Prof. Barry Rubin, writing for Watch on the Middle East, critiques several recent AP articles that betray the media’s devotion to the Politically-Correct Paradigm, the principle that we cannot understand “others” without empathy, and cannot empathize without restraining our tendency to impose our own mentality on others, especially in making value judgments. In the articles that Prof. Rubin has collected and analyzed, we see journalists who instinctively project the civic ideals that they believe in onto the Palestinians, ignoring all evidence to the contrary. In so doing, of course, Israel comes out as the aggressor who forces peaceful Palestinians to reluctantly turn to violence as the last resort.
In an article of September 20, Ali Daraghmeh, “Army says troops kill Palestinian with firebomb,” there is a long discussion of the current state of the peace process.
(more…)
I recently posted on the way the NYT packages discussions of the Middle East. Now we get a close look at how it packages book reviews. Below is a review of a book by Ken Pollack offering a grand strategy for the US to contribute significantly to resolving the Middle East conflict. It seems like a flawed book in many ways, but hardly in the terms in which the chosen reviewer critiques it. The reviewer is Max Rodenbeck, the Middle East correspondent for The Economist. It’s a case of washing away PCP1 with a dose of PCP2, rather than balancing it with a more sober appraisal of the situation (HSJP)
For a more valuable critique, see Michael Rubin’s review in the New York Sun. Thank civil society for multiple sources of opinion. Thank the NYT for sheltering you from painful realities, and loading up its pages with writers from the ship of fools.
War and Peace
By MAX RODENBECK
Published: August 22, 2008
Back in 2002, I ran into one of the Brookings Institution’s top Middle East hands at the inaugural session of the United States-Islamic World Forum, a now annual event that Brookings sponsors jointly with the government of Qatar. “How’s it going?” I asked, expecting to hear about clashing misperceptions across the cultural divide. “Good,” came the gruff reply. “They’re beginning to realize that they are the problem.”
A PATH OUT OF THE DESERT
A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East
By Kenneth M. Pollack
539 pp. Random House. $30
Related
First Chapter: ‘A Path Out of the Desert’ (August 24, 2008)
Reading this big, ambitious book by Kenneth M. Pollack, who is the head of research at Brookings’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy, it is hard not to wish that what he refers to as Washington’s “policy community” would more often realize that they are the problem.
That’s pretty amazing. If he had written, “they are part of the problem,” okay. But “they are the problem.” That’s pure MOS: Masochistic Omnipotence Syndrome — as if there were no problem besides our bungled attempts to solve the problem. It’s a little like saying all health problems are iatrogenic. There are no diseases; it’s the doctors’ fault.
It would have been nice, for instance, had Pollack himself thought harder before arguing, in scholarly papers and his widely read 2002 book, “The Threatening Storm,” that America had “no choice” but to invade Iraq. That ostensibly sober appraisal, coming from a former C.I.A. analyst, Clinton official and self-described liberal, arguably added more gravitas to the shrill cries for war than any other voice.
Pollack has long since confessed to having been wrong about Iraq. “A Path Out of the Desert” includes other mea culpas. “There has been far too little asking the people of the region themselves what they thought and what they wanted,” he ruminates at one point, though the book offers slim evidence of his having pursued this advice. While the administration that Pollack served gets some light wrist-slapping, it is the following eight years of Bush policy that he calls “breathtakingly arrogant, ignorant and reckless.”
Rudenbeck speaks as if it’s a) clear how to consult the people of the region, b) that they are clear on what they want, and c) they’ll give you a straight answer whether they are clear or not.
Many of Pollack’s other judgments are as sound as is this criticism of the Bush administration. Since most of the post-cold-war world has stabilized, democratized and prospered, it is probably correct to suggest, as he does, that America should commit itself to helping the messy Middle East come up to par.
Now there’s an breathtaking piece of ignorant and reckless arrogance. Who says they want democracy? And who is they? And even if they say they want it, who says they (and here I’m speaking of the key players, the alpha males) are willing to make the sacrifices necessary for democracy (like giving up honor-killings or self-help justice). What a mealy-mouthed homogenized view of post-war culture Rodenbeck offers up with this description of post-war culture and the [obvious] conclusions he thinks we should draw from it.
(more…)
I put up an earlier post on the role of intimidation in the reluctance of the Western media to publish material on hate-speech and other forms of unacceptable behavior (by progressive standards) of Palestinian groups. Some criticized me for emphasizing intimidation over ideology. Now we have an excellent example of how ideology — various forms of PCP — plays a key role in supressing any awareness of these problems in the American public. The American Jewish Committee tried to run an ad that would encourage American audiences to feel empathy for the citizens of Sderot under daily attack from Qassams shot from Gaza. A NYT-owned affiliate refused to run them. Their reasons give a fascinating insight into how some people think. Executive Director of the AJC, David Harris tells the tale and puts it in a larger framework:
What happens when the shoe’s on the other foot?
David A. Harris
Executive Director
American Jewish Committee
April 6, 2008
A small but influential chorus of American voices has made a mantra out of the notion that criticism of Israel is stifled by the pro-Israel community.
Indeed, when NYU professor Tony Judt’s lecture at the Polish Consulate in New York was canceled in 2006 by the consul general, because Poland did not subscribe to Judt’s view of a one-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a group of intellectuals rushed to his defense.
In a widely-publicized petition, they asserted that “We are united in believing that a climate of intimidation is inconsistent with fundamental principles of debate in a democracy. The Polish Consulate is not obliged to promote free speech. But the rules of the game in America oblige citizens to encourage rather than stifle debate.”
Let’s set aside the absurdity of the entire effort. After all, Judt had given countless lectures before that October date, not to mention his articles on the subject in the New York Review of Books and elsewhere. None of his defenders could cite a second instance of ”intimidation,” nor, for that matter, would they be able to cite an instance since then, either. In fact, Judt’s meeting was moved to a different venue in New York and that was that.
But there’s another side to the coin. While Judt and his erstwhile supporters, joined by Jimmy Carter, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, have been making their case about their inability to be heard – ironically, in think tanks, universities and media outlets only too happy to have them speak out about how they cannot speak out – some are trying to silence a very different viewpoint.
On behalf of AJC, I do a weekly national 60-second radio spot. The time is purchased as any advertisement would be. For the past nearly seven years, it has been broadcast across the United States on the CBS radio network, on hundreds of stations, without incident.
Earlier this year, we expanded the reach by adding in the New York area WQXR, a popular classical music station owned by the New York Times.
For the week of March 31, here was the text to be aired:
Fifteen seconds. Imagine you had fifteen seconds to find shelter from an incoming missile. Fifteen seconds to locate your children, help an elderly relative, assist a disabled person to find shelter.
That’s all the residents of Sderot and neighboring Israeli towns have.
Day or night, the sirens go on. Fifteen seconds later, the missiles, fired from Hamas-controlled Gaza, hit. They could hit a home, a school, a hospital. Their aim is to kill and wound and demoralize.
Imagine yourself in that situation.
The sirens blast. 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. The time to seek shelter has ended. The missiles hit.
This is what Israelis experience daily. But, amazingly, they refuse to be cowed. Help us help those Israelis. Visit ajc.org.
The spot was broadcast several times, as is customary, on the CBS radio network, but WQXR refused to do so.
Here’s the written explanation from Tom Bartunek, president of New York Times Radio and general manager of WQXR:
”In my judgement several elements of this spot are outside our bounds of acceptability. First, the opening line— `Imagine you had fifteen seconds to find shelter from an oncoming missile’ — does not make clear that the potential target of the missile is not our listening area, and as a consequence, runs the risk of raising anxiety in a misleading way.
I think that was the point of the ad: get people to realize what kind of anxiety people in Sderot feel. Heaven forbid that New Yorkers, who have had their experiences dealing with Islamists who target civilians, should realize that it’s happening in Israel on a daily basis.
Second, the description of the missiles as arriving `day or night’ and `daily’ is also subject to challenge as being misleading, at least to the degree that reasonable people might be troubled by the absence of any acknowledgement of reciprocal Israeli military actions.
This is rich. Note the contorted syntax as well as the logic. Let’s deconstruct this passage, first merely by getting rid of the passive tense: “Reasonable people” — who? — might feel that the ad misleads by claiming that Sderot is bombed day and night, daily, because this claim does not mention that there are reciprocal Israeli military actions? Huh? How do the Israeli military actions affect whether this is happening day and night? Perhaps because it might unduly influence the audience into feeling sympathy for the citizens of Sderot without assuring that same audience that, because Israel is also bombing the Palestinians, they somehow “have it coming”?
(more…)
Ben Wedeman, CNN’s veteran Middle East correspondent, wrote an article on CNN’s website in which he places the blame for the Palestinian’s economic situation squarely on Israel’s shoulders. Wedeman does not blame Hamas, who took control by murdering Fatah supporters and who spend millions on weapons, or Fatah, whose leaders have embezzled billions of dollars meant for the Palestinian public.
Note to readers: Lazar initially put up this piece. My additional comments are in italics.
This is a perfect article for describing the Augean habits of the media, from the language used to the framing of the problem in which Palestinian behavior — against Israel or against their own people — doesn’t figure. Wedeman — against heavy competition — takes the Most Valuable Idiot of the Day award.
JERUSALEM (CNN) — Air Force One touched down in Tel Aviv on Wednesday. President Bush has come to the Holy Land for the first time as president of the United States.
But he’s trapped inside his security bubble, his every step mapped out in great and precise detail by teams of security experts and handlers. In the end he’ll see a side of this unhappy land that bears as much resemblance to reality as Hollywood does to real life.
(more…)
Flush with confidence after the publication of the NIE, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote an article in this week’s Newsweek entitled “An Arrogant Approach: The Danger of Unilateralism-for the United States and the World.” It is a prime example of a proponent of Jihadi Islam attacking the West with its own terms and values- multilateralism, human dignity, and “global, sustainable peace and security”. Like many others who share his worldview, Ahmadinejad understands that the West’s media is an effective, available means of weakening its resolve.
In the name of God the compassionate, the merciful: the international community has moved away from peace, security and justice due to the mismanagement of some of its actors. Yet the expectation of a world marked by security and tranquillity endures.
After the end of the cold war and the regional confrontations emanating from bipolar competition, many hoped there would be a beautiful spring in international relations, as a multilateral system emerged that offered equal opportunities to all members of the international community. It was hoped that the new world would enable all nations, in light of universally accepted humane norms and mutual respect, to advance together, eradicate poverty and injustice, and set aside bitter memories of the past that were nothing but war, bloodshed, violence and tension.
(more…)
The following is an article that delineates my fears. It also illustrates the incredible danger of justifying resentments expressed as terror — i.e., you end up being the target, as Muslims the world over, but especially in Iraq, are beginning to realize.
Unlike the writer, who emphasizes military forms of security, I prefer cultural ones - like making it clear that engaging in this stuff is not okay - (i.e., the opposite of what the world told the Palestinians from 2001 to present).
The likelihood of people “going” for terrorist “activism” is MUCH higher when we turn a blind eye to it and say, “hey, it’s a free country… they can say what they want.” So far so good, they can say what they want. But then we have to say something back, not walk away and let them recruit people who have a weak grip on what right and wrong, legitimate (to use the demopaths favorite term) and illegitimate. tolerance takes energy… what the Dutch and other Europeans have really failed to appreciate. It takes engagement.
The Coming Urban Terror
John Robb
For the first time in history, announced researchers this May, a majority of the world’s population is living in urban environments. Cities—efficient hubs connecting international flows of people, energy, communications, and capital—are thriving in our global economy as never before. However, the same factors that make cities hubs of globalization also make them vulnerable to small-group terror and violence.
Over the last few years, small groups’ ability to conduct terrorism has shown radical improvements in productivity—their capacity to inflict economic, physical, and moral damage. These groups, motivated by everything from gang membership to religious extremism, have taken advantage of easy access to our global superinfrastructure, revenues from growing illicit commercial flows, and ubiquitously available new technologies to cross the threshold necessary to become terrible threats. September 11, 2001, marked their arrival at that threshold.
Unfortunately, the improvements in lethality that we have already seen are just the beginning. The arc of productivity growth that lets small groups terrorize at ever-higher levels of death and disruption stretches as far as the eye can see. Eventually, one man may even be able to wield the destructive power that only nation-states possess today. It is a perverse twist of history that this new threat arrives at the same moment that wars between states are receding into the past. Thanks to global interdependence, state-against-state warfare is far less likely than it used to be, and viable only against disconnected or powerless states. But the underlying processes of globalization have made us exceedingly vulnerable to nonstate enemies. The mechanisms of power and control that states once exerted will continue to weaken as global interconnectivity increases. Small groups of terrorists can already attack deep within any state, riding on the highways of interconnectivity, unconcerned about our porous borders and our nation-state militaries. These terrorists’ likeliest point of origin, and their likeliest destination, is the city.
read the rest…
Civil societies are, by their very nature, vulnerable. One of the key insights of civil society is that all the good experiential things — intimacy, learning, joy — come from vulnerability.
By not vigorously opposing terrorism, but rather “understanding” it, “sympathizing” with its “desperation,” excusing its excesses, the Left has created a monster that comes to plague us all. And when we say, “hey, not here you idiots, they can just respond, “one person’s civil society is another’s oppression.”
Barry Rubin has a provocative piece on how hard it is to be an Arab these days, when not only do your elites victimize you and you can’t protest, but the West, in thinking they’re doing you a favor, praise your oppressors. In it he recounts an anecdote that illustrates a key element of our problem in the West.
Years ago, when Saddam Hussein was still in office, I was asked to address a visiting delegation of Arab journalists. The other American speakers gave the standard blah-blah. We felt their pain, we were working to resolve the Israel-Palestinian issue, we were sensitive to their Arab nationalist sentiments.
Having no ambition to hold high political office, I decided to introduce a dose of reality. Let’s face it, I explained, we know that your real enemy isn’t Israel or the United States but the regimes in Libya, Iraq, Syria, Iran, as well as Yasir Arafat and others. They are the ones who take away your rights, wreck your societies, destroy your dreams. Afterward I was mobbed–in the friendliest sense possible–by the audience who all wanted to thank me and say that they agreed.
Almost the same thing happened at Harvard Center for Far Eastern Studies a couple of years ago when my father, David S. Landes and a Western scholar specializing in China, Kenneth Pomeranz had a debate. Pomeranz argued the thesis of his book, The Great Divergeance: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy, in which the West and China were neck and neck in economic development really up to 1800, and then only the “luck” of the discovery of the “New World” and coal in Britain account for the West’s decisive advantage in modernizing. So, echoing Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel, he placed the industrial revolution and modernity in the context of aleatory, evolutionary phenomena. Cudda happened in China just as easiy as the West if only…
Landes, whose book The Wealth and Poverty of Nations analyzes economic growth in terms of cultural variables like the amount of empowerment commoners are permitted, the attitudes towards manual labor, the intellectual capital and willingness of a culture to learn from others, and the constraints on the behavior of the power elites, argued the opposite. According to him, already, well before 1800, the Europeans were on a trajectory that was qualitatively different from that of China, which, with all the coal and New World contacts it wanted, would not have “modernized” without fundamental changes in its cultural attitudes both towards the outside world, and towards its own commoners.
After the talk, Pomeranz was “mobbed” by the Western graduate students eager to hear more about how great the Chinese were and how dumb lucky Westerners were. But the Chinese graduate students wanted to talk to my father. Why? Because they were far less interested in having their ego stroked by well meaning Westerners who were basically condescending to them with useless information (unless you consider that kind of misinformation “therapeutically” valuable), than in hearing some hard concrete criticisms that they could actually absorb and respond to.
In his essay on “The Politics of Rage: Why Do They Hate Us” in Newsweek right after 9-11, Fareed Zakaria wrote the following:
About a decade ago, in a casual conversation with an elderly Arab intellectual, I expressed my frustration that governments in the Middle East had been unable to liberalize their economies and societies in the way that the East Asians had done. “Look at Singapore, Hong Kong and Seoul,” I said, pointing to their extraordinary economic achievements. The man, a gentle, charming scholar, straightened up and replied sharply, “Look at them. They have simply aped the West. Their cities are cheap copies of Houston and Dallas. That may be all right for fishing villages. But we are heirs to one of the great civilizations of the world. We cannot become slums of the West.”
This disillusionment with the West is at the heart of the Arab problem. It makes economic advance impossible and political progress fraught with difficulty. Modernization is now taken to mean, inevitably, uncontrollably, Westernization and, even worse, Americanization. This fear has paralyzed Arab civilization. In some ways the Arab world seems less ready to confront the age of globalization than even Africa, despite the devastation that continent has suffered from AIDS and economic and political dysfunction. At least the Africans want to adapt to the new global economy. The Arab world has not yet taken that first step.
Misplaced pride, fear of the heavy hand of a power elite that — unlike the Chinese — enforces the ego-gratifying discourse of anti-Western self-assertion, and perhaps a pervasive sense that no matter what they do, they’ll always be behind tiny, humiliating Israel, has the Arab world in its grip. And well-meaning Westerners, eager to feed them the “therapeutic” discourse of our own anti-Western moral equivalence, condemn them further to the mind-forged prison they have constructed for themselves.
As Rubin concludes his essay:
It is heart-breaking. What do you say to a Syrian dissident who is facing prison and quite possibly torture? Can you tell him that the West will support him, that journalists will condemn the regime that beats him, Middle East experts will give papers at conferences praising his work, U.S. congressional delegations won’t visit unless he is freed, or European governments will demand his release?
How can one not feel the misery of the Arab peoples, intoxicated as many are by the opiate of Arab nationalism and Islamism, the false promises of impending triumphs and the horror stories of satanic foes?
How can one not sympathize with the frustration of real moderates who live in societies where they are treated as madmen and traitors?
And how can one not feel the utmost disgust at those living comfortably in the West who celebrate or advocate their own countries’ surrender to all the evil forces holding them down and back?
Barry Rubin is Director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Interdisciplinary Center university. His latest book, The Truth about Syria was published by Palgrave-Macmillan in May 2007. Prof. Rubin’s columns can be read online at: http://gloria.idc.ac.il/articles/index.html.