Detective Comics Covers - 7 (# 87 to 101) - BATMAN

RubinReports: How a Forgery—Not the Protocols—Shows Us Why So Many Still Don’t Understand Antisemitism When They See (or Produce) It

How a Forgery—Not the Protocols—Shows Us Why So Many Still Don’t Understand Antisemitism When They See (or Produce) It

Barry Rubin

You won’t see where I’m going with this at first but trust me and you’ll hear a good story with a very timely point. And if you have time read the two short appendices at the end which add to the fun.

Bertram Wolfe, an expert on Communism and the USSR who died in 1977, wrote an obscure little book in 1965 entitled, Strange Communists I Have Known, with some fascinating personal profiles and anecdotes about his experiences.

In “The Strange Case of Litvinov’s Diary,” Wolfe recounts a marvelous little scholarly mystery. Shortly after the death of former Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov in 1951, a manuscript purporting to be his secret diary surfaced. A prestigious British publisher asked Professor E.H. Carr, the famous historian, to examine it for authenticity. Carr strongly endorsed it as genuine, even offering to write the preface about its historical importance.

A well-known American publisher gave Wolfe the same task. Wolfe found dozens of flaws showing the manuscript was an obvious forgery. Moreover, by comparing it to things written earlier by the former Soviet diplomat who supplied the manuscript, Wolfe even proved that this man was the forger. If you read the details you can see that Wolfe’s case is air-tight.

But what interests me (and you) most is Wolfe’s first reason for finding the manuscript phony:

“The opening pages…began with the first of a series of visits from a rabbi…who comes to Litvinov as one Jew to another to complain [that Soviet authorities] had looted two synagogues and arrested the rabbi of Kiev….Litvinov promises to intervene, though he knows that Stalin `doesn’t like me to interfere in questions concerning the Jewish religion.’”

Indeed, the narrative continued, when Litvinov had tried to help imprisoned Jews previously Stalin had threatened to try him before a high Communist party committee. But, Litvinov supposedly wrote, “I couldn’t help smiling at the threat” because the committee’s head “is the son of the rabbi of Vilna.” (Incidentally, that was untrue, see below.*)

Wolfe was flabbergasted. He explains: “Thus, the opening passage presented Litvinov” as a loyal Jew, “ready to defend any and every Jew against his government and his party.” The same characteristics, even more amazingly, are attributed to the head of that committee, Soltz, a “fanatical” Communist.

But, Wolfe writes, “Litvinov and Soltz had rejected their Jewish heritage in their youth. Their Jewish origin tended to make them more rather than less hostile toward religious and anti-Communist Jews.” Yet Litvinov, and other Soviet Communist leaders of Jewish background are portrayed throughout the diary as pro-Jewish and even friendly to Zionism.

I might add that Jewish Communist officials in the USSR send many thousands of Jews to their execution or slave labor camps; closed synagogues; forbade the teaching of Hebrew and Yiddish; and did everything possible to wipe out Jews as a community and Judaism as a religion.

Indeed, over the last hundred years, aside from fascists, no one has persecuted Jews and their aspirations as a group--be it to practice their religion, maintain their own communal organizations, or have their own homeland—more than left-wing people of Jewish origin.

Wolfe concludes, referring to the manuscript: “I realized I was dealing with something I have frequently met [a supposed revelation of]: the `international Jewish conspiracy,’ the myth of Jewish solidarity overriding all political and other differences.”

Wolfe warned the British publisher which ignored his brief against the manuscript and published it; the American publisher rejected it.

Carr was a fine scholar and no antisemite. Yet he had missed entirely Wolfe’s opening point, something that Wolfe was more sensitive about being Jewish himself, though also a former Communist who had never been involved in any specific Jewish cause or religious observance . In contrast, the prestigious British scholar and publisher didn’t comprehend the antisemitic import of this book, didn’t see how the claims made about Jews proved it to be a forgery, or didn’t care.

The contemporary point here is this: Despite decades of documentation and explanation about antisemitism, a large proportion of the Western intelligentsia doesn’t understand it. For them, Jews—at least those who aren’t almost totally assimilated intellectuals either indifferent or hostile to their backgrounds—are incomprehensible. They don’t subscribe to traditional antisemitic—that is, medieval Christian and Nazi--stereotypes but they are blind to their permutations.

In other words, they don't know antisemitism when they see it--or even practice it--unless it is in the crudest historical forms. What they don't comprehend are the themes. If two American academics speak of pervasive Jewish influence behind the scenes using ridiculous sources, they can proclaim they are innocent of antisemitism. If a former president uses traditional antisemitic themes but just changes the target from "Jews" to Israelis, or others use the word "Zionist" instead of "Jew" but employ all the old stereotypes they are baffled when someone tries to explain this point.

This Carr-style response thus manifests itself in two ways. The more obvious is the mere substitution of the word “Israeli” or “Zionist” for Jewish, that is not just being critical of Israel but doing so in ways that mirror the old categories of antisemitism: seeking world domination; having massive power behind the scenes to twist countries’ governments against their own national interests; dominating the media; being evil in nature or having evil intentions; murdering little children for organs (instead of the traditional blood); hating non-Jews and holding their lives to be cheap; and so on and so on.

Second, beyond all the specifics, Jews (or Israelis or Zionists) are seen as some strange form of life to whom the usual rules don’t apply. You simply don’t need the same level of evidence; the same standard of right and wrong; the same level of balance when dealing with this group.

These are the kinds of transferences we see in such contemporary events as the spreading organ-stealing story, the Walt-Mearsheimer conspiracy theories, or the collected works of Jimmy Carter, or the Goldstone report, to name but a few. They don’t deal with Israel or Zionists or Jews as they really are but as they exist in the imagination of those making such portrayals.

We are, of course, aware—indeed, hyper-aware nowadays—of how such things have been applied to other groups, something which is close to being outlawed today. But Jews, in large part, are the one minority group in the world to which reverence for “the other” doesn’t apply among the Politically Correct, multicultural crowd.

But aren’t a lot of these people Jewish? And what about Goldstone and other Jews who defame Israel and the great majority of the world’s Jews who support it? Simple, go back and read what Wolfe wrote.

Oh, by the way, a few hours after I wrote this article the esteemed British journalist Gordon Thomas wrote in response to the alleged assassination of a leading Hamas terrorist in Dubai by Israel that of course Jews everywhere could be depended on to participate in such killing:

"...the role of the sayanim is a striking example of the cohesiveness of the world Jewish community. In practical terms, a sayan who runs a car rental agency will provide a kidon with a vehicle on a no-questions basis. An estate agent sayan will provide a building for surveillance. A bank manager sayan will provide funds at any time of day or night, and a sayan doctor provides medical assistance."

In other words, all Jews are potential collaborators in killing people whenever Israel asks them. Wow. And I bet not a single person in the UK intellectual circles would catch that or understand why that is so objectionable.

* Although Wolfe doesn't mention it, the father of Aaron Aleksandrovich Soltz was not a rabbi but a wealthy merchant, another error and one which by making him more "Jewish" than he was adds to the theme of exaggerating the relationship between Soviet Communist leaders and Judaism. Soltz actually has the precise same kind of background as those discussed in Postscript 1. The same applies to Litvinov, too.

Postscript 1: Two of Wolfe’s personality portraits are of Angelica Balabanoff, the first secretary of the Communist International, and Rosa Luxemburg, the virulent enemy of nationalism who led a Communist revolt in Germany and was murdered when it failed. Here is what he writes of Balabanoff:

“Her mother was determined to make [her] a ‘fine lady.’” She learned many languages and had governesses but absolutely no Jewish religious or cultural training. About Luxemburg, Wolf noted: “had broken out of the circle of ghetto culture and religion….This background had made the young girl take easily to [Communist] internationalism.”

I have seen precisely the same pattern in the background of Karl Radek, another Soviet Communist leader, and many others of more recent times. Having dispensed with everything Jewish in their own lives, they see it as a reactionary barrier. Either Jews are to disappear completely or, at most, they have a mission of selflessly pushing for revolution without any legitimate interest of their own as a community.

As Wolfe understood, both the ideology and selfish self-promoting (not “self-hating,” a major myth) interests of such people means that: “Their Jewish origin tended to make them more rather than less hostile toward religious and anti-Communist [whose contemporary equivalent means Israeli or pro-Israel] Jews.”

Postscript 2: Those who understand Jewish history might find it amusing for me to mention another give-away found by Wolfe. When referring to Soviet leaders of Jewish background, the manuscript called them by their patronyms (the name of their father). For example, Lev Davidovich Trotsky [originally Bronstein], that is his father was named David Bronstein, is called Davidovich. Litvinov would never make such a ridiculous mistake.
--Barry Davidovich Rubin

RubinReports: How a Forgery—Not the Protocols—Shows Us Why So Many Still Don’t Understand Antisemitism When They See (or Produce) It

Detective Comics Covers - 6 (# 72 to 86) - BATMAN

Love of the Land: ‘Dam butlab dam’ – only for some

‘Dam butlab dam’ – only for some

Sarah Honig
Another Tack/JPost
19 February '10

Terrorist arms smuggler Mahmoud al-Mabhouh’s son, Abdel-Rauf, stood teary-eyed before TV interviewers and lavished praise on his deceased father. He bragged that the late lamented, who was discovered dead in Dubai, “fought the Jews, hit the Jews, kidnapped and killed Israelis. He outfitted and dispatched suicide bombers.” That evidently made him an object for admiration, a source of honor and a claim to fame. Killing Jews is a noble objective, one to take pride in, to revere.

So when we Israelis point to Mabhouh’s gory record, it isn’t just our biased say-so. It’s hardly an unsubstantiated allegation, a pretext to justify assassination. His own son concedes this, indeed he crows about it as the paramount tribute he can pay his father.

And it isn’t a mournful son’s subjective or self-serving aggrandizement either. Hamas issued an official statement celebrating its latest shahid (martyr). Prominent in the Hamas-compiled catalog of Mabhouh glories are the 1989 abduction-murders of IDF soldiers Avi Sasportas and Ilan Sa’adon.

By the boastful admission of both his kin and organization, Mabhouh’s hands were bloodstained. Hence, by the Arabs’ own rules of engagement, he was liable for reprisal. The principal code governing these rules is dam butlab dam (blood begets blood).

Because of this core premise Hamas now vows to wreak the most horrific vengeance on Israel, actual proof of Israeli culpability for Mabhouh’s demise being entirely immaterial. All Israelis are therefore fair game. This is the elementary protocol of the blood feud.

But here’s where we encounter our enemies’ cynical lopsided logic. By their own rules – assuming for argument’s sake that we submit ourselves to them – we should be perceived just as entitled as they to hunt down and kill whoever killed our own. Yet our retribution is condemned a priori as illegitimate. The right to avenge Mabhouh’s death is unchallenged, whereas the right to avenge Mabhouh’s victims is categorically denied. What is valid, in fact a sacred duty for one side, is intolerable and entirely villainous for the other.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: ‘Dam butlab dam’ – only for some

Israel Matzav: The BBC throws the dual loyalty canard at Jews everywhere

The BBC throws the dual loyalty canard at Jews everywhere

Melanie Phillips goes after the British government-funded BBC for throwing the dual loyalty canard at Jews everywhere.

Some of this coverage surely amounts to incitement to racial hatred. Douglas Murray draws attention here to the astonishing suggestion broadcast on BBC Radio Four’s PM programme that

up to one million Jews worldwide might be on hand to assist Mossad in executions

a claim which turns every Jew in the diaspora into a potential suspected killer and thus a target for hatred and violence. In my view this claim should be brought to the attention of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Melanie does a great job of putting some perspective on the British indignation over their passports being used.

Read the whole thing.

Israel Matzav: The BBC throws the dual loyalty canard at Jews everywhere

Israel Matzav: Joe Klein: Take a failed policy and apply it elsewhere

Joe Klein: Take a failed policy and apply it elsewhere

By the admission of just about everyone, President Obumbler's policy of 'engaging' with rogue regimes has been a massive failure. Iran is still developing nuclear weapons. Obama is sending an ambassador to Syria but Syria continues to house terror groups, harass Israel and dominate Lebanon.

But none of that bothers Time Magazine's Joe Klein. He wants to move full steam ahead to the next American enemy. He wants Obama to 'engage' with Hamas.

It might have been more profitable for Obama to have concentrated on trying to fix Gaza first. It was the immediate crisis when he took office, and it remains so. It is difficult to solve, but not impossible. Success would set a predicate: the Administration could be relied upon to work hard, and pragmatically, on vexing issues along the way to an ultimate deal. It could be trusted by all sides. That possibility still exists, although senior Administration officials seem unduly pessimistic about the chances of success. And there is a big obstacle here: the best way to resolve Gaza is for the U.S. to quietly convince Hamas that if it gives up Shalit — a huge issue for the Israelis — the U.S. would work to persuade Israel to lift the siege. The trouble is, the U.S. won't talk to Hamas. But if Obama's policy really is about engaging our enemies, he needs to engage Hamas — and Hamas needs to respond. Quickly.

But earlier in the same article, Klein calls Israel's insistence on Shalit's release - one of three conditions Israel has set for lifting its partial blockade of Gaza - 'insanity.' Safely ensconced in the US (most of the time), Klein cannot appreciate that the real insanity would be for Israel to give up 1,000 top of the line terrorists for Shalit.

Jonathan Tobin adds that Klein is encouraging Obama to mis-order priorities.

Yet rather than concentrating our energies on preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons — a development that would undermine the security of most of the Arab world as well as present an existential threat to Israel — Klein wants the United States to concentrate its energies on finding a way to lift the partial international blockade on the terrorist state in Gaza. The blockade of Hamasistan allows food and medical supplies to enter the area but seeks to prevent the import of building materials (which can be used to bolster Hamas’s thriving small-arms industry) or weapons from abroad. The three conditions that Israel has placed on lifting the blockade are an end to the terrorist missile fire from Gaza into southern Israel, a stop to arms smuggling, and the release of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Klein is right that the missile fire has come to what may be a temporary halt. He also believes that the smuggling issue can be resolved, although, as shown by the death of a Hamas leader in Dubai at a time when he was seeking to facilitate the transport of weapons from Iran to Gaza, this is not a minor point. As for Shalit’s ordeal, Klein dismisses it as “an insane sticking point.”

So what’s his solution? The United States must “engage” the Hamas terrorists. That’s something that both Obama and Clinton have rightly pledged not to do — but, according to the columnist, “if Obama’s policy really is about engaging our enemies, he needs to engage Hamas — and Hamas needs to respond. Quickly.” According to Klein, the problem for Hamas is that the alternative to dealing with Obama is a return to the policies of the dread Dick Cheney and the neoconservatives. He concludes: “The leaders of Hamas — and other potential interlocutors, like the Syrians — need to understand that this may be their last best chance for progress. After Obama, the deluge.”

While a more sensible foreign policy may well have to await the election of a new president, what Klein fails to understand is that no matter who sits in the White House, it is not in America’s interest to rescue the killers of Hamas. Rather, it should be our policy to isolate and hopefully oust them from power. But if any argument is designed to undermine the appeal of the president’s discredited engagement policy, it is Klein’s belief that Barack Obama is the last best hope of one of the world’s most vicious terrorist groups.

Indeed.

Shmuel Rosner has more here.


Israel Matzav: Joe Klein: Take a failed policy and apply it elsewhere

Israel Matzav: Obama concludes no peace to process

Obama concludes no peace to process

Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.

Jennifer Rubin finds an interesting tidbit in the print edition of the Washington Post.

Buried on page 15 of the Washington Post (but not linkable) is an interesting chart and short column by Glenn Kessler. He writes: “When President Obama did not mention the Middle East peace process in his State of the Union speech, some commentators said it was an unusual lapse, perhaps signifying that he had lost interest in the issue after a year of disappointing results.” But no! Kessler jumps into the fray to defend the president (is he now on the White House payroll?) pointing out that lots of other presidents didn’t mention the Middle East either. Kessler spent time checking 50 of these and found that only 30 percent had mentioned the Middle East peace process. He then provided a chart, time line, and, sometime, photos. Wow. That’s a lot of spin … er … work on the subject.

But wait. Obama said that no other president had really tried hard enough to broker a peace deal. He was going to be different in that regard. He was going to roll up his sleeves and personally get involved. He was “impatient” with the lack of progress to date, remember? Well, not so much any more. And he’s belatedly reaching the conclusion that there is no peace to process. So, for all his spin, Kessler seems to prove the critics’ point: so much for Obama the Middle East peace maker.

I hope Obama has reached that conclusion. If he has, maybe he will leave us alone.

Israel Matzav: Obama concludes no peace to process

Love of the Land: Hapless French Foreign Minister unwittingly provides portrait of European weakness as he patronises and condemns Israel

Hapless French Foreign Minister unwittingly provides portrait of European weakness as he patronises and condemns Israel

(I translate here his interview today with a French newspaper)


Robin Shepherd
Robin Shepherd Online
20 February '10

In an interview with the French newspaper Journal du Dimanche on Saturday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner outlines his views on the Dubai assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. He also talks about the desirability of Europe and the international community recognising a Palestinian state regardless of whether Israel gives its consent and even before agreement has been reached on the state’s borders.

I offer my translation from the original French of those parts of the interview which deal with Israel and make some comments of my own below it. I submit that both the questions and the answers provide stark illustration of many of the guiding assumptions of French policy in the Middle East.

Here is my translation with the headline and the questions in bold:


Kouchner: “A Palestinian state, quickly”

Is Israel a rogue state that uses the passports of friendly countries to execute its enemies?

We condemn targeted assassinations and the use of forgeries. The agents [who killed al-Mabhouh] did not, contrary to the situation with the Brits, steal the identities of our nationals but they did use a false French passport and a false name. We condemn this unreservedly.

Where could this crisis between Europe and Israel lead?

What needs to happen to get beyond this crisis is to affirm the political role of Europe in quickly laying down the conditions for the peace process and the creation of a Palestinian state. To receive Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, with whom I will be dining on Sunday, is to support a man who holds the keys to the two state solution. The question of the moment is the construction of a new reality: France is training Palestinian police officers, enterprises are investing in the West Bank…Further, one could envisage the speedy proclamation of a Palestinian state and its immediate recognition by the international community even before negotiations on its borders. I would be glad to see this happen. However, I am not confident that other European countries would follow me on this, and I’m not even confident I’d be right. [NB: This last bit does not appear to make much sense in French either.]

Does this affair [the assassination in Dubai] tell us something about the kind of country Israel is becoming?

It tells us of the immediate necessity for peace and a Palestinian state. An Israel living in peace will fully rediscover the values on which it was founded and for the sake of which we support its security and its existence — for which we support Israel itself.
------------
The interview then trails off into other subjects. So, here are some thoughts on what Kouchner said:

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Hapless French Foreign Minister unwittingly provides portrait of European weakness as he patronises and condemns Israel

Chester Chronicles - Christian-Americans Forbidden To Kill Murderer If He Is Muslim

Chester Chronicles - Christian-Americans Forbidden To Kill Murderer If He Is Muslim

Detective Comics Covers - 5 (# 57 to 71) - BATMAN

Love of the Land: "What Often Happens to Israel's Critics"?

"What Often Happens to Israel's Critics"?

GI
CAMERA/Snapshots
18 February '10
Posted before Shabbat

Andrew Sullivan, in a series of recent posts his blog The Daily Dish, purports to describe "What often happens to Israel's critics."

What happens, we're meant to believe, is that these critics are met by little more than "smears and character assassinations."

Of course we've heard this all before from the likes of former president Jimmy Carter, Gaza investigator Richard Goldstone, and Independent columnist Johann Hari. And of course, in each of these cases, the cry of "character assassination" was intended to denigrate and distract from the many serious, substantive critiques of their work. Put another way, the smears were not targeted at Israel's critics, but rather employed by them and directed at the critics' critics (including CAMERA).

But what about the latest charge by Sullivan?

Well, his exhibit one is nothing other than a repeat of a May 2008 column by Johann Hari. Apparently Sullivan hadn't seen the Hari column until now. And apparently he didn't realize, or didn't care to reveal to his readers, that Hari's accusation has long been debunked.

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: "What Often Happens to Israel's Critics"?

Love of the Land: A Dubai Victory

A Dubai Victory

Noah Pollak
Contentions/Commentary
18 February '10
Posted before Shabbat

It’s fascinating to watch the world try to turn the Dubai assassination into a debacle for Israel — all because the team members were captured on CCTV and the British and Irish authorities are making a momentary stink about the use of forged British and Irish passports.

You, the reader of this post, will be captured on CCTV a dozen times today simply going about your business. The people calling the operation “sloppy” and a “debacle” seem to actually believe that the Mossad is unaware that there are video cameras in airports and hotels today, or that the passport photos of the agents would not be revealed to the public. Really.

More important, the fact of the matter is that the team got into Dubai, rubbed out a bad guy, and got out. No drama, nobody was captured, and nobody knows the real identities of the team or where they are now. Given the extraordinary risk and complexity of the operation, that’s a win in my book. And now the Iranians, Syrians, and their terrorist clients have been given another reminder that their people aren’t safe anywhere — even in the heart of the Arab world.

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: A Dubai Victory

Love of the Land: On not saying you’re sorry

On not saying you’re sorry

Fresnozionism.org
18 February '10
Posted before Shabbat

Everyone seems to want Israel to apologize, or ‘clarify’, or in some way abase itself today.

In connection with the Dubai assassination, the Dubai police chief has called for the head of the Mossad, Meir Dagan, to be arrested. British Foreign Secretary David Milliband has called the use of British passports in the operation an “outrage”, and called in the Israeli ambassador to discuss the incident.

If the Mossad did kill Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, then good for them — nobody deserved it more than Mabhouh. Hamas admitted that Mabhouh was responsible for the abduction and murder of two Israeli soldiers in 1989, has helped plan Hamas terrorism for years, and was recently involved in bringing Iranian weapons to Gaza. Israel doesn’t need to apologize; in fact the Mossad should expand its activities and kill more Hamas leaders.

Israel is at war and doesn’t need to apologize for shooting back.

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: On not saying you’re sorry

Love of the Land: Citizen Mahmoud Abbas

Citizen Mahmoud Abbas

Michael Freund
Opinion/JPost
17 February '10
Posted before Shabbat

This past Monday, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman raised an interesting point about Mahmoud Abbas that has not received the attention it deserves.

Speaking at a session of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Lieberman intimated that the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, who is also known as Abu Mazen, may very well be little more than a has-been – not just politically, but constitutionally as well.

“Abu Mazen does not represent the residents of Gaza because Hamas rules there,” Lieberman said, adding, “Seeing as elections in the PA have been postponed three times, one needs to ask whom does Abu Mazen represent. It is not clear that he can supply the goods in negotiations.”

To be sure, those in favor of talks with the Palestinians will dismiss Lieberman’s remarks as little more than rhetoric, viewing them as an attempt to minimize Abbas’s importance in order to justify ignoring him. But whether the critics like it or not, the fact is that Lieberman is correct: under Palestinian law, Abbas is no longer the lawful and legitimate leader of the PA.

Indeed, ever since January 24, the Palestinian chairman can no longer be said to be legally occupying his post. It was on that date, after all, that a new round of Palestinian balloting was supposed to be held to fill the post of chairman as well as elect a new Palestinian Legislative Council.

But because of disagreements between Fatah and Hamas, the vote never took place, leaving the Palestinian areas in a constitutional vacuum of epic proportions.

If you don’t believe me, just listen to what the Palestinians themselves have to say.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Citizen Mahmoud Abbas

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

RubinReports: How the Middle East (Often) Thinks: Logic is For The Infidels

How the Middle East (Often) Thinks: Logic is For The Infidels

By Barry Rubin

Buried deep in an obscure article about a Pakistani poet-politician is a clear presentation of one of the most powerful ideas shaping this contemporary world.

The article was written by Pakistani columnist Shah Nawaz Farooq in the Urdu-language Roznama Jasarat newspaper and translated by MEMRI. Its theme is about how the poet Muhammad Iqbal, who died in 1938, urges all Muslims to engage in Jihad even if they pursue this warfare against the infidel by non-military means.

Yet like a diamond in a coal mine appears in passing the following side:

"A characteristic of the infidel's psychology is superficiality. It means that a man gives importance to the apparent causes, and considers that to be everything. Worshipping logic is also a pillar of the infidel's psychology. The infidel weighs everything on a scale of profit and loss, and in light of 'two and two make four.' His standard is not good and evil–but profit and loss. This is why he wants to see himself as powerful at an apparent level."

One could write a library full of books on this little paragraph but here’s the short version. If one believes the deity guides the world completely and has set all the rules for human behavior, then all man-made morality, reason or logic are not guides to life or reality but mere illusions. Humanity is weak because Allah is strong; humanity has no real freedom because its choice is to obey the rules of Islam or be in rebellion against God's will. Divine standards of right and wrong transcend any human categories. Believing that events come out of material factors and can be understood through human logic is to be "superficial," to miss the true basis of events.

There is much, here, that reflects Western history of course. In much of the ancient world and then again between the fall of Classical civilization and the Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment, the rise of the scientific method, and other developments—roughly between the fifth and fifteenth century, this kind of thinking dominated. But such a world view eroded long before it came to an end completely. Logic, enthroned in Greek and Jewish civilization, was already an integral part of Western life.

Of course, the development of the modern world, science, and other things was made possible by the enthronement of logic. The last three centuries of history, despite many setbacks, have intensified its hegemony. Without it, the West would still be full of extremist ideology, hatred, superstition, violence, and low living standards. In other words not unlike most contemporary Muslim majority lands.

(Yes, there are still people in the West thinking in similar terms, religious "fundamentalists" and believers in bizarre conspiracy theories. But the differences between this minority in the West and majority in most Muslim-majority states are important. In the Western case they don’t run the society and government; they don’t successfully repress alternative view points; they don’t run the media or the schools; they don’t threaten and use violence against their adversaries except in a tiny handful of cases; and even they themselves have absorbed a great deal of logic, science, secular philosophy, and democratic standpoints whatever they say to the contrary.)

(Indeed, one could argue that the powerful bearer of irrationalism today in the West is the post-Marxist political left with its contemporary ideology. Incidentally, some snobs of that type might say that many or most Muslims in the Middle East were clinging to guns, religion, and ethnic hatreds, but to discuss such matters would requires a different article from this one.)

For a short time in the Medieval era, there were a few Muslim philosophers who sought to unite faith and logic, but they had no impact on their own societies. In contrast to the West, the equivalents of the Spanish Inquisition triumphed in the Muslim majority world. If one could speak of Islam being "hijacked" at all it was set on its current course by its own rulers and dominant religious figures about eight hundred years ago. The contemporary political Islamists, along with other powerful conservative forces, want to keep it that way and even thrust it back into an even more thorough conformity with that tradition.

Consequently, the ramifications of Farooq’s points—and they are very widely accepted in Muslim majority societies—are enormous. These ideas are a gigantic dam blocking the way to democracy, freedom, higher living standards, and equality for women.

The infidel, says Farooq, "wants to see himself as powerful at an apparent level." Hence, "I think therefore I am"; "Man is the measure of all things"; and much of the philosophical basis of Western thought is just an exercise in egomania. For an equivalent of Baruch Spinoza to quip,"The alleged will of God is the refuge of ignorance" today in the Arabic-speaking world would be a hanging offense, especially because that concept would be so subversive to the current order there.

In the West, to subscribe to the Enlightenment and to humanist values doesn't require one to be an atheist or even an agnostic. One must merely believe that a supreme being either doesn't interfere too much or leaves a large latitude to human beings to make up their own rules. It is also to accept a separation of religion and society, with the former relegated to the private sphere.

While such concepts are accepted by many Muslims in their daily lives, it is practically forbidden nowadays--though not necessarily a few decades ago--to state such assertions openly and to enshrine them in national law or governmental practice in Muslim majority countries. Engineering, medicine, and science may function on the basis of Western-developed ideas and techniques, but the local contribution to these fields remains small. When it comes to politically related, non-technological matters the situation is far worse.

To believe in “apparent causes” is dangerous because it can throw into question the nature of the existing societies, the regime in power, Arab nationalist philosophy, and Islam. It can, for example, mean comprehending how the dominant currents in Muslim-majority societies produce stagnation; that the stronger side (the West, Israel) will win military confrontations; and that major social and political change away from hide-bound traditional society is desperately needed.

Instead, ideas are spread that shore up the status quo or want to push it toward even more complete adherence to what is deemed as religious purity. What are thought to be “real” underlying causes can derive from conspiracy, adapted Marxism, or a belief in divine intervention. By such means, it is easy to maintain that the Muslims will win since the deity is on their side or the West is weak and decadent.

With such certainty of success who cares how big opposing armies might be or what weapons they carry? And so one can justify fighting on for decades and initiating disastrously losing wars (Hamas throwing out the existing ceasefire to attack Israel in December 2008, for example) because eventual triumph is ensured.

If you don’t “worship” logic then you think and act illogically, damaging your society and ramming it repeatedly into stone walls. If you don’t take into account profit and loss, you lose. Compare this, by the way, with the recent U.S. assessment of Iran as unlikely to use nuclear weapons because the regime would measure such a step in terms of profit and loss! My article provides numerous examples from modern Middle East history where the regime acted—at least according to Western conceptions of logic—in an “irrational” manner.

During the Iranian revolution of 1979, its leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini sneered that the West didn’t understand that the revolt was not just intended to lower the price of watermelons, that is was waged for material reasons.

Yet in the West this very mistake is made by those who consider themselves enlightened and tolerant. They rail against how the West allegedly fails to understand Islam and the Middle East properly. Ironically, their arguments conflict with something that most Arab intellectuals and perhaps half the population of Iran or more already knows about what's wrong with their societies.

A perfect example of this problem is the mistranslation of the word Islam, which means not peace but submission to God’s will, which is precisely what Farooq is explaining. That's what is in command, not logic, not material conditions, or any other such "superficial" explanations.

In line with this philosophy, which weighs everything in terms of good and evil, it is “right” to be intolerant, since why should someone tolerate what is clearly evil? That is why the United States, the West, Israel, and any local dissenters from these views are often labeled as “enemies of God.” They deserve to be wiped out, killed, treated as demons, as “satans.”

Toleration is impossible in a society based on absolute certainty. Democracy is a mistake unless one feels certain--as do some of the most influential supposedly "moderate" Islamists that elections are okay because they would win a majority and then be able to impose their will permanently on the society.

Equally, if faith wipes out the need to agree that “two and two make four” then evidence is not required for any assertion. Lying to journalists or to others is morally right because those you are condemning are innately wrong so what do details matter? Israel is evil; America is evil; the West is evil; modern society is evil. So you can accuse them of anything without being wrong. Why make peace with Israel or concessions to the United States when any such deal would be—literally—a pact with the devil and mere patience or struggle will lead to your enemy's complete downfall anyway.

Guess what? With rational arguments you won’t persuade people who reject that whole way of thinking. Of course, not everyone in Muslim-majority countries think that way. What’s most important, however, is that those who don’t do so are either influenced by the mainstream, shut up, or form a persecuted minority with little support. The graduate of a university faculty in law, medicine or engineering is far more likely to join an Islamist party than a liberal democratic one. And while the rulers generally—though not always—know better also, they use the forces of irrationality and faith for their own purposes.

The rising forces in the Middle East largely follow the Farooq mode of thinking. They may seize power completely or just continue to shape society. They can press governments into giving lip service to their world view or just convince them to manipulate this approach for their own advantage.

For the West to formulate a policy for the region that is entirely ignorant of this tremendous power for what one might called proud irrationalism will ensure failure, bloodshed, and even potential catastrophe.

RubinReports: How the Middle East (Often) Thinks: Logic is For The Infidels

Elder of Ziyon: Shahar Peer loses match, wins respect

Elder of Ziyon: Shahar Peer loses match, wins respect