A comment on a previous post made me decide to post this.
To refresh some memories.
Nixon, obviously, covered up the Watergate scandal (as an aside, those who know about the whole thing and who have heard the Watergate tapes, know he didn't plan it, but he did cover up the lies).
Nixon, famously, when caught said "The American people need to know if their President is a thief. Well, I am not a thief." An out and out lie.
Reagan, in a situation that has now been forgotten (interesting isn't it?) was enmeshed in what was arguable a worse situation. His administration was enmeshed in what became known as the "Iran-Contra Affair" or the arms for hostages scandal.
The scandal entailed illegal funding and arming of Nicaragua’s right-wing contras fighting the leftist Sandinista regime as well as illegally trading arms with Iran in exchange for the release of seven American hostages held by Iranian-sponsored militants in Lebanon. Profits from arms sales to Iran were to be used to buy weapons for the contras.
An independent counsel, Lawrence Walsh was appointed. He concluded that the President's most senior advisers and the Cabinet members on the National Security Council participated in the strategy to make National Security staff members McFarlane, Poindexter and North the scapegoats in the scandal. Walsh discovered much of the best evidence of the cover-up in the final year of active investigation, too late for most prosecutions. This actually bled into the Bush administration and was partially responsible for his being limited to one term.
The difference with Nixon? Reagan first appointed his own board, in addition to the independent counsel appointed by the Attorney General. The report of the board was highly critical.
When the findings came out, Reagan went on national TV, just like Nixon. But instead of saying what Nixon did, a blanket denial, Reagan, looking old, and for the first time to the public, a bit confused, said:
"I've studied the Board's report. Its findings are honest, convincing, and highly critical; and I accept them. And tonight I want to share with you my thoughts on these findings and report to you on the actions I'm taking to implement the Board's recommendations.
First, let me say I take full responsibility for my own actions and for those of my administration. As angry as I may be about activities undertaken without my knowledge, I am still accountable for those activities. As disappointed as I may be in some who served me, I'm still the one who must answer to the American people for this behavior. And as personally distasteful as I find secret bank accounts and diverted funds - well, as the Navy would say, this happened on my watch.
Let's start with the part that is the most controversial. A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not As the Tower board reported, what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages. This runs counter to my own beliefs, to administration policy, and to the original strategy we had in mind. There are reasons why it happened, but no excuses. It was a mistake."(my emphasis in both places).
Those of us with some subtly understand that much of the differences in the response to these two speeches had to do with the way they were perceived BEFORE their individual scandals. But one, even as he waffled, confessed, the other denied.
Clemens and Pettite?
While easy, that's one's subtle as well. Reagan lied, Nixon lied. In Reagan's "confession" he still said in his heart it's true that he never traded arms for hostages (huh? ) but he still ultimately confessed. Do I wish it had been full and unequivocal? Yes.
Clemens, as anyone who knows anything, was a serial abuser of Performance enhancers. Dan Duquette the GM of the Red Sox famously said that Clemens was done and let him leave the Red Sox. He went to Toronto and suddenly he was better than ever.
He was caught lying to Congress, denying that he had ever used HgH and other drugs.
His teammate and training partner, Pettite, admitted that he had used HgH "3 times" (meaning 3 injections) that he got from his father.
Now, for me, Pettite's "admission" made him almost worse than Clemems. He was clearly still lying, worse, he threw his own father under the bus.
But ultimately, the way the public viewed it, is that Pettite admitted it, Clemens did not.
Now, Clemens is being prosecuted for lying to Congress, and Pettite will probably end up in the hall of fame, or at least, have a career as a Yankee legend.
This is why, I am constantly stunned by politicians who do not offer a mea culpa. Imagine Bill Clinton simply saying what he did AFTER 4 years of Lewinskygate, right away, early on in the scandal. The Country would have been spared and we might be talking about him as one of the great Presidents in history. Instead, he is the butt of an unlimited number of sex jokes.
One of the things that most frustrates people about me is that I have rigid morality. When I'm right, I say it. And loudly. Does that sound arrogant? Yes.
But when I'm wrong I say it. Just as I publicly pronounced my apology to Mysst, in my personal life I say frequently, "I was wrong".
I am always amazed at what happens when I say this. People don't know how to react. I frequently have to say it over and over again. They are so used to people saying "...but...".
I don't (say but). I'm wrong. It's really not that hard.
We ALL make mistakes. That is what makes us human.
There is a difference in what has gone on here recently. Some are now defending their actions. Others are defending the offenders.
I hope everyone recognizes the differences between those two.
The first, by their actions are really admitting that they are wrong, but they are too embarrassed, or whatever their personal reasons are, to admit what happened.
But by NOT defending the offenders, they are acknowledging what happened.
What does this say? Simple, that their values are actually in place. That they CAN recognize right from wrong.
What is sad, is that for a while, they let that get away.
Now, though, but defending their own actions, they are trying to justify. Is this frustrating? Of course, but I would ask you to recognize the difference between the groups.
The first are good folks gone astray. The second group are Nixon and Clemens.
To the first group, I would say, just say "mea culpa".
The very reason you feel persecuted is a) because you are wrong and more importantly b) because people liked you before and WANT to like you again (like is a weenie word but I'm getting tired of typing). People want simply to know that you recognize what REALLY happened. That you weren't neutral. You didn't ignore. You didn't NOT take sides.
You enabled.
Well, just as in my marriage, I enabled my wife. Did that make me the borderline who abused her husband and children?
No, of course not, but I still played my part. And I will be dealing with that forever.
We all recognize that you are NOT the offender. But you played a part.
We want to have open arms. We like you. We really like you.
All we are asking is that you let us.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
On Diedrich Bonhofer
“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil:
God will not hold us innocent.
Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
— Bonhoeffer
Who was Diedrich Bonhofer?
Bonhofer was a German theologian in the years before WWII. Like my quote from Niemoller, Bonhofer was far from a lover of the Jews, or even a universally "good" guy, so to speak. However he was an avowed pacifist as befitted a man of the clothe, who eventually made contact with the German Resistance and the members of the Abwehr who had committed to assassinate Hitler.
He was captured, tried, and hung just over a month before Hitler himself committed suicide in the Bunker.
However, Bonhofer had actually come to the United States in 1939, to work here in NY at the Union Theological Seminary.
He felt guilty about being here when Germany was going through the upheavals that he was witnessing and he wrote to a friend:
"I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period in our national history with the people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people... Christians in Germany will have to face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose but I cannot make that choice from security." (My emphasis)
God will not hold us innocent.
Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
— Bonhoeffer
Who was Diedrich Bonhofer?
Bonhofer was a German theologian in the years before WWII. Like my quote from Niemoller, Bonhofer was far from a lover of the Jews, or even a universally "good" guy, so to speak. However he was an avowed pacifist as befitted a man of the clothe, who eventually made contact with the German Resistance and the members of the Abwehr who had committed to assassinate Hitler.
He was captured, tried, and hung just over a month before Hitler himself committed suicide in the Bunker.
However, Bonhofer had actually come to the United States in 1939, to work here in NY at the Union Theological Seminary.
He felt guilty about being here when Germany was going through the upheavals that he was witnessing and he wrote to a friend:
"I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period in our national history with the people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people... Christians in Germany will have to face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose but I cannot make that choice from security." (My emphasis)
Saturday, May 21, 2011
It's Finally Over!
Most of you are newer readers of my blog but several years ago I wrote a serious of posts about performance enhancing drugs in sports:
A brief history of steroids and performing enhancing drugs - Part one
A brief history of steroids and performing enhancing drugs - Part two
A brief history of Steroids and performing ehnhancing drugs - Part 3: Naming names!
A brief history of Steroids and performing ehnhancing drugs - Part 4: How the testing works .
HgH, Sly Stallone and me: An update to "A Brief History of Steroids...", Part 5
The Hall of Fame, McGwire, Dick Pound and WADA: an update to: A brief history of Steroids.....
A new study: An update to "A brief History of Performing Enhancing Drugs..." Part 7
The Tour de France today: An update to "A Brief History of Steroids...."
An update to: "A brief history of Steroids and performing ehnhancing drugs "
You'll notice the Tour De France installment. I have never been a fan of Lance Armstrong. Let me correct that. When he was a young up and comer, before his cancer, and he won the World Championship - usually a portent of big things to come for a young cyclist.
And even when he began to win the Tour, well he had been a protege of my cycling hero, Greg LeMond.
Of course I knew he used drugs, every world class athlete does. But then things changed. He became "Lance the superhero". The man who had been tested "more times than any other athlete" according to him (well, at least the same # of times as the other cyclists in the tour with him).
And then, worse, he became so holier than thou about the whole thing.
His Dr. busted for providing for blood doping all his clients earning the nickname "Dr. Blood"? Nothing
The fact that his blood, used as a test sample for the new test for EPO, the drug cyclists use most to build additional aerobic capacity, test positive for his 2d tour victory but b/c it was for a past tour he couldn't be suspended? Not a chance
The fact that every top rider who ever rode in support of him has been busted for drugs or admitted to using them? No way, NOT Lance!!
Floyd Landis saying that he personally used drugs with Lance, from testosterone to EPO? Not a chance, Floyd was busted and lost HIS tour de france win and he is just vindictive (why against Lance, Lance has never explained).
Test positive at the 2001 Tour de Suisse? No,not Lance! (oops well maybe, but if we deny it enough maybe people will forget).
Frankie Landreu (another longtime teammate on the US Postal Team) and his wife testifying that Lance openly discussed his drug use with his oncologists (cancer doctors)? LIARS!!
But now, this Sunday, 60 minutes will be airing an interview with Tyler Hamilton, yet another teammate will be saying yet again, that he used drugs with Lance.
But don't worry, Lance the Great has already come out and reiterated the most tested athlete mantra, and of course Tyler is only doing it because he is writing a book. Oh, and that funny Grand Jury testimony.
But now. OOOOPS. George Hincapie, who Lance described as "like my brother" who was his roommate for years and his teammate for EVERY one of his Tour de France Victories, has apparently ALSO testified to the Grand Jury that he and Lanced used Testosterone and EPO repeated during all the Tour de France wins.
Let's see. George is STILL cycling so it would look really bad for him to admit this.
But, it's just another person out to get Lance the great.
My hero Greg LeMond tells a story. LeMond won the Tour 3 times. He would have won at leat 5 if not Lance's 7 if not for a hunting accident when he was shot by his brother in law. LeMond came back and won two more Tours after that accident, but later in his career, the shotgun pellets left in his body caused a blood infection and so he had to take a few years off again to get healthy.
When he came back, LeMond said he was in the best shape of his life, riding faster times than he ever had. And then he went to the Tour and in a Mountain day he said he saw people doing things that he knew were impossible, and that he knew he could never do. He knew WHY they were able to do them. So he dropped out of the Tour and retired.
Funny, but that is exactly what Frankie Andreu said, but he said it to explain why he and Lance DID use drugs.
Busted. The myth of Lance, with his good friend George's testimony should now finally be over.
A brief history of steroids and performing enhancing drugs - Part one
A brief history of steroids and performing enhancing drugs - Part two
A brief history of Steroids and performing ehnhancing drugs - Part 3: Naming names!
A brief history of Steroids and performing ehnhancing drugs - Part 4: How the testing works .
HgH, Sly Stallone and me: An update to "A Brief History of Steroids...", Part 5
The Hall of Fame, McGwire, Dick Pound and WADA: an update to: A brief history of Steroids.....
A new study: An update to "A brief History of Performing Enhancing Drugs..." Part 7
The Tour de France today: An update to "A Brief History of Steroids...."
An update to: "A brief history of Steroids and performing ehnhancing drugs "
You'll notice the Tour De France installment. I have never been a fan of Lance Armstrong. Let me correct that. When he was a young up and comer, before his cancer, and he won the World Championship - usually a portent of big things to come for a young cyclist.
And even when he began to win the Tour, well he had been a protege of my cycling hero, Greg LeMond.
Of course I knew he used drugs, every world class athlete does. But then things changed. He became "Lance the superhero". The man who had been tested "more times than any other athlete" according to him (well, at least the same # of times as the other cyclists in the tour with him).
And then, worse, he became so holier than thou about the whole thing.
His Dr. busted for providing for blood doping all his clients earning the nickname "Dr. Blood"? Nothing
The fact that his blood, used as a test sample for the new test for EPO, the drug cyclists use most to build additional aerobic capacity, test positive for his 2d tour victory but b/c it was for a past tour he couldn't be suspended? Not a chance
The fact that every top rider who ever rode in support of him has been busted for drugs or admitted to using them? No way, NOT Lance!!
Floyd Landis saying that he personally used drugs with Lance, from testosterone to EPO? Not a chance, Floyd was busted and lost HIS tour de france win and he is just vindictive (why against Lance, Lance has never explained).
Test positive at the 2001 Tour de Suisse? No,not Lance! (oops well maybe, but if we deny it enough maybe people will forget).
Frankie Landreu (another longtime teammate on the US Postal Team) and his wife testifying that Lance openly discussed his drug use with his oncologists (cancer doctors)? LIARS!!
But now, this Sunday, 60 minutes will be airing an interview with Tyler Hamilton, yet another teammate will be saying yet again, that he used drugs with Lance.
But don't worry, Lance the Great has already come out and reiterated the most tested athlete mantra, and of course Tyler is only doing it because he is writing a book. Oh, and that funny Grand Jury testimony.
But now. OOOOPS. George Hincapie, who Lance described as "like my brother" who was his roommate for years and his teammate for EVERY one of his Tour de France Victories, has apparently ALSO testified to the Grand Jury that he and Lanced used Testosterone and EPO repeated during all the Tour de France wins.
Let's see. George is STILL cycling so it would look really bad for him to admit this.
But, it's just another person out to get Lance the great.
My hero Greg LeMond tells a story. LeMond won the Tour 3 times. He would have won at leat 5 if not Lance's 7 if not for a hunting accident when he was shot by his brother in law. LeMond came back and won two more Tours after that accident, but later in his career, the shotgun pellets left in his body caused a blood infection and so he had to take a few years off again to get healthy.
When he came back, LeMond said he was in the best shape of his life, riding faster times than he ever had. And then he went to the Tour and in a Mountain day he said he saw people doing things that he knew were impossible, and that he knew he could never do. He knew WHY they were able to do them. So he dropped out of the Tour and retired.
Funny, but that is exactly what Frankie Andreu said, but he said it to explain why he and Lance DID use drugs.
Busted. The myth of Lance, with his good friend George's testimony should now finally be over.
Monday, May 16, 2011
The EIchmann Trial: 50 Years Later
In May 1960, Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi officer in charge of orchestrating the Final Solution – the mass deportation of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps – was captured by Israeli agents near Buenos Aires. Eichmann was given a choice between instant death or trial in Israel. He chose to stand trial, which began in Jerusalem on April 11, 1961.
During the trial, the Israeli public was exposed to the details of the Holocaust nightmare for the first time, as well as to the heroism and ingenuity of those who survived.
In his defense, Eichmann insisted that he was only "following orders." Yet scores of witnesses contradicted that contention – testifying to Eichmann's "fanatical zeal and unquenchable blood thirst." Throughout, Eichmann listened impassively to a translation of the entire trial from a specially-designed glass cubicle in the crowded Jerusalem courtroom.
One year later, after all the evidence was in and all appeals exhausted, the cold-eyed Nazi monster was hanged at a prison in the Israeli town of Ramla.
Former Supreme Judge Gavriel Bach – at the time an up-and-coming lawyer and deputy state attorney – was asked to join the team of prosecutors. Fluent in German, he conducted most of the interrogations of Eichmann. At a recent talk in Jerusalem, with the 50th anniversary of the Eichmann Trial approaching, Bach described the unforgettable influence that the trial left on him.
"We were three prosecutors. We gathered millions of pages of documentation and read a great deal of background sources. I don't think I slept more than three hours every night throughout the trial," Bach recalls. “The German government was very cooperative and sent us a great deal of material.” Despite that, chief prosecutor Gideon Hausner preferred to call up as many witnesses as possible rather than presenting his case via historical documents, because "it would be more shocking and have more impetus."
"Some of us thought that Eichmann may have experienced regret at the terrible things done to the Jews in Europe," says Bach. While in custody, Eichmann was shown part of a film that portrayed the horrible conditions of the camps and the crematoria. “We all waited to see how he would react to the emotional film,” says Bach. But when a German-speaking guard asked Eichmann for his reaction, he simply changed the subject and complained about not being allowed to appear at the trial in a Nazi uniform.
Instigator of the Crimes
Among the many documents that Bach found was an interview which Eichmann gave to a fascist Dutch journalist in 1956 while hiding in Argentina. Eichmann expressed satisfaction over the sight of continuous railroads cars arriving in Auschwitz. "It was a glorious sight," he said.
"Did you have any regrets at any time?" asked the journalist.
"Yes", answered Eichmann, "I'm sorry that I wasn't stricter in carrying out our goal. Look what happened," he declared angrily in 1956. "The State of Israel now exists and that cursed race continues."
A book written by the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoes, describes how up to a thousand Jewish children were gassed daily. "Occasionally a youngster would beg for his life on bended knees in front of me, and I have to admit, I sometimes felt weak myself. I have children of my own. But then I was embarrassed at my frailty. The Oberfuhrer (Eichmann) strengthened my resolve by explaining that we had to kill the accursed Jewish children above all; they represented the future, and the Jewish future had to be erased from the face of the world."
Prosecutors found several examples of Eichmann’s steadfast, even stubborn resistance to any show of lenience. One of the Nazi leaders in Poland sent a request to delay the deportation of a certain Dr. Weiss and his wife. Dr. Weiss was a world famous expert on radar, and the officer thought it would be useful for the Reich to obtain key information before annihilating him. Eichmann wouldn't hear of it "as a matter of principle," and the doctor and his family perished along with their entire community.
At one point during the war, Hitler himself, for political reasons, asked Eichmann not to touch 8,000 Jews left in Budapest. Yet despite his loyalty to the Fuhrer, Eichmann planned otherwise. (Only the war's progression prevented him from deporting this group.) These examples counter Eichmann's claim throughout the trial that he was merely a cog in the machine, carrying out orders.
"There were many dramatic incidents during the trial," says Bach, some which never came to the floor of the courtroom. "We received an important document from an anonymous source which detailed the number of arrivals at Auschwitz, the dates, and the numbers given to each Jew. We tried to verify the details and find the person who had sent us the valuable material, but couldn't make headway. We called in experts from the police department to examine the document and help us find its author. Then I had a brainstorm. Let's find survivors with the numbers mentioned in the document and ask them when they arrived at the camp. That will give us the proof we need to present the document at the trial.
"One of the policeman in the room, after some hesitation, rolled up his sleeve and showed us a number engraved on his arm. 'This number appears on the report; and indeed I arrived in Auschwitz on the date mentioned,' he said quietly. There was complete silence in the room. None of his police colleagues even knew that he'd been in the Holocaust. Like so many, he had hidden his past. We had our proof on the spot. But none of us could speak for several minutes."
Horror Stories
The Eichmann trial had the effect of creating huge public awareness about the Holocaust in Israel and worldwide.
"Nobody wanted to talk about their Holocaust experiences," says Yosef Kleinman, a survivor who arrived in Palestine in 1945 during the days when the tiny Jewish community was struggling to survive and prepare for statehood. There was neither energy, time nor patience to hear the newcomers out. “No one was interested in hearing our stories,” says Kleinman.
"They called us 'sabonim' (soapers),” he says. “They couldn't fathom why we hadn't stood up to the Nazis in the camps and fought back. In those days Israelis were taken up with the macho image of the ‘new Jew.’ They didn't understand what we were up against in Europe, and we ourselves didn't want to be reminded. We just wanted to get on with our lives and put that all behind us."
Indeed, the main drama of the Eichmann trial was the Holocaust survivors who appeared as witnesses. As first it was difficult to even locate witnesses, since they had gotten so used to not talking about that period in their lives. "I had a hard time convincing some people to come forth and tell their story," Bach recalls. “One man told me, ‘If I start talking, you won't be able to stop me for four or five days.’"
The prosecution team argued among themselves how much time to give each witness. "I was adamant that at least one witness should appear from every country that had been under Nazi rule," says Bach.
Kleinman, one of the youngest witnesses, described the selection process he endured as a 14-year-old. "First we were put into a ghetto, and several weeks later we were sent in cattle cars to the camp. For three days we had nothing to drink or eat.”
At Auschwitz, there was a selection table where the infamous Angel of Death, Dr. Josef Mengele, sent the most able-bodied to the right for slave labor, and the weaker ones to the left for extermination. “My 13-year-old brother was held up for inspection,“ Kleinman recalls, “but in the end they told him to run along and join our parents to the left, which he did happily, not knowing what that meant. That was the last time I saw any of them.
”In the barracks, the old timers quickly filled us in and callously pointed to the smoking chimneys we could see through the window. 'That's where your parents are. They're all dead by now.' That's how we learned the terrible truth.”
At the Eichmann trial, Kleinman testified about an incident where Auschwitz guards called the prisoners out to see one young boy getting punished. Kleinman describes:
“Usually they'd give 25 lashes. This boy withstood the punishment and didn't let out a sound. That made the tormentor angry and he continued beating him – 30, 35, 40 lashes. And still the boy didn't cry out. We ourselves couldn't take it anymore. But the soldier continued hitting him all over – on his legs, face, stomach, wherever the whip landed.
“When he got to 50, and the boy was already on the ground, he threw away his whip and left in disgust. We ran over to the hero, picked him up and washed him off. 'What did you do to get this punishment?' we asked him. He could barely talk, but he said, “I brought siddurim (prayer books) to the barracks. It was worth it. I'm glad I did it.'"
This story had a deep influence in the courtroom. The court-appointed defense attorney wept openly, and the judges called for a break in the procedures.
Little Red Coat
At the trial, another witness who had been inside the gas chamber lived to tell about it. As a youngster, he arrived in Auschwitz together with 200 other children, after a horrendous three-day train trip. After the selection, he was pushed into a large dark room with shower piping, and the door was shut behind them. At first the children began to sing, to lift their spirits, but that soon gave way to wailing and screaming. Suddenly the heavy metal door swung open and a guard pulled out 20 of them into the bright sunlight. The Nazis needed workers to unload bags of potatoes and there weren't enough soldiers for the job. That's how this man was able to give a first-hand description of the insides of the crematorium.
At the trial, Dr. Martin Foldi, related how he and his family arrived at Auschwitz in the winter of 1944. As the bewildered Jews stumbled out of the cattle cars, they were hounded by dogs and Nazi soldiers with whips. He described being sent to the right with his 11-year-old son. His wife and two-year-old daughter were taken to the left. The little girl was wearing a little red coat. At the last minute, a guard sent Foldi's son with the crowd to the left. Dr. Foldi panicked thinking, how could this young boy find his mother and sister among the thousands there at the station. But then he knew... he could find his sister because she was wearing the red coat. It would be "like a beacon" for the boy. Then he states, "I never saw them again."
This testimony is likely to have formed the inspiration for the iconic red coat in Steve Spielberg’s classic film, Schindler’s List.
The horrible story shook the courtroom. But for prosecuting attorney Gavriel Bach, it was by far the most upsetting moment of the 16-week trial. Bach had just bought a red coat for his own daughter.
In the courtroom, Bach played with his papers and kept the whole court waiting for his next question while he conquered his emotions.
Historic Impact
The Eichmann trial made headlines all over the world, but in Israel the subject was the center of everyone's attention. The long-term effects of the trial were dramatic and many. The Israeli public understood at last what the survivors had undergone, and became much more empathetic. The enormity of the Holocaust was suddenly brought to the fore, through the witnesses who gave a personal voice and face to the 6 million victims.
Today, far from the days of Israelis “not wanting to acknowledge the tragedy,” there is a whole different attitude. Israeli universities have professors of Holocaust Studies; thousands of Hebrew books have been printed on the subject; government agencies grant special privileges to survivors; and every year on Yom HaShoah the media devotes an entire day to interviews with the nearly-extinct generation of survivors.
Half a century later, the Eichmann trial is not merely a historic event. It represents the turning point in Israel’s understanding of the Holocaust.
During the trial, the Israeli public was exposed to the details of the Holocaust nightmare for the first time, as well as to the heroism and ingenuity of those who survived.
In his defense, Eichmann insisted that he was only "following orders." Yet scores of witnesses contradicted that contention – testifying to Eichmann's "fanatical zeal and unquenchable blood thirst." Throughout, Eichmann listened impassively to a translation of the entire trial from a specially-designed glass cubicle in the crowded Jerusalem courtroom.
One year later, after all the evidence was in and all appeals exhausted, the cold-eyed Nazi monster was hanged at a prison in the Israeli town of Ramla.
Former Supreme Judge Gavriel Bach – at the time an up-and-coming lawyer and deputy state attorney – was asked to join the team of prosecutors. Fluent in German, he conducted most of the interrogations of Eichmann. At a recent talk in Jerusalem, with the 50th anniversary of the Eichmann Trial approaching, Bach described the unforgettable influence that the trial left on him.
"We were three prosecutors. We gathered millions of pages of documentation and read a great deal of background sources. I don't think I slept more than three hours every night throughout the trial," Bach recalls. “The German government was very cooperative and sent us a great deal of material.” Despite that, chief prosecutor Gideon Hausner preferred to call up as many witnesses as possible rather than presenting his case via historical documents, because "it would be more shocking and have more impetus."
"Some of us thought that Eichmann may have experienced regret at the terrible things done to the Jews in Europe," says Bach. While in custody, Eichmann was shown part of a film that portrayed the horrible conditions of the camps and the crematoria. “We all waited to see how he would react to the emotional film,” says Bach. But when a German-speaking guard asked Eichmann for his reaction, he simply changed the subject and complained about not being allowed to appear at the trial in a Nazi uniform.
Instigator of the Crimes
Among the many documents that Bach found was an interview which Eichmann gave to a fascist Dutch journalist in 1956 while hiding in Argentina. Eichmann expressed satisfaction over the sight of continuous railroads cars arriving in Auschwitz. "It was a glorious sight," he said.
"Did you have any regrets at any time?" asked the journalist.
"Yes", answered Eichmann, "I'm sorry that I wasn't stricter in carrying out our goal. Look what happened," he declared angrily in 1956. "The State of Israel now exists and that cursed race continues."
A book written by the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoes, describes how up to a thousand Jewish children were gassed daily. "Occasionally a youngster would beg for his life on bended knees in front of me, and I have to admit, I sometimes felt weak myself. I have children of my own. But then I was embarrassed at my frailty. The Oberfuhrer (Eichmann) strengthened my resolve by explaining that we had to kill the accursed Jewish children above all; they represented the future, and the Jewish future had to be erased from the face of the world."
Prosecutors found several examples of Eichmann’s steadfast, even stubborn resistance to any show of lenience. One of the Nazi leaders in Poland sent a request to delay the deportation of a certain Dr. Weiss and his wife. Dr. Weiss was a world famous expert on radar, and the officer thought it would be useful for the Reich to obtain key information before annihilating him. Eichmann wouldn't hear of it "as a matter of principle," and the doctor and his family perished along with their entire community.
At one point during the war, Hitler himself, for political reasons, asked Eichmann not to touch 8,000 Jews left in Budapest. Yet despite his loyalty to the Fuhrer, Eichmann planned otherwise. (Only the war's progression prevented him from deporting this group.) These examples counter Eichmann's claim throughout the trial that he was merely a cog in the machine, carrying out orders.
"There were many dramatic incidents during the trial," says Bach, some which never came to the floor of the courtroom. "We received an important document from an anonymous source which detailed the number of arrivals at Auschwitz, the dates, and the numbers given to each Jew. We tried to verify the details and find the person who had sent us the valuable material, but couldn't make headway. We called in experts from the police department to examine the document and help us find its author. Then I had a brainstorm. Let's find survivors with the numbers mentioned in the document and ask them when they arrived at the camp. That will give us the proof we need to present the document at the trial.
"One of the policeman in the room, after some hesitation, rolled up his sleeve and showed us a number engraved on his arm. 'This number appears on the report; and indeed I arrived in Auschwitz on the date mentioned,' he said quietly. There was complete silence in the room. None of his police colleagues even knew that he'd been in the Holocaust. Like so many, he had hidden his past. We had our proof on the spot. But none of us could speak for several minutes."
Horror Stories
The Eichmann trial had the effect of creating huge public awareness about the Holocaust in Israel and worldwide.
"Nobody wanted to talk about their Holocaust experiences," says Yosef Kleinman, a survivor who arrived in Palestine in 1945 during the days when the tiny Jewish community was struggling to survive and prepare for statehood. There was neither energy, time nor patience to hear the newcomers out. “No one was interested in hearing our stories,” says Kleinman.
"They called us 'sabonim' (soapers),” he says. “They couldn't fathom why we hadn't stood up to the Nazis in the camps and fought back. In those days Israelis were taken up with the macho image of the ‘new Jew.’ They didn't understand what we were up against in Europe, and we ourselves didn't want to be reminded. We just wanted to get on with our lives and put that all behind us."
Indeed, the main drama of the Eichmann trial was the Holocaust survivors who appeared as witnesses. As first it was difficult to even locate witnesses, since they had gotten so used to not talking about that period in their lives. "I had a hard time convincing some people to come forth and tell their story," Bach recalls. “One man told me, ‘If I start talking, you won't be able to stop me for four or five days.’"
The prosecution team argued among themselves how much time to give each witness. "I was adamant that at least one witness should appear from every country that had been under Nazi rule," says Bach.
Kleinman, one of the youngest witnesses, described the selection process he endured as a 14-year-old. "First we were put into a ghetto, and several weeks later we were sent in cattle cars to the camp. For three days we had nothing to drink or eat.”
At Auschwitz, there was a selection table where the infamous Angel of Death, Dr. Josef Mengele, sent the most able-bodied to the right for slave labor, and the weaker ones to the left for extermination. “My 13-year-old brother was held up for inspection,“ Kleinman recalls, “but in the end they told him to run along and join our parents to the left, which he did happily, not knowing what that meant. That was the last time I saw any of them.
”In the barracks, the old timers quickly filled us in and callously pointed to the smoking chimneys we could see through the window. 'That's where your parents are. They're all dead by now.' That's how we learned the terrible truth.”
At the Eichmann trial, Kleinman testified about an incident where Auschwitz guards called the prisoners out to see one young boy getting punished. Kleinman describes:
“Usually they'd give 25 lashes. This boy withstood the punishment and didn't let out a sound. That made the tormentor angry and he continued beating him – 30, 35, 40 lashes. And still the boy didn't cry out. We ourselves couldn't take it anymore. But the soldier continued hitting him all over – on his legs, face, stomach, wherever the whip landed.
“When he got to 50, and the boy was already on the ground, he threw away his whip and left in disgust. We ran over to the hero, picked him up and washed him off. 'What did you do to get this punishment?' we asked him. He could barely talk, but he said, “I brought siddurim (prayer books) to the barracks. It was worth it. I'm glad I did it.'"
This story had a deep influence in the courtroom. The court-appointed defense attorney wept openly, and the judges called for a break in the procedures.
Little Red Coat
At the trial, another witness who had been inside the gas chamber lived to tell about it. As a youngster, he arrived in Auschwitz together with 200 other children, after a horrendous three-day train trip. After the selection, he was pushed into a large dark room with shower piping, and the door was shut behind them. At first the children began to sing, to lift their spirits, but that soon gave way to wailing and screaming. Suddenly the heavy metal door swung open and a guard pulled out 20 of them into the bright sunlight. The Nazis needed workers to unload bags of potatoes and there weren't enough soldiers for the job. That's how this man was able to give a first-hand description of the insides of the crematorium.
At the trial, Dr. Martin Foldi, related how he and his family arrived at Auschwitz in the winter of 1944. As the bewildered Jews stumbled out of the cattle cars, they were hounded by dogs and Nazi soldiers with whips. He described being sent to the right with his 11-year-old son. His wife and two-year-old daughter were taken to the left. The little girl was wearing a little red coat. At the last minute, a guard sent Foldi's son with the crowd to the left. Dr. Foldi panicked thinking, how could this young boy find his mother and sister among the thousands there at the station. But then he knew... he could find his sister because she was wearing the red coat. It would be "like a beacon" for the boy. Then he states, "I never saw them again."
This testimony is likely to have formed the inspiration for the iconic red coat in Steve Spielberg’s classic film, Schindler’s List.
The horrible story shook the courtroom. But for prosecuting attorney Gavriel Bach, it was by far the most upsetting moment of the 16-week trial. Bach had just bought a red coat for his own daughter.
In the courtroom, Bach played with his papers and kept the whole court waiting for his next question while he conquered his emotions.
Historic Impact
The Eichmann trial made headlines all over the world, but in Israel the subject was the center of everyone's attention. The long-term effects of the trial were dramatic and many. The Israeli public understood at last what the survivors had undergone, and became much more empathetic. The enormity of the Holocaust was suddenly brought to the fore, through the witnesses who gave a personal voice and face to the 6 million victims.
Today, far from the days of Israelis “not wanting to acknowledge the tragedy,” there is a whole different attitude. Israeli universities have professors of Holocaust Studies; thousands of Hebrew books have been printed on the subject; government agencies grant special privileges to survivors; and every year on Yom HaShoah the media devotes an entire day to interviews with the nearly-extinct generation of survivors.
Half a century later, the Eichmann trial is not merely a historic event. It represents the turning point in Israel’s understanding of the Holocaust.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
An Ignominious Anniversary
This spring and summer is an anniversary that many wish we did not have to note.
It is the 50th anniversary of the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the man who was largely credited with the actual mechanical creation of, and carrying out of Hitler's "Final Solution to the Jewish Problem" i.e. the Holocaust in all of it's brutal efficiency.
One of the interesting things is the loss of historical perspective that we have today, versus in 1961.
Many of you, like me, were not alive then, or were too young to know what was going on in the world.
In the immediate aftermath of WWII, Europe was in a shambles.
The immediate issue for the allied forces, with regard to the death camp survivors, was how to try and nurse them back to health.
They could not be just given food, as a huge percentage were suffering from Typhus, Dysentery, and other diseases of extreme malnutrition and lack of even basic hygiene.
Even more, like many of the other residents of Europe, there was no place for these people to go back to. The Soviets and the Germans had both engaged in scorched earth policies on retreat, and of course, the allies bombed many of the major cities, like Dresden, into oblivion.
Refugees remained in camps until 1956, more than a decade after the end of the war in Europe.
If you know any survivors, you can ask them, but most of them did not want to discuss what they had seen, and what they had been through. The Jews did not know how to deal with what had happened to them, and their families. It was like waking up from a 15 year nightmare, except that your loved ones were dead.
In addition, the British were actively trying to prevent migration to the Mandate of Palestine, and then to the new nation of Israel.
Those that did make it, quickly became involved in trying to forge the new nation and defend it. Israel was attacked immediately upon the declaration of the state, and then again in 1956 by Egypt.
Just as importantly, unlike today's world of 24 hour news cycle, videophones, etc, there was no way to learn of what happened in Europe at the death camps unless one of the liberating soldiers wanted to discuss it. And since the Americans had not liberated the worst camps, there was only so much they could discuss, although again, most had no interest in talking about what they saw. Without video cameras, cable news, or even nightly news on the 3 networks (news reports back then were only 15 minutes long and mostly local) there was just no way to find out.
And in fact, the worst camps, Auschwitz and it's sub camps, and all the camps in Poland, Czechoslavakia and other points east, were liberated by the Soviets, who had engaged in their own holocaust in the Ukraine, so they had no interest in advertising what happened.
The only way to see what had happened were from the films that were played during the Nuremberg trials. Even the trials though, did not anticipate the prosecution focusing on the Holocaust. The principle charge was waging aggressive war, and that was the chief line of questioning. However, when the films were played near the end of the trial, the news observers were left crying, or worse.
The newsreels were not shown in the United States and only small amounts of information about what had happened got out.
Dwight Eisenhower did declare martial law, and ordered all German townspeople to tour the camps in their regions and to bury the remaining skeletal corpses, but once that immediate action was over, the German people became enmeshed in what would eventually be termed the "economic miracle" of the government of post war Chancellor Konrad Adenauer.
Most importantly about Adenauer was that his national security adviser, Hans Globke, had worked with Eichmann in the Department of Jewish Affairs, and in fact, had been one of the architects of Hitler's Nuremberg Laws.
The Americans, who, through the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe and the new Cold War with the Soviets, were trying to capture as much of the European sentiment as they could.
Both Adenauer's government, and the various allied governments had no interest in advertising the help they were receiving from the former Nazis (how 'former' is something historians still debate).
As a result of all of these things, by the time Eichmann was captured in Buenos Aries, Argentina on May 11, 1960 by agents of the Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad, led by their director Isser Harel, the world knew little of the horrors that had been witnessed, or had forgotten already.
Harel wrote a wonderful book about this covert operation entitled "The House on Garibaldi Street". It is in fact, a model for many espionage novels, which can't help fail to live up to the real live suspense of the true story of the tracking, capture and removal of Eichmann from Argentina to Israel to stand trial.
The trial was stunning for the world. News agencies from virtually every country covered it, and the New Yorker magazine famously sent Political Philosopher Hanna Arendt to cover it. (Arendt's "Totalitarianism" is one of the most important books of the 20th century.) It was her reporting that led her to coin her now ubiquitous phrase "The Banality of Evil" when she first saw Eichmann, a small bespectacled man sitting in his bulletproof glass case.
Sadly though, Arendt spent precious little time at the trial, and missed ALL of Eichmann's own testimony so her report was not at all accurate.
What came out in the trial was exactly how bloodthirsty Eichmann had been. Far from "just following orders" Eichmann had relished his task and had expressed regret that he hadn't done more.
Back on point. So, at the time of Eichmann's capture and trial most of the world did not know the details of what had happened.
Even more surprisingly, most Israeli's didn't know, or didn't discuss it.
So, the chief prosecutor Gideon Hausner had decided that it was critical that survivors testify. Not just about seeing Eichmann at the camps, but about what had happened.
This testimony again stunned the world. The outlining of the Wansee conference, the meeting in which Reinhold Heidrich had actually assigned Eichmann to oversee the slaughter of the entire Jewish population of the Reich (in their view, the world) which had been unknown until then - the actual meeting at which the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question in Europe" had been formulated, left no doubt that Eichmann had been the master architect of the most heinous crime the world had ever seen.
Still, after the trial, the Holocaust was not what it is today. Remember, the trial was in Hebrew, and German, and still, in 1960 television was limited, even here in the US TV's were a luxury not an every household item.
The real breakthrough on the recognition of the Holocuast in the US was the TV miniseries which introduced the world to Meryl Streep, "The Holocaust" on ABC, in 1978.
For the next few days, I will be posting various articles about different aspects of the trial.
It is the 50th anniversary of the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the man who was largely credited with the actual mechanical creation of, and carrying out of Hitler's "Final Solution to the Jewish Problem" i.e. the Holocaust in all of it's brutal efficiency.
One of the interesting things is the loss of historical perspective that we have today, versus in 1961.
Many of you, like me, were not alive then, or were too young to know what was going on in the world.
In the immediate aftermath of WWII, Europe was in a shambles.
The immediate issue for the allied forces, with regard to the death camp survivors, was how to try and nurse them back to health.
They could not be just given food, as a huge percentage were suffering from Typhus, Dysentery, and other diseases of extreme malnutrition and lack of even basic hygiene.
Even more, like many of the other residents of Europe, there was no place for these people to go back to. The Soviets and the Germans had both engaged in scorched earth policies on retreat, and of course, the allies bombed many of the major cities, like Dresden, into oblivion.
Refugees remained in camps until 1956, more than a decade after the end of the war in Europe.
If you know any survivors, you can ask them, but most of them did not want to discuss what they had seen, and what they had been through. The Jews did not know how to deal with what had happened to them, and their families. It was like waking up from a 15 year nightmare, except that your loved ones were dead.
In addition, the British were actively trying to prevent migration to the Mandate of Palestine, and then to the new nation of Israel.
Those that did make it, quickly became involved in trying to forge the new nation and defend it. Israel was attacked immediately upon the declaration of the state, and then again in 1956 by Egypt.
Just as importantly, unlike today's world of 24 hour news cycle, videophones, etc, there was no way to learn of what happened in Europe at the death camps unless one of the liberating soldiers wanted to discuss it. And since the Americans had not liberated the worst camps, there was only so much they could discuss, although again, most had no interest in talking about what they saw. Without video cameras, cable news, or even nightly news on the 3 networks (news reports back then were only 15 minutes long and mostly local) there was just no way to find out.
And in fact, the worst camps, Auschwitz and it's sub camps, and all the camps in Poland, Czechoslavakia and other points east, were liberated by the Soviets, who had engaged in their own holocaust in the Ukraine, so they had no interest in advertising what happened.
The only way to see what had happened were from the films that were played during the Nuremberg trials. Even the trials though, did not anticipate the prosecution focusing on the Holocaust. The principle charge was waging aggressive war, and that was the chief line of questioning. However, when the films were played near the end of the trial, the news observers were left crying, or worse.
The newsreels were not shown in the United States and only small amounts of information about what had happened got out.
Dwight Eisenhower did declare martial law, and ordered all German townspeople to tour the camps in their regions and to bury the remaining skeletal corpses, but once that immediate action was over, the German people became enmeshed in what would eventually be termed the "economic miracle" of the government of post war Chancellor Konrad Adenauer.
Most importantly about Adenauer was that his national security adviser, Hans Globke, had worked with Eichmann in the Department of Jewish Affairs, and in fact, had been one of the architects of Hitler's Nuremberg Laws.
The Americans, who, through the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe and the new Cold War with the Soviets, were trying to capture as much of the European sentiment as they could.
Both Adenauer's government, and the various allied governments had no interest in advertising the help they were receiving from the former Nazis (how 'former' is something historians still debate).
As a result of all of these things, by the time Eichmann was captured in Buenos Aries, Argentina on May 11, 1960 by agents of the Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad, led by their director Isser Harel, the world knew little of the horrors that had been witnessed, or had forgotten already.
Harel wrote a wonderful book about this covert operation entitled "The House on Garibaldi Street". It is in fact, a model for many espionage novels, which can't help fail to live up to the real live suspense of the true story of the tracking, capture and removal of Eichmann from Argentina to Israel to stand trial.
The trial was stunning for the world. News agencies from virtually every country covered it, and the New Yorker magazine famously sent Political Philosopher Hanna Arendt to cover it. (Arendt's "Totalitarianism" is one of the most important books of the 20th century.) It was her reporting that led her to coin her now ubiquitous phrase "The Banality of Evil" when she first saw Eichmann, a small bespectacled man sitting in his bulletproof glass case.
Sadly though, Arendt spent precious little time at the trial, and missed ALL of Eichmann's own testimony so her report was not at all accurate.
What came out in the trial was exactly how bloodthirsty Eichmann had been. Far from "just following orders" Eichmann had relished his task and had expressed regret that he hadn't done more.
Back on point. So, at the time of Eichmann's capture and trial most of the world did not know the details of what had happened.
Even more surprisingly, most Israeli's didn't know, or didn't discuss it.
So, the chief prosecutor Gideon Hausner had decided that it was critical that survivors testify. Not just about seeing Eichmann at the camps, but about what had happened.
This testimony again stunned the world. The outlining of the Wansee conference, the meeting in which Reinhold Heidrich had actually assigned Eichmann to oversee the slaughter of the entire Jewish population of the Reich (in their view, the world) which had been unknown until then - the actual meeting at which the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question in Europe" had been formulated, left no doubt that Eichmann had been the master architect of the most heinous crime the world had ever seen.
Still, after the trial, the Holocaust was not what it is today. Remember, the trial was in Hebrew, and German, and still, in 1960 television was limited, even here in the US TV's were a luxury not an every household item.
The real breakthrough on the recognition of the Holocuast in the US was the TV miniseries which introduced the world to Meryl Streep, "The Holocaust" on ABC, in 1978.
For the next few days, I will be posting various articles about different aspects of the trial.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
As Homer Simpson would say... Koh!!! Or, I told you Koh... Or just, INCONCEIVABLE
I hate to say I told you so, but, I told you so.
Two years ago I wrote about the appointment of former Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as senior legal advisor to the State Department.
Why did I warn you? Because Koh is the leading proponent of an unconstitutional reading of what is known as "The Supremacy Clause" of the Constitution*
Simply stated, the Supremacy Clause says that in cases where State and Federal law conflict, Federal Law will govern. It was put there to deal with many of the issues that had arisen in the early days of the Republic, and previously under the Articles of Confederation, largely commerce issues.
However, the Supremacy Clause has also always been read as saying that US Law supersedes International Laws or agreements. In other words, the President cannot sign treaties or agreements that violate the Constitution.
The purpose of Obama reaching out for Harold Koh, and then appointing an entire coterie of Koh's supplicants, from Sotomayor, to Holder, et al, is to begin the process of moving toward George Soros' "Open Society".
What does that mean? A world without borders, essentially.
It is why Obama, for the first time in US history has subjugated US military personnel in a large action, to an international body
It is no small difference that in the past, US Presidents may have sought UN affirmation, but never was it that body that made the US act.
Even more so, we have always led NATO actions, limited as they have been.
And once again, I sit stunned by the failure of even a single member of the Press to recognize, let alone discuss, this.
*Article IV, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution:
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding."
Two years ago I wrote about the appointment of former Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as senior legal advisor to the State Department.
Why did I warn you? Because Koh is the leading proponent of an unconstitutional reading of what is known as "The Supremacy Clause" of the Constitution*
Simply stated, the Supremacy Clause says that in cases where State and Federal law conflict, Federal Law will govern. It was put there to deal with many of the issues that had arisen in the early days of the Republic, and previously under the Articles of Confederation, largely commerce issues.
However, the Supremacy Clause has also always been read as saying that US Law supersedes International Laws or agreements. In other words, the President cannot sign treaties or agreements that violate the Constitution.
The purpose of Obama reaching out for Harold Koh, and then appointing an entire coterie of Koh's supplicants, from Sotomayor, to Holder, et al, is to begin the process of moving toward George Soros' "Open Society".
What does that mean? A world without borders, essentially.
It is why Obama, for the first time in US history has subjugated US military personnel in a large action, to an international body
It is no small difference that in the past, US Presidents may have sought UN affirmation, but never was it that body that made the US act.
Even more so, we have always led NATO actions, limited as they have been.
And once again, I sit stunned by the failure of even a single member of the Press to recognize, let alone discuss, this.
*Article IV, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution:
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding."
Saturday, March 19, 2011
I would like to suggest that there is no such thing as a left or right.... A not so subtle reminder
....You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left or right, but I would like to suggest that there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down--up to a man's age-old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order--or down to the ant heap totalitarianism, and regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.
In this vote-harvesting time, they use terms like the "Great Society," or as we were told a few days ago by the President, we must accept a "greater government activity in the affairs of the people." But they have been a little more explicit in the past and among themselves--and all of the things that I now will quote have appeared in print. These are not Republican accusations. For example, they have voices that say "the cold war will end through acceptance of a not undemocratic socialism." Another voice says that the profit motive has become outmoded, it must be replaced by the incentives of the welfare state; or our traditional system of individual freedom is incapable of solving the complex problems of the 20th century. Senator Fullbright has said at Stanford University that the Constitution is outmoded. He referred to the president as our moral teacher and our leader, and he said he is hobbled in his task by the restrictions in power imposed on him by this antiquated document. He must be freed so that he can do for us what he knows is best. And Senator Clark of Pennsylvania, another articulate spokesman, defines liberalism as "meeting the material needs of the masses through the full power of centralized government." Well, I for one resent it when a representative of the people refers to you and me--the free man and woman of this country--as "the masses." This is a term we haven't applied to ourselves in America. But beyond that, "the full power of centralized government"--this was the very thing the Founding Fathers sought to minimize. They knew that governments don't control things. A government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. They also knew, those Founding Fathers, that outside of its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector of the economy....
We have so many people who can't see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion that the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one. So they are going to solve all the problems of human misery through government and government planning. Well, now, if government planning and welfare had the answer and they've had almost 30 years of it, shouldn't we expect government to almost read the score to us once in a while? Shouldn't they be telling us about the decline each year in the number of people needing help? The reduction in the need for public housing?
But the reverse is true. Each year the need grows greater, the program grows greater. We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night. Well, that was probably true. They were all on a diet. But now we are told that 9.3 million families in this country are poverty-stricken on the basis of earning less than $3,000 a year. Welfare spending is 10 times greater than in the dark depths of the Depression. We are spending $45 billion on welfare. Now do a little arithmetic, and you will find that if we divided the $45 billion up equally among those 9 million poor families, we would be able to give each family $4,600 a year, and this added to their present income should eliminate poverty! Direct aid to the poor, however, is running only about $600 per family. It would seem that someplace there must be some overhead....
Yet anytime you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we are denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. They say we are always "against" things, never "for" anything. Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so. We are for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we have accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem.
But we are against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments to those who depend on them for livelihood. They have called it insurance to us in a hundred million pieces of literature. But then they appeared before the Supreme Court and they testified that it was a welfare program. They only use the term "insurance" to sell it to the people. And they said Social Security dues are a tax for the general use of the government, and the government has used that tax. There is no fund, because Robert Byers, the actuarial head, appeared before a congressional committee and admitted that Social Security as of this moment is $298 billion in the hole. But he said there should be no cause for worry because as long as they have the power to tax, they could always take away from the people whatever they needed to bail them out of trouble! And they are doing just that....
I think we are for an international organization, where the nations of the world can seek peace. But I think we are against subordinating American interests to an organization that has become so structurally unsound that today you can muster a two-thirds vote on the floor of the General Assembly among the nations that represent less than 10 percent of the world's population. I think we are against the hypocrisy of assailing our allies because here and there they cling to a colony, while we engage in a conspiracy of silence and never open our mouths about the millions of people enslaved in Soviet colonies in the satellite nation....
No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this Earth. Federal employees number 2.5 million, and federal, state, and local, one out of six of the nation's work force is employed by the government. These proliferating bureaus with their thousands of regulations have cost us many of our constitutional safeguards. How many of us realize that today federal agents can invade a man's property without a warrant? They can impose a fine without a formal hearing, let alone a trial by jury, and they can seize and sell his property in auction to enforce the payment of that fine....
As a former Democrat, I can tell you Norman Thomas isn't the only man who has drawn this parallel to socialism with the present administration. Back in 1936, Mr. Democrat himself, Al Smith, the great American, came before the American people and charged that the leadership of his party was taking the part of Jefferson, Jackson, and Cleveland down the road under the banners of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. And he walked away from his party, and he never returned to the day he died, because to this day, the leadership of that party has been taking that party, that honorable party, down the road in the image of the labor socialist party of England. Now it doesn't require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property? Such machinery already exists. The government can find some charge to bring against any concern it chooses to prosecute. Every businessman has his own tale of harassment. Somewhere a perversion has taken place. Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment. Our Democratic opponents seem unwilling to debate these issues. They want to make you and I believe that this is a contest between two men...that we are to choose just between two personalities....
Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us that they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They call their policy "accommodation." And they say if we only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he will forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers. They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer--not an easy answer--but simple.
If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based upon what we know in our hearts is morally right. We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion now in slavery behind the Iron Curtain, "Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skin, we are willing to make a deal with your slave masters." Alexander Hamilton said, "A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one." Let's set the record straight. There is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace--and you can have it in the next second--surrender.
Admittedly there is a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face--that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight and surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand--the ultimatum. And what then? When Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we are retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary because by that time we will have weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he has heard voices pleading for "peace at any price" or "better Red than dead," or as one commentator put it, he would rather "live on his knees than die on his feet." And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don't speak for the rest of us. You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin--just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard 'round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all.
You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits--not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness....
In this vote-harvesting time, they use terms like the "Great Society," or as we were told a few days ago by the President, we must accept a "greater government activity in the affairs of the people." But they have been a little more explicit in the past and among themselves--and all of the things that I now will quote have appeared in print. These are not Republican accusations. For example, they have voices that say "the cold war will end through acceptance of a not undemocratic socialism." Another voice says that the profit motive has become outmoded, it must be replaced by the incentives of the welfare state; or our traditional system of individual freedom is incapable of solving the complex problems of the 20th century. Senator Fullbright has said at Stanford University that the Constitution is outmoded. He referred to the president as our moral teacher and our leader, and he said he is hobbled in his task by the restrictions in power imposed on him by this antiquated document. He must be freed so that he can do for us what he knows is best. And Senator Clark of Pennsylvania, another articulate spokesman, defines liberalism as "meeting the material needs of the masses through the full power of centralized government." Well, I for one resent it when a representative of the people refers to you and me--the free man and woman of this country--as "the masses." This is a term we haven't applied to ourselves in America. But beyond that, "the full power of centralized government"--this was the very thing the Founding Fathers sought to minimize. They knew that governments don't control things. A government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. They also knew, those Founding Fathers, that outside of its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector of the economy....
We have so many people who can't see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion that the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one. So they are going to solve all the problems of human misery through government and government planning. Well, now, if government planning and welfare had the answer and they've had almost 30 years of it, shouldn't we expect government to almost read the score to us once in a while? Shouldn't they be telling us about the decline each year in the number of people needing help? The reduction in the need for public housing?
But the reverse is true. Each year the need grows greater, the program grows greater. We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night. Well, that was probably true. They were all on a diet. But now we are told that 9.3 million families in this country are poverty-stricken on the basis of earning less than $3,000 a year. Welfare spending is 10 times greater than in the dark depths of the Depression. We are spending $45 billion on welfare. Now do a little arithmetic, and you will find that if we divided the $45 billion up equally among those 9 million poor families, we would be able to give each family $4,600 a year, and this added to their present income should eliminate poverty! Direct aid to the poor, however, is running only about $600 per family. It would seem that someplace there must be some overhead....
Yet anytime you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we are denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. They say we are always "against" things, never "for" anything. Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so. We are for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we have accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem.
But we are against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments to those who depend on them for livelihood. They have called it insurance to us in a hundred million pieces of literature. But then they appeared before the Supreme Court and they testified that it was a welfare program. They only use the term "insurance" to sell it to the people. And they said Social Security dues are a tax for the general use of the government, and the government has used that tax. There is no fund, because Robert Byers, the actuarial head, appeared before a congressional committee and admitted that Social Security as of this moment is $298 billion in the hole. But he said there should be no cause for worry because as long as they have the power to tax, they could always take away from the people whatever they needed to bail them out of trouble! And they are doing just that....
I think we are for an international organization, where the nations of the world can seek peace. But I think we are against subordinating American interests to an organization that has become so structurally unsound that today you can muster a two-thirds vote on the floor of the General Assembly among the nations that represent less than 10 percent of the world's population. I think we are against the hypocrisy of assailing our allies because here and there they cling to a colony, while we engage in a conspiracy of silence and never open our mouths about the millions of people enslaved in Soviet colonies in the satellite nation....
No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this Earth. Federal employees number 2.5 million, and federal, state, and local, one out of six of the nation's work force is employed by the government. These proliferating bureaus with their thousands of regulations have cost us many of our constitutional safeguards. How many of us realize that today federal agents can invade a man's property without a warrant? They can impose a fine without a formal hearing, let alone a trial by jury, and they can seize and sell his property in auction to enforce the payment of that fine....
As a former Democrat, I can tell you Norman Thomas isn't the only man who has drawn this parallel to socialism with the present administration. Back in 1936, Mr. Democrat himself, Al Smith, the great American, came before the American people and charged that the leadership of his party was taking the part of Jefferson, Jackson, and Cleveland down the road under the banners of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. And he walked away from his party, and he never returned to the day he died, because to this day, the leadership of that party has been taking that party, that honorable party, down the road in the image of the labor socialist party of England. Now it doesn't require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property? Such machinery already exists. The government can find some charge to bring against any concern it chooses to prosecute. Every businessman has his own tale of harassment. Somewhere a perversion has taken place. Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment. Our Democratic opponents seem unwilling to debate these issues. They want to make you and I believe that this is a contest between two men...that we are to choose just between two personalities....
Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us that they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They call their policy "accommodation." And they say if we only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he will forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers. They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer--not an easy answer--but simple.
If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based upon what we know in our hearts is morally right. We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion now in slavery behind the Iron Curtain, "Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skin, we are willing to make a deal with your slave masters." Alexander Hamilton said, "A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one." Let's set the record straight. There is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace--and you can have it in the next second--surrender.
Admittedly there is a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face--that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight and surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand--the ultimatum. And what then? When Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we are retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary because by that time we will have weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he has heard voices pleading for "peace at any price" or "better Red than dead," or as one commentator put it, he would rather "live on his knees than die on his feet." And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don't speak for the rest of us. You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin--just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard 'round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all.
You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits--not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness....
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Massacre in Itamar - warning, graphic photos inside.
This past Shabbat, the 12 year old daughter of the Fogel Family living in Itamar, Israel, a town approximately 15 miles west of the Jordan River and 30 miles from the Meditterranean, in what has become known as the northern west bank, arrived home from a youth group meeting.
She was unable to open the door to her house, and summoned a neighbor for help.
What she found can not be described in any other way than horrific.
Her parents, 11 year old, 4 year old, and 3 MONTH OLD siblings were found murdered, stabbed to death in their beds, their throats slashed.
To let the public understand the brutality of the crimes, and what they face every day, the family released some of the official investigative pictures of the murders.
Here in the US, a person who committed this crime would be known as a "family annhilator", a particularly heinous type of serial killer.
In Palestinian society, this type of person has a street, soccer stadium or School named after them, as Dalal Mughrabi, the worst murderer in Israeli history (a female Palestinian terrorist) had.
Worse, these "namings" are applauded and supported by ALL of the Palestinian leadership, including Abbas and Fayyad. Abbas said recently that of course they would name things after Mughrabi, she is a hero.
She was unable to open the door to her house, and summoned a neighbor for help.
What she found can not be described in any other way than horrific.
Her parents, 11 year old, 4 year old, and 3 MONTH OLD siblings were found murdered, stabbed to death in their beds, their throats slashed.
To let the public understand the brutality of the crimes, and what they face every day, the family released some of the official investigative pictures of the murders.
Here in the US, a person who committed this crime would be known as a "family annhilator", a particularly heinous type of serial killer.
In Palestinian society, this type of person has a street, soccer stadium or School named after them, as Dalal Mughrabi, the worst murderer in Israeli history (a female Palestinian terrorist) had.
Worse, these "namings" are applauded and supported by ALL of the Palestinian leadership, including Abbas and Fayyad. Abbas said recently that of course they would name things after Mughrabi, she is a hero.
Monday, March 14, 2011
A Challenge to the 'Peace' Camp
By David Suissa
It is fashionable when talking about the "peace process" to focus on hope — to try to nurture the moderate elements among our "peace partners" and constantly inject good faith and good will to keep the process moving "forward."
Because I crave peace by nature, I've always had some sympathy for this approach, which is why I have many friends on the left and why I occasionally take a break from my hard-nosed realism to indulge in more dreamlike and wishful prose.
This is not one of those times.
When I saw the horrifying pictures of the Jewish family members in Itamar who were stabbed to death in their own home— Udi and Ruth Fogel (36 and 35 years old), and their children Yoav (11 years old), Elad (4) and their 3-month-old daughter, Hadas— I thought of recent reports on the glorification of terrorism in Palestinian society.
It was impossible not to connect the dots.
In the reports, from Palestinian Media Watch, I learned that the terrorist responsible for the most lethal attack against Israel, Dalal Mughrabi, is now immortalized in two elementary schools, a kindergarten, a computer center, summer camps, football tournaments, a community center, a sports team, a public square, a street, an election course, an adult education course, a university club, a dance troupe, a military unit, a dormitory in a youth center, a TV quiz team and a graduation ceremony.
I also learned that today, a Palestinian child can walk to school along a street named after the terrorist Abu Jihad, who planned a bus hijacking that killed 37, spend the day in a school named after Ahmad Yassin, the man who founded Hamas, play soccer in the afternoon in a tournament honoring terrorist Abd Al-Basset Odeh, who killed 31, and end his day at a youth center named after Abu Iyad, who was responsible for killing 11 Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich.
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These are the heroes of Palestinian society— not Abraham Lincolns and Albert Einsteins and Martin Luther Kings but murderers who crave the spilling of Jewish blood.
Before you rush to defend our "new and improved" Palestinian "peace partners," note that it was Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas who funded a computer center named after Dalal Mughrabi in 2009, and who supported the naming of the square in her honor in 2010.
"Of course, we want to name a square after her," he said to Al-Hayat Al-Jadida on Jan.17, 2010.
And who sponsored a sporting event named after one of the most prominent terrorist of all, Abu Jihad, in May 2010? None other than PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, the man who is building the "new" Palestine.
Just last year, Mahmoud Al-Aloui, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, said in an interview in Al-Hayat Al Jadida: "It is our right and our duty to take pride in all of the Shahids (martyrs), and it is our duty to convey this message in the most direct manner to the generations to come."
He wasn't kidding. Only a month ago, PA President Abbas awarded $2000 to the family of a terrorist who attacked two Israeli soldiers in December.
And the very day before the Itamar murders, PA presidential advisor Sabri Saidam delivered a speech reported in Al Ayyam, in which he emphasized that "the weapons must be turned towards the main enemy [Israel] and internal differences of opinion must be set aside."
This glorification of Jew-hatred and murder in the name of martyrdom— which marinates all strata of Palestinian society— is happening under the watchful eyes of our Palestinian "peace partners," who have convinced most of the world, and many Israel supporters, that the real obstacle to peace is not Palestinian incitement to murder but Jewish building of apartments in East Jerusalem.
Even if you're a passionate peacenik, you have to admit that this is a bad joke. What does Jewish construction have to do with a Jew-hatred that has been burned into Arab hearts since before the first settlement or even Israel ever existed?
What else but Jew-hatred can explain the consistent refusal by Palestinian leaders to recognize a Jewish state and prepare their people for the inevitable compromises that peace with Jews will require?
As Sari Nusseibeh once said, "How can we Palestinians expect Israel to think we want co-existence when our position on the refugee issue has been tantamount to a call for Israel's destruction?"
So, here's my message to my friends in the peace camp. You've done an amazing job of telling the world that a peace agreement with the Palestinians is really, really important, and that Israel is primarily responsible for the absence of this agreement.
In fact, you've done such an amazing job of blaming Israel that my friend Gary Rosenblatt, editor of the Jewish Week, wrote last week that Israel has become a "source of embarrassment" for many American Jews. Imagine that.
Well, now you have a chance to make amends and bring some balance to your message.
In honor of the children who were stabbed to death in Itamar, you can release this statement to the world: "It is really, really important, for the sake of peace, that Palestinian leaders eliminate the glorification of terrorism and Jew-hatred that permeates their society, and begin immediately to teach the benefits and compromises of peaceful co-existence with a Jewish state."
Who's brave enough in the peace camp to sign their name to that statement?
It is fashionable when talking about the "peace process" to focus on hope — to try to nurture the moderate elements among our "peace partners" and constantly inject good faith and good will to keep the process moving "forward."
Because I crave peace by nature, I've always had some sympathy for this approach, which is why I have many friends on the left and why I occasionally take a break from my hard-nosed realism to indulge in more dreamlike and wishful prose.
This is not one of those times.
When I saw the horrifying pictures of the Jewish family members in Itamar who were stabbed to death in their own home— Udi and Ruth Fogel (36 and 35 years old), and their children Yoav (11 years old), Elad (4) and their 3-month-old daughter, Hadas— I thought of recent reports on the glorification of terrorism in Palestinian society.
It was impossible not to connect the dots.
In the reports, from Palestinian Media Watch, I learned that the terrorist responsible for the most lethal attack against Israel, Dalal Mughrabi, is now immortalized in two elementary schools, a kindergarten, a computer center, summer camps, football tournaments, a community center, a sports team, a public square, a street, an election course, an adult education course, a university club, a dance troupe, a military unit, a dormitory in a youth center, a TV quiz team and a graduation ceremony.
I also learned that today, a Palestinian child can walk to school along a street named after the terrorist Abu Jihad, who planned a bus hijacking that killed 37, spend the day in a school named after Ahmad Yassin, the man who founded Hamas, play soccer in the afternoon in a tournament honoring terrorist Abd Al-Basset Odeh, who killed 31, and end his day at a youth center named after Abu Iyad, who was responsible for killing 11 Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich.
FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO INFLUENTIAL NEWSLETTER
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". HUNDREDS of columnists and cartoonists regularly appear. Sign up for the daily update. It's free. Just click here.
These are the heroes of Palestinian society— not Abraham Lincolns and Albert Einsteins and Martin Luther Kings but murderers who crave the spilling of Jewish blood.
Before you rush to defend our "new and improved" Palestinian "peace partners," note that it was Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas who funded a computer center named after Dalal Mughrabi in 2009, and who supported the naming of the square in her honor in 2010.
"Of course, we want to name a square after her," he said to Al-Hayat Al-Jadida on Jan.17, 2010.
And who sponsored a sporting event named after one of the most prominent terrorist of all, Abu Jihad, in May 2010? None other than PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, the man who is building the "new" Palestine.
Just last year, Mahmoud Al-Aloui, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, said in an interview in Al-Hayat Al Jadida: "It is our right and our duty to take pride in all of the Shahids (martyrs), and it is our duty to convey this message in the most direct manner to the generations to come."
He wasn't kidding. Only a month ago, PA President Abbas awarded $2000 to the family of a terrorist who attacked two Israeli soldiers in December.
And the very day before the Itamar murders, PA presidential advisor Sabri Saidam delivered a speech reported in Al Ayyam, in which he emphasized that "the weapons must be turned towards the main enemy [Israel] and internal differences of opinion must be set aside."
This glorification of Jew-hatred and murder in the name of martyrdom— which marinates all strata of Palestinian society— is happening under the watchful eyes of our Palestinian "peace partners," who have convinced most of the world, and many Israel supporters, that the real obstacle to peace is not Palestinian incitement to murder but Jewish building of apartments in East Jerusalem.
Even if you're a passionate peacenik, you have to admit that this is a bad joke. What does Jewish construction have to do with a Jew-hatred that has been burned into Arab hearts since before the first settlement or even Israel ever existed?
What else but Jew-hatred can explain the consistent refusal by Palestinian leaders to recognize a Jewish state and prepare their people for the inevitable compromises that peace with Jews will require?
As Sari Nusseibeh once said, "How can we Palestinians expect Israel to think we want co-existence when our position on the refugee issue has been tantamount to a call for Israel's destruction?"
So, here's my message to my friends in the peace camp. You've done an amazing job of telling the world that a peace agreement with the Palestinians is really, really important, and that Israel is primarily responsible for the absence of this agreement.
In fact, you've done such an amazing job of blaming Israel that my friend Gary Rosenblatt, editor of the Jewish Week, wrote last week that Israel has become a "source of embarrassment" for many American Jews. Imagine that.
Well, now you have a chance to make amends and bring some balance to your message.
In honor of the children who were stabbed to death in Itamar, you can release this statement to the world: "It is really, really important, for the sake of peace, that Palestinian leaders eliminate the glorification of terrorism and Jew-hatred that permeates their society, and begin immediately to teach the benefits and compromises of peaceful co-existence with a Jewish state."
Who's brave enough in the peace camp to sign their name to that statement?
Friday, March 11, 2011
Can you talk when the conversation itself is illegitimate?
I've written often over the years about the Orwellian nature of conversations about the Middle East. That the very subjects being discussed are so backward and irrelevant to the bigger issues of tyrannical regimes that the very ideas, and those in support of them must be living in some alternate reality.
Now, the same thing is going on here in the US. We have been sucked into a debate in Wisconsin about the validity of Governor Walkers attempt to limit public service union's collective bargaining rights (not eliminate them, and not all unions as the left media would have us believe).
And yet, every day, the bigger story of an entire class of state senators simply leaving, refusing to engage even in debate is being ignored.
Where is the line? I don't want to name that school after FDR. I'm leaving!! I don't want to name the street Oak, it should be Elm!!! I'm leaving!!
I don't want Monday's as a state holiday for the Cheese Festival I want Tuesday!! I'm leaving!!!
It's called a slippery slope. And we've slipped so much we don't even notice the collective hole in the backseat of our collective pants from the friction on the way down.
This is obfuscation, point changing and political sleight of hand of the worst order.
Now, the same thing is going on here in the US. We have been sucked into a debate in Wisconsin about the validity of Governor Walkers attempt to limit public service union's collective bargaining rights (not eliminate them, and not all unions as the left media would have us believe).
And yet, every day, the bigger story of an entire class of state senators simply leaving, refusing to engage even in debate is being ignored.
Where is the line? I don't want to name that school after FDR. I'm leaving!! I don't want to name the street Oak, it should be Elm!!! I'm leaving!!
I don't want Monday's as a state holiday for the Cheese Festival I want Tuesday!! I'm leaving!!!
It's called a slippery slope. And we've slipped so much we don't even notice the collective hole in the backseat of our collective pants from the friction on the way down.
This is obfuscation, point changing and political sleight of hand of the worst order.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Our conversion to a dictatorship is now complete.
If you have read my blog over the last few years, you will have read my entreaties concerning the single thread that runs through the bizarre decisions of our current president. I have argued that it is never a question of left vs right, but rather that in true Progressive (or as I call them Regressive) fashion, he has concentrated more power in the office of the President than all of the chief executives who came before him combined.
One of the things that he did that most concerned me was his changing the definition of who could be detained without warrant under the guise of national security.
He took the Bush "enemy combatants" a clearly defined category well within the Geneva Conventions, and changed it to "Anyone the President deems in support of Terrorism".
Well, this weekend, the final straw was put into this potion of lost liberty.
In signing the executive order keeping Guantanamo Prison open and restarting Military Tribunals there, he did something that even I never thought any President would try and get away with.
No nation in history, even those with "show" trials, has ever declared that the President can keep imprisoned EVEN SOMEONE FOUND NOT GUILTY.
In other words, Barack Obama has now signed orders saying that he can arrest and imprison anyone he wants, REGARDLESS of what the courts say.
Call him Comrade, say Heil before his name, Your imperial highness, glorious leader, or any other appellation taken by the deviant dictators of our times, but he is well within that group.
One of the things that he did that most concerned me was his changing the definition of who could be detained without warrant under the guise of national security.
He took the Bush "enemy combatants" a clearly defined category well within the Geneva Conventions, and changed it to "Anyone the President deems in support of Terrorism".
Well, this weekend, the final straw was put into this potion of lost liberty.
In signing the executive order keeping Guantanamo Prison open and restarting Military Tribunals there, he did something that even I never thought any President would try and get away with.
No nation in history, even those with "show" trials, has ever declared that the President can keep imprisoned EVEN SOMEONE FOUND NOT GUILTY.
In other words, Barack Obama has now signed orders saying that he can arrest and imprison anyone he wants, REGARDLESS of what the courts say.
Call him Comrade, say Heil before his name, Your imperial highness, glorious leader, or any other appellation taken by the deviant dictators of our times, but he is well within that group.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Follow the Bouncing Bahrain...
While the headlines are focusing lately on Libya, and to a lesser extend, Jordan, Lebanon, et al, the most significant country in terms of the immediate impact on the United States, and indeed the rest of the world, is Bahrain.
Why? Simple geography.
A little background. Bahrain is an island in the Straits of Hormuz. It lies closer to Saudi Arabia and is ruled by a Sunni minority. The Saudis, in case you don't know, are Sunni.
Immediately on the other side of the Strait is Iran, a Shiite country, and the Saudi's main rival (more on Iran, and the President's bizarre machinations in the next post).
There is perhaps more Sunni - Shiite antagonism than there is anti Americanism in the Middle East.
Iran is clearly demonstrating exactly what I have been writing about, nay, practically screaming about, for the last 3 years, their attempt to become not just a regional super power, but a global one.
Their sphere of domination now runs almost all the way through the Middle East (and the President's removing of US Battleships in the Mediterranean for the first time in 31 years - the unannounced reason the Iranians were allowed to send their ships through the Suez - is a major reason for this) stopping only in Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt - though less today than yesterday, and to a smaller extent, the Emirates.
I mentioned before the Sunni minority in Bahrain. That means there is a Shiite majority.
If the shiites that are now agitating there, have there way, it will mean that Iran will be in full control of the Straits. And thus, the transport of most of the oil in the Middle East, including the Saudis.
If this happens, we are looking at $10/gallon gas. Not to mention the full control of the Middle East by the Shiite minority and the new Iranian empire.
Follow the bouncing Bahrain. It holds the key.
Why? Simple geography.
A little background. Bahrain is an island in the Straits of Hormuz. It lies closer to Saudi Arabia and is ruled by a Sunni minority. The Saudis, in case you don't know, are Sunni.
Immediately on the other side of the Strait is Iran, a Shiite country, and the Saudi's main rival (more on Iran, and the President's bizarre machinations in the next post).
There is perhaps more Sunni - Shiite antagonism than there is anti Americanism in the Middle East.
Iran is clearly demonstrating exactly what I have been writing about, nay, practically screaming about, for the last 3 years, their attempt to become not just a regional super power, but a global one.
Their sphere of domination now runs almost all the way through the Middle East (and the President's removing of US Battleships in the Mediterranean for the first time in 31 years - the unannounced reason the Iranians were allowed to send their ships through the Suez - is a major reason for this) stopping only in Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt - though less today than yesterday, and to a smaller extent, the Emirates.
I mentioned before the Sunni minority in Bahrain. That means there is a Shiite majority.
If the shiites that are now agitating there, have there way, it will mean that Iran will be in full control of the Straits. And thus, the transport of most of the oil in the Middle East, including the Saudis.
If this happens, we are looking at $10/gallon gas. Not to mention the full control of the Middle East by the Shiite minority and the new Iranian empire.
Follow the bouncing Bahrain. It holds the key.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Democracy - 100,000, Theocracy - 1,000,000
Funny, but I have yet to see on the front page of my daily NY Times, or in that bastion of "news" that the President pushes, the Huffington Post, any stories about the speech given on Friday by the spiritual head of the Muslim brotherhood in front of 1,000,000 Egyptians in Tahrir square.
Interesting that this is a man that was deemed so dangerous he had been banned from Egypt until the new government took over. You know, the new government, same as the old government. Except that now their golden goose, the US government led by that enigma of part time democracy support, Barack Obama, told them that the new government SHOULD allow the Muslim Brotherhood to participate.
What does it say when the Brotherhood outdraws the largest of the "pro democracy" crowd of the recent 'revolution' 10-1? I think you can figure that out.
Interesting that this is a man that was deemed so dangerous he had been banned from Egypt until the new government took over. You know, the new government, same as the old government. Except that now their golden goose, the US government led by that enigma of part time democracy support, Barack Obama, told them that the new government SHOULD allow the Muslim Brotherhood to participate.
What does it say when the Brotherhood outdraws the largest of the "pro democracy" crowd of the recent 'revolution' 10-1? I think you can figure that out.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Egypt: The Distance Between Enthusiasm and Reality
MORE SUPRISINGLY ACCURATE INFORMATION FROM STRATFOR AND GEORGE FRIEDMAN
By George Friedman
On Feb. 11, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigned. A military council was named to govern in his place. On Feb. 11-12, the crowds that had gathered in Tahrir Square celebrated Mubarak’s fall and the triumph of democracy in Egypt. On Feb. 13, the military council abolished the constitution and dissolved parliament, promising a new constitution to be ratified by a referendum and stating that the military would rule for six months, or until the military decides it’s ready to hold parliamentary and presidential elections.
What we see is that while Mubarak is gone, the military regime in which he served has dramatically increased its power. This isn’t incompatible with democratic reform. Organizing elections, political parties and candidates is not something that can be done quickly. If the military is sincere in its intentions, it will have to do these things. The problem is that if the military is insincere it will do exactly the same things. Six months is a long time, passions can subside and promises can be forgotten.
At this point, we simply don’t know what will happen. We do know what has happened. Mubarak is out of office, the military regime remains intact and it is stronger than ever. This is not surprising, given what STRATFOR has said about recent events in Egypt, but the reality of what has happened in the last 72 hours and the interpretation that much of the world has placed on it are startlingly different. Power rests with the regime, not with the crowds. In our view, the crowds never had nearly as much power as many have claimed.
Certainly, there was a large crowd concentrated in a square in Cairo, and there were demonstrations in other cities. But the crowd was limited. It never got to be more than 300,000 people or so in Tahrir Square, and while that’s a lot of people, it is nothing like the crowds that turned out during the 1989 risings in Eastern Europe or the 1979 revolution in Iran. Those were massive social convulsions in which millions came out onto the streets. The crowd in Cairo never swelled to the point that it involved a substantial portion of the city.
In a genuine revolution, the police and military cannot contain the crowds. In Egypt, the military chose not to confront the demonstrators, not because the military itself was split, but because it agreed with the demonstrators’ core demand: getting rid of Mubarak. And since the military was the essence of the Egyptian regime, it is odd to consider this a revolution.
Mubarak and the Regime
The crowd in Cairo, as telegenic as it was, was the backdrop to the drama, not the main feature. The main drama began months ago when it became apparent that Mubarak intended to make his reform-minded 47-year-old son, Gamal, lacking in military service, president of Egypt. This represented a direct challenge to the regime. In a way, Mubarak was the one trying to overthrow the regime.
The Egyptian regime was founded in a coup led by Col. Gamal Abdel Nasser and modeled after that of Kemal Ataturk of Turkey, basing it on the military. It was intended to be a secular regime with democratic elements, but it would be guaranteed and ultimately controlled by the military. Nasser believed that the military was the most modern and progressive element of Egyptian society and that it had to be given the responsibility and power to modernize Egypt.
While Nasser took off his uniform, the military remained the bulwark of the regime. Each successive president of Egypt, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, while formally elected in elections of varying dubiousness, was an officer in the Egyptian military who had removed his uniform when he entered political life.
Mubarak’s decision to name his son represented a direct challenge to the Egyptian regime. Gamal Mubarak was not a career military officer, nor was he linked to the military’s high command, which had been the real power in the regime. Mubarak’s desire to have his son succeed him appalled and enraged the Egyptian military, the defender of the regime. If he were to be appointed, then the military regime would be replaced by, in essence, a hereditary monarchy — what had ruled Egypt before the military. Large segments of the military had been maneuvering to block Mubarak’s ambitions and, with increasing intensity, wanted to see Mubarak step down in order to pave the way for an orderly succession using the elections scheduled for September, elections designed to affirm the regime by selecting a figure acceptable to the senior military men. Mubarak’s insistence on Gamal and his unwillingness to step down created a crisis for the regime. The military feared the regime could not survive Mubarak’s ambitions.
This is the key point to understand. There is a critical distinction between the regime and Hosni Mubarak. The regime consisted — and consists — of complex institutions centered on the military but also including the civilian bureaucracy controlled by the military. Hosni Mubarak was the leader of the regime, successor to Nasser and Sadat, who over time came to distinguish his interests from those of the regime. He was increasingly seen as a threat to the regime, and the regime turned on him.
The demonstrators never called for the downfall of the regime. They demanded that Mubarak step aside. This was the same demand that was being made by many if not most officers in the military months before the crowds gathered in the streets. The military did not like the spectacle of the crowds, which is not the way the military likes to handle political matters. At the same time, paradoxically, the military welcomed the demonstrations, since they created a crisis that put the question of Mubarak’s future on the table. They gave the military an opportunity to save the regime and preserve its own interests.
The Egyptian military is opaque. It isn’t clear who was reluctant to act and who was eager. We would guess that the people who now make up the ruling military council were reluctant to act. They were of the same generation as Hosni Mubarak, owed their careers to him and were his friends. Younger officers, who had joined the military after 1973 and had trained with the Americans rather than the Soviets, were the likely agitators for blocking Mubarak’s selection of Gamal as his heir, but there were also senior officers publicly expressing reservations. Who was on what side is a guess. What is known is that many in the military opposed Gamal, would not push the issue to a coup, and then staged a coup designed to save the regime after the demonstrations in Cairo were under way.
That is the point. What happened was not a revolution. The demonstrators never brought down Mubarak, let alone the regime. What happened was a military coup that used the cover of protests to force Mubarak out of office in order to preserve the regime. When it became clear Feb. 10 that Mubarak would not voluntarily step down, the military staged what amounted to a coup to force his resignation. Once he was forced out of office, the military took over the existing regime by creating a military council and taking control of critical ministries. The regime was always centered on the military. What happened on Feb. 11 was that the military took direct control.
Again, as a guess, the older officers, friends of Mubarak, found themselves under pressure from other officers and the United States to act. They finally did, taking the major positions for themselves. The demonstrations were the backdrop for this drama and the justification for the military’s actions, but they were not a revolution in the streets. It was a military coup designed to preserve a military-dominated regime. And that was what the crowds were demanding as well.
Coup and Revolution
We now face the question of whether the coup will turn into a revolution. The demonstrators demanded — and the military has agreed to hold — genuinely democratic elections and to stop repression. It is not clear that the new leaders mean what they have said or were simply saying it to get the crowds to go home. But there are deeper problems in the democratization of Egypt. First, Mubarak’s repression had wrecked civil society. The formation of coherent political parties able to find and run candidates will take a while. Second, the military is deeply enmeshed in running the country. Backing them out of that position, with the best will in the world, will require time. The military bought time Feb. 13, but it is not clear that six months is enough time, and it is not clear that, in the end, the military will want to leave the position it has held for more than half a century.
Of course, there is the feeling, as there was in 2009 with the Tehran demonstrations, that something unheard of has taken place, as U.S. President Barack Obama has implied. It is said to have something to do with Twitter and Facebook. We should recall that, in our time, genuine revolutions that destroyed regimes took place in 1989 and 1979, the latter even before there were PCs. Indeed, such revolutions go back to the 18th century. None of them required smartphones, and all of them were more thorough and profound than what has happened in Egypt so far. This revolution will not be “Twitterized.” The largest number of protesters arrived in Tahrir Square after the Internet was completely shut down.
The new government has promised to honor all foreign commitments, which obviously include the most controversial one in Egypt, the treaty with Israel. During the celebrations the evening of Feb. 11 and morning of Feb. 12, the two chants were about democracy and Palestine. While the regime committed itself to maintaining the treaty with Israel, the crowds in the square seemed to have other thoughts, not yet clearly defined. But then, it is not clear that the demonstrators in the square represent the wishes of 80 million Egyptians. For all the chatter about the Egyptian people demanding democracy, the fact is that hardly anyone participated in the demonstrations, relative to the number of Egyptians there are, and no one really knows how the Egyptian people would vote on this issue.
The Egyptian government is hardly in a position to confront Israel, even if it wanted to. The Egyptian army has mostly American equipment and cannot function if the Americans don’t provide spare parts or contractors to maintain that equipment. There is no Soviet Union vying to replace the United States today. Re-equipping and training a military the size of Egypt’s is measured in decades, not weeks. Egypt is not going to war any time soon. But then the new rulers have declared that all prior treaties — such as with Israel — will remain in effect.
What Was Achieved?
Therefore, we face this reality. The Egyptian regime is still there, still controlled by old generals. They are committed to the same foreign policy as the man they forced out of office. They have promised democracy, but it is not clear that they mean it. If they mean it, it is not clear how they would do it, certainly not in a timeframe of a few months. Indeed, this means that the crowds may re-emerge demanding more rapid democratization, depending on who organized the crowds in the first place and what their intentions are now.
It is not that nothing happened in Egypt, and it is not that it isn’t important. It is simply that what happened was not what the media portrayed but a much more complex process, most of it not viewable on TV. Certainly, there was nothing unprecedented in what was achieved or how it was achieved. It is not even clear what was achieved. Nor is it clear that anything that has happened changes Egyptian foreign or domestic policy. It is not even clear that those policies could be changed in practical terms regardless of intent.
The week began with an old soldier running Egypt. It ended with different old soldiers running Egypt with even more formal power than Mubarak had. This has caused worldwide shock and awe. We were killjoys in 2009, when we said the Iranian revolution wasn’t going anywhere. We do not want to be killjoys now, since everyone is so excited and happy. But we should point out that, in spite of the crowds, nothing much has really happened yet in Egypt. It doesn’t mean that it won’t, but it hasn’t yet.
An 82-year-old man has been thrown out of office, and his son will not be president. The constitution and parliament are gone and a military junta is in charge. The rest is speculation.
By George Friedman
On Feb. 11, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigned. A military council was named to govern in his place. On Feb. 11-12, the crowds that had gathered in Tahrir Square celebrated Mubarak’s fall and the triumph of democracy in Egypt. On Feb. 13, the military council abolished the constitution and dissolved parliament, promising a new constitution to be ratified by a referendum and stating that the military would rule for six months, or until the military decides it’s ready to hold parliamentary and presidential elections.
What we see is that while Mubarak is gone, the military regime in which he served has dramatically increased its power. This isn’t incompatible with democratic reform. Organizing elections, political parties and candidates is not something that can be done quickly. If the military is sincere in its intentions, it will have to do these things. The problem is that if the military is insincere it will do exactly the same things. Six months is a long time, passions can subside and promises can be forgotten.
At this point, we simply don’t know what will happen. We do know what has happened. Mubarak is out of office, the military regime remains intact and it is stronger than ever. This is not surprising, given what STRATFOR has said about recent events in Egypt, but the reality of what has happened in the last 72 hours and the interpretation that much of the world has placed on it are startlingly different. Power rests with the regime, not with the crowds. In our view, the crowds never had nearly as much power as many have claimed.
Certainly, there was a large crowd concentrated in a square in Cairo, and there were demonstrations in other cities. But the crowd was limited. It never got to be more than 300,000 people or so in Tahrir Square, and while that’s a lot of people, it is nothing like the crowds that turned out during the 1989 risings in Eastern Europe or the 1979 revolution in Iran. Those were massive social convulsions in which millions came out onto the streets. The crowd in Cairo never swelled to the point that it involved a substantial portion of the city.
In a genuine revolution, the police and military cannot contain the crowds. In Egypt, the military chose not to confront the demonstrators, not because the military itself was split, but because it agreed with the demonstrators’ core demand: getting rid of Mubarak. And since the military was the essence of the Egyptian regime, it is odd to consider this a revolution.
Mubarak and the Regime
The crowd in Cairo, as telegenic as it was, was the backdrop to the drama, not the main feature. The main drama began months ago when it became apparent that Mubarak intended to make his reform-minded 47-year-old son, Gamal, lacking in military service, president of Egypt. This represented a direct challenge to the regime. In a way, Mubarak was the one trying to overthrow the regime.
The Egyptian regime was founded in a coup led by Col. Gamal Abdel Nasser and modeled after that of Kemal Ataturk of Turkey, basing it on the military. It was intended to be a secular regime with democratic elements, but it would be guaranteed and ultimately controlled by the military. Nasser believed that the military was the most modern and progressive element of Egyptian society and that it had to be given the responsibility and power to modernize Egypt.
While Nasser took off his uniform, the military remained the bulwark of the regime. Each successive president of Egypt, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, while formally elected in elections of varying dubiousness, was an officer in the Egyptian military who had removed his uniform when he entered political life.
Mubarak’s decision to name his son represented a direct challenge to the Egyptian regime. Gamal Mubarak was not a career military officer, nor was he linked to the military’s high command, which had been the real power in the regime. Mubarak’s desire to have his son succeed him appalled and enraged the Egyptian military, the defender of the regime. If he were to be appointed, then the military regime would be replaced by, in essence, a hereditary monarchy — what had ruled Egypt before the military. Large segments of the military had been maneuvering to block Mubarak’s ambitions and, with increasing intensity, wanted to see Mubarak step down in order to pave the way for an orderly succession using the elections scheduled for September, elections designed to affirm the regime by selecting a figure acceptable to the senior military men. Mubarak’s insistence on Gamal and his unwillingness to step down created a crisis for the regime. The military feared the regime could not survive Mubarak’s ambitions.
This is the key point to understand. There is a critical distinction between the regime and Hosni Mubarak. The regime consisted — and consists — of complex institutions centered on the military but also including the civilian bureaucracy controlled by the military. Hosni Mubarak was the leader of the regime, successor to Nasser and Sadat, who over time came to distinguish his interests from those of the regime. He was increasingly seen as a threat to the regime, and the regime turned on him.
The demonstrators never called for the downfall of the regime. They demanded that Mubarak step aside. This was the same demand that was being made by many if not most officers in the military months before the crowds gathered in the streets. The military did not like the spectacle of the crowds, which is not the way the military likes to handle political matters. At the same time, paradoxically, the military welcomed the demonstrations, since they created a crisis that put the question of Mubarak’s future on the table. They gave the military an opportunity to save the regime and preserve its own interests.
The Egyptian military is opaque. It isn’t clear who was reluctant to act and who was eager. We would guess that the people who now make up the ruling military council were reluctant to act. They were of the same generation as Hosni Mubarak, owed their careers to him and were his friends. Younger officers, who had joined the military after 1973 and had trained with the Americans rather than the Soviets, were the likely agitators for blocking Mubarak’s selection of Gamal as his heir, but there were also senior officers publicly expressing reservations. Who was on what side is a guess. What is known is that many in the military opposed Gamal, would not push the issue to a coup, and then staged a coup designed to save the regime after the demonstrations in Cairo were under way.
That is the point. What happened was not a revolution. The demonstrators never brought down Mubarak, let alone the regime. What happened was a military coup that used the cover of protests to force Mubarak out of office in order to preserve the regime. When it became clear Feb. 10 that Mubarak would not voluntarily step down, the military staged what amounted to a coup to force his resignation. Once he was forced out of office, the military took over the existing regime by creating a military council and taking control of critical ministries. The regime was always centered on the military. What happened on Feb. 11 was that the military took direct control.
Again, as a guess, the older officers, friends of Mubarak, found themselves under pressure from other officers and the United States to act. They finally did, taking the major positions for themselves. The demonstrations were the backdrop for this drama and the justification for the military’s actions, but they were not a revolution in the streets. It was a military coup designed to preserve a military-dominated regime. And that was what the crowds were demanding as well.
Coup and Revolution
We now face the question of whether the coup will turn into a revolution. The demonstrators demanded — and the military has agreed to hold — genuinely democratic elections and to stop repression. It is not clear that the new leaders mean what they have said or were simply saying it to get the crowds to go home. But there are deeper problems in the democratization of Egypt. First, Mubarak’s repression had wrecked civil society. The formation of coherent political parties able to find and run candidates will take a while. Second, the military is deeply enmeshed in running the country. Backing them out of that position, with the best will in the world, will require time. The military bought time Feb. 13, but it is not clear that six months is enough time, and it is not clear that, in the end, the military will want to leave the position it has held for more than half a century.
Of course, there is the feeling, as there was in 2009 with the Tehran demonstrations, that something unheard of has taken place, as U.S. President Barack Obama has implied. It is said to have something to do with Twitter and Facebook. We should recall that, in our time, genuine revolutions that destroyed regimes took place in 1989 and 1979, the latter even before there were PCs. Indeed, such revolutions go back to the 18th century. None of them required smartphones, and all of them were more thorough and profound than what has happened in Egypt so far. This revolution will not be “Twitterized.” The largest number of protesters arrived in Tahrir Square after the Internet was completely shut down.
The new government has promised to honor all foreign commitments, which obviously include the most controversial one in Egypt, the treaty with Israel. During the celebrations the evening of Feb. 11 and morning of Feb. 12, the two chants were about democracy and Palestine. While the regime committed itself to maintaining the treaty with Israel, the crowds in the square seemed to have other thoughts, not yet clearly defined. But then, it is not clear that the demonstrators in the square represent the wishes of 80 million Egyptians. For all the chatter about the Egyptian people demanding democracy, the fact is that hardly anyone participated in the demonstrations, relative to the number of Egyptians there are, and no one really knows how the Egyptian people would vote on this issue.
The Egyptian government is hardly in a position to confront Israel, even if it wanted to. The Egyptian army has mostly American equipment and cannot function if the Americans don’t provide spare parts or contractors to maintain that equipment. There is no Soviet Union vying to replace the United States today. Re-equipping and training a military the size of Egypt’s is measured in decades, not weeks. Egypt is not going to war any time soon. But then the new rulers have declared that all prior treaties — such as with Israel — will remain in effect.
What Was Achieved?
Therefore, we face this reality. The Egyptian regime is still there, still controlled by old generals. They are committed to the same foreign policy as the man they forced out of office. They have promised democracy, but it is not clear that they mean it. If they mean it, it is not clear how they would do it, certainly not in a timeframe of a few months. Indeed, this means that the crowds may re-emerge demanding more rapid democratization, depending on who organized the crowds in the first place and what their intentions are now.
It is not that nothing happened in Egypt, and it is not that it isn’t important. It is simply that what happened was not what the media portrayed but a much more complex process, most of it not viewable on TV. Certainly, there was nothing unprecedented in what was achieved or how it was achieved. It is not even clear what was achieved. Nor is it clear that anything that has happened changes Egyptian foreign or domestic policy. It is not even clear that those policies could be changed in practical terms regardless of intent.
The week began with an old soldier running Egypt. It ended with different old soldiers running Egypt with even more formal power than Mubarak had. This has caused worldwide shock and awe. We were killjoys in 2009, when we said the Iranian revolution wasn’t going anywhere. We do not want to be killjoys now, since everyone is so excited and happy. But we should point out that, in spite of the crowds, nothing much has really happened yet in Egypt. It doesn’t mean that it won’t, but it hasn’t yet.
An 82-year-old man has been thrown out of office, and his son will not be president. The constitution and parliament are gone and a military junta is in charge. The rest is speculation.
Friday, February 11, 2011
More background: Egypt, Israel and a Strategic Reconsideration
I am not a huge fan of George Friedman, a name being heard more and more frequently because of his site Stratfor.
Generally I find his analysis' simplistic and superficial. He is widely read, however.
Here, his concluding statements reflect what I have been describing for years to my many friends in Israel, and here in the states.
What Friedman misses, incredibly, is that the Egyptian army has been training, and in recent years intensifying that training, to invade Israel. In fact, ALL of their military official "maneuvers" are mock invasions across the Sinai. In addition, they have been remilitarizing the Sinai, in abrogation of the Camp David Accords, for many years.
By George Friedman of Stratfor
The events in Egypt have sent shock waves through Israel. The 1978 Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel have been the bedrock of Israeli national security. In three of the four wars Israel fought before the accords, a catastrophic outcome for Israel was conceivable. In 1948, 1967 and 1973, credible scenarios existed in which the Israelis were defeated and the state of Israel ceased to exist. In 1973, it appeared for several days that one of those scenarios was unfolding.
The survival of Israel was no longer at stake after 1978. In the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the various Palestinian intifadas and the wars with Hezbollah in 2006 and Hamas in Gaza in 2008, Israeli interests were involved, but not survival. There is a huge difference between the two. Israel had achieved a geopolitical ideal after 1978 in which it had divided and effectively made peace with two of the four Arab states that bordered it, and neutralized one of those states. The treaty with Egypt removed the threat to the Negev and the southern coastal approaches to Tel Aviv.
The agreement with Jordan in 1994, which formalized a long-standing relationship, secured the longest and most vulnerable border along the Jordan River. The situation in Lebanon was such that whatever threat emerged from there was limited. Only Syria remained hostile but, by itself, it could not threaten Israel. Damascus was far more focused on Lebanon anyway. As for the Palestinians, they posed a problem for Israel, but without the foreign military forces along the frontiers, the Palestinians could trouble but not destroy Israel. Israel's existence was not at stake, nor was it an issue for 33 years.
THE HISTORIC EGYPTIAN THREAT TO ISRAEL
The center of gravity of Israel's strategic challenge was always Egypt. The largest Arab country, with about 80 million people, Egypt could field the most substantial army. More to the point, Egypt could absorb casualties at a far higher rate than Israel. The danger that the Egyptian army posed was that it could close with the Israelis and engage in extended, high-intensity combat that would break the back of Israel Defense Forces by imposing a rate of attrition that Israel could not sustain. If Israel were to be simultaneously engaged with Syria, dividing its forces and its logistical capabilities, it could run out of troops long before Egypt, even if Egypt were absorbing far more casualties.
The solution for the Israelis was to initiate combat at a time and place of their own choosing, preferably with surprise, as they did in 1956 and 1967. Failing that, as they did in 1973, the Israelis would be forced into a holding action they could not sustain and forced onto an offensive in which the risks of failure — and the possibility — would be substantial.
It was to the great benefit of Israel that Egyptian forces were generally poorly commanded and trained and that Egyptian war-fighting doctrine, derived from Britain and the Soviet Union, was not suited to the battle problem Israel posed. In 1967, Israel won its most complete victory over Egypt, as well as Jordan and Syria. It appeared to the Israelis that the Arabs in general and Egyptians in particular were culturally incapable of mastering modern warfare.
Thus it was an extraordinary shock when, just six years after their 1967 defeat, the Egyptians mounted a two-army assault across the Suez, coordinated with a simultaneous Syrian attack on the Golan Heights. Even more stunning than the assault was the operational security the Egyptians maintained and the degree of surprise they achieved. One of Israel's fundamental assumptions was that Israeli intelligence would provide ample warning of an attack. And one of the fundamental assumptions of Israeli intelligence was that Egypt could not mount an attack while Israel maintained air superiority. Both assumptions were wrong. But the most important error was the assumption that Egypt could not, by itself, coordinate a massive and complex military operation. In the end, the Israelis defeated the Egyptians, but at the cost of the confidence they achieved in 1967 and a recognition that comfortable assumptions were impermissible in warfare in general and regarding Egypt in particular.
The Egyptians had also learned lessons. The most important was that the existence of the state of Israel did not represent a challenge to Egypt's national interest. Israel existed across a fairly wide and inhospitable buffer zone — the Sinai Peninsula. The logistical problems involved in deploying a massive force to the east had resulted in three major defeats, while the single partial victory took place on much shorter lines of supply. Holding or taking the Sinai was difficult and possible only with a massive infusion of weapons and supplies from the outside, from the Soviet Union. This meant that Egypt was a hostage to Soviet interests. Egypt had a greater interest in breaking its dependency on the Soviets than in defeating Israel. It could do the former more readily than the latter.
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The Egyptian recognition that its interests in Israel were minimal and the Israeli recognition that eliminating the potential threat from Egypt guaranteed its national security have been the foundation of the regional balance since 1978. All other considerations — Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas and the rest — were trivial in comparison. Geography — the Sinai — made this strategic distancing possible. So did American aid to Egypt. The substitution of American weapons for Soviet ones in the years after the treaty achieved two things. First, they ended Egypt's dependency on the Soviets. Second, they further guaranteed Israel's security by creating an Egyptian army dependent on a steady flow of spare parts and contractors from the United States. Cut the flow and the Egyptian army would be crippled.
The governments of Anwar Sadat and then Hosni Mubarak were content with this arrangement. The generation that came to power with Gamal Nasser had fought four wars with Israel and had little stomach for any more. They had proved themselves in October 1973 on the Suez and had no appetite to fight again or to send their sons to war. It is not that they created an oasis of prosperity in Egypt. But they no longer had to go to war every few years, and they were able, as military officers, to live good lives. What is now regarded as corruption was then regarded as just rewards for bleeding in four wars against the Israelis.
MUBARAK AND THE MILITARY
But now is 33 years later, and the world has changed. The generation that fought is very old. Today's Egyptian military trains with the Americans, and its officers pass through the American command and staff and war colleges. This generation has close ties to the United States, but not nearly as close ties to the British-trained generation that fought the Israelis or to Egypt's former patrons, the Russians. Mubarak has locked the younger generation, in their fifties and sixties, out of senior command positions and away from the wealth his generation has accumulated. They want him out.
For this younger generation, the idea of Gamal Mubarak being allowed to take over the presidency was the last straw. They wanted the elder Mubarak to leave not only because he had ambitions for his son but also because he didn't want to leave after more than a quarter century of pressure. Mubarak wanted guarantees that, if he left, his possessions, in addition to his honor, would remain intact. If Gamal could not be president, then no one's promise had value. So Mubarak locked himself into position.
The cameras love demonstrations, but they are frequently not the real story. The demonstrators who wanted democracy are a real faction, but they don't speak for the shopkeepers and peasants more interested in prosperity than wealth. Since Egypt is a Muslim country, the West freezes when anything happens, dreading the hand of Osama bin Laden. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood was once a powerful force, and it might become one again someday, but right now it is a shadow of its former self. What is going on now is a struggle within the military, between generations, for the future of the Egyptian military and therefore the heart of the Egyptian regime. Mubarak will leave, the younger officers will emerge, the constitution will make some changes and life will continue.
The Israelis will return to their complacency. They should not. The usual first warning of a heart attack is death. Among the fortunate, it is a mild coronary followed by a dramatic change of life style. The events in Egypt should be taken as a mild coronary and treated with great relief by Israel that it wasn't worse.
RECONSIDERING THE ISRAELI POSITION
I have laid out the reasons why the 1978 treaty is in Egypt's national interest. I have left out two pieces. The first is ideology. The ideological tenor of the Middle East prior to 1978 was secular and socialist. Today it is increasingly Islamist. Egypt is not immune to this trend, even if the Muslim Brotherhood should not be seen as the embodiment of that threat. Second, military technology, skills and terrain have made Egypt a defensive power for the past 33 years. But military technology and skills can change, on both sides. Egyptian defensiveness is built on assumptions of Israeli military capability and interest. As Israeli ideology becomes more militant and as its capabilities grow, Egypt may be forced to reconsider its strategic posture. As new generations of officers arise, who have heard of war only from their grandfathers, the fear of war declines and the desire for glory grows. Combine that with ideology in Egypt and Israel and things change. They won't change quickly — a generation of military transformation will be needed once regimes have changed and the decisions to prepare for war have been made — but they can change.
Two things from this should strike the Israelis. The first is how badly they need peace with Egypt. It is easy to forget what things were like 40 years back, but it is important to remember that the prosperity of Israel today depends in part on the treaty with Egypt. Iran is a distant abstraction, with a notional bomb whose completion date keeps moving. Israel can fight many wars with Egypt and win. It need lose only one. The second lesson is that Israel should do everything possible to make certain that the transfer of power in Egypt is from Mubarak to the next generation of military officers and that these officers maintain their credibility in Egypt. Whether Israel likes it or not, there is an Islamist movement in Egypt. Whether the new generation controls that movement as the previous one did or whether they succumb to it is the existential question for Israel. If the treaty with Egypt is the foundation of Israel's national security, it is logical that the Israelis should do everything possible to preserve it.
This was not the fatal heart attack. It might not even have been more than indigestion. But recent events in Egypt point to a long-term problem with Israeli strategy. Given the strategic and ideological crosscurrents in Egypt, it is in Israel's national interest to minimize the intensity of the ideological and make certain that Israel is not perceived as a threat. In Gaza, for example, Israel and Egypt may have shared a common interest in containing Hamas, and the next generation of Egyptian officers may share it as well. But what didn't materialize in the streets this time could in the future: an Islamist rising. In that case, the Egyptian military might find it in its interest to preserve its power by accommodating the Islamists. At this point, Egypt becomes the problem and not part of the solution.
Keeping Egypt from coming to this is the imperative of military dispassion. If the long-term center of gravity of Israel's national security is at least the neutrality of Egypt, then doing everything to maintain that is a military requirement. That military requirement must be carried out by political means. That requires the recognition of priorities. The future of Gaza or the precise borders of a Palestinian state are trivial compared to preserving the treaty with Egypt. If it is found that a particular political strategy undermines the strategic requirement, then that political strategy must be sacrificed.
In other words, the worst-case scenario for Israel would be a return to the pre-1978 relationship with Egypt without a settlement with the Palestinians. That would open the door for a potential two-front war with an intifada in the middle.
There are those in Israel who would argue that any release in pressure on the Palestinians will be met with rejection. If that is true, then, in my view, that is catastrophic news for Israel. In due course, ideological shifts and recalculations of Israeli intentions will cause a change in Egyptian policy. This will take several decades to turn into effective military force, and the first conflicts may well end in Israeli victory. But, as I have said before, it must always be remembered that no matter how many times Israel wins, it need only lose once to be annihilated.
To some it means that Israel should remain as strong as possible. To me it means that Israel should avoid rolling the dice too often, regardless of how strong it thinks it is. The Mubarak affair might open a strategic reconsideration of the Israeli position.
Generally I find his analysis' simplistic and superficial. He is widely read, however.
Here, his concluding statements reflect what I have been describing for years to my many friends in Israel, and here in the states.
What Friedman misses, incredibly, is that the Egyptian army has been training, and in recent years intensifying that training, to invade Israel. In fact, ALL of their military official "maneuvers" are mock invasions across the Sinai. In addition, they have been remilitarizing the Sinai, in abrogation of the Camp David Accords, for many years.
By George Friedman of Stratfor
The events in Egypt have sent shock waves through Israel. The 1978 Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel have been the bedrock of Israeli national security. In three of the four wars Israel fought before the accords, a catastrophic outcome for Israel was conceivable. In 1948, 1967 and 1973, credible scenarios existed in which the Israelis were defeated and the state of Israel ceased to exist. In 1973, it appeared for several days that one of those scenarios was unfolding.
The survival of Israel was no longer at stake after 1978. In the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the various Palestinian intifadas and the wars with Hezbollah in 2006 and Hamas in Gaza in 2008, Israeli interests were involved, but not survival. There is a huge difference between the two. Israel had achieved a geopolitical ideal after 1978 in which it had divided and effectively made peace with two of the four Arab states that bordered it, and neutralized one of those states. The treaty with Egypt removed the threat to the Negev and the southern coastal approaches to Tel Aviv.
The agreement with Jordan in 1994, which formalized a long-standing relationship, secured the longest and most vulnerable border along the Jordan River. The situation in Lebanon was such that whatever threat emerged from there was limited. Only Syria remained hostile but, by itself, it could not threaten Israel. Damascus was far more focused on Lebanon anyway. As for the Palestinians, they posed a problem for Israel, but without the foreign military forces along the frontiers, the Palestinians could trouble but not destroy Israel. Israel's existence was not at stake, nor was it an issue for 33 years.
THE HISTORIC EGYPTIAN THREAT TO ISRAEL
The center of gravity of Israel's strategic challenge was always Egypt. The largest Arab country, with about 80 million people, Egypt could field the most substantial army. More to the point, Egypt could absorb casualties at a far higher rate than Israel. The danger that the Egyptian army posed was that it could close with the Israelis and engage in extended, high-intensity combat that would break the back of Israel Defense Forces by imposing a rate of attrition that Israel could not sustain. If Israel were to be simultaneously engaged with Syria, dividing its forces and its logistical capabilities, it could run out of troops long before Egypt, even if Egypt were absorbing far more casualties.
The solution for the Israelis was to initiate combat at a time and place of their own choosing, preferably with surprise, as they did in 1956 and 1967. Failing that, as they did in 1973, the Israelis would be forced into a holding action they could not sustain and forced onto an offensive in which the risks of failure — and the possibility — would be substantial.
It was to the great benefit of Israel that Egyptian forces were generally poorly commanded and trained and that Egyptian war-fighting doctrine, derived from Britain and the Soviet Union, was not suited to the battle problem Israel posed. In 1967, Israel won its most complete victory over Egypt, as well as Jordan and Syria. It appeared to the Israelis that the Arabs in general and Egyptians in particular were culturally incapable of mastering modern warfare.
Thus it was an extraordinary shock when, just six years after their 1967 defeat, the Egyptians mounted a two-army assault across the Suez, coordinated with a simultaneous Syrian attack on the Golan Heights. Even more stunning than the assault was the operational security the Egyptians maintained and the degree of surprise they achieved. One of Israel's fundamental assumptions was that Israeli intelligence would provide ample warning of an attack. And one of the fundamental assumptions of Israeli intelligence was that Egypt could not mount an attack while Israel maintained air superiority. Both assumptions were wrong. But the most important error was the assumption that Egypt could not, by itself, coordinate a massive and complex military operation. In the end, the Israelis defeated the Egyptians, but at the cost of the confidence they achieved in 1967 and a recognition that comfortable assumptions were impermissible in warfare in general and regarding Egypt in particular.
The Egyptians had also learned lessons. The most important was that the existence of the state of Israel did not represent a challenge to Egypt's national interest. Israel existed across a fairly wide and inhospitable buffer zone — the Sinai Peninsula. The logistical problems involved in deploying a massive force to the east had resulted in three major defeats, while the single partial victory took place on much shorter lines of supply. Holding or taking the Sinai was difficult and possible only with a massive infusion of weapons and supplies from the outside, from the Soviet Union. This meant that Egypt was a hostage to Soviet interests. Egypt had a greater interest in breaking its dependency on the Soviets than in defeating Israel. It could do the former more readily than the latter.
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The Egyptian recognition that its interests in Israel were minimal and the Israeli recognition that eliminating the potential threat from Egypt guaranteed its national security have been the foundation of the regional balance since 1978. All other considerations — Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas and the rest — were trivial in comparison. Geography — the Sinai — made this strategic distancing possible. So did American aid to Egypt. The substitution of American weapons for Soviet ones in the years after the treaty achieved two things. First, they ended Egypt's dependency on the Soviets. Second, they further guaranteed Israel's security by creating an Egyptian army dependent on a steady flow of spare parts and contractors from the United States. Cut the flow and the Egyptian army would be crippled.
The governments of Anwar Sadat and then Hosni Mubarak were content with this arrangement. The generation that came to power with Gamal Nasser had fought four wars with Israel and had little stomach for any more. They had proved themselves in October 1973 on the Suez and had no appetite to fight again or to send their sons to war. It is not that they created an oasis of prosperity in Egypt. But they no longer had to go to war every few years, and they were able, as military officers, to live good lives. What is now regarded as corruption was then regarded as just rewards for bleeding in four wars against the Israelis.
MUBARAK AND THE MILITARY
But now is 33 years later, and the world has changed. The generation that fought is very old. Today's Egyptian military trains with the Americans, and its officers pass through the American command and staff and war colleges. This generation has close ties to the United States, but not nearly as close ties to the British-trained generation that fought the Israelis or to Egypt's former patrons, the Russians. Mubarak has locked the younger generation, in their fifties and sixties, out of senior command positions and away from the wealth his generation has accumulated. They want him out.
For this younger generation, the idea of Gamal Mubarak being allowed to take over the presidency was the last straw. They wanted the elder Mubarak to leave not only because he had ambitions for his son but also because he didn't want to leave after more than a quarter century of pressure. Mubarak wanted guarantees that, if he left, his possessions, in addition to his honor, would remain intact. If Gamal could not be president, then no one's promise had value. So Mubarak locked himself into position.
The cameras love demonstrations, but they are frequently not the real story. The demonstrators who wanted democracy are a real faction, but they don't speak for the shopkeepers and peasants more interested in prosperity than wealth. Since Egypt is a Muslim country, the West freezes when anything happens, dreading the hand of Osama bin Laden. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood was once a powerful force, and it might become one again someday, but right now it is a shadow of its former self. What is going on now is a struggle within the military, between generations, for the future of the Egyptian military and therefore the heart of the Egyptian regime. Mubarak will leave, the younger officers will emerge, the constitution will make some changes and life will continue.
The Israelis will return to their complacency. They should not. The usual first warning of a heart attack is death. Among the fortunate, it is a mild coronary followed by a dramatic change of life style. The events in Egypt should be taken as a mild coronary and treated with great relief by Israel that it wasn't worse.
RECONSIDERING THE ISRAELI POSITION
I have laid out the reasons why the 1978 treaty is in Egypt's national interest. I have left out two pieces. The first is ideology. The ideological tenor of the Middle East prior to 1978 was secular and socialist. Today it is increasingly Islamist. Egypt is not immune to this trend, even if the Muslim Brotherhood should not be seen as the embodiment of that threat. Second, military technology, skills and terrain have made Egypt a defensive power for the past 33 years. But military technology and skills can change, on both sides. Egyptian defensiveness is built on assumptions of Israeli military capability and interest. As Israeli ideology becomes more militant and as its capabilities grow, Egypt may be forced to reconsider its strategic posture. As new generations of officers arise, who have heard of war only from their grandfathers, the fear of war declines and the desire for glory grows. Combine that with ideology in Egypt and Israel and things change. They won't change quickly — a generation of military transformation will be needed once regimes have changed and the decisions to prepare for war have been made — but they can change.
Two things from this should strike the Israelis. The first is how badly they need peace with Egypt. It is easy to forget what things were like 40 years back, but it is important to remember that the prosperity of Israel today depends in part on the treaty with Egypt. Iran is a distant abstraction, with a notional bomb whose completion date keeps moving. Israel can fight many wars with Egypt and win. It need lose only one. The second lesson is that Israel should do everything possible to make certain that the transfer of power in Egypt is from Mubarak to the next generation of military officers and that these officers maintain their credibility in Egypt. Whether Israel likes it or not, there is an Islamist movement in Egypt. Whether the new generation controls that movement as the previous one did or whether they succumb to it is the existential question for Israel. If the treaty with Egypt is the foundation of Israel's national security, it is logical that the Israelis should do everything possible to preserve it.
This was not the fatal heart attack. It might not even have been more than indigestion. But recent events in Egypt point to a long-term problem with Israeli strategy. Given the strategic and ideological crosscurrents in Egypt, it is in Israel's national interest to minimize the intensity of the ideological and make certain that Israel is not perceived as a threat. In Gaza, for example, Israel and Egypt may have shared a common interest in containing Hamas, and the next generation of Egyptian officers may share it as well. But what didn't materialize in the streets this time could in the future: an Islamist rising. In that case, the Egyptian military might find it in its interest to preserve its power by accommodating the Islamists. At this point, Egypt becomes the problem and not part of the solution.
Keeping Egypt from coming to this is the imperative of military dispassion. If the long-term center of gravity of Israel's national security is at least the neutrality of Egypt, then doing everything to maintain that is a military requirement. That military requirement must be carried out by political means. That requires the recognition of priorities. The future of Gaza or the precise borders of a Palestinian state are trivial compared to preserving the treaty with Egypt. If it is found that a particular political strategy undermines the strategic requirement, then that political strategy must be sacrificed.
In other words, the worst-case scenario for Israel would be a return to the pre-1978 relationship with Egypt without a settlement with the Palestinians. That would open the door for a potential two-front war with an intifada in the middle.
There are those in Israel who would argue that any release in pressure on the Palestinians will be met with rejection. If that is true, then, in my view, that is catastrophic news for Israel. In due course, ideological shifts and recalculations of Israeli intentions will cause a change in Egyptian policy. This will take several decades to turn into effective military force, and the first conflicts may well end in Israeli victory. But, as I have said before, it must always be remembered that no matter how many times Israel wins, it need only lose once to be annihilated.
To some it means that Israel should remain as strong as possible. To me it means that Israel should avoid rolling the dice too often, regardless of how strong it thinks it is. The Mubarak affair might open a strategic reconsideration of the Israeli position.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Background heah, get ya' background heah, Egypt background heah'...
I realize that few people have as big an interest in the Middle East as I.
Egypt is one of my particular area of interests. Why? Well, lots of reasons. One unique thing about Egypt that separates it from the rest of the Arab world is it's appreciation for it's own past.
I'm sure many of you has seen Dr. Zawi Hawass at one time or another. He's the old man that dresses like Indiana Jones and is in charge of Egypts entire archeologic community. I don't know if Hawass is truly antisemitic, but as an employee of the government he has made obscenely antisemitic statements in the past. Why do I mention this? For the following reason.
One of the incredible archeologic sites in Egypt is a synagogue. Not just any synagogue, but the Rav Moshe synagogue. For non Jews, it may have no meaning, but it was the home site of the Rabbi who became known as Maimonides. You can look him up, if interested. He is considered one of the towering intellectual figures in history, on par with Da Vinci. He was a practicing physician. His most famous patient? Saladin, who drove the Catholics out of Jerusalem. Maimonedes full name was Mussa bin Maimun ibn Abdallah al-Qurtubi al-Israili. That, in and of itself, should tell you of the close ties between the Egyptians and Jews. This synagogue dates to the 12th century. What is amazing is the Hawass led the restoration of this synagogue. Demanded it even. As he has with numerous churches. Why? There are no Jews effectively left in Egypt. Certainly no active synagogues. Because he has said that ALL history of Egypt is important.
It is this attitude, and the long non Muslim history of Egypt that gives it it's unique attitude in the Arab world.
So, that is one reason. Another being the way I have always been treated there. Despite arriving from Israel, with a clearly Jewish name, I was never harassed, and, while my guides were Coptics, was always treated wonderfully.
So, for the next few posts, I want to provide some background to the current situation. Why? Again, because there is so much misinformation floating around. For example. Are you aware that the current President, Hosni Mubarak, was installed BY the Muslim Brotherhood? This seems to have been forgotten.
Are you aware that in 2004-5 he began to enact real reforms under pressure from George Bush. Allowing free flow of the internet, for example (where did that lead?).
So, I will repost several outside articles to give you a frame of reference.
Here's the first.
A look at the major players in Egypt's political crisis
By Jonathan S. Landay and Miret El Naggar
CAIRO — (MCT) Although President Hosni Mubarak announced Tuesday that he wouldn't run for a sixth consecutive term, he will retain a considerable ability to influence the political upheaval unleashed by the biggest anti-government protests in his 30-year rule.
Here are brief profiles of Mubarak and some other major players in the crisis roiling the most populous nation of the Arab world.
—President Hosni Mubarak
Mubarak was born in the Nile Delta province of Menoufiya in 1928 and graduated from Egypt's prestigious Military Academy in 1949. A pilot, he participated in two major wars — 1967 and 1973 — with Israel.
Mubarak rose to the rank of general and commanded the air force during 1973 conflict. He became president after the 1981 assassination of Anwar Sadat by army officers opposed to peace with Israel. He promptly imposed the emergency rule that the regime has used ever since to justify arbitrary arrests, infinite detentions and other harsh measures against opponents.
He became a close U.S. ally, preserving Sadat's 1978 peace treaty with Israel and ruthlessly pursuing Islamic extremists. Since 2004, he's permitted criticism of his regime by independent news media and bloggers, and allowed some protests. At the same time, Mubarak gave the police free reign to crackdown on his political opponents, especially the Muslim Brotherhood.
During his 30-year rule, Egyptians endured rising food prices, deteriorating infrastructure and public services and high unemployment, especially among the young. They also complained of rampant official corruption symbolized by businessmen appointed to Cabinet positions and top posts in the ruling National Democratic Party.
—Mohamed ElBaradei
ElBaradei, 69, gained prominence as the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, winning the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize for the agency's work.
While some opposition activists consider him a unifying figure who could win the presidency, others regard him as too pro-Western and an opportunist who remained outside the country for years while they took on the regime.
ElBaradei was born in 1942 to a well-off Cairo family. His father headed the Egyptian Bar Association.
He obtained a law degree at Cairo University and went to work for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry. He earned an international law degree at New York University Law School in 1974.
In 1984, ElBaradei became a senior official at IAEA headquarters in Vienna. He was selected in 1997 as the agency's director general, a position in which he took on the regimes of North Korea, Iraq and Iran.
But he also disputed the Bush administration's justification for invading Iraq, saying there was no evidence that Iraq had rebuilt its nuclear arms program. He also challenged U.S. charges that Iran was close to developing a warhead.
The U.S. was the only country to oppose ElBaradei's reappointment to a third term as IAEA chief in 2005, eventually dropping its objections.
After leaving the IAEA in 2009, he returned to Egypt to co-found the National Association for Change, a loose coalition of opposition groups, and said that he was prepared to contest this year's presidential election.
—Muslim Brotherhood
Started by Hassan al-Banna in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood is one of Egypt's oldest political organizations and its largest, most cohesive opposition movement.
In its contemporary incarnation, the brotherhood forswears violence and opposes al-Qaida, embraces the democratic process, and says women can hold public office, except for the presidency. It is fiercely critical of Israel and the United States, but it says it would preserve the peace accord with Israel.
The brotherhood was founded to promote Islamic morals and charitable works with the stated goal of making the Quran and Sharia the "sole reference point for . . . ordering the life of the Muslim family, individual, community . . . and state." One of its key slogans is "Islam is the solution."
The organization's political involvement grew out of its agitation for an end to British colonial rule. The brotherhood supported a 1952 military coup that brought Col. Gamal Abdel Nasser to power. But he outlawed the movement in 1954, jailing and killing hundreds of activists. Others fled, establishing branches abroad.
The movement moved underground. A leading member, Sayyid Qutb, is regarded as inspiring the founding of al-Qaida and other radical groups by advocating the establishment of Islamic rule through jihad. Qutb was accused of trying to overthrow the government and hanged in 1966.
The mainstream movement re-emerged in the 1980s, seeking to join the political mainstream. It built a large following by providing social services and appealing to the religious sentiments of Egypt's conservative Muslim-dominated population.
It won an unprecedented 88 seats in Parliament in 2005 by having its candidates run as independents. During the 2010 election campaign, the regime cracked down so severely on the movement that it boycotted the vote.
—Omar Suleiman
Born in the impoverished Upper Egypt governate of Qena in 1936, Mubarak's former intelligence chief was appointed first vice president last weekend.
Not much is known about Suleiman, 75, who kept a low profile in line with his previous post as intelligence czar, a go-between Israel and Palestinians who was close to the U.S. and Mubarak's most trusted adviser and troubleshooter.
Some experts suggest that he could lead a transitional government. But many protesters have rejected that idea, chanting that he, too, should leave office.
Stephen P. Cohen, a U.S. scholar who has served as an intermediary between Arab and Israeli leaders and has known Suleiman for years, said Suleiman has no interest in taking over from Mubarak.
"He sees his main responsibility now to make sure that there is no confrontation between the military and the people," said Cohen, the head of the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development. "That he considers a disastrous outcome that would challenge the very nature of the state."
Suleiman, who's fluent in English, is said to be brilliant, urbane and well-read.
But as head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Service, or EGIS, he's closely identified with the abuses meted out to Mubarak's opponents. He also worked closely with the CIA on renditions of al-Qaida operatives, including one who was tortured in Egyptian custody.
Suleiman entered the Military Academy in 1954 and served as an army officer during the 1967 and 1973 wars with Israel. He rose to become deputy chief of military intelligence in 1986.
In frequent contact with Mubarak, he was elevated to EGIS director in 1993, a post in which he directed a harsh clampdown on Islamic extremists.
He reportedly sealed his position of trust with Mubarak by insisting on having an armored car flown into Ethiopia for a 1995 visit there by the Egyptian strongman. The vehicle saved the pair from an ambush by Egyptian Islamic Jihad in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.
—Ayman Nour
Nour, a lawyer and a former member of Parliament, is the founder of the opposition al Ghad (Tomorrow) Party. He ran a distant second to Mubarak in the country's first multi-candidate presidential election in 2006.
The following year, Nour was jailed and spent more than three years behind bars on disputed charges that he used forged signatures to start his party. He suffered ill-health while in jail and the Bush administration repeatedly called for his release, infuriating Mubarak.
While Nour, 46, was in jail, his party split into factions and its headquarters caught fire.
After his release, Nour resumed his opposition activities and regularly attended anti-Mubarak demonstrations.
Nour was a founder of the National Association for Change, the informal movement of secular and Islamic opposition groups pressing for constitutional changes that would allow ElBaradei to run for president this year.
Egypt is one of my particular area of interests. Why? Well, lots of reasons. One unique thing about Egypt that separates it from the rest of the Arab world is it's appreciation for it's own past.
I'm sure many of you has seen Dr. Zawi Hawass at one time or another. He's the old man that dresses like Indiana Jones and is in charge of Egypts entire archeologic community. I don't know if Hawass is truly antisemitic, but as an employee of the government he has made obscenely antisemitic statements in the past. Why do I mention this? For the following reason.
One of the incredible archeologic sites in Egypt is a synagogue. Not just any synagogue, but the Rav Moshe synagogue. For non Jews, it may have no meaning, but it was the home site of the Rabbi who became known as Maimonides. You can look him up, if interested. He is considered one of the towering intellectual figures in history, on par with Da Vinci. He was a practicing physician. His most famous patient? Saladin, who drove the Catholics out of Jerusalem. Maimonedes full name was Mussa bin Maimun ibn Abdallah al-Qurtubi al-Israili. That, in and of itself, should tell you of the close ties between the Egyptians and Jews. This synagogue dates to the 12th century. What is amazing is the Hawass led the restoration of this synagogue. Demanded it even. As he has with numerous churches. Why? There are no Jews effectively left in Egypt. Certainly no active synagogues. Because he has said that ALL history of Egypt is important.
It is this attitude, and the long non Muslim history of Egypt that gives it it's unique attitude in the Arab world.
So, that is one reason. Another being the way I have always been treated there. Despite arriving from Israel, with a clearly Jewish name, I was never harassed, and, while my guides were Coptics, was always treated wonderfully.
So, for the next few posts, I want to provide some background to the current situation. Why? Again, because there is so much misinformation floating around. For example. Are you aware that the current President, Hosni Mubarak, was installed BY the Muslim Brotherhood? This seems to have been forgotten.
Are you aware that in 2004-5 he began to enact real reforms under pressure from George Bush. Allowing free flow of the internet, for example (where did that lead?).
So, I will repost several outside articles to give you a frame of reference.
Here's the first.
A look at the major players in Egypt's political crisis
By Jonathan S. Landay and Miret El Naggar
CAIRO — (MCT) Although President Hosni Mubarak announced Tuesday that he wouldn't run for a sixth consecutive term, he will retain a considerable ability to influence the political upheaval unleashed by the biggest anti-government protests in his 30-year rule.
Here are brief profiles of Mubarak and some other major players in the crisis roiling the most populous nation of the Arab world.
—President Hosni Mubarak
Mubarak was born in the Nile Delta province of Menoufiya in 1928 and graduated from Egypt's prestigious Military Academy in 1949. A pilot, he participated in two major wars — 1967 and 1973 — with Israel.
Mubarak rose to the rank of general and commanded the air force during 1973 conflict. He became president after the 1981 assassination of Anwar Sadat by army officers opposed to peace with Israel. He promptly imposed the emergency rule that the regime has used ever since to justify arbitrary arrests, infinite detentions and other harsh measures against opponents.
He became a close U.S. ally, preserving Sadat's 1978 peace treaty with Israel and ruthlessly pursuing Islamic extremists. Since 2004, he's permitted criticism of his regime by independent news media and bloggers, and allowed some protests. At the same time, Mubarak gave the police free reign to crackdown on his political opponents, especially the Muslim Brotherhood.
During his 30-year rule, Egyptians endured rising food prices, deteriorating infrastructure and public services and high unemployment, especially among the young. They also complained of rampant official corruption symbolized by businessmen appointed to Cabinet positions and top posts in the ruling National Democratic Party.
—Mohamed ElBaradei
ElBaradei, 69, gained prominence as the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, winning the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize for the agency's work.
While some opposition activists consider him a unifying figure who could win the presidency, others regard him as too pro-Western and an opportunist who remained outside the country for years while they took on the regime.
ElBaradei was born in 1942 to a well-off Cairo family. His father headed the Egyptian Bar Association.
He obtained a law degree at Cairo University and went to work for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry. He earned an international law degree at New York University Law School in 1974.
In 1984, ElBaradei became a senior official at IAEA headquarters in Vienna. He was selected in 1997 as the agency's director general, a position in which he took on the regimes of North Korea, Iraq and Iran.
But he also disputed the Bush administration's justification for invading Iraq, saying there was no evidence that Iraq had rebuilt its nuclear arms program. He also challenged U.S. charges that Iran was close to developing a warhead.
The U.S. was the only country to oppose ElBaradei's reappointment to a third term as IAEA chief in 2005, eventually dropping its objections.
After leaving the IAEA in 2009, he returned to Egypt to co-found the National Association for Change, a loose coalition of opposition groups, and said that he was prepared to contest this year's presidential election.
—Muslim Brotherhood
Started by Hassan al-Banna in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood is one of Egypt's oldest political organizations and its largest, most cohesive opposition movement.
In its contemporary incarnation, the brotherhood forswears violence and opposes al-Qaida, embraces the democratic process, and says women can hold public office, except for the presidency. It is fiercely critical of Israel and the United States, but it says it would preserve the peace accord with Israel.
The brotherhood was founded to promote Islamic morals and charitable works with the stated goal of making the Quran and Sharia the "sole reference point for . . . ordering the life of the Muslim family, individual, community . . . and state." One of its key slogans is "Islam is the solution."
The organization's political involvement grew out of its agitation for an end to British colonial rule. The brotherhood supported a 1952 military coup that brought Col. Gamal Abdel Nasser to power. But he outlawed the movement in 1954, jailing and killing hundreds of activists. Others fled, establishing branches abroad.
The movement moved underground. A leading member, Sayyid Qutb, is regarded as inspiring the founding of al-Qaida and other radical groups by advocating the establishment of Islamic rule through jihad. Qutb was accused of trying to overthrow the government and hanged in 1966.
The mainstream movement re-emerged in the 1980s, seeking to join the political mainstream. It built a large following by providing social services and appealing to the religious sentiments of Egypt's conservative Muslim-dominated population.
It won an unprecedented 88 seats in Parliament in 2005 by having its candidates run as independents. During the 2010 election campaign, the regime cracked down so severely on the movement that it boycotted the vote.
—Omar Suleiman
Born in the impoverished Upper Egypt governate of Qena in 1936, Mubarak's former intelligence chief was appointed first vice president last weekend.
Not much is known about Suleiman, 75, who kept a low profile in line with his previous post as intelligence czar, a go-between Israel and Palestinians who was close to the U.S. and Mubarak's most trusted adviser and troubleshooter.
Some experts suggest that he could lead a transitional government. But many protesters have rejected that idea, chanting that he, too, should leave office.
Stephen P. Cohen, a U.S. scholar who has served as an intermediary between Arab and Israeli leaders and has known Suleiman for years, said Suleiman has no interest in taking over from Mubarak.
"He sees his main responsibility now to make sure that there is no confrontation between the military and the people," said Cohen, the head of the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development. "That he considers a disastrous outcome that would challenge the very nature of the state."
Suleiman, who's fluent in English, is said to be brilliant, urbane and well-read.
But as head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Service, or EGIS, he's closely identified with the abuses meted out to Mubarak's opponents. He also worked closely with the CIA on renditions of al-Qaida operatives, including one who was tortured in Egyptian custody.
Suleiman entered the Military Academy in 1954 and served as an army officer during the 1967 and 1973 wars with Israel. He rose to become deputy chief of military intelligence in 1986.
In frequent contact with Mubarak, he was elevated to EGIS director in 1993, a post in which he directed a harsh clampdown on Islamic extremists.
He reportedly sealed his position of trust with Mubarak by insisting on having an armored car flown into Ethiopia for a 1995 visit there by the Egyptian strongman. The vehicle saved the pair from an ambush by Egyptian Islamic Jihad in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.
—Ayman Nour
Nour, a lawyer and a former member of Parliament, is the founder of the opposition al Ghad (Tomorrow) Party. He ran a distant second to Mubarak in the country's first multi-candidate presidential election in 2006.
The following year, Nour was jailed and spent more than three years behind bars on disputed charges that he used forged signatures to start his party. He suffered ill-health while in jail and the Bush administration repeatedly called for his release, infuriating Mubarak.
While Nour, 46, was in jail, his party split into factions and its headquarters caught fire.
After his release, Nour resumed his opposition activities and regularly attended anti-Mubarak demonstrations.
Nour was a founder of the National Association for Change, the informal movement of secular and Islamic opposition groups pressing for constitutional changes that would allow ElBaradei to run for president this year.
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