NYT: Hating America and Rejecting Peace with Israel is Portrayed as Virtuous

This Is What Democracy Looks Like?

By Barry Rubin, PAJAMAS MEDIA

It’s fascinating to see not only the Middle East going backward but Western analysts and officials cheering on a return to even more war and terrorism. A good example is “In Tumult, New Hope for Palestinian Cause” by Anthony Shadid and David D. Kirkpatrick in the New York Times.

Let’s take one paragraph and see what it tells us:

    In all the tumult of the Arab revolts, one of the most striking manifestations of change is a rejuvenated embrace of the Palestinian cause. The burst in activism in Egypt, Lebanon and even Tunisia has offered a rebuttal to an old bromide of Arab politics, that authoritarian leaders cynically inflamed sentiments over Israel and Palestine to divert attention from their own shortcomings. But the embrace of the issue also helped confirm its status as a barometer of justice and freedom for many Arabs and Muslims. And now, the demands of an empowered public raise the possibility of a significant change in the region’s foreign policies which, at least tacitly, capitulated to the dictates of the United States and Israel.


By the way, all of this also applies to anti-Americanism. Now let’s take it one piece at a time:

    In all the tumult of the Arab revolts, one of the most striking manifestations of change is a rejuvenated embrace of the Palestinian cause.

Wasn’t it a few weeks ago that the alleged lack of obsession with the Arab-Israeli conflict was a sign of progress toward moderation and democracy? Now we are told the exact opposite! And nobody in the mass media even notes that this is a contradiction!

    The burst in activism in Egypt, Lebanon and even Tunisia has offered a rebuttal to an old bromide of Arab politics, that authoritarian leaders cynically inflamed sentiments over Israel and Palestine to divert attention from their own shortcomings.

I love this one! First, it isn’t “an old bromide” at all since, while people like me have written about this, it has not penetrated the mainstream, which has continually insisted that the inflaming was a reflection of real public sentiments. Of course, we know these are real hatreds or they wouldn’t be so easily inflamed.

What’s happening now, of course, is that the oppositions — including and even mainly so Islamists — are cynically inflaming sentiments in order to discredit the old regimes and mobilize support for themselves.

    But the embrace of the issue also helped confirm its status as a barometer of justice and freedom for many Arabs and Muslims.

In fact, the embrace of this issue shows that people can still be bought off by inflaming nationalist and religious sentiments rather than providing more freedom or better living standards. It’s the road to dictatorship, violence, and demagoguery. Who says only the old “authoritarian leaders” could play this game? The new authoritarian leaders will also do so.

When presidential frontrunner Amr Moussa visited a village, Reuters reported one villager saying:

    “We don’t even have proper drinking water. Over there they are drinking mineral water from bottles because we don’t have sweet water….” Villagers pointed to the broken roads and the lack of sewerage. They described the local school where there are 65 children to a class.”

Providing teachers, schoolrooms, roads, and water pipes is expensive; providing xenophobic demagoguery is cheap. There’s no money but there is a lot of guns and hatred. So channeling it against Israel and America is a good thing? Is that going to help the people?

    And now, the demands of an empowered public raise the possibility of a significant change in the region’s foreign policies which, at least tacitly, capitulated to the dictates of the United States and Israel.

It is amazing how Western reporters accept radical Arab nationalism and Islamism as the proper behavior. Did, for example, President Hosni Mubarak “capitulate” to “dictates”? Note that these reporters aren’t saying this is the claim of others. Rather they are agreeing to this claim. Mubarak, then, according to the New York Times correspondents, was indeed a running dog lackey of Western imperialism and Zionism.

Did Sadat make peace because he was capitulating to pressure or because it was in Egypt’s interest to do so? And suppose — it is not going to happen but I’m trying to make a point here — the Palestinian Authority made peace with Israel. Wouldn’t that mean they were capitulating “to the dictates of the United States and Israel” and thus should be overthrown or killed?

This is, of course, the line of Hamas which is now echoed by the New York Times. And, of course, the Palestinian Authority leaders are aware of this popular view which is one of many reasons why they won’t make peace with Israel.

So did Mubarak (actually his predecessor, Anwar al-Sadat) just “sell out” or did he: get back the Sinai, bring a much-needed peace that benefited Egypt, get back the oilfields, get the Suez Canal open, and obtain about $60 billion of U.S. aid including military equipment?
Yet this is the radical cry: We gave in and got nothing! So what’s the next step? Courageous resistance! More war, more terrorism, more intransigence, more decades of conflict, more wasted lives and resources! This is something to celebrate as some proof of thirst for democracy and justice?

And what is their goal? A just and lasting two-state solution based on compromise, or wiping Israel off the map?

In other words, once again, the march toward suicidal policies is being applauded in the West while the pragmatists who sought to follow another road –not democratic but at least more practical and development-oriented — are called traitors.

The problem with these particular journalists and many others is that while once the reporting was slanted, it is increasingly on the other side, the side of the new totalitarians, the terrorists (and I don’t mean al-Qaeda), and the anti-Americans. Radicals and anti-Americans — especially the Muslim Brotherhood — are portrayed as good; real moderates or allies of the United States — the regime in Egypt, the oppositions in Turkey and Lebanon as well as Iran — are portrayed as bad, betrayed, or ignored.

August 11, 2011 | 7 Comments »

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  1. This is all, all so orchestrated.

    Obama: the Saudi-programmed anti-Israel political cruise missile, rides into office on a manipulated crash, manipulated by Guess Who.

    Note that Israel is the ONLY issue on which Obama DOES NOT compromise, DOES NOT budge an INCH in concrete policy terms. Kind of reveals the whole point of his being there, no?

    Then whatever happens in the region, if it can help relieve prssure on Israel (Iran revolution, serious reaction to Syria’s barbarism), he does nothing. If it increases pressure on Israel, he is foursquare behind it (doing nothing about Iran’s nukes, overthrowing Mubarak so the MB can take over Egypt).

    Obama is just the tip of the iceberg, though a very big tip, the crowning achievement of the Bad Guys, installing him in the White House.

    There is an entire infrastructure supporting this effort. Such as major media outlets that eerily all sound like some variation on Al Jazeera (e.g., NYT), failing financially…and Guess Who is propping up their fat salaries? (My apologies to a certain Canadian band that I happen to like very much…no inference of any relationship intended).

    But Israel’s neighbors are all broke and starving. And even the ones who aren’t broke can’t fight modern war worth a hill of beans.

    Obama is the classic “Sorcerer’s Apprentice”…he has no idea what he is helping to unleash.

    I don’t think at the other end of this, the Palestinians are going to be better off. Or the Egyptians. Or the Lebanese. Or the Iranians. Just a hunch.

    One thing is for sure, at least so far as I’m concerned. If there really is going to be a big war this fall – and personally, I’m 90% sure of this – then every drop of blood is on Obama’s hands. This DID NOT have to happen. Not now. If McCain had won, things wouldn’t necessarily be Good Times and Noodle Salad, but they’d be a lot better than they are. Incomparably better on foreign policy. And I don’t think the Middle East would be on the verge of exploding. Iran would already have been dealt with.

    This is OBAMA’S WAR. That will be the name of this one. There was the War of Independence, the Sinai Campaign, the Six Day War, the War of Attrition, the Yom Kippur War, the First Lebanon War, the Intifada, the Second Intifada, the Second Lebanon War, the Gaza War….and now folks, THE OBAMA WAR. The war where the U.S. president threw out even the slightest pretense towards being “even handed” – as bankrupt as that is – and COMPLETELY backed the Palestinians against Israel. This could not lead anywhere except a war.

    What a damned mess….

  2. “The burst in activism in Egypt, Lebanon and even Tunisia has offered a rebuttal to an old bromide of Arab politics, that authoritarian leaders cynically inflamed sentiments over Israel and Palestine to divert attention from their own shortcomings.”

    How is it a “rebuttal”?

    Hauling out the Israel/Pali poppycock is a surefire escape hatch for any new OR old leadership who’d rather “divert attention from their own shortcomings.”

    The bilge is dead; long live the bilge.

  3. Andrew, you said,

    Surely the Obamanation is gone? Please say its so.

    It’s not so — he’s still here. Bill Clinton kept that sign, “It’s the Economy, Stupid!” on his desk. Unfortunately, “Stupid” seems to be the name of a significant part of the electorate. As a matter of fact, “Stupid” has been re-defined as “Clever” by the Leftist media, and “The Economy” has been re-defined as “The Free Lunch”. In translation, Clinton’s sign now reads,

    “It’s the Free Lunch, Clever!”

  4. Yes, Anti-Americanism is rampant, and has been for decades; and there are anti-American Americans, just as there are anti-Jewish Jews. Whoopie doo.

    Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani is slightly out-performing Mitt Romney in the polls, and both promise a break-even race against Obama. I think Rudy can hurt B O badly in his home turf, unless the Dems dig up some serious dirt against him. Anyone have info on him? He’s very pro-Israel, the last I checked.