Mideast Media Sampler 06/05/2011

From an email from DG:

A quick note. On Friday a reader noticed that I had written that the freeze that Netanyahu implemented last year was for 6 months. It was for 10 months.

1) Really bad guys

Jeff Jacoby wrote A blind eye won't end oppression, concluding:

But refusing to tell the truth about the world’s most evil regimes, as Mario Vargas Llosa argued upon receiving the Nobel Prize for literature last year, only prolongs their brutality.

“Dictatorships must be fought without hesitation, with all the means at our disposal,’’ he said. “It is regrettable that democratic governments, instead of setting an example by making common cause with those, like the Damas de Blanco in Cuba, the Venezuelan opposition, or Aung San Suu Kyi and Liu Xiaobo, who courageously confront the dictatorships they endure, often show themselves complaisant not with them but with their tormenters.

“Those valiant people, struggling for their freedom, are also struggling for ours.’’

The op-ed was written in general, though Jacoby did mention Syria. In an op-ed from last week, David Brooks makes this point, mostly about Syria, in The Depravity Factor.

For 30 years, the Middle East peace process has been predicated on moral obtuseness, an unwillingness to face the true nature of certain governments. World leaders have tried sweet-talking Syria, calling Bashar al-Assad a friend (Nancy Pelosi) or a reformer (Hillary Clinton). In 2008, Nicolas Sarkozy invited Assad to be the guest of honor at France’s Bastille Day ceremonies — a ruthless jailer celebrating the storming of a jail. 

For 30 years, diplomats and technocrats have flown to Damascus in the hopes of “flipping” Syria — turning it into a pro-Western, civilized power. It would be interesting to know what they were thinking. Perhaps some of them were so besotted with their messianic abilities that they thought they had the power to turn a depraved regime into a normal regime. Perhaps some of them were so wedded to the materialistic mind-set that they thought a regime’s essential nature could be altered with a magical mix of incentives and disincentives.

Perhaps some of them were simply morally blind. They were such pedantic technocrats, so consumed by the legalisms of the peace process, that they no longer possessed the capacity to recognize the moral nature of the regime they were dealing with, or to understand the implications of its nature. 

Assad's gotten so bad that even the New York Times seems to have given up on him. (This is the second Times editorial condemning Assad.)

Most appalling, the United Nations Security Council is unable to muster the votes to condemn the bloodshed much less impose sanctions. Russia, cynically protecting longstanding ties with Damascus, is blocking meaningful action and China has fallen in lockstep. India is also reluctant to act — a shameful stance for a democracy that has been bidding for a permanent seat on the Council. 

If Russia and China, which have veto power, can’t be won over, the United States and Europe must push a robust sanctions resolution and dare Moscow and the others to side with Mr. Assad over the Syrian people. 

We do not know how this will turn out. But arguments that Mr. Assad is the best guarantor of stability and the best way to avoid extremism have lost all credibility. 

In a similar vein, Challahu Akbar notes this essay, from ... The Gulf News.

The Arab media has, for over half a century or so, strongly condemned Zionist crimes against the Palestinians and other Arab peoples. It has in actual fact provided a hell of a lot of satire on Zionist brutality, which is fair enough. But is the Arab media still able to satirise Israeli barbarism with the same vigour after it has witnessed what Arab dictators have done to their own people? Isn't it a bit silly to bombard the Israelis with criticism and keep quiet about savagery against unarmed demonstrators? 

An Israeli journalist remarked cynically about two decades ago that the Arab media can easily see a dust particle in the eyes of Israel, and can hardly see a log in the eyes of Arab regimes. In other words, the journalist wanted to expose Arab media hypocrisy, where it ignores the massacres committed by some Arab rulers. 

Funnily enough, comparing the number of Arab people killed during the wars between Israel and Arab countries with the number of Arabs killed locally, one will notice that Arab dictatorships have killed more people.

(Emphasis his.)

2) Protesting too much

The White House just put up a page outlining its commitment to Israel's security. (h/t The Israel Project)

When Fatah has just signed a unity agreement with Hamas and the President has made it clear (as reported by the New York Times) that it is the Israeli Prime Minister (and apparently not any Palestinian official) he mistrusts, it sure doesn't seem that way.

Daled Amos notes that a year ago, both the President and his former chief of staff (who wrote an op-ed defending the President's Middle East policy) Rahm Emanuel were certainthey knew better what Israel needed than Israel did.

Maybe the reason is that the 2012 election cycle is starting to get into gear and the President and Democrats are concerned about how the administration's Middle East policy will be ... with Americans. A recent CNN poll (pdf) shows continued strong support for Israel and of those who think that the United States should take a side, 32% think the United States should support Israel while only 1% think that the United States should support the Palestinians. (h/t Barry Rubin)

A week ago James Taranto observed:

In yesterday's column, we noted that pro-Israel sentiment is very widespread beyond the Jewish community. "Israel is an American value," as Walter Russell Mead observed. Obama may not need to worry about losing the Jewish vote, but he is unlikely to win re-election without a majority of the American vote.

Maybe President Obama won't lose much of the Jewish vote, but it does appear that he stands to lose (at least some of) the pro-Israel vote.

3) Too swift justice?

The Washington Post is concerned with the speed with which Egypt's government is moving to prosecute former President Hosni Mubarak:

The trouble starts with the speed and timing of the prosecutions. Anxious to prevent further mass protests, the interim military council has appeared to time steps against the former regime just ahead of threatened demonstrations. The announcement that Mr. Mubarak would be put on trial came May 24, three days ahead of a planned opposition gathering in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Three of Mr. Mubarak’s former ministers have already been convicted of crimes, and other trials are moving forward quickly. There are serious questions about the evidence in at least one — a case brought against the energy minister and five associates over alleged fraud in gas sales to Israel.

The legal system handling these cases, oddly, is that of Mr. Mubarak — and was justly renowned under his tenure for its lack of independence and its politicized rulings. There’s good reason for concern that former members of the regime are now victims of that politicization. The judge hearing a murder case against former interior minister Habib el-Adly, for example, was involved in one-sided rulings against political dissidents during Mr. Mubarak’s reign. That’s particularly worrisome because Mr. Adly has become the focus of populist calls for retribution, with some opposition sloganeers demanding that he be hanged.

Technorati Tag: Middle East.