Barry Rubin: This Is What Democracy Looks Like?: Hating America and Rejecting Peace with Israel Portrayed as Virtuous

This Is What Democracy Looks Like?: Hating America and Rejecting Peace with Israel Portrayed as Virtuous

by Barry Rubin

It’s fascinating to see not only the Middle East going backward but Western analysts and officials cheering on a return to even more war and terrorism. A good example is “In Tumult, New Hope for Palestinian Cause” by Anthony Shadid and David D. Kirkpatrick in the New York Times.

Let’s take one paragraph and see what it tells us:

ROLE CHANGE IN GAZA. The Palestinians are rebelling against their oppressor:

"We are one people and our enemy is one. We should unite against our enemy."

In this case though, it's Fatah talking about Hamas.

At least eight people, including two foreign journalists, were hurt in Gaza when thousands of men from the Fatah movement used open-air Friday prayers to protest against the Hamas Islamist takeover of the Palestinian enclave.

...Fahmi al-Zahrir, a Fatah spokesman in the West Bank, said the secular group would continue to protest Hamas's Gaza takeover until it is ended and accused the group of being undemocratic.

The media prefers to pigeonhole using well-used templates, including oppressor vs. oppressed--an old favorite, and Fatah seems to be taking advantage of this.

What happens when 2 groups adept at manipulating the media collide?
I don't know, but we are going to find out.

Technorati Tag: Fatah and Hamas and Media.

Appeasement Means Always Having To Say You're Sorry

He will be surprised when he sits with me at how far we are prepared to go. I can offer him a lot.
Prime Minister Olmert

"I think that someone has lost it in this country – it's becoming obvious that the Israeli government doesn't know how to defend the state of Israel on the political and explanatory front."
Zvi Mazel, Israel's former ambassador to Egypt and Sweden

In Losing The Media War, Israel Matzav discusses how Olmert is in full appeasement mode now, following the conclusion made by the IDF that the shelling of a home in Beit Hanoun was caused by a technical failure in their artillery.

IM notes the response from the Israeli leadership:

o Chief of Staff Dan Halutz has ordered all artillery fire into the Gaza Strip to be stopped "until further technical, professional and operational inquiries were completed."

o Defense Minister Amir Peretz has ordered that "all artillery fire into the Gaza Strip must first be approved by OC Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant."

o And then there is Olmert:

who is falling over himself offering more and more concessions in response to 'Palestinian' calls for mass murder of Jews. Tonight, Olmert apologized again for yesterday's shelling, and sent a message to 'moderate Palestinian President' Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen that he is willing to 'go far' in a projected meeting with Abu Mazen.

"He will be surprised when he sits with me at how far we are prepared to go,” Olmert said Thursday evening. “I can offer him a lot."

No doubt.

This from:

the can-do guy who said that if:

"the terrorist organizations impose a violent confrontation, both Israelis and the Palestinians will have to bear the consequences."

the visionary who declared in the beginning of August that:

Israel's success in Lebanon will create "new momentum" for his plan to unilaterally withdraw from most of Judea and Samaria.

the keen tactician who said this week:

I am still proud to say that I was among the initiators of the Disengagement

the shrewd negotiator who promised:

There is an honest, real will on my part to give a lot and receive little in return.

Olmert made that last statement back in June when he gave 375 rifles to Abbas.
This time, Olmert wants to release terrorists.

Israel Matzav links to a YNet News article Want to win media game? Don't apologize. Some advice is offered by Dr. Ra'anan Gissin, former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's media adviser and a strategist who now works as a foreign media expert. He says that Israel needs to win not only on the military front, but the media front as well:

You must broadcast the images of the terror groups hiding their rockets and launching those rockets from those residential areas. The world doesn't see enough of those images. Take one cell, don't destroy it, follow it and then show the world the images of the rockets being fired from within neighborhoods. Because if you kill the cell, and the world never sees it – the world won't believe it ever existed."

...Gissin notes that Hizbullah invests 15 percent of its Iranian given 100 million dollars in operating the al-Manar television network. Israel's spokespeople need to be the right people for the job, says Gissin, not just "eloquent English speakers."

Zvi Mazel, Israel's former ambassador to Egypt and Sweden gets it.

"The world must understand that the lives of Israeli citizens have become hell – they can't work, they can't live, not to mention the economic damage. If Livni and her friends were saying that, then our situation would be completely different."

"The world must be told in the clearest manner that the responsibility lies solely with the terror organizations, which bring it on themselves. Foreign Minister Livni should have convened the foreign press by that afternoon and explained to the journalists that terror groups operate from within the civilian population with the intent to draw the IDF there."

Mazel says that the world must understand that despite Israel's withdrawal from Gaza the Palestinians continue to relentlessly launch Qassam rockets at Israeli towns with the intent to kill.

There is a confidence in the IDF that it can rebound and learn from errors in the war with Hezbollah.

The question remains whether Israel is up to the challenge of dealing with the media.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Media and Terrorism and Gaza and Olmert.

Liberal Newspapers Suffer From Bad Circulation

IRIS has looked into the story about the falling newspaper subscription of liberal newspapers, with the notable exception of the New York Post.

I then looked at the trend over a number of years and detected an extraordinary trend: every newspaper consistently lost subscribers, except for four which experienced solid growth. Three of those four are the nation's only conservative dailies, while the fourth is arguably the least partisan paper, USA Today.

Take a look at the numbers he has put together.

Technorati Tag: Media and Media Bias.

Will Mearsheimer and Walt Come Out With A Paper On This?

From Reuters:

Muslims urged to buy influence in world media

RIYADH (Reuters) - Muslim tycoons should buy stakes in global media outlets to help change anti-Muslim attitudes around the world, ministers from Islamic countries heard at a conference in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.

Information ministers and officials meeting under the auspices of the 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the world's largest Islamic body, said Islam faced vilification after the September 11 attacks, when 19 Arabs killed nearly 3,000 people in U.S. cities in 2001.

"Muslim investors must invest in the large media institutions of the world, which generally make considerable profits, so that they have the ability to affect their policies via their administrative boards," OIC chief Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu told the gathering in the Saudi city of Jeddah.

"This would benefit in terms of correcting the image of Islam worldwide," he said, calling on Muslim countries to set up more channels in widely-spoken foreign languages.

Muslim stakes in Western media are minimal. Billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal owns 5.46 percent of media conglomerate News Corp., the Rupert Murdoch-run group behind the Fox News Channel. The U.S. channel is generally seen as right-wing and no friend of Arab or Muslim interests.

Washington's response to September 11, invading Afghanistan and Iraq and tightening civil freedoms at home as part of a wider "war on terror", has created a widespread feeling among Muslims worldwide that their religion is under attack.

A row earlier this year over Danish cartoons that depicted the Prophet Mohammed deepened the sense of a divide between Islamic culture and the West.

"The fierce attack on Islam in the five years since the September 11 attacks has forced us into a defensive position on our faith and understanding of our tolerant religion," Egyptian Information Minister Anas el-Feki said in a speech.

"Now more than ever we need a new Islamic media message that reaches all parts of the world," Feki said, citing Israel's recent 34-day war in Lebanon as one issue where Muslims needed to make their views and influence felt. [emphasis added]

Let's put aside the current pro-Arab slant of the media that brought us ReutersGate has consistently bent to the will of Moslem pressure and threats.

The story on its face is misleading. Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal's stake in Fox News is hardly minimal. From December of last year:

Al-Walid also criticised US media which he described as "in general ... pro-Israel." But he also accused Arabs of not being pro-active in fighting the allegedly slanted media.

He said that during last month's street protests in France, the US television network Fox -- owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in which Al-Walid himself has shares -- ran a banner saying: "Muslim riots."

"I picked up the phone and called Murdoch... (and told him) these are not Muslim riots, these are riots out of poverty," he said.

"Within 30 minutes, the title was changed from Muslim riots to civil riots."

Only 30 minutes?

Maybe Reuters should make that:

Muslims urged to buy even more influence in world media

Another issue is the potetial election of the first Muslim to the US Congress--Keith Ellison of Minnesota. Nothing wrong with that, except for the groups he is accepting help--and money--from.

Joel Mowbray notes that Ellison has received help from CAIR:

Two of its officials have been convicted on terrorism charges, and as an organization, while CAIR forcefully attacks critics of radical Islam, it has yet to condemn by name any Islamic terror organization other than al Qaeda—which it denounced only reluctantly several months after 9/11.

CAIR’s former communications and civil rights coordinator was convicted in 2004 on terror-related charges of plotting to wage violent jihad against the U.S., and the founder of its Texas branch last year was convicted of terror-related charges.

Mowbray points out that Ellison has also received aid from other questionable sources:

Also of concern are other contributors to Ellison’s campaign.

* Shahzeb Gaziani gave $500 on July 22. He is an official with the Peace and Justice Foundation, whose president was a featured speaker at a December 2004 event titled, “A tribute to the great Islamic visionary Ayatollah Khomenei.” Khomenei, of course, called America the “Great Satan,” was responsible for the kidnappings of Americans at the Embassy in Tehran, and his regime helped create Hezbollah.

* Esam Omeish, who gave $500, is president of the Muslim American Society, which authorities believe is the political front in the U.S. for the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the ideological forerunner of al Qaeda and many other Islamic terrorist organizations.

* Samir Abo Issa gave $500 on July 22. In 2003, he helped post bail for Abdelhaleem Ashqar, who is now facing trial on terror-related money laundering charges.

Mowbray also did a five part piece on Ellison at Powerline. In the last part, Mowbray writes that

A Minnesotan who does not support Keith Ellison e-mailed me his contention that I needed "something more damning than a list of checks." The problem with Keith Ellison winning the Democratic primary tomorrow in the very blue MN-05 district is much more than just the people from whom he's received
checks.

Ellison has tried to downplay his history with the Nation of Islam and its ugly penchant for racism and anti-Semitism. His willing association currently with people who are self-identified Hamas supporters, such as Awad, or any of his ilk undercuts any claim that Ellison has genuinely evolved. Anyone truly outraged by hatemongering or anti-Semitism would never accept money donated or collected by the likes of Awad, let alone stand next to him as he headlines a fundraiser.

But beyond that, we need to recognize on this 5th anniversary of 9/11 that our war is not just a military struggle or even one against supporters of terrorism. People like Nihad Awad, Shahzeb Gaziani, and Esam Omeish cannot be allowed into legitimate circles.

It's not enough to oppose "terrorism." One must also be vocal in opposing the root cause of most terrorism today: radical Islamic theology which demonizes Jews, Christians, and Americans, and holds that any non-Islamic government is inherently illegitimate.

Awad, CAIR, and Muslim-American Society, among others, are extremely vocal in their opposition, but never against radical Islam, only against its critics. They serve as the intimidation industry, doing their best to stifle even legitimate debate. They have successfully instilled fear in the media and government, which is precisely why Ellison's past with the Nation of Islam received such scant attention in the local mainstream media. Had it not been for Minnesota Democrats Exposed or Power Line, local MSM likely would have ignored it altogether.

Make no mistake about it: CAIR is an enemy of free speech, and thus an obstacle in our struggle to preserve freedom. A genuine Muslim civil rights organization could have been beneficial not just to Muslims, but the public at large. But that's not the path chosen by CAIR, who instead primarily savages critics of radical Islam, while maintaining silence on Islamic terrorism and its root cause.

CAIR already enjoys far too much legitimacy for an organization founded by two men who have both expressed explicit support for Islamic terrorism. Imagine what would happen if CAIR's executive director can claim credit for helping elect the first-ever Muslim Congressman.

It is not about denying the right to fight anti-Moslem sterotypes.
It is not about denying a Muslim the opportunity to be elected to Congress.

It is about recognizing the existence of radical Islamism, both around the world and here in the United States--and combatting it even as we acknowledge that radical Islamism does not speak on behalf of all Moslems.

CAIR is part of the problem, not the solution.
Keith Ellison has shown signs of ignoring the existence of the problem.

The issue is not Moslem influence; it is what they are doing with it.

Technorati Tag: Media Bias and Israel and Moslems.

Psssst: Israel Has A Quiet Victory--Pass It On...

I am on an email list with the New York Israeli Consulate, and received today a copy of an article appearing in Haaretz by Amir Reshef-Gissin, the head of the Foreign Ministry's Public Affairs Department.

Take a look.

Israel's quiet victory

Radical Islam increasingly perceived as strategic threat to West

The second Lebanon war is an up-to-date and clear example of the doctrine that modern war is decided not only on the battlefield. As gaps in the military power of the warring sides grow, the decision moves to the arena of media and consciousness.

The point is that apparently Israel fully appreciated the importance of hasbarah and the media, made every effort to win in this vital area--and yet still fell short.

An example of this is the Israeli spokespeople during the war. One of the myths associated with Israeli public relations efforts for generations is the centrality of the speakers: If only we find someone like Abba Eben or Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel would be able to win the battle over media coverage and public opinion.

Contending with images of Beirut

During the month of war, this myth fully collapsed: The State of Israel deployed coherent men and women featuring clear messages and boosted by the Israeli consensus who submitted to hundreds of interviews on dozens of TV channels.

In CNN alone, Israeli government spokespeople submitted to 400 minutes of interviews in the first two weeks of the war, constituting about 10 percent of the total airtime dedicated to the war.

On the other hand, Arab spokespeople were only interviewed for 30 minutes. Did the fact that Israeli spokespeople received so much more airtime than their opponents decide the outcome of the media war? The answer is negative. After all, the Israelis were not required to contend with their Arab colleagues, but rather, with the images of destruction and victims from Beirut.

And where were images of the suffering, hurting Israeli home front taken by dozens of foreign media crews operating from media centers set up by the Foreign Ministry in Haifa and the upper Galilee? They were cut due to editing considerations because they failed to match the narrative presented.

Yet despite this loss on the media battlefield, Reshef-Gissin claims there is still a fundamental victory that Israel has achieved:

All of the above is in plain view of the Israeli news consumer, but the most important things are hidden from view. The dust left behind by the military campaign along with the heavy price of those killed and kidnapped, the media fog and the waves of criticism, all combine to hide a fundamental Israeli achievement:

The decline of the narrative that argues that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and particularly the equation of Goliath (us) against David (them), are the exclusive reason for Middle Eastern instability.

To support this claim, he cites:

Public opinion surveys commissioned by the Foreign Ministry in recent weeks in the United States and leading European countries showed the maturity of the public's understanding of our new regional reality.

Indeed, the surveys showed wide identification of the two coalitions – the moderate one, which includes Egypt, Jordan, Palestinian leader Abbas and Lebanese PM Siniora, vis-à-vis the radical coalition of Iran, Syria, Hizbullah, Hamas, and al-Qaeda too.

In the wake of the war, radical Islam is increasingly perceived as a strategic threat on the West that is not merely a reaction to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is a new reality that is comfortable for Israel.

First of all, if in fact the narrative is changing and there is a perception that the issue is not just the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but rather the threat of radical Islamism--is this new perception really the result of a "fundamental Israeli achievement," or merely the result of the fact that radical Islamists keep trying to blow up people?

Second, if the Israeli government really believes that Egypt and Abbas fall into the moderate camp, perhaps it is time for those clever Israeli PR people to perhaps define for us just what is a Moslem moderate.

Thirdly, if in fact "radical Islam is increasingly perceived as a strategic threat on the West that is not merely a reaction to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," why are incidents of Anti-semitism also on the rise?

How quiet can a victory be--and still be a victory?

Technorati Tag: Israel and Islamism and Media.

Terrorism and the Media: The Symbiosis

Instapundit has a piece about the symbiotic relationship between the media on the one hand and terrorism on the other. He puts it succinctly:

Terrorism is an information war disguised as a military operation. The press plays a symbiotic role, and isn't willing to address that.

Along these lines, he quotes from a document found in Al-Zarqawi's hideout. After outlining the various ways the US has been successful against the terrorists, the first item listed in the terrorist effort to regroup is:

To improve the image of the resistance in society, increase the number of supporters who are refusing occupation and show the clash of interest between society and the occupation and its collaborators. To use the media for spreading an effective and creative image of the resistance. [emphasis added]

The degree to which this ploy has worked is documented by the Washington Post, which Instapundit points to as an example of the symbiotic relationship between the media and the terrorism:

More ink equals more blood, claim two economists who say that newspaper coverage of terrorist incidents leads directly to more attacks.

It's a macabre example of win-win in what economists call a "common-interest game," say Bruno S. Frey of the University of Zurich and Dominic Rohner of Cambridge University.

"Both the media and terrorists benefit from terrorist incidents," their study contends. Terrorists get free publicity for themselves and their cause. The media, meanwhile, make money "as reports of terror attacks increase newspaper sales and the number of television viewers."

...The results, they said, were unequivocal: Coverage caused more attacks, and attacks caused more coverage -- a mutually beneficial spiral of death that they say has increased because of a heightened interest in terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001.

The international media may perhaps be unaware of the consequences of their doting coverage of terrorists when the consequences are not constantly and blatantly laid at their front doorstep, but what can be said of the leftist media in Israel, when the consequences are seen--and felt--on a near daily basis? It's likely more a result of the overall leftist viewpoint of the media, than anything else. Ideology trumps profit: and the results are no better.

In the article, the researchers goes on to suggest the logical step of denying them publicity by not publicly naming the terrorists--even given the exposure to news possible via the Internet, they suggest that since more than one group often claims responsibility, the affect of the publicity would be muted.

I'm not sure what the difference would be, whether multiple claims of responsibility were made publicly or made known over the Internet.

On the other hand, there is an example where terrorist responsibility should be made public: the involvement of Yasir Arafat in the assasination of American Ambassador, Cleo A. Noel Jr., and the charge d'affaires, George C. Moore in March 1973. It is unclear why the US Governement did not make clear Arafat's responsibility.

According to a New York Times article back in April 1986:

Assistant Attorney General John R. Bolton told Congress today that the United States would not seek the indictment of Yasir Arafat, the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, in the 1973 killings of two American diplomats in the Sudan.

The department said it had insufficient evidence to prosecute Mr. Arafat in the deaths of the American Ambassador, Cleo A. Noel Jr., and the charge d'affaires, George C. Moore.

Members of Congress had asked the department to study recent evidence that the lawmakers said indicated Mr. Arafat might have taken part in the decision by Palestinian guerrillas to kill the two men.

This is the same controversial and outspoken John Bolton who now represents the US at the UN.

But last month, the following was released by the Office of the Historian:

In the early evening hours of 1 March 1973, eight Black September Organization (BSO) terrorists seized the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Khartoum as a diplomatic reception honoring the departing United States Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) was ending. After slightly wounding the United States Ambassador and the Belgian Charge d'Affaires, the terrorists took these officials plus the United States DCM, the Saudi Arabian Ambassador and the Jordanian Charge d'Affaires hostage. In return for the freedom of the hostages, the captors demanded the release of various individuals, mostly Palestinian guerrillas, imprisoned in Jordan, Israel and the United States.

The Khartoum operation was planned and carried out with the full knowledge and personal approval of Yasir Arafat, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and the head of Fatah. Fatah representatives based in Khartoum participated in the attack, using a Fatah vehicle to transport the terrorists to the Saudi Arabian Embassy.

The fact that Arafat was directly involved in the assassination is not new knowledge.

Scott Johnson points out in an article in November 2003 and again in a post on Powerline on Thursday that the State Department knew that Arafat was directly involved in the assasination of the two Americans from the beginning. [see also Solomonia on the electronic intercept of Arafat's order]

While writing an article on the topic in 2002, Johnson wrote to the State Department and was informed:

Evidence clearly points to the terrorist group Black September as having committed the assassinations of Amb. Noel and George Moore, and though Black September was a part of the Fatah movement, the linkage between Arafat and this group has never been established. [emphasis added]

Johnson later acquired 27 previously classified cables through the Freedom of Information Act. According to Johnson:

The cables demonstrated that in March 1973 the State Department had promptly concluded that Black September was nothing more than a front for Fatah and that Arafat himself had directed the operation resulting in the assassination of Noel and Moore. Both points are made over and over again in the cables to and from the Secretary of State.

To take one example, in early March the U.S Mission in Vienna reported to Secretary Rogers: "The Black September Organization (BSO) is a cover term for Fatah's terrorist operations executed by Fatah's intelligence organization, Jihaz al-Rasd...For all intents and purposes no significant distinction now can be made between the BSO and Fatah...Fatah leader Yasir Arafat has now been described in recent intelligence as having given approval to the Khartoum operation prior to its inception."

It's all very well for the US to assume to attempt to broker a peace treaty between Rabin and Arafat, but if it had been common knowledge that Arafat--a world terrorist and no freedom fighter--had ordered the murder of US officials, would Clinton and the US been so ready to push Israel into the Oslo Accords?

Update:

Soccer Dad recalls that Lady Margaret Thatcher said it best 20 years ago:

Democratic nations must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.

Update II:

Thanks to Atlas Shrugs, Bizzy Blog and NewsBusters for linking!

Crossposted at Israpundit

Technorati Tag: Israel and Terrorism and Arafat and Media Bias and Media and War and Iraq and Black September.