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On Friday, I mentioned the brutal murder of Sariya Ofer by Palestinian Arabs, who beat him to death with metal bars and axes.

The police have arrested several Arabs, two of whom have confessed. But the police have not said whether the motive was ‘nationalistic’ — in other words, terrorism — or criminal.

There is no difference, in any sense.

Since the time of Mohammed, criminal activity against infidels has been a form of warfare. Islamic banditry and piracy strangled Mediterranean commerce in the second half of the first Millennium of the Common Era, so much so that it lead some writers to argue that it was the major factor that brought an end to the classical era and ushered in the dark ages.

The so-called “Barbary Pirates,” whom the US Marines fought on the “shores of Tripoli” continued the tradition. These pirates, who captured ships primarily to take infidels as slaves, also raided coastal areas for the same purpose. The similarity with today’s terrorists — for example, the adoption of Western technology — and the huge scope of the problem are notable:

Corsairs captured thousands of ships, and long stretches of coast in Spain and Italy were almost completely abandoned by their inhabitants, discouraging settlement until the 19th century. From the 16th to 19th century, corsairs captured an estimated 800,000 to 1.25 million people as slaves.  Some corsairs were European outcasts and converts such as John Ward and Zymen Danseker. Hayreddin Barbarossa and Oruç Reis, the Barbarossa brothers, who took control of Algiers on behalf of the Ottomans in the early 16th century, were also famous corsairs. The European pirates brought state-of-the-art sailing and shipbuilding techniques to the Barbary Coast around 1600, which enabled the corsairs to extend their activities into the Atlantic Ocean, and the impact of Barbary raids peaked in the early to mid-17th century [and continued until the French conquest of Algiers in 1830].

In today’s Israel, Muslim banditry takes the form of arson, theft of agricultural products, animals and equipment, stealing cars, robbery, burglary, rape, etc.

The Palestinian Arabs are characterized by a pervasive sense of victimization and lost honor which serves to ‘justify’ criminal actions (“they stole my land so I can take their cars”). There is the element of satisfaction that comes from humiliating their enemies, as violently as possible. Then we add a cupful of personal gain, along with the ability to present harming Jews as an idealistic act done for ‘the Palestinian cause’ even if the initial motivation was just to steal a car or rape a woman.

So can we really distinguish between crime and terrorism? Should we bother to try?

Technorati Tags: Israel, Muslims, Pirates

A Jewish man was murdered yesterday, beaten and hacked to death by two Arabs with metal bars and axes. Here is a bit from the BBC news item:

The incident happened in a part of the Jordan Valley which Israel captured in the war of 1967 where the construction of Israeli homes and businesses is widely considered a breach of international law – something Israel does not accept, says the BBC’s Kevin Connolly in Jerusalem.

The dead man is the third Israeli to be killed in what Israel characterises as “terror attacks” in the last month in the West Bank. Two serving soldiers have also died.

So what exactly does what is “widely considered” have to do with this murder?

It is also widely considered — by many authorities in international law, not just ‘Israel’ — that construction of such buildings is not illegal. In fact, before the Jordanian occupation of this area in 1948, nobody said that Jews couldn’t build in this area.

Then — in actual violation of international law and the UN Charter — Jordan invaded the area, annexed it, and ethnically cleansed it of its Jewish population. The only country that recognized the annexation was the BBC’s homeland, the UK. But I don’t recall protests against illegal Jordanian construction.

In 1967, in a defensive war, Israel reversed these illegal acts. The least the international community could do would be to say thanks! Instead, it became “widely” thought that it was illegal for Jews to live there.

Is it being insinuated that the victims (the man’s wife was injured but escaped) deserved what they got? Or that the murders were somehow justified, or if not justified, understood?

Incidentally, the word ‘murdered’ does not appear in the piece. Only ‘killed’.

Shabbat shalom!

Technorati Tags: Israel, BBC

It probably annoys the hell out of the antisemites there (practically everybody), but Israel is a better friend to Egypt than the US. And maybe vice versa.

OK, nations don’t really have ‘friends’. It’s a philosophical category mistake, like saying that colors are things.  What they have are interests, and Israel’s interests align with Egypt’s more closely than either nation’s interests do with those of the US.

Israel and Egypt’s military regime see Hamas as a dangerous destabilizing force which challenges both of them. Egypt has probably destroyed more of Hamas’ smuggling tunnels under its border with Gaza in the last few months than Israel ever did (to great international silence, by the way). The US defines Hamas as a terrorist organization, but forced Israel to end economic pressure on it after the Mavi Marmara affair.

Hamas, of course, is the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood, closely aligned with the Brotherhood in Egypt. There are reasons to think that the Brotherhood is excessively influential with the Obama Administration.

Hamas’ biggest buddy in the Middle East has become Turkey, whose ruler Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan has turned his country from an ally to an enemy of Israel. President Obama has emphasized his closeness to ErdoÄŸan, the first national leader with whom he had a bilateral meeting after his election.

Hamas also gets weapons and support from its ideological enemy but pragmatic patron, Iran, Egypt’s historic rival — and Israel’s foe.

Speaking of Iran, we note that both Israel and Egypt find the idea of an Iranian bomb unacceptable. Despite statements to the contrary, so far the US is acting in a way that will provide Iran the time to develop nuclear weapons, and has prevented Israel from taking direct action.

The recent partial cutoff of US aid to Egypt, along with a humiliating lecture on the subject of “inclusive democracy,” has done a great deal of damage to relations between Egypt and the US. Although it is probably true that Egypt doesn’t need F16s or Abrams tanks,  the US also cut off several hundred million dollars of cash aid to the regime. And while it could have shifted the cost of the ‘big weapons’ to food aid and other economic help, it did not do so.

Note also that continuing US aid to Egypt is part of the Camp David Accords that brought ‘peace’ between Israel and Egypt, and interrupting it weakens the treaty.

The worst part of the US action, in my opinion, is the way it is tone deaf to the realities of the Middle East. Does it expect the military leaders to become “inclusive” about the Muslim Brotherhood, which wants to kill them?

By the way, the argument that the US “had to cut aid” against Egypt due to a law that prohibits assistance after a coup is wrong, because senior US officials say that there has not been — and there is no need for — an official determination that the takeover was a “coup.”

And it won’t save our struggling government much money either, because as officials also point out, the government has obligations to defense contractors that will be met regardless of where the F16s and tanks end up.

The whole idea was to “send a message” to Egypt!

Well, the first part of the message is received, in Egypt and Israel, that the USA does not support its allies.

The rest will be coming shortly when the final chapter in the saga of the Iranian nuclear project is written.

Technorati Tags: Egypt, Obama Administration, Iran, Israel

Egyptian military head General Abdel Fatah al-Sissi

News item:

The U.S. is leaning toward withholding most military aid to Egypt except to promote counterterrorism, security in the Sinai Peninsula that borders Israel, and other priorities, a U.S. official said on Tuesday.

The official said U.S. President Barack Obama had not made a final decision on the issue, which has vexed U.S. officials as they balance a desire to be seen promoting democracy and rights with a desire to keep up some cooperation with Egypt’s military. …

The removal of Morsi has left Obama with an acute dilemma: whether to get tough with the army for toppling a democratically elected president, albeit an Islamist who had few friends in Washington, or whether to acquiesce in his overthrow.

Just once, I would like US officials to make a statement that doesn’t leave me thinking “are they really this ignorant, or are they lying?”

‘Democracy’ and ‘Egypt’ do not belong in the same sentence. Whether or not there are elections, the concept of a government whose actions reflect the popular will and where the citizens exercise the kind of freedom and civil rights that we think of as being associated with living in a ‘democratic’ country, does not and never has fit Egypt.

It is also important to understand that, to put it politely, a tradition of peaceful political opposition does not exist. Either the military will suppress the Brotherhood, killing and imprisoning its members, or the Brotherhood will overthrow the military and kill and imprison them.

Over one-fourth of Egyptians and one-third of Egyptian women are illiterate. The highly educated young people that represented the face of the Arab Spring back in 2011 were a tiny minority, and one with no political power. The Egyptian economy, weak at best, was devastated by the uprising and the continued strife.

Egypt will need massive aid to get through the winter without starvation. If it is to get back on its feet, it will need security to develop its shattered tourism industry. Its short experiment with Islamist rule led to pogroms against Christians which haven’t abated (and which won’t stop until the military government finally crushes the Muslim Brotherhood). And the chaos has provided an opportunity for al Qaeda-linked terrorists to establish themselves in the Sinai.

The best thing that the US can do for the Egyptian people today is to support the military in its struggle with the Brotherhood and with the extremists in the Sinai. If the Obama Administration wants to cut military aid, it would make sense to eliminate the F16’s and Abrams tanks that are on the way — these have no constructive role (except as a subsidy to US defense contractors). But other military and economic assistance should not be terminated.

Egypt is the largest and (still) the most powerful Arab nation. The policy of the present administration has alienated Egyptians at all levels, from the leadership to the educated elite, to the person on the street. But unlike the Iranian regime, the present Egyptian leadership does not see its interests as diametrically opposed to those of the US.

It is still possible to save the relationship, and the US should do everything in its power to do so.

Update [1948 PDT]: The administration announced that it will cut some aid:

The U.S . is suspending the delivery of additional military aid to Egypt that includes big weapons systems like F-16′s, Apache helicopters, kits for M1-A1 Abrams tanks and the Harpoon missile system.   It is also withholding $260 million in cash payouts to Egypt, which receives $1.5 billion in total U.S. aid annually.

The administration’s goal is to convince Egypt’s leaders that progress is necessary on restoring an inclusive, nonviolent democracy there while preserving American national security interests in the region. …

One official said the aid “will not be delivered until there’s progress towards the inclusive democracy that we want to see. So I think that’s a pretty clear signal of the U.S. approach and the importance that we place on the issues that we’re talking about.”

I am pleased that “big” weapons systems will be cut. But cutting cash aid while lecturing the Egyptians about “inclusive democracy” is insulting — this counts a great deal in the Middle East — and stupid.

Technorati Tags: Egypt, Obama Administration

I suggested recently that once the US begins negotiating with Iran, regardless of the small probability that talks would lead to the end of Iran’s nuclear program, Israel would be constrained from acting on its own. Any Israeli strike, I said, would be portrayed as “sabotaging diplomacy.”

It’s starting already. And not only is Israel constrained from taking military action, its Prime Minister is not even allowed to talk about keeping sanctions in place.

Here is a snippet from an editorial in Tuesday’s New York Times, Obama’s Pravda:

Mr. Netanyahu has legitimate reasons to be wary of any Iranian overtures, as do the United States and the four other major powers involved in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. But it could be disastrous if Mr. Netanyahu and his supporters in Congress were so blinded by distrust of Iran that they exaggerate the threat, block President Obama from taking advantage of new diplomatic openings and sabotage the best chance to establish a new relationship since the 1979 Iranian revolution sent American-Iranian relations into the deep freeze. … [my emphasis]

So PM Netanyahu’s words of caution at the UN that Iran’s President Rouhani is a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” and his warning that if Israel is forced to confront Iran alone it will, constitute ‘sabotage’! And US congresspersons who support Israel are saboteurs too.

Strong words indeed, in response to a speech that simply stated facts about Iran’s behavior that any high school student could verify, and which promised that the Jewish state would not allow itself to be sacrificed for the sake of a very chancy diplomatic process.

The Times, however, isn’t finished. The editorial continued,

Mr. Netanyahu has hinted so often of taking military action to keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon that he seems eager for a fight. He did it again at the United Nations on Tuesday, warning that Israel reserved the right to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities if it deemed that Iran was close to producing nuclear weapons. “Against such a threat, Israel will have no choice but to defend itself,” he said.

The insinuation that PM Netanyahu would welcome a war in which thousands of Israeli civilians and soldiers might die is more than just offensive, it is obscene. He is well aware of the likely response to an Israeli strike, and he has made it quite clear that he views military action as the last resort if Iran cannot be stopped peacefully. In his speech, he described how the international community could do this:

First, keep up the sanctions. If Iran advances its nuclear weapons program during negotiations, strengthen the sanctions.

Second, don’t agree to a partial deal. A partial deal would lift international sanctions that have taken years to put in place in exchange for cosmetic concessions that will take only weeks for Iran to reverse.

Third, lift the sanctions only when Iran fully dismantles its nuclear weapons program. My friends, the international community has Iran on the ropes. If you want to knock out Iran’s nuclear weapons program peacefully, don’t let up the pressure. Keep it up.

The key word here is ‘peacefully’. But the Times prefers to paint the PM, who has the responsibility of protecting his people against a regime which repeats over and over that Israel will be destroyed while it develops the weapons to do it, as a warmonger.

The concluding paragraph of the Times editorial is perhaps the most offensive:

Both Mr. Obama and Mr. Rouhani have hard-line domestic audiences and allies that they will need to consider and cajole as they undertake this effort to resolve the nuclear dispute and develop a new relationship. For Mr. Obama, that means working closely with Israel and helping Mr. Netanyahu see that sabotaging diplomacy, especially before Iran is tested, only makes having to use force more likely. That would be the worst result of all.

In other words, Obama and Rouhani, both ‘moderates’ who want a new relationship, need to overcome “hard line” opposition, which apparently includes Netanyahu and his US lobby as well as Iranians screaming “death to Israel,” who want to “sabotage” their peace offensive!

But nothing reveals the Times’ attitude — and probably that of the administration for which it speaks — more than the last sentence.

Using force against the Iranian nuclear facilities would not be the “worst result of all.” That would be atomic bombs exploding over Israel’s cities.

Technorati Tags: NY Times, Netanyahu, Iran