Denial is a river in DC

Truthtriumphs

Obama is the ideological heir to Jimmy Carter, whose actions directly facilitated the overthrow of the Shah, replacing that regime with one that directly threatens the West today.
It seems too much to expect our "leaders" to learn from history.

steve

Truthtriumphs:

What is Obama to do to keep Mubarak in power? Should he encourage him to use the Egyptian military to attack and slaughter peaceful protesters?

Border_Reiver

It seems too much to expect our "leaders" to learn from history

All our "leaders" are lawyers and have never read history and therefore cannot learn from it. Their take on any problem is to draft a new "law" (mainly denying another western freedom) and this is seen (by them) as doing something positive. God help us from these fools and incompetents.

John Edwards

The Egyptian people should be allowed to choose their own government. If they hold free elections we must respect the outcome.

Gary

Why do people blame Jimmy Carter when it was Eisenhower who destroyed democracy in Iran?

It is Eisenhower who paved the way for the Ayatollahs with his stupidity.

Mossadegh, a thoroughly decent man (he refused pay, can you name any British or American politician who refused pay or bribes?), democratically elected, and secular.
But he upset BP, so we killed Iran's democracy.

The Shah was a corrupt thug who betrayed his own people, slaughtered, raped, and tortured. I can't imagine why he was ousted, can you?

Truthtriumphs

Steve.
The last thing Obama should do is to encourage the Muslim Brotherhood, or to foster the idea that giving power to them is synonymous with giving the Egyptian people democracy.

It would be no bad thing were Obama to remind the Egyptian people that they are in receipt of 1.5 billion dollars of US taxpayers money, annually,in aid, and with that largesse comes the obligation not to bite the hand that feeds them.
Or is that asking too much?

tomdickandharry

It's not like I would vote for the Muslim Brotherhood if they ran in the UK, but surely we should all see past your Orientalist depiction of Egypt.

You can't dismiss the Muslim Brotherhood as anti-democratic in one paragraph, and then argue that we should not accept them as part of the Egyptian government the next. If they have popular support (I've read it's around 30%) then we should accept that as the outcome, even if we don't necessarily like it.

And I think you're a little guilty of scaremongering. I really have no positive feelings towards the Muslim Brotherhood, but they 'officially' renounced the use of violence decades ago, they've been at the forefront of political reforms in Egypt over the last few years.

J D Bryan

For those enthused about the revolution to remove the dictator Mubarak by assuming must be an unmitigated good should note. The French (1789), Russian (1917 [March]) and Iranian (1978 ) revolutions were in their times understandable responses to resist despotism. Arguably liberal or proto-liberal revolutions. Certainly each respective peoples’ rejected the respective status quo, the ancien regime, the Tsar (and fighting WW1) and the Shah. The latter was particularly populist. However, all were hijacked by extremists who became worst despots and then took on the world.

In all three cases the peoples’ got what they wanted, the removal of the existing despotism, but did not like what they got! The French got a proto-totalitarian regime, the despotic murderous Robespierre then the despot Napoleon who plunged Europe into two decades of war, global in extent. This became the model for the second. Indeed, the Russians got the world’s first ever police state, suffered totalitarianism until 1991, furnished by a series of monsters: Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin who then made sure other peoples’ should experience thus. Meanwhile, prompted Mao, et al. The Iranians got rid of the Shah but do not like the present theocracy. All three revolutionary regimes caused regional and/or global unrest for ideological reasons, existential war against the “other”.

Could this present Egyptian Revolution follow the same path?

It does not look good does it?

Augustus

Steve - Welcome to the new reality of cold hard choices in Egypt, and the consequences of
'democracy' in regions where radicalim thrives.

Now that Mubarak has announced he will step down in September
the Muslim Brotherhood will position itself to take over Egypt. But if he steps down sooner el-Baradai will become temporary president until then.
Either way, the MB will waltz in
in September and all the rights of minorities will drop away.
Also expect Jahiliyya (as they have promised for years), i.e.
the systematic destruction of all relics of any pre-Islamic past. In Egypt that would include many of the wonders of the world: The Pyramids, The Sphinx, those statues and columns at Giza, and all the rest. Just like the MB's offshoots did in Afghanistan with the giant Buddhas.

Jerry

What should America do? No one seems to know. How about this?

The United States has troops in Sinai under the rubric of the Multinational Force and Observers, part of the 1979 treaty with Israel. Make it clear to whoever gains power that these troops will not be moving unless Egypt abrogates the treaty that brought peace to the Middle East. If they do not throw out the treaty, then continue with the aid as usual. If they insist on abrogation, remove the troops and the M1 Abrams tank factory we gave them and the 1.5 billion dollar annual aid package. Force the new Egyptian government to move right or left. Then it is their decision to live with.

Removing the troops of the MFO before they are ordered to leave by the Egyptians will indicate that Obama approves of whatever occurs, as long as he can avoid exerting American influence, whatever is left of it.

Solomon2

Mr. Rubin's words cannot be discounted. It is not inevitable that the M-B take over. However, the hatred of Israel and by extension the West was something encouraged by the Mubarak regime itself. If this is, as I suspect, widely recognized by the populace it may also become part of the Mubarak legacy that they will reject. That is something so deep in Egyptians psyche that Mr. Rubin might miss it. It isn't for nothing that democratic countries rarely make war upon each other.

With the political barriers to discussion down, Egyptians can use the next few weeks and months to collect their own minds and the forcibly disorganized democrats can reorganize and challenge the M-B, which, after all, had little to do with this Great Revolt in the first place.

Okey

The mighty ancient Roman Empire also succumbed to ostensibly weaker forces.

Grumpy true Zionist

for obama read The Manchurian Canditate, but substitute Indonesian for the china tag

and i really hate conspiracy theories

Tim

Representative democracy does not automatically follow the will of the people, nor do people do in office what they say they will do in opposition. The Conservative Party's stance on the EU is a good case in point. As Eurosceptics continue to bewail, foreign policy issues rate well down the scale of most people's real concerns. A democratic Government of Egypt will need to sound off every now and then, but will need to deliver on the economy if it is to have a chance of staying in power. Attacking Isreal is not going to increase anyone's living standards.

Israel has been forced to make pacts with the devil in order to get peace. The problem shown up now is that the devils Israel dealt with cannot actually deliver their side of the bargain in the long term. This is particularly dangerous when land (which can only be given once) has been traded for peace.

I worry that Netanyahu is facing a "Thatcher moment" (akin to what happened when Mrs Thatcher asked Gorbatchev to stop German reunification). How will he react if a democracy does emerge in Egypt and its new leaders ask why Netanyahu thinks Mubarak should have thrown them in gaol? (The same Mubarak who incidentally refuses to speak to the man that Israel has democratically chosen to be its Foreign Minister).

tiki

The train already left the station. Next stop will be 'the Islam state of Egypt. Like I said before...Carter gave us a'Democratic & free Iran, Obama will give us a 'Democratic & free Egypt and a new (certainly not democratic & free)ME. I see the pictures from Cairo and I think...."poor, naive overheated and (again) being manipulated people, who don't think one day ahead, just go with the flow of mantra's
"Mubarak must go, go"....than what?

Merlyn

John Edwards

The Egyptian people are divided between the educated and the far greater in number, peasant people. The later do not read newspapers, go on the internet and so forth, they get their information from the Imams ... they are basically brainwashed to accept authoritarian rule ... How can this be considered a free choice.

Shaun Harbord

Truth Triumphs: you say "the Egyptian people....are in receipt of 1.5 billion dollars of US taxpayers money, annually,in aid, and with that largesse comes the obligation not to bite the hand that feeds them." But $1.3 billion goes in military aid which is part of Mubarak's repressive regime that keeps the Egyptian people down and greases the palms of his family and cronies. Can you in all seriousness expect them not to resent Mubarak and his paymasters in Washington in such a situation?

Merlyn

By the way, El Baradei was sent to investigate the possibility of the Iranians developing nuclear weaponry by the US. he came back with the reply that they were not a threat.
Since that time he has apparently been in secret contact with the Iranian government….

The Muslim Brotherhood support him... what more is there to say?

Joshua

"The Egyptian people should be allowed to choose their own government. If they hold free elections we must respect the outcome." -- John Edwards, 2011

----------

"The German people should be allowed to choose their own government. If they hold free elections we must respect the outcome." -- A British appeaser, 1933

Joshua

"then the despot Napoleon who plunged Europe into two decades of war"

And also freed Europe's Jews and tore down the walls of the ghetto. The Abraham Lincoln in fact of the Jewish people.

David

Mel's democracy - you can vote, but only for those she approves of. Otherwise, you have to remain under a murderous dictatorship that she apporoves of.

GeoffM

It seems we are entering a new age of darkness.

tomdickandharry

Shaun Harbord - hit the nail on the head. If we had an oppressive government that received military aid from abroad, our resentment would not be confined to our government alone, but their foreign 'investors' too.

It continues to amaze me how the US and EU provide financial assistance to horribly oppressive regimes (purely because the devil you know is supposedly better than the devil you don't know), and when they are overthrown, expect no hard feelings.

And Augustus - you have a warped sense of reality if you think the Muslim Brotherhood would destroy the Pyramids. They're not hardcore Salafists who want to destroy every emblem of the Egyptian nation because it counteracts the ummah.

AF

Shaun Harbord,
Absolutely,
the man in the street is unlikely to see any benefit from American billions,he is
not even aware it.But at last he is aware of the poverty and restrictions he lives with.

raymond

The Egyptian people must do as they must do. But please, get off the back of Israel all you lefty commentators and Arabists !

Graeme

Obama needs to resign immediately. A substantial part of a US president's brief is foreign affairs and defence issues. He has failed on these two main issues. Obama is clueless. I see that some key members of the Muslim Brotherhood are calling for war with Israel. Perhaps Obama is unaware of this fact. Let the Egyptian Army cross into the Negev and see what will happen to them.

Owen

As a regular follower of your column, Mel, I note that you frequently object to things that Obama (and others do) without proposing what you think they should do. It is widely recognised that the US is caught in between a rock and a hard place on Egypt. What do you propose Obama does instead?

Would you suggest the US encourages Mubarak to employ his army to clear the streets and enforce his rule? Do you think Obama should declare his support for democratic process in Egypt with the caveat that so long as the outcome is one that the US approves of?

You are good at pointing out faults, but not at suggesting solutions.

steve

Merlyn:

So when George W. Bush said the following in 2008 in a speech in Egypt he didn't have Egyptians in mind because they're too ignorant to be trusted with the right to freely choose their leaders?

"Freedom is also the basis for a democratic system of government, which is the only fair and just ordering of society and the only way to guarantee the God-given rights of all people. Democracies do not take the same shape; they develop at different speeds and in different ways, and they reflect the unique cultures and traditions of their people. There are skeptics about democracy in this part of the world, I understand that. But as more people in the Middle East gain firsthand experience from freedom, many of the arguments against democracy are being discredited."

Rose

This has all been stirred up by sinister means probably plotted in secret by leaders of all radical Islamic groups united in purpose through hate.
Mubarak is a dictator and it has been easy to exploit Egypt's youth's yearning for freedom's and democracy. But that's just not possible in an Islamic country.
Why ! Why! Why ! has the Obama Administration been covertly supporting the Anti- Mubaracks. There are 79m. in Egypt. Who knows how many are Pro-Mubarack

Ed

So the establishment, from Melanie Phillips to Tony Blair line up behind Mubarak. Wither their collective moral compass?

Grumpy true Zionist

yes Graeme we remember with great relish the battle at Gidi/Mitla pass

we also remember surrounding the egyption 3 army (on their side of the river) and the americans asking that our Arik not sqeeze the blood out of them

yes we remember these things well
the egyptions im not sure
hope their uncles in the islam brotherhood have a good memory

Extranea

I think we are simplifying much of what "obamites" are supposed to think. The true coarse of action is to let the Egyptians decide for themselves.

The lesson of history is to stop meddling whether that's supporting despotic regimes or trying to overthrow governments we don't like.

The biggest threat here is if the Army dictates the next leader or the Muslim Brotherhood take over in an armed struggle. If democracy brings a government we do not like, that's tough. You either believe in democracy or you don't.
http://extranea.wordpress.com/

Alex Bensky

Not to worry, Melanie. President Obama not only has a special understanding of Muslims but the force of his charisma bridges unbridgeable gaps and brings together formerly deadly enemies under the umbrella of his wonderfulness. So the Muslim Brotherhood will, just to please him, abandon every single precept, idea, and value that it's ever expressed.

I hope you feel better now.

Augustus

It seems to me that some people are a little confused between the meaning of freedom, and the true meaning of democracy, i.e.
democracy as an end in itself even if that doesn't mean total respect of individual rights, and Islam taking control by using the apparent popular will of the people. A democratic process in a country dominated by Islam will inevitably be used to implement Sharia; a barbaric, undemocratic, and theocratic system of laws. The democratic process is only good
if it allows a system of government which is also civilized and good. Islamic societies do not want what we want. They do not see the world as we see it, but rather through a primitive and tribal system. In such cases the democratic process is used to implement Islamic theocracies and to destroy the democratic process. And now in Egypt, with no reliable mechanisms for a smooth transition to democratic rule, and where there are no democratic parties in place, the demands of the people for rapid change may outstrip any new government's ability to achieve it. And even before Mubarak has gone, the Egyptian people - those on the street, are already talking of their hatred of Israel and the USA.
They are already talking of war with Israel and baying for Jewish blood. But it is the will of the people and therefore
right and proper. It's above all
'democratic' don't yer know!

Ian Hills

The more the west interferes in moslem countries, the more powerful the fundamentalists get. This is even true of Iran - sanctions being a way of blackmailing western oil back from the mullahs, we now have a nuclear situation developing. And all this time European moslems are becoming more fanatical. Solution - pull out of Afghanistan, stop aiding Egypt and Pakistan, and lift the Iranian sanctions. And don't worry about Israel - she has enough firepower to launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran if necessary, and to once more smash her neighbouring states' forces to smithereens. In short, stop interfering.

C.Gee

“So the establishment, from Melanie Phillips to Tony Blair line up behind Mubarak. Wither their collective moral compass?”

No. There is no lining-up behind Mubarak. There is dubiety that the Muslim Brotherhood will be any better - in tolerating dissent, in economic development, in civil rights, in friendliness to the West. If there is any moral distaste at propping up a not too overtly hostile dictator, there should be equal - if not more - distaste in propping up a theocracy that bases its ideology on anti-Western principles derived from Islam. Yes, moral compasses are withering, but not that of Melanie Phillips.

Herzen

It has been a difficult few weeks for the propagandists.

How to spin the evidence that the Palestinians have no partner in negotiation?

How to sound principled while admitting that protest for democracy is only acceptable if against clerics, tyrants are to be immune (at least our tyrants)?

Rich

C. Gee,

Good to see that your abrupt silences were not caused by anything more serious than a disinclination to provide the evidence you base your assertions on.

Can we try you with a simple question, to give you a feel for how answering your critics works:

When you describe Mubarak as "a not too overtly hostile dictator", what do you mean?

Victoria Williams

Even before Obama the message was clear - we in the West wanted democracy to spread from Iraq across the Middle East. History tells us that we may be able to exert power over people but you will never govern an unwilling people and that is what is now facing Mubarak. We have to allow the Egyptians to embrace democracy and it is up to them who they elect - that is the only way it will work

De Rigueur

Wise Words Mrs Williams.
Time to pour a gin & tonic and sit back with our fingers firmly crossed. One can understand Melanie's angst, but what humanly, can we do? History is moving on and we cannot divert its path.
Let's think positively. Not all Egyptians are fools - hopefully.

EDDIE

The army has been sitting by and letting things slide into anarchy in Cairo. I think it could be that there is some huge internal struggle taking place amongst the army kingmakers,so the army cannot do anything as they have no orders

Augustus

If Mubarak's regime was the biggest problem in this turmoil,
then it would make sense for the US to remove support for it.
But the character of the protesters is not liberal, and is a bigger problem than the regime they seek to overthrow.
A Pew opinion poll conducted six months ago found that half of Egyptians support Hamas, 30%
support Hezbollah, and even 20%
support al Qaida. Morever, 95% of them would welcome Islamic influence in their politics. If this is translated into actual government policy it means that
the Islam they support is the al Qaida Salafist version. So its clear that Mubarak's regime will sooner or later be replaced by Islamic totalitarianism, and Israel's peace partner will again become its gravest foe, and America's
greatest Arab ally one of its greatest enemies. The conclusion must surely be that the US hasn't the faintest idea
what it is doing. It is the anti-colonialist paradigm all over again; the foundational assumption that the West has no right to criticize non-Westerners that continues to rule the administration's foreign policy. And it was this same paradigm which caused Obama
not to support the pro-Western supporters seeking to overthrow the Iranian regime in the wake of the stolen 2009 elections.
That is why Melanie Phillips is right, Obama's Middle East policy is based on the view that
the best way to appease the Arab world is by joining its campaign against Israel, and this was the central theme of Obama's speech in Cairo in June 2009 before an audience dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

C.Gee

Rich:

My "abrupt silences" on a blog comment site may be due to many causes.

As for how "answering my critics works": it cannot “work” if the critics both set the question and dictate what is an acceptable answer.

Generally, though, debate should be undertaken between equals - each side assuming that the other (a) has an educated familiarity with the issues, arguments, analyses, positions, and major players and opinion-formers involved; and (b) knows the rules of debate.

In our case, I cannot assume (a) and you cannot assume (b). So, not to be too overtly hostile, please close the gate on your way out.

Derek BLADES

Joshua chides John Edwards for his sensible remark that "The Egyptian people should be allowed to choose their own government. If they hold free elections we must respect the outcome." Joshua thinks an imaginary British Appeaser might have aid the same thing about Hitler in 1933. The Nazi party never won more than a third of the votes in any free election. Joshua's parallel is fanciful.

What astonishes me is that Josh and many other correspondents seem to think that the US both can and should "do something" about Egypt. They think we are living in Victorian times. Merlyn's ludicrous description of Egypt's "peasant people" is straight colonial thinking.

Edward in the USA

"Should he (Obama) encourage him (Mubarak) to use the Egyptian military to attack and slaughter peaceful protesters?"

Use the islamic republic of iran tactics?

Paul

Augustus "It is the anti-colonialist paradigm all over again; the foundational assumption that the West has no right to criticize non-Westerners"

Err no its the anti-colonialist paradigm that Western countries don't have the right to choose the governments for the rest of the world, especially against the will of the people of that country.

Yes most Egyptians feel sympathy for the Palestinians. Most Arabs do, just as most African countries sympathised with blacks living under apartheid. That's because Israel treats the Palestinians appallingly. Israel better get used to it or change its behaviour

Rich

C.Gee
February 2nd, 2011 10:55pm
That I can't be assumed to have "an educated familiarity with the issues, arguments, analyses, positions, and major players and opinion-formers involved" is a very curious excuse for not providing any evidence or references for your assertions, some of which are distinctly odd.

However, since you agree that I cannot assume that you "know the rules of debate" I will know how to treat your comments on this site.

Paul

Augustus "The democratic process is only good if it allows a system of government which is also civilized and good." As decided by whom? Ahh yes. I see. You'd be very much at home in the 19th century colonial empires.

If I don't think the Israel Government is civilised or good - do I get to overthrow it and replace it with a dictator of my choice?

"Islamic societies do not want what we want. They do not see the world as we see it, but rather through a primitive and tribal system."

Unlike Israel for example which believes that it has a right to steal other peoples land because it is a chosen people and God told them they could have it 3000 years ago. Oh and set up a state which is defined as belonging to its tribe only.

Presumably you are against thast too then?

Boris Karloff III

If I was Mubarak I know what I'd do. To clear these unseemly crowds sending them scurrying in all directions he needs to unleash the scariest and most horrifying thing ever to emerge from the desert sands. The Mummy!

Herzen

C. Gee, I should explain, thinks it sufficient, when asked for the evidence supporting his assertions, to say, "recent history"; and, when asked for the sources of his knowledge of this recent history, to say (with perhaps a hint of disdain), "recent history".

This time he is more forthcoming but no more enlightening: to understand that his assertions are correct, and those of his critics not, one requires "an educated familiarity with the issues, arguments, analyses, positions, and major players and opinion-formers involved" - pompous certainly, but not informative.

Those who share his prejudices appear to find this admirable. They are forever exclaiming on his cogency, logic and learning. He shares their opinion.

C.Gee

Rich and Herzen:

In your avid perusal of my past oeuvres on this site, you may have seen mention of my little herd of goats, which enjoy the mountain peaks where I live. I do not do regular counts, but I think I have just acquired a butting billy and a pregnant nanny.

I shall now enter an abrupt silence. The real world, after all, is a very happening place, and far more interesting than goat-herding.

In the meantime, the audience you appear to be writing for might be thrilled to hear your points of view on subjects other than me.

Tilly

From what I can see, those who take the line, "Egyptians can't be trusted with democracy" are the same ones who regard President Obama as the devil incarnate.

Does this mean Americans can't be trusted with democracy?

Solomon2

Egypt's Hizbullah Cell Escaped in Prison Break

Members of the so-called Hizbullah cell convicted of plotting attacks in Egypt were among the escapees in a weekend prison break, a security official told Agence France Presse Thursday.

The 22 cell members fled on Sunday along with members of Palestinian group Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and thousands of other convicts during a mass breakout amid anti-government protests in Egypt.

The Hizbullah members escaped from Wadi Natrun north of Cairo after guards abandoned their posts.

Last April, a Cairo court handed down stiff prison sentences to 26 people in connection with a plot to carry out attacks on the Suez Canal and Sinai resorts. Four were sentenced in absentia.

In a handwritten letter obtained by AFP, the defendants -- most of whom had been detained between late 2008 and January 2009 -- said they never planned attacks in Egypt.

Hizbullah MPs rejected to comments to pan Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat about the rumors of the escape. "We have no details about this," they said.

MP Emile Rahme, who is the lawyer of the Hizbullah cell's leader Sami Shehab, told the newspaper that his "role is limited to the court." He rejected to give further details that confirm the prison break.

But Hizbullah official Mahmoud Qmati confirmed on Thursday that Shehab was out of jail and safe. He did not give details on the rest of the cell's members.(AFP-Naharnet)

Thom.

C. Gee,
You say you spread your stuff so thickly here simply to get others' goats. Admitting this is the one lapse into honesty in the whole performance.

As one who has experienced your convenient silences, can I request that this one be not only abrupt but long.

Thank you.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Herzen:"Herzen
February 2nd, 2011 7:16pm
It has been a difficult few weeks for the propagandists.

How to spin the evidence that the Palestinians have no partner in negotiation?

How to sound principled while admitting that protest for democracy is only acceptable if against clerics, tyrants are to be immune (at least our tyrants)?"

One wonders how Herzen will spin the civil war which is bound to come in Lebanon. Which side will he take, I wonder, and who will he blame - the Us and Zionists, I guess...

What is his position on the Green Movement - brutally suppressed (far more brutally, in fact, than what is transpiring on the streets of Cairo)?

Sorry, Herzen? We cant hear you!!!!

C.Gee

Tilly:

Imagine yourself as President of America: would you prefer a dictator you can bribe into keeping international peace (and perhaps into reform), or a dictator you cannot bribe but only "reach out" to and attempt to pressure by economic sanctions ?

By the way, in the absence of American "support" for Arab dictators, do you believe that Arab nations would be liberal democracies? In the absence of Israel would they be liberal democracies?

Who do you think can be "trusted" with democracy?

Sarah Blake

I feel as if I live in a chapter from "Alice In Wonderland". It is unbelievable that the USA could entertain the Muslim Brotherhood take any part in any government anywhere in the world. In case the current occupant of the White House hasn't noticed, we haven't yet declared a ceasefire in 'the war on terror', and last time I checked, the MB were up to their grisly necks in the blood of those killed in the name of Islam. I think it's time to be very afraid.

Thom.

Alas, it wasn't to be.

bruce

Someone referred to: "(T)he consequences of
'democracy' in regions where radicalism thrives".

Look at India. The BJP served 2 terms, then were voted out. BJP radicalism is comparable to that of the MB. Consider how Shiv Sena (BJP 'Parivar'ie Family) activists massacre Christians. But being given real power and responsibility did weaken the romantic fascist tendencies, showed that there were no instant solutions but many human complexities.

To some extent what we face is demographic - vast numbers of young men who want revolution, not only in the Middle East but in Asia too. How long can we hold the pressure cooker down?

John RD Kidd

What is good for Israel is now no longer good for America.

Israeli politicians are now openly critical of their principal funder and arms supplier, the United States, by alleging that President Obama should be supporting the failed dictatorship of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak – and that calling for human rights and democracy, in Egypt, is a grave error!

That stance is not unexpected considering Israel’s continued contempt for the United Nations and the Geneva Conventions. What is surprising, however, is the willingness to criticize America openly, presumably in the perceived knowledge that, in reality, it is the American Israel Lobby that formulates and implements US foreign policy in the Middle East, not President Obama.

And that brings the problem into stark relief. Israel cannot direct this US administration as they did the last administration and desperately wants a right-wing, Republican government, which, it believes, will be more sympathetic to Israeli demands for a ‘Greater Israel’ that includes the whole West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The current popular, civilian uprising in Egypt is, unfortunately, deeply unpopular in Israel where they prefer Mubarak’s often brutal regime, as the status quo ante suited the Israeli agenda very well. Without Mubarak, Israel would not have been able to mount the siege of Gaza in which 1.6 million are still denied the free movement of people and goods, including essential food and medical supplies. Mubarak has colluded in this illegal restriction by keeping closed the border crossing at Rafah in order to meet Israeli demands.

Clearly, what is good for Israel is no longer good for America, and that lesson needs to be learned. As for Egypt, let us hope and pray that it can really change to become the only true democracy in the Middle East.

Mike

John RD Kidd,

Nice to see someone writing so much sense.

Herzen

JOHN ROOSEVELT
February 3rd, 2011 10:18pm
Your point is not obvious.

Who is to blame for the civil strife in Lebanon? The Sunnis, the Christians, the Shia... Who outside Lebanon? Iran, Syria, Israel, the US,... Who can take the credit for creating the conditions for civil strife? In a historic context, France, who did as good a job of carving up its bits of the Middle East as Britain did with its.

I said it is difficult to spin the popular uprising in Iran as good and that in Egypt as bad. If one is good, so is the other, unless your sole criterion is the perceived interests of the West and Israel. You respond by reminding me of the popular uprising in Iran. I don't see your point.

Which regime is more brutal in suppressing revolt? I don't know. Iran is brutal, but then so is Egypt - it has the seal of approval of the US of A which uses it as one of its proxy torturers.

And there remains the difficulty of spinning the evidence that the Palestinians have no partner for negotiation. After a few embarrassed and confused attempts, it appears silence is the preferred way.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Herzen: I am not sure that your reductionism i.e the cause of all the woes of the history of the last 200 years can be reduced to the fault of the Us and Imperialism - is anything but fatuous...

For you,so it seems, those whom you support are above reproach - in any circumstances - because you can blame the US, Zionists and Imperialists for any of their transgressions. The former can do no wrong, whilst the latter can do no right.

Personally, being a a good, Western liberal, I support the helping of all peoples who are suffering from lack of food, housing, freedom of expression etc...i.e. I am against tyranny.

I find it difficult, however, to support those who would apologise for the most horrendous and needless tyranny - like that of Islamism - in the name of those liberal values I hold dear.

My objection to those like you, Herzen, is that you seem ok with the most dispicable human behaviour, as long as it has an anti US/Zionist spin to it...just as so many Arab leaders found it quite cool to encourage and even participate in jewish genocide as long as it suited their cause...

I have rarely, if ever, seen guys like you criticise ANY Arb or moslem regime - as if doing so would only weaken your case agains thte US and Zionism.

I, for one, have many times alluded to the toal lack of true democracy amongst the arab and moslem states in the Middle East - at least to give the criticism of Israel - especially on the grounds that it is "racist, nazi, undemocratic etc - some context which can make sense of the argument.

Now that you can put more fuel on your fire of rage against the US and the Zionists, you are are oh so against Egyptian tyranny...as if you have always been some kind of vocal opposer of it!

Where is your voice for democracy - in general - in the Middle East?? Where is your voice against the tyranny of the Irainian regime???

How can we trust you and your so-called pro democracy sentiments?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

John RD Kidd: your post was maliciously disingenuous.

To spin Israel's desire to maintain a peace treaty with an arab state is deliberate support of tyranny per se, is a nonsense.

If the sole criteria for maintain relations between states was that they conform to one's ideal choice of political system, therw ould beno international relations and, most like, a permanent state of world war. For certain - and but one example - the Christian and Moslem world would be in a a permanent state of war..

I am quite confident that the Moslem Brotherhood will soon be erectung their own statue of Liberty for the Egyptian people - also with the inscription:

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

..but, then agian, they may want to make some changes since, those "masses" referred to in this iconic inscription, as we know, were the Jews persecuted in Russia and the like..

You go figure..

Augustus

There are indeed "many human complexities in regions where radicalism thrives". Take Egypt as an example: There are about twice as many millions working in the black economy there as there are in the official private economy. That's because the country is mired from top to bottom in ridiculous red tape. The examples are legendary: To start a small bakery a process of 500 days is required; to obtain the legal rights to a piece of land you have to wage war for about a decade with bureaucrats; in order to start up a business in Egypt you have to deal with 56
government agencies and be subjected to repeated inspections. Perhaps Egypt could become more democratic and give the masses hope for a better future, but first the government will have to change their restrictive laws and give people more individual rights, otherwise these hopes will remain unfulfilled and the vast majority left abandoned to poverty and hardship.

Herzen

JOHN ROOSEVELT
February 4th, 2011 12:13pm
Your polemics might possibly be more effective if they had some connection to what I said.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Herzen" Herzen
February 4th, 2011 2:50pm
JOHN ROOSEVELT
February 4th, 2011 12:13pm
Your polemics might possibly be more effective if they had some connection to what I said."

Why not, then, just divorce yourself from what i said? Just take the main thrust and give it a little thought..or would you prefer to delegitimising the thought juts because of you association or non association with it?

Tilly

C.Gee

No doubt if I were an American president I'd be in favour of any regime which served the USA's interests - and bugger the consequences for any poor mutts living under that regime.

But this wouldn't make me a beacon of democratic light in a dark tyrannical world, would it?

The best you could say of me was that I was a hypocrite; the worst, that I regarded any people whose (equally valid) self-interests conflicted with my own to be "expendable" - and down that road, ultimately, lies genocide.

The so-called "advanced" and "civilised" West has a shocking history of destroying alternative cultures and environments for its own ends.

The big fear the West now has is of being emulated.

A democratically expressed rejection of "Western values" might - who knows - actually prove to be the West's reprieve from reaping what it has sowed.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Victoria Williams: "We have to allow the Egyptians to embrace democracy and it is up to them who they elect - that is the only way it will work"

What would you think, I wonder, if a Christian fundamentalist government which decreed, say, the expulsion of all moslems from the country, was democratically elected and belived that any anti Zionist should be publicly crucified?

Just curious whether or not it matters - for you - what kind of regime is put in power by the democratic process? Is it the PROCESS that is ALL, for you?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Please give us all a break. Most of those ant Zinoist so-called "democrats", here, are fine with a ddeomcraticc vote as long as it for the kind of regime that conforms with their ideological prejudices. Who amongst them, for example, would support an israeli Government, democratically elected on a mandate to kill every moslem possible?

If Hamas can be supported in its deliberate and publicly hailed killing of Jewish children i.e. unequivocal war crimes and crimes against humanity - merely because it was democratically elected and the "will of the people", then we have a problem, Houston...

IT'S THE DEMOCRATIC CULTURE THAT COUNTS...NOT JUST THE PROCESS! FOR GOD's SAKE read PLATO's "REPUBLIC"!

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Tilly: "But this wouldn't make me a beacon of democratic light in a dark tyrannical world, would it?"

Who the hell are your beacons of "democratic light" when it comes to international relations, TillY??

I am breathless with anticipation...

Nea

And where is the contradiction?
Obama is also at war with America, so the Brotherhood is his natural ally.

Herzen

John Roosevelt,
You make wild accusations with no reference to anything I've said and now require me to respond to them despite the fact that they have nothing to do with anything I have said...um... I think not.

Rich

"If X can be supported in its deliberate and publicly hailed killing of Y children i.e. unequivocal war crimes and crimes against humanity - merely because it was democratically elected and the "will of the people", then we have a problem"

Indeed.

Is that not where some notion of international law comes into play? And, if not, what?

Tilly

John Roosevelt

You really do get puffed up, don't you?

The Western democracies present THEMSELVES as beacons.

They evangelise on an international stage about how much more "civilised" and "free" and "humane" democracy is than other form of governance. They urge - and, at times, force -other countries to follow their splendid example.

But by their actions they are known...

The clear message conveyed is exactly the immoral one you suggest: democracy is entirely about looking after Number One. And if that means behaving in an uncivilised way, depriving foreign people of freedom and treating them brutally, so be it.

Just don't act all disgusted and outraged, John, when they take this message literally...

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Herzen: "Herzen
February 4th, 2011 7:54pm
John Roosevelt,
You make wild accusations with no reference to anything I've said and now require me to respond to them despite the fact that they have nothing to do with anything I have said...um... I think not."

Oh no, Herzen. Read my last response to you again, silly:

"Why not, then, just divorce yourself from what i said? Just take the main thrust and give it a little thought..or would you prefer to delegitimising the thought just because of your association or, as you claim, non association with it?"

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Tilly: "John Roosevelt

You really do get puffed up, don't you?

The Western democracies present THEMSELVES as beacons."

Tilly, answer the questions: who are the "beacons"? There are none and, because you find the West wanting, anything goes?

Nicecccceeee, Tilly...Now we get it.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Tilly: who doesn't feel profound compassion for the Egyptian people surging forward to overthrow Mubarak's tyranny?

Who didn't feel compassion for the Iranians, as they surged forward to overthrow the Shah's tyranny?

Who didn't feel for the Iranians as they surged forward to overthrow the venal Ayatollahs' tyranny?

But this is the easy part, Tilly. The really hard part is what to do when democracy yields more tyranny.

What is the world doing now that the Ayatollahs have put down the green revolution with a brutality that makes Mubarak look like armchair, London liberal? Where is the voice of of the Arab masses yearning to be free? No inspiration there for them, it seems...nor for you?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Rich: "Is that not where some notion of international law comes into play? And, if not, what?"

Perhaps that is the intention, Rich..however..

"If not, what?"...Now, you're waking up, dude!

What would you suggest?

Herzen

John Roosevelt,

You urge, "divorce yourself from what i said (!) Just take the main thrust and give it a little thought."

In your first paragraph you attribute to me something I didn't say. Once I have pointed this out, what more can you require - that I affirm that a proposition I think false is not true?

Your second paragraph, likewise.

Your third paragraph lists your credentials as a good liberal. What do you require of me - that I congratulate you on your virtue?

Your fourth paragraph is scathing about "those" whom I have never come across. You will have to be more precise about who you mean. If there are such monsters, I will happily join you in condemning them.

Your fifth paragraph lumps me in with "those" on the basis of no evidence I can find. When you urge me to "take your main thrust", do you mean I should pick up your slander and run with it?

Your sixth paragraph appears to hold me to blame for your failure to notice when "guys like me" condemn tyranny in the Arab world. I don't think myself bound to shoulder the blame for your failings.

I will remind you of the initial point. Those who support Israel on this blog habitually point to the tyranny of Arab leaders to distract from discussion of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. It now appears that supporters of Israel want those same tyrants to stay in power, because it helps Israel in its treatment of the Palestinians. In other words, the condemnation of tyranny has every appearance of hypocrisy, particularly as the main objectors to such tyranny has been "those" who dare criticise Israel and the US.

Your seventh paragraph is a fine example of this hypocrisy. The tyranny in the Arab states is no excuse for Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. I don't understand how anyone can think it is.

Your eighth paragraph simply proclaims again your failure to notice when the wrong sort of people condemn tyranny in Egypt.

Your ninth paragraph adds Iran to your failure.

In your tenth paragraph, you have the gall to ask why you should trust me. By now, you should realise why that is precisely the wrong way round.

I have alsways been intrigued by the notion of democracy that permits the expulsion of the bulk of the population to ensure a permanent majority.

Derek BLADES

John RD Kidd,February 4th, 2011 12:47am

Thank you for some plain speaking and commonsense.

Tilly

John Roosevelt

I find it hard to believe that you can't think of a single example of international beacon-waving by the Western democracies.

But to give you the benefit of the doubt, here are a few evangelical words from British and US leaders - just as a kick-off:

George Bush: "It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."

Ronald Reagan: "Democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most honourable form of government ever devised by man."

Margaret Thatcher: "...democracy is about more than majorities. It is about the right of every individual to freedom and justice: a right founded upon the Old and New Testaments ...These rights are God-given and not State-given."

David Cameron: "We ... stand with those ... who want freedom, who want democracy and rights the world over."

Now, please, stop being lazy and asking others to do research for you on matters of common knowledge.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

John Roosevelt,
You urge, "divorce yourself from what i said (!) Just take the main thrust and give it a little thought."

In your first paragraph you attribute to me something I didn't say. Once I have pointed this out, what more can you require - that I affirm that a proposition I think false is not true?”

From you, Herzen, neither I nor anyone - bar the twaddlemeisters - would expect anything. However, I was hoping you might respond to the main points contained in my post , having managed to realize I don’t care about you per se but, rather, the thinking you represent..and, in this case, make one focus on (however inadvertently on your part). Of course, I think you are a bullsh*t artist, and I don’t trust you at all..but that is by the by.

“Your second paragraph, likewise.”

Oh Herzen, is that your best shot at my second paragraph? Let me remind you what I said:
‘For you, so it seems, those whom you support are above reproach - in any circumstances - because you can blame the US, Zionists and Imperialists for any of their transgressions. The former can do no wrong, whilst the latter can do no right.’

Is this not true? You don’t reckon the Tilly’s, Harolds, Derek Blades believe this?

“Your third paragraph lists your credentials as a good liberal. What do you require of me - that I congratulate you on your virtue?”

Not if you’re not good a liberal, I don’t suppose. What are you, in fact? Twaddlemesiters seems mostly to an unholy mix of sclerotic leftism and romantic liberalism, with a just a soupcan totalitarianism masquerading as one or both sclerotic leftism and faux liberalism.

“Your fourth paragraph is scathing about "those" whom I have never come across. You will have to be more precise about who you mean. If there are such monsters, I will happily join you in condemning them.”

Oh dear…I mean Islamists, silly! You know, Hamas, Hizbollah..the Iranian regime..all those who want Israel gone or, put another way, thos who “peace” based on the “law of Return” etc. Doesn’t that description precipitate a warm, fuzzy feeling in your cockles?

“Your fifth paragraph lumps me in with "those" on the basis of no evidence I can find. When you urge me to "take your main thrust", do you mean I should pick up your slander and run with it?”

Well, if it’s slanderous, Herzen, tell us all why it is so. Tell us what you really believe, if this accusation is false. We can bear it, I promise!

“Your sixth paragraph appears to hold me to blame for your failure to notice when "guys like me" condemn tyranny in the Arab world.”

Oh..God, oh God..You DO not ‘apologise for the most horrendous and needless tyranny - like that of Islamism - in the name of those liberal values I hold dear”???. Well, blow me down! Well, forget you then…We can replace you with all the other twaddlemeisters…Point still a good one...

"I will remind you of the initial point. Those who support Israel on this blog habitually point to the tyranny of Arab leaders to distract from discussion of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.”

No, they don’t (and absolutely nothing I have said should lead you honestly to believe this (but whoever accused you of honesty?)…and you persist, like all the other drivel mongerers, in missing the point as well as insidiously misrepresenting their ripostes to your cant. You never contextualise your critiques of Israel nor offer any reasonable exegesis of the conflict. It’s singularly replete with rhetoric and catch concepts and NOTHING you ever say can lead one to think of any way out of this malaise. You That is to be roundly condemned in my view, not least because it only contributes to the intensification of the conflict and not its resolution.

“It now appears that supporters of Israel want those same tyrants to stay in power, because it helps Israel in its treatment of the Palestinians.”

What drivel…Are you suggesting that Israel’s desire to maintain one of only two peace treaties it has in the Arab world is a bad thing? Do you genuinely understand the implications – not least in terms of how the Palestinian arabs will fare, if the treaty is binned? You are contemptible in your lack of responsibility.

“In other words, the condemnation of tyranny has every appearance of hypocrisy, particularly as the main objectors to such tyranny has been "those" who dare criticise Israel and the US.”

You would have to run this one by me again, I’m afraid - the English seems slightly off piste…but if you think only those who criticize Israel are anti tyranny, you are more dense than I feared..or are you just making this up because truth-telling has no relevance to you whatsoever?

“Your seventh paragraph is a fine example of this hypocrisy. The tyranny in the Arab states is no excuse for Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. I don't understand how anyone can think it is.”

Who said it was? This was not the point of my post at all. Reread it. But it is true that anyone who stands for democracy in Egypt should at least pay equal attention to democracy in every arab and Moslem state and the jihadi organization which have coopetd the same rhetoric you seem to be addicted to about freedom and democracy. The point is, Herzen, I think what you claim to believe is all hooey. You’re not really pro democracy at all. In fact, you wouldn’t know democracy if Oliver Cromwell smacked you in the face with his is somewhat round head gear.

“Your eighth paragraph simply proclaims again your failure to notice when the wrong sort of people condemn tyranny in Egypt.”

I have not noticed when the “wrong sort of people condemn tyranny in Egypt”? You mean, that’s not you? Have I also failed to notice when the right sort of people condemn tyranny in Egypt – like myself? Mmmm..Herzen…is this the fog of bellicose disputation or are you just confused?

“Your ninth paragraph adds Iran to your failure.”

You mean you do object to the tyranny of Iran? GREATTTTTTTTTTTTTT!! Scream it from dem mountain tops, Herzen! Le’s hear it!!!!!!! Grab some supporters from the revolutionaries in Cairo and Tunis and The Guardian!!!

“In your tenth paragraph, you have the gall to ask why you should trust me. By now, you should realise why that is precisely the wrong way round.”

You shouldn’t trust anyone who sees right through you, Herzen, and what you claim to stand for.

“I have alsways been intrigued by the notion of democracy that permits the expulsion of the bulk of the population to ensure a permanent majority.”

Well, stay intrigued, Herzen…or read a little history...and, for sure, increase the intrigue by focusing on the genocidal intentions of the Arab and moslem state and no state actors in the region. That she foment enough intoxicating intrigue for you to sup on, to last at least your life time…

….and,finally, I do have say that you can at least count! Very impressive indeed. First, seconf, third...mm, yes..very good, indeed...

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Herzen and Tilly: whet your whistles with this incisive article:

"Now the hard left is finally talking about torture and other undemocratic abuses in Egypt and Jordan, as well as the despotism of virtually all Arab regimes. Do you recall any campus protests against Egypt or Mubarak? Do you recall any calls for divestment and boycotts against Arab dictators? No, because there weren't any. The hard left was too busy condemning the Middle East's only democracy, Israel.

Radical leftists and campus demonstrators, by giving a pass to the worst forms of tyranny, encouraged their perpetuation. Now, finally, they are jumping on the bandwagon of condemnation, though still not with the fury that they reserve for the one nation in the Middle East that has complete free speech, gender equality, gay rights, an open and critical press, an independent judiciary and fair and open elections.

The double standard is alive and well on the hard left, and its victims include the citizens of Arab regimes who suffer under the heal of authoritarian dictators. Even more important they include victims of genocides, such as those perpetrated in Rwanda, Darfur and Cambodia--victims who did not prick the consciences of the hard left because the perpetrators were Arabs or Communists, rather than Americans or Israelis.

The same must be said for the United Nations, which rewarded Arab despots by according them places of honor on human rights bodies that devoted all of their energies to demonizing Israel. In a recent op-ed, Amnon Rubenstein, the conscious of Israel, has pointed out that the UN Human Rights Commission, to which both Egypt and Tunisia were elected, has gone out of its way to compliment both regimes. Egypt was praised for steps it has "taken in recent years as regard to human rights..." Tunisia was lauded for constructing "a legal and constitutional framework for the promotion and protection of human rights." Israel, on the other hand, was repeatedly condemned for violating the human rights not only of Palestinians, but of its own citizens as well.

Nor do I recall Bishop Tutu urging the Cape Town Opera to boycott Egypt, Tunisia or Jordan as he urged them to boycott Israel. I do recall Jimmy Carter, who has falsely accused Israel of Apartheid, embracing some of the Arab worlds worst tyrants and murderers. Many who claim the mantle of human rights ignore or even embrace the worst human rights violators and direct their wrath only against the Jewish nation.

The anti-American and anti-Israel hard left is a topsy-turvy world where the worst are declared the best and the best are condemned as the worst. This topsy-turvy view has become a staple of higher education, particularly among Middle East study programs in many colleges and universities. Among many on the hard left, where the only human rights issue of concern seems to be Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, the views of convicted terrorists Marwan Barghouti are preached as gospel.

This is what Barghouti, who is serving a life sentence for planning terror attacks against civilians, but who remains among the most popular Palestinian leaders, recently said about Israel: "The worst and most abominable enemy known to humanity and modern history." It is this skewed view of modern history that runs rampant through the hard left and that gives exculpatory immunity to Arab and Muslim tyrants.

There is only one acceptable standard of international human rights: the worst must come first. Under that universal standard, any person or organization claiming the mantle of human rights must prioritize its resources. It must list human rights violators in order of the severity of the abuses and the ability of its citizens to complain about those abuses. It must then go after the worst offenders first and foremost, leaving right-left politics out of the mix. This standard must be applied by individuals, such as Bishop Tutu, by organizations, such as the United Nations, by the media and by everyone who loves human rights. Until that standard is universally applied, despotism will continue, interrupted only occasionally by revolutions such as those taking place in Tunisia and Egypt.

The irony, of course, is that in the most repressive regimes, such as Iran, revolution is well nigh impossible. Revolution is far more likely to occur in moderately despotic regimes, such as Tunisia and Egypt, where at least some basic liberties were preserved. It is the citizens of the most despotic regimes that need the most help from human rights activists. But don't count on it because too many so-called "human rights" leaders and organizations misuse the concept of "human rights" to serve narrow political, diplomatic or ideological agendas. Unless we restore human rights to its proper role as a neutral and universal standard of human conduct, the kind of tyranny and despotism that stimulated the current protests will continue."

C.Gee

“What is good for Israel is now no longer good for America.”

What is good for Israel? A continuation of the peace with Egypt - albeit an increasingly cold one, partly due to the anti-Americanism of Egyptians post Iraq ( yes, I know, Mubarak did send troops). It is blindingly obvious that the “status quo ante”, as you put it, with Mubarak being paid by the Americans to keep the peace, suited Israel. It prevented war between Egypt and Israel for 30 years. The “siege” of Gaza was hardly on the Israeli “agenda” when it signed the Peace Treaty with Egypt. As for Mubarak’s support of the blockade: he was more concerned with keeping Hamas out of Egypt, than contraband and fighters going into Gaza. Mubarak had reasons independent of Israel’s security needs to be opposed to Hamas: his hold on power was threatened by Islamist extremists - who have been a thorn in the side of all modern-day governments of Egypt - King Farouk, Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak - whatever the relationship of that government to the great powers ( Britain, America, Soviet Union). Islamic extremism goes deep into all levels of Egyptian society. There are scores of Islamic groups, many of them advocating violence, many affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. It is interesting to note that it was an Islamic extremist army officer who assassinated Sadat: “I am Khalid Islambuli, I have killed Pharaoh and I do not fear death.”

“What is good for America.” Well, that is the question, isn’t it? What is good for President Obama and the post-national leftists of his administration is for America to wash its hands of the responsibility of Pax Americana. But that assumes that America has no interests as a nation that are sufficiently differentiated from other nations’ interests to impose itself - militarily, economically, culturally, ideologically - on behalf of those interests. The Obama administration’s foreign policy would be best implemented by giving up its UN Security Council veto, withdrawing its military from active operations and from permanent bases world-wide. The “reaching out” to the world may then be done with clean, carrot-free and stick-free, hands. Israel would continue to defend itself without America’s support - as it must.

Stepping out of Obama’s head, the interests of America - of the world - in Middle Eastern regional stability are well established and should be universally recognized, by humanitarians, democrats, libertarians, populists and realists. Arabia has no history of national liberal democracy. Arabs are at war with each other, internally and externally, and other peoples, including Israel. Some despots may be bribed into not making war. It is true, that as part of the price of support, America should have demanded some movement to free market and liberal democracy governance, which would have required insisting that these ideas were allowed to be expressed. Actually, it would have insisted on the end of government censorship. That America did not insist on free speech (and neither did Israel, even though an end to anti-Israel propaganda was a part of the Peace Treaty) to contradict the anti-American, anti-Western, anti-Israel, hatred, has a lot to do with why there is no nameable opposition group asking for Western-style liberal democracy and free-market political reform. Not only did America not insist on free speech, it actively colluded in anti-Western propaganda. The Voice of America is not merely “neutral” it operates from the assumption that anti-Americanism is the natural and authentic sentiment of the people (and not a strong hangover from the days of Nasser’s national socialist love-fest with the Soviet Union.)

Is it in America’s interest to push out Mubarak? Sure, it is a cheap way of appearing to be on the side of popular sentiment. Is it in America’s interest to reestablish a government that includes Islamic extremism ? (Even if a minority, the Islamists are better organized than any other opposition group and may take half the parliamentary seats in an election were they are allowed to stand). No, though that is what America seems to be pushing for. It will simply enshrine non-liberal, profoundly anti-democratic factions in a power-sharing parody of constitutional democratic government which will result in civil war (see Lebanon): and it may end the peace with Israel, a key component of regional “stability”. It will also make doing business there more costly for America without bringing economic benefit to the people.

What is good for Egypt? Continuation of the 30 year peace with Israel? Or should that consideration be wiped away? The majority of Egypt’s political class, secular or Islamic, is anti-Israel. (They share the Western left’s view that Israel is criminal, rapacious and blood-thirsty.) If there were an organized, pro-peace with Israel, liberal, democratic, free-market group in Egypt, certainly a minority, would it be worth supporting? Would they be prepared to fight for freedom, and would America support their efforts? Or would they be, by definition, colonialist stooges? The Arab intelligentsia, along with the Middle Eastern Studies faculties where they received their wisdom, is largely in agreement with the mistaken idea that an Arab nationalist must be defined by its opposition to Israel. Israel ain't Pharaoh.

As for your contortions concerning the Israel Lobby - preposterous.

The Jewish lobby - AIPAC - has a mission - openly declared and pursued - to influence American policy-makers in favor of Israel. No administration - Democrat or Republican - has acted consistently according to its contemporaneous Israeli government's wishes. Certain American administrations have done harm to Israel, even while claiming a convergence of interests. And not only do American perceptions of American interests and Israel’s interests change according to political winds, so do Israel’s perceptions of Israel’s interests. Israel itself puts its case directly to American leaders. And finally, Israel itself has been openly critical of American policy when America acts contrary to Israel’s interests, without relying on the “perceived knowledge” as you coyly put it, that in reality it is AIPAC who makes American policy! What rubbish. Meersheiming Waltery.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Tilly, Tally and theTwaddlemeisters: This one's for you lot, too:

"Western folly in MidEast comes home to roost, but democracy in Egypt must be supported
Here are two sets of statistics that you have never been informed about by the BBC, and have never heard from the mouth of a senior official in the British Foreign Office: According to a major opinion poll survey conducted by Pew in 2006, 97 percent of Egyptians admitted to holding “somewhat unfavourable” or “very unfavourable” opinions about Jews while none (zero percent) said they had favourable opinions about Jews; in Jordan 98 percent said they had unfavourable opinions with one percent holding favourable opinions.

Those figures tell you much about why genuine, liberal democracy is going to be so difficult to achieve in Egypt (ditto Jordan), while also telling you just how harmful to the prospects of genuine MidEast peace have been the appeasement/stability-at-all-costs oriented policies of Western governments and the assumptions which have underpinned them.

This is a complex issue, and the key points are rarely spelled out. So let me think aloud in front of you. My thoughts, as you will see, are not yet fully formed on this. So, I welcome your contributions in the comment section. Here goes for starters, in question and answer form:

Q) Why is mass anti-Semitism incompatible with genuine liberal democracy?

A) Because anti-Semitism represents an emphatic rejection of the universalist principles which underpin liberal-democracy. This is why anti-Semitism can emerge as a mortal danger to non-Jews as well as Jews. The social, cultural and political forces unleashed by anti-Semitism are inherently antithetical to the classical liberal values of the Enlightenment. They are also antithetical to reason itself. All polities dominated by virulent anti-Semitism will therefore struggle to produce liberal-democratic outcomes. Some will produce extreme tyrannies. Christopher Hitchens was hinting at precisely these thoughts in the following remarks made in an article for Slate in February 2006: “…only a moral cretin thinks that anti-Semitism is a threat only to Jews. The memory of the Third Reich is very vivid in Europe precisely because a racist German regime also succeeded in slaughtering millions of non-Jews, including countless Germans, under the demented pretext of extirpating a non-existent Jewish conspiracy.”

Q) So, given the presence of both mass anti-Semitism in Egypt and, in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood, a major political movement ready to hone down and exploit this anti-Semitism, is liberal-democracy impossible in Egypt?

A) It depends on whether and to what extent anti-Semitism becomes a dominant theme in the political discourse in the manner that it has long been a dominant theme in the cultural and religious discourse. But given the near ubiquity of anti-Semitism in mainstream society, the great danger is that anti-Semitism will become an ideological mainstay of whatever new regime emerges. Here’s how it might unfold: The Muslim Brotherhood becomes part of a government dominated (initially) by Egyptian nationalists. Anti-Semitism emerges as the common denominator holding these two forces together. In political terms this leads to a much more hostile approach to Israel. During a flashpoint, like Operation Cast Lead for example, the Islamists demand direct support for Hamas. The nationalist constituency opposes such a move thus handing the initiative to the Brotherhood which discredits its opponents by portraying them as agents of the US-Zionist conspiracy. At this point we get an Islamist takeover.

Clearly, all of this is scenario building. I do not have a crystal ball. But I challenge anyone to say that this is not one possible outcome of the process of change now underway in Egypt.

Q) If it’s really that dangerous, wouldn’t it be better to have Mubarak?

A) No. And no again! The western policy of supporting dictatorships such as Mubarak’s over the decades has been disastrous and has made the problem far worse than it might have been if a more enlightened approach had been adopted. The price of supporting these dictatorships has been to ignore or play down mass bigotry inside Middle Eastern societies thus precluding any chance whatsoever of addressing it. Worse, Mubarak and his fellow dictators in the Middle East have used hatred of Jews as a safety valve to be turned on and off whenever social and political discontent needed a way to let off steam. It is crucial to understand the point: by backing Mubarak and company, Western governments have contributed to the very situation we are now faced with. They helped incubate anti-Semitism by backing a regime which has used anti-Semitism to sustain itself. In addition to all this, the fact that Western democracies have supported dictatorship for so long in the region has inevitably discredited the democratic ideal in the eyes of many ordinary people. This has given the initiative to the Islamists.

Q) This is all very well. Yes, we should have adopted different strategies in the past. But we can’t turn the clock back. We have to deal with the issue of the day. Shouldn’t we have given Mubarak more support in order to forestall the possibility of an Islamist takeover?

A) Think it through. The fall of Mubarak was inevitable. The Mubarak dictatorship has fallen because of mass domestic discontent which came together after the revolution in Tunisia. By the time matters came to a head there was nothing the West could have done to save him anyway. Oh wait. I hear a counter argument: We could have stopped the fall of Mubarak if we had invaded Tunisia to prop up the dictatorship in that country. That would have stopped the first domino falling. And even if we were too late to save the dictatorship in Tunisia we could have invaded Egypt itself. We could then have positioned the British Army and the US Marines at key points in Cairo and machine gunned Egyptian pro-democracy protestors by the thousand. Hell, if that didn’t work, we could have nuked them!

Come on. If you’re saying that we should have stuck by Mubarak, please explain how precisely we could have kept him in power. And I’m not interested in vague answers here. Think it through and tell me what practical measures you would have liked us to have taken.

Q) So what do we do?

A) We have no choice but to support the democratic process wholeheartedly and publicly. We should use every opportunity to give the democratically oriented sections of Egyptian society the best possible chance of success. We can offer strengthened trade relations with Europe and the United States. We can give funding to civil society organisations. We can offer legitimacy to the most western oriented candidates when the elections finally come. We can stress that we will have nothing whatever to do with the Muslim Brotherhood, and that anti-Semitism must be combatted and destroyed. We should simultaneously give an absolute security guarantee through NATO to the State of Israel. This would make it very clear to Egyptian society that the extreme anti-Zionism of the Muslim Brotherhood can never bring anything other than disaster on their country, while simultaneously doing our duty to the one true liberal democracy in the Middle East.

So, that’s where I am on the events in Egypt. Thoughts?"

C.Gee

JOHN ROOSEVELT
February 5th, 2011 10:55pm:

Very well said indeed.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Another interesting article to give one a perspective on what needs to be done in Egypt:

"Egypt's Economic Apartheid

More than 90% of Egyptians hold their property without legal title. No wonder they can't build wealth and have lost hope.

The headline that appeared on Al Jazeera on Jan. 14, a week before Egyptians took to the streets, affirmed that "[t]he real terror eating away at the Arab world is socio-economic marginalization."

The Egyptian government has long been concerned about the consequences of this marginalization. In 1997, with the financial support of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the government hired my organization, the Institute for Liberty and Democracy. It wanted to get the numbers on how many Egyptians were marginalized and how much of the economy operated "extralegally"—that is, without the protections of property rights or access to normal business tools, such as credit, that allow businesses to expand and prosper. The objective was to remove the legal impediments holding back people and their businesses.

After years of fieldwork and analysis—involving over 120 Egyptian and Peruvian technicians with the participation of 300 local leaders and interviews with thousands of ordinary people—we presented a 1,000-page report and a 20-point action plan to the 11-member economic cabinet in 2004. The report was championed by Minister of Finance Muhammad Medhat Hassanein, and the cabinet approved its policy recommendations.

Egypt's major newspaper, Al Ahram, declared that the reforms "would open the doors of history for Egypt." Then, as a result of a cabinet shakeup, Mr. Hassanein was ousted. Hidden forces of the status quo blocked crucial elements of the reforms.

Today, when the streets are filled with so many Egyptians calling for change, it is worth noting some of the key facts uncovered by our investigation and reported in 2004:

• Egypt's underground economy was the nation's biggest employer. The legal private sector employed 6.8 million people and the public sector employed 5.9 million, while 9.6 million people worked in the extralegal sector.

• As far as real estate is concerned, 92% of Egyptians hold their property without normal legal title.

• We estimated the value of all these extralegal businesses and property, rural as well as urban, to be $248 billion—30 times greater than the market value of the companies registered on the Cairo Stock Exchange and 55 times greater than the value of foreign direct investment in Egypt since Napoleon invaded—including the financing of the Suez Canal and the Aswan Dam. (Those same extralegal assets would be worth more than $400 billion in today's dollars.)

The entrepreneurs who operate outside the legal system are held back. They do not have access to the business organizational forms (partnerships, joint stock companies, corporations, etc.) that would enable them to grow the way legal enterprises do. Because such enterprises are not tied to standard contractual and enforcement rules, outsiders cannot trust that their owners can be held to their promises or contracts. This makes it difficult or impossible to employ the best technicians and professional managers—and the owners of these businesses cannot issue bonds or IOUs to obtain credit.

Nor can such enterprises benefit from the economies of scale available to those who can operate in the entire Egyptian market. The owners of extralegal enterprises are limited to employing their kin to produce for confined circles of customers.

Without clear legal title to their assets and real estate, in short, these entrepreneurs own what I have called "dead capital"—property that cannot be leveraged as collateral for loans, to obtain investment capital, or as security for long-term contractual deals. And so the majority of these Egyptian enterprises remain small and relatively poor. The only thing that can emancipate them is legal reform. And only the political leadership of Egypt can pull this off. Too many technocrats have been trained not to expand the rule of law, but to defend it as they find it. Emancipating people from bad law and devising strategies to overcome the inertia of the status quo is a political job.

The key question to be asked is why most Egyptians choose to remain outside the legal economy? The answer is that, as in most developing countries, Egypt's legal institutions fail the majority of the people. Due to burdensome, discriminatory and just plain bad laws, it is impossible for most people to legalize their property and businesses, no matter how well intentioned they might be.
The examples are legion. To open a small bakery, our investigators found, would take more than 500 days. To get legal title to a vacant piece of land would take more than 10 years of dealing with red tape. To do business in Egypt, an aspiring poor entrepreneur would have to deal with 56 government agencies and repetitive government inspections.

All this helps explain who so many ordinary Egyptians have been "smoldering" for decades. Despite hard work and savings, they can do little to improve their lives.

Bringing the majority of Egypt's people into an open legal system is what will break Egypt's economic apartheid. Empowering the poor begins with the legal system awarding clear property rights to the $400 billion-plus of assets that we found they had created. This would unlock an amount of capital hundreds of times greater than foreign direct investment and what Egypt receives in foreign aid.

Leaders and governments may change and more democracy might come to Egypt. But unless its existing legal institutions are reformed to allow economic growth from the bottom up, the aspirations for a better life that are motivating so many demonstrating in the streets will remain unfulfilled."

I am not sure Islamism will sort this out.

CD

John Roosevelt

"Because anti-Semitism represents an emphatic rejection of the universalist principles which underpin liberal-democracy. "

Why do you call this "universalist"? Are Arabs and Muslims and others who think differently not part of the "universe"?

The reality is that the "universal" principle of the dignity of every life, individual freedom, and every such other that underpins modern democracy comes from the Christian worldview. Whether you consciously know it or not.

The fundamental Islamic worldview divides people into two sets - Muslims and infidels. Infidels are fair game.

This may seem simplistic or whatever, but it cuts to the heart of the matter.

BTW - if you think the West is on the right "universalist" principles, think again. The West is systematically cutting out the Christian foundations of its order and prosperity.

Derek BLADES

I normally avoid the longer posts from the ridiculous JOHN ROOSEVELT but one recently caught me eye because I saw myself cited as someone who supports this statement.

".... those whom you support are above reproach - in any circumstances - because you can blame the US, Zionists and Imperialists for any of their transgressions. The former can do no wrong, whilst the latter can do no right.’

Telling me that I believe any such thing is frankly potty. ROOSEVELT lives in a world of his own concotion. Would he please have the courtesy to tell me when I have ever said that Palestinians, or any other group of people, can do no wrong or when I have ever said that the Americans or any other group of people can do no right.

Tilly

John Roosevelt

Your bombardment of lengthy articles and Q&As makes it difficult to discern a central point here. But I'm going to take a chance that it's this:

Mubarak will (and must) fall; the current clamour for democracy in Egypt should be fully supported by the Western powers. Owing, however, to the strong possibility of democratically-achieved regime change posing a threat to Israel, the only election candidates who should be regarded as "legitimate" by the West are those actively committed to combating and destroying anti-Semitism; the Muslim Brotherhood in this scenario would be an "illegitimate" electoral choice. In order to influence a result acceptable to the West and Israel, enhanced trade and economic support should be offered to parties opposed to the MB's Islamist agenda; such support should be withdrawn in the event of any subsequent anti-Israel pronouncements or activities by Egypt.

Before I attempt to address this, would you please confirm that I haven't misrepresented you. I really don't want to spend a lot of time and thought on it if you are only going to riposte that I'm "not answering question"!

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Tilly: "bombarded", ha? next you wll be accusing me of war crimes...

Here's another very good article for you and your fellow travelers (though the brilliant, C.Gee, should exercise your intellect for a while):

"Column One: Israel and Arab democracy
By CAROLINE B. GLICK
02/04/2011 14:45

Whether they are democrats or autocrats, we fully expect they will continue to hate us.

Talkbacks (56)

Over the past week, Israel has been criticized for being insufficiently supportive of democratic change in Egypt. While Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been careful to praise the cause of democracy while warning against the dangers of an Islamic takeover of the most populous Arab state, many Israelis have not been so diplomatic.

To understand why, it is necessary to take a little tour of the Arab world.

In the midst of Tunisia’s revolution last month, the Jewish Agency mobilized to evacuate any members of the country’s Jewish community who wished to leave. Until the end of French colonial rule in 1956, Tunisia’s Jewish community numbered 100,000 members. But like for all Jewish communities in the Arab world, the advent of Arab nationalism in the mid-20th century forced the overwhelming majority of Tunisia’s Jews to leave the country. Today, with between 1,500 and 3,000 members, Tunisia’s tiny Jewish community is among the largest in the Arab world.

So far, six families have left for Israel. Many more may follow. Two weeks ago, Daniel Cohen from Tunis’s Jewish community told Haaretz, “If the situation continues as it is now, we will definitely have to leave or immigrate to Israel.”

Since then, Rached Ghannouchi, the leader of Tunisia’s Islamist party Ennahda, has returned to Tunisia after 22 years living in exile in London. He was sentenced to life in prison in absentia on terrorism charges by the regime of ousted president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Then on Monday night, unidentified assailants set fire to a synagogue in the town of Ghabes and burned the Torah scrolls. In an interview with AFP, Trabelsi Perez, president of the Ghriba synagogue, said the crime was made all the more shocking by the fact that it occurred as police were stationed close by.

The day after the attack, Roger Bismuth, president of Tunisia’s Jewish community, disputed the view that the scorching of Torah scrolls had anything to do with anti-Semitism. The man responsible for representing Tunisia’s Jewish community before the evolving new regime told The Jerusalem Post that the attack was the fault of the Jews themselves, “because they left [the synagogue] open... This is not an attack on the Jewish community.”

The fear now gripping the Jews of Tunisia is not surprising. The same fear gripped the much smaller Iraqi Jewish community after the US and Britain toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003. The Iraqi community was the oldest, and arguably the most successful, Jewish community in the Arab world until World War II. Its 150,000 members were leading businessmen and civil servants during the period of British rule.

Following the establishment of Israel, the Iraqi government revoked the citizenship of the country’s Jews, forced them to flee and stole their property down to their wedding rings. The expropriated property of Iraqi Jewry is valued today at more than $4 billion.

Only 7,000 Jews remained in Iraq after the mass aliya of 1951. By the time Saddam was toppled in 2003, only 32 Jews remained. They were mainly elderly, and impoverished. And owing to al-Qaida threats and government harassment, they were all forced to flee.

Shortly after they overthrew Saddam, US forces found the archives of the Jewish community submerged in a flooded basement of a secret police building in Baghdad. The archive was dried and frozen and sent to the US for preservation. Last year, despite the fact that Saddam’s secret police only had the archive because they stole it from the Jews, the Iraqi government demanded its return as a national treasure.

As embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak began his counteroffensive against the anti-regime protesters, his mouthpieces began alleging that the protesters were incited by the Mossad.

For their part, the anti-regime protesters claim that Mubarak is an Israeli puppet. The protesters brandish placards with Mubarak’s image plastered with Stars of David. A photo of an effigy of newly appointed vice president, and intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman burned in Tahrir Square showed him portrayed as a Jew.

ON WEDNESDAY night, Channel 10’s Arab affairs commentator Zvi Yehezkeli ran a depressing report on the status of the graves of Jewish sages buried in the Muslim world. The report chronicled the travels of Rabbi Yisrael Gabbai, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi who has taken upon himself to travel to save these important shrines. As Yehezkeli reported, last week Gabbai traveled to Iran and visited the graves of Purim heroes Queen Esther and Mordechai the Jew, and the prophets Daniel and Habbakuk.

He was moved to travel to Iran after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered Esther and Mordechai’s tomb destroyed. The Iranian media followed up Ahmadinejad’s edict with a campaign claiming that Esther and Mordechai were responsible for the murder of 170,000 Iranians.

Gabbai’s travels have brought him to Iran, Gaza, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and beyond. And throughout the Arab and Muslim world, like the dwindling Jewish communities, Jewish cemeteries are targets for anti-Semitic attacks. “We’re talking about thousands of cemeteries throughout the Arab world. It’s the same problem everywhere,” he said.

Israelis have been overwhelmingly outspoken in our criticism of Western support for the antiregime forces in Egypt due to our deep-seated concern that the current regime will be replaced by one dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Representing a minimum of 30 percent of Egyptians, the Muslim Brotherhood is the only well organized political force in the country outside the regime.

The Muslim Brothers’ organizational prowess and willingness to use violence to achieve their aims was likely demonstrated within hours of the start of the unrest. Shortly after the demonstrations began, operatives from the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood branch in Gaza – that is Hamas – knew to cross the border into Sinai. And last Thursday, a police station in Suez was attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and firebombs.

Hamas has a long history of operations in Sinai.

It also has close ties with Beduin gangs in the area that were reportedly involved in attacking another police station in northern Sinai.

Western – and particularly American – willingness to pretend that the Muslim Brotherhood is anything other than a totalitarian movement has been greeted by disbelief and astonishment by Israelis from across the political spectrum.

It is the likelihood that the Muslim Brotherhood will rise to power, not an aversion to Arab democracy, that has caused Israel to fear the popular revolt against Mubarak’s regime. If the Muslim Brotherhood were not a factor in Egypt, then Israel would probably have simply been indifferent to events there, as it has been to the development of democracy in Iraq and to the popular revolt in Tunisia.

ISRAEL’S INDIFFERENCE to democratization of the Arab world has been a cause of consternation for some of its traditional supporters in conservative circles in the US and Europe. Israelis are accused of provincialism. As citizens of the only democracy in the Middle East, we are admonished for not supporting democracy among our neighbors.

The fact is that Israeli indifference to democratic currents in Arab societies is not due to provincialism.

Israelis are indifferent because we realize that whether under authoritarian rule or democracy, anti-Semitism is the unifying sentiment of the Arab world. Fractured along socioeconomic, tribal, religious, political, ethnic and other lines, the glue that binds Arab societies is hatred of Jews.

A Pew Research Center opinion survey of Arab attitudes towards Jews from June 2009 makes this clear. Ninety-five percent of Egyptians, 97% of Jordanians and Palestinians and 98% of Lebanese expressed unfavorable opinions of Jews. Threequarters of Turks, Pakistanis and Indonesians also expressed hostile views of Jews.

Throughout the Arab and Muslim world, genocidal anti-Semitic propaganda is all-pervasive. And as Prof. Robert Wistrich has written, “The ubiquity of the hate and prejudice exemplified by this hard-core anti-Semitism undoubtedly exceeds the demonization of earlier historical periods – whether the Christian Middle Ages, the Spanish Inquisition, the Dreyfus Affair in France, or the Judeophobia of Tsarist Russia. The only comparable example would be that of Nazi Germany in which we can also speak of an ‘eliminationist anti- Semitism’ of genocidal dimensions, which ultimately culminated in the Holocaust.”

That is why for most Israelis, the issue of how Arabs are governed is as irrelevant as the results of the 1852 US presidential elections were for American blacks. Since both parties excluded them, they were indifferent to who was in power.

What these numbers, and the anti-Semitic behavior of Arabs, show Israelis is that it makes no difference which regime rules where. As long as the Arab peoples hate Jews, there will be no peace between their countries and Israel. No one will be better for Israel than Mubarak. They can only be the same or worse.

This is why no one expected for the democratically elected Iraqi government to sign a peace treaty with Israel or even end Iraq’s official state of war with the Jewish state. Indeed, Iraq remains in an official state of war with Israel. And after independent lawmaker Mithal al-Alusi visited Israel in 2008, two of his sons were murdered. Alusi’s life remains under constant threat.

One of the more troubling aspects of the Western media coverage of the tumult in Egypt over the past two weeks has been the media’s move to airbrush out all evidence of the protesters’ anti- Semitism.

As John Rosenthal pointed out this week at The Weekly Standard, Germany’s Die Welt ran a frontpage photo that featured a poster of Mubarak with a Star of David across his forehead in the background. The photo caption made no mention of the anti-Semitic image. And its online edition did not run the picture.

And as author Bruce Bawer noted at the Pajamas Media website, Jeanne Moos of CNN scanned the protesters’ signs, noting how authentic and heartwarming their misspelled English messages were, yet failed to mention that one of the signs she showed portrayed Mubarak as a Jew.

Given the Western media’s obsessive coverage of the Arab-Israel conflict, at first blush it seems odd that they would ignore the prevalence of anti-Semitism among the presumably prodemocracy protesters. But on second thought, it isn’t that surprising.

If the media reported on the overwhelming Jew hatred in the Arab world generally and in Egypt specifically, it would ruin the narrative of the Arab conflict with Israel. That narrative explains the roots of the conflict as frustrated Arab-Palestinian nationalism. It steadfastly denies any more deeply seated antipathy of Jews that is projected onto the Jewish state. The fact that the one Jewish state stands alone against 23 Arab states and 57 Muslim states whose populations are united in their hatred of Jews necessarily requires a revision of the narrative. And so their hatred is ignored.

But Israelis don’t need CNN to tell us how our neighbors feel about us. We know already. And because we know, while we wish them the best of luck with their democracy movements, and would welcome the advent of a tolerant society in Egypt, we recognize that that tolerance will end when it comes to the Jews. And so whether they are democrats or autocrats, we fully expect they will continue to hate us."

Some of your best friends are Jewish, I know, so show some conern, no?

"

Minnie Ovens

The problem was that Hilary and Obama couldn't find an Atlas in order to discover where Egypt was.
They originally thought it was Ethiopia mispelt.

Tilly

John Roosevelt

Good job I didn't reply to you as offered. You are obviously far too busy cutting and pasting right now. Oh, well, one small mercy I guess is that your own rambles are proportionately curtailed...

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Tilly: read the articles I posted for you (one evn from The Guardian, actually)....Obscurantism and vilification will get you nowhere.

Herzen

JOHN ROOSEVELT
February 10th, 2011 4:54am
"Obscurantism and vilification will get you nowhere."

How we all laughed!