Arab League: Tells U.S. Who Can and Cannot Be Thrown Out of Power

By Barry Rubin

New Arab League leader Nabil Elaraby said that the United States has no right to call for Syrian President [dictator] Bashar al-Assad's ouster. In fact, he added, "Syria has entered a new era and is now moving on the road of a genuine reform."

So for your guidance, here's the Arab League policy checklist:
Oust [Egyptian President Husni] Mubarak: yes
Oust [Libyan leader Muammar] Qadhafi: yes
Oust [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad: no
Recognize Palestinian state in conflict with all previous international commitments: yes

Look Who Wants to lead the Middle East!

By Barry Rubin

In the absence of U.S. leadership, others want to direct the Middle East. The battle is becoming a competition of radicals as to who is going to run the region. That’s what happened in the 1950s and 1960s and it isn’t good. Then, the competition was between Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. Today, the contestants are Turkey, Iran, and a radical Egypt, with Iraq and Syria sidelined due to internal issues. Meanwhile, the Saudis have been forced to take over leadership of the remaining moderate Arab states (the Gulf sheikdoms, plus Morocco and Jordan) since they can no longer depend on America for protection.

The article discusses the new contestants for leadership, responding to the United States sidelining itself or even coming out on the side of the radicals.

Read more

Lying for Peace: An Addendum

By Barry Rubin

My article, "The Unbearable Lightness of Mainstream Thinking on Israel-Palestinian Issues," came out too early to include this howler from Tom Friedman. We should remember that Friedman is highly regarded in certain circles. Yet his columns are often laughable in terms of the actual Middle East. Consider this passage giving his proposal for a compromise at the UN:

"Each side would get something vital provided it gives the other what it wants. The Palestinians would gain recognition of statehood and U.N. membership, within provisional boundaries, with Israel and America voting in favor. And the Israelis would get formal U.N. recognition as a Jewish state — with the Palestinians and Arabs voting in favor."

Now, can Friedman deliver the Palestinian, Arab, (and Muslim-majority state) votes for formal UN recognition of Israel as a Jewish state? Of course not....

Read more

The Unbearable Lightness of Mainstream Thinking on Israel-Palestinian Issues

By Barry Rubin


Recently I appeared on a panel. I gave what I thought was a devastating and detailed analysis on why there wouldn’t be an Israel-Palestinian peace: the PA wasn’t ready Fatah was led by radicals; the Palestinian people hadn’t been prepared for peace (and had been prepared to see any compromise as treason); Hamas might take over or would use any PA compromises to attack and defeat its rival; there were too many problems with what would happen after a two-state solution was implemented.

An analysis of the Lying-for-Peace Movement and of how the main arguments on the "peace process" today have no basis in fact.

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Answering Readers’ Questions on Libya, Middle East Democracy and On Islam

By Barry Rubin

I answer reader's questions on:

--Why is the Obama Administration reluctant to go to Congress over the war in Libya?

--What should the U.S. government be doing about democratization in the Arab world?

--How do you tell a moderate Muslim?

--Is there such a thing as moderate Muslims?

Read it all

The Coming Crisis in the Middle East

I've written an essay trying to explain what I see coming in the months to come in the Middle East. A lot of people have found it useful. Read in June what you'll be seeing in the mass media in December. It's called, "The Coming Crisis in the Middle East."

For my still-relevant 2009 article on what Obama should do (and should have been doing), "U.S. Middle East Policy: Too Many Challenges and yet a Single Theme" see here. Note: the single theme was supposed to be combatting revolutionary Islamism, not promoting it.

It’s Official: I Announce My Candidacy to be Middle East Czar for the U.S. Government

This article is published on PajamasMedia.

By Barry Rubin

Good evening. My fellow Americans and fellow Middle Easterners, since so many people are now announcing their candidacy for high office, I have decided to launch my candidacy for U.S. Middle East policy czar.

Winston Churchill once said, “A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.”

But we can do better than that.

As you know, American interests in the region are in a serious recession. Far from being revived by the democracy stimulus package, things have gotten worse. Islamist forces are growing; America’s friends are trembling; the enemies of freedom are rejoicing.

The social security of America’s allies is in deep deficit. Millions of people have been added to the rolls of those not covered by U.S. strategic health insurance. Man-made global sharia-warming is happening despite my warning. Hate crimes against Americans, Christians, Bahais, and Jews are on the rise.

Winston Churchill also said that an appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. At present, it is thought that if you say nice things about the crocodile, send it lots of money, and feed others to it, the crocodile will be your friend and not accuse you of crocodilophobia.

Something must be done to reverse this process, and the failed policies of the current administration will not do so. In fact, four more years of the same will send the region back four centuries.

Consequently, I feel the need to step forward and do something about it. In the months to come I will be entering the Saudi and Jordanian primaries, promising U.S. protection from revolutionary Islamism and Iran.

I will enter the Syria, Lebanon, and Turkish opposition primaries pledging my full support for their democratic aspirations and against their dictatorial governments.

If elected, I will call for an international alignment of forces opposing revolutionary Islamism, a united front against repressive extremism. North America, Europe, Israel, India, and all the relatively moderate governments and all the real democratic forces of the Arabic-speaking world, Turkey, and Iran should be mobilized and organized to work together to the greatest possible extent.

I will reinstate the doctrine that an intelligent foreign policy requires rewarding your friends and punishing your enemies. And that, in turn, must begin with a proper definition of friends and enemies.

I will not be afraid to use the words “terrorism” and Islamism.

I will only use the phrase, "The status quo is unsustainable" when referring to the dictatorships in Iran and Syria.

I will not throw allies under the bus.

I will support a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict when Fatah and the Palestinian Authority decide that they really want one. Being a Middle Easterner I am a very very patient man. Very, very, very patient. If they're not in a hurry to find a real compromise solution, I'm not in a hurry.

In the fashion of the Middle East I will seek respect over popularity.

I will not send billions of dollars to Pakistan when it helps al-Qaida and the Taliban while launching terrorist attacks against India.

I will be willing to admit that Hamas, Hizballah, Iran, Syria, the Muslim Brotherhood, and their ally, the current Turkish regime, are bad.

I will not say that the Taliban has a moderate wing or that Hizballah can’t be terrorist because it has lawyers among its members.

I will publicly announce that the Muslim Brotherhood is Muslim and a Brotherhood and Islamist and violent and anti-American and antisemitic.

I will advocate hope only when there is real hope, and change only when that change would be a real improvement.

My fellow Americans and my fellow Middle Easterners, in the immortal words of Marion Mitchell Morrison, “Life is hard; it’s harder if you’re stupid.” We can no longer afford to have a stupid U.S. Middle East policy jeopardizing our lives and our futures. Indeed, in the Middle East if you are stupid, life isn’t just hard, it’s short.

And so I humbly ask for your support and your vote in this critical election.

Thank you and good evening.

By the way, my birth certificate information is available on request.

PS: Marion Mitchell Morrison is better known by his professional name, John Wayne.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ 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 http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

The Arab World's Coming Economic Crash--And Its Political Consequences

By Barry Rubin

Pay close attention to this article by the analytical artist who calls himself "Spengler." He has been arguing--and I've been agreeing with him--since February that the Arabic-speaking non-oil-producing countries are going to crash economically.

Anyone should be able to see this and factor it into policy. Egypt especially is in a no-hope situation. Food prices--a major factor in the upheaval there--will continue to rise. No jobs will be created; no income generated; no housing built. And so Egypt will face a huge crisis. What might happen? An Islamist revolution? A little foreign war to distract attention and focus passions on hating Israel and America?

I wouldn't mind it so much if the ruling and intellectual elites in Europe and North America were just asleep. The problem is that they seem to be in a coma. Even loud alarm clocks don't wake them.

But as one of my readers joked: Collapsing economies under crushing debt and huge bufget deficits? Obama was right! The Arab Spring is making the Middle East more like America and Europe.

The People Have Voted and Barack Obama Is NOT The Next “Muslim Idol”

This article is published on PajamasMedia.

By Barry Rubin

Wow. How can anybody continue to spout nonsense about how President Barack Obama's policies and endless attempts to make Muslims and Arabs love America are succeeding or are even useful in light of this new Pew poll.

Here are the findings. The analyses following the numbers are mine:

1. Are you favorable toward Obama?

Jordan, 13 percent; down 12 points since he took office. The Muslim Brotherhood and Palestinians (there's an overlap) hate him and the "East Bankers," that is the non-Palestinians don't trust him to support the continued existence of the monarchy.

Turkey; 10 percent; down 4 points. This reflects the efforts of the Islamist government to incite massive anti-Americanism despite the fact that Obama never criticizes and only praises the regime.

Pakistan; 11 percent, down 5 points. This is, of course, despite billions in aid he has given even though Pakistan has sponsored terrorism against India while helping al-Qaida leaders escape capture.

Lebanon; 49 percent, down 6 points. The relatively high figure here no doubt expresses the hope of Sunni Muslims, Christians, and Druze who oppose Syria and Hizballah that Obama would help them. He hasn't and won't.

Egypt; 20 percent, down 7 points. Despite his helping them to overthrow their government that was allied to the United States, there's no gratitude. The Muslim Brotherhood is about four times more popular than Obama and it stands for jihad against America. (Its leaders say so even if the American media and "experts" ignore it.)

Palestinians, 18 percent, up 3 points, which is not very impressive given all his efforts and tilt toward them.

In other words, everything Obama has done: the Cairo speech, super-sensitivity toward Islam, support for Arab revolts, distancing the United States from Israel--has had no effect, indeed, a negative effect.

2. Asked, do you sympathize with ”Islamic fundamentalists” or their opponents, Muslims replied:

Pakistan: 47 to 15. Pro-Islamist.  One day that nuclear-weaponed country might blow up in a way that would make Egypt look like a picnic.

Palestinians: 37 to 23. Pro-Islamist. Keep that in mind if there’s an election battle between Fatah and Hamas. We are constantly told that Fatah is more popular because it has raised living standards. Don't bet on that. In the Middle East, never underestimate the power of ideology and the appeal of militancy as against material self-interest.

Jordan: 35 to 37 About even. Encouraging. Note that this has been one of the quietest countries this year. Presumably this reflects strong "East Banker" support for the monarchy.

Egypt 31 to 30. About even. Encouraging but the problem is that the Islamists are well-organized and energetic while their opponents are not. No serious nationalist or moderate democratic party has been formed yet, with only about three months to go before the parliamentary election! In other words, even if they were to get, for example, "only" 30 percent of the vote they could win an even higher portion of seats, running in many cases against divided "non-Islamist" blocs and multiple rival candidates.

Turkey 24 to 45. Anti-Islamist. But perhaps the problem is that they don’t see the current government and the ruling AK party as Islamist. That's why a lot of "anti-Islamists" will vote for a stealth Islamist party in the June 12 election.

Israeli Muslims, 23 to 27. About even. The nationalists and Communists are still powerful among Arab citizens. That’s still a scary number but remember the number of "pro-Islamists" in Israel's population is only about five percent of the total (that is about one-quarter of 18 percent Muslims in the population). In these other countries the population is 90 percent (Egypt) to 99 percent (everywhere else) Muslim.

Let me paraphrase (in my own words) Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the fabulously popular Muslim Brotherhood spiritual guru: Usama bin-Ladin was stupid. Of course we should demand and run in elections because we’ll win.

On the U.S. and European side, no amount of Islamophilia--aid money, flattery, moving away from Israel, helping people overthrow pro-Western regimes, praising Muslim accomplishments in space exploration, and so on--will change the Middle East political scene or even the public opinion polls in a positive direction.

There’s lots more of interest in the poll.

Note: The title is a play on the "American Idol" slogan. And yes I'm aware of the irony in the phrase "Muslim Idol." But, of course, Muslims favor the breaking of idols.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ 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 http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

What is the Political Difference Between The West and Middle East

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By Barry Rubin

In the West, moderate democracy--somewhere between social democrats and conservatives--trumps militant nationalism and religion (Christianity) every time. It wasn't like that in 1930, it wasn't like that in 1830, or 1530, but it has been like that since 1945.

Westerners think, living in this environment, that everyone is like them (or basically like them, or behind all of those colorful customs, costumes, and food they are really just like them).

But in the Muslim-majority Middle East generally, militant nationalism and religion (Islam) trumps moderate democracy. The main elements are: radical nationalists, Islamists, with some neo-Marxist leftism thrown in.

By 2050--more likely 2100 or thereafter--the Middle East may be like the West in 2011. But in political terms it is more like the West in 1930 or 1830.

To quote the poet John Keats:

"that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

What was Keats writing about? The poem, "Ode on a Grecian Urn," published in 1820. He was in awe of the artistic power of ancient Greece. If you've never seen one of those magnificent urns in the British Museum then you've missed something about the power of Western cultural experience.

Western culture and society largely stands on two legs: Classical culture and philosophy and the Bible. But that's another story.

The same discovery that Keats romanticized (hah, good pun!) helped make possible the developments in Western philosophy, the arts, literature, and worldview that laid the basis for both democracy and scientific progress.

William Shakespeare and the roots of the Elizabeathan cultural and scientific explosion was based on the first generation of school boys who studied ancient Greece and Rome. In those days they still cut off people's heads and you had to be a Protestant adhering to the Anglican church to get a college degree. But it was the beginning of change in a better direction.

Guess what? The Muslim-majority Middle East are also having their Keats' moment. They are seeking ancient solutions for modern problems. But that tradition is not one of Aristotle, Plato, and Sophicles. Nor is it the one of John Locke, John Adams, John Stuart Mill, or even John Maynard Keynes or of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, or Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (better known as Moliere).

Rather than a Grecian urn, they are contemplating their ancient glories from the seventh century. It is just as legitimate but the results are somewhat different. This is truly "multi-culturalism" in action. The far left has hijacked liberalism but the Islamists have not exactly hijacked Islam. They are drawing on valid (though not the only) interpretations.

A comparable example: in reviving the ancient cultures of Greece and Rome, Keats could have been writing an ode to Caligula or Nero, or feeding Jews and Christian to the lions for sport.

Here's the ridiculous contradiction at the heart of the mainstream Western interpretation of the modern Middle East by the dominant leftists-pretending-to-be-liberals. I'll do it in the Greek philosophical style

Proposition One: All peoples are different. They have their own history, culture, religion, and values. All of these are equally true and valid.

Proposition Two: The Arab and Muslim societies of the Middle East think basically as we do. The average person just wants a nice house, an energy-efficient automobile, and a good education for their children in a peaceful world. The politically active person will naturally see the best system as democracy, the past approach as moderation, will revere peace over war, and will be tolerant of the "other."

See the contradiction? You can't have both. If proposition one is true, then proposition two must be false. Either societies are very different or they aren't. Which is it?

There is a way out of this problem. It's called "time." If the England of 1500 cut off heads and persecuted other religions and the modern Middle East does so, it also can move forward. Though that problem of history and tradition slows things up considerably.

At any rate, on the rollercoaster of Middle East history the train is about to lurch down, leaving our stomachs--but hopefully not our heads--somewhat behind. Western governments think the ride is over. They want to unbuckle their seatbelts, stand up and take in the fresh air.

Of the picture on the urn, Keats wrote:

"Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands dressed?"

Why is there a rift between Israel and Obama? Because we were the heifer last time. We aren't being led to that green altar (how appropriate the color for today in two respects! The last time it was "brown" and then they tried to fool us with a "red" altar).

So who's being led by that mysterious priest this time?

Answer: The Western democratic states. Just say Obamoo.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ 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 http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

Arab World: Onward to Revolutionary Violence Or Let's Be Cautious?

This article is published on PajamasMedia.

By Barry Rubin

MEMRI has translated several Arab reactions to the “Nakba Day” marches on Israel’s border. In general, they said that this is the end of Israel—a line that they’ve been pursuing now for 63 years without much to show for it. Yet the appeal of this view has not notably diminished.

All the quotes in this article are taken from here.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) reaction is important because it shows once again—contrary to the claims of virtually all of the Western mass media and leaders—that this institution is totally uninterested in making peace with Israel. The article was written by Adli Sadeq who is an official of the PA Foreign Ministry.

He writes: "The revolutions in the Arab world – those that have [already] triumphed and those that are still underway – have put an end to bartering and haggling over the right of return."

In other words, because a few hundred demonstrators can approach Israel’s border and get shot, that means the PA should eternally demand that all Palestinians who so wish can go live in Israel (where they can assault that country from within). But given this position, there can never be any negotiated peace and won’t in reality be a Palestinian state.

So who’s intransigent? Israel is not going to agree to its own destruction and is strong enough so that it doesn’t have to do so. Forget about the peace process. Nothing is going to happen and that's because the Palestinian leadership isn't ready for peace. And that's because they think they will win a total victory without compromise. If you don't understand that, you understand nothing about the Middle East.

Hamas, which is now the PA’s partner, in the form of Deputy Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Ahmad Baher, said that the demonstrations indicate there will soon be a third intifada that will destroy Israel. More violence, more death, the destruction of all the PA infrastructure and higher living standards achieved over the last year. All of this will be sacrificed for the mirage of total victory.

Were there more sophisticated responses? Yes.

The Jordanian government newspapers did not praise the protests. The rulers remember how Jordan was dragged into the 1967 war, and then used as a base for Fatah to attack Israel with terrorism. That regime has few illusions about risking its stability and sovereignty by hosting new cross-border attacks or marches. But it also allowed op-eds calling for and predicting Israel’s destruction.

While the monarchy virtually views Israel as an ally on some levels, it also must voice enough radical demagoguery to survive and buy off public opinion. Jordan doesn’t so much use Israel as a scapegoat for profit as it does for survival. In other words, it lets people scream that Israel is about to be destroyed but knows that isn’t true and doesn’t want to be carried away on that destructive bandwagon.

Then there’s al-Sharq al-Awsat, the Arab world’s best newspaper, which is Saudi owned but also relatively liberal. Its editor, Tariq Alhomayed, blamed Syria for the demonstrations: “Damascus is ready to sacrifice every last Palestinian in order to…distract the world from its barbaric suppression of the peaceful protests on its own soil....”

Finally, there’s an intriguing editorial in al-Ahram, Egypt’s leading newspaper that shows at least some people there are getting scared that they will soon have a radical regime that will drag them into another disastrous war. Although perhaps they are just holdovers from the old regime who will soon be replaced by those with the proper revolutionary ideology.



The editorial says the demonstrations will hurt the Palestinian cause and Egyptian interests.

This is going to be the pragmatic argument in Egypt in the years to come. The question is whether it can overcome radical fervor. The radical nationalists might heed these arguments; army officers are more likely to do so, Islamists deaf to them.

The editorial asks:

"Is it in the national interest to provoke Israel at present, and to open up new fronts [of conflict]? Is this really the right time? Second, everyone knows that security within Egypt has not been fully restored, and that the government is making an effort to provide safety in the streets, cities, and squares by reorganizing the police force. Is it wise to diffuse the efforts of the security forces by [sending them] to additional areas? Isn't our current situation enough [for them to handle]? Third, what can these marches toward the border achieve? Does anyone imagine, for example, that we are capable of fighting Israel? Have we considered what the Israeli response [might be] to such mass [demonstrations]?....Fervor, outbursts of emotion…are necessary at times, but it is always necessary for wisdom to prevail. Perhaps we should think a little [before acting]."

This is the kind of approach Westerners would expect: Our country is a wreck, the economy is drowning. Do we really want to engage in a foreign conflict now? Makes sense. But extremist masses and leaders in the Arabic-speaking world have frequently ignored such appeals to reason because of their ideology and their desire to gain or hold onto power.

And you know what? The Arab Spring hasn't changed that. If anything, it is intensifying the syndrome. Why? Because the old state-sponsorship is being replaced by a truly popular, grassroots revival.

The Netanyahu-Abbas Exchange That Explains Why There's No Peace, Who's Responsible, and What Obama Doesn't Understand

This article is published in PajamasMedia.

“We cannot negotiate with those who say, `What's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable.’"   --President John Fitzgerald Kennedy

By Barry Rubin

You can read for yourselves Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the U.S. Congress. Both on regional issues and the Israel-Palestinian question he was quite clear. His speech was vastly superior to those by Obama not just because of the policy content but because he deals with regional realities that the president ignores or just gets completely wrong.

But what I want to talk about here is a remarkable juxtaposition that no one else seems to have noticed. If you understand this article, you can understand all of the problems of the Middle East. If you don't, please go mess up the lives of people elsewhere.

To set up this point I must first quote extensively from Netanyahu’s speech. He said:

“This is the land of our forefathers, the Land of Israel, to which Abraham brought the idea of one God, where David set out to confront Goliath, and where Isaiah saw a vision of eternal peace. No distortion of history can deny the four thousand year old bond, between the Jewish people and the Jewish land.

“But there is another truth: The Palestinians share this small land with us. We seek a peace in which they will be neither Israel’s subjects nor its citizens. They should enjoy a national life of dignity as a free, viable and independent people in their own state. They should enjoy a prosperous economy, where their creativity and initiative can flourish.”

So this is a classic Western—indeed a classic liberal Western—formulation. We have our rights but we also respect your rights. Let’s find a win-win situation that benefits everyone.

Netanyahu added:

“They [the Palestinians] were simply unwilling to end the conflict. And I regret to say this: They continue to educate their children to hate. They continue to name public squares after terrorists. And worst of all, they continue to perpetuate the fantasy that Israel will one day be flooded by the descendants of Palestinian refugees."

In a moment, watch Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas prove Netanyahu's first sentence to be true.

“My friends, this must come to an end. President Abbas must do what I have done. I stood before my people, and I told you it wasn’t easy for me, and I said… `I will accept a Palestinian state.' It is time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say… `I will accept a Jewish state.'"

Remember that challenge.

“Those six words will change history. They will make clear to the Palestinians that this conflict must come to an end. That they are not building a state to continue the conflict with Israel, but to end it. They will convince the people of Israel that they have a true partner for peace. With such a partner, the people of Israel will be prepared to make a far reaching compromise. I will be prepared to make a far reaching compromise.”

In other words, once the Palestinians really acknowledge—which they have not done—the Jewish connection to the land Israel will know they are a partner for peace and make more compromises.

Now, here’s the part nobody noticed. Abbas answered Netanyahu!

In a major speech for “Nakba Day,” that is the Palestinian day of mourning that Israel was ever created in the first place, Abbas said:

“We say to him [Netanyahu], when he claims - that they [Jews] have a historical right dating back to 3000 years [BC] - we say that the nation of Palestine upon the land of Canaan had a 7000 year history [BC]. This is the truth, which must be understood and we have to note it, in order to say: 'Netanyahu, you are incidental in history. We are the people of history. We are the owners of history.’"

Do you understand?

Netanyahu said: We have rights; you have rights. We recognize yours and when you recognize ours we can have peace. Your refusal to recognize our rights—to demand total victory for yourself (which means Israel’s disappearance)—makes peace impossible.

And what did Abbas (whose name cannot appear in the American media without the word “moderate” being attached to him) answer:

Well, we don’t recognize that you have any rights. All the rights belong to us! You are just a passing breeze that will become extinct and you are of no importance.

So that’s the bottom line. Even in the year 2011--as happened in the year 1948--even a relative moderate like Abbas simply cannot bring himself to say in Arabic: “Let’s share this land in a two-state solution.”

Ironically, Netanyahu is taking a liberal and flexible position while Abbas is taking a reactionary, imperialistic stance. Talk about accepting the “other!”

And yet not a single professor in any university class, not a single journalist or expert in the mass media will raise or even report that point. President Obama won’t pick up on it to chide the Palestinians. Nobody will start calling Netanyahu moderate and peace-seeking while saying that Abbas is extremist and peace-rejecting.

Nevertheless, what simpler and more graphic example could anyone want?

Now you know why peace is impossible. It isn’t because Israel won’t go back to the 1967 borders. It’s because the Palestinian leadership still believes and tells its people that Israel has no right to exist.

PS: Abbas's history is of course rubbish. There is no connection between ancient Canaanites--who don't go back anywhere near that far--and modern Arabs. Since the Canaanites weren't Muslims, Abbas is acting as a pure opportunist since no Arab nation accepts such pre-Islamic connections any way.

But I love that phrase he said, "We are the owners of history." In other words, we can make up any lie we want and to Hell with the consequences.

The Jewish Temple? Never existed in Jerusalem!

Did we miss a chance to have our own state in 1947? Never happened!

Is it crazy to go on fighting for decades hoping to destroy Israel rather than make acompromise peace now? No alternative. Israel doesn't want peace.

If you are so oppressed and suffering why aren't you in a hurry to negotiate with Israel and make a deal? No! First, they must give us what we want beforehand. We're in no hurry at all because what good is a deal if we have to give up the hope of total victory in the future!

Abbas has told us everything we need to know about who doesn't want peace. And here's the reality of the Palestinian Authority position (not to mention that of its partner, Hamas): If you can't have peace without accepting Israel's permanent existence then it is better not to have peace at all.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ 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 http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

In September, Obama’s Middle East Policy Will Collapse

This article is published on PajamasMedia.

By Barry Rubin

Prediction: In September, President Barack Obama’s Middle East policy blows up in his (and our) face(s). It’s totally obvious and yet no one is focusing on it.

I’m not referring to the Palestinian Authority’s bid for unilateral independence at the UN. I’m referring to the Egyptian parliamentary election.

It is totally obvious that in that election Egypt will elect a radical, anti-American, hate-Israel parliament which will then write the country’s new constitution. This is a turning point in Middle East history. And Obama is unaware of it. Quite the contrary, he declared in his State Department speech that everything is great with the “Arab spring.” Nothing can go wrong. It is the expression of a yearning for prosperity and freedom.

The Arab spring began when a frustrated man in Tunisia set himself on fire.

It will now move to the new phase: the whole Middle East will be set on fire.

Is that alarmist? Not at all, except in the sense that when one sees a fire he sets off the fire alarm.

Don’t be distracted by the question of whether Islamists will have a majority or the even narrower question of whether the Muslim Brotherhood will have a majority.

There WILL be a radical majority, there MIGHT be an Islamist majority, there won’t be a Muslim Brotherhood majority but it will ALMOST CERTAINLY be the largest single party.

Why do I say this? Well, Amr Moussa, who isn’t an Islamist and is Egypt’s most popular and important Egyptian politician says so.

There is no sign—no sign—that the moderates are organizing serious parties. Instead of getting to work, they’re complaining. Meanwhile four radical, anti-American, passionately anti-Israel forces are organizing:

--The Muslim Brotherhood, which should get one-third or more of the seats and is contesting half of them, obviously in the districts where it has the best chance of winning.

--Smaller and even more radical Islamist parties (referred to as Salafists) who could form agreements with the Brotherhood so that they won’t hurt each other’s chances.

--Left-wing neo-Marxist parties.

--Radical nationalists.

There will probably be a number of independents who will be courted and won over by one of these blocs.

Imagine the day after that election. What will the mass media say? What will the American politicians say?

--That they were wrong about the Egyptian revolution and the Muslim Brotherhood?

--That by helping to bring down the old regime, U.S. policy foisted a disaster on the region and on its own interests?

--That by celebrating how great the “Arab Spring” is and refusing to acknowledge the real threats and problems, Obama made catastrophic errors.

--That his policy has led to many advances for America’s enemies?

--That Israel is in a far worse strategic situation and certainly can’t and shouldn’t make any more concessions?

--That the Islamists are emboldened and thus both Hamas and the radicals who run Fatah are taking an even harder line?

--That the loss of faith in America by its Arab allies is now undeniably clear and they are scrambling to make their own deals with Iran and other extremists?

--That there is a real possibility of a war in which Egypt either joins directly or backs Hamas? Imagine, Egypt stays “neutral” but nobody stops thousands of Egyptian volunteers from crossing into Gaza to fight or even across the Egypt-Israel border to launch terror attacks?

--What will the Obama Administration do if in practice Egypt tears up the Israel-Egypt peace treaty even if it pretends that it isn’t doing so?

--People are insisting that if Hamas in practice becomes part of the Palestinian Authority that the United States, and certainly Congress, will cut off aid. But what will happen when the Obama Administration does everything possible to prevent an aid cut-off and nothing possible to pressure the PA into changing its policy or behavior?

These are not speculations. These things WILL happen. Nobody in the United States or Europe is seriously discussing these scenarios and what should be done about them.

And I didn’t even mention the Egyptian presidential elections or, for that matter:

--An emboldened Turkish Islamist government if it wins the June 12 elections the:re,

--A Lebanese government controlled by Syria and its clients, especially Hizballah, if it ever gets a new prime minister and cabinet installed in that country.

--The survival of an anti-American Syrian government that has murdered hundreds of its citizens and will be arresting and torturing thousands, in part due to the Obama Administration's failure to try to overthrow it?

--The sight of Iran ever closer to nuclear weapons and admissions that the sanctions had only a limited effect?

These are not far-out scenarios. All of them have a 90 percent or more likelihood of happening.

I don’t want to take your time here for a history lesson but consider precedents:

--1952. Radical regime takes power in Egypt. U.S. realizes the threat by April 1955 but then saves the regime from being overthrown by Britain, France, and Israel in 1956. Result: Violence, disruption, and anti-American problems in the region for decades.

--1979. Radical regime takes power in Iran. U.S. policy makes a mess in dealing with the revolutionary crisis. Americans taken hostage, revolutionary Islamism flourishes, thirty plus years of violence, September 11, Islamist movement still growing. By the way, why does not one of the hundreds of "experts" on television and in the mass media remember that the Iranian revolution began after President Jimmy Carter urged reform on the shah and ended with the United States calling on the shah to go away? Remind you of anything?

September 2011 will be another of those moments. Mark that on your calendar. On the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the United States will be watching the triumph of the ideology and movement--not Usama bin Ladin, of course, but his smarter counterparts--in much of the Middle East.

PS: Here's an excellent guide to Egypt's political parties so far which proves my point . Note that there isn't a single serious moderate party. Amr Mousa isn't forming a party while Muhammad ElBaradei, Obama's favorite, isn't doing anything but complain. There is a "Facebook party." So far it has 1000 "likes." Egypt has about 85 million people.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ 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 http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

Arab Spring: What Does It Really Mean?

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By Barry Rubin

There are 20 Muslim-majority political entities in the Middle East--counting the Gaza Strip and West Bank separately.

In 2 of these--Tunisia and Egypt--there has been political change, though the outcome is far from certain. As of now, both are basically ruled by the military. The revolutions succeeded in large part because of support from the armed forces. In Egypt, the parliamentary elections are certain to produce a majority of Islamists, Marxists, and radical nationalists.

In 2 more--Libya and Yemen--change is pending. In Libya, though, the dictator is basically winning the civil war despite Western intervention on the other side. In Yemen, even if the dictator leaves it is generally recognized that nothing will change.

There have been no major pro-democracy or even anti-regime demonstrations in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Morocco, Algeria, Sudan, Iraq, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates.

In Bahrain, the demonstrations have been put down. In Syria and Iran, though there are still demonstrations, they have been heavily repressed. Nothing is going to change in Iran and probably not in Syria.

This is not to deny that there have been important developments, yet is this as much of an earthquake as many seem to think? Is this so clearly a transition to democracy?

It might be the beginning of a long-term process that will last for decades.

"Not every country will follow our particular form of representative democracy, and there will be times when our short-term interests don't align perfectly with our long-term vision for the region."

Everyone should be parsing that sentence which is a model of suicidally wishful thinking.

Yeah, they might not be perfect democracies and they might cause us a little trouble for a short time but everything's going to be great! Nothing can possibly go wrong except, of course, if repression stops these wonderful transitions.

Remember, when a president refuses to look at what can--and will--go wrong and at what the threats are--if only to combat them more effectively--his country is in very serious trouble. And so are its friends.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ 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 http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

The West’s Foreign Policy Theme—Like Me Before You Kill Me—Applied to Israel

By Barry Rubin

Recently, it was revealed that President Barack Obama had consulted Tom Friedman in formulating his Middle East policy. Here’s an example of where disastrous policy comes from.

Friedman writes:

“Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu of Israel is always wondering why his nation is losing support and what the world expects of a tiny country surrounded by implacable foes. I can’t speak for the world, but I can speak for myself. I have no idea whether Israel has a Palestinian or Syrian partner for a secure peace that Israel can live with. But I know this: With a more democratic and populist Arab world in Israel’s future, and with Israel facing the prospect of having a minority of Jews permanently ruling over a majority of Arabs — between Israel and the West Bank, which could lead to Israel being equated with apartheid South Africa all over the world — Israel needs to use every ounce of its creativity to explore ways to securely cede the West Bank to a Palestinian state.”

By the way, the picture of “a minority of Jews permanently ruling over a majority of Arabs” has not been accurate since 1994, that’s 17 years ago. The Palestinian Authority rules over the West Bank Arabs. Hamas, which has now merged with the Palestinian Authority, rules in the Gaza Strip. The only non-citizen Arabs that “Jews” are ruling over are those in east Jerusalem, according to an agreement that Israel made with the PLO.

So a big part of Israel's difficulty is that people like Friedman are perpetuating anti-Israel lies instead of attacking them.

In other words, if your enemies lie about you does that mean that you must take huge risks? There’s a clever bumper sticker that says: Never apologize. Your enemies don’t care and your friends don’t need it.

But leaving all of that aside, let’s start with Friedman’s opening sentence. I certainly don’t speak for Netanyahu and didn’t vote for him, but I really doubt he’s wondering why these things are happening. He knows the reasons, as do most Israelis, even those critical of his policy:

The greater international weight of the Arab world; oil money; well-intentioned but ill-placed sympathy for an apparent underdog; aspects of Islam rejecting ever accepting a Jewish state; Arab nationalist rejection of a Jewish state; a clever anti-Israel propaganda campaign; Western leftist sympathy for its enemies; the rejection of Zionism by some Jews; the honest belief that if you resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict by Israeli concessions the whole world will be stable and terrorism will disappear; antisemitism; and more.

There’s no mystery here.

But there is a problem. If you equate that hostility to one cause and one cause only: Israel is “permanently ruling” over a majority of Arabs. That’s it. Solve that problem and everything else will fall into place.

Yet what if you know that giving up the West Bank will not solve every problem—a viewpoint almost never aired in the Western mass media and universities nowadays? Then Friedman’s concept and that of most Western policies immediately collapses.

Israel has conducted extensive experiments with this concept, experiments that have cost about the same number of Israeli lives as September 11 took American lives. Since the population of the United States is approximately 40 times that of Israel you can calculate the impact of those costs.

After all, Israel already acted “to securely cede” (the split infinitive is Friedman’s) the Sinai to Egypt, with the result that this peace treaty is about to be abrogated. It tried to “securely cede” the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority, getting rockets and mortars and cross-border attacks in return. It also sought “to securely cede” southern Lebanon and got rockets and cross-border attacks. To see what would happen it acted “to securely cede” much of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority and then received in return incitement to violence, terrorist attacks, and intransigence.

Might there be a pattern here?

Yes, it would be better to have a stable, two-state solution that ended the conflict and made Israel’s neighbors friendly. But here’s where the gap is between Israel and much of the Western political elites today:

We tried it and it didn’t work.

That is not a “right-wing” statement. It is an Israeli consensus statement. And even if Israel tries and tries again, this doesn’t mean that people don’t know that.

Now, there are people in the Middle East—millions of people—who openly make my point every day. These include the governments of Iran, Syria, Turkey, and the Gaza Strip, as well as probably Egypt’s next government and those running Lebanon. Islamists openly proclaim that no matter how much territory Israel cedes they won’t be satisfied until it has ceded everything and gone out of existence altogether.

What Friedman calls “a more democratic and populist Arab world” means a more radical and Islamist Arab world. In fact, the radicals will remain radicals (Syria, Iran) while the formerly moderate become more extremist (Egypt). Why, then, should Israel make dangerous concessions when these will be taken advantage of to attack it more effectively? Why give things to people who want to kill you no matter what you do?

But there’s one point that is so overwhelming in Friedman’s piece, so symptomatic of everything wrong with the Western vision of Israel, the Middle East, and even the entire world (and especially with the Obama Administration’s policy), that it should resound with everyone who reads that article:

Friedman is telling us that a good public relations’ image is more important than material security. Israel will survive an infinite number of nasty articles or sneering professors without great difficulty. It would not survive concessions that make Israel weak and vulnerable, more than ever at a time when—let’s face it—American and European guarantees are worthless.

Golda Meir already dealt with Friedman’s idea decades ago: Better a bad press than a good epitaph.

That’s a principle which North America and European countries should think about adopting as their motto.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ 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 http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

The Roots of U.S. Policy Insanity in the Middle East and the Cure

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By Barry Rubin

Why is U.S. and European policy toward the Middle East so off-base, and why do policymakers believe the strange things they think and the crazy things they do are good strategy?

I'll focus on the U.S. government but you can adapt, as appropriate, this analysis for various European countries.

They believe--partly due to White House ideology and partly to the CIA (I don't know why the Agency is pushing this idea) that al-Qaida and perhaps much--but not necessarily all!--the Taliban is a terrible enemy of America that must be combatted because it attacks America directly with terrorism.

But since Iran, Hamas, Hizballah, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Syria don't launch terrorist attacks on Americansoil and installations (I'd add sarcastically: on a regular basis) they can be reasoned with and either won over or neutralized as an anti-American force.


From a narrow counter-terrorist perspective this may make some sense. But as a strategic doctrine it is disastrous. What's worse: al-Qaida committing a few terrorist attacks or the fact that those revolutionary Islamist groups and their allies rule with more than 100 million people (Iran, 78 million; Syria, 23 million; Gaza Strip, 1 million plus); with billions of dollars in assets and Iran en route to getting nuclear weapons.

Revolutionary Islamists now have the prospect of adding another 86 million people through the control of Lebanon and potentially Egypt (4 million, Lebanon; 82 million, Egypt) and are also allied with the current regime in Turkey (78 million people) which is Islamist and seems headed toward reelection.

That means that as many as 265 million people live under regimes allied against the United States and promoting a revolutionary Islamist ideology.

I don't mean to exaggerate here so you can take the above figures as pretty shocking even if not one hundred percent fully indicative of the situation. Moreover, we don't know yet what will happen in Tunisia and--despite ample U.S. involvement--Libya.

That seems pretty serious and qualifies as the leading strategic threat to the United States and the world.

Over the last 30 years the region has seen:

Iran's Islamist revolution and the seizure of American diplomats as hostages; 1982 Israel war with the PLO and Syria; Iran-Iraq war; Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; civil wars in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, and Algeria; the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait; the U.S.-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the ensuing war; the U.S. overthrow of the Taliban and ensuing war; the 2006 Israel-Hizballah war; two Palestinian intifadas coupled with rejection of a compromise peace agreement that would give them a state; popular revolutionary upheavals in Lebanon, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, and Bahrain; and massive terrorism of which the September 11 attacks are only the largest single example of many.

I think even the above list isn't complete. Virtually all of these events have been generated by revolutionary Islamism or, to a lesser extent, radical Arab nationalism which is sometimes allied with Islamism.

In the face of these facts, to ignore revolutionary Islamism as the main threat to America, the West, and the world is a pretty phenomenal conclusion. To do things like helping destabilize regimes so that the Muslim Brotherhood threatens to take over, accepting a Hamas regime in Gaza and standing by and watching a Fatah-Hamas deal, and viewing Iran as only a direct military threat that can be dealt with by conventional deterrence is suicidal.

Yet this is the road the U.S. government and much of Europe is taking.

They seem to think that if they show how much they respect Muslims in general, distance themselves from Israel, and engage the radicals in dialogue while making concessions to them, this will defuse the problem.

Amazing.

How bizarre is the situation? I have to beg people to consider that the Muslim Brotherhood might be a radical group even though every single statement of its leadership in Arabic is full of jihad, anti-Americanism, threats to wipe out Israel, and calls to make Egypt an Islamist state.

I have to explain that Hamas has in fact not accepted a two-state solution but merely will accept a Palestinian state to use as a base to wipe Israel off the map. With this two-state strategy Hamas has now come up to the level of moderation shown by the PLO...in 1974.

We know from Wikileaks that the U.S. Embassy in Turkey warned about the pro-Islamist and anti-American policy of that government yet this had no effect on U.S. policy.

Even the obvious disastrous mistakes made in Egypt earlier this year has not turned around the White House and much of the mass media to understand what's going on.

If not for a valiant battle by wiser people in the State Department, the administration would have blithely cooperated in the overthrow of Bahrain's government and replacement by largely (though not wholly) pro-Iran forces. And all the Defense Department's efforts to talk sense to the White House didn't stop the Libyan intervention.

And so on.

Consider the Usama bin Ladin funeral. A whole elaborate scenario was devised to persuade Muslims that America respected Islam. (I suspect that the president's advisor on terrorism, John Brennan, who is responsible for a large amount of this idiocy, was the source of this idea.)

Yet what happened? The funeral and burial at sea was denounced by virtually all Islamists and even mainstream clerics as a moral crime and against Islam.

This strategy just doesn't work, yet when it fails the dominant policy elite doesn't even seem to notice. What's needed is to stop throwing allies under the bus; recognize the revolutionaries as enemies; and work with moderates who oppose the spread of revolutionary Islam.

Is this really so hard to understand?

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ 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 http://www.gloria-center.org/. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

Syria Not A Partner For Peace? So What's New?

By Barry Rubin

The Obama administration no longer considers Syria a potential peace partner for Israel because of its repression against its own people. This is according to media background interviews with government officials.

But wait a minute! What do we know about that regime now that we didn't know--I should say, should have known--a month or six months or six years ago? Syria has been a  repressive, radical dictatorship at least since 1963 and arguably a few years earlier.

We know the same thing about Hizballah and the other rulers of Lebanon; Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip; and--to a much lesser extent but it's still basically true--the Palestinian Authority.

So what has been the Western idea up until now? Namely for Israel to make a peace with these "partners" involving major risks and concessions. For example, Israel is supposed to give the Golan Heights to this regime in Syria in exchange for its promise of peace.

If you've never seen the Golan Heights in person you can't imagine its unique strategic significance. Israel's territory is perfectly flat and stretches to the nearby Mediterranean. The Golan Heights rise almost vertically above it and looks over this land like a balcony. Those up on the Heights can bombard downward to their heart's content with artillery, rockets, missiles, and mortars. Once Israel gives up the Heights there are no natural defenses between there and the sea. And by the same token it would be very hard--and costly in casualties--for Israel to recapture the Golan.

It is almost impossible for any piece of territory to have a greater military advantage.

Giving this territory to the Assad regime is the kind of silly idea that passes as somewhere between brilliance and conventional wisdom in every Western government and mass media outlet.

Of course, if the Syrian government were the kind of regime that would agree to eternal peace and keep that agreement then such a deal would make sense. But it isn't.

If one could have a real knowledge in advance that its successor would also keep a peace treaty--as long as the sky is blue and the rivers flow--it could be justified. But that's not true either, as the situation in Egypt is showing, as the situation in the Gaza Strip has shown. How many examples do you need?

And if one could know that the Western countries would keep their promised guarantees and then come riding like the cavalry to smite the evildoer who broke agreements with Israel than those guarantees would be credible. But, once again, that's not true, as the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip with Hamas, and the truce ending the 2006 war with Hizballah, and the 1993 agreement with what became the Palestinian Authority show. How many examples do you need?

According to the current way of thinking then, only after the concessions have been made, the risks undertaken, and the piece of paper signed  do we find out that these weren't partners for peace. But then it would be too late.

Isn't it better to learn such things beforehand? In fact, isn't it better to learn that reality right now this minute?

The Anti-Democratic Super-Weapon: How The West is Being Turned Into A Version of the Middle East

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By Barry Rubin


I have long thought that we are experiencing what might be called the Middle Easternization of the West but never fully understood it until a friend asked me a question.

Why is it, he asked, that when moderates in the Arab world are attacked they always react defensively and apologetically, trying to prove that they also hold safely radical views?



The key, I realized, was the existence of basic principles that were beyond question and could be manipulated to ensure conformity. There are four main commandments of this type, along with several secondary ones. They can be expressed in the following terms:

Thou shalt hate Israel with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all they might.

Thou shalt have no other ideological deities before the promotion and protection of Islam.

Remember the importance of Arabism and keep it holy.

Thou shalt not speak well of the West or of its works.

To prove my point, if I had written the previous four lines in Arabic as a citizen of an Arab country I would be risking my life or more likely my career. There are individuals who have done so but their number is limited. They have almost all been either Western-educated or spent many years living in the West. And they often end up having to flee there. Individual rebels who disregard the consequences--I can give you a list if you like--they may be brave but this is not the stuff of which whole movements are made.



The existence of these imperatives limit debate, not only because someone crosses the acceptable line but far more often because they can be accused of doing so. People lie, people misunderstand, people want to win arguments, and to win or hold onto power.

That’s why the authors of the American Constitution forbade limits on freedom of speech: because once you start creating off-limit areas the worst thing that happens is the empowerment of people who have a self-interest in setting and misusing these limits. They can administer these no-go zones by declaring anything they don't like to be a hate crime.


Before explaining how this has been transferred to the West, let me give a random example of how this works in the Middle East.

A few year ago a group of courageous Lebanese and Syrian intellectuals produced a manifesto calling for Lebanon to be a truly sovereign country rather than a satellite of Syria. How did the Syrian regime and its stooges in Lebanon respond? By accusing them of being Zionist lackeys.

You see, there was no way out of the trap. The authors of the manifesto had left out the Israel issue. First, that wasn’t their subject. But also it was a no-win situation. If they had gotten into the issue they would have had to say that, of course, Israel was the main enemy of Lebanon and of the Arabs. Therefore, since Syria and Hizballah were fighting Israel they had every right to use Lebanon as a base for the battle. To interfere with those resisting Zionism and American imperialism was equal to siding with the enemy.

In short, they had no right to complain about Syrian domination in the first place. Now imagine that this is extended to every single issue in public life.

Women’s rights? Do you want to copy the Western enemy? What if this contradicts Islam?

Peace with Israel? You can imagine. And so on. The response to any statement or event is entirely predictable. I can tell you the text of the speeches and newspaper articles in advance. This system becomes a straitjacket.

Incidentally, the transition to electoral politics may well intensify this problem, since now instead of just the regimes and Islamists slinging mud at each other, there will be multiple parties competing to use these issues for their benefit against rivals. In the 1940s and 1950s, the radical nationalists and Islamists used this to destroy moderate parties in Egypt,, Syria, Iraq, and among the Palestinians. Already we see this system of competitive demagoguery being revived in Egypt.

An Arab proverb that applies here is that no voice can be allowed to rise above the din of battle. If the absolute evils of Zionism, imperialism, and the infidel West are fighting it out with the absolute goods of Arabism and Islam, how can there be any real open debate permitted?

Of course, the left has always had its slogans of class warfare. But that's precisely the problem. One can shout about the downtrodden workers and the greedy capitalists. Many people, however, don't accept this argument. Indeed, since it is class warfare there are large groups--historically a large majority in America--that define their interests as being against these politics.

What is needed is a foolproof tactic, one to which there is no institutionalized opposition so that even your enemies must bow their heads in shame and knees in homage when called names.

So how has the Middle Eastern approach revolutionized Western discourse? What slogans are potent enough to shut people up instantly?

Racism! Homophobia! Islamophobia! And to a lesser extent, perhaps, Sexism! The minute you are accused of racism you are finished. There’s no effective response. And fear of being accused shuts most people up. Criticize the policies of President Obama? Racism!

Call for enforcement of immigration laws? Racism!

Explore the boundaries between religious Islam and political Islamism? Islamophobia!

Suggest that thousands of years of history has defined marriage exclusively as between a woman and a man? Homophobia!

There are no pro-racism, pro-Islam-hating, pro-sexist, or pro-homosexual-baiting lobbies. Indeed, all of these things are at an all-time low in the West, rare to a degree unthinkable a decade ago. Yet the pretense must be that such dangerous enemies are lurking everywhere, just as Communist regimes constantly uncovered conspiracies that justified their existence and repression. 

Thus, freedom of speech, rational discussion, and opposition are trumped by "higher values." The most basic and long-held principles are quickly jettisoned in fear. Newspapers accept censorship, intellectuals embrace telling lies, and women's rights' groups cheer the suppression of women's rights in Muslim societies. Those who have spent years fantasizing how they would have been heroic resistance fighters against dictatorship fold, trembling, in the face of a single letter of complaint.

Remember, victims of this tactic don't have to be actually guilty but merely accused to be considered guilty. Consequently, and most likely of all, they would already have been intimidated into silence.

And then you are finished as completely as any Arab or Muslim accused of being a running dog of the Zionists and imperialists. In many cases, those in public life so branded might as well get a shopping cart and hang out on street corners collecting bottles to return for the deposit.

Most Western observers who look at the Middle East don’t comprehend how these core accusations work there. Who cares about fighting Zionism when it comes to providing jobs or collecting garbage? Well, yes this system does transcend pragmatism, which is why it blocks progress.

One might as well say that there can be rational discussions of budget cuts, immigration, counterterrorist policy, and dozens of other issues in Europe or North America. The manipulation of these core accusations is destroying academia and scholarship.

Public, even semi-public expressions of racism are virtually extinct in America, whatever might be inside people's minds and hearts. The level of hostility toward homosexuals has fallen faster and further than anyone would have believed a decade or two ago. As for Islamophobia, its definition is unclear but certainly its scope has been greatly exaggerated by those who have a political interest in greatly exaggerating it.

The critical point is this: For every bit of "hate speech" or action, there are hundreds, even thousands of false, politically motivated accusations. Like the secret police in a dictatorship, the forces must seek out new crimes and conspiracies. But unlike an earlier phase of genuine efforts to promote tolerance, the strategy becomes a political one for crushing dissent and consolidating support for the prevailing ideology and rulers.

If laws restrict freedom to speak in the West on a variety of topics then people can be legally in a way making the West arguably more restrictive than Muslim-majority countries which, after all, generally solely restrict Islam from open discussion.

The idea that the West would transform the Middle East in its image has become a bad joke. It is the West that is becoming transformed into another version of the Middle East. And if you want evidence, three of the Arab world's main taboos--support for Israel, praise for America, and any critical discussion of Islam--have also become among the things forbidden in large sectors of Western society.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist for PajamasMedia at http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/. 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 http://www.gloria-center.org/. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

The Mobile Phone Dealer Explains Qadhafi-Zionist Witchcraft

This article is published in PajamasMedia. The text is presented here for your convenience.

By Barry Rubin

An Australian reporter writes the following from Libya:

"Gaddafi's forces have had the upper hand in the desert battle that has raged for more than a month.

"Rebels say this is because of black magic. They invoke Satan. `These are magic papers,' said mobile phone dealer turned rebel Ashraf al Houmi, 25. The papers-185 pages of writing, symbols and numbers-were found near abandoned government tanks.

"`This is the Israeli Star of David and this is some of the Koran backwards. The Koran reversed is Satan,' explained Khaled el Faitouri, 27. "`We know they can do black magic with these drawings.'"

Now I wouldn't have bothered with this except for one thing: the amazing disconnect between being a mobile phone dealer and believing in this kind of thing. Possibly al-Houmi also repairs phones.

Westerners assume that technology and thinking precisely the way they do goes together. Not so. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini pioneered in using tape cassettes for spreading Islamist revolution. Back in 1979 that was the equivalent of using social media. Revolutionary Islamists have used the Internet far more effectively than democratic reformers in the Middle East. Technology does not necessarily mean moderation or democracy.

Then there's Mr. el Faitouri (I'm not responsible for the bad transliteration). He equates "the Israeli Star of David" with demonic powers, taking us back to the Middle Ages. By the way, by saying "Israeli Star of David," makes him an "anti-Zionist" while if he had said "Jewish Star of David" that would supposedly make him an antisemite. Such is the sophistication of the Western intellectual debate on such issues today. But never mind.

The truth is that in the Arabic-speaking and Muslim-majority worlds the attitudes of even educated people toward Jews and Israel are often quite bizarre, a fact usually concealed by mainstream media.

Have no doubt: this kind of thing finds its way into political decisionmaking and public opinion. Reading revolutionary Islamist materials--say, from Hamas, Hizballah, Iran, and the Muslim Brotherhood--is often like reading something from the Spanish Inquisition or Medeival times. Unfortunately, this is the doctrine guiding a steadily advancing doctrine which all too many people in the West believes can be made moderate or is even already moderate.

I remember the first time I experienced this when in university. A very Westernized, cosmopolitan Egyptian student explained that Israel and Idi Amin conspired to create the Israeli rescue at Entebbe Airport of hostages held by airplane-hijacking terrorists in order to make Israel look good. These crazy conspiracy theories and bizarre worldviews are not merely amusing sideshow acts, they are the foundations of people's thinking.


The gap between Mr. el Faitouri, whose cause is now being aided by NATO forces, and Mr.Ahmadinejad,who will soon have nuclear weapons, is not very wide at all.

Obama Administration: When Peace Treaty Fails, Its Time to Sign Another One

By Barry Rubin

It's very difficult to overstate the illogical nature of Obama Administration Middle East policy. Here's a small example.

Israel made a peace treaty with the government of Egypt. The government of Egypt has now been overthrown. All the political forces in the country now openly talk about unilaterally revising or throwing out that peace treaty. The "moderate" candidate for president said that if Israel attacked the Gaza Strip (after being attacked from the Gaza Strip of course) Egypt should go to war with Israel.

SO the Obama Administration concludes that Israel must rush to make a deal with another government (which doesn't even control half the territory that it claims to represent) that might be overthrown and...

Well, you get the picture. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration doesn't.

Add to this:

--Israel's other peace treaty is with Jordan. And while that regime probably won't fall (and if it did its successor would definitely tear up the peace treaty) it is facing a bigger possibility of being overthrown than at any time in 40 years.

--Israel's other main agreement was to end the war with Hizballah in 2006. At that time, the U.S. government guaranteed and the UN promised to have a force to keep Hizballah from returning to southern Lebanon. Now, Hizballah has more weapons than ever and a recently released Israeli map of Hizballah's military positions in Lebanon shows dozens of them, more than in 2006.

So are these the people and this is the advice to be followed?

The funny thing is that I doubt you could see the chain of reasoning above even mentioned  anywhere in the Western mass media.