By Barry Rubin
It is important to understand that the current controversy over construction in east Jerusalem is neither a public relations’ problem nor a bilateral policy dispute. It arises because of things having nothing directly to do with this specific point.
What are the real issues involved:
by Phyllis Chesler
… Norway’s Human Rights Service (HRS) … is in danger and … I will soon write about this. Bruce Bawer has already done so. Please read it. This is very important. HRS is the first, and perhaps the only newspaper in Europe that is focused on the Islamist threat to Europe. European leftists — Norwegian leftists — despise this and have been engaged in a legal cabal to silence it. Shame on them! They are appeasing Norwegian Islamists in their midst who only recently called for “the execution of homosexuals” and who have been “threatening another 9/11 on Norwegian soil for failing to respect Muslim sensitivities.” … Continue reading…
By Barry Rubin
For more than four months the U.S. government has been celebrating Israel agreeing to stop construction on settlements in the West Bank while continuing building in east Jerusalem as a great step forward and Israeli concession deserving a reward. Suddenly, all of this is forgotten to say that Israel building in east Jerusalem is some kind of terrible deed which deserves punishment.
By Barry Rubin
I’m not going to bash or rant about a Newsweek article about Turkey by Owen Matthews–shocking and dangerous as it is–but rather talk about what is wrong and inaccurate about it. That article is part of a new wave of defeatism sweeping the West, though it still remains subordinate to the more ostensibly attractive idea that there is no real conflict or at least one easy to fix by Western concessions.
The International Solidarity Movement expressed motives for wanting peace activist Rachel Corrie dead.
by Bill Levinson
We use the word “murder” only because the International Solidarity Movement has accused Israel of murdering peace activist Rachel Corrie, who died after she knelt in front of an IDF bulldozer. When an accusation of murder is on the table, it is very poor judgment to express motives for wanting the decedent dead, but two members of the International Solidarity Movement and a Hamas terrorist have done exactly that. Let’s begin with Joseph Smith, one of the witnesses who contends that Rachel Corrie was “murdered.”
By Barry Rubin
The story of the U.S. engagement with Syria and the sanctions issue regarding Iran’s nuclear program are fascinating. Each day there’s some new development showing how the Obama Administration is acting like a deer standing in the middle of a busy highway admiring the pretty automobile headlights.
Or to put it a different way, it is like watching the monster sneak up behind someone. Even though you know he’s not going to turn around, you can’t help but watch in fascinated horror and yelling out: “Look out!” But he pays no attention.
The war of words is continuing. The latest salvos were fired last week by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, and his Lebanese ally and client Hassan Nasrallah. Ahmedinejad reportedly told Nasrallah that if Israel attacks Hizballah, the response should be sufficient to lead to the closure, once and for all, of the Israeli ‘case.’ In the same week, Nasrallah promised attendees at a ‘Resistance Martyrs Day’ celebration that his movement would target Israel’s infrastructure in the event of further hostilities. The Hizballah leader mentioned airports, factories and refineries as possible targets.
by Reza Molavi and K. Luisa Gandolfo*
In the 30-year reign of Iran’s Islamic Republic, there have been few controversies as serious as the one surrounding the 2009 elections. The votes that brought Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power for a second term have been challenged, not just on paper, but by citizens taking to the streets in angry protests that have only been quelled by brute force on the part of the establishment. Less well known is the upset that followed Ahmadinejad’s nepotistic appointment of Esfandiar Rahim Masha’i, the father of his daughter-in-law, to the post of first vice president. Not long after this, Iran’s supreme leader, ‘Ali Khamenei, demonstrated his personal authority over the entire political system by forcing Ahmadinejad to reconsider his appointee, leading to Masha’i’s dismissal. Masha’i had become controversial for his impolitic references to Israel and America. In a speech at a tourism convention in July 2008, for example, he had observed: “Not only we have no enemy, but we are friends with the American people, with the Israeli people, and we are proud that we are friendly with all the nations in the world.”[1]
By Barry Rubin
After more than 30 years of watching people write dumb things about the Middle East, I believe that in the last month I’ve seen more nonsense than at any previous time. The problem arises from ignorance, lack of understanding of the region by those presented as experts; plus arrogance, treating the region and the lives of people as a game (Hey, let’s try this and see what happens!), fostered by the failure of such control mechanisms as a balanced debate and editing that rejects simplistic bias or stupidity; as well as a simple lack of logic.
By Barry Rubin
The Department of Defense has just released its new Quadrennial Defense Review Report for 2010. What does it say about the Middle East? Far less than you’d expect in terms of space but still some extremely important points about what might involve the United States in future wars there.
Aside from some scattered references on the need for more civilian nation-building experts, funding the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and energy conservation efforts (that’s an area, no doubt, where money could be saved), that region takes up less than two pages, about two percent, of the 97-page report.
by Daniel Pipes*
My National Review Online column last week carried the provocative title, “How to Save the Obama Presidency: Bomb Iran,” and provoke it surely did.
Leftists on websites like ThinkProgress and DailyKos reacted voluminously and in slightly crazed ways, misrepresenting my argument even as they called me unrepeatable names. Die Welt, a German newspaper, published the article in translation but came under such vehement criticism that the editors pulled my analysis.
In the last week, senior Israeli policymakers made statements of an uncharacteristically bellicose nature regarding Syria.
It is unlikely that these statements were made because of sudden random irritation toward Israel’s hostile northeastern neighbor. Rather, the statements probably constituted part of a message of deterrence to Damascus.
The need to project deterrence itself derives from a series of significant changes currently under way on the ground in Lebanon — reflecting Syria’s ever tighter alignment with Hizbullah and the pro-Iranian regional bloc of which it is a part.
By Barry Rubin
Significantly, President Barack Obama’s discussion of foreign policy came only at the end of his State of the Union message. Obviously, domestic matters and especially the economy come first. Yet international affairs are not only vital but often have been the issues on which administrations are judged, no matter how unlikely that seemed at the time.
It is apparently considered impolite to point out that Obama has no previous experience and little knowledge of international affairs. And yet that fact affects the fate of the globe every day. The really interesting question is whether the State of the Union message showed any growth in his ability after one year in office.
Sadly, the answer is “no.”
by Patrick Knapp*
The Obama administration is caught on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, it has welcomed the Gulf Security Dialogue (GSD) as a chance to further “mutual interests” with Persian Gulf states, but, on the other, it has sought pragmatic engagement with the Islamic Republic–the greatest threat to gulf security. Michael Knights, a Persian Gulf expert at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, noted in September that the “rapid advances” of the military forces of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) were the result of the dialogue. He predicts that they “may eclipse Iranian capabilities in the gulf within ten years.”[1] Yet the GSD’s initiatives are inadequate and need a foreign policy that stresses relationships and ideals. If policy within the gulf is to be dominated by short-term pragmatic demands, it may turn out to have unwanted consequences for other alliances in the region. That in turn could well have a negative impact on the United States.
The revelations of possible Iranian involvement in the attack on Israeli diplomats earlier this month in Jordan appear to offer the latest evidence of direct engagement by Teheran in subversion and paramilitary activity across national borders.
The Jordanian investigation is still in its early stages. But the suggestion by sources close to the well-respected Jordanian General Intelligence Department that the explosives used for the attack may have been brought into the kingdom by Iranian diplomats is certainly plausible. It would conform to similar incidents on which the fingerprints of Iran were later unmistakably identified. It would also fit the current pattern of Iranian support for destabilizing its regional enemies.
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