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May 28, 2004
OUTPOST JUNE 2004
PUBLISHED BY AMERICANS FOR A SAFE ISRAEL THIS ISSUE ISRAEL'S 56 YEAR WAR AMERICAN JEWS DOUCE FRANCE DISENGAGEMENT ABRACADABRA- IT'S MAGIC FROM THE EDITOR ISRAEL AT 56
These simple, straightforward words by the President of the United States were released to the press before they were made available to the State Department or to the U.S. delegation to the United Nations. A day later the Arabs declared war, a war that has continued to this day, notwithstanding temporary truces, agreements, lulls in activity, two peace treaties (with Egypt and Jordan) and so called “peace processes.” FROM THE EDITOR
RAEL JEAN ISAAC SY HERSH REDUX ISRAEL'S 56 YEAR WAR
RAEL JEAN ISAAC For all its huge achievements, as its 56th year dawns, modern Israel faces the bleakest prospects in its short history. AMERICAN JEWS AS ISRAEL TURNS 56
RUTH KING
When leaders of Jewish organizations are challenged to defend their leftist, pro-Arab Palestinian programs, they often invoke the notion of “tikkun olam”-- the repair of the world. This “repair” includes every people or species that is perceived to be endangered, but Israeli communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza are not among them. It is hard to see how repair of the world can coincide with abandonment of Israel, a remarkable democracy threatened by the same enemies which now threaten America. This is the repair of the world turned upside down. DOUCE FRANCE
Hugh Fitzgerald, a frequent contributor to Outpost, is a lecturer on the manipulation of language for political ends. DISENGAGEMENT FROM REALITY
As a former New Yorker living in Israel for the past 37 years I am delighted that the internet allows me to read the New York Post every day. Permit me, then, to express my disappointment at “Sharon’s Setback” by Eric Fettmann, a columnist I usually admire. Mr. Sharon states that the absence of Jews in Gaza will deprive Arabs of an excuse to attack. Since when have Arabs needed an excuse to attack Jews? Excuses aplenty are provided to the Western media hungry to justify Arab atrocities. But in the Arab media it is clear that the simple existence of Jews is justification for their extermination. Moshe Saperstein lost an arm in the Yom Kippur War in defense of his country. In early 2002, despite being wounded in his other hand, he heroically attempted to run down a terrorist who had just shot and killed a young mother driving in the car in front of him. ABRACADABRA- IT'S MAGIC JACK ENGELHARD
We had our bags packed right by the door, and one day it happened. Father rushed in from his visit to the gendarmes and said, "We're going," and so we went. Up over the Pyrenees and down into Spain and then to the legendary ship Serpa Pinto and finally to relative safety—and oh, this is a long story. The short of it is this—we had our bags packed. Some 60 years later, all of Israel has its bags packed. Who thought it would come to this? But please listen up, O Israel. If you think you're any safer in Tel Aviv than in Gush Katif, think again. They will come for you, too. All of Israel is territory and all of it is occupied. Of the Likud results, Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert did the math and discovered that minus is plus, a loss is a win. More magic. Jack Engelhard is the author of the bestseller Indecent Proposal and the award-winning memoir Escape from Mount Moriah.
May 18, 2004
Don't blame the 'settlers'
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Were it not so reminiscent of the anti-Semitic canard about Jews ruling the world, the idea would be laughable: that 200,000 settlers – more than half of them children – dictate policy, and Israel's 6.5 million other citizens are helpless against them. Yet a surprising number of opinion leaders have made this claim since the Likud rejected Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan. "Once again, it has become clear that the settlers set Israel's agenda," declared a Haaretz editorial. The nation is in "shock," wrote columnist and historian Meron Benvenisti, over "the power of a few thousand settlers to force their will on millions of people." Added columnist Amir Oren, "With all due respect to both National Security Councils [Israeli and American], and one could also add the United Nations Security Council, the only place where decisions are made is the Yesha Council of settlements." Nor is this idea confined to the far Left. Likud cabinet minister Tzipi Livni said after the referendum that her party had been taken over by "alien elements." And columnist Ari Shavit, a usually thoughtful centrist, penned a lengthy rant declaring that settlers would come to regret their "stranglehold on the government's neck" and "the violent act [they] perpetrated against middle-of-the-road Israelis" in the referendum because now "the majority understands that the relationship between it and the minority tyrannizing it is one of ruler and subject Because after the disengagement referendum, one thing is clear: It is either the Israelis or the settlers." No one would deny that the settlers waged an energetic and effective campaign. On top of the standard posters and brochures, thousands of them volunteered their time to meet personally with tens of thousands of Likud members and explain their objections to disengagement. In short, they did exactly what concerned citizens in a democracy are supposed to do – they tried to persuade the public. And had disengagement supporters invested one-tenth that effort, the referendum's outcome might have been different. That they did not is hardly the settlers' fault. But for all their efforts, the settlers did not hold a gun to anyone's head. If their campaign succeeded, the reason lies not in their magical powers of persuasion but in the disengagement plan itself. First, it must be remembered that 925,000 people – almost every third Israeli voter – cast their ballot for Likud just a year ago, when Likud – and Sharon – ran against Labor's proposal for a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, arguing that it would endanger Israel's security by rewarding, and therefore encouraging, terrorism. It is hardly surprising that 60,000 of those people – the approximate number that voted against disengagement in the referendum – still believe what they believed last year, despite the prime minister's change of heart. And this is especially true given that Sharon never explained his U-turn. Instead, he arrogantly demanded that voters trust him without explanation. SECOND, GEOGRAPHY played a role. While narrow majorities approved the plan in some northern and central cities, in the south – a Likud bastion – overwhelming majorities voted against: 86 percent in Netivot, for instance, and 69 percent in Sderot, Ofakim, and Ashkelon. The reason is simple. Currently, settlers in Gaza endure daily barrages of gunfire, mortar shells, rockets, and bombs, since they are the most accessible targets. But withdrawal would make the Negev the new front line, with many southern towns in easy shelling distance of northern Gaza. And while many settlers chose to live at the front and are willing to accept the consequences, Negev residents did not and are not. As Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal said, "I am not prepared to sacrifice my citizens for Sharon." Finally, there were the details of the plan. Mina Tzemach, one of Israel's premier pollsters, repeatedly surveyed Likud members before the referendum. Afterward, she reported an interesting discovery: The more people knew about the plan, the less they liked it. And indeed, reasons for skepticism abounded. Bret Stephens argued in this paper, for instance, that the plan was about improving security, not about improving Israel's image. But the plan itself said otherwise – twice. "The disengagement move will obviate the claims about Israel with regard to its responsibility for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip," it declared. And later: "Upon completion of the move there will be no basis for the claim that the Gaza Strip is occupied territory." Yet the plan also stated that Israel would continue to control Gaza's airspace, seacoast, and land borders, this being necessary to prevent the export of suicide terrorists and the import of long-range weapons that could devastate southern Israel. But as long as nothing and no one can enter or leave Gaza without Israel's consent, the world is rather unlikely to declare Israel's responsibility ended. Moreover, while many Israelis like the idea of complete separation from the Palestinians, the plan provided no such thing. It expressly promised that Palestinians from Gaza would continue to work in Israel, while Israel would continue to supply Gaza with water, electricity, gas, and fuel. Then there was the pledge of foreign "advice, aid, and instruction" for the Palestinian security forces, even though the last few years have proven that such assistance is far more likely to be employed against Israel than against the suicide bombers. Or the decision to give the settlements' physical assets to the Palestinians without financial compensation – merely reserving "the right to ask for consideration" of their economic value under any future peace deal, even though, with the assets already handed over, Israel would have no recourse should the Palestinians refuse. And this is without even mentioning the plan's security drawbacks, ranging from proving that terrorism pays to forfeiting on-the-spot intelligence capabilities. Despite their impressive campaign, defeating the plan was never in the settlers' power. Only the plan itself could do that. The writer is a veteran journalist and commentator. Posted by Ruth at 10:19 PM | SUGGESTED READING
May 16, 2004
FROM THE WEEKLY STANDARD
It's America's War
By "tomorrow" he meant "soon"; his predictions all came true. But for now, it is indeed a bad day. Too many Democrats and some Republicans are acting as if Abu Ghraib means that the Bush administration is in trouble. They are wrong. It means that America is in trouble. And when America is in trouble, every public official is required to help. The bestial murder of Nicholas Berg has nothing to do with Abu Ghraib. Absolute evil is self-seeding; nothing causes it any more than we cause rats to spawn or the black plague to blossom. But certain conditions help it thrive--such as the worldwide seething toxic stink of America Hatred, or the ongoing struggle by so many thinkers (especially Europeans) to legitimize terrorism (all those torn-to-pieces Israeli innocents dismissed with a shrug or a smirk). Perhaps the murder of Berg--9/11 compressed into one single act, a black hole of infinite wickedness--will at last bring American moral showboating to an end. We all love to tell the world how much we care. It's so easy, so cheap. Perhaps we will now get serious. Because of Abu Ghraib, America is (temporarily!) down and out and getting kicked in the head by every two-bit moralizing moron in the universe, while her thoughtful Euro-friends twist the knife by informing us that hundreds of dead American soldiers might just as well have stayed home; America's rule is no better than Saddam's. We need to hear from America's political leaders, loud and clear: "Yes, we abominate the Abu Ghraib crimes but will not accept your forgetting what America has paid to liberate Iraq, will not allow foreign nations to slander the United States, will not permit you to forget what we and the British have accomplished: a world without Saddam Hussein; a vastly safer, profoundly better world. And no one will be allowed to dishonor American soldiers and this nation by telling us 'you're just as bad as Saddam'; that lie will never go unchallenged." We need to hear those things especially from Democrats. For the world to know that this nation is united, Democrats have to speak. They haven't. The message has not been delivered. Let's go back a few weeks. What were we thinking? Maybe the war in Iraq was a mistake, or maybe it was fought the wrong way (I didn't think so, but many serious and discouraged Americans did)--but we all knew this for sure: Thanks to American and British sacrifice in money and blood, Saddam was gone and Iraq was on the road to being free, and we could all be proud of that. A blood-black stain on mankind's honor had been washed away. Then some photographs appeared, and the world saw ugly crimes--crimes of the sort Americans particularly hate, bullying crimes of the strong against the weak. Of course it was right to denounce the criminals and demand investigations and accountability. Such sentiments were easy to express (how many people are in favor of prisoner abuse?), but public officials did need to express them. So far so good. But there was something else these officials needed to express. "We will not tolerate the world's using the crimes at Abu Ghraib to smear America, or belittle the price we have paid in Iraq." In the prevailing climate of moral showboating, those sentiments were hard to express; and almost no one bothered. The moment we saw those pictures we knew (every last American knew) that the punch in the gut is on the way. People who never cared a damn what Saddam did to his prisoners would be choking back tears of outrage. Americans hold themselves to a higher moral standard, of course. But most Americans suspected that the world's reaction had as much to do with America Hatred as it did with moral standards. We knew that people would forget what we have achieved in Iraq, and what it has cost us in arms and legs and eyes and blood. We knew our enemies would light into America and do their best to turn the world against us and against our troops--whom we had seen risking their lives to liberate Iraq and make it safe--not to mention the civilians who hazarded life and limb to get clean water flowing, oil pumping, power on, schools open, streets policed, the economy inching forward, and democracy coming steadily closer. We could all anticipate headlines like the one that appeared in the May 8 Irish Times: "The shaming of America. George Bush's boast of shutting down Saddam Hussein's torture chambers in Iraq rings hollow now." We knew our enemies would use those photos to smear our whole Army, our whole Iraq campaign, our whole nation. Much of the world (after all) operates on America Hate the way a car runs on gas or a tick on blood. "The shaming of America. George Bush's boast of shutting down Saddam Hussein's torture chambers in Iraq rings hollow now." The hell it does. Anyone who equates Saddam's bloody decades of torture and mass murder to the crimes at Abu Ghraib is the same kind of fool who once preached the moral equivalence of America and Soviet Russia, or of America in Vietnam and Hitlerism. Imbecility is eternal, perpetually reincarnated. And it's hardly irrelevant that the Army did discover and announce the crimes itself. No one had to order any generals to investigate and prosecute the criminals. That was already happening. No cover-up; no chance of the criminals escaping. The military's record in recent years suggests that the opposite danger is more acute: Innocent soldiers might be punished because of a runaway public relations steamroller. Remember Tailhook and the naval careers it destroyed to make ideologues happy? Think back to 9/11--America was in trouble; possibly official malfeasance was a factor, no one knew; but we did know that it was the duty of every U.S. public leader to speak for America, right away. (As someone shouted during the parliamentary hour-of-crisis debate that led to Churchill's promotion to the premiership: Speak for England!) And U.S. public leaders, Republican and Democrat, did speak for America. The country was proud to see Gephardt and Daschle roaming around with Lott and Hastert. The Democrats had lost the White House, but rose to the occasion. The world noticed; the nation was grateful. When Abu Ghraib broke, America was in trouble again. Once again she needed all her government officials to do their duty, all public persons to stand up and defend her. But last week was no 9/11. The Democrats did not rise. They sunk. No one blamed them for condemning the criminals and demanding investigations. But we needed to hear more, and we didn't. Senator Tom Daschle said, "I think that is inexcusable. It's an outrage. It's wrong." And Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi said, "We must have a full investigation to get to the bottom of this outrage." And Senator Carl Levin said, "The actions of these individuals have jeopardized members of the Armed Services in the conduct of their mission, and have jeopardized the security of this country." Which was all true. But it was not enough. And there was worse. Ted Kennedy, echoing America Hatred at its ugliest, said that "Saddam's torture chambers have reopened under new management, U.S. management." The world noticed; the nation was quietly heartbroken. Republican smugness is not in order. It is a moment for Republicans to ask themselves: Have we ever, at any moment in recent decades, let the nation down like this? I don't think so. But if somebody knows differently, tell me. (No crackpots, please.) This is not a time for party preening. It is one of the sadder moments in American history. But as Anthony Eden reminds us: "Some day the war will be won."
Churchill got into parliamentary trouble repeatedly during the Second World War, but thank God the House of Commons did not sack him. In the Second World War, Britain did not merely bog down, she lost--early and often. If 1940 and '41 had their awful moments, 1942 started out worse. In January the House took up a no-confidence motion that could have deposed Churchill--British troops were reeling before the Japanese advance, and worse was to come. Before long Singapore fell, "the greatest disaster in British military history," Churchill called it; 130,000 British and Allied troops were taken prisoner. And later the same year Rommel captured the Libyan port of Tobruk: A British garrison of 35,000 men surrendered to a smaller Axis force. "One of the heaviest blows I can recall during the war," Churchill said. On such occasions Britain was discouraged, disheartened, humiliated. Yet somehow Parliament managed to restrain itself and not axe Churchill. Churchill is one of history's greatest leaders, almost certainly its greatest minister of defense and a genius writer and orator. So far as we know, Bush is no Churchill and neither is Rumsfeld; they haven't been tried as Churchill was. But until a bona fide American Churchill comes along, they are doing fine.
© Copyright 2004, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved. Posted by Ruth at 07:13 PM | SUGGESTED READING
May 11, 2004
London’s Jihadists The U.K. must crack down on resident Islamists.
May 10, 2004, 9:10 a.m. By Rachel Ehrenfeld While the world is busy denouncing the United States for the deplorable behavior of a few soldiers, it is oblivious to growing incitement by Islamist clerics against America and the West. Calling for jihad earlier this month in London, Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammad told his disciples: "All Muslims of the West will be obliged to become his sword" in a new battle. At the same time, another Islamist, Imam Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Masri, is preaching in London that "it's okay to kill [those who] work against Islam, by slitting their throats, or by shooting them." Such incitement is prohibited by law in the U.K. Under the heading of "Inciting Terrorism Overseas," section 59 1(a), the Terrorism Act of 2000 clearly states that "a person commits an offence if he incites another person to commit an act of terrorism wholly or partly outside the United Kingdom." Needless to say, such an act would also constitute an offense if committed in England. Yet these imams and their ilk are free to call for murder with impunity. The British allowance of this "free speech" has already resulted in a suicide-bombing attack — in April 2003 in Tel Aviv — that cost the lives of three Israelis and wounded more than 50. According to the prosecution attorney at the Old Bailey last week, this attack was planned by Hamas, which recruited British citizens Asif Muhammad Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif, whose family members are on trial in London for failing to inform the U.K. authorities. Considering this, and the fact that British law enforcement is busy exposing terrorist plots and arresting members of al Qaeda and other Islamist cells, while British soldiers are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.K.'s reluctance to go after advocates of terrorism is puzzling. This disregard for the law extends to written incitement in the form of magazines and websites, originating from England, calling for jihad. Although Hamas was finally outlawed in the U.K. in September 2003, its publication, Filisteen Almuslima (Muslim Palestine), continued to be published in and distributed from London to the Middle East, Europe, and the U.S. In fact, the cover of that September issue carried the horrifying picture of the bloody casualties from a dissevered bus in Jerusalem, as well as the glorified image of the suicide bomber who murdered 23 innocent civilians, many of them babies, and wounded 136. Inside, the magazine praises and justifies the terrorist attack against Israelis and glorifies the terrorist, Raid Misk, as a heroic role model for potential suicide bombers against oppressors of Islam everywhere. It quotes the Koranic verse that, according to Hamas, gives Islamic religious justification for suicide bombings: "Among the believers, there are men who have been true to their covenant with Allah: Some of them [have already fulfilled their vows and] found their death [in battle]; and some still wait [their turn]. However, they have not in any way broken [their vows]" (Sura 33, verse 23). And Filisteen Almuslima is not the only Islamist magazine published in and distributed from England, inciting hate, spreading anti-Western, anti-American, anti-Semitic messages, with pro-jihad, pro-terrorist propaganda and calls for suicide bombings. Al-Sunnah, another Islamist fundamentalist magazine published in the U.K., called in February 2003 for suicide operations against the United States, saying, "There is no other way for the youth of this nation [Islam] other than suicide operations." Risalat al-Ikhwan (Message of the Brotherhood) is also a London publication with Muslim subscribers worldwide. This magazine serves as center stage for spreading radical Islamist ideology in the best tradition of the Muslim Brotherhood. This Egyptian terrorist organization was outlawed by Gamal Abd al-Nasser in the 1950s, and despite its influence on Hamas and other internationally outlawed terrorist organizations, it is still out in the open in Western countries. In October 2003, Risalat al-Ikhwan called for: "Active resistance (muqaawamah) to the occupation and the use of any available means to resist it are a religious Moslem duty, a national duty and a natural right anchored in both international law and the United Nations Charter." More of this can be found on Hamas's website. Judging by the opposition Prime Minister Blair is facing, it seems that these publications influence, among others, former British diplomats, 50 of whom sent him a letter on April 26, 2004, protesting his support of U.S. Middle East policy, stating: "To describe the resistance [in Iraq] as led by terrorists, fanatics and foreigners is neither convincing nor helpful." These diplomats, in the tradition of Islamist-Arab propaganda, continue to argue, like Lakhdar Brahimi, that Israel is the cause — that it has for "decades poisoned relations between the West and the Islamic and Arab worlds." It is not surprising, therefore, that the resignation of Liberal Democrat MP Jenny Tonge was not required after she condoned Palestinian suicide bombings, stating in parliament, "I would be a suicide bomber in Israel." A police source in London, when asked why this incitement is allowed, responded that law-enforcement officials are "unhappy with the situation," but that they are unable to prosecute the instigators because "our hands are tied. It's a political decision." Political leaders ought to heed the warning sirens before the terrorists strike — as promised. — Rachel Ehrenfeld, author of Funding Evil; How Terrorism is Financed — and How to Stop It, is director of the New York-based American Center for Democracy. Posted by Ruth at 09:41 PM | SUGGESTED READING
May 05, 2004
False Visions
As the United States has sought to regain control over Iraq, it has experienced what have become to Israel the familiar Arab "tricks of the trade." There are the multitude of lies -- asked about the stream of portrayals of "atrocities" by American troops on Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, the American military spokesman said bluntly "Change the channel." There is the deliberate use of women and children as human shields, the use of mosques as weapons depots and platforms for attacks, exploitation of ambulances to move weapons, the constant cries of "collective punishment," forcing American spokesmen in Iraq to spend most of their time denying false charges. When Israel has endured such manipulation, the U.S. all too often has been ready to believe the lies. To take only one famous example, in 1980 then Secretary of State Shultz referred to a photograph of an Arab child without limbs as the "symbol" of Israel's war in Lebanon. By the time it was proven that the child was a victim of disease, not war, the damage had been done. There are other parallels-in-the-making between the U.S. and Israel. There is the danger that the U.S. will fall into the trap into which Israel fell -- treating the Iraqi insurgency as a "limited conflict" requiring political solutions. Any "compromise" that leaves armed militias in place means defeat-to-come. Israel and the U.S. are engaged in a war against the same enemy and yet both are equally reluctant to speak its name, which is not simply terror, but Islam. Repeating, as President Bush does, that Islam is a religion of peace or that "none of these acts is the work of a religion" does not make it so. Proclaiming that it is "racist" or arrogant of us to think that Arabs want democracy any less than we do may put the administration on the moral high ground, but nothing we see in the Arab world bears out that belief. As student of Islam Mordechai Nisan points out in the Jerusalem Post (On-line, April 12) "Islam's conceptual lexicon and emotional code are radically different from that conventionally understood and practiced in the West." Most serious of all, both Israel and the United States cling to failed policies. While it is hard to blame President Bush for Sharon's uprooting Gaza's Jewish communities in the face of terror, Sharon made it easier for President Bush, who clearly means well by Israel, to avoid confronting the reality that his "vision" of a peaceful democratic Arab state of Palestine has as much chance of realization as a "vision" of a Taliban state devoted to separation of religion and state and equality of men and women. Nonetheless, the President and his advisors have been foolish to ignore the obvious perils of Sharon's course. Israeli retreat from Gaza will leave that territory in the hands of whichever terror group or terror alliance -- Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad -- emerges triumphant. Policy analyst Rand Fishbein points out President Bush's cooperation in this plan puts him at odds with the very anti-terrorism statutes he is sworn to uphold. All three terror outfits, notes Fishbein, "are included on the U.S. State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations. This means that no U.S. citizen, business or agency of government may engage in any activity which directly or indirectly supports or sustains a relationship with these organizations." In supporting Sharon, the President "becomes the necessary and essential catalyst that allows terrorist forces to seize control of Gaza." As Fishbein notes, how does the President explain "why it was important to destroy the terrorist infrastructure in Afghanistan and Iraq while at the same time he is permitting it to flourish in Gaza." Both Israel and the United States should be fighting to win, not pursuing Sharon's strategy of preemptive defeat. Herbert Zweibon is chairman of Americans For a Safe Israel. From the Editor: Rael Isaac
The hearings on 9/11 have degenerated into partisan politics as the Democrats seek to blame the President for the intelligence lapses that failed to prevent it. Less partisan critics have pointed quite rightly to the legal wall -- stemming from "reforms" enacted by Congress in the wake of the Church hearings of 1978 -- that prevented communication between the FBI and CIA. But what you never hear is that the real culprit is the network of America-the-enemy think tanks that were at their apex of influence in the 1970s. If we are going to assign blame, the greatest single culprit is the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) (Their "experts" are regulars on the BBC.) IPS had the idea for an outfit that would focus on weakening the intelligence agencies and the Center for National Security Studies became what IPS called its "social invention." (Its first director came from IPS and returned later to head it.) It was the Center for National Security Studies that, behind the scenes, shaped the "reform" of the intelligence agencies, working closely with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to write the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. But while the Center for National Security Studies was viewed by the media and those on Capitol Hill as a "responsible" critic (as distinct from those who wanted to abolish the CIA and whose methods included printing the names of U.S. agents abroad) in fact there was identity of goals, interlocking personnel and agreement on methods between the Center for National Security Studies and Counterspy, the abolitionist newsletter that published long lists of alleged U.S. agents. (For an in-depth analysis of the connections, see the chapter "America the Enemy: The Utopian Think Tanks" in The Coercive Utopians by Rael Jean and Erich Isaac, Regnery Gateway, 1980.)
Several columnists (including Gregg Esterbrook and Michelle Malkin) have written of the outraged response that would have followed any preemptive action by President Bush prior to 9/11, whether to make war against Afghanistan or to round up potential Arab terrorists in this country. Our favorite "what if" scenario comes from AFSI member Raphael Isaac: "Barbara Streisand, Alec Baldwin, Ed Asner, Rob Reiner, Susan Sarandon, Timothy Robbins, Sean Penn and the ACLU have planned a protest rally at the World Trade Center to be held Wednesday morning September 12, 2001 against Bush and 'Capitalist Global Corporate Domination.' They have selected the WTC as 'the most visible symbol of the Global Market that is destroying the earth and subjecting millions to a life of poverty' Robbins told the New York Times. Asner added that 'the two towers stand like two middle fingers pointed against Asia and Africa, the regions most exploited by corporate greed.' "Jesse Jackson has announced 'Black or brown, we will bring Bush down!' Al Sharpton is organizing a March on the Pentagon to show black support for their 'profiled Arab brothers.' CAIR plans to join the march complaining that Arab charities are being targeted when they only help Arab students from poor countries trying to better themselves by taking engineering and flight training classes here. In token of its appreciation, CAIR has presented Sharpton with a Hamas head band. "Not to be left out, Kofi Annan released a statement: 'It would have been better for Bush to focus on Iraq than to detain millions at airports looking for nonexistent terrorists.' He added,'the UN would like the help of the U.S. in dealing with the regime of Saddam Hussein.'" Actually, we don't need any "what ifs" for we know what would have happened if the most basic precautions had been taken. The past president of United Airlines and the current president of American Airlines have testified that the Department of Transportation fined any airline caught having more than two people of the same ethnic persuasion in line for questioning "including and especially, two Arabs." So we know what would have happened if airline screeners had pulled out of the line four Arabs with (then legal) knives: they would have been punished for racial profiling.
Gamaliel Isaac tells us of the "termination" of Francisco Gil White by the Solomon Asch Center for the study of ethno-political conflict at the University of Pennsylvania. Apparently Professor Gil White's fatal error was to change from a critic to a public supporter of Israel in the group-think environment of that Center (led by long-time foe of Israel Ian Lustick). An alumnus, Isaac sought to mobilize a student protest, sending e-mails to the leaders of the multitude of Jewish student organizations, the ACLU and the college Republicans. Only Republican student leader Stephanie Steward replied, saying she would try to raise awareness of the issue on campus. BRAVO CLAUDIA ROSSETT Our profoundest admiration goes to Claudia Rosett, a true investigative reporter and champion of human rights (in a milieu where self-styled human rights organizations are mostly shills for Arab terrorists). It was Claudia Rosett who pioneered exposure of the $10 billion smuggling and graft in the UN Oil-for-Food program that enriched assorted UN staff, UN approved contractors and of course Saddam Hussein. And it is Claudia Rosett who tirelessly exposes the human rights calamity almost no one cares about -- the deaths of millions of North Koreans under the vicious heel of Kim Jong Il. PUNISH BARBARISM The always trenchant Victor Davis Hanson (whose "The Mirror of Fallujah" we are proud to publish in this issue) has offered a refreshing antidote to the policy of endlessly attempting to satisfy the demands of Palestinian Arabs. (Most recently these freedom-seekers have been celebrating in the streets the desecration of American corpses in Fallujah, calling for Iraqis to rise up against the U.S. in a holy war, burning Israeli and American flags -- yet again -- and turning out by the thousands in Nablus, carrying pictures of Saddam Hussein.) This type of activity, writes Hanson, "is the DNA of a true belligerent of the United States at a time of war." Says Hanson: "We should insist on a complete travel ban to the West Bank. We must declare all representatives of the Palestinian Authority personae non gratae in the United States -- folk at the present time not welcome in the United States, including and especially diplomats, journalists, students and academics....We should inform the Palestinians that they are now analogous to Albanians circa 1970 or, better yet, North Koreans, who now stay out of the United States and vice versa. No aid whatsoever, no travel, no direct ties until barbarism ceases on the West Bank. Americans can accept war, but what tires them are enemies who lob a bomb, scream on television, assassinate an occasional American, and then seethe, claiming that they collectively hate the United States -- and yet want its attention, money and aid. It is time to accept their animus and assume that in this war against fascism in the Middle East, Arafat and Hamas too are quite logically our enemies and should be put on notice concerning the dangerous wages of that new reality."
The Mirror of Fallujah
Editor's Note: this article is reprinted with the permission of the author.
What are we to make of scenes from the eighth century in Fallujah? Random murder, mutilation of the dead, dismemberment, televised gore, and pride in stringing up the charred corpses of those who sought to bring food to the hungry? Perhaps we can shrug and say all this is the wage of Saddam Hussein and the thirty years of brutality of his Baathists that institutionalized such barbarity? Or was the carnage the dying scream of Baathist hold-outs intent on shocking the Western world watching it live? We could speculate for hours. Yet I fear that we have not seen anything new. Flip through the newspaper and the stories are as depressing as they are monotonous: bombs in Spain; fiery clerics promising death in England, even as explosive devices are uncovered in France. In-between accounts of bombings in Iraq, we get the normal murdering in Israel, and daily assassination in Pakistan, Turkey, Morocco, and Chechnya. Murder, dismemberment, torture -- these all seem to be the acceptable tools of Islamic fundamentalism and condoned as part of justifiable Middle East rage. Sheik Yassin is called a poor crippled "holy man" who ordered the deaths of hundreds, as revered in the Arab world for his mass murder as Jerry Falwell is condemned in the West for his occasional slipshod slur about Muslims. Yet the hourly killing is perhaps not merely the wages of autocracy, but part of a larger grotesquery of Islamic fundamentalism on display. The Taliban strung up infidels from construction cranes and watched, like Romans of old, gory stoning and decapitations in soccer stadiums built with UN largesse. In the last two years, Palestinian mobs have torn apart Israeli soldiers, lynched their own, wired children with suicide bombing vests, and machine-gunned down women and children -- between sickening scenes of smearing themselves with the blood of "martyrs." Very few Arab intellectuals or holy men have condemned such viciousness. Daniel Pearl had his head cut off on tape; an American diplomat was riddled with bullets in Jordan. Or should we turn to Lebanon and gaze at the work of Hezbollah, its posters of decapitated Israeli soldiers proudly on display? Some will interject that the Saudis are not to be forgotten -- whose religious police recently allowed trapped school girls to be incinerated rather than have them leave the flaming building unescorted, engage in public amputations, and behead adulteresses. But Mr. Assad erased from memory the entire town of Hama. And why pick on Saddam Hussein, when earlier Nasser, heartthrob to the Arab masses, gassed Yemenis? The Middle East coffee houses cry about the creation of Israel and the refugees on the West Bank only to snicker that almost 1,000,000 Jews were ethnically cleansed from the Arab world. And then there is the rhetoric. Where else in the world do mainstream newspapers talk of Jews as the children of pigs and apes? And how many wacky Christian or Hindu fundamentalists advocate the mass murder of Jews or promise death to the infidel? Does a Western leader begin his peroration with "O evil infidel" or does Mr. Sharon talk of "virgins" and "blood-stained martyrs"? Conspiracy theory in the West is the domain of Montana survivalists and Chomsky-like wackos; in the Arab world it is the staple of the state-run media. This tired strophe and antistrophe of threats and retractions, and braggadocio and obsequiousness grates on the world at large. So Hamas threatens to bring the war to the United States, and then back peddles and says not really. So the Palestinians warn American diplomats that they are not welcome on the soil of the West Bank -- as if any wish to return when last there they were murdered trying to extend scholarships to Palestinian students. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Are the citizens of Fallujah the victims of Saddam, or did folk like this find their natural identity expressed in Saddam?
I am sorry, but these toxic fumes of the Dark Ages permeate everywhere. It won't do any more simply to repeat quite logical exegeses like "Without consensual government, the poor Arab Middle East is caught in the throes of rampant unemployment, illiteracy, statism, and corruption. Thus in frustration it vents through its state-run media invective against Jews and Americans to assuage the shame and pain." Whatever. But at some point the world is asking: "Is Mr. Assad or Hussein, the Saudi Royal Family, or a Khadafy really an aberration -- all rogues who hijacked Arab countries -- or are they the logical expression of a tribal patriarchal society whose frequent tolerance of barbarism is in fact reflected in its leadership? Are the citizens of Fallujah the victims of Saddam, or did folk like this find their natural identity expressed in Saddam? Postcolonial theory and victimology argue that European colonialism, Zionism, and petrodollars wrecked the Middle East. But to believe that one must see India in shambles, Latin America under blanket autocracy, and an array of suicide bombers pouring out of Mexico or Nigeria. South Korea was a moonscape of war when oil began gushing out of Iraq and Saudi Arabia; why is it now exporting cars while the latter are exporting death? Apartheid was far worse than the Shah's modernization program; yet why did South Africa renounce nuclear weapons while the Mullahs cheated on every UN protocol they could? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Perhaps an interfaith world religious congress would like to meet in Teheran?
Imagine an Olympics in Cairo? Or an international beauty pageant in Riyadh? Perhaps an interfaith world religious congress would like to meet in Teheran? Surely we could have the World Cup in Beirut? Is there a chance to have a World Bank conference in Ramallah or Tripoli? Maybe Damascus could host a conference of the world's neurosurgeons? And then there is the asymmetry of it all. Walk in hushed tones by a mosque in Iraq, yet storm and desecrate the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank with impunity. Blow up and assassinate Westerners with unconcern; yet scream that Muslims are being questioned about immigration status in New York. Damn the West as you try to immigrate there; try to give the Middle East a fair shake while you prefer never to visit such a place. Threaten with death and fatwa any speaker or writer who "impugns" Islam, demand from Western intellectuals condemnation of any Christians who speak blasphemously of the Koran. I have purchased Israeli agricultural implements, computer parts, and read books translated from the Hebrew; so far, nothing in the contemporary Arab world has been of much value in offering help to the people of the world in science, agriculture, or medicine. When there is news of 200 murdered in Madrid or Islamic mass-murdering of Christians in the Sudan, or suicide bombing in Israel, we no longer look for moderate mullahs and clerics to come forward in London or New York to condemn it. They rarely do. And if we might hear a word of reproof, it is always qualified by the ubiquitous "but" -- followed by a litany of qualifiers about Western colonialism, Zionism, racism, and hegemony that have the effects of making the condemnation either meaningless or in fact a sort of approval. Yet it is not just the violence, the boring threats, the constant televised hatred, the temper-tantrums of fake intellectuals on televisions, the hypocrisy of anti-Western Arabs haranguing America and Europe from London or Boston, or even the pathetic shouting and fist-shaking of the ubiquitous Arab street. Rather the global village is beginning to see that the violence of the Middle East is not aberrant, but logical. Its misery is not a result of exploitation or colonialism, but self-induced. Its fundamentalism is not akin to that of reactionary Hinduism, Buddhism, or Christianity, but of an altogether different and much fouler brand. The enemy of the Middle East is not the West so much as modernism itself and the humiliation that accrues when millions themselves are nursed by fantasies, hypocrisies, and conspiracies to explain their own failures. te simply, any society in which citizens owe their allegiance to the tribe rather than the nation, do not believe in democracy enough to institute it, shun female intellectual contributions, allow polygamy, insist on patriarchy, institutionalize religious persecution, ignore family planning, expect endemic corruption, tolerate honor killings, see no need to vote, and define knowledge as mastery of the Koran is deeply pathological. When one adds to this depressing calculus that for all the protestations of Arab nationalism, Islamic purity and superiority, and whining about a decadent West, the entire region is infected with a burning desire for things Western -- from cell phones and computers to videos and dialysis, you have all the ingredients for utter disaster and chaos. How, after all, in polite conversation can you explain to an Arab intellectual that the GDP of Jordan or Morocco has something to do with an array of men in the early afternoon stuffed into coffee shops spinning conspiracy tales, drinking coffee, and playing board games while Japanese, Germans, Chinese, and American women and men are into their sixth hour on the job? Or how do you explain that while Taiwanese are studying logarithms, Pakistanis are chanting from the Koran in Dark Age madrassas? And how do you politely point out that while the New York Times and Guardian chastise their own elected officials, the Arab news in Damascus or Cairo is free only to do the same to us? I support the bold efforts of the United States to make a start in cleaning up this mess, in hopes that a Fallujah might one day exorcize its demons. But in the meantime, we should have no illusions about the enormity of our task, where every positive effort will be met with violence, fury, hypocrisy, and ingratitude. If we are to try to bring some good to the Middle East, then we must first have the intellectual courage to confess that for the most part the pathologies embedded there are not merely the work of corrupt leaders but often the very people who put them in place and allowed them to continue their ruin. So the question remains: did Saddam create Fallujah or Fallujah Saddam?
And If America Loses This War?
Four American civilians were captured by a mob, tortured, lynched, cut up like pieces of meat, their amputated bodies dragged along the ground and then hung in public. As these infernal scenes unfolded, twelve year old children shouted "Hurrah for Islam." All this happened in Falllujah, an Arab Sunnite city in Iraq, a former stronghold of Saddam Hussein's regime. And it was an identical replay of another lynching three and a half years ago, this one of two Israelis gone astray in Ramallah at the beginning of the current Israeli-Arab war. These two people also were captured by a Palestinian Arab mob, tortured, lynched, disemboweled. Their executioners plunged their hands into their blood, in the name of Islam, and then, in a sign of victory, brandished their palms dripping with blood. Paul Bremer, the chief of the allied administration in Iraq, has promised that the murders of Falujah will be avenged. Certainly, but how? When the Israeli army retook control of Ramallah in 2002, it did not destroy the city or engage in other forms of collective reprisal. It was content with searching for those directly responsible, who could be identified with certainty, and turning them over to a tribunal. Will Americans do the same? It's probable. I understand the Israeli response. I can understand the American response if it is of the same kind. But I ask myself questions. And I put them before you. The first question: What does Islam do? What do Muslims do? What do the authorized and recognized representatives of this religion and this civilization do, in the Near East or elsewhere, and notably in Europe? Fallujah and Ramallah were commited in their name. Have they protested? Have they protested in a clear, loud, convincing and unambiguous manner? On Fallujah, a little, just enough not to make the U.S. too angry. As for Ramallah, virtually not at all, since Israel is merely Israel and the Jews are only Jews. Not one fatwa launched from the height of the mosques, not in 2001, not in 2004, against the lynchers, no curse, no excommunication, no call for contrition, no ceremony of repentance. Yes, certain Muslims, and even a few countries with large Muslim populations, including some religious leaders, have dissociated themselves from these acts, but not the most powerful and most listened-to scholars and princes of the Islamic world.
The enemy, whether Sunnite or Shi'ite, is barbarous in its goals and barbarous in its methods. It is prepared to do anything. If one does not annihilate it utterly at the outset, it gains in power. After Fallujah, President George W. Bush seemed to call for "the heads" of the guilty and Paul Bremer promised, publicly, "vengeance" that would be quick and without mercy. The Arab and Islamic world translated this as: Fallujah will be razed to the ground immediately. Of course the Americans were not ready to go that far. The result: the Americans and their allies are confronted today with a revolt, an intifada, no longer confined to one city but in a number of them. It's not only the Sunnis but the Shi'ites, and recently hostages, American and others, have been promised butchery and decapitation. It's high stakes poker, where the stakes keep getting higher. If the Americans do not take back control of the entirety of Iraq, very quickly and at any price, they might as well pack up. In geopolitical terms, such a defeat will be worse than Vietnam. The Arab and Moslem states will fall like dominos to the side of Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas, along with 70% of the world's oil. Pakistan will put its atomic bomb at the service of the Islamists. Iran will have its own bomb and rogue states will refurbish their non-conventional arsenals: the long range missiles and chemical and bacteriological weapons. Europe will go even further in its dodging, its capitulation, its collaboration. In Jerusalem, Israeli military chiefs Shaul Mofaz and Moshe Yaalon recently declared that the country must be prepared for a radical change in its politics of defense: the Jewish state, today besieged but able to count on American support, may become only a country besieged, to all intents and purposes deprived of outside support. But is it possible to raze Fallujah, or at least to make an example of it? Wouldn't that be to combat barbarity by being barbarous oneself? The debate makes no sense if one does not understand how barbarism functions in Iraq and elsewhere, how the psychopaths come to ensure themselves of the obedience of an entire people. Put yourself in the place of an average Iraqi family. Behind you are forty-five years of tyranny, of revolutions and coup d'etats, and finally the long ultra-violent, sadistic dictatorship of Saddam. Some of your relatives or your parents were murdered, tortured, raped, gassed by the henchmen of the tyrant. The village of your birth was destroyed. Or that of your cousin. Or that of your neighbor. You grew up in fear and lived in fear. True, for a year the Americans have governed. But they don't stop repeating that they will soon leave. And they do not take the trouble, in making themselves masters of the country, to hang Saddam and wipe out his supporters. Or to eliminate the extreme Shi'ites, who merit it. You make a rational calculation, a very simple one. If you oppose the Americans you risk nothing, because the Americans don't kill and in any case they are leaving soon. If you oppose Saddam's supporters, in the Sunni zone, or the mullahs, in the Shi'ite zone, you risk everything, you and your family, because the latter kill, torture and ravish and they remain in the country. You then support the barbarians against the Americans. The more they show proof of barbarity the more you support them. It is a matter of your life, your survival and that of your family. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you oppose the Americans you risk nothing, because the Americans don't kill and in any case they are leaving soon.
This is the logic of fear, so simple, so inexorable, that the Americans must smash. By making it clear that they will remain a long time, a very long time, in Iraq. And that they will inflict on the barbarians, without delay, without mercy, without hesitation, a punishment in proportion to their crimes. Will George W. Bush be able to act? We are at the moment of truth.
20 Reasons Why Sharon's Plan is a Disaster
Ariel Sharon has presented his "disengagement plan" to the White House, and it has been endorsed by President Bush. The Sharon political machine, backed by the Labor Party's machine and the Israeli Left, has flooded the Israeli media with ads and promotions for the plan. Many in Israel are presuming that because Arab terrorist groups and the Arab states profess to be outraged by it, it must in fact be a constructive plan. Arab critics of course are outraged because the plan does not provide for the immediate liquidation of Israel and its Jewish population and they oppose all plans that are missing these essential genocidal clauses. While the Sharon-Bush "plan" has a few positive features, it augurs badly and embodies existential dangers for Israel. So what is so wrong with the plan? 1. It rewards terrorism. Ever since signing the first Oslo "Accords," the Palestinian Arabs showed their unwillingness to comply with any of their written commitments by engaging in endless daily terrorist atrocities. The "plan" rewards the terror by delivering to the terrorists a Gaza Strip ethnically cleansed of Jews. Guess how the Iraqi terrorists shooting Allied troops will understand and interpret this "deal"! 2. The "plan" is a recipe for escalated terrorism. If Israel has trouble suppressing terror today, when the Gaza Strip is full of Jews and Israeli soldiers, what will happen once they are evicted? What will stand in the way of the PLO escalating the violence, firing hundreds more rockets into Negev civilian communities, and sending out dozens of new suicide bombers? What does Ariel Sharon think the PLO will do in Gaza once the "settlers" are evicted? Take up knitting? 3. It is an evil precedent. It signals that Israel is willing to conduct "talks and dialogue" even while PLO terrorists daily murder its civilians. It signals that Israel is willing ultimately to abandon Judea, Samaria, and Gaza to the PLO without the PLO ever having to comply with a single thing. 4. There is no "conditionality" at all in the "deal." Israel's concessions are to be carried out without the smallest gesture from the PLO, and without the requirement that the PLO comply first with a single clause in any of the accords that it has already signed in the past! 5. While Sharon and his people have hailed the "deal" with President Bush as effectively recognizing Israel's rights to maintain "groups of settlements" where they are concentrated, such as around Ariel, Colin Powell is already backing off from this publicly and declaring there is no such US acknowledgement of Israel's rights. 6. While the "deal" and joint announcement are being touted by Sharon's people as declaring there is and will be no such thing as a "Palestinian Right of Return" to Israel, Arafat and his minions have already re-pledged that there will be no ceasefire until this "right," which is nothing more than the "right" to dismantle and destroy Israel, is accepted in full. Nothing in the plan is conditioned on Arafat and the PLO publicly renouncing this "Right." And the US cannot be relied upon in this regard. There was a time when the U.S. was "firmly and permanently committed" to refusing to consider anything more than limited autonomy for the "Palestinians" and certainly no "state." Look where we are now. 7. The "plan" relinquishes Israel's moral claim to the rights of Jews to live anywhere they wish within the Land of Israel. The plan ethnically cleanses Jews from the Gaza Strip and parts of Samaria. There is nothing in the plan that limits the rights of Arabs to live anywhere they wish in the Land of Israel, including in Israel's own capital city, Jerusalem. (Incredibly, Israel has allowed a huge wave of Arab migration to Jerusalem in recent decades.) The plan has Israel renouncing all "permanent" military installations in the Gaza Strip, including its radar facilities, needed to locate Palestinian Arab smuggling boats, and this is not conditional on such niceties as the PLO halting rocket firings from Gaza into Jewish civilian areas or its sending out of suicide bombers. 8. Israel largely renounces its right to operate checkpoints and inspections. This damages Israel's ability to do anything to block the movement of terrorists. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What does Ariel Sharon think the PLO will do in Gaza once the "settlers" are evicted? Take up knitting?
9. The joint statement says that the Gaza Strip will be "demilitarized." Previous "accords" with the PLO said the same thing and there were never any Israeli nor American attempts to force compliance. Since the PLO is not even a party to this Sharon-Bush "deal," this clause is little more than an insult to the intelligence. And note that demilitarization is not a condition for anything. Israeli concessions are not conditioned on demilitarization and Israel may not abandon its "permanent" concessions when it turns out Gaza is not demilitarized. 10. Israel once again agrees to the PLO operating an army. Guess against whom this army will be used. If you think it will be used against Hamas and Islamic Jihad, then I have a nice bridge in Brooklyn I would like to sell you. 11. Israel pledges to continue to allow large numbers of Palestinian Arabs to enter Israel daily as "day workers," a guaranteed program for many new suicide bombers blowing up Israeli buses. 12. Israel pledges to continue to bankroll the terrorists, and this financing is conditioned on nothing. No conditionality on compliance by the PLO with anything. No conditionality on ending the atrocities. Nothing. 13. The destruction and abandonment of Israeli settlements, with no PLO quid pro quo, is an open declaration that no act of violence by Arabs will ever go unrewarded. It sets the most dangerous precedent imaginable. Eviction of Jews from large swaths of their homeland while never evicting a single Arab from anywhere has become the guiding principle for all future diplomacy. 15. The plan envisages Palestinian "refugees" being resettled in Arab states, including the future "state" of "Palestine." The word "only" is conspicuously absent. 16. Nothing in the agreement is conditioned upon the PLO ending its campaign to destroy Israel, nor upon its acknowledgement of Israel's right to exist. 17. The "plan" abandons the "Land for Peace" formula imposed on Israel by its leftist governments of the past, and replaces it with "Land for Nothing." 18. The plan is anti-democratic. Sharon ran for office opposing just such a plan being touted by the Labor Party under Amram Mitzna. Voters elected Sharon on that platform and because they opposed Mitzna's plan, yet here is Sharon implementing it by fiat. 19. Ma'ariv, on April 16, reports that the plan has secret unpublished clauses involving Israeli agreement to additional concessions not stated in the public "deal." The White House knows the contents of this document. Israeli voters do not. What does that suggest to you? 20. Sharon, President Bush, and Prime Minister Blair all still describe this "new" plan as a stage in the "Road Map" that will install an armed terrorist state in the suburbs of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
The Mother of All Oxymorons: Arab Democracy
(Editor's note: Dr. Kramer first posted this prescient article on Horsefeathers, the online site he hosts with fellow psychiatrist Dr. Steven Rittenberg, on April 2, 2003, about a week before President Bush declared major military action in Iraq was over.)
Somehow in the months-long struggle that the Bush government has been carrying on with Old Europe over how to deal with the Iraqis, some of the Administration's sound and realistic policies have come to be corrupted by the high ideals and chimeric visions of the past. A form of Utopianism is on the loose, a neo-Wilsonian urge to make the world safe for democracy again. Early in the formation of Bush's Iraq policy, the aim was simple and militarily achievable: a "regime change." Then came "liberation of the Iraqi people," and, finally, "the ultimate goal of regime change is liberal democracy." It does not require the mind of a policy wonk to see that the idea of "liberating" the Iraqi people and transforming them into liberal democrats is a way of sugar coating the naked aggression that is implied in getting rid of the dangerous threat of Saddam. It represents a fear of our own power and of the assertion of our appropriate role of leadership in the world of nation states. Our enemies and rivals call this "unilateralism" or "imperialism." Like a guilt-ridden, frightened grownup who is afraid to assume his rightful responsibility lest his parents -- old Europe -- get angry with him and withdraw their affection and esteem, we make up rationalizations and fantasies that fly in the face of facts and history. So we have to tell ourselves and the hand-wringing appeasers of Europe that the Iraqis are waiting for us to liberate them, that they will dance in the streets when we arrive, that they are lining up to buy copies of the "Federalist Papers." Even now, after barely two weeks of war, the chimerical idea that the Iraqis are longing to breathe the free air of democracy is beginning to dissolve. The reports piling in, the pictures on our TV screen, are beginning to reveal a different pattern. It is clear that the non-Arab population in the north -- the Kurds and their leaders -- are our allies. At least until the war is over. They want Saddam out as much as we do, perhaps more, and they are willing to fight with us to achieve this common aim. And perhaps some but not all of the Shi'ites in the south are waiting to be freed from Saddam. But everything else we see and hear suggests that a significant number of Iraqis do not feel oppressed by Saddam, and regard him as their rightful leader. There seems also to be a significant number of Iraqis who are politically unsophisticated and whose children are hungry and who would gladly kiss anyone's hand that will feed them -- George Bush, Saddam Hussein, or Sean Penn. The only Iraqi who appeared unambiguously anti-Saddam was the little chap on the first or second day of the ground invasion who hammered away at Saddam's poster image with his shoe as he grinned for the camera and danced an obsequious little dance in hope of a little baksheesh. We can't seem to understand why there is still so much resistance to the fulfillment of our dream -- the easy toppling of this evil regime. The images suggest an alternative view of the situation there. Perhaps there is no large unambivalent Iraqi populace waiting to be freed and turned into liberal democrats. Perhaps this number has been greatly exaggerated by the gurus and is merely wishful thinking in order to fit the rationalization that Iraqis are starving for democracy as well as food. Most opponents of the idea of building a democratic nation in Iraq have also opposed the war to depose and replace Saddam. This writer does not oppose the war to rid the world of Saddam but only the plan to radically rebuild a nation in our own image that may not want to be changed. There are sound psychological and historical reasons for our view that democratizing Iraq is a fool's errand. As some of our readers may know, Steven Rittenberg and I have been practicing and teaching psychiatry and psychoanalysis for a combined total of 75 years. We may not know a whole lot about many things, but about baseball and hearts and minds, between us, we know a thing or two. And I can tell you that it's very, very hard to change hearts and minds. You can change behavior easily enough -- all you have to do is put a pistol to somebody's head and tell them to do what you want, and the chances are they will do it. But even with people who are very intelligent and highly motivated to change, it is extremely difficult to change a person's basic attitudes. What does all this have to do with post-war Iraq? Well, nation-building, bringing liberal democracy to Iraq, requires changing the attitudes of millions of individuals, most of whom are barely literate, unworldly, uninformed -- or worse, misinformed -- and happy to have an unskilled job, a roof over their heads and some food on the table. They are not unsatisfied by a life that a CNN journalist, or a Columbia University assistant professor would find boring or degrading -- a regular job, a family that is not starving, and Baghdad TV for a couple of hours every night. The only change they want is more of the same -- a little more pay, a little more room, a little more food, a TV that works all the time. They already have a spiritual life -- non-secular -- that satisfies them. They are not interested in becoming multi-lateral or widening their spiritual horizons. The point is that most Iraqis live simple, unchanging lives and want them to continue that way. They are very much like people the world over. Most people do not want their lives to be transformed. They want to maintain the status quo. In fact people are probably hard-wired for it, the Constancy Principle, some call it. Please, no big changes. So much for the psychology of it. The reason is that the influence of fundamentalist Islam in the Arab world makes it deeply inhospitable to democratic and liberal principles. While the citizens of longstanding democracies accept a set of basic assumptions -- the rule of law, majority rule, equality before the law, the idea of a loyal opposition, the separation of church and state -- Arab societies lack such essential democratic concepts and instead vest authority in the word of Mohammed, his interpreters the imams, and the tribal leaders. The essence of Arab societies is tribal identity, kinship networks, and conceptions of collective honor. These are what organize and regulate the relations of everyday life. In such a context democratic principles are meaningless and incomprehensible. How could a modern democratic bureaucracy function, for example, if officials remain loyal primarily to tribe or family? There can be no such thing as disinterested public service. Public office becomes a means of benefiting your family and harming your enemies, not applying rules fairly. Modern working democracies developed in different ways. And although they all share the political values mentioned above, their respective governments can be quite varied -- the United States, Switzerland, Singapore, the United Kingdom -- all democracies and all somewhat different. One thing that they all share, though, is a basic requirement of all functioning democracies: a class of people who have a strong devotion to and understanding of its principles -- a professional bureaucracy. Iraq has no professional, public-spirited, bureaucratic class, nor has any other Arab nation. What substitutes for one in Iraq are the members of Saddam's extended family and his cronies from Tikrit. In Saudi Arabia, of course, it is the 7000 Saudi princes. And experience with nearly a hundred newly independent countries all of which 'intended" to become democratic suggests that only a tiny handful, those largely influenced by Western values -- Chile, Poland, Hungary, Taiwan -- show any real gains in this direction. The rest, from the Congo to Uzbekistan, suffer from endemic corruption, illegitimate elections and a wide array of political ills that derive from the absence of a modern professional bureaucratic class that values the basic democratic ideas that come only from being trained and educated in Western democracies. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The influence of fundamentalist Islam in the Arab world makes it deeply inhospitable to democratic and liberal principles.
But what, you may say, about Japan? One of the major arguments in the repertoire of those who propose democracy for Iraq is that we were able to transform a non-western and un-democratic Japan after the World War II in less than a generation. What is overlooked by the proponents of democracy for Iraq is that Japan was a culturally homogeneous nation, unlike the contentious cultural jungle of Iraq, and that the Japanese people were, at least at that time, obeisant to the wishes of their Emperor, and that when he concurred with the Military Governor, Gen Douglas MacArthur, in the new political changes his subjects went along uncritically. But most important, according to Stanley Kurtz, in the Winter 2003 issue of City Journal, "In embracing democracy under American occupation, the Japanese drew on a long, if imperfect, democratic tradition." Soon after Admiral Perry opened Japan to the outside world in 1853, Japan's leaders started on a series of democratic reforms which resulted in an authentic constitutional system by 1889. Kurtz points out that these democratic reforms were encouraged by "the liberty and popular rights movement, a remarkable efflorescence of the liberal spirit that deeply and enduringly changed Japanese society. As early as the 1870s, this intellectual movement had disseminated such Western thinkers as Mill and Rousseau to the farthest corners of Japan, where their influence inspired the Japanese to demand democracy." Through these influences authentic national po-litical parties developed, and "Western political concepts like that of a 'loyal opposition' became part of the nation's political culture." If not democracy, then what? What should we do with Iraq when the U.S. takes over? (For the answer, readers of Outpost are urged to look back at our May 2003 issue, which featured Yale Kramer's "Until Thomas Jefferson Comes to Baghdad," outlining his equally prescient suggestions for conduct of the occupation. The article is also available on our website www.mideastoutpost.com ) What the Hearings Missed
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There is an aggressive war on, which for a long time has gone on without its victims being able, apparently, to articulate its nature.
So don't be surprised if the report fails to mention CIA station chief Raymond Close, who quit to "go into business" with Saudi colleagues, or if it fails to mention the machinations of Fred Dutton, or of a host of ex-ambassadors, such as the recently-deceased (full of honor, presumably) John C. West, who obtained a job for his friend Crawford Cook doing public relations for the Saudis even as West remained ambassador. Or if it fails to mention the assorted Middle East Centers and Institutes (oh, there are so many, with such solemn, somber, true-blue American spokesmen, who naturally have only "America's" interests in view, founded, and sustained, with Arab money -- a rich "Palestinian" contractor here, a Kuwaiti family there, an American corporation doing business within the Arab world over there). Terrorism is a tactic in a war, not the war itself. The war is Jihad. It is the "struggle," which has a 1350 year history, to spread Islam through the conquest of other lands, and the subjugation of their non-Muslim popula-tions. It is foolish to spend time solemnly deciding whether or not Al Qaeda is responsible for this, or for that, or whether it can be wiped out -- why, perhaps it can, but so what? It is just as foolish as the solemn analyses of whether some murderous attack was done by Hamas, Hezbollah, or Al Aksa-Martyr's Brigade. It makes no difference. They are all prompted by the central tenets of Islam. Anyone who fails to study Islam, or who fails to learn what its position is vis-a-vis Infidels -- the inculcated hostility, the Manichaeism, should simply be barred from even uttering an opinion about the Jihad, much less helping to make policy. There is an aggressive war on, which for a long time has gone on without its victims being able, apparently, to articulate its nature. It is distracting, it is time-wasting, it is idiotic to wonder "who knew what when." The question is: what now is to be done, not with Al Qaeda, but with Al Qaeda, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Laskar Jihad, Abu Sayyaf, Gemaaa Islamiyaa, and another dozen, or a dozen hundred groups and groupuscules. What, aside from direct military attack, what efficacious application of cunning and guile, can split or demoralize the enemy, what pressures and measures will lead, not to a change in Muslim doctrine -- it cannot be changed -- but changes in Muslim behavior, which is a different thing. Ataturk changed Muslim behavior. He gave women the right to vote. He passed the Hat Act, outlawing the tarboosh, a rimless hat that could be worn while praying. He monitored every mosque, and every khutba (pulpit), and punished severely anyone who touched, in the khutba, on political subjects -- only the blandest kind of prayers, carefully avoiding the matter of Jihad and the infidel, were permitted. He did many other things, all de-signed to limit and weaken the power of Islam. That was his great achievement. It did not change Islamic texts or doctrines. Yet it made Turkey, or at least an important part of Turkey, beginning with the educated middle classes of Istanbul, people who existed on something like the same intellectual planet as non-Muslims. That cannot be said for Muslims anywhere in the Arab Muslim world, or in those parts of the non-Arab Muslim world who have only their Muslim identity, and are completely under Arab influence, such as Pakistan. So instead of Lee Hamilton and Robert Kerrey worrying over who knew what when, they should try to figure out what now is to be done about all the weapons of Jihad: military, economic (the OPEC revenues and Western foreign aid), propaganda (mosques and madrassas), and the most chilling and dangerous weapon of all, the demographic one.
Arabs in the Sudan
Ruth King On April 3, 2004 Jan Egeland, the UN's Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, briefed the Security Council in New York on what he described as a "growing humanitarian crisis" in Darfur. He described "forced depopulation, widespread atrocities, the deliberate destruction of schools, wells, seeds and food supplies making whole villages uninhabitable." He carefully skirted the issue of who were the victims and who were the perpetrators. In fact, the crisis was going on for fourteen months before the United Nations even mentioned it. While the brutal regime's twenty year war against the people of southern Sudan has been inching toward a cease fire thanks to pressures from President Bush, the crimes are now being committed by Moslem Arab militias against the non-Arab Africans who have lived in Darfur for centuries, and who are also Moslems. In February 25, 2004, in the Washington Post, Eric Reeves wrote: "Unnoticed Genocide" in which he describes the racial hatred propelling the Arabs: "A young African man who had lost many family members in an attack heard the gunmen say 'You blacks, we're going to exterminate you.' An African tribal leader told the UN news service, 'I believe this is an elimination of the black race.' A refugee reported these words as coming from his attackers. 'As you are black, you're like slaves. Then the entire Darfur will be in the hands of the Arabs.'" It is hard to explain how, ten years after the world stood still during the Rwanda genocide, another war crime of such proportion goes unnoticed. A perceptive editorial in the Washington Post on April 3, 2004, when the UN held its briefing, pointed out: "Maybe because there are no Westerners or Israelis to be blamed, the crisis in Darfur, in Northwestern Sudan, has commanded hardly any international attention." And, where are the headlines that state: "A visibly angry Mr. Annan demanded that the killings stop"...?
KOFI ANNAN
Ruth King Recently (on March 15, to be precise) the Secretary General of the United Nations and his lovely wife were rubbing elbows with the rich and famous at the "Byzantium Faith and Power (1261-1557)" preview and dinner at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Kofi looked positively spiffy in his formal duds, but the rest of the month was not so happy for the poor dear. That week ethnic Albanian Moslems killed 28 ethnic Serbian civilians in Kosovo, injured 850, burned hundreds of Serbian homes and 30 Serbian Orthodox churches, some of them medieval treasures. At least 3,500 Serbians and other non-Albanians fled their homes. Mr. Annan did not comment on any of these events. He did, however, manage to take time from his busy social whirl of balls, benefits, dinners, premieres and parties to scold Israel for the assassination of Hamas chief Ahmed Yassin. And, oh yes, while his tux was at the cleaners, his son Kojo was implicated in the scandals involving the money-grabbing at the UN sponsored "Oil for Food Program." Next came Kofi's mortification at the Memorial Conference on the Rwanda Genocide where Mr. Annan publicly apologized for not having done more to prevent the massacre of 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates who were slain in 100 days by Hutu extremists and their followers, armed with machetes, garden hoes and spiked clubs. "The international community is guilty of sins of omission," said Annan, who was head of the United Nations peacekeeping agency at the time and thus in charge of the "omission." He lamely added: "I believed at the time that I was doing my best. But I realized after the genocide that there was more that I could and should have done to sound the alarm and rally support." The UN investigation was spurred by Canadian Lt.-Gen. Romeo Dallaire, who had been head of a small U.N. force, and was driven into a suicidal depression after returning home from Kigali because the Security Council did not send in reinforcements as Rwandans begged him for help. The commission accused the world body of being "timid, disorganized and misguided before the massacres and failing to intervene once the killing had started." Not that missing a genocide or two has hurt Kofi's career as champion of human rights. He and the UN scooped up a Nobel peace prize in 2001. Then again, he is in good company in the Nobel Laureate Association, right up there with Yasser Arafat, Rigoberta Menchu and Bishop Tutu. To be sure, no one can accuse Kofi Annan of taking his eye from even the most imaginary ball when it comes to Israel. Not long ago Annan slandered Israel by demanding an investigation into a possible "massacre" in Jenin by Israel's army. He subsequently admitted that there had been no mass killings and no massacre. It was a sullen admission from Mr. Annan. While he occasionally issues perfunctory regrets when Arabs commit atrocities against Israelis, most headlines about his response to Israel read as follows: "A visibly angry Mr. Annan demanded that Israel..."
May 02, 2004
Crusaders vs. Jihadists by Robert Spencer
This is a WorldNetDaily printer-friendly version of the article which follows. Crusaders vs. jihadists -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Robert Spencer -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The University of the Incarnate Word, a Christian school in San Antonio, Texas, has scrapped its nickname, "Crusaders," and the accompanying mascot. The university's website has a long and involved explanation for the change, encompassing the history of the Crusades and more. This history, rather predictably, doesn't mention the 450 years of jihad that had overwhelmed Christian lands in the Middle East and North Africa before any Crusade was contemplated. SPONSORED LINKS Build a Better America with the RNC
The site explains: "One of the main reasons for the change, besides the desire to be more culturally and spiritually sensitive, is to avert the potential for future litigation for discrimination and/or harassment. The U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division has repeatedly ruled that harassment is itself discrimination. Numerous federal and state rulings have cited the 'Hostile Public Accommodations Environment' Harassment Law relative to American Indian mascots and nicknames. The Public Accommodations Law is a civil-rights law requiring officials to refrain from offending anyone based on race, religion gender or sexual orientation." Certainly UIW has every reason to avoid litigation, but it's ironic that they are scrapping the "Crusader" name in an effort to be sensitive at a time when the historical enemies of the Crusaders, the warriors of jihad (mujahedeen), are pressing forward aggressively all over the world — with little concern for the sensitivities of their historical and present-day non-Muslim victims. In Britain last week, for example, a group of mujahedeen got involved in sports, but they weren't playing the game. Ten suspected Islamic terrorists were arrested just before they had planned to blow themselves amid a crowd of nearly 70,000 people at a soccer game between two popular teams, Manchester United and Liverpool. The terrorists had bought tickets for various spots around the stadium so they could cause the greatest possible amount of chaos and carnage. Here in the United States, meanwhile, a trial date of Nov. 3 has been set for Hemant Lakhani, who was arrested in August. The indictment against him says, according to CNN, that he tried to sell shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles to terrorists groups, explaining that they "'could be used most effectively in terrorist attacks against commercial aircraft in the United States if 10 to 15 commercial aircraft were shot down simultaneously at different locations throughout the country.' According to federal prosecutors, he boasted of sales to terrorist groups and thought he had struck a deal to sell a missile to a Somali group seeking to launch a 'jihad' against a U.S. commercial airline." Also last week, a jihadist attack on the U.S. Embassy and other targets in Amman, Jordan, was foiled. The plot involved the unleashing of poison chemicals that would have killed upwards of 80,000 people. According to the New York Post, "The authorities said a group of 10 suspects planned to pack the truck bombs with deadly cocktails of 71 lethal chemicals – including blistering agents, nerve gas and choking agents – and then simultaneously crash them into their targets." Meanwhile, the radical Muslim group known as the Al Haramain Brigades claimed responsibility for last week's successful attack in Riyadh. A statement from the group said that they, not al-Qaida, did the job – al-Qaida, they explained, was busy battling "Crusaders." Haven't they heard? There are no Crusaders. We're too sensitive for that now. But all the sensitivity displayed by Christian schools and all the statements from American Muslim advocacy groups explaining that jihad doesn't mean what the mujahedeen around the world say it means, have not stopped or even slowed these jihadist activities. One might expect a school with the nickname Crusaders to wear the sobriquet proudly, as an emblem of their determination to resist the worldwide jihad that is advancing both by force of arms and by subversion from within. No such luck at UIW. I think the rush of schools like UIW to disavow any connection to Crusaders is part of a larger tendency to remain in denial about the jihad aggression that threatens so many in the world today and manifests an acceptance of the Islamic view of history (which has been aggressively thrust upon the West in recent decades) that blames (contrary to fact) the origin of conflict between Muslims and Christians upon the Crusaders. The University of the Incarnate Word is searching for a new nickname now. One person posted a suggestion to the Jihad Watch website: "Lemmings." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and the author of "Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West" (Regnery Publishing), and "Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith (Encounter Books).
Posted by Ruth at 03:49 PM | SUGGESTED READING
Signs of the Times By Robert Spencer
Signs of the times The Washington Times Published April 26, 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I think that we do have to take very seriously the thought that the terrorists might have learned, we hope, the wrong lesson from Spain," said National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice this week. "I think we also have to take seriously that they might try during the cycle leading up to the election to do something." Copyright © 2004 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. Posted by Ruth at 03:45 PM | SUGGESTED READING
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