Augean Stables

Well worth a look. An unusual voice: no surrender - ne passaran.

Ted Dalrymple has the following meditation on what Charles Jacobs calls “Human Rights Complex.” One wonders how people like the Guardian (not what I would call a “liberal” newspaper) don’t blush for shame at their idiocy, but I guess American Derangement Disorder explains/excuses everything. The first time I noticed this appalling tendency was back in the days of South African Apartheid resistance, when the NYT ran an op-ed along similar lines about black-on-black violence with an illustration of a disembodied black arm holding a knife being weilded by a white arm. The unconscious (?) racism inherent in such low expectations is nothing short of breathtaking. (HT: Andrew Melnick)

Do Iraqis Have Free Will?
By Theodore Dalrymple
18 December 2006

A headline in the British liberal newspaper, the Guardian, caught my eye recently: IRAQIS CAN’T BE BLAMED FOR THE CHAOS UNLEASHED BY INVASION. The writer was that newspaper’s veteran foreign correspondent, Jonathan Steele (another immortal headline to one of his articles, in May 2002, read: NEW YORK IS STARTING TO FEEL LIKE BREZHNEV’S MOSCOW).

Let us grant, for argument’s sake, the article’s premise: that American policy in Iraq has been naive, rash, foolish, precipitate, and culpable. Yet still it would not follow that “Iraqis can’t be blamed” and so forth, unless one also believed what not even the severest critics of the Bush administration have alleged–that the American army, or other agents of the American government, have desired, planned, and even executed the ongoing terrorist attacks in Baghdad.

The only other explanation of the non-culpability of Iraqis would be that they were not really full members of the human race–in other words, that they did not reflect upon their circumstances and act upon their reflections in the way that the fully responsible and therefore potentially culpable Americans do.

The headline makes clear that double standards are about to apply, double standards that are not flattering to the Iraqis’ capacity for independent action, despite the evident wish of the author to display as conspicuously as possible his sympathy with them by means of exculpating them. Forgive them, he invites all men of goodwill, for they know not what they do.

Like hell, they don’t.

Not even the most ardent, anthropomorphic dog-lover credits his pet with a fully developed moral sense, and he therefore regards its misdemeanors with an indulgence that he would not extend to a ten-year-old child. The author regards Iraqis as if they were in the same moral category as pets: for can one really say that people who travel to a different part of the city to explode bombs, resulting in scores of deaths of people chosen merely because they are (most of them) of a different religious confession, do not appreciate what they are doing, any more than a dog appreciates what it does when it knocks over a precious porcelain vase?

Is there anything in the American invasion, however deeply ill judged you might consider it, that makes these bombings as inescapable as the weather, and that therefore renders those who carry them out wholly blameless? Is not a prerequisite for these bombings that those who carry them out consciously decide to do so? And if it is not wicked to kill people in this fashion, it is difficult to know what is wicked. Not the Iraqis, but some of the Iraqis–presumably a small minority–can take blame to a very considerable extent for the chaos in Iraq.

Dare I say it: the inability to take seriously the culpability of men and women who, as a matter of policy or tactics, kill large numbers of passers-by and bystanders is a hangover of the late Victorian imperial sensibility, which viewed much of the world’s population as intellectual and moral minors. Special pleading of the kind encapsulated in the headline is not a manifestation of broadmindedness or generosity but of deep-seated arrogance.

And racism, and hatred of Americans (and self), and breathtaking moral idiocy. Oh, and did I mention contempt for the very people they supposedly support? Read Pascal Bruckner’s Tears of the White Man: Compassion as Contempt. What Dalrymple doesn’t mention is that Steele is echoing Iraqis’ own desire to avoid responsibility for their deeds and blame the USA, as if a nation whose only form of stability in the post-war era has been a Stalin-admiring and imitating dictator were innocent bystanders. What happened to the “people get the leaders they deserve”? Or does that only refer to us honkeys?

Judith Weiss at Kesher Talk has a wide-ranging round-up of reactions to the conference in the blogosphere as well as her own, with pictures. I’ll have more up soon.

Melvin Konner, a professor at Emory has written the following letter to the Carter Center at his institution about the erratic behavior of the former president. I intersperse a few comments, but it speaks for itself.

TO: Dr. John Hardman, M.D.
Executive Director
The Carter Center
One Copenhill
453 Freedom Parkway
Atlanta, GA 30307

Dear Dr. Hardman,

I am sorry to say that after careful and frankly painful reflection, I have decided not to participate in your group advising President Carter and The Carter Center regarding his recent book on the Middle East conflict. During our telephone conversation on December 11 (perhaps not incidentally my late father’s birthday) I spoke from my heart when I agreed to participate; it is not easy for me to lose one of my greatest heroes. In less than a week since then, events have progressed in such a way as to persuade me that I cannot in good conscience participate in such an effort.

First, President Carter has proved capable of distorting the truth about such meetings and consultations in public remarks following them. In particular, he mischaracterized the meeting he had with the executive committee of the Board of Rabbis of Greater Phoenix, saying he and they had positive interactions and prayed together, when in fact others present stated that the meeting was highly confrontational and that the prayer was merely a pro forma closing invocation. (See “Letters,” The New York Times, Dec. 15, 2006, p. A32.) However modest my reputation may be, I will not jeopardize it by participating in a meeting that might subsequently be so starkly misconstrued.

Second, in television interviews I have seen over the past week, President Carter has revealed himself to be so rigid and inflexible in his views that he seems to me no longer capable of dialogue. In an interview with Soledad O’Brien of CNN he failed to address a single one of the criticisms she quoted from various experts in a very serious tone of voice, pointing out that she was not reading the worst of the criticisms; he began laughing inappropriately while she spoke, and when she asked him how he would respond to the criticisms he stated, “With laughter.” In a number of interviews I have seen and heard him respond to highly specific questions merely by stating again and again in one form or another, “My book is completely accurate.” This rigidity of thought and complete failure to engage criticisms from much greater experts than me about his numerous and serious errors of commission and omission make it clear to me that an attempt by me to advise him would be pointless and counterproductive. In addition, his repeated public insinuations that the Jews control the media and the Congress–well-worn anti-Semitic slurs that, especially coming from President Carter, present a clear and present danger to American Jews–are offensive to me beyond what I can politely say.

This inappropriate response says a great deal about both the company Carter has been keeping, and his response to the grilling he’s received since publishing the book. I have spent time with some of the folks who inhabit the world of “Israeli apartheid” (including getting their emails), and I can safely say that it’s a hermetically sealed world in which people can say anything, no matter how loopy, and get nods of approval all around. Carter has spent so much time in these circles (who took him on guided tours of “Palestine”) that he no longer has much contact with empirical reality. As a result, the criticism can only strike him as so imappropriate that he has no real response but to laugh. If it works with his crowd, why not? That this behavior strikes even admirers of Carter — I long ago ceased to admire a man who considers his ability to talk civilly with tyrants a sign of integrity — as bizarre and disconcerting has apparently not yet sunk in. Here’s a comment from a colleague of mine:

I saw the interview on CNN and was stunned at what came across as a leader gone (shall I say) diabolic as his laughter was totally inappropriate, I thought. There was nothing about him that resembled the one that I had respected. Nothing.

Carter’s inability to respond to criticism is a sign of how insulated from reality the “reality-based” progressive community has become, and a sign of just how vulnerable they are when they “go public” rather than hang together and enjoy the thoroughly pleasing discourse of scapegoating Israel.

Third, I am now carefully rereading parts of this very puzzling and problematic book, having read it through once quickly. I am not going to point out again here all the mistakes and misrepresentations pointed out by others (to take just one example, his flat contradiction of the accounts by President Clinton and Dennis Ross of events at Camp David at which they were present and he was not) ”none of which he has answered–nor explain the grotesque distortion caused by his almost completely ignoring Jewish history between ancient times and 1947 (he devotes five lines on page 64 to that millennial tragic story and mentions the Holocaust twice; his “Historical Chronology” at the outset contains nothing–nothing–between 1939 and 1947).

Again, a good sign of the disconnect with reality. The Palestinian narrative, in order to displace the Israeli, has to erase the Jewish history and reinvent the Palestinians, not as the tragic victims of Arab imperial and theocratic drives, but as a poor indigenous people struggling for freedom.

However, I will call your attention to a sentence on p. 213 that had not stood out for me the first time I read it: “It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Roadmap for Peace are accepted by Israel.”

As someone who has lived his life as a professional reader and writer, I cannot find any way to read this sentence that does not condone the murder of Jews until such time as Israel unilaterally follows President Carter’s prescription for peace. This sentence, simply put, makes President Carter an apologist for terrorists and places my children, along with all Jews everywhere, in greater danger.

This is a critical observation. One of the early slogans of the “pacifist” International Solidarity Movement is “Resistance is not Terrorism.” When I pointed this out (in 2002) to a member of the group who presented himself as a “pacifist” as an endorsement of suicide terrorism (then at its height), he responded, “Non-violent resistance is not terrorism.” When I pointed out that you don’t need a sign to tell people that, that that’s something of a tautology, he sighed in exasperation and, like Jimmy Carter laughing on TV, assumed that the audience would side with him (which they did).

For Carter to even indirectly endorse suicide terrorism is, imnsho, staggering for a man who presents himself as a “man of peace.” It echoes the most astounding and ultimately dishonest and destructive response to the suicide terrorism of the early years of this century: “What choice do they have?” and, even worse, “If I were as desperate as they, I too might be tempted.” Nothing reflects Carter’s inability to identify with Israeli civilians than this remark, and nothing reflects his acceptance of a demonizing, dehumanizing Palestinian narrative than this inability to identify with innocent Israeli civilians. In a sense, the way that the Palestinian victim narrative is shaped, it’s impossible to identify with them without hating the Israelis. Carter, for all his insistence on being Israel’s friend, reveals his callous soul with this remark.

Konner’s remark hits the nail on the head: the sentiment “condone[s] the murder of Jews until such time as Israel unilaterally follows President Carter’s prescription for peace. This gets to the heart of the “progressive” dilemma of Jews and non-Jews alike. They are so convinced that they have the key to peace (PCP), that they interpret any Israeli resistance to their solutions (which inevitably call for Israeli concessions) as prima facie evidence of Israeli bad faith that they end up identifying with the barbaric aggression of their perceived victim. Carter illustrates precisely this dynamic. And given the profound flaws in the PCP, including its moral equivalence and cognitive egocentrism, it seems utterly inappropriate for anyone with the slightest bit of intellectual modesty to begrudge the Israelis their reluctance to follow such advice (are you listening George Soros?).

I am sure you will now understand why I cannot participate in your group advising President Carter.

However, if I may, I will share this advice to you: If you want The Carter Center to survive and thrive independently in the future, you must take prompt and decisive steps to separate the Center from President Carter’s now irrevocably tarnished legacy. You must make it clear on your web site and in appropriately circulated press releases that President Carter does not speak for The Carter Center on the subject of the Middle East conflict or the political role of the American Jewish community. If you do not do this, then President Carter’s damage to his own effectiveness as a mediator, not to mention to his reputation and legacy will extend, far more tragically in my view, to The Carter Center and all its activities.

Meanwhile, in my own private and modest public capacity as a university professor and writer, I will work very hard in the foreseeable future to help discredit President Carter’s biased, intemperate and inflexible mischaracterizations of the reality of Israel, Palestine, terrorism, and the American Jewish community. I will urge all my colleagues and students to do the same. And, most painfully, I will discourage any connection with The Carter Center until such time as you make perfectly and publicly clear your independence from President Carter on this tragically difficult set of questions, which he has chosen so dangerously to distort and oversimplify.

I emphasize that I have been a decades-long supporter of President Carter and of The Carter Center and have defended him, his legacy, and The Center’s work at every possible opportunity. It is a grave loss for me to acknowledge that this will no longer be possible.

Sincerely yours,

Melvin Konner, M.D., Ph.D.
Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor
Department of Anthropology and Program in Neuroscience and Behavioral
Biology, Emory University
Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology (by courtesy), Emory School of Medicine

Melvin Konner is Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Anthropology and Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at Emory University. He studied at Brooklyn College, CUNY (1966), earned a Ph.D. in biological anthropology (Harvard, 1973), and did postdoctoral work at the Laboratory of Neuroendocrine Regulation, MIT. He spent a total of two years doing fieldwork among the Kalahari San or Bushmen, studying infant development and the hormonal mechanism of lactational infertility. After six years on the Harvard faculty, he attended Harvard Medical School (M.D. 1985) and moved to Emory as department chair. He has held NIMH and NSF research grants, and been a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and the Foundations Fund for Research in Psychiatry. Lately he has spent time advocating single-payer health reform, and has testified twice at U.S. Senate hearings.

Here is Part III of “Paradigms and the Middle East Conflict.” For previous posts, see:
Paradigms and the Middle East Conflict: Introduction
PCP (Politically Correct and Post-Colonial Paradigms

I remind the reader that this is articulated, as the PCP, not as a study in nuance, but as the assertion of a framework. You are welcome to agree or disagree. Although by and large I find this paradigm more convincing that the PCP one, I hope I have presented it with the same neutrality as the first. Assessment of the two will follow.

HJP: HONOR JIHAD PARADIGM

The HJP understands the Arab-Israeli conflict through the prism of honor-shame culture and Islamic jihad. These elements of Arab culture are the main factors that have made it impossible to reach a solution to the conflict. Arab leaders view any compromise with Israel as “losing face,” since such an agreement would mean recognizing as a “worthy foe” an inferior group that should be subject. Such a blow to Arab honor cannot be tolerated for cultural and political reasons: losing face means to feel utter humiliation, to lose public credibility, and to lose power. In search of lost honor, Arab (and Palestinian) elites, never particularly concerned with the welfare of their masses, have shown a ready willingness to sacrifice the Palestinian people. The more their own people suffer and Israel can be blamed, the better for their cause. In recent decades Western academics and media, for reasons of political correctness and multiculturalism, and due to a strange inability to distinguish between Arab leaders and their victimized populations, refuse to acknowledge this pattern of exploitation. As a result, ignoring this explanation for the conflict, the increasingly hold Israel responsible. As long as this pattern of Arab honor-shame and scapegoating behavior prevails and the West enables it, lasting and fair peace in the Middle East will not be possible.

HJP: THE ARAB WORLD

The JP identifies Arab political culture as an example of “traditional” or “pre-civil society” culture. In what are known as “prime-divider societies”, the elite monopolize power, wealth, education, and the public sphere, while the masses live in poverty. In these societies the prevailing political axiom runs: “rule or be ruled.” The dominant alpha males (warriors, big men) set the rules of honor-shame and determine when and how often a man can legitimately shed the blood of another for his own honor. Such dynamics encourage patriarchal domination, intimidation of dissent, and political and religious imperialism. Borders are viewed as potential sites of expansion; war is the long-term norm.

THE CONFLICT IN TERMS OF HONOR SHAME

According to HSJP, the Arab-Israeli conflict is fueled by wounded Arab honor and frustrated religious imperialism. At the end of the 19th century, the Arab world, historically established by conquest and colonization, was confronted with humiliating defeats at the hands of a significantly more powerful Western culture. In the 20th century, the establishment of the State of Israel exacerbated this indignity by marking the victory not of a great and worthy enemy, but a tiny people who, in the entire memory of Islam, never fought back against their subjection. It was one kind of embarrassment to lose a battle against an Arab neighbor or a Western nation; that was part of the game. But to lose to an inferior people, an unworthy foe, represented a more existential humiliation.

The only way a warrior can restore his honor is to shed the blood of his enemy. In the case of Israel, the humiliation was so intense that Arab leadership called for a “war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.” This rigid, hard zero-sum approach has guided Arab and Palestinian relationships with Israel. If Israel wins (a state, recognition, and peace), then de facto the Arab and Muslim world loses. Israeli independence, rather than also marking Palestinian independence, had to mark a Naqba – catastrophe – for the Palestinians.

More than a century since Zionism developed and more than half a century since Israel won its independence, Arab political culture continues to war with Israel’s existence. The HSJP, in some intuitive form, dominated most post-1948 Western perceptions of the conflict. The Arab side openly proclaimed their genocidal intentions, making themselves unwelcome in post-Holocaust Western public culture (e.g., UN/human rights talk). But after 1967, Arab and Palestinian spokesmen toned down the genocidal rhetoric (at least in foreign languages), and worked their way into the PCP as the “Palestinian David.” Perhaps the single biggest difference between PCP1 and HSJP revolves around how much one believes that the initial Arab attitude has changed: have Palestinian leaders given up their primary desire to eliminate Israel? PCP says yes; HSJP says no.

PERPETUATING THE PROBLEM: ZERO-SUM GAMES

The zero-sum logic that dominated Arab political culture towards Israel from the start, developed into a negative-sum approach after the Israelis defeated the Arabs in their “wars of honor.” The resulting attitude became ‘if we lose, then they must lose as well, even if it worsens our own conditions’. The Arab League accordingly imprisoned refugees in wretched conditions (“refugee camps”); and when they could have saved millions from Israeli occupation in 1967 by finally making peace, they answered with “the three No’s of Khartoum”: No negotiations, no recognition, no peace. Their priorities were clear: sooner the honor of the elite than the dignity of the people.

As Abba Eban remarked, Palestinian leaders have “never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” But even this remark, reflects Eban’s cognitive egocentrism. For the Arab leaders he described, a positive-sum, mutually beneficial outcome does not represent an opportunity because it does not redeem Arab honor. Arab elites prefer losing wars to resolving the conflict by allowing Israel to exist. When they are weak they withdraw and cherish dreams of revenge. When they feel strong enough – no matter how delusional that feeling – they go to war with Israel (1948, 1967, 1973, 2000). Noting that the problem existed long before 1967, the HSJP views the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as the products of this zero-sum attitude, not its cause. Thus, the solution will not come from a return of these territories into the hands of the current leadership. That will more likely trigger even more aggressive behavior. It will come from a change in the zero-sum mentality of Arab and Palestinian leadership.

The Oslo “Peace Process” led to violence after Camp David 2000, according to JP, because Arafat never had the intention to make peace. Arafat acted with enormous reluctance, taking what he could, offering no concessions in return, and promising his honor-shame constituency that the concessions were not real, merely a “Trojan horse.” As the Palestinian saying goes: “That which has been taken by violence can only be regained by violence.”

In this kind of war, negotiations will not work. The Palestinians cannot make any significant concessions to Israel without losing honor. Additionally, they view concessions by Israel as marks of weakness, as invitations to further violence, rather than as invitations to put an end to the war. Arafat and the forces that brought on the Second Intifada interpreted Barak’s concessions at Camp David as a weakness (like the February 2000 retreat from Lebanon), and determined to exploit the opportunity with a show of force.

Very few Arab leaders have been able to make peace with Israel without losing their prestige or even their lives. Far from softening its attitudes over time, the Arab political peer group that assigns honor and shame has become increasingly bloody-minded. Arafat in 2000 preferred a zero-sum solution that preserved his honor amongst Arab leaders and the “street”, regardless of the misery caused to his people. Rather than nation-build, Arafat increased his honor by entering a disastrous war at an immense cost to everyone (negative sum).

SCAPEGOATING AND THE VICTIMS OF HONOR-SHAME ZERO-SUM

In all “prime divider societies”, the elites dominate and the general public, commoners, and uneducated poor suffer. The Palestinian and Arab peoples have suffered greatly, perhaps even more than the Israelis, from their elite’s zero-sum diplomacy. Palestinians who toil to kill Israeli civilians do not hesitate to use violence against other Palestinians who oppose their actions, including many times the torture and killing of so-called “collaborators”. Although Israelis have some protection from these terrorists (their army), Palestinians do not. Constantly exposed to the violent exploitation of their leadership and humiliation at the hands of a “foreign” rule (Israel), the Palestinian people are unquestionably the most miserable in the conflict.

Their misery, however, serves the greater Arab cause. The narrative of Palestinian victimization at the hands of the Zionist entity operates for the Arab elites as a “weapon of mass distraction”. It enables the elites to scapegoat Israel for the suffering that the Arab leadership has largely inflicted upon their people, and to direct the “rage” of the people against Israel. Over the last 60 years, this powerful WMD has been the only tool consistently able to unify the “Arab nation” in a collective solidarity. An increasing number of Western analysts and commentators, curiously unable to differentiate between the oppressed Arab peoples and their oppressing leaders (PCP2), have increasingly adopted this WMD and repeatedly blamed Israel for the plight of the Palestinian people. This tactic, however, shields the Arab elites by legitimating their claims, and thus prolongs the cycle of internal violence against the masses.

EXPANDING JIHAD AND THE IMPLICATIONS

Unlike the PCP, the HSJP argues that the Arab world’s abreaction to Zionism has become more virulent in the past forty years, not less. Since Nasser’s “secular” Arab nationalism failed to solve the problem in 1967, a more explicitly religious dimension increasingly came to the fore. The very idea of an independent, Jewish “Zionist entity,” had always represented a theological blasphemy as well as an unbearable humiliation. From its first century (7th-8th century CE), political Islam divided the world into two categories: Dar al Islam (the abode of peace where Islam rules) and Dar al Harb (the abode of war, “the sword”). Islam believes that the entire world will eventually convert and Dar al Islam will reign supreme. Additionally, once Islam conquers a territory, that land cannot revert to Dar al Harb (one of the reasons given for the bombing in Spain, once al Andalusia). Islam classifies Jews within Dar al Islam as a “protected” people (Dhimmi) [link to definition]; they are legally and culturally inferior, but not required to convert. For Jews to “live free in our land,” an independent Jewish state in the heart of Dar al Islam not only confounds Islamic religious beliefs, it insults God’s honor.

The longer the frustration and humiliation, the more the religious language becomes apocalyptic: i.e., the ultimate battle between Islam and the Jews. And their “end-time” scenario is at once cataclysmic – huge devastation must precede the victory of Islam – and active – we Jihadis are the agents of God’s wrath and destruction. According to a hadith which is increasingly popular amongst Palestinians, when the end of time comes, the Muslims will slaughter the Jews who are hiding behind rocks and trees. The very rocks and trees will call out, “O Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me. Come kill him.” Confronted with this text, which appears in virtually every schoolbook, officials will act as if they had never heard it.

Over the last twenty years this apocalyptic Jihad has spread in Muslim communities around the world. With the help of the internet, “local” jihad has merged with anti-Western sentiment, spread through both Shi-ite Islam (Khoumeini’s Iran, Hizbullah) and Sunni Islam (Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Taliban, al-Qaeda). Movements depicting Israel and the West as the deadly enemy of Islam have arisen even in the West. Jihadis view globalization as a Jewish-American plot to rule the world, against which they set their own globalizing project – the global victory of Dar al Islam). Israel then is just one of their targets; they have now set their sights on the entire world. The attacks in NY, Madrid, and London all express the growing militancy and impatience of this Islamist dream of world domination.

London protests over Danish Cartoons, February 3, 2006.

Thus, although Jihadis reserve particular venom for Jews and Americans, these groups are not their only targets. On the contrary, the Europeans, who seem to have thought that by siding with the Arabs and Muslims in both their media and diplomacy, would somehow escape Islamist aggression, may well be the prime target of their expansionism.

London Protests over Danish Cartoons, February 3, 2006.

Few religious expressions are as bloody-minded as current Jihad. All ‘infidels’ who oppose Jihadis, including European Christians, share the same fate, an attitude recently openly espoused by Anjem Choudary, in an interview on the BBC about the acceptability of killing non-Muslims civilians because their refusal of Islam is an “crime against Allah.” But the most striking element of current Jihadi is the condemnation of a billion Muslims whose practices are lax by their zealous standards; Westernized Muslims especially are denounced as kufr, or unbelievers, apostates deserving of death. The victory of Jihad may bring Islam to the summit of power, but it bodes ill for the vast majority of Muslims. Those Muslims who realize this find themselves caught between fearing the Jihadis and cheering them on for striking blows for Islamic honor against the despised West.

THE MEDIA AS PARTICIPANTS IN THE CONFLICT

From the HJP’s point of view, the press’s efforts to treat the Arab-Israeli conflict “even-handedly” by presenting both sides as “equally responsible” are not only morally self-defeating, but involve dangerously misleading inaccuracies. By failing to distinguish between the Arab elites and masses, and between the oppressors and oppressed, they fail to recognize one of the major causes of the suffering and the conflict. On the other hand, were they to focus on the injustices to which Arab governments and Jihadi leaders subject their people, they would tip the scales too far in Israel’s favor. Thus, the media is not even able to identify the greatest blight in the conflict – the Palestinians’ constant recourse to terror – as “terrorism.”

By focusing on the Palestinians’ plight at the hands of Israel, both the media and the progressive “left” fall prey to the Arab political culture’s larger strategy of victimizing their own people and feeding them scape-goating narratives. The media and progressives by viewing the conflict as the Israeli Goliath vs. the Palestinian David, unwittingly facilitate the continued victimization of the people they think they are helping. On one level, they swallow the “blue pill” of accusing the state of Israel, rather than swallow the “red pill” of examining the frightening world of Arab and Muslim hate-mongering. Since Israelis take criticism far more easily than Palestinians, the blue pill seems like an easier path to peace.

This ‘even-handed’ approach which intended to “listen to the Palestinian voice” does disservice to all parties involved. Israel’s image and credibility around the world have been shattered by the superficial and overly simplistic media portrayal of its role in the conflict. Less obviously, but no less devastating, has been the damage done to the Palestinian people. Their leaders can safely push harmful agendas while their people remain deprived of the most basic rights. The consequences benefit only the Arab leadership and the elite, who - amongst themselves - retain their tarnished honor, their smoldering rage, and their inappropriate credibility in the West.

CONCLUSION

This paradigm’s conclusions seem dark, with apparently no possibility for negotiations and war as the only apparent alternative. Although this is not necessarily true, it seems deeply depressing. Those who begin to comprehend HJP find it difficult to communicate with people strongly committed to PCP. Our media, talking heads, academic specialists, and even government strategic thinkers operate with a PC paradigm that systematically ignores or underplays key anomalies. Few pay attention to the way Jihadis see Westerners (Israelis, Americans, Europeans). Few, especially those against the war in Iraq, want to think that retreating from Iraq, like retreating from Lebanon or Gaza, will encourage Jihadis in other locations to further action. According to HJP, as much as they may hate to admit it, the Europeans, like the Sunni Iraqis, will be the first victims of US withdrawal from Iraq.

HJP argues that we are wading into a global war with an enemy of determined ferocity and unknown strength, and we are flying blind. Until we begin to address the issues of honor-shame and Jihad, and learn to distinguish between demopaths and genuine moderates, so that we can identify and resist the real enemies of civil society, not only will we not see peace in the Middle East, we will see Jihad spread, the world over. Although it may seem dark, some of that darkness comes from an unconscious “racism” of the PCP that does not believe that Arab and Muslim culture can change, and therefore considers the honor-shame issues non-negotiable. Actually honor-shame cultures are notoriously susceptible to public opinion: we just cannot seem to muster the courage to make the demands.

STRENGTHS:

1. Explains the PCP anomalies, in particular the extraordinary consistency with which Arab leaders have made disastrous decisions for the Palestinian people.

2. Does not put the cart (occupation, invasion of Iraq) before the horse (Arab hard zero-sum attitudes towards Israel, Jihad).

3. Recognizes the historical dynamics of Muslim religious imperialism and its links with “traditional” authoritarian societies throughout history including the West.

4. Acknowledges the great efforts necessary to build civil societies and the discipline in overcoming the “rule or be ruled” attitude that such an effort entails, and therefore does not assume that Arab political culture has made that effort.

5. Acknowledges the danger that faces us all (including moderate Muslims who are considered apostates by the Jihadis).

6. Has the conceptual radar to spot demopaths.

7. Explains why, despite so much support from the “progressive Left,” the Palestinians are farther from civil society today (ruled by terrorists) than before the progressives came to their side.

8. Presents an alternative explanation to the “root” causes of terrorism – not poverty, not grievances, not territorial disputes – but a jihadist ideology with roots in frustrated dominance. the humiliation of failure before a small subject foe, and apocalyptic dreams of world conquest.

9. Provides a bigger narrative/framework to the Arab-Israeli conflict that can explain why even where the “Zionists” have nothing to do with local conditions, there is war, tyranny and oppression in the Arab world.

WEAKNESSES/DANGERS:

1. Anomalies/Mysteries — unexplained problems highlighted by this approach:

2. It insists on a frightening and deeply disturbing vision of the current situation that negates most liberals’ hopes about negotiating a solution.

3. It runs the danger of becoming essentialist (the Arabs are this way and can’t change), and beyond that, racist (they are genetically so).

4. Falls into the trap of Western cultural superiority and condescension to others.

5. Has no obvious peaceful solution to offer for this conflict; indeed the only immediately obvious solutions, given this paradigm’s analysis, are either unacceptable to civilized consideration – ethnic cleansing and worse; or they are currently unthinkable – Arab nations all recognize Israel as a pre-condition to negotiation.

6. Supports the war camp’s arguments that the only response to such an enemy is to fight him till “unconditional surrender”.

7. Forces us to think very negative thoughts about “others”, to the point where pointing out their failings seems like “hate speech”.

8. Runs the danger of mis-identifying as demopaths people who are genuine democrats and underestimating the good-will of the larger culture.

9. Slippery slope, an invitation to / excuse for empire, globalization as homogenized Americanization.

10. Lets Israel off the moral hook, and reduces the pressure on Israel and the West to self-criticize.

11. Makes us confront people who get angry and even violent when criticized.

12. Seems to mean that “dialogue is out of the question” and therefore “HJP does not advance you one bit.”

TERMINOLOGY:

1. Islamo-fascism / Islamo-bolshevism.

2. Dar al Islam, Dar al Harb

3. Suicide terrorists

4. Honor-shame

5. Jihad

6. Demopaths

7. Pallywood, Hizbollywood

8. Eurabia

9. Dhimmi

10. Arab-Israeli conflict

11. Oslo War, Oslo Jihad

CATCH PHRASES:

1. After 9-11 there are two kinds of people in the West: those who understand we’re at war, and those who don’t.

2. There is a civil war going on in the Muslim World, and if the Jihadis win, everyone suffers.

3. Terrorism does not come from poverty but from cultivated hatred and paranoia.

4. Visit Palestinian Media Watch and Middle East Media Research Institute and listen to what Arabs say in Arabic.

5. Islam is a religion of peace, when there’s no one left to kill. (Said of Augustus’ Pax Romana)

6. If they will kill their daughters for shaming their family, what do you think they’ll do to the Israelis and the West for shaming their religion and culture.

7. Antizionism is a Weapon of Mass Distraction.

8. The Palestinian people are the greatest victims of their leaders’ decision to go to war rather than begin to develop a civil society that takes care of its own people.

9. When the Palestinians love their children more than they hate Israel, there will be a chance for peace.

10. The Palestinians have despaired of destroying Israel by themselves and therefore look to enlisting Westerners of good will to unwittingly participate in their effort by making Israel a pariah state.

11. It’s not the “Green Line,” it’s the shoreline.

12. Arabs may want democracy but they refuse to pay the price in discipline (e.g., giving up honor killings).

13. It’s culture, not race; it’s education, not essentialism.

14. Not all Muslims are suicide terrorists, but almost all suicide terrorists are Muslim.

15. Not all anti-zionists are anti-semites, but almost all anti-semites love anti-zionism.

Anshel Pfeffer of the Jerusalem post writes this review of a book on the promises made by media pundits about the results of a retreat from Lebanon and Gaza (from 2000-2005). It illustrates well the power of PCP (”if we’re nice to them, they’ll be nice to us”), and the resistance to HSJP (concessions and retreats are signs of weakness and call for further aggression), especially in Israel’s MSM. The review regrettably leaves out choice quotes from the Oslo period and focuses on the promises concerning the Gaza withdrawal. The author concludes by being even-handed and admitting his own failed prophecies, although I would not have put those mistakes in the same league with the colossally damaging and unrepentant prophecies of the MSM on Arab-Israeli relations. (HT: Ellsee)

Behind the Lines: The press’s false prophecies

Anshel Pfeffer, THE JERUSALEM POST Dec. 22, 2006

On my desk for the last few weeks has been sitting an amusing little Hebrew booklet, the translation of whose title is, They Promised a Dove. (This title is a take-off on a popular song from the early Nineties, from the perspective of the generation of children conceived after the Yom Kippur War, who are blaming their parents for not having brought peace.)

Like a box of Belgian chocolates in which one roots around and keeps finding new and better fillings, I’ve taken delight in delving into this simple, yet subversive, booklet again and again, coming up with new pearls with each reading. Its authors, seasoned journalists Haggai Segal and Uri Orbach, are far from being like the naive children in the song. But, like those children, what they are doing is pointing their fingers at the naked emperor. (Disclosure: I’m on friendly terms with both Segal and Orbach, and have worked with the former on a number of occasions.)

The booklet is a collection of confident “prophecies,” spouted by many top Israeli pundits, during the period between the May 2000 IDF withdrawal from the security zone in Lebanon and this summer’s war. All had predicted that lasting peace and quiet on the Lebanese and Palestinian fronts were imminent - and that retreating from Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank were wise and inevitable steps.

Great quotes abound in this book. But I have two favorites.

The first is from Haaretz oracle Ari Shavit on June 24, 2005 - 13 months before the war: “Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon taught whomever did not understand this before the importance of a recognized border for the security of Israel. Since 2000, the strength of the invisible wall of international legitimacy has been proven on the Lebanese border. This invisible wall is what is defending northern Israel today. This invisible war is what is preventing even a terrorist organization like Hizbullah from firing its thousands of long-range Katyushas into the sovereign territory of Israel.”

Note that Shavit was the author of a much-cited article in 2000 after the failure of Oslo entitled: “Barak’s Copernican Revolution,” (Ha’aretz, October 27, 2000), in which he showed how by pushing the “land for peace” (ie negotiate a positive-sum outcome by making concessions) formula to the hilt, Barak had shown the world the failure of such a paradigm. And yet, here he is, back at it again with the Gaza withdrawal.

The second is from Ma’ariv mega-star Ben Kaspit, who summarized disengagement as follows: “The IDF is the IDF - meticulous planning, perfect execution. Danny Halutz is on the job. Nobody need worry.”

SEGAL AND Orbach, both representatives of the religious Right, are making two points here, one political and the other professional. First, they make no bones about blaming the mainstream Israeli media for a monolithic endorsement of any proposal of Israeli retreat, without subjecting it to even minimal inspection - and for marginalizing conflicting views, labeling those who hold them “dangerous extremists.”

This is the core of the West’s woes. People who live in a delusional universe where they can promise anything and count on our liberal hopes for peace now to excuse their repeated folly, do not hesitate to whip out the ugly terms for anyone who disagrees: racists, war-mongers, fascists…

Whether or not the second intifada and the events of this summer in Gaza and Lebanon prove the critics of withdrawal and disengagement right is an important debate. But I’d prefer to use this column to examine the authors’ second point - that the leading pundits of the Israeli press have a propensity to fire-and-forget, to issue summary judgments on what the future holds without any responsibility for the eventual outcome.

In an age when everyone is gloomily foreseeing the end of journalism as we know it - not a week goes by without news of another colleague forsaking the profession for more promising fields - there is at least one sector of the media which has nothing to worry about where job security is concerned. As news becomes less about straight reporting, and more about opinion, those among the ranks of pundits, commentators and op-ed writers really have it made. The market for pithy, opinionated and unequivocal columns seems almost unlimited - with the Internet providing an even more expansive outlet.

All one needs today to sell his wares of wisdom is a loose set of ideas, a way with words, and the ability to churn them out in time for deadline. As long as his doing so makes for a good read, nobody cares if at some later date he will have been proven wrong.

Anyone reading newspapers and Web sites can easily think of highly-regarded columnists who regularly get it wrong, blithely predicting events and outcomes that turn out to have no basis. But have we ever heard of one of one of these false prophets ever being fired?

Given the possibilities on the web, I think it would be extremely valuable to compile a list of pundits and their record — quantitative data and rankings, but also make available the substance behind the statistics. I still remember all the folks insisting that when Israel killed Sheikh Yassin and Rantisi, that the suicide bombing would come in waves, even thought there was extended silence.

THE BOOKLET shows the amusing side of the pundits’ mistakes. But it also illustrates the sinister way in which columnists form and inform public opinion, transforming individual views into the prevailing wisdom and consensus.

To show that no one is immune to this disease, Segal and Orbach include similar mistakes of their own. Which shows that this kind of reckless soothsaying is by no means reserved to a particular side of the political spectrum.

Indeed, in the first half of 2005, the right-wing press published dozens of columns explaining how there was no way the Israeli public was going to allow the government to carry out disengagement; how hundreds of thousands of citizens would block the roads leading to Gush Katif; and how a mass rebellion would break out in the ranks of the army. Very few, if any, major right-wing writers admitted afterwards that they had taken part in creating a mindset that made it much harder for the evicted settlers to come to terms with their fate.

On the other hand, the fact remains that this position remained, for the most part, within the confines of the right-wing press. The mainstream media had little time or space for the sizable minority bitterly opposed to disengagement.

A much smaller left-wing minority continues to get a disproportionate hearing. Though there are still sufficient grounds to justify disengagement and the withdrawal from the security zone, recent events indicate that opposing ideas deserved to have been taken much more seriously.

I CANNOT conclude this column honestly without coming clean about my own past practices as an instant pundit. Though my Jerusalem Post track record hasn’t been that bad, a few glaring mistakes stand out. Three of these are particularly embarrassing. Despite the fact that no one actually took me to task for them, I’m now inviting your ridicule by pointing them out.

• In January, immediately after Ariel Sharon’s second debilitating stroke, I predicted that the Kadima leadership would not gather around his replacement, Ehud Olmert, and that a succession battle would sink the nascent party.

• On the eve of the election, I advised readers not to vote for the Pensioners Party, confidently asserting that since it had no chance of passing the electoral threshold, a vote for it would be wasted.

• Before the cease fire at the end of this summer’s war, I wrote that the government’s days were numbered, due to its having been discredited and by its being left with no agenda following the demise of the realignment plan.

The first two of these predictions were quickly confounded. As for the third: It is four and a half months later, and the government is not only still here, but no one is prepared to make any more bets on its imminent fall.

Try as I might, I can’t find one excuse for these mistakes, other than hasty judgment. For this reason, the most important passage from They Promised a Dove from my perspective was in its foreword: “What all the failed analyses had in common was that they dealt with the future. This is a territory which would be better left to astrologers in the horoscope columns. As journalists, we should concentrate on reporting the past and present, or on providing clever comment on what is happening now. If we have any predictions on what is expected, we should express them with the necessary care and humility, with a bit more ‘perhaps’ and ‘maybe.’”

This is commendable honesty on the part of Pfeffer. To be fair to him, however, these prophecies are the result of misunderstanding some of the elements at work in a highly complex Israeli political scene. Trying to predict chaos is high risk stuff. But the subjects of the book are dealing with a political culture that still adheres heavily to the demands of honor-shame, whose Arabic pronouncements clearly contradict its foreign language PR, and whose responses continue to show enduring consistency. For them to repeat the same mistake over and over again, even as the consequences become more disastrous both in weakening civil society and strengthening the forces of religious violence, is inexcusable. I think the pundits who promised not just Israel, but the whole world, a dove, deserve a hefty measure of opprobrium.

[As part of the Herzilya conference, I will post either the papers of those who give me permission or the abstracts we have received here, then link their presentations. I hope to be able to post the audio of each session as a podcast in the coming week. This is the first of the papers. This paper was delivered at the heavily criticized panel on Paradigm Shifts.]

Text of Paper Read at the Conference: The Media as Theater of War, the Blogosphere, and the Global Battle for Civil Society, IDC Herzliya, Monday, 18.12.06

At last January’s Herzliya Conference, Prof. Paul Bracken of Yale, stated that the objective of the systems analyst was to identify a range of outcomes for a given situation. In this spirit, I would like to point out a new and highly interesting addition to the range of potential outcomes of the present conflict. There are some signs of a readiness, both in Israel and abroad, to place the responsibility on the Palestinian side for the continuation of the war against Israel. The evolution of this paradigm shift must be monitored, because it may present new advantages to Israel.

Because the facts are not conclusive, I must present my observations with due caution. Nevertheless, it is still possible to identify certain tendencies which may result in a major change of widely held perceptions concerning the Palestinians, their claims against Israel, and the widely accepted proposition that world justice depends on the satisfaction of their absolute demands. In short, their standing and prospects for the future may be declining.

If one views the subject in historical perspective, it becomes clear that a change has taken place. What a change has taken place since the early nineties when American academics predicted that there would be a “Palestinian Exception!” They optimistically speculated that the PA would be the first real Arab democracy and it would have a vibrant civil society [Martin Kramer, Ivory Towers on Sand (Washington, 2001), 70-76; editor’s note: a reference to the work of people like John Esposito and Augustus Richard Norton]. Since then, they are bogged down in corruption, lawlessness, and civil war. One could say that their image is returning to what it once was in the seventies – that of an outlaw terrorist group. They are no longer considered to be a potential peace partner, and their cause has lost the glow of historical inevitability. The clock has struck midnight for the Palestinian Cinderella, and her coach is turning back into a pumpkin.

There are several reasons why this happened. The first is the shakeout following the Mearsheimer and Walt Report, the Baker-Hamilton Report, and Jimmy Carter’s new book. The intention of these individuals has been to discredit Israel, its advocates in America, and destroy the special relationship between Israel and the United States, a vital relationship of strategic importance. These challenges also threaten the status of American Jewry. If such views prevail, American Jewry will be forced back into the status of second class citizens, as was the case before the Second World War. Feeling threatened, American Jewish thinkers have joined this battle and are fighting vigorously. In order to win, they have to discredit the authors of these reports hard and make the Palestinians look bad. If one reads their arguments, it is clear that the gloves are off. They are bringing up historical arguments – the kind that the well-meaning friends of the Palestinians have tried to suppress. They are targeting the Palestinian cause frontally and advancing Jewish claims dating from Biblical times and recalling the British Mandate.

In a related development, Prime Minister Olmert has spoken with world leaders abroad and attacked Iran verbally because of its genocidal intentions combined with a nuclear program, state-sponsored antisemitism, and Holocaust denial. These efforts to draw attention on Iran have raised the long-ignored issue of state-sponsored Arab antisemitism, and, indirectly, have raised other serious questions. What makes the Palestinians different from the Iranians? Why should Mahmoud Abbas, an unrepentant Holocaust denier, enjoy respectability? And what about the well-documented stream of antisemitic incitement which the PA officially sponsors and broadcasts?

Further, one of the after effects of the second war in Lebanon has been a gradual shift of perception in the ranks of Israel’s political class. A consensus has silently emerged that Oslo failed and that the proposition, “land for peace,” is wrong. This has resulted in a reexamination of the articles of faith which, for more than a decade determined official Israel’s view of its place in the world. For example, Chairman of the Knesset, Dalia Itzik, articulately revealed her discomfort an interview with Ma’ariv (1 October 2006) when she declared: “All these years, I thought that all that keeps us apart from them [the Arabs] was territory. If we returned the territories, there would be peace. This equation ended. What reason do they have to continue to fire [on us]? And we left from Lebanon. Where does all this hatred come from?”

Similarly, Deputy Defense Minister, Ephraim Sneh in a debate at the Knesset on the subject of civilian casualties at Beth Hanoun told the Arab MKs that “There is a cultural gap between us….” (ynet, 13 November 2006). And at the beginning of December, Major General Uzi Dayan told a small group at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs that the Oslo accords did not benefit Israel and that the PA cannot deliver the goods.

On the level of international affairs, there appears to be an incipient awareness that the Palestinian Authority will not be a partner in a peace settlement with the State of Israel. In fact, Prime Minister Tony Blair stated at a White House press Conference of December 7, 2006 that “The major difficulty is that the Palestinians don’t accept Israel’s right to exist.” (Jerusalem Post, 8 December 2006). This public acknowledgment of the Palestinians’ real intentions represents a change of perception which is immensely important, because Prime Minister Blair directed the world’s attention to the fact that it is the Palestinians who are unprepared for a political settlement based on compromise. According to Yehoshefat Harkabi, who wrote in the seventies, the “adherence to politicide is the Arab’s main ideological weakness.” [ASIR, p. 106]. Here is their point of greatest vulnerability.

There are some indications that a new more realistic perception of what the Palestinians stand for may replace the rosy image which their indulgent and well-meaning friends have conferred upon them. The time has come for the world to learn about their reality of unfulfilled expectations, violence, corruption, and intimidation. This change of perception could take place suddenly or as a result of a gradual process of erosion, but there is a clear need for a catalyst. In order to win the media war against the Palestinians, it will be necessary to expose their true intentions, shift the discussion to their genocidal aspirations, draw attention to their sick society, and place the burden of proof on them.

What I have described are the first signs of a new opportunity. Israel and its advocates should make the most of it.

Dr. Joel Fishman is a Fellow of the Jerusalem Center of Public Affairs.

Literature by Dr. Fishman: “Israel’s Information Policy and the Challenge of of Ideological Warfare,” Nativ Vol. 15, no 6 (November 2002): 58-64. (in Hebrew); “Information Policy and National Identity: Israel’s Ideological WarA,” Ariel Center for Policy Research Paper No. 142 (January 2003).; “Ten Years Since Oslo: The PLO’s ‘People’s War’ Strategy and Israel ’s Inadequate Response,” Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Jerusalem Viewpoints No. 503, 1 September 2003. “The Cold-War Origins of Contemporary Anti-Semitic Terminology,” Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Jerusalem Viewpoints No. 517, 2-16 May 2004. La Guerre d’Oslo (with co-author Prof. Ephraim Karsh), Paris: Editions de Passy, 2005.

As part of the 7th Annual Herzliya Conference on the Balance of Israel’s National Security, The Institute for Policy and Strategy at IDC Herzliya would like to invite you to join us at a conference entitled:

Media as Theater of War, the Blogosphere, and the Global Battle for Civil Society

The conference will take place on Sunday and Monday, December 17-18, 2006 at the Daniel Hotel in Herzliya.

The event is open to the general public but we request that you RSVP in advance to guarantee a place.
mediaconf@idc.ac.il

Program (as of December 13, 2006)

Bibliography

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