Give the Mid East Status Quo Some Respect: All We Are Saying Is Don’t Make Things Worse

By Barry Rubin

Many people are obviously and understandably frustrated that Israel is so badly treated by the Mug-gers (media, university, and government) complex in much of the Western world. One can fume endlessly against their behavior (double standards, unfair, correct falsified history) but that accomplishes nothing.

So the immediate alternative is to say what is needed is creative new ideas, with the assumption that these ideas will solve the problem or at least make things better. This is logical and fits many other situations but it usually doesn’t apply to Israel’s case. Why not?

The assumption is that if good actions are taken then they will be recognized and rewarded. If good things are said, they will be reported and praised in a meaningful way. But while Israel should always do and say the best things this mechanism doesn’t work. The good actions are ignored or reinterpreted; the good statements are just ignored.

And so the eternal last bastion of those who unintentionally make Israel’s situation harder and the Middle East worse is to say: Why don’t you propose something positive? What’s the alternative? The status quo is unsustainable!

Of course, all status quos are unsustainable in a sense since change is inevitable. But sometimes the status quo deserves to be kept around for a while until something better comes along or can be made to happen. The best alternative of all is not to make things worse than they already are. As for the cliché that the status quo is unsustainable, .that usually followed by a plan that would make for a status quo even more unsustainable and negative.

There is a one-word description for the idea of the unsustainable status quo: defeatism. Mind you, I don’t mean that nothing should change and that one’s policy should be that of mindless reactionary intransigence. But one can also make one’s own strategy better rather than switching to another one.

The implication of an unsustainable status quo is that things are so bad that you better jump off the sinking ship into shark-infested waters before it is too late. It might be better to mobilize the crew, start pumping out the water, and steer a good course.

Consider past examples of the “status quo is unsustainable” nonsense:

• The status quo is unsustainable so we must withdraw immediately from south Lebanon.

• The status quo is unsustainable so we must have the Oslo accords.

• The status quo is unsustainable so we must withdraw from the Gaza Strip.

And what has this done but produce what we are now called an “unsustainable” status quo” as opposed to all of those previous unsustainable situations of the past six decades.

Another thing left out by the unsustainable status quo school is to assume that any change must focus on making more concessions. One could alter the status quo, for example, by showing more strength and by inflicting higher costs on adversaries and sabotaging hostile acts. One can also be creative about defending oneself.

On top of all this, however, Israel has special problems. Here are three examples:

Turkey: In trying to deal with the current friction with Turkey, Israel’s government proposed that it express regrets about defending itself during the Gaza flotilla, not the defense but the resulting loss of life among Turkish jihadists come to create a confrontation. It offered to make donations to a humanitarian fund for the relatives of those killed.

The Turkish government responded that only a full apology, the payment of compensation (an admission of wrong and based on demands rather than the donors judgment), and an immediate end of the Gaza blockade. The Turkish demand was ironic coming immediately after a UN commission declaring the blockade is legal.

So despite trying creative ways to end the conflict, Israeli officials could do nothing. Why? Because for its own reasons the Turkish regime doesn’t want to resolve the conflict. All Israel can do is to show its respect for the Turkish people and nation along with willingness to be flexible if the other side is reasonable.

Egypt: What is going to be determining the Egypt-Israel relationship in future is not Israeli actions or words since radical nationalists and Islamists in Turkey—even relative moderates—are so hostile. Israel’s creative alternative is to try to get along with the military junta and to avoid offending reasonable Egyptian pride and legitimate Egyptian rights. Once an elected government takes over, it isn’t going to be easy.

No verbal formula, no Israeli action will make the country popular among revolutionary Islamists and radical nationalists. This is different from normal international relations, where countries can make alterations in their words or policies to get credit for them and sooth disputes. That’s a point many in the West simply don’t understand.

Palestinians: What’s Israel to do on this issue? How about withdrawing from the Gaza Strip to show its good intentions? No, did that. Letting a couple of hundred thousand Palestinians return and establish their own government? Been there, done that. Letting them have guns and lots of money? Check. Offering, on almost a daily basis, to negotiate without conditions; to accept an independent Palestinian state; to return basically to the 1967 borders with some alterations and swaps? Ooops, done that, too.

And if after all that Western leaders and writers can still say that Israel hasn’t proven that it wants peace will the next change in the status quo change that? Of course, if Israel elected a left-of-center prime minister, the world would say nice things for a while even if they had the same basic policy and said the same words as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does. Yet how long will that last? Don’t believe me? Three words: Rabin, Peres, Barak.

An outside observer who doesn’t understand any of this or who hasn’t been following events would think that obviously Israel can and should do more for peace. Let me put it this way: Why should we risk our lives just because you haven’t been paying attention?

Precisely at this moment I read an op-ed by a well-intentioned law professor who points out a “positive” aspect of Palestinian statehood. If Palestine becomes an internationally recognized state, it will be responsible—he explains—for actions taken by any group on its soil, say for example if a Palestinian group crossed the border and attacked Israel, killing Israeli civilians.

Professor, please note that by that standard Israel has no problem with Lebanon, for example, a country from which terrorists have often attacked Israel. Oh, by the way, the terrorists are now governing that country. Also, once Palestine becomes a country it is more likely that terrorists will attack Israel from its territory, Israel will retaliate, and the state of Palestine will go to the UN, where the General Assembly will then agree that Israel is the aggressor.

And as a sovereign state it is free to go to Egypt or other Arab or Muslim-majority states, import weapons and even ask for military advisors. So when Israel retaliates, it is better-armed and more likely to inflict casualties on Israeli forces. If foreign advisors are killed, that country may declare the death of its citizens to be an act of war by Israel (as Turkey’s prime minister has done regarding the Gaza flotilla clash). Or the government of Palestine can ask other countries to rush in forces and weapons to fight the Israeli “aggression.”

Please, all you professors and “experts” and politicians and journalists out there: Consider the consequences of your schemes on the real world. Before you criticize Israeli leaders as fools who don’t know what’s good for their people or Israelis in general as evil and short-sighted people who don’t know what’s good for themselves, it’s a good idea to understand the situation they face and the experience they have lived through.

So let me say something nice about the status quo. Given the alternatives, Israel is relatively secure and prosperous. When you are the stronger party who is benefiting more, you can afford to wait until the other side makes you an offer so that changing the status quo would benefit you even more. Israel is not the—supposedly—desperate party that—supposedly—suffers from “occupation,” and that groans under the yoke of settlements—though if it makes a peace deal these will be dismantled.

The new idea needed at a time when the regional situation is deteriorating badly because of external factors is how better to defend yourself. There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes contacts going on with the Palestinian Authority and others to ease the situation as much as possible, including the promotion of Palestinian prosperity.

Winston Churchill knew something about real-world politics and “unsustainable” status quo situations. He was, after all, prime minister at a time when the Nazis ruled virtually all of Europe and German planes nightly bombed British cities.



Asked once what it was like to be ninety. Terrible, he said, but consider the alternative! What about democracy? The worst of all political systems, Churchill replied, except for all of the others.

So I’m all for creativity and new ideas, as well as flexibility, but anyone who doesn’t understand Israel’s special situation and history in that regard understands nothing. There’s a reason why every concession, risk, and new idea Israel tries out doesn’t create a “sustainable status quo” and that reason is: the fault does not lie with Israel.

Finally, if the status quo is so horrible, say, for the Palestinians then let them make a deal for a stable, two-state solution peace with Israel to change the situation rather than public relations' campaigns at the UN and patiently waiting another few generations in the hope that violence, martyrs, intransigence, and an Arab or Islamist war against Israel to bring them total victory. .

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, will be published by Yale University Press in January. Latest 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 is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com



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"Big NY Times Scoop”: Israel Claims Media Coverage is Unfair

  by Barry Rubin


Sometimes when one of the better reporters around tries to be fair the result shows up the low quality of Middle East coverage generally. In an article on the Gaza Strip, Israeli policy, and the flotilla of anti-Israel, pro-Hamas activists, the New York Times informs us:

“Israel’s relationship with the foreign news media has grown strained in recent years; the country increasingly believes that foreign portrayals of its conflict with the Palestinians are harsh and one-sided.”

Since Israelis have been quite aware of media bias since the mid-1980s and provided hundreds (thousands) of examples this should not exactly be a discovery. But American newspaper readers or television watchers are rarely informed of this fact by the very institutions that stand accused of bias, ignorance, and just plain bad reporting.

Note the way the sentence (perhaps revised by editors in New York) is written:

–This is an Israeli perception, not a fact nor necessarily a view held by anyone else in the world.

–It is just happening now (“recent,” “increasingly”)

–And the result is Israeli hostility toward the media (that is, the action involved is Israel becoming more aggressive in its treatment of foreign journalists). In other words the problem is framed as Israel challenging freedom of the media, not the media subverting the existence and well-being of Israel. The action that prompted the writing of that article–Israel’s announcing possible sanctions against journalists going on the Gaza flotilla ships–was quickly rescinded. In other words, even though Israel knows there is rampant media bias it does everything possible to give freedom to the foreign media, in sharp contrast to most of the other countries in the region which get far more favorable coverage.

–No examples are provided which thus undermines the claim. Actually, while space is of course limited, it would have been easy to mention in regard to a specific event cited–Israel banning foreign journalists from Gaza durin the 2008-2009 fighting–that Israel was concerned that it might accidentally kill foreign correspondents during operations and that reporters could tip off Hamas (inadvertently or otherwise) about Israeli actions thus causing casualties.

Thus, the hint is clearly–though it is equally quite deniable–that Israelis are irrationally and suddenly believing that the media is biased against it and this makes it take bad actions that restrict media freedom.

In other words, it’s good that this view is being reported but the framework signals the reader to disbelieve it. Here’s a parallel example:

“Israel says that its Gaza blockade is legal and that it will make sure that no boat violates it, even if that means resorting to force again.”

On the surface, this is perfectly correct. But in fact there has been no serious legal challenge to the blockade and various international authorities have said that it is quite legal. Again, the hint is that this is just what Israel claims, in other words, a partisan assertion without merit.

Especially disturbing is this passage:

“Some of the vessels planning to take part this year are bringing construction equipment and humanitarian aid, including medicine, which have been scarce in Gaza because of a siege imposed by Israel and Egypt for the past four years to isolate Hamas.”

Has medicine been scarce in Gaza because of a “siege” (a correct but loaded word)? That just isn’t true since medicine has never been subject to restrictions. Again, the reader is conditioned, this time by the inhumane nature of those evil Israelis. They won’t even let medicine in for those poor Gazans? What a bunch of barbarians! One should certainly hate such people.

Incidentally, a survey of the first flotilla’s cargo shows that the medicine brought was beyond expiration date and pretty random, not exactly saving people suffering from disease.

As for construction equipment and materials, a key factor here is that Israel has charged these have been used to build military installations. In Lebanon, where Hizballah has full access to construction equipment, a network of bunkers, tunnels and other fortifications have been built in the south. Southern Lebanon, you know, the place where the U.S. government and the UN promised Israel that Hizballah would not be allowed to return.

Or take this sentence:

“Thirteen months ago, Israeli commandos boarded a Turkish vessel whose crew and passengers were seeking to break the blockade and, facing resistance, killed nine people aboard.”

Technically accurate and better than most as it indicates there was “resistance” (which could mean, presumably, sitting in a circle and singing a song from the American civil rights movement) but:

–The “resistance” consisted of people with weapons who attacked the soldiers and took some prisoner.

–The “nine people” were members of radical Turkish Islamist groups that had previously proclaimed they intended to be martyrs and participated in chants about massacring Jews.

Even when the article includes “balancing” material the phrasing is somewhat misleading or, more accurately, leading toward a specific conclusion:

“But the real purpose of the flotilla is less to deliver goods and building supplies, which are increasingly available in Gaza now, than to challenge Israel’s control over Gaza’s borders. The American vessel, for example, will not be loaded with any goods.”

Aside from the question of Egypt opening the border with Gaza, this sentence is really a response to one of Israel’s main talking points. How can this flotilla be portrayed as humanitarian if it is bringing virtually no goods? The answer is that it is political, but the phrase used is “to challenge Israel’s control over Gaza’s borders” as if there is nothing on the other side but people short of construction materials and medicine.

Here’s the real answer: to help Hamas’s control of Gaza. The main organizers are Islamists allied with Hamas; the other organizers are people who, like Hamas, want to see Israel wiped off the map. They view Hamas–a terrorist group that is openly antisemitic and genocidal, represses women, and expels Christians–as better than Israel.

We thus have three groups:

–Islamists who are allies with Hamas and want to help it.

–Western leftists who think that Israel is evil and shouldn’t exist and who ignore Hamas or even supportive of it.

–Western readers of newspapers and watchers of television who are given news that ignores or systematically challenges Israel’s side of the story. Thus, they are driven toward the conclusion that Israel is wrong and the Palestinians are right.

As I said earlier, this is one of the better stories by a journalist who is consciously trying to be fair. For example, it points out that Israel defended itself in 2008 against the firing of thousands of rockets from the Gaza Strip. And in another article he points out how well much of the Gaza Strip is economically.

Moreover, this is a short article whose goal is to discuss Israel’s warning to reporters not to go on the flotilla ships. But often it is the shorter pieces, that try to summarize and explain events, which most clearly demonstrate how coverage is skewed. And again, by attempting to be balanced this piece shows how unbalanced is much of the other coverage.

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.

What You Should Know About the Second Gaza Flotilla

Sometime in the next day or two, ten boats carrying 5-600 anti-Israel activists will be approaching the waters surrounding the Gaza Strip. It is not known whether there will be some sort of confrontation as there was last year when a flotilla run by Turkish terrorists attacked members of the IDF as they attempted to board the ship and turn it around.

What is known is that the mainstream media, which is not a big fan of the Jewish State, will misrepresent the flotilla. Last year Reuters even doctored the pictures to make the terrorists look like innocent victims. So what follows is some of the background on the boat trip that the mainstream media will not tell you:

Purpose: The purpose of the second Gaza flotilla is the same as the first, to delegitimize the Jewish State of Israel and turn her into a pariah nation. The terrorists aboard are hoping that there is violence so that violence could be used to further hurt Israel.

During the past year, the Hamas-run Gaza has opened new shopping malls, theme parks and resort hotels. Not shabby for an area supposedly being strangled by an Israeli naval embargo. As for humanitarian aid, Israel transfers 5,000-6,000 tons of humanitarian supplies per day to Gaza.

Who is Behind It? This flotilla has many parents, however the two most significant are progressive Americans and Turkish terrorists.

The Americans have named their boat after their favorite American, President Obama. Called the Audacity of Hope, their hate boat includes progressive activists, long term supporters of the Palestinian cause and 9/11 “truthers” (people who believe 9/11 was an inside job). Some of the passengers include:

Greta Berlin, a member of the Anti-Semitic, International Solidarity Movement (ISM); Linda Durham, Who was part of the Gaza protests in 2009 supported by former Presidential candidate Senator John Kerry and led by the wife of Obama ally Bill Ayers, Bernadette Dohrn; Hedy Epstein board member of both the St. Louis Workers Rights Board and the Marxist, Palestine Solidarity Committee which in the past has endorsed PLO terrorist activity; Ridgely Fuller Code Pink activist; Kathy Kelly a long time pacifist who was honored by the Chicago Communist Party; Richard Levy, member of the Progressive Jewish Alliance who sued the Simon Wiesenthal Center to stop them from building a tolerance center in Jerusalem on what he claimed was a Muslim cemetery (it didn’t exist); Ray McGovern of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity was one of 100 "prominent Americans" who signed an October 26 2004 statement circulated by 911Truth.org calling on the U.S. Government to investigate 9/11 as a possible "inside job; Robert Naiman peace activist who attended a meeting in Sept 2010 with Iranian President Ahmadinejad, and other leaders of the “peace and social justice movements;” Alice Walker who wrote “The Color Purple;” and Medea Benjamin, founder of Code Pink, 9/11 “truther”, progressive activist.

According to Leslie Cagan, former co-chairman of Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and coordinator of the American boat, the Audacity of Hope will not be carrying any aid, simply letters.

The group has received support by the Progressive Democrats of America, a group whose leadership includes Democratic politicians including, John Conyers, Donna Edwards, Raul Grijalva, Barbara Lee, Jim McGovern, Lynn Woolsey and Dennis Kucinich.

On other flotilla boats will be terrorists from the Turkish organization IHH, which was involved in the deadly IDF raid on the Mavi Marmara in last year’s Gaza flotilla, additionally two of the people participating in the flotilla have connections to Hamas. They named the first one as Amin Abu Rashad, one of the Dutch organizers for the Gaza flotilla had served in the past as the head of the Hamas’ Charitable Foundation in Holland which was closed down by Dutch authorities’ because of its involvement in funding terror activities.

Unlike last year’s flotilla when the terrorists had their own boat (which contained shipments of arms to Hamas), this year it is believed that the terrorists will be spread out among the boats with the hope that if there is violence “civilians” will be hurt.

The other Hamas figure is Mohammed Ahmed Hanon who is the head of the ABSPP, which is involved in transferring funds to terrorists.

Just like the one a year ago, this guerilla flotilla is being launched under the false pretext of providing humanitarian assistance. But if humanitarian aid was their goal, they would send any supplies through Egypt a solution which was offered by both the Arab nation last week, the American boat would have supplies instead of letters, and the Hamas and Turkish terrorists would not be allowed to participate. The truth is that this flotilla is being run by radicals within the American Progressive movement and terrorists, designed to serve their extremist political agenda.

Sadly this flotilla holds the potential for dangerous consequences. According to the IDF, some of the flotilla participants have prepared sacks with sulfur, which they plan to pour on the soldiers as they board the vessels.

“This is a chemical weapon, and if poured on a soldier it can paralyze him,” an IDF source told The Jerusalem Post “If the sulfur is then lit on fire, the soldier will light up like a torch.”

The objective of these “Ships of Fools” has nothing to do with helping the people of Gaza, or promoting peace. Its purpose is to delegitimize Israel and kill Jews.