A "Scholar for Peace" in the Middle East

In Gaza, Hamas’s Insults to Jews Complicate Peace - New York Times:

"The chairman of the Palestinian Scholars League, and a Hamas legislator, Mr. Abu Ras is popularly called “Hamas’s mufti,” because he is ready to give religious sanction to Hamas political structures.

Last month, he criticized Egypt for closing the Gaza border at Israel’s request. He complained, “We are besieged by the sons of Arabism and Islam, as well as by the brothers of apes and pigs.”

... “The Israelis can’t accept criticism. They overreact, like any guilty person.” ...

Then he spoke of his son, who tried to volunteer to fight the Israelis at 17. “I convinced him to wait, he had no weapon, until 20,” Mr. Abu Ras said. “Now he’s a member of Qassam,” the Hamas military wing, “and an example for young people.”"

Very sadly, Israel has its warmongers and its racists, as do most peoples of the earth. Some are found among the rabbinate and the extreme religious observant community. They have a greater role in Israeli political life than I would prefer. But they do not speak for the majority of Israelis, or of Jews, and their blood curdling cries for generational or genocidal warfare, to the limited degree to which that may exist, is not celebrated by the wider culture. Indeed, explicitly racist ultranationalist political parties have been disqualified from participating in Israeli elections.

I have been a supporter of the Israeli peace camp for nearly forty years. I have always believed that Palestinian Arabs, like Jews, should have the opportunity for democratic national expression on some part of their historic homeland. I see the century-long turmoil in historic Palestine/Eretz Israel as a battle between two rights, in which some form of compromise, with both sides giving up some part of their maximal aims and historic claims as the only morally acceptable and politically achievable solution.

The challenge to Israel's peace camp is that the Arab World, including but not limited to the Palestinians, will never accept a permanent non-Arab, non-Muslim society in their midst. On this view, Arab offers of compromise are purely tactical, in the service of eventual subjugation, expulsion, or worse, of virtually all Jews, and any form of Jewish sovereignty, from Eretz Israel. Not just from Jenin, but from Jerusalem. Not just Hebron, but Haifa. And Jaffa. And Acre. And Tel Aviv. Proposals for territorial compromise (various formulations of "land for peace") avoid the enduring reality of implacable hostility to a Jewish sovereign presence, and mistake a temporary ceasefire for the prospect of enduring peace, under less advantageous geo-political and military terms.

Steven Erlanger's richly reported piece in today's Times fills in some of the realities underlying these fears. Many in the West prefer to blink, to avert their eyes from this unpleasant piece of the truth. Erlanger makes that avoidance somewhat more difficult, shoving some grim realities before our face.

The problem, I think, is that an exclusive focus on this piece of the truth--a focus characteristic of both some Jewish political groups (such as ZOA and AIPAC) and some scholars (such as Daniel Pipes and Ruth Wisse, author of the recent Jews and Power)--is that they leave supporters of a secure and flourishing Jewish and democratic Israel with no place to go, with no positive vision, with no basis for hope, for change, for constructive action toward a better future for both Jews and Arabs in their shared historic homeland.

Perhaps that is the reality, and there is nothing to be done about it.

I prefer to believe that some change is possible--but certainly not guaranteed. Over forty years of post-1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, both Israel (as the occupying power) and the Palestinian leadership have done far too little to nurture the delicate seeds of growth toward a shared vision of a shared land, one in which parents do not train their children for lives as martyrs, or glory in their "heroic" deaths, on battlefields or in schools or restaurants.

A stable and enduring peace will require dramatic changes in attitudes and behaviors that will take generations to flower fully, not merely the drawing of lines on maps or the signing of formal documents. It is way past time to embark on such commitments, and for political and cultural and religious leaders to look past the tactical considerations of the moment to the transformational efforts that will be necessary. Anwar Sadat understood this, as did Yitzhak Rabin. Their assassinations cut short promising efforts in the right directions, and powerfully reminded us of the brutal obstacles posed by religious and ultranationalist zealotry, that must be overcome if either people is to live in peace.

If not now, when?

Inauspicious training for ever living together in peace

In Gaza, Hamas’s Fiery Insults to Jews Complicate Peace Effort - New York Times:

"“Jews are a people who cannot be trusted,” Imam Yousif al-Zahar of Hamas told the faithful. “They have been traitors to all agreements — go back to history. Their fate is their vanishing. Look what they are doing to us.”

At Al Omari mosque, the imam cursed the Jews and the “Crusaders,” or Christians, and the Danes, for reprinting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. He referred to Jews as “the brothers of apes and pigs,” while the Hamas television station, Al Aksa, praises suicide bombing and holy war until Palestine is free of Jewish control.

Its videos praise fighters and rocket-launching teams; its broadcasts insult the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, for talking to Israel and the United States; its children’s programs praise “martyrdom,” teach what it calls the perfidy of the Jews and the need to end Israeli occupation over Palestinian land, meaning any part of the state of Israel."

A Response to a Statement on "Genocidal Acts"

Scholars for Peace In the Middle East Condemns Genocidal Acts At Yeshivas Mercaz Harav and Calls For War Crimes Trials For Genocidal Acts

By Edward S. Beck, President, SPME

March 6, 2008	For Immediate Release

In response to the cold-blooded murders at the Yeshiva Mercaz Harav in Jerusalem, the Board of Directors of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, on behalf of its nearly 20,000 participant faculty network at over 1500 colleges and universities around the world, wishes to express its condolences to the mourners of the victims and to the community of educators in which we are all bound together in the common goals to to both educate and enlighten.


The deliberate attack on this venerable institution of Jewish learning, a sacred seminary, cannot be interpreted as anything but an over act of premeditated, genocidal anti-Semitism not dissimilar from the acts of pogroms in Eastern Europe and Nazi SS raids on Jewish communities in Western Europe. Jews were killed simply because they were Jewish.


In no way can this be interpreted as an act of political liberation or of Palestinian self-determination and if the Palestinians insist that it is, then it must be interpreted as nothing less than an act of war against Jews and not just Israel.


Seminaries, synagogues and schools are meant to be solemn sanctuaries where scholarship, knowledge and learning is conducted in a safe and secure environment. When any school is violated with violence, there can be no justification for such actions and when those who attend a house of spiritual learning are violently violated in their sanctuary, such an action must be condemned in the strongest of terms.


We urge those who read this statement to urge their governments, especially those who are members states of the United Nations Security Council to call for an immediate pressing of war crimes charges of genocide against those who continue to perpetuate these genocidal acts upon innocent civilians.

Furthermore, we support the efforts of the Israeli and Palestinian Authority to work harder and more productively to bring an end to the long-standing conflict, but understand that Israel continues to maintain the right protect its civilians from genocidal attacks.

For more information on Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, visit www.spme.net or contact spme@spme.net.

Edward S. Beck Ed.D., CCMHC, NCC, LPC
Walden University; President, SPME

My response:

To signers of this statement:

Words have meaning.

It is important that words associated with extremes of human
conduct be used judiciously so that they retain their distinctive meanings, and so that proper uses of those words (and the experiences properly described by them) are not diminished through gratuitous overuse and dilution of meaning.

One such word is "genocide."

A second such word, one less extreme but nonetheless powerful and distinctive, particularly in Jewish historical context, is "pogrom."

My own view is that the invocation of these terms to describe the
clearly wanton and evil murder of religious students and scholars at Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav by a single individual (perhaps--it is not known at this point-- supported by one or another terrorist gang) is inexact and unhelpful. So are invocations of these terms (and of the term "holocaust") employed by enemies of the State of Israel to describe deaths (including those of civilian women and children, so-called "collateral damage") caused by targeted Israeli attacks on Palestinian militants/terrorists in Gaza and the West Bank.

I am making no claims regarding moral equivalence here, except to say that none of these acts, in my view, constitutes activity meaningfully or usefully described as genocidal. Certainly, if one applies such labels to the murders at Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav, one must do so equally for the slaughter at the Cave of Machpelah by a deranged co-religionist, whose name I decline to mention, at Purim time some years back.

Further, given the current and foreseeable composition and
proclivities of most international institutions in a position to apply such terminology with legal force, I do not think it serves the
interests of Israel, or of the worldwide Jewish community, to encourage the indiscriminate use of these incendiary terms in the context of today's Middle East—at least short of the use (or threat) of weapons of mass destruction.

The attack on the Yeshiva merits moral condemnation in strong terms. I also join your expression of sympathy and condolences to its victims, their families and communities. But the rhetorical escalation of language serves little good purpose here, and I would urge you to reconsider how best to express your justifiable outrage at this heinous act.

Sincerely, (Prof.) Alan J. Weisbard, University of Wisconsin

Attacks Widen Rift Between Gaza and Israel

From The New York Times:
Among the militants killed was Hamza al-Hayya, the son of Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas leader and legislator, the senior Mr. Hayya said. The Israeli Army said the attack was a strike against a squad about to launch rockets. Hamas confirmed that Hamza al-Hayya was leading a rocket squad.

In Gaza, reacting to the news of his son’s death, Khalil al-Hayya said, “I thank God for this gift,” according to The Associated Press, adding, “This is the 10th member of my family to receive the honor of martyrdom.”
*******************

Further comment might seem superfluous. It is hard to imagine progress toward peaceful co-existence amidst such a culture of death. Would that we could all thank God for the opportunity to live together in peace and mutual respect.

Repeating a historic failure

Haaretz: By Shlomo Avineri

What we are now seeing in the Gaza Strip - the inability of the two Palestinian factions to work together within an agreed-upon framework - is nothing but a repeat of this historic failure of the Palestinians. The current Palestinian excuse is that it is difficult to establish coherent political institutions in conditions of territorial fragmentation, refugees and Israeli occupation. All this is true, but irrelevant. Every national movement emerges in difficult conditions, which usually have to do with being under foreign rule. ... But this is the test of a national movement: whether it is able to transform a crisis into a historical moment of opportunity.

The Arab world as a whole does not excel at building institutions, and certainly not democratic ones. Thus far the Palestinian movement has not transcended this common Arab heritage. In the near future this will be its major test: If it does not become aware of the historical burden it is carrying on its shoulders and overcome it, the Palestinians' legitimate desire for independence will shatter on the rocks of the harsh internal reality that has accompanied their movement.

From a considerably longer article, citing chapter and verse.

Saudi Arabia Says It May Meet Israel

New York Times: By HELENE COOPER and DAVID S. CLOUD

JERUSALEM, Aug. 1 — Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said Wednesday that his country would consider attending President Bush’s planned Israeli-Palestinian peace conference in the fall, which would put Saudi officials publicly at the same table as their Israeli counterparts for the first time since 1991.

But Saudi officials said a precondition of its attendance was that the conference tackle the four big “final status” issues that had bedeviled peace negotiators since 1979: the fate of Palestinian refugees who fled or were forced to flee their homes in Israel, mostly before or during the 1948 war; the status of Jerusalem; the borders of a Palestinian state; and the dismantlement of Israeli settlements in the West Bank....

The Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, said later on Wednesday during meetings with Ms. Rice, who flew to Jerusalem after the talks with the Saudis in Jidda, that Israel welcomed the Saudi comments. But in a sign that the Saudi precondition may not be so easy to meet, she added that sometimes “it’s not wise to put the most sensitive issues out first. ...

If Saudi officials do sit down with the Israelis, it will be the first time they have both attended public talks about Israeli-Palestinian peace since the Madrid conference in October 1991. Saudi Arabia, which is the birthplace of Islam, does not recognize Israel, although Saudi officials have also urged the Bush administration to push hard to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli peace issue. There have been some unconfirmed reports of other contacts between Israeli and Saudi officials, including earlier this year.

Arab Envoys and Israelis Meet to Talk Mideast Peace

New York Times:

Mr. Khatib and Mr. Aboul Gheit met with Mr. Olmert; Israel’s foreign minister, Tzipi Livni; President Shimon Peres; and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Likud party leader.

At a joint news conference here, Mr. Aboul Gheit said that he and Mr. Khatib had heard “many positive responses” from Ms. Livni. They said they would be reporting back their findings, and maybe presenting some ideas, to an Arab League ministerial meeting on Monday.

All sides emphasized that the details of any agreement would have to be reached by the Israelis and the Palestinians themselves.

Ms. Livni said the idea was “to advance a bilateral Israeli-Palestinian process and to see how the Arab world can support it.”

Palestinian negotiators have suffered in the past from a lack of support from the Arab world that would help them make the necessary concessions for a deal with Israel. For many Israelis, the promise of full normalization with the Arab world makes the idea of concessions on their part more palatable. Both Ms. Livni and her Arab counterparts pointed to a wide consensus among the Israeli public in favor of an Israeli-Palestinian peace based on the two-state solution."

A message to the moderate Arabs: With Hamas there's no reconciliation, only confrontation

Haaretz : By Shmuel Rosner

Here is a clarification that was issued this week: The Bush administration has no interest in a dialogue with Hamas. This was one of the main messages in Bush's speech, and it was directed at important listeners in three Arab cities: Ramallah, Cairo and Riyadh. Having been burned by the surprise of the Mecca Agreement, and the formation of the Palestinian unity government, the Americans wished to make it clear this week to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, publicly, that they would not look with understanding upon another reconciliation attempt that would essentially bring Hamas back into the arena. They hope, but are not entirely certain, that the message will be received by the Egyptians and also the Saudis - the perpetual potential facilitators of a 'Palestinian reconciliation.' The United States does not want a reconciliation. It wants a confrontation. It wants a decisive victory....

It is against this backdrop that the covert message to Israel must be understood: You ought to close a deal with Fayad and Abbas. For seven years you've been complaining that there's "no partner" on the Palestinian side. First it was Yasser Arafat and then it was Hamas. Now you've got the dream team over there. You won't get anything better.

Read Hass, then Rosner, then Hass again--nearly a perpetual motion machine, based on more or less the same facts. Both published in Haaretz. The same day. And in the Arab press?

World's tallest building built in the Middle East

Jerusalem Post:AP

A year and a half ahead of completion and already 1,680-foot (512 meters) tall, the skyscraper know as Burj Dubai in this Gulf city-state has become the world's tallest building, its developers claimed Saturday.

With it, the Middle East is also set to reclaim the honor of having the tallest man-made structure - centuries after the construction of Egypt's ancient Great Pyramid of Giza held the title with its 481 feet (147 meters), until Paris' Eiffel Tower took over, at a height of 1,023 feet (312 meters), including the flag pole.

If independently confirmed, the Burj Dubai will take over as No. 1 from the Taipei 101 in Taiwan, which has dominated the world's skyline at 1,667 feet (508 meters) since 2004.

The Burj's final height is a closely guarded secret. It is expected to be finished by the end of 2008.

Getting Hezbollah to Behave

New York Times:

...As Mr. Nasrallah put it shortly after the last successful prisoner exchange with Israel in 2004, “These fools do not learn from their past mistakes: when they withdrew from Lebanon, they continued to occupy the Shebaa Farms and kept our brothers in custody.” By doing that, Mr. Nasrallah said of the Israelis, “they opened the door for us.”

Of course, one could argue that even if these “bleeding wounds” were removed, Hezbollah would simply invent other excuses to justify attacks. That’s certainly plausible, given that the Party of God views “resistance” as a fundamental principle, but the point is that these new excuses would undoubtedly be viewed as such: as false choices presented by one party bent on accomplishing its own narrow, even non-Lebanese interests.

And that possibility is one that would only further restrict Hezbollah’s actions, just as it finds itself already restricted by its ever-expanding web of political alliances.

By heeding Mr. Nasrallah’s advice and removing the “bleeding wounds,” the United States and its allies in Europe could then help to unleash exactly the kind of broad-based political, economic and military reform that would further convince Hezbollah and its supporters that the use of violence has become both unnecessary and, ultimately, counterproductive....

Nicholas Noe, a founder and the editor in chief of Mideastwire.com, is the editor of the forthcoming “Voice of Hezbollah: The Statements of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.”

This article, particularly including but not limited to the boldfaced portion, must truly be one of the stupidest things I've ever read on the Middle East. Methinks he has been spending way too much time listening to Nasrallah, and his critical faculties have turned to jelly (which is not to impugn the shrewdness or cunning of Nasrallah).

I don't think it's even worth the effort of going through the motions to provide justification for that conclusion (although I suspect a few of my readers--gluttons for punishment that they may be--will disagree. Nothing new there.)

Forced to Get Along

New York Times: By Mark Helprin

Contrary to the received wisdom, last summer Hezbollah overplayed its hand. Israel emerged shaken but with few casualties and an economy that actually grew during the hostilities. It took 4,000 of the vaunted Katyusha rockets to kill 39 Israelis, they did little material damage, and not one has been launched in the year since the war. Israel showed that upon provocation it could and would destroy anything in its path, thus creating a Lebanese awakening that has split the country and kept Hezbollah fully occupied. Though Hezbollah is rearming, it remains shy of Israel.

Hamas, too, has overplayed its hand, which has provided the opening from which a Palestinian-Israeli peace may emerge. For the first time since 1948, a fundamental division among the Palestinians presents a condition in which the less absolutist view may find shelter and take hold.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah leader and Palestinian president, is weak in many ways, but he has decisively isolated the radicals....

The starving and oppressed Gazans who watch Hamas fire rockets, the chief effect of which is to summon Israeli tanks, may soon see a prosperous West Bank at the brink of statehood and at peace with its neighbors and the world. The quarantine of Gaza will cast a bright light upon the normalization of the West Bank. And although Hamas leaders portray Mr. Abbas as a collaborator, it is they who may be held to account for keeping more than a million of their own people hostage to a gratuitous preference for struggle over success. ...

Egypt, the Persian Gulf states and Jordan have so much to contend with at home and in the east that they cannot afford an active front in their midst, and are therefore forming ranks against Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, bringing most of the rest of the Arab states with them.

This is extraordinary and it is where we are now: on the verge of a rare alignment of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the leading Arab nations and the major powers....Anything for the worse can happen in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and usually does; but now the chief pillars of rejectionist policy lie flat and the spectrum of positions is such that each constructively engaged party can accommodate the others.

In the heat of a failing war, historical processes have unfrozen. If Israel and the Palestinian Authority can pursue a strategy of limited aims, concentrating on bilateral agreements rather than a single work of fallible grandeur, they may accomplish something on the scale of Sadat’s extraordinary démarche of 30 years ago. The odds are perhaps the best they have been since, and responsible governments should recognize them as the spur for appropriate action and risk.

In my rare hopeful moments, I hope for something like this. Not very romantic or idealistic, but perhaps, just perhaps, a path forward.

See, under "Democratic Legitimacy"

Stepping Boldly Off the Curb, With a Wave and a Prayer - New York Times: By MICHAEL SLACKMAN

The most important thing for us is if people follow the rules,” Mr. Hussein said with such understatement about the problem that he might as well have noted how different life would be in the Middle East if only there were peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

The traffic here, and the army of police officers who try to manage it, tell much about modern Egypt in ways big and small. The first seems to be that no matter how crowded, and it is beyond crowded, no matter how chaotic, and it is beyond chaotic, Egypt functions.

The poor manage to eat. Children go to school. Government offices open and close. Garbage is collected. And the traffic flows, or perhaps crawls is a better description.

In fact, it is such a miracle that someone can get from Point A to Point B at certain times of the day that some say it must be a result of divine intervention. ...

“It is amazing how people survive, and how Egypt continues to remain standing, and how the people can still, if they are patient enough, sometimes get to their destinations,” said Osama Anwar Okasha, a television writer whose shows explore Egypt’s social and political life. “It is as though there is some miracle. The solution is in the hands of some invisible force.”

Chaos. It is often the word associated with Egypt’s roads, its maddening bureaucracy, its ill-prepared health care system. But it is chaos only to the untrained eye, the uninitiated, and in the case of driving here, the weak of heart. There is a system, from top to bottom, which may be corrupt, class-based, inefficient and ineffective, but it is a system nonetheless. ...

“In all civilized countries there is no such thing as a guy standing giving signals for 10 hours,” said Brig. Gen. Hussein Bedeir, who supervises the officers. “But here, it is what people are used to.”

Over all, the Egyptian system seems to function on three basic principles: Every man for himself; when necessary, offer a little baksheesh (cash); and accept that money and connections go first.

“We are people who don’t do things unless someone is there to make us do it,” said Essam Qassem, a cabdriver fighting his way along Hassan Sabry Street in the well-to-do area of Zamalek. “We don’t comply with rules on our own.”...

“The problem of Egypt is not that the Egyptian people do not like order,” said Salah Eissa, editor of Al Qahira, a weekly newspaper published by the Ministry of Culture. “It is the problem of making exceptions in enforcing this order — and this applies to traffic. It is something that provokes Egyptians and pushes them to think that since it is all a question of bullying, then every man to himself and everyone becomes a bully.” ...

To make ends meet, he said, he took other jobs, and without saying so acknowledged another fact of life in Egypt: the traffic police routinely take “tips” to allow people to park illegally, to remove boots from seized cars, to look the other way.

Egypt's and Jordan's diplomatic visit to Israel will not be an Arab League mission

International Herald Tribune:

CAIRO, Egypt: The foreign ministers of Egypt and Jordan due to visit Israel later this month will only be representing their countries, not the Arab League, Egypt's chief diplomat said Thursday.

Israel had hoped that the visit would be the first by envoys from the Arab League, which has historically been hostile toward the Jewish state. Some Arab countries are technically in a state of war with Israel since the first Middle East war in 1948.

But Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said his visit to Israel planned for July 25 with his Jordanian counterpart would only be on behalf of their respective countries.

'This is not a visit where the Arab League flag will be raised,' Aboul Gheit told reporters. 'This is a matter of principle.'

So much for that (very brief) hope. Now what was that "principle," again?

Hamas Boycotts Meeting of Palestinian Legislature

New York Times: By STEVEN ERLANGER

JERUSALEM — The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, convened the Palestinian legislature today, but a boycott by the Hamas party meant there was no quorum, which was precisely what Mr. Abbas wanted. With parliament unable to transact business, he can extend the life of the emergency cabinet that he appointed after Hamas fighters took control of the Gaza Strip....

If the legislature is unable to convene, Mr. Abbas may be able to declare the government a “caretaker,” to hold power until new elections can be held. Hamas has said it will not allow new elections to take place before January 2010, when the regular term of four years will be over, and Mr. Abbas has already backed down once, after announcing last December that emergency elections would be held.

An aide to Mr. Abbas said the president is also considering dissolving the legislature and making the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which Fatah controls, the caretaker parliament. ...And in any event, in Fatah’s struggle with Hamas, legal niceties are not being observed by either side, and the debate over what is or is not allowed in the flawed basic law is seen as essentially academic. ...

An independent legislator, Hanan Ashrawi, said: “We are in deep crisis. We cannot continue in this manner. Elections are the only way out of this dangerous constitutional crisis.”

Comment would be superfluous, and probably fatuous.

'The middle of nowhere'

Prospect Magazine: by Edward Luttwak

What actually happens at each of these 'moments of truth'—and we may be approaching another one—is nothing much; only the same old cyclical conflict which always restarts when peace is about to break out, and always dampens down when the violence becomes intense enough. The ease of filming and reporting out of safe and comfortable Israeli hotels inflates the media coverage of every minor affray. But humanitarians should note that the dead from Jewish-Palestinian fighting since 1921 amount to fewer than 100,000—about as many as are killed in a season of conflict in Darfur. ...

Yes, it would be nice if Israelis and Palestinians could settle their differences, but it would do little or nothing to calm the other conflicts in the middle east from Algeria to Iraq, or to stop Muslim-Hindu violence in Kashmir, Muslim-Christian violence in Indonesia and the Philippines, Muslim-Buddhist violence in Thailand, Muslim-animist violence in Sudan, Muslim-Igbo violence in Nigeria, Muslim-Muscovite violence in Chechnya, or the different varieties of inter-Muslim violence between traditionalists and Islamists, and between Sunnis and Shia, nor would it assuage the perfectly understandable hostility of convinced Islamists towards the transgressive west that relentlessly invades their minds, and sometimes their countries.

Arab-Israeli catastrophism is wrong twice over, first because the conflict is contained within rather narrow boundaries, and second because the Levant is just not that important any more. ...

The third and greatest error repeated by middle east experts of all persuasions, by Arabophiles and Arabophobes alike, by Turcologists and by Iranists, is also the simplest to define. It is the very odd belief that these ancient nations are highly malleable. Hardliners keep suggesting that with a bit of well-aimed violence ("the Arabs only understand force") compliance will be obtained. But what happens every time is an increase in hostility; defeat is followed not by collaboration, but by sullen non-cooperation and active resistance too. It is not hard to defeat Arab countries, but it is mostly useless. Violence can work to destroy dangerous weapons but not to induce desired changes in behaviour.

Softliners make exactly the same mistake in reverse. They keep arguing that if only this or that concession were made, if only their policies were followed through to the end and respect shown, or simulated, hostility would cease and a warm Mediterranean amity would emerge. Yet even the most thinly qualified of middle east experts must know that Islam, as with any other civilisation, comprehends the sum total of human life, and that unlike some others it promises superiority in all things for its believers, so that the scientific and technological and cultural backwardness of the lands of Islam generates a constantly renewed sense of humiliation and of civilisational defeat. That fully explains the ubiquity of Muslim violence, and reveals the futility of the palliatives urged by the softliners.

The operational mistake that middle east experts keep making is the failure to recognise that backward societies must be left alone, ... With neither invasions nor friendly engagements, the peoples of the middle east should finally be allowed to have their own history—the one thing that middle east experts of all stripes seem determined to deny them.

That brings us to the mistake that the rest of us make. We devote far too much attention to the middle east, a mostly stagnant region where almost nothing is created in science or the arts—excluding Israel...

The middle east was once the world's most advanced region, but these days its biggest industries are extravagant consumption and the venting of resentment. ...

Unless compelled by immediate danger, we should therefore focus on the old and new lands of creation in Europe and America, in India and east Asia—places where hard-working populations are looking ahead instead of dreaming of the past.

Luttwak has been writing about the Middle East for a lifetime, and if he persuaded us with this argument, he (and many of his successors) would be out of a job.

It's hard to know how many layers of irony may be packed into this piece, but it is interesting to reflect on the press ink devoted to Israel/Palestine relative to other trouble spots (and other issues) around the globe that may be "inherently" (if that has any meaning) more consequential in Luttwak's terms. Why does this little piece of (very historical) dirt, and the limited (however tragic) amount of blood and rhetoric spilled over its control, get the media attention that it does, compared to other stories?

James Baker and friends, and an increasing segment of the political and media elites, seem to buy the line that this dispute has enormous sway over the Arab and Muslim masses of much of the world, and is responsible for a large proportion of the troubles roiling that part of the world. I'm still inclined to believe that while Israel/Palestine provides a highly effective rhetorical rallying cry, it mostly covers other profound strains in the Islamic world's confrontation with modernity, and that a plausible peaceful resolution (however desirable in its own terms) would do little to lower tensions around the world, and might in fact exacerbate some.

Why can't Jews and Palestinians make peace?

Haaretz : By Bradley Berson

What, then, are some of the factors making this particular form of mental illness so resistant to treatment? What, in sum, is the matter with these people? Herewith a few:

# They are profoundly, irreparably childish in a way only adults deprived of a childhood can be.

# They are addicted to blame as a way of life. They cannot look at themselves as anything other than victims. They cannot look at the other as anything other than usurpers.

# They desperately need help and advice, but cannot bring themselves to accept it. They tend to be unable to help themselves. They tend to act in ways which defeat their own declare aims. They tend to declare aims which defeat their own ability to reach a solution. They tend to be unable to shed or modify the aims which keep them from providing for the welfare of their own people, aims which keep them from making peace with their neighbors.

# Their spiritual advisors, who, it turns out, are also political kingpins, insist that scripture is proof of real estate ownership.

# Their hardliners, bolstered by their supporters abroad ? who are often even more extreme in their views, equate compromise with treason, failure of will, selling out, crimes against history.

# Convinced of its own moral purity, neither side can abide the idea of moral equivalency any more than it can accept the concept of shared responsibility for the problems and their eventual solution.

It's time for the Jewish community to pressure Israel to accept peace

The Daily Star (Editorial) :

Jewish people around the world have long embraced a mythical view of Israel as a benevolent, modern-day David fighting off the menacing Goliath of the Arab nations. Israel, as the myth goes, is like a weak and tiny island statelet surrounded by an ocean of hostile states and peoples that have rejected peace and instead have actively sought out the destruction of the Jewish state. ...

It is time for Jewish people around the world to adopt a more realistic view of the state of Israel, and it is doubly urgent to do so now because there is an historic opportunity at hand. The Arab League is sending envoys this week to Israel on a mission to promote the Arab peace initiative, a vision of a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict that has been endorsed by all of the league's members. In other words, the Arabs are offering the Israelis a chance to achieve peace. If this gesture does not shatter the myths about Israel's neighbors, nothing will. ...

The goal of peace is within reach, and Jewish people around the world have a duty to encourage Israel to grab it.

I'm not sure how much of a Jewish audience sees the Daily Star of Lebanon, but it is urging world Jewry to encourage Israel to make peace.

You saw it here first.

Is terrorism on the way out?

Haaretz : By Bradley Burston

As anti-Muslim intolerance mounted in much of the West, there was a tendency in the press, as in academia, to coddle Islamists, to sidestep thorny questions, to refrain from pursuing the kind of relentless probing that, locally for example, had for decades yielded reams of newsprint on 'How Israel Has Lost Its Soul,' or 'How Jews Suffered at the Hands of Nazis, and Now Palestinians are Suffering at the Hands of Israelis.'

Many journalists, steering clear of value judgments or words like terrorism, saw themselves as implementing a kind of affirmative action of the mind, telling the untold story of disadvantaged and despairing Muslims, the subtext being: this is the root problem, the World Trade Center and the 18 Jerusalem City Bus were but the symptoms.

Nonetheless, revolutions, like viral epidemics, tend to run their course in time."...

There is little question that as terror hit enlightened nation after enlightened nation, the journalists and editors of each country immediately adopted the idea that there is such a thing as terrorism after all. Victim-blaming gave way overnight to sympathy for the victim.

In the Palestinian context, the irony of the resort to terrorism, is that acts designed to catapult the Palestinian issue to the top of the world's agenda, have over time had the opposite effect. Suicide bombings and post-withdrawal Qassam rockets have soured the world to the plight of the Palestinians, while chaos and brutal fighting between rival parties has drained sympathy for the idea of Palestinian statehood.

The world has tired of its Palestinians, and, at this point, even the Palestinians know why. ...

f we have learned anything in this decade of invasion, occupation and dismay, it is that Muslim terrorism will only end when Muslims decide that it should. Perhaps the obscenities of Muslims fighting Muslims in Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza and Pakistan are beginning to cause the fire of Islamist terror to consume itself.

Part of the range of Israeli opinion. Burston is very idiosyncratic in his views; I'm not quite sure what to make of this posting.
Whistling past the graveyard?

Arab League to make first official visit to Israel

Haaretz :

The foreign ministers of Egypt and Jordan are expected to lead an Arab League mission to Israel this week for talks on a pan-Arab peace initiative, the first visit to Israel by an official delegation from the 22-member organization, Israeli officials said.

The visit would mark an important diplomatic accomplishment for Israel, since the Arab League historically has been hostile toward it. But the league has grown increasingly conciliatory amid the rise of Islamic extremism throughout the region - a concern underscored by Hamas' recent takeover of the Gaza Strip.

An Israeli official said Sunday that Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdul-Ilah al-Khatib and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit were expected in Jerusalem within a few days for talks on the Arab peace proposal and how to support Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in his power struggle with Hamas.

Can Blogging Derail Your Career?

The Chronicle:

In the spring, Informed Comment took center stage in another arena — [Michigan Professor Juan]Cole's own career. After two departments recommended him for a tenured position at Yale University, a senior committee decided last month not to offer him the job after all. Although Yale has declined to explain its decision, numerous accounts in the news media have speculated that Cole's appointment was shot down because of views he expressed on his blog. We asked seven academic bloggers to weigh in on Cole's case and on the hazards of academic blogging.

From Juan Cole [responding to the seven]:

The ability to speak directly and immediately to the public on matters of one's expertise, and to bring to bear all one's skills to affect the public debate, is new and breathtaking. I have had some success in explaining the threat of Al Qaeda and suggesting how it should be combated, and have addressed U.S. counter-terrorism officials on numerous occasions on those matters. And then there is Iraq, about which I was one of the few U.S. historians to have written professionally before the 2003 war. In the summer of 2003, when the general mood of the administration, the news media, and the public was unrelievedly celebratory, I warned that a guerrilla war was building and that powerful sectarian forces such as the movement of Moktada al-Sadr were a gathering threat. I gained a hearing not only with broad segments of the public but also at the highest levels of the U.S. government.

I am a Middle East expert. I lived in the area for nearly 10 years, speak several of its languages, and have given my life to understanding its history and culture. Since September 11, 2001, my country has been profoundly involved with the region, both negatively and positively. Powerful economic and political forces in American society would like to monopolize the discourse on these matters for the sake of their own interests, which may not be the same as the interests of those of us in the general public. Obviously, such forces will attempt to smear and marginalize those with whom they disagree. Before the Internet, they might have had an easier time of it. Being in the middle of all this, trying to help mutual understanding, is what I trained for. Should I have been silent, published only years later in stolid academic prose in journals locked up in a handful of research libraries? And this for the sake of a "career"? The role of the public intellectual is my career. And it is a hell of a career. I recommend it.

Juan R.I. Cole is a professor of modern Middle East and South Asian history at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. His blog can be found at http://juancole.com