By Barry Rubin
On the occasion of your supporting Palestinian unilateral independence despite the dangers this presents for Israel while simultaneously criticizing Israel for not giving massive concessions in exchange for nothing. On the occasion of the world groveling before Mahmoud Abbas, a ruler of a mere one million people who is in partnership with an explicity genocidal terrorist group, is dependent on Western handouts, refuses to negotiate or compromise, and has cancelled elections at a time when democracy is supposedly the big thing in the Middle East.
On the occasion of your ignoring the fact that Turkey is ruled by an Islamist party engaged in massive repression and the transformation of the country into a dictatorship, holding that regime up as a model for other Muslim-majority states as it arrests dissidents on a massive scale and keeps them under lock and key while threatening war with Israel. The U.S. government chooses this regime as its co-director in the most important new international counter-terrorist initiative and as its manager of the political transition in Syria.
On the occasion of your whitewashing revolutionary Islamism and glorifying anti-Western forces that will yield a harvest of bloodshed and misery in future.
And most of all on the occasion of your ridiculing, censoring, or ignoring far more accurate assessments of the situation.
Here’s the record
1970s
You were wrong about Iran’s revolution.
You were wrong about Saddam not invading Iran.
1980s
You were wrong about Saddam becoming moderate and wrong about him invading Kuwait.
1990s
You were wrong about the 1990s peace process (me, too, but I learned real fast in 2000).
You were wrong about the unilateral withdrawal from southern Lebanon.
You were wrong about the promise that you’d support Israel if it took risks for peace and then things got bad.
Early 2000s
You were wrong about the rise of a stealth Islamist regime in Turkey.
You were wrong about Islamist terrorists attacking America (ridiculing the idea before September 11)
You were wrong about Iran’s nuclear program (during the initial years, you said it wasn’t happening when Israel was warning about it).
You were wrong about letting Hamas participate in the Palestinian election even though it didn’t qualify.
You were wrong in thinking Fatah would win the Palestinian election.
You were wrong in not supporting moderate force in Lebanon and strenuously opposing the power of the Iran-Syria-Hizballah alliance there.
You were wrong in encouraging or even participating in a massive campaign of slander against Israel.
You were wrong in encouraging or even participating in a massive campaign of slander against the United States.
Obama Era
You were wrong about the Egyptian revolution.
You were wrong about Turkey’s regime acting as a radical Islamist power.
You were wrong about Iran again (engagement).
You were wrong about Syria (being winnable from Iran).
You were wrong about Lebanon (not being taken over by Iran, Syria, Hizballah).
You were wrong about Obama (sorry, I only get 800 words total here).
You were wrong about Israel, (a country you never understand).
You were wrong about Islamism (understanding what it’s all about—revolution, not hurt feelings).
You were wrong about Pakistan (helping in a war against terrorism when it sponsors terrorism).
You were wrong about Obama’s policy in the Middle East making America popular there.
You were wrong about flattering Islamists into becoming moderate.
You were wrong about the whole settlement freeze mess (including the wrong claim that it would win moderate gestures from the Arab world).
You were wrong about throwing a tantrum regarding east Jerusalem construction which you’d already agreed was okay to continue.
You were wrong in not throwing a tantrum about the Turkish regime’s sponsoring terrorists on the Gaza flotilla, sabotaging sanctions on Iran, and creating a virtual state of war with Israel.
You were wrong in opening the door to the Taliban in Afghan politics.
You were wrong in opening the door to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egyptian politics (saying the United States had no objection to its being in government without anyone even asking).
You were wrong about thinking that your moving away from Israel would make Arabs and Muslims more moderate and pro-American.
You were wrong to waste almost a year by not dealing with the Palestinian unilateral declaration of independence strategy.
You were wrong in sabotaging any possibility of America becoming more energy independence.
You were wrong in not pressuring the Palestinian Authority to negotiate seriously with Israel.
You were wrong in not giving Israel strong support when it has faced broken agreements, a massive terrorist onslaught, and the rejection of peace in response to its concessions.
That’s just a partial list.
And now you want Israel to risk its future existence on the basis of your advice, leaving aside also the fact that you’ve never confessed error, rethought the basis of these mistakes, and then formed an alternative policy and worldview?
You dare to suggest that you know better the interests of Israel and how it will survive than its people, voters, and leaders? And yet you are ignorant about Israel itself, its experiences in the last two decades, and the situation it faces!
Then your smug media, your arrogant false experts, call us dummies and ridicule our arguments—acts and arguments you don’t dare to confront directly in serious debate? We’re supposed to be impressed? Persuaded? Ashamed? Americans in general and Jews in particular are supposed to ignore the people who have actually lived the experience, know the facts, fought the wars, and taken the risks?
And besides, what about the people of Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran who are horrified by their current governments yet who can expect no real help or understanding from you. How about Saudi Arabia and Jordan, whose strategic plight you ignore. How about the people of Egypt and very possibly Libya and Tunisia who may be facing a tidal wave of repression, economic disaster, and shattered hopes partly due to your mistakes?
The answer is, “No, thanks.”
All I can add is, Take it away, Bob Dylan:
“I just want you to know
I can see through your masks….
You play with my world
Like it’s your little toy….
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher….”
–Bob Dylan, “Masters of War”
Strong words, and from a commentator who had been so defiantly optimistic about Obama early in 2009.
What about the other 95% of Barry’s comments in the article, that have nothing to do with Obama?
Great article Barry! And it is only a partial list because to read that makes my mind reel on many many other points. As Egypt’s economy completely tanks in the next few months the blame, rhetoric and hatred against the West, coupled with the crescendo of the same spewing out of Turkey on the other side of Israel, this will make 1967 squeeze from the UAR look like a cake walk. For God’s sake we had better get our heads screwed on right!
Who is the “you” being addressed here?
Can Mr. Rubin identify one person who took all of these positions?
I don’t know of anyone who pronounced that Saddam would not invade Iran and was involved in forming U.S. policy toward post-Mubarak Egypt, thirty years later.
Many these positions of which are not specific positions at all.
“Wrong about Obama”? The people who expected Obama to abandon the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or to release all the jihadis from Gitmo, were wrong – whether that expectation was hope or fear.
“Wrong about the Egyptian revolution”? It’s difficult to see what predictions were made that have been falsified already. As Chou En-lai famously said of the French Revolution, “It’s too soon to tell.” Though it is clear that the Obama administration fumbled the U.S. response, supporting Mubarak long after it was clear the Egyptian people rejected him. And the Libyan revolution was similarly fumbled – early U.S. intervention might have been immediately decisive, but Obama dithered for weeks.
(On the other hand, some people who who were wrong on most other issues were right about the difficulties to be encountered in occupying Iraq. (Wrong about grand strategy, right about operational conditions.) Credit where credit is due, even to malevolent fools.)
This posting is a bad case of a syndrome that is all too prevalent in the dextrosphere: an eloquent denunciation of the writer’s version of what the opposition says or does. “They were wrong when they said XXX ” becomes a strawman argument, when XXX is stated by the writer rahter than quoted from “them”, especially when “they” are not clearly identified.
‘Who is the “you” being addressed here?’
Whoever it is…they sure are wrong a lot.
Hey, Dave Surls…..
My quivering fingers omitted to attach my #6 to yours here.
…CG.
You-of the destruction of reason, the orgy of altruism, the demands for sacrifice of everybody to everybody else, the complete intellectual chaos, the destruction of the independence of industry, the moral relativism and of course the ecological crusade.
The title makes it obvious that he is addressing many people from the arrogance of Carter through the realists Baker, Weinberger et al through to Obama and madame Hilary. Condoleeza Rice and her security arrangements on the Egyptian/Gaza border and many, many more who were complicit in inciting and spawning violent reactions as they smoked their Cuban cigars and tippled French Cognac.
YOU on the other hand were so right about Iraq, YOU omitted it from YOUR list of HIS blunders. I thought it would be a shame if YOUR readers miss the opportunity to see with their own eyes how prescient YOU can be.
http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/2011/09/17/the-foreign-policy-establishment%E2%80%99s-debate-on-the-middle-east-heats-up/#comments
Moral hazard is all that I have to say on this subject.
The “you” who Mr Rubin refer to here are all of those physically unrelated but who previously fit very comfortably into these confining shoes, but who now are seen to be swinging in that hot dry wind we call ‘hypocrisy’. “They” know who they are. “They’re” trying now to shake those shoes. We mustn’t let them get away with it.
And, dear readers, let’s dare the Washington Post or the New Squawk Times to publish Mr Rubin’s piece here as an “Op Ed”. An open dare…right here.
Let’s rehearse that brassy band piece,”The World Turned Upside Down”, which needs to be nominated to be the Anthem Of The United Nations.
These….. “United Nations”….what a classic oxymoron.
What disgust! “The Sleep Of Reason”, C.P.Snow’s book title, applies right here.
Footnote:
A good picture (un-post-able here) is Goya’s “Sueno la razon”. Our friend Dr. Google has a 410×599 pixels image …you must click for it yourself under “Images”. It’s approprately dark and brooding.
Also appropriate is Dante’s “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here” which ought to be carved deeply into the lintel of the front door to the U.N. Building.
…remember….we (America) pay approximately 25% of the UN’s budget.
Great piece Barry.
Once again you hit the nail on its swollen head. The “you” in this piece, especially the part about the Arab Spring that Ed Koch correctly called a fraud, should be directed at Tom Friedman and Roger Cohen. Both of these imbeciles chided Israel for not being overly enthusiastic about the overthrow of Mubarak. Somehow, the blinkered Israelis felt – based on living in that particular neighborhood for 63 years while Friedman was living in Bethesda and very polite Minneapolis, that what was likely to replace Mubarak would be chaos or a repressive Islamist-military dictatorship. In fact, what we are seeing is both at the same time. An alliance of the incompetent and power hungry with the fanatical and power hungry, which will only bring great hunger, literally, to the Egyptian population.
I want to see all those Western liberals foot the foreign aid bill for food imports that Egypt is going to need to avoid famine, as the result of the current mess.
A more appropriate Dylan song is:
This post is too long for my headache (I’m having some kind of a flu). I suggest a new post listing everything those same people were right about. I estimate that’ll be short enough for me even in my current state.
I just want to ask these same people how come Israel is the only country that has not only created a vibrant democracy, but is the high-tech capital of the region, if not the world. If it was so easy to create a successful country like Israel has, why hasn’t anybody else in the region done it? I mean, sure Israel gets aid from the US, but what about all the oil in the other countries? Israel has no oil.
And Israel has fought 5 defensive wars in its 64 year history, and while not fighting wars, defends against terrorism. Other countries haven’t had to deal with that (although some of them have fought those five wars and lost each time, so perhaps that’s their excuse).
And when I count the number of Nobel Prizes won by citizens of the Middle East, Israel has won 9 and the rest of the countries combined have won 7. Yes, that includes Arafat’s Peace Prize (and well deserved I might add).
I don’t know what it is, but something just doesn’t ring true here. Why is Israel the “Israel” of the Middle East? Why not Saudi Arabia? I mean, look how much money they have. They could afford to hire some really smart people to build a great country. Or even build first class universities, like those in Israel. Why haven’t they done it? Conspiracy? US aid?
I’d love an answer to this question by Israel bashers. There are so many of you, perhaps not here, but I know there are many more than Israel lovers. Help me out with this question. Much appreciated.
Prof. Rubin, you did not name the names of the incompetent soothsayers, let me help with two, Tom Friedman and Freed Zarkhria. I’m sure there are legions more but those are the biggies.
BTW give credit where credit is do. Israelis are not immune to this type of stupidity either. Recall a silly game some Israelis play called “we’re a normal country and we can do something to bring about a peace agreement”. A Dr. Levin wrote about this insanity in The Oslo Syndrome, Delusions of a People Under Siege”. Today I heard former Ambassador Getterman mention that a real peace treaty is possible. I wonder if knows something the rest of us missed.
One analysis that should be respected is Jennifer Griffin of Fox. When queried about the Mid-East peace process she said bluntly that there is none, the idea was merely an invention of the media. I never heard anyone sum it so succinctly and accurately.
If Fareed Zakaria (the king of taqqia) is a “biggie” then how about Noam Chomsky, Richard Falk and Robert Fisk (who recently borrowed his family name to a verb)?
Surely the non-entity Fareed is a by-product of this “school of thought”.
Noam Chomsky has been recognized as a nutcase by anyone who can recognize a nut case for decades. Falk is unknown to anyone not into anti-Israel hate propaganda (either for or against). I don’t know much about Fisk though, didn’t he write a book describing the US defeat in Iraq? Soothsayers like these live in their own little subculture of dreamers and sycophants, most people never hear of them. Zarharia and Friedman actually have audiences. I really don’t know which tree Fareed fell out of.
Clearly he no idea what those people represent for the leftist ideology and how far this influence is spread.
Shall I start with Fisk’s Middle East history interpretations of Falk’s?
Has Bob read *any* of the articles/books published by the aforementioned club? Doubt it.
“Clearly he” HAS
“Shall I start with Fisk’s Middle East history” OR THE …..
Nobody’s perfect.
I seriously doubt this article will change their minds. They won’t lose a gram of arrogance or a second of sleep because simple sanity, justice and the ability to listen to others has departed from this world.
Sir
You are brilliant! I love your articles both here an in Jerusalem Post. I’m a Kurdish origen from the Iranian part and a Swedish citizen. You should just read Swedish papers and watch TV here about ME, Israel-Palestinian, the UN’s Generan Assembly debate and other issues in the region. Oh dear me! It’s unbelievable. My question is if anybody could answer it;
Are these analysts, experts, ME professors, editors … all so miserably ignorant or they simply are coward anti-Israelis? You should listen to the whole establishment and intellectuals gigantic anti-Netanyahu campaign, screaming and shouting ; ” The ultra-Right Israeli government is the main obstacle for two state solution. If, just if this qualition handed over the power to a more peace lover leaders like Beilin or/and Livni everything would be all right because they are willing to go back to 1967- lines, concede East Jerusalem to the Palestinians, accept right of return etc…”. Nobody dare or want to say: but those peace lover Israeli leaders had the power. The Late Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert, Livni and then Defense Minister Amir Perets, every one of them appeasand to Palestinians and conceded almost everything Arafat and Abbas said they wanted.
After nearly twenty years since Oslo there is no peace. Why? Because Abbas says very cler and without any hesitation that Palestinians Statehood is by no means the end of the conflict. No much more to come yet after it. Because the International Community, Media, intellectuals, experts, and ME analysts said exactly the same about ” The more peaceful Israeli leaders” as now they say about Netanyahu. Because nobody dare to say the truth. Namely ; Palestinians final aim is not and has never been ” Return to 1967-lines”. No their concern from the very first day has always been and is May 15, 1948. This conflict has never been about borders or settlements. It has always been about the very existence of The Jewish Stae of Israel.
There are much more to say about the source of this conflict. I just wanted to write down a few lines. Mr. Barry Rubin, you know much better than me and therefor I finish my comment here and continue to enjoy reading you.
Your sincerely with respect
Omar Mohtadi