If free and open Iraqi elections lead to the seating of a fundamentalist Islamic government, “I will be disappointed. But democracy is democracy,” Bush said. “If that’s what the people choose, that’s what the people choose.”
Think about it: What do the Europeans and the Arab states endlessly rail about in the Middle East? What (outside of Iraq) is the area of most friction with U.S. policy? What single issue most isolates America from the overwhelming majority of countries at the United Nations?
The answer is obvious: Israel.
In what currency, therefore, would we pay the rest of the world in exchange for their support in places such as Iraq? The answer is obvious: giving in to them on Israel.
No Democrat will say that openly. But anyone familiar with the code words of Middle East diplomacy can read between the lines.
Krauthammer then does some deconstruction of Kerry’s foreign policy, including his plans to re-energize the Middle East peace process. So when America will “re-engage” with the peace process, according to Krauthammer this really means turning your back on Israel, embracing Yasser Arafat and encouraging Palestinian terrorism. The entire argument is of course ridiculous, especially when you consider that the two candidates basically have no difference on Middle East policy and that Kerry has done everything to please American supporters of Israel. (See Kerry Tries to Out-Sharon Bush by Ron Chepesiuk and Bush and Kerry Dance to the Tune of Ariel Sharon by Simon Tisdall for some examples.)
Incidentally, the Krauthammer piece may be part of a coordinated campaign by pro-Israeli right-wingers to discredit Kerry: take a look at this ridiculous editorial by Zev Chafets accusing Kerry of faking tears while visiting the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Israel. Chafets relies on base manipulation of the Holocaust to spread the idea that anyone who doesn’t fully support Ariel Sharon wants to see Israel destroyed. Take a look at the depths to which he goes:
But the threat facing Israel now isn’t primarily military. Countries, including many Kerry prizes as members of “the international community,” are waging diplomatic war aimed at turning the Jewish state into a pariah. This is not a threat you can discern from the cockpit of a jet fighter, but it is real enough. And its desired effect is on display at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.
In a time of jihad, an American president who doesn’t see that – and feel it – is a dangerous friend to have.
Joseph Lieberman has also raised the issue that Kerry is not taking a strong enough stance in Israel, particularly with the important Jewish population in Florida — the fourth largest outside of Israel.
If only it were true that Kerry wanted to re-engage in the peace process and apply pressure on the Israelis to finally get out of the Occupied Territories that they’ve held for 37 years. The truth is Kerry’s Middle East policy is uninspiring at best and as criminally negligent as Bush’s at worst. The only hope is that a Kerry administration, at least, may not have neo-con Likudniks in positions of influence.
Among those who expressed their most vociferous criticism were individuals seeking to establish new political parties. During its 23-year existence, the governmental Parties Committee has systematically refused all requests submitted to it (except one) to legalize parties. All other legalized parties since 1990 owe their existence to the State Council, which though bounded by a restrictive law, has tended to interpret it more broadly than the Parties Committee, which remains a mere puppet in the hands of the executive branch. Most significantly, one party, Hizb al-Ghad (The Party of Tomorrow), whose guiding principles are liberty, democracy and respect for fundamental freedoms and the rule of law, has watched its appeal to be licensed, which it lodged with the State Council, adjourned for the third time. The irony is that the adjournment coincided with the ringing call by the NDP to widen political participation!
The part that’s highlighted above about the Hizb Al-Ghad struck me because at no point does Makram Ebeid tell us that she is a leader of that party, and nor does her biographical information at the bottom of the editorial. I’m all for attacking the NDP, but the Daily Star should know better than to provide her a platform for her own political propaganda without saying who she is. Indeed, that might be a better way to promote her party.
This is the kind of story is what foreign editors love these days, especially if it comes from the Middle East. As one of my own editors once told me, with so much bad news and full pages dedicated to covering the bloodshed in Iraq, a little levity is a good thing. This also often extends to outside the war zones, so that in the rest of the Middle East, stories on “serious” issues like political reform or economic crisis will be less popular than ones of belly dancers or archeological trivia. With so much sad news coming out from this part of the world, foreign pages of newspapers need something to lighten up.
Apparently, the CIA has been working on its own report on 9/11 which does assign blame and treats some people pretty harshly. But, as Robert Scheer reports on Alternet, we’re not about to see it before the elections:
According to the intelligence official, who spoke to me on condition of anonymity, release of the report, which represents an exhaustive 17- month investigation by an 11-member team within the agency, has been “stalled.” First by acting CIA Director John McLaughlin and now by Porter J. Goss, the former Republican House member (and chairman of the Intelligence Committee) who recently was appointed CIA chief by President Bush.
The official stressed that the report was more blunt and more specific than the earlier bipartisan reports produced by the Bush-appointed Sept. 11 commission and Congress.
“What all the other reports on 9/11 did not do is point the finger at individuals, and give the how and what of their responsibility. This report does that,” said the intelligence official. “The report found very senior-level officials responsible.”
Let’s hope those senior-level officials will lose their jobs on November 2.
Last spring, John Kerry boasted that a number of foreign leaders supported his campaign, but refused to name them. This week he received his first foreign-leader endorsement — from the Palestinian Authority. Congratulations, Mr. Kerry. An organization known the world over as the linchpin of terrorism has now awarded you its support. When Kerry was talking about his popularity in foreign capitals, he said “you can go to New York City and you can be in a restaurant and you can meet a foreign leader” that supports him. Well, it’s unlikely that he met the leaders bestowing this week’s endorsement at Katz’s Deli.
This was supposed to be based on something Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian Authority’s foreign minister, had said — according to the Jerusalem Post, which doesn’t actually quote him saying he supports Kerry, but rather lamenting the fact that the US elections were taking place at the Palestinians’ expense:
“I keep saying that we have many times to pay for these American elections unfairly,” Shaath told a news conference. “During an American election and the three months after, allies of the United States should do more work than they would do otherwise.”
This is what, for instance, Al Jazeera reported.
Other news sources that have reported on this also give the impression that the Palestinians would prefer Kerry, but despite bold headlines never really back up their claims. And in general, the real story with Shaath’s statement is that he was unhappy with how much attention the Bush administration is giving the roadmap — which is to say, none. Realistically speaking, no foreign leader is going to express a preference for one candidate or the other — it’s bad politics, and especially so if you’re the Palestinian Authority.
In fact, guess which Middle Eastern country has officially endorsed Bush in the region?
The answer: Iran.
From Oct. 11 to Oct. 17, an estimated 208 Iraqis were killed in war-related incidents, significantly higher than the average week; 23 members of the United States military died over the same period.
The deaths of Iraqis, particularly those of civilians, has become an increasingly delicate topic. Early this month, the Health Ministry, which had routinely provided casualty figures to journalists, stopped releasing them. Under a new policy that the government said would streamline the release of the figures – which were clearly an embarrassment to the government as well as to the Americans – only the Secretariat of the Council of Ministers is now allowed to do so.
“It’s a political issue,” a senior Health Ministry official said last week.
No kidding.
Instead, they have joined in offering Israel’s prime minister, Ariel Sharon, virtually uncritical support for whatever military operations or settlement expansions he chooses to undertake. After pronouncing anathemas on the discredited Yasir Arafat, they have stood by waiting for a new, less compromised Palestinian leadership to somehow emerge miraculously to replace him. This is not a policy. It is an abdication of leadership that costs Israeli and Palestinian lives, deepens mistrust and makes an eventual peace that much harder to achieve. Washington cannot afford to remain on such a destructive course. It must work to rebuild its influence as a force for Middle East peace.
Update: It’s also heartening to see that most of the letters published in response to the editorial are supportive.
The foreword was written by Norvell B. De Atkine, a teacher at John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, who declares himself an “incurable Romantic” about the Arab world, as Patai did. These kind of arabists, who fancy themselves as later-day Lawrences of Arabia or Richard Burtons, are really not helpful in these days of mass poverty, social unrest, political extremism and autocratic regimes.
But here is what De Atkine has to say:
It might legitimately be asked how well Patai’s analysis bears up in today’s world. After all, it has been about thirty years since the majority of The Arab Mind was written. The short answer is that it has not aged at all. The analysis is just as prescient and on-the-mark now as on the day it was written. One could even make the argument that, in fact, many of the traits described have become more pronounced. For instance, Islamist demagogues have skillfully used the lure of the Arabic language, so carefully explained by Patai as a powerful motivator, to galvanize the streets in this era of the Islamic revival, in a way even the great orator Abdul Nasser could not achieve.
Wow, those Islamists, they use language and everything! And the idea that they “galvanized the streets” in way that “Nasser could not achieve” is ridiculous when you think of the crowds he could pull. The Islamists — at least those of the Bin Laden type — have a limited appeal in the Arab world, even if they’ve managed (because of their experience in Afghanistan and elsewhere) to be very effective organizations. Otherwise the entire Arab world would be run by Islamists. Furthermore, Islamic revivalism is also not going anywhere. The biggest trend in Arab societies today is the growth of apolitical piousness that manages to integrate with modernity just fine — not a Taliban or Wahhabi-like return to seventh-century Arabia.
The point is not that Patai had nothing worthwhile to say. It is more that whatever his contribution to understanding the Arab world was, it was too tinted by ideology and romanticism to be fully trusted. The Arab world has gone through tremendous changes since Patai first wrote The Arab Mind, which is why it is time to leave scholars with an outdated view of the region (Bernard Lewis, an outstanding Ottoman historian but dubious interpreter of the Arab world, comes to mind here) to the historiographers and intramural academic bickering.
Lantos, the sole Holocaust survivor in Congress, pushed the idea amid reports of increased anti-Semitic incidents in Europe and continued propaganda against Jews and Israel in the Arab media.
The State Department had opposed his proposal, saying it would send the wrong signal around the world to single out anti-Semitism for special treatment over other human rights problems and stressing the department was already reporting on the issue.
Bush signed the bill Saturday without comment. But his signature was expected, especially in an election year in which the Jewish vote in swing states could prove important to Bush’s re-election contest against Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry.
As the State Department argues, anti-Semitism is already covered in its reports, notably its human rights report. Singling out anti-Semitism as a special form of racism is a bad idea, if only because it dissociates it from racism and makes it something “special” — something that will fuel the arguments of the anti-Semites. Highlighting anti-Semitism like this also exaggerates the phenomenon. In the case of the Arab world, where anti-Semitism is admittedly rife and occasionally gets violent, as it did in Morocco in 2003 or in Tunisia in 2002, it will compound a common misperception that anti-Semitism is the biggest form of discrimination taking place.
Taking Egypt as an example, there has been much real state persecution against Shias or Ba’hais, but no case of anti-Jewish persecution. Furthermore, if we’re going by religious groups then the most persecuted people are those accused (often falsely) of being Sunni fundamentalists. There are 12-15,000 alleged fundamentalists being held in Egyptian jails, often without trial. The vast majority of them are non-violent. Yet we’re more likely to hear about anti-Semitic articles in the Egyptian state press or TV. Focusing on anti-Semitism over other groups’ rights simply distorts the picture, which is in nobody’s interests. They should get serious about promoting human rights for everybody — Jewish or not.