Volume 201, January 17, 2011
The Committee for Truth and Justice
Seeking Justice Through Truth

   Our Newsletter has had a printing problem for a month or two as many of you know and we apologize for that. However, we think that we have solved the problem with this Newsletter.

CTJ

Tunisia's lessons for Washington

By Caroline B. Glick










Tunisian president's regime was not the only thing destroyed. The two main foundations of 'expert' Western analysis of the Mideast have also been undone


http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | If at the height of the anti-government protests in Tunisia last week, Israel and the Palestinians had signed a final peace deal, would the protesters have packed up their placards and gone home?

Of course not.

So what does it tell us the nature of US Middle East policy that at the height of the anti-regime protests in Tunisia, the White House was consumed with the question of how to jump start the mordant peace process between the Palestinians and Israel?

According to Politico, as the first popular revolution in modern Arab history was in full swing, last week the White House organized two "task forces" to produce "new ideas" for getting the Palestinians to agree to sit down with Israeli negotiators. The first task force is comprised of former Clinton and Bush national security advisers Sandy Berger and Stephen Hadley.

The second is led by former US ambassador to Israel under the Clinton administration Martin Indyk.

And as these experts were getting in gear, US President Barak Obama dispatched his advisor and former Middle East peace envoy under the Bush 1, Clinton and Bush 2 administrations Dennis Ross to Israel to meet with Israeli and Palestinian leaders to ask them to put out "new ideas." Amazingly, none of these task forces or meetings has come up with anything new.

Again, according to Politico, these task forces and consultations generated three possible moves for the Obama White House. First, it can put more pressure on Israel by announcing US support for a "peace plan" that would require Israel to surrender its capital city and defensible borders.

Second, the US can pressure Israel by seeking to destabilize Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's government.

And third, the US can pressure Israel by pumping still more money into the coffers of the unelected Palestinian government and so raise expectations that the US supports the unelected Palestinian government's plan to declare independence without agreeing to live at peace with Israel.

So much for new ideas.


THEN THERE is the unfolding drama in Lebanon. It is hard to think of a greater slap on the face than the one Hizbullah and Syria delivered to Obama last Wednesday. Hizbullah brought down Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri's government with the open and active support of Syria while Obama was meeting with Hariri in the Oval Office.

And how did Obama respond to this slap in the face? By dispatching Ambassador Robert Ford to Damascus to take up his new post as the first US ambassador in Syria since Syria and Hizbullah colluded to assassinate Hariri's father, former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri six years ago.

Reality is crashing in on the Obama administration. But rather than face the challenges presented by reality, the Obama administration is burying its head in the sand. And it is burying it head in the sand with the firm support of the inbred US foreign policy elite.




The overthrow of Tunisian President Zine El Abedine Ben Ali last Friday is a watershed event in the Arab world. It is far too early to even venture a guess about how Tunisia will look a year from now. But it is not too early to understand that Ben Ali's regime was not the only thing destroyed last Friday. The two main foundations of "expert" Western analysis of the Middle East have also been undone.

The first foundation of what has passed as Western wisdom about the region is that the only that thing that motivates the proverbial "Arab street" to act is hatred of Israel.

For nearly a generation, successive US administrations have based their Middle East policies on the collective wisdom of the likes of Ross, Hadley, Berger, Indyk, George Mitchell, Dan Kurtzer, and Tony Blair. And for nearly a generation, these wise men have argued that Arab reform, democracy, human rights, women's rights, minority rights, religious freedom, economic development and the rule of law can only be addressed after a peace treaty is signed between Israel and the Palestinians. In their "expert" view, Arab autocrats and their repressed subjects alike are so upset by the plight of the Palestinians that they can't be bothered with their own lives.

Tunisia's revolution exposes this "wisdom," as complete and utter piffle. Like people everywhere, what most interests Arabs is their own standard of living, their relative freedom or lack thereof, and their prospects for the future.

Mohammed Bouazizi, the 26-year-old Tunisian college graduate who set himself on fire last month after regime security forces destroyed his unlicensed produce cart did not act as he did because of Israel.

The Egyptian man who set himself on fire in Cairo on Monday outside the Egyptian parliament, and the Algerian man who set himself on fire in Tebessa on Sunday, did not choose to self-immolate in the public square because of their concern for the Palestinians. So too, the anti-regime demonstrators in Jordan are not demonstrating because there is no Palestinian state west of the Jordan River.

The Tunisian revolution demonstrates that "Arab unity" and commitment to "Palestinian rights," is little more than a sop for Western "experts."

The chief concern of Arab dictators is not Israel, but the prolongation of their grip on power. From their perspective, one of the keys to maintaining their iron grip on power is neutralizing US support for freedom.

By arguing that Israel is the root cause of all Arab pathologies, Arab despots put the US on the defensive. Having to defend its support for the hated Jews, the US feels less comfortable criticizing the dictators for their repression of their own people. And without the Americans breathing down their backs, Arab dictators can sleep more or less easily. Since Europe doesn't mind that they trample human rights, only the US constitutes a threat to the legitimacy of these Arab autocrats' iron fisted repression of their people.

And this brings us to the second fallacious foundation of "expert" Western analysis of the Middle East destroyed by the recent events in Tunisia. That foundation is the belief that it is possible and desirable to build a stable alliance structure on the back of dictatorships.

Tunisia's revolution exposed two basic truths about relationships with dictatorships. First, they cannot outlast the regime. Since dictators represent no one but themselves, when the dictator leaves the scene, no one will feel bound by his decisions.

The second fundamental truth exposed by Ben Ali's overthrow is that all power is fleeting. Ben Ali's day came last Friday. The day of his Arab despot brethren will also arrive. And when they are overthrown, their alliances will be overthrown with them. To a significant degree, the Obama administration's failure to understand the chronic instability of dictatorships explains its obsession with appeasing Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. Because the US wrongly assumes that Assad's regime is inherently stable, it misunderstands Assad's rationale for preferring Iran and Hizbullah to the US.

Assad is a member of the Alawite minority community. He fears his people not only because he represses them through state terror, but because given his Alawite identity, most Syrians do not view him as one of them.

As dictators and murderers themselves, Iran's ayatollahs and Hizbullah's terror masters support Assad's regime in a way that the US never could, even if it wished to. Indeed, as Assad sees things, given the nature of his regime, there is no chance that an alliance with the US would do anything but weaken his regime's grip on power.

US attempts to build relations with Assad tell this dictator two seemingly contradictory things at the same time. First they signal to him that his alliance with Iran and Hizbullah strengthen his regional stature. Without those alliances, the US would not be interested in appeasing him.

Second, due to the chronic instability of his tyrannical terror state, and his consequent utter fear of democracy, Assad views American attempts to draw him into the Western alliance as bids to overthrow his regime. The more the likes of Obama and Clinton seek to draw him in, the more convinced he will become that they are in league with Israel to bring him down.


ON THE face of it, the Tunisian revolution vindicates former president George W. Bush's policy of pushing democratization of the Arab world. As Bush recognized in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the US is poorly served by relying on dictators who maintain their power on the backs of their people.

Bush got into trouble however by seeing a straight line between the problem and his chosen solution of elections. As the Hamas victory in the Palestinian Authority and the Muslim Brotherhood's victories in Egypt's parliamentary elections on the one hand, and the undermining of pro- Western democratically elected governments in Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq on the other hand made clear, elections are not the solution to authoritarianism.

The Tunisian revolution provides several lessons for US policymakers. First, by reminding us of the inherent frailty of alliances with dictatorships, Tunisia demonstrates the strategic imperative of a strong Israel. As the only stable democracy in the region, Israel is the US's only reliable ally in the Middle East. A strong, secure Israel is the only permanent guarantor of US strategic interests in the Middle East.

Second, the US should proceed with great caution as it considers its ties with the Arab world. All bets must be hedged. This means that the US must maintain close ties with as many regimes as possible so that none are viewed as irreplaceable.

Saudi Arabia has to be balanced with Iraq, and support for a new regime in Iran. Support for Egypt needs to be balanced with close relations with South Sudan, and other North African states.

As for engendering democratic alternatives, the US must ensure that it does not make any promises it has no intention of keeping. The current tragedy in Lebanon is a blow to US prestige because Washington broke its promise to stand by the March 14 movement against Hizbullah.

At the same time, the US should fund and publicly support liberal democratic movements when those emerge. It should also fund less liberal democratic movements when they emerge. So too, given the strength of Islamist media, the US should make judicious use of its Arabic-language media outlets to sell its own message of liberal democracy to the Arab world.

Tunisia's revolution is an extraordinary event. And like other extraordinary events, its repercussions are being felt far beyond its borders. Unfortunately, the behavior of the Obama administration signals that it is unwilling to acknowledge the importance of what is happening.

If the Obama administration persists in ignoring the fundamental truths exposed by the popular overthrow of Tunisia's dictator, it will not simply marginalize US power in the Middle East. It will imperil US interests in the Middle East.


Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

Interested in a private Judaic studies instructor — for free? Let us know by clicking here.

 
 

What is Hillary Inhaling?

Shevat 13, 5771, 18 January 11 12:04
by Prof. Phyllis Chesler

(Israelnationalnews.com) In 2009, President Obama declared that America is really “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.” He also bowed low to Saudi King Abdullah and proudly defended America’s stand on behalf of a Muslim woman’s right to veil.

Well, that didn’t stop Iran.

Next, the Obama administration tried to force the Israelis—who want peace—to give up…more pieces of land in order to further appease the Arabs—who do not want peace with Israel.

That did not work either.

Now, it is January of 2011, and Secretary of State Clinton is touring the Middle East. She claims that America is also filled with Arab--style “extremists” (we are really all the same) and that family-oriented women can “press government and leaders to make decisions that will lead to a sustainable peace.”

What is Clinton smoking—and inhaling? I ask because she is suffering from extremely impaired judgment.

In Abu Dhabi, Clinton compared a mentally ill Arizona mass murderer to the kind of “extremists” that one finds in both the Arab World and America. In her view, such “extremists” do not represent most people. “The extremists and their voices, the crazy voices that sometimes get on the TV, that’s not who we are, that’s not who you are.”

She is wrong. Unlike America, the Arab and Muslim world does have millions of hate-filled political actors and hundreds of millions who both support jihad and who themselves practice religious and gender apartheid. Does Clinton really believe that the violence committed by one madman is equivalent to the violence which, according to Barry Rubin, “can be traced to hundreds of thousands of mosques, media, teachers, and mainstream politicians daily preaching hatred literally millions of times a day?”

In Oman, Clinton claimed that women played a “major role in pushing the politicians” to make peace in Northern Ireland. Indeed, in 1976, Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams won a Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts, but guess what? Their work alone did not exactly lead to peace between Ireland and Great Britain, nor did they create a large or lasting women’s peace movement. While violence lessened after 1976, literally dozens of terrorist attacks continued to take place each year. It is also crucial not to minimize the extraordinary moral power that Irish Republican Army soldier Bobby Sands’ prison fast-unto-death had in 1981.

More important: Clinton herself should know how “mean” some women can be when it comes to supporting other women. She herself was mocked and scorned by women journalists, many of whom were also leftist, peace-oriented feminists. Indeed, they also savaged Sarah Palin, another woman politician, without shame. Now just imagine how “kind” women may be to each other in the Arab world where, despite exceptions, so many women are routinely degraded, silenced, sequestered, forced to veil, forced into arranged marriages, genitally mutilated—and at the hands of other women.

Mothers and female relatives sometimes participate in the hands-on honor murder of daughters and sisters. Co-wives in polygamous unions can be bitter rivals. Arab, Muslim female suicide bombers choose to blow themselves up by standing near other Muslim women with children, who are often on a religious pilgrimage. As I documented in my book, Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman, like men, women also internalize sexism and racism. Arab and Muslim women have not been trained to “like” or respect other women, especially not Israeli or Jewish women.

Many anti-Zionist Israeli feminist leftists are committed to work for peace with Arab women—but they do not have many counterparts in the Arab world, where both men and women are tortured and imprisoned for saying anything positive about Israel or infidels or anything negative about Islam. Most international human rights and presumably pacifist organizations, including the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, are rabidly anti-Zionist. More interesting: These same anti-Zionist Israeli feminist leftists show absolutely no compassion toward, nor do they seek to negotiate “peacefully” or at all with, their own countrywomen with whom they may politically disagree.

Over the years, I have been involved in many all-women’s groups. They are no more “peaceful” or “tender” than are male groups.

Secretary Clinton: Put that in your pipe and please smoke it!

But there’s more.

Clinton spoke in Qatar, where she condemned “corruption” as “a cancer” and said that “the region’s foundations are sinking into the sands. People have grown tired of corrupt institutions and a stagnant political order.”

Corruption is the only way to get anything done in an Arab and Muslim country. Bribes and the hiring of relatives not only work—they are the only honorable things to do in a culture where people cannot count on the government, modernization, or technology for survival. All they have are their family connections.

Madame Secretary: Please have another puff! And welcome to the real Middle East.

  Given the above article and everything else we know about Obama's poor treatment of Israel, one has to question what Hillary is up in the story below. Exactly what is she doing and why?
   It is really extremely difficult to believe that her message below was meant for the Arab leaders of the Arab states she visited. Afterall, she could have given them these messages privately. So who was it meant for?
  Also, of course she was not really serious about her criticisms of these leaders and states because none of these criticisms was tied to any change in USA policy.  If the leaders of these states did not change, she did not threaten then with cutting off aid or refusing to sell them military equipment , etc. So why did she say these things? Also of course the issues involved are relatively minor compared to the main problems created by these Arab states, e.g. support for terrorism and terrorist states.
  Two possibilities are seen:
1. The US electorate: Obama lost the last election and he is trying to win back the independents by seemingly getting tough with Arab states. As written above this is just an illusion, but maybe he is hoping the electorate will not notice. Afterall, this is how he runs every campaign.
2. Israel supporters in the USA (mostly the Jewish money and influence he needs for 2012 election: As Caroline Glick pointed out above ALL of the solutions Obama is considering to solve the Arab-Israel confllct involve increased pressure on Israel. He knows that his useful idiot liberal Jewish supporters will stay on board if he can show them that he has been "even handed", that he also also pressured the Arabs. These useful idiot Lefty Jews will go along as they are given the sense (actually the mirage) of fairness.
   However, of course there will be big differences which the Lefty Jews will ignore. The pressure on the Arabs will come with no obligations or consequences, on the other hand the pressure on Israel will come with serious consequences, e.g. decrease in aid. Also the issues on which Obama puts pressure on Arabs is minor while the issues Israel wil get pressured on involve its very existence.
CTJ


 

Clinton Defends Israeli Sovereignty, Decisions to Arab World

Assails Lack of Reform in Region  

  • Terrorists responded to Israeli peace moves by firing missiles
  • Arab World desperately needs internal reform, anti-corruption measures

State Department photo by Jason Chudy / Jan 12, 2011

Secretary Clinton and United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan laugh while speaking with another foreign minister before the start of a Gulf Cooperation Council roundtable meeting Jan. 12 in the Qatari capital.

Washington, Jan 13 - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reminded Arabs on Thursday (Jan 13) that Israel had made far-ranging moves for peace by withdrawing from Gaza and southern Lebanon but these steps had been met by thousands of terrorist rockets and missiles aimed at its civilians.

In an impassioned response to an Al-Jazeera reporter accusing the United States of double standards in the way it treated Israel and Arabs, Clinton emphasized Israel’s security needs and recalled its withdrawals from southern Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005.

"You often make decisions based on your own experience and history," she said. "And when the Israelis pulled out of Lebanon they got Hezbollah and 40,000 rockets, and when they pulled out of Gaza they got Hamas and 20,000 rockets," Clinton said.

"Israel is a sovereign country and it makes its own decisions," she added.

Clinton delivered the remarks to Arab diplomats and civic leaders at a regional development conference in Qatar’s capital of Doha. She warned that ignoring rampant corruption and a lack of human rights among other problems in the Arab world could lead to growth in Islamic radicalism.

"Those who cling to the status quo may be able to hold back the full impact of their countries' problems for a little while, but not forever," Clinton said. "If leaders don't offer a positive vision and give young people meaningful ways to contribute, others will fill the vacuum."

The Secretary of State also rejected charges that the U.S. has not pushed hard enough for a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Palestinians walked out of the talks last September and are refusing to return unless Israel freezes all construction in the West Bank.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was quoted on Thursday as saying he would not return to the talks unless the United States agreed to recognize a Palestinian state within 1967 borders. He criticized the Obama administration for not doing enough to make a Palestinian state a reality.

Clinton picked out rampant corruption as the single biggest problem Arab countries and holding back their progress.

"Extremist elements, terrorist groups and others who would prey on desperation and poverty are already out there appealing for allegiance and competing for influence," she said. "This is a critical moment and this is a test of leadership for all of us."
How much anti-Semitism is too much?  
By ANNE BAYEFSKY
15/01/2011   
 
Recent incidents at the United Nations indicate that most UN diplomats do not know where to draw the line, letting hate speeches drag on without walking
out.  
 
   
Recent WikiLeaks cables reveal that diplomats at the UN are haunted by a thorny question: How much UN-driven anti-Semitism is too much? The original UN was built on the ashes of the Jewish people and owes its human rights foundations to the victims of the Holocaust. At today’s UN, we have now learned, diplomats hunker down near the General Assembly hall “listening outside with headphones on” trying to figure out the extent of the hate-speech that those on the inside should endure before walking out.

The particular subject of the WikiLeaks cable from US officials in Stockholm was a September 2009 assembly speech by Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad. Sweden held the EU’s rotating presidency, and it fell upon Swedish diplomats to decide when Ahmadinejad had crossed pre-arranged
“red lines.” As it turned out, some EU members walked out of the speech, while Sweden stayed put. According to the cable, the Swedes were upset by the “embarrassing lack of EU coordination” – not by the bigotry broadcast over the UN global megaphone.


What had the Europeans confused would seem to be Jewish conspiracy theory 101. Ahmadinejad had used his UN platform to describe Jews as “a small minority [who] dominate the politics, economy and culture of major parts of the world by its complicated networks, and establish a new form of slavery... to attain its racist ambitions.” Yet this roused a mere 11 of the UN’s 192 members from their seats, including the US. Israel had chosen not to attend.

Five months earlier in April 2009, Ahmadinejad had mounted another UN-provided stage in Geneva and began by denying the Holocaust, claiming that the “Zionist regime” had been created “under the pretext of Jewish sufferings.” At this “antiracism” gathering (dubbed “Durban 2”) he continued: “The word Zionism personifies racism that falsely resorts to religion and abuses religious sentiments to hide their hatred and ugly faces.” This time UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon remained glued to their chairs. Nine states, including the US and Israel, had decided to boycott beforehand, while the remaining EU states and a few others belatedly got up and left.

In September 2010 Ahmadinejad used his UN invitation to New York to suggest that 9/11 was an inside job – “segments within the US government
orchestrated the attack” for the sake of “the Zionist regime.” On this occasion seven countries, including the US, headed for the doors. Israel had
previously figured out it was not worth going.

PLAYING MUSICAL chairs is not the only response to UN-based anti- Semitism. The vast majority listen attentively and many applaud. Sometimes no one moves at all. On June 8, 2010, the Syrian representative lectured the UN Human Rights Council: “Israel... is a state that is built on hatred... Let me
quote a song that a group of children on a school bus in Israel sing merrily as they go to school and I quote ‘With my teeth I will rip your flesh. With
 my mouth I will suck your blood.’”

The Obama administration, which chose to join this council, had a representative present, and neither he nor any other council member budged. UN officials, who routinely interrupt anything they deem insulting to Muslim states, said nothing.

Years of UN-driven anti-Semitism have clearly deadened the nerve endings of democracies. On November 29 and 30, 2010 the UN General Assembly sponsored its annual UN Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People followed by the usual anti- Israel agenda items.

From center stage in New York via Libya and Syria came the following: “Zionism, in reality, is the worst form of racism”; “The cancerous settlement in
all the Palestinian territories”; “Israel shows and rears its ugly face”; “The word Israel has become synonymous with words such as aggression, killing,
racism, terrorism.”

Numerous states voiced their opposition to “Judaization” – UN vocabulary for the crime of any Jew on any Arab territory. They bellowed about Israeli
“butchering,” “apartheid,” “ethnic cleansing,” “genocide,” “racism,” “brutality,” “crimes against humanity,” “torture,” “killing in cold blood” and
“barbarism.” Guilt started “over 60 years ago” – that is, with Israel’s creation.

It would not have been difficult for listeners to discern that the fabrication of a cancerous Jewish state with its bloodthirsty ugly Jewish occupants
was anti-Semitism. But not a single country moved. No UN gavel interrupted the speakers. Just the diplomatic niceties of thanking and bowing before
Mr. President and Mr. Ambassador, and excellencies and distinguished delegates.

By the end of a year of double-standards, discrimination and hate-mongering 80 percent of all 2010 General Assembly resolutions criticizing specific
countries for human rights violations were directed at the Jewish state. Only six of the remaining 191 UN member states faced human rights criticism at
all, one of which was the US. And now half of the country-specific condemnatory resolutions and decisions ever adopted by the UN Human Rights Council target Israel.

THIS YEAR will be worse, as UN headquarters prepares to host the first summit of “heads of state and government” on racism in September. “Durban 3,” named after its notorious 2001 namesake that took place in Durban, South Africa, is aimed at “mobilizing political will...for the full and effective
implementation of the Durban Declaration.” This declaration charges Israel with racism and names no other state.

In contrast to Durban 1 and 2 which were attended by very few world leaders, Durban 3 is intended to be the golden ticket for Ahmadinejad and company to
promote Zionism is racism. From a New York podium, a few days after the 10th anniversary of 9/11, they will also instruct Americans about tolerance.
 Though Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper has refused to attend, Obama is still undecided.

In June 1979 Pope John Paul II made a nine-day pilgrimage to Poland, documented in a moving recent film Nine Days that Changed the World. With the power of faith and moral conviction he appealed to millions for change, turning the Soviet empire inside out. What a contrast to the European Union
representatives of today hiding in UN halls with their earphones, and the Obama administration confounded about whether to come or go.

Where are the world leaders of our time who are prepared to challenge and repudiate with the power of faith and moral conviction a UN empire that is a
shell of Eleanor Roosevelt’s vision and inimical to our dearest values?

The writer is the director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.