Command the Raven

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Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Why So Much of the Western Elite Hates (or Doesn’t Like) Israel (And Their Own Societies, Too)

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By Barry Rubin

Aside from all the traditional reasons—antisemitism, oil money, strategic weight of the Arab world, guilt over colonialist pasts, fear of Islamist violence, etc)—there are some very important new ideological reasons for the dislike (or hate) of Israel by large elements of the Western elite, especially what is called the intellectual elite, there are some new ones of the greatest importance.

If you understand these factors, it also explains a lot more generally about the (temporarily?) hegemonic ideology that has taken over much of Western academia, media, and politics.

1. Religion
As a Jewish state, and a country where religion plays an important role, Israel is anathema to Western leftists and intellectuals who are against religion, or at least against Judeo-Christian religions. Incidentally, though, Israel is not a theologically based or defined states. In fact, Jews are a people who happen to have a distinctive religion, something rather common in history. The idea that Jews are only a religious group is a very recent idea in world history.

But the allergy to religion in public life is a powerful force in Western elites today. Why doesn’t this apply to Islam? There are a number of reasons but one rarely mentioned is that Islam isn’t “their” religion, meaning that they have never personally or collectively rebelled against it, nor has it shaped elements in their own society that these people hate. Islam may be a repressive religion in Saudi Arabia, but it isn’t responsible for Jerry Falwell or the “Christian right.” Hence, to a member of the Western elite, it isn’t “their” problem.

While this is a simplification, to get across the idea I will use the following phrase: Islam for them is in the class of a “quaint, alien custom” rather than something they viscerally hate or believe their societies have dispensed with for the better. This is especially true, of course, for the anti-religious Jews among them.

For those from that general approach, of course, the alternative is to accept secular Zionism and support for non-religious forces in Israel, which are in the large majority of course.

2. Nationalism
Israel represents a nationalist movement and is thus anathema to Western leftists and intellectuals who are against nationalism. As with religion, of course, it is usually only the nationalism of their own people or patriotism toward their country they oppose. As with religion, they think this is a remnant of the “dark ages” of human division and mutual hatred which should be dispensed with as soon and completely as possible. Just as religion is identified with obscurantism and superstition, nationalism is identified with fascism and national chauvinism.

And, again, for the Jews among them who are assimilationist or believe the role of Jews is to be the most steadfast fighters for revolutionary change, Israel is especially repugnant.

Their idea is to make assimilation (and the disappearance of the Jews as a people) count by helping to create a glorious utopian society, the same kind of idea that mobilized Jews to be Communists in earlier generations. [If you are interested, read my book, Assimilation and its Discontents.] Jewish Communists fought, sacrificed, and died for decades only to find that the USSR’s Communism became the most powerful antisemitic ideology during the Soviet Union’s last four and a half decades.

For those from that general framework, a variant of acceptable Zionism historically has been support for left-of-center forces in Israel, not necessarily even far-left ones.

3. Nation-state/peoplehood
The idea that a country should consist of a distinct people, a central idea during the last two centuries and still dominant in most of the world, has become a sin in the thinking of the hegemonic view in the West, indeed the sin of “racism.”

It is important to note that this is true on two different levels:

First, in opposition to the idea that a specific ethnic group be virtually coexistent with the nation-state (the French in France; the Italians in Italy)

But also, second, that the population of a given country should have a coherent culture, identity, and worldview. After all, various countries have absorbed large numbers of immigrants but integrated them into a national community based on common beliefs. Multiculturalism has abandoned this approach.

In other words, it is not enough according to this ideology to have a multi-racial, multi-religious group of people who are “English” or “”French” for example, but a multi-racial, multi-religious group that belongs to multiple communities without an overarching identity and a basic common worldview. (Now that’s a formula for the failure and collapse of a society into violence, poverty, and collapse if I’ve ever heard one.)

Actually, Israel is an example of a country that has absorbed large numbers of immigrants. In proportionate terms there is no nation state in the world that has done this to a greater extent. But Israel is a Jewish state, a state built around a people with a common identity, and this framework, which has been the norm for several centuries in the West, has suddenly been branded illegitimate. And so Israel is hated for this reason by those who would destroy their own people and nation-state. They don’t want a successful example around to discourage suicidal tendencies in their countries.

Incidentally, if a Palestinian state ever comes into being it will be governed according to the constitution already written for it by the Palestinian Authority: An Arab state whose official religion is Islam and which will grant or withhold citizenship depending on whether one is a member of the Palestinian Arab people. And the world is now also accepting in practice a Hamas-ruled Palestinian Islamist state which even further restricts the definition of the nation. How ironic!

4. Israel Fights Revolutionaries
True, the Western Left is…leftist. It supposedly stands for widespread democracy, equality for women and homosexuals, secularism, and various other things. The revolutionary Islamists are rightists and have the opposite position on all of these issues.

But that’s not important. The self-identified revolutionaries of the West, even though they use no violence, see the revolutionaries of the Middle East as kith and kin. The latter are “fighting the man,” to use American slang. They want to overturn the system; they hate the West’s values and policies. So the parlor radicals of the West embrace them. After all, Che Guevara is dead and there are no Marxist revolutionary movements doing much.
So in revolutionary solidarity, elements of the Western elites embrace those who would love to torture or shoot them as romantic figures. For them, precisely because Israel is pro-Western, it is on the side of the “reactionaries.”

5. Israel Fights to Defend Itself
If you are under attack because people want to wipe you off the map and deliberately attack your civilians as their main strategy (it’s called terrorism), and you defend yourself, there is going to be violence. If there is violence and you are the least bit successful, there will be casualties on the other side. And inevitably in modern war—no matter how hard you try to avoid it—some of those casualties are going to be civilians.

There are many in Western elites who are against war and violence, at least unless it is waged “perfectly” with no casualties, or no military casualties, on the other side.

“Worse” yet, you might win the war. If the other side refuses to give up and make some kind of equitable peace, the conflict will go on. If you capture their territory and they refuse to make peace, you have to occupy it. All these things are impermissible according the (temporarily?) dominant ideology in much of the West.

Thus, Israel’s “sin” is to defend itself and to win. There are, however, rational people in the West who think this is a good thing. The cleverness of the strategy of Israel’s enemies is to use their own people as human shields, to promote their suffering to gain sympathy abroad and mobilize militancy at home. This fools many people in the West, though there are others who see through this ploy.

6. Israel is involved in Conflict
There are those in the West who think that conflict is not only a bad thing but a wholly unnecessary thing. There’s a Yiddish proverb that goes: Only a dead man has no problems. The extreme form of this as applied to contemporary views is if there’s a conflict caused by Israel’s existence, end Israel’s existence and there’s no more problem.

In addition, however, there is a more moderate version: Since conflict is unnatural, the conflict can and should be quickly ended. By demanding that the conflict only be ended on terms that ensure its security and end the conflict, Israel is being obstructive.

So for much of the anti-Israel left, the conflict can be ended real fast and would be only if Israel gave in on every point. Thus, there would be no violence or anti-Western sentiment in the Middle East and no terrorism in the world.

This leads into…

7. Causes of Radicalism
To paraphrase Paul Berman, the new ideology refuses to face the fact that there are deep conflicts in the world and that there are anti-freedom forces seeking to take power and oppress others or even wipe them out. Consequently, there are two ways to deal with this: ignore the threat or insist that it can be wished away. (This one is also prevalent on the Israeli far left.)

Ignore the threat: There are no radicals, just people seeking to be free and materially well-off. So the threat to Israel would disappear if only Israel changed its policy or made huge concessions.

Wish away the threat: Be nice to the radicals, apologize to them, engage them, give them what they want, and they will become moderate.

Israel is thus in the way to solving all these big problems. Consequently, it is at fault for their continuation. Possibly Israelis are stupid and don’t understand that their real interest is to give in and give away. Of course, it is the “great geniuses” who understand nothing and would be in the crocodile’s belly before you can say, “Tom Freedman is an appalling sycophant.”

8. If you’re “non-white,” you’re automatically right; if you’re the underdog we’ll roll your log.
[This was a tough rhyme. Log-rolling is an old American political slang word, meaning that I will help you get what you want.]

Reacting against centuries of discrimination and racism, the current idea is not to banish racialism—as Martin Luther King advocated, to create a color-blind society—but merely to reverse it. Israel is seen as stronger, whiter, and First World. [In reality, the skin tone test wouldn’t work between Israel and some of its enemies.]

If you are a Western elite left-wing hegemonic type, you feel guilty for being rich. But that’s ok. You can hold onto everything you have (even a gas-guzzling car] and redeem yourself by having Israel pay the bill for you.

Being the underdog, however, does not make someone automatically virtuous, especially if your problem is largely your own fault. African-Americans faced slavery and discrimination and thus are legitimate underdogs; Israel’s enemies have repressive dictatorships, waged war and terrorism, and refused compromises that would have solved their problems (with Israel, at least). That’s why they are worse off. It is political vice, not virtue that has landed them there.

So if Israel has “made the desert bloom,” produced so many great inventions and innovations that benefit humanity, won the wars and survived, that is all the more reason for those who hate Israel to hate Israel. As Bob Dylan writes, they say, “There’s no success like failure.” But, in fact, “Failure’s no success at all.” Or as I wrote years ago about Yasir Arafat, the trouble with having your strategy based on being an underdog is that you have to keep losing.

Another element here is the view that, to paraphrase an intellectual famous for being…an intellectual, Susan Sontag, Western civilization is the cancer of the world. Israel is thus part of that cancer which must be cut out. Or to paraphrase a famous slogan of the last group that seriously tried to wipe out the Jews, “Today Israel, Tomorrow the Western World!” Again, Israel’s virtues–reasonably regulated capitalism, democracy, modernism, freedom, success–are precisely the reasons for it to be hated.

The success of America is poison to this portions of the elite because they don’t want to believe that these techniques lead to success. The same applies to Europe. And they refuse to realize that their proposed policies will wreck their own countries. They want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, eat it, and then expect to still get golden eggs every day.

And so in many ways, Israel is merely a stand-in for everything they hate closer to home. This is an important secret that must be kept from its own people because it will lose the anti-Israel mob support. (Reminds me of the Canadian anti-Israel group which talked too much, going from condemning Israel as a settler-colonial state that should be abolished to saying the same thing about Canada. Oops!)

This is quite a long list. I should hasten to add that brevity forces simplification and that not all the above characteristics can be found in one person or political group. To do a proper job of explaining this, especially by offering the dozens of examples going through my mind as I write this, would require a book. Hopefully, though, this effort is useful for you.

Finally, there is an important other side to this analysis. Those in the West who don’t agree with the above list of items tend to be supportive of Israel. This doesn’t just mean conservatives but real liberals (in the American sense of that word). And as the extreme left wears out its welcome mainly due to other issues—a process that is happening pretty fast and steadily—the pendulum is swinging back. In fact, if one examines public opinion polls and looks beyond the elite mass media this trend is already visible.

Come to think of it, that’s a really good reason for the anti-Israel group to hate Israel: It is living proof that they are wrong.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (PalgraveMacmillan). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; The West and the Middle East (four volumes); and The Muslim Brotherhood. To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Flash: King Abdallah Compliments President Obama, Sort Of?

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By Barry Rubin

According to the press pool reporter for the meeting between King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia and President Barack H. Obama of the United States, who wrote it just after stepping out of the meeting room, the king:

“Began his remarks saying he wanted to tell Obama what was spoken of him around the world: `That you are an honorable and good man.’”

Is it just me or is there a gigantic unspoken, “But…” at the end of that sentence? It is true that Obama clearly relished this compliment. After all, popularity is everything to him. Presumably, it is the kind of thing his supporters think proves he has been successful.

Yet imagine two Middle East leaders or other rulers meeting: “Hey, ___, you’re a really honorable and good man!” Does that indicate the compliment-giver respects or fears or will do what the subject of that phrase wants him to do? No, quite the opposite.

Syrian dictator Bashar al-Asad said that it was better to be feared than loved. Usama bin Ladin said people prefer the strong horse in a race. He didn’t say anything about the honorable and good horse. I can’t think of anyone in Arab politics in the last 80 years who could be described as “honorable and good.” Maybe, King Hussein of Jordan, but he had to appear nice since he ruled the weakest country in the region. And even he had an iron fist, as he demonstrated in crushing the PLO in September 1970.

And so, knowing something of how King Abdallah thinks, I can’t help but hear some possible implied endings in his statement to the president:

You are an honorable and good man, but so weak that even the camels laugh at you.

You are an honorable and good man, and you know what they say, “Honorable and good men finish last.”

You are an honorable and good man. Unfortunately, your enemies aren’t!

You are an honorable and good man. But I want someone who is tough, mean, and cleverly devious to protect me.

You are an honorable and good man. So give me all your money now. You see, my father was the president of the Bank of Nigeria who just died after stealing all the bank’s money. So if I have all your savings I can sneak his money out of the country and give you a 1000 percent profit! Here’s the PO Box where you should send the money….

You are an honorable and good man, so give me Israel bound hand and foot to prove it. [Which reminds me of what a very smart and experienced Middle East hand told me he heard from a Saudi official not long ago. The Saudi said: From our standpoint, America and Israel are like members of the same family. So if you treat them like you're doing how can we expect you to treat us?]

Anyway, “Complete King Abdallah’s Sentence” would make a good parlor game with many possible responses. (Send me yours and if it fits I’ll add it in here.)

The king’s remark also reminds of Mark Antony’s speech in William Shakespeare’s play, “Julius Caesar,” which I’ll bet the king hasn’t read. While repeatedly calling Brutus an “honorable man” to his face, Antony systematically destroys him by letting the watching crowd hear the sneer in his voice. By the time Antony’s speech is finished, the mob is chasing Brutus out of town and burning down his house. So how credible is the king whose government claims that none of its citizens were involved in the September 11 attacks?

Abdullah also said that the citizens of America are considered friends of the Muslim and Arab worlds alike, as well as friends to humanity. Idle curiosity: Did the king say this to George W. Bush also?

Funny, you wouldn’t know that as the way people thought from the Saudi state-controlled media, mosque sermons, and just about everything else said within the kingdom or in most other Arab and Muslim-majority countries. Public opinion polls also show that this is the exact opposite to be true. Neither Obama nor the United States is held in high regard.

What is especially funny about this for me is that not long before reading this I heard from a very authoritative source a quite detailed first-hand account of a meeting between the leader of a European and of a Latin American country–both U.S. allies–in which they spent their time ridiculing Obama and confessing their common lack of faith in him. Such conversations are going on all over the world.

Only in the United States (or should I say, certain parts of the United States) are people still unaware of this reality.

Indeed, after reading this article, an Arabic-speaking friend wrote: “It’s one of the most serious articles you’ve written. It basically means he’s been disrespected to his face by one of his closest allies, and they regard him as a liability. While at the same time Iran is acquiring nukes. The implications of this situation couldn’t be more serious.”

I responded: “Do you realize that almost nobody in the United States will understand this? They will just think their president has received a nice compliment.”

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (PalgraveMacmillan). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; The West and the Middle East (four volumes); and The Muslim Brotherhood. To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

THAT’S GOD
It was one of the hottest days of the dry season. We had not seen rain in almost a month. The crops were dying. Cows had stopped giving milk. The creeks and streams were long gone back into the earth. It was a dry season that would bankrupt several farmers before it was through.
Every day, my husband and his brothers would go about the arduous process of trying to get water to the fields. Lately this process had involved taking a truck to the local water rendering plant and filling it up with water. But severe rationing had cut everyone off. If we Didn‘t see some rain soon…we would lose everything.

It was on this day that I learned the true lesson of sharing and witnessed the only miracle I have seen with my own eyes. I was in the kitchen making lunch for my husband and his brothers when I saw my 6-year-old son, Billy, walking toward the woods. He wasn’t walking with the usual carefree abandon of a youth but with a serious purpose. I could only see his back. He was obviously walking with a great effort … trying to be as still as possible. Minutes after he disappeared into the woods, he came running out again, toward the house.

I went back to making sandwiches; thinking that whatever task he had been doing was completed. Moments later, however, he was once again walking in that slow purposeful stride toward the woods. This activity went on for an hour: walking carefully to the woods, running back to the house.
Finally I couldn’t take it any longer and I crept out of the house and followed him on his journey (being very careful not to be seen…as he was obviously doing important work and didn’t need his Mommy checking up on him). He was cupping both hands in front of him as he walked, being very careful not to spill the water he held in them … maybe two or three tablespoons were held in his tiny hands. I sneaked close as he went into the woods. Branches and thorns slapped his little face, but he did not try to avoid them. He had a much higher purpose. As I leaned in to spy on him, I saw the most amazing site.
Several large deer loomed in front of him. Billy walked right up to them. I almost screamed for him to get away. A huge buck with elaborate antlers was dangerously close. But the buck did not threaten him…he didn’t even move as Billy knelt down. And I saw a tiny fawn lying on the ground; obviously suffering from dehydration and heat exhaustion, lift its head with great effort to lap up the water cupped in my beautiful boy’s hand. When the water was gone, Billy jumped up to run back to the house and I hid behind a tree.

I followed him back to the house to a spigot to which we had shut off the water. Billy opened it all the way up and a small trickle began to creep out. He knelt there, letting the drip, drip slowly fill up his makeshift ‘cup,’ as the sun beat down on his little back. And it came clear to me: The trouble he had gotten into for playing with the hose the week before. The lecture he had received about the importance of not wasting water. The reason he didn’t ask me to help him. It took almost twenty minutes for the drops to fill his hands. When he stood up and began the trek back, I was there in front of him.
His little eyes just filled with tears. ‘I’m not wasting,’ was all he said. As he began his walk, I joined him…with a small pot of water from the kitchen. I let him tend to the fawn. I stayed away. It was his job. I stood on the edge of the woods watching the most beautiful heart I have ever known working so hard to save another life. As the tears that rolled down my face began to hit the ground, other drops…and more drops…and more suddenly joined them. I looked up at the sky. It was as if God, himself, was weeping with pride.

Some will probably say that this was all just a huge coincidence. Those miracles don’t really exist. That it was bound to rain sometime. And I can’t argue with that… I’m not going to try. All I can say is that the rain that came that day saved our farm…just like the actions of one little boy saved another.

I don’t know if anyone will read this…but I had to send it out. To honor the memory of my beautiful Billy, who was taken from me much too soon… But not before showing me the true face of God, in a little, sunburned body.

*~THAT’S GOD ~*
Have you ever been just sitting there and all of a sudden you feel like doing something nice for someone you care for?

THAT’S GOD! He speaks to you through the Holy Spirit

Have you ever been down and out and nobody seems to be around for you to talk to?
THAT’S GOD! He wants you to speak to Him.
Have you ever been thinking about somebody that you haven’t seen in a long time and then next thing you know you see them or receive a phone call from them?
THAT’S GOD! There’s no such thing as coincidence.
Have you ever received something wonderful that you didn’t even ask for, like money in the mail, a debt that had mysteriously been cleared, or a coupon to a department store where you had just seen something you wanted, but couldn’t afford.
THAT’S GOD. . He knows the desires of your heart. .
Have you ever been in a situation and you had no clue how it is going to get better, but now you look back on it?
THAT’S GOD! He passes us through tribulation to see a brighter day.

Proverbs 22:2 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)

2 The rich and poor meet together: the LORD is the maker of them all.

Note, 1. Among the children of men divine Providence has so ordered it that some are rich and others poor, and these are intermixed in societies: The Lord is the Maker of both, both the author of their being and the disposer of their lot. The greatest man in the world must acknowledge God to be his Maker, and is under the same obligations to be subject to him that the meanest is; and the poorest has the honour to be the work of God’s hands as much as the greatest. Have they not all one Father? Mal. ii. 10; Job xxxi. 15. God makes some rich, that they may be charitable to the poor, and others poor, that they may be serviceable to the rich; and they have need of one another, 1 Cor. xii. 21. He make some poor, to exercise their patience, and contentment, and dependence upon God, and others rich, to exercise their thankfulness and beneficence. Even the poor we have always with us; they shall never cease out of the land, nor the rich neither.

2. Notwithstanding the distance that is in many respects between rich and poor, yet in most things they meet together, especially before the Lord, who is the Maker of them all, and regards not the rich more than the poor, Job xxxiv. 19. Rich and poor meet together at the bar of God’s justice, all guilty before God, concluded under sin, and shapen in iniquity, the rich as much as the poor; and they meet at the throne of God’s grace; the poor are as welcome there as the rich. There is the same Christ, the same scripture, the same Spirit, the same covenant of promises, for them both. There is the same heaven for poor saints that there is for rich: Lazarus is in the bosom of Abraham. And there is the same hell for rich sinners that there is for poor. All stand upon the same level before God, as they do also in the grave. The small and great are there.
- Matthew Henry Commentary

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12 The eyes of the LORD preserve knowledge, and he overthroweth the words of the transgressor.

Here is, 1. The special care God takes to preserve knowledge, that is, to keep up religion in the world by keeping up among men the knowledge of himself and of good and evil, notwithstanding the corruption of mankind, and the artifices of Satan to blind men’s minds and keep them in ignorance. It is a wonderful instance of the power and goodness of the eyes of the Lord, that is, his watchful providence. He preserves men of knowledge, wise and good men (2 Chron. 16:9 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
), particularly faithful witnesses, who speak what they know; God protects such, and prospers their counsels. He does by his grace preserve knowledge in such, secures his own work and interest in them. See Prov. 2:7, 8 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
.

2. The just vengeance God takes on those that speak and act against knowledge and against the interests of knowledge and religion in the world: He overthrows the words of the transgressor, and preserves knowledge in spite of him. He defeats all the counsels and designs of false and treacherous men, and turns them to their own confusion.
- Matthew Henry Commentary

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13 The slothful man saith, There is a lion without, I shall be slain in the streets.

Note, 1. Those that have no love for their business will never want excuses to shake it off. Multitudes are ruined, both for soul and body, by their slothfulness, and yet still they have something or other to say for themselves, so ingenious are men in putting a cheat upon their own souls. And who, I pray, will be the gainer at last, when the pretences will be all rejected as vain and frivolous?

2. Many frighten themselves from real duties by imaginary difficulties: The slothful man has work to do without in the fields, but he fancies there is a lion there; nay, he pretends he dares not go along the streets for fear somebody or other should meet him and kill him. He does not himself think so; he only says so to those that call him up. He talks of a lion without, but considers not his real danger from the devil, that roaring lion, which is in bed with him, and from his own slothfulness, which kills him.
- Matthew Henry Commentary

Luke 11:13 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.

The supreme gift of the Holy Spirit, which includes all real good, to be appreciated, and so to be of any value, must come to a longing of the soul itself.

The asking expresses dependence, gives reality to faith, brings us near to God, renders the blessing more precious, and renders us the more grateful in the enjoyment of it.

Through prayer we have immediate access to the Fountain of Spiritual life, and, since the will of God is our sanctification, if we fail to grow in grace, and to have spiritual power over the world, it is for lack of earnest, urgent, believing prayer. – Joseph P Thompson.

Have you received the Holy Spirit in fullness for holy living and efficient service? Ask and ye shall receive. We may test the value of our prayers by examining ourselves as to whether we are growing in grace and in spiritual power in the world.
- Daily Meditations for Prayer.

From Telegraph.Co.UK

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/7860966/Terrafugia-Transition-flying-car-gets-go-ahead-from-US-air-authorities.html

Submitted by

Dr.Des.Org

From Rubin Reports.Blogspot.Com

The Privileged Slander: Why the Media Laps Up The Anti-Israel Lying Campaign Posted: 27 Jun 2010 08:21 AM PDT Please be subscriber 16,715. Put your email address in the box, upper right-hand of the page. We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, upper-right hand corner of this page. By check: “American Friends of IDC.” “For GLORIA Center” on memo line. Mail: American Friends of IDC, 116 East 16th St., 11th Floor, NY, NY 10003. By Barry Rubin Israel is subject daily to scores of false claims and slanders that receive a remarkable amount of credibility in Western media, academic, and intellectual circles even when no proof is offered. Palestinian groups (including the Gaza and Palestinian Authority regimes), associated local and allied foreign non-government organizations, Western radical and anti-Israel groups, and politically committed journalists are eager to act as propaganda agents making up false stories or transmitting them without serious thought or checking. Others have simply defined the Palestinians as the “victims” and “underdogs” while Israel is the “villain” and “oppressor.” Yet truth remains truth; academic and journalist standards are supposed to apply. While regular journalists may ask for an official Israeli reaction to such stories the undermanned government agencies are deluged by hundreds of these stories, and committed to checking out seriously each one. Thus, the Israeli government cannot keep up with the flow of lies. So the key question is to understand the deliberateness of this anti-Israel propaganda and evaluating the credibility of the sources. An important aspect of this is to understand that Israel is a decent, democratic country with a free media that is energetic about exploring any alleged wrongdoing and a fair court system that does the same. To demonize Israel into a monstrous, murderous state—which is often done—makes people believe any negative story. Some of these are big false stories—the alleged killing of Muhammad al-Dura and the supposed Jenin massacre—others are tiny. Some—like the claim Israel was murdering Palestinians to steal their organs– get into the main Western newspapers while others only make it into smaller and non-English ones. Taken together, this campaign of falsification is creating a big wave not only of anti-Israel sentiment but of antisemitism on a Medieval scale, simply the modern equivalent of claims that the Jews poisoned wells, spread Bubonic Plague, or murdered children to use their blood for Passover matzohs. Come to think of it even those claims are still in circulation. Indeed, on June 8, the Syrian representative at the UN Human Rights Council (oh, the irony!) claimed in a speech that Israeli children are taught to extoll blood-drinking. No Western delegate attacked the statement. Here are three actual examples of well-educated Westerners believing such modern legends reported to me recently by colleagues: –A former classmate, one told me, claimed that the Palestinians are living in death camps, being starved, etc. Asked to provide facts and provided with evidence to the contrary, he could provide no real examples. Finally, he remarked, `The truth is always somewhere in the middle.’” –Hundreds of American college professors signed a petition claiming that Israel was supposedly about to throw hundreds of thousands of Palestinians out of the West Bank though there was zero evidence of any such intention and, of course, nothing ever happened. –A British writer of some fame claimed, on the basis of an alleged single conversation with a questionable source, that Israel was preparing gas chambers for the mass murder of Palestinians. When asked if she was really claiming this would happen, she stated that it wasn’t going to happen but only because people like her had sounded the alarm to prevent it. Here is one example plucked from today’s mail. The Palestinian Authority Health Ministry claimed that Israel was holding up seven oxygen machines intended for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and paid for by the Norwegian government. It said that a protest was being made to Norway. The story was picked up by several European newspapers. No evidence or specifics—what Israeli agency held them up? What dates? What hospitals were these for?–was provided. Asked to look into this, an Israeli official did so and pointed out that there were no controls over such imports into the West Bank so there would be no basis for holding up anything. As for the story generally, no applications to import such machines had been filed, there was no record of any such machines arriving, and thus nothing had been held up. In short, the story is completely false, presuming that the Palestinian Authority health ministry won’t provide documents and specifics. But that isn’t going to happen as it will just be on to the next false story, hoping for a bigger media response. Having seen so many such stories disproved over the years—as Israel’s credibility, while not perfect, has compared favorably with that of any Western democratic state—one might think a lesson would be learned. But as the great American journalist Eric Severeid remarked many years ago, nothing can protect someone when the media sets out deliberately to misunderstand and report falsely about them. In addition, they should only repeat, report, or believe stories based on credible identified sources citing specific names, dates, and details. In addition, stories or claims should be internally logical and make sense given known facts. The idea that Israel enjoys killing or injuring Palestinians for fun does not meet that test. Honorable journalists and scholars should take note and approach these false stories more skeptically. They should also reexamine their stereotypes and remember that their political views should be kept as much as possible out of their professional work. Not so long ago, the above points would have been taken for granted as the most basic and obvious principles. They need to be relearned. Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (PalgraveMacmillan). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; The West and the Middle East (four volumes); and The Muslim Brotherhood. To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

Europe Battles Over Its Future: A Dutch Case Study Posted: 26 Jun 2010 02:39 PM PDT The following article was published in PajamasMedia here. If you forward or reprint it please give them the link and credit. Please note that they chose a title different from the one I preferred and have put into this text. I include the full article below for your convenience. Please be subscriber 16,708. Put your email address in the box, upper right-hand of the page. We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, upper-right hand corner of this page. By check: “American Friends of IDC.” “For GLORIA Center” on memo line. Mail: American Friends of IDC, 116 East 16th St., 11th Floor, NY, NY 10003. By Barry Rubin The political situation in Europe today is quite different from the stereotype of a continent hostile to the United States (even if Obama is personally popular) and Israel; appeasement-oriented toward Iran and revolutionary Islamism; and eagerly multicultural and Politically Correct. True, it is more oriented in that direction than North America, but there is a real struggle afoot. In many countries—notably the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Germany, and to a slightly lesser extent the United Kingdom and France—the partisan gap between the left and center-right marks a boundary of much greater significance than a decade or two ago. Although each situation is different, the parties of the left tend to be more anti-American and anti-Israel and less alert to the threat of revolutionary Islamism as well as favoring continued large-scale immigration and big-state, big-spending policies. Take the Netherlands as a case study. After elections last month, the parties of the center-right hold 83 seats while those of the left have 67. Since there are ten parties in parliament, talks to form a coalition government will last for weeks, especially since the two largest have only twenty percent each. In the elections, only three seats changed hands between blocs. But the big news was the shift within the center-right, the rise of the People’s Party for Freedom (PVV) led by the controversial Geert Wilders, which almost tripled its vote, going from 9 to 24 seats. To his enemies, almost no epithet is too extreme to throw against him. The flamboyant Wilders has been outspoken in opposing immigration and especially that of Muslims, making a sharp critique of political Islamism and sometimes Islam itself. The power of the Dutch state was turned on Wilders, who is currently on trial for making statements which in America would fall well within Constitutional protection. State television ran documentaries during the election designed to show he was a virtual Nazi. What is Wilders’ program? First, a sharp limitation on asylum seekers admitted into the country and none from Muslim-majority states. No dual nationality; new mosques; separate Islamic schools; wearing of burqas; or government subsidies for Islamic media. Mosques where violence is propagated will be closed and heavy punishment for female circumcision. For their first ten years in Holland, immigrants receive no social benefits or citizenship. At the end of that period, those with no criminal record will receive full citizenship. The rise in support for Wilders’ party is in large part a response to serious concern over the domestic situation in the country. Aside from the assassination of a filmmaker by a radical Islamist, there has been a steep increase in crime and social welfare spending. Amsterdam, not long ago the most gay-friendly city in the world, is a place where homosexuals might be attacked in the streets by Muslim immigrant youth, while a recent television program that followed three Jews wearing identifiable garb as such in a stroll around the city showed them being harassed and insulted. Twenty percent of Dutch teachers report that attempts to teach about the Holocaust, in the country of Anne Frank, were rejected or disrupted by immigrant children. While Muslims still comprise only a bit more than 5 percent of the population, whole areas of Dutch cities have a majority of people who are recent immigrants and whose commitment to assimilation into the country’s norms is questionable. For example, polls show that much of the country’s Muslim population sympathizes with the September 11 attacks. Certainly, they disagree with the Netherlands’ rather libertarian views on women’s rights and homosexuality. One of the main arguments against mass immigration is that it is incredibly costly to Dutch taxpayers. It is possible to be suspicious of a report commissioned by Wilders showing that the cost is 7.2 billion Euros a year to a country of about 16 million people that means each citizen. But in fact that report was written by the country’s most respected independent think tank and is not that much higher than the government’s own estimate of 6 billion a year. And here’s where it gets interesting. For while the focus was on Wilders’ VVD, the second biggest winner was the mainstream conservative (in European terminology, liberal) People’s party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), which went from 22 to 31 seats. The VVD favors lower taxes, smaller government, less government regulation. While Wilders often focuses his criticism on Islam itself, the VVD is quite critical of radical Islamism. And though the VVD’s positions are less extreme than Wilders, it also favors serious reductions in immigration, the closing of mosques where radical doctrines are preached, and the denial of social welfare payments for immigrants during their first decade in the country. These two parties received one-third of the vote and three Christian parties, from whose voters Wilders and the VVD obtained their increased support have somewhat similar stances. For instance, here’s what the platform of the Christian Union, the most liberal—in the American sense of that word—of these parties: ”Every Dutchman has the right to assembly, to religion and to express his opinion. But financial support of Dutch political, cultural and religious institutes from demonstrably non-free countries (such as Saudi-Arabia and Iran) is not permitted. It’s allowed to protect a free society from the importation of bondage.” It also supports banning the burqa from public buildings, public transport, and schools. A similar pattern emerges regarding stances toward Israel. Wilders is an outspoken supporter but the other parties are also sympathetic, though there is an anti-Israel minority in the VVD. The foreign minister, for example, a Christian Democrat, said that Israel was entitled to stop Gaza flotilla ships in international waters, refused to condemn Israel’s actions, and supports tough sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program. While the four non-Wilders center-right parties are more nuanced in their attitude than decades ago, they are certainly not kneejerk anti-Israel in their positions. Thus, about 55 percent of Dutch voters backed parties that want a real change in key policies. Why is nothing dramatic likely to happen? Because 45 percent endorsed parties on the left and given the Dutch passion for consensus, the existence of so many parties, and the reluctance of several parties to bring Wilders’ party into government some kind of broad coalition will likely emerge. On the left, the largest party, Labour, led by former Amsterdam mayor Job Cohen, got less than half of the overall vote. It can be described now as the party of the Dutch status quo, that is, continuation of existing policies. Despite being led by a nominal Jew, it is very critical of Israel and totally uncritical of Hamas. The left favors increases in taxes and government regulations. Outsiders would view this situation of deadlock between two sides with such different visions of Dutch politics and society as a big problem. In contrast, the Dutch believe they thrive on this kind of paradox, finding some compromise to ease them through. Yet can a major crisis be long avoided given the economic and social issues faced by the Netherlands and so many other European states today? Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (PalgraveMacmillan). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; The West and the Middle East (four volumes); and The Muslim Brotherhood. To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

From Rubin Reports.Blogspot.Com

Hamas Attacks UN Summer Camp For Not Being a Terrorist Training Camp Posted: 29 Jun 2010 07:26 AM PDT Please be subscriber 16,733. Put your email address in the box, upper right-hand of the page. We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, upper-right hand corner of this page. By check: “American Friends of IDC.” “For GLORIA Center” on memo line. Mail: American Friends of IDC, 116 East 16th St., 11th Floor, NY, NY 10003. By Barry Rubin Hamas has twice violently attacked UN summer camps in the Gaza Strip in order to destroy them and intimidate kids from attending them. The goal is to force young people to go to Hamas summer camps where they will be given military and ideological training to teach them to be future terrorists. The UN actually condemned the attacks and the Hamas regime for fomenting them. I’m not complaining about this article—a small drop in the ocean of needed media coverage of Hamas’s repression and extremism—but one sentence caught my eye. The UN, “camps provide a rare distraction from the hardships endured by more than 250,000 Palestinian refugees that live in the Gaza Strip.” Unlike many others, this article doesn’t blame Israel for all of these problems but it is also worth recalling why refugees still live in camps. Prior to turning over the Gaza Strip to rule by the Palestinian Authority in 1994, Israel at times tried to resettle the refugees in new housing. This step was not only opposed by the PLO—which wanted to keep the refugees in temporary housing until their triumphant return to a Palestine built on the smoldering remains of a destroyed Israel—but by a UN resolution. And so Israel abandoned the effort. The Palestinian Authority (PA) ruled the Gaza Strip for more than a dozen years and received lavish aid funding, some of it specifically earmarked for new housing. But it was PA policy never to move refugees into new housing, for the same reason as before. Their suffering was good propaganda abroad and also was intended to keep the refugees in a dissatisfied state of mind so they would support continuing the battle until total victory and be willing to sacrifice their lives for the cause. So why do refugees in the Gaza Strip and West Bank live in refugee camps today? For the same reason that there is no Palestinian state: Because of decisions made by the Palestinian leadership, both nationalist and Islamist. There is no way anyone can refute these points, they can only ignore them. The article also repeats another fallacy in referring to Hamas as “the Islamic movement that came to power through elections in 2007 and whose legitimacy the U.N. does not fully recognize….” In fact, Hamas did not come to rule the Gaza Strip due to elections, which did give it a parliamentary majority, but through a bloody and unprovoked coup against the PA. If it had not seized power, it is likely there would be no embargo against the Gaza Strip today nor would there have been any war last year—with the accompanying destruction and loss of life–caused by a Hamas attack on Israel. Again, I am not complaining about this specific article, which is far better than most, or about the UN response it reports, which should be far more common, but merely pointing out how difficult it is—and yet how important it is—to understand the context of the Gaza Strip today. Let me repeat that the Gaza Strip is at present, albeit not internationally recognized as a state, a radical Islamist dictatorship run by a terrorist group seeking genocide, preaching antisemitism, suppressing women, forcing the departure of Christians, teaching its children to become suicide bombers, planning a future war with Israel, likely to subvert Egypt, acting as a client of Iran, and seeking to expel all Western influence from the region. Any discussion about aiding the regime to stay in power or engaging it diplomatically should start by dealing with the previous paragraph. And if all this is too heavy and somber for you, watch this funny—but very true—skit about how the UN usually works and deals with Israel. And here’s a very cautious discussion by a Gazan woman activist on conditions where she points out that Hamas has not gone further because it is trying to win over Western support on the embargo and other issues. Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (PalgraveMacmillan). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; The West and the Middle East (four volumes); and The Muslim Brotherhood. To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

CIA Chief Says Al-Qaida is Weaker. True. But So Is U.S., While Revolutionary Islamist Groups Are Stronger! Posted: 29 Jun 2010 04:05 AM PDT Please be subscriber 16,733. Put your email address in the box, upper right-hand of the page. We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, upper-right hand corner of this page. By check: “American Friends of IDC.” “For GLORIA Center” on memo line. Mail: American Friends of IDC, 116 East 16th St., 11th Floor, NY, NY 10003. By Barry Rubin CIA chief Leon Panetta says al-Qaida is at its weakest point since before the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. He’s probably right, though the amount of decline in the last three years or so has probably not been large. Most of the damage to al-Qaida was done during the preceding administration and that’s a statement of fact not of political viewpoint. After all, depriving al-Qaida of its base in Afghanistan and Taliban ally—the most important actions damaging the group—took place a decade ago. And with a few lucky breaks, for example if passengers on that Detroit-bound plane had been less alert, al-Qaida might well have new massacres to brag about. But the most important question is not who should get credit for weakening al-Qaida—a terrorist group, by the way, that could make Panetta’s optimistic statement look foolishly premature by a single major successful attack on any day of the week—but how one should regard that organization. In terms of launching terrorist attacks on the territory of the United States or on U.S. installations abroad, al-Qaida certainly has been the number-one threat. The group’s decline is certainly a good thing and both administrations deserve credit for fighting that battle. But focusing on al-Qaida, now listed as the sole enemy of the United States in what used to be called the war on terrorism but is now called something or other–leaves out two things of great importance which often seem to be missing in the Obama Administration’s policy. First, the longer-term historical importance of al-Qaida has not been to be the revolutionary impetus in its own name but the inspiration for a great increase in revolutionary Islamist activity in many places. An increase in anti-American terrorism was a key element in this process but is only one part of the picture. Al-Qaida’s role has been particularly important in Iraq, Yemen, and to a lesser extent in North Africa. Left out of the celebration regarding victories over the organization has also been the fact that a lot of the terrorist activity has passed to individuals or small groups in the West and Middle East that act on the basis of ideology, or sometimes of some training and encouragement, rather than as the direct arm of al-Qaida. Consider, for example, the Fort Hood attack or failed attacks in a number of places, including one planned for Fort Dix. Individual Muslims or small affinity groups are active. One cannot, of course, achieve a victory over spontaneous decisions of Muslims to become Jihadists, perhaps after reading al-Qaida or other propaganda. U.S. policy has not so much fought this phenomenon but rather largely pretends that it doesn’t exist. An attack like that at the El Al ticket counter in Los Angeles Airport, or killing a U.S. army recruiter in Arkansas, or attacking a Jewish community center in the Pacific Northwest is merely reinterpreted as the act of an individual deranged mind. The second, and more important, problem with Panetta’s triumphalism is that al-Qaida never posed much of a strategic threat to the United States. Of course, it could stage bloody terror attacks but it could not take over countries. The real threat, then, is the Iran-Syria-Hizballah-Hamas-Iraqi insurgent alliance plus movements like the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and others. Here, too, the administration has played a strategy of ignoring the problem. It seems to believe that by diplomatic engagement, or expressions of sympathy, or benign neglect, or moving away from Israel, or insisting that these movements have nothing to do with Islam, the problem can be defused. But while revolutionary Islamism was set back—at least temporarily—in Iraq it continues to advance elsewhere. Moreover, the movement is further strengthened by the prospect of Iran as a nuclear power and by a U.S. policy that constrains Israel, accepts a Hamas regime in Gaza, does nothing to obstruct Hizballah’s power in Lebanon, is reluctant to pressure Iran, engages rather than weakens Syria, and many more steps like these. Al-Qaida can blow up a building. But the revolutionary Islamists can blow up a country. And soon Iran will be able to blow up the entire Middle East. Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (PalgraveMacmillan). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; The West and the Middle East (four volumes); and The Muslim Brotherhood. To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

Prophetic Word

O My child, have I ever failed thee? Have I ever turned My back upon thee, or forsaken thee? Have I not been thy refuge and thy strong defence?

I have protected thee and kept thee in sickness and in health. Yea, I am with thee to help thee now. Fear not. My purposes will be fulfilled in spite of thy weaknesses, if in thy need ye rely on My strength.

My will shall be done regardless of the flaws in thy life, if ye count upon the power of My righteousness. I do not work only in cases where there are no obstacles; but I glory in over-ruling the prevailing circumstances, and I take pleasure in bringing victories in those places where no victory is anywhere in sight.

Reckon upon My coming. Know that whenever faith brings Me on the scene, everything is changed. Darkness is turned to light. Grief is turned to joy. Sickness to health. Poverty to My sufficient supply. Doubt to faith. Anxiety to trust.

No negative force can occupy the same place as My spirit, When My Spirit comes in, all these things must go. Yea, they shall go!

Ask for the victory. I will come and bring it. Don’t look for the victory – look for Me, and ye shall see the victory that I shall bring with Me.

After I have come, ye shall behold the miracles that I will do.

Come Away My Beloved – Frances J. Roberts