Commenter Archive

I don’t care what you call it, the place is full of IDF troops and colonists. That seems like the aftermath of a conquest to me, but the problem is not the name but the troops and the colonists.

I care what you call it because what you call it determines what you do about it. We're not talking about territory conquered in a war of aggression. This has policy implications.

Yes it is the root of the issue and no they haven’t “applied pressure”. Pressure has not been applied since George Bush I, and even then it was remarkably mild. Unless the West Bank is purged of colonists a two state solution is impossible, due to the colonists (typical) tendency to seize land from local Arabs.

If it's the root of the problem, then what were they fighting about in 1948-49? In 1967? There was no "occupation" and there were no settlements. Maybe it was too "mild" (for you) that Clinton got Barak to offer 95% of the West Bank plus another three percent in swaps for a Palestinian state, but Barak himself didn't think it was in any way "mild," nor did his group of advisers, nor did the Israeli public in general.

I agree that the settlements must be dismantled in a final solution but dismantling the settlements in itself will not generate such a solution. Again, this was tried in 2000 by Clinton and Barak.

Where's ED Kain? Can't he speak up and tell me what about the Senate resolution he considers so "wrong-headed?" Or his he going to give his dry wit another workout.

Hey, ED Kain,

Good one! Very funny! You're showcasing your dry irony here on me and it hurts!

Now, can you at least respond to some points and show the world you're a big boy? For example, what, exactly, about the Senate resolution is so "wrong-headed?" I can't see it myself and you think it's so obvious.

this assault on top of a blockade, carried out with an “iron fist” as the US was in transition from one president to another was backed by a resolution carried by unanimous consent in the Senate, and with only 5 votes against in the House. American public opinion, as Glenn Greenwald noted, was evenly divided, and Democrats sided more with the Palestinians enduring a blitz with some white phosphorus thrown into the mix. Is there any plausible explanation for this discrepancy apart from the Walt-Mearsheimer one?

"This assault on top of a blockade" was not an assault—an assault is an an aggressive attack. Israel was acting in self-defense so the phrase should read, "this counterattack on top of a blockade." It's not a trivial point—Sullivan (and you) are skewing the debate with such tendentious wording. The blockade was declared because Hamas refused to recognize Israel's right to exist, renounce violence, and abide by previous agreements between the PA and Israel. Just so readers can see that Israel might have a point here in blockading an entity intent on destroying it and its people—indeed, intent on destroying Jews everywhere. It's been shown that the white phosphorus was used for illumination of the battlefield and not as a weapon against the Palestinians.

What is the Walt-Mearsheimer explanation for this? Am I correct in assuming that this would be that the US government lives in the Jew's pockets? Jews have corrupted the US government somehow to obey their will, which is antithetical to US interests in themselves? Therefore support for Israel is because of their malevolent influence in pursuit of dark and hidden ends? Stuff like that? Stuff like an updated Protocols of the Elders of Zion?

I have no doubt that some of Sullivan's best friends are Jews, but how can this uncritical echoing of another blood libel (the white phosphorous canard), on top of the Elders-like "theory" of power not be called anti Semitic?

You profess to be "shocked, shocked" by the fact that the Senate does not vote according to the latest opinion polls. The key fact (to you and your fellow "mild supporters of Israel") is that the Gaza operation "felt so pointless" and it wasn't considered in the resolution. Very odd, what? Smacks of dishonesty. Is there really a nefarious conspiracy afoot here?

So I checked by copy of the Federalist so see what Madison (Federalist #62) thought of the Senate: "… at once a constitutional recognition of the portion of sovereignty remaining in the individual states, and an instrument for preserving that residuary sovereignty." The Senate represents the national power of the states, not opinion polls. In fact, Madison thought that an important purpose of the Senate was to check the very tendency, which you hold up as an inalienable duty, to "yield to the impulse of sudden and violent passions."

But, let's check this "wrong-headed resolution" in some detail and see why it's so wrong-headed. I've looked at it and I can't find anything I can call wrong-headed so easily as you can. Can you explain?

The resolution says

That Israel was acting in self-defense
That Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel and is designated by the US government as a terrorist organization
That Hamas has not complied with the demands of the Quartet (the same three demands I referred to above)
That Hamas has launched thousands of rockets indiscriminately against Israeli population centers and is acquiring more powerful rocket technology
That the Israeli operation was to improve security of Israeli cities under Hamas rocket attacks
That Hamas places its military installations near schools, hospitals, mosques, etc
That Israel has facilitated humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza

the Senate therefore

Supports the continued existence of the state of Israel as a Jewish state within secure borders
Supports the two-state solution

Another question: define "mild supporter" of Israel.

Your quasi aesthetic analysis of the situation as being some noble/pointless dialectic is very confusing. It seems to be derived from some lit-crit "theory," not politics. The "tough love" angle is too trite to take seriously. Naturally, if a friend is going to hurt himself, I'd be obliged to "point it out." But I'm not going to dictate how my friends defend themselves from attack.

Now that you mention the "cheerleader administration" and the "chorus of yes-men," who are these people? As far as I know, everyone criticizes Israel's policies, not just the ones you "cheerlead" for.

Chas Freeman has had his work financed by Saudi Arabia and China. His opinions verge away from legitimate criticism in many ways. Calling him a "realist" is so much of a stretch as to be disingenuous. Imagine the hissy fit Sullivan would throw if Israel was financing him.

I know you're going to bring this up somehow anyway, so remember that Israel offered to withdraw from 95% of the West Bank, and cede another three percent in swaps in 2000. The West Bank was not conquered. It was occupied in defending against conquest by the Arab states. Even so, the US government has consistently pronounced against the settlements and applied pressure on Israel to dismantle them. But this is hardly the root of the issue.

Freddie says,

How can people “earn their own living” when they are systematically denied the ability to do so because of their ethnicity and religion? You’re confusing cause and effect.

Freddie has a point here. I won't try to establish any cause/effect relationship at all with any of this. It's more productive to see it as some kind of destructive system—a vicious cycle at work. European citizenship laws discriminate against immigrants, which hampers their ability to work. Their inability to work is supported by multi cultural and welfare-state policies. It's all part of a destructive package.

And, look– Wilders is most certainly not just asking for an end to a European welfare state. He is asking for systematic cultural repressions that would be flatly unconstitutional in America. Check his record outside of that quote.

I'm not really interested in Wilders's political program outside of its considerations for Muslims in Europe. He says that Islam must be Europeanized and not the other way around if this war is to ever end. This means that Muslims must give the same respect for Western culture as we give them. It means that Muslims must recognize tolerance for pluralism as a political value. This is where I see Freddie's opinion as to Mexican immigrants to the US intersecting with Wilders's opinions about European Muslims. He's demanding that Mexican immigrants play by our rules; Wilders is demanding nothing less of Muslims in Europe.

This is from the Wekipedia article on Wilders's program:

An immigration ban of five years for immigrants from non-western countries. Foreign residents no longer shall have the right to vote in municipal elections.A ban of five years on the founding of mosques and Islamic schools; a permanent ban on preaching in any other language but Dutch. Foreign imams will be forbidden to preach. Radical mosques will be closed; radical Muslims will be expelled.

Again, I don't see any radical difference between this and what Freddie has to say about immigration to the US. For example,

But if there are people who continue to come in illegally, we’ve got to have a meaningful system of enforcement that preserves our rules.

Freddie surely knows that banning illegal immigration will ban just about all immigration from Mexico, i.e., it will constitute an "immigration ban" on Mexicans. More than anything, it's Freddie's insistence on "when immigrant workers come here, they have to play by our rules and follow our laws." This is the basic idea that Wilders promotes, and it's why he's called "far-right" and a "weirdo bigoted dunce" by the likes of Chris Dierkes. Chris was not talking about his record outside of the speech I quoted.

The problem is the idea of citizenship. Nations in Europe, like Germany, have an idea of citizenship linked to "blood." One can be born and raised in Germany, and one's grandparents can be born and raised in Germany, and still be denied German citizenship.

The main problem, though, is related to Europe's more socialist world view: in the States, everyone is expected to earn their own living. This will generate assimilation, whether one wants it or not. Muslims in Europe are free riding on the welfare state so they are free to establish their own enclaves, which become no-go areas for the state and which are really part of the Islamic world, not Europe.

The point is, Wilders is only saying that Europe needs to adopt policies more in line with ours. He's saying that Muslims must become Europeans if they want to live in Europe. I simply fail to see the difference between this and Freddie's sentiment. Economic behavior, as you know, covers such a wide area that it's really a useless quibble to separate it from other cultural areas.

The following is an interesting sentiment, coming from you:

[…] when immigrant workers come here, they have to play by our rules and follow our laws. It is incredible to me that asserting even that has become part and parcel with bigotry in certain circles. Laws and social rules work, really work, only when the large majority of people follow them. [...] I want Mexican workers to come to the United States and pursue American abundance, because we have the space, we need the workers and they’re coming anyway. But you follow the rules when you get here. [Emphasis added]

I find very little to separate your sentiment—and the complaint of unjustified charges of bigotry that goes with it—from the
discourse of Geert Wilders:

A total of fifty-four million Muslims now live in Europe. San Diego University recently calculated that a staggering 25 percent of the population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now. Bernhard Lewis has predicted a Muslim majority by the end of this century.

Now these are just numbers. And the numbers would not be threatening if the Muslim-immigrants had a strong desire to assimilate. But there are few signs of that. The Pew Research Center reported that half of French Muslims see their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France. One-third of French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks. The British Centre for Social Cohesion reported that one-third of British Muslim students are in favour of a worldwide caliphate. A Dutch study reported that half of Dutch Muslims admit they "understand" the 9/11 attacks. […] Muslim demands are supported by unlawful behaviour, ranging from petty crimes and random violence, for example against ambulance workers and bus drivers, to small-scale riots. Paris has seen its uprising in the low-income suburbs, the banlieus. Some prefer to see these as isolated incidents, but I call it a Muslim intifada. I call the perpetrators "settlers". Because that is what they are. They do not come to integrate into our societies, they come to integrate our society into their Dar-al-Islam. Therefore, they are settlers.[Emphasis added]

Why is Wilders a "weirdo bigoted dunce [Chris Dierkes dixit]" and you are a progressive and open-minded thinker, if you express the same sentiment towards immigrants?

Please explain.

Chris Dierkes,
A. If you think détente was "decently successful," then you should try and convince the millions of East Europeans whose continued oppression by Communist regimes was guaranteed thereby. In the '70s--the era of détente--Communism was gaining world wide. It was the best time to be a Communist--the world was going their way thanks to Nixon/Kissinger and détente. Throwing around scare words like "cowboy adventurism" will get you nowhere in any kind of reasonable debate. Sorry about that. The greatest depradations in Vietnam happened under Nixon/Kissinger's power. The Vietnam war and détente were part of the same "package" as they like to say.

It's not as simple as being anti Russian or "making good" with them. I wonder if anyone can be characterized by such reductionist phrases? It's a matter of balancing our committments to allies, neutralizing threats, and expanding our national security. Everyone is in favor a deal with Russia that will give us transportation routes to Afghanistan and isolate Iran (for example). The problem is, what is Kissinger planning to trade away? Are we going to have to back away from committments we already have, like recognition for Kosovo? And so forth. We have allies in Eastern Europe who have reason to fear Russian encirclement as much as Russia fears NATO encirclement.

You see jihadist movements as nationalist and sub nationalist insurgencies. I really cannot imagine what evidence or reasoning you could support this with. For example, I just finished reading a new book by Bassam Tibi. He was born and raised in Damascus and then went to Germany to get his PhD under the great Max Horkheimer. He has been a German scholar of Islam and the Arab world for forty years. The main point of the book is that Islamism is a global movement, or an insurgency against the West. According to him, Islamic belief entails fighting for Islamic world supremacy--jihad. It's a struggle (jihad), Tibbi says, to "map the world" with Islamic law. Tibbi and all the other authors I've read about the Arab/Islamic world agree that loyalties go to religion, region, sect, tribe and so forth before going to the nation-state. The nation-state has only a very short history in the Arab/Islamic world and western-style nationalism burnt out with Nasserite praetorian dictatorships.

So, with all due respect, unless you can come up with some compelling reason not to, I'm going to continue to trust the scholars I've read so far on this point rather than you. For one, they have some credentials, and years of research to their credit; for another they tend to agree with one another on this point. Sorry about that.

Here's more "change you can believe in:"

"Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday the Guantanamo detention center is a well-run, professional facility that will be difficult to close—but he's still going to do it. Holder visited the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on Monday and spoke to reporters about his trip during a news conference Wednesday. Holder said his visit to the site was instructive. He met with military officials and toured the facilities, including the court setting where military commissions were to be held until Obama suspended them.

He said he did not witness any rough treatment of detainees, and in fact found the military staff and leadership performing admirably.

"I did not witness any mistreatment of prisoners. I think, to the contrary, what I saw was a very conscious attempt by these guards to conduct themselves in an appropriate way," he said.

So Guantánamo isn't the war-crimes haven we thought it was. But let's close it anyway, just to make sure. Where's the logic in this?

Here's why you're splitting hairs:

The stakes are high. Victory for the Taliban in Afghanistan would give a tremendous shot in the arm to jihadism globally -- threatening Pakistan with jihadist takeover and possibly intensifying terrorism in India, which has the world's third-largest Muslim population. Russia, China and Indonesia, which have all been targets of jihadist Islam, could also be at risk.Henry Kissinger

It might suprise you that Kissinger is somehow part of Obama's foreign policy team.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden speaks of “hitting the reset button” with Russia, but Moscow fears a scattershot approach from the new team in Washington. Behind the scenes, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has a role to play for the Obama administration.The Obama administration virtually subcontracted Kissinger to deal with the Russians, long before the president’s inauguration took place.Stratfor (subscription required)

So here's Kissinger today (in the article I linked to above) getting us ready for the new Russia policy.

The precondition for such a policy is cooperation with Russia and Pakistan. With respect to Russia, it requires a clear definition of priorities, especially a choice between partnership or adversarial conduct insofar as it depends on us.

Détente worked so well last time around didn't it? Let's try it again while nobody remembers. How's that for change you can believe in?

many Israelis find the very idea of Palestine hateful, too. The point is, this cuts both ways.

I don't deny this. What I'm saying is that the settlements are not the "major stumbling block" that you say they are. This does not depend on cherry-picking passages from a four-year-old New Yorker article. It depends on the facts. Israelis can agree or disagree and we can find surveys to support the idea or not, but the point you fail to recognize is that

Palestinian schools continued to teach about the evils not only of occupation but of the very idea of Israel. Arafat refused to recognize any historical Jewish connection to Palestine, and, in the climactic negotiations at Camp David in 2000, he rejected Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s offer of the entire Gaza Strip, nearly all of the West Bank, and a capital in east Jerusalem, and abandoned the talks.

As the party that is "the functioning government, [that has] the democratic system, [and] the more powerful, and supposedly more morally grounded of the two parties," they made a serious offer to the Palestinians to hand over more than 95% of the West Bank, along with land swaps to account for some 3% more land. The Palestinians simply said "no" in spite of Clinton's demands that they at least come up with a counter offer and if spite of the warning that showing this kind of disrespect for the President of the United States would poison their relationship with the US for years.

What's your conclusion from this? Mine is that Palestinians are mired in a rejectionist mentality. Therefore, I say that this is the major stumbling block. Getting Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims to give this mentality up should be the goal. This is what I mean by saying that they must be defeated before a durable peace can ensue. I do not believe that this can be accomplished by military means alone. I do not believe that there must be a bloodbath. I do not place lesser value on Palestinian life than on Israeli life. I believe that Israel is a legitimate state that must be accepted by Arabs/Palestinians/Muslims, like they accept any other state in the world. If they did that, then the settlement "stumbling block" would be easily resolved, along with all the other "stumbling blocks."

How will this end? I think I know how. It will end with Arab/Muslim/Palestinians overrunning Israel and exterminating it. This has been their goal from the beginning and it hasn't changed. The sheer demographic weight of the Arabs/Muslims/Palestinians guarantees this outcome sooner or later. They take the long view—the Crusader/Zionist alliance will be defeated and expelled from their holy land like the last one was, under Saladin, after more than a century of occupation. I don't think that this will happen while I'm still alive, but if it does, I'm going over there to die instead of sitting around over here wringing my hands over violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention or whatever.

The fanaticism of some of the settler population is not in doubt. The hatred between the settlers and the Palestinian Arabs is not in doubt. But I do doubt that the settlement problem in itself is a central point in the conflict. Like Goldberg says, in the article you link to:

Many Israelis believe that evacuation of many settlements—even all of the settlements—would not satisfy the Palestinians. The Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, even while negotiating with Israel in the framework of the Oslo accords of the nineteen-nineties, never prepared his people for compromise. Palestinian schools continued to teach about the evils not only of occupation but of the very idea of Israel. Arafat refused to recognize any historical Jewish connection to Palestine, and, in the climactic negotiations at Camp David in 2000, he rejected Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s offer of the entire Gaza Strip, nearly all of the West Bank, and a capital in east Jerusalem, and abandoned the talks. Many of Barak’s critics accused the Prime Minister of mishandling the negotiations and of making miserly concessions that were impossible for Arafat to accept. But the dispositive fact of Camp David is this: Barak made an offer, and Arafat walked out without making a counter-offer. Emphasis added

Goldberg doesn't mention that Barak included an offer on the right of return of Palestinian refugees, in line with UNR 194. This was also rejected out of hand. Meanwhile, the so-called Second Intifadah was being planned.
What explanation can you find for Arafat's behavior? What explanation can you find for the indoctrination of Palestinian children with hatred—as Goldberg says? My explanation accepts this indoctrination as official ideology: Arabs/Muslims/Palestinians find "the very idea of Israel" hateful. Therefore "many Israelis" are correct that the evacuation of the settlements will not satisfy the Palestinians.
Goldberg's conclusion is also to the point here:

I suggested that he try to imagine himself in the place of a Palestinian. “You’re a Palestinian, you’re here, you have your farm, your grandparents are from here, and—”

But Moshe interrupted me. “Stop being Jewish!” he yelled. “Stop being Jewish! Only a Jew would say, ‘Imagine yourself as a Palestinian.’ Could you imagine a Palestinian imagining himself as a Jew?”

Could you give me a reference to the article you read? Thanks

You put my question in italics at the head of your comment and yet you don't even try to answer it. I still can't see where McCain shows an inherent lack of understanding. What he's saying is not as extreme as you make out by taking his hyperbole literally. Just the simple idea that defeat is followed by a durable peace does not demonstrate "an inherent lack of understanding" unless you want to call anyone who disagrees with you stupid (i.e. "shows an inherent lack of understanding"). It's an idea that has some value on the face of it.

It's strange that while you don't answer the question you put in italics at the head of your comment, you do bear out the idea that defeat leads to a durable peace—after you simply insist that "utter defeat" will not lead to peace without even trying to support it. For one, I showed you that the South is not an example of "total defeat" because they were allowed to oppress ex slaves. The Civil War did not really accomplish the liberation of the slaves. Your idea that the South was "broken and poisoned, socially and spiritually" refers to the white population. Of course they were devastated after taking up arms against the US. I say they had it coming. But they were allowed to crawl back into their poisonous oppression of generations of ex slaves. These people were "broken and poisoned, socially and spiritually" before the war and they were kept in this state deliberately for a hundred more years. Their social and spiritual state cannot be attributed to the Civil War—it can only be attributed to slavery and the debt peonage/apartheid oppression they faced. This was not defeated, even partially. So the treatment of the South by the North was "tragic and unnecessary" but not in the way you think it is. This applies to the black population but not the white population. Here, the whites were rehabilitated and allowed to continue denying blacks their rights by law and by KKK terror. This is truly "tragic and unnecessary."

Anyone can see the fallacy in here: "World War II found a populace in Germany only too ready to give up after years under Hitler." They were "only too ready to give up" because they had been defeated. When they thought they were winning, they were pretty gung-ho about the war. It isn't the same climate as Palestine because Palestine hasn't been defeated.

With all due respect, peace in Palestine only means that Palestinians and Arab/Muslims accept Israel as a member of the community of nations. Nothing more or less. In other words, defeat would mean that they accept the basic principle of national sovereignty that the world order is founded upon, with its values of pluralism and tolerance. No one has to be killed or expelled for this to happen. Palestinians are fighting a war to exterminate Israel. This cannot happen. Israel is fighting a war for survival as a member of the community of nations, which they have a perfect right to do.

You continue to hold up the settlements as such a grievous fault. According to Dennis Ross—The Missing Peace—Palestinians were presented with a proposal for a Palestinian state on 95% of the West Bank, with and additional 1 to 3% of territorial swaps to the Palestinian state from areas within Israel, while accounting for Israeli security needs in the Jordan Valley. Palestinians refused. In 1978 they could have taken a deal on the West Bank when there were under five thousand settlers. In 1948 they could have taken a deal when there were no settlers at all. The settlements are not the issue. Palestinian/Arab/Muslim rejectionism is. Palestinian/Arab/Muslim goals of destroying Israel is the problem. This is what must be defeated for a durable peace to happen.

I don't want to butt in your feud with RS McCain. I've never read him before this and have very little interest in his stuff even now—although he's very sexy in a Speedo. But there are a few points to be cleared up here.

McCain's reference to the Civil War was clearly to show how a definitive defeat generates a lasting peace. He wasn't proposing anything like the analogy that you and Katherine critique, so your critique fails entirely.

A hard war brings a more durable peace.

This principle is shown also in the contrast between WWI and WWII: the Armistice that ended WWI only generated further conflict, which is why the Allied leaders agreed on the policy of unconditional surrender in WWII. It's evident that this did generate a durable peace. As for the side discussion about the Civil War, one must remark that what cost this country dearly for generations was withdrawing federal troops from the South and rolling back reconstruction because of a fraudulent election. What cost this country dearly for generations was allowing terrorists like the KKK to run governments in the South and impose Jim Crow laws for a hundred years. What cost this country dearly for generations was turning ex slaves into debt peons and thereby expanding the plantation economy of the South, for the benefit of Northern industry. A plantation economy plus apartheid laws plus debt peonage equals stifled development. The massive destruction caused by warfare could have been rebuilt and could have even led to greater development if not for the shameful betrayal of reconstruction policies. In other words, what cost this country dearly was not making the South's defeat definitive.

McCain has a hyperbolic style. You want to take him literally, which is not fair to his ideas. His point is that the Palestinians must be defeated for there to be peace. He supports this by analogy with the South's defeat in the Civil War—not a great analogy, but still one can take his point. Before you start calling me a chickenshithawk or whatever, I believe that this defeat does not have to be military at all. It doesn't have to involve anyone's rinsing bayonets in the Jordan. It can be accomplished by diplomatic means entirely, if the will is there. The will isn't there because of the Oil Lobby: Arab states demand antipathy towards Israel as a price for doing business. Saudi money has been financing so-called Islamic studies for a few generations now. The result is people like Katherine, who recite Arab propaganda as if it were revealed truth.

I can't find anything like an "inherent lack of understanding" in statements such as this one:

On the other hand, if some of the more atavistic descendants of Ishmael continue vowing to kill every Jew they can get their hands on, then it behooves every Jew with any sense of honor to respond: War to the knife, and knife to the hilt.

Where, specifically, does McCain demonstrate his "inherent lack of understanding?" McCain calls you a "noted Middle East policy scholar." Where did you come by your expertise?

In fact, sentiments like his are long overdue. The Arab/Islamic world is rife with the most vile and despicable anti Semitic propaganda, wholly comparable to Der Sturmer and possibly even more vile. Arabs and Muslims vow to liquidate Israel every day. It's past time for this to be repudiated by people, like us, who believe in an open society. They should be made to understand that there is no tolerance for their intolerance. We should stand up for our values instead of bowing down before some half-understood idea of third world liberation.

I'm not sure what your main point is here. If you're trying to answer the question you put up in the beginning of your post, "What role does religious knowledge play in the process of radicalization?" you're coming up very short here. Of course Islam plays a determining role here. It's undeniable. You can call Islamists ignorant all you want to but that doesn't change that fact. If you think that Islamists have a mistaken view of Islam, then you should go and convince them. It's notable that not even the greatest religious authorities in Islam have done so, or even really tried to do so. You want to distinguish Islam from Islamism. This is important. It's mainly important for Muslims to do so, though, not you or me. And they have come up very short here—to the point of anathematizing fellow Muslims who do so.

Along with this it's important to distinguish jihad from jihadism. The problem is the same as the above.

The main problem is that in theory Islam is one but in reality it is as plural as any other religion. This theory is not invented by Islamists—it's part of Islam itself. It's part of Islam itself to believe that Islam is superior and must dominate the earth. This is why Muslims do not condemn Islamists—in many ways they are only practicing what others preach. The contrast with Christian and Jewish fundamentalisms is apparent: Christians, even fundamentalist Christians, had no problem condemning the abortion clinic bombers and so forth back in the '80s; Jews have no problem condemning Jewish terrorists in Israel—they're even repudiated by their own families and denied a Jewish burial. Muslims cannot do this. Why?

You mention Horkheimer. He was a German Jew who took refuge from the Nazis in the States and then returned to Germany after the war. He was the founder of the Frankfurt School of sociology. He wrote, "in terms of time and space Europe remains and island of freedom surrounded by an ocean of despotic rule." He demanded that the West defend its freedom against all varieties of totalitarianism. It's undeniable that Islam and Islamism is a challenge to the freedom valued by the West. Here, there can be no tolerance in the name of multi-culturalism. Muslims must share the commitment to an open society if the open society is to survive. As crazy as you think he is, Wilders at least knows this much and won't tolerate intolerance. This is only the minimum one would expect and it's a wonder that it's such an outlying attitude here and in Europe.

Before you criticize Wilders, you should know that Europe faces much more serious challenges from Islam than we do. Europe has its own identity and Muslims have no right to Islamize it. Wilders is simply saying that Islam must be Europeanized if Europe is to survive. It's impossible to refute this.

You seem to want to believe that the mass conversion of the Mediterranean world, Asia, and Africa to Islam is not related to jihad. Just how was the "early community" defending itself by conquering such massive amounts of territory, including great swaths of Europe? The only way for this "defense" to be true is if you accept Islamic belief that peace equals Islamic law. If not, then Islam is the greatest violent imperialist power in history. It is radically different from the Roman conquests in that the Romans were famously tolerant of other religions. Once the Roman Empire became Christian, of course, it became history's first totalitarian dictatorship (under Theodicius). It is different from Christianity most of all because Christianity has evolved and Islam has not. But even so, the Christianization of Europe did not happen only by violent conquest. It happened by peaceful means as well. This just is not the case in Islam.

I fogot to address this:

The United States and Britain overthrew a democratically-elected government and placed the Shah in power so yes, it is indisputable that the US “created” the Iranian dictatorship.

Dictatorships have existed in Iran since the beginning of history. There has never been anything like a democratic system in Iran. The culture of democracy does not even exist there as a basis. As part of a Cold War strategy, the US and GB fought interference by the USSR by supporting an overthrow of an elected government, which--they believed--would have turned into a Soviet protectorate. To call this "creating dictatorship" is simplistic and smacks of rank propaganda. It does not even resemble historical analysis. The Soviet idea of democracy--like the Islamic one--uses democracy as an instrument to gain power over the state. Once this is accomplished, then all democracy evaporates. Democracy cannot be reduced to a voting proceedure, as you want to do.

The overthrow of the Shah did not create a democratic government. It created a dictatorship even more repressive than the Shah's. I just can't imagine how people can blame the US for any of this.

There are several misconceptions in Katherine's post, all of which tend to place the blame for Arab/Islamic poverty, ignorance, and despotism on the US. This is absurd on the face of it to anyone but those so blinded by political correctness and multiculturalism.
Misconception #1:

Unfreedom in the Muslim world does not derive simply from Islam, and I find that a ridiculous assertion. The rise of military dictators in the 1950s and later cannot be attributed to the existence of the Muslim Brotherhood; you are using a blatant non sequitur.

Katherine is confusing Islam with Islamism, while accusing me of the same. Dictatorships have been the only form of government in the Arab/Islamic world since the Prophet's dictatorship in the seventh century and that of the "Rightly Guided" caliphs who followed him. In fact, one goal of political Islam/Islamism is to regain the glory of these "Rightly-Guided" caliphs in spite of the fact that three out of the four "Rightly-Guided" caliphs were assassinated because they were not felt to be so "Rightly-Guided" by contemporaries after all.

Since the decline of Islam and the rise of the West, Arabs and Muslims have attempted one reform after another in the hope of regaining their lost hegemony. The praetorian dictatorships that Katherine refers to were simply another of these. But these dictatorships replaced other dictatorships, which had replaced other dictatorships and so forth. The ideologies may have changed but the bare fact of dictatorship has not. If this doesn't derive from Islam, then what is the explanation, Katherine?

Misconception #2:With respect to my "Clash of Civilizations" view, first, I do not subscribe to the Huntington thesis in such an unqualified way. But--above all--Huntington's thesis was preceeded by many decades by Islamist ideologues like Sayid Qtub whose "Clash of Civilizations" view is there for all to see. So, I don't have to subscribe to the Huntington thesis at all since Islamists do it on their own. Their "Clash of Civilizations" view is part of the problem. You cannot simply wish it away with reference to sterile academic debates.

Misconception #3:

You present political Islam as inherently uncompromising, but it’s [sic] existence in the form of political parties in nations it does not control, and the participation of those parties in the electoral and parliamentary system, contradict that.

There is absolutely no contradiction here at all. If Islamist groups lack power, then they will play with the rules of whatever system they happen to be dealing with. Of course Islamism is uncompromising. All Islamist groups--violent or not--work towards the imposition of god's law on the world. This is anti democratic at the base. Islamists say, "where there is democracy, Islam is absent."

Katherine blames Israel for the conflict in Israel/Palestine:

The Israelis made a lot of promises and didn’t keep them. The Palestinians see no incentive to seek further peace negotiations, because there are no enforcement mechanisms to see that Israel keeps their side of any bargain... There are too many settlements, Israelis are too disinclined to remove them

Katherine could not have gotten her understanding of the history of the conflict from anything but Arab/Palestinian sources. It's amazing and depressing that people like this will hold themselves up as having some real knowledge and understanding of the conflict and as holding some "high moral ground."

There's really no point in debunking Katherine's views here. It would take too long and it would be useless anyhow. If she wants to identify with the Arab/Palestinian version of the Oslo period, then she has a perfect right to do so. I just wonder what motivates people like Katherine. Is it some poorly-understood third-worldism and the legend of "national liberation?" Is it just an updated version of Antisemitism that she adopts in imitation of the Europeans? Is she an Arab and/or Muslim herself, who feels that the mere presence of a Jewish state in the Middle East violates god's law?

Here's what I'm talking about --http://www.adl.org/PresRele/ASInt_13/5465_13.htm:

Country by Country Findings on Anti-Semitic Attitudes

In responding "probably true" to the statement, "Jews are more loyal to Israel than their own country," the 2009 survey found:

Austria – 47%, down from 54% in 2007
France – 38%, down from 39% in 2007
Germany – 53%, up from 51% in 2007
Hungary – 40%, down from 50% in 2007
Poland – 63%, up from 59% in 2007
Spain – 64%, up from 60% in 2007
The United Kingdom – 37%, down from 50% in 2007

In responding "probably true" to the statement, "Jews have too much power in the business world," the 2009 survey found:

Austria – 36%, down from 37% in 2007
France – 33%, up from 28% in 2007
Germany – 21%, unchanged from 2007
Hungary – 67%, up from 60% in 2007
Poland – 55%, up from 49% in 2007
Spain – 56%, up from 53% in 2007
The United Kingdom – 15%, down from 22% in 2007

In responding "probably true" to the statement "Jews have too much power in international financial markets," the 2009 survey found:

Austria – 37%, down from 43% in 2007
France – 27%, down from 28% in 2007
Germany – 22%, down from 25% in 2007
Hungary – 59%, down from 61% in 2007
Poland – 54%, unchanged from 2007
Spain –74%, up from 68% in 2007
The United Kingdom – 15%, down from 21% in 2007

In responding "probably true" to the statement "Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust," the 2009 survey found:

Austria – 55%, up from 54% in 2007
France – 33%, down from 40 % in 2007
Germany – 45%, unchanged from 2007
Hungary – 56%, down from 58% from 2007
Poland – 55%, down from 58% in 2007
Spain – 42%, down from 46% in 2007
The United Kingdom – 20%, down from 28% in 2007

The following is not really on the subject, but anyhow, I'd appreciate some response.

I'm usually pretty isolated from the conventional wisdom and media hype in general since I don't live in the States and I don't watch TV. But the other day I watched Obama's first press conference on the Internet. I didn't catch the whole thing but what I saw freaked me out quite a bit. Obama just seemed in over his head. He looked like some overly-bright high school kid defending a master's thesis--no real knowledge or wisdom, just a lot of rhetoric that never really made any points at all. Here are my notes from the other night. I tuned in when Obama was taking some questions about national security.

Is it just me, or is he just incoherent?
19:40 He seems like he's just rambling all over the map.
It's making me nervous.
19:41 Fallen heros?
19:42 Afghanistan is a big problem!
Progress in Iraq?
19:44 Smart, effective, consistent
Now I feel a lot safer!
19:45 One of my bottom lines?
How many bottom lines can you have before someone calls you a fairy?
19:47 Do we have a 30% chance of going up shit creek?
Something's going wrong...
19:48 There's just a lot of stuff you have to work on at the same time to be president so ....
19:49 Now let's get depressed about steroids in baseball
It's all about the children
God!
It's just a waste of time to watch this shit
19:50 Obama is freaking me out
Can this really be the president?
19:52 Does he just look like he's in over his head?
19:53 Am I seeing this all wrong?
19:54 He's going to allow a witch hunt against Republicans
19:55 If I was in a cave with bin Laden, I'd be feeling a sigh of relief.
19:57 He just keeps giving campaign speeches
19:59 I think he's on drugs
20:01 We're ideologically blocked!

I realize that some of the above is too extreme and I would modify it accordingly. But afterwards I looked at some blogs to see how they reacted and nobody reacted like I did. I saw stuff like, "Wow! No wonder he won the elections!" and so forth. Maybe it was just the constant "err, you know, err, you know..." followed by meaningless gobbledygook that freaked me out. But he just seemed like he was reciting a lesson, not answering questions or explaining the situation to the public. The "ideologically blocked" crack kind of pushed me over the line. Do people really take this seriously?

It made me think of the "Officer Krupke" song from "West Side Story." You know,

Officer Krupke, you're really a square;
This boy don't need a judge, he needs an analyst's care!
It's just his neurosis that oughta be stopped.
He's ideological'ly blocked!
He's blocked!
He's blocked!
He's ideological'ly blocked!

Did anyone else look at it this way at all?

I'm not calling you anti Semitic. The only people I accused of anti Semitism are Europeans and this is amply demonstrated by history as well as current attitude surveys. I'll have to wait to show you why your version of the history of the conflict is so biased, but for now, rest assured that I don't take you for a Jew-hater. It would never even have crossed my mind. But, still, wasn't it MLK who said something like,

". . . You declare, my friend, that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely 'anti-Zionist.' And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of God's green earth: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews--this is God's own truth.

Is this a bogus quote? It looks like it to me, but still, MLK or not, there's more than a grain of truth in it.

I'm beginning to get the idea that you "protest too much" your love and admiration for the state of Israel. Aside from the typical platitudes--land of hope and tragedy; bonds of affinity, etc--your summaries of the history or the conflict tend in a disturbing way towards the Arab side. Why not just go all out and say "some of my best friends are Jews" while at the same time supporting policies that would end up by destoying the state of Israel?

For example, did you know that most Arab states blame Hamas for the carnage in Gaza? This is because they started a fight they had no idea about how to finish and because of their disturbing practice of fabricating death and destruction by hiding behind babies as they launch rockets randomly at Israel, so as to claim victim status. Did you know that a lot of the original "news" about massive massacres has been debunked even now? Did you know that Hamas, in particular, fights its wars through lies and deception?

You say,

The birth of the State of Israel signaled the last chapter in the long Diaspora

In your reading, Jewish history has been a search to get back to the holy land. Orthodox Jews believe that they will return upon the advent of the messiah. Everyone else may have raised their glasses at Passover to say, "Next year in Jerusalem" but they would have been quite happy to have stayed where they were--in Europe--if it hadn't been for virulent European anti Semitism. The post-napoleonic era created the figure of the citizen, which was supposed to solve the Jewish question by making Jews citizens. In other words, it was supposed to solve the Jewish question by getting Jews to stop being Jews. When this didn't work, and Jews were taking advantage of equal rights to excel in all walks of life, Europeans decided that they were a dangerous cabal, which is responsible for all the world's ills. This is the atmosphere in which those "original, misguided Zionists" founded their movement. Next, you say,

It took a number of wars to drive them to this place. Those misguided socialists whose ideas founded the Zionist movement have all been replaced by more realistic leaders.

See my above comment for more "context" about those "original, misguided Zionists." But the "number of wars" you so blithely mention were all wars of agression waged against Israel by rejectionist Arab states. You left out that little factoid.

You continue to harp on the issue of the settlements:

Unfortunately, one of the stumbling blocks to peace since 1967 - a stumbling block during the Camp David talks, and still today - is the question of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and no politician in Israel seems willing to tackle this obvious impediment to a two-state solution.

Did you know that Isreal and Palestine actually reached an agreement on the settlements at Camp David? The so-called stumbling block back then was the "right of return," not the settlements. This means that the settlements are not the stumbling block you imagine they are. The stumbling block is the refusal of Arabs to live in peace with the Jewish state.

You confidently predict that

public attitude in America will begin to mirror public opinion in Europe

This is what I referred to above. Europeans are hoplessly anti Semitic. If what you say does come to pass, then .... words fail me here.

You're correct that I do not see this happening in the forseeable future. I'm not talking about "secular" Islam. I'm saying that Muslims have to reform their own religion so as to be able to coexist with the West. If they come up with "secular" Islam, then fine with me. But I have no idea what reform of Islam would consist of. It's really none of my business, since I'm not a Muslim.

Katherine,
I'm not sure what you're implying that I'm implying. Just to make sure, I'm saying that "not free" and "terrorism" are related in the Arab/Muslim world because both derive somehow from Islam. You seem to disagree and you say there is a simple cause/effect relationship such that "not free" causes terrorism, or that terrorism is a response to dictatorship. You say that dictatorship in the Middle East has existed for many decades, even before the rise of political Islam in the '70s (although the Muslim Brothers was founded in the '20s and there were Islamist thinkers in the 19th century). You imply that terrorism, as a response to dictatorship, has freedom as its goal.

This is unfortunate. In part, this is a result of the confusion over the word "terrorism." This is one of the Islamist's points: one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. George Washington was a terrorist in British eyes, etc etc.

It's too bad that semantics cannot save this situation, where we are under attack by Islamists. They are not "freedom fighters." They are fighting for god's law, not freedom. They are fighting for world peace, which will happen only when the world is under god's law. Their struggle is defensive--god's law is being attacked by us and Muslims have the obligation to defend it, etc etc.

Everyone searches for a just world order. But everyone's ideas about what justice is will differ. We base our system on the idea that justice is the rule of law. For Muslims, justice is a system that is "rightly guided." They search for the just ruler, not the just system. Therefore, dictatorship is built in to their world view. It has existed since the beginning of Islam.

Of course we did not cause the dictatorship in Iran, even under the Shah. We used the Shah to further our own interests, which is a different thing entirely. We have been able to use many forms of goverment to further our own interests in the past. In other words, we have used "smart power," like Obama says. But in no way does this make us responsible for the abismal state of freedom and development in the Middle East.

I'm not that up on the intricacies of all the different Islamist ideologies. I agree with you that they share the goal of imposing shari'a. I believe that we engage in a dangerous form of ethnocentrism if we think of this as some alternative constitutional system that can coexist in peace with the rest of humanity. It might be comparable to our idea of "law" but it lacks many of our idea's basic elements--for example, it is not codified in any way (it simply derives from the Koran and the deeds of the Prophet). Mainly, it is not "law" in our sense because it was revealed by god. There can be no constitutional amendments of revealed wisdom. Even constitutional debate is condemned as heresy. Shari'a may be comparable to our idea of natural law, which is the basis of our constitution, but is not the same thing as a constitution. You can see where this leads: if we were governed by natural law, then a lot of what we call freedom would evaporate as whoever took the power to decide would take dictatorial power.

You say

Most wish their nations to be governed by shari’a law, but that is not the same as having as a central part of their ideology the desire to impose this situation on the rest of the world. Nor would they ever have the power to do so.

Unfortunately, this is not correct. Shari'a law means god's law. God must rule over the whole world, or there will be perpetual war. The Muslim world view is a dichotomy: the community of believers vs. the unbelievers; the world of Islam/peace vs. the world of war. There is no nationalism in our sense involved here at all and if any Islamic group denied this, they would be heretics. Our world is based on pluralism--it's a world without a center. Their world revolves around one axis.

That they don't have the power right now to impose god's law on the world is an important point. It determines their strategy. For now, they work from a position of weakness, which will allow them to work within the Western world order--until they are strong enough to overthrow it entirely.

I may be confusing al Qaeda's ideology with other Islamist groups, but you are as well. The idea of the global caliphate is not part of Islamist ideology, except in the case of al Qaeda. Islamist ideology means imposing god's law on the world, which does not mean that there is one world government under some super caliph. As an analogy, the Western system of nation-states, national sovereignty and so forth was imposed on the whole world during the decolonization period after WWII. A world government is not necessary for the Western system to operate worldwide as long as the world shares the same political values.

You seem to show this, even without explicitly recognizing it, when you say that "Islamic parties work within the state system; they recruit, engage in political activity, and when possible run for office within their nations." This is only a practical matter, which derives from the weakness of Islamists. They organize, recruit, run for office, but when they take power, god's law means untold repression of freedom for the people, as the example of Hamas clearly demonstrates. It's "one man, one vote, one time."

Just so there's no confusion about my position here: I say that war will continue until there is a reform of Islam itself. I say that the only solution is for Islam to adapt to our idea of democratic peace, or pluralism. Otherwise, their manichean world view will generate war forever. You may be correct that the Turkish experiment leads to this kind of result. I don't know enough about it to have an opinion. But I do know that Islamists of all stripes agree that where democracy exists, Islam is absent. There can be no dialogue, engagement, reaching out, or coexistence between democracy and Islam as long as Islam does not assume any responsibility itself and limits itself to claiming victim status and demanding concessions.

Therefore, the way forward, as Bob might like to put it, goes through a reform of Islam. Otherwise, as he says, there will be irrepressible conflict. Bob doubts that I really believe that there is a distinction between Islam as an historical religion and today's Islamism. I do believe this and--even more--this is the crucial distinction to be made before any reform of Islam is possible. If Muslims could understand Islam as an historical event, and not as wisdom revealed once and for all by an archangel, then there would simply be no problem at all. Westerners, even Western religious fanatics, understand that their religion is historical. Muslims refuse to accept this at all--people have been condemned to exile or worse for engaging in what we would call the most inofensive textual criticism of the Koran, let alone considering the Prophet as an historical figure, subject to an historical context, like everyone else.

So then the question becomes whether deterring the spread of Islamism could be that primary goal. I think this would be a hard sell. First, much of the rhetoric of those who most intensely advocate for this view would treat (or at least appears to treat) all Muslims as enemies. This creates a visceral backlash amongst other groups who justifiably are opposed to stereotyping such a large percentage of the world’s population.

It's true that the ideological aspect of this war is muddled almost beyond redemption. However, a concerted effort at clarification by people like Obama (famous for his rhetoric, right?) would still be effective.

One problem is the political correctness you allude to. Nobody wants to treat Muslims as an enemy. They have a right to their religion under our system. We are sensitive to stereotyping people because we know the pernicious effects this can have on everyone, quite apart from the "backlash" problem.

Obama could explain to people—that is, if he understands this himself, which I doubt—that "Islamism" is not the same thing as "Islam." Today's Islamism, although it is founded in Islam to a degree that makes it almost impossible for Muslims to criticize it, is a modern movement based on the "invention of tradition" in the words of Bassam Tibi. It's political Islam. This can and should be distinguished from Islam as an historical religion. Then, nobody would be treating all Muslims as enemies or stereotyping anyone.

The primary goal must be not only to deter the spread of Islamism but to defeat it entirely. There is no reason why this cannot happen if we had more clarity about it. There is no reason why this couldn't happen non violently, if we had more clarity about it. Nobody in our world would ever consider Islamist goals to be legitimate, if they were clear to everyone.

The confusion is the result of Islamists's success in producing the confusion in the first place. This is one of their "ways of war." In the second place, it's the result of our own value system, which includes respect for religious expression. Islamists are adept at exploiting this, as long as we are ignorant of the basic distinction between Islam and Islamism.

The basic geopolitical fact is that the West was attacked by Islam, starting in the Middle Ages. The West overcame these attacks and even converted the world of Islam into a dependency. This is the major conflict that Islamists have: they are indoctrinated with the belief that Islam is superior and must reign over the whole globe; the facts on the ground show abysmal ignorance, poverty, and servitude. So, like Obama did, we should just say "we won." And be proud of it, too. Our winning does not mean ignorance, poverty, and servitude for Muslims—they have done that to themselves. It means only that they are included in a world organized according to the principle of national sovereignty and pluralism, which is derived from it. In other words, our winning means that they're just as free as we are.

One of the tragedies of the rise of Islamism is the situation of Indonesia. Indonesia is the only place where Islam exists (and it's the most populous Islamic state today) because of peaceful proselytism, not the violent jihad, which subdued the rest of the world. It used to be a center for Islamic thinkers who could integrate Islam into the Western-oriented globalization. That's all over today, since the Islamists have either murdered or pushed these people out, making Indonesia just another center of Islamist thinking and violence.