sort of authoritarian, even dictatorial regimes, that rule most of the countries in the modern Islamic Middle East, are a modern creation. They are a result of modernization. The pre-modern regimes were much more open, much more tolerant. You can see this from a number of contemporary descriptions. And the memory of that is still living.
It was a British naval officer called Slade who put it very well. He was comparing the old order with the new order, created by modernization. He said that “in the old order, the nobility lived on their estates. In the new order, the state is the estate of the new nobility.” I think that puts it admirably.
Are you leading toward the possibility that the unraveling of these modern, non-consultative regimes could return us to a genuine, potential, wider peopleto- people partnership between the Muslim world and the West? And if so, how do we go about achieving that?
The only time when they began to look favorably on outside alliances is when they see themselves as confronting a still greater danger. Sadat didn’t make peace because he was suddenly convinced of the merits of the Zionist case. Sadat made peace because Egypt was becoming a Soviet colony. He realized that on the best estimate of Israel’s power and on the worst estimate of Israel’s intentions, Israel was much less of a danger to Egypt than the Soviet Union at that time. That is why he set to work to make peace, and he was of course, right.
One sees similar calculations later than that. Consider for example, the battle between the Israeli forces and Hezbollah in 2006. It was quite clear that the Arab governments were quietly cheering the Israelis and hoping that they would finish the job and were very disappointed when they failed to finish the job. The best way of attaining friendship is by confronting a yet more dangerous enemy. There have been several such [enemies] in the Middle East and there are several at the present time. That seems to me the best hope of understanding between the Arabs on the one hand and either the West or the Israelis on the other hand.
People talk about American imperialism as a danger. That is absolute nonsense. People who talk about American imperialism in the Middle East either know nothing about America or know nothing about imperialism. American imperialism is a term which might justly be used to describe some of the processes by which the original 13 states increased to the present 50. But as applied to American policy in the Middle East at the present time, it is wrong to the point of absurdity. Take the classical examples of imperialism: When the Romans went to Britain 2,000 years ago, or when the British went to India 300 years ago, an exit strategy was not uppermost in their minds.
When you look around the region, which are the potential enemies which may be regarded as the greater threat?
At the moment, principally the Iranian revolution. On the one hand they’re afraid of what you might call Iranian imperialism, and on the other hand of the Iranian Shi’ite revolution.
The Sunni-Shi’ite question is obviously different according to which country you’re in. In a country like Iraq or Syria, where you have both Sunnis and Shia, the distinction between Sunni and Shia, the clashes between them, are very important. In a country like Egypt where there are no Shia, which is 100% Sunni, it’s not an important issue. They don’t see the Shia threat as an issue.
There’s one other group of people that I think one should bear in mind when considering the future of the Middle East, and that is women. The case has been made, and I think there is some force in it, that the main reason for the relative backwardness of the Islamic world compared to the West is the treatment of women. As far as I know, it was first made by a Turkish writer called Namik Kemal in about 1880. At that time an agonizing debate had been going on for more than a century: What went wrong? Why did we fall behind the West?
He said, “The answer is very clear. We fell behind the West because of the way we treat our women. By the way we treat our women we deprive ourselves of the talents and services of half the population. And we submit the early education of the other half to ignorant and downtrodden mothers.”
It goes further than that. A child who grows up in a traditional Muslim household is accustomed to authoritarian, autocratic rule from the start. I think the position of women is of crucial importance.
That is why I am looking with great interest at Tunisia. Tunisia is the one Arab country that has really done something about women. In Tunisia there is compulsory education for girls, from primary school, right through. In Tunisia, women are to be found in the professions. There are doctors, lawyers, journalists, politicians and so on. Women play a significant part in public life in Tunisia. I think that is going to have an enormous impact. It’s already having this in Tunisia and you can see that in various ways. But this will certainly spread to other parts of the world.
Elsewhere, the question of women and the role of the women is of crucial importance for the future of the Muslim world in general.
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And so to the Israel question. Israel, like everybody else, was taken completely by surprise. How should Israel be responding to these protests?
Watch carefully, keep silent, make the necessary preparations.
And reach out. Reach out. This is a real possibility nowadays. There are increasing numbers of people in the Arab world who look with, I would even say, with wonderment at what they see in Israel, at the functioning of a free and open society. I read an article quite recently by a Palestinian Arab whom I will not endanger by naming, in which he said that “as things stand in the world at the present time, the best hope that an Arab has for his future is as a second class citizen of a Jewish state.” A rather extraordinary statement coming from an Arab spokesman. But if you think about it, he’s not far wrong. The alternative, being in an Arab state, is very much worse. They certainly do better as second class citizens of the Jewish state. There’s a growing realization of that. People would speak much more openly about that if it were safe to do so, which it obviously isn’t.
There are two things which I think are helpful towards a better understanding between the Arabs and Israel. One of them is the well-known one, of the perception of a greater danger, which I mentioned before. Sadat turned to Israel because he saw that Egypt was becoming a Russian colony. The same thing has happened again on a number of occasions. Now they see Israel as a barrier against the Iranian threat.
The other one, which is less easy to define but in the long run is probably more important, is [regarding Israel] as a model of democratic government. A model of a free and open society with rights for women – an increasingly important point, especially in the perception of women.
In both of these respects I think that there are some hopeful signs for the future.
In Egypt, the more things change, the more they stay the same in so many ways. Here's a video in which the Egyptian army kills Coptic monks by live ammunition while they demolish the walls of St.Bishoy monastery.
Rasmussen: Americans skeptical about prospects for Arab democracy
A new Rasmussen poll shows that most Americans are skeptical about the prospects for democracy in Arab countries, and believe the United States should leave the Arab revolutions alone (Hat Tip: Martin Kramer).
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 29% of American Adults think a change of government in any of these Arab countries will be good for the United States, while slightly more (33%) feel such a change will be bad for America. Twelve percent (12%) say it will have no impact, but one-in-four (26%) aren’t sure what to expect. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
However, as with the recent turmoil in Egypt, most Americans (67%) say the United States should leave the situation in the Arab countries alone. Just 17% say the United States should get more directly involved in the political situation there, but another 17% are not sure.
Americans are skeptical about the political changes that are likely to come from the growing - and, in Libya’s case, violent - protests. Thirty percent (30%) believe it is at least somewhat likely that most of these Arab countries will become free, democratic and peaceful over the next few years, but that includes just four percent (4%) who say it is Very Likely. Sixty-one percent (61%) view a democratic and peaceful outcome as unlikely, with 14% who say it is Not At All Likely.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
