Middle East 'Experts' Surprised by Arab League attendance at Annapolis

Arab Commentators: Egg on the face?

From Adel Darwish 

Arab Commentators are left with egg on their faces by Saudi Arabia's 11th hour change of heart on the decision to attend Annapolis conference after early signals indicated that they were likley to stay away.  

Saudi Arabia change of heart yesterday  ( Friday November 23) and agreeing to  attend the next week American sponsored conference on the Middle East in Annapolis has left many Arab commentators with an egg on their face, to say the least.

It was no problem for the usual suspects ( Arab Nationalists & Baathists  Islamists jihadists, Marxists and the general anti-Semitic and anti American) who have always objected to any  form of dialogue or meeting with the Israelis that would get any Muslim or whoever they consider to be Arab to recognise Israel. Their reaction was expected.  But the Saudis changing their mind at the 11th hour created a dilemma for many of commentators who in principles didn't object  dialogue with Israel, reject terrorism and support Palestinian Israel agreements. Many of those commentators, writing for Saudi or Saudi sponsored newspapers, have been critical of the conference and warning that it would achieve nothing, but a photo opportunity.

Some argued that America has lost credibility as an 'honest broker' that can neutrally mediate between the Palestinians and the Israelis because 'Washington has always supported Israel' which is a stock Arab view for half a century; and those were not as embarrassed as others who's criticism of the conference stemmed of their belief that their comment must always reflect what they perceived as the Saudi position.

Believing  that Saudi Arabia didn't think much of the proposed conference,  commentators lined up  to condemn the conference as an 'American Israeli plot' to undermined the Saudi initiated 'Arab peace plan' adopted in the Arab League  (AL) Beirut summit, and continued to say so until Friday afternoon.

Obviously their words of wisdom were scribed a day or two before Saudi Foreign Secretary Prince Saud Alfaisal announced yesterday that his nation would after all attend the conference.

Same also goes for Arab nationalist commentators who, for years, have been cheerleaders for AL Secretary General Dr Amr Musa's anti-Israeli rhetoric as the latter  also announced, in the same press conference like Prince Saud, yesterday, that AL will attend the conference as a whole to give peace a chance and test the Jewish state's commitment.

It will be interesting to see how those commentators will manage to scrape the egg off their faces!  

Cross posted: Israel News  Middle East Analysis

Israeli Delusion

The lethal delusion

Friday, 23rd November 2007

As the Annapolis tragic farce approaches, Natan Sharansky as ever tells it how it is:

I have never understood this strange reasoning: First strengthen the weak leader, by giving legitimization to anti-Israeli actions that he allows (or encourages, and sometimes even operates) and then, once the anti-Israeli positions have made him popular, expect that he will suddenly change his spots and lead his people determinedly toward the desired peace.

This distorted approach has become a kind of sacred cow. 'We must strengthen Abu Mazen,' say Israel's leaders as a kind of mantra. It is of no importance that along the way they are educating another generation of Palestinians to hatred, violence and the aspiration to destroy Israel. It is of no importance that the way to the strengthening is the diametric opposite of peace and dialogue. The main thing is that we are strengthening Abu Mazen.

The old argument of President Shimon Peres and Meretz MK Yossi Beilin and Defense Minister Ehud Barak on 'with whom to make peace, a strong leader or a weak leader' is no longer relevant. A look back over the years since the Oslo Accords shows clearly that the direction in which Palestinian society has marched is not the direction of peace. It was all in all just a hudna (truce) before another intifada. And when the society is becoming more extreme, what difference is it to us if the leader is strong or weak?

So many of Israel's leaders — no less than the west but for different reasons — inhabit a fantasy world in which they ignore the reality that is directly confronting them, because it is just too difficult and terrifying, in favour of wishful thinking. It is a particular feature of politicians on the left. That is why so many innocents tend to die on their watch, because they insist on believing that they can tame the men of violence even while such men continue to kill. As Sharansky says, it is not the absence of sufficient concessions that will doom Annapolis to failure — it is the fact that its whole premise is a piece of grossly distorted reasoning.

For Annapolis, read the entire Middle East tragedy -- and the west's key role in ensuring that it goes on and on.

The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP. All Articles and Content Copyright ©2007 by The Spectator (1828) Ltd. All Rights Reserved

U of Columbia will give tenure to another racist

HATEMONGER U?

COLUMBIA University is about to give tenure to an anti-Israel extremist. Joseph Massad, an associate professor of modern Arab politics, has a history of shouting down his students. He compares Jews to Nazis and bizarrely accuses Israel of "anti-Semitism" for its treatment of the Palestinians. (Massad is a Palestinian.) In a course description, he describes his class on Israeli-Arab relations as "not balanced."

Why does this ivory-tower controversy matter? After 9/11, we simply can't leave Middle East studies to partisans. We need genuine scholars to train future diplomats, analysts and officers. The government and the press rely on professors to explain events in the Arab world.

Of course, Columbia has long been home to anti-Israel scholars. Edward Said, who taught there until his death in 2003, spent more time worrying about "US imperialism" and "Zionism" than on injustices such as terrorism and the oppression of women and religious minorities in Arab societies. Most recently, Columbia's sister school, Barnard, tenured Nadia Abu El-Haj, who called the ancient Jewish kingdoms of David and Solomon "a modern nation's onging myth . . . " Why add one more?

Some Internet rumors claim Massad was denied tenure, but Columbia sources say that the process is ongoing; a spokesman insists the details are "confidential." The final decision is due soon.

Why shouldn't Massad get tenure - lifelong job security?

His critics cite three broad flaws that, taken together, could undermine Columbia's reputation:

Misstatement of facts: These are not simple errors; when they've been called to his attention, he has brushed them aside or unconvincingly denied making the statement.

* In class and in public, Massad has argued that Israel massacred Palestinians at Jenin in 2002. A UN investigation found no evidence of a massacre at Jenin.

* Writing in the Egyptian weekly al-Ahram, he suggested that Israel poisoned Yasser Arafat. He cited no evidence. In reality, Israel provided for Arafat's medical evacuation to France.

* Massad claims "Jewish colonists [in Israel] were part of the British colonial death squads that murdered Palestinian revolutionaries between 1936 and 1939 while Hitler unleashed Kristallnacht against German Jews." Note the false equivalency between British police and Jewish residents and the Nazis.

And, of course, there is no evidence of organized Jewish involvement. Indeed, the British also took armed action against the Jews.

Mistreating students: Over the last few years, a number of students have come forward to talk about how Massad treated them in the classroom.

One is Deena Shanker, who attended Massad's course in 2002. She said that Massad shouted her down and ordered her to leave his class if she kept denying that Israel committed atrocities.

Massad denied her account and said a faculty panel exonerated him. In fact, the panel's published report found him guilty. The relevant passage:

"Upon extensive deliberation, the committee finds it credible that Professor Massad became angered at a question that he understood to countenance Israeli conduct of which he disapproved, and that he responded heatedly. While we have no reason to believe that Professor Massad intended to expel Ms. Shanker from the classroom [she did not, in fact, leave the class], his rhetorical response to her query exceeded commonly accepted bounds by conveying that her question merited harsh public criticism.

"Angry criticism directed at a student in class because she disagrees, or appears to disagree, with a faculty member on a matter of substance is not consistent with the obligation 'to show respect for the rights of others to hold opinions differing from their own,' to exercise 'responsible self-discipline' and 'to demonstrate appropriate restraint.' "

Why grant tenure to a professor who has an adversarial relationship with his students?

A non-scholarly temperament: Massad often seems far more a propagandist than an impartial analyst.

* His published work suggests that his heart lies with the terrorists of Hamas. In March, he mourned the "economic choking and starvation" caused by the "international isolation" of Hamas. Last November, he wrote that Hamas "can defend the rights of the Palestinians to resist the Israeli occupation and the well-armed Palestinian collaborators that help to enforce it."

And, yes, he is critical of Palestinians who criticize Hamas.

* The only book on Israel that he assigned in his introductory class was "Israel, a Colonial Settler State?" by a French Marxist scholar, Maxime Rodinson. It concludes, "Jews have as much right to Israel as Arabs have to Spain."

To students, Massad often seems less like a scholar than a prosecutor presenting his case. Three students recently came forward to say that Massad "repeatedly likened Israel to apartheid South Africa, dismissed its legitimacy as a Jewish state and almost never addressed human-rights abuses in countries such as Iraq, Iran and Syria."

Massad regularly told his students that "Zionism got its name from the Hebrew slang for penis, Zayin." While this is plainly untrue, is this the language of a Columbia professor?

If he's awarded tenure, Massad will be at Columbia for life. He will have no incentive to become dispassionate - and every incentive to become even more of an activist.

Can't Columbia do better?

Richard Miniter is a bestselling author and fellow at the Hudson Institute.

So much for apartheid in Israel

Paradigm-Shift Disappearance of Bishop Tutu By Simon Deng Friday November 16, 2007 Late last month, I went to hear Bishop Desmond Tutu speak at Boston's Old South Church at a conference on "Israel Apartheid." Tutu is a well respected man of God. He brought reconciliation between blacks and whites in South Africa. That he would lead a conference that damns the Jewish state is very disturbing to me. The State of Israel is not an apartheid state. I know because I write this from Jerusalem where I have seen Arab mothers peacefully strolling with their families even though I also drove on Israeli roads protected by walls and fences from Arab bullets and stones. I know Arabs go to Israeli schools, and get the best medical care in the world. I know they vote and have elected representatives to the Israeli Parliament. I see street signs in Arabic, an official language here. None of this was true for blacks under Apartheid in Tutu's South Africa. I also know countries that do deserve the apartheid label: My country, Sudan, is on the top of the list, but so are Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. What has happened to my people in Sudan is a thousand times worse than Apartheid in South Africa. And no matter how the Palestinians suffer, they suffer nothing compared to my people. Nothing. And most of the suffering is the fault of their leaders. Bishop Tutu, I see black Jews walking down the street here in Jerusalem. Black like us, free and proud. Tutu said Israeli checkpoints are a nightmare. But checkpoints are there because Palestinians are sent into Israel to blow up and kill innocent women and children. Tutu wants checkpoints removed. Do you not have doors in your home, Bishop? Does that make your house an apartheid house? If someone, Heaven forbid, tried to enter with a bomb, we would want you to have security people "humiliating" your guests with searches, and we would not call you racist for doing so. We all go through checkpoints at every airport. Are the airlines being racist? No. Yes, the Palestinians are inconvenienced at checkpoints. But why, Bishop Tutu, do you care more about that inconvenience than about Jewish lives? Bishop, when you used to dance for Mandela's freedom, we Africans all over Africa joined in. Our support was key in your freedom. But when children in Burundi and Kinshasa, all the way to Liberia and Sierra Leone, and in particular in Sudan, cried and called for rescue, you heard but chose to be silent. Today, black children are enslaved in Sudan, the last place in the continent of Africa where humans are owned by other humans. I was part of the movement to stop slavery in Mauritania, which just now abolished the practice. But you were not with us, Bishop Tutu. So where is Desmond Tutu when my people call out for freedom? Slaughter and genocide and slavery are lashing Africans right now. Where are you for Sudan, Bishop Tutu? You are busy attacking the Jewish state. Why?   Simon Deng, a native of the Shiluk Kingdom in southern Sudan, is an escaped jihad slave and a leading human rights activist.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT US AT (617)428-0012 DAVIDPROJECT.ORG

Al Qaeda threatens US, Israel on eve of Annapolis

We don't know that this is true, but we don't know that it isn't!

 

DEBKAfile Exclusive: Al Qaeda marks the forthcoming Middle East  conference with new threats to the US and Israel

 

November 21, 2007, 11:10 PM (GMT+02:00)

 "Annapolis won't save the Metropolis" (an apparent reference to  Manhattan, New York) is the heading over the threat to attack the US, published Wednesday Nov. 21 on al Qaeda's main web sites, DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources report. Sites in Gaza linked to al Qaeda warned Tuesday  night, Nov. 20, that a cell is already inside Israel and primed for mass attacks.Our sources report that Israeli security chiefs initially made light of the warning – until the threat against the United States appeared 24 hours later. The two warnings were clearly coordinated.

 

"A soldier in the Army for the Destruction of the Metropolis" signs the ten-page issue addressed to the United States. They lead off with a large photo of the second airliner to strike the New York Trade Center on Sept. 11, followed by an  illustration of the crumbling "Tower of Babel."

 

The writers pronounce the Annapolis conference an act of betrayal by Palestinian leaders Abu Mazen and Mohammed Dahlan, then ask caustically, "How is winter in  Afghanistan going for the Americans? This is a reference to the escalation of al Qaeda attacks on US forces in Afghanistan. "Make no mistake," the bulletin continues. "The Metropolis is the target of our next attack."

 

"To this day, the United States does not understand how the Tower of the Metropolis  collapsed or how the Tower of Babel was destroyed. They think it was an act of terror but it was really a divine act of grace for the Muslims."

 

DEBKAfile's sources disclose that the message from Gaza claims for the first time  that al Qaeda has planted cells inside Israel, which include American and Australian operatives, some of whom are Hebrew-speakers. They are described as trained in the use of all kinds of explosives and under orders to execute attacks  that will be attributed to Palestinians on the eve of the conference in Maryland.

Source

 

Cross posted: Israel News  Middle East Analysis

Former Human Rights member speaks on Middle East Peace

 

THE PROCESS

The Perils of Engagement
The U.S. can't prevent the Palestinians and their Arab backers from making poor choices.

BY JEFF ROBBINS
Wednesday, November 21, 2007 12:01 a.m.

In March 1999, a Democratic president of the United States was leading a military intervention in Kosovo. It was aimed at stopping the mass murder of a Muslim minority by Slobodan Milosevic, a bona fide war criminal. Our European allies ardently desired the U.S. to shoulder the burden of this effort--but wished to publicly distance themselves from it, in order to avoid the potential political fallout in their own countries that ineluctably follows an association with the U.S .

The European leaders were not simply imagining political risk where none existed: Tens of thousands of demonstrators packed the streets of European capitals in the spring of 1999, denouncing the U.S. for using military force to stop Milosevic from killing and persecuting Muslim Kosovars. At the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, where I was a U.S. delegate at the time, a middle-aged Greek woman accosted me angrily at a reception and smugly attributed U.S. efforts to stop Milosevic to an American desperation to "protect American markets." I responded that I had not known that American exports to Kosovo were of a magnitude so critical to the American economy as to galvanize the U.S. military industrial complex into launching a major bombing campaign there.

It is increasingly de rigueur around the world and, for that matter, in certain segments of the Democratic Party, to place responsibility for all international crises on the U.S. government. Unsurprisingly, therefore, when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict, it has attained the level of high fashion to ascribe the persistent absence of peace to a lack of adequate U.S. "engagement" in resolving it.

If the Bush administration were truly "engaged," the argument goes, the chances for Middle East peace would be greatly improved. Next week's meeting in Annapolis, Md., between Israel and at least certain of its Arab interlocutors has the look and feel of more of the same. Yesterday the State Department sent out "formal invitations" to the event, but it remains unclear who will attend besides Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. If history is any guide, the meeting will yield unsatisfactory results, Israel will be blamed for failing to make the requisite concessions, and the Bush administration will be widely and sharply criticized for its "failure to engage."

This analysis, simple and neat, and for so many so satisfying, would seem at odds with the historical record. The problem is that all too often, those who blame the U.S. for failing to deliver Mideast peace are some of the world's most culpable enablers of Mideast violence--and those who are themselves actually responsible for erecting the fundamental roadblocks to a resolution of the conflict.

This is so obvious as to almost go without saying--except that the penchant for placing the blame on the U.S. is so widespread and so addictive that it goes largely unsaid. It was, of course, the Arab bloc, including the Palestinian leadership, that decided to reject the U.N.'s 1947 partition of Palestine into two states, Arab and Jewish, living side by side. Instead it invaded the nascent Jewish state rather than coexist with it, spawning the conflict that has so burdened the world for the last 60 years.

This was not a decision made by the U.S.

We are also not responsible for the Arab world's choice not to create a Palestinian Arab state in East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank from 1948 to 1967, when it easily could have done so--before there were any Jewish settlements there to serve as the public object of Arab grievance.

It was not the U.S. whose leaders issued the largely unremembered "Three No's" of the Arab conference in Khartoum in the summer of 1967--"no" to peace with Israel, to negotiation with Israel and to recognition of Israel--after the 1967 war backfired so badly on the Arab world. Nor can the U.S. government under President Clinton be criticized for failing to pursue Yasser Arafat with sufficient solicitude between 1993 and late 2000. The Clinton administration was, after all, the most ardent of suitors of the Palestinian leader--only to be forced to watch Arafat reject an independent Palestinian state in all of Gaza and virtually all of the West Bank.

It was the Palestinian leadership, not the U.S., that decided in the fall of 2000 that, rather than accept an independent Palestinian state, its wiser course was to launch a four-year bombing campaign against Israel's civilian population. The result was not merely over 1,100 Israeli civilians killed, but several thousand Palestinians dead, as well as a shattered Palestinian economy and the decision by Israel to begin construction of a security barrier in July 2002.

President Clinton labeled this decision on the Palestinians' part a "tragic mistake." It is certainly inarguable that this particular decision, like others made by the Palestinian leadership over the past six decades, inflicted serious suffering on the Palestinian people. It has also resulted in suffering throughout the region, and instability beyond--but it was a course of action chosen and implemented by the Palestinians and publicly supported by Arab states, not by the U.S.

When Israel withdrew from all of Gaza in 2005, the Arab world had the opportunity for a fresh start there--to create a measure of hope for a population whose suffering long predated any Israeli presence. Instead of taking advantage of the opportunity, the Hamas-dominated Palestinian leadership opted to begin and then intensify an aggressive missile-launching campaign against Israeli civilian centers.

This choice in turn has led to Hamas's international isolation, and conditions in Gaza have grown steadily worse for Palestinians there. For its part, the Arab world has in essence stood by and permitted this to occur, and has once again remained unwilling to place the actual welfare of Palestinians ahead of its desire to stir opposition to Israel.

However significant the role of the U.S. is in nurturing political settlements of international disputes, it simply cannot prevent the Palestinian leadership and its Arab backers from making extraordinarily poor choices or, in President Clinton's parlance, "tragic mistakes." There is a marked tendency on the part of most of the world to cite the Bush administration's lack of "engagement" as the principal stumbling block to peace. It isn't. As for the Arab world, there is an even more pronounced habit of fingering the U.S. as the party which has the means at its disposal to bring about a Middle Eastern settlement, or at least conditions favorable to a settlement. If the past is any indication, the U.S. does not ultimately possess those means. The Arab world does.

Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, whose treasuries overflow with petrodollars, are in a position to invest heavily in the Gaza Strip, create economic opportunities for its destitute population, and dilute the toxin-filled atmosphere there. They have not done so.

The Egyptians are in a position to act decisively to stop the flow of rockets, bombs and other arms from Egypt into Gaza, where they are used to attack Israeli civilians. They have not done so.

Europe and Russia, whose lucrative contracts with Iran provide them with such enviable revenues, have been in a position to pressure Tehran into stopping the funding of Hezbollah, which assaults Israel from Lebanon, and Hamas, which assaults Israel from Gaza. They have not done so.

Under the circumstances, one might imagine that those in a position to dramatically improve the situation in the Middle East--but who have chosen by their inaction to worsen it--might feel sheepish about placing the onus for the absence of Middle East peace on the U.S. The only thing in shorter supply than sheepishness when it comes to the Middle East, however, is helpfulness. As far as helpfulness is concerned, it is past time for those who complain most about the lack of American "engagement" to begin providing some.

Mr. Robbins was a U.S. Delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Commission during the Clinton administration. He is a partner at the law firm Mintz, Levin in Boston.

Copyright © 2007 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

 

---

Check out AOL Money & Finance's list of the hottest products and top money wasters of 2007.

Self determination and Arab imperialism

Yet another reminder of the role of Arab imperialism in suppressing the legitimate right to self determination of native peoples in the Middle East.

 

Don't Call Me Berber (Amazighe)
 
Written by Adam Gonn
Published Wednesday, November 21, 2007

 

Note: Berber is the name given to the inhabitants of North Africa by Arab invaders; their own term is Amazighe, which means free people. 
 
 The Amazighe have been living in North Africa for nearly 4,000 years. Early Berber states, which predate the arrival of the Arabs to the region in the seventh century, were known as Mauritania and Numidia.

 

Until their conquest by Muslim Arabs, most of the Amazighe were Christian, and a sizable minority had accepted Judaism. Between the 11th and 13th centuries, the two great Amazighe dynasties, the Almoravids and the Almohads, controlled large parts of Spain, as well as north-west Africa.

 

With time even these dynasties disintegrated and the Amazighe of the plains of North Africa were gradually absorbed by the Arabs, while those who lived in inaccessible mountain regions, among them the famed Atlas Mountains, remained more independent.

 

When the French and the Spanish occupied much of North Africa, it was the Amazighe of these mountainous regions who offered the fiercest resistance. In more recent times the Amazighe, especially those of the Kabylia (Amazighe dominated areas), assisted in driving the French from Algeria.

 

Today, there are an estimated 23 million Amazighe, with the largest populations in Morocco and Algeria, in addition to smaller numbers in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.

 

The connection between language and identity is very strong among the Amazighe and they take great pride in their own language, Thmazight.

 

The Media Line (TML) spoke to Dr. Amar Almasude, an Amazighe born in Morocco, at Cappella University in Minneapolis to get some more insight on the question of language.

 

According to Almasude, the language is the very essence of being Amazighe, as, for example, one would regard oneself as English because one speaks English, or Iranians who refer to themselves as Persians because they speak Farsi. This is why one of the main sources of friction in Morocco, where some 75 percent of the population is Amazighe, the official language is still Arabic and in schools the teaching is conducted in Arabic as well.

 

The preference for Arabic has several reasons – Arabic is the language of Islam and 98% of Moroccans today are Muslims. Despite the fact that most Amazighe were originally Christian, today most of them are Sunni Muslim.

 

Morocco is member of the Arab League, and as such the government is pushing for the country to be a Muslim Arab country and not an Amazighe country.

 

In March 2000 the Amazighe Manifesto was published by leading members of the Amazighe community, in order to find a basis for discussion to ease friction between the Amazighe and the Moroccan government.

 

The document outlines the situation of the Amazighe in Morocco and their feeling of having to be ashamed of their cultural heritage – the word berber derives from the word barbarian – while being forced to learn the ways of their Arab countrymen.

 

Almasude told TML that during his school days the students used to be beaten for speaking Tamazight in class.

 

The manifesto ends with nine requests in order to improve the status of the Amazighe. The list of requests starts with a call for a national debate on the different ethnic groups in Morocco and their history, since, according to the manifesto, the Amazighe identity was suppressed by the Moroccan government after the end of colonialism.

 

There are also several requests regarding Tamazight, the national Amazighe language, that it be recognized as an official language and as such be noted in the country's constitution. The manifesto points out the central role of the language in the Amazighe culture.

 

"This is because they are Amazighe thanks to their language not to their race. They are completely aware of the fact that whoever among them exposes his language to loss is doing the same to his Amazighe existence," Almasude says.

 

There is also a request for economic compensation for the exploitation of the Amazighe since the rule of the French protectorate in 1912, occasioned by their long war against the colonizers and their economic marginalization. They regard this as the main cause behind their so-called "cultural retardation" and the dwindling of their political role in the country.

 

Almasude says that today the situation has improved and Tamazight is being taught in schools and there are several Amazighe political organizations.

 

"Perhaps one day if the political reforms in Morocco continue there might one day be an Amazighe nation," he says.

 

 
Copyright © 2007 The Media Line. All Rights Reserved.
Source

Is the US to blame for human rights failures in the Middle East?

Jeff Robbins argues that the US is unfairly blamed for the human rights problems of the Palestinians Arabs. :

 

It is increasingly de rigueur around the world and, for that matter, in certain segments of the Democratic Party, to place responsibility for all international crises on the U.S. government. Unsurprisingly, therefore, when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict, it has attained the level of high fashion to ascribe the persistent absence of peace to a lack of adequate U.S. "engagement" in resolving it.

 

If the Bush administration were truly "engaged," the argument goes, the chances for Middle East peace would be greatly improved. Next week's meeting in Annapolis, Md., between Israel and at least certain of its Arab interlocutors has the look and feel of more of the same. Yesterday the State Department sent out "formal invitations" to the event, but it remains unclear who will attend besides Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. If history is any guide, the meeting will yield unsatisfactory results, Israel will be blamed for failing to make the requisite concessions, and the Bush administration will be widely and sharply criticized for its "failure to engage."

This analysis, simple and neat, and for so many so satisfying, would seem at odds with the historical record. The problem is that all too often, those who blame the U.S. for failing to deliver Mideast peace are some of the world's most culpable enablers of Mideast violence--and those who are themselves actually responsible for erecting the fundamental roadblocks to a resolution of the conflict.

 

This is so obvious as to almost go without saying--except that the penchant for placing the blame on the U.S. is so widespread and so addictive that it goes largely unsaid. It was, of course, the Arab bloc, including the Palestinian leadership, that decided to reject the U.N.'s 1947 partition of Palestine into two states, Arab and Jewish, living side by side. Instead it invaded the nascent Jewish state rather than coexist with it, spawning the conflict that has so burdened the world for the last 60 years.

 

This was not a decision made by the U.S.

 

We are also not responsible for the Arab world's choice not to create a Palestinian Arab state in East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank from 1948 to 1967, when it easily could have done so--before there were any Jewish settlements there to serve as the public object of Arab grievance.

 

Worth reading. However, it is worth remembering, that all things considered, the United States is forced into a position where it must take some responsibility for the Middle East conflict, and moreover, it forced itself into that position because it was deemed to be in the best interests of the United States. The US is not responsible for the Arab world's decisions. But the US is responsible for its own decisions. Two divisions - 30,000 soldiers - of the US army in 1948, stationed on Israel's borders, would have been sufficient to stop an Arab invasion. No Arab government in 1948 woud have dared to cross a line guarded by the United States Army. Perhaps only the USSR would have dared to do so. As there was no disagreement between the US and USSR on this issue, it would have been an easy matter to station even 4 or 5 divisions in the Middle East. It would have even been an easy matter for the British to leave a token force on the Egyptian and Jordanian borders. Instead, the British actively encouraged, aided and even led the Transjordan Arab legion and helped them to subvert the UN partition plan. The United States did nothing whatever to stop the British.

 

The truth is apparently, that nobody considered the UN partition plan and the internationalization of Jerusalem to be realistic and workable solutions. The world decided on a "solution" as a political gesture, but did not have the responsibility to deal with the problem. Likewise, had the US lived up to its word and opened the straits of Tiran in 1967, there would have been no war then either. Had the US acted as an active guarantor of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, there would have been no violence in 2000, and the occupation of Palestinian territory would have ended by now. However, in each case, the United Nations and the United States chose to engage, mediate and negotiate with bandits and aggressors, instead of acting to implement justice and maintain order. Indeed, the US should have been engaged, but not in the sense meant by anti-Israel critics.

 

Ami Isseroff

 

Cross posted: Israel News  Middle East Analysis

 

Egyptians remember the good old days

'Surge in Egyptian Nationalism'

Adel Darwish 15 Sept 2007

Egyptians at home and abroad are active in recovering their ancient identity as
means of fighting corruption and linking a glorious past with the furure to bury
an unhappy present.

Egyptians in London, and many cities from San Francisco to Sidney and from Oslo
to Dubai, celebrated Egyptian New year's eve on September 11.

The year 6248 ended, according to Egyptian calendar on 30th of Mesori, (Mesra
in modern Coptic) 7 September while year, 6249 started on September 12
Gregorian calendar, 1st of Thoth(Thout in Coptic). Equivalent of Hermes in
Greek mythology Thout is the Egyptian deity of knowledge, sciences, magic, and
arbitration and the means by which Ra's will was interpreted; it is ike the
Logos of Plato.

Five days Pi Kogi Enavot (Nassii in modern speak) are squeezed between Mesra
and Thout to complete the 365 days earth circling the sun. Inventing the solar
year around 5000 B.C. the Egyptians divided it into 12 months of 30 days each,
as accurate means of calculating hours of daylight and estimating the flow of
Nile water (Thout 1st is the beginning of the river annual flood) in order to determine best time for sowing.

Continued here

Saudi opposition to Iran

From MEMRI:

 

Special Dispatch-Iran/Saudi Arabia/Persian Gulf
November 20, 2007
No. 1769
 
Saudi Columnists Call on Gulf States to Form Anti-Iran Front 
 
Following recent threats against the Gulf countries by leading Iranian officials, several Saudi columnists have criticized the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member countries' passivity in the face of the danger posed by Iran.
 
The columnists also called for a joint GCC front against Iran, under which a joint defense plan would be drawn up, a Gulf military industry developed, and a joint military force established. They added that the Gulf countries must close ranks before it is too late. 
 
 
We Must Not Remain Silent in the Face of Iran's Threats to Our Sovereignty
 
In the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassa, Saudi columnist Abdallah Al-Mutairi wrote that the Gulf countries must not remain silent in the face of Iran's threats, but must instead formulate a joint defense plan:
 
"Since the beginning of the Iranian nuclear crisis between Iran and the international community as represented by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. Security Council, the E.U., and the U.S., Iran has been making efforts to respond by means of direct and indirect threats to the GCC countries.
 
"The most recent threat came from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who declared his country's intent to 'fill the security vacuum that will be created in Iraq when the U.S. forces withdraw.'
 
"[We also learned] about the escalation [in Iran's position] from statements by IRGC naval commander Ali Razmjou to the Fars news agency, to wit: 'If the enemies want to launch a military attack, the IRGC has a force that can turn the Gulf into a hell for them.'
 
"Likewise, we all remember the editorial by Hossein Shari'atmadari,(1) advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and editor of the Kayhan newspaper, in which he stressed that Bahrain was a region belonging to Iran and that there are documents proving full Iranian sovereignty over the three islands (Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb, and Abu Moussa). We also cannot forget [Shari'atmadari's] comment that among the Gulf states there are illegitimate regimes that are the product of imperialism.
 
"Further, we cannot forget the statements by Ali Shamkhani, top military advisor to the leader of the Iranian revolution [i.e. Khamenei] and former defense minister, who threatened to wage all-out war against the countries of the region if the U.S. attacked Iranian nuclear facilities.
 
"We cannot be silent in the face of all these threats and warnings, and in the face of the Iranian threats to the Gulf states' sovereignty and security and of [Iran's] interference in their affairs. We must hasten to come up with serious and unified security measures that the Gulf states can take, and must start preparing a joint defense plan, in order to confront Iran's aspirations in the region, and in order to create a minimal balance of power in the Gulf. Such efforts must be emphasized by conducting large-scale joint [military] maneuvers, with participation limited to the GCC countries.
 
"It would be unwise to remain silent in light of Iran's irregular behavior, and to try to make excuses for [Iran's statements] by saying it was just a slip, or that these statements were aimed at the U.S. as part of the verbal war between Iran and the U.S.... In the face of the Iranian cudgel that is constantly being brandished at us, we must direct all of the Gulf's cudgels at it, and must not respond [only] via diplomatic means..."(2)
    
 
Let Us Act Before the Day Darkens Upon Us
 
Saudi columnist Yousef Al-Kwaylit wrote in the Saudi daily Al-Riyadh that in the face of Iran's threats to the Gulf countries, the GCC must prepare a strategic plan to include joint military industrial projects and the establishment of a joint military force:
 
"The GCC countries are taking one step forward and several steps backward on matters connected to security coordination... The circumstances require that we understand, in all seriousness, whether we are in one boat about to sink, or whether we are about to be rescued from what is going to happen on our borders.
 
"We must be bold in making fateful decisions, taking into account that we are not on the same military level as our neighbor [Iran]. We must reexamine the history of the Iraq-Iran wars, and the deterioration in security taking place today that heralds a dangerous war between the U.S. and Israel vs. Iran, whose ramifications will be destructive for all.
 
"The meetings of the GCC heads have become a routine occurrence, but the results of these meetings are unconvincing, since their strategic plans give no precedence to launching a military industrial project. Nor are there any attempts to become self-sufficient in supplying ourselves with the spare parts, ammunition, and light and medium weaponry that we need [in order to] form a basis for advanced industry. [We must act in this direction] as long as we have abundant funds, as long as we have minds and manpower, and as long as we have the capability to import experts and technology without restriction.
 
"The Gulf's location, geography, and strategic importance to the entire world have made it a bargaining chip for countries in the region and outside it. The Gulf's oil resources, revenues, and vital position as a passage between land masses have made it a fragile and dangerous region. The British, who were present in the region in the past, the Americans, who are present there now, and the Soviets, who wish [to gain a foothold there] have all set their own interests [above those of the Gulf states].
 
"That is why today we are standing on unstable ground, even though we ourselves have no interest in the power struggles that threaten our security. The GCC member countries must talk among themselves, as openly as possible, about the future of their military and political security, and must stand fast in the face of the regional and international forces that are holding them hostage.
 
"The worrying question is: Why aren't [the Gulf countries] taking any interest in establishing their own joint [military] force, despite the many options for establishing such a force? Have we forgotten how Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait? Have we forgotten the Persian shah's threats to invade Bahrain, and the reiteration of those same threats by a senior Iranian official just a few weeks ago? Have we forgotten the dispute between Iran and the UAE over the [three] islands?
 
"The matter has still not reached frightening proportions, but we must be cautious... and in light of the warnings, we must understand where our responsibility lies – before the day darkens upon us."(3)
  
  
Endnotes:
(1) See MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis Series No. 379, "Tension in Iran-Bahrain Relations After Kayhan Editor Claims Bahrain Is Inseparable Part of Iran," August 3, 2007, http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=countries&Area=iran&ID=IA37907
(2) Al-Siyassa (Kuwait), September 7, 2007. 
(3) Al-Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), November 1, 2007.
 

Source: MEMRI

 

Cross posted: Israel News  Middle East Analysis

Human Shields: Palestinians Exploit Their Own Schoolchildren

Human Shields:

Palestinians Exploit Their Own Schoolchildren

November 16, 2007 - Palestinians have made a specialty of murdering civilians, yet still wish to portray Israel as a sponsor of terrorism. They have found an effective method: deliberately putting their own civilians, even their children, in mortal danger.

The Israeli army captured on video a group of terrorists near an elementary school in Gaza preparing to launch mortar shells. They would launch the shells from a yard next to an elementary school, then flee the site, leaving the school squarely in the path of any possible Israeli retaliation. According to Israeli military officials, the Israeli army identified the school and withheld fire.

Article continued at: Human Shields: Palestinians Exploit Their Own Schoolchildren

Carlos
http://www.peacewithrealism.org