Friday, March 30, 2012

Betrayal Glorified: The Bizarre Jewish Movement to Destroy Israel by Pretending to Save It

By Barry Rubin

I can only laugh at the idea of dilettante Peter Beinart and J Street as leader of the anti-Israel (oops, I meant save-Israel-from-itself) movement. After all, imagine people parading as self-defined heroes while peddling ideas that have absolutely nothing to do with reality. But behind the stupid ideas is a very poisonous hidden agenda.

We live in an age of intellectual absurdity in which a book by someone who has no notion of Israeli reality and who is, at best, decades (I’d say three) out of date is treated as if he could possibly be of some relevance. Or an organization that has literally never made a single pro-Israel initiative can claim to be the country's best friend and is uncritically accepted and promoted as such in the mass media. 

Contrary to the title of Beinart’s book, there is no crisis of Zionism, certainly not in the way he and similarly thinking American Jews believe. The crisis is simply that Israel has become an actually existing country that is defined by an Israel-Jewish patriotism based on a historical Zionism. In fact, regarding Israel itself, Zionism has been so successful that it simply isn’t needed in the same way as it was in 1947.

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Regarding American Jews, the problem is that of the left-wing and those liberals they have fooled, not Zionism. This “new” approach is based on the debate of the 1970s and 1980s, more specifically the 1974-1992 era.

At that time, there were three points of contention that Beinart and others try to revive in a totally different world:

--Continuation of the occupation endangered Israel’s soul and society through hubris, brutalization, fanatical religiosity, and ambitious nationalism.

--If Israel didn’t make peace and get rid of the territories as fast as possible it would be destroyed by…well, it isn’t exactly clear by whom, since its enemies had failed so continually and were weaker than they’d been in the past. But this meant that Israel had to rush to make peace at any price.

--There was a real opportunity for a stable, just, and lasting peace. Merely offer the Palestinians and Arabs a reasonable settlement—particularly a Palestinian state—and a peace agreement would quickly follow.

 This way of thinking has long since been discredited by the experiences of the peace process. First, Israel withdrew from large portions of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, bringing virtually all Palestinians under self-rule. Later, it pulled out of the Gaza Strip completely. There was no more “occupation” as there had been in the 1967-1993 period.


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 book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include 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  and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.



Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Government Is Not a Magic Box

By Barry Rubin

One of today's biggest political and intellectual problems is the concept of “government” as an institution outside human logic, society, and reality. We are told that more power to the government is a solution; that more money to the government is an absolute good; that more regulation from the government is a font of virtue; and that the government is a knight in shining honor and protector of the downtrodden.

It is possible to show the flaw in this argument within sixty seconds. A number of great philosophers—including the founders of the United States—have done so. Here is the single paragraph necessary to understand the  issue:

“Government” is comprised of people. These human beings are often no better, and often worse than average people. Government and its specific agencies have their own goals and their way of functioning have built-in shortcomings (bureaucratic rigidity, indifference to the money and lives of others, lust for the accumulation of power, etc.) Thus, to say that government as a whole and its parts have no interests of their own is not true. The government is not a solution to all things—a kind of secular god--but a party with its own selfishness, goals, and negative aspects. Consequently, citizens must guard against its usurpation of their liberty, wealth, and objectives.

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This issue is so important yet doesn’t receive the needed attention. Children are being systematically educated in ignorance of this point; about half the population never hears it nowadays.

The government is made up of people. Human beings are imperfect. They are subject to a range of behavior that includes ambition, arrogance, bullying, corruption, cravenness, dictatorial tendencies, greed, inability to understand others' needs or viewpoints, lack of imagination, being controlled by a specific caste for that group's own selfish interests, among many other traits.

Once when Lucy van Pelt handed Charlie Brown, of the "Peanuts" comic strip, a long list of his faults, Charlie replied, “These aren’t faults, this is my personality,” or something to that effect.

Government, then, is not a referee but just another special-interest group.


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 book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include 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  and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Obama Hearts Turkish Leader Erdogan As He Oppresses His Own People and Stabs America in the Back

By Barry Rubin

President Barack Obama is continuing his love affair with Turkish Islamist leader Recep Erdogan. As Erdogan continues to undermine Turkish democracy, throw hundreds of moderates into jail, destroy the nation’s institutions, help Iran, throw hysterical tantrums about how much he hates Israel, promote Islamism in the region, and is fresh from still another meeting with Hamas leaders, Obama continues to use Erdogan as his guru.

When the two men met at the Seoul, South Korea, Nuclear Security Summit on March 25, Obama practically slobbered over the anti-American ruler, calling Erdogan his “friend and colleague….We find ourselves in frequent agreement upon a wide range of issues.” One wonders if they ever disagree.

Obama adds:

“I think it's fair to say that over the last several years, the relationship between Turkey and the United States has continued to grow across every dimension.  And I find Prime Minister Erdogan to be an outstanding partner and an outstanding friend on a wide range of issues.”

When Erdogan goes to elections or is criticized by the opposition he uses statements like this to "prove" that his policies aren't radical or anti-Western at all. Here's a man whose regime can help terrorist groups organize a violent confrontation with Israel, preside over a virulently anti-American media and then be lionized by the president of the United States.   

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What did the two men talk about? Well, they first discussed Syria, an issue on which Obama praised Erdogan’s “outstanding leadership.” In fact, Turkey has helped to engineer an Islamist leadership in the Syrian National Council that wrecked any chance for opposition’s unity. Turkey’s rulers did this not to promote democracy but to promote the Muslim Brotherhood.

Now, according to reliable sources, Obama is discouraging Erdogan from advocating a no-fly zone and safe haven in northern Syria because the U.S. government has basically decided not to help the opposition, which will ensure that the Syrian dictatorship crushes it and continues to be Iran’s main ally in the region.

Instead, Obama is opting, in his words, for “a process whereby a transition to a representative and legitimate government in Syria takes place.” In other words, Obama advocates a deal between the opposition and the dictatorship of President Bashar al-Assad  If this sounds like a contradiction, remember that this is also the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood line but is opposed by both the Free Syrian Army and the moderate oppositionists.

Of course, however, this strategy will merely buy time for the regime to achieve a bloody victory.  Erdogan is now headed to Tehran where he will try to convince his friends there to stop helping their friends in Syria. Does that sounds like a mission likely to succeed?

Erdogan and Obama also discussed Iran.... 

.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 book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include 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  and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

France: Here Comes the Whitewash

By Barry Rubin

The murders in Toulouse should be a wake-up call for France and all of Europe. True, the assaults on Jews and French soldiers were three individual terror attacks perpetrated supposedly by a single individual. The more information that emerges, however, the clearer it becomes that this terrorist was well connected to a bigger al-Qaida network. 


Even more important, these shootings are among dozens of antisemitic incidents that happen daily in France and throughout Europe. A big story like the Toulouse attack can draw attention to a broader, dangerous political and social trend.

Or it can be treated as an isolated incident. Nothing to see here; move along; go back to sleep. Al-Qaida terrorists don't pull up in front of Jewish schools to murder teachers and students every day, right?

In the past, the mass media could be expected to present a debate on how to interpret this event but now all too often they give a monopoly to the whitewashers and the apologists. 



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Phase one is to present any terrorist as a right-wing, neo-Nazi, or opponent of left-wing policies. If the terrorist is a Muslim, however, his own explanations—citing dominant interpretations of Islam and the goal of furthering an Islamist revolution—are ignored. Instead, he or they are presented as confused, psychologically disturbed individuals; victims of discrimination; or, in short, anything other than ideologically motivated revolutionaries.

Perhaps the leading “professional” apologist for France in this context is Justin Vaisse.  In an article in Foreign Policy, The "New Normal" in France?, he claims that Mohamed Merah, the Toulouse terrorist, is sort of a sad sack character who is merely seeking to take his fate into his own hands and to emerge as the defender of oppressed Muslims in France. In other words, he’s sort of a combination of self-help fanatic and crime-fighting superhero.

As for France itself, antisemitism is supposedly declining. There’s no problem and few major attacks on Jews. Everything is just fine. No need to make changes; no need to demand that Muslims teach tolerance and fight against extremists in their own ranks; no need to provide more protection for Jewish institutions. And no need for a real soul-searching about the constant demonization of Israel in the French media and, at times, schools.

Is this disgusting? Yes and it's also dangerous. The subhead on the article tells us the Toulouse attack is merely "a banal and fading version of extremism." To a Jewish ear, the word "banal" recalls the famous Hannah Arendt line about the "banality of evil" in the Holocaust, while the word "fading" means the problem is going away. 

It so happens that I have met Monsieur Vaisse and discussed these issues with him. At that time he was an advisor on Islam in the French government. Vaisse had just written a book saying that there was no real political problem regarding Muslims in France. The book was quickly translated into English and published by a prestigious Washington research center.

According to Vaisse, the entire difficulty lay with economic and social issues. The problem was that Muslims were poor and badly treated. If this were fixed then there would be no radicalism, Islamism, or terrorism.

I asked him: Accepting your premise for the moment, why should we possibly believe that France can solve the economic and social problems involved? There aren’t good jobs; there is no prospect of better housing and higher living standards. Government regulations discourage entrepreneurship. So in the context of your worldview, isn’t the prospect for more radicalization and violence?

He simply gave no serious answer. And this, I should add, was before the current international economic crash and the Paris riots.

But there’s more. A colleague asked Vaisse what sources he used in composing his study. Only French-language sources, he replied. My astonished colleague said that nothing could be understood without looking also at the Arabic material that French Muslims were writing and reading. In fact, this person added, there was an Arabic-language bookstore within five minutes’ walk of Vaisse’s office and we could go there right now and see the radical, antisemitic child-raising manuals being sold there. These books, my colleague added, weren’t just sitting on the shelves they were being bought and used.

Vaisse showed zero interest in this point.

For Vaisse, revolutionary Islamism is simply not a factor of any importance. While he correctly points out that many French Muslim activists aren't personally pious in their behavior (drinking alcohol, for example), this is besides the point. Islamism becomes a form of ethnic nationalism for them, justifying anti-Jewish and general anti-French actions.

In addition, this is no transient "second-generation" phenomenon. For over time, the radicalism is passed on to the third generation through Islamic schools, mosques, and indoctrination at home. In effect, France and other countries are turning themselves into permanently unstable bi-national states.   

Incidentally, in the Netherlands—in contrast to France—Jewish groups successfully protested the sale of these child-raising manuals telling parents to teach their kids that Jews were evil and should be extirpated. The Dutch government responded by ordering little strips of white paper be glued over the offending passages. My host then showed me, with a flick of his finger, how easily these paste-overs could be removed and the sections calling for the killing of Jews be read.

Now consider this point. I am unaware of a single incident in Europe or North America when a non-Muslim attacked Muslims with guns or bombs in an attempt to kill the maximum number possible. Probably, you could find a couple of such cases but it won’t be easy and they won’t be many. It is the Jews who are being targeted as a group by many levels of violence and intimidation. This is a secret to nobody except Western governments, “experts,” and much of the mass media.

I have listened in France to discussions among Jews over what parts of their cities were still safe to live in and which were too dangerous. The key factor is whether you are wealthy enough to move away from the threats. I’ve heard Jewish parents discussing their kids' traumatic experiences in the public schools. 

French Jews are either leaving France or at least buying homes in Israel. Aside from reports in mostly Jewish media, I know about this because I hear more French being spoken in Tel Aviv streets. My real estate agent friend has a growing number of French clients, some of whom leave their families in Israel and commute to work in France. These people know what’s actually going on in France and other countries.  

Der Speigel interviews, Daniel Ben-Simon, an expert who explains there are, "hundreds of anti-Semitic incidents" a year, committed mainly by Arab immigrants. Indeed, the teacher and his two children murdered in Toulouse were French Jews who had emigrated to Israel until he had been persuaded to return to France to work in the school.   

So while we will be told to listen to Vaisse and such people, these reassuring lies have nothing to do with reality.  

This is not just a matter of misinformation. Such falsehoods encourage governments and institutions not to prepare, not to change their ways, not to learn from bloody experience, to continue denying the very existence of an antisemitic problem. And that means there will occasionally be more such tragedies but also hundreds of incitements to antisemitism, blood libels against Israel, assaults, threats, and other acts of anti-Jewish hatred that you will never hear about. 

Hiding the truth only ensures that the problem grows and the tragedies are repeated. And unfortunately that is precisely what's happening.

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 book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include 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  and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

A version of this article is published in the Jerusalem Post. The version here is better. Please read and link to my version here. 
  


Friday, March 23, 2012

From Satire to Horror Reality Show: Radical Chic Conquers America

Homer: Hey! What's the problem here?
Lisa: We were fighting over which one of us loves you more.
Homer (touched): You were? (sniff) Aww. Well, go ahead.
Bart (pushing Lisa): You love him more!
Lisa (pushing Bart) No, you do!
Bart: No, I don't!
Lisa: Yes, you do!
--The Simpsons, "There's No Disgrace Like Home" episode

In a recent article, Bruce Bawer reminds us of Tom Wolfe's famous 1970 article ridiculing the Park Avenue penthouse party of Leonard Bernstein, where various stars from stage, screen, and television came together to celebrate the Black Panther Party.

Bawer compares that party to a recent meeting at the Jewish Community Center in New York to combat “Islamophobia” in a way that whitewashes the real threat posed by revolutionary Islamism. In each case, well-to-do people thinking of themselves as highly virtuous and showing their "love" for freedom and tolerance are being manipulated by a political movement that would destroy them, as well as the United States more generally.

Bawer’s piece is excellent. But on reading it I realized that he was thinking too small. The true contemporary parallel to the Bernstein party is not to some event of a few hundred people on Manhattan’s West Side.  Iit is to all of America.
At the 1970 party, the Panthers’ representatives complained that they were being stigmatized as criminals when, as Bawer summarized it, they were really ”a peaceable group whose real concerns were indicated by the clinics and children’s breakfast programs.”

You know, like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

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The Panthers’ speaker continued:

“We recognize that this country is the most oppressive country in the world, maybe in the history of the world. The pigs have the weapons and they are ready to use them on the people…ready to commit genocide against those who stand up against them…..All we want is the good life, the same as you. To live in peace and lead the good life, that’s all we want.”

The individuals present then gave big contributions to a racist, antisemitic, violent, anti-democratic revolutionary movement.


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Wednesday, March 21, 2012

The True Perpetrators of The Antisemitic Attacks in Toulouse and Throughout the World

By Barry Rubin

What a tragic, evil joke. A drive-by shooter in the beautiful, almost magical, city of Toulouse, France, murders three Jewish children and a teacher in front of their school. Various VIPs issue statements about how terrible is this deed, how unspeakable.

And yet at that very moment, the next round of murders, the next slanderous and inciting antisemitic lies are being perpetrated by respectable people and institutions. There is no real soul-searching, no true effort to do better, no serious examination about how the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hysteria is paving the way to murder and potentially genocide.

Here are three examples of such deeds in nominally democratic countries—not Iran, not Syria, not Pakistan, where such things are even more intense—but in supposedly rational places.

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  1. The Turkish editor
Meet Mahir Zeynalov, an editor at Today’s Zaman, a Turkish Islamic newspaper that is supposedly moderate. Meet the modern art of tweeting. Here is Zeynalov’s response to the murders:

Gunmen attack Jewish school in France, vandals attack Jewish cemetery in Poland, Jews burn mosques and Quran in Tunisia. What's wrong?

There are two ways to read this tweet. The more outrageous is this: How can it be wrong for gunmen to murder Jewish children or vandals attack a Jewish cemetery in Poland if Jews are burning mosques and Qurans in Tunisia. One act balances the other.

The other interpretation is this: What a world in which there is so much hatred! Gunmen murder Jewish children, vandals attack a Jewish cemetery, and Jews desecrate mosques and Muslim holy books.

Yet the second interpretation is almost as inciting to violence as the first. We know from many experiences—including Afghanistan right now—that anyone who burns or does anything to a Koran would set off massive riots and bloody killings. And as for burning a mosque, such a deed might well result in the massacre of every Jew living in Tunisia.

Tunisian Jews today are a couple of thousand terrified people who would run in the other direction if they saw a Koran in front of them lest they be accused of looking at it funny. What Zeyanlov has done is called a “blood libel,” a lie that might lead to the murder of Jews.

Now if some Muslim were to take seriously Zeyanlov’s tweet he would feel justified in murdering Jews, say children standing in front of their school.

2.  The Dutch cartoonist...



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 book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include 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  and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

In 2011 U.S. Primacy in the Middle East Died; In 2012 The Funeral Will Be Held


“This is the end…
Of our elaborate plans, the end,
Of everything that stands….
No safety or surprise….
There’s danger on the edge of town…. 
And all the children are insane….
The West is the best….
But you will never follow me.”
--“This is the End,” The Doors

By Barry Rubin

Here’s your basic problem for 2012-2013: In the Middle East, the vultures are coming home to roost.  Of course, the main cause of developments in the region is the long, failed legacy of radical Arab nationalism which is now being replaced by what we’ll be calling in 20 or 30 years the long failed legacy of revolutionary Islamism.

But the secondary cause is the mistaken policy of President Barack Obama. Let’s make a list of his costly errors .

--By putting the priority on Muslim identity, as he did in the Cairo speech and elsewhere, Obama helped empower Islamism over nationalism and democratic choices.

--By pressing for revolutionary change in Egypt, Obama helped bring a radical Islamist regime to Egypt, the Arab world’s most important country, leading it to break the alliance with the United States and move toward heightened belligerency—possibly war—with Israel.

--By pressing for revolutionary change in Egypt, Obama helped bring to power a regime allied to Hamas, providing that regime in the Gaza Strip with unlimited arms, money, and terrorist reinforcements and thus bringing renewed armed conflict with Israel.

Let me stop here a moment and respond to the claim that Obama couldn’t have done much on this issue. Of course, if we look at the demonstrations on the ground that seems a sensible argument. But the key pressure point was the U.S. ability to affect decisions taken by Egypt’s elite and military in January and early February 2011 to give up and even join the revolution.



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U.S. encouragement and pressure—as the State Department wanted to do at the time—would have allowed a post-Mubarak transition with some reforms rather than an all-out revolution.  There’s an interesting parallel to Iran in 1978, when almost year-long inaction by the Carter Administration helped create a situation producing the Islamic revolution there.

--By overthrowing the horrible Muammar Qadhafi, however much that can be justified by the evil nature of the old regime, Obama handed power over to radical forces, not consciously or intentionally but inevitably given the reality of that country.   We already see such signs as a refusal to cooperate with the Lockerbie bombing investigation and the destruction of Christian and Jewish graveyards.

--By failing to help the Iranian opposition, not taking a strong stance when the election was stolen, and doing nothing serious about Iran’s nuclear program for more than two years, the Obama Administration has helped create a situation in which either Israel will attack Iran or Iran will get nuclear weapons. Or both.

--By never criticizing or seriously pressuring the Palestinian Authority (as it sought unilateral independence at the UN, allied itself with Hamas, and refused to negotiate with Israel) the Obama Administration made the “peace process” absolutely, positively dead.

--By backing Islamist forces in the Syrian opposition instead of helping the democratic opposition, the Obama Administration is making most likely the worst possible outcome: either a continued pro-Iran, anti-American regime in Damascus or an Islamist takeover there.

--In failing to help U.S. allies, Obama has alienated the few remaining states that sought American protection against revolutionary Islamism to the point that they know they are on their own and must either retreat before the radicals, or make their own deals.

--In distancing itself from Israel, the Obama Administration has emboldened radicals to escalate operations against that country and persuaded the less radical to go along with them.

--By embracing an Islamist regime in Turkey, Obama has allowed that government to continue with its agenda of transforming Turkey while disproving the opposition’s argument that radical policies at home and abroad might damage the country’s standing in Washington.

--By showing so much weakness (which it portrays as friendliness, sympathy, multilateralism, and cultural sensitivity), the Obama Administration has convinced the radical, anti-American forces that the United States is weak and ripe for collapse. Listen to what the Islamists in the region actually say.
This is the government and this is the policy portrayed as successful merely because good intelligence officers located Usama bin Ladin and courageous Navy Seals killed him.

This is the government that portrays itself as the best friend of Israel even as it undermines Israel’s security because Obama keeps saying how much he supports Israel and “allows” continued congressionally mandated aid to go to that country. With best friends like this who needs enemies?

Nothing could be more ridiculous than these assurances of success while the Middle East burns, while U.S. standing and interests there are in sharp decline. The “funny” thing about all of this is that virtually everyone in the region itself knows that everything written above is true even as virtually everyone in the “mainstream” discussion in the United States denies it.

Any possibility that Obama’s policy might not bring disaster in the Middle East died in 2011. In 2012 we’re going to see the funeral.



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 book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include 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  and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.



This article was published in a different version in the Jerusalem Post. Please read and link to my version. 



  

Monday, March 19, 2012

Whether He Likes it or Not: Why Obama’s Policy Will Eventually Bring War with Iran

"A statesman has not to make history. But if ever in the events around him he hears the sweep of the  mantle of God he must jump up and catch at its hem." --Bismarck

By Barry Rubin

President Barack Obama hasn’t changed but the situation has, in part due to his actions. Obama will do everything possible to escape confrontation with Iran but events, reinforced by his own statements and of course by Iranian behavior, will one day, if he is still in office, force him in that direction. Obama is not a capable enough statesman to grab the hem of the mantle of God, but he has managed--to coin a phrase--to entangle himself helplessly into it.

As usual, Shakespeare said it best, in "Hamlet":

"For 'tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard, and it shall go hard"

The word "petard" in Hamlet did not refer to clothing but to a landmine that blew up the sapper who laid it. In other words, a tool intended for one purpose turned against its creator despite his efforts and intentions

I've already written a satirical article to make this point and now this piece makes the same argument in a serious style.

The debate over whether Obama is Israel’s “best friend” or just faking for electoral purposes misses the point. The personality or even the intentions of the man who lives in the White House are not necessarily the main factor shaping international events.  Often, what he says and does determines outcomes in ways he never intended.

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In his AIPAC speech, Obama set forward a simple strategic approach: either Iran will stop developing nuclear weapon or an Israeli attack is justified. Whatever his intentions, that gives a green light to Israel for such an operation. The only question is the timing and it certainly won’t be this year.

Much of the discussion over the speeches of Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the AIPAC meeting has revolved around false issues:

--The claim from the pro-Obama camp that Obama heroically reined in Netanyahu and prevented an Israeli attack on Iran right now. That’s a fantasy. Among other factors, Israeli leaders always knew that they didn’t have U.S. or international  support for an attack and preparations were by no means ready.

Within Israel it is well known that Netanyahu is a great talker who makes Israel’s case most effectively. At the same time it is widely understood that he is also a man who doesn’t like action so much and certainly has never been a high risk-taker or advocate of military adventures.

The actual content of Israeli government statements has been: We are not eager for a war but we might have to attack some day unless you get tougher on Iran. That is precisely what has happened. Israel won its point, getting the world to be tougher on Iran and to move a big step toward accepting the necessity of an Israeli attack in future.


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 book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include 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  and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

The Obama Administration's Pro-Islamist Syrian Opposition "Leadership" is Collapsing

By Barry Rubin

Five months ago, I wrote here and here detailing how the U.S. government collaborated in creating an anti-American, Islamist-dominated leadership for the Syrian revolution. This leadership group, assembled by the Islamist Turkish regime as the Obama government’s subcontractor, failed immediately. Now it is collapsing openly.

Of the nineteen announced members of the top leadership, I explained, ten of them were Islamists, either Muslim Brotherhood or Salafist. A reliable Syrian opposition source tells me that two more members are secretly Islamist tools. This was far in excess of the proportion of those forces in the revolution. In short, the U.S. government was helping to turn Syria’s revolution over to the Islamists. If this group had succeeded, the West would be facing still another radical Islamist regime that hated the West, wanted to go to war with Israel, and would be imposing a new dictatorship on its country.
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But the Syrian National Council (SNC) has failed. The Islamist angle and the Obama Administration's responsibility for this fiasco is being far underplayed.

Several SNC members, including Kamal al-Labwani and Haitham Maleh, have announced their resignations. They are both elderly veteran dissidents who are not Islamists. The reason being given most often for this crack-up is that the group’s leadership is “autocratic," excluding most of the membership from any role in decision-making. Leaving aside the element of personal ambition, however, why is it autocratic? Because it is imposing the Muslim Brotherhood line rather than responding to the preferences of the activists within Syria, that’s why.

As the New York Times admits, al-Labwani, “accused Muslim Brotherhood members within the exile opposition of `monopolizing funding and military support.’” Yet there is not a word about how the Obama Administration pushed this Brotherhood-dominated leadership onto the Syrian opposition.


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 book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include 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  and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Egypt is a Volcano, The West Snoozes, But Israel Won't Play the Role of Pompeii

“Interchangeable ever were the terms of abuse with which the aggressor discredits those about to be ravaged!”
--Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano

By Barry Rubin

Reality: Those who are, or will soon be, governing Egypt view themselves as being at war with Israel for all practical purposes.  It matters relatively little that there is still a peace treaty. In Cairo, there are no thoughts of peace.

This is the second biggest disaster of the “Arab Spring.” The same applies to the Egyptian government’s attitude to the United States. That is the biggest disaster.

It is a disaster that U.S. policymakers and journalists have not even begun to recognize, much less counter.

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Here’s the latest example. The Egyptian parliament voted unanimously to demand the expulsion of Israel’s ambassador and the halt of all natural gas exports to Israel. Isn't going to happen? Well, not this month. Of course, the military junta is still in control, but it won’t be by the end of June. And then the deluge begins.

The mechanics of this step are especially significant. The parliament’s Arab affairs committee issued a report that stated:

"Revolutionary Egypt will never be a friend, partner or ally of the Zionist entity (Israel), which we consider to be the number one enemy of Egypt and the Arab nation. It will deal with that entity as an enemy, and the Egyptian government is hereby called upon to review all its relations and accords with that enemy."

It’s rather difficult to be at peace with your “number one enemy” isn’t it, especially when you treat it as an enemy in all aspects of policy? And in this report and successful resolution, Israel is referred to as an “entity” and not a state thirty years after the two countries made peace and “ended” their conflict. That's the same term used by Iran, Hamas, and Hizballah.

The report also endorses Palestinian resistance "in all its kinds and forms" against Israel's "aggressive policies." That is an endorsement of terrorism and of Hamas firing rockets, missiles, and mortars from the Gaza Strip. If, for example, a Palestinian were to get inside an Israeli kindergarten and machinegun all the toddlers that would be justified in the eyes of Egypt’s new rulers. And that's no exaggeration.

In a sense, then, this is a declaration of war. Oh, it isn’t a formal war with the Egyptian military building up its forces in eastern Sinai or launching a cross-border attack. But war nonetheless.


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 book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include 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  and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.