Evil Good; Good evil, the world upside down…
July 5, 2010 by Roberto Santiago
Filed under Middle East
Isaiah 5:20 KJV Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
By Barry Rubin
Simultaneously, in some far-flung places in the world, several smart people have come up with a horrifying conclusion: radicals are being systematically mainstreamed, real moderates are being declared extremists.
For example, the two semi-official lobbyists for Hamas and Hizballah—Alistair Crooke and Mark Perry—and the biggest defenders of the Ahmadinejad regime in America—Flyntt and Hillary Leverett—are getting adoring write-ups. Crooke and the Leveretts have been profiled in the New York Times. These peoples op-eds appear everywhere, including in the FP (Foreign Policy) blog. Criticism of them seems pretty much barred from the mainstream (there’s that word again) media.
In Australia, there’s an attempt to portray anti-Israel Jewish activists as mainstream and moderate while the traditional pro-Israel groups are said to be extremist. And of course this is what J Street is about: a group headed by a former lobbyist for a company working on a Qatari anti-Israel propaganda group and which itself has hardly ever taken a position supportive of Israel. Could J Street’s cover possibly be more transparent, yet no mainstream media organ ever seems to mention this.
When Hussein Fadlallah, who might be called Hizballah’s founding spiritual guide, died recently, CNN’s chief editor for Arab affairs gushed in all a twitter that she had enormous respect for him while the BBC leaned backwards to sanitize his record.
It sounds better to say someone was an implacable foe of Israel or the United States than that he made virulently antisemitic statements and endorsed numerous terrorist attacks against Americans in which more than 240 U.S. servicemen were killed in Beirut. You see, if people knew this sort of thing they might not like him, or Hizballah.
Mainstreaming may seem to be a great solution but it is the gateway to a much worse situation. For example, General David Petraeus declared on taking command in Afghanistan, “We are in this to win.” But how is the U.S.-led international force going to win? Certainly, they cannot wipe out the Taliban, since the rules of engagement restrain them from doing the kind of thing necessary to root it out. Click here to read the entire article…
The Age of Idiocy
February 23, 2010 by Roberto Santiago
Filed under Middle East
When It Comes to Analyzing the Middle East,
by Barry Rubin of The Rubin Reports
After more than 30 years of watching people write dumb things about the Middle East, I believe that in the last month I’ve seen more nonsense than at any previous time. The problem arises from ignorance, lack of understanding of the region by those presented as experts; plus arrogance, treating the region and the lives of people as a game (Hey, let’s try this and see what happens!), fostered by the failure of such control mechanisms as a balanced debate and editing that rejects simplistic bias or stupidity; as well as a simple lack of logic.
To put it another way, I am reading material that simultaneously has no connection with the real world, is full of internal contradictions, and often seems deliberately tailored to misrepresent events in order to prove a false thesis. Fortunately, this stuff has not done actual damage in the real world–much of it has not been implemented in policy–yet but may in future.
Click here to read the entire article…
Cant We All Get Along?
January 2, 2010 by Roberto Santiago
Filed under Middle East
The “Why Can’t Everyone Just Be Friends”
Narrative of the Israel-Palestinian Conflict,
by Barry Rubin of The Rubin Report
It’s a heartening story just made for this season and the Western media : two seriously injured children, one Israeli and one Palestinian, becoming friends together in a hospital, with an innocence that transcends the hatred of their peoples. The New York Times article is written precisely balanced, two families, two causes, absolutely identical. Oh how foolish is this unnecessary conflict. What folly drives humanity!
On one level, who can object to such a story, so fair, balanced, so humane and touching? Nowadays, to treat Israel on an equal footing with the Palestinians is rare enough and thus should be sufficient.
Yet something bothers me about this story, everything it leaves out and misleads about.
First, the basic tale. Orel was injured by a rocket fired from Gaza at Beersheva. Marya was injured in an Israeli missile which killed a terrorist leader. Both are eight. Click here to read the entire article…
Israeli-Arab War Will Ignite Over Water
November 19, 2009 by Roberto Santiago
Filed under Politics
War, war rumors of war!
ISRAELI-ARAB WAR WILL IGNITE OVER WATER
CHRISTIANS ALERT
MORE TROUBLE IN THE HOLY LAND
by Paul L. Williams
War is looming in the Middle East.
But the cause, according to Arab experts, will be neither the creation of a Palestinian state nor the emergence of a nuclear Iran.
It will arise from the shortage of water.
The region’s worsening water situation, exasperated by global warming and burgeoning populations, already has created civil unrest which, experts fear, will ignite into armed conflicts – – including a clash between Israel with neighboring Lebanon and Egypt.
Jordanian political science professor Ghazi al-Rababah says that Israel will be the first to go to war over the Litani River just north of its border with Lebanon.
