Monday, August 23, 2010

Soccer Dad

Soccer Dad

New York Times concerned that concern about extremism causes extremism

Posted: 23 Aug 2010 02:48 PM PDT

"Some experts say" is Journalist-speak for "I believe the following":

Some counterterrorism experts say the anti-Muslim sentiment that has saturated the airwaves and blogs in the debate over plans for an Islamic center near ground zero in Lower Manhattan is playing into the hands of extremists by bolstering their claims that the United States is hostile to Islam.

Opposition to the center by prominent politicians and other public figures in the United States has been covered extensively by the news media in Muslim countries. At a time of concern about radicalization of young Muslims in the West, it risks adding new fuel to Al Qaeda's claim that Islam is under attack by the West and must be defended with violence, some specialists on Islamic militancy say.

"I know people in this debate don't intend it, but there are consequences for these kinds of remarks," said Brian Fishman, who studies terrorism for the New America Foundation here.

He said that Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric hiding in Yemen who has been linked to several terrorist plots, has been arguing for months in Web speeches and in a new Qaeda magazine that American Muslims face a dark future of ever-worsening discrimination and vilification.

"When the rhetoric is so inflammatory that it serves the interests of a jihadi recruiter like Awlaki, politicians need to be called on it," Mr. Fishman said. [...]

This sort of reasoning doesn't just miss the forest, it misses all but about 1.2 trees. All sorts of things "play into the hands" of extremists. According to this logic, the best route for leftists would be to downplay anti-Muslim rhetoric on the right. "Surge of Islamophobic bigotry? Never! What gave you that idea?" At all costs, don't write "To equate these moderate Muslims with that horrific act is pure bigotry, a bigotry that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and former Gov. Howard Dean sadly signed on to"--it might fuel extremism. I understand that in Al-Qaeda circles the anniversary of the publication of The Israel Lobby is now a holiday called "Eid Al-Mearsheimer" the blessed day when their recruiting goals became assured for decades.

You can't regulate the great American political conversation to avoid fueling the suspicions of extremists. Extremism is nothing if not resourceful in identifying paranoia-fodder, otherwise it would be a pretty anemic extremism. The West's job is not to be anemic in promoting its values and interests and fighting its enemies.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Gaza-bag

Posted: 23 Aug 2010 04:27 AM PDT

Today Ethan Bronner of the New York Times reports on his trip into Gaza. You see in recent months embarrassing reports have come out that have suggested that perhaps poverty in Gaza was not nearly as bad as advertised by the likes of Lauren Booth.

Bronner reports:

But the broader point many of these advocates are making -- that the poverty of Gaza is often misconstrued, willfully or inadvertently -- is correct. The despair here is not that of Haiti or Somalia. It is a misery of dependence, immobility and hopelessness, not of grinding want. The flotilla movement is not about material aid; it is about Palestinian freedom and defiance of Israeli power.

Actually, that's not reporting that's advocating.

If the reports of poverty in Gaza were refuted by only the instance of this mall, maybe the Times and Bronner would have a point. But numerous pictures from Gaza have shown markets full of products for sale.

My Right Word observes the degree to which blogging forced this article.

But Israel Matzav notes that there's a false narrative that Bronner doesn't address.

If you go to Turkey or most of the Arab countries you will be told that Gazans are starving to death, an image that the Hamas leadership has promoted. Maybe if they told the truth - that no one is starving and that the Israeli blockade is aimed at stopping weapons and not food and at obtaining the release of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit - it might be possible to talk about ways to ease the blockade.

Daled Amos points out the missing element to the story:

Why does Bronner, who bewails the modesty of the Gaza Mall, make no mention of the malls in the West Bank? The answer is: the same reason that he makes no mention of the Kassam rockets still being fired at Israel from Gaza. The West Bank is not firing rockets at Israel, but Gaza is. The situation in Gaza is the result of the terrorist government of Hamas, not the defensive measures of Israel.

Brian of London (at Israelly Cool!) mocks the Times's newfound focus:

The New York Times has, finally, figured out how to respond to the scenes of abject and desperate non-poverty in Gaza as Dave has ably documented and discussed (a Taste of "Concentration Camp" Gaza series and Gaza mall posts, for example).

So they've switched tack... it's all about humiliation. It reads like a PR piece written by a foreign lobbyist firm. I thought you needed a license in the US to be a foreign lobbyist?

Elder of Ziyon is outlines the hypocrisy involved:

However, the fact is that both the media and the anti-Israel activists have used the "starvation" meme as a convenient fiction to focus the world on demonizing Israel. Their current re-framing to change it instead to "dependence, immobility and hopelessness" is nothing more than an attempt to not look like fools and not admit that they have been lying to the world for years.

If they cared about Palestinian Arab "hopelessness" they would be spending much more time in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. They would be interviewing Mahmoud Abbas about why he has yet to dismantle a single "refugee" camp in the West Bank - all of which are under Palestinian Arab control.

No, these hypocritical reporters are not interested in revealing truths about how Gazans live. They have been dining in fine restaurants in Gaza and staying in fancy hotels - they knew the truth for years. They are equally not interested in Palestinian Arab suffering and deprivation - because by any measure, the Arabs in camps in Lebanon envy the Gazans. These hypocrites hammer away at Gaza for years because they want to blame Israel for Gaza's problems, nothing more. They'll occasionally leaven their prodigious Gaza output with an article about Hamas abuses of Gazans, but their focus has been unrelentingly on Israel.

The unraveling of the "humanitarian crisis" meme just shows how deeply the mainstream media has been in bed with NGOs and anti-Israel activists and how easily they parrot false statistics and claims.

Any way you look at it, the media has been lying to you about Gaza for years. Why should you believe them now?

Crossposted on Yourish.

The unmentioned co-conspirator

Posted: 23 Aug 2010 04:19 AM PDT

Last week Amin al-Hindi died.

Amin al-Hindi, an associate of the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat and a former Palestinian Authority intelligence chief who was widely suspected of having played an organizing role in the deadly attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, died Tuesday in Amman, Jordan. He was 70.

The Times, however, offers him a measure of deniability.

If Mr. Hindi was involved in the Munich attack -- he never publicly acknowledged any responsibility -- he may have been the last of the plotters to survive. Several were tracked down and killed by Israeli counterterrorist squads abroad. The self-declared mastermind of the attack, Mohammed Oudeh, better known by his guerrilla name, Abu Daoud, died in early July in Damascus at age 73.

But there's someone else whose involvement is covered up here. According to Abu Daoud:

Though he didn't know what the money was being spent for, longtime Fatah official Mahmoud Abbas, a.k.a. Abu Mazen, was responsible for the financing of the Munich attack. Abu Mazen could not be reached for comment regarding Abu Daoud's allegation. After Oslo in 1993, Abu Mazen went to the White House Rose Garden for a photo op with Arafat, President Bill Clinton and Israel's Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. "Do you think that ... would have been possible if the Israelis had known that Abu Mazen was the financier of our operation?" Abu Daoud writes. "I doubt it." Today the Bush Administration seeks a Palestinian negotiating partner "uncompromised by terror," yet last year Abu Mazen met in Washington with Secretary of State Colin Powell.

No doubt Abu Daoud had his reasons for fingering Abbas. But then again since he went to the trouble of exonerating him too ("he didn't know"), so I'm going to rank this charge as believable. The NY Times, of course, saw fit to shield President Abbas from any untoward attention.

So perhaps not all of the conspirators who were responsible for the Olympic terror attack are dead.

What does the title "king" mean to you?

Posted: 23 Aug 2010 04:12 AM PDT

Last week the Washington Post reported:
New restrictions provoke unusually strong wave of criticism among Jordanians.

Jordan's King Abdullah II, one of the United States' most Western-oriented allies in the Middle East, has faced an unusual amount of domestic criticism in recent months that has coincided with a trend toward more autocratic governance, observers say.

In what many describe as a period of exceptional dourness, retired military officers, journalists, teachers and government workers have publicly complained about the direction Jordan is heading. Because overtly criticizing the king remains taboo, much of the grumbling is directed by proxy at the government appointed by Abdullah.

When Abdullah first became King there were articles announcing what a common touch he had. He would apparently dress up in non-royal clothes and go out among his countrymen to see how they lived.

However now:

Lavish vacations in the south of France and motorcycle trips through California have made the 48-year-old king appear out of touch with poor, average Jordanians, political observers said. But in a June speech marking the 11th anniversary of his ascendance to the throne, Abdullah addressed people's concerns.

"Ample talk about corruption, nepotism and favoritism" is "overblown," Abdullah said. He asked for patience as his newly appointed government works to fix the economy.

Why are people surprised. Abdullah is "king." He inherited his position. His journeys among the common folk were good presss, but were done for show. To a large degree what we're seeing is the dissatisfaction of country towards a leader who is not accountable.

He's a "king."
Posted by Soccer Dad at 10:25 PM

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