The Middle East - some uncomfortable truths

Magpie · 06-16-2007, 05:49 AM

Robert Fisk: Welcome to 'Palestine'

Published: 16 June 2007

How troublesome the Muslims of the Middle East are. First, we demand that the Palestinians embrace democracy and then they elect the wrong party - Hamas - and then Hamas wins a mini-civil war and presides over the Gaza Strip. And we Westerners still want to negotiate with the discredited President, Mahmoud Abbas. Today "Palestine" - and let's keep those quotation marks in place - has two prime ministers. Welcome to the Middle East.
Who can we negotiate with? To whom do we talk? Well of course, we should have talked to Hamas months ago. But we didn't like the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people. They were supposed to have voted for Fatah and its corrupt leadership. But they voted for Hamas, which declines to recognise Israel or abide by the totally discredited Oslo agreement.
No one asked - on our side - which particular Israel Hamas was supposed to recognise. The Israel of 1948? The Israel of the post-1967 borders? The Israel which builds - and goes on building - vast settlements for Jews and Jews only on Arab land, gobbling up even more of the 22 per cent of "Palestine" still left to negotiate over ?
And so today, we are supposed to talk to our faithful policeman, Mr Abbas, the "moderate" (as the BBC, CNN and Fox News refer to him) Palestinian leader, a man who wrote a 600-page book about Oslo without once mentioning the word "occupation", who always referred to Israeli "redeployment" rather than "withdrawal", a "leader" we can trust because he wears a tie and goes to the White House and says all the right things. The Palestinians didn't vote for Hamas because they wanted an Islamic republic - which is how Hamas's bloody victory will be represented - but because they were tired of the corruption of Mr Abbas's Fatah and the rotten nature of the "Palestinian Authority".
I recall years ago being summoned to the home of a PA official whose walls had just been punctured by an Israeli tank shell. All true. But what struck me were the gold-plated taps in his bathroom. Those taps - or variations of them - were what cost Fatah its election. Palestinians wanted an end to corruption - the cancer of the Arab world - and so they voted for
Hamas and thus we, the all-wise, all-good West, decided to sanction them and starve them and bully them for exercising their free vote. Maybe we should offer "Palestine" EU membership if it would be gracious enough to vote for the right people?
All over the Middle East, it is the same. We support Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan, even though he keeps warlords and drug barons in his government (and, by the way, we really are sorry about all those innocent Afghan civilians we are killing in our "war on terror" in the wastelands of Helmand province).
We love Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, whose torturers have not yet finished with the Muslim Brotherhood politicians recently arrested outside Cairo, whose presidency received the warm support of Mrs - yes Mrs - George W Bush - and whose succession will almost certainly pass to his son, Gamal.
We adore Muammar Gaddafi, the crazed dictator of Libya whose werewolves have murdered his opponents abroad, whose plot to murder King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia preceded Tony Blair's recent visit to Tripoli - Colonel Gaddafi, it should be remembered, was called a "statesman" by Jack Straw for abandoning his non-existent nuclear ambitions - and whose "democracy" is perfectly acceptable to us because he is on our side in the "war on terror".
Yes, and we love King Abdullah's unconstitutional monarchy in Jordan, and all the princes and emirs of the Gulf, especially those who are paid such vast bribes by our arms companies that even Scotland Yard has to close down its investigations on the orders of our prime minister - and yes, I can indeed see why he doesn't like The Independent's coverage of what he quaintly calls "the Middle East". If only the Arabs - and the Iranians - would support our kings and shahs and princes whose sons and daughters are educated at Oxford and Harvard, how much easier the "Middle East" would be to control.
For that is what it is about - control - and that is why we hold out, and withdraw, favours from their leaders. Now Gaza belongs to Hamas, what will our own elected leaders do? Will our pontificators in the EU, the UN, Washington and Moscow now have to talk to these wretched, ungrateful people (fear not, for they will not be able to shake hands) or will they have to acknowledge the West Bank version of Palestine (Abbas, the safe pair of hands) while ignoring the elected, militarily successful Hamas in Gaza?
It's easy, of course, to call down a curse on both their houses. But that's what we say about the whole Middle East. If only Bashar al-Assad wasn't President of Syria (heaven knows what the alternative would be) or if the cracked President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad wasn't in control of Iran (even if he doesn't actually know one end of a nuclear missile from the other).
If only Lebanon was a home-grown democracy like our own little back-lawn countries - Belgium, for example, or Luxembourg. But no, those pesky Middle Easterners vote for the wrong people, support the wrong people, love the wrong people, don't behave like us civilised Westerners.
So what will we do? Support the reoccupation of Gaza perhaps? Certainly we will not criticise Israel. And we shall go on giving our affection to the kings and princes and unlovely presidents of the Middle East until the whole place blows up in our faces and then we shall say - as we are already saying of the Iraqis - that they don't deserve our sacrifice and our love.
How do we deal with a coup d'�tat by an elected government?

Aussieliberal · 06-16-2007, 06:48 AM

What a telling take on the wests attitude toward the democratically elected Hamas, the Palestinians and the middle east in general. Our willingness to support all kinds of nasty and corrupt dictators as long as it suits our needs. Now in case Roobarb or anyone else calls the author an arm chair critic, he is not. Robert Fisk has lived in Lebannon for the past 30 years and has spent a great deal of time reporting on events in the Palestinian territories as well as many other middle eastern countries.

Desidude666 · 06-16-2007, 07:05 AM

History has taught us that Middle East can't live with democracies. It really tells us the forms of mindsets of it's people - I doubt you'd be able to control radicalization at all even with freedom on teh other side.

Violet Crumble · 06-16-2007, 08:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Magpie

Robert Fisk: Welcome to 'Palestine'

Published: 16 June 2007

How troublesome the Muslims of the Middle East are. First, we demand that the Palestinians embrace democracy and then they elect the wrong party - Hamas - and then Hamas wins a mini-civil war and presides over the Gaza Strip. And we Westerners still want to negotiate with the discredited President, Mahmoud Abbas. Today "Palestine" - and let's keep those quotation marks in place - has two prime ministers. Welcome to the Middle East.
Who can we negotiate with? To whom do we talk? Well of course, we should have talked to Hamas months ago. But we didn't like the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people. They were supposed to have voted for Fatah and its corrupt leadership. But they voted for Hamas, which declines to recognise Israel or abide by the totally discredited Oslo agreement.
No one asked - on our side - which particular Israel Hamas was supposed to recognise. The Israel of 1948? The Israel of the post-1967 borders? The Israel which builds - and goes on building - vast settlements for Jews and Jews only on Arab land, gobbling up even more of the 22 per cent of "Palestine" still left to negotiate over ?
And so today, we are supposed to talk to our faithful policeman, Mr Abbas, the "moderate" (as the BBC, CNN and Fox News refer to him) Palestinian leader, a man who wrote a 600-page book about Oslo without once mentioning the word "occupation", who always referred to Israeli "redeployment" rather than "withdrawal", a "leader" we can trust because he wears a tie and goes to the White House and says all the right things. The Palestinians didn't vote for Hamas because they wanted an Islamic republic - which is how Hamas's bloody victory will be represented - but because they were tired of the corruption of Mr Abbas's Fatah and the rotten nature of the "Palestinian Authority".
I recall years ago being summoned to the home of a PA official whose walls had just been punctured by an Israeli tank shell. All true. But what struck me were the gold-plated taps in his bathroom. Those taps - or variations of them - were what cost Fatah its election. Palestinians wanted an end to corruption - the cancer of the Arab world - and so they voted for
Hamas and thus we, the all-wise, all-good West, decided to sanction them and starve them and bully them for exercising their free vote. Maybe we should offer "Palestine" EU membership if it would be gracious enough to vote for the right people?
All over the Middle East, it is the same. We support Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan, even though he keeps warlords and drug barons in his government (and, by the way, we really are sorry about all those innocent Afghan civilians we are killing in our "war on terror" in the wastelands of Helmand province).
We love Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, whose torturers have not yet finished with the Muslim Brotherhood politicians recently arrested outside Cairo, whose presidency received the warm support of Mrs - yes Mrs - George W Bush - and whose succession will almost certainly pass to his son, Gamal.
We adore Muammar Gaddafi, the crazed dictator of Libya whose werewolves have murdered his opponents abroad, whose plot to murder King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia preceded Tony Blair's recent visit to Tripoli - Colonel Gaddafi, it should be remembered, was called a "statesman" by Jack Straw for abandoning his non-existent nuclear ambitions - and whose "democracy" is perfectly acceptable to us because he is on our side in the "war on terror".
Yes, and we love King Abdullah's unconstitutional monarchy in Jordan, and all the princes and emirs of the Gulf, especially those who are paid such vast bribes by our arms companies that even Scotland Yard has to close down its investigations on the orders of our prime minister - and yes, I can indeed see why he doesn't like The Independent's coverage of what he quaintly calls "the Middle East". If only the Arabs - and the Iranians - would support our kings and shahs and princes whose sons and daughters are educated at Oxford and Harvard, how much easier the "Middle East" would be to control.
For that is what it is about - control - and that is why we hold out, and withdraw, favours from their leaders. Now Gaza belongs to Hamas, what will our own elected leaders do? Will our pontificators in the EU, the UN, Washington and Moscow now have to talk to these wretched, ungrateful people (fear not, for they will not be able to shake hands) or will they have to acknowledge the West Bank version of Palestine (Abbas, the safe pair of hands) while ignoring the elected, militarily successful Hamas in Gaza?
It's easy, of course, to call down a curse on both their houses. But that's what we say about the whole Middle East. If only Bashar al-Assad wasn't President of Syria (heaven knows what the alternative would be) or if the cracked President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad wasn't in control of Iran (even if he doesn't actually know one end of a nuclear missile from the other).
If only Lebanon was a home-grown democracy like our own little back-lawn countries - Belgium, for example, or Luxembourg. But no, those pesky Middle Easterners vote for the wrong people, support the wrong people, love the wrong people, don't behave like us civilised Westerners.
So what will we do? Support the reoccupation of Gaza perhaps? Certainly we will not criticise Israel. And we shall go on giving our affection to the kings and princes and unlovely presidents of the Middle East until the whole place blows up in our faces and then we shall say - as we are already saying of the Iraqis - that they don't deserve our sacrifice and our love.
How do we deal with a coup d'�tat by an elected government?

As usual Fisky hits the nail on the head...

It's interesting to note the difference in the way Abbas is described in the Western media and by Israeli and US leaders now to the way they described him before Hamas was elected. Back then he wasn't a moderate, but a terrorist and because he was President and Fatah were in control, there were constant claims made by Israel that there was no-one to negotiate with. Now that Hamas is in power, there's been a swift change of tune and suddenly it's Abbas and Fatah who are considered the Good Guys by Israel and the US, and Hamas are the Bad Guy terrorists who Israel can't negotiate with.

roobarb · 06-16-2007, 02:35 PM

Ms. Crumble would you suggest there is anything unusual about shifting alliances in world relations or are you suggesting it only happens in the Middle East?

Are you suggesting Israel is the only country in the world whose alliances shift as political changes occur to warrant the shift?

Here let me help. You seem selective on the fact that China is the strongest supporter and ally of the murderous regime in Sudan and enables the genocide to continue precisely because of its support.

Remember Tony Blair denouncing Ghaddafi as a terrorist over the Lockerbe downing of the passenger jet over Scotland but how many years later was he on his hands and knees in Tripoli shaking hands with Mummar Ghaddafi to get his oil turned back on?

Hmm now just who has France been open allies with? Russia?

Yes Taliban at one point in Afghanistan was supported by the CIA to fight the dirty Russian commies then turned on the US. Gee imagien that. Gamel Nasser was assisted in his coup to take over Egypt by the CIA. Gaddafi, supported byt he CIA. Sadamm Hussein, the CIA.

You act as if such alliances or relationships are static.

In fact in the Middle East, alliances are formed within days and disolve within days and today's ally is tomorrow's enemy is the day after's ally, and on and on. Static these alliances are not.

Now if you take the time to read the Israeli press and i ts government statements you will see it does not describe and has never described Fatah or Abbas as moderate. You are confusing the Israeli government and for that matter its press with Western wire service writers.

Israel funded organizations who supported Hamas as long as they refused to engage in terror. That did not make them a supporter of Hamas but it dimake them a supporter of people who chose not to engage in terror or violence.

It makes perfect sense for Israel to try form relationships with ANY Muslim or Palestinian that does not want to destroy them and would live peacefully with them.

The fact that Israel may feel at the current time it needs to assist Abbas does not mean it supports those people within the many branches or sister groups of Fatah who want it destroyed.

Understand something. Mr. Abbas wrote his acade,mic thesis on why Jews are evil and why the Protocols of the Zionist Elders were true. You think Israel forgets this? You think they do not realize he comes from a world where anti-semitism is deeply engrained in his psyche and where he barely controls a group of many anti-semites who would just as soon kill him before fighting Israel?

When you try second guess ISrael for surviving by forging temporary alliances, either do so for all countries of the world who do the exact same thing equallly, or stop trying to suggest Israel is dishonest or unusual for doing so and this is the reason for the conflict.

No its called survival and doing what you have to do to survive. Politics places many people into the same bed wh o would have otherwise never dreamed of sleeping with one another and in the end, everyone gets screwed.

roobarb · 06-16-2007, 02:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aussieliberal

What a telling take on the wests attitude toward the democratically elected Hamas, the Palestinians and the middle east in general. Our willingness to support all kinds of nasty and corrupt dictators as long as it suits our needs. Now in case Roobarb or anyone else calls the author an arm chair critic, he is not. Robert Fisk has lived in Lebannon for the past 30 years and has spent a great deal of time reporting on events in the Palestinian territories as well as many other middle eastern countries.

My concern is not in what he is stating but in what you state. Particularly your reference a few times that Hamas was democratically elected.

In case you notice many criminals have been elected legally. It doesn't legitimize what they do simply because they were elected legally.

The people of Palestine voted for Hamas because the PLO was corupt and precisely because Hamas was not engaging in terror and openly against terror and because of that approach Israel was able to fund the jobs of 14,000 Palestinian civil servants, doctors, social workers, schools and hospitals.

Do you really think these people voted so that Hamas would then destroy the very infrastructure that came about through peaceful cooperation with Israel. You think they had a choice when Hamas advised them they would be killed if they cooperated with Israelis or went to work in Israel? You think they had a choice when the greenhouses funded by Israelis which fed them were destroyed?

They voted for Hamas because they were not corupt like the PLO and were not engaged in violence and teaching their people dignity and disciplined behaviour.

The violent terrorists who then wrestled control of Hamas and who changed their vision of Islam to one of violence and hatred no more reflect the needs and desires of Palestinians then they do the Muslim religion. These are people who could care less what the Koran says or what their people need. These are fanatics who are blinded by hatred and long ago decided the deaths of their own people as pawns was justifiable to achieve their ends.

So you can keep saying they were democratically elected but so was Hitler and so was Robert Mugabe and many other people who then turned on the very principals that got them elected.

Was what Richard Nixon did acceptable because he was democractically elected?

I mean would you someone who out and out finds Israel evil, consider because Sharon was democractically elected that what he did was acceptable? You wouild be the first screaming for him to be tried as a war
criminal.

Violet Crumble · 06-16-2007, 07:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roobarb

Ms. Crumble would you suggest there is anything unusual about shifting alliances in world relations or are you suggesting it only happens in the Middle East?

No, did you spot me saying there was anything unique about it? What I was pointing out was the cynicism and sheer opportunism of doing it. Fatah and Abbas haven't changed, so the swift about-turn about them is amusing, especially since there's a whole lot of folk who actually believe that they're now the Good Guys only coz they're told by the media and the US and Israeli govts that they are...

Latherty · 06-16-2007, 08:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Desidude666

History has taught us that Middle East can't live with democracies. It really tells us the forms of mindsets of it's people - I doubt you'd be able to control radicalization at all even with freedom on teh other side.

Hmmm- exactly the reaction predicted in the article....
Did you notice Hamas was elected? it seems Isreal and the US are the ones that can't live with democracy in the middle east...

fisks last line is absolutely cutting.

Desidude666 · 06-16-2007, 10:10 PM

Actually there is some truth in this. Hamas is a militant outfit, and in time, it will some form of fascism in the name of Islam anyways. Is it just me or Islamic countries have a very very poor record of perfecting democracy?

Zaragrunudgeyon · 06-17-2007, 02:01 AM

Insane people can't be helped.