Mideast Media Sampler 09/13/2011

From DG:

1) R. Cohen wrote an op-ed and there's no need to cringe


That's because Israel's Hostile Neighborhood is by Richard, not Roger, Cohen and it appears in the Washington Post, not the New York Times. It starts:

Back in 1953, an Egyptian army officer was asked by the magazine Al-Musawwar what he would write to Hitler if he were still alive. “My Dear Hitler,” he began gushingly, “I admire you from the bottom of my heart.” He proceeded to extol the German dictator for, among other things, creating dissension between “the old man Churchill and his allies, the sons of Satan.” If the mass murder of Jews bothered the officer in the least, he did not mention it. 

The central point is: 

But the United States has the moral obligation to stick by the sometimes obstreperous democracy it felt morally obligated to embrace. The Obama administration has to show no daylight between it and Israel — never mind that Benjamin Netanyahu is no Ben-Gurion. 

I could have done without the gratuitous swipe at Netanyahu, but overall a strong effort.


The Wall Street Journal features two op-eds. The first, by Alan Dershowitz, The Palestinians' U.N. Agenda (access through the Google search here):

By claiming that the Palestinians "have been under occupation for 63 years" (as distinguished from the 44 years since the Arab states attacked Israel in 1967 and Israel occupied some lands of the invading nations), the Palestinian president is trying to turn the clock back to a time prior to Israel's establishment as a state based on the U.N.'s two-state proposal. In other words, the push for recognition by the U.N. of Palestine as a state, based on Mr. Abbas's complaint that the Palestinians have been under occupation for 63 years, is an attempt to undo the old work of the U.N. that resulted in Israel's statehood 63 years ago.


Mr. Abbas's occupation complaint also explains why he is so adamant in refusing to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Every Arab state is officially a Muslim state and yet, as in 1948, none of them is prepared to accept the permanent existence of a state for the Jewish people in the Middle East. Certainly some, including the Palestinian Authority, are prepared to mouth recognition of Israel as a state, so long as the so-called right of return remains for four million so-called refugees who, if they were to return in mass, would soon turn Israel into yet another Arab state.


Mahmoud Abbas is generally a reasonable man, and many of the things he has recently said about the need for the two-state solution are also reasonable. But he talks out of two sides of his mouth: one for consumption by the international community and the other for consumption by the Palestinian street. His complaint about a 63-year occupation is clearly designed to signal to his constituents that he won't give up on the ultimate goal of turning Israel into a Palestinian state.

I don't know what's "reasonable" about what Dershowitz described here, but the point he illustrates gets ignored too much.


Bret Stephens writes about Israel's Predicament (accessed through a Google search here)

But then the argument is made that Israel is occupying somebody else's country. And risking its own future as a Jewish democracy, on account of well-known demographic trends. And all of this is corrosive, so it is often said, to Israel's soul.
Yet the purported concern for Israel's soul would be more convincing if it were joined by some decent respect for Israel's mind. Israel today labors under the invidious stereotype that it is too clever to blunder militarily or politically—and therefore that any such blunders are, in fact, acts of malice aforethought. But Israel also labors under the stereotype that it is too stupid or shortsighted to recognize its own strategic interest in coming to terms with a Palestinian state.
Will it some day dawn on Israel's so-called friends that 18 years of abortive efforts to come to terms with the Palestinians—the spurned statehood offers in 2000 and 2008, the withdrawal of the settlers from Gaza in 2005, the experience of what a "liberated" Gaza soon became—has soured Israelis on the idea of a Palestinian state? Or that the long-term demographic threat is worth risking in the face of the immediate threats of a near-nuclear Iran, a newly hostile Egypt, and a still-irredentist Palestinian leadership? Or that a professed commitment to Israeli democracy means, among other things, some regard to the conclusions Israelis have drawn about the prospects of peace by way of their electoral choices?

I'd quibble with the argument about the demographic threat, but this is also a fine effort.


2) Substitute your lies for fact


It is hard to find a pro-Israel, (or, at least, sympathetic to) Israel op-ed in the New York Times and I want to return to yesterday's op-ed, Palestinian Statehood.


Back in May after Prime Minister Netanyahu returned to Israel from the United States and the New York Times reported Israelis See Netanyahu Trip as Diplomatic Failure which starts:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel returned from Washington on Wednesday to a nearly unanimous assessment among Israelis that despite his forceful defense of Israel’s security interests, hopes were dashed that his visit might advance peace negotiations with the Palestinians. 

The article then quotes a number of pundits who were critical of Netanyahu's performance in the United States. However that same day Ha'aretz reported, Haaretz poll: Netanyahu's popularity soaring following Washington trip:

It's doubtful that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his wildest, most optimistic dreams, would have dared to imagine when he set off for the United States last week that Israelis would respond to his six-day trip so enthusiastically: According to a new Haaretz poll, they are giving the visit high marks, considering it an overwhelming success. 

I'm not going to argue that polls prove anything and, they, of course, can be quite variable. But if there was a single objective measure of the Prime Minister's success, it was a poll. But the New York Times eschewed the poll and constructed a false narrative to fit its editorial position.


The next day the editors of the New York Times opined, The Mideast Peace Process: No Plan for Talks, which argued, in part:

 His aides had raised hopes that Mr. Netanyahu would offer new ideas to revive talks, but there was really nothing new there. He insisted that Jerusalem “will never again be divided” and Israel’s Army would remain along the Jordan River. And while he basked in Congress’s standing ovations, Ethan Bronner reported in The Times that in Israel the trip was judged a diplomatic failure. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz saidMr. Netanyahu’s “same old messages” proved the country “deserves a different leader.” Palestinians dismissed the visit and said they would focus on nonviolent protests leading to September. 

In other words the New York Times ignored objective evidence of the popularity of Netanyahu's performance and then used the misleading reporting as basis for a subsequent editorial. The New York Times has now done this again.


Over the weekend the New York Times ran a "White House Memo" Obama and Abbas: From Speed Dial to Not Talking, which whitewashed Mahmoud Abbas's refusal to negotiate in good faith with Israel. The report contained this:

“We hoped a lot that in his administration, there would be real progress,” said Nabil Shaath, who leads the foreign affairs department of Fatah, the main party of the Palestinian Authority. “But later on, disappointment set in,” Mr. Shaath said in a telephone interview from Ramallah on the West Bank. “He really could not deliver what he promised in terms of a cessation of settlement activity.”
When Mr. Netanyahu refused to extend a moratorium on construction, Mr. Abbas felt let down. And he blamed Mr. Obama for leading him on. In an interview with Newsweek in April, Mr. Abbas said: “It was Obama who suggested a full settlement freeze. I said O.K., I accept. We both went up the tree. After that, he came down with a ladder and he removed the ladder and said to me, jump.” 

The Israelis have long contended that negotiations should not be subject to any preconditions, and they view the Palestinians’s focus on settlements as a pretext to avoid serious negotiations.

The Israeli contention is accurate, but so far removed from the tone of the rest of the article. But the key point here is that the Palestinians got a ten month freeze and, despite that, didn't deign to negotiate with Israel until the very end of that time.

Yesterday, that reporting was followed up by an editorial, Palestinian Statehood:

Last week, the United States made a listless effort to get Palestinians to forgo the vote in favor of new peace talks. The pitch was unpersuasive. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said the Americans made no concrete proposal. “To be frank with you, they came too late,” he said. His frustration is understandable. Since President Obama took office, the only direct negotiations between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Mr. Abbas lasted a mere two weeks in September 2010.
Both sides share the blame with Mr. Obama and Arab leaders (we put the greater onus on Mr. Netanyahu, who has used any excuse to thwart peace efforts). But the best path to statehood remains negotiations. 

But what really happened?



The New York Times reported in November, 2009 Israel Offers a Pause in Building New Settlements:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Wednesday announced his intention to halt new residential construction in West Bank settlements for 10 months as part of an effort to revive stalled Middle East peace talks.
But a top Palestinian official said the plan was not enough, and the United States, which had sought a total freeze on settlement building, offered a mixed response. While the Obama administration praised Mr. Netanyahu’s decision, it used the long-expected announcement to increase pressure on him over the terms of future negotiations with the Palestinians to create an independent state.
Israel’s security cabinet approved the freeze on Wednesday. It will apply to the West Bank, but will not include Jerusalem. And it will apply to new residential building, so existing construction — nearly 3,000 housing units — will continue, and public structures like schools and community centers will be unaffected.

Israel observed this moratorium but it took until September, 2010 for the Palestinians to agree to negotiate with Israel, as the New York Times reported then Mideast Leaders Hopeful After Opening of Talks:

Although previous Middle East peace efforts have ended in failure, the current one has a few innovative components — American officials are involved from the very start and plan to stay involved; all difficult issues are to be negotiated in a package deal, so both sides are forced to compromise and acknowledge the other’s compromises; and the sides have agreed to a one-year deadline.
Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Abbas are planning to meet every two weeks. They are also planning to keep the substance of their conversations closely held in an effort to prevent leaks from becoming sources of embarrassment or pressure.
Still, officials on both sides agreed that the process would soon face a difficult test: Israel’s moratorium on settlement construction in the West Bank ends Sept. 26, and the government does not seem inclined to extend it. The Palestinians have repeatedly said that if construction starts again, the talks will end. 

And, of course, the Palestinians true to their walked out of the talks.


The "speed dial" story was presented in a way to deflect any blame for the failure of the peace talks on Abbas. The editorial followed up with the same selective reading, even claiming falsely that it was Netanyahu who did all he could to avoid negotiations, when, in fact it was the Palestinians who did.


In both cases (Netanyahu's popularity, Palestinian statehood) we see articles selectively or deceitfully reported followed up by an editorial that uses the narrative established by the "news" story to render false judgments of the situation. This suggests that the supposed wall between the news and opinion staffs at the New York Times does not exist. Rather it appears that - at least in regard to the Middle East - news is tailored to fit the specious reasoning of the editors of the New York Times.


3) How do the Palestinians feel about 9/11?


With the 10th anniversary of 9/11 on Sunday, I've been recommending the late Michael Kelly'sWhen Innocents are the enemy, for his observation:

If it is morally acceptable to murder, in the name of a necessary blow for freedom, a woman on a Tel Aviv street, or to blow up a disco full of teenagers, or to bomb a family restaurant -- then it must be morally acceptable to drive two jetliners into a place where 50,000 people work. In moral logic, what is the difference? If the murder of innocent people is for whatever reason excusable, it is excusable; if it is legitimate, it is legitimate. If acceptable on a small scale, so too on a grand.

Steven Farrell, now of the New York Times recalls his conversations with Palestinian terrorists on that day 10 years ago, 9/11 Recalled - The West Bank:

“Suicide bombs are our Apache helicopters. They are all we have,’’ said one of the men standing in a sandy alley, as his colleagues clustered beside the illusory shelter of cinderblock refugee camp walls, looking nervously up at the sky.
They didn’t yet know it, but in an hour or so an adapted form of their chosen weapon was about to be deployed to spectacular effect half way across the world, in a way that would elevate their status as international pariahs.
... There was a basic failure not only to appreciate but even to comprehend the perspective of the West. Even when challenged — and these were not men accustomed to being challenged — with the argument that whatever the perceived rights and wrongs of their cause, they would inevitably be bracketed with Osama bin Laden because, especially after 9/11, few in the West cared much about how they calibrated the motivation behind a suicide bomb.

I think Farrell is overstating the case here. For too many in the West, as Kelly observed, Palestinian terrorism was excused for the exact reason stated by the man Farrell quoted. And for those who excuse Palestinian terrorism it was justified because the cause was deemed just; and the cause - Palestinian statehood - was never discredited on account of its methods.

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