1.Tablet (http://www.tabletmag.com)
Mearsheimer Says Hitler Never Used Chemical Weapons
Controversial academic forgets his history―and the Nazi genocide―on PBS, 29 August 2013
by Yair Rosenberg
Yesterday, University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer joined PBS Newshour to argue against military intervention in Syria. The political scientist is rather infamous in some circles for perceived dabbling in anti-Jewish discourse. He co-authored the controversial book The Israel Lobby & U.S. Foreign Policy, which argues that a mostly Jewish collective exercises massive malign influence on the American government. He’s drawn up lists of “righteous Jews” and not-so-righteous Jews, in rhetoric disturbingly reminiscent of anti-Semites Father Coughlin and Charles Lindbergh. And he glowingly blurbed a vicious book which calls American Jews “the enemy within,” questions the Holocaust, and claims that “robbery and hatred is imbued in Jewish modern political ideology on both the left and the right.”
The book and its author were so toxic that Mearsheimer’s approbation prompted harsh condemnation even from Andrew Sullivan, a staunch supporter of his criticisms of Israel and its lobby, who called it an endorsement of “poisonous, wounding hate.” Given this track record of insensitivity bordering on bigotry, it is sadly unsurprising that when the PBS conversation on Syria yesterday turned to the historical use of chemical weapons, Mearsheimer completely forgot about the Nazi genocide of the Jews. Here’s what he said:
I would like to point out that all of this discourse about chemical weapons being so special is, I think, wrong. I think it’s, again, regrettable that chemical weapons have been used. But chemical weapons are not weapons of mass destruction, like nuclear weapons are. The reason that chemical weapons were not used in World War II wasn’t because someone like Adolf Hitler was above using them for moral reasons.
They weren’t used because they have very little military utility. Anybody who has been in the Army knows that chemical weapons just don’t buy you much on the battlefield… I ask you, what’s the difference between killing somebody with shrapnel or bullets vs. killing them with chemical weapons? I don’t see any meaningful difference…
[T]he idea that chemical weapons have suddenly changed the nature of the game and therefore we should get involved now, I think, is a specious argument.
Astute readers will have spotted a slight problem here: if Adolf Hitler abstained from deploying chemical weapons during World War II, how did he manage to gas hundreds of thousands of Jews in concentration camps? Mearsheimer would likely retort that he meant to refer only to military operations, but why does this distinction make any difference? Are chemical weapons only notable when employed on the battlefield instead of against scores of innocents? And shouldn’t the gas chambers at least merit a passing mention, if only to exclude them from the argument? (Especially given how a prominent academic omitting them could easily fan the flames of Holocaust deniers.)
Of course, even if we charitably restrict the professor’s statement to military campaigns, he is wrong on the facts. As the multi-volume Oxford University Press history of Germany’s conduct in World War II documents, the Nazis used chemical weapons against the Soviets on the Kerch peninsula, and had a thriving program for producing such armaments, for which Hitler had “great hopes.” Though the Germans didn’t end up developing many of these weapons, it was not for lack of trying.
But even if we disregard these uncooperative facts, Mearsheimer’s argument that chemical weapons are not uniquely pernicious refutes itself. He is entirely correct that in many circumstances such weapons have “little military utility” and “just don’t buy you much on the battlefield.” But this is precisely why they are so awful: their purpose is not to achieve any legitimate on-the-ground objective, but to cause pain and suffering. Not simply to kill, but to terrorize. Which is why the civilized world responds with such horror and revulsion when they are deployed indiscriminately against civilians.
Now, just because Bashar Assad has made the situation in Syria worse doesn’t mean that we can make it better. So personally, I’m not sold on either side of the Syrian intervention debate yet. But I am fully convinced that Mearsheimer’s argument is one of the most ill-informed, insensitive, and incoherent put forward in that conversation.
2.Palestinian Media Watch (http://palwatch.org)
PA promotes religious hatred against Jews
"Those who planned the burning of Al-Aqsa
were senior Jews of high position"
PA Minister: Al-Aqsa was burnt "by criminal hands...
in collusion with the criminal occupation"
Israeli Arab MP: "Israel set fire to Al-Aqsa"
by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik
In 1969 a non-Jewish Australian started a fire in the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. He was arrested and tried in Israel. The Israeli court found him to be mentally ill and ordered him hospitalized. He was later sent back to Australia.
As part of its promotion of religious hatred against Jews, the Palestinian Authority disseminates the libel that Israel and Jews were behind the 1969 arson. Since the Al-Aqsa Mosque is an important holy site for Muslims, accusing "senior Jews of high position" of trying to destroy it is clearly an attempt by the PA to promote religious hatred against Jews. This particular accusation appeared in a documentary film about the arson, and was shown at an event under the auspices of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
Palestinian Media Watch has documented that this libel has been propagated by the PA for years.
Joining the PA in spreading the libel this year:
• The Muslim Israeli Arab MP Ibrahim Sarsur, who told a Palestinian news service that he "demands" an annual Muslim commemoration of the day that "Israel set fire to Al-Aqsa."
• The PA Minister of Religious Affairs, who stated that the Al-Aqsa Mosque "was set on fire 44 years ago by criminal hands... in collusion with the criminal occupation."
• The Palestinian National Council (PNC), the legislative body of the PLO, which referred to "the crime committed by the occupation in setting fire to [the] Al-Aqsa [Mosque]."
• The official PA daily, which accused "Israeli authorities" of the arson and of attempting "to the present day... to harm the Al-Aqsa Mosque."
• Official PA TV, which claimed that "one of the Jews set fire to the Al-Aqsa Mosque so that it would go up in flames."
(See longer excerpts and sources below.)
Using events at the Al-Aqsa Mosque to promote religious hatred has been an effective PA weapon in the past. In September 2000, Yasser Arafat sparked the five year PA terror campaign (the second Intifada) by claiming that then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount was an affront to Islam that desecrated the Mosque. Through video clips and sermons, the PA's controlled media sent out a call to respond with terror and violence. That violence lasted five years and left over 5,000 Palestinians and Israelis dead. The PA named the terror campaign the "Al-Aqsa Intifada" because the killing of 1,200 Israelis and Jews, primarily in suicide bombings, was said to be the response for the defilement of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
For this reason, the ongoing libel that "senior Jews of high position" were behind the 1969 arson and the claim that Israel plans to destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque are dangerous accusations.
The following are longer excerpts of the PA media reports repeating the libel:
PA Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash: "Where is the Al-Aqsa Mosque? ... It is lost. It was set on fire 44 years ago by criminal hands, in the shadow of a criminal occupation, and acting in collusion with the criminal occupation."
[Official PA TV, Aug. 23, 2013]
Documentary narrator: "From investigations conducted by the Islamic Council it became clear that there was more than one perpetrator [of the Al-Aqsa Mosque arson in 1969] and that the fire was planned by senior Jews of high position, and that the fire was planned by senior Jews of high position, especially since the roof can only be reached from a wooden spiral staircase located outside the Al-Aqsa building. This proves that careful, premeditated measures were taken to completely destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The proof is that the occupation authorities were slow to extinguish [the fire] and that the water supply to the Sanctuary (i.e., the Temple Mount) had been cut off during those hours."
[Official PA TV Live, Aug. 21, 2013]
"Head of the Islamic Movement [and Israeli MP for the United Arab List], Sheikh Ibrahim Sarsur has demanded that the day on which the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque was set on fire, every year on Aug. 21, be declared a global day for aiding the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
He said: 'The time has come for Muslims, free people and those who desire peace and stability in the world to take a brave step forward in the project of the liberation of Jerusalem and the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, by announcing the day Israel set fire to Al-Aqsa as a global day of supporting the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque. This would mean announcing an entire project for rescuing it from the Israeli occupation and its crimes.'
He added: '...Several people lit this ominous fire, not only Michael Denis Rohan who was exposed and arrested and said to hold Australian citizenship. Since that day, he has disappeared without a trace and the case was closed in order to hide the facts. He was claimed to be deranged, since the plots against the Al-Aqsa Mosque come one after the other since that day and to the present day.'"
[Ma'an (Palestinian news agency), Aug. 21, 2013]
"The Palestinian National Council (PNC, i.e., the legislative body of the PLO) warned of the consequences of the continuation of the Judaization of Arab-Palestinian Jerusalem by the occupation's authorities.
In an announcement [published] today, Tuesday, on the occasion of the 44th anniversary of the crime committed by the occupation in setting fire to [the] Al-Aqsa [Mosque], the [Palestinian] National Council emphasized that every day, the occupation continues the crime of setting fire to Al-Aqsa and to Jerusalem, capital of the State of Palestine, by continuing the settlement, the Judaization and the expulsion of its residents.
The Council emphasized that the occupation is determined to ignite flames on Palestinian land specifically, and in the region in general and to destroy any chance of peace."
[WAFA (the official Palestinian Authority news agency), Aug. 20, 2013]
"Today, Wednesday, Aug. 21, is the 44th anniversary of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque fire of 1969, after the radical Jew Michael Denis [Rohan] set fire to the Mosque... Israel arrested the criminal and the Israeli authorities transferred him to a psychiatric hospital... after a short period of time he was deported to Australia. At the time he said that he did what he did 'according to divine instruction'... Prior to setting fire to Al-Aqsa and to the present day, the Israeli authorities have attempted in various ways and [by various] means to harm the Al-Aqsa Mosque by continuing excavations beneath it and building interconnecting tunnels. This has led to the destruction of the Mosque's foundations at the Sanctuary of Jerusalem (i.e., the Temple Mount). The Israeli authorities still attempt to Judaize Arab Jerusalem and constantly try to hide [from view] the Dome of the Rock, a symbol of Arab Jerusalem in the eyes of the world, in a pathetic attempt to convince the world that Jerusalem is not Arab but Jewish. Likewise, they continue to incite against Muslims, and no one has ruled out the possibility that another 'deranged' Jew will set the Mosque on fire again."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 21, 2013]
PA TV program Houses of God showed footage of a fire in the Al-Aqsa Mosque:
PA TV narrator: "On August 21, 1969 AD, after East Jerusalem was occupied, one of the Jews set fire to the Al-Aqsa Mosque so that it would go up in flames. The fire completely destroyed its wooden platform, ornaments and southern sections."
[Official PA TV, Aug. 21 and June 28, 2013]
Sheikh Ishaq Feleifel, regular columnist in the religion section of the official PA daily, also repeated the false statement that a Jew set fire to the Mosque in 1969:
"The 21st of Ramadan is the day that saddens the heart of every Muslim and that is the anniversary of the day the Al-Aqsa Mosque was set on fire by a Jew who was accused of insanity."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 2, 2013]
3.Gloria Center (http://www.gloria-center.org)
The Truth About Syria, 26 August 2013
by Barry Rubin
If you are interested in reading more about Syria, you’re welcome to read my book The Truth About Syria online or download it for free
WHY SYRIA MATTERS
“It is my pleasure to meet with you in the new Middle East,” said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a speech to the Syrian Journalists’ Union on August 15, 2006.1 But Bashar’s new Middle East was neither the one hoped for by many since Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s 1991 defeat in Kuwait nor expected when Bashar himself ascended the throne in 2000. Actually, it was not even new at all but rather a reversion, often in remarkable detail, to the Middle East of the 1950s through the 1980s. The Arab world, now accompanied by Iran, was re-embracing an era that was an unmitigated disaster for itself and extolling ideas and strategies which had repeatedly led it to catastrophe.
No Arab state had more to do with this important and tragic turnabout than does Syria, this development’s main architect and beneficiary. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other Arab states wanted quiet; Iraq needed peace to rebuild itself. Even Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi, pressed by sanctions and scared by his Iraqi counterpart Saddam’s fate, was on his good behavior. Only Syria remained as a source of instability and radicalism.
Thus, a small state with a modest economy became the fulcrum on which the Middle East shifted and which, in turn, shook the globe. Indeed, Bashar’s version of the new Middle East may well persist for an entire generation. Does this make Bashar a fool or a genius? That cannot be determined directly. What can be said is that his policy is good for the regime, simultaneously brilliant and disastrous for Syria, and just plain disastrous for many others.
To understand Syria’s special feature, it is best to heed the all-important insight of a Lebanese-American scholar, Fouad Ajami: “Syria’s main asset, in contrast to Egypt’s preeminence and Saudi wealth, is its capacity for mischief.”2
In the final analysis, the aforementioned mischief was in the service of regime maintenance, the all-encompassing cause and goal of the Syrian government’s behavior. Demagoguery, not the delivery of material benefits, is the basis of its power.
Why have those who govern Syria followed such a pattern for more than six decades under almost a dozen different regimes? The answer: Precisely because the country is a weak one in many respects. Aside from lacking Egypt’s power and Saudi Arabia’s money, it also falls short on internal coherence due to its diverse population and minority-dominated regime. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein used repression, ideology, and foreign adventures to hold together a system dominated by Sunni Arab Muslims who were only one-fifth of the population. In Syria, even more intense measures were needed to sustain an Alawite regime that rules based on a community only half as large proportionately.
To survive, then, the regime needs transcendent slogans and passionate external conflicts that help make its problems disappear. Arabism and, in more recent years, Islamism, are its solution. In this light, Syria’s rulers can claim to be not a rather inept, corrupt dictatorship but the rightful leaders of all Arabs and the champions of all Muslims. Their battle cries are very effectively used to justify oppression at home and aggression abroad. No other country in the world throws around the word “imperialism” more in describing foreign adversaries, and yet no other state on the globe follows a more classical imperialist policy. In broad terms, this approach is followed by most, if not all, Arab governments, but Syria offers the purest example of the system. As for the consequences, two basic principles are useful to keep in mind:2
1. It often seemed as if the worse Syria behaved, the better its regime does. Syrian leaders do not accept the Western view that moderation, compromise, an open economy, and peace are always better. When Syria acts radical, up to a point of course, it maximizes its main asset―causing trouble―which cancels out all its other weaknesses. As a dictatorship, militancy provided an excuse for tight controls and domestic popularity through its demagoguery.
2. Success for the regime and state means disaster for the people, society, and economy. The regime prospers by keeping Syrians believing that the battle against America and Israel, not freedom and prosperity, should be their top priority. External threats are used to justify internal repression. The state’s control over the economy means lower living standards for most while simultaneously preserving a rich ruling elite with lots of money to give to its supporters. Imprisoning or intimidating liberal critics means domestic stability but without human rights.
Nevertheless, the regime survived, its foreign maneuvers worked well much of the time, and Syrian control over Lebanon was a money-maker as well as a source of regional influence. But what did all of this avail Syria compared to what an emphasis on peace and development might have achieved? Thus, this pattern might be called one of brilliantly successful disasters. The policy works in the sense that the regime survives and the public perceives it as successful. But objectively the society and economy are damaged, freedom is restricted, and resources are wasted. Unfortunately, this type of thing is thoroughly typical of Arab politics.
Syria, then, is both a most revealing test case for the failure of change in Middle East politics and a key actor―though there is plenty of blame to go around―in making things go so wrong for the Arab world. If Damascus had moved from the radical to the moderate camp during the 1990s or under Bashar’s guidance, it would have decisively shifted the balance to a breakthrough toward a more peaceful and progressing Middle East. Syria’s participation in the Gulf war coalition of 1991, readiness to negotiate with Israel, severe economic and social stagnation, and strategic vulnerability, all topped off by the coming to power of a new generation of leadership, provoked expectations that it would undergo dramatic change.
It was a Western, not an Arab, idea that the populace’s desperation at their countries’ difficult plight would make Hafiz al-Assad, Syria’s president between 1971 and his death in 2000―and Saddam, PLO leader Yasir Arafat, and other Arab or Iran’s leaders, too―move toward concessions and moderation. But the rulers themselves reasoned in the exact opposite way: faced with pressure to change they became more demanding.
Often, at least up to a point, this strategy worked as the West offered Syria more concessions in an attempt to encourage reforms, ensure profitable trade, buy peace, and buy off terrorism. Of course, they were acting in their own interests but what is most important is that these included solving the issues which had caused conflict, building understanding and confidence, and proving their good intentions toward the peoples of the Middle East.
Yet to the dictatorial regimes this behavior seemed not the result of generosity or proffered friendship but rather from Western fear of their power and an imperialist desire to control the Arabs and Muslims. Frequently, too, it is seen as a tribute to their superior tactics which fool or outmaneuver their adversaries. This perception encouraged continued intransigence in hope of reaping still more benefits. Eventually, this process destroyed any possibility of moderation, though not always Western illusions.
・Prof. Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist for PajamasMedia at http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/. 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)
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