ElderToons: Egypt's choice

Elder of Ziyon

Beware what you wish for-especially in the Arab worldAnd here is the rest of it.

Swapping Jews for Muslims

ALL EUROPEAN LIFE DIED IN AUSCHWITZ

The following is a copy of an article written by Spanish writer Sebastian Vilar Rodriguez and published in a Spanish newspaper on Jan. 15, 2008.
It doesn't take much imagination to extrapolate the message to the rest of Europe - and possibly to the rest of the world.

By Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez

I walked down the street in Barcelona , and suddenly discovered a terrible truth - Europe died in Auschwitz ... We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims. In Auschwitz we burned a culture, thought, creativity, talent. We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they produced great and wonderful people who changed the world. The contribution of this people is felt in all areas of life: science, art, international trade, and above all, as the conscience of the world. These are the people we burned. And under the pretence of tolerance, and because we wanted to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the disease of racism, we opened our gates to 20 million Muslims, who brought us stupidity and ignorance, religious extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty, due to an unwillingness to work and support their families with pride.

They have blown up our trains and turned our beautiful Spanish cities into the third world, drowning in filth and crime. Shut up in the apartments they receive free from the government, they plan the murder and destruction of their naive hosts. And thus, in our misery, we have exchanged culture for fanatical hatred, creative skill for destructive skill, intelligence for backwardness and superstition.

We have exchanged the pursuit of peace of the Jews of Europe and their talent for a better future for their children, their determined clinging to life because life is holy, for those who pursue death, for people consumed by the desire for death for themselves and others, for our children and theirs.
What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe ..

The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000; that is ONE BILLION TWO HUNDRED MILLION or 20% of the world's population. They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:
1988 - Najib Mahfooz

Peace:
1978 - Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat
1990 - Elias James Corey
1994 - Yaser Arafat:
1999 - Ahmed Zewai

Economics:
(zero)

Physics:
(zero)

Medicine:
1960 - Peter Brian Medawar
1998 - Ferid Mourad

TOTAL: 7 SEVEN

The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000; that is FOURTEEN MILLION or about 0.02% of the world's population. They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:
1910 - Paul Heyse
1927 - Henri Bergson
1958 - Boris Pasternak
1966 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon
1966 - Nelly Sachs
1976 - Saul Bellow
1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer
1981 - Elias Canetti
1987 - Joseph Brodsky
1991 - Nadine Gordimer World

Peace:
1911 - Alfred Fried
1911 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser
1968 - Rene Cassin
1973 - Henry Kissinger
1978 - Menachem Begin
1986 - Elie Wiesel
1994 - Shimon Peres
1994 - Yitzhak Rabin

Physics:
1905 - Adolph Von Baeyer
1906 - Henri Moissan
1907 - Albert Abraham Michelson
1908 - Gabriel Lippmann
1910 - Otto Wallach
1915 - Richard Willstaetter
1918 - Fritz Haber
1921 - Albert Einstein
1922 - Niels Bohr
1925 - James Franck
1925 - Gustav Hertz
1943 - Gustav Stern
1943 - George Charles de Hevesy
1944 - Isidor Issac Rabi
1952 - Felix Bloch
1954 - Max Born
1958 - Igor Tamm
1959 - Emilio Segre
1960 - Donald A. Glaser
1961 - Robert Hofstadter
1961 - Melvin Calvin
1962 - Lev Davidovich Landau
1962 - Max Ferdinand Perutz
1965 - Richard Phillips Feynman
1965 - Julian Schwinger
1969 - Murray Gell-Mann
1971 - Dennis Gabor
1972 - William Howard Stein
1973 - Brian David Josephson
1975 - Benjamin Mottleson
1976 - Burton Richter
1977 - Ilya Prigogine
1978 - Arno Allan Penzias
1978 - Peter L Kapitza
1979 - Stephen Weinberg
1979 - Sheldon Glashow
1979 - Herbert Charles Brown
1980 - Paul Berg
1980 - Walter Gilbert
1981 - Roald Hoffmann
1982 - Aaron Klug
1985 - Albert A. Hauptman
1985 - Jerome Karle
1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach
1988 - Robert Huber
1988 - Leon Lederman
1988 - Melvin Schwartz
1988 - Jack Steinberger
1989 - Sidney Altman
1990 - Jerome Friedman
1992 - Rudolph Marcus
1995 - Martin Perl
2000 - Alan J. Heeger

Economics:
1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson
1971 - Simon Kuznets
1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow
1975 - Leonid Kantorovich
1976 - Milton Friedman
1978 - Herbert A. Simon
1980 - Lawrence Robert Klein
1985 - Franco Modigliani
1987 - Robert M. Solow
1990 - Harry Markowitz
1990 - Merton Miller
1992 - Gary Becker
1993 - Robert Fogel

Medicine:
1908 - Elie Metchnikoff
1908 - Paul Erlich
1914 - Robert Barany
1922 - Otto Meyerhof
1930 - Karl Landsteiner
1931 - Otto Warburg
1936 - Otto Loewi
1944 - Joseph Erlanger
1944 - Herbert Spencer Gasser
1945 - Ernst Boris Chain
1946 - Hermann Joseph Muller
1950 - Tadeus Reichstein
1952 - Selman Abraham Waksman
1953 - Hans Krebs
1953 - Fritz Albert Lipmann
1958 - Joshua Lederberg
1959 - Arthur Kornberg
1964 - Konrad Bloch
1965 - Francois Jacob
1965 - Andre Lwoff
1967 - George Wald
1968 - Marshall W. Nirenberg
1969 - Salvador Luria
1970 - Julius Axelrod
1970 - Sir Bernard Katz
1972 - Gerald Maurice Edelman
1975 - Howard Martin Temin
1976 - Baruch S. Blumberg
1977 - Roselyn Sussman Yalow
1978 - Daniel Nathans
1980 - Baruj Benacerraf
1984 - Cesar Milstein
1985 - Michael Stuart Brown
1985 - Joseph L. Goldstein
1986 - Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini]
1988 - Gertrude Elion
1989 - Harold Varmus
1991 - Erwin Neher
1991 - Bert Sakmann
1993 - Richard J. Roberts
1993 - Phillip Sharp
1994 - Alfred Gilman
1995 - Edward B. Lewis
1996- Lu RoseIacovino
TOTAL: 129!

The Jews are NOT promoting brain washing children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non Muslims. The Jews don't hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics, or blow themselves up in German restaurants. There is NOT one single Jew who has destroyed a church. There is NOT a single Jew who protests by killing people.

The Jews don't traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the Infidels. Perhaps the world's Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems. Muslims must ask 'what can they do for humankind' before they demand that humankind respects them.

Regardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians and Arab neighbors, even if you believe there is more culpability on Israel's part, the following two sentences really say it all:
'If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel." Benjamin Netanyahu

General Eisenhower Warned Us It is a matter of history that when the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found the victims of the death camps he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead. He did this because he said in words to this effect:
'Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses - because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened'

Recently, the UK debated whether to remove The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it 'offends' the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. It is not removed as yet. However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it.

It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the, 6 million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians, and 1,900 Catholic priests who were 'murdered, raped, burned, starved, beaten, experimented on and humiliated' while the German people looked the other way.

Now, more than ever, with Iran, among others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth,' it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets. This e-mail is intended to reach 400 million people. Be a link in the memorial chain and help distribute this around the world. How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Center 'NEVER HAPPENED' because it offends some Muslim in the United States ?

Do not just delete this message; it will take only a minute to pass this along

Media Matters Blames Jews For Egyptian Crisis, Running US Foreign Policy and Controlling The Media

YidWithLid

The George Soros funded Media Matters has been waging a months-long attack on Glenn Beck trying to brand the commentator as a card carrying anti-Semite. Perhaps before making false charges against Beck, Media Matters should examine its own house of cards.

In a column published today on Media Matters political correction site, MJ Rosenberg claimed that the current Egyptian crisis was the fault of AIPAC and the "Israel Lobby." For those of you who have lived on a different planet till today, "Israel Lobby" is a polite way of saying "Jews." It is based on the old anti-Semitic canard that it is the Jews who control the United States government. Two years ago, Media Matters who has received major funding from financier George Soros, hired Rosenberg, a Jew to chip away at the image of the Jewish State, similar to what Soros did in creating J-Street. MJ Rosenberg was perfect for this role as Jewish-Lobby conspiracy theorist, bully with a keyboard, self-proclaimed violator of national security.

To be honest I have only crossed paths with Rosenberg's writing twice before, in the matter of Chas Freeman President Obama's pick for NIC Chairman who was a tool for both the Saudi and Chinese government and in the matter of Steve Rosen, the former AIPAC who was wrongly charged with espionage (the charges were dropped this year). In both cases, Rosenberg’s strategy has been is to attack people personally, throw around the “N” word (neo-con), twist words around (including mine) and accuse those of us who differ from his point of view as hell-bent to run the foreign policy of the United States of America.

In today's piece, Rosenberg says the reason for the Egyptian rebellion is the failure to resolve the Israeli/Palestinian issue:

If one needs additional proof that the "pro-Israel" lobby and the policies it dictates to US policymakers are bad for both the U.S. and Israel, look no further than what is happening in Egypt.


The regime that the Israeli government and its U.S. lobby have depended upon to enforce the status quo is going down. It is not clear when, but it's going to be soon, much sooner than anyone ever anticipated. And you can be sure that any democratic government that takes Mubarak's place is not going to play the role of America's (let alone Israel's) enforcer in the Middle East.


Hopefully, the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty will survive — thousands of lives on both sides have been saved by President Carter's Camp David Treaty — but there are no guarantees. Far from it.


Of course, no one would even be worried about the peace treaty if the Israelis had agreed to implement the critical second part of the Camp David Accords.


That was the part that would have ended the occupation. But the Israelis chose to ignore it and the lobby and the ever-faithful Congress blocked Carter's efforts to push it through.

Its interesting that when one goes through the Wikileaks documents about the Middle East not the secret cables ties the Palestinian/Israel to issues in the other countries. In both the recent unrest in Tunisia and in Egypt not once was there a mention of the Palestinians or Israelis except for mentioning both parties would prefer to see Mubarak remain in power.

Rosenberg indicates that the reason for the lack of Israeli/Palestinian peace is Israel, Congress and of course the Israel (Jewish) Lobby. I guess he forgot to mention that Yasser Arafat walked away from a favorable deal at the end of the Clinton Administration and Mahmoud Abbas walked away from a similar deal at the end of the Bush Administration.

I am often accused of harping on the lobby's baleful influence. I plead guilty. But it's my obligation because (1) I know from personal experience — 15 years on Capitol Hill and four at AIPAC — how it operates, (2) I know how little it really cares about Israel, and (3) I am free to tell the truth about it. If I worked in the mainstream media or in the U.S. government, I wouldn't be.

How do you like that, we Jews control US foreign policy and the run the media--damn we are good. But wait, according to MJ Rosenberg of Media Matters if it wasn't for the Jews, American would be best friends with Iran.

Another area where the lobby has done so much damage is in our relations with Iran.
AIPAC is dedicated to "crippling" sanctions and eventually war with Iran if sanctions don't bring down the regime. Later this spring, AIPAC will host its annual conference which will, as has been the case for a decade, feature mind-numbing warnings about the danger posed by an Iranian nuclear bomb.

Dang those Jews are so horrible. Not only do we control everything, but we made the last two Presidents push sanctions on those innocent Iranians and those sanctions are only being imposed to help Israel. Wow!

Perhaps the Media Matters columnist should have read the recent accounts released by Wikileaks

According to the leaked document, part of the conversation between King Abdullah and the US officials touched on Saudi attitudes towards Iran, its influence in Iraq and the need to increase pressure on the Islamic Republic.

The cable quotes former Saudi Ambassador to the US Adel al-Jubeir recalling, "the King's frequent exhortations to the US to attack Iran and so put an end to its nuclear weapons program. 'He told you to cut off the head of the snake,' he recalled to the Charge, adding that working with the US to roll back Iranian influence in Iraq is a strategic priority for the King and his government."

During a meeting on Dec. 27, 2005 with the commander of the United States Central Command, Gen. John P. Abizaid, military leaders from the United Arab Emirates “all agreed with Abizaid that Iran’s new President Ahmadinejad seemed unbalanced, crazy even,” one cable reports. A few months later, the Emirates’ defense chief, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi, told General Abizaid that the United States needed to take action against Iran “this year or next.”

I know, Media Matters must think that the Jews control the governments of Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi also.

Media Matters and MJ Rosenberg is promoting anti-Semitic stereotypes that if they continue to grow may eventually put American Jews in danger. Instead of focusing on what Glenn Beck says about one Jew, George Soros, Media Matters should focus on what MJ Rosenberg is saying about all Jews in their name.

Rutgers Alumni and New Jersey Taxpayers Alert

Hot Air

You folks know who you are. Your school is the one whose students booed, taunted, and shouted expletives at the Navy team during their football game in 2007. A nice sampling of the festivities:

Navy was booed and peppered with “You suck!” chants when they stepped on the field for both halves. Toward the end of the second half, Rutgers students in the new bleacher section began to serenade the adjacent section of Navy fans and uniformed Midshipmen.

”F— you, Navy. F—you, Navy. F— you, Navy.”

Now, I know this wasn’t your fault, alums. But if you’re giving to an alumni fund or paying taxes in New Jersey, consider the latest developments in the realm of “equal application of the rules” at Rutgers. The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, which is just what its name implies, sponsored the appearance at Rutgers on Saturday of international Jewish anti-Zionist Hajo Meyer. The pretext was Holocaust Remembrance Day, which IJAN was celebrating as “Never Again for ANYONE” Day, on the following theory: The memory of the Jewish Holocaust should not be kept isolated from other atrocities in history. To remember what happened to the six million Jews … serves no important purpose unless it arouses indignation, anger, action against all atrocities, anywhere in the world.

You can probably guess that the indignation against atrocities favored by IJAN involves painting Israel as a Zionist Third Reich, committing genocide against Palestinians. At any rate, this campus event was advertised as open to all students. Events of this kind are, by university rule, open to the public. So a group of pro-Zionist Jewish students and members of the community showed up to attend this one.

Coverage of what happened next can be found here, here, and here. The videos at the last link are worth the time; this 2-minute clip shows an event manager suddenly announcing – to a group of Jews with kippahs (headwear) – a fee of “five to twenty dollars” for what had been advertised as a non-fee, campus-wide speaking engagement. Evidently feeling that an arbitrary fee wasn’t enough of a deterrent, the event managers called in the campus police and asked them to bar students with kippahs from entry. As the student report at NewsReal indicates (second link), the police were under no misapprehension about what they were being asked to do – but they did, in fact, prevent kippah-wearing persons from entering the venue.

However each of us may feel about political opponents being admitted to events held by advocacy groups, this was unequal application of the campus rules. There is no question that Jews wearing kippahs were first presented with an arbitrary fee, and then excluded from attending the event – with the cooperation and enforcement of university authorities – because they were Jews wearing kippahs. There is no set of circumstances under which this can be anything other than alarming and repugnant.

Consider, moreover, a larger but relevant context. I wrote last spring about the legal case Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, in which the Christian Legal Society (CLS) at Berkeley’s Hastings School of Law sued because Hastings would not allow it to affirm Biblical principles on marriage and sexuality. Unless CLS gave up requiring its members to affirm specific principles – principles to which LGBT activists would not agree – Hastings would deny the organization its recognition as a student group. The principle argued by the school was that, as a taxpayer-funded entity, it had an obligation to ensure that recognized student groups, which benefit from the use of campus facilities, did not exclude potential members on the basis of, among other attributes, their sexual orientation.

The Supreme Court decided in favor of the school (“Martinez”) on 28 June 2010. In effect, CLS had no right to require of members that they affirm its founding principles, if it wanted to be recognized as a student group at Hastings. The Berkeley policy was upheld: groups organized for any purpose must be open to membership – and even, explicitly, to leadership – by those who oppose their purposes.

The implications of this interesting tenet have only begun to unfold. In theory, if Rutgers adopted Berkeley’s policy (no other school has such a policy today), a group like IJAN would be subject to it. And in theory, if IJAN had a campus chapter, it would have to admit however many kippah-wearing Zionist Jews wanted to show up, join, participate in group activities, and run for office in the organization.

But that, of course, isn’t going to happen. Respect for rights, and application of the rules, are increasingly unequal on American university campuses: the rules are applied consistently to the advantage of some groups and consistently to the disadvantage of others. Does anyone doubt that the campus police would have taken exactly the opposite tack, if a Zionist group had asked that anti-Zionists be excluded from a pro-Zionist event?

This is an objectively dangerous situation. A people that becomes accustomed to accepting it is allowing its moral sense about its fellow men to be corrupted. No set of rules, no social-contract-on-autopilot is a failsafe against the evil consequences of such institutional bias – in fact, the mantle of authority is being exploited over and over on American campuses to silence one set of political beliefs. German social acceptance of the Nazi approach to Jews started with “small” things too.

Writing the majority opinion on CLS v. Martinez, Justice Ginsburg invoked a supremely ironic allusion to Jewish history. In dealing with the CLS argument that homosexuality is “conduct” rather than inherent “status” (like race or gender), she argued that on the matter of sexual orientation, the Supreme Court has declined to distinguish between status and conduct. Her example of the reasoning? From Bray v. Alexandria Women’s Health Clinic, 1993: “A tax on wearing yarmulkes is a tax on Jews.”

Quite. Hit Rutgers in the wallet, alums. Jersey taxpayers, don’t let your state legislators off the hook. It’s never too early to come down hard on something like this.

J.E. Dyer blogs at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions” and as The Optimistic Conservative. She writes a weekly column for Patheos.

Flash: Egyptian "Moderate Democratic" Leader Negotiating Coalition Government With Islamists

RubinReports
Barry Rubin

As I've been warning, Muhammed al-Baradei, seen as the leading "moderate, pro-democratic" leader in Egypt is negotiating with the Muslim Brotherhood to form a national unity government. That doesn't mean the negotiations will succeed but it gives a clear glimpse of what a post-Mubarak regime Egypt would mean.

If you believe that al-Baradei, with no real political experience or any organized movement behind him, can dominate the Muslim Brotherhood, I have a bridge over the Nile I'll sell you. Let's assume that al-Baradei became Egypt's president. The Muslim Brotherhood might get key ministries such as education and social welfare, transforming large sectors of Egyptian society, putting thousands of their supporters into key positions, and consolidating power for the next step.

What effect would such a coalition have on Egypt's policy toward the United States and Israel? Would U.S. economic aid and military sales continue to such a regime? One of the new government's first steps would be to end all sanctions to the Gaza Strip, allowing weapons and terrorists to flow there freely.

This development shows precisely why the existing regime should be preserved--without Mubarak and with some reforms--rather than overthrown.

There should be no more illusions about what's happening in Egypt. If the Brotherhood is so weak, why is it the proposed partner in the next government?

The key factor now is the army, which al-Baradei--with no good prospects of it happening--hopes to win over. Will the army support Mubarak, get rid of him and preserve the regime, or remain passive and watch as a revolution happens?

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.

UN's Double Standard for Arab Refugees

Hillel Fendel

An artist and poetess from the Negev have embarked on a personal campaign to prove that the story on which she was raised – that the Jews stole the land from Palestinians – is untrue.

Yona Levy Grossman, a resident of Moshav Ein HaBesor, located within short-range rocket reach of Hamas terrorists, has begun circulating a slide-show presentation on the internet of late. "For a long time," she told Arutz-7’s Shimon Cohen, “I didn’t know the true story, and was influenced by the Arab lies.” She was finally “tipped off” to the falsehood of the claim that Jews stole Palestinian land by none other than a professor associated with the left-wing camp. 80-90% of Arabs are New Arrivals
“He gave a talk in which he said that 80% to 90% of the Arabs living here today have not lived here for many centuries, as they claim, but are new arrivals,” she said. “I then began researching the topic, and I found out that he was right.” She said that the professor asked that she not reveal his name, however.

Lenient Criteria for Arabs
Grossman also found out some interesting information on UNRWA: “Just like many other people, I was sad to hear that Israel had bombed a school in Gaza run by UNRWA [the UN agency responsible for the Arab refugees of 1948] during Operation Cast Lead. So I began to look into this as well.”

She explains on her slideshow what she found: “The UN has two organizations dealing with refugees around the world: One is UNRWA, which deals exclusively with the Arab refugees caused by Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, and the other is UNHCR, which deals with all the other millions of refugees all over the world. UNRWA is the only one that deals with a specific area, and that deals only with refugees caused a particular war.”

Even more significantly, Grossman found that the two organizations define “refugee” differently. UNHCR counts only those refugees who lived in a particular place “from time immemorial” and were forced to leave because of war and the like. UNRWA’s definition, however, is: "Every Arab who left Israel in 1948, and who lived there for two years [emphasis added], will also be considered a refugee - he and his descendants.”

In short, Grossman explains, an Arab need have lived in the Holy Land for only two years in order for him and his descendants to be granted refugee status – whereas in the rest of the world, one who seeks refugee status must be able to trace his ancestry in the area back 'from time immemorial.'"

In terms of numbers, UNRWA employs 28,000 people - one for every 164 refugees, while UNHCR employs 6,300 people, one for every 2,803 refugees.

"Direct Contradiction to Foundation of Arab Claims"
As Joan Peters writes in her seminal work, From Time Immemorial (page 5), she abruptly realized that the different definition for ‘Arab refugee’ implied “a direct contradiction of... the very foundation of the current Arab claim of ‘legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to their [ancient] homeland.’”

In trying to understand the reason for the “two-year” clause, Grossman said she came to realize that a tremendous proportion of the Arabs in question had only been in the Holy Land for two years before 1948: “If refugee-status would have been contingent upon having lived there for five years, for instance, then there would hardly have been any Arab refugees to speak of!”

Different Goals for Different Refugees
Grossman said she also came to realize that the two UN refugee agencies have different goals: “Around the world, the UNHRC seeks to rehabilitate refugees and improve their civil rights and personal conditions. UNRWA, however, seeks only to regain the ‘Right of Return’ for its refugees, without concern for the people’s actual rights, and even if they have already received citizenship somewhere else.”

They Don't Care About Palestinians!
Asked if this shows her that the UN is driven by a Palestinian agenda, Grossman said, “They don’t care at all about the Palestinians! Whoever treats them in this way and keeps them as refugees doesn’t care about them at all. Rather, there is an oil-driven lobby in the world that simply wants to liquidate the State of Israel; it bothers them that the Jews are a free nation in their land.”

Though the slide-show is in Hebrew, Grossman’s English explanation of her findings can be seen here.
(IsraelNationalNews.com)

Syria, Hizballah Prepare To Build Massive Anti Tank Wall in Lebanon

Debka

Hizballah and Syria are building a massive fortified wall, running from Rashaya Al-Wadi on the western, Lebanese slopes of Mt. Hermon (85 kilometers southeast of Beirut) in the south, to the Lebanese Beqaa Valley town of Aita el-Foukhar, in the north, debkafile's military sources reveal.

The structure, 22 kilometers long in parallel to the Lebanese-Syrian border promises to be one of the biggest fortified structures in the Middle East. It is designed as an obstacle against any Israeli tank forces heading through Lebanon toward the Syrian capital, Damascus. When it is finished, the barrier will isolate a key Lebanese border region - 14 kilometers wide and 22 kilometers long - from the rest of the country and place it under Hizballah-Syrian military control.

This region is inhabited most by Druzes and Christians. The project became possible in the last year, after Lebanon's Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt, turned away from his pro-Western allegiance and threw in his lot with the pro-Syrian camp, lining up with Syrian president Bashar Assad and Hizballah's secretary Hassan Nasrallah and buying into the military alliance headed by Iran.

Behind the rising wall, Hizballah and Syria can freely smuggle weapons across concealed from outside surveillance, while deepening Syria's footprint in Lebanon.

In any case, as debkafile has disclosed, they pulled off their subterfuge for getting the Scuds across by stationing two Hizballah brigades on the Syrian side of the border for training in the new missiles. When Israeli failed to make good on its threat to strike those missiles if they reached Hizballah hands, Damascus and Hizballah felt free to go forward with Part Two of their plan for Lebanon's militarization - first the Hizballah militia's transformation into a modern army with sophisticated weapons, and now the raising of a fortified wall and creating a Syrian-controlled buffer region inside Lebanon, 55 kilometers east of Beirut and 35 kilometers north of South Lebanon and the Israeli border.
According to our military sources, Syria intends to keep that region off-limits to Lebanese military access -except for Hizballah. Syrian troops, officers and arms stores are to be based there and maintained in a state of war readiness.

Syria stands to gain another prime strategic asset with its control of Rashaya Al-Wadi, at the southernmost point of the new wall: This scenic village commands the Taim valley, whence flow a number of water courses that feed the River Jordan and the Sea of Galilee; for the first time in many years, Damascus will be placing a hand on one of Israel's primary water sources.

Satisfied that the Netanyahu government will continue to sit on its hands, Syria and Hizballah are not hiding the massive barrier project's progress. Long convoys of trucks crossing in from Syria can be seen converging on the site, loaded with cement and other building materials.

Our Middle East sources report that the project is so immense and the work so intensive, that shops in Damascus have run out of cement, forcing many other construction works in Syria to a standstill.

Middle East: The Dog That Didn’t Bark

J.E. Dyer

In the rapidly unfolding events in the Arab world over the past month, the most important feature is something that didn’t take place in an Arab nation. In fact, what’s important about it is that it didn’t take place at all.

This interesting feature is the fact that, in the current Arab turmoil, the U.S. has done nothing – and the place where that matters the most is Lebanon. Lebanon has long been riven by predatory strategic actors; Hezbollah has been chief among them for the last 20-plus years, rivaling or exceeding the long-time role of Syria. Previous US presidents have dealt realistically with crises in Lebanon, in the sense that they have understood this truth: politics in Lebanon are never taking place in a quiescent, honest atmosphere uninfluenced by armed factions and intimidation. To achieve any semblance of a democratic, constitutional, or consensual outcome in Lebanon today, there must be active pushback against the antidemocratic, unconstitutional, and counter-consensual methods of Hezbollah. This is why nations like the US, France, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan have sought to actively counter Hezbollah’s influence during crisis periods in Lebanon. Far from being meddlesome, such intervention – with diplomacy, aid, and support to Western-oriented “unity” governments – is the only way to ensure some kind of power balance in Lebanon. The US has no interest in regime-changing or managing Lebanon, but we don’t want others doing that either – or at least, we haven’t up until now.

It’s quite true that over time, our handling of Lebanon has, for the most part, been pragmatic and narrowly conceived. The US has never proposed a grand plan for reforming Lebanon, kicking Hezbollah out, and ensuring that peace and harmony reign in an idealized future. We have always been in reactive mode: always looking for compromise solutions, narrow guarantees, a steady strain on the tensions between power blocs. We have accepted very imperfect situations there as the best we could get.

But we have always been engaged. We have always conveyed that we have a strategic interest in the outcome. We have proclaimed what we would not tolerate, and backed our rhetoric up with material support and occasionally the threat of force. Sometimes we’ve put ourselves in an untenable position by paying insufficient attention to the link between force and security – but our determined presence, even when we get a black eye, has perennially been the limiting factor on everyone else’s plans and plots.

That engagement is what’s missing in January 2011. The biggest thing that has happened this month is that a terrorist organization took over Lebanon, and we did nothing about it. Not only did we do nothing, one of our national spokesmen actually referred to Hezbollah’s effective coup as a “constitutional process,” with the implication that as long as the process is “constitutional,” we don’t care who takes over what nation anywhere on earth.

Lebanon differs from Tunisia and Egypt in that Hezbollah has been organized and armed for a long time, and it forced dissolution of the Saad Hariri government in order to take over the country. Whoever may end up exploiting the unrest in Tunisia and Egypt, the riots and frustration there are the result of genuine popular grievances. From all appearances, they began spontaneously and are not centrally directed – even if they will ultimately be exploited – by groups plotting to form new governments. There is ample excuse for everyone in foreign capitals, including ours, to be caught flat-footed by the unrest, at least for a while.

But there is no excuse for our failure to engage in Lebanon. The effects of this policy failure will be far-reaching; we may well see them in the still-uncertain outcomes in Egypt and other parts of the Arab world. There is a real sense in which the turning point of January 2011 is principally about us, and what we have not done. The Hezbollah coup in Lebanon functioned as a test of what the US reaction would be, and unless something changes in the coming days, the answer is now obvious.

We could have acted as a limiting factor in Lebanon this month by engaging with the diplomatic process – the ad hoc negotiations among the factions in Lebanon – spearheaded by the Saudis. It’s probable that the act of doing that would have signaled to Hezbollah that the timing was still inauspicious for attempting a takeover. But we didn’t make even that effort. I’m not sure American readers fully understand that we simply weren’t there. Hezbollah is playing it safe for the time being with a non-radical candidate for prime minister, a move that seems to be a nod to the expectations that prevailed in the status quo we are leaving behind. But in the coming days, we can expect Hezbollah to maneuver as much for the impression on regional rivals like Saudi Arabia and Turkey as for Western governments and the Western press.

There is no friendly stasis, with momentum of its own, in geopolitical conditions. Maintaining a beneficial status quo is hard work. It can’t be left to tend itself – and if you’re not transforming and resetting it to your benefit, it’s being transformed to someone else’s. For the last six decades, the posture of the US, whether heroic or flawed, has been the limiting factor on what challengers of the status quo consider possible. Our disengagement and effective absence from Lebanon this month were a signal that big challenges are now possible; the US might not even try to intervene. Whatever our latent powers, we are not acting as a limiting factor, by defining and defending interests, and we have no apparent intention to.

This understanding is what’s missing from most coverage of the unrest in the Arab world. Riots in Egypt are not unprecedented; Mubarak has survived them before. He may again, for now. It may take time for newly-encouraged challengers of the status quo, like the Muslim Brotherhood, to develop actionable plans targeting specific governments. That hasn’t been their primary focus, unlike the always-prepared Marxist insurgents of the last century.

But riots in Egypt after Hezbollah has taken over Lebanon in a coup while the US did nothing – that is a set of conditions that means the world has already changed. The West doesn’t realize it yet; its media continue to assess events as if everyone is operating from a common set of assumptions about global power relationships. That will probably keep us stumped, for a while longer, about what’s happening. But as the hours tick by, the reality is settling in: we are not in the post-Cold War stasis any more.

J.E. Dyer blogs at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions” and as The Optimistic Conservative. She writes a weekly column for Patheos.

Food costs serve up trouble

Michael T Klare

Get ready for a rocky year. From now on, rising prices, powerful storms, severe droughts and floods, and other unexpected events are likely to play havoc with the fabric of global society, producing chaos and political unrest. Start with a simple fact: the prices of basic food staples are already approaching or exceeding their 2008 peaks, that year when deadly riots erupted in dozens of countries around the world. It's not surprising then that food and energy experts are beginning to warn that 2011 could be the year of living dangerously - and so could 2012, 2013, and on into the future. Add to the soaring cost of the grains that keep so many impoverished people alive a


comparable rise in oil prices - again nearing levels not seen since the peak months of 2008 - and you can already hear the first rumblings about the tenuous economic recovery being in danger of imminent collapse. Think of those rising energy prices as adding further fuel to global discontent.

Already, combined with staggering levels of youth unemployment and a deep mistrust of autocratic, repressive governments, food prices have sparked riots in Algeria and mass protests in Tunisia that, to the surprise of the world, ousted long-time dictator president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and his corrupt extended family. Many of the social stresses evident in those two countries are present across the Middle East and elsewhere. No one can predict where the next explosion will occur, but with food prices still climbing and other economic pressures mounting, more upheavals appear inevitable. These may be the first resource revolts to catch our attention, but they won't be the last.

Put simply, global consumption patterns are now beginning to challenge the planet's natural resource limits. Populations are still on the rise, and from Brazil to India, Turkey to China, new powers are rising as well. With them goes an urge for a more American-style life. Not surprisingly, the demand for basic commodities is significantly on the rise, even as supplies in many instances are shrinking. At the same time, climate change, itself a product of unbridled energy use, is adding to the pressure on supplies, and speculators are betting on a situation trending progressively worse. Add these together and the road ahead appears increasingly rocky.

Breadbaskets without bread
Let's begin with food, the most important and volatile of these commodities. Food prices declined in October 2008 after the onset of the global financial crisis, but that seems to have been an anomaly. The December 2010 index of global food prices compiled by the United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) hit a record 215, one point higher than in the spring of 2008. (In that index, based on a "bundle" of food staples, a baseline of 100 represents average prices in 2002-2004.) Some food products, including sugar, cooking oils, and fats, are now trading substantially above their 2008 levels; others, including dairy products, grains, and meat, are inching perilously close to record levels.

As 2011 begins, food experts fear that, within months, prices for key staples will climb above the 2008 threshold and stay there, causing extreme hardship for poor people around the world. "We are at a very high level," said a worried Abdolreza Abbassian, an economist at the FAO. "These levels in the previous episode led to problems and riots across the world."

Of particular concern to Abbassian and his colleagues is the rising cost of corn, rice, and wheat, the staple crops of billions in many of the poorest countries. According to the FAO, by the end of 2010 international corn and wheat prices were already approaching their 2008 peak levels (about US$260 and $340 per metric ton, respectively).

Analysts attribute the rise in grain prices to growing demand in both developed and developing nations, along with a number of cataclysmic weather-related events and speculation by investors. An extreme drought and fierce fires last summer destroyed a large percentage of the wheat crop in Russia and Ukraine, while heavy flooding in India and the inundation of 20% of Pakistan damaged significant parts of the grain output of those countries. At the same time, unusually hot and dry weather suppressed production in a number of other key farming areas.

What makes the picture look so worrisome today are indications that the severity and frequency of extreme weather events appear to be on the rise. In the past few weeks alone, several such events point the way to serious supply problems ahead. Most significant has been the unprecedented rainfall and flooding in Australia that put an area more than twice the size of California largely underwater, significantly disrupting wheat cultivation there. Australia is one of the world's leading wheat producers. Unusually dry conditions in the American Midwest and Argentina have also hinted at future problems in grain and corn output. It's still too early to predict the size of this year's grain and corn harvests, but many analysts are warning of a shortfall in supplies, along with sky-high prices.

Mainstream analysts and government officials are loathe to attribute this traffic jam of extreme weather events to global warming. Huge variations in rainfall can be normal, especially in places like Australia that are susceptible to El Nino/La Nina ocean-temperature oscillations, and politicians are fearful of assuming responsibility for a problem as massive as climate change. But climate change theory has long suggested that the warming trend - 2010 tied 2005 for the warmest year on record and nine of the 10 warmest years have come in the last decade - will be accompanied by an increase in the frequency and severity of storms. It's hard to escape the conclusion that recent events, including those Australian floods, are tied to rising global temperatures.

The energy crisis returns
Soaring food prices are being driven as well by speculative investments and the rising price of oil. Partly in response to the diminishing value of the dollar, some investors are sinking their money into food futures (along with gold and silver) as a speculative hedge. At the same time, the price of oil is edging toward the $100 mark, making it increasingly profitable for farmers to switch from growing corn for human consumption to growing it for the manufacture of ethanol, which in turn reduces the amount of farm acreage devoted to staples. Oil would have to fall below $50 per barrel to make the cultivation of corn as a food product competitive with ethanol production - and that's not likely to happen. So even if more corn is produced this year, less will be available for food purposes and the price of what remains is bound to rise.

The precipitous rise in oil prices has startled the experts. Not so long ago, the US Department of Energy was projecting a price range of $70-$80 per barrel in 2011, but as the year began oil was already trading above $90 a barrel and some analysts predict that it will reach $100 before the year is out. A few are even talking about the $150 barrel and gas prices at the pump of $4 or more. If prices climb above $100, global consumer spending could take another nosedive.

"Oil prices are entering a dangerous zone for the global economy," says Fatih Birol, the chief economist for the International Energy Agency (IEA). "The oil import bills are becoming a threat to the economic recovery."

As with food, the rising cost of oil is a product of growing demand, insufficient supplies, and speculative investments. According to the most recent projections from the IEA, daily global oil consumption in 2011 will average 87.4 million barrels, an increase of about two million barrels from the first quarter of 2010. Much of the extra demand is coming from China, where a newly minted middle class is buying automobiles at a record clip, as well as from the United States, where previously cautious consumers are slowly returning to pre-2008 driving habits.

At a time when the oil industry is experiencing declining rates of output at many existing oil fields and finding it ever more difficult to add production, even two million extra barrels per day can be a daunting challenge (and greater demand is expected in the coming years). In the United States, for example, much hope was placed in oil exploration in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico and offshore Alaska, but in the wake of the BP disaster, this seems like a forlorn prospect. Production in Mexico and the North Sea, two bright spots of recent years, is facing a sharp decline, while other key producers, including those in the Middle East, are struggling to maintain current output levels at existing fields.

Many energy analysts believe that the world is at (or will soon reach) peak oil - the moment when global petroleum output achieves a maximum sustainable daily rate and begins a long-term, irreversible decline. Others contend that higher levels of output are still possible. Whatever the truth of the matter, at this moment the oil industry is finding it increasingly difficult, and ever more costly, to boost output above current levels. This, combined with insatiable demand, is driving prices skyward.

Under these circumstances, speculators are again being drawn into the oil market as a rare sure bet. Such speculators helped push oil prices to a record $147 per barrel back in 2008, but fled the market when prices crashed as the American economy headed to a meltdown. Now, they're coming back.

"Hedge funds and private investors are buying up financial instruments tied to the price of crude, and thereby helping push up oil prices," the Wall Street Journal reported in late December.

Most analysts are expecting a price surge this spring or summer when American motorists hit the road. "We will have a spring rally that will take us to between $3.10 and $3.50 a gallon for gasoline at service stations in the United States," predicted Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service.

The rising price of gas will, in turn, hurt consumers just as they show signs of opening their wallets again. No less worrisome, oil-importing countries like the United States, Japan, and many in Europe will face soaring bills for fuel imports, further enfeebling economies already suffering from profound weakness.

According to some calculations, oil prices added another $72 billion to America's balance-of-payments deficit last year. Europe had to cough up an additional $70 billion for imported oil and Japan $27 billion. "It is a very telling story," says the IEA's Fatih Birol of recent oil-price data. "2010 rang the first alarm bells and 2011 price levels could bring us to the same financial crisis times that we saw in 2008."

Rising food prices leading to riots, protests, and revolts, mounting oil prices, mammoth worldwide unemployment, and a collapsed recovery - it looks like the perfect set of preconditions for a global tsunami of instability and turmoil. Events in Algeria and Tunisia give us just an inkling of what this maelstrom might look like, but where and how it will next erupt, and in what form, is anyone's guess. A single guarantee: we haven't seen the last of resource revolts which, in the coming years, could reach an intensity we scarcely imagine today.

Michael T Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College, a TomDispatch regular, and the author, most recently, of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet. To listen to Timothy MacBain's latest TomCast audio interview in which Klare discusses what rising food prices mean globally, click here or, to download it to your iPod, here. A documentary movie version of his previous book,Blood and Oil, is available from the Media Education Foundation.

Days of rage in Egypt

Victor Kotsev

TEL AVIV - "It is unclear what is stirring beneath the surface of Egypt," wrote influential American think-tank Stratfor three weeks ago, analyzing the internal situation in Egypt in the wake of the church bombings that shook the country at the time. This is even more true today, after three days of sweeping protests against the government of President Hosni Mubarak. As of Thursday, different reports claimed that the death toll in the clashes was somewhere between four and seven, with numerous wounded and at least 860 arrested. Reliable data is difficult to come upon, since the situation is dynamic, government officials are tight-lipped, journalists have reported facing restrictions, and social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook have been partially disabled at times.

By Thursday night, some human-rights groups were reporting more than 2,000 arrested.

The demonstrations started on Tuesday - a holiday in honor of the police. They were inspired by the events in Tunisia, where authoritarian president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was ousted this month in a popular uprising. According to The New York Times, the protests were driven by "Egyptian youth" rather than by the traditional opposition [1] - another parallel with Tunisia.

"We want to see change, just like in Tunisia," one demonstrator, 24-year-old Lamia Rayan, said, quoted by the Associated Press. Following the example of Mohamed Bouazizi, whose self-immolation set off the revolt against Ben Ali, a number of people have attempted to set themselves on fire in Egypt in recent days and weeks.

Early Tuesday, the demonstrations were largely peaceful, and the police showed unusual restraint. However, after tens of thousands of protesters calling for Mubarak's resignation poured into Cairo's Tahrir (Liberation) Square in the afternoon, this changed and clashes subsequently erupted in several cities.

In the next days, the demonstrations continued, albeit in lesser numbers. Violence was reported in many places, with rumors of particularly heavy clashes on Thursday in the city of Suez. Also on Thursday, Egypt's foremost democratic reformer, Nobel Peace Price recipient Mohamed ElBaradei, returned from self-imposed exile in Austria to lead the protests.

Friday is expected to be a critical day. As a rule in the Muslim world, Friday is a particularly propitious day for demonstrations, since most men gather in mosques for midday prayers, and can fairly easily be incited to take to the streets by the clergy. The Muslim Brotherhood, arguably the most powerful opposition movement in the country, had so far refrained from throwing its full weight behind the protests.

However, on Thursday evening this changed, and the group announced that Friday "will be the general day of rage for the Egyptian nation". This is an ominous sign, further boosted by the presence of ElBaradei as a leader of the secular wing of the opposition.

It is hard to predict what exactly will happen. Many observers remain confident that Mubarak, with the help of his well-organized security services, will weather the storm. On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described his government as "stable", even as she called for restraint and reforms.

That the Egyptian president will come out on top seems to be also the conclusion of most analysts in neighboring Israel, where the affair is attracting a lot of attention, even as the government tries to stay away for it (excessive comments can lend support to conspiracy theories about Israel's meddling in the internal affairs of Egypt).

Still, an Israeli cabinet minister commented for the Israeli Ha'aretz daily newspaper on Thursday on condition of anonymity: "[Mubarak's] regime is well-rooted in the military and security apparatus ... They will have to exercise force, power in the street and do it. But they are strong enough according to my assessment to overcome it."

Israeli tourist groups, moreover, continue to arrive in Cairo - a positive sign that the government is not too worried for the moment.

On Thursday, one tourist, Dov Nahari, shared with Ynet that from the ground, reports in the international media seemed overblown. "We were a bit fearful while watching TV in Israel, but we overcame our fears," he said. "We are standing now before the pyramids and the Sphinx along with thousands of tourists from all over the world, so this fear has been completely allayed ... There are cops everywhere, but everything is great."

Some analysts, however, are less certain. For example, in a report on Thursday, Stratfor draws parallels to the situation to that in Iran in 1979. Marc Lynch writes in his Foreign Policy blog: "The scenes in Cairo [Tuesday] stand as a sharp rebuke to any analytical certainty. The Egyptian regime was fully prepared, its security forces on alert and deployed, the Internet disrupted and al-Jazeera largely off the table... and yet tens of thousands of people still poured into the streets and put together one of the largest demonstrations in contemporary Egyptian history."

Indeed, Mubarak is facing unprecedented levels of discontent. Such gross violations were reported during the parliamentary elections last November [2] that the main opposition parties (including the Muslim Brotherhood) withdrew from the second round and were consequently left without representation. The attacks on Christian churches a month ago underscore the tensions and radicalization inside the country. [3]

The poverty levels are appalling. In the past two years, the global economic crisis impacted Egypt adversely, and the current government was widely seen as too slow to react. According to Ha'aretz, "Egypt's population of some 80 million is growing by 2 percent a year. Two thirds of the population is under 30, and that age group accounts for 90 percent of the jobless. About 40 percent live on less than $2 a day, and a third is illiterate."

On top of this, there is a succession struggle in the country as 82-year old Mubarak tries to arrange the transition of power after he steps down. There are rumors that his original plan to have his son Gamal succeed him encountered heavy resistance from the army, and he has been looking for a compromise.

Stratfor believes that there is a hidden force behind the demonstrations, and this side plot motivates one of the think-tank's main hypotheses. According to Stratfor:

What we have to find out is who is behind this. It could be the military wanting to stage a coup to keep Gamal Mubarak out of power. They would be doing this to preserve the regime, not to overthrow it. They could be using the demonstrations to push their demands and perhaps pressure Hosni Mubarak to leave voluntarily ... It could also be the Muslim Brotherhood organizing quietly. Whoever it is, they are lying low, trying to make themselves look weaker than they are - while letting the liberals undermine the regime, generate anti-Mubarak feeling in the West, and pave the way for whatever it is they are planning.

Not everybody would agree with this interpretation; the analysis of The New York Times sings the praises of "an unpredictable third force, the leaderless tens of thousands of young Egyptians who turned out to demand an end to Mr Mubarak's 30-year rule."

Regardless, it is important to pay close attention to the structure of the demonstrations and the cohesion between the different groups that make up the protesters.

There is another parallel with Iran (besides Stratfor's reference to 1979) that might help us understand what is going on in Egypt. In a story for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting titled Why Tunisia can but Iran can't (Asia Times Online, January 21, 2011), Ali Reza Eshraghi argues that in 2009, Iran's government avoided the fate of Ben Ali because in the Islamic Republic, there was no clear enemy and no unity in the opposition. "Paradoxically," he writes, "it is the widespread and divergent nature of dissatisfaction that allows the regime to carry on."

Whether Egypt will follow the path of Iran (2009) or Tunisia (2011), may thus depend in large part on whether the protesters will be able to form a broad coalition united behind well-defined goals. Both the secular and the religious opposition have issued conciliatory statements, but it is uncertain how much they trust each other, or how much their agendas can overlap. The decision of the Muslim Brotherhood to join the fray with full force could be a crucial test for their unity and a make or break moment for the protests.

Notes
1. Egyptian Youths Drive the Revolt Against Mubarak, The New York Times, January 26.
2. How the Egyptian Elections Were Rigged: An Up-Close (And Personal) Look at the Madness, The New Republic, November 29, 2010.
3. Egypt and the Destruction of Churches: Strategic Implications, Stratfor, January 4, 2011.



Victor Kotsev is a journalist and political analyst based in Tel Aviv.

Rooting for a roof!

David Wilder
January 30, 2011
Shevat 25, 5771, 1/30/2011

I know it may seem difficult to fathom, but there are certain elements of life in Hebron that have nothing to do with politics. At least, they shouldn’t.

For example, Tel Hebron. This site was called, by a preeminent archeologist, the second most important archeological site in Israel, after Jerusalem. Excavations in the middle 1960s, during the Jordanian occupation, revealed on the southern tip of the tel, ancient walls over 4,000 years old. Dr. Avi Ofer, during middle 1980s, discovered a shard dating to the pre-Abraham era, with a list of animals written on it. During the latest dig, in the late 1990s, archeologist Emmanuel Eisenberg uncovered 2,700 year old ‘lemelech’ (‘to the King’) seals, with the word Hebron, in ancient Hebrew, inscribed on them. This, in addition to a house constructed during the days of King Hezekiah, and two walls, one of which was built during the days of Abraham and SarahSuch a site, anywhere else in the world, would be classified as a national treasure, and related to appropriately. In other words, the government would invest funds to beautify the area and insure its well-being, while encouraging tens and hundreds of thousands of people to visit each year.

Imagine bringing a third-grader to ‘the house where Abraham lived,’ or to the burial place of Ruth the Moabite. (This place, at the height of the tel, is traditionally also the tomb of Jesse, King David’s father.) What could be more impressive than standing on 4,000 year old stairs, leading to the gates of the city of Hebron, with a foreign diplomat, explaining to him that ‘this is not only the roots of Judaism, it is also the roots of all of monotheism.’

I have declared this to thousands of people touring this wondrous area, and never cease to be amazed at my own words. And also at the expression of the faces of those I’m speaking to. Jaws literally drop.

But it’s the truth, and the truth has to be told. The real question is, does anyone listen? I’ve taken countless journalists to this site, yet almost none of them have seen fit to include such a precious parcel of history in their articles. History is not political, but such an expose just might be taken the wrong way, proving the fact that Hebron really does have Jewish roots.

So, ignored it is. Even by our own. Our own journalists, politicians, and anyone else of any importance.

And what about Ma’arat HaMachpela, the tombs of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs? It took a bit of ‘pushing and shoving’ until the Prime Minister was convinced that this site is really of national importance and should be included on the list of national heritage sites.

However, Netanyahu isn’t the only one who was persuaded to relate seriously to Machpela. According to recently received statistics, last year over 700,000 people visited the so-called ‘Jewish side’ of this holy monument. That is quite a lot of company. The number continues to climb and it won’t be long before we pass the one million mark.

But what do people see when they arrive at Machpela. Climbing the stairs and entering this massive 2,000 year old structure, visitors find themselves standing under a canvas awning in the building’s mains courtyard. Not a roof, rather a tarpaulin. This covering, a poor attempt to protect visitors and worshipers from the elements, hasn’t been cleaned in years. A filthy, water-creased tent-like structure adorns the second holiest place to the Jewish people in all the world.

In one word, this can be described as disgusting. An additional word is disgraceful. Is this the wys to commemorate our nation’s founders: Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah?


For about a decade Hebron community leaders have been trying to convince the ‘powers that be’ to remove the awning and replace it with a high-quality roof, as would be befitting of such a national monument. To no avail. Despite hundreds of thousands of annual visitors, of all races and religions, a roof is too political. A potato much too hot to touch.

A few weeks ago, when finally on Shabbat, thank G-d, rain began to fall, water dripped down from the canvas covering onto a Torah scroll. The Torah reading was stopped and the scroll immediately moved. Last night, as a result of heavy winds and rain, the roof finally caved in, falling to the ground, leaving a gaping hole, and a great view of the sky above. And rain falling on worshiper’s heads.

Isn’t it time to stop playing politics with our national treasures and bring an end to such humiliation?! This solution is not to replace the old canvas with a new one. The time has finally come to take the giant step and authorize a real roof atop Ma’arat HaMachpela.

I Bet You Were Waiting for This: Whose Fault Is the Egyptian Revolt?

RubinReports
Barry Rubin

Robert Malley, son of Simon Malley, ace Israel-hater, scion of the Egyptian Communist Party, former White House aide, and a key person in the lobby of Middle East "experts" trying to get the United States to commit suicide in the region, has told us why there is unrest in Egypt.

On NPR's "Weekend Edition Saturday," Malley explained that the Arabs have been "humiliated" by not being able to control their own history because of the invasion of Iraq and "the fact that the Palestinians can’t get Israel to give them anything."

Hmm, said the NPR host thoughtfully. So now we know: Israel and America are responsible for all the problems of the Middle East. But since many of these same people claim that Israel was behind the U.S. invasion of Iraq (though Israeli policymakers and decisionmakers opposed the operation) it comes down to Israel again.

Iran, of course, said the same thing. And in his country, said a Lebanese expert (a real one, not the type quoted in the New York Times), "You should see the pro-Syrian and Hizballah people, salivating with excitement at the fantasy that this is the end of Mubarak." Speaking of pro-Syrian and pro-Hizballah people, Helena Cobban doesn't just blame Israel but AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby.


Cartoon by Stephen E. Hughes, exclusively for Rubin Reports

Indeed, one of the main Syrian servants with a pen, Rime Allaf, "international consultant and an associate fellow at Chatham House in London." wrote the same thing in the--you guessed it--New York Times (which Lebanese are starting to call the New York Akhbar after the Syrian front newspaper (al-Akhbar) that the Times so admires.
She explains:

"The Mubarak regime’s closeness to Israel and participation in the siege on Gaza were never popular, and if Egyptians manage to go the Tunisian way, there may be a softening of this embrace. It’s too early to tell which way Egypt’s army will go, and whether President Mubarak can survive this wave, but Arabs are rooting for Egyptians to have their peaceful revolution, and for Egypt to become once more a leader in the Arab world."

Lead the Arab world into war with Israel, of course.

By the way, none of these people have any concern whatsoever for U.S. interests. They merely use this as a figleaf for bashing Israel. In fact, they are all on the other side. They want Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah to triumph and drive the West out of the region.

What this kind of thinking requires is to erase the fact that Arab countries actually have domestic issues! Yes, incredible as it might seem there are things like unemployment, poverty, repression, personal ambition, ethnic and regional quarrels, dissatisfaction with the functioning of government institutions, religious conflicts, and all the other kinds of things that make people everywhere dislike their governments, especially if they live under a dictatorship.

And there are people who have ideas of what they would prefer to replace the existing system: democracy, Islamism, or themselves and their friends as the new dictators.

Equally, governments blame Israel and America to deflect attention from their own shortcomings. This approach often works. It isn't working in Egypt right now.

Yet all these factors are often deleted in Western discussions (especially in universities), leaving people unable to conceive that anything might happen without it being caused by Israel. Every time something happens that proves local problems are involved--say, Sunnis and Shias killing each other in Iraq--it must somehow be linked to Israel's existence or actions.

On one occasion a couple of years ago, the head of a United Arab Emirates (UAE) think tank explained to a startled Swiss reporter how Israel was responsible for the poor educational system in the UAE. Many similar tales can be recounted.

"Actually," says a veteran Cairo resident and Egypt-watcher, "Israel seems to have hardly been mentioned by the demonstrators in Egypt. Only the `experts' think this is primarily about foreign affairs, U.S. policy or Israel. It is mainly about Mubarak's domestic failures and his party's outright theft of the last parliamentary elections."

News bulletin: There are a lot of other things going on in this region, from Morocco in the west to Afghanistan and Pakistan in the east, that pertain to other matters.

"Exceedingly Worrisome Situation"

Arlene Kushner

I write with the assumption that (almost) everyone reading this will have been following the news regarding Egypt, at least at a minimal level. And I write, as well, aware that within hours after I send this out, the news may have shifted. In fact, my best efforts to get this straight notwithstanding, it's close to impossible to get a handle on the shifting details.

It's clear to everyone following these events that they have less than nothing to do with Palestinian Arabs or a "two state solution." Egyptians are most decidedly not rioting in the streets because there is no Palestinian state. This should (unfortunately, it won't) put to rest once and for all the fallacious idea that what happens between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs is at the heart of what goes on elsewhere in the Arab/Muslim world. The uprising that started on Tuesday and has escalated for days since -- with rioting in the streets, more than 60 dead and over 2,000 injured, refusal to obey curfews, and more -- has been directed against the repressions of the Hosni Mubarak regime of almost 30 years. Those repressions -- as well as wide-spread corruption, economic problems, and failure to enact promised reforms -- are very real. Most hated are the police, whose vehicles and stations have been attacked and torched.

Chaos has been exacerbated by prison break-outs at first in four different sites, with thousands of prisoners, including terrorists and political prisoners from the Muslim Brotherhood, going free after clashing with guards and starting fires. They have gone on a rampage of looting, with marauding gangs releasing even more prisoners.

~~~~~~~~~~

The army has replaced the police now in Cairo, a teeming city of 18 million, with tanks stationed everywhere. This morning there was uneasy quiet in the streets of the city. But this, I believe, had as much to do with the need of demonstrators to rush home and protect their families and properties from the escaped prisoners as it did the actions of the army. There were stories of householders standing off looters with razors and broken bottles.

Now thousands have returned to central Cairo, with more soldiers and tanks being brought in, and reports of helicopters overhead. Jets have been heard overhead as well.

Egyptian Internet was shut down the other day, and apparently Al-Jazeera has now been cut off as well.


~~~~~~~~~~

Mubarak, who earlier was reportedly in hiding in Sharm El-Sheikh, has since visited military headquarters. He has fired his government, promised real reforms, and perhaps most significantly, appointed intelligence chief Omar Suleiman to fill the post of vice president -- a post that had been empty.


Suleiman, 74, has been serving since 1993 as the head of the General Intelligence Directorate. Egyptian journalist Issandr Amrani, cited in today's JPost, describes the Directorate as an organization that "combines the intelligence-gathering elements of the CIA, the counterterrorism role of the FBI, the protections duties of the Secret Service, and the high-level diplomacy of the State Department."

In other words, Suleiman is one very powerful man, and has proved himself adept at handling terrorists and controlling Islamist elements in Egypt. Additionally he has frequently served as a diplomatic envoy and is savvy with regard to Israeli issues. He is considered corruption-free. While he is said to be considerably more popular than Mubarak, there are elements among the protesters who reject him because of his association with the old regime.

~~~~~~~~~~

What seems clear now is that if the regime holds, ultimately Suleiman will replace the much-hated Mubarak. Mubarak had been grooming his son to succeed him, but this is not going to happen. In fact, there is the possibility that succession by Suleiman might take place fairly imminently. It is the disappearance from the scene of Mubarak that the crowds are clambering for.

This is what I am hoping will happen (ideally with some genuine reforms enacted), and I will explain why...

~~~~~~~~~~

The rioting protesters, including a good percentage of educated young people, at present are pushing for democratic reforms. There is the impulse to applaud them and to wish them well in turning Egypt around.

However, this group is not well organized and has no charismatic leader at its helm. Because it is diffuse, it is vulnerable to take-over by non-democratic elements.

I am greatly concerned that Mohamed El-Baradei -- from 1997 to 2008 Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) -- has returned to Cairo from Vienna, where he lives, to join the protestors and help bring Mubarak down. El-Baradei is an enemy of Israel, make no mistake about it.

According to the Chinese news agency Xinhua, in 2009 El-Baradei is reported to have said, "Israel is the number one threat to the Middle East given the nuclear arms it possesses."

More significantly, he cut Iran slack, turning a blind eye with regard to Iranian nuclear developments on several occasions, so that he bears some culpability for the nuclear progress Iran made over time.

~~~~~~~~~~

Of even greater concern than El-Baradei is the potential role of the (Islamist) Muslim Brotherhood, which has joined protests but is not taking a leadership role now. Should this group ultimately move to take over, and should there be an Islamist government in Egypt in time, this would represent a worst case scenario for us and the whole region.

It would undercut US interests in the area, present a threat in terms of exported revolution to other Arab states (most notably a very frightened Jordan), and would greatly increase the likelihood of war.

~~~~~~~~~~

I know there are those who have lamented former prime minister Menachem Begin's readiness to reach a peace accord with Sadat, Mubarak's predecessor, and point to the cold peace that exists -- with anti-Semitism rife in Egypt. I have never been of this mind. Better a cold peace than no peace.

Egypt is the largest of the Arab nations with the largest standing army and the most sophisticated military (thanks to US assistance). As long as the peace has held, other Arab nations have thought better of going to war with Israel on their own. Heaven forbid that this dynamic should shift at some point down the road: For there is considerable likelihood, if not certainty, that an Islamic Egyptian government would abrogate its peace treaty with Israel.

Mubarak has been staunchly anti-Iran (in some good measure because of Sunni-Shia tensions) and is no fan of Hamas. Hamas, after all, is a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot, and he has seen Hamas presence in Egypt as exacerbating Brotherhood unrest. Turn this around and picture what an Islamist Egyptian government would do to strengthen Hamas in Gaza.

Not surprisingly, Iran has come out with words of support for the rebellion.

~~~~~~~~~~

It has to be noted that there is an abysmal record with regard to democratic revolutions successfully taking hold in the Middle East. As Barry Rubin wrote last night, if the regime falls and power is up for grabs, we have the following precedents:

"Remember the Iranian revolution when all sorts of people poured out into the streets to demand freedom? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is now president.

"Remember the Beirut spring when people poured out into the streets to demand freedom? Hezbollah is now running Lebanon.

"Remember the democracy among the Palestinians and free elections? Hamas is now running the Gaza Strip.

"Remember democracy in Algeria? Tens of thousands of people were killed in the ensuing civil war.

"It doesn't have to be that way but the precedents are pretty daunting."

http://www.gloria-center.org/gloria/2011/01/special-report-egypt-revolt-and-us-policy

~~~~~~~~~~

When we talk about the Iranian revolution and how abysmally that ultimately failed, we have to look at the role of then-president Jimmy Carter, who sided with the revolutionaries.

There are analysts now who are deeply concerned about Obama pulling a "Carter," and with reason.

According to the Egyptian paper Almasry Alyoum, as reported in Haaretz, Obama secretly met members of the Muslim Brotherhood who live in the US and Europe, in early 2009. While according to WikiLeaks, as cited by the London Telegraph, in the last three years, members of the US government have communicated with an Egyptian activist who was involved in top secret plans for transition to a democratic government. Two years ago (which would have meant after Obama took office), the US ambassador to Egypt allegedly helped keep the identity of this activist from Egyptian police.

While I report these items, I cannot attest to their absolute veracity. There has been a suggestion that the fact that WikiLeaks has now revealed the connection between the US and this activist might have helped spark what is transpiring. This may be a bit far-fetched.

More immediately there is concern that the Obama administration is publicly coming down too hard on Mubarak and that this may help bring him down.

~~~~~~~~~~

As evidence of this:

Secretary of State Clinton, in a press conference this morning, said:

"I want the Egyptian people to have a chance to chart a new future.

"It's not a question of who retains power. ... It's how are we going to respond to the legitimate needs and grievances expressed by the Egyptian people and chart a new path. Clearly, the path that has been followed has not been one that has created that democratic future, that economic opportunity that people in the peaceful protests are seeking."

Is she being briefed at all? Is she smoking something? Peaceful protests?

Continuing, she said that what was needed was "an orderly, peaceful transition to real democracy...

"We are totally committed to working with the Egyptians that are interested in a true democracy."

Well, where does this leave everyone? And does this help the situation?

She just wants an orderly transition to real democracy in a nation that has never had democracy, and in which riots are currently taking place.

~~~~~~~~~~

With regard to our current situation, Maj.-General (res.) Yaakov Amidror, who headed research and assessment for the IDF, declared:

"We need to understand that we are living on a volcano. Conditions can change from today until tomorrow."

Switching metaphors, he then said, "We are on thick ice, but even that melts eventually. There's no immediate fear of any security escalation. The main question is: In the long term, will we be ready for all scenarios?"

~~~~~~~~~~

At first the government of Israel was entirely mum on what's going on. Now Prime Minister Netanyahu has said that Israel is "anxiously monitoring" the unrest in Egypt.

"Our efforts are designed to continue and maintain stability and security in our region

"I remind you that the peace between Israel and Egypt has endured for over three decades and our goal is to ensure that these relations continue.

"Of course, at this time, we must show maximum responsibility, restraint and sagacity and, to this end, I have instructed my fellow ministers to refrain from commenting on this issue. Naturally, we are also holding consultations in the appropriate government forums."

Netanyahu has also been in phone consultation with Obama and Clinton.

~~~~~~~~~~

© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by Arlene Kushner, functioning as an independent journalist. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution


see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info

A New Middle East

JoeSettler at 1/30/2011 08:54:00 AM
A joint Joe-Jameel post

Here at the Muqata, we've haven't hid our disgust at the state of dictatorships that permeate the Arab world such as in Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.

We haven't hid our hopes that the Arab people would rise up and replace these tyrannies with true democracies.

We've called for the overthrow of these dictatorial states when we wrote,

"we share in your dream of breaking free from the shackles of your little dictator and his occupation government".

We've demanded freedom (and freedom of speech) for Egyptian bloggers imprisoned by the Egyptian regime. We helped publicize the Egyptian government's crimes against Humanity.


But in the same vein we wrote a serious analysis when we raised the question as to which would be better, a dictatorship that won't attack Israel, or another Islamic state that will?

Years ago we were already discussing what would happen after Mubarak exits the stage.

The less practical Islamists are poised for a takeover of Egypt.

What happens when the dictators who love Jihad and are aligned with Iran replace the dictators who first love personal comforts, prestige and lining their own pockets?

And it was this past summer where we talked about the upcoming coup against Mubarak's government.

Furthermore, it is only a matter of time before the Islamic Brotherhood attempts a coup against US-propped up Egyptian government once Mubarak dies, and gains access and control to all of Egypt's advanced US weaponry.


And as we wrote the other day, the problem in Egypt, like the other Arab states is that democracy is not likely to take over, as much as we'd like it to.

Elbaradai is supported by the Muslim Brotherhood and in fact, Elbaradai supports the Muslim Brotherhood. "We should stop demonizing the Muslim Brotherhood," he writes.

Elbaradai is also personally responsible for Iran's unhindered progress in their goal to obtain nuclear weapons and commit genocide against the Jewish people.

In short, an Elbaradai/Muslim Brotherhood government would mean another Hamastan, but an Islamic state with the largest army and the second largest number of F-16s in the Middle East.


The other likely alternative is that the Egyptian military takes over. A more stable situation for Israel, but still a ticking time bomb on the inside.


It comes down to this. There is no tradition for democracy in the Arab world, and I'm having difficulty envisioning it flourishing in Egypt. I see the Islamists taking over - through the facade of democracy.


But most importantly, this should be a serious warning bell for all of us in Israel.

The Israeli Left eagerly supports dictators like Abu Mazen and Yasser Arafat. They run weekly protests against Israel, but yet not a single one demanding elections or democracy in the Palestinian Authority. (Talk about hypocrites).

So while the Left and the West pressure Israel to make peace with the dictator Abu Mazen no one is considering the consequences.

Abu Mazen is far weaker than Mubarak. It is only a matter of time before he is overthrown by Hamas (not democracy).

And what happens the next day?

Israel has given over control of more of the Land of Israel to our Islamic enemies (instead of our dictatorial enemies). They will have access to all the tanks and missiles that Saeb Erekat said he plans to bring in.


Watching what is going on in the Arab world, can anyway honestly say this 'peace process' with the current regimes in place, sounds like a smart long-term idea?

WILL EGYPT COST OBAMA A SECOND TERM IN WHITE HOUSE?‏

B.RAMAN

The people's revolt in Egypt, which has cost over a hundred lives since January 25, is showing signs of taking an anti-US turn.

2. ""Neither Mubarak nor Suleiman; we're sick of Americans." So shouted the protesters in the Tahir (Liberation) Square of Cairo on January 29. The reference was to Omar Suleiman, the head of the Military Intelligence, whom President Hosni Mubarak appointed as the Vice-President on January 29, in a desperate move to ensure the continued loyalty of the Army to him. 3. The Army has till now remained loyal to Mubarak. All the fatalities were reported to have been caused in clashes between the protesters and the riot police, which comes under the Ministry of the Interior. Mubarak seems to be hoping to save his tottering regime by projecting the riot police as the fall guy. This is unlikely to work and could prove dangerous by creating large-scale desertions from the riot police. The riot police and the Army have roughly equal strength---about 3000,000 plus. If there are large-scale desertions from the riot police, the Army may find it very difficult to control the resulting situation.

4.The US is in a quandary. The administration of President Barack Obama has as badly mis-judged the gathering storm in Egypt before the riots broke out as the administration of then President Jimmy Carter had mis-judged the gathering storm in Teheran in 1978 before the fall of the Shah of Iran. Wishful-thinking by Governmental and non-governmental analysts in the US that the Shah would somehow be able to control the situatuion contributed to a strategic disaster in Iran, with the Shia revolutionaries under Ayatollah Khomeni capturing power, the consequences of which on the strategic scenario in the region are being felt even today.

5. Similar wishful-thinking by Governmental and non-Governmental analysts in Washington DC and a similar miscalculation are inexorably leading to a situation where the people's anger, which was initially against the Mubarak regime, is turning against the US Government for continuing to support it. The strategic consequences of the emerging anger against the US will be unpredictable and the Obama Administration will find its attention increasingly distracted from the Af-Pak region. "All the way with Mubarak" is no longer a workable option. "Jettison Mubarak" could be an option, but the dilemma for the US is "Who After Mubarak?"

6. It cannot be someone associated with the Mubarak regime. It has to be a new face from amongst the growing crowds demonstrating in the streets.Even though the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is playing a behind-the-scene role in keeping the protests alive and aggravating, one has not heard of any slogans calling for power to the MB. In a situation where nobody is a leader and yet everybody is a leader, it is difficult to assess who is going to ultimately emerge as the leader to take over power.

7. The US placed so much faith in the stability and durability of the Shah of Iran that it failed to diversify its political contacts in Iran. When the Shah ultimately fell, the US suddenly found itself without any influence in Teheran and without any insights about Ayatollah Khomeni and his aides.

8. Similarly, it had such pathetic faith in the stability and durability of Mubarak that it has failed to diversify its contacts and influence in Cairo. The result: It has no contacts and friends in the people who are in the forefront of the revolt.

9.The policy and operational disasters of the Carter Administration in Iran contributed to the failure of Carter to get re-elected for a second term. Will history repeat itself? Will policy and operational disasters in Egypt contribute to a similar failure of Obama to get re-elected next year? Obama has to keep his fingers crossed. ( 30-1-11)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )




--
Yisrael Medad
Shiloh
Mobile Post Efraim 44830
Israel
www.myrightword.blogspot.com
http://blogs.jpost.com/content/green-lined
(previous: http://cgis.jpost.com/Blogs/greenlined/)

The Fall of the Strongmen

Daniel Greenfield

The attempt to establish a post-colonial order of kings and strongmen to replace the British and French colonial rule over the Arab Muslim world was doomed from the start. Some of the kings were overthrown by native officers who had been trained by the British and the French to fight their wars. The officers who overthrew them became strongmen themselves. The recently deposed Ben Ali was a Tunisian officer trained in French and American schools, who had helped push out the French and his predecessor. Egypt's Mubarak was an Air Force officer who replaced Sadat, who replaced Nasser-- all members of the Free Officers Movement which overthrew the Egyptian monarchy. Saddam Hussein took power in a coup against the coup led by army officers which had deposed the King of Iraq. Syria's Assad was an Air Force officer who took power after a long series of coups by army officers that it would take too long to list. If you're seeing a pattern here, congratulations and welcome to the Middle East.

The only Middle-Eastern Arab countries which held onto their monarchies, were either oil rich enough to spread the wealth to the important families and retain only a weak military to avoid the risk of being overthrown by their own army while relying on US protection (e.g. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE) or so small and deliberately apolitical to avoid attention (Jordan, Morocco). The rest ended up with military strongmen, some backed by the US, some backed by the Soviet Union. The Soviet backed strongmen usually unveiled some poorly thought out version of Arab Socialism. The US backed strongmen just stuck to taking a cut of everything and packing it away in foreign banks.

But there was a ticking time bomb underneath these pyramids of wealth and misery. Islam. The kings had been nothing more than British puppets. The strongmen that replaced them were the apex of a new praetorian guard. Despite whatever philosophies they brought to the table, sooner or later they tried to become kings as well. Syria's Assad passed power on to his son. Saddam was preparing his sons to oversee his own dynasty. In Egypt, Mubarak is trying to do the same thing. But they have no tradition and no history on their side. Their rule is a farce in which they call themselves presidents and prime ministers, and go through the pretense of holding elections, but function like absolute monarchs. An unbalanced situation that eventually implodes.

The strongmen depend on army backing, but the armies of the Arab world are split drastically between an elite officer corps and the soldier who is treated like sheep dung. The officers and the secret police run the country, but when a mob gathers, it's up to the soldiers to hold them back. If the soldiers choose not to, then it's time for the strongman to get on a plane and escape the country. (This is essentially what also brought down the Soviet Union.) As an alternative, the strongman will leverage support from tribal structures, appointing loyalists to top positions in the bureaucracy and the military. (This is what kicked off the initial insurgency in Iraq.) But that too is a balance. Elevating one family, alienates another family. The tribal power structure has its own enemies built in. Those maneuvers for power can cause the incredible chaos so common after the fall of a strongman.

The Arab world may hold elections, but it is a long way from accepting notions such as equality, open access or guaranteed freedoms. Its rulers will occasionally sign on to UN covenants on women's rights or religious rights, without ever taking them seriously. The idea that one man is just as good as another, regardless of his family or religion, is a completely alien one to them. A woman being just as good as a man is not even a conversation starter. The Middle East still mostly consists of peasants from feudal backgrounds lorded over by a small elite. Bring democracy and human rights to the Middle East? You might as well walk into 12th century Europe with a copy of the Constitution and expect not to be beheaded.

So what happens when a strongman is overthrown? Either he will be replaced by one of the coup leaders who will become the new strongman. If not he will also be overthrown. Or he will be replaced by an oligarchy which will eventually come to be dominated by its strongest and most ruthless member who will become the new strongman. (That is how Iraq ended up ruled by the House of Saddam.) As you can see there really isn't an alternative here. It's the strongman or nothing.

But there is a seeming alternative. A different power structure than a corrupt dictator and his thugs. One based not on power, greed and family-- but religion. Islam.

Most of the 'reformers' are usually fighting for either a takeover by the local socialist party or the local Islamist party. The general public will join in the stone throwing and the looting, without necessarily taking sides. Often the socialists and the Islamists will actually cooperate to bring down the dictator. Then one will take power and begin killing the other. Western media rarely bother to report this, either out of ignorance or due to propaganda. They treat most of the crowd scenes as popular uprisings, which they are but not in the sense that the people will get to decide one way or another. Only that they get a chance to take part in the brief spurt of violence before being ordered to go home.

The Islamists promise a system based on Allah's law. Rule by moral clerics instead of greedy officials. Traditional values, benefits for families and teddy bears not named Mohammed for everyone. It's a scam of course. The Islamist takeover means another strongman or oligarchy. Except instead of being named General Saddam Hussein, he'll be known as the Ayatollah Khomeini. The differences are minimal. The ruling families will still sock away money in foreign banks. Loyalists will still be appointed to top positions. The bureaucracy will go on abusing and blackmailing the public. The police will still be vicious thugs. And law will be promulgated by Imams or Muftis or Mullahs, but it will still be the law that those at the top want.

Despite all that, or maybe because of it, the Islamists are still inevitable. Islam manufactures a group identity that may be paper thin, but it still more solid than recently manufactured national identities for regional Arabs who are expected to see themselves as Egyptians, Syrians, Jordanians or Iraqis. Islam bridges tribal identities better than strongmen do. Its rulers will ultimately still reward their own families and favor their own tribes, but the process will take place under the guise of Islam.

When Mohammed invented Islam, he took existing beliefs and laced them up into a grand tribal identity. Islam is the meta-tribe, less a religion than a makeshift political system based on tribal alliances with the convenient sanction of a deity. Islam expands by creating a two-tier system that puts non-Muslims on the bottom, and encourages Muslims to wage constant war against them. None of this makes for a stable system, but it does make for a very volatile and expansionistic one. Arabs who will not die for Saddam or Ben Ali or Mubarak, will die for Islam.

The Islamists may not take over in Tunisia this time, but they will take over sooner or later. There and all across the Muslim world. (If it happened in militantly secularist Turkey with its army, then it really can happen anywhere.) Dictators will come and go, and eventually the local Islamists with funding from Saudi Arabia or Iran will put together a proper show and take over. And eventually the people will get tired and try to throw them out, as is happening in Iran. It's the natural political cycle of a region with no true national identities, no real principles of government, no law and no commitment to anyone outside the family.

We could slow down or even avert the process, by pushing Westernization and cutting the legs off Saudi Arabia and Iran. But we aren't about to do it. We could at least stop sending them money by the barrel, but we aren't about to do that either. And that's the real problem, not Ben Ali or Mubarak. Calling for the regimes to respect democracy and human rights just undermines whoever is in power. It does not lead to them being replaced by anything better. To do that, the entire culture would have to change. And that isn't happening.

The strongmen will fall. And the media will act like it's Romania in 1989, rather than just part of the cycle of coups in a system that cannot have anything better than tyrants of one sort or another. Eventually Islamists will come to power and wage war against us. It's up to us whether they win or not.