Obama's Mid East Moments of Truth

By Barry Rubin

1. Syria: A Tragedy

By far the best source of news on the Syrian revolution is Syria Revolution Digest by the heroically tireless Ammar Abdulhamid. Every day he puts in a little summary of the situation. Here is what he wrote for October 11:

“As [the dictatorship of the] Assads take back Syria, one neighborhood and one town at a time, opposition groups continue to wrangle over seats in a stillborn [leadership] council, as the world considers options that have no bearing on reality.”

Several thousand people have been murdered yet despite all the fine words, there has been little serious international action as the violence has continued for months.

“As [the] Assads take back Syria, one neighborhood and one town at a time, opposition groups continue to wrangle over seats in a stillborn council, as the world considers options that have no bearing on reality.”

And on October 13 he wrote that there are two opposition movements now, one dedicated to non-violence and the other to armed struggle:

“Despite the fact that pro-Assad troops are busy taking back Syria one rebellious community at a time, battling defectors and suppressing protests through targeted and mass detentions and killings, advocates of nonviolence seem to labor under the belief that an Assad victory…will pave the way for a return to nonviolent struggle. What they fail to see is that a defeat will more likely crush the spirit of the re-conquered communities, and could empower the Assads to snuff out the spirit of rebellion.”

“So many observers and opposition figures have been saying that Syria cannot go back to the way things were, but they are wrong. As things stand at this stage, this is the most likely outcome.”

2. Obama Administration Seeks Political Arrangement with Anti-American Terrorists

Meanwhile, the indispensible AfPak Channel newsletter reports that the Obama Administration is now ready to negotiate with Taliban and even al-Qaida linked terrorist groups (the Haqqani network) to participate in governing the country. According to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, anyone who wants to participate in talks can do so. The Afghan government is not thrilled with this policy, being carried out against its will since these are the people trying to kill it. The Haqqani network murdered the president’s brother last month. And NATO officials continue to produce misleadingly optimistic reports about how the war is going, including claims that the Taliban is on the run. This is patently untrue.

3. The Iran-Mexico Affair

Vice-President Joe Biden threatens that Iran would be held accountable and the U.S. government is seeking to mobilize “world opinion” (oh, brother! headline showing how effective that is: “Despite sanctions, German exports to Tehran have increased“) for its response. The administration should be given time to act but will it do something serious or not? If not, it should be held accountable. And if it has made a potentially huge international crisis out of a misreading of evidence it should also be held accountable.

But we live in bizarre times. I never expected to see a headline like–I made this up but it reflects the situation–”President and Vice-President Endorse Demonstrations Demanding Destruction of Capitalism.”

4. Remember the Iranian Opposition?

Here’s an excellent discussion on the Iranian opposition by Genevieve Abdo. She points out the startling fact that the two main leaders of the Green Movement–Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi–have been under arrest held in small apartments since February, that’s eight months ago! The world has said nothing; the Western media little. This is shocking and disgusting. In general, only anti-American, anti-Western and anti-Israel forces get honored by the West, taught about in Western universities, have demonstrations in their support by students, and are lionized by Western intellectuals.

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  

NATO's Interference in Libya Led to more Civilian Casualties

by Israeligirl

Six  months ago civilian struggle erupted in Syria and Libya. While so far, western countries were not able to pass any serious resolution about Syria's civil oppression, Libya is a different story.

Concern for Libya's oil reserves led NATO to launch military mission against Libya. Of course it was never described this way, formally the aim of NATO's mission was to save civilians in Libya.

But sadly it seems the opposite has occurred. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed that NATO’s interference in the conflict between the Muammar Gaddafi regime supporters and the Libyan opposition has increased the number of casualties among civilians.

He highlighted the problem of interfering in civil wars saying, "Members of the international community, first of all our Western partners, have chosen the path of supporting one of the sides in the civil war – probably the party that represented the Libyan people's legitimate aspirations, but this still increased the number of casualties among the civilian population".

People everywhere deserve freedom. The people of Libya, the people of Syria, the people of Egypt and anywhere else in the world – they all deserve freedom and democracy. But as a result of drastic revolution and change these countries are now in anarchy. In Egypt, 24 people died yesterday in religion clashes, the worst sectarian violence since the uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak in February. Libya fighting still rages on despite the disappearance of Gaddafi.


Photograph: Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters

By supporting the Libyan rebels against Gaddafi, Nato is supporting Al Qaeda influenced elements. Missing anti aircraft missiles have probably been smuggled out of the country already as the United States races to help account for thousands of the weapons stockpiled by the regime of Moammar Gadhafi.

As tempting as it is to make it all right, western interference may lead to catastrophic results. While the Arab spring grabbed news headlines across the world, Iran quietly advanced its nuclear weapon program. If there is one lesson that Arab leaders have learned from Gaddafi's tale it's that without nuclear weapons, NATO can take them down as well. That's a frightening future to consider.

30 years ago this week, Egyptian president Anouar Sadat was assassinated for being brave enough to make peace with Israel. He was able to take that leap of faith in peace because he was a strong leader with full control of his army and the people. Let's hope that such leaders will emerge and bring Egypt and Libya out of anarchy and into the road to freedom and democracy.

Here and There in the Middle East: Fleeing Christians, “Moderate” Imam, Mad Turkish Leader, Syrian Revolution

By Barry Rubin

1. Fleeing Christians

Christians are fleeing the Middle East and Western Christians are indifferent. More than half of Iraqi Christians, threatened with death and terrorism are out of that country, though many are in neighboring Syria. Virtually all Christians have fled the Islamist Gaza Strip and Syrian Christians generally (though not all) support the regime there, fearing an Islamist takeover.

But Egypt is home to millions of Christians that dwarf these numbers. In fact, the number of Christians in Egypt exceeds the populations of Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, and Tunisia.

Copts have emigrated in the past, but they have been so rooted in Egypt as to tend to remain there. Now the Egyptian Union of Human Rights Organizations reports that 95,000 Christians have emigrated since March 2011. If Egypt continues to look as if it is going down an Islamist road, or at least if the government and military appear ready to tolerate such assaults, one can easily imagine one million or so Copts heading for the exits in the next few years. How would Europe like to receive these people who—in contrast to many other immigrants—would be legitimate asylum seekers with a genuine fear for their lives?

2. Mad Turkish Prime Minister

It’s rather clear that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist regime hates Israel. What’s less apparent to many people is that Erdogan has gone off the deep end into antisemitic insanity. If you didn’t know who was speaking you’d think Erdogan was Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

While Turkey, like other countries, isn’t perfect, in modern times the Turkish Republic has been a rather sane and development-oriented countries. It’s quite a change to have a Turkish leader literally foaming at the mouth, to the point where the opposition leader asked a few months if Erdogan was planning to go to war against Israel. Now that the regime—with no international opposition or criticism—has crushed the armed forces, there’s nothing to hold Erdogan back.

On a CNN interview, Erdogan ridiculed the idea that Israelis need fear massive rocket and mortar barrages from the Gaza Strip because few Israelis were killed, while in contrast Israel had killed—according to the CNN translation “hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.” The Turkish government responded that he had not said that figure but merely “tens of thousands.”

It’s nice to know that Israel is just being accused of being a mass murder on a smaller scale. Eogan also says that the world is a slave to the UN Security Council (a precise copy of Ahmadinejad’s long-standing theme) and demands sanctions against Israel. He also copies Ahmadinejad in asking why Israel can have nuclear weapons and Iran not have them. (Aside from Iran’s threats of genocide, one reason is that Iran’s program breaks an international agreement signed by that country.) At times, Erdogan has talked about war against Israel, his main complaint being the blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has been ruled legal under international law and, anyway, is made pretty irrelevant by the opening of the Egypt-Gaza border.

Israel cannot be trusted, Erdogan says; it is the villain that has prevented peace. It’s just plain evil. One almost expects Erdogan to break out in German. Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, famously said that his country’s foreign policy was one of “peace at home, peace abroad.” Erdogan sounds more like: Today Gaza, tomorrow the world!

The idea that such a huge and powerful country as Turkey is led by a guy acting like a madman who throws temper tantrums (his performance at the Davos conference is a case in point) has not prevented the Obama Administration from doing nothing and, indeed, increasing hi power. After all, Turkey is now co-chair of the new U.S. counterterrorism organization and the designated mediator for the future of Syria. And the same applies to the escalating repression and crushing of democracy within Turkey.

3. Syria’s New Stage: Civil War

–Can Assad hold on?
The simple answer is that nobody knows. One thing is for certain: looking at other dictator having been hung, put on trial, or fleeing into exile, the family of President Bashar al-Asad and his allies will not go quietly. Only if they are forced out of power at gunpoint will they be displaced.

The wider problem is that the government does have a strong base of support among the Alawite minority, Christians, and some Sunni Muslims. These people are worried about being targeted by a revolution, even with the possibility of massacres against the first two groups, which comprise roughly one-quarter of the population.

In other words, the battle will continue for months, will probably become more violent, and the outcome is not certain.

–What are the prospects for civil war?

I think we are now entering the civil war phase.

–Is there a signifcant danger of Islamists wielding great power like in Egypt?

There is a very real chance of an Islamist takeover but it is lower than in Egypt. The Syrian are more urbanized, more secular, and most important of all far more diverse. Remember that in Egypt 90 percent are Sunni Muslim Arabs while in Syria that figure is about 60 percent. The Syrian Brotherhood has never been as strong as its Egyptian counterpart.

The best assessment, then, is that the danger is less. But what is very worrisome–even insane–is the Obama Administration’s insistence on using Islamist Turkey as mediator, a mediator that favor the Islamists!

–Would a post-Assad Syrian govt likely be friendlier to the US?

There is some real anti-Americanism in the opposition. The Obama Administration has put the Untied States into the position of being regarded by many Syrians as protector of the Asad regime. It’s one thing to have that happen in Egypt–a government that was allied with America–but why in Syria, the most anti-Ameriican of all Arab regimes?

If a non-Islamist regime emerges it would be less hostile to the United States but whether that’s by a small or significant margin is open to question.

4. “Moderate Imam”

In a June 23, 2011 article, Ahmad al-Tayeb, the head of al-Azhar, took a quite moderate line in interpreting Islam and showing openness toward Christianity and Judaism. A MEMRI articledoes a good job of describing what he wrote. For

example, he said:

“A Muslim cannot imagine all of mankind sharing a single creed or turning to a single religion – even if this religion is Islam. As long as this remains the case, the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims [must be] one of mutual recognition.

But why did he write it? I suggest that the Muslim Brotherhood has made it clear that al-Tayeb is not welcome to continue in his job under the new order. It wants to put in one of its own people, both as head of al-Azhar and as Egypt’s qadi (leading Islamic official). The Brotherhood wants to use these positions to revolutionize Islam in Egypt and turn it into a radical Islamist institution.

Remember that even if the Brotherhood doesn’t take over the government or control the presidency it is likely to make deals with other parties: We will support what you want in exchange for your giving us control over religious institutions.

And why, just a little later did he launch a virulent attack against Shia Muslims? Because he is defining his position as being hostile to Iran and Hizballah as Egypt’s enemies. This anti-Shia position is more congenial to the Brotherhood which shares this hotility.

So Tayeb is carving out for himself the position of moderate Muslim who backs Egyptian national interests in order to build a support base against the Islamists. This aligns him not only with reformists but also with nationalists. The political battle in Egypt may be mirrored by a struggle over the control of Islam in that country.

A third plank in the al-Azhar platform was put forward by one of Tayeb’s deputies a few days later in a virulently antisemitic tirade that hints at genocide against the Jews, reminding us that Middle East “moderation,” after all, almost always has its limits.

5. Egypt’s Election: Party Maneuvers

The Wafd Party has ended its electoral alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice party because it thinks it can do better on its own. The Wafd wasn’t satisfied with the number of seats the Brotherhood offered in the deal.

Note that this has nothing to do with differences between a liberal democratic add an Islamist party. The problem is merely how much the Brotherhood would pay. As the Wafd spokesman explained:

“We withdrew from the electoral alliance because we had a lot of candidates and the available places in the list weren’t enough,”

There are now three blocs led by the Muslim-Brotherhood and Wafd—with members of their now-defunct alliance choosing sides—and a 14-party group called the Egyptian Bloc, led by the left-leaning liberal Justice party. Note how the “liberal” parties are splitting their vote while the Islamists have united.

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 

The Campaign to Panic Israel Into a Bad Strategy

By Barry Rubin

I have a high regard for Aluf Benn, a brilliant guy and one of Israel’s best journalists. He has just become editor of Haaretz, Israel’s left-wing newspaper, but is the most moderate person to hold that post in many years. Benn has written an interesting op-ed piece in the New York Times.

Labor Party leader Michael Herzog has written something similar. The message is that Israel must rush to help create a Palestinian state as fast as possible in order to protect its own security, even survival. Of course, if this state were to demilitarize (Herzog’s proposal), end the conflict, give up the demand for Palestinians to “return” to Israel, and implement a permanent peace treaty that would be a great idea. And if such a deal would improve Israel’s regional position that, too, would be good. And if the Palestinian side was eager to make a compromise peace agreement with Israel, that would be viable.

But since none of these conditions apply this line of argument simply makes no sense at all. It would be great to have a stable peace. Unfortunately, this approach is a formula for a vastly worsened strategic position for Israel and the certainty that it would lead to another decades’-long round of conflict.

Benn makes three points:

1. Israel was very worried about the “Arab Spring.”

2. However, now Israel doesn’t have to worry.

3. Therefore Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should rush to work with President Barack Obama and get the peace process started again.

Let’s look at Benn’s point 2 and the reasons he gives for Israel no longer having to worry:

• Syria’s regime is in serious trouble and cannot use the anti-Israel card to escape. But that doesn’t change the fact that the regime is still there and can still try to use aggressive actions against Israel. Moreover, it isn’t clear the next regime in Syria will be better. And the fact that Syria is weak at present doesn’t really change anything in strategic terms since it has been weak for a long time.

It isn’t as if the Palestinian Authority has been held back by fear of Syria. In addition, neither Israel nor the United States has influence within Syria to affect events. So what great opportunity does this give Israel?

• Hamas is “moving away from Iran and closer to Egypt.” Again, so what? The implication is that Hamas is moving from a radical patron (Iran) to a moderate one (Egypt) so that it might be more politically flexible. Yet in fact what’s happening is a sorting out of revolutionary Islamists into Sunni and Shia camps. The actual patron of Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood.

Egypt, since it borders the Gaza Strip, is a more dangerous ally for Hamas than is Iran. Already, arms and money flow in more freely than before. Egypt’s government won’t pressure Hamas to make peace with Israel or to stop terror attacks. That was President Husni Mubarak’s policy and he’s now on trial for his life.

• “Turkey, cold toward Israel for a year, signaled a desire to turn from Mr. Assad and get closer to the American camp.” No. Israel’s attempts to resolve the Mavi Marmara affair with Turkey’s government failed completely because the Ankara regime didn’t want a deal. Every time it appeared Israel might meet its demands the Turkish government raised its demands.

And while Turkey has turned against the Assad regime that’s not joining the “American camp” but wanting to ensure Syria’s next government is friendly toward Turkey (but not necessarily to the United States), say a Sunni regime with Islamist leanings like the one in Ankara. And, if Turkey’s regime has influence it wants a strongly anti-Israel government.

• “Most important, the transitional rulers in Cairo stuck to Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel — always Israel’s deepest concern.” The key word here is “transitional.” Since these people will be out of political power in a few months and their successors will gut the treaty of meaning even if they don’t cancel it, how’s that reassuring?

In a previous New York Times op-ed, Benn was critical of Obama and urged him to convince Israel of his own friendliness and effectiveness. That hasn’t happened yet there’s no hint in his new article that a lack of American support is another factor worrying Israel. Benn says Netanyahu: “Should have used this spring and summer to reach a new understanding with Mr. Obama based on confidence about the American-Israeli friendship. He should have worked out an agreement on how to reignite the peace process, rather than antagonize the American president.”

Perhaps, however, much of this problem is due to Obama? And how could Netanyahu get a process going since the Palestinian Authority didn’t want to talk and instead has focused on declaring unilateral independence through the UN?

Benn suggests Netanyahu can “change course,” having “reaped “diplomatic fruits” from the regional crisis. I fail to see what these fruits might be. Benn then concludes:

“His timidity and cynicism will prove costly for Israel when the Arab storm reaches its shores. Before time runs out, he must leverage Israel’s new strength to join Mr. Obama in creative diplomacy to avert a diplomatic debacle in September and pursue a stable peace with the Palestinians.”

But what could Netanyahu have done otherwise? Does “timidity” mean not to take big risks for no return and to make things worse? Does “cynicism” mean believing—correctly—that the PA isn’t ready to negotiate seriously?

When a storm is coming you don’t throw open all the doors and windows and move out onto the balcony (or porch or back deck or patio) to live in the belief that this will dispel the thunder, lightning, hailstones, hurricane, tsunami, or tornado. That would be crazy. The same applies to this bizarre piece of analysis.

I don’t get it. What’s the supposed big opportunity being missed? It is truly bizarre to claim that things are about to become much worse so Israel has to put itself in a weaker strategic position in order to prepare for the crisis. If the critics were arguing that if Israel made big concessions there would be full peace and the conflict would disappear that would be internally logical. But they don’t dare openly make such a claim since it is obviously—after the experience with the 1990s’ peace process—ludicrous.

So what are they left with? Israel will be more unpopular if it doesn’t give in? But popularity through concessions has been tried and failed.

There will be more Palestinians born? But the demographic numbers are wrong (based on PA fabrications); it doesn’t matter in practice; and a strategically weaker Israel would still be facing numerically larger neighbors that would still be hostile.

Israel will have a Palestinian Arab majority or rule over a larger population so it cannot be a democracy? But Israel doesn’t rule the Gaza Strip or the populated portion of the West Bank now. And nobody in Israel is proposing annexation.

The final assumption is that Israel must “prove” it wants peace, something it has been doing energetically for 20 years without persuading those who won’t be persuaded.

What is lacking in this attempt to panic Israel into taking extreme risks, then, is any logic whatsoever. This has nothing to do with “left” or “right” ideology but simply the nature of reality.

Certainly, it can be useful for Israel to make statements to indicate its desire for peace and its flexibility. But nobody can make a case for a desperate need to get an agreement right away or to make major concessions. The creation of a Palestinian state will not defuse the forces of revolutionary Islamism but only encourage them; it will not strengthen Israel’s stability and defense but weaken it.

If Yitzhak Rabin or Shimon Peres were prime minister could they really do anything different? Having a left-of-center government would improve Israel’s image among left-of-center Western intellectuals and leaders. But what might actually be different in diplomatic or strategic realities?

Now Israel’s government has responded, saying to the PA: If you are willing to talk about recognizing Israel as a Jewish state (by the way, the PA’s constitution says that Palestine will be an Arab and Muslim state), Israel will talk about pre-1967 borders. Within hours, this offer was turned down by the PA. Naturally, there will be no effect on the same people clamoring for more unilateral Israeli concessions.

Unless critics of Israel’s policy provide a more attractive option in real terms they’ll continue to be ignored both by Israel’s leaders and voters. Insults, false arguments, and panic do not suffice.


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 Middle East editor 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 articles published originally in places other than PajamasMedia can be found at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com  

Obama Has An Epiphany! Discovers that Syria is a Repressive Dictatorship

By Barry Rubin

Here is President Barack Obama’s latest, July 31, statement on Syria which is intended to show anger and toughness:

“I am appalled by the Syrian government’s use of violence and brutality against its own people.The reports out of Hama are horrifying and demonstrate the true character of the Syrian regime. Once again, President Assad has shown that he is completely incapable and unwilling to respond to the legitimate grievances of the Syrian people. His use of torture, corruption and terror puts him on the wrong side of history and his people. Through his own actions, Bashar al-Assad is ensuring that he and his regime will be left in the past, and that the courageous Syrian people who have demonstrated in the streets will determine its future. Syria will be a better place when a democratic transition goes forward. In the days ahead, the United States will continue to increase our pressure on the Syrian regime, and work with others around the world to isolate the Assad government and stand with the Syrian people.”

One of the techniques of politics is to change your mind when you’ve clearly been shown to be wrong without admitting you are changing your mind. If, after all, the regime is one using “violence and brutality against its own people,” “once again, using “torture, corruption and terror,” what else is new? In other words, for his entire term Obama has been treating Assad as a really good guy who truly wants to reform and be moderate. Such people as Senator John Kerry, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the dreadful apologist Senator Arlen Spector, lauded Assad repeatedly.

So they were wrong, correct?

Second, the Obama Administration has taken a ridiculously long time to come to this conclusion, after it couldn’t be more obvious. Even during the last two weeks it has been sending mixed signals, with a previous “tough” statement then being undermined with more pablum about Assad really wanting to reform. The regime reportedly killed 140 people on the day this statement was made, though I have no idea whether this number is accurate.

Even in this statement there is a petulent undertone that it’s all his fault and annoyance that he’s made the Obama Administration look bad. As for being on “the wrong side of history,” I hate that phrase since it implies history has only one side and one direction. It also reflects the naive and dangerous Obama belief that, after spending a long time ridiculing democratization as a stupid idea of his predecessor he has now embraced political upheaval in the region as infallibly good.

While I suppose this statement can’t hurt, I hardly think the “courageous Syrian people” are going to conclude now that the United States is on their side and be grateful. Indeed, a Lebanese correspondent sympathetic to the Syrian uprising concluded the day before the statement that the administration wouldn’t do anything serious. That conclusion is unlikely to change among people in the region.

In the past, liberals have repeatedly–and often rightly–said that U.S. support for dictatorships makes America unpopular. Well, what has the Obama Administration done on Syria but precisely that kind of policy?

And what about all the mass media that was wrong about Syria, publishing op-ed after op-ed and article after article about Assad being a reformer, about the United States weaning him away from Iran, while refusing to publish articles or remarks on the other side? How about their looking the other way while the Syrian regime was directly involved in waging a war to kill Americans in Iraq?

Have they learned anything or will they continue to use the same pundits who were ridiculously incorrect on that (and so many other things) point? Why weren’t they motivated by U.S. strategic interests rather than–relevant as that is–waiting for the regime to massacre its own people before changing their mind? It’s nice that humanitarian considerations figure in U.S. policy but how about strategic considerations, too?

Moreover, what will be U.S. policy on Syria? Presumably, to put on more sanctions, watch, and wait. But how about striking at Syrian regime interests by backing Israel and the Lebanese opposition, really opposing the restored Syrian hegemony over Lebanon?

In short, welcome as this new stance is it is also a grudging, forced, and minimal change that doesn’t really show the Obama Administration has learned anything from its failed experiments of engaging with Iran and Syria.

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 Middle East editor 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 articles published originally in places other than PajamasMedia can be found at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com

New Obama Administration Achievement: Messing Up Turkey, Syria, and Libya Within 24 Hours

It’s truly amazing that literally every day the Obama administration finds a new way to mess up the Middle East. July 14-15, 2011, is a new record since it damaged Western interests and any hope for a stable future in three countries almost simultaneously!

I noted a few days ago that the Obama government finally seemed to call for the end to Syria’s current regime, but within hours it backtracked. Now the administration favors conciliation talks between the opposition and the Assad dictatorship. They’re still urging the regime to make reforms, they’re just urging it more loudly.

And with whom is the U.S. government coordinating this effort? With the Turkish regime, an ally of Iran and Syria, and specifically with its foreign minister who wrote a book in Turkish calling for all the Muslim-majority states to ally against the West (and now has written a book in English saying that all countries should be good buddies). True, Clinton did urge the Turkish government to allow more free speech.

Generally, though, she praised the regime and its growing role in the region. (Does that include its unbending hostility toward Israel and support for Hamas and Hizballah?) She also said:

“Stability inside Syria is important for Turkey. But the right kind of stability — a transition to democracy — is what would be best for Turkey and even more importantly what would be best for the Syrian people.”

Now let me ask you a question: What kind of stable regime in Syria would a Turkey governed by a stealth Islamist regime allied with Iran like to see? How about either a radical anti-Western regime or, even better, an Islamist regime?

On the same day that Clinton was urging the opposition to conciliate with the Syrian government, reliable opposition sources (though that doesn’t mean their numbers are accurate) reported 41 protesters killed by government forces, many of them in Damascus.

Regarding Libya, the Obama administration recognized the opposition Transitional National Council “as the legitimate governing authority.” Funny, it’s never thought of doing that in Syria!

This is a big step and the next step is to hand over huge amounts of Libyan financial assets frozen in the United States to this opposition group, whose control of the revolution is totally insecure, whose own political composition is unclear, and whose behavior in the field is not so great.

Let’s be clear: Muammar Gaddafi was and is a terrible tyrant. But now that NATO is supporting the “good guys,” we should keep posted on their doings. Remember that Obama era foreign policy is run by people who villify the United States for supporting “bad guys” in the past. But I wonder how the behavior of the Libyan rebels would stack up compared to the Nicaraguan “Contras.” At best the same, or possibly worse?

Here’s what New York Times reporter Brian Denton, on the scene when the rebels took the town of Qawalish, wrote:

“A short while later rebels were shooting padlocks off the metal doors to shops…and shops were being aggressively looted by armed men in rebel attire. Every few minutes, a truck would pass by on the road, headed back toward Zintan loaded with what seemed to be stolen goods. …

“By Sunday evening … all of the shops in the town had been ransacked. … In building after building, furniture was flipped over, dishes and mirrors shattered, and everything torn apart. … The town was … a shattered, emptied ghost town decorated with broken glass.

“No one could reasonably dispute that when the Qaddafi forces … crushed the demonstrations in Tripoli, besieged Misurata, stormed Ajdabiya, shelled Benghazi—that all of these resulted in more damage to civilian property and loss of civilian life than what happened when the rebels captured tiny Qawalish. But … if [the rebels] think that the smaller scale of their crimes excuses or justifies them, then they risk embarrassing their backers, losing international support and fueling exactly the kind of war they have insisted they and NATO would prevent.”

So much for protecting civilians. Remember, the Obama administration has turned over the fate of U.S. policy in Libya and handed over the services of the U.S. (and NATO, along with European governments) armed forces to an unknown group of rebels who, if they succeed, will probably massacre those from tribes and regions they don’t like. Ironically, in an age obsessed with racism, the opposition has been killing blacks because Gaddafi imported sub-Saharan Africans to work and fight for the regime.

Oh, but the opposition has hired an American public relations firm, one that has experience in making dictatorial regimes look good in Washington.

If Libya is Obama’s Iraq, he is going to have to compare the rationales for intervention and the results some day.

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 articles published originally in places other than PajamasMedia can be found at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com     

Obama's Syria Policy; One Step Forward Two Steps Back

By Barry Rubin


It took 2.5 years, months of massive revolutionary upheaval, and a violent attack on the embassy in Damascus, but U.S. policy toward Syria is finally changing. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton remarked:“President [Bashar al-] Assad is not indispensable and we have absolutely nothing invested in him remaining in power….Our goal is to see that the will of the Syrian people for a democratic transformation occurs.”

Hooray! Hooray! Oops! For despite this major step forward, the Obama administration can’t stop itself from setting up a new potential disaster. For how are they going about this regime transition effort? Why, with Syria’s neighbor, Turkey. The regime thinks it can create a sphere of influence for itself in Syria. In other words, Turkish interests (as defined by the regime) and American interests in Syria are diametrically opposed! Obama is relying on a mediator who will support an Islamist state in Syria or at least one dominated by Islamist forces.

Obama’s colleagues and supporters rightly say that they worry about Syria’s future yet are now following a strategy most likely to lead to a bad result.

Turkey? Why not the Gulf Cooperation Council, Saudi Arabia directly, and also Jordan? Remember these (ex-?) U.S. allies? Like Syria, these are Arab states. Ah, but for the Obama administration, Arabism isn’t important. Only Islam is. And if you undermine Arab identity–as Obama has been doing since his Cairo speech–in favor of Islam, then you’ll get Islamists, not nationalists.

In Iraq, the State Department advocated, as it always does, a Sunni Arab approach. This was a big problem since there Sunni Arabs only comprise a 20 percent minority. But in Syria, Sunni Arabs are 60 percent of the population. In Iraq, where Shia Muslims are the largest group, Saudi and Jordanian intervention was a problem; in Syria, though, going through the countries that have long been U.S. allies makes far more sense.

The U.S. military loves Turkey and many officers have served there. But these same officers know from the bitter complaints of their Turkish colleages–who hate the current regime–just how bad things are with that regime.

Of the many mistakes made by the Obama administration, the preference of Muslim over Arab identity is one of the more neglected but very dangerous ones. Nationalism in the Arab world has many sins and catastrophes to its name, but what other bulwark will there be to Islamism, as an alternative identity? (Democracy is not an identity.) This bad idea was probably dreamed up in the CIA as a brilliant innovation: the United States will promote an Islamic identity to combat the radical Islamist doctrine of al-Qaida and Iran.

Yet if one looks at various struggles–say that between the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas, or within Lebanon or in Egypt–the Islam card is going to be dominated by radicals. There is no organized body of moderate Islam; though some relatively moderate Islamic groups are evolving they are quite weak and probably likely to ally with the Islamists in the end.

And as for Turkey, it is run by an Islamist regime that is aligned with Iran, Hamas, and Hizballah. Why partner with a government that opposes all of your interests? Well, most of them anyway since there is some parallelism in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Many people have asked me why Turkey is now opposed to the Syrian regime, often assuming it is out of a love of democracy on the part of those running things in Ankara. But that’s not it at all. Rather, as a Sunni Islamist movement, the Turkish regime has decided to back the Muslim Brotherhood and other forces in Syria. It dreams of having a sphere of influence in Syria.

In other words, the Obama administration has turned to the worst possible partner in Syria whose interests are diametrically opposed to those of the United States on this issue. Thus, it has now chosen a strategy most likely to bring about that bad result.

Another mistake of the Obama administration thus appears here: supporting one’s enemies rather than one’s friends. I don’t mean to suggest that “Turkey” is an enemy of the United States. But on a number of issues (Israel-Palestinian, Lebanon, Syria, Iran), the Turkish regime is on the opposite side of where the United States should be.

For now, Clinton’s statement marks an improvement in U.S. policy. But in the long run, Obama administration’s policy on Syria may have taken, to quote Lenin, one step forward, two steps back.

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 articles published originally in places other than PajamasMedia can be found at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com  

The Benefits of the 'Arab Spring'

 By BARRY RUBIN


There are two types of strategic perspectives in Israel today. They aren’t contradictory, but they have different priorities. These can be called the “northern” and the “southern” views.

The “northern” approach is the more traditional one, focusing on the situation in that direction. The key longer-term concern is over Iran and its drive for nuclear weapons. More closely, there are both concerns and hopes regarding Lebanon and Syria.

Regarding Iran, the new feature is the assumption that Israel will not attack Iran to prevent it from getting nuclear weapons. This means Israel will be constructing a multi-level defensive system that includes long-range attack planes, the ability to subvert Iran’s nuclear force through covert operations, possibly submarine platforms, and several types of anti-missile missiles and defenses.

The goal here is fourfold:

• To delay as long as possible Iran acquiring nuclear weapons and to minimize the size and effectiveness of its arsenal through sanctions, international pressure, sabotage and other means.

• To have the maximum ability to deter Iran from launching a nuclear attack and demonstrating the ability to stop its missiles. The aim is to discourage Iran from launching such an attack, given a nearcertainty that it can be stopped and, as a result, it would suffer very heavy damage.

• Of course, ordinary deterrence is not a sufficient safeguard against Iran, given the Islamic regime’s ideological extremism and passionate hatred of Israel, the recklessness of some key elements there, and the rulers’ shortcomings in assessing reality.

Consequently Israel must put a high priority on stopping any Iranian attack from happening or succeeding.

•  To be able, if Israel determines there is a real danger of an Iranian attack, to launch a first strike to inflict maximum damage on Iran’s nuclear strike force. In other words, an Israeli attack would be premised not on Iran getting nuclear weapons, but on Iran being likely to use them.

US deterrence, early-warning, and anti-missile efforts would supplement this system, but this strategy is not premised on any dependence on the US government.

BUT ISRAEL also knows that an equal or even greater danger is the spread of Iranian influence, taking over Arab countries or turning them into proxies. Here, the northern focus is on Syria and Lebanon.

On the surface, the news from these two countries is potentially bad. Lebanon is now controlled by Hezbollah and other Syrian or Syrian-Iranian clients. Hezbollah can thus use Lebanon as a virtual fiefdom for building its military power and attacking Israel. This is much worse than the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war, when Lebanon as a government and army had a separate identity.

Syria itself is faced with a serious internal upheaval that seems likely to bring down President Bashar Assad. Here the “glass halfempty” analysis is that Assad might be replaced by a regime even more hostile to Israel.

There is also a “glass half-full” analysis. As long as Syria is in such turmoil, it cannot so effectively threaten Israel. And if Assad is overthrown, a government that is more preoccupied by internal affairs, and less eager to start a conflict, might take power.

Iraq offers a good model here.

Between the interests of the Kurds, the internal conflict, a greater focus on domestic development and other factors, Iraq has dropped out of the conflict with Israel.

Hezbollah also suffers from this turmoil. Since it has sided with the Assad regime, it has gone from being wildly popular to widely hated by the Syrian people. Hamas, which has sided against the Syrian regime and in favor of its Muslim Brotherhood comrades, has thus lost Syrian patronage. Finally, Syria’s aggressive behavior has opened a rift between that country and Turkey’s government, which has been increasingly acting like an ally of the Iranian and Syrian regimes.

CONSEQUENTLY, WHILE this is no ideal situation, Israel can be considered to have benefitted from this aspect of the “Arab spring.” From Israel’s standpoint, the relative stability in Jordan and Saudi Arabia is a plus, since these countries are unlikely to be transformed into radical Islamist states under a government linked to al-Qaida, Iran or the Muslim Brotherhood. The turmoil in Bahrain, Yemen and Tunisia is of relatively little strategic significance to Israel.

Generally there can be a hope that democracy and domestic development will become a higher priority than fighting Israel, thus easing the pressure on Israel, or at least preoccupying Arabs and Muslims for a while. Clearly, merely calling dissidents Zionist agents and hoping to unite the people around an anti-Israel platform no longer works for incumbent governments.

In time, this strategy might work for replacing Islamist governments, but that hasn’t happened yet.

Moreover, American weakness and the Obama administration’s cooler view toward Israel is worrisome. So is the possibility that things might be moving in a way to strengthen Iran.

IF ONE looks at the southern front, though, it is harder to find a silver lining. Egypt is likely to elect a radical government more hostile than anything Israel has faced there since about 1974. The future of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty is gloomy.

Peace between Israel and the Arab world’s most populous country cannot be taken for granted.

There is also the problem of the Egypt-Hamas relationship. Egypt is likely to see itself as Hamas’s ally and patron. In a future Hamas-led conflict with Israel, Egypt could take the side of the Palestinian Islamists, and will certainly help them. The long-quiet southern front now has to be treated as a very possible war zone.

This is the basic way things look for Israeli strategists.

One can stress better- or worse-case scenarios and different parts of the challenge, but there is a general consensus on the fundamental challenges – and on whether they will be met successfully.


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 teased and other articles are available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.     

Syrian Regime Flak Calls for Mass Murder; Obama Says Nothing

By Barry Rubin

Here is the real Middle East not the Fantasyland of the Obama Administration about President Bashar al-Asad as a reformer or the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. This is how things really work.

Taleb Ibrahim is a pro-regime propagandist frequently portrayed as a "political analyst" or some objective thinker in the international mass media. But speaking in Arabic he cuts loose, explaining that killing protestors is a duty because they are Israeli agents. Thus, those demonstrating against the government must be smashed, wiped out so a better future can be built for Syria.

The regime in Damascus is carrying out mass murder and calling for more killing yet Western governments still stand by and not only do nothing, they say nothing.

Meanwhile, despite an international military assault on Libya, dictator Muammar al-Qadhafi is still there, another sign of Western impotence. Hizballah was allowed to defeat the West by returning to southern Lebanon and smuggling in all the weapons it wanted from Syria (without any condemnation of Syria for violating the U.S.-sponsored, UN-mandated ceasefire. Iran zips along toward nuclear weapons; Islamist terror spreads in Egypt. The UN-mandated international investigation of terrorism in Lebanon doesn't advance toward indicting Syria.

Yet we are told either that everything is going great or that the problems are inexplicable.

Has there ever been such a gap between reality and perception? The fascinating question here is how far things will go and how many people will be dead before there is the beginning of some comprehension that Obama and his advisors are dead wrong while most of the mass media has no idea what it's talking about

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/. 

New York Times Article Tells You Everything You Need to Know About the Israel-Palestinian Conflict By Being Full of False Information

By Barry Rubin

I don't mean to keep picking on the New York Times but the problem is that the New York Times keeps picking on Israel. As usual, I have saved the truly funny treat for the end.

Actually, this is a pretty good article by the usual standards because it is so determined to be "even-handed." On the one hand, there is Israel, a democratic state with a free media (that often criticizes the government) and that has video tape of the incident in question.

On the other hand, there is Syria, a dictatorship that censors all the news, controls all of the media, and is currently involved in murdering hundreds of its citizens. Incidentally, we could produce a dossier of past Syrian claims regarding the United States to measure the accuracy of its media and government's assertions on this issue.

How is a poor newspaper supposed to determine their relative credibility?
Here's how the article starts:

"Israeli military officials disputed Monday the casualty figures announced by Syria a day earlier, after Israeli forces fired on protesters who had tried to breach the Syrian frontier with the Israeli-held Golan Heights, the discrepancy in numbers underlining the messages being conveyed by both sides.

"According to the Syrian version of events, Israel shot to kill unarmed demonstrators who were trying to reclaim their lost lands — whether in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war, or in historic Palestine.

"But Israel said that the Assad government in Syria was exploiting the Palestinian issue by sending unarmed protesters to the frontier in order to divert attention from its own antigovernment uprising and the bloody attempts to put it down."

(Update: After the article came out, the U.S. State Department officially corraborated Israel's position as accurate.)


Let's give an incomplete list of what isn't mentioned:

--Notice how in paragraph one we are told they are just "protesters" while in paragraph two we are told they are "unarmed protesters" and in paragraph three we are again told they are "unarmed protesters" in case we didn't get that point in paragraph two.

The fact that Israel has said they carried molotov cocktails and that they set off land mines (that's the kind of thing that happens when "unarmed protesters" run through minefields)--thus causing the casualties--isn't mentioned here though it is in paragraph ten. Incidentally, why should we believe the Israeli assertions in paragraph ten when the reporter (and the New York Times is always totally accurate as the new executive editor tells us, right?) has already told us that it isn't true in paragraphs one, two, and three.

--In paragraph two we are told the protesters "were trying to reclaim their lost lands—whether in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war, or in historic Palestine." Reclaim their lost lands? How could anyone not sympathize with that. But wait! Are you saying that the purpose of this demonstration was only about the Golan Heights? Because there's a difference. Most readers presumably think that "historic Palestine" means the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Of course it means wiping Israel off the map entirely.

And why "historic Palestine?" Why not the historic Land of Israel? Or in Israel? The article's phrasing, too, slants the readers' perception, right? They just want to redeem their lost lands in Palestine that Israel stole? So the destruction of Israel is portrayed as the Palestinians merely wanting to get their lost lands back.

Yet, of course, this raises the all-important issue of whether we are dealing here with the demand for two states living at peace side by side or wiping Israel off the map and commiting genocide against its Jewish population. The demonstrations bring out that key question, while the article buries it or makes the Palestinian demand for "return" seem quite reasonable.

--We are told that the Syrians say that Israeli forces shot to kill but we are not told what Israelis say they did. The video of the announcement to the demonstrators--warning them not to advance and practically pleading with them not to do so--is available. But there is no hint of that in the article.

--Why are we told that Israeli officials said the Syrians sent out "unarmed" protesters when in fact it said that the protesters were armed with molotov cocktails, which is a weapon? Obviously, Israeli officials didn't say that.

But here's the all-important phrase that led me to write this article: "the discrepancy in numbers underlining the messages being conveyed by both sides." I understand the idea behind writing that phrase, and there is something to it. But what shocked me is that the question of what is the truth is transformed into a mere question of propaganda battles. I'll bet that Israel is telling the truth and Syria isn't. What should be happening is an attempt to get at which account is true. Yet that view of truth as purely relative, as "constructed" based on "narrative" is one of the main intellectual horrors of the contemporary era that has led to incredible damage being done on academia and the media.

Imagine this being written by some newspaper somewhere in the Middle East:

U.S. officials say that a radical Islamist group hijacked airplanes and flew two of them into the World Trade Center, killing over 3000 people. According to the Syrian version of events, the fall of the World Trade Center was a U.S. government-Zionist plot, the discrepancy in accounts underlining the messages being conveyed by both sides.

That's the kind of international media environment Israel must deal with daily.

But I promised you a treat so here it is. Remember that I said a key issue buried by the article is whether Israel's enemies and neighbors want a two-state solution resulting in real peace or Israel's destruction altogether? Well here's the article's priceless statement:

"Huda Tumeizi, a young woman from the West Bank city of Haifa, marched toward the Qalandia checkpoint, on the edge of Jerusalem, holding a placard that read: “I am going back to Haifa.”

So in other words, when Palestinians say that they want Haifa under their rule they are just talking about a West Bank-Gaza state in the context, right? But actually Haifa is not on the West Bank. It is one of Israel's largest cities. So when Tumeizi says she's going to Haifa she means, over Israel's dead body.

But there's more!

I did one minute of research and, behold, there's a story behind the story on Ms. Tumeizi. She didn't think up that slogan all by herself. You see, just a few days prior to the demonstration a women's center in the Al-Far'a refugee camp opened a camp for children called "Going to Haifa," where chilrden were told that they should demand such a return.

Why should they expect to be able to go back? Well, Yasser Abu Kishk, who seems to be the leader of the camp's council, told the children that the Arab revolutions and Hamas-Fatah reconciliation were bringing the day of the realization of the right of return closer. In other words, forget about the resettlement of refugees in the new state of Palestine and forget about any agreement with Israel because the Palestinians are going to achieve complete victory. Why? Because the new Arab revolutionary governments will fight Israel, and Hamas and Fatah will fight together to get everything.

Thus, this little story shows us that the peace process isn't going to work and that no matter how many concessions Israel makes it won't arrive at peace.

I presume that Mr. Abu Kishk is a Fatah member who was put in his job by the Palestinian Authority. I would also bet that what he did and the organization of this project went on in many other refugee camps on the West Bank. I also wouldn't be surprised if this was all paid for by international donors who are very pleased with themselves at helping to establish a women's center in a refugee camp as a humanitarian contribution to the improved status of Palestinian women and the advance of the region to peace.

By the way, I'm sure the Haifa mistake did not come from the correspondent. Presumably, she just wrote the word Haifa and someone on the Times editing desk thought that its location should be further identified for readers. The problem then is that the people editing articles don't knowt hat Haifa is in Israel. A subtext here is the assumption that the Palestinians only want a two-state solution so if they want it that place must be in the West Bank.

Later, the Times changed Haifa to Hebron and said that is where she came from. I don't believe it. And of course once again they didn't ask the obvious question: Why can't she go back to Hebron? Unless involved in terrorism a Palestinian from Hebron, 80 percent of which is ruled by the PA, could certainly apply to go there. I believe that this correction is just not...correct.

Now, this very quickly descends to madness. Here's the official British statement on the incident issued by Foreign Secretary WilliamHague under the headline, "Foreign Secretary concerned by reports of protesters killed in Golan Heights":

“I am deeply concerned by reports that a number of protesters have been killed and others injured following protests in the Golan Heights yesterday. We recognise Israel’s right to defend herself. It is vital that any response is proportionate, avoiding lethal use of force unless absolutely necessary, and that the right to protest is respected. I continue to call on all parties, including the Governments of Israel and Syria, to do everything they can to protect the lives of civilians and to avoid provocative acts.”

In other words, if hundreds of militant protestors organized by a dictatorial regime that wants to wipe out its neighbor attack a country's border armed with molotov cocktails and try to tear down the border defenses and ignore warnings to stop then both sides are at fault and "the right to protest" must be respected by Israel.

I'd have preferred the headline "Foreign Secretary concerned by reports of militant advocates of genocide against Israel attack an ally," but, hey, that's just me.

I doubt whether anyone will look at such articles with the detail I do. One reader asked, understandably, why I keep writing about the silliness of the mass media. The answer (aside from there's so much of it) is the following:

--It is putting forward a view of Middle Eastern history and reality that is totally misleading. That view largely coincides what the "narrative" of academics and many government officials. It must be defined and understood.

--Many people are still unaware of the indoctrination in the media. It was tolerable when the news was only being slanted. Now it is intolerable as the news is being completely distorted.

--In the process of explaining how the coverage is wrong, it is possible to lay out the realities. One of the more amusing ways of doing this is to show how the media often gives you the information you need buried or misrepresented in their own texts.

So here's my proposal: the New York Times covers the Middle East better so I don't have to write any more articles like that. Deal?


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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/.

Three Amazing Stories That Teach Us: Never Overestimate the Competence of the Media

By Barry Rubin

First, almost all of the major news media has reported about the confrontation between Israeli forces and people who tried to cross Israel’s border as part of a demonstration designed to help wipe that country off the map. But what’s their source? None of them has first-hand information. So in fact all their data came from the Syrian propaganda organs.

That’s right. The Syrian regime is killing hundreds of its own people. No Western government will act against that dictatorship. But when it comes to Israel they accept its claims as truth, and many didn't even tell readers or viewers--at least in the initial reports--where they got the information.

Second, this is from a CNN report on the same story today

“Israel has made peace with the other two parties to the 1967 Six-Day War, Egypt and Jordan, but still occupies the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza as well as the Golan Heights.”

At least this CNN item listed Syria as the source of casualty figures. But what’s wrong with the above sentence?

A. Who says they are “Palestinian territories?”

B. The populated areas of the West Bank have been governed by the Palestinian Authority for 17 years. The PA has received billions of dollars to run the show, has its own schools, health system, security forces, you name it. But CNN reports it as being “still” occupied.

C. And of course Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip completely six years ago, yet CNN also acts as if that’s still “occupied,” too. The area lives under a revolutionary Islamist regime dedicated to Israel’s destruction yet supposedly Israel controls it.

But the third item is best. Let me explain. In an article remarking about how we are now told that the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and Syria’s regime, for example, are the good guys protecting everyone from even worse extremists, For example, we have been told for several years that dictator Bashar al-Assad is really a reformer held back by the “old guard.” (The alleged members of this old guard are never named because in fact they don’t exist.

I added this note:

“[PS: I hate to use the most over-used analogy in the world but arguing that Israel should make a deal right away because of the “shifting sands” is like British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain arguing in 1938 that the Czechs better give up the Sudetenland fast before the real radicals take over in Germany or, at least, the current chancellor there gets impatient.]”

Now, it ran through my mind that something like this had actually happened in the 1930s—Western news media presenting Hitler as the relative moderate—but I didn’t have the time to research it. But a clever reader did and found this New York Times article from September 17, 1935:

After Hitler excluded Jews from German citizenship and prohibited marriages between Jews and “Aryans,” (known in history as the Nuremberg laws) the article continued:

“The new laws, while in line with the anti-Semitism which has been a large part of the Fuhrer’s inspiration from the beginning are no doubt to be taken as encouragement to the Radical wing of the party….The best to be said of the new laws is that they may offer German Jewry the process of law in place of arbitrary bullying and local tyranny.”

So there you have it: Hitler was trying to appease the radical Nazis and the Nuremberg laws offered Jews some legal recourse.


Another reader came up with more examples. Here are my two favorites:



1. The Glasgow Herald "Uneasy Germany" August 8, 1932

"Murder, arson, and outrage continue to shatter the internal peace of Germany...[...]...There is no mystery as to the perpetrators of most of the outrages. They are members of Hitler's "Brown Army." Herr Hitler and his more moderate colleagues, while professing that the incidents are the consequence of "Red" provocation, are said to deplore the terrorist tactics of some sections of their followers."

2. Hitler Not Yet Master; 'Strong Men' Still Rule," March 22, 1933 St. Joseph Gazette

"The extreme Nazis have undertaken to drive Jews out of public and commercial life...Goering, at the head of the police and of the extreme Nazi wing, has egged on the attacks.

"But Hindenburg, Papen, the Nationalists and the moderate wing of the Nazis have opposed the campaign and several times this element has compelled Hitler to put restraints on Goering and on his own wild followers.

"The Nazi extremists have not liked this intervention. They may undertake to strike back. Then we shall see some real fireworks."

Truly, when it comes to bad arguments (and New York Times foolishness) there is nothing new under the sun.

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/.

Thirty Years Ago Menachem Begin Ordered The IAF To Save The World

One week short of thirty-years ago the tiny nation of Israel executed a military plan which was roundly criticized across the world (including the United States). It was only with the hindsight of history that we can now  say that Menachem Begin's decision to bomb an Iraqi nuclear reactor may have saved the world from a Sadaam Hussein with nuclear weapons. (if you can't see video below click here)




In the late 1970s, Iraq purchased an "Osiris class" nuclear reactor from France (some things never change). Israeli military intelligence assumed this was for the purpose of plutonium production to further an Iraqi nuclear weapons program. Israeli intelligence also believed that the summer of 1981 would be the last chance to destroy the reactor without exposing the Iraqi civilian population to nuclear fallout. After that point, the reactor would be loaded with nuclear fuel.

Iraq protested that its interest in nuclear energy was peaceful, and at the time Iraq was a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), placing its reactors under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. Some experts remained unconvinced that the IAEA monitoring program was sufficient to guarantee that weapon research was not being conducted. They also claimed that an Osiris class reactor was not particularly useful to countries which have no established reactor programs, but that it was capable of producing plutonium.

Israel first pursued a diplomatic solution to the situation. Israel's foreign minister Moshe Dayan went to the United States. However, Israel failed to obtain assurances that the reactor program would be halted, and was not able to convince the French governments of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and François Mitterrand to cease aiding the Iraqi nuclear program (again no surprise).

As the IDF reports it:

4 pm, the evening before the Shavout holiday, 1981, orders were given to begin operations. At 5:35.a squadron of IAF F-16 fighter aircraft flew over Iraqi skies and dropped a number of bombs. The nuclear reactor was completely destroyed. Mission accomplished. One after another, the pilots shouted the code word "Alpha" into their radios, signaling their success. Zev Raz, Amus Yadlin, Chagi katz, Amir Nahumi, Yiftach Spector, Yisraeli Shapir, and Ilan Ramon- changed history, erasing the nuclear threat of the enemy.

Iraq established a nuclear program in the 60's and with the cooperation of the USSR built a nuclear reactor ten km's southeast of Baghdad. 16 years later, Iraq began to broaden their nuclear programs and were supported by France who provided them with a nuclear reactor. The reactor consisted of two buildings, the "Tamuz" 1- the first reactor that produced uranium, and the "Tamuz" 2. The Israeli government convened to discuss the growing nuclear threat in that region. Israel was doubtful abou Iraq's claims that the nuclear program was for the benefit of its citizens. Their doubt increased when the IDF Intelligence Branch published intelligence reports that Iraq's operations posed a real threat to Israel's very existence- and Israel was forced to draw up plans to destroy the reactor.

On the 14th of May,  Prime Minister  Menachem Begin, authorized the bombing of the nuclear reactor. Ezer Wiezmen, the then Defense Minister, opposed the operation and resigned from the government two weeks later. On the 28th of October of that year, the plan was finalized. During a cabinet meeting the plan was formally authorized by Begin. "A large clock is hanging over us, ticking. Iraq's intent to produce nuclear weapons poses a great danger to every man woman and child in the state of Israel", the prime minister remarked.

The plan was kept in complete secrecy. From the get-go it was understood that the most effective way to implement a successful mission would be one conducted by the Israeli Air Force. It was decided that the operations would be done by F-16 fighter aircrafts that the IAF had received the year before. An Israeli Air Force squadron of 8 F-16's heavily armed, as well as a number of F-15's providing air cover and fighter support would implement the mission. One of the primary focuses during the planning stage was which direction the planes would fly. (11,000 km each way), over hostile territory and with a limited supply of fuel dictated the flight path. The plan was set for the seventh of July, zero hour-30 minutes before sunset.

"We flew over the Tigris river, looking down we saw the nuclear reactor. Our target lay before us clear as day."

The pilots that participated in the mission were selected for their impeccable flight records and were trained in secret and requested to implement the operations with no second thoughts. In the afternoon hours of the 6th of June, the plan was set in motion. All the members of F-16 squadron were called up for duty. On the morning of June 7th, 1981 8 F-16 fighter aircrafts left Israeli airspace heading west towards the Tigris River, next to Baghdad. The flight to Iraq took upwards to an hour. Radio transmission was silenced. The Iraqis were caught completely off guard. The Iraqi radar system was incapable of picking up on the impending danger.

Major General Amus Yaldun, one of the eight combat pilots that participated in the mission and now head of the IDF Intelligence Branch, related, during an interview with IAF journalists, about the famous flight. "Each aircraft flew with three full tanks of gas, two air to air missiles and two bombs each weighing one ton. We flew in two groups of four. The first group was led by Colonel (res.) Zev Raz, the "First Jet" squadron leader, and the second group was lead by Brigadier General (res.)Amir Nehomi, commander of the "Northern Knights". I was number two in the first quadroon. We headed south of the Jordon River, passing over the Saudi desert. We reached the Tigris River in a short amount of time.

The blast of the first bombs echoed in the distance. One of them hit the center of the reactors roof. Once the bombs were releases, I felt the impact of the explosions shaking my plane. This was the end of the Iraqi nuclear reactor "Tamuz" 1." The Israeli planes made a roundabout turn west, heading home. "The direction home was facing the sun as to prevent the enemy from following us. We received report of the second squadron's attack on the reactor.

We felt great. A- Because of completing the mission and B- Because all of us, the whole squadron, had come home in peace."At the time, the attack was widely criticized. Israel responded that its actions were self-defensive and thus justifiable under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. Critics rejected the idea of "pre-emptive self-defense". France, in particular (again no surprise), was outraged over the loss of a French national as a result of the attack, and since the raid diplomatic ties between France and Israel have remained strained. The United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 487, calling upon Israel "to place its nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards", and stated that Iraq was "entitled to appropriate redress for the destruction it suffered". Israel has not complied with these requests. The United States supported the resolution condemning the Israeli action — not the country as other nations tried to do. Their course of action was to withhold a contingent of aircraft already promised to Israel.

Over twenty years later when the world began to face a terrorist threat as never before the world began to realize the service performed by Israel, the IAF and Menachem Begin.

Just imagine a world with Iraq or, God Forbid, Osama bin Laden with their hands on a nuclear weapon. If it wasn't for Menachem Begin, a Prime Minister with guts to give the orders to protect Israel, knowing (but not caring) that a world would absolutely freak, and the heroes of the IDF who flawlessly performed their mission, this scary world would be a lot scarier.

For those who are still questioning PM Netanyhu's reaction to Barack Obama's Middle East speech, remember what happened thirty years ago, and understand that Israel will do anything it takes, no matter what the world thinks, to defend herself.

For more information about the raid, or anything else about former Israeli Prime Minister Begin, visit the Menachem Begin Heritage Center on the web by clicking here.

Israel ATTACKED! Nabka Day Infiltration From Syria and Lebanon

By Israeli Girl and Jeff Dunetz

The bloody events of the so called "Nakba Day" have been planned for a while. For months now the 3rd Palestinian Intifada movement has been promoting their anti Israel event on May 15th. At noon today after a 63 seconds siren, thousands march towards Israel borders from Syria, Lebanon and Gaza.

At least one Syrian national was killed by IDF gunfire when Nakba Day protesters tried to infiltrate Israel's border on Sunday. In similar clashes along the Lebanese border, conflicting reports spoke of between 3 and 10 people killed, while the IDF said that most and possibly all of the casualties were caused by the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF). At the same time, scores of Palestinians attacked IDF soldiers at the Kalandiya border crossing between Ramallah and Jerusalem with stones and gasoline bombs. In the Gaza Strip, one Palestinian was killed and at least 80 others were wounded when thousands of Palestinians marched toward IDF troops at the Nahal Oz and Erez border crossings, sources in Gaza City said.

Nakba Day (day of catastrophe) is a Palestinian mourning day. It marks the day Israel was established and many Palestinians ran away from the fighting zone. Nakba Day has nothing to do with the so called Israeli "occupation" or the borders established by the 1949 Armistice lines. Nabka Day is a denial of Israel's basic right to exist emphasized by the fact it is held on the day of Israel's Declaration of Independence.

As a pure democracy Israel believes in the right to demonstrate peacefully, whatever the object of the protest. Just yesterday Nakba Day protests were held in Jaffa, a cluster of Tel Aviv, inside mainland Israel. The protests went through uninterrupted. Across the West Bank, protests were held today with no major incidents.

But on the Syrian and Lebanese borders different powers are at play. Assad which has no problem shooting on Syrian protesters, only cares about the Palestinian cause to the point he can use it as political fodder. Nakba Day is a great excuse for Assad to create a diversion - attack Israel and unite the Syrian people against Israel.

Understand that the Syrian military is in control of the northern border crossings, the protesters who rushed the border would not have been able to approach the border – let alone infiltrated the village of Majdal Shams – without the Syrian military's knowledge and consent





The violence on the Lebanese border show the power of Hezballah and the impotence of the United Nations peace keeping force that is supposed to separate the terrorist forces  Israel.

"Hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinians approached the fence at Maroun a-Ras. The Lebanese army did not stop them. When IDF saw them attempting to destroy the fence, they took steps to stop them," Brig.-Gen. Yoav "Poli" Mordechai told Channel 10 News.

When it was all over, Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu went on Israeli TV and stated he had instructed the IDF to act with restraint, but to stop all attempts at infiltration and challenges to Israel's sovereignty. "We are determined to defend our borders."

For any other nation in the world a violent attempt to infiltrate its borders would result in their forces taking the same measures as Israel and the IDF. But Israel is judged by different rules, she is criticized for any action to protect her citizens.  Which is why the government needs to ignore the condemnations sure to come from the international community about today's actions and continue to protect her innocent civilians.

Remembering Eli Cohen The Forgotten Hero of the Six-Day War

Eli Cohen was executed 46 years ago two years before the Six-Day-War (his Yartzeit is this coming Friday).  Moore than any one single person Eli Cohen was the hero of the June 1967 conflict. He was recruited into Israeli military intelligence in 1960. He was given a false identity as a Syrian Arab who was returning to Syria after living in Argentina. To establish his cover, Cohen moved to Argentina in 1961.

Early the following year, he moved to Damascus. For the next few years, using the alias Kamel Amin Tsa'abet. Cohen gained the confidence of many Syrian military and government officials, and sent intelligence to Israel by radio, secret letters, and occasionally by visiting Israel in person. His most famous achievement was to tour the Syrian fortifications on the Golan Heights. Eli’s influence on Syrian officials helped Israel beyond measure. Cohen suggested that eucalyptus trees should be planted around Syrian military bunkers and mortars on the Golan Heights that were targeting Israel. That way Cohen argued, the trees would provide natural cover for the outposts (eucalyptus trees grow very quickly), preventing soldiers and personnel from suffering the effects of heatstroke. After his suggestion was implemented by the Syrian military, Cohen passed on the information to Israeli intelligence, then the Israeli Air Force (IAF)—using the newly planted trees as a guide—easily destroyed the majority of those bases during the Six-Day War. The mature trees are still evident today when visiting the sites

In January 1965, hired Soviet experts caught him in the act of sending a radio message after large amounts of radio interference brought attention. At the time Eli Cohen was the third in line to the Presidency of Syria After a showcase trial, he was found guilty of espionage. He was publicly hanged by Syria on May 18, 1965. Syria to this day refuses to return Eli Cohen's remains to his family for burial in Israel. A few years ago, in recognition of Cohen's contribution to Israel's survival, the Jerusalem Post interviewed the radio operator who received and decoded Cohen's messages while he was in Syria:

Eli Cohen's radio operator: Spy determined Israel's destiny Yaakov Katz

Forty-three years have passed since he was executed, but Eli Cohen - "Our Man in Damascus" - is still considered by the defense establishment as the greatest spy in Israeli history. On Monday, The Jerusalem Post interviewed the man who for three years received and decoded the transmissions Cohen sent back to Israel from deep inside Syria.

Cohen operated behind enemy lines - establishing close ties with the top Syrian political and military leadership - from 1962 until he was hanged almost exactly 43 years ago on May 18, 1965.

"A," today a 62-year-old veteran of the Israeli intelligence community, was a 20-year-old radio operator with Military Intelligence (MI) when in 1962 he began receiving the daily radio transmissions from Damascus.

"I didn't know who was sending the messages," A told the Post on Monday during a tour of an exhibition on MI's history that will open to the pubic on Independence Day. "It was, however, clear that the short messages were of extreme importance, which later helped determine Israel's destiny ahead of the Six Day War."

Cohen's transmissions were instrumental in helping the IDF prepare for the 1967 war with Syria. He provided information about the Syrian Air Force and military positions on the Golan. Mossad chief Meir Amit has been quoted as saying: "Eli succeeded far beyond the capabilities of most other men."

According to "A," Cohen used to send daily messages always at the same time of the day - 8:30 a.m. Cohen, who was known in MI by the number 566, wrote in encrypted French and sent his messages via a tiny radio transmitter.

As part of Israel's 60th celebrations, MI chief Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin decided several months ago to open up the branch's Glilot training base outside of Tel Aviv to Israeli citizens and to put on display there a widespread exhibition spanning 60 years and detailing Israeli Military Intelligence history as well as its many successes.

The exhibition includes a replica of a Hizbullah nature reserve packed with mock Katyusha rockets and anti-tank missiles, guerrilla weapons and surveillance equipment discovered during the Second Lebanon War as well as a model of a 17-meter weapons-smuggling tunnel, dozens of which are believed to be used by Hamas along the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt.

During the tour - which will open Thursday morning - MI will also show a movie that includes never-heard-before radio transmissions from the IDF's hostage rescue operation in Entebbe in 1976.

On display in one of the tents built especially for the exhibition is the last original message that was transmitted to MI headquarters in Israel by the Syrian military following Cohen's capture: "To [prime minister] Levi Eshkol and the handler of his spies: Kamel [Eli Cohen's fake identity in Syria] and his friends have been staying by us for some three years. Signed by: Syrian Arab Intelligence."

"A," who throughout his intelligence career transmitted, received and decoded tens of thousands of messages from Israeli spies, said Monday that he remembered receiving the final transmission.

"There was great excitement and sadness," he said. "We ran to our commander with the message and he passed it on to Eli Cohen's handlers and we understood that it was over."

Cohen was tortured and convicted by a military tribunal which had denied him a lawyer. Despite many appeals, including from Pope Paul VI and the governments of France, Belgium and Canada, to persuade the Syrian government to commute the death sentence, Eli Cohen was executed in Martyrs' Square, Damscus, in May 1965 before some 10,000 spectators.

Despite constant appeals from his family ever since, Eli Cohen's remains were never returned to his family.

May Eli Cohen's memory always be for a blessing, he was a true hero.

Eli Cohen's memorial "Garden of the Missing Soldiers" in Jerusalem