JERUSALEM, Dec. 18 — The call for early elections by Mahmoud Abbas, the moderate Palestinian Authority president, is part of a Western-backed effort to revive the Middle East peace process in hopes of driving the radical Hamas party, which favors Israel’s destruction, out of power.
I am not disputing that Hamas has advocated Israel’s destruction in the past, Zio-trolls (but then again so has Fatah.) But can any reasonable person continue reading this article after that kind of opening? In one sentence it implies that Mahmoud Abbas is some kind of “moderate,” event though that word has no meaning any longer since people like the al-Sauds are considered “moderate,” creates the idea that there is a strong desire by the West to revive the peace process, even though the West abandoned it when the Bush administration came into power and never showed much interest in enforcing the Oslo process when Israel was flouting it, and finally finishes with the equivalent of “Hamas, which advocates the drowning of kittens and puppies.”
It’s a real shame the article opens that way, because even if I don’t agree with its conclusions (including the idea, implicit in the piece that Hamas is a mere Iranian-Syrian puppet) there’s some interesting stuff in it, such as:
Mouin Rabbani, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, an independent research group on foreign policy, argues against supporting one Palestinian faction against another. He says that progress will be possible based only on political consensus, even if the West doesn’t love the result.
“Palestinians will remain unable to take significant decisions, or implement them, unless they’re based on a broad consensus that includes at least Fatah and Hamas,” he said. “The international community may have preferences, but this practice of trying to make progress on the basis of divisions in the Palestinian national movement has backfired spectacularly.”
(Mouin Rabbani does fantastic work, by the way, and for an organization that is very much an establishment player while challenging establishment thinking — you’ll see very little of that in Washington, DC.)
You still bother to read NYT on Israel-Palestine? What did you expect?
Tony Blair goes one better, he’s been bleating on about how the next great global battle is between Moderation and Extremism.
I know, I know. Broken record and all that. But part of me wants to keep on highlighting this stuff, spread awareness, save the world from Thomas Friedman before our brains turn to mush.
Re: Blair, Mr Moderate vs. Extremists topped up his trip with a little salesmanship, trying to convince the UAE to buy British weapons systems…
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2512360,00.html
(via Angry Arab)
Issandr, am I to take that line about ICG at the end to mean you’re applying for the open Egypt Analyst position? 🙂
Well spotted! Indeed I am but I’ve said it before about ICG – they really do stuff that’s a cut above the rest for the most part. And Rabbani’s last report on Hamas really was great – whether they hire me or not! Plus now they have Patrick Haenni in Lebanon, I loved his stuff (and plugged it relentlessly on the blog) long before he started working there.
To be fair to Washington think tanks, I think Carnegie regularly does some great stuff, especially Amr Hamzawy and Marina (?) Ottaway. But too many of the DC area think tanks are just barely disguised lobbying outfits or rather inflexible ideologically (with notably a tendency towards free market fundamentalism).
Okay, I’ll take the bait — I *will* get drawn into a debate on DC think tanks.
The thing you have to understand is that most of the folks in DC think tanks — even those with whom you personally might never agree on a thing — really, truly believe what they’re saying. I think there’s actually a lot of intellectual honesty within the think tank scene, so the gibe about barely diguised lobbying groups isn’t really true — as far as I have been able to see. But maybe I should hang out more before I pass judgment.
The other thing is, regarding being inflexible ideologically, you need to appreciate just how much Americans agree on. Is there a socialist party in America? No. A communist party? No. A fascist, far-right party like Jean-Marie Le Pen’s in France? No. The fact is, Americans agree on most things, and that disturbs people in Europe used to the wide variety of beliefs and parties found in a parliamentary system. What always stands out among our political candidates is how little they differ in the big scheme of things. So are we all free market “fundamentalists?” No, but 80% of us are, and I’m sure that drives people crazy.
You’ve just been on the other side of the Atlantic too long, Issandr! But good luck with the ICG application — I now know of three applicants, and they’re all ridiculously qualified.
Washington think-tanks are more diverse than you suggest, Issandr, IMO. Trouble is that the prominent ones that get the most funding are rather more likely to lack variation in foreign policy thinking (but on domestic policy, that’s a whole nuther matter).
Perhaps this could be attributed to the fact that foreign policy making is rather more disconnected from public opinion in the US than is domestic policy, and people derive their stature in the FP world based on how often they are consulted by which government big-shot (it’s kind of like an old-fashioned court, sometimes, with everyone vying for the ear of the king). Or it could just be that there’s a much smaller pool of experts to draw on, and most have similar schooling and backgrounds.
Andrew, the presence of support for extremes is a rather old-fashioned measure of political opinion pluralism, and Americans are rather more diverse in their opinions, especially on economic issues, than you suggest. See for example this survey:
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=242
I should make it clear that I was talking about think tanks in general, not just foreign policy. I look at this from this perspective: the privately-funded think tanks offer many work opportunities for the excess number of PhDs and other wonky types produced annually by American universities that don’t want to or can’t go into academia. These people know the way their bread is buttered and no doubt assimilate received wisdom fairly fast. Of course, I am sure that think tanks with a clear bias like WINEP do attract mostly people who genuinely care about Israel. But institutions like WINEP have also made a concerted effort to recruit young Arabs, many of which will happily take a job in Washington considering the lack of opportunities for doing meaningful research in the Arab world, and just avoid working on the IP conflict. And I don’t think that I am being paranoid in thinking that being pro-Palestinian probably severely restricts your job opportunities in Washington – and not only in think tanks.
The problem is not that WINEP exists but that it pretends to be objective and dispationate. At least JINSA doesn’t in comparison. A second problem, specifically on the Israel question, is that think tanks like Brookings have “normalized” extremely biased views on the IP conflict by creating the Saban Center, which obviously considering its founder represents even by Israeli standards a rather extreme vision of the conflict. And then you have MEF and others, which can barely be considered like serious outfits if you consider some of the stuff put out by Pipes and friends recently.
Yet, these institutions are not only taken seriously by government, but are used to recruit people who then shape government policy. People like Dennis Ross, Martin Indyk and Elliott Abrams , in my opinion have no business working on the IP conflict and part of the problem rather than the solution in US policymaking. (Of course I am not saying they are all the same – Ross presumably is aghast at Abrams.)
But getting away from ME policy, take a look at the nuclear energy lobby. In April Prez Bush announced the GNEP, a new policy that basically encourages the American export to back the export of nuclear power generation to developing countries. (I think this was a major factor in Egypt and the GCC countries’ recent decision to launch civilian nuclear programs – i.e. that it was done with prior American encouragement, mostly for business reasons and to provide an alternative to the Iranian “rogue” model that would put control the flow of nuclear fuel into the hands of the US and EU. ) GNEP was basically written by the nuclear industry with the help of its main lobby, a think tank called NEI. The Federation of American Scientists, a truly independent and reputable think tank, has commented negatively on GNEP for months but has been largely ignored by the White House and lawmakers.
On free market fundamentalism, I think it is a fairly recent development encouraged by the intellectual production of places like the Cato Institute. I think America is a country that overwhelmingly supports free enterprise, as I do, but this is quite different from free markets and Hayek-style belief in the invisible hand. Free market fundamentalism has damaged America’s industrial infrastructure, but the labor unions have been too weak to do much about it. I also think many Americans would be more critical if they were better informed about the downsides of free market fundamentalism, which has only been dominant in American thinking for the last 20 years and has been pushed by big business. Taking a look at US economic policy for the past 100 years you will see that on balance it is not particularly pro-free markets until recently, and even the Bush administration is reluctant in practice to embrace the ideology it spouts off (see WTO Doha trade round disputes).
Finally Andrew, although I have lived in the US very little I think Americans do have a much wider range of opinions than you give them credit for, notably on abortion, gay rights, tax burdens, corporate vs labor power balances, gun rights, states’ rights, and several elements of foreign policy, including the Middle East (after all support for the Iraq war has at no time been overwhelming in polls, even when things were going relatively well). It is no wonder that politicians regularly campaign on getting away from Washintgon thinking (although subsequently don’t do much about it) because it is a fact that there is a cozy Washington debate that is, partly because it is financed by parties with very specific interests, out of touch with everyday issues, and because the big national media is relatively uncritical of this Washington consensus and largely operates within its boundaries. One of the main reasons for this, in my opinion, is the scandalous attiudes our politicians have towards campaign finance reforms and the incredible legalized corruption of the political system. The end result: the US is a republic in decline, even if no one wants to acknowledge it, and this is a very bad thing for the world in general.
(Obvious disclaimer: the above arguments are undoubtedly full of holes, need to be much better thought through and substantiated, and not discussed in the comment section of a blog.)
SP, thanks for the link. Good survey. For the record, I was not saying Americans have little or no diversity in their views — I have just noted after living abroad for a few years how remarkably much is *not* on the table for discussion in American political debates versus the much wider spectrum of beliefs and debate I see in, say, some European parliaments or within the Arab public sphere.
Issandr, one question: why does Dennis Ross (or Martin Indyk for that matter) have no business working on IP issues? I’ve heard several arguments to that effect but am curious as to what your objection is.
Because their careers outside of government service have been spent working for the pro-Israel lobby. In Indyk’s case it’s clear, he was with AIPAC for a good chunk of the 1980s and then founded WINEP, which is practically an AIPAC think tank. (Robert Satloff would disagree and point out there is no legal relation between the two, which is true but I think largely irrelevant to their basic underlying relationship).
Ross is a more difficult case, he clearly had a sterling career as a Soviet specialist and policy planner (he ran with the neo-cons during the Reagan administration, however). I think his subsequent appointment at WINEP (and at an Israeli think tank funded by the Jewish Agency) seems to confirm the bias many believe he had, or at least that he has some degree of sympathy for Zionism.
The important thing here is that key policymakers should not be people with evident links to lobbies for one side or the other if the US cares about even having the appearance of being an honest broker. Ideally, it should be someone neutral enough not come in with too many preconceived ideas and who tries to reconcile the legal, moral and political realities of the conflict.
I would not expect someone who worked for the pro-Palestinian lobby to head USG efforts in resolving the IP conflict because there is a clear conflict of interest, and vice-versa. And similarly I am against the Bush administration’s appointment of energy industry lobbyists at the EPA and other similar institutions.
Since you didn’t ask about Abrams, I guess the reasons for why he shouldn’t be at his job are rather obvious.
No, I was just curious as to what your reasoning was. I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to defend either WINEP’s work or Dennis Ross on Arabist.net (obviously). So I’ll have to leave it at that. The rest will have to wait for conversation over beers.
I am quite ready to believe that I am wrong about Ross, who did do very important and noble work in the 1990s. I have a copy of his book lying around here at my parent’s house, I should really read it.