Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the ugliest of them all?
Writing in the Arab News, Abdulateef al-Muhlim argues that the Arab spring has revealed the true face of the Arabs, and it's an ugly sight (Hat Tip: Herb G).
Everyone knows the truth, but we won’t admit it. During the Arab Spring,
we saw our real faces in the mirrors. It showed that the Arabs were
never united and are now divided beyond anybody’s imagination. We hate
each other more than we hate the outside enemy. This is why no one in
the Arab world showed any sympathy to the Syrians when Israeli planes
attacked Syrian targets a few weeks ago. As a matter of fact, even
hardcore anti-Israelis wished the Israeli planes had continued eastward
and attacked the Syrian Presidential Palace and killed an Arab leader
named Bashar Assad. In other words, many in the Arab world sided with
Israel against an Arab country. After the attack, we saw many Syrians
approach the Israeli-fortified checkpoints in the Golan Heights, not to
attack Israeli soldiers, but to seek refuge and get medical attention. I
am not talking about simple medical care. I am talking about major
surgeries like the four-year-old Syrian girl who got a heart transplant
at Wolfson Hospital in Holon, Israel.
This is the real Arab Spring. Syrians are hurting Syrians and the
Israelis are the ones who treat the Syrian wounds. Yes, the Arab Spring
is a joke and I mean a very bad joke. The Arab Spring is not about
seeking democracy, it is about Arabs killing Arabs. And this is why
Israeli soldiers are busy on the Golan Heights. They are not busy with
loading ammunition; they are busy picking cherries and other fruits.
What is more, they are also busy giving guided tours to show the world
Syrian planes targeting civilians, Scud missiles destroying villages and
tanks attacking schools and mosques. What goes inside Syria is more
horrific. Syrian men humiliate Syrian women in front of their relatives,
rape and kill them. It is not only the killing that is ugly. We saw a
Syrian kill another Syrian and then open his chest with a knife and take
a bite of his heart. It can’t get any uglier.
Now, mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the ugliest of them all? Well,
they are all ugly. It has turned out that the Arab Spring is not about a
search for democracy, social justice and better standards of living.
The Arab Spring is all about hate and sectarian violence. The world
didn’t hear anything about rebuilding the countries or eradicating
poverty. The talk is all about fighting among the same people from the
same country.
Here's LATMA's song of the week - the Language of the Arab Man. I had to watch this with the sound off so you can all let me know how the music is. Aren't subtitles great?
Shocka: Syria claims Israel supplying rebels with weapons
You just knew this claim would be made at some point. The Assad regime is claiming that Syrian rebels are being armed by Israel (it's nonsense of course).
The fact is, Arabs don’t all look alike or think alike. But we are often pushed into a kind of groupthink, a kind of self-censorship that hinders our development and our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
We are not a universal group. But some of us believe in a simple universal truth: that every Arab deserves to live in freedom, wherever he or she might call home. Some of us want Arab countries to be more like America and Israel, places where the individual can flourish.
Say those words to many Arabs and they are shocked and angered. Soon, words like imperialist are thrown about, and the subject turns to Israel. Always, it seems, it turns to Israel.
Why the anger when I hint that America and Israel might have something to teach the Arab world? I thought about it for the longest time, and only recently stumbled upon the answer.
It is all about Arab self-doubt. It is all tied to a profound lack of cultural self-confidence, and a deep-seated fear that maybe, just maybe, Arabs won’t be very good at the self-governance thing. That Arab nations won’t be capable of building democratic cultures that engender the flourishing of human freedom, and that these nations won’t have the ability to tap the God-given talents of their people the way Americans and Israelis do.
That maybe, just maybe, the Arab world will never measure up to America or Israel.
Better, goes the logic, to cling to anger over the plight of the Palestinians. Better to cling to international policy disputes and to a deep-seated hatred of Israel. Better to play the role of victim, and the role of self-righteous critic, than to do the hard work of lifting up the conditions of your people.
Okay, he grew up in and lives in America, but his story tells you that many Arabs who grew up like he did still retain the ancient Middle East hatreds. But he gives me hope.
The United States has released a small number of documents taken from an Iraqi archive during the 2003 invasion. The documents reveal that Saddam Hussein could not believe that Iran was as strong as it turned out to be, and thought that he was being attacked by Israel.
Mr. Hussein so grievously underestimated Iran’s military that he wrongly assumed Iran’s initial airstrikes in the war had actually been carried out by Israeli warplanes. He personally selected the rockets to use on one attack against an Iranian city, and he boasted that Iraq had a chemical weapons arsenal that “exterminates by the thousands.” He felt threatened enough by the rise of fundamentalist Islamic groups that he discussed his desire to “trick” the public, into thinking that his government, too, endorsed Islamic values.
From a historical perspective, Mr. Hussein’s decision to take on Iran and his reaction to the Iran-contra affair are two of the most intriguing areas in the papers.
Mr. Hussein set the stage for war with Iran by repudiating a 1975 agreement that had settled a disputed over the Shatt al Arab, the strategic waterway along their border. According to Amatzia Baram, an Israeli expert on Iraq who has studied the archive, the pivotal decision appears have been made in a meeting on Sept. 16, 1980, when Mr. Hussein took the optimistic view that the Iranians, fearing the Iraqi forces massed near the border, would give in without much of a fight.
A top secret report from the Iraqi General Military Intelligence Directorate supported Mr. Hussein’s assessment. “It is clear that, at present, Iran has no power to launch wide offensive operations against Iraq or to defend on a large scale,” the report noted. It also predicted “more deterioration of the general situation of Iran’s fighting capability.”
But the war, which ultimately lasted eight years and resulted in hundreds of thousands of casualties, turned out to be far more difficult than Mr. Hussein had expected. Soon after it began, Iranian aircraft bombed a series of targets, including Iraqi oil refineries and the Osirak nuclear plant south of Baghdad. The feat so surprised the Iraqis that they assumed the attack could not have emanated from Iran.
“This is Israel,” Mr. Hussein exclaimed in an Oct. 1, 1980, meeting. He then complained that Iraqi officials had not followed his suggestion to bury the nuclear facility under the Hamrin Mountains north of Baghdad, before approving a plan to fortify the complex with millions of sandbags. But those sandbags proved to be of little use when Israeli warplanes actually did strike the site, in June 1981.
Later, Mr. Hussein said he was not surprised that Israel felt threatened by Iraq, which he asserted would defeat Iran and emerge with a military that was stronger than ever. “Once Iraq walks out victorious, there will not be any Israel,” he said in a 1982 conversation. “Technically, they are right in all of their attempts to harm Iraq.”
...
The notion that Israel and the West had joined forces to undermine his government persisted well after the Iran-Iraq war ended. In 1990, Mr. Hussein himself intervened to ensure the execution of Farzad Bazoft, an Iranian-born journalist working for The Observer, a British newspaper. Mr. Bazoft was investigating a mysterious explosion at a military complex south of Baghdad when he was arrested and charged with spying for Israel. The Bazoft case drew worldwide attention, and the British government appealed for clemency. Mr. Hussein was unmoved. Told that it would take a month for the Iraqi legal process to be completed, he took charge of the matter.
“A whole month?” he exclaimed. “I say we execute him in Ramadan, and this will be the punishment for Margaret Thatcher.”
Mr. Bazoft was hanged on March 15, 1990, six months after his arrest and shortly before Ramadan began. In response, Britain recalled its ambassador. Less than five months later, Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait.
I suspect that if we got the same types of documents from other Arab countries, we would find that they too suspect Israel as being the root of all their problems. The paranoia is a primary characteristic.
The Washington Post didn't get everything right, but they got this much right: Israel is indeed being used as a scapegoat by certain Arab and Muslim regimes.
There’s little doubt that plenty of Arabs and Turks are angry at Israel. But it’s worth noting that, as often is the case in the Middle East, those passions are being steered by governments.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who aspires to regional leadership, has directed a campaign against the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and stoked it with incendiary statements. Mr. Erdogan is furious that a U.N. investigation concluded that Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip, and thus its intervention to stop a Turkish-led flotilla last year, was legal. He also finds it convenient to lambaste Israel rather than talk about neighboring Syria, where daily massacres are being carried out by a regime Mr. Erdogan cultivated.
The assault on the embassy in Cairo has been condemned by the leaders of Egypt’s popular revolution and by some leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood. Both they and Western diplomats blame the ruling military for failing to secure the embassy, and they suspect the omission may have been part of an effort to divert rising public unrest toward a familiar target.
In the West Bank, polls have shown that President Mahmoud Abbas’s U.N. statehood initiative is regarded as a low priority by the majority of Palestinians, 60 percent of whom said the better option was resuming direct negotiations with Israel. But Mr. Abbas fears he may be the next target of popular uprising; the U.N. gambit appears aimed in part at preempting that.
But what we Israelis and many Jews understand - but very few other people understand - is that none of this will change if there is God forbid a 'Palestinian state.' They will just find new reasons to scapegoat us. It's a cycle we Jews have been living for more than 2,000 years and it didn't change upon the creation of the State of Israel. Its focus just shifted.
The 'Palestinians' are pawns in the battle against Israel
If you see the 'Palestinians' as anything other than pawns in an attempt to destroy the State of Israel, the announcement by Salam Fayyad that most of the promised aid to the 'Palestinian Authority' has not arrived ought to make you rethink the 'Palestinians' role. Consider this.
Those arguing most strongly for Palestinian unilateralism, the PA's Arab neighbors, are among the stingiest with aid -- among them, only the UAE, Oman, and Algeria have fulfilled their aid pledges. As a result, the PA is saddled with a deficit that stands at $500 million and rising; steep indeed, but equivalent to only about half a day's oil revenues for Saudi Arabia.
This far exceeds the aid shortfall experienced by the PA in 2010, despite the fact that its aid requirements have fallen as a result of Fayyad's efforts to wean the PA off of external assistance. And it comes despite the PA's strides in fiscal management, which should have been heartening to donors wary of their funds being ill used.
That the same friends who are promising their UN votes to the PA are failing to follow through on their aid pledges should give Palestinians pause. The last IMF report on the Palestinian economy, issued last April, heaped praise on the PA's economic efforts, which were in part responsible for a remarkable eight percent increase in the West Bank's GDP in 2010. But it noted that continued economic recovery for the Palestinians depended on three things in particular: further reductions by Israel in restrictions on movement and access within the West Bank and Gaza; better coordination between the PA and Israel on the collection of "clearance revenue" (essentially taxes and fees collected by Israeli authorities and transferred to the PA); and more reliable disbursement of donor aid.
The first two boil down to Israeli-Palestinian cooperation, which is threatened by the specter of Palestinian unilateralism in September.
Could things get even worse for the 'Palestinians' after September? What could go wrong?
It's a rare occasion, but I find myself disagreeing with David Bernstein.
The hostility emanating to Israel emanating from these sources is not, primarily, a result of anti-Semitism or other Jewcentric mental maladies. Rather, it is a natural result of a cauldron of ideologies–pacifism, anti-liberalism, Third Worldism, hostility to the West, warmed-over Marxism, and so on, combined with a dash of naive human rights idealism–that dominates certain intellectual circles.
Israel receives more grief than almost anyone else from such circles for several reasons: (1) because of its precarious security situation, it uses military force more regularly than other potential targets; (2) because of its precarious political situation, it is far more vulnerable to such criticism than, say, the U.S. (which will studiously ignore criticism of the OBL operation); and (3) unlike in the U.S, Israel has a significant and influential domestic far left that encourages and magnifies such criticisms. Indeed, given universal military service among Jewish non-Haredi adults, Israel often faces criticism from its own leftist soldiers and reservists of the sort quite rare in the U.S.
That’s not to deny that some leftist critics of Israel are anti-Semites, and that an even greater number are content to play on anti-Semitic themes when they find it rhetorically useful. But let’s face it: if you can’t get the leftist Europeans, NGOs, etc. behind a surgical strike on Osama Bin Laden, they are hardly going to approve of much broader Israeli military action in Gaza or Lebanon.
Sorry, but no. The anti-Israel obsession of Turkey, the European Union, the American Left, Iran, the Arab countries... is unmatched on the face of the earth.
The double standard that condemns Israel every time an Osama Bin Laden is rubbed out (remember Mahmoud al-Mabhouh) but could care less when an Arab Muslim kills an Arab Muslim can only be explained by anti-Semitism.
Yes, of course, the Far Left is lining up to condemn the United States for killing Bin Laden. In two weeks, it will die down. Two years ago, we killed about 1,000 Hamas terrorists in Operation Cast Lead and a couple of hundred human shields - one of the best terrorist to civilian kill ratios ever under the circumstances... and the World is still talking about the Goldstone Report about it (which came out more than a year and a half ago).
The obsession with Israel is unique. It's created by anti-Semitism.
Moussa says he would honor Egypt-Israel peace treaty
Arab League chief Amr Moussa, who is a candidate for President of Egypt, says that he would honor the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty (Hat Tip: Daily Alert).
Speaking to a few hundred Egyptians packed into a cultural center in the upscale neighborhood of Zamalek, Moussa said he would "listen to the young people of Egypt" and work with them to make Egypt a regional powerhouse.
When asked about Egypt's peace treaty with Israel, he said: "We as Egyptians have a responsibility to lay the foundations for peace."
"We cannot rebuild Egypt ... while adopting an adventurous foreign policy," he said, adding "we would be kidding ourselves" if Egyptians didn't recognize Israel as a state.
However, Moussa said he would possibly reconsider the terms of a controversial gas deal under which Egypt sells Israel 60 billion cubic feet (1.7 billion cubic meters) a year for 15 years.
The deal has drawn criticism at home, with some saying the gas was being sold at below-market rates. Others resent Israel's treatment of Palestinians, and say Egypt should not supply energy to Israel.
But note, as I have pointed out before,
Moussa enjoys wide popularity in Egypt, largely because of his scathing criticism of Israel, a country seen by most Egyptians as an enemy despite the 1979 peace treaty between the two neighbors.
So is Moussa becoming a realist who understands that Israel is here to say? Would he love to get rid of us but also realizes that the cost to Egypt would be too high? Or is this a tactic to mollify the 'international community' in a bid to convince it not to seek another candidate that is more amenable to friendly relations with its neighbor?
In this post, you will see a trailer for a movie called Little Town of Bethlehem. Here's part of what the film's web site gives as a summary.
Sami, Ahmad, Yonatan come from radically different backgrounds in a land of unending war. Yet, against all odds, including some within their Israeli and Palestinian communities, they are able to find common ground. They walk a path of nonviolence struggle in lockstep with Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. For them courage is found not in taking up arms, but setting them down once and for all and extending a hand in peace.
From the award-winning team that brought you End of the Spear (2006) and Miss HIV (2007) comes director Jim Hanon’s latest documentary, Little Town of Bethlehem. Unscripted and unrehearsed, discover the humanity lurking behind an ancient cycle of violence.
The idea that this is a 'documentary' is comical. A docudrama - playing fast and loose with the facts - is more like it.
Let's watch the trailer and then I'll explain to you why I react so harshly to this film.
Let's go to the videotape.
What's wrong here? Well, there are several things wrong. First, the comparison between the 'Palestinians' and Martin Luther King's non-violence is odious. King's campaign was genuinely peaceful. The 'Palestinians' consider throwing stones and Molotov cocktails 'non-violent,' and they consider suicide bombings to be justified. Moreover, King was not planning the overthrow of the United States government and its replacement with a black-dominated government. The 'Palestinians' are planning the destruction of the Jewish state and its replacement with yet another Arab Muslim state (or that state's incorporation into one or more of Syria, Jordan, Egypt or Lebanon).
Second, we are presented with different narratives as being 'equally valid.' They are not. Only one side sought to conduct a campaign of extinction - the 'Palestinian' (Arab) side. And the very idea of the existence of a separate 'Palestinian' (as opposed to Arab) ethnicity is, as I have pointed out many times, a fraud. Every action the Arabs have taken for the last 100 years or more has been designed to do one thing: To prevent the establishment and then to vitiate the existence of a Jewish state.
What are this film's messages? The friend who sent me the link says that film maker Sami Awad has four messages:
(1) Jewish settlements and Occupation are pushing Christians out of the Holy Land. I consider this the Christian equivalent of Mark Perry's blood libel that building in Ramat Shlomo is getting American boys and girls killed in Afghanistan. It's that serious.
(2) Palestinian resistance is Christian resistance, i.e. the Muslims are behaving non-violently and comporting themselves to Christianity (he actually goes so far as to say that he's proselytizing while standing with them at protests, as if that could be true without him getting killed)
(3) Muslim and British rule saw Christians, Jews, and Muslims living together in harmony.
His goal, as he explicitly articulates it, is that de facto one-state equality ("one-state" my description; "equality" his) should precede a negotiated settlement.
Let me answer those points.
First, the fact that Israel is the only country in the region where the Christian population has increased over the last 100 years and continues to increase puts the lie to the claim that Jewish 'settlements' and 'occupation' are pushing Christians out of the Holy Land. Look at what's happening to Christians in Egypt, in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Syria and in Iran, and compare that to the status of Christians in Israel. We're the only country in which Christian lives are not in constant danger because they are Christians.
As to my friend's second point, see the first paragraph after the video. The differences between the 'Palestinian' suicide bombers and Martin Luther King's philosophy of non-violence are obvious to anyone who has their eyes open.
Third, Muslims, Jews and Christians did not live together in peace under Muslim or British rule. See, for example, Hebron1929, or the riots of 1936 and 1937. Under Muslim rule, Jews were treated as dhimmis and could not get too close to the Western Wall or enter Hebron's Machpeila Cave - the two holiest sites to Jews in Israel.
As to the possibility of everyone living together in one state, there are 22 Arab Muslim states in this region, but only one Jewish state. Why should we ever agree to allow the one Jewish state to become a non-Jewish hodgepodge?
The "Hagana attacks" and a "sniper kills" but not a word, at least in this trailer, that the Arabs had been conducting a violent terror campaign against Jewish civilians since 1920, killing hundreds and ethnically-cleansing several residency locations. Nothing about the Mufti, the pre-eminent local Arab leader, collaborating with Hitler. Not a word that the violence of 1947-49 was initiated by the Arabs, first by rejecting any compromise as proffered by the UN's Partition Plan, second by engaging again in violence directed at civilians beginning on December 1, 1947 and last by the invasion of Israel by seven Arab states on May 15, 1948. Not a word about that 1950s' fedayeen and that the PLO's Fatah began in 1964.
Scenes of Israeli police breaking up Arab demonstrations are paralleled to and almost superimposed on police in the American South beating Blacks during the 1960s. The film claims there's a "Palestinian no-violent struggle for liberation". Really? Where? Every single Friday, at a half-dozen locations, Arabs gather to protest and - yes, throw rocks and there are Western media sympathizers who describe that as non-violent.
I hope my Christian readers and friends will not be taken in and will respond critically to this pack of lies.
Acknowledging the scourge of anti-Semitism and its likely continued prominence in the Arab world, the Washington Post's Richard Cohen argues that now is the time for Israel to settle with the 'Palestinians.'
There are nearly no Jews in Arab lands - they were kicked out after Israel was established in 1948. Nowhere in the Middle East is peace with Israel popular. Nowhere in the Middle East is anti-Semitism considered aberrant or weird. It is inconceivable to me that Arab politicians will not attempt to harness both sentiments, combining nationalism with anti-Semitism - a combustible and unstable compound. History instructs about what follows.
Israeli leaders are well aware that they face a new reality in their region. Whatever regime arises in Egypt, it is likely to chill even further what is already called a cold peace. The same might hold for Jordan. King Abdullah is secure for now - the Bedouin tribes need him to avoid chaos - but he, too, will have to listen to popular sentiment.
Consequently, now would be the propitious time for Israel to settle with the Palestinians. I am aware that resolution of the Palestinian issue will not satisfy anti-Semites or extreme Arab nationalists - Israel is not going to give up all of Jerusalem nor, for that matter, disappear - and both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza have only been emboldened by recent events. Still, the creation of a Palestinian state - the lifting of all the onerous restrictions on Palestinian movement - will take some air out of this particular balloon and, possibly, improve Israel's deteriorating moral standing in Europe and elsewhere. This is no small matter.
Sorry, but no. No, because there are no terms on which the 'Palestinians' and their Arab patrons are willing to settle that would not make Israel's continued existence not viable. No, because at a time when the anti-Semites are emboldened, making them generous settlement offers only whets their appetite for more. And no, because, as Cohen acknowledges, a settlement will not satisfy the anti-Semites or the 'extreme Arab nationalists' - descriptions that fit the vast majority of our neighbors' populations - but a settlement will weaken Israel's defenses against its enemies.
Contrary to Cohen's worry about Israel's 'deteriorating moral standing' in Europe, the Europeans don't matter. They hate us at least as much as the Arabs do and possibly more. They always have and they always will. From the genteel British who did all that they could to prevent the State of Israel from coming into existence, to the orderly Germans who until recently were too embarrassed by their actions in the 1940's to say anything, the Europeans are the original anti-Semites. We cannot fool ourselves by thinking that a 'Palestinian state' - even if agreement could be reached on where and how to establish one - would change their thinking.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron told students in Qatar that some Middle Eastern rulers were using the Israel-Palestine conflict as a distraction from their own oppressive regimes.
“In too many countries in the Middle East, some rulers say to their people ‘be angry about that, don’t be angry about the fact that you live in a non-open society,’” Cameron told his audience at Qatar University in the capital, Doha, today after taking a series of questions on Israel.
And then there's this:
Europe has given a huge amount to these countries. It hasn’t really insisted on proper conditions,” Cameron said. “We have seen far too much money disappearing into a great big black hole. This is a wake-up call for the European Union to look at the aid that it gives. It’s not acceptable that this money has gone and no particular reform has happened in return.”
Well, there's that word again... acceptable... but Hmmm.
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
