In this mailing:
- Samuel Westrop: Deserting the Moderates: The Dilution of Human Rights
- Harold Rhode: Honor and Compromise in Middle East Leadership
Deserting the Moderates: The Dilution of Human Rights
by Samuel Westrop
July 10, 2013 at 5:00 am
July 10, 2013 at 5:00 am
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Although
the Camden Abu Dis Friendship Association [CADFA] claims to promote "human
rights," in reality it is a politicized organization that uses human
rights to sanitize its support for terrorism and to obtain public funding from
the British government and the European Union. Whether a "coalition of
women for peace" or the demand for a boycott, many of the NGOs that
promise "solidarity" only serve to whitewash the extremists while
deserting the moderates.
A new report by NGO Monitor, a group which monitors the activities and
funding of non-profit organizations, has uncovered
that €602,798 of taxpayers' funds was given by the European Union to the
Coalition of Women for Peace, a politicized NGO that has glorified the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine [PFLP] terror group, and advocates
boycotts, divestment and sanctions against the State of Israel.This NGO is just one of many radical organizations that, while promising "peace" and "friendship," are actually, instead, promoting extremism. The extremists use the language of human rights to finagle moral legitimacy and public funds; the genuine moderates are forsaken.
The Camden Abu Dis Friendship Association (CADFA), for example, claims to "promote awareness about the human rights situation in Abu Dis" (a village in the West Bank) through "friendship links and twinning" with Camden, a borough of London.
In 2009, Jon Benjamin, Chief Executive of the Jewish Board of Deputies, wrote to Hampstead School to express his concern over a CADFA-organized event. One anti-Israel activist, brought over by CADFA, had warned children of "Jewish soldiers" who he claimed were persecuting him.
CADFA's chairman, Munir Nusseibeh, who describes himself as a human rights lawyer, in 2012 spoke on Press TV, a news channel run by the Iranian regime, about CADFA's and his support for Khader Adnan -- a jailed terrorist leader from Palestinian Islamic Jihad [PIJ], a proscribed terror group under UK law.
PIJ has conducted scores of car and suicide bombings that have killed hundreds of Israeli Jews and Arabs. In 2003, PIJ blew up the Maxim restaurant in Haifa, owned and frequented by both Arabs and Jews, and regarded as a model of peaceful co-existence. Twenty-one people were murdered and 51 injured; among the victims were two families and four children, one of whom was a two-month-old baby.
On its website and in one of its 'updates', CADFA proclaims support for the Abu Jihad Museum in Abu Dis. This museum honors imprisoned terror operatives, and describes them as "martyrs." It was founded in support of Khalil Al-Wazir, a PLO terrorist who planned the infamous Coastal Road Massacre, a terror attack that took the lives of 37 people, including 13 children.
CADFA describes suicide bombers as "martyrs" who were "killed" by the Israelis. Its website has listed Osama Mohammad Bahar and Nabeel Mohammad Halabiyeh as "martyrs" of Abu Dis. Bahar and Halabiyeh just so happen to have carried out a suicide bombing in Jerusalem, in which 11 people were killed and 155 wounded, but CADFA made no mention of their murderous acts.
Despite all this, CADFA enjoys financial support from both the British government and the European Union. This support is channelled through a jointly-managed programme called Youth in Action, an EU initiative started in 2007. In the UK, the British Council, a public body accountable to the British Foreign Office, manages the Youth in Action program.
CADFA has reported that its various twinning initiatives with Abu Dis schools are organized in collaboration with Camden local government and are funded by the British Council.
Further, CADFA has used European Union funds to finance a series of propaganda films. According to CADFA's report:
"During summer 2010, we had our very successful fifth youth visit from Palestine. Eight young people from Camden were given time off their school timetables to join eight young people from Abu Dis in a project making film about human rights and anti-discrimination. This took them on visits across London and to schools and youth clubs in Camden. Together, they made a series of small films and the final product, a DVD called "Don't Divide Us‟ was distributed to schools and youth clubs in Camden and Abu Dis."
Although CADFA claims to promote "human rights," in reality, it is a politicized organization that uses human rights as a facade to sanitize its apologies for terrorism and to obtain public funding.
"Twinning" initiatives are not just established by groups such as CADFA; a number of universities' student unions have announced partnerships in Gaza with educational institutions under the control of terror groups.
In 2011, nine student unions successfully submitted a motion through the National Union of Students that "resolved to… [build] links with students at the Islamic University of Gaza." In 2008, the Islamic University of Gaza produced rockets and explosives for use by the Palestinian terror group Hamas. One of Hamas's founders, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, established the University in 1978, and sixteen of the University's lecturers and teachers are elected Hamas members of the Palestinian legislature. It is important to see what is in the Hamas Charter. For example: "Peace and quiet would not be possible except under the wing of Islam," or, " Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time…." or "It is the duty of followers of other religions to stop disputing the sovereignty of Islam…."
The student unions that sponsored the motion claimed it would support "freedom for Palestine." Since then, several other student unions, including the London School of Economics, have also become directly affiliated with the Islamic University of Gaza.
Within universities, the faculty has shown itself to be just as politicized as the student body. In 2002, an academic at the University of Manchester sacked two Israelis from the editorial board of a journal solely because of their place of birth.
Amid the clamour for affiliation with institutions that support terror, British unions also discourage cooperation with their Israeli counterparts. Last week, for instance, one of Britain's largest trade unions, the GMB (membership: 600,000), voted to ban its members from visiting both Israel and the Palestinian territories on delegations organized by the organization Trade Union Friends of Israel, which promotes cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian workers.
In 2010, the Unite union voted to boycott Israeli companies. Last week, however, Adam Weir, a senior official of Unite, welcomed Islamic Jihad terrorist Mahmoud Sarsak to address a demonstration in London.
Whether a "twinning initiative," a "coalition of women for peace" or the demand for boycott, many NGOs and unions -- taxpayer-funded -- that promise "solidarity" only serve to sanitize the extremists while deserting the moderates.
Related Topics: United
Kingdom | Samuel Westrop
Honor and Compromise in Middle East Leadership
by Harold Rhode
July 10, 2013 at 4:30 am
July 10, 2013 at 4:30 am
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Why the
U.S. administration believes it can persuade Mahmoud Abbas to sign an agreement
guaranteeing Israel's right to exist is astonishing. It is pointless for
Western leaders to provide Middle Eastern leaders with incentives to reach
compromises where, in Western eyes, all sides win, but in Middle Eastern eyes,
their side loses. There, the winner takes all and the loser loses all.
Why couldn't Egypt's deposed President Morsi admit mistakes? Why couldn't he
"compromise" with the military and stay in power? And what can one
learn from Morsi's behavior about the concept of leadership in the Middle East?In the Middle East, leaders almost never admit that they made mistakes: doing so would bring shame (in Arabic/Turkish/ and Persian - 'Ayib/Ayyip/Ayb) on them. Shame in the Middle East is about what others say about you -- not what you think of yourself. While to some extent this is true in Western culture, in general Westerners are more susceptible to feelings of guilt, rather than shame. The Western concept of compromise -- each side conceding certain points to the other side in order to come to an agreement -- does not exist in the Middle East. What is paramount is preserving one's honor (in Arabic: sharaf or karama). People will go to any lengths to avoid shame; they are prepared to go to jail, risk death, and even kill family members (usually females) to uphold what they perceive as their honor and that of their family. The consequences of dishonor are always permanent and always collective, often extending to the entire family and even the entire clan.
This battle to avoid shame at all costs indicates why Morsi, Erdoğan, Saddam, Assad, Arafat, and Abu Mazen – when they either have painted themselves into a corner -- or have been painted into one -- can never back down.
If our policy-makers could understand this cultural imperative, they might better be able to understand why we constantly fail to achieve our policy goals, and how better to achieve them.
* * *
One of the reasons that leadership in the Middle East is so different from
leadership in the West, is that in Western democracies, political parties are
usually based on ideas or world views; in the Middle East, however, political
parties are formed around strong leaders -- usually strong men (and
occasionally women), whose supporters are either extended family members or
supplicants of some sort.Westerners often succumb to "mirror-imaging" -- assuming that "all people are alike, so whatever they say resembles what we say" -- and assume that, as in the West, names of political parties in the Middle East reflect some sort of ideology. In reality, the ideologies for which parties supposedly stand are apparently mostly nothing more than words that the leader presumably hopes will enable him to justify his control over his people. Prime Minister Erdoğan and his clique, for example, belong to the AKP Party -- Turkish initials for the "Justice and Development Party," a name he my have chosen because it sounded positive, but which has little, if anything, to do with Erdoğan's subsequent actions: re-Islamizing the Turkish government and Turkish society. Egypt's deposed President Morsi's political party, the "Freedom and Justice Party," also seems to have a name chosen simply because it sounded good. How can anyone oppose "freedom" and "justice?" But millions of Egyptians, as we are now witnessing, evidently thought it insufficiently concerned with either freedom or justice.
It is the leaders who, in the Middle East, grant protection and even citizenship at will to foreigners who do them favors, and they can take away that citizenship at will. Syria's previous dictator Hafez Assad, for instance, took away Syrian citizenship from countless Syrian Kurds whom he decided opposed him. Western ideas of citizenship -- people either born in a certain country or fulfill certain legal requirements to be able to belong to it -- are mostly alien to the Middle East, and are among the reasons that, for instance, many Arabs who have lived in Kuwait for generations do not have Kuwaiti citizenship: they lack the appropriate connections with the leaders in the Kuwaiti government. Lebanese and Palestinian individuals, however, who have performed desired services for the Kuwaiti or Saudi rulers are often given citizenship as a reward. They remain, nonetheless, totally dependent on these rulers, who can and often do revoke those citizenships, if they think anyone is running afoul of them.
* * *
Morsi was actually doomed from the start. He was faced with an impossible
economic situation: an Egypt totally dependent on foreign subsidies, and having
to import 55% of its food and much of its fuel. The military, who have in some
way been ruling Egypt for almost 5,000 years, understood that if they had they
taken over, they would have been blamed for Egypt's economic and political
failures during the past year and a half. Instead, they allowed Morsi and his
Muslim Brotherhood [MB] to rule and thereby take the blame for Egypt's
impossible situation. Moreover, the Egyptian people also saw for themselves
that the MB's view of the world could not work. The organization's motto,
"Islam is the Solution," proved wanting, to say the least -- exactly
as the military assumed would happen.The politically sophisticated military knew that Morsi and his MB could not solve Egypt's problems. So the military engineered a "two-for-one" deal: The MB, finally in power, was shamed, and the military would avoid being blamed. As Morsi must avoid shame, he cannot compromise with the military, so his political career is probably over. The same is true for the MB -- at least for now, even though its many supporters cannot be expected to accept defeat without a serious fight. The question is really how the military will react to the MB trying to stay in power? For now, it looks as if the military has the will to prevent the MB and Morsi from returning to power. Qatar, as part of its traditional anti-Saudi stance, also strongly backs the MB -- as does the current Turkish government.[1] Both Qatar and the current Turkish government are the big losers here, because the events of the past few days in Egypt demonstrate that the traditional Egyptian-Saudi (and anti-Qatar) alliance has re-emerged.
Whatever happens in Egypt, we should be careful not to see the defeat of the MB as a vote against all Islamists. Egypt's Salafists are also Islamists but at the same time are anti-MB[2], and have, until yesterday, have backed the military, because the Salafists and the military are both backed by Saudi Arabia -- most definitely not a force for democracy, freedom, and tolerance for non-Sunni Muslims - or any other non-Muslims, for that matter -- in the Middle East.
* * *
Other Middle Eastern leaders find or have found themselves in the same
position as Morsi. Saddam Hussein in Iraq, for instance, faced with American
orders, also could not back down either during the Kuwait war or the US liberation
of Iraq. Unable, culturally, to compromise, Saddam had no choice other than to
back himself into a corner and suffer defeat. An honorable defeat evidently
seemed preferable to a dishonorable "success" -- one in which
Saddam's honor might have appeared, to his citizens and fellow Arabs and
Muslims, compromised.Turkey: Lately, large numbers of Turkish citizens throughout the nation have been demonstrating against Erdoğan. Erdoğan, however, a classic Middle Eastern leader, cannot be seen to be compromising with the protestors, and thereby be seen as shamed. We see him and his people therefore belittling the demonstrators, and blaming others -- most notably, foreign Jews -- for his predicament. Of course it is not clear who will win this standoff; one outcome might be that his AKP party, which rules the country with an iron fist, might split into various factions, and Erdoğan fall from power. Potential rivals in his party are watching events like hawks, wondering when and how they might "move in for the kill."
The Palestinians: Both Arafat and Abu Mazen, both of whom have led the Palestinian people, cannot sign any agreement with Israel to end the Israel-Palestinian conflict and recognize Israel and a Jewish state. When, at Camp David in 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered Arafat 97% of everything said he wanted, Arafat jumped up and said that he could not sign such an agreement: he "didn't want to have tea with Sadat" – a reference to the Egyptian leader who had been assassinated at least partially for having signed an agreement with Israel. Arafat knew that had he signed, he would have been regarded as having backed down from a confrontation and therefore shamed; been considered a traitor by his people, and most likely killed.
U.S. President Clinton, in a display of how little he really understood about leadership and the values of the Middle East, looked on at Arafat's reaction in amazement. But no compromise would have been possible. Egypt, during its negotiations with Israel for the peace treaty signed in 1981, held out for 100% of what it asked for -- and got it. Had Arafat gotten 100% of what we wanted, Israel would no longer exist.
The same holds true for the Palestinian Authority's current leader, Abu Mazen, to whom, later, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert offered an even better deal than had been offered to Arafat. Condolezza Rice, like President Clinton, also look on in amazement at Mahmoud Abbas's reaction. (For more on Rice's views on Abbas, see her book No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington)
The same condition continues to hold true today. Why Secretary of State Kerry and the Obama administration believe they can persuade Abbas sign an agreement guaranteeing Israel's right to exist in any form is astonishing. These leaders can lead only so long as they are not perceived as a shamed sell-out and traitor.
It is pointless, therefore, for Western and Israeli political leaders to try to provide Middle Eastern leaders with incentives to reach compromises where, in Western eyes all sides win, but in Middle Eastern eyes -- to their fellow Arabs and Muslims -- their side loses. Sadly, in the Middle East, there are only win-lose/lose-win resolutions -- with the winner talking all and the loser losing all. One can hope there might in the future be an Islamic reformation to overturn this cultural demand, but so long as the Islamic Middle East does not truly believe it needs to change, a shift that deeply revolutionary is highly unlikely.
Related Topics: Harold Rhode
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