By Schmoel Yitzhak
While everyone and your Uncle Dudley is passing judgement on upheaval in the Arab world, approximately ninety-nine and forty-four one-hundreths of the so-called "experts" are completely missing the point.
But first, let's dismiss what's supposed to be the point; that the thundering rush to "democracy" in Arab countries will be beneficial to mankind.
Actually, no such democratic movements are unfolding but quite the opposite. The onrushing movement happens to feature the forceful annexing of assorted countries by militant Islamic forces.
You can count them on the fingers of one hand:
1. IRAN: Democracy was supposed to thrive after Jimmy Carter backstabbed The Shah. Some "democracy in Mullah-ville." Dissenters are cut down faster than ten-pins in a bowling alley.
2. LEBANON: Like the National Socialist (Nazi) Party in 1933 Germany, Hezbollah's private militia -- adjoining and coupled to the Lebanese army -- has intimidated all opponents by force and, in effect, runs the country, with guns.
3. GAZA: When confronted with opponents in the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Hamas goons simply tossed them off buildings and murdered them in other less wholesome fashion. Democracy in Gaza is as real as Looney Tunes.
4. SYRIA: Bashar-al-Assad is the prototypical dictator who would welcome democracy the way he would embrace the Bubonic Plague.
5. EGYPT: White House dreamers -- led by the empty-suit disguised as a president -- would lead us to believe that a genuine democracy will prevail in Cairo. Reality has proven that such a wonderful event never happens in the Arab world. What, in fact, soon will evolve is the emergence of Egypt's Israel-hating Muslim Brotherhood, another fanatic branch of militant Islam.
Given an opportunity to intervene against any of the above in order to produce a true, peace-loving democracy in either Tehran, Beirut or Gaza, Barack Obama has done nothing more than target Israel for building homes for its citizens.
The ludicrous American response to the Libyan massacres would border on hilarious were it not so pathetic.
As always, Uncle Sam's Secretary of Sloth, Hilary Rodham Clinton, spouts her cheery -- and sometimes not-so-cheery -- homilies about what should and should not be done to restore revolutionary decorum.
Her latest tirade included the suggestion that America actually might resort to force in order to once and for all depose of Libya's Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.
That, of course, will never happen because the White House never seems to flex its muscles when it's supposed to do so. When the United States gets really serious about firing guns at the enemy, it's invariably the wrong foe and not the genuine troublemaker who feels the pain.
Anyone with a good chunk of reality in his or her brain knows that America under the chicken-hearted Muslim president never will confront -- head-on -- the real enemy which is Iran. And if ever there was an appropriate time to take arms against any Arab nation now is the moment and the obvious enemy is Iran.
You won't find any of the New York Times Obama-apologists dissecting the true problem. Fortunately, there are some journalists who get it and one happens to be Michael Slackman. His most recent article, "Arab unrest propels Iran as Saudi influence declines" is a clear-cut treatise about what's really happening. By rights it should open some eyes -- and minds -- at the White House but that would be too much to expect.
"The popular revolts shaking the Arab world have begun to shift the balance of power in the region, bolstering Iran's position while weakening and unnerving its rival, Saudi Arabia," notes Slackman.
"Iran has already benefitted from the ouster or undermining of Arab leaders who were its strong adversaries, and has begun to project its growing influence."
Bear in mind that Saudi Arabia has been America's staunch ally -- apart from the only pure democracy known as Israel -- in the Middle East. One would think that Obama understands that by shying away from a confrontation with Iran, he is undermining the Saudis. But his actions indicate a 180-degree turn from that reality.
With these facts in mind, what should Benjamin Netanyahu do on behalf of Israel?
Trust nobody; not Obama, not Clinton-of-the-forked tongue and certainly not any Arab leader.
What we have seen for decades is that Arab leaders invariably employ the Israeli-Palestinian battle as a "distraction from their own oppressive regimes." The quote comes directly from UK Prime Minister David Cameron.
More important is Barry Rubin's answer to Cameron. Director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal, Rubin never fails to understand the realities.
Rubin: "The problem is that it (the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation) is such a good distraction precisely because doing so is wildly popular with the Arab masses, who may well want more militancy than those governments are willing to provide."
My advice to Bibi is to be as pro-active as necessary to protect his citizens.
The "democratic" movement in Egypt already has resulted in a dangerous weapons-smuggling increase to bolster Hamas. Therefore, to halt the weapons-smuggling, Israel must re-take the strategic Philadelphi Corridor. No longer can Israel rely on the new Egyptian leaders to support the peace treaty.
"The Egyptian revolution removes the most powerful Arab country countering the Islamists (and Iran)," writes Rubin. "It will produce a new government that will not be allied to the U.S. but will work more closely with its enemies. Eventually, a revolutionary Islamist government may emerge."
If Barack Obama believes that such a turn of events will be beneficial to America, he is more addle-pated than I think he is and that's pretty bad.
Worse still, his thinking is inherently dangerous to the United States and a huge challenge to Israel.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
NEW YORK TIMES -- AL JAZEERA; CAN YOU TELL THE DIFFERENCE?
By Schmoel Yitzhak
If you didn't know better you could mistake The New York Times for a subsidiary of Al Jazeera.
The most conspicuous distinction between the two is that the Times is printed and Al Jazeera is broadcast over the airwaves.
Since its inception Al Jazeera has been an Arabic propaganda machine with a distinct prejudice against -- no surprise here -- Israel.
By contrast, The Times bias against the Jewish State generally is presented in more subtle forms and therefore is much more devious and dangerous.
This should come as no shock to anyone who has studied the New York newspaper's history.
Perhaps the most egregious example of Times' disdain for Jewish life occurred during World War II when revelations about the Holocaust-in-the-making filtered west to America.
Times' editors thought so much about the significance of such massacres that the Times' Holocaust story was buried far inside the newspaper in a conspicuously small sidebar.
In recent decades, relentlessly, The Times has become less and less articulate -- and much less emphatic -- when it comes to Israeli support.
As least when Bill Safire was writing a regular Times column, one could rely on Safire to express pro-Israel opinions, especially when it came to the Jewish nation's right to its self-defense.
But once Safire's column was removed, there was nobody left to support Israel at the Grey Lady. Thomas Friedman, the columnist with the Jewish-sounding name, writes as if he's receiving permanent grants from Saudi Arabia, the Palestine Liberation Organization and Hamas.
Even worse has been The Times bent since Democrats took over the White House.
Acting as if it is Barack Obama's personal public relations firm, The Times has supported every single anti-Israel move perpetrated by the Chief Executive; and Benjamin Netanyahu has learned, there have been plenty.
Any opportunity to bash Israel is exploited by The Times either on its editorial pages or the Op Ed (opinion) sheets where authors are carefully selected to support the newspaper's editorial policies which, naturally, coincide with Obama's.
Thus, it was no surprise that when the upheaval in Egyptian politics took place, the Muslim president reached out to the sworn enemy of President Hosni Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood.
Really, it didn't seem to matter to America's leader that one of the Brotherhood's sworn objectives is the annihilation of the Middle East's only democracy, Israel.
Once The Times understood where Obama was coming from, the paper's publisher and editors fell into lockstep with the White House.
How did The Times do that? Much in the manner that Al Jazeera would. It opened its pages to the Jew-haters and began publishing apologists for the Muslim Brotherhood. These include Tariq Ramadan and Essam El-Errian who were given major space on the newspaper's op-ed page.
Not satisfied with that slap at Jews and Israel, The Times ran a "news" story depicting Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader, Yusuf Qaradawi, as committed to pluralism and democracy.
If The Times thought it could get away with such editorial applesauce, it had another think coming. Thankfully, the Committee For Accuracy In Middle East Reporting In America (CAMERA) caught The Times with its plants down. Here's how CAMERA put it:
"Qaradawi is a virulent anti-semite who has called on Allah to wipe out the Jewish people. Moreover, he has worked to undermine the democratic principle of free speech by defending the Iranian fatwa calling for the death of writer Salman Rushdie and by promoting a day of rage against cartoons of Muhammed printed in Sweden and Denmark.
"The man (Qaradawi) has defended the practice of female genital mutillation and affirmed Muslim teachings calling for the death penalty to be applied to those who leave Islam and encourage others to do the same. There is no way anyone can honestly regard Qaradaw as committed to pluralism and democracy."
That is unless your name is Barack Obama who wants his country to work with the Muslim Brotherhood or your newspaper is the Western edition of Al Jazeera; alias The New York Times!
If you didn't know better you could mistake The New York Times for a subsidiary of Al Jazeera.
The most conspicuous distinction between the two is that the Times is printed and Al Jazeera is broadcast over the airwaves.
Since its inception Al Jazeera has been an Arabic propaganda machine with a distinct prejudice against -- no surprise here -- Israel.
By contrast, The Times bias against the Jewish State generally is presented in more subtle forms and therefore is much more devious and dangerous.
This should come as no shock to anyone who has studied the New York newspaper's history.
Perhaps the most egregious example of Times' disdain for Jewish life occurred during World War II when revelations about the Holocaust-in-the-making filtered west to America.
Times' editors thought so much about the significance of such massacres that the Times' Holocaust story was buried far inside the newspaper in a conspicuously small sidebar.
In recent decades, relentlessly, The Times has become less and less articulate -- and much less emphatic -- when it comes to Israeli support.
As least when Bill Safire was writing a regular Times column, one could rely on Safire to express pro-Israel opinions, especially when it came to the Jewish nation's right to its self-defense.
But once Safire's column was removed, there was nobody left to support Israel at the Grey Lady. Thomas Friedman, the columnist with the Jewish-sounding name, writes as if he's receiving permanent grants from Saudi Arabia, the Palestine Liberation Organization and Hamas.
Even worse has been The Times bent since Democrats took over the White House.
Acting as if it is Barack Obama's personal public relations firm, The Times has supported every single anti-Israel move perpetrated by the Chief Executive; and Benjamin Netanyahu has learned, there have been plenty.
Any opportunity to bash Israel is exploited by The Times either on its editorial pages or the Op Ed (opinion) sheets where authors are carefully selected to support the newspaper's editorial policies which, naturally, coincide with Obama's.
Thus, it was no surprise that when the upheaval in Egyptian politics took place, the Muslim president reached out to the sworn enemy of President Hosni Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood.
Really, it didn't seem to matter to America's leader that one of the Brotherhood's sworn objectives is the annihilation of the Middle East's only democracy, Israel.
Once The Times understood where Obama was coming from, the paper's publisher and editors fell into lockstep with the White House.
How did The Times do that? Much in the manner that Al Jazeera would. It opened its pages to the Jew-haters and began publishing apologists for the Muslim Brotherhood. These include Tariq Ramadan and Essam El-Errian who were given major space on the newspaper's op-ed page.
Not satisfied with that slap at Jews and Israel, The Times ran a "news" story depicting Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader, Yusuf Qaradawi, as committed to pluralism and democracy.
If The Times thought it could get away with such editorial applesauce, it had another think coming. Thankfully, the Committee For Accuracy In Middle East Reporting In America (CAMERA) caught The Times with its plants down. Here's how CAMERA put it:
"Qaradawi is a virulent anti-semite who has called on Allah to wipe out the Jewish people. Moreover, he has worked to undermine the democratic principle of free speech by defending the Iranian fatwa calling for the death of writer Salman Rushdie and by promoting a day of rage against cartoons of Muhammed printed in Sweden and Denmark.
"The man (Qaradawi) has defended the practice of female genital mutillation and affirmed Muslim teachings calling for the death penalty to be applied to those who leave Islam and encourage others to do the same. There is no way anyone can honestly regard Qaradaw as committed to pluralism and democracy."
That is unless your name is Barack Obama who wants his country to work with the Muslim Brotherhood or your newspaper is the Western edition of Al Jazeera; alias The New York Times!
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