Jew vs. Jew

October 6th, 2008

Antony Lerman writes (“Jews attacking Jews“),

When I first started professionally monitoring and studying anti-Semitism almost 30 years ago, there was, broadly speaking, a shared understanding of what it was…

We Jews knew who the enemy was. Since Jews do not cause anti-Semitism, we fought those who peddled theories of the world Jewish conspiracy, Holocaust denial, blood libels. Except at the very margins, we didn’t fight Jews.

How things have changed. Today, bitter arguments rage about what constitutes anti-Semitism. When Jew-hatred is identified, it’s mostly in the form of what many call the “new anti-Semitism” — essentially, anti-Zionism. Others (this writer included) fundamentally dispute that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are synonymous.

But whatever position you take, it’s clear that a revolutionary change in the discourse about anti-Semitism has occurred: Practically no discussion about current anti-Semitism now takes place without Israel and Zionism being at its center.

Lerman goes on to decry the phenomenon of Jews bitterly attacking other Jews as ‘anti-Semitic’ simply because they may be anti-Israel:

The attacks are often vitriolic, ad hominem and indiscriminate. Aspersions are cast on the Jewishness of individuals whom the attacker cannot possibly know. The charge of Jewish “self-hatred” — another way of calling someone a Jewish anti-Semite — is used ever more frequently, despite mounting evidence that it’s an entirely bogus concept.

Of course he’s right that “Jew vs. Jew” is not helpful to the cause of preserving the Jewish people. But there really is a sense in which anti-Semitism has changed, especially since 1967.

Let’s go back to Germany in 1938. There was no problem in defining anti-Semitism — it was when Brownshirts wrecked your store and beat you up. In the US after the war it took a more subtle form, that of ‘restrictions’ on where Jews could live, ‘quotas’ on where they could study, etc.

As time went by American society became less suffused with manifestations of various forms of racial and ethnic prejudice, and anti-Semitism was primarily the province of the extreme and marginal Right — neo-Nazis like George Lincoln Rockwell (1918-67), and racists like David Duke. It goes without saying that neither Hitler’s SA, Rockwell’s American Nazi Party or Duke’s KKK attracted many Jewish recruits.

In the mid-1960’s Yasser Arafat — with Soviet guidance — turned the Palestinian public relations strategy around. David Meir-Levy wrote (History Upside Down, pp. 28-29),

Arafat was particularly struck by Ho Chi Minh’s success in mobilizing left-wing sympathizers in Europe and the United States, where activists on American campuses, enthusiastically following the line of North Vietnamese operatives, had succeeded in reframing the Vietnam war from a Communist assault on the south to a struggle for national liberation.

Ho’s chief strategist, General Giap, made it clear to Arafat and his lieutenants that in order to succeed, they too needed to redefine the terms of their struggle. Giap’s counsel was simple but profound: the PLO needed to work in a way that concealed its real goals, permitted strategic deception, and gave the appearance of moderation:

Stop talking about annihilating Israel and instead turn your terror war into a struggle for human rights. Then you will have the American people eating out of your hand.

At the same time that he was getting advice from General Giap, Arafat was also being tutored by Muhammad Yazid, who had been minister of information in two Algerian wartime governments (1958-1962):

Wipe out the argument that Israel is a small state whose existence is threatened by the Arab states, or the reduction of the Palestinian problem to a question of refugees; instead, present the Palestinian struggle as a struggle for liberation like the others. Wipe out the impression …that in the struggle between the Palestinians and the Zionists, the Zionist is the underdog. Now it is the Arab who is oppressed and victimized in his existence because he is not only facing the Zionists but also world imperialism.

The new approach was wildly successful, especially with the moderate Left, which had generally supported the somewhat socialist state of Israel. At the 2001 UN Durban Conference on Racism, this approach was refined, focused and amplified. Now Israel was presented as not only denying Palestinians their rights, but as doing so out of an essential racism. The false analogy with South African apartheid was pushed and similar remedies were proposed: delegitimization, boycotts, divestment, etc.

Thus in addition to the power of the anticolonialist theme, the potent element of racism was added. Especially in the US, where in recent decades the full horror of our own racist history had been coming to the surface in white society — along with powerful feelings of guilt — it was not difficult for Israel’s enemies to make anti-Zionism almost a religion on the Left, especially on college campuses.

Israel’s Arab opponents — especially Egypt and Syria, which absorbed numerous former Nazis who busied themselves with such projects as developing chemical weapons — had started adopting traditional European anti-Semitic themes almost immediately after the founding of the state. And the Palestinian Mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who had been an admirer of Hitler since the 1930’s, injected the same ideas into the Palestinian movement.

It wouldn’t be unfair to say that many Palestinians and other Arabs took to it like ducks to water. For one thing, the massive power of international Zionism serves as an explanation for the otherwise ‘inexplicable’ humbling of the Arabs at the hands of the numerically inferior Jews in 1948 and 1967. In addition, hatred of Jews is easier to develop and sustain than liking for Palestinians, something that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has found effective to exploit.

As a result we find that Jew-hatred is inextricably bound up with the anti-Zionism of the Palestinians, the Arab nations, and the Iranians. And as anti-Semitism has been compared to a virus, is it surprising that it has also affected many of the Western supporters of the Middle Eastern anti-Zionist cause?

So while Lerman is correct that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism don’t mean the same thing, many anti-Zionists are as a matter of fact also anti-Semites — and this includes some Jews.

In addition, there is a form of extreme anti-Zionism that can only be understood as a form of anti-Semitism itself (see my discussion of “Anti-Zionism and antisemitism“). And it is this extreme manifestation that characterizes many of the Jews that Lerman admits are “at the forefront of the growing number of anti-Israel or anti-Zionist groups”.

These anti-Zionists are fond of saying that “any criticism of Israel is branded as anti-Semitism”, and that therefore they are being ‘muzzled’, prevented from expressing their legitimate political views. But in some cases the shoe may fit quite well.

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The US tightens its grip on Israel’s defense capability

October 3rd, 2008

FBX-T X-band radar

FBX-T X-band radar system. The antenna is on the truck near the bottom of the photo.

by Vic Rosenthal

The US is in the process of installing an FBX-T (“Forward-Based X-Band Radar-Transportable“) system in Israel. The system is not being sold or even leased to Israel, and it will be operated by American personnel. In effect, it is an extension of the US missile defense system’s data acquisition capabilities to Israel.

The radar has a range of about 1200 miles (1900 km) — about twice that of the radar presently used by Israel’s Arrow anti-Missile system. That means that it could detect Iranian and Syrian missiles immediately after launch, improving the chances that they could be intercepted.

“X-band” refers to the frequency of signals transmitted by the system, near 10 GHz. This corresponds to a wavelength of 3 cm; and the shorter the wavelength, the better the resolution of the radar. So it will be able to detect very small objects and more importantly to discriminate between different types of missiles — perhaps even to discriminate between missiles carrying warheads and dummies.

Yaakov Katz, in the Jerusalem Post, writes:

The radar’s arrival is not just meant to improve defense capabilities against Iran, defense officials noted this week. It is also America’s way of bolstering its presence in the region in the face of a growing Russian presence in Syria.

Moscow is renovating the Syrian port of Tartus, which will be used to house a permanent Russian naval presence in the Mediterranean. President Bashar Assad visited Moscow last month, and told the Russian daily Kommersant that Damascus was “ready to cooperate with Russia in any way,” including discussing deploying missile defense systems on Syrian territory.

“America has just as much interest in what is going on in the region as we do,” a senior Israeli defense official explained. “Keep in mind that while we will receive the radar data, the Americans will be controlling the system and using it for their purposes, as well.”

Israel did not even receive permission to have any personnel at the station. Although this will probably be explained by a desire to keep details of the system secret, probably the greatest concern is prevent Israel from using the data for its own initiatives — such as preemptive attacks on Iran or Syria.

The radar will also provide information on everything that flies — including small objects such as drones  — within its range. This will make it possible for the US to know immediately if, for example, Israel moves against Hamas in Gaza or Hezbollah in Lebanon. TIME Magazine quoted some Israeli officials as ‘wary’:

The radar will allow the U.S. to keep a close watch on anything moving in Israeli skies, “even a bee”, says one top Israeli official who asked not to be identified. The U.S. may be a close ally, but Israel nonetheless has aviation secrets it would rather not share. “Even a husband and wife have a few things they’d like to keep from each other,” explains this source. “Now we’re standing without our clothes on in front of America.”

Israel will have no direct access to the data collected by the radar, which looks like a giant taco. It will only be fed intelligence second hand, on a need-to-know basis, from the Americans — unless the radar picks up an immediate, direct attack on Israel, Israeli sources claim. And Israeli officials expressed concern that the radar’s installation may anger Moscow, since its range will enable the U.S. to monitor aircraft in the skies over southern Russia. When the U.S. stationed anti-missile radar and interceptor systems in Poland and the Czech Republic — ostensibly directed at a future Iranian threat, although the Russians believe their own missile capability is its real target — Moscow warned those countries that the move could result in their being added to the target list of Russia’s missiles.

If the US wishes to prevent Israel from taking some action it always has had the capability of doing so. But at least until now, there has been the possibility of Israel taking action before the US knows about it.

Soon this will not be the case. This radar system may be intended as much or more to control Israel as to defend her. Israelis should be more than just ‘wary’ of abdicating their responsibility to defend the nation and placing it in the hands of others, whose interests are, after all, their own.

Update [13 Nov 2017 1100 IST] The radar system is also called the AN/TPY-2.

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Happy new year to everyone!

October 2nd, 2008

News item:

Kadima head Tzipi Livni has made progress in her attempts to form a majority coalition, her aides said Thursday. Livni is attempting to convince the hareidi-religious Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ) parties to join her in creating a Kadima-led government that would postpone general elections and allow her to serve as prime minister.

Representatives from UTJ demanded control of the Knesset’s Finance Committee in exchange for supporting Livni, aides said…Shas continues to demand an increase in child support payments for large families. — IsraelNN

Meanwhile, the disgraced Ehud Olmert remains acting PM while “stonewalling” police attempts to question him on corruption charges, and Syria may be constructing new nuclear plants.

Here in the US the financial crisis continues unabated, and of course people are blaming the Jews. And tonight we await a debate between vice-presidential candidates, one far beyond ‘unqualified’ and the other a world-class plagiarist.

What an incredible start to the new year!

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The Mennonite Central Committee and Israel

October 1st, 2008

Recently I wrote about the Mennonite Central Committee [MCC] co-hosting a dinner for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the occasion of his recent vist to the UN. Several readers were kind enough to send links to the MCC’s press releases concerning their motivation, which is explained as being grounded only in a desire to promote peace, in accordance with Christian principles.

From my point of view, of course, having dinner today with Ahmadinejad is little different from doing it with Hitler in 1938, insofar as Ahmadinejad — in addition to developing atomic weapons — is presently working full-tilt to prepare his Syrian satellite and his proxy armies in Lebanon and the occupied territories to make war on Israel (the first round was fought with Hezbollah in 2006). And like Hitler, he is quite pleased to express his anti-Semitic reasons for doing so.

Therefore I see isolation of Iran along with sanctions strong enough to bring about regime change as the only peaceful way to prevent the massive conflict that will certainly be the outcome of his plans. And if there is no peaceful solution, then there must be a non-peaceful one, or there won’t be a Jewish state.

The MCC, for its part, also seems to be opposed to the Jewish state, although unlike Ahmadinejad they seem to think that it can be made to disappear quietly. The following quotations are from “Peacebuilding in Palestine/Israel: A Discussion Paper” attributed to “MCC staff working on Middle East issues”.

First, let’s see how the MCC views the 60 years of Israel’s independence, punctuated as it has been by wars — sometimes genocidal in intent — and murderous terrorism:

Since the Nakba, or catastrophe, of 1948 uprooted between 700,000 to 900,000 Palestinians from their homes, Palestinian history has been a story of dispossession. Refugees and internally displaced persons have been prevented from returning home. Tens of thousands more Palestinians became homeless again during the 1967 war. Since the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip (hereafter the Occupied Palestinian Territories, or OPT) in 1967, Palestinians have faced multiple types of dispossession, from house demolitions to the uprooting of trees, from confiscation of land for the construction of illegal Israeli settlements to the expropriation of water resources, from checkpoints and roadblocks to a permit system that places increasingly tight restrictions on Palestinian movement…

Neither Palestinians nor Israelis, meanwhile, have enjoyed physical security, as both peoples have turned toward violent means in the hopes that security might be obtained through violent force.

While the MCC wishes to appear neutral, desiring only peace, a more pro-Arab point of view could not be imagined. Let me rewrite the above a little more accurately:

Since the war of Independence — in which Israel was attacked by Palestinian Arabs and invaded by armies of five Arab nations — resulted in the displacement of about 650,000 Palestinian Arabs and 800,000 Jews from Arab countries, the Arab nations have created a dispossessed people. After the war they refused to talk to Israel or even acknowledge her existence, and they forced the Arab refugees into camps where they became wards of international charity (Jewish refugees were resettled, mostly in Israel).

In 1967 Israel again repelled a genocidal threat by the Arab nations, and occupied the West Bank and the Gaza strip, which had been illegally held by Jordan and Egypt since 1948. Although Israel wished to exchange the territories for peace agreements with the Arab nations, the Arabs refused and tried to retake them in yet another major war in 1973.

Finally, Israel agreed to negotiate a two-state solution with archenemy Yasser Arafat. But Arafat preferred  continued ‘armed struggle’ to a final agreement which would give up  the Palestinian claim on all of the land from the Jordan to the Mediterranean. Since 1948 and especially since 2000 Israel has been subject to multiple forms of terrorism, which has made roadblocks, checkpoints and  the security barrier necessary.

Now let’s look at the MCC’s solution to the conflict:

  1. A complete end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, based on a full withdrawal to the June 4, 1967 lines, and the evacuation of all Israeli settlements, save for equitable arrangements mutually agreed upon by the negotiating parties.
  2. A just solution for the Palestinian refugee problem, in accordance with international legality, the relevant UN resolutions, and the basic principle of refuge choice.
  3. A shared Jerusalem open to all faiths.

I’ll discuss these points one at a time.

1. Remember, these territories were not ‘Palestinian’ before 1967 — they were occupied by Jordan and Egypt, and before that the British, and before that the Ottoman Turks. The pre-1967 boundaries are no more than cease-fire lines established at the end of the 1948 war. A rational two-state solution — if such a thing were even possible — would allow Israel to keep areas of Jewish population, while Palestine would include areas with Arab majorities, even some which are inside present-day Israel. The Palestinians reject any ‘swaps’, however, because Israeli Arabs are happy with the economic benefits of living in Israel and because it suits them to have a politically active minority in Israel.

Even if Israel did withdraw fully to the 1967 lines, displacing more than 200,000 Jews — most of whom live in settlements close to the 1967 border or in Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem — does anyone think that Arab demands on Israel would end?

2. The relevant UN resolutions — at least 194 and 242 –  have always been interpreted by the Arabs as calling for the ‘return’ of any of the nearly five million descendants of the original refugees who wish to do so to Israel. In my view and that of many experts in international law, this interpretation is not correct. But reference to “UN resolutions” in this context has become ‘code’ for ‘right of return’, and the MCC must be understood to be advocating this.

No Israeli government has ever considered this acceptable as part of a peace agreement, and for good reason. For one thing, it would immediately make Israel an Arab majority state. There are no Arab states which treat Jews decently, and some — including ‘Palestine’ — do not permit Jews to live in them at all. For another, a large number of the ‘refugees’ are members of one of the terrorist militias that adhere to genocidal anti-Semitic principles, such as Hamas. There is no doubt that if such a ‘return’ were implemented, it would be the beginning of a violent civil war. It’s hard to see how the MCC can say that this ‘solution’ will “ensure that both Palestinians and Israelis might live securely under vine and fig tree”.

3. Jerusalem today is open to all faiths, as opposed to the period between 1948 and 1967 when Jews did not have access to their holy places.

The MCC displays its bias in other ways. Just using the phrase “Occupied Palestinian Territories” for all areas outside the 1967 boundary implies that these areas were originally ‘Palestinian’. But in fact they were part of the British Mandate no more or less than the part inside the lines, and were illegally occupied in 1948 by Arab states. In fact, some places — like parts of East Jerusalem and Gush Etzion — had Jewish populations before 1948, populations which were eliminated by force and murder by the Jordanians.

The MCC website contains numerous articles and papers about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The overall position is that the founding of Israel represented a ‘taking’ of the land from the ‘indigenous’ Palestinians — something which is historically false — and that since then Israeli policy has been designed to obtain and keep the maximum amount of land possible without granting political rights to the Arabs. Even an article about MCC-supported irrigation projects contains accusations of Israeli ‘expropriation’ and other oppressive policies.

The continuous violent Arab struggle against any Jewish presence in the land, which has been going on for at least 100 years is ignored or minimized, as are the various failed attempts at partition, coexistence, and peace  — failed because the Arabs have never agreed to accept less than all of the land.

The MCC presents Israel as massively powerful, oppressing the weak Palestinians, while ignoring the coordinated assault by the Arab nations and Iran, with their petrodollar resources, to put an end to the Jewish state.

The MCC even tries to whitewash the genocidal Ahmadinejad:

…we believe that the president’s public comments have moderated somewhat over the past two years. When challenged regarding his comments about “wiping Israel off the map,” Ahmadinejad has said to us in previous meetings and, at last, in interviews with both CNN and the Los Angeles Times in late September, that he is not talking about a military solution. Rather, he supports the “one-state” solution, a political resolution in which Israelis and Palestinians elect a single government to represent both peoples.

As I said above, it’s simply impossible to believe that there could be such a ‘single [Arab] government’ that would permit the Jews to live in peace. But we must also ask, if this is what Ahmadinejad wants, why has he introduced literally thousands of missiles into Lebanon and Syria, some with chemical and biological warheads, all aimed at Israel? Why has he financed and trained Hezbollah’s massive militia? Why is he creating an army for the murderous Hamas?

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Is time running out?

September 29th, 2008

Time is running out on a peace deal, says Olmert:

Israel will have to give up virtually all of the West Bank and east Jerusalem if it wants peace with the Palestinians, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in a farewell interview published Monday, saying Israel faced a stark choice and needed to make a decision soon…

Olmert said time was “so short that it is terribly distressing.” In its attempts to make peace with the Palestinians and Syria, he said the decision Israelis now had to make “was a decision that we have been refusing to look at open-eyed for 40 years.” — Jerusalem Post

Unless it’s not.

“Time is on my side, Yes it is!”
By Barry Rubin

September 28, 2008

So sang the Rolling Stones. But which side has time working in its favor? That’s one of the Middle East’s most intriguing and controversial questions.

Recently, Israeli leaders and well-wishers — sincere and hypocritical alike — have spoken in panicky terms that time isn’t on Israel side and it’s either peace in a few months or the Biblical flood.

Even U.S. government policy claims that agreement can and must be reached right away or else. Presidential candidate Barrack Obama has stated that Israel desperately needs peace and must make lots of concessions to get it real fast.

Well, it’s nonsense. But first let’s ask why has this idea become so big?

First, peace is good. Second, on the left, peace is considered both good and reachable if Israel gives up enough.

Somehow, no serious analysis is ever made on what the other side, the Palestinians and Syria, are, want, think, or do.

Given these beliefs, they sincerely believe that Israel should be scared, pushed, and subverted — for “its own good” — to give. In this context, no serious reevaluation is made of the well-intended but arguably disastrous peace process of the 1990s. Many of those on the moderate left and center have drawn proper conclusions from this experience.

Others in the center or even moderate right, however, who don’t accept the further left’s arguments, have come up with one of their own. They already accept, of course, that peace is good but how does one justify a high level of concessions? The answer is that those thinking this way must conclude that peace is both possible and urgently necessary.

And this brings us to former (oh, it feels so good to use that word) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and apparently, though possibly not, for acting Prime Minister Tzipi Livni.

For them, the argument that time is against Israel is the critical argument.

The response should be: on what is this claim based? After all, not only is it not true but progress toward peace — as welcome as that would be — can worsen many of the factors they consider. Moreover, if too many concessions are made or a bad agreement is concluded than time really would be against Israel.

Perhaps the only specific point raised to show time is running out is the demographic one. Yet this is absurd. Egypt’s birthrate, following a common pattern seen throughout the world, has fallen. The outflow of Palestinians to Jordan and other places is obvious. Palestinian population has been overestimated.

Beyond this, however, it makes no difference how many Palestinians there are in the West Bank or Gaza Strip. Israel is not going to annex the land and make the Palestinians there voters. Numbers alone — as the conflict’s history shows — don’t count that much.

Whatever supposed factor pitting time against Israel — Europe’s Islamicization, declining Western support, radical Islamist takeovers of Arab states or the Palestinian movement — will not be neutralized by Israeli concessions or a Palestinian state’s creation. After all, once the situation changed against Israel, the issue would merely be reopened no matter what diplomatic agreement might have been reached earlier. The concept that immediate giveaways buy long-term immunity is absurd on its face.

Equally, underlying all this irrational analysis is a dogma beloved by foreign observers and journalists that quickly collapses on examination: Israel cannot continue with the status quo.

Why not? Israel faces far less pressure than in prior years. Security is far better than in the 1948-1990 period when Israel potentially faced full-scale war with the armies of surrounding Arab states every day. In the 1990s’ peace process period, when at times terrorism reached far higher levels than today.

As for rocket attacks time is on Israel’s side since it will have a defensive system within a few years. Completing the security fence will also enhance protection. Regarding Iranian nuclear weapons, an agreement with Fatah won’t deter Tehran’s — or Hizballah’s and Hamas’s — determination to sabotage it and passion for destroying Israel.

These radical forces would try to take over a Palestinian state and attack Israel from Gaza, Lebanon, and (West Bank) Palestine. Would the Palestinian government be able or even try to stop them? Might this bring Israeli military action and a new war? Once a Palestinian state was created would Israel’s Arab minority be happy or inspired to escalate demands?

What about the cost to Israel of occupation? Well, before 1994 Israel paid the entire budget for the territories and was 100 percent responsible for security control. Today, its involvement in the Gaza Strip is zero and in the West Bank perhaps one-fifth what is was. Olmert’s personal sleaziness takes a higher toll on Israeli morale than the remnants of occupation. Most Israelis don’t want more than a tiny portion of the West Bank and know any presence there is due to security needs, not Greater Israel ambitions.

Meanwhile, Israel prospers and progresses. This year saw record tourism, near record-low unemployment, and fast economic growth. Israel’s real problems are internal — improving education and social welfare — having nothing to do with the Palestinians.

Equally, Israel is doing well internationally. While a leftist and academic fringe has become completely hostile and popularity in public opinion polls has fallen in Europe (often not far below levels of anti-Americanism), the diplomatic picture is good. With friendly British, French, German, and Italian governments, the most hostile states in Europe are probably Belgium, Spain, and Sweden. Aside from the United States, Australia and Canada are extremely friendly; Israel has good relations with India and China, and okay relations with Russia.

Sadly, too, while it’s always been argued that pushing for peace, withdrawing troops, and making big concessions promotes the love of Israel, unquestionably the opposite happens.

While Israel progresses on hi-tech, medicine, and science, the Arab world lags behind. Palestinians pay a high price for stagnation but choose intransigence any way. In fact, time is on Israel’s side; it grows in strength while the other side has become more divided and, in most cases, increasingly unwilling to wage the conflict.

Some of the attitude of time-as-enemy arises from a general Western malaise of self-hatred and defeatism. In addition, Israel kept winning wars without gaining strategic serenity, neither total victory nor total peace. Yet a combination of military triumphs, diplomatic efforts, and redeployment from the territories has brought Israel’s security to what is, in relative terms, a near all-time high. It may be far below what other nations are used to having, yet it is Israeli standards that count here.

The reality is that the Palestinians — albeit living off large-scale, though poorly spent, global subsidies — for whom time is an enemy. They face bad conditions; Fatah’s decline continues; the chance to have their own state slips away because their leadership pushes it away. Arab regimes face Islamist challenges that may be defeated but waste resources and stunt their progress. The chance for democracy, moderation, and stability has been lost for another generation.

Peace is preferable but much of what makes it so is that it must be a good peace, one that makes things better and is sustainable. Peace is possible only when the other side wants it. Today’s peace process mania is like a cartoon character whose legs windmill in a blur but which never advances.

But Israel is in the stronger position and can, like the Rolling Stones, say to Palestinians and others that if they want to make things better for themselves:

“You’re searching for good times, wait and see,
“You’ll come running back to me.”

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). To read and subscribe to MERIA and other GLORIA Center publications or to order books, visit http://www.gloriacenter.org.

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