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By Barry Rubin
We have entered into a new period of U.S. policy toward Israel for the Obama Administration. Basically, President Barack Obama needs Israel, requires its cooperation, and is eager to get along with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. How long this will last is unclear but it should characterize, barring unforeseen events, at least for the next year.
What is the basis of this new era? When it came to office, the Obama Administration was in radical mode, determined to distance itself from Israel as a key to winning over Arabs and Muslims, assuming that peace could be achieved with sufficient pressure on Israel as the only requirement, and hostile to Israel’s current government.
A measure of reality eventually set in, involving a large number of factors ranging from the lack of Arab cooperation, to Iran’s intransigence, the lack of progress in engaging Syria, and the tasks of dealing with Iraq and Afghanistan. The administration’s head-on charge over demanding a freeze of construction on settlements only produced a one-year-plus delay on Israel-Palestinian negotiations. The Palestinian Authority (PA) was uncooperative. American public opinion was unhappy with the policy toward Israel.
This is not to say that the situation is simple but by September 2010 things are very different. The Obama Administration is desperate for diplomatic successes, or at least the appearance of having them. What’s happening regarding Iran’s nuclear weapons’ drive cannot be concealed or ignored.
The U.S. government is also is aware of falling public support--including a sharp decline in Jewish backing though pro-Israel forces extend far more widely throughout American society—on the eve of American elections. In addition, it’s clear that Netanyahu’s government isn’t going away and there is no “dovish” alternative that will give Obama everything he wants for little or nothing in exchange.
So now Obama needs Netanyahu. He needs to keep the new peace talks going and looking good. The president also requires that Netanyahu keep things quiet on the Israel-Palestinian front so as—so he thinks—to make it easier to get Arab and Muslim support or other U.S. policies. And since Obama’s orientation is mainly domestic and his world view is horrified by power politics, he wants to avoid international crises generally. Anti-Israel officials in the administration are being ignored.
The truth is—and this is analysis, not a political statement—Netanyahu and his government, including Defense Minister Ehud Barak, have performed brilliantly to facing this challenge. It has met U.S. requests without sacrificing Israeli interests, if nothing else secure in the knowledge that the PA isn’t going to make a deal any way and wanting to focus American attention on the Iranian threat. Whatever the U.S. government says in public it has to realize that the PA, not Israel, is the roadblock to peace.
This kind of charm diplomacy may be what Netanyahu is best at doing. His speech in Washington was a masterpiece, praising Obama and making clear that his goal is a true and stable peace, not merely:
“A brief interlude between two wars…a temporary respite between outbursts of terror. We seek a peace that will end the conflict between us once and for all. We seek a peace that will last for generations.” He called Abbas, “my partner in peace….We recognize that another people share this land with us. And I came here today to find an historic compromise that will enable both peoples to live in peace, security and dignity.”
Netanyahu concluded: “I did not come here to win an argument. I came here to forge a peace. I did not come here to play a blame game where even the winners lose. I came here to achieve a peace that will bring benefits to all. I did not come here to find excuses. I came here to find solutions.”
He made this approach without illusions: “We left Lebanon, we got terror. We left Gaza, we got terror. We want to ensure that territory we concede will not be turned into a third Iranian sponsored terror enclave aimed at the heart of Israel. That is why a defensible peace requires security arrangements that can withstand the test of time and the many challenges that are sure to confront us.”
Is the PA going to meet even a single one of Israel’s requirements? End of conflict; real security guarantees, demilitarization of a Palestinian state, recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, resettlement of all Palestinian refugees in the state of Palestine? Of course not. Possibly there might be agreement on some minor border changes but even that is unlikely, much less giving even the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem to Israel or some other parts of eastern or northern Jerusalem areas.
What Israel has to do, though, is to continue to put forward reasonable demands, show itself cooperative and flexible, while letting the months of futile talks roll ever onward. He isn’t threatened by right-wing walk-outs from the coalition, which at any rate will be discouraged by the fact that he isn’t actually giving anything away. At any rate, he controls the Likud; the Labor Party has no alternative; the opposition Kadima has no leadership or program. At some point next year, Netanyahu will call elections and win a resounding mandate.
Abbas will go along with the charades up to a point but increasingly, as he gives nothing himself, will blame Israel for the lack of progress. Even Marwan Barghouti, the jailed in Israel leader of Fatah’s West Bank grassroots’ organization, opposes talks publicly and much of the Fatah establishment opposes them privately. Abbas will be itching to walk out and insist that only a unilateral declaration of independence can “solve” the issue. But during this period, at least, that’s the very last thing the Obama Administration wants: a huge crisis, a difficult decision, potential mass violence stirring up the region, a likely diplomatic catastrophe.
All of this doesn’t mean the administration gets it over the extent to which Iran’s nuclear weapons pose a big and negative strategic shift in the area, the extent of the threat from revolutionary Islamists, how Iraq is at the brink of political anarchy, the futility of the U.S. effort in Afghanistan, the at least temporary loss of Turkey, the capture of Lebanon by the Iran-Syria bloc, and all the other ills of the Middle East.
But the current U.S. government understands enough about what’s going on to comprehend that it doesn’t want a crisis with Israel as well and that it isn’t going to achieve some dramatic breakthrough to Arab-Israeli peace. As for Obama, no politician desires anything more passionately—other than election—than having someone else making him look good, perhaps especially when he doesn’t deserve it. Consequently, now is the time for a somewhat belated Obama-Netanyahu honeymoon.
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.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Terror Attack Near Hebron: Not An Incident But a Revelation About What's Happening
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By Barry Rubin
An isolated fragment of news, a tragic story, or just another act of terrorism? What's necessary, however, is to fit events into a broader picture and so it is with the latest attack by Hamas, killing four Israelis driving near Hebron.
What does this mean? What's it all about? It's a signal, timed for the restart of direct negotiations, that Hamas will subvert by terror any progress toward Israel-Palestinian peace. Hamas said so explicitly, saying the attack was also against those, "Led astray by the illusion of negotiations" and reminding the PA that its "natural choice...is jihad and resistance." Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti said the same thing from his Israeli prison cell.
President Barack Obama called the attack "senseless slaughter" against which the United States would "push back."
But terrorism is hardly "senseless." On the contrary, it is part of a very sensible strategy that often works in its shorter-term goals.
And how can Obama say the U.S. government is going to "push back" since only a few weeks ago he handed a huge victory to the organizer of this attack, Hamas, by pressuring Israel into reducing sanctions on the Gaza Strip while himself granting about $300 million to pay salaries (through the PA) to civil servants in Gaza who implement Hamas's policies?
The U.S. government also forgot its former policy of making things tough in the Gaza Strip so that the "moderation" of the West Bank looked better and more beneficial. Now the idea is to promote prosperity in the Gaza Strip so that for some reason--I can't imagine why--the populace will turn against Hamas.
But here are scenes of Hamas supporters celebrating the attack. They have nothing to worry about, since they know that Western governments and other international forces will block Israeli retaliation against the terrorist group, while now there are no restrictions on non-military goods coming into the Gaza Strip. And if Hamas stages ten more attacks or twenty? If it fires rockets and mortars into Israel or launches cross-border attacks, is there any likelihood that the United States will "push back?"
And if not, then how can America policy have any credibility or leverage?
As mediators and media talk about how peace is in everyone's interest, this attack reminds us that it is not so clearly in the interest of the Palestinian Authority (PA) which faces massive public opposition (which it has so often fomented) against compromise, internal opposition to making any compromises (among a majority of Fatah leaders), and also the determined opposition of Hamas.
The attack signals to the Palestinian public that "resistance" is an alternative accorded much more honor and respectability even in PA propaganda and ideology. It is Hamas's counter-campaign to show that violence is preferable. And why not? Murdering Israelis is right in the dominant Palestinian political culture, is made to seem heroic, and doesn't carry heavy penalties either for the groups doing it or individual terrorists carrying it out.
Here's one more proof. The PA has just honored a Palestinian mother as a great role model. What is her claim to fame? Four sons in Israeli jails for having tried or succeeded in killing Israeli civilians. How many hundred examples would you like from the last year or two of this positive reinforcement for such deeds?
This Hebron attack also reminds Israel that the PA is unable (and in part unwilling) to stop terrorism. Thus, the creation of a Palestinian state at this time and in these circumstances would not necessarily be a solution ending the conflict but merely a new stage of cross-border attacks, official anti-Israel incitement, and growing power for Hamas and its radical allies within the Fatah group that rules the West Bank.
The radical side, both in Fatah and Hamas, will be aided by Iran, Syria, Hizballah, and revolutionary Islamist forces which this U.S. government has more often engaged than confronted. If that side appears to be winning, why shouldn't Palestinians join or at least cheer for it?
Moreover, nowadays such acts of terrorism don't generate real international support for Israel but often suggestions that it should make more concessions faster in order to "end" the violence. Indeed, the New York Times's opening paragraph on the attack actually succeeded in blaming Israel as the culprit after four of its own innocent civilians are murdered:
"The killing of four Israeli settlers, including a pregnant woman, in the West Bank on Tuesday evening rattled Israeli and Palestinian leaders on the eve of peace talks in Washington and underscored the disruptive role that the issue of Jewish settlements could play in the already fragile negotiations."
Not the disruptive role of Palestinian terrorism but of Jewish settlements! But guess what? there has been a freeze on building new settlements or geographically expanding existing ones now for 17 years. There has been a freeze on constructing new buildings on existing settlements for almost one year.
There is not now, nor apparently will there ever be, a freeze on Palestinian terrorism. Nor will the Western states demand one, by which I mean not stopping every attack but making a maximum effort to do so, truly punishing (not just for the sin of bad timing!) those involved in such attacks, and demeaning rather than extolling that behavior.
Instead, we are apparently going to see a repeat of the pattern that occurred during the 1993-2000 peace process era in which Hamas (and at times Fatah) terrorist attacks showed that negotiations heightened rather than reduced the level of violence. Peace is preferable but the idea of pressing for formal peace as a panacea is just flat wrong.
Does that mean talks, peace, or a two-state solution are bad? Not at all. But they must be conducted with eyes open, strategies clear, and policies suitably tough. Part of a proper approach would include a concerted effort to subvert Hamas and even overthrow the regime in the Gaza Strip. Instead, in recent months, Hamas has won a major victory: Western pressure on Israel to reduce sanctions to a level ensuring the long-term survival of a terrorist statelet in the Gaza Strip.
Equally, even if the PA cracks down and arrests Hamas activists on the West Bank, these people will soon be released and the organization knows that it suffers no huge or real costs for continued terrorism. The only recourse Israel has to ensuring the terrorists are punished or even properly interrogated is to launch a raid and capture them, an action impossible at present since it would be portrayed internationally as "endangering" the direct negotiations.
For its part, the PA has no interest in crushing the terrorists--who often come, after all, from its own ranks and payrolls--but in merely shutting them up for a short while to avoid blame for upsetting the talks. In the PA's eyes, the terrorists are not guilty of a terrible crime but merely of bad timing. After all, when Fatah PA decides to launch a new intifada some day these men will be allies again.
It is revealing that the State Department's background briefing on the direct negotiations by a senior administration official explained that Hamas will only be able to join the talks if it ceased terrorism and accepted Israel's continued existence. There was not one word about pressures on Hamas for refusing to do so, nor on the PA for generating incitement to violence. All carrots, no sticks.
Regarding terrorism, we see the same thing. Some very nice words from Secretary of State Hilary Clinton about how terrible terrorism is and how, "The forces of terror and destruction cannot be allowed to continue." But, in fact, U.S. policy is not doing much to stop them except arguing that diplomatic efforts toward peace will do so. And when she adds that the PA represents "those Palestinians who themselves have rejected a path of violence in favor of a path of peace."
It is the fallacy of that statement that undermines her whole argument. The West Bank Palestinians and PA have not rejected the path of violence in principle, in fact the fact that they won't walk down the path of peace is due both to their hopes of finding violence useful in the future and their fear that too much moderation will bring violence (from their own people whose anger and hatred they keep stoking, their more radical and rival colleagues, and Hamas) against themselves.
Again, I'm glad that the PA is far more negotiations-oriented than Hamas or the pre-1993 (Oslo agreement) PLO. Achieving a two-state outcome to the conflict is also clearly the diplomatic road to take. Yet the way this is being done and the ideas guiding the U.S. and European approach will ensure that the whole effort is a show, not a solution.
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: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/. 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 isolated fragment of news, a tragic story, or just another act of terrorism? What's necessary, however, is to fit events into a broader picture and so it is with the latest attack by Hamas, killing four Israelis driving near Hebron.
What does this mean? What's it all about? It's a signal, timed for the restart of direct negotiations, that Hamas will subvert by terror any progress toward Israel-Palestinian peace. Hamas said so explicitly, saying the attack was also against those, "Led astray by the illusion of negotiations" and reminding the PA that its "natural choice...is jihad and resistance." Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti said the same thing from his Israeli prison cell.
President Barack Obama called the attack "senseless slaughter" against which the United States would "push back."
But terrorism is hardly "senseless." On the contrary, it is part of a very sensible strategy that often works in its shorter-term goals.
And how can Obama say the U.S. government is going to "push back" since only a few weeks ago he handed a huge victory to the organizer of this attack, Hamas, by pressuring Israel into reducing sanctions on the Gaza Strip while himself granting about $300 million to pay salaries (through the PA) to civil servants in Gaza who implement Hamas's policies?
The U.S. government also forgot its former policy of making things tough in the Gaza Strip so that the "moderation" of the West Bank looked better and more beneficial. Now the idea is to promote prosperity in the Gaza Strip so that for some reason--I can't imagine why--the populace will turn against Hamas.
But here are scenes of Hamas supporters celebrating the attack. They have nothing to worry about, since they know that Western governments and other international forces will block Israeli retaliation against the terrorist group, while now there are no restrictions on non-military goods coming into the Gaza Strip. And if Hamas stages ten more attacks or twenty? If it fires rockets and mortars into Israel or launches cross-border attacks, is there any likelihood that the United States will "push back?"
And if not, then how can America policy have any credibility or leverage?
As mediators and media talk about how peace is in everyone's interest, this attack reminds us that it is not so clearly in the interest of the Palestinian Authority (PA) which faces massive public opposition (which it has so often fomented) against compromise, internal opposition to making any compromises (among a majority of Fatah leaders), and also the determined opposition of Hamas.
The attack signals to the Palestinian public that "resistance" is an alternative accorded much more honor and respectability even in PA propaganda and ideology. It is Hamas's counter-campaign to show that violence is preferable. And why not? Murdering Israelis is right in the dominant Palestinian political culture, is made to seem heroic, and doesn't carry heavy penalties either for the groups doing it or individual terrorists carrying it out.
Here's one more proof. The PA has just honored a Palestinian mother as a great role model. What is her claim to fame? Four sons in Israeli jails for having tried or succeeded in killing Israeli civilians. How many hundred examples would you like from the last year or two of this positive reinforcement for such deeds?
This Hebron attack also reminds Israel that the PA is unable (and in part unwilling) to stop terrorism. Thus, the creation of a Palestinian state at this time and in these circumstances would not necessarily be a solution ending the conflict but merely a new stage of cross-border attacks, official anti-Israel incitement, and growing power for Hamas and its radical allies within the Fatah group that rules the West Bank.
The radical side, both in Fatah and Hamas, will be aided by Iran, Syria, Hizballah, and revolutionary Islamist forces which this U.S. government has more often engaged than confronted. If that side appears to be winning, why shouldn't Palestinians join or at least cheer for it?
Moreover, nowadays such acts of terrorism don't generate real international support for Israel but often suggestions that it should make more concessions faster in order to "end" the violence. Indeed, the New York Times's opening paragraph on the attack actually succeeded in blaming Israel as the culprit after four of its own innocent civilians are murdered:
"The killing of four Israeli settlers, including a pregnant woman, in the West Bank on Tuesday evening rattled Israeli and Palestinian leaders on the eve of peace talks in Washington and underscored the disruptive role that the issue of Jewish settlements could play in the already fragile negotiations."
Not the disruptive role of Palestinian terrorism but of Jewish settlements! But guess what? there has been a freeze on building new settlements or geographically expanding existing ones now for 17 years. There has been a freeze on constructing new buildings on existing settlements for almost one year.
There is not now, nor apparently will there ever be, a freeze on Palestinian terrorism. Nor will the Western states demand one, by which I mean not stopping every attack but making a maximum effort to do so, truly punishing (not just for the sin of bad timing!) those involved in such attacks, and demeaning rather than extolling that behavior.
Instead, we are apparently going to see a repeat of the pattern that occurred during the 1993-2000 peace process era in which Hamas (and at times Fatah) terrorist attacks showed that negotiations heightened rather than reduced the level of violence. Peace is preferable but the idea of pressing for formal peace as a panacea is just flat wrong.
Does that mean talks, peace, or a two-state solution are bad? Not at all. But they must be conducted with eyes open, strategies clear, and policies suitably tough. Part of a proper approach would include a concerted effort to subvert Hamas and even overthrow the regime in the Gaza Strip. Instead, in recent months, Hamas has won a major victory: Western pressure on Israel to reduce sanctions to a level ensuring the long-term survival of a terrorist statelet in the Gaza Strip.
Equally, even if the PA cracks down and arrests Hamas activists on the West Bank, these people will soon be released and the organization knows that it suffers no huge or real costs for continued terrorism. The only recourse Israel has to ensuring the terrorists are punished or even properly interrogated is to launch a raid and capture them, an action impossible at present since it would be portrayed internationally as "endangering" the direct negotiations.
For its part, the PA has no interest in crushing the terrorists--who often come, after all, from its own ranks and payrolls--but in merely shutting them up for a short while to avoid blame for upsetting the talks. In the PA's eyes, the terrorists are not guilty of a terrible crime but merely of bad timing. After all, when Fatah PA decides to launch a new intifada some day these men will be allies again.
It is revealing that the State Department's background briefing on the direct negotiations by a senior administration official explained that Hamas will only be able to join the talks if it ceased terrorism and accepted Israel's continued existence. There was not one word about pressures on Hamas for refusing to do so, nor on the PA for generating incitement to violence. All carrots, no sticks.
Regarding terrorism, we see the same thing. Some very nice words from Secretary of State Hilary Clinton about how terrible terrorism is and how, "The forces of terror and destruction cannot be allowed to continue." But, in fact, U.S. policy is not doing much to stop them except arguing that diplomatic efforts toward peace will do so. And when she adds that the PA represents "those Palestinians who themselves have rejected a path of violence in favor of a path of peace."
It is the fallacy of that statement that undermines her whole argument. The West Bank Palestinians and PA have not rejected the path of violence in principle, in fact the fact that they won't walk down the path of peace is due both to their hopes of finding violence useful in the future and their fear that too much moderation will bring violence (from their own people whose anger and hatred they keep stoking, their more radical and rival colleagues, and Hamas) against themselves.
Again, I'm glad that the PA is far more negotiations-oriented than Hamas or the pre-1993 (Oslo agreement) PLO. Achieving a two-state outcome to the conflict is also clearly the diplomatic road to take. Yet the way this is being done and the ideas guiding the U.S. and European approach will ensure that the whole effort is a show, not a solution.
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.
Flash: U.S. Government Briefing: What Will Happen in Israel-PA Direct Talks
Note: This article appears on Pajamas Media. I have added here a couple of relevant links as well.
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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: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/. 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
Prior to the start of the new round of Israel-Palestinian Authority (PA) direct negotiations, a high-ranking administration official briefed the media today on what to expect. Having read the transcript prior to its official release, I will summarize here the most interesting points.
The basic structure of the talks is as follows: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and PA leader Mahmoud Abbas plan to meet every two weeks, starting on September 2. There will be more frequent meetings at a lower level on various issues. The United States will watch closely but the talks will be bilateral and the U.S. side will make no formal proposals.
In the words of the briefing:
“It does not mean that the United States will simply stand aside and not participate actively. We will operate in a manner that is reasonable and sensible in the circumstances which exist, but the guiding principle will be an active and sustained United States presence.” The word “presence” is an alternative to the word “involvement,” signaling a role as observer at this point.
Is the idea of solving this in a year realistic? The U.S. official insists it is a “window of opportunity” (heard that one before?), citing statements by both Netanyahu and Abbas (neither of whom believes this for a moment) to that effect. If they don’t make peace now, he added, they will face “”far greater difficulties and far greater problems in the future.”
It is noteworthy that making a deal is always deemed never to pose any greater problems in the future. To set as the two choices: continuation of a long, bloody conflict or its solution bringing about total peace and happiness obviously signals which is the preferred option. In this case, both leaders would love to make a deal, right?
Of course, this is not the real world. Netanyahu has to worry not so much about domestic reaction (a real but overstated factor) but about making such concessions that Israel would be in a worse, more dangerous situation, faced round two, escalated Arab demands, and a lack of Western support no matter how much he listened to Western advice. Netanyahu has to deal also with the details of borders, most notably pertaining to east Jerusalem, and retaining a limited number of settlements near the frontier.
Abbas has an even worse problem. First, he himself doesn’t want to give up certain demands, including the “right” of return for all Palestinian refugees and their descendants to live in Israel, which would consequently (as Abbas and Netanyahu both know) would not remain Israel for more than a few months.
Second, Abbas lacks the political power to offer any solution that would conceivably be acceptable to any Israeli leader since his colleagues almost unanimously oppose such an outcome.
Third, he has not prepared his own people for such a compromise deal. On the contrary, he and the PA have been telling them daily for 16 years that Israel is illegitimate and by waiting they will get everything.
Fourth, he has no control over Hamas which will do everything possible to destroy any such agreement and overthrow the PA.
Fifth, he cannot depend on real Arab support, even if the dying Egyptian president and weak Jordanian king are present.
Sixth, he can depend on the violent opposition of Iran, Syria, Hizballah, Muslim Brotherhoods, and huge portions of the Arab world’s population.
Seventh, he and his colleagues reject almost all the Israeli conditions: that a treaty end the conflict forever, that they recognize Israel as a Jewish state, that the Palestinian state have limits on its military and cannot invite in foreign troops, and that all Palestinian refugees be resettled in Palestine. He might be able to agree to minor border changes but even that is in question.
Finally, he has an alternative strategy: ensure the talks fail, blame Israel, and seek Western support for a unilateral declaration of independence without making any compromises or concessions to Israel.
Virtually none of these eight points is ever addressed by the U.S. government or the mass media. Well, the briefing did mention one: claiming that a recent poll showed that over 80 percent of the Arabs in the six most moderate countries are “still in principle open to the two-state solution.”
This argument, by the way, is expressed with the most appalling distortions of the facts. For example, the briefer bragged that 39 percent said that a two-state solution would happen through negotiations as if this was some amazing fact. Of course that’s what they say (it’s amazing more don’t say it) because they certainly don’t think this would be the outcome of any war they won!
The briefer also said that the majority of those polled believe that if there is no two-state solution there will be conflict in the coming years. What this leaves out is: they probably believe that a two-state solution would also bring conflict and that they believe that if Israel doesn’t meet every Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim demand there can be no two-state (temporary) solution.
Moreover, the briefer left out the fact that the poll showed an astonishingly high level of support or revolutionary Islamist leaders (including Iran’s regime) and groups in the most moderate states. Here's my analysis of the same poll.
But why go on? The ultimate argument, which really underlies all the others, is: Would you rather have us do nothing? Shouldn’t we try?
Sure, I respond. You must, however, act with a realistic and honest assessment of the situation and with the proper preparations. To stage negotiations, for example:
--Without ever pressuring the PA to stop the very incitement and radicalism that ensures there is no popular base for peace is to guarantee failure.
--To show you are ready to accept a Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip and protect it from being overthrown is to ensure there is no basis for peace.
--To fail to show strong backing for moderates—including the Lebanese independence forces—while coddling extremists is to ensure there is no strategic basis for peace.
Many more points can be added here. No, this is not the best that the United States of America could do. Yes, the talks will fail. Certainly, much of the media will pretend otherwise.
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.
Please be subscriber 17,320. Put your email address in the upper right-hand box of the page 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: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/. 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
Prior to the start of the new round of Israel-Palestinian Authority (PA) direct negotiations, a high-ranking administration official briefed the media today on what to expect. Having read the transcript prior to its official release, I will summarize here the most interesting points.
The basic structure of the talks is as follows: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and PA leader Mahmoud Abbas plan to meet every two weeks, starting on September 2. There will be more frequent meetings at a lower level on various issues. The United States will watch closely but the talks will be bilateral and the U.S. side will make no formal proposals.
In the words of the briefing:
“It does not mean that the United States will simply stand aside and not participate actively. We will operate in a manner that is reasonable and sensible in the circumstances which exist, but the guiding principle will be an active and sustained United States presence.” The word “presence” is an alternative to the word “involvement,” signaling a role as observer at this point.
Is the idea of solving this in a year realistic? The U.S. official insists it is a “window of opportunity” (heard that one before?), citing statements by both Netanyahu and Abbas (neither of whom believes this for a moment) to that effect. If they don’t make peace now, he added, they will face “”far greater difficulties and far greater problems in the future.”
It is noteworthy that making a deal is always deemed never to pose any greater problems in the future. To set as the two choices: continuation of a long, bloody conflict or its solution bringing about total peace and happiness obviously signals which is the preferred option. In this case, both leaders would love to make a deal, right?
Of course, this is not the real world. Netanyahu has to worry not so much about domestic reaction (a real but overstated factor) but about making such concessions that Israel would be in a worse, more dangerous situation, faced round two, escalated Arab demands, and a lack of Western support no matter how much he listened to Western advice. Netanyahu has to deal also with the details of borders, most notably pertaining to east Jerusalem, and retaining a limited number of settlements near the frontier.
Abbas has an even worse problem. First, he himself doesn’t want to give up certain demands, including the “right” of return for all Palestinian refugees and their descendants to live in Israel, which would consequently (as Abbas and Netanyahu both know) would not remain Israel for more than a few months.
Second, Abbas lacks the political power to offer any solution that would conceivably be acceptable to any Israeli leader since his colleagues almost unanimously oppose such an outcome.
Third, he has not prepared his own people for such a compromise deal. On the contrary, he and the PA have been telling them daily for 16 years that Israel is illegitimate and by waiting they will get everything.
Fourth, he has no control over Hamas which will do everything possible to destroy any such agreement and overthrow the PA.
Fifth, he cannot depend on real Arab support, even if the dying Egyptian president and weak Jordanian king are present.
Sixth, he can depend on the violent opposition of Iran, Syria, Hizballah, Muslim Brotherhoods, and huge portions of the Arab world’s population.
Seventh, he and his colleagues reject almost all the Israeli conditions: that a treaty end the conflict forever, that they recognize Israel as a Jewish state, that the Palestinian state have limits on its military and cannot invite in foreign troops, and that all Palestinian refugees be resettled in Palestine. He might be able to agree to minor border changes but even that is in question.
Finally, he has an alternative strategy: ensure the talks fail, blame Israel, and seek Western support for a unilateral declaration of independence without making any compromises or concessions to Israel.
Virtually none of these eight points is ever addressed by the U.S. government or the mass media. Well, the briefing did mention one: claiming that a recent poll showed that over 80 percent of the Arabs in the six most moderate countries are “still in principle open to the two-state solution.”
This argument, by the way, is expressed with the most appalling distortions of the facts. For example, the briefer bragged that 39 percent said that a two-state solution would happen through negotiations as if this was some amazing fact. Of course that’s what they say (it’s amazing more don’t say it) because they certainly don’t think this would be the outcome of any war they won!
The briefer also said that the majority of those polled believe that if there is no two-state solution there will be conflict in the coming years. What this leaves out is: they probably believe that a two-state solution would also bring conflict and that they believe that if Israel doesn’t meet every Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim demand there can be no two-state (temporary) solution.
Moreover, the briefer left out the fact that the poll showed an astonishingly high level of support or revolutionary Islamist leaders (including Iran’s regime) and groups in the most moderate states. Here's my analysis of the same poll.
But why go on? The ultimate argument, which really underlies all the others, is: Would you rather have us do nothing? Shouldn’t we try?
Sure, I respond. You must, however, act with a realistic and honest assessment of the situation and with the proper preparations. To stage negotiations, for example:
--Without ever pressuring the PA to stop the very incitement and radicalism that ensures there is no popular base for peace is to guarantee failure.
--To show you are ready to accept a Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip and protect it from being overthrown is to ensure there is no basis for peace.
--To fail to show strong backing for moderates—including the Lebanese independence forces—while coddling extremists is to ensure there is no strategic basis for peace.
Many more points can be added here. No, this is not the best that the United States of America could do. Yes, the talks will fail. Certainly, much of the media will pretend otherwise.
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, August 30, 2010
Muslims Who Don't Want to Live Under Islamist Dictatorships Urge: Help Us By Telling The Truth
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By Barry Rubin
I constantly receive mail and contacts of various kinds from Arabs, Iranians, Pakistanis, and Turks--among others--about how much they like my writing. In fact, many of my ideas and inspiration comes from conversations with these people. You'd be surprised to hear some of the names, countries, and positions of those involved in these dialogues.
It's a complex issue but to put it simply: those in the West may romanticize or refuse to criticize radical Islamists and Middle East dictatorships but that doesn't exactly thrill those who live under these regimes or who fear seeing their countries being taken over by extremists who repress and maybe will kill them.
I wrote an entire book about this situation and these people, The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East, John Wiley Publishers (2005). That book, and other things I've written, explains both my tremendous sympathy for these liberals and reformers as well as why I didn't advocate a policy based on the belief that the United States could democratize the region or solve the problems of these societies by overthrowing the ruling regimes.
During my last speaking trip, which usually focused on the battle between Islamists and nationalists, there were Arabs or Iranians present at each event who enthusiastically endorsed what I said. In one case, a Palestinian wearing a very large kafiyah sat in the front row nodding at my main points. Afterward, he explained that he was a Palestinian Authority supporter who hated Hamas and thought that group was ruining his people's chance for ever getting their own independent state.
And don't even get me started on Iran, where a large majority opposes the current regime, and Turkey, where an even larger majority opposes the current regime. These people, almost all of them Muslims, are anti-Islamist and prefer a democratic state. They may not be "moderate Muslims," that is religious reformers, but they are Muslims who are moderates. They don't respect Westerners smug in their "virtues" of being so Islamophilic, tolerant, and "pro-Arab" as to saddle the poor victimized Middle Easterners with horrible, repressive regimes and permanent violence.
Most of the people who hate and oppose revolutionary Islamism can be most accurately called conservative traditionalists. They prefer Islam as it was practiced before the age of Iran's revolution and Usama bin Ladin. They don't like Israel and have plenty of complaints about the West (though there are also things they like about both) but they don't want to go to war or spend the next century seeking revenge either.
A minority of them are real democrats, courageous people who know what their countries need to do in order to get out of their current morass. The majority is just fed up with terrorism, ideology, dictatorship, economic impoverishment, social stagnation, and using Zionism or imperialism as excuses for all of the above. The Western "sympathizers" who endorse every reactionary cultural and political tendency as "authentic" do them no favors.
For example, in response to this article I wrote pointing out that the amount of hatred and incitement coming from the Muslim majority world far exceeds that in the West or Israel, I received two letters from Middle Eastern Muslim readers.
One, from an Iranian, noted: "Best article yet! keep it up!"
And another reader--presumably Iranian--writes to me as follows:
"I read your Rubin Reports with great pleasure and anticipation. I find you are among the very few Westerners who are not giving into political correctness vis-Ã -vis Islamic terrorism, the new fascism. The dance of appeasing Muslim radicals (or the rest) is most dangerous and will lead to diminished freedom and the end of the rule of rational law.
"I fear so much that my grandchildren will be subject to a totalitarian theocratic rule that I search for a way out of [this situation to live] in the West. There are majorities in some places in the Middle East—Iran, the prime example—who are fed up with the ideology of hate and of death and of darkness, and long for peace and freedom and happiness. We are fed up with antisemitic people and governments and we want to rescue reason from theocratic dogma.
"Thank you for what you do. I hope Westerners read your work and pay heed. The alternative is hatred, violence, and the rule of evil."
Note the implications of those last three points;
Hatred by Islamists and radicals: Not only of the West and Israel, Christians, Jews, or Bahais, but also of Muslims who have a different interpretation of their religion or who are "too" secular, and also at times of various other groups who are Muslims (Berbers, Kurds, Shia, Sudanese Africans).
Violence: Not only against Westerners and Israelis plus local Christians but also against all of the groups mentioned in the previous paragraph plus women who deviate from what the Islamists want, homosexuals, and others.
The Rule of Evil: Not over Westerners but over those Middle Easterners (again, mostly Muslim) who live under such regimes or will be drowned in revolutions in the uture.
So, if one supports Islamists like those who rule Iran and the Gaza Strip, pro-Islamist (abroad) dictatorships like that in Syria, those who are close to ruling Lebanon, and revolutionaries who want to impose Islamist totalitarian regimes, is this "pro-Muslim" or "pro-Arab?" Presumably, it is like saying that backing the Nazis made one a friend of the German people or supporting the Stalinists proved that one loved the Russian people and those in its satellite states.
Or perhaps everyone who doesn't want to be ruled by Iran, the Taliban, Hamas, Hizballah, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other assorted dictatorships are Islamophobic or racist?
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: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/. 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
I constantly receive mail and contacts of various kinds from Arabs, Iranians, Pakistanis, and Turks--among others--about how much they like my writing. In fact, many of my ideas and inspiration comes from conversations with these people. You'd be surprised to hear some of the names, countries, and positions of those involved in these dialogues.
It's a complex issue but to put it simply: those in the West may romanticize or refuse to criticize radical Islamists and Middle East dictatorships but that doesn't exactly thrill those who live under these regimes or who fear seeing their countries being taken over by extremists who repress and maybe will kill them.
I wrote an entire book about this situation and these people, The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East, John Wiley Publishers (2005). That book, and other things I've written, explains both my tremendous sympathy for these liberals and reformers as well as why I didn't advocate a policy based on the belief that the United States could democratize the region or solve the problems of these societies by overthrowing the ruling regimes.
During my last speaking trip, which usually focused on the battle between Islamists and nationalists, there were Arabs or Iranians present at each event who enthusiastically endorsed what I said. In one case, a Palestinian wearing a very large kafiyah sat in the front row nodding at my main points. Afterward, he explained that he was a Palestinian Authority supporter who hated Hamas and thought that group was ruining his people's chance for ever getting their own independent state.
And don't even get me started on Iran, where a large majority opposes the current regime, and Turkey, where an even larger majority opposes the current regime. These people, almost all of them Muslims, are anti-Islamist and prefer a democratic state. They may not be "moderate Muslims," that is religious reformers, but they are Muslims who are moderates. They don't respect Westerners smug in their "virtues" of being so Islamophilic, tolerant, and "pro-Arab" as to saddle the poor victimized Middle Easterners with horrible, repressive regimes and permanent violence.
Most of the people who hate and oppose revolutionary Islamism can be most accurately called conservative traditionalists. They prefer Islam as it was practiced before the age of Iran's revolution and Usama bin Ladin. They don't like Israel and have plenty of complaints about the West (though there are also things they like about both) but they don't want to go to war or spend the next century seeking revenge either.
A minority of them are real democrats, courageous people who know what their countries need to do in order to get out of their current morass. The majority is just fed up with terrorism, ideology, dictatorship, economic impoverishment, social stagnation, and using Zionism or imperialism as excuses for all of the above. The Western "sympathizers" who endorse every reactionary cultural and political tendency as "authentic" do them no favors.
For example, in response to this article I wrote pointing out that the amount of hatred and incitement coming from the Muslim majority world far exceeds that in the West or Israel, I received two letters from Middle Eastern Muslim readers.
One, from an Iranian, noted: "Best article yet! keep it up!"
And another reader--presumably Iranian--writes to me as follows:
"I read your Rubin Reports with great pleasure and anticipation. I find you are among the very few Westerners who are not giving into political correctness vis-Ã -vis Islamic terrorism, the new fascism. The dance of appeasing Muslim radicals (or the rest) is most dangerous and will lead to diminished freedom and the end of the rule of rational law.
"I fear so much that my grandchildren will be subject to a totalitarian theocratic rule that I search for a way out of [this situation to live] in the West. There are majorities in some places in the Middle East—Iran, the prime example—who are fed up with the ideology of hate and of death and of darkness, and long for peace and freedom and happiness. We are fed up with antisemitic people and governments and we want to rescue reason from theocratic dogma.
"Thank you for what you do. I hope Westerners read your work and pay heed. The alternative is hatred, violence, and the rule of evil."
Note the implications of those last three points;
Hatred by Islamists and radicals: Not only of the West and Israel, Christians, Jews, or Bahais, but also of Muslims who have a different interpretation of their religion or who are "too" secular, and also at times of various other groups who are Muslims (Berbers, Kurds, Shia, Sudanese Africans).
Violence: Not only against Westerners and Israelis plus local Christians but also against all of the groups mentioned in the previous paragraph plus women who deviate from what the Islamists want, homosexuals, and others.
The Rule of Evil: Not over Westerners but over those Middle Easterners (again, mostly Muslim) who live under such regimes or will be drowned in revolutions in the uture.
So, if one supports Islamists like those who rule Iran and the Gaza Strip, pro-Islamist (abroad) dictatorships like that in Syria, those who are close to ruling Lebanon, and revolutionaries who want to impose Islamist totalitarian regimes, is this "pro-Muslim" or "pro-Arab?" Presumably, it is like saying that backing the Nazis made one a friend of the German people or supporting the Stalinists proved that one loved the Russian people and those in its satellite states.
Or perhaps everyone who doesn't want to be ruled by Iran, the Taliban, Hamas, Hizballah, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other assorted dictatorships are Islamophobic or racist?
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.
Note for Israel-PA Talks: It Wasn't The Luck of the Irish But Effective Counter-Terrorism That Brought Peace
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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: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/. 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
As direct Israeli-Palestinian direct talks restart it is useful to recall the use and misuse of an analogy to the case of Northern Ireland.
In October 2001, British Foreign Minister Jack Straw visited Washington and held a press conference with his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State Colin Powell. Powell bubbled over about how the Irish agreement supposedly showed:
"An example of what can be achieved when people of good will come together, recognize they have strong differences, differences that they have fought over for years, but it's time to put those differences aside in order to move forward and to provide a better life for the children of Northern Ireland."
This is the sort of naive optimism (let's all just get along, peace is the natural order of things, everybody is really moderate at heart) that Americans so often evince. As the great French intellectual Raymond Aron once explained, "The Americans always have the tendency to believe that wars result from misunderstanding or accidents and suppose that no one could possibly want a war."
In this case, though, Straw dumped cold water on Powell's world view." What he said is worth quoting fully:
"Could I just add one thing to that, if I may? Of course, negotiation is far, far better--infinitely better -- than military action. As far as Northern Ireland is concerned, we welcome hugely the progress that has been made following the Good Friday Agreement. It also has to be said that before that happened, there had to be a change of approach by those who saw terrorism as the answer. And that approach partly changed because of the firmness of the military and police response to that terrorism. And if there had not been that firm response by successive British governments and others to the terrorist threat that was posed on both sides, we would not have been able to get some of those people into negotiations. We would not be marking what is a satisfactory day in the history of Northern Ireland today."
In other words, the terrorists were defeated by tough action, saw they couldn't win, and thus had to change their approach. Of course, in the Israel-Palestinian case, there has been no such attitude toward terrorism internationally. Hamas has been saved as the Gaza Strip's ruler thanks to Western action; the Palestinian side has not been forced to pay the price for violence and intransigence (rejecting Camp David and the Clinton plan, launching a second intifadah, continuing incitement, etc.) and thus has not had to give up the hope of total victory and belief that violence and intransigence could bring that about.
That's a key reason why the current talks will fail.
PS: Here's another study by one of the leading participants on why the Northern Ireland case is not a good parallel for the Middle East.
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: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/. 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
As direct Israeli-Palestinian direct talks restart it is useful to recall the use and misuse of an analogy to the case of Northern Ireland.
In October 2001, British Foreign Minister Jack Straw visited Washington and held a press conference with his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State Colin Powell. Powell bubbled over about how the Irish agreement supposedly showed:
"An example of what can be achieved when people of good will come together, recognize they have strong differences, differences that they have fought over for years, but it's time to put those differences aside in order to move forward and to provide a better life for the children of Northern Ireland."
This is the sort of naive optimism (let's all just get along, peace is the natural order of things, everybody is really moderate at heart) that Americans so often evince. As the great French intellectual Raymond Aron once explained, "The Americans always have the tendency to believe that wars result from misunderstanding or accidents and suppose that no one could possibly want a war."
In this case, though, Straw dumped cold water on Powell's world view." What he said is worth quoting fully:
"Could I just add one thing to that, if I may? Of course, negotiation is far, far better--infinitely better -- than military action. As far as Northern Ireland is concerned, we welcome hugely the progress that has been made following the Good Friday Agreement. It also has to be said that before that happened, there had to be a change of approach by those who saw terrorism as the answer. And that approach partly changed because of the firmness of the military and police response to that terrorism. And if there had not been that firm response by successive British governments and others to the terrorist threat that was posed on both sides, we would not have been able to get some of those people into negotiations. We would not be marking what is a satisfactory day in the history of Northern Ireland today."
In other words, the terrorists were defeated by tough action, saw they couldn't win, and thus had to change their approach. Of course, in the Israel-Palestinian case, there has been no such attitude toward terrorism internationally. Hamas has been saved as the Gaza Strip's ruler thanks to Western action; the Palestinian side has not been forced to pay the price for violence and intransigence (rejecting Camp David and the Clinton plan, launching a second intifadah, continuing incitement, etc.) and thus has not had to give up the hope of total victory and belief that violence and intransigence could bring that about.
That's a key reason why the current talks will fail.
PS: Here's another study by one of the leading participants on why the Northern Ireland case is not a good parallel for the Middle East.
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.
What Threatens Peace: A Mountain of Hate or A Few Nasty Words?
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By Barry Rubin
About twenty-five years ago I had my great success in affecting mass media coverage of the Middle East in one newspaper for one day. I had been complaining to a New York Times correspondent, who was briefly covering the Middle East beat, about the incitement, hatred, and extremism that appeared daily in the Arabic media was never mentioned in its Western counterpart.
To his credit, he came over to my office. I took a big desk and spread over it a couple of dozen issues of the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), a publication with which, in those pre-paperless days, I had filled whole bookcases. If you’ve never heard of FBIS it was a daily publication from the U.S. Department of Commerce that came out in different colored editions for each region of the world. All it did was translate radio and television programs along with some important speeches. Using or not using FBIS, for me, marked the difference between a serious researcher and a dilettante.
One after the other I showed him examples of the lies, the hatred, the calls for Israel’s destruction, the screams for blood and murder, the slanders against America that appeared in the most prestigious and widely circulated and official of Arabic-language publications. Impressed, he actually wrote an article on it that appeared on the front page.
That happened once. And this was in the days when journalistic standards meant something and newspapers actually focused on publishing the news rather than ideological guidance to direct people toward believing the proper things.
Day after day throughout the Arabic-speaking world, Iran, Pakistan, and beyond, in schools and mosques, in the speeches of leaders and oppositionists, in mass media, hatred of Jews and Christians, of the West and America, rises into the air. This structural hatred has consequences. The best single sentence I’ve heard on this comes from a Saudi woman who wrote that what the big Usama bin Ladin did, the little Usama bin Ladin learned in the Saudi schools.
This massive system of hatred and extremism—known to everyone who lives in the Middle East—is largely kept hidden from the West. Why?
One reason is fear of the Islamists. In editing the two-volume Guide to Islamist Movements--a study of Islamist movements, leaders, ideas, and activities in 55 countries—I often met with the refusal of scholars to write chapters due to fear. In one case, I appealed to a professor in a small European country that he was merely being asked to write an objective scholarly overview, not to take any political positions or make any recommendations. He responded: “The local Islamists don’t look at things that way.”
Another reason is fear of their colleagues. To report on the hatred of others leads to accusations of being oneself a hater.
These are, of course, two major reasons why the Western media and politicians so downplay the issue of incitement and extremism among Muslims. But there is one more: the belief that their own people are so stupid and bigoted that they will respond to being told the truth by massive anti-Muslim pogroms. These elites believe that a public that accepts without murmur the construction of thousands of mosques is horribly intolerant because it objects to one being built at the site of the World Trade Center attack by a radical group with shadowy financing.
We don’t have reliable studies of what goes on in North American mosques because academics and journalists won’t do much beyond repeating what Muslim groups say. But we do know from infiltrators (sometimes with video tapes) or moderate Muslims that the incidence of radicalism and antisemitism among imams and activists is high. Recently, an outspoken moderate Muslim told me he was unwelcome to pray there by every mosque in his city. Asked to name mosques dominated by a moderate viewpoint, he could only come up with one, in a city hundreds of miles away from him.
A few years ago, I was at a secret conference on a tiny Mediterranean island. When I brought up the issue of incitement to murder Israelis in a conference, a high-ranking Palestinian (today a member of the Palestinian Authority cabinet) made a speech about how incitement was a terrible problem on both sides (not true, of course) and how he proposed a joint commission to investigate this issue. The audience applauded.
Immediately afterward, without illusions but because it seemed a neat thing to do, I went up to him and proposed that he and I form such a commission. He laughed in my face. Of course, there was not the slightest interest in doing so.
There is remarkably little hatred and bigotry in Israeli society. Of course, one can find it without doubt, but given what this country has been through it is, I repeat, remarkably small. It is not sanctioned in the mass media or the schools or in the overwhelmingly vast majority of religious institutions.
This brings us to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. A few days ago, in a sermon, Yosef reportedly said that Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas, “and all these evil people should perish from this world….God should strike them with a plague, them and these Palestinians."
This statement instantly became a global story. It will no doubt be used to delegitimize Israel. Yosef's statement was also quickly condemned by the U.S. State Department in words that invite derision: "These remarks are not only deeply offensive, but incitement such as this hurts the cause of peace.”
Of course, Yosef’s statement should be condemned and no one in Israel will do anything other than condemn it. Yet as a left-of-center Israeli intellectual once put it, we have our Kahanes--referring to the extremist hater Meir Kahane--but most of the other side’s leaders are Kahanes.
What Yosef uttered, however, is a curse, not a political program. It is a call for the divine being to act, not for humans to commit terrorism. No one will praise what he said; no one will take up this as instructions to carry out violence. Ten years ago, in the midst of a massive wave of terrorism, Yosef made a parallel statement.
It is worth mentioning, which the news reports didn’t, that Yosef is currently 90 years old. The progress of senility has been clear for him during the last decade. His role in Israel has been a fascinating one. He led Sephardic Jewry to demand religious equality. He practically created a whole new Sephardic system of worship and worldview. Sadly and ironically, it imitated the more rigid Ashkenazic Haredim (European-origin Orthodox) rather than the traditionally more flexible Sephardic religious style.
Yosef also created Shas, a party which might be best thought of as a patronage group for the poorest and mainly Moroccan-origin Sephardim. Think of it as being like an old, corrupt Democratic big-city machine that provides goods and services for its constituents in return for their votes and a cut of the money. By putting them into a very bad educational system which downplays worldly skills in favor of religious ones, Shas is not doing its followers a big favor.
But Shas cannot be classified as much of the Western media portrays it, as merely a “right-wing” party. During the 1990s’ peace process, for example, Shas and Yosef advocated trading territory for peace on the religious basis of saving lives. Even now, the Shas position, for example, is that buildings should only be constructed in the limited number of settlements just across the pre-1967 border that Israel wants to claim. The party is thus supporting turning over the vast majority of the West Bank to a Palestinian state, presuming (which is doubtful) that the PA ever make Israel a good and serious offer in exchange.
What makes Crowley’s statement a joke, of course, is that the U.S. government ignores the avalanche, tsunami, tidal wave, or whatever weather-related metaphor you want, of hatred, incitement to murder, delegitimization with an aim toward genocide, and actual terrorist violence that daily spews out against Israel, and also against America itself and the Western world.
During the dozen years since the signing of the Israel-PLO agreement in 1993, it is virtually impossible to find a single--and I do mean, even just one--statement in Arabic by a PA, PLO, or Fatah leader (don't even mention Hamas) calling for peace, recognition, conciliation, or empathy with Israel. In contrast, there are thousands of statements rejecting Israel's existence, calling for armed struggle, urging children to become terrorists, insisting that one day the Palestinians will achieve total victory and eradicate Israel, and demonizing Israelis. Here's just one rather typical example.
Consider the above paragraph. That is not a statement of my politics but of unfortunate facts. And notice I said Arabic directed to their own people, not English directed to the Western suckers.
Will the U.S. State Department condemn this statement made the same day by a PA government minister standing next to Mahmoud Abbas himself? PA Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud al-Habbash in his Friday sermon said that unless Israel “returns” Jerusalem to the Palestinians “its owners” there would be war. While not as categorically vicious as Yosef's remarks that is a far more credible and inciteful threat of violence which, in addition, comes from an official government source.
Or how about these three programs on official PA television teaching children that all of Israel is Palestine and thus Israel should be wiped out? Or Abbas's personal participation in a ceremony honoring one of the terrorists who murdered Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics? Or the PA naming a city square after a suicide bomber who killed Israeli civilians? Or official PA textbooks demonizing Israel and calling for its destruction? One could go on with such examples for many pages as has indeed been done in this report.
These words and the organizing efforts designed to implement them have immense consequences. They explain why millions of Muslims take such extreme stances in supporting revolutionary Islamism. They explain September 11 and the London subway bombing; thousands of acts of terrorism; the PA’s political inability and refusal to make peace; the transformation of the Gaza Strip into a mini-state with a genocidal agenda; the seizure of Lebanon by Islamist forces that will once again carry that country into war; and the horrors in Iraq; and the expansion of Iranian influence; and the driving of Christians out of Iraq and Gaza; and the murder of tens of thousands of Muslims by radical Islamists in Algeria and elsewhere; and the decapitation of Buddhist peasants in southern Thailand, and the murder of Christians in the Philippines, Nigeria, and Indonesia; and far more.
All of these things hurt the cause of peace--Let me put it plainly: They make peace impossible--but are not fully taken into account by Western policy or spoken of in the universities because their power requires real courage to do so. Yet it is precisely because of their power and thus the threat they pose that they must be exposed and fought against.
Abraham talked the divine being into sparing Sodom and Gomorrah if only he could find ten righteous people there. Today, Israel and Western societies are condemned as evil when one finds only a handful of non-righteous there. What of the societies where there are millions of bigots and haters calling for blood and murder? Millions who, by current Western definitions, are racists? That is the difference between individual evil, which will never vanish from this earth, and structurally approved evil maintained by political and ideological systems that must be changed.
What we need to do is to proclaim that all men are created equal but that some societies and world views are proven to be more stable, free, materially successful , and all-around preferable to others. True, one attribute of such societies is that they have a much higher level of tolerance toward others. But if that’s so then it is clear that these societies--even if marching under the banners of preserving multiculturalism and Political Correctness!--must combat the threat from those states, movements, and ideologies that extol the destruction of liberty, preach intolerance, and are full of violently implemented hatred and lies.
PS: In response to readers' requests for the reasons why such "double standards" are so prevalent, here's a brief summary in no particular order:
a. Fear of Islamist violence;
b. Fear of colleagues' or the elite's ridicule as being racist, Islamophobic, etc, with a negative effect on their career and reputation. They can thus shiver with fright (this also applies to point a) but portray themselves as courageous simultaneously;
c. Hope for profit (financial, electoral);
d. Belief that national interests are best met by flattering those who might otherwise (that's the theory any way) enemies who will then become friends or at least not attack them;
e. Fear of their own people who they think are bigoted yahoos who if not held back would massacre all the Muslims around. Thus, the crazed racists must be lied to in order to soothe them into unconsciousness.
f. Dislike of their own societies and systems which they view them as inferior to those of others. this includes an element of romanticism and masochism. A belief that attacking your own people, nation, religion, system is noble but to do so to any other is an unforgiveable sin.
g. Hope (wrong) that if they feed the Islamists other victims (Israel, Lebanon) that will satisfy the appetite for conquest.
h. The following definition of racism: If you criticize anyone of any other nationality for any reason whatsoever, that makes you a racist.
i. The following definition of Islamophobia: If you criticize anyone who is a Muslim or any Muslim belief or action this makes you a dreadful bigot.
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: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/. 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
About twenty-five years ago I had my great success in affecting mass media coverage of the Middle East in one newspaper for one day. I had been complaining to a New York Times correspondent, who was briefly covering the Middle East beat, about the incitement, hatred, and extremism that appeared daily in the Arabic media was never mentioned in its Western counterpart.
To his credit, he came over to my office. I took a big desk and spread over it a couple of dozen issues of the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), a publication with which, in those pre-paperless days, I had filled whole bookcases. If you’ve never heard of FBIS it was a daily publication from the U.S. Department of Commerce that came out in different colored editions for each region of the world. All it did was translate radio and television programs along with some important speeches. Using or not using FBIS, for me, marked the difference between a serious researcher and a dilettante.
One after the other I showed him examples of the lies, the hatred, the calls for Israel’s destruction, the screams for blood and murder, the slanders against America that appeared in the most prestigious and widely circulated and official of Arabic-language publications. Impressed, he actually wrote an article on it that appeared on the front page.
That happened once. And this was in the days when journalistic standards meant something and newspapers actually focused on publishing the news rather than ideological guidance to direct people toward believing the proper things.
Day after day throughout the Arabic-speaking world, Iran, Pakistan, and beyond, in schools and mosques, in the speeches of leaders and oppositionists, in mass media, hatred of Jews and Christians, of the West and America, rises into the air. This structural hatred has consequences. The best single sentence I’ve heard on this comes from a Saudi woman who wrote that what the big Usama bin Ladin did, the little Usama bin Ladin learned in the Saudi schools.
This massive system of hatred and extremism—known to everyone who lives in the Middle East—is largely kept hidden from the West. Why?
One reason is fear of the Islamists. In editing the two-volume Guide to Islamist Movements--a study of Islamist movements, leaders, ideas, and activities in 55 countries—I often met with the refusal of scholars to write chapters due to fear. In one case, I appealed to a professor in a small European country that he was merely being asked to write an objective scholarly overview, not to take any political positions or make any recommendations. He responded: “The local Islamists don’t look at things that way.”
Another reason is fear of their colleagues. To report on the hatred of others leads to accusations of being oneself a hater.
These are, of course, two major reasons why the Western media and politicians so downplay the issue of incitement and extremism among Muslims. But there is one more: the belief that their own people are so stupid and bigoted that they will respond to being told the truth by massive anti-Muslim pogroms. These elites believe that a public that accepts without murmur the construction of thousands of mosques is horribly intolerant because it objects to one being built at the site of the World Trade Center attack by a radical group with shadowy financing.
We don’t have reliable studies of what goes on in North American mosques because academics and journalists won’t do much beyond repeating what Muslim groups say. But we do know from infiltrators (sometimes with video tapes) or moderate Muslims that the incidence of radicalism and antisemitism among imams and activists is high. Recently, an outspoken moderate Muslim told me he was unwelcome to pray there by every mosque in his city. Asked to name mosques dominated by a moderate viewpoint, he could only come up with one, in a city hundreds of miles away from him.
A few years ago, I was at a secret conference on a tiny Mediterranean island. When I brought up the issue of incitement to murder Israelis in a conference, a high-ranking Palestinian (today a member of the Palestinian Authority cabinet) made a speech about how incitement was a terrible problem on both sides (not true, of course) and how he proposed a joint commission to investigate this issue. The audience applauded.
Immediately afterward, without illusions but because it seemed a neat thing to do, I went up to him and proposed that he and I form such a commission. He laughed in my face. Of course, there was not the slightest interest in doing so.
There is remarkably little hatred and bigotry in Israeli society. Of course, one can find it without doubt, but given what this country has been through it is, I repeat, remarkably small. It is not sanctioned in the mass media or the schools or in the overwhelmingly vast majority of religious institutions.
This brings us to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. A few days ago, in a sermon, Yosef reportedly said that Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas, “and all these evil people should perish from this world….God should strike them with a plague, them and these Palestinians."
This statement instantly became a global story. It will no doubt be used to delegitimize Israel. Yosef's statement was also quickly condemned by the U.S. State Department in words that invite derision: "These remarks are not only deeply offensive, but incitement such as this hurts the cause of peace.”
Of course, Yosef’s statement should be condemned and no one in Israel will do anything other than condemn it. Yet as a left-of-center Israeli intellectual once put it, we have our Kahanes--referring to the extremist hater Meir Kahane--but most of the other side’s leaders are Kahanes.
What Yosef uttered, however, is a curse, not a political program. It is a call for the divine being to act, not for humans to commit terrorism. No one will praise what he said; no one will take up this as instructions to carry out violence. Ten years ago, in the midst of a massive wave of terrorism, Yosef made a parallel statement.
It is worth mentioning, which the news reports didn’t, that Yosef is currently 90 years old. The progress of senility has been clear for him during the last decade. His role in Israel has been a fascinating one. He led Sephardic Jewry to demand religious equality. He practically created a whole new Sephardic system of worship and worldview. Sadly and ironically, it imitated the more rigid Ashkenazic Haredim (European-origin Orthodox) rather than the traditionally more flexible Sephardic religious style.
Yosef also created Shas, a party which might be best thought of as a patronage group for the poorest and mainly Moroccan-origin Sephardim. Think of it as being like an old, corrupt Democratic big-city machine that provides goods and services for its constituents in return for their votes and a cut of the money. By putting them into a very bad educational system which downplays worldly skills in favor of religious ones, Shas is not doing its followers a big favor.
But Shas cannot be classified as much of the Western media portrays it, as merely a “right-wing” party. During the 1990s’ peace process, for example, Shas and Yosef advocated trading territory for peace on the religious basis of saving lives. Even now, the Shas position, for example, is that buildings should only be constructed in the limited number of settlements just across the pre-1967 border that Israel wants to claim. The party is thus supporting turning over the vast majority of the West Bank to a Palestinian state, presuming (which is doubtful) that the PA ever make Israel a good and serious offer in exchange.
What makes Crowley’s statement a joke, of course, is that the U.S. government ignores the avalanche, tsunami, tidal wave, or whatever weather-related metaphor you want, of hatred, incitement to murder, delegitimization with an aim toward genocide, and actual terrorist violence that daily spews out against Israel, and also against America itself and the Western world.
During the dozen years since the signing of the Israel-PLO agreement in 1993, it is virtually impossible to find a single--and I do mean, even just one--statement in Arabic by a PA, PLO, or Fatah leader (don't even mention Hamas) calling for peace, recognition, conciliation, or empathy with Israel. In contrast, there are thousands of statements rejecting Israel's existence, calling for armed struggle, urging children to become terrorists, insisting that one day the Palestinians will achieve total victory and eradicate Israel, and demonizing Israelis. Here's just one rather typical example.
Consider the above paragraph. That is not a statement of my politics but of unfortunate facts. And notice I said Arabic directed to their own people, not English directed to the Western suckers.
Will the U.S. State Department condemn this statement made the same day by a PA government minister standing next to Mahmoud Abbas himself? PA Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud al-Habbash in his Friday sermon said that unless Israel “returns” Jerusalem to the Palestinians “its owners” there would be war. While not as categorically vicious as Yosef's remarks that is a far more credible and inciteful threat of violence which, in addition, comes from an official government source.
Or how about these three programs on official PA television teaching children that all of Israel is Palestine and thus Israel should be wiped out? Or Abbas's personal participation in a ceremony honoring one of the terrorists who murdered Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics? Or the PA naming a city square after a suicide bomber who killed Israeli civilians? Or official PA textbooks demonizing Israel and calling for its destruction? One could go on with such examples for many pages as has indeed been done in this report.
These words and the organizing efforts designed to implement them have immense consequences. They explain why millions of Muslims take such extreme stances in supporting revolutionary Islamism. They explain September 11 and the London subway bombing; thousands of acts of terrorism; the PA’s political inability and refusal to make peace; the transformation of the Gaza Strip into a mini-state with a genocidal agenda; the seizure of Lebanon by Islamist forces that will once again carry that country into war; and the horrors in Iraq; and the expansion of Iranian influence; and the driving of Christians out of Iraq and Gaza; and the murder of tens of thousands of Muslims by radical Islamists in Algeria and elsewhere; and the decapitation of Buddhist peasants in southern Thailand, and the murder of Christians in the Philippines, Nigeria, and Indonesia; and far more.
All of these things hurt the cause of peace--Let me put it plainly: They make peace impossible--but are not fully taken into account by Western policy or spoken of in the universities because their power requires real courage to do so. Yet it is precisely because of their power and thus the threat they pose that they must be exposed and fought against.
Abraham talked the divine being into sparing Sodom and Gomorrah if only he could find ten righteous people there. Today, Israel and Western societies are condemned as evil when one finds only a handful of non-righteous there. What of the societies where there are millions of bigots and haters calling for blood and murder? Millions who, by current Western definitions, are racists? That is the difference between individual evil, which will never vanish from this earth, and structurally approved evil maintained by political and ideological systems that must be changed.
What we need to do is to proclaim that all men are created equal but that some societies and world views are proven to be more stable, free, materially successful , and all-around preferable to others. True, one attribute of such societies is that they have a much higher level of tolerance toward others. But if that’s so then it is clear that these societies--even if marching under the banners of preserving multiculturalism and Political Correctness!--must combat the threat from those states, movements, and ideologies that extol the destruction of liberty, preach intolerance, and are full of violently implemented hatred and lies.
PS: In response to readers' requests for the reasons why such "double standards" are so prevalent, here's a brief summary in no particular order:
a. Fear of Islamist violence;
b. Fear of colleagues' or the elite's ridicule as being racist, Islamophobic, etc, with a negative effect on their career and reputation. They can thus shiver with fright (this also applies to point a) but portray themselves as courageous simultaneously;
c. Hope for profit (financial, electoral);
d. Belief that national interests are best met by flattering those who might otherwise (that's the theory any way) enemies who will then become friends or at least not attack them;
e. Fear of their own people who they think are bigoted yahoos who if not held back would massacre all the Muslims around. Thus, the crazed racists must be lied to in order to soothe them into unconsciousness.
f. Dislike of their own societies and systems which they view them as inferior to those of others. this includes an element of romanticism and masochism. A belief that attacking your own people, nation, religion, system is noble but to do so to any other is an unforgiveable sin.
g. Hope (wrong) that if they feed the Islamists other victims (Israel, Lebanon) that will satisfy the appetite for conquest.
h. The following definition of racism: If you criticize anyone of any other nationality for any reason whatsoever, that makes you a racist.
i. The following definition of Islamophobia: If you criticize anyone who is a Muslim or any Muslim belief or action this makes you a dreadful bigot.
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.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
An Amazing Look Into the Past
By Barry Rubin
Although this is a bit outside what I usually discuss (but I have an excuse coming up in a moment), I recommend to you some truly remarkable pictures of the Russian empire, taken a century ago.
Here’s my excuse: A number of them are in the Caucasus and Central Asia which can be regarded as part of the Greater Middle East.
I hate it when people recommend photos or You-Tube items or jokes to me that turn out to be a waste of time, or that take my time from something else I'd rather do. This, however, is different.
For what makes these photos—excellent in their own right—totally amazing and unique is that they are in color. Not colorized but real color. The photographer, operating before the Russian Revolution, used a clever way to create color photographs a half-century before these became common. A reader tells me this method was invented in the United States and developed in Germany.
Given their clarity, they show how closely people and places of a century ago resemble those of today or, to put it another way, it brings out the distinctions in dress, customs, and technology between a century ago and today. A friend who is an expert on Russia and has spent many years there says that the countryside has changed surprisingly little since these photos were taken.
It also makes me wonder about an alternative history: Suppose the Russian Revolution, or at least the Communist part of it, had never happened? Would the world, and certainly those places that became part of the Soviet empire, be better off?
To begin with, there would never have been any Nazi imitators of Bolshevism—I’m not saying they were the same but the fascists did see Communism as both inspiration and an enemy that required extreme measures to combat—World War Two, Holocaust, or Cold War, among other things.
And this made me wonder about today’s “wonderful” schemes for fundamentally transforming Western democracies or imposing revolutionary Islamist regimes in the Middle East that are bringing so much waste, suffering, and roadblocks to true progress.
It is not enough to talk about helping the poor and downtrodden or saving the earth or fostering diversity or all those other slogans. The policies, ideas, and programs proposed must actually work in making the world a better place. All too often they don't do so, but rather make things worse and leave large blood stains behind.
The problem with using historical analogies is that not everyone understands them. Let me give you an example, here's a passage from the incomparable Shai Agnon about pre-World War One Austria-Hungary. That country was the very model of a diverse, multicultural country, with extensive autonomy for Hungary and a lot of freedom for all the different peoples therein:
"And so, Isaac sits [in a train] and rides through the realm of Austria, that same Austria that rules over eighteen states, and twelve nations are subject to it. One and the same law for the Jews and for the people of the land, their well-being is our well-being, for the Emperor is a Gracious King, he protects all who take shelter with him....Her earth is lush and fertile and the produce of her land is greater than the need of her inhabitants...."
But Agnon, writing thirty years later, during World War Two no less, knows what happened: quarrels among these diverse peoples plus the defeat in World War One, tore the country apart in strife. The same happened with another multicultural empire called Russia, albeit that was far less tolerant, dubbed the prison house of nations. On its ruin rose the Soviet Union, which claimed to be a paradise of plurality but was actually a Russian-dominated empire of persecution and oppression under the most enchanting slogans and carefully cultivated lies.
The post-1918 conclusion was that multiculturalism didn't work but actually provoked conflict. The countries that flourished were those who promoted a democratic sense of national identity along with freedom, like the United States, Britain, and France. Teaching people that they are separate groups who are victims of the majority plants mutual hatred, consolidates separate identities, and ensures that many will seek revenge.
But enough about that. Meditate on these marvelous photographs and look deeply into the faces of these long-gone individuals and their societies. Here and here.
Although this is a bit outside what I usually discuss (but I have an excuse coming up in a moment), I recommend to you some truly remarkable pictures of the Russian empire, taken a century ago.
Here’s my excuse: A number of them are in the Caucasus and Central Asia which can be regarded as part of the Greater Middle East.
I hate it when people recommend photos or You-Tube items or jokes to me that turn out to be a waste of time, or that take my time from something else I'd rather do. This, however, is different.
For what makes these photos—excellent in their own right—totally amazing and unique is that they are in color. Not colorized but real color. The photographer, operating before the Russian Revolution, used a clever way to create color photographs a half-century before these became common. A reader tells me this method was invented in the United States and developed in Germany.
Given their clarity, they show how closely people and places of a century ago resemble those of today or, to put it another way, it brings out the distinctions in dress, customs, and technology between a century ago and today. A friend who is an expert on Russia and has spent many years there says that the countryside has changed surprisingly little since these photos were taken.
It also makes me wonder about an alternative history: Suppose the Russian Revolution, or at least the Communist part of it, had never happened? Would the world, and certainly those places that became part of the Soviet empire, be better off?
To begin with, there would never have been any Nazi imitators of Bolshevism—I’m not saying they were the same but the fascists did see Communism as both inspiration and an enemy that required extreme measures to combat—World War Two, Holocaust, or Cold War, among other things.
And this made me wonder about today’s “wonderful” schemes for fundamentally transforming Western democracies or imposing revolutionary Islamist regimes in the Middle East that are bringing so much waste, suffering, and roadblocks to true progress.
It is not enough to talk about helping the poor and downtrodden or saving the earth or fostering diversity or all those other slogans. The policies, ideas, and programs proposed must actually work in making the world a better place. All too often they don't do so, but rather make things worse and leave large blood stains behind.
The problem with using historical analogies is that not everyone understands them. Let me give you an example, here's a passage from the incomparable Shai Agnon about pre-World War One Austria-Hungary. That country was the very model of a diverse, multicultural country, with extensive autonomy for Hungary and a lot of freedom for all the different peoples therein:
"And so, Isaac sits [in a train] and rides through the realm of Austria, that same Austria that rules over eighteen states, and twelve nations are subject to it. One and the same law for the Jews and for the people of the land, their well-being is our well-being, for the Emperor is a Gracious King, he protects all who take shelter with him....Her earth is lush and fertile and the produce of her land is greater than the need of her inhabitants...."
But Agnon, writing thirty years later, during World War Two no less, knows what happened: quarrels among these diverse peoples plus the defeat in World War One, tore the country apart in strife. The same happened with another multicultural empire called Russia, albeit that was far less tolerant, dubbed the prison house of nations. On its ruin rose the Soviet Union, which claimed to be a paradise of plurality but was actually a Russian-dominated empire of persecution and oppression under the most enchanting slogans and carefully cultivated lies.
The post-1918 conclusion was that multiculturalism didn't work but actually provoked conflict. The countries that flourished were those who promoted a democratic sense of national identity along with freedom, like the United States, Britain, and France. Teaching people that they are separate groups who are victims of the majority plants mutual hatred, consolidates separate identities, and ensures that many will seek revenge.
But enough about that. Meditate on these marvelous photographs and look deeply into the faces of these long-gone individuals and their societies. Here and here.
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