Blaming “el Yahud.” By Zvi Mazel. Jerusalem Post, February 7, 2013.
With the Muslim Brotherhood in power,
anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel are now part of Egyptian culture.
More on Morsi and Egypt here.
Mazel:
Suddenly
the world is discovering that the leaders of Egypt are not afraid to voice
their hatred for the Jews and the Jewish state openly.
America
is asking for clarifications regarding a blatantly anti-Semitic outburst from
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. Essam Erian, one of the leaders of the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt, has called on former Egyptian Jews living in Israel to
come back to make room for returning Palestinians after the demise of the
Jewish state, which he believes will happen within 10 years.
Erian
thus puts into words the deep-seated anti-Semitism of the movement he
represents: There cannot be a Jewish state, and Jews cannot aspire to be more
than second-class citizens in Muslim countries, dhimmis subject to Shari’a (Islamic) law and living under the
protection of Islam only as long as they accept their inferior status. In the
past, they and other non- Muslim residents had to pay a special poll tax, the
jizya; there are now calls in Egypt to revive that tax, which was abolished in
the late 19th century by a much-weakened Ottoman empire.
Historically,
Muslim hatred toward the Jews is rooted in the latter’s refusal to accept Islam
and its preeminence over all other religions, as expressed in the shahada, the
credo of the faithful: “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the
messenger of Allah”; Muhammad is the last of the prophets and ushers in an era
in which Islam will rule the world through peaceful means – or through war.
Islam
claims for its own both the Old and New testaments, and Muhammad was incensed
that the Jews, who had introduced monotheism to the world, did not recognize
him and accept his teachings. One can find in the Koran far more attacks
against Jews than against Christians, who did not acknowledge Islam either.
There are numerous verses vilifying the Jews, calling for their abasement and
humiliation and, for instance, branding them as sons of pigs and apes, having
to bear the wrath of Allah and being doomed to hell on Judgment Day unless they
accept the true faith.
The
Muslim Brotherhood gave a new slant to the age-old hatred. Hassan Banna, who
founded the movement in 1928, transformed what was a “passive” phenomenon into
a virulent doctrine, part of both his vision to restore the caliphate and his
fight against the British occupation and Western influence on his country.
The
hand of the Jews was seen everywhere; they were allegedly attacking Islam and
targeting the whole world.
Adopting
the message and model of Christian anti-Semitism, the Brothers initiated a
program of incitement against Jews living in Egypt and fomented pogroms against
the old Jewish quarter of Cairo. In the 1930s and ’40s, Banna developed his
theories in countless writings, declaring the Jews the agents of change and
Westernization, and responsible for the decline of the West as well as of
Islam.
There
is an inherent contradiction there, since the Brotherhood is fighting the West
and its democratic values, which are alien to Islam. However, Banna
corresponded with Hitler; there were contacts between the Brotherhood and the
Nazis, and the Brothers published a translation of Mein Kampf under the title My
Jihad. Caricatures from Der Stürmer and Nazi texts were translated and
printed in their publications.
The
Brothers found willing allies in the strong German community living in Cairo in
the ’30s, which included a number of Nazi agents.
Those
agents also helped the new pro-Nazi party, Misr Elfatat (Young Egypt), established
at that time to destabilize the regime and fight the Jews.
With
the onset of World War II, Banna offered his services to Hitler while asking
him to help Egypt in its fight against the British and the Jews. The
clandestine terror organization he set up passed along information on the
movements of British forces. A young officer by the name of Anwar Sadat was a
member of the organization. King Farouk’s secret services ultimately found and
killed Banna in 1949.
THE
MAN who set down the religious basis for the fight against the Jews and
developed its propaganda themes was Sayyid Qutb, often called the father of the
Brotherhood ideology and grandfather of present-day jihadi extremists. Former
president Gamal Abdul Nasser had him sentenced to death by hanging, and Qutb
was executed in 1966.
In
his best-known work, Milestones, he
wrote that Jews were working to erase “all limitations imposed by faith and
religion so that Jews may penetrate the body politics of the whole world and
may be free to perpetuate their evil designs. At the top of the list of those
activities is usury, the aim of which is that all the wealth of mankind end up
in the hands of Jewish financial institutions.”
He
also wrote an essay called “Our Battle against the Jews,” in which he states,
“The Jews have confronted Islam with enmity from the moment the Islamic state
was established in Medina . . . the Muslim community continues to suffer the
same Jewish machinations and double-dealing which discomfited the early Muslims
. . . This is a war which has not been extinguished . . . for close on 14
centuries its blaze has raged in all the corners of the earth and continues to
this moment.”
He
added that “the Jews have installed . . . a massive army of agents in the form
of professors, philosophers, doctors, researchers... some even from the ranks
of the Muslim religious authorities . . . intending to break the creed of the
Muslims by weakening the Shari’a in many ways... with this and that they
fulfill the ancient rule of the Jews.”
And
there is a reference to the well known historical fake, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: “Jews are behind materialism,
animal sexuality, the destruction of the family and the dissolution of society.
Principal among them are Marx, Freud, Durkheim and the Jew Jean-Paul Sartre.”
One
could go on and on. Qutb even wrote that Allah had sent Hitler to punish the
Jews.
IT
WOULD be impossible to enumerate the countless books, essays, pamphlets and
fatwas that the Muslim Brothers have published against the Jews – and are still
publishing.
Egyptian-born
Sheikh Yusuf Kardawi, who lives in Qatar, is the Brotherhood’s main theologian.
He attacks the Jews relentlessly; in an Al Jazeera interview on January 28,
2009, he declared, “Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the Jews people
who would punish them for their corruption. . . . The last punishment was
carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them – even though
they exaggerated this issue – he managed to put them in their place. This was
divine punishment for them. . . . Allah willing, the next time will be at the
hand of the believers.”
Interestingly
the Koran acknowledges the claim of the Jews to the Holy Land. However, Caliph
Omar Khattab, who conquered the Holy Land, subsequently decreed that any land
conquered by Islam would henceforth be forever part of the Islamic caliphate.
Therefore, the rebirth of Israel was considered unacceptable to Arabs and
Muslims – all the more because they were used to seeing Jews as a subservient
minority and could not adjust to the new reality in which the Jews were
“tearing away” a territory deep inside Muslim lands.
The
fact that the small Jewish state defeated the armies of five Arab states during
the 1948 War of Independence was seen as an added insult, and anchored hatred
of the Jews in Arab and Islamic culture.
In
Egypt and in the Arab world as a whole, Jews, Zionists and Israelis are
generally seen as one and the same. And since the Jews were cursed by the
Prophet, all their deeds are evil, and the creation of the State of Israel is
worse. Egyptian media – the written press, television and radio – use “the
Zionist enemy” and “the Zionist entity” interchangeably with “Jews” and
“Israel.”
When
former president Hosni Mubarak took office, Egyptian anti-Semitism included all
the above-mentioned elements. The new president did not try to curb this
phenomenon, and incitement went on in the media and in the mosques, though they
were under state control.
For
instance, it was forbidden at the time to criticize the president or the army,
or to mention the existing discrimination against the Coptic Christian
minority, but one could attack the Jews at will.
Thus
there was a daily outpouring of hate against the Jews and against Israel; it
was an unwritten rule that no item presenting Israel and/or the Jews in a
favorable light could be aired. Whether it was planned at state level or not,
this policy was intended to demonize the Jews and Israel and to bring about the
delegitimization of the Jewish state and prevent normalization between the two
countries.
News
was deliberately distorted. Following the 2001 terror attack at the popular
Dolphinarium nightclub in Tel Aviv, headlines in the state-owned Al Gomhuria daily screamed, “Pieces of
Israeli flesh were thrown in the air as a result of the heroic operation.”
Then,
too, state news agencies used various terms to avoid calling Israel by its
name: “the occupation,” “the Zionist entity” or “the Zionist enemy.” Israeli
cities were called “settlements” wherever they were; reports would describe “a
fedayeen operation in the Haifa settlement,” blunting the effect of a terror
attack on a peaceful city in the heart of Israel.
Israelis
are usually called “el Yahud,” the
Jews. Whenever Israel replied to an accusation or tried to set the record
straight, the Egyptian media used the word “alleges” to illustrate their
rejection.
Editorials
in the Egyptian media routinely accuse Jews of all crimes under the sun,
including treacherous actions such as “infiltrating into Africa to incite
Africans against Egypt.” A recurrent theme is making the Jews responsible for
the ongoing struggle between Egypt and upper Nile countries regarding the
distribution of the river’s waters.
Some
editorials explain that the very existence of Israel is illegal and that the
country should be eliminated.
Holocaust
denial is the norm, though it takes different forms:
•
Regarding the event itself, deniers say that it never happened; that there was
something, but on a far smaller scale, and the Jews are deliberately inflating
numbers; that Jews are exploiting the event. They ask why Arabs should have to
pay for something that involved Europe and the Jews. In any case, they say,
Jews are worse than Nazis.
•
Caricatures show Palestinian women and small children confronted by soldiers
with machine guns and steel helmets marked with the swastika to show how cruel
they are. Other caricatures, similar to those of Der Stürmer, depict religious
Jews with oversized noses killing Palestinian children.
•
There are books, films and television series based on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, showing the Jews as monsters,
and on the books of European Holocaust deniers such as Roger Garaudy and David
Irving.
In
addition, Koran verses and Hadith are used to demonstrate the wickedness of the
Jews and the way they attacked Muhammad and Islam, as well as the dire fate
awaiting them on Judgment Day.
ONE
CANNOT minimize the impact of these concerted measures on the Egyptian public,
which is deprived of objective information and led to accept a distorted
picture.
Repeated
protests from the Israeli government have met with the bland reply that the
media in Egypt are free. Here are three outstanding examples:
•
When Pope John Paul II visited Egypt in February 2000, a scathing February 26
editorial in the state-owned daily the Egyptian
Gazette accused the church of having yielded to Israeli blackmail and
American intervention in issuing the Vatican II document “acquitting the Jews
from the charge of killing Jesus.”
•
In 2009, a self-proclaimed historian, Dr. Abdel Wahab Messiri, published his Encyclopedia of the Jews, Judaism and
Zionism – eight volumes totaling 3,000 pages. In a television interview, he
explained that he had undertaken this work to demonstrate that there was no
such thing as a Jewish people. He received an award from Mubarak for his
efforts.
•
When Shimon Peres visited Egypt in April 2001, a photomontage in the Nasserist
weekly Al Arabi showed him wearing a
Gestapo uniform.
Unfortunately
the fall of Mubarak did not usher in a new era. Protesters brandished pictures
of the president with a Star of David to show that he was a puppet of the Jews.
American journalist Laura Logan was assaulted in Tahrir Square by a mob
yelling, “Jew! Jew!” Focus on Israel and the Jews grew as the Muslim Brothers
emerged as the leaders of the revolution, yet the West, blinded by what it saw
as a spring of hope and democracy, was reluctant to mention the fact. In
January 2012, the Brothers made an all-out – and successful – effort to block
the annual pilgrimage to the tomb of Abu Hatzera, a Jewish holy man buried in a
small village not far from Alexandria – a pilgrimage that attracts Jews from
all over the world.
Gamal
Hashmet, a newly elected parliament member from the Brotherhood’s not-so-aptly
named Freedom and Justice Party, proclaimed that for the Israelis to come would
be “suicidal,” adding that “the Abu Hatzera problem is that of a people who
rejects normalization [with Israel] and the presence of any Zionist on Egyptian
soil. . . . No one can force the inhabitants of Damanhour to accept
normalization.”
The
Egyptian Supreme Council of Armed Forces ordered all Egyptian representations
not to issue visas for the pilgrimage.
Now
that the Freedom and Justice Party, the political arm of the Muslim
Brotherhood, is in power, Islamic anti-Semitism, which is at the core of the
group’s doctrine, has become part of the regime’s ideology. Though there is a
measure of continuity in anti-Semitism from Mubarak to Morsi, the impact is now
far greater.
Clerics,
feeling that they have the support of the government and can look forward to
the elimination of the Jewish state in the near future as a step toward the
establishment of a renewed caliphate, rant against the Jews on a daily basis
from their pulpits in mosques or in the media. Since he became president, Morsi
has been careful not to voice openly his hatred for the Jews and for Israel,
and when confronted on some of his more extreme outbursts – such as those
quoted in The New York Times this
past January 14 (see below) – he declares blandly that they were “taken out of
context.”
But
the Brothers had no such qualms. Already during the campaign for the
parliamentary elections, they had organized a mass rally “to fight the
Judaization of Jerusalem” at Al-Azhar University.
On
November 25, 2011, 5,000 protesters heard Sheikh Azhar, who does not belong to
the Brotherhood, warn that Al-Aksa Mosque was under attack by the Jews. “We
shall not let them Judaize Al Quds,” he declared, adding that the Jews had
attempted at the dawn of Islam to embroil the followers of Muhammad in civil
war, and “today they are trying to prevent the union of all Muslims.”
Speakers
for the Brotherhood called for a jihad to free Palestine and quoted a famous
hadith: “The day will come when we shall kill all the Jews, and even the trees
and the stones will cry out, ‘There is a Jew hiding behind us, come and kill
him!’” This event will be remembered as one of the strongest recent
demonstrations of hatred by the Muslim Brothers.
For
all his caginess, Morsi himself swore, during the campaign, to deliver
Jerusalem and listened with apparent complacency to the violent diatribes of
local clerics.
The
aforementioned New York Times article
quoted him as saying Muslims needed to “nurse our children and our
grandchildren on hatred for Jews and Zionists.”
The Times added that in a television
interview months later, the same leader had described Zionists as “these
bloodsuckers who attack the Palestinians, these warmongers, the descendants of
apes and pigs.”
After
Morsi’s election, there was a sharp increase in attacks against the Jews in the
Egyptian media from intellectuals, journalists and clerics. The most extreme
can be found on the site of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
MEANWHILE,
THE Brotherhood is openly pursuing its religious aims while allegedly leaving
Morsi to lead the country “pragmatically.” However, all the members of the
ruling Freedom and Justice Party are senior members of the movement. Last
October, movement leader Mohamed Badie, who holds the title of “supreme guide,”
renewed the tradition of Koran and Shari’a teachings that Banna had initiated
and that had stopped with his death.
In
one of his first lessons, he called on all Muslims to conquer Jerusalem by
jihad, since according to him, it was not possible to do so through
negotiations or the UN. He added that it was the duty of every Muslim to do so.
Badie
alleged that “the Jews have dominated the land, spread corruption on earth,
spilled the blood of believers and in their actions profaned holy places,
including their own.” In June of the same year, he stated that “Allah had
warned us about the treachery of the Jews and their dangerous role in fomenting
wars. The war in Sudan and the partition of the country is their work, as is
the fight between Ramallah and Gaza.”
Hatred
toward the Jews sometimes takes the strangest forms. Thus on November 5,
Freedom and Justice, the party’s official newspaper, quoted a learned sheikh as
saying, “If Islam had been fated to disappear from the world, then it would
have disappeared the day rose the star of the accursed Jew [Mustafa Kemal]
Ataturk . . . who committed the greatest crime against the Caliphate.... But it
did not happen, because the Caliphate still burned bright in the heart of the
Muslims.”
During
the mass protests in Tahrir Square during the IDF’s Operation Pillar of Defense
in the Gaza Strip, Brotherhood fighters were chanting, “Give us guns, give us
guns and send us to Gaza.”
Jews
were also a recurrent theme during the campaign of the referendum on the
constitution. The preacher of one of the largest suburbs of Cairo called on the
faithful to go and vote, since the Jews were trying to destroy Egypt by paying
huge sums of money to Egyptians so they would vote against the constitution.
Last
year, the Egyptian pavilion at the Frankfurt book fair, the largest in the
world of publishing, displayed a number of anti-Semitic books with lurid covers
announcing their content. The Simon Wiesenthal Center protested, but to no
avail.
ANOTHER
EXPRESSION of the boundless hatred of Israel and the Jews in present-day Egypt
was evident in an episode that took place last August. Well-known actor Iman
Kandil was invited to a television studio for what he had been told was an
interview with a German television show. There, the pretty Egyptian interviewer
told him it was in fact for Israeli television. It was a joke, of course, but
Kandil did not wait for an explanation and reacted violently, pushing her
against the wall and hitting her while cursing until the penny dropped. He did
not really apologize, and explained that it was her fault.
The
same thing happened with an actress, who also started shouting that Allah cursed
worms and moths as he cursed the Jews.
Anti-Semitism
and hatred of Israel are now part of Egyptian culture, among both devout and
secular people.
Unfortunately,
as Islam is on the rise both in Arab countries and in the West, no change for
the better can be expected – unless the West sits up and takes notice at long
last, and decides to do something about it.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Will the al-Qaeda Affiliates Ousting Assad Turn to Israel Next? By Mitch Ginsburg.
Will the al-Qaeda affiliates ousting Assad turn to Israel next? By Mitch Ginsburg. The Times of Israel, February 10, 2013.
Jihadi warriors are fueling the violent rebellion in Syria. Some fear their successes are reviving wider regional ambitions.
Syria crisis: al-Qaida fighters revealing their true colours, rebels say. By Martin Chulov. The Guardian, January 17, 2013.
A schism is developing in northern Syria between jihadists and Free Syrian Army units, which threatens to pitch both groups against each other and open a new phase in the Syrian civil war.
Syria: how jihadist group Jabhat al-Nusra is taking over Syria’s revolution. By Ruth Sherlock. The Telegraph, February 8, 2013.
Aleppo has been plunged into despair. Riven with war, life in Syria’s most populous city has become a dog-eat-dog existence: a battle for survival in a place where the strong devour the weak.
Jihadi warriors are fueling the violent rebellion in Syria. Some fear their successes are reviving wider regional ambitions.
Syria crisis: al-Qaida fighters revealing their true colours, rebels say. By Martin Chulov. The Guardian, January 17, 2013.
A schism is developing in northern Syria between jihadists and Free Syrian Army units, which threatens to pitch both groups against each other and open a new phase in the Syrian civil war.
Syria: how jihadist group Jabhat al-Nusra is taking over Syria’s revolution. By Ruth Sherlock. The Telegraph, February 8, 2013.
Aleppo has been plunged into despair. Riven with war, life in Syria’s most populous city has become a dog-eat-dog existence: a battle for survival in a place where the strong devour the weak.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Carpe Diem Nation. By David Brooks.
Carpe Diem Nation. By David Brooks. New York Times, February 11, 2013.
Brooks:
Europeans who settled America gave their lives a slingshot shape. They pulled back so they could shoot forward. They volunteered to live in harsh conditions today so their descendants could live well for centuries. The pioneers who traveled West did the same thing. So has each generation of immigrants — sacrificing the present for the sake of the future.
This slingshot manner of life led to one of those true national clichés: that America is the nation of futurity, that Americans organize their lives around romantic visions of what is to be.
In 1775, Sam Adams confidently predicted that the scraggly little colonies would one day be the world’s most powerful nation. In 1800, Noah Webster projected that the U.S. would someday have 300 million citizens, and that a country that big should have its own dictionary.
In his novel, “Giants in the Earth,” Ole Rolvaag has a pioneering farmer give a visitor a tour of his land. The farmer describes his beautiful home and his large buildings. The visitor confesses that he can’t see them. That’s because they haven’t been built yet, the farmer acknowledges, but they already exist as reality in his mind.
This future-oriented mentality had practical effects. For decades, government invested heavily in long-range projects like railroads and canals.
Today, Americans have inverted this way of thinking. Instead of sacrificing the present for the sake of the future, Americans now sacrifice the future for the sake of the present.
. . . . . . . . . .
Why have Americans lost their devotion to the future? Part of the answer must be cultural. The Great Depression and World War II forced Americans to live with 16 straight years of scarcity. In the years after the war, people decided they’d had enough. There was what one historian called a “renunciation of renunciation.” We’ve now had a few generations raised with this consumption mind-set. There’s less of a sense that life is a partnership among the dead, the living and the unborn, with obligations to those to come.
The political debate, though, is largely oblivious to this mental shift. Republicans and Democrats are so busy arguing about the merits of government versus business that they are blind to the problem that afflicts them both.
In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Obama is apparently planning to give us yet another salvo in that left-right war, as he did in his second Inaugural Address. One of his aides, in a fit of hubris, told Politico that the president will be offering Republicans a golden bridge to ease their retreat.
But it would be great if Obama gave an imaginative speech that reframed things as present versus future.
If the president were to propose an agenda for the future, he’d double spending on the National Institutes of Health. He’d approve the Keystone XL pipeline. He’d cut corporate tax rates while adding a progressive consumption tax. He’d take money from Social Security and build Harlem Children’s Zone-type projects across the nation. He’d means test Medicare and use the money to revive state universities and pay down debt.
Would Americans buy that agenda? Maybe. Americans are neglecting the future, but I bet they’re still in love with it.
Brooks:
Europeans who settled America gave their lives a slingshot shape. They pulled back so they could shoot forward. They volunteered to live in harsh conditions today so their descendants could live well for centuries. The pioneers who traveled West did the same thing. So has each generation of immigrants — sacrificing the present for the sake of the future.
This slingshot manner of life led to one of those true national clichés: that America is the nation of futurity, that Americans organize their lives around romantic visions of what is to be.
In 1775, Sam Adams confidently predicted that the scraggly little colonies would one day be the world’s most powerful nation. In 1800, Noah Webster projected that the U.S. would someday have 300 million citizens, and that a country that big should have its own dictionary.
In his novel, “Giants in the Earth,” Ole Rolvaag has a pioneering farmer give a visitor a tour of his land. The farmer describes his beautiful home and his large buildings. The visitor confesses that he can’t see them. That’s because they haven’t been built yet, the farmer acknowledges, but they already exist as reality in his mind.
This future-oriented mentality had practical effects. For decades, government invested heavily in long-range projects like railroads and canals.
Today, Americans have inverted this way of thinking. Instead of sacrificing the present for the sake of the future, Americans now sacrifice the future for the sake of the present.
. . . . . . . . . .
Why have Americans lost their devotion to the future? Part of the answer must be cultural. The Great Depression and World War II forced Americans to live with 16 straight years of scarcity. In the years after the war, people decided they’d had enough. There was what one historian called a “renunciation of renunciation.” We’ve now had a few generations raised with this consumption mind-set. There’s less of a sense that life is a partnership among the dead, the living and the unborn, with obligations to those to come.
The political debate, though, is largely oblivious to this mental shift. Republicans and Democrats are so busy arguing about the merits of government versus business that they are blind to the problem that afflicts them both.
In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Obama is apparently planning to give us yet another salvo in that left-right war, as he did in his second Inaugural Address. One of his aides, in a fit of hubris, told Politico that the president will be offering Republicans a golden bridge to ease their retreat.
But it would be great if Obama gave an imaginative speech that reframed things as present versus future.
If the president were to propose an agenda for the future, he’d double spending on the National Institutes of Health. He’d approve the Keystone XL pipeline. He’d cut corporate tax rates while adding a progressive consumption tax. He’d take money from Social Security and build Harlem Children’s Zone-type projects across the nation. He’d means test Medicare and use the money to revive state universities and pay down debt.
Would Americans buy that agenda? Maybe. Americans are neglecting the future, but I bet they’re still in love with it.
A Godly Man in an Ungodly Age. By Pat Buchanan.
A Godly Man in an Ungodly Age. By Pat Buchanan. Real Clear Politics, February 12, 2013.
Buchanan:
Among Catholics, there has long been a dispute over the issue: Did Vatican II cause the crisis in the Church, or did the council merely fail to arrest what was an inevitable decline with the triumph of the counterculture of the 1960s?
As one looks around the world and back beyond the last half-century, it seems that Catholicism and Christianity have been in a centuries-long retreat. In the mid-19th century, Matthew Arnold wrote in “Dover Beach”:
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar . . .
In Christianity’s cradle, the Holy Land and the Near East, from Egypt to Afghanistan, Christians are subjected to persecution and pogroms, as their numbers dwindle. In Latin America, the Church has been losing congregants for decades.
In Europe, Christianity is regarded less as the founding faith of the West and the wellspring of Western culture and civilization, than as an antique; a religion that European Man once embraced before the coming of the Enlightenment. Many cathedrals on the continent have taken on the aspect of Greek and Roman temples – places to visit and marvel at what once was, and no longer is.
The Faith is Europe, Europe is the Faith, wrote Hilaire Belloc. And when the faith dies, the culture dies, the civilization dies, and the people die. So historians and poets alike have written.
Surely that seems true in Europe. In the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, Western Man, under the banners of God and country, conquered almost the entire world. But now that Christianity has died in much of the West, the culture seems decadent, the civilization in decline.
And the people have begun to die. No Western nation has had a birth rate in three decades that will enable its native-born to survive.
Dispensing with Christianity, Western peoples sought new gods and new faiths: communism, Leninism, fascism, Nazism. Those gods all failed.
Now we have converted to even newer faiths to create paradise in this, the only world we shall ever know. Democratic capitalism, consumerism, globalism, environmentalism, egalitarianism.
The Secular City seems to have triumphed over the City of God. But in the Islamic world, an ancient and transcendental faith is undergoing a great awakening after centuries of slumber and seems anxious to re-engage and settle accounts with an agnostic West.
As ever, the outcome of the struggle for the world is in doubt.
Buchanan:
Among Catholics, there has long been a dispute over the issue: Did Vatican II cause the crisis in the Church, or did the council merely fail to arrest what was an inevitable decline with the triumph of the counterculture of the 1960s?
As one looks around the world and back beyond the last half-century, it seems that Catholicism and Christianity have been in a centuries-long retreat. In the mid-19th century, Matthew Arnold wrote in “Dover Beach”:
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar . . .
In Christianity’s cradle, the Holy Land and the Near East, from Egypt to Afghanistan, Christians are subjected to persecution and pogroms, as their numbers dwindle. In Latin America, the Church has been losing congregants for decades.
In Europe, Christianity is regarded less as the founding faith of the West and the wellspring of Western culture and civilization, than as an antique; a religion that European Man once embraced before the coming of the Enlightenment. Many cathedrals on the continent have taken on the aspect of Greek and Roman temples – places to visit and marvel at what once was, and no longer is.
The Faith is Europe, Europe is the Faith, wrote Hilaire Belloc. And when the faith dies, the culture dies, the civilization dies, and the people die. So historians and poets alike have written.
Surely that seems true in Europe. In the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, Western Man, under the banners of God and country, conquered almost the entire world. But now that Christianity has died in much of the West, the culture seems decadent, the civilization in decline.
And the people have begun to die. No Western nation has had a birth rate in three decades that will enable its native-born to survive.
Dispensing with Christianity, Western peoples sought new gods and new faiths: communism, Leninism, fascism, Nazism. Those gods all failed.
Now we have converted to even newer faiths to create paradise in this, the only world we shall ever know. Democratic capitalism, consumerism, globalism, environmentalism, egalitarianism.
The Secular City seems to have triumphed over the City of God. But in the Islamic world, an ancient and transcendental faith is undergoing a great awakening after centuries of slumber and seems anxious to re-engage and settle accounts with an agnostic West.
As ever, the outcome of the struggle for the world is in doubt.
As Vatican Leader Pope Benedict Never Had a Chance. By John Moody.
As Vatican leader Pope Benedict never had a chance. By John Moody. FoxNews.com, February 11, 2013.
Farewell to an Uninspiring Pope. By John Patrick Shanley.
Farewell to an Uninspiring Pope. By John Patrick Shanley. New York Times, February 11, 2013.
Young, Liberal, and Open to Big Government. By Sheryl Gay Stolberg.
Young, Liberal, and Open to Big Government. By Sheryl Gay Stolberg. New York Times, February 10, 2013.
The Legacy of the Silk Road. By Valerie Hansen.
The Legacy of the Silk Road. By Valerie Hansen. Yale Global Online, January 25, 2013.
In an era of tolerance, ancient Silk Road routes opened way to rich cultural exchange.
In an era of tolerance, ancient Silk Road routes opened way to rich cultural exchange.
Is the U.S. Ready To Be Number Two. By Kishore Mahbubani.
Is the U.S. Ready To Be Number Two. By Kishore Mahbubani. Real Clear World, February 12, 2013. Also find it at Yale Global Online.
Why Obama Is Really Launching a Drone War on Terrorists. By Aaron Klein.
Why Obama REALLY launching drone war on terrorists. By Aaron Klein. Audio. Klein Online, February 10, 2013.
Klein did research at The Center for Speical Studies, part of The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center in Israel, which has an archive of Muslim Brotherhood documents.
More on Morsi and Egypt here.
Klein [starting at 7:30 in the audio file]:
So Muslim Brotherhood ideology is based on the worldview that Islam as the solution for every individual social and political problem. This is after going through so many documents from the Muslim Brotherhood itself. They institute a comprehensive Muslim world order which they believe will be possible by means of a long term process of multiple stages. Now this is very important, because the Muslim Brotherhood absolutely supports terrorism when it’s targeting, for example, Israel. They see Hamas as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. They have no problem with attacks against any country that they believe is being occupied by a Western power, or by non-Islamic powers. For example Syria they see as being occupied by the secular Alawites in the Assad regime. Jordan they believe is Muslim territory that is being occupied by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. They look at Saudi Arabia which is being occupied of course by the Saudi kingdom that is not exactly Islamist, although they play major games, they’re playing with fire with the Wahhabist mosques that I think are going to blow up in Saudi Arabia’s face, just as it’s going to blow up in the face of the King of Jordan in the very near future.
Now here’s the thing. The Muslim Brotherhood is not Al Qaeda. The Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda have the exact same ultimate goal, which is an Islamic planet. But Al Qaeda sees that they have to achieve this by violent means; whereas the Muslim Brotherhood, believe it or not, is actually quite pragmatic. They even have some real pro-democratic elements and real politically tolerant elements within Islam within the Muslim Brotherhood, although actually their combined weight does not outweigh the more so-called conservative, a.k.a. radical elements, in the Muslim Brotherhood.
However, one thing the vast majority of Muslim Brotherhood leaders agree on is that they do not like, they actually oppose very strongly, Al Qaeda’s global terrorism. In other words they have no problem with Al Qaeda fighting the so-called occupation of Iraq – well actually Iraq was occupied – Afghanistan, elsewhere, what they claim is occupied including in Israel. However, when it comes to Europe, when it comes to the West, they absolutely oppose attacks against Americans. Look at Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the rock star of the Muslim Brotherhood. He said very clearly that one day Islam will take over America, will take over Europe, not overnight, but gradually through immigration and through proselytizing. And guess what, it’s happening right now. Have you been to London lately? Have you heard the reports lately of the number one baby boy’s name being born in London is Mohamed? Have you gone to Spain lately? Did you see the riots in France? The Muslim Brotherhood dream/vision of gradual takeover is absolutely clearly coming to fruition throughout the West, maybe not yet in America. . . .
And so maybe now we can make better sense of this drone warfare. Actually the Muslim Brotherhood supports it. . . . I have absolutely no doubt that it’s actually the Muslim Brotherhood that is feeding the information to the CIA on where the different Al Qaeda leaders are. The Muslim Brotherhood doesn’t like the Al Qaeda leaders that attack America, that attack the West.
Klein did research at The Center for Speical Studies, part of The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center in Israel, which has an archive of Muslim Brotherhood documents.
More on Morsi and Egypt here.
Klein [starting at 7:30 in the audio file]:
So Muslim Brotherhood ideology is based on the worldview that Islam as the solution for every individual social and political problem. This is after going through so many documents from the Muslim Brotherhood itself. They institute a comprehensive Muslim world order which they believe will be possible by means of a long term process of multiple stages. Now this is very important, because the Muslim Brotherhood absolutely supports terrorism when it’s targeting, for example, Israel. They see Hamas as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. They have no problem with attacks against any country that they believe is being occupied by a Western power, or by non-Islamic powers. For example Syria they see as being occupied by the secular Alawites in the Assad regime. Jordan they believe is Muslim territory that is being occupied by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. They look at Saudi Arabia which is being occupied of course by the Saudi kingdom that is not exactly Islamist, although they play major games, they’re playing with fire with the Wahhabist mosques that I think are going to blow up in Saudi Arabia’s face, just as it’s going to blow up in the face of the King of Jordan in the very near future.
Now here’s the thing. The Muslim Brotherhood is not Al Qaeda. The Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda have the exact same ultimate goal, which is an Islamic planet. But Al Qaeda sees that they have to achieve this by violent means; whereas the Muslim Brotherhood, believe it or not, is actually quite pragmatic. They even have some real pro-democratic elements and real politically tolerant elements within Islam within the Muslim Brotherhood, although actually their combined weight does not outweigh the more so-called conservative, a.k.a. radical elements, in the Muslim Brotherhood.
However, one thing the vast majority of Muslim Brotherhood leaders agree on is that they do not like, they actually oppose very strongly, Al Qaeda’s global terrorism. In other words they have no problem with Al Qaeda fighting the so-called occupation of Iraq – well actually Iraq was occupied – Afghanistan, elsewhere, what they claim is occupied including in Israel. However, when it comes to Europe, when it comes to the West, they absolutely oppose attacks against Americans. Look at Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the rock star of the Muslim Brotherhood. He said very clearly that one day Islam will take over America, will take over Europe, not overnight, but gradually through immigration and through proselytizing. And guess what, it’s happening right now. Have you been to London lately? Have you heard the reports lately of the number one baby boy’s name being born in London is Mohamed? Have you gone to Spain lately? Did you see the riots in France? The Muslim Brotherhood dream/vision of gradual takeover is absolutely clearly coming to fruition throughout the West, maybe not yet in America. . . .
And so maybe now we can make better sense of this drone warfare. Actually the Muslim Brotherhood supports it. . . . I have absolutely no doubt that it’s actually the Muslim Brotherhood that is feeding the information to the CIA on where the different Al Qaeda leaders are. The Muslim Brotherhood doesn’t like the Al Qaeda leaders that attack America, that attack the West.
Understanding Mohamed Morsi. By Joshua Hammer.
The Riddler: Understanding Mohamed Morsi. By Joshua Hammer. The New Republic, December 20, 2012. Also find it here.
More posts on Morsi and Egypt here.
Hammer:
I had traveled to Al Adwa hoping that Morsi’s hometown might shed some light on a man who has only become more enigmatic during his brief time in the spotlight. Since he became Egypt’s first democratically elected leader last June, Morsi has displayed both extraordinary political acumen and a tone-deafness that has plunged his country into deeper unrest. In November, he deftly helped negotiate a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, averting a bloody ground war in the Gaza Strip. Days later, he lost much of the goodwill he had earned by issuing an edict that awarded his office near-dictatorial powers.
Sometimes, Morsi can seem like the inspiring guardian of Egyptian democracy—such as when he courageously dismissed the military junta that had claimed the right to rule post–Hosni Mubarak Egypt. At other times, he can seem like a mouthpiece for the deeply conservative Muslim Brotherhood—declaring women unfit for high office and advocating for an international law to ban religious insults. (And sometimes he simply seems awkward, such as when he sat down for a meeting with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gilliard in September at the United Nations and proceeded, for several excruciating seconds, to publicly adjust his genitals.) So far, the only certainty about Morsi is that his ultimate intentions remain unknown.
Among Morsi’s many critics, the suspicion remains strong that he is an Islamist at heart—and that this identity, shaped in the small conservative town where I was standing, will ultimately define his presidency. On the second floor of his three-story red brick childhood home, he still keeps a small study. His cousin, a skinny man in his early twenties, showed me the room, with its bare cement floor and battered sofa. He pointed at a scuffed wooden table: “Whenever he comes home, he works at this desk.” Books and pamphlets that Morsi had left behind were stacked haphazardly: a treatise by Hassan Al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood; a biography of a disciple of the Prophet Mohammed; a manifesto that had been distributed by the Freedom and Justice Party, which the Muslim Brotherhood founded immediately after the revolution that deposed Mubarak. On top of the pile rested a slim volume: Teach Yourself French in Five Days.
I noticed a poster hanging on an otherwise bare wall. It showed the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem above the slogan, in Arabic, “WE WILL RETURN, OH AQSA.” I asked his cousin how I should interpret these words. “A war will happen again between the Arabs and the Jews,” he told me matter-of-factly, “and we will regain Jerusalem.”
. . . . . . . . . .
A hundred miles and a world away from Nour’s penthouse apartment, however, those who have known Morsi the longest say they have little doubt where his true values lie. Sitting beside his fields on the outskirts of Al Adwa, Said Morsi told me that his older brother remains rooted to the uncompromising Islamic beliefs that stamped his childhood and that have guided him throughout his life. “All of the vacations before becoming the president, he would come back here and work the fields, and sit with me, and talk,” he said, smoking a cigarette as the wail of the muezzin began to sound from a few hundred yards away. “In his heart, he belongs to the village.”
More posts on Morsi and Egypt here.
Hammer:
I had traveled to Al Adwa hoping that Morsi’s hometown might shed some light on a man who has only become more enigmatic during his brief time in the spotlight. Since he became Egypt’s first democratically elected leader last June, Morsi has displayed both extraordinary political acumen and a tone-deafness that has plunged his country into deeper unrest. In November, he deftly helped negotiate a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, averting a bloody ground war in the Gaza Strip. Days later, he lost much of the goodwill he had earned by issuing an edict that awarded his office near-dictatorial powers.
Sometimes, Morsi can seem like the inspiring guardian of Egyptian democracy—such as when he courageously dismissed the military junta that had claimed the right to rule post–Hosni Mubarak Egypt. At other times, he can seem like a mouthpiece for the deeply conservative Muslim Brotherhood—declaring women unfit for high office and advocating for an international law to ban religious insults. (And sometimes he simply seems awkward, such as when he sat down for a meeting with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gilliard in September at the United Nations and proceeded, for several excruciating seconds, to publicly adjust his genitals.) So far, the only certainty about Morsi is that his ultimate intentions remain unknown.
Among Morsi’s many critics, the suspicion remains strong that he is an Islamist at heart—and that this identity, shaped in the small conservative town where I was standing, will ultimately define his presidency. On the second floor of his three-story red brick childhood home, he still keeps a small study. His cousin, a skinny man in his early twenties, showed me the room, with its bare cement floor and battered sofa. He pointed at a scuffed wooden table: “Whenever he comes home, he works at this desk.” Books and pamphlets that Morsi had left behind were stacked haphazardly: a treatise by Hassan Al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood; a biography of a disciple of the Prophet Mohammed; a manifesto that had been distributed by the Freedom and Justice Party, which the Muslim Brotherhood founded immediately after the revolution that deposed Mubarak. On top of the pile rested a slim volume: Teach Yourself French in Five Days.
I noticed a poster hanging on an otherwise bare wall. It showed the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem above the slogan, in Arabic, “WE WILL RETURN, OH AQSA.” I asked his cousin how I should interpret these words. “A war will happen again between the Arabs and the Jews,” he told me matter-of-factly, “and we will regain Jerusalem.”
. . . . . . . . . .
A hundred miles and a world away from Nour’s penthouse apartment, however, those who have known Morsi the longest say they have little doubt where his true values lie. Sitting beside his fields on the outskirts of Al Adwa, Said Morsi told me that his older brother remains rooted to the uncompromising Islamic beliefs that stamped his childhood and that have guided him throughout his life. “All of the vacations before becoming the president, he would come back here and work the fields, and sit with me, and talk,” he said, smoking a cigarette as the wail of the muezzin began to sound from a few hundred yards away. “In his heart, he belongs to the village.”
Oh, No! Not Another Apologia from a Journalist Who Won't Vote! Oh, Yes—But This Time, Blame Russia. By Julia Ioffe
Oh, No! Not Another Apologia from a Journalist Who Won't Vote! Oh, Yes—But This Time, Blame Russia. By Julia Ioffe. The New Republic, November 6, 2012.
Ezra Klein Cannot Be Stopped. By Julia Ioffe.
Ezra Klein: The Wise Boy: A tale of striving and success in modern-day Washington. By Julia Ioffe. The New Republic, February 12, 2013. Also find it here.
America in Strategic Retreat from the Middle East. By Riad Kahwaji and Theodore Karasik.
America in Strategic Retreat from the Middle East. By Riad Kahwaji and Theodore Karasik. Real Clear World, February 7, 2013.
Monday, February 11, 2013
The Many Hats of Orthodox Judaism. By Simi Lichtman.
The Many Hats of Orthodox Judaism. By Simi Lichtman. The Huffington Post, February 10, 2013.
The Pharaoh Fell, but His Poisonous Legacy Lingers. By Fouad Ajami.
The Pharaoh Fell, but His Poisonous Legacy Lingers. By Fouad Ajami. Wall Street Journal, February 10, 2013.
More posts on Morsi and Egypt, here, here, here, and here.
Ajami:
Two years ago, on Feb. 11, 2011, the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak stepped aside, overwhelmed by 18 days of protests. Silent and remote, he had ruled for three decades. He had offered his countrymen—and powers beyond—the sole gift of stability. He was a gendarme on the banks of the Nile. Now his country was done with him, and the vaunted stability of his near 30-year reign was torn asunder.
Yet it is only against the backdrop of the sordid political landscape of today’s Egypt—the hooliganism of the young, the lawlessness, the fault line between a feeble secular camp and a cynical Muslim Brotherhood bent on monopolizing political power—that the true work of the Mubarak tyranny can be fully appreciated. The “deep state” he presided over—a Ministry of Interior with nearly two million functionaries, a police force that ran amok—is Mubarak’s true legacy.
The disorder today in Egypt’s streets is taken by some as proof that the despot knew what he was doing, and that Egyptians are innately given to tyranny. But that view misses the damage that this man and his greedy family and retainers inflicted on a nation of more than 80 million people that once had nobler ideas of its place in the world.
Grant the Egyptian people credit for their mercy and forbearance. The Pharaoh was deposed and his two sons, who sat astride the country's economy and politics, were hauled off to prison, but they were spared the gruesome end that was meted out next door to Moammar Gadhafi. A sickly Mubarak was humbled, wheeled into court on a gurney. But he was not sent to the gallows. True, some of the families of victims struck down during the upheaval howled for his blood. But the day of his reckoning was deferred as the judiciary let the matter run in the hope that the aged former ruler would succumb to a natural death.
It was odd, this tale of Hosni Mubarak. He had started out as a modest officer who had risen to power through the patronage and will of his predecessor, Anwar Sadat. Mubarak had not been imaginative or brave—and that was what recommended him to the flamboyant Sadat. Where Sadat had been unabashedly open in his identification with American power, the new man would be more discreet. Where Sadat had been a trailblazer who had made that celebrated journey to Jerusalem, Mubarak would keep the peace with the Israelis, but keep them at arm’s length.
Throughout his reign, a toxic brew poisoned the life of Egypt—a mix of anti-modernism, anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism. That trinity ran rampant in the universities and the professional syndicates and the official media. As pillage had become the obsession of the ruling family and its retainers, the underclass was left to the rule of darkness and to a culture of conspiracy. The middle class was tentative and timid, unsure of itself. It knew the defects of the regime but could not contest its power.
More important, with the Muslim Brotherhood quietly toiling in the shadows, broad segments of the middle class succumbed to the theocratic temptation. Wealth accumulated in the Arab states and the Gulf had remade the Brotherhood. Its members were sly: They accepted the subtle accommodation offered them by the regime.
The historical role of the centralized state in Egypt as the principal agent of social change was abandoned. No wonder the Brotherhood sat out the early and decisive phase of the 2011 protests in Tahrir Square. Courage was not the hallmark of the Brotherhood. Its theorists were still maintaining that the ruler was due deference and obedience while a new generation of activists was battling the security forces.
Yet the Brotherhood had no scruples about “hijacking” a revolution that was not theirs. The annals of revolutions the world over bear testimony to the truth that the rule of the moderates in times of revolutions is always undone by the ascendancy of the extremists. (Think of the liberals who rode with Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979—so many of them were cut down by firing squads.)
It was no surprise that the Egyptian liberals and secularists quarreled among themselves and were feckless and divided. The dictatorship had not allowed them political space and experience. In hindsight, the tipping point in the ruin of Egypt came in 2005. The dictator rigged yet another presidential election, his fifth in a row, and he ordered a decent young rival, Ayman Nour, to prison on trumped up charges. The administration of George W. Bush grasped the importance of the moment, but Mubarak brushed their entreaties aside.
President Obama and his advisers had two years on their watch before the upheaval. But they lacked the interest and the determination—and the knowledge of matters Egyptian. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described Mubarak as a friend of her family, and Vice President Joe Biden opined that the regime was stable even as millions of Egyptians had gone out to push it into its grave.
Today, a stalemate paralyzes Egypt: The Brotherhood won a plurality in parliamentary elections that began in 2011, but an activist judiciary declared the elections unconstitutional and ordered parliament dissolved in June 2012. The Brotherhood drafted and secured the passage of a new constitution by referendum in December, but those unreconciled to the reign of the Brotherhood wanted nothing to do with it.
Mohammed Morsi has the presidency, but he was defied some days ago when he ordered a curfew in the cities of Ismailia, Suez and Port Said. Thousands went into the streets to sing and dance and play soccer in the night. From afar, those with a superficial knowledge of Egypt think of it as a country willing to slip under the yoke of the Brotherhood. But Egypt is a skeptical, weary country; it wears its faith lightly, and its people have an innate suspicion of those who overdo their religious zeal.
The economy is wrecked and the government has run down its foreign reserves as it attempts to maintain a system of costly subsidies. A $4.8 billion International Monetary Fund loan was tentatively agreed on, but the government was unwilling to put through the austerity measures required by the loan. Only the remittances of Egyptians abroad, an impressive total of $19 billion in 2012, averted catastrophe. The ruling bargain that had the Egyptians give up their freedom for bread, and for the handouts of the state, still obtains. The old regime fell, but its ways endure.
Nowadays freedom is out of fashion in American official thinking, and the tumult in Arab lands serves as an alibi for abdication. But we should know that the bargain with the Arab dictatorships brought our way the jihadists. Two products of Mubarak’s Egypt must be figured into an audit of that regime: the Cairene al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and the psychopath Mohammad Atta, who led the death pilots of 9/11. It was folly and naiveté to think that we really knew and could befriend the tyrants.
More posts on Morsi and Egypt, here, here, here, and here.
Ajami:
Two years ago, on Feb. 11, 2011, the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak stepped aside, overwhelmed by 18 days of protests. Silent and remote, he had ruled for three decades. He had offered his countrymen—and powers beyond—the sole gift of stability. He was a gendarme on the banks of the Nile. Now his country was done with him, and the vaunted stability of his near 30-year reign was torn asunder.
Yet it is only against the backdrop of the sordid political landscape of today’s Egypt—the hooliganism of the young, the lawlessness, the fault line between a feeble secular camp and a cynical Muslim Brotherhood bent on monopolizing political power—that the true work of the Mubarak tyranny can be fully appreciated. The “deep state” he presided over—a Ministry of Interior with nearly two million functionaries, a police force that ran amok—is Mubarak’s true legacy.
The disorder today in Egypt’s streets is taken by some as proof that the despot knew what he was doing, and that Egyptians are innately given to tyranny. But that view misses the damage that this man and his greedy family and retainers inflicted on a nation of more than 80 million people that once had nobler ideas of its place in the world.
Grant the Egyptian people credit for their mercy and forbearance. The Pharaoh was deposed and his two sons, who sat astride the country's economy and politics, were hauled off to prison, but they were spared the gruesome end that was meted out next door to Moammar Gadhafi. A sickly Mubarak was humbled, wheeled into court on a gurney. But he was not sent to the gallows. True, some of the families of victims struck down during the upheaval howled for his blood. But the day of his reckoning was deferred as the judiciary let the matter run in the hope that the aged former ruler would succumb to a natural death.
It was odd, this tale of Hosni Mubarak. He had started out as a modest officer who had risen to power through the patronage and will of his predecessor, Anwar Sadat. Mubarak had not been imaginative or brave—and that was what recommended him to the flamboyant Sadat. Where Sadat had been unabashedly open in his identification with American power, the new man would be more discreet. Where Sadat had been a trailblazer who had made that celebrated journey to Jerusalem, Mubarak would keep the peace with the Israelis, but keep them at arm’s length.
Throughout his reign, a toxic brew poisoned the life of Egypt—a mix of anti-modernism, anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism. That trinity ran rampant in the universities and the professional syndicates and the official media. As pillage had become the obsession of the ruling family and its retainers, the underclass was left to the rule of darkness and to a culture of conspiracy. The middle class was tentative and timid, unsure of itself. It knew the defects of the regime but could not contest its power.
More important, with the Muslim Brotherhood quietly toiling in the shadows, broad segments of the middle class succumbed to the theocratic temptation. Wealth accumulated in the Arab states and the Gulf had remade the Brotherhood. Its members were sly: They accepted the subtle accommodation offered them by the regime.
The historical role of the centralized state in Egypt as the principal agent of social change was abandoned. No wonder the Brotherhood sat out the early and decisive phase of the 2011 protests in Tahrir Square. Courage was not the hallmark of the Brotherhood. Its theorists were still maintaining that the ruler was due deference and obedience while a new generation of activists was battling the security forces.
Yet the Brotherhood had no scruples about “hijacking” a revolution that was not theirs. The annals of revolutions the world over bear testimony to the truth that the rule of the moderates in times of revolutions is always undone by the ascendancy of the extremists. (Think of the liberals who rode with Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979—so many of them were cut down by firing squads.)
It was no surprise that the Egyptian liberals and secularists quarreled among themselves and were feckless and divided. The dictatorship had not allowed them political space and experience. In hindsight, the tipping point in the ruin of Egypt came in 2005. The dictator rigged yet another presidential election, his fifth in a row, and he ordered a decent young rival, Ayman Nour, to prison on trumped up charges. The administration of George W. Bush grasped the importance of the moment, but Mubarak brushed their entreaties aside.
President Obama and his advisers had two years on their watch before the upheaval. But they lacked the interest and the determination—and the knowledge of matters Egyptian. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described Mubarak as a friend of her family, and Vice President Joe Biden opined that the regime was stable even as millions of Egyptians had gone out to push it into its grave.
Today, a stalemate paralyzes Egypt: The Brotherhood won a plurality in parliamentary elections that began in 2011, but an activist judiciary declared the elections unconstitutional and ordered parliament dissolved in June 2012. The Brotherhood drafted and secured the passage of a new constitution by referendum in December, but those unreconciled to the reign of the Brotherhood wanted nothing to do with it.
Mohammed Morsi has the presidency, but he was defied some days ago when he ordered a curfew in the cities of Ismailia, Suez and Port Said. Thousands went into the streets to sing and dance and play soccer in the night. From afar, those with a superficial knowledge of Egypt think of it as a country willing to slip under the yoke of the Brotherhood. But Egypt is a skeptical, weary country; it wears its faith lightly, and its people have an innate suspicion of those who overdo their religious zeal.
The economy is wrecked and the government has run down its foreign reserves as it attempts to maintain a system of costly subsidies. A $4.8 billion International Monetary Fund loan was tentatively agreed on, but the government was unwilling to put through the austerity measures required by the loan. Only the remittances of Egyptians abroad, an impressive total of $19 billion in 2012, averted catastrophe. The ruling bargain that had the Egyptians give up their freedom for bread, and for the handouts of the state, still obtains. The old regime fell, but its ways endure.
Nowadays freedom is out of fashion in American official thinking, and the tumult in Arab lands serves as an alibi for abdication. But we should know that the bargain with the Arab dictatorships brought our way the jihadists. Two products of Mubarak’s Egypt must be figured into an audit of that regime: the Cairene al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and the psychopath Mohammad Atta, who led the death pilots of 9/11. It was folly and naiveté to think that we really knew and could befriend the tyrants.
Our Revolting Elites. By Ross Douthat.
Our Revolting Elites. By Ross Douthat. New York Times, September 18, 2012.
Douthat:
Were Mitt Romney’s now-famous comments at a fundraising dinner in May — in which he appeared to write off 47 percent of Americans as self-pitying freeloaders with no self-respect — a window into the elusive “real Romney” and proof that his moderate-seeming façade has always been a sham?
Who could possibly know? Romney has built his career, in business and in politics, on telling people what they want to hear in order to persuade them to let him manage their affairs. This is a man who tried to get to the left of Ted Kennedy in their 1994 Senate race and to the right of Rick Perry in 2012. The idea that he would reveal his true political beliefs to a group of people he’s trying to flatter, cajole and spook into giving him more money may be appealing to his critics, but it isn’t necessarily convincing.
What these comments definitely tell us, though, is what Mitt Romney, master consultant, feels his “clients” in the Republican donor base want to be told about this election and what will inspire them to dig deep and give freely to his cause. Assuming those instincts are correct, his comments help illuminate the way many well-off Americans feel about their less-fortunate fellow countrymen – and it isn’t a pretty thing to see.
As many people have pointed out, Romney’s comments are a right-wing echo to what was previously the most famous leak from a fundraising event: Barack Obama’s remarks in San Francisco in April 2008, when he characterized working class voters who were resistant to his charms as “bitter” people who “cling to guns or religion” and scapegoat immigrants because the economy has let them down.
In both cases, a presidential candidate was speaking about poorer people to a room full of rich people; in both cases, he was pandering to those rich people’s fearful stereotypes about a way of life that they don’t understand or share.
For rich Republicans, the stereotype is all about the money: They have it, other Americans don’t, and those resentful, entitled others might just have enough votes to wage class warfare and redistribute the donors’ hard-earned millions to the indolent and irresponsible.
For rich Democrats, the stereotype is all about the culture wars: They think they’ve built an enlightened society, liberated from archaic beliefs and antique hang-ups, and yet these Jesus freaks in flyover country are mobilizing to restore the patriarchy.
Both groups of donors seem to be haunted by dystopian scenarios in which the masses rise up and tear down everything the upper class has built. For Republicans, the dystopia is (inevitably) “Atlas Shrugged.” For liberals, it’s one part “Turner Diaries,” one part “Handmaid’s Tale.”
The way Obama and Romney employed these stereotypes are not actually equivalent. Both behind-closed-door comments were profoundly condescending, but only Romney explicitly wrote off the people he’s describing. As Slate’s William Saletan notes, Obama embedded his bitter-clingers characterization in a longer riff about why it’s important for Democrats to keep fighting for blue-collar votes. Romney’s remarks were more dismissive and therefore should prove more politically damaging: “I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives,” he said, of millions of his fellow countrymen, and left it at that.
But set aside the short-term politics for a moment. What does it say about our culture that the people funding presidential campaigns on both sides of the aisle seem to regard their downscale fellow countrymen as a kind of alien race, to be feared and condescended to in equal measure?
What does it say that rich Republicans are unable to entertain the possibility that Americans who depend on government programs during the worst recession in generations might have legitimate economic grievances?
What does it say that rich Democrats can’t fathom why working class Americans might look askance at an elite that’s presided over a long slow social breakdown and often regards their fundamental religious convictions as obstacles to progress?
What does it say that our politicians, in settings where they’re at least pretending to open up and reveal their true perspective, feel comfortable embracing the most self-serving elite stereotypes about ordinary citizens who vote for the other party?
Nothing good, I think. The current American story is one of polarization, with the two major parties sealed into their respective ideological bunkers, and stratification, with an elite that’s more isolated from the common life of the country it rules than at any time in recent history.
Both the right and left have provocative intellectual takes on how this new world came to be: Charles Murray’s “Coming Apart” and Chris Hayes’s “Twilight of the Elites,” respectively, are this year’s prime examples. But both takes are longer on description than prescription, and neither has much purchase on our politics.
However one tells the story, it’s an increasingly unhappy one. Yet on the evidence of what our leaders and would-be leaders say when we’re not supposed to be listening, there’s nobody in either party who cares enough to do anything to change it.
Douthat:
Were Mitt Romney’s now-famous comments at a fundraising dinner in May — in which he appeared to write off 47 percent of Americans as self-pitying freeloaders with no self-respect — a window into the elusive “real Romney” and proof that his moderate-seeming façade has always been a sham?
Who could possibly know? Romney has built his career, in business and in politics, on telling people what they want to hear in order to persuade them to let him manage their affairs. This is a man who tried to get to the left of Ted Kennedy in their 1994 Senate race and to the right of Rick Perry in 2012. The idea that he would reveal his true political beliefs to a group of people he’s trying to flatter, cajole and spook into giving him more money may be appealing to his critics, but it isn’t necessarily convincing.
What these comments definitely tell us, though, is what Mitt Romney, master consultant, feels his “clients” in the Republican donor base want to be told about this election and what will inspire them to dig deep and give freely to his cause. Assuming those instincts are correct, his comments help illuminate the way many well-off Americans feel about their less-fortunate fellow countrymen – and it isn’t a pretty thing to see.
As many people have pointed out, Romney’s comments are a right-wing echo to what was previously the most famous leak from a fundraising event: Barack Obama’s remarks in San Francisco in April 2008, when he characterized working class voters who were resistant to his charms as “bitter” people who “cling to guns or religion” and scapegoat immigrants because the economy has let them down.
In both cases, a presidential candidate was speaking about poorer people to a room full of rich people; in both cases, he was pandering to those rich people’s fearful stereotypes about a way of life that they don’t understand or share.
For rich Republicans, the stereotype is all about the money: They have it, other Americans don’t, and those resentful, entitled others might just have enough votes to wage class warfare and redistribute the donors’ hard-earned millions to the indolent and irresponsible.
For rich Democrats, the stereotype is all about the culture wars: They think they’ve built an enlightened society, liberated from archaic beliefs and antique hang-ups, and yet these Jesus freaks in flyover country are mobilizing to restore the patriarchy.
Both groups of donors seem to be haunted by dystopian scenarios in which the masses rise up and tear down everything the upper class has built. For Republicans, the dystopia is (inevitably) “Atlas Shrugged.” For liberals, it’s one part “Turner Diaries,” one part “Handmaid’s Tale.”
The way Obama and Romney employed these stereotypes are not actually equivalent. Both behind-closed-door comments were profoundly condescending, but only Romney explicitly wrote off the people he’s describing. As Slate’s William Saletan notes, Obama embedded his bitter-clingers characterization in a longer riff about why it’s important for Democrats to keep fighting for blue-collar votes. Romney’s remarks were more dismissive and therefore should prove more politically damaging: “I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives,” he said, of millions of his fellow countrymen, and left it at that.
But set aside the short-term politics for a moment. What does it say about our culture that the people funding presidential campaigns on both sides of the aisle seem to regard their downscale fellow countrymen as a kind of alien race, to be feared and condescended to in equal measure?
What does it say that rich Republicans are unable to entertain the possibility that Americans who depend on government programs during the worst recession in generations might have legitimate economic grievances?
What does it say that rich Democrats can’t fathom why working class Americans might look askance at an elite that’s presided over a long slow social breakdown and often regards their fundamental religious convictions as obstacles to progress?
What does it say that our politicians, in settings where they’re at least pretending to open up and reveal their true perspective, feel comfortable embracing the most self-serving elite stereotypes about ordinary citizens who vote for the other party?
Nothing good, I think. The current American story is one of polarization, with the two major parties sealed into their respective ideological bunkers, and stratification, with an elite that’s more isolated from the common life of the country it rules than at any time in recent history.
Both the right and left have provocative intellectual takes on how this new world came to be: Charles Murray’s “Coming Apart” and Chris Hayes’s “Twilight of the Elites,” respectively, are this year’s prime examples. But both takes are longer on description than prescription, and neither has much purchase on our politics.
However one tells the story, it’s an increasingly unhappy one. Yet on the evidence of what our leaders and would-be leaders say when we’re not supposed to be listening, there’s nobody in either party who cares enough to do anything to change it.
The Man Who Killed Osama bin Laden . . . Is Screwed. By Phil Bronstein.
The Man Who Killed Osama bin Laden . . . Is Screwed. By Phil Bronstein. Esquire, February 11, 2013 (March 2013 issue). Also find it here.
For the first time, the Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden tells his story — speaking not just about the raid and the three shots that changed history, but about the personal aftermath for himself and his family. And the startling failure of the United States government to help its most experienced and skilled warriors carry on with their lives.
Navy SEAL Who Says He Killed Bin Laden Speaks Out For First Time, Says Military Abandoned Him. By Meenal Vamburkar. Mediaite, February 11, 2013.
The Man Who Shot Bin Laden Breaks His Silence. By Dashiell Bennett. The Atlantic, February 11, 2013.
Hannity Interview: Phil Bronstein Reveals Details of Navy SEAL Who Killed Usama Bin Laden. Video. Hannity. Fox News Insider, February 11, 2013.
Despite Esquire Story’s Claims, the SEAL Who Shot Osama Has Access to Health Care (UPDATE). By Cord Jefferson. Gawker, February 11, 2013.
Esquire article wrongly claims SEAL who killed bin Laden is denied healthcare. By Megan McCloskey. Stars and Stripes, February 11, 2013.
The Shooter Needs Health Insurance: A Response to Stars and Stripes. By the Editors. Esquire, February 12, 2013.
The Crucial Sentences That Went Missing From Esquire’s Profile of Osama’s Shooter. By Josh Voorhees and Abby Ohlheiser. Slate, February 12, 2013.
Hero’s Dilemma Exaggerated Yet Real. By Max Boot. Commentary, February 13, 2013.
The Osama bin Laden Shooter: Behind the Story. By Phil Bronstein. Video, February 11, 2013. YouTube.
Phil Bronstein: SEAL says Navy abandoned him after he shot bin Laden. Video. Today. NBC, February 11, 2013.
For the first time, the Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden tells his story — speaking not just about the raid and the three shots that changed history, but about the personal aftermath for himself and his family. And the startling failure of the United States government to help its most experienced and skilled warriors carry on with their lives.
Navy SEAL Who Says He Killed Bin Laden Speaks Out For First Time, Says Military Abandoned Him. By Meenal Vamburkar. Mediaite, February 11, 2013.
The Man Who Shot Bin Laden Breaks His Silence. By Dashiell Bennett. The Atlantic, February 11, 2013.
Hannity Interview: Phil Bronstein Reveals Details of Navy SEAL Who Killed Usama Bin Laden. Video. Hannity. Fox News Insider, February 11, 2013.
Despite Esquire Story’s Claims, the SEAL Who Shot Osama Has Access to Health Care (UPDATE). By Cord Jefferson. Gawker, February 11, 2013.
Esquire article wrongly claims SEAL who killed bin Laden is denied healthcare. By Megan McCloskey. Stars and Stripes, February 11, 2013.
The Shooter Needs Health Insurance: A Response to Stars and Stripes. By the Editors. Esquire, February 12, 2013.
The Crucial Sentences That Went Missing From Esquire’s Profile of Osama’s Shooter. By Josh Voorhees and Abby Ohlheiser. Slate, February 12, 2013.
Hero’s Dilemma Exaggerated Yet Real. By Max Boot. Commentary, February 13, 2013.
The Osama bin Laden Shooter: Behind the Story. By Phil Bronstein. Video, February 11, 2013. YouTube.
Phil Bronstein: SEAL says Navy abandoned him after he shot bin Laden. Video. Today. NBC, February 11, 2013.
Arm the Syrian Rebels. Now. By Michael Doran and Salman Shaikh.
Arm the Syrian Rebels. Now. By Michael Doran and Salman Shaikh. Foreign Policy, February 8, 2013.
Doran and Shaikh:
It is important to remember that arming the FSA is a political act. The most important decision of all is simply to provide lethal assistance. The goal of the operation is to build a force on the ground that is more likely to respect American interests and that is committed to building a nonsectarian, stable Syria. Even the provision of light weaponry would be a good start to this project.
This policy does entail the risk of unintended consequences. Some arms may flow to al Qaeda. Some groups may take American aid and then turn against the United States. But inaction also carries risks. The current hands-off policy has hardly succeeded in preventing extremists from acquiring arms. It has simply given them time and incentive to develop their own independent sources of external support.
By establishing itself as the most important international player shaping the conflict inside Syria, the United States will lay the groundwork for helping the Syrian people forge a genuine national dialogue on the nature of their transition. This should include the creation of a national platform that brings together Syria's diverse ethnic and religious communities – including Sunnis, Shiites, Alawis, Christians, and Kurds, as well as tribal and religious figures – to discuss the future of the country. In particular, it should include Alawis who enjoy wide legitimacy within their community, but who are also willing to talk about a post-Assad Syrian regime.
Doran and Shaikh:
It is important to remember that arming the FSA is a political act. The most important decision of all is simply to provide lethal assistance. The goal of the operation is to build a force on the ground that is more likely to respect American interests and that is committed to building a nonsectarian, stable Syria. Even the provision of light weaponry would be a good start to this project.
This policy does entail the risk of unintended consequences. Some arms may flow to al Qaeda. Some groups may take American aid and then turn against the United States. But inaction also carries risks. The current hands-off policy has hardly succeeded in preventing extremists from acquiring arms. It has simply given them time and incentive to develop their own independent sources of external support.
By establishing itself as the most important international player shaping the conflict inside Syria, the United States will lay the groundwork for helping the Syrian people forge a genuine national dialogue on the nature of their transition. This should include the creation of a national platform that brings together Syria's diverse ethnic and religious communities – including Sunnis, Shiites, Alawis, Christians, and Kurds, as well as tribal and religious figures – to discuss the future of the country. In particular, it should include Alawis who enjoy wide legitimacy within their community, but who are also willing to talk about a post-Assad Syrian regime.
What the Bloody Hell Is Wrong with You Americans? By Alex Massie.
What the Bloody Hell Is Wrong with You Americans? By Alex Massie. Foreign Policy, December 4, 2012.
Massie:
There is no novelty in observing that much of American culture thirsts for dynasties and aristocracy to an extent and with a prominence that is sometimes hard to find in the United Kingdom. To cite Mark Twain again: “We have to be despised by somebody whom we regard as above us or we are not happy; we have to have somebody to worship and envy or we cannot be content. In America we manifest this in all the ancient and customary ways. In public we scoff at titles and hereditary privilege but privately we hanker after them, and when we get a chance we buy them for cash and a daughter.”
Can anyone who has spent any time in Washington doubt the abundant good sense of this? To say nothing of the celebrity of royalty, the drawbacks of an elected head of state have long since become apparent. The imperial presidency has been a sorry fact of the American existence for decades now. How can it be otherwise when the mere mortal elected to the presidency is treated – at least in terms of the expectations with which the office is lumbered – as some kind of priest-king?
Not that it ends there in Washington. Congress has become a family business in which promotion is based on genes more than ability. The British House of Lords may be an anachronism, but at least it recognizes inherited power as, well, an anachronism. From the Kennedys to the Pauls via the Udalls, the Murkowskis, the Jacksons, and many others, political privilege in modern America often seems to have become a matter of inheritance.
More broadly, the elites are, in some respect, more completely isolated from the American mainstream than at any point in the nation’s history. Witness, for example, the widespread sense on Wall Street that President Barack Obama was implacably hostile to America's super-rich. Witness too how much more ink is spilled debating affirmative action than contemplating legacy admissions to America’s greatest universities. Anything that inconveniences the elite is, apparently, “class warfare” (albeit of a kind real class warriors might struggle to recognize).
The divide between the privileged and the rest has become disturbingly wide. Whatever its other strengths, the rise of the “meritocracy” also fosters the writing of rules and norms that sustain and protect those already happily advantaged. It is a form of regulatory capture that, amid much else, downplays the impact of dumb or otherwise unearned luck. As writers such as Ross Douthat and David Brooks have argued, if elites convince themselves their advantages are the product of nothing more than hard work, one might not expect them to be animated by an excess of old-fashioned, aristocratic noblesse oblige.
One need not be a hardcore leftist to sometimes wonder if the fascination for foreign royalty (and other, lesser, homegrown celebrities such as the Kardashians) is a means by which the common people may be distracted from recognizing the reality of their own, depressingly humdrum lives. Never mind any of that, look, there's a new and shiny royal baby on the way!
Massie:
There is no novelty in observing that much of American culture thirsts for dynasties and aristocracy to an extent and with a prominence that is sometimes hard to find in the United Kingdom. To cite Mark Twain again: “We have to be despised by somebody whom we regard as above us or we are not happy; we have to have somebody to worship and envy or we cannot be content. In America we manifest this in all the ancient and customary ways. In public we scoff at titles and hereditary privilege but privately we hanker after them, and when we get a chance we buy them for cash and a daughter.”
Can anyone who has spent any time in Washington doubt the abundant good sense of this? To say nothing of the celebrity of royalty, the drawbacks of an elected head of state have long since become apparent. The imperial presidency has been a sorry fact of the American existence for decades now. How can it be otherwise when the mere mortal elected to the presidency is treated – at least in terms of the expectations with which the office is lumbered – as some kind of priest-king?
Not that it ends there in Washington. Congress has become a family business in which promotion is based on genes more than ability. The British House of Lords may be an anachronism, but at least it recognizes inherited power as, well, an anachronism. From the Kennedys to the Pauls via the Udalls, the Murkowskis, the Jacksons, and many others, political privilege in modern America often seems to have become a matter of inheritance.
More broadly, the elites are, in some respect, more completely isolated from the American mainstream than at any point in the nation’s history. Witness, for example, the widespread sense on Wall Street that President Barack Obama was implacably hostile to America's super-rich. Witness too how much more ink is spilled debating affirmative action than contemplating legacy admissions to America’s greatest universities. Anything that inconveniences the elite is, apparently, “class warfare” (albeit of a kind real class warriors might struggle to recognize).
The divide between the privileged and the rest has become disturbingly wide. Whatever its other strengths, the rise of the “meritocracy” also fosters the writing of rules and norms that sustain and protect those already happily advantaged. It is a form of regulatory capture that, amid much else, downplays the impact of dumb or otherwise unearned luck. As writers such as Ross Douthat and David Brooks have argued, if elites convince themselves their advantages are the product of nothing more than hard work, one might not expect them to be animated by an excess of old-fashioned, aristocratic noblesse oblige.
One need not be a hardcore leftist to sometimes wonder if the fascination for foreign royalty (and other, lesser, homegrown celebrities such as the Kardashians) is a means by which the common people may be distracted from recognizing the reality of their own, depressingly humdrum lives. Never mind any of that, look, there's a new and shiny royal baby on the way!
The Muslim Brotherhood Is Worse Than Mubarak. By Hani Shukrallah.
Revolution, Interrupted. By Hani Shukrallah. Foreign Policy, February 8, 2013.
There’s a reason Egyptians keep taking to the streets: The Muslim Brotherhood has proved to be little more than the old Mubarak clique with beards.
More on Morsi and Egypt, here, here, and here.
There’s a reason Egyptians keep taking to the streets: The Muslim Brotherhood has proved to be little more than the old Mubarak clique with beards.
More on Morsi and Egypt, here, here, and here.
Judge Jeanine Pirro: Banning Weapons to Prevent Crime Doesn’t Work.
Judge Jeanine: Banning weapons to prevent crime doesn’t work. Video. Justice with Judge Jeanine. Fox News, February 3, 2013. Also find it here.
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