UNBELIEVABLE! Obama Administration Puts Israel On List Of Countries That Support Terrorism

Only in the twisted world of the Obama Administration, where allies are trashed, and enemies are embraced, could the tiny nation of Israel, on the front lines of the war on terror for decades, be on a list of 36 nations which “have shown a tendency to promote, produce, or protect terrorist organizations or their members.”

This is no joke and Alan Funt is dead so you can't be on Candid Camera. As reported by CNS News

The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General published the list of "specially designated countries" as an appendix to an unclassified May 11 report--"Supervision of Aliens Commensurate With Risk"--that was publicly posted on the Internet. (The appendix is on page 18 of the document.)

As a matter of policy, according to the inspector general’s report, citizens of Israel and other “specially designated countries” are subjected to a special security screening called a “Third Agency Check” (TAC) when they are actually detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the division of the Department of Homeland Security responsible for enforcing the immigration laws.

The five countries on the list that do not have majority Muslim populations--Kazakhstan (47 percent Muslim), Eritrea (36.5 percent Muslim), Israel (16.9 percent Muslim), the Philippines (5 percent Muslim) and Thailand (4.6 percent)--have had internal problems with radical Muslim terrorists, as reported by the State Department. 

Isn't that kind of blaming the victim?

ICE officers are supposed to check all aliens they take into custody against the Terrorist Watchlist, which includes the identities of individuals the U.S. government knows or reasonably suspects to be terrorists. When ICE holds a citizen from a “specially designated country” in its own detention facilities, according to the agency’s standing policy, the individual is also supposed to be run through a TAC.

“In addition to the Terrorist Watchlist screening, ICE uses a Third Agency Check (TAC) to screen aliens from specially designated countries (SDCs) that have shown a tendency to promote, produce, or protect terrorist organizations or their members,” says the inspector general’s report.

“The purpose of the additional screening is to determine whether other agencies have an interest in the alien,” says the report. “ICE’s policy requires officers to conduct TAC screenings only for aliens from SDCs if the aliens are in ICE custody. As a result, ICE does not perform a TAC for the majority of its population of aliens, which includes those incarcerated or released under supervision.”

The inspector general recommended in the report that ICE change its screening policy “to require officers to conduct TAC screenings for all aliens from SDCs, not just those held in ICE detention facilities.”

OK lets get this straight. Based on new Department of Homeland Security procedures, illegal immigrants who are caught breaking the law will not be deported, but the Inspector General is no recommending that every Israeli that visits the US should be subject to special screening procedures.

Wait! It gets crazier:

Even though the adminisration includes Israel among “specially designated countries” that it believes "have shown a tendency to promote, produce, or protect terrorist organizations or their members,” ICE Spokeswoman Gillian Christensen told CNSNews.com that the U.S. also considers Israel, as well as some other countries on the “specially designated countries” list, as partners in the struggle against terrorism.

“The U.S. does not and never has considered Israel to have links to terrorism, but rather they are a partner in our efforts to combat global terrorism,” Christensen said in a written statement. “Countries may have been included on the list because of the backgrounds of arrestees, not because of the country’s government itself.”

OH Israelis will now be subject to extra screening because the country arrests terrorists.
That makes sense?

ICE declined to say who put Israel on the list or when Israel was put there. However, in her written statement, ICE spokeswoman Christensen said the “specially designated country” list had been created "at least" seven years ago--which would have been during the presidency of George W. Bush--and that ICE was not responsible for creating it.

True but when this final list was proposed in March 2008 Israel was not on the list but North Korea was, today that is reversed.

“So many federal agencies have created different lists that U.S. officials contemplated adopting a single one to streamline the process, Stark wrote,” said the McClatchey report. “The proposed list, which officials said had yet to be adopted, includes 35 countries, most with significant Muslim or Arab populations.”

“The group of agencies--which included ICE, the National Security Agency and U.S. Customs and Border Protection--not only recommended one list but also suggested an interagency definition of ‘special interest alien,’” said the McClatchey report. “Under the proposal, a special interest alien would be an immigrant with terrorist ties or an immigrant who by nationality, ‘ethnicity or other factors may have ties or sympathies’ with the listed country.”

The 35 countries plus the West Bank and Gaza that were on the proposed list discussed in the ICE memo uncovered by McClatchey in March 2008 almost exactly matches the “specially designated countries” on the list published by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General on May 11, 2011. There are only two differences: North Korea was on the list proposed in 2008; it is not on the May 2011 list. Israel was not on the list proposed in 2008; it is on the May 2011 list.

See how this administration cares about Israel?  Even though the list was already set, they made a change to put our ally on this special list. Boy oh boy, just like he is with Great Britain, whose Queen he gave an Ipod full of his speeches and Broadway Show tunes, Barack Obama is a real friend of Israel.

Obama always says that despite his constant criticism of  Israel, America will always have a special partnership with the Jewish State.  Now we understand he means putting Israel on a "special" terrorism watch list.

The Benefits of the 'Arab Spring'

 By BARRY RUBIN


There are two types of strategic perspectives in Israel today. They aren’t contradictory, but they have different priorities. These can be called the “northern” and the “southern” views.

The “northern” approach is the more traditional one, focusing on the situation in that direction. The key longer-term concern is over Iran and its drive for nuclear weapons. More closely, there are both concerns and hopes regarding Lebanon and Syria.

Regarding Iran, the new feature is the assumption that Israel will not attack Iran to prevent it from getting nuclear weapons. This means Israel will be constructing a multi-level defensive system that includes long-range attack planes, the ability to subvert Iran’s nuclear force through covert operations, possibly submarine platforms, and several types of anti-missile missiles and defenses.

The goal here is fourfold:

• To delay as long as possible Iran acquiring nuclear weapons and to minimize the size and effectiveness of its arsenal through sanctions, international pressure, sabotage and other means.

• To have the maximum ability to deter Iran from launching a nuclear attack and demonstrating the ability to stop its missiles. The aim is to discourage Iran from launching such an attack, given a nearcertainty that it can be stopped and, as a result, it would suffer very heavy damage.

• Of course, ordinary deterrence is not a sufficient safeguard against Iran, given the Islamic regime’s ideological extremism and passionate hatred of Israel, the recklessness of some key elements there, and the rulers’ shortcomings in assessing reality.

Consequently Israel must put a high priority on stopping any Iranian attack from happening or succeeding.

•  To be able, if Israel determines there is a real danger of an Iranian attack, to launch a first strike to inflict maximum damage on Iran’s nuclear strike force. In other words, an Israeli attack would be premised not on Iran getting nuclear weapons, but on Iran being likely to use them.

US deterrence, early-warning, and anti-missile efforts would supplement this system, but this strategy is not premised on any dependence on the US government.

BUT ISRAEL also knows that an equal or even greater danger is the spread of Iranian influence, taking over Arab countries or turning them into proxies. Here, the northern focus is on Syria and Lebanon.

On the surface, the news from these two countries is potentially bad. Lebanon is now controlled by Hezbollah and other Syrian or Syrian-Iranian clients. Hezbollah can thus use Lebanon as a virtual fiefdom for building its military power and attacking Israel. This is much worse than the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war, when Lebanon as a government and army had a separate identity.

Syria itself is faced with a serious internal upheaval that seems likely to bring down President Bashar Assad. Here the “glass halfempty” analysis is that Assad might be replaced by a regime even more hostile to Israel.

There is also a “glass half-full” analysis. As long as Syria is in such turmoil, it cannot so effectively threaten Israel. And if Assad is overthrown, a government that is more preoccupied by internal affairs, and less eager to start a conflict, might take power.

Iraq offers a good model here.

Between the interests of the Kurds, the internal conflict, a greater focus on domestic development and other factors, Iraq has dropped out of the conflict with Israel.

Hezbollah also suffers from this turmoil. Since it has sided with the Assad regime, it has gone from being wildly popular to widely hated by the Syrian people. Hamas, which has sided against the Syrian regime and in favor of its Muslim Brotherhood comrades, has thus lost Syrian patronage. Finally, Syria’s aggressive behavior has opened a rift between that country and Turkey’s government, which has been increasingly acting like an ally of the Iranian and Syrian regimes.

CONSEQUENTLY, WHILE this is no ideal situation, Israel can be considered to have benefitted from this aspect of the “Arab spring.” From Israel’s standpoint, the relative stability in Jordan and Saudi Arabia is a plus, since these countries are unlikely to be transformed into radical Islamist states under a government linked to al-Qaida, Iran or the Muslim Brotherhood. The turmoil in Bahrain, Yemen and Tunisia is of relatively little strategic significance to Israel.

Generally there can be a hope that democracy and domestic development will become a higher priority than fighting Israel, thus easing the pressure on Israel, or at least preoccupying Arabs and Muslims for a while. Clearly, merely calling dissidents Zionist agents and hoping to unite the people around an anti-Israel platform no longer works for incumbent governments.

In time, this strategy might work for replacing Islamist governments, but that hasn’t happened yet.

Moreover, American weakness and the Obama administration’s cooler view toward Israel is worrisome. So is the possibility that things might be moving in a way to strengthen Iran.

IF ONE looks at the southern front, though, it is harder to find a silver lining. Egypt is likely to elect a radical government more hostile than anything Israel has faced there since about 1974. The future of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty is gloomy.

Peace between Israel and the Arab world’s most populous country cannot be taken for granted.

There is also the problem of the Egypt-Hamas relationship. Egypt is likely to see itself as Hamas’s ally and patron. In a future Hamas-led conflict with Israel, Egypt could take the side of the Palestinian Islamists, and will certainly help them. The long-quiet southern front now has to be treated as a very possible war zone.

This is the basic way things look for Israeli strategists.

One can stress better- or worse-case scenarios and different parts of the challenge, but there is a general consensus on the fundamental challenges – and on whether they will be met successfully.


Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are teased and other articles are available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.     

Rahm Emanuel Tries To Give Obama Israel Credibility But Digs Him Into a Deeper Hole

By Barry Rubin

You know that President Barack Obama understands he’s got problems with Israel (and, more importantly for him, with its supporters in the United States) when he trots out Rahm Emanuel to write an op-ed in defense of the president’s alleged love for Israel.

Rahm Emanuel may have been born an Israeli citizen and had his son bar-mitzvahed in Jerusalem but to have Emanuel attest to Obama’s credentials on Israel is like having Mel Gibson as spokesman for Australia; or Arnold Schwarzenegger as Austria’s booster; or Dominique Strauss-Kahn as the poster boy for France's tourism board ("Hi, I'm Dominique Strauss-Kahn, come to France and stay in our wonderful hotels!)

In other words, it is totally meaningless and even—for those who know something about the individuals involved—even counterproductive.

There are, however, two important things it tells us about Obama and his administration:

First, they are detached from reality enough to think that this is a clever idea. Rather than going to someone actually recognized as being pro-Israel or active in Jewish affairs who supports Obama (I could give him a list of far better people) he turned to a political crony who is disliked by both communities. Despite the near-fanatical support for Obama by the majority of American Jews, he is totally deaf to their concerns and feelings.

Second, it shows that Obama always prefers a cheap public relations’ gesture to a substantive policy action.

Just because Emanuel was born an Israeli citizen, however, doesn’t mean he knows much about the country. I was struck by the total idiocy of his big argument:

“President Obama, like every student of the Middle East, understands that the shifting sands of demography in that volatile region are working against the two-state solution needed to end generations of bloodshed.”

If Obama is a student of the Middle East, he gets an “F” on his report card.

I’m a student of the Middle East and I think that’s total nonsense. Why is the “demography” in the region against the two-state solution? Because there are more Palestinians? Who cares? That has absolutely zero political impact as such.

Israel does not rule the Gaza Strip. Hamas does.

Israel does not rule the people of the West Bank (as opposed to territory there without any people living in it) Fatah does, through the Palestinian Authority.

Hello? That’s been the basic situation now for 17 years. (Not the Hamas part, the Palestinian Authority aspect.)

So what if the Palestinian population doubles, triples, quadruples, that has no effect at all on Israel’s status as a democratic state of its citizens. And as the past has shown, Israel can win against much larger countries because of a list of factors I won’t bother listing here.)

Notice something interesting here. Unlike the peace process rhetoric of the 1993-2000 period, nobody dares to talk about how wonderful life for Israel would be if it turned over all of the territory captured in 1967 and accepted a Palestinian state. They can only say that things will be worse if it doesn’t.

People in Israel don’t believe this, and for good reason.

Let me be clear here. For one of Obama’s closest advisors and cronies to write something like this in a major newspaper--with the text approved, no doubt, by the White House -shows these people are totally out of touch with the facts and situation.

It is the equivalent of someone in similar circumstances writing about Russia as if it is still the Soviet Union, thinking Britain still rules a worldwide empire, or that creatures from the distant planet Beldron-5 have landed on earth and taken over Luxemburg.

It is delusional.

What are the “shifting sands…working against the two state solution” and leading potentially to more “generations of bloodshed” is the rising tide (the mixed metaphor is deliberate) of revolutionary Islamism that this administration does not try to dam up—indeed, it keeps punching holes in the dam!

It is the Obama support for revolution in Egypt and opposition to it in Syria. It is the refusal to recognize that the Palestinian leadership is the cause of failure for every peace effort since 1947 (partition into two states), no, I should say 1939 (the British effort to give the whole thing to the Arabs after ten years).

It is the Obama Administration inability to understand that the failure to achieve peace is not based on borders or Jerusalem but on the continued refusal of Arabs and Muslims generally to cease trying to wipe Israel off the map. Indeed, partly thanks to Obama’s policies, they are more confident of doing so than they were ten or twenty years ago. (They’re wrong but they are—literally—going to die trying.)

That Emanuel can write such nonsense and not be laughed at is a sign of how out of kilter is the whole American—indeed, Western—debate on the Middle East.

Finally, consider the logical fallacy of arguing that things are becoming much worse, so Israel must rush into peace now. But if things are going to be worse why make concessions in exchange for a piece of paper that will be torn up and that is guaranteed by those who cannot be trusted.

Here, Mr. Emanuel, are the tests that Obama will fail:

1. Will the United States government call for the overthrow of the anti-American Syrian dictatorship?

2. Will the U.S. government take strong action as Egypt moves to become a radical state and stop observing the U.S.-guaranteed peace treaty with Israel?

3. Will the U.S. government take strong action to stop helping the Fatah-Hamas government, incorporating terrorist and genocidal forces?

4. Will the U.S. government take strong action to stop the fundamental transformation of Turkey into a semi-Islamist, anti-democratic, antisemitic, anti-American regime allied with Iran and Syria?

5. Will the U.S. government reverse its policies so that once again America is a world leader that will protect its allies in Latin America (against radical regimes in Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil, and Cuba); Central Europe and the south Caucasus (against Russia); and elsewhere?

Since the answer to all of those questions is “no,” why the Hell should Israel risk its existence on your (bad) ideas and your (worthless) promises?

Indeed, Israel is not going to commit suicide because you say to do so. On the contrary, Israel and the half of your own people who have woken up to your mismanagement and the dangerous situation are trying to stop you from committing suicide and taking them with you.

[PS: I hate to use the most over-used analogy in the world but arguing that Israel should make a deal right away because of the “shifting sands” is like British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain arguing in 1938 that the Czechs better give up the Sudetenland fast before the real radicals take over in Germany or, at least, the current chancellor there gets impatient.]

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

Egypt: Where Moderates and Judges Endorse Terrorism

By Barry Rubin

In September, the leaves will start falling off the trees in the West. And so will their policies toward the Middle East. That month, Egypt will elect a radical and largely Islamist parliament. That parliament will write a radical and largely Islamist constitution. The new government will follow a radical and at least partly Islamist policy. It will be Iran all over again.

Of course, Egypt is different. The problem will not be as large or intense as Iran. But as the Shakespearean character said when given a fatal sword wound in "Romeo and Juliet": “No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough, ‘twill serve.”

There was a violent demonstration at the Israeli Embassy in Cairo. The protesters set fire to an Israeli flag and demanded the Israeli ambassador be expelled. The demonstrators attempted to storm the embassy; 185 people were arrested, 18 police injured by thrown rocks.

The demonstration was organized on Facebook by the April 6 Youth Movement. The same "moderate" and "democratic" group so highly praised in the West for "leading" the Egyptian revolution.

Asmaa Mahfouz is a leader of the April 6 Youth Movement. In fact, she claims that she personally began the revolution with her January 18 video calling for demonstrations. Now, Mahfouz is trying to launch a new revolution against the military rulers. One of the reasons she’s protesting the transitional military regime is that the army protected the Israeli Embassy from being stormed and seized by the demonstrators.

President Obama believes these people are the hope for the future and backs them 100 percent. Of course, there are real moderate democrats in Egypt, but they are few and terrible at organizing a political structure. There is no strong moderate party running in the parliamentary election. The Muslim Brotherhood is well-organized. Smaller Islamist and radical leftist parties are organized.

The dominant emotion today in Egypt is fear. The dominant response today in the West is blindness.

Meanwhile, an Egyptian court took Egyptian citizenship away from a leading Coptic Christian activist and banned him from entering the country. Among the charges was supposedly insulting Islam and asking the United States and Israel to interfere in Egypt's internal affairs.

Former Deputy Head of Egypt's Court of Appeals Judge Mahmoud al-Khodheiri, gave an interview on al-Jazira (thanks to MEMRI for video and translation) and said:

"We should stop exporting natural gas to Israel.” But is it all about the money? No: “I consider the export of gas to Israel an act of treason, and we should stop it. I salute the people who bombed the gas pipe, because this is my blood that is being transferred to my enemy."

A man who’s been a high-ranking judge salutes terrorists who blew up a pipeline. Yet judges are supposed to uphold the rule of law. If a judge can cheer those who blow things up that opens the door to supporting other acts of lawless violence. Wherever al-Khodheiri draws the line others will find justification for mayhem. Attack Christians? Kill Jews? Assassinate secularists or government officials? Once lawlessness is rationalized as absolute right there are no limits.

A former high-ranking judge calls for ignoring a legal contract. Judges are supposed to uphold contracts. Of course, he could call for renegotiating the contract through legal channels, but that isn’t what he does. So the acceptable resort to an agreement where you aren’t currently gaining an advantage is violence and unilateral abrogation. What does this tell us about other agreements (contracts) that Israel might make with Arab neighbors or the Palestinians?

Israel is an enemy. Despite a peace treaty 33 years ago, most Egyptians regard this as merely a temporary truce. The return of the Sinai, reopening of the Suez Canal, reopening of Egyptian oilfields in western Sinai do not suffice to make them feel at peace with Israel, whatever continuing sympathy and support they might give the Palestinians. Nor does Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the creation of the Palestinian Authority and Israel’s acceptance of its arming and transfer of funds, nor Israel’s other actions. Why should we believe that Israel’s turnover of east Jerusalem, the West Bank, and creation of a Palestinian state would change anything? I wish that were true but I’m not going to pretend it is when I see it isn’t.

Selling gas is “treason.” And what does one do to traitors in the Arabic-speaking world? One kills them. While al-Khodheiri isn’t a cleric, he has been a career judge, the people who lay down the law of the state as Muslim clerics rule on Sharia (Islamic) law. So in a real sense what he ‘has done is to issue what one might call a “secular fatwa.” If an official of Egypt’s energy authority is murdered tomorrow the killers can cite al-Khodheiri as justifying it, just as previous killers or the would-be assassin of Naguib Mafouz, Egypt’s great novelist, rationalized their acts because of clerics’ statements.

Remember, al-Khodheiri is a Mubarak-appointed judge! What will the judges selected by the next government sound like?

Finally, “blood.” The resort to passion rather than reason is dangerous. The English-language expression “as sober as a judge” doesn’t just refer to intoxication with alcohol but to a “judicious temperament,” calm, cool, and rational.

If judges call for violence and murder, invoke blood and treason how might common people behave? What example is being offered to the national political culture?

President Barack Obama and European leaders don’t get it. We are about to be projected back to the bad old days of radical Arab nationalist regimes competing with each other in militancy, anti-Americanism, and hatred of Israel. Except this time they’re Islamists and that’s worse.

When top judges yell for fire and vengeance your society is in real trouble. And so are its neighbors. No democratic state can be built on such a foundation. Ignore all those soothing and ignorant journalists and “experts” on television and in the newspapers. Here comes the judge. And he’s a hanging judge.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

Arab World: Onward to Revolutionary Violence ? Or Let's Be Cautious?

By Barry Rubin

MEMRI has translated several Arab reactions to the “Nakba Day” marches on Israel’s border. In general, they said that this is the end of Israel—a line that they’ve been pursuing now for 63 years without much to show for it. Yet the appeal of this view has not notably diminished.

All the quotes in this article are taken from here.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) reaction is important because it shows once again—contrary to the claims of virtually all of the Western mass media and leaders—that this institution is totally uninterested in making peace with Israel. The article was written by Adli Sadeq who is an official of the PA Foreign Ministry.

He writes: "The revolutions in the Arab world – those that have [already] triumphed and those that are still underway – have put an end to bartering and haggling over the right of return."

In other words, because a few hundred demonstrators can approach Israel’s border and get shot, that means the PA should eternally demand that all Palestinians who so wish can go live in Israel (where they can assault that country from within). But given this position, there can never be any negotiated peace and won’t in reality be a Palestinian state.

So who’s intransigent? Israel is not going to agree to its own destruction and is strong enough so that it doesn’t have to do so. Forget about the peace process. Nothing is going to happen and that's because the Palestinian leadership isn't ready for peace. And that's because they think they will win a total victory without compromise. If you don't understand that, you understand nothing about the Middle East.

Hamas, which is now the PA’s partner, in the form of Deputy Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Ahmad Baher, said that the demonstrations indicate there will soon be a third intifada that will destroy Israel. More violence, more death, the destruction of all the PA infrastructure and higher living standards achieved over the last year. All of this will be sacrificed for the mirage of total victory.

Were there more sophisticated responses? Yes.

The Jordanian government newspapers did not praise the protests. The rulers remember how Jordan was dragged into the 1967 war, and then used as a base for Fatah to attack Israel with terrorism. That regime has few illusions about risking its stability and sovereignty by hosting new cross-border attacks or marches. But it also allowed op-eds calling for and predicting Israel’s destruction.

While the monarchy virtually views Israel as an ally on some levels, it also must voice enough radical demagoguery to survive and buy off public opinion. Jordan doesn’t so much use Israel as a scapegoat for profit as it does for survival. In other words, it lets people scream that Israel is about to be destroyed but knows that isn’t true and doesn’t want to be carried away on that destructive bandwagon.

Then there’s al-Sharq al-Awsat, the Arab world’s best newspaper, which is Saudi owned but also relatively liberal. Its editor, Tariq Alhomayed, blamed Syria for the demonstrations: “Damascus is ready to sacrifice every last Palestinian in order to…distract the world from its barbaric suppression of the peaceful protests on its own soil....”

Finally, there’s an intriguing editorial in al-Ahram, Egypt’s leading newspaper that shows at least some people there are getting scared that they will soon have a radical regime that will drag them into another disastrous war. Although perhaps they are just holdovers from the old regime who will soon be replaced by those with the proper revolutionary ideology.



The editorial says the demonstrations will hurt the Palestinian cause and Egyptian interests.

This is going to be the pragmatic argument in Egypt in the years to come. The question is whether it can overcome radical fervor. The radical nationalists might heed these arguments; army officers are more likely to do so, Islamists deaf to them.

The editorial asks:

"Is it in the national interest to provoke Israel at present, and to open up new fronts [of conflict]? Is this really the right time? Second, everyone knows that security within Egypt has not been fully restored, and that the government is making an effort to provide safety in the streets, cities, and squares by reorganizing the police force. Is it wise to diffuse the efforts of the security forces by [sending them] to additional areas? Isn't our current situation enough [for them to handle]? Third, what can these marches toward the border achieve? Does anyone imagine, for example, that we are capable of fighting Israel? Have we considered what the Israeli response [might be] to such mass [demonstrations]?....Fervor, outbursts of emotion…are necessary at times, but it is always necessary for wisdom to prevail. Perhaps we should think a little [before acting]."

This is the kind of approach Westerners would expect: Our country is a wreck, the economy is drowning. Do we really want to engage in a foreign conflict now? Makes sense. But extremist masses and leaders in the Arabic-speaking world have frequently ignored such appeals to reason because of their ideology and their desire to gain or hold onto power.

And you know what? The Arab Spring hasn't changed that. If anything, it is intensifying the syndrome. Why? Because the old state-sponsorship is being replaced by a truly popular, grassroots revival.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/. 

Why There's No Peace, Who's Responsible, and What Obama Doesn't Understand

“We cannot negotiate with those who say, `What's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable.’"   --President John Fitzgerald Kennedy

By Barry Rubin

You can read for yourselves Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the U.S. Congress. Both on regional issues and the Israel-Palestinian question he was quite clear. His speech was vastly superior to those by Obama not just because of the policy content but because he deals with regional realities that the president ignores or just gets completely wrong.

But what I want to talk about here is a remarkable juxtaposition that no one else seems to have noticed. If you understand this article, you can understand all of the problems of the Middle East. If you don't, please go mess up the lives of people elsewhere.

To set up this point I must first quote extensively from Netanyahu’s speech. He said:

“This is the land of our forefathers, the Land of Israel, to which Abraham brought the idea of one God, where David set out to confront Goliath, and where Isaiah saw a vision of eternal peace. No distortion of history can deny the four thousand year old bond, between the Jewish people and the Jewish land.

“But there is another truth: The Palestinians share this small land with us. We seek a peace in which they will be neither Israel’s subjects nor its citizens. They should enjoy a national life of dignity as a free, viable and independent people in their own state. They should enjoy a prosperous economy, where their creativity and initiative can flourish.”

So this is a classic Western—indeed a classic liberal Western—formulation. We have our rights but we also respect your rights. Let’s find a win-win situation that benefits everyone.

Netanyahu added:

“They [the Palestinians] were simply unwilling to end the conflict. And I regret to say this: They continue to educate their children to hate. They continue to name public squares after terrorists. And worst of all, they continue to perpetuate the fantasy that Israel will one day be flooded by the descendants of Palestinian refugees."

In a moment, watch Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas prove Netanyahu's first sentence to be true.

“My friends, this must come to an end. President Abbas must do what I have done. I stood before my people, and I told you it wasn’t easy for me, and I said… `I will accept a Palestinian state.' It is time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say… `I will accept a Jewish state.'"

Remember that challenge.

“Those six words will change history. They will make clear to the Palestinians that this conflict must come to an end. That they are not building a state to continue the conflict with Israel, but to end it. They will convince the people of Israel that they have a true partner for peace. With such a partner, the people of Israel will be prepared to make a far reaching compromise. I will be prepared to make a far reaching compromise.”

In other words, once the Palestinians really acknowledge—which they have not done—the Jewish connection to the land Israel will know they are a partner for peace and make more compromises.

Now, here’s the part nobody noticed. Abbas answered Netanyahu!

In a major speech for “Nakba Day,” that is the Palestinian day of mourning that Israel was ever created in the first place, Abbas said:

“We say to him [Netanyahu], when he claims - that they [Jews] have a historical right dating back to 3000 years [BC] - we say that the nation of Palestine upon the land of Canaan had a 7000 year history [BC]. This is the truth, which must be understood and we have to note it, in order to say: 'Netanyahu, you are incidental in history. We are the people of history. We are the owners of history.’"

Do you understand?

Netanyahu said: We have rights; you have rights. We recognize yours and when you recognize ours we can have peace. Your refusal to recognize our rights—to demand total victory for yourself (which means Israel’s disappearance)—makes peace impossible.

And what did Abbas (whose name cannot appear in the American media without the word “moderate” being attached to him) answer:

Well, we don’t recognize that you have any rights. All the rights belong to us! You are just a passing breeze that will become extinct and you are of no importance.

So that’s the bottom line. Even in the year 2011--as happened in the year 1948--even a relative moderate like Abbas simply cannot bring himself to say in Arabic: “Let’s share this land in a two-state solution.”

Ironically, Netanyahu is taking a liberal and flexible position while Abbas is taking a reactionary, imperialistic stance. Talk about accepting the “other!”

And yet not a single professor in any university class, not a single journalist or expert in the mass media will raise or even report that point. President Obama won’t pick up on it to chide the Palestinians. Nobody will start calling Netanyahu moderate and peace-seeking while saying that Abbas is extremist and peace-rejecting.

Nevertheless, what simpler and more graphic example could anyone want?

Now you know why peace is impossible. It isn’t because Israel won’t go back to the 1967 borders. It’s because the Palestinian leadership still believes and tells its people that Israel has no right to exist.

PS: Abbas's history is of course rubbish. There is no connection between ancient Canaanites--who don't go back anywhere near that far--and modern Arabs. Since the Canaanites weren't Muslims, Abbas is acting as a pure opportunist since no Arab nation accepts such pre-Islamic connections any way.

But I love that phrase he said, "We are the owners of history." In other words, we can make up any lie we want and to Hell with the consequences.

The Jewish Temple? Never existed in Jerusalem!

Did we miss a chance to have our own state in 1947? Never happened!

Is it crazy to go on fighting for decades hoping to destroy Israel rather than make acompromise peace now? No alternative. Israel doesn't want peace.

If you are so oppressed and suffering why aren't you in a hurry to negotiate with Israel and make a deal? No! First, they must give us what we want beforehand. We're in no hurry at all because what good is a deal if we have to give up the hope of total victory in the future!

Abbas has told us everything we need to know about who doesn't want peace. And here's the reality of the Palestinian Authority position (not to mention that of its partner, Hamas): If you can't have peace without accepting Israel's permanent existence then it is better not to have peace at all.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

Obama Forgets History And Thus Makes Future History Disastrous

By Barry Rubin

A reader writes to me that I don’t understand how President Barack Obama is really friendly toward Israel—didn’t he say all those nice things?--and I’m distorting his words because I don’t just like him.

Like many people (half of the U.S. population?) I desperately want to like him because it’s better to have a smart, competent president rather than someone leading toward disaster. But unlike a lot of people I’m willing to face reality. Because facing reality is the first step toward solving problems.

Let me try one more time to give an example—one among many—of the problem with Obama, his policies and his speeches.

The statements Obama makes are meant to be seen as positive toward Israel but aren't.

Example (I'm paraphrasing) I really care about Israel but don't you realize that by not making more concessions you are contributing to delegitimization of Israel?

OK. That's friendly, right?

BUT if the president of the United States doesn't know that:

Israel let 200,000 Palestinians return in 1993-2000 and gave guns to the PA and passed money to them, etc., and got more terrorism and rejectionism.

Israel withdrew from Sinai and made peace with Egypt and now the peace treaty is being torn up. In September Egypt will get a radical, perhaps Islamist, government. Today Egypt is opening the border with the Gaza Strip. Money and weapons will flow across freely to Hamas and will be fired at Israel one day.

Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon, and then was attacked by Hizballah in 2006. The U.S. government and others promised that they would stop Hizballah from getting more rockets and returning to southern Lebanon. They didn’t. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates just pointed out that Hizballah now has more rockets than practically any country in the world. 

Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip and got a Hamas hostile regime that attacks it.

Israel made huge concessions and then is even MORE delegitimized in the West.

And then the president says: So now the solution is to pull out of the West Bank and then everything will be great!

And when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complains you don’t understand why he’s upset?


Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

Obama’s Middle East Policy Will Collapse In September

By Barry Rubin

Prediction: In September, President Barack Obama’s Middle East policy blows up in his (and our) face(s). It’s totally obvious and yet no one is focusing on it.

I’m not referring to the Palestinian Authority’s bid for unilateral independence at the UN. I’m referring to the Egyptian parliamentary election.

It is totally obvious that in that election Egypt will elect a radical, anti-American, hate-Israel parliament which will then write the country’s new constitution. This is a turning point in Middle East history. And Obama is unaware of it. Quite the contrary, he declared in his State Department speech that everything is great with the “Arab spring.” Nothing can go wrong. It is the expression of a yearning for prosperity and freedom.

The Arab spring began when a frustrated man in Tunisia set himself on fire.

It will now move to the new phase: the whole Middle East will be set on fire.

Is that alarmist? Not at all, except in the sense that when one sees a fire he sets off the fire alarm.

Don’t be distracted by the question of whether Islamists will have a majority or the even narrower question of whether the Muslim Brotherhood will have a majority.

There WILL be a radical majority, there MIGHT be an Islamist majority, there won’t be a Muslim Brotherhood majority but it will ALMOST CERTAINLY be the largest single party.

Why do I say this? Well, Amr Moussa, who isn’t an Islamist and is Egypt’s most popular and important Egyptian politician says so.

There is no sign—no sign—that the moderates are organizing serious parties. Instead of getting to work, they’re complaining. Meanwhile four radical, anti-American, passionately anti-Israel forces are organizing:

--The Muslim Brotherhood, which should get one-third or more of the seats and is contesting half of them, obviously in the districts where it has the best chance of winning.

--Smaller and even more radical Islamist parties (referred to as Salafists) who could form agreements with the Brotherhood so that they won’t hurt each other’s chances.

--Left-wing neo-Marxist parties.

--Radical nationalists.

There will probably be a number of independents who will be courted and won over by one of these blocs.

Imagine the day after that election. What will the mass media say? What will the American politicians say?

--That they were wrong about the Egyptian revolution and the Muslim Brotherhood?

--That by helping to bring down the old regime, U.S. policy foisted a disaster on the region and on its own interests?

--That by celebrating how great the “Arab Spring” is and refusing to acknowledge the real threats and problems, Obama made catastrophic errors.

--That his policy has led to many advances for America’s enemies?

--That Israel is in a far worse strategic situation and certainly can’t and shouldn’t make any more concessions?

--That the Islamists are emboldened and thus both Hamas and the radicals who run Fatah are taking an even harder line?

--That the loss of faith in America by its Arab allies is now undeniably clear and they are scrambling to make their own deals with Iran and other extremists?

--That there is a real possibility of a war in which Egypt either joins directly or backs Hamas? Imagine, Egypt stays “neutral” but nobody stops thousands of Egyptian volunteers from crossing into Gaza to fight or even across the Egypt-Israel border to launch terror attacks?

--What will the Obama Administration do if in practice Egypt tears up the Israel-Egypt peace treaty even if it pretends that it isn’t doing so?

--People are insisting that if Hamas in practice becomes part of the Palestinian Authority that the United States, and certainly Congress, will cut off aid. But what will happen when the Obama Administration does everything possible to prevent an aid cut-off and nothing possible to pressure the PA into changing its policy or behavior?

These are not speculations. These things WILL happen. Nobody in the United States or Europe is seriously discussing these scenarios and what should be done about them.

And I didn’t even mention the Egyptian presidential elections or, for that matter:

--An emboldened Turkish Islamist government if it wins the June 11 elections the:re,

--A Lebanese government controlled by Syria and its clients, especially Hizballah, if it ever gets a new prime minister and cabinet installed in that country.

--The survival of an anti-American Syrian government that has murdered hundreds of its citizens and will be arresting and torturing thousands, in part due to the Obama Administration's failure to try to overthrow it?

--The sight of Iran ever closer to nuclear weapons and admissions that the sanctions had only a limited effect?

These are not far-out scenarios. All of them have a 90 percent or more likelihood of happening.

I don’t want to take your time here for a history lesson but consider precedents:

--1952. Radical regime takes power in Egypt. U.S. realizes the threat by April 1955 but then saves the regime from being overthrown by Britain, France, and Israel in 1956. Result: Violence, disruption, and anti-American problems in the region for decades.

--1979. Radical regime takes power in Iran. U.S. policy makes a mess in dealing with the revolutionary crisis. Americans taken hostage, revolutionary Islamism flourishes, thirty plus years of violence, September 11, Islamist movement still growing. By the way, why does not one of the hundreds of "experts" on television and in the mass media remember that the Iranian revolution began after President Jimmy Carter urged reform on the shah and ended with the United States calling on the shah to go away? Remind you of anything?

September 2011 will be another of those moments. Mark that on your calendar. On the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the United States will be watching the triumph of the ideology and movement--not Usama bin Ladin, of course, but his smarter counterparts--in much of the Middle East.

PS: Here's an excellent guide to Egypt's political parties so far which proves my point . Note that there isn't a single serious moderate party. Amr Mousa isn't forming a party while Muhammad ElBaradei, Obama's favorite, isn't doing anything but complain. There is a "Facebook party." So far it has 1000 "likes." Egypt has about 85 million people.


Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

The West’s Foreign Policy Theme—Like Me Before You Kill Me—Applied to Israel

By Barry Rubin

Recently, it was revealed that President Barack Obama had consulted Tom Friedman in formulating his Middle East policy. Here’s an example of where disastrous policy comes from. 

Friedman writes:

“Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu of Israel is always wondering why his nation is losing support and what the world expects of a tiny country surrounded by implacable foes. I can’t speak for the world, but I can speak for myself. I have no idea whether Israel has a Palestinian or Syrian partner for a secure peace that Israel can live with. But I know this: With a more democratic and populist Arab world in Israel’s future, and with Israel facing the prospect of having a minority of Jews permanently ruling over a majority of Arabs — between Israel and the West Bank, which could lead to Israel being equated with apartheid South Africa all over the world — Israel needs to use every ounce of its creativity to explore ways to securely cede the West Bank to a Palestinian state.”

By the way, the picture of “a minority of Jews permanently ruling over a majority of Arabs” has not been accurate since 1994, that’s 17 years ago. The Palestinian Authority rules over the West Bank Arabs. Hamas, which has now merged with the Palestinian Authority, rules in the Gaza Strip. The only non-citizen Arabs that “Jews” are ruling over are those in east Jerusalem, according to an agreement that Israel made with the PLO.

So a big part of Israel's difficulty is that people like Friedman are perpetuating anti-Israel lies instead of attacking them.

In other words, if your enemies lie about you does that mean that you must take huge risks? There’s a clever bumper sticker that says: Never apologize. Your enemies don’t care and your friends don’t need it.

But leaving all of that aside, let’s start with Friedman’s opening sentence. I certainly don’t speak for Netanyahu and didn’t vote for him, but I really doubt he’s wondering why these things are happening. He knows the reasons, as do most Israelis, even those critical of his policy:

The greater international weight of the Arab world; oil money; well-intentioned but ill-placed sympathy for an apparent underdog; aspects of Islam rejecting ever accepting a Jewish state; Arab nationalist rejection of a Jewish state; a clever anti-Israel propaganda campaign; Western leftist sympathy for its enemies; the rejection of Zionism by some Jews; the honest belief that if you resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict by Israeli concessions the whole world will be stable and terrorism will disappear; antisemitism; and more.

There’s no mystery here. 

But there is a problem. If you equate that hostility to one cause and one cause only: Israel is “permanently ruling” over a majority of Arabs. That’s it. Solve that problem and everything else will fall into place.

Yet what if you know that giving up the West Bank will not solve every problem—a viewpoint almost never aired in the Western mass media and universities nowadays? Then Friedman’s concept and that of most Western policies immediately collapses. 

Israel has conducted extensive experiments with this concept, experiments that have cost about the same number of Israeli lives as September 11 took American lives. Since the population of the United States is approximately 40 times that of Israel you can calculate the impact of those costs.

After all, Israel already acted “to securely cede” (the split infinitive is Friedman’s) the Sinai to Egypt, with the result that this peace treaty is about to be abrogated. It tried to “securely cede” the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority, getting rockets and mortars and cross-border attacks in return. It also sought “to securely cede” southern Lebanon and got rockets and cross-border attacks. To see what would happen it acted “to securely cede” much of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority and then received in return incitement to violence, terrorist attacks, and intransigence. 

Might there be a pattern here? 

Yes, it would be better to have a stable, two-state solution that ended the conflict and made Israel’s neighbors friendly. But here’s where the gap is between Israel and much of the Western political elites today:

We tried it and it didn’t work.

That is not a “right-wing” statement. It is an Israeli consensus statement. And even if Israel tries and tries again, this doesn’t mean that people don’t know that.

Now, there are people in the Middle East—millions of people—who openly make my point every day. These include the governments of Iran, Syria, Turkey, and the Gaza Strip, as well as probably Egypt’s next government and those running Lebanon. Islamists openly proclaim that no matter how much territory Israel cedes they won’t be satisfied until it has ceded everything and gone out of existence altogether.

What Friedman calls “a more democratic and populist Arab world” means a more radical and Islamist Arab world. In fact, the radicals will remain radicals (Syria, Iran) while the formerly moderate become more extremist (Egypt). Why, then, should Israel make dangerous concessions when these will be taken advantage of to attack it more effectively? Why give things to people who want to kill you no matter what you do?

But there’s one point that is so overwhelming in Friedman’s piece, so symptomatic of everything wrong with the Western vision of Israel, the Middle East, and even the entire world (and especially with the Obama Administration’s policy), that it should resound with everyone who reads that article:

Friedman is telling us that a good public relations’ image is more important than material security. Israel will survive an infinite number of nasty articles or sneering professors without great difficulty. It would not survive concessions that make Israel weak and vulnerable, more than ever at a time when—let’s face it—American and European guarantees are worthless. 

Golda Meir already dealt with Friedman’s idea decades ago: Better a bad press than a good epitaph.

That’s a principle which North America and European countries should think about adopting as their motto. 

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center ishttp://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

A Brief Guide to the Real Reasons Why 1948 Was a Palestinian Arab and Arab Disaster

By Barry Rubin

In 1947 the UN voted to partition the British mandate of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. The Jews accepted partition into two states; the Arabs rejected it.

The international community offered to make Amin al-Husseini, the Palestinian Arabs' leader, head of a state despite the fact that he and his closest colleagues were the subject of a 1938 British arrest warrant for terrorist activities (not mythical but for killing lots of people), and had spent World War Two in Berlin doing pro-Nazi propaganda, recruiting for SS units, and planning a Holocaust of Jews in the Middle East.

But al-Husseini rejected partition and so did all of the Arab states. While Jordan wanted to make a deal and Egypt’s government wasn’t enthusiastic, they all had to go along with al-Husseini’s intransigence, their hysterical public opinion, and the other Arab states' pressure. The Arab League's leader, a Nazi agent during World War Two, bragged that the Jews would be massacred. The Muslim Brotherhood, which collaborated with the Nazis during the war and were subsidized by them before the war, sent volunteers to fight the Jews.

And so a Palestinian Arab army, whose three chief commanders had all fought for the Nazis during World War Two, went to war against the Jews using Nazi-supplied weapons (provided for the Palestinian Arab revolt in 1939 and for an Egyptian revolt that never happened in 1942). They lost.

Then the armies of the Arab states invaded Israel. They largely lost, though the Egyptian held onto the Gaza area while the Jordanians took east Jerusalem and what became known as the West Bank. Egypt ran Gaza; Jordan annexed the West Bank.

Everything that happened afterward was due to Arab decisions to reject both a two-state solution and Israel’s creation.

That’s the bottom line. So the disaster was due first and foremost to the Palestinian Arab leadership and secondly to the Arab states and publics.

Dealing with the “nakba” would then require that the Palestinian Arabs and the Arabic-speaking world generally would recognize that the disaster resulted from their refusal to accept Israel’s existence and to seek a genuine, compromise two-state solution.

But, instead, in the name of the 1948 disaster they are repeating the same policies that brought it about! Indeed, they are the same policies that led to the self-inflicted disasters of 1967, 2000, and others since then.

For example, as part of the preparations for the commemoration of the 1948 disaster, Palestinian Authority television played repeatedly a music video entitled "On the Way to Jerusalem" The main lines are:

"Jaffa, Acre, Haifa, and Nazareth are ours.

[ I ], Muhammad, sing about the Galilee and the Golan (Heights).
Jaffa, Acre, Haifa and Nazareth are ours."

This is precisely the one-state, wipe-Israel-off-the-map that brought on them the disaster of 1948, disaster every year since then, and more disaster into the forseeable future. Sixty-four years (counting from 1947) of failed policy has not brought wisdom.

Almost every event--Egypt's revolution, demonstrators trying to cross Israel's border, a terrorist attack, Western sympathy, and so on--is interpreted as proving that Israel's destruction is possible and so additional decades should be spent in diplomatic intransigence and the incitement of violence rather than some constructive effort. That's one reason, by the way, why the Palestinians always ultimately lose.

This has also been going on so long that much of the West has forgotten the roots and ongoing causes of this conflict, Palestinian suffering, Israeli suffering, and the terrorist violence and defamation of Israel.

Note: The use of the words “Nazi collaborator” and other mentions of pro-Nazi activities in this article are not name-calling but based on German and U.S. intelligence materials. These points will be fully and in detail documented in the forthcoming book by myself and Wolfgang Schwanitz, to be published by Yale University Press next year.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.