Analysis: Arab daily praises Israel, gets bashed

The popular Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat published two articles recently that presented a relatively positive view of Israel compared to the usual strongly negative image of the country in the Arab media.

Dr. Amal al-Hazzani, an assistant professor at King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, wrote an article about a week ago titled "The Israel we do not know " – and received a flood of hate mail. He went on to write another article, published Thursday, responding to the harsh reaction.

A look at the two articles, as well as the public response, is telling of where the acceptable boundaries in Arab culture lie when it comes to discussion of Israel.

In the first article, Hazzani analyzed the results of the Israeli elections, noting that the focus had been on internal issues and that politicians had acted with devotion and sincerity to promote the interests of the people as a whole.

This has not been the case in Arab countries since the Arab Spring, he said. There, Arab politicians focus on "their affiliation to a certain group" and "heap insults upon Israel from their luxurious hotel rooms. However, they are still unaware as to where, why and how these feelings of hatred towards Israel came about."

He lamented that Israel's neighboring Arab states "are ignorant of the Hebrew language," noting that in Syria and Lebanon, people preferred to study French rather than the language of the country threatening their national security.

Arab youth know nothing about Israel, he said, claiming that a "generation that harbors dreams and expectations different to those cherished by a leader like Netanyahu" had emerged there.

He called attempts by some analysts to compare young Israelis' social protests with the Arab Spring protests "ridiculous." The Arabs struggled against undemocratic "regimes that were light years away from their citizens," he said, whereas Israel is "truly democratic" and the protests there were over living standards, not "starting from scratch as in the Arab Spring states."

He argued that not all Israelis supported the oppression of the Palestinians, and implied that Arabs were not aware of this, partly because their intelligentsia did not talk about it.

By contrast, he said, there are many opportunities to study Arabic in Israel, and Israelis are fully fluent and absorbed in Arab culture, its strengths and weaknesses. This helps explain why Israelis have become so successful and powerful, he stated.

The article was not entirely positive vis-à-vis Israel, as it still spoke of an "oppressive occupying state," among other things. But the aspects of Israel that it did portray in a positive light were apparently too much for some readers.

Hazzani's second article opens by describing the flood of hate mail he received from people who accused him of "calling for a normalization of relations, promoting the Hebrew language, and glorifying Israeli liberalism."

"This response was to be expected because I breached a taboo," he says, but this "outrage will not change the reality. Israel will remain as it is; a small state but stronger than the rest of the Arab world."

He goes on to defend himself by asserting that he was only trying to say Arabs had to understand their enemy.

Hazzani says Arabs fear that learning about Israel will somehow mean they are recognizing its legitimacy, but that is not necessarily so. This attitude permeates Arab media, which is scared to deal with issues relating to culture, economics, and even some political issues when it comes to Israel, for the fear that it "promotes Zionism," he says.

During the latest wars in Gaza and Lebanon, he notes, Arab TV stations generally refused to invite a guest representing the Israeli side. "Only Al-Arabiya dared to buck the trend, and it was not long before some branded it as Zionist for choosing to do so."

The Arabs, he concludes, "have been preoccupied with [rage] and blind hatred since 1967. During this time, Israel has managed to build eight public universities and 200 museums that receive nearly 4 million tourists a year. It has also become a rival to the US in the programming and software industry."

This episode illustrates that Arabic discourse is still bound by a cultural enmity that refuses to let go of the traditional Arab narrative of the conflict, despite some gestures from time to time.

Hazzani, though critical of Israel, was able to present some positive aspects of Israeli society without being completely blinded by hatred.

The fact that even he could not present these facts without being bombarded shows that Arab society is nowhere close to accepting the legitimacy of, or peace with, Israel.

Yet there is some hope in the fact that Asharq al-Awsat had the courage to publish the article – albeit from its safe headquarters in London.

By Ariel Ben Solomon

www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?ID=302574&R=R1

Darrell Issa Outs Our Libyan Friends

Any Kosak knows Darrell Issa is not a good American, now he's proved it for the rest. In a politically inspired move this fool has, in my - grandson of a WWI ultimate sacrifice American - son of a WWII veteran - veteran himself's opinion committed treason.

As reported in Foreign Policy Darrell Issa, acting in his usual assholian manner, for his deranged perceived political ideals, has published publicly the names of Libyans who choose democracy over anti-American theology.

As Foreign Policy states Issa felt:

The American people deserve nothing less than a full explanation from this administration about these events, including why the repeated warnings about a worsening security situation appear to have been ignored by this administration. Americans also deserve a complete explanation about your administration's decision to accelerate a normalized presence in Libya at what now appears to be at the cost of endangering American lives

Sounds persuasive, but:

One of the cables released by Issa names a woman human rights activist who was leading a campaign against violence and was detained in Benghazi. She expressed fear for her safety to U.S. officials and criticized the Libyan government.

"This woman is trying to raise an anti-violence campaign on her own and came to the United States for help. She isn't publicly associated with the U.S. in any other way but she's now named in this cable. It's a danger to her life," the administration official said.

Another cable names a Benghazi port manager who is working with the United States on an infrastructure project.

"When you're in a situation where Ansar al-Sharia is a risk to Americans, an individual like this guy, who is an innocent civilian who's trying to reopen the port and is doing so in conjunction with Americans, could be at risk now because he's publicly affiliated with America," the official said, referring to the group thought to have led the Benghazi attack.

One cable names a local militia commander dishing dirt on the inner workings of the Libyan Interior Ministry. Another cable names a militia commander who claims to control a senior official of the Libyan armed forces. Other cables contain details of conversations between third-party governments, such as the British and the Danes, and their private interactions with the U.S., the U.N., and the Libyan governments over security issues.

"It betrays the trust of people we are trying to maintain contact with on a regular basis, including security officials inside militias and civil society people as well," another administration official told The Cable. "It's a serious betrayal of trust for us and it hurts our ability to maintain these contacts going forward. It has the potential to physically endanger these people. They didn't sign up for that. Neither did we."

Darrell Issa has now proven himself treasonous to America.

9:12 PM PT: Let Issa know what you think @ http://issa.house.gov/...

9:39 PM PT: What I told Issa via his house link: (restated from my angry,furious, enraged memory, not verbatim)...

My grandfather died in WWI, father served in WWII, lost an uncle and a cousin because of Nam, I am a Vet, lost a second cousin in Iraq. We renamed a street for the fireman we lost on 9/11, a friend walked over the Brooklyn bridge to get home....

Loose lips sink ships....

You are a traitor....

May Karma visit you....

Peace...

I wish no ill will on anyone....

Enlightenment for all....

9:49 PM PT: Belated thanks to Davidsfr for the link to Issa's house contact site....

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/19/1147335/-Darrell-Issa-Outs-Our-Libyan-Friends

Fairness Not Given to Israel

When I was in school, we read a novel about love across the barricades, featuring Catholic Kevin and Protestant Sadie and their relationship across the religious and political divide. Great, I thought.
Maybe Trocaire, a document put out by the Catholic clergy recently, will do something similar for today's schoolchildren. Or maybe not. Both of Trocaire's stories turn out to be complaints of Israeli wrong-doing seen through Palestinian eyes. The more I read of the Trocaire pack, the more it seemed to be a case of four legs good, two legs bad. Palestinian victims and Israeli oppressors. Rather puzzled by this, I contacted Trocaire. They told me that this online resource has now been taken off their website in order to review it. They have now decided not to put a revised version up and have decided to focus on the issue of boycotting produce from Israeli settlements. But the real question is how did such a presentation of the conflict get to be written in the first place? The Trocaire document gives a potted history of the conflict which tells us that Israel popped into existence in 1948, with no mention of the Holocaust or the need to have a homeland for the Jewish people. It goes on to say that the blockade of Gaza is designed to "punish Hamas" – no mention of preventing illegal rocket attacks on Israel's civilian population. It's as if Israel decided to attack Gaza just for the sheer hell of it. What gets me about the Middle East is how threatened people seem to be by the only Jewish state in the world. There are 126 states with a Christian majority, 49 with a Muslim majority. Nobody questions their right to be there. Yet there is only one Jewish country, Israel, and a lot of people have a difficulty accepting its right to exist. Why? Trocaire say they have not called for a boycott of Israeli goods as such. They say that their campaign asks the Irish Government and the EU to ban goods from Israeli settlements from entering the EU "because they are illegal" and because these goods are labelled as "produce of Israel". Well I suppose Trocaire's concern for correct consumer labelling is to be commended but it is hardly the key reason for a boycott. You don't need to be much of a lawyer to know that when it comes to political debate, words like "illegal in international law" or "war crimes" are often used as if these were proven matters of fact rather than, as they sometimes are, tendentious and biased opinions. But no matter how questionable you believe Israeli settlements are, the real question is, why should anyone single them out ahead of everywhere else for a boycott campaign? Do Trocaire really believe that Israel is the worst human rights offender on the planet? Think about it for a second. Israel is the only country in the Middle East that fully protects gay rights. Religious freedom. Free political dissent. Equal rights for women. By contrast, the Palestinian regime has somewhat different views on women and gays, as well as, shall we say, a rather old-fashioned attitude when it comes to the death penalty. And the squeeze is now being put on Christians in the Arab world. Maybe you would have thought that persecution of Christians would be a bigger issue for the Catholic bishops and their aid agency, Trocaire. I'm glad that Trocaire's resource will no longer be available to schools – except maybe in a media studies class about balance.

Richard Humphreys

Hamas Crimimal Vows to Exterminate Jews

The leader of Hamas has once again threatened to destroy Israel.
This just days after Hamas's defeat in retaliation for firing missles at Israeli civilian centers.
It is tragic that criminals are in charge of the Arab world, criminals bent on the destruction of any semblance pf decency.  Hamas, after having been defeated twice, is once again threatening Israel with genocide, knowing full well that their fellow Arabians will be the most numerous victims .
Hamas attacks, Israel responds, as any nation would, and Hamas claims victory in their twisted way, believing that since they sustain more casualties, they are the winners of the "PR" war.  Hamas, ultimately, needs to be removed.
They are a genocidal, criminal gang that uses murder to retain power in Gaza, and has boasted repeatedly that their goal is to exterminate Jews  and  Christians.