Remember when one of the criticisms of the US invasion of Iraq was that it removed Iraq as a check against Iran and gave the Iranians a freer hand to pursue their agenda in the Middle East?
If the invasion of Iraq benefited Iran, is there any reason to believe that withdrawing US troops from Iraq would not also have benefit a country in the reason?
Michael Rubin writes that the US withdrawal from Iraq will allow Bashar al-Assad to stay in control in Syria.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
You Only Need Fulfill One Requirement To Be A Moderate Muslim
How else to explain that Abbas is supposed to be a moderate Muslim and a fitting peace partner for Israel?
Such a claim ignores what Abbas says and does.
As Isi Leibler notes, Abbas is not an moderate Muslim peace partner for Israel in any sense of the word because he:
Such a claim ignores what Abbas says and does.
As Isi Leibler notes, Abbas is not an moderate Muslim peace partner for Israel in any sense of the word because he:
• Refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, insists that the “occupation” dates back to 1948 and even denies any Jewish link with the Holy Land;
• Sanctifies mass murderers of Israeli women and children by bestowing honor on the killers and granting state pensions to their families;
"Jews Care About Their Own!" Is Not An Indictment
by Rabbi Avi Shafran
Politicians are often subject to derision, often for good reason. Recently, though, a Catholic cleric hurled an unusual and creative insult at local politicos: They are like Jews.
Edward Gilbert, the leader of the Catholic Church in Port of Spain, the capital of the southern Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago, made the comparison between elected officials and “the original Jewish people,” explaining that Jews, at least in ancient times, cared only about their own.
“The Jews were compassionate and caring to the people of their nation, to the people of their race…,” Archbishop Gilbert reportedly said during an October 24 religious ceremony commemorating the 225th anniversary of the Roman Catholic presence on Trinidad. Christianity, he proudly asserted, “universalized the concept of love.”
Predictably, the Anti-Defamation League protested the sermon, calling Mr. Gilbert’s statements “a disturbing repackaging of ancient anti-Jewish canards and supersessionist beliefs.” The American Jewish Committee chimed in with chiding of its own, contending that “such prejudicial comments not only reflect personal ignorance, but also ignorance of the teaching of the Catholic Church since Nostra Aetate.” That was a reference to the Vatican II declaration repudiating the centuries-old “deicide” charge against all Jews, stressing the religious bond shared by Jews and Catholics, and reaffirming the eternal covenant between G-d and the People of Israel (though it does not, of course, renounce the essential beliefs of Christianity).
Personally, I wasn’t insulted by the Archbishop’s characterization, even if he meant to include contemporary Jews.
Mideast Media Sampler 11/15/2011
From DG:
1) The loss of Ross
Douglas Bloomfield recounted an incident from Dennis Ross's "The Missing Peace:"
Ross described a meeting in Washington with Netanyahu shortly after he became prime minister the first time in 1996. "In the meeting with President Clinton, Netanyahu was nearly insufferable, lecturing and telling us how to deal with the Arabs." Ross recounts that afterwards a frustrated President Clinton remarked, "He thinks he is the superpower and we are here to do whatever he requires." Ross added, "No one on our side disagreed with that assessment."The arrogance displayed in this passage is incredible.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Barry Rubin: Who is Obama’s Favorite Middle East Leader? An Anti-American Radical Who Loathes America and Israel
By Barry Rubin
Suppose that during the Cold War years, the American president’s favorite leader and guide to Latin America was Fidel Castro. That would worry you, right? But such a notion is ridiculous, isn’t it?
Not today it isn’t. President Barack Obama can’t stand Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In a recent statement to French President Nicholas Sarkozy, caught by a microphone both men thought was off, Obama said: “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day!”
There is, however, a man who Obama loves to deal with, if not every day at least as often as possible: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
As Turkish expert Soner Cagaptay put it, “The United States and Turkey are on a honeymoon, with President Obama and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan having formed what is probably the best relationship between a U.S. president and a Turkish prime minister in decades…. Obama and Erdogan seem to have really hit it off…. The two leaders speak often… and frequently agree on policy.”
I would also stress that Erdogan is Obama’s tutor on Middle East affairs:
The Narrative of Perpetual Palestinian Victimhood
| For Immediate Release: November 14, 2011 | Contact: Anne Bayefsky anne@hudsonny.org (917) 488-1558 |
| This article by Shelby Steele appears today on Hudson New York and PJMedia. |
| Shelby Steele is the Robert J and Marion E. Oster Senior Fellow, Hoover Institute. The following is excerpted from a speech delivered in New York City at the conference "The Perils of Global Intolerance: The UN and Durban III," sponsored by the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and the Hudson Institute. The Arab-Israeli conflict, is not really a conflict, it is a war – a war of the Arabs against the Jews. In many ways, this conflict has been a conflict between narratives. We who strongly support Israel have done a poor job in formulating a narrative which will combat the story spun by the other side. We can do better. The Durban conferences, the request for UN recognition of a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood, and the general animus in the Middle East and elsewhere toward Israel and toward the Jews, what are they really about? Is the Durban conference and the claim that Israel is a racist nation really about reforming the people of Israel and curing them of their racism? I think their real interest is to situate the Palestinian people within a narrative of victimization. This is their ulterior goal: to see themselves and to have others see them as victims of colonialism, as victims of white supremacy. Listen to their language; it is the language of colonial oppression. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas claims that Palestinians have been occupied for 63 years. The word oppressed is constant, exploited. In this, there is a poetic truth; like poetic license, in a poetic truth a writer will bend the rules in order to be more effective. |
Barry Rubin: Happy New Jumblatt! A Lebanese Leader Gets Brave and What it Means
By Barry Rubin
Happy New Jumblatt! What’s a Jumblatt? Well, it’s a joke that tells us a lot about Middle East politics. A friend of mine created the “Jumblatt” as a unit of time, one complete rotation in the political maneuvers of Lebanese Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt.
For example, during the previous Jumblatt, he moved from being a stalwart client of Syria to join the March 14 Coalition to push Syrian troops out of Lebanon. At the peak of the last Jumblatt, he gave a rather unforgettable interview which I will paraphrase here (note: this is my wording not a precise quote):
During Both World Wars, The Jews Earned A State--What Did The Arabs Do?
The blog My Right Word writes about the importance of the date March 4, 1915 which is when a group of Jews decided to establish a Jewish regiment that would participate alongside the British troops during WWI. He even has a copy of the document they all signed.
The most notable contributions to the British during WWI may well have been through the NILI spy ring, which provided intelligence about the Turkish military as well as the conditions in the area.
In The Palestinian Right to Israel
, historian Alex Grobman describes the contributions made by NILI:
The most notable contributions to the British during WWI may well have been through the NILI spy ring, which provided intelligence about the Turkish military as well as the conditions in the area.
In The Palestinian Right to Israel
, historian Alex Grobman describes the contributions made by NILI:Videos: During WWII, Arabs Fought With Nazi Occupiers Against The Resistance
We all know who was Hitler's favorite Middle East guest:
What may not be as well known is that the Mufti established the Muslim 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar which was used by the Nazis to crush the Yugoslavian resistance.
Here is a video segment from The History Channel:
The Grand Mufti: Haj Amin al-Husseini, the undisputed leader of the Arabs living in then-Palestine.
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What may not be as well known is that the Mufti established the Muslim 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar which was used by the Nazis to crush the Yugoslavian resistance.
Here is a video segment from The History Channel:
Mideast Media Sampler 11/14/11
From DG:
1) Public discussion of secrets
Jackson Diehl observes in For Israel, a tough call on attacking Iran:
A weird but wonderful feature of Israeli democracy is that even fateful decisions about national security — like whether to carry out a military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities — are publicly debated and covered in the press as if they were questions about road building or water rates, complete with vote counts in the cabinet and speculation about political motives.
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