DoubleTapper: Life in the Middle East

Life in the Middle East

The Burkini, is made from UV and water-protected polyester. It covers the whole body except for the feet, hands and face.

Israel's beaches look nothing like this!

Hat tip DamnCoolPics

DoubleTapper: Life in the Middle East

DoubleTapper: Dry Bones on Biden's Visit to Israel

Dry Bones on Biden's Visit to Israel

DoubleTapper: Dry Bones on Biden's Visit to Israel

DoubleTapper: VP Joe Biden in the Middle East

VP Joe Biden in the Middle East

US VP Joe Biden is no Barack Obama, but he is Obama's VP.

Here's how he was seen with Israel's Prime minister Netanyahu



Here's VP Joe Biden with PA President Mahmoud Abbas



Here's the Gaza Islamic Jihad movement Parade honoring suicide terrorists from the same day.




Why doesn't the US administration see what everyone else can see?

According to the experts, US VP Joe Biden came to the region with 3 tasks:

1: Strengthen US-Israeli relations, which are currently weak due to Obama's Middle East Policies
2: Celebrate the launching of indirect Israel-Palestinian peace talks, Israel has no partner, but Obama promised to make peace...
3: Push the US agenda on Iran, forcing Israel to give up our right to defense.

Biden failed on all counts!

Not only that but, US Vice President Biden granted only one interview on his trip. To the Arabic Al Jazeera TV, whose news content is sharply slanted against Israel, US military campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and the Western war on terror.

By publicizing his Israel visit with an Al Jazeera interview, US Vice President Joe Biden made it crystal clear how he feels about Israel.

DoubleTapper: VP Joe Biden in the Middle East

Love of the Land: Reading Like a Middle Easterner

Reading Like a Middle Easterner

Where we see coincidences in U.S. news coverage of the Middle East, locals see conspiracies—and sometimes they’re right


Lee Smith
Tabletmag.com
10 March '10

Postmodernists long ago disabused us of the idea that texts have stable, fixed meanings. French literary critics like Jacques Derrida and Roland Barthes introduced a vision of the text as a tricky, shape-shifting improvisation; their American disciples like Stanley Fish proposed that these texts only acquire meaning through the efforts of interpretive communities. The relevance of academic critical esoterica to America’s ever-shifting Middle East policies—and how they are understood by Middle Easterners and manipulated by Middle Eastern regimes—may not seem immediately clear. But bear with me.

Recently, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton explained that the biggest threat to America’s national security comes not from Iran but al-Qaida. “Most of us believe the greater threats are the trans-national non-state networks,” Clinton said, referring to “the fundamentalist Islamic extremists who are connected to al-Qaida.”

What Clinton meant certainly seems straightforward enough. Transnational, nonstate Sunni jihadi networks like al-Qaida are responsible for not only 9/11 but also attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have dispatched at least one suicide attacker, the Detroit Christmas bomber Omar Faruq Abdulmuttalab, and apparently have plans to send more. While it is arguable whether a shadowy network of terrorists led by a man who may or may not be alive is more dangerous than an Iranian regime with terrorist assets throughout the Middle East and a nascent nuclear program, Clinton’s assertion is hardly ridiculous. It’s not outside of the realm of possibility that we could still sit down and strike a Grand Bargain with the Islamic Republic, whereas we don’t even have a working phone number for al-Qaida.

For the interpretive community that forms itself around the products disseminated by the American media—that is, for New York Times readers, Washington Post readers, and the CNN audience—Washington’s apparent about-face is due to the desire of the current White House to do the exact opposite of its unpopular predecessor. But a Middle Easterner hears something else.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Reading Like a Middle Easterner

Love of the Land: The Saudi Foreign Minister Explains the New Middle East

The Saudi Foreign Minister Explains the New Middle East

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
08 March '10

Here's today's evidence that we are now living in Middle East 2.0 instead of the old version.

First, a definition:

Middle East 1.0: Characterized by Arab nationalist domination, competition among the strongerArab states to lead the region and by the weaker ones trying to survive those campaigns. Arab-Israeli conflict is a real enterprise. Roughly 1952-2000 or so. International aspect: Cold War competition between the United States and USSR and, near the end, US as sole superpower.

Middle East 2.0: Characterized by a battle between Arab nationalist regimes and revolutionary Islamists. An Iran-led bloc (Syria, Hamas, Hizballah, Iraqi insurgents) seeking regional hegemony. Israel and most Arab states have parallel interests; Arab states (except for Syria) put low priority on conflict. International aspect: Will the West support the moderates or appease the radicals.

The latest occasion is an interview of Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister with Maureen Dowd of the New York Times. Of course, there are the usual rhetorical flourishes about Israel but the passion and focus is clearly on Iran and various Islamist terrorists. (“There is nothing wrong with keeping the terrorists on the run,” says the prince.)

This is the same man who told Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that sanctions would be too slow in stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons and the United States better do something quick. Here he says he prefers a resolution through the UN but it isn't clear what that means.

It's funny that in the West the region is being discussed, written about, and taught as if we were back in the 1970s. There is a particular obsession with the idea that everything is about the Arab-Israeli conflict. But if the Saudis talk like this publicly (you can imagine what they say privately) it's a sign of how changed everything is in Middle East 2.0's world.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: The Saudi Foreign Minister Explains the New Middle East

Love of the Land: Obama Talks, Syria Mocks

Obama Talks, Syria Mocks

Elliot Abrams
The Weekly Standard
06 March '10

The Obama administration has from the start seen Syria as a leading case for engagement. Barack Obama said so during his presidential campaign (announcing he would meet Bashar al Assad without preconditions) and repeated this policy view again last summer:

We’ve started to see some diplomatic contacts between the United States and Syria. There are aspects of Syrian behavior that trouble us, and we think that there is a way that Syria can be much more constructive on a whole host of these issues. But, as you know, I’m a believer in engagement and my hope is that we can continue to see progress on that front.

The engagement with Syria continues apace. Here are the key elements.

* High level envoys have been sent to Damascus: Under Secretary of State William Burns visited Syria in mid-February, the highest ranking U.S. official to set foot there in more than five years, and Middle East envoy George Mitchell has visited three times. High-ranking Central Command officers have been sent to Damascus to discuss cooperation against terrorism.

* President Obama has now nominated an ambassador to Damascus, the first since Margaret Scobey was withdrawn in 2005 after the murder of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri in Lebanon (which was widely blamed on the Assad regime).

* The president has also removed the American block to Syria’s attempt to join the World Trade Organization.

* The United States has eased some export licenses for Syria, mostly in the area of aircraft.

* Syria’s deputy foreign minister was invited to Washington in October, the first such visit in several years.

So there is certainly “progress on that front,” to use the president’s words. But when does “engagement” become “appeasement”? The case of U.S. policy toward Syria suggests that, here at least, the two approaches may not be far apart.

Love of the Land: Obama Talks, Syria Mocks

Love of the Land: Why Naïve Westerners Constantly Exaggerate Middle Eastern Moderation Pt.2

Why Naïve Westerners Constantly Exaggerate Middle Eastern Moderation Pt.2

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
18 February '10
Posted before Shabbat

There are three basic reasons why many Westerners are so gullible that they often overstate the moderation—or inaccurately claim that a major step toward moderation has taken place—on the part of radical states or groups. Among the beneficiaries of these errors are: Fatah, Iran, Hamas, Hizballah, Libya, Muslim Brotherhood groups, the PLO, Sudan, Syria, the Taliban, and others, including many individuals.

Such errors are dangerous for a variety of reasons. Advocating engagement with extremists strengthens them; reducing sanctions or not instituting them has the same effect. Those who oppose such groups are stigmatized and don’t receive the support they need and deserve. Acts of terrorism and advocacy of genocide are ignored. People do die as a result of these errors, though rarely are they those who made the mistakes.

Such misestimates take place for a number of reasons:

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: Why Naïve Westerners Constantly Exaggerate Middle Eastern Moderation Pt.2

DoubleTapper: Arab states reject Pakistani Ambassador Mr. Biggest Dick

Arab states reject Pakistani Ambassador Mr. Biggest Dick

Up until just over a month ago, His Excellency Miangul Akbar Zeb had lived an esteemed life as one of Pakistan's most senior diplomats.

Mr Zeb has served as the ambassador of Pakistan to the United States, India and South Africa, the director general of Pakistan's Foreign Ministry and most recently was Pakistan's High Commissioner Designate to Canada.

According to the Media Line news agency, Mr Zeb's impressive career hit a hick-up when Pakistan recently decided to send the 55-year-old veteran diplomat to the Arab world, seemingly ignorant to the Arabic translation of the senior diplomat's name: 'Biggest Dick'.

A relatively common Muslim name, Akbar means 'biggest' or 'greatest' in Arabic. While Zeb is a common Urdu name, in Arabic it is a slang reference to the male genitals and not used in polite conversation.

Faced with an uncomfortable conundrum, it seems the unfortunate diplomat's Arab hosts felt that local references to 'His Excellency Biggest Dick' would not go over well.

According to the Arab Times, the United Arab Emirates refused to accredit Mr Zeb as ambassador. Undeterred, Pakistan then tried to send Mr Zeb to neighboring Bahrain instead, where the emissary was rejected again. Then, most recently, Pakistan tried sending Mr Zeb to Saudi Arabia, only to be rebuffed a third time.

None of the Gulf States have made a statement as to why Mr Zeb was refused accreditation.

"It's hard to imagine that someone's name would be a problem, especially on this level, but I understand why the governments reacted this way," Ahmed Al-Omran, a Saudi cultural critic told The Media Line. "It crosses a cultural red line so I don't think the media would dare to publish a name like this. So every time he would be in the media they would have to face the name issue and it would make it difficult to work with him. That would just be an embarrassment for Pakistan."

Eman Al Nafjan, an influential Saudi blogger, said Pakistan should have known.

"If they were Russian or Chinese we could say maybe they didn't know or they were ignorant," she told The Media Line. "But they are Muslim, they use the Arabic alphabet and they know what his name means in Arabic so I'm surprised they didn't pick up on it sooner. The Pakistani's should have known and they could have avoided the whole thing, so nobody thinks the government was wrong on this issue.”

"On the one hand I would have thought it was a source of pride for him," Al Nafjan said laughing. "It's funny, but you can't just pronounce that name. It's too awkward: how would he be announced at events? How would he be written about?"

"If he were the president of Pakistan it would be a different issue," she added. "I mean we can't choose their president for them. But if it's an ambassador, I'm sure they can find someone else."

David Kenner of Foreign Policy magazine wrote that the issue was likely a source of embarrassment for Pakistan.

"One can only assume that submitting Zeb's name to a number of Arabic-speaking countries is some unique form of punishment designed by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry," he wrote. "Or the result of a particularly egregious cock-up."

Iqbal Khattak, Bureau Chief of the Pakistani Daily Times, said the issue has not been reported locally.

Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment for this article

Hat tip Rafi G

DoubleTapper: Arab states reject Pakistani Ambassador Mr. Biggest Dick

Love of the Land: Who decides in the Middle East?

Who decides in the Middle East?

Fresnozionism
30 January '10

News item:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a Tehran conference Saturday that whoever controls the Middle East controls the world, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported.

In a speech during a conference marking 30 years to the Islamic Revolution, Ahamdinejad reportedly implied that Iran is the top power in the Middle East. “Now the question is who has the last say in the Middle East? Well, of course, the answer is clear to every one,” Ahamdinejad said.

Before WWII, the answer was ‘Britain’. And from 1945 until Barack Obama, the answer has been ‘the US’. But in his Cairo speech, Obama more or less announced that the US, like Britain before it, was withdrawing from the region. And his inability or lack of will to resist Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons guarantees that Ahmadinejad will soon have the answer he desires.

OK, you can blame the bungled US reaction to 9/11, which included an unnecessary and hugely expensive war and a remarkably stupid followup to a military victory if you want to pin it on the Bush Administration, but shouldn’t Obama have at least made an effort to turn things around before slinking away?

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: Who decides in the Middle East?

Love of the Land: Norway’s Middle East Hypocrisy

Norway’s Middle East Hypocrisy

Ben Cohen
Z-Word Blog
20 January '10

This is a guest post by Christian Tau of NIJ.

Norway FM Jonas Gahr Støre toured the Middle East between January 16th-20th, visiting Jordan, the Palestinian Territories, Israel, Egypt and UAE. The topics of Støre’s meetings in the different countries as well as the manner in which he was received shows us a Norwegian foreign policy bathed in the gold sheen of hypocrisy. The manner in which the Norwegian media reports on Støre’s tour reveals how this hypocrisy is rooted in a bedrock of popular denial.


Criticizing Israel on human rights

Of the countries Støre visited we find Israel at the far end of the spectrum. Freedom House ranks the little nation as a “Free”. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index for 2008 ranks Israel at no.38. The nation is a vibrant affair, producing writers, film-makers, and scientists amidst a strong entrepreneurial culture. It is by far the state in which most Norwegians would settle, if they were to live in the Middle East.

In spite of this, Israel has reluctantly come to realize that what goodwill she enjoyed with Norwegian Labor has, after the failure of the Oslo accords, mutated into a seething resentment of failed expectations and dashed hopes. Merged with the traditional anti-Zionism of the Norwegian left-of-centre, this resentment has made criticism of Israel the very core of the Norwegian debate on the Middle East. In this debate Hamas and Hezbollah appear as symptoms of a problem which in itself consists solely of Israeli politics.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Norway’s Middle East Hypocrisy

Love of the Land: Positive Thinking

Positive Thinking

Love of the Land: Positive Thinking

Israel Matzav: Obama's Middle East: The collapse of ambition

Obama's Middle East: The collapse of ambition

In the wee hours of this morning, I posted a blog post by Rick Richman in which he discussed a longer article by Benjamin Kerstein. I mentioned that I may go back and read the longer article at some point. I just did. It's dynamite. Here's a sample.

There are probably two main reasons for the early collapse of the Obama administration’s ambitions in the Middle East; one regarding Israel and one regarding Obama himself. In regard to Israel, Obama failed because of his inability to grasp Israel’s attitude toward the peace process in the post-Oslo era. The trauma that Oslo represents for Israel is difficult to fully convey to foreigners. It was both the first peace agreement that failed and the first time Israel gambled on peace and lost. For nearly a decade, Israel struggled through political division, assassination, terrorism, and potential civil war, only to see it all end with the most brutal terrorist war it had ever encountered. Even more traumatizing, perhaps, was the reaction of the rest of the world. Throughout the Oslo process, Israel believed that it was taking an enormous chance for peace, and that the world would acknowledge and understand this if the process failed. This faith was most fervently expressed at the 2000 Camp David negotiations, where Ehud Barak made an offer to Yasser Arafat that crossed many of Israel’s previous red lines in regard to Jerusalem, territorial concessions, and holy sites. When Arafat turned it down, and the second intifada began shortly afterward, most Israelis felt that their efforts for peace and the dangerous position they had put themselves in would at least be acknowledged by others. Precisely the opposite happened. Condemnation of Israel was more violent than it had ever been in the past, and a worldwide outbreak of anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic sentiment followed. As a result of all this, Israelis looking back on Oslo feel, more than anything else, betrayed. They have lost their faith and trust in the Arabs, in the international community, and to a great extent in the peace process in general. While they are still willing to negotiate and make concessions, they feel that they should not be asked to take an Oslo-sized gamble again.

Obama’s opening gambit seemed, to many Israelis, like precisely that: Oslo resurrected as farce. Once again there were the dreamy, grandiose pronouncements about peace and change. Once again there seemed to be scant regard for Israel’s legitimate security concerns. One again Israel was being asked to make major concessions for what appeared to be little in return, and to an enemy Israelis did not trust. Once again Israel was being condemned for its supposed intransigence and obstructionism. Once again there were the assurances that the international community had Israel’s best interests at heart. Once again there were the admonitions that it was necessary to take risks for the sake of peace. And once again, there was the specter of an unfriendly American administration forcing Israel’s hand, just as George H.W. Bush forced Yitzhak Shamir into the Madrid conference in 1991, the first step toward the Oslo process. Whatever Obama’s personal and political charms may be, they could not possibly overcome Israel’s unwillingness to go back down that particular rabbit hole.

During the February 8, 2008 conversation mentioned above, Obama said, “If we cannot have an honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we’re not going to make progress.” In a way, Obama got his honest dialogue with the Israelis, but he didn’t want to hear what they had to say. This failure is entirely his own. Perhaps he thought that his closeness to aides like Rahm Emanuel gave him some special understanding of the Israeli mentality. Perhaps all those years hanging out with Rashid Khalidi and Jeremiah Wright blinded him to the possibility that Israel is not an all-powerful military juggernaut, but a small country deeply apprehensive about its future. Perhaps he thought that Israelis would be as enraptured with him as the 78% of American Jews who gave him their votes. Perhaps he simply wasn’t interested or didn’t care. In the end, this kind of speculation is irrelevant. Obama has lost the Israelis, possibly for good, and he has no one to blame but himself.

This speaks to the second reason for Obama’s failure in the Middle East. Ironically, it was illustrated quite well by Rahm Emanuel in a September 25 article in Haaretz, the day after the Obama-hosted Abbas-Netanyahu summit. “Both Israel and the Palestinians must ’seize an opportunity,’” Haaretz quoted Emanuel, “because they are faced with ‘a unique moment in time in the region.’” Obama’s chief of staff went on to claim that this was because of the strength of the Israeli and Palestinian governments, a claim that is somewhat untrue of the former and entirely of the latter; which simply emphasizes the fact that there is nothing particularly unique about this moment; and there is certainly nothing particularly auspicious about it. Abbas is weak and largely discredited among his own people. Hamas is still dedicated to Israel’s destruction and still firmly in control of Gaza. If free elections were held in the West Bank, Hamas would have a good chance of winning them. Hezbollah is gearing up for another war in the north. The reaction to the Gaza operation had solidified Israel’s total lack of faith in the goodwill of the international community. And over it all, the Iranian theocracy is still pursuing nuclear weapons, and has shown itself perfectly willing to do so over the dead bodies of its own people. It is a fool’s game to try and predict the future in the Middle East, and Obama may find a way to resurrect his failed policies, or events may suddenly turn in his favor; but at the moment, the situation here is largely as it has always been: dangerous, unstable, and unforgiving.

Kerstein does a great job of putting events and words into context. The above is only a small example. But the real reason Obama failed here is the two traits that Kerstein attributes to Obama in the very first sentence of his article: hubris (a word I have used to described Obama many times) and ineptitude. Really it's more hubris than ineptitude. After all, Obama is reputed to have a brilliant intellect and he didn't get where he got through incompetence. But Obama really believed that his word would be taken as gospel and that he could force Israel to comply with his wishes. He didn't understand that the first rule of survival in this country is "don't be a frier" (a sucker). If you tell an Israeli to do something, he won't do it except in the army (and maybe not even there). If you ask him to do something and explain to him why it's good for him, he might do it. Obama tried to order us around. That's usually a bad move - and it's always a bad move when you have no real leverage on us.

Obama approached this region and its problems with an arrogance that we had never seen before in an American President. Kerstein mentions George H. W. Bush forcing Yitzchak Shamir to go to Madrid. But there's no comparison. Bush did that before Oslo and he did it at a time when Israel was an emerging economy that very badly needed the loan guarantees of which Bush took advantage (our economy has changed drastically since 1991). Bush's actions were a pure power play against an uncharismatic and not very popular (although I liked Shamir a lot) leader. Netanyahu was elected by a consensus (although Kadima got more votes than Likud, the Right got far more than the Left - that's why Netanyahu is Prime Minister). Bush was not the model Obama should have been following.

And indeed Obama didn't follow it. He was far too conceited for that. He did his own thing.

Kerstein also understates the suspicion with which most Jewish Israelis viewed Obama. I could prove that to you with blog posts that I did in 2007 and 2008, but this post is too long already. We were on the lookout for Obama the day he took office. And it didn't take him long to blow it.

Read the whole thing. Kerstein does a good job of describing how Obama blew it and why it's highly unlikely he'll get another chance.

Israel Matzav: Obama's Middle East: The collapse of ambition

Love of the Land: Understanding the Middle East: Me, You, The Scorpion, The Frog, and Barack Obama

Understanding the Middle East: Me, You, The Scorpion, The Frog, and Barack Obama

Barry Rubin

The Rubin Report

30 September 09

There’s a little fable that’s often used to explain the Middle East. You’ve probably heard it but for those of you who haven’t I’ll tell it briefly and then analyze it in detail to explain better about this most perplexing yet highly important part of the world.

First, the story:

One day, a frog and a scorpion are standing by the river bank. They both want to get across to the other side. The frog can swim; the scorpion can’t. So the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across.

“But,” protests the frog, “if I let you on my back you’ll sting me!”

“Don’t worry,” answers the scorpion. “Why would I do that since if I sting you I’ll drown?”

This makes sense to the frog. He lets the scorpion climb aboard, jumps into the water, and starts swimming. In the middle of the river the scorpion does indeed sting the frog, paralyzing him. And as they sink down into the depth, the frog speaks his last words: “Why did you do that! Now we’ll both die!”

The scorpion shrugs his carapace and says, “Oh well, after all this is the Middle East. Glub. Glub. Gl….”

What I’ve never liked about this story is that the scorpion’s action seems to be irrational and is clearly suicidal. But what if the scorpion has good reason for acting as he does and isn’t just committing suicide? I’ll come back to this point in a few sentences.

Before that, though, let’s consider some scenarios.

Scenario One: The nice, pragmatic scorpion.

Assume a rational Western policymaker who thinks that everyone in the world thinks and acts pretty much the same because they have the same goals. In his other experiences handling domestic issues or with friendly foreign powers, he knows that if you make concessions to reach a deal, the other side will do so as well. Everybody seeks to arrive at a mutually beneficial solution.

Or, in Obama’s words: "I'm not interested in victory. I'm interested in resolving the problem."
So in that sense, the frog is dealing with a ”scorpion” he can trust—say Canada, Britain, Israel, Colombia, Botswana, or Japan.

Scorpion and frog want to get to other side, scorpion and frog cooperate (the scorpion will even put his claws into the water and paddle since he’s interested in success), problem solved.
Scenario Two: The nasty but rational scorpion.

But the policymaker isn’t so naïve. He knows there are some real differences, but he chalks these down to misunderstandings. Perhaps previous frogs haven’t treated the scorpion properly. If he apologizes and shows he’s a different kind of frog than the scorpion won’t sting him but will be one over by his charm and willingness to compromise.

So he makes a speech: Scorpions have a long and proud history. Frogs have often been arrogant in their treatment of scorpions. Let’s be friends.

You don’t have to assume blindly good will on the scorpion’s side. You will give more than the scorpion in terms of concessions but in the end the scorpion will give something because it has an interest in making the arrangement work.

So the frog jumps in with the scorpion on its back, the scorpion lets the frog do all the work, demands refreshments, and doesn’t say “thank you” at the end. But at least it doesn’t sting the scorpion. The other bank is reached; peace and quiet is achieved.

Perhaps this can be said to characterize places like Egypt, Pakistan, Russia and Saudi Arabia. They put a higher value on getting along but will give the absolute minimum in exchange no matter how much they get from America and Europe.

Scenario Three: The Radical Frog-Hating Scorpion That Wants to Rule the Habitat

Here is where our problem is today. Briefly, the radical scorpions of the world—which include in alphabetical order: Cuba, Hamas, Hizballah, Iran, North Korea, the Palestinian Authority, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and some others that could be mentioned don’t want to compromise and be friends.

Unlike the pragmatic scorpion, they won’t give a lot; unlike the nasty but pragmatic scorpion, they won’t give a little. They will take everything they can get and give nothing in return.

Does this make them irrational? No, because if they believe they can win by this strategy then it is quite a rational one to follow. And if you give them reason to think you are weak, stupid, naïve, or sympathetic enough to give them everything in exchange for nothing then you have persuaded them of that fact.

But now I have to redeem my promise about explaining why the scorpion isn’t committing suicide. In effect, answering this question has been one of my main efforts for 30 years now.
Briefly, the scorpion has good reason to think he is more likely to die if he doesn’t sting the frog.

Let’s put it this way: the scorpion stings the frog, the frog dies but becomes like a boat that the scorpion can use to stay afloat and to paddle wherever he wants. By using his stinger, the scorpion improves his situation.

Or to elucidate:
--Radical regimes use anti-American, anti-Western, and anti-Israel doctrine and conflicts as rationales for their many failures. Support your dictator; don’t complain about low living standards or lack of freedom because I’m saving you from the imperialist-Zionist-infidel plots against you.

--By stinging, radical regimes show how tough they are, thus pleasing and intimidating their own people and outdoing their rivals at home and competitors abroad.

--Not stinging is more dangerous than stinging. After all, if radical dictators had good relations with the Western democracies they could more easily influence the dictatorship’s society by opening up its economy and society more. The dictator will forego benefits in order to sustain his rule.

--They believe in their ideology. The scorpion must sting or he isn’t a scorpion. Iran’s leaders really believe what they say, as did Saddam Hussein or Yasir Arafat or Fidel Castro. Down with the frogs! Long live the scorpions!

--Finally, these regimes are ambitious. They want to rule their region and know that the West truly is an adversary. It isn’t a friend to be hugged or a limited rival with which you make a deal after tough bargaining, but rather an enemy to be defeated.

So it doesn’t matter whether Obama wears an “I love Scorpions” T-shirt, or speaks at the Scorpions’ Club (I mean the UN), or apologizes for previous frogs croaking too loud.

To the scorpions of the world, though, he's making America look like a plate of frogs’ legs.

Love of the Land: Understanding the Middle East: Me, You, The Scorpion, The Frog, and Barack Obama

Love of the Land: Angels

Angels

I've used these two angel characters for years and years. They, like me, have been watching the search for "Peace" for years and years.

This reminds me of the old joke about the drunk who dropped his house keys on his doorstep, but then looked for them under a nearby street light "because there was more light there."

...we're watching yet another President searching for Middle East peace through concessions from the tiny Jewish State (as easy as looking under a street light) instead of where it might actually be found ...by getting the locals to accept the existence of the Jewish State (as difficult as searching in the dark).

Love of the Land: Angels

Love of the Land: Tough love for Israel? Imposed Solution? The Ignorant Arrogance of the Advice-Givers

Tough love for Israel? Imposed Solution? The Ignorant Arrogance of the Advice-Givers

Barry Rubin

The Rubin Report

07 September 09

One remarkable thing about watching the Middle East is how what’s celebrated as brilliant in Europe or America is errant nonsense.

Writing such stuff makes people successful and gives them an audience of millions. It is so ridiculous that one wants to laugh, while so totally acceptable in Washington and European capitals that the laugher would be laughed at.

The article to which I refer is by Jacob Weisberg in the June 22 Newsweek, entitled, “A Friend in Need: Barack gets tough on Bibi.” It is far more terrible because Weisberg is neither leftist nor anti-Israel but has simply imbibed what “everyone says.”

Let me quickly add that while I don’t know Weisberg personally, I’m confident in saying he has no serious training in the Middle East, speaks neither Arabic nor Hebrew, spends little time researching the region, and has no real qualification for making the judgments he does.

Here's the theme: Israelis are so stupid about their country, situation, and region on life-and-death issues which they deal with daily that they must be saved in spite of themselves by people who have no knowledge or experience on any of these things. No other country in the world is so frequently told this kind of thing which I hear all the time from Europeans, too.

Is it so hard to comprehend that our views and behavior are based on years of experience and study? That we know best how to save ourselves and have been doing a far better job of it, against tremendous odds and unhelpful kibbitzers,than many others? That heeding their prescriptions would be disastrous, in fact have already proven so? After all, the tragic history of the last 20 years has largely resulted from listening to the same advice he gives now,

When one tries to explain these things in conversations, however, you can see their eyes go blank and their ears close up.

Weisberg’s article follows this pattern. The United States, he says (and these are main elements in the rhetoric among supporters of the Obama administration and several European governments) must show Israel “tough love,” lean “harder on Jews and the Arabs to get serious about a deal,” and stop “fostering Israeli illusions that there [is] an alternative to trading land for peace.”

All three of these arguments are based on false premises.

Tough love: This derives from the late 1980s and early 1990s when the left side of the Israeli spectrum was pushing the land-for-peace and negotiate with the PLO arguments against their rivals on the right. A little U.S. pressure, they argued, would help get talks going.

A lot has happened since then, however, notably the 1992-2000 Oslo process. This proved to the vast majority of Israelis that the Palestinian leadership (and Syria, too, for that matter) wasn’t ready or interested in peace. Disillusioned, a lot of these people supported Ariel Sharon and the disengagement from the Gaza Strip, the results of which (Hamas takeover, rocket fire) made them even more disenchanted.

That’s why the Labour party—which invented the land-for-peace argument in the first place and made the Oslo agreement and offered a two-state solution in 2000—is now in a coalition government with the Likud party. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not a “right-wing” or “hard-line” leader but someone who speaks for the national consensus, a consensus based on education through painful, bloody experience.

Israel also faces a more hostile Europe, an Iran racing toward nuclear weapons, an intransigent and incompetent Palestinian Authority, plus Hamas and Hizballah.

Today the last thing Israelis need or want is pressure to make more concessions to the Palestinians. They’ve already made a lot; these didn’t lead anywhere good. What Israel needs today is not “tough love” but real support.

Push “harder on Jews and the Arabs to get serious about a deal”: The false assumption here is that getting an agreement, any agreement, is a desperate need of the two sides and of the region as a whole.

In fact, Israel is doing very well without any comprehensive peace agreement. The economy is doing fine; morale is high; security improved. Moreover, this concept pays no attention to the idea that a deal can be a bad one, inherently instable and leading to more violence.

It never enters the minds of these people that a “peace” agreement that was broken or had dangerous provisions (giving up strategic territory; east Jerusalem; empowering a radical regime in a next-door Palestinian state; opening the door to foreign Arab or Iranian armies entering; bringing in millions of Palestinian Arabs to Israel) could leave Israel far worse off.

Read All at :

Love of the Land: Tough love for Israel? Imposed Solution? The Ignorant Arrogance of the Advice-Givers

Love of the Land: How to Tell Who’s Lying and Who’s Telling the Truth in the Middle East

How to Tell Who’s Lying and Who’s Telling the Truth in the Middle East

Barry Rubin

The Rubin Report

03 September 09

A reader wrote me about one of the latest (and innumerable) sensationalist stories in the Middle East. Namely, in this case, that Hizballah has allegedly deployed chemical and biological weapons. This is absurd but it reminds us of the care that must be taken in analyzing developments in this region.

In this case, the source is a Kuwaiti newspaper. One must first ask: how does a Kuwaiti newspaper with no foreign bureaus and surely no inside sources in Hizballah (or Syria or Israeli intelligence) know this big secret? So the first question you must always ask is: Is it credible that the news outlet or other source knows what it/he/she claims to know?

The second question is the more specific identity of the source. There are sources that are literally always wrong (Debka, al-Quds al-Arabi, the Syrian state press, etc) and should be remembered as such. In this case, the newspaper is al-Siyassa, a courageous newspaper in its stance against Syria and radical Islamists and which is also pro-Saudi. Clearly, as in the past, al-Siyassa wants a sensationalist story and also to make the Syrians (and their client, Hizballah) look bad.

The third question is the rule of rationality: There have been no credible previous reports of Hizballah having these weapons. And if they did, Israeli sources would be talking about it a lot.

Consider another recent story, the claim that Israel hijacked a Russian ship carrying arms to Hamas. Russia is a very important country for Israel. Aside from trade and other issues, Israel doesn’t want Moscow to sell advanced anti-aircraft missiles to Iran, just in case Israel decides one day to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities. Would Israel take the risk of creating a virtual war scenario with the Russian government? Not credible.

In the past there were mythical lands, or at least lands about which myths could be told. People remember that Marco Polo described the court of the emperor of China but not that Polo also speaks of lands along the way where he insisted he saw men with two heads.

The Middle East has become the part of the world onto which fantasies are projected. But there’s a problem. Due to Political Correctness and other dubious blessings of contemporary life, one cannot even speak honestly about what goes on in Iran or Arabic-speaking lands. The old cliché that, “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all,” has seemingly been enshrined on the intellectual temples of our era.

Read All at :

Love of the Land: How to Tell Who’s Lying and Who’s Telling the Truth in the Middle East

Originally posted by Barry Rubin (http://rubinreports.blogspot.com)