eChurch Christian Blog

More excellent and insightful thoughts from Professor Barry Rubin. Be sure to hop over to his blog to sign up for his real-time, original analysis on the Middle East and other issues.

by Professor Barry Rubin

The Obama Administration has no idea of what is about to happen. After all, it has won hasn’t it and done something positive for the Palestinians, right? It demanded that Israel freeze all construction on West Bank settlements. Israel agreed, save only that it finish the approximately 3000 units already begun. So the U.S. government can deem itself successful, having delivered something along the lines of what it promised originally to give the Palestinians.

Moreover, this agreement was ultimately gained without any corresponding Palestinian or Arab concessions. It will be remembered that for some months the United States tried to get the Arab side to give something. It failed. Nor did the U.S. government give anything to Israel in exchange for the freeze.

So objectively, what’s happened? Israel made a big concession; Israel got nothing; the Arab side gave nothing. Isn’t this a sort of Palestinian or Arab victory; proof of President Barack Obama’s leverage with Israel; an example of Israeli flexibility?

And, after all, when the current apartments being constructed are finished there will be a construction freeze. So all that’s necessary is to wait a few months, right?

Take a step back, clear your mind, look at it. Of course that’s what has happened. The Palestinians and the Arab states “should” be happy.

But this is the Middle East, a place where even if all Arab or Iranian demands are met, this only triggers anger, blame, complaint, and still more demands.

And you can’t solve the problem using Western rules. Hilary Clinton, stung by Arab criticism that she praised Israel’s plan too highly, does a bit of a turnaround two days after proclaiming Israel’s concession to be amazing:

“This offer falls far short of what we would characterize as our position or what our preference would be. But if it is acted upon, it will be an unprecedented restriction on settlements and would have a significant and meaningful effect on restraining their growth.”

Nope, that won’t do it. You are saying a nice, rational, carefully callibrated Western-style statement: we want more but it’s a step in the right direction so it should be praised and it is a good thing. That isn’t how things work here. In the eyes of the Palestinian and Arab leadership Israel cannot ever do anything good. You can praise Palestinians, Muslims, and Arabs every day of the week but you aren’t allowed to ever say anything positive about Israel or do anything for that country.

As for Clinton saying it is a step in the right direction, this is also unacceptable. Israel can give endless concessions and show infinite flexibility but this can never be accepted as much. Each step is portrayed as a trick since not everything is surrendered at once. Every concession is just a reminder that not everything has been handed over.

And what, by this behavior of Hilary Clinton’s, is the U.S. government communicating to Israel,  when Israel makes a big concession and reaches agreement with the United States, if the PA or Arab states complain about the terms of the deal the U.S. government will then criticize their own deal! So how can Jerusalem trust Washington?

As if in proof, Al-Hayat al-Jadida, the closest thing to an official PA newspaper, attacked Clinton with these words: “Why, Mrs. Hillary? How much did the Zionists pay you as a bribe?” The editorial went on to say that the secretary of state was wallowing in a swamp of lies and ran a cartoon showing Uncle Sam looking into a mirror to see a big-nosed Orthodox Jew wearing a hat with a Star of David on his hat, as nasty a cartoon as ever graced the pages of a Nazi newspaper in the 1930s.

Indeed, also on the hat is a globe surrounded by barbed wire, indicated that the international Jewish conspiracy holds the entire earth in its evil hands. And this is Fatah, the PA, the people who get all that U.S. aid, military training, and diplomatic support.

And this is not the Bush Administration they’re talking about either but the Obama Administration. You just can’t please some people. And that’s precisely the point.

If you want to understand how things work in the Middle East consider this story. Suppose someone says that they want to sell you a house. They demand $500,000. You offer $400,000. They say, “No.”

You offer $450,000, saying that if both sides give some that a mutually beneficial deal can be reached. Again they say, “No.”

Finally you offer $500,000, smug in the belief that you’ve made a purchase. And then they say once again: “No! How dare you! What a cheat! How about changing the financing to my benefit, putting the full amount down in cash, and buying me another house?”

You are incredulous. How could your reasonable, apologetic, empathetic, confidence-building, willing to give concessions strategy have failed?

Answer: They never intended to sell. For them, Palestine is Arab or Muslim or both forever. It’s not for sale at any price. Anyone who indicates a real interest in selling will be disgraced, or fired, or even killed. To sell your land is to be a sell-out.

And the fact that their title is questionable and they never actually had national ownership, that someone else who has a previous claim has long ago returned and built it up with all sorts of additions and improvements is irrelevant to this thinking.

So instead they prefer to wait. What matters the suffering? What matter the years? The deepest principle of blood, and honor, and religion, and right is at stake. So they wait. They wait for the other side, Israel, to collapse. Or for the West to throw Israel to the wolves, persuading themselves that this is happening. Or they wait for all Arabs—more recently the favored formulation is all Muslims—to unite and wipe out the evil usurper. Or perhaps when Iran gets the bomb or the Mahdi, the Islamic messiah, comes, or something will happen and then total victory will be theirs?

And if passers-by shout out: “Yes, you are in the right! Your suffering is intolerable and we want to help you!” that doesn’t erode but only reinforces their determination to remain steadfast. Obama’s speeches, UN votes, Goldstone report, leftist chants, growing Muslim migration to the West, Iran defiant and going nuclear, and Western concessions, do not inspire eagerness to compromise but an enthusiasm for fighting on.

Sound strange to you? Well it sounds normal for many millions in the Middle East. And even if part of their brains say something different–Israel is strong, Israel won’t go away, Arabs and Muslims always bicker among themselves, why continuing following a strategy that always fails, wouldn’t it be nicer to have higher living standards—the siren song of militancy overrides it.

At least that’s true in public, no matter how much privately many deride all these notions as pure foolishness, and even no matter how much publicly a few brave souls reject the whole mess and point out how it has in the past and will in future lead the Arabs to disaster.

But now Palestinians and Arabs need someone to blame. Of course, that someone is Israel. Yet also of course, as always, that someone will be the United States.

In this view, Obama has sold them out. He’s like all the others. He didn’t give them everything they wanted; everything they said they wanted and more; everything at no price whatsoever to themselves. He is, they say and will say more in the days to come, is just like all the other presidents who came before.

For they—the Arab dictatorships that need the conflict to stay in power; the Palestinian leadership that still believes in total victory; the Islamist oppositions that want to use the conflict to prove their enemies to be Western puppets and to use the Palestinian issue to seize state power—can never blame themselves.

To blame yourself a bit is the first step to fixing one’s world view and policy. Unfortunately, this possibility is rejected and there is no glimmer of hope that it will change over the next few years, dare I say decade or decades?

Indeed, $2 billion in annual U.S. aid to Egypt buys no leverage. Knowing that they tremble in fear of a nuclear Iran buys no leverage either. Liberating Kuwait from the hands of Iraq and Iraq from the fists of Saddam Hussein doesn’t solve the problem either. Remember the sanctions on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq? The elite didn’t reduce its truffle consumption and just told the masses that they were suffering due to America. Ditto for Hamas in the Gaza Strip. And the Western left will agree with them.

Equally, no matter how many apologies, how many statements made about the glories of Islam and the sufferings of the Palestinians that Barack Hussein Obama makes, it will not matter. Now he is the enemy.

Does that sound bleak? Well, sorry, reality is bleak, bleakest of all for the Arabs themselves—and pity for the victims of this system—who follow that path. Why do you think there is so much hatred, violence, miscomprehension, tyranny, and pure stagnation in this region?

Meanwhile, Israel goes on developing its society, pioneering in technology and science, maintaining democracy, showing flexibility, and surviving the hatred and slander that’s all-too-common in today’s world both inside and outside the area.

Mr. President, welcome to the real Middle East.

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), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

Firstly the bad news:-

By Hilary White

Czech Republic Leader Signs Lisbon – No More Barriers to New European Superstate

PRAGUE, November 3, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, signed the Lisbon Treaty at 3 p.m. Central European Time today, the last leader of the European Union’s 27 members states to do so. This removes the last barrier to the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty, the document that is said to be effectively identical to the European Constitution that was defeated by public votes in France and the Netherlands in 2005.

Klaus, the eurosceptic leader of the former Soviet bloc country, has warned repeatedly against Lisbon’s encroachments on national sovereignty and democracy, calling the project of a “united Europe” a return to a leftist tyranny. Since the start of the battle over Lisbon, Klaus has warned that ratification of the Treaty would signal the end of his and all European countries as independent sovereign states.

After the Yes vote in last month’s Irish referendum, Klaus’ opposition to Lisbon was the last barrier to the full implementation of the agreement that pro-life advocates have warned will likely result in the loss of the right of countries to pass laws protecting the unborn and elderly from abortion and euthanasia. Pro-life leaders in Ireland warned that under the Treaty the laws of member states will be interpreted not through that state’s courts, but by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) that is under no legal obligation to consider any other law besides EU law.

Today the anti-Christian, secularist leanings of the EU’s institutions were illustrated when the European Court of Human Rights ruled that crucifixes must be removed from Italian state schools. In response to a complaint from an Italian woman in Padua, the Strasburg court ruled, “The presence of the crucifix … could easily be interpreted by pupils of all ages as a religious sign and they would feel that they were being educated in a school environment bearing the stamp of a given religion.”

The court ruled that the Italian state is to “refrain from imposing beliefs in premises where individuals were dependent on it.” Campaigners have warned that this type of ruling under Lisbon’s terms would become binding on all member states, ushering in the effective repression in all of Europe of public expressions of Christianity or any other belief that opposes the prevailing official European secularism.

In a 2005 speech, Klaus wondered if the former communist countries were not risking falling into “another blind alley of regulated society, of unproductive welfare state, of brave new world of European social democratism and of empty and artificial Europeanism.”

Klaus’s capitulation was anticipated at last week’s EU summit, when French President Nicholas Sarkozy said, “The Lisbon Treaty will enter into force doubtless as early as December 1.”

This is the most excellent Cranmer’s first thoughts on this:-

Prague Autumn – the fall of the Czech Republic

It is all over.

With the final signature upon the Lisbon Treaty, Europa – the whore that rides the beast – has her constitution at last, after eight years of tortuous posturing, negotiation and renegotiation, irrespective of whether or not the ‘constitutional concept’ has been abandoned.

Prague has a thousand years of proud history behind her: so significant was the city that it was the seat of two Holy Roman Emperors, and thus the capital of the Holy Roman Empire.

But with the stroke of a pen, she is reduced to vassal status within the renascent Holy European Empire, and her sovereignty has been removed. Forty years after the Prague Spring which heralded new life and democracy, President Klaus has signed the document he has long resisted, and we witness a Prague Autumn of dormancy and decay.

Perhaps as early as next week, we will know the identity of our first Emperor of the reunited Europe.

All of which makes it very interesting for David Cameron as he expounds what he actually meant by ‘We will not let matters rest there’.

His Grace will post his thoughts upon that matter tomorrow.

I shall ensure that I put the link on this page, when we get the full thoughts on this matter from Cranmer.

But now for the only silver lining:-

By Hilary White

Blair’s Chances as Euro President Recede as Lisbon Treaty Signed

ROME, November 2, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Now that the last barrier has fallen to implementation of the Lisbon Treaty, reports are increasing that Tony Blair’s chances of getting the top spot in the soon-to-be-constituted super-nation of Europe are fading fast.

After eight years of battling against it, Czech President Vaclav Klaus has signed the Lisbon Treaty, the last national leader of the EU’s 27 member states to do so. Attention now goes towards filling the new leadership jobs of president and foreign minister of Europe.

Opposition to the former British PM’s bid for the new EU Presidency – which has previously been considered a shoo-in - grew across Europe after an EU summit in Brussels last week, with former supporters in France and Germany giving Blair thumbs down.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that their two centre-right countries, considered the most powerful members of the EU, would work together to propose a candidate.

Open Europe (OE), one of the leading Euro-watch groups, said that the rejection of Blair is the result of a deal between socialist governments and a group of “centre-right” countries. Under this deal, OE says, the left would nominate for the post of EU foreign minister, and the centre-right governments would nominate the president.

Sarkozy was the first European leader to name Blair as a candidate for the presidency in 2007. But OE reports that Jean-David Levitte, Sarkozy’s foreign policy adviser, said this weekend it was unlikely that France would support a presidential candidate from the UK.

Some European papers are speculating that it is the British desire to preserve the country’s parliamentary sovereignty through various ‘opt-outs’ from Lisbon, negotiated by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, that has put the European leaders off a British candidate. Prime Minister Jose Zapetero was quoted by the Times as saying, “I want a real European president who wants to strengthen the union. He has to be in favour of the union and of the common policies.”

Critics of the post say that under the terms of the Lisbon Treaty, the new EU president will have no democratic mandate whatsoever, being appointed by the leaders of the EU in a process that will neither require nor allow any input from the public.

The leader of Britain’s Conservative party, David Cameron, who is likely to become the next Prime Minister and will therefore have a key role in the newly united Europe, has said that Blair would be “unacceptable” to the British people as EU president. But Cameron said his party objects not only to Blair’s appointment, but to the whole notion of a president of the “state of Europe.”

“We think that Europe is supposed to be an association of member states, not a country called Europe,” Cameron told the BBC. Cameron noted the loss of support by the Labour government for reneging on its previous promise of a referendum on Lisbon.

This weekend, however, David Cameron signaled that should his party form the next government, it will not give the public a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty post-ratification as promised.

Cameron’s Treaty promise has been a key component of his party’s rise in popularity after the ruling Labour party refused the referendum. In the run up to the last general election all of Britain’s major political parties promised a plebiscite on Lisbon.

Conservative Home, the blog aggregate site for the Tory party, says that “conversations with a dozen good sources” in the party have confirmed that if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified when the party reaches power next year, the Conservative leadership will say that there will be no attempt to “unratify it” via a referendum. Instead there will be negotiations with the EU to repatriate “key powers from Brussels.”

The Times reports that Cameron will only pledge to create laws prohibiting any British Government to push through any future European treaty without a referendum.

The Observer’s Peter Oborne said that Cameron’s pulling back from what he called his “ironclad” promises on Lisbon is a “cop-out and a betrayal” and said it is “exactly the kind of post-democratic politics which defined, debased, and finally destroyed, the Blair premiership.”

Further Internet Links

EU reform treaty passes last test – The president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, has signed the EU’s Lisbon Treaty, the final step in the charter’s ratification.

Previous related Posts:-

Breaking news: Yaakov Teitel arrested in Ami Ortiz case

Potential breakthrough in Ami Ortiz case

Why did Yaakov Teitel terrorise Christians and Messianic Jews?

Cross-posted from the Rosh Pina Project

From Israel National News:

Police on Tuesday night arrested Yosef Spinoza, a neighbor and acquaintance of Yaakov Teitel, who was arrested Sunday on charges of having conducted a decade-long terror campaign against Arabs and leftists. Like Teitel, Spinoza is a resident of Shvut Rachel. Police did not say what connection, if any, Spinoza had with the case against Teitel, or whether he participated in any of the attacks Teitel is suspected of carrying out.

From Haaretz:

Israeli security forces on Tuesday arrested a man suspected of serving as an accomplice to alleged Jewish terrorist Yaakov (Jack) Teitel.

The newest suspect, Yosef Aspinoza, is a close friend of Teitel’s and his neighbor in the West Bank settlement outpost Shvut Rachel. Police detained Aspinoza for questioning about two weeks ago, but released him after a few hours.

Security forces investigating the allegations against Teitel believe he may have committed a number of murders in addition to those he admitted in his interrogation.

Teitel, 36 allegedly planted several explosives and murdered two Palestinians. He was arrested three weeks ago and has confessed to a majority of the allegations against him.

The Shin Bet security service is now trying to prove he was behind other unsolved murder cases in Jerusalem and the West Bank, although he has denied them.

The Shin Bet and police are also trying to link Teitel to the terror attack on the Tel Aviv gay center Bar Noar, although his alibi for that night was checked and found solid. Security forces suspect he is covering for another person whom he sent to carry out the attack.

Investigators believe Teitel, whose command of Hebrew is limited, had an accomplice who helped him write hate notices in Hebrew, without knowing of Teitel’s widespread terrorist activity.

From YNet News:

A neighbor of “Jewish terrorist” Yaakov (Jack) Teitel was arrested Tuesday evening at the Shvut Rachel settlement in the Binyamin region. Investigators of the Judea and Samaria District’s central unit took the man to a Shin Bet facility in Petah Tikva. He is suspected of having known about some of Teitel’s actions.

According to local residents, four policemen arrived at the community and detained 47-year-old Yosef Spinoza, a father of two, for questioning. Spinoza was also detained for questioning about two weeks ago, but was released several hours later.

The residents said Spinoza suffered from a chronic illness and had been treated by Teitel in the past.

Attorney Adi Keidar of the Honenu organization said that the police were preventing Spinoza from meeting with a lawyer.

Teitel underwent a psychiatric evaluation at the Geha Psychiatric Hospital in Petah Tikva and was found to be fit to stand trial. According to Attorney Keidar, who represents Teitel as well, the examination was thorough and lasted only 15 minutes.

According to the lawyer, Teitel was asked to state his name and the place he lives in, but was not asked about the acts he is suspected of committing. Keidar plans to demand from the court to order another psychiatric evaluation by an expert appointed by the suspect.

On Sunday it was cleared for publication that Teitel, 35, had been arrested for allegedly carrying out a series of domestic acts of terror over the past few years.

Yeze over at the over at the Rosh Pina Project had already identified suspicions that Yaakov Teitel may not have been working alone earlier today:-

Did Yaakov Teitel work alone?

And this was an earlier update on Ami Oritz:-

Ami Update November 3 2009

I was just running through the headlines for the Church of England today, here is a sample:-

The atheists are right to be worried by this move by the ‘Organization of the Islamic Conference’ to introduce a U.N. Resolution banning “defamation” of religion. I know I’m worried by it and all Christians should be frankly.

This will only favour Islam ultimately and anyone should be free to defame a religion if they so choose and religious folks should be grown up enough and secure in their identity and beliefs to rise above it (and that goes for everyone by the way). I never imagined that I would find myself siding with the atheists and Hilary Clinton, but in this instance they are spot on.

Previous related posts:-

The so-called “defamation of religions” U.N. resolutions, proposed by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, would create a “global blasphemy law,” the chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom warned on Wednesday.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized on Monday an attempt by Islamic countries to prohibit defamation of religions, saying such policies would restrict free speech.

A ministry working with persecuted Christians launched a campaign Tuesday against a U.N. resolution (The Defamation of Religions Resolution) that many human rights groups say can be manipulated to oppress Christian minorities living in Muslim-majority countries.

Opposing View by American Atheists

An Atheist civil rights group today expressed concern that a proposed U.N. Resolution banning “defamation” of religion threatens civil liberties and gives religious groups “special rights” at the expense of free speech and intellectual inquiry.

The proposed measure is backed by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, and encourages member states of the UN to enforce measures prohibiting “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.”

Dr. Ed Buckner, President of American Atheists described the proposal as “overly broad and a clear threat to anyone who questions religion or is critical of religion.”

“Publications and books that raise doubts concerning God and religion could easily be censored, along with movies, art and theater if a believer is ‘offended’ by the content,” said Buckner. He cited the publication of Salman Rush die’s novel “The Satanic Verses” and the more recent cartoons in the Danish press that contained unflattering depictions of Islam and its prophet Mohammed.

“What happens if a Christian is ‘offended’ by a copy of the Koran, or a Muslim objects to a book by Atheist Richard Dawkins,” Buckner continued. “This resolution would result in widespread government surveillance and censorship wherever opinions about religion are expressed.”

Edwin Kagin, National Legal Director for American Atheists, said that the proposed measure “could result in a collision between the UN and the Bill of Rights.”

“This proposal creates ‘special rights’ for organized religion at the expense of the First Amendment,” Kagin added. “It immunizes religion from any criticism or questioning. That is something our country was established to prevent.”

The measure is expected to reach the floor of the UN General Assembly later this month. The U.S. Department of State has already spoken out against the proposal, as have a number of European governments.