Searching for a silver lining

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/
14670995.htm

By FRIDA GHITIS

While Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert discussed his ''convergence'' plan with President Bush in Washington, and Palestinian gunmen from competing factions fired their weapons at each other in the Gaza strip, an intelligent Dutch observer of international events told me, as part of a torrent of criticism of American policy, ``The mess in the Middle East will take many years to undo.''

That conclusion hardly merits stopping the presses, but let's pause for a moment, anyway, and consider the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Just how far have the prospects for a peaceful settlement retreated over recent months and years? After all, that desert land with only an occasional cloud has a way of concealing its silver linings far in the horizon.

When Palestinians went to the polls in January, it seemed like a hopeful step. Then results brought deep disappointment to the peace camp on both sides. The democratic ideal appeared to have backfired, as Palestinians elected Hamas to lead their government. When it comes to making peace, Hamas says exactly where it stands. According to its charter: ''Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.'' And just in case this leaves any room for confusion it adds, ``Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time.''

On the Israeli side, a new prime minister has just taken office promising to unilaterally draw the borders of Israel. His plan is to uproot most settlements from the West Bank, as his predecessor Ariel Sharon did in Gaza, but with one major difference. He plans to keep the country's three major settlements, and even add to them some of the population of the smaller ones.

The plan has drawn bitter criticism from all sides. How can Israel set its borders without negotiating with Palestinians, cries one group. Another argues that Israel will make itself less secure by leaving the West Bank open to the chaos that now engulfs Gaza.

The internecine fighting in Gaza, if you listen to the European perspective, is largely the fault of Israel and America. Palestinian tensions, this argument goes, are boiling over directly as a result of the pressure from the unfair cutoff of aid by the West, which has left more than 160,000 employees of the Palestinian Authority without a paycheck since March. Among those employees are thousands of armed men, angrily walking the streets of Gaza with Kalashnikovs slung over their shoulders. The rifles inevitably come off the shoulders.

No silver linings so far.

But consider this: A survey by Near East Consulting showed that 69 percent of Palestinians support a peace agreement with Israel. That stands in sharp contrast to the Hamas vow to never surrender its stated goals. More than 65 percent of Palestinians said that Hamas should not maintain its position on the elimination of Israel.

On the Israeli side, 62 percent of the people in a survey by the British-Israeli BICOM organization said they believe that a majority on both sides holds moderate views but extremist minorities are blocking a solution.

Democracy has not had a chance to take root on the Palestinian side. For now, the rule of the gun carries more sway than the views of the common people. If that changes, however, and if the authorities truly listen to the will of the majority, the government's priorities will look very different. When asked what the priorities of Hamas should be, only 3.3 percent said, ''fighting the occupation.'' Another 3 percent said, ''implementing Islamic law.'' Those two are at the top of Hamas' agenda. The top concerns of the people are ending the chaos and creating jobs.

The fighting between Hamas and Fatah may prove to be nothing more than a dispute over the spoils of power. But it could be much more. Palestinians need to decide what their priorities are. Deciding to accept the existence of Israel is no easy matter, and it may well take Palestinian-on-Palestinian fighting to reach a national decision.

Israelis, too, had to fight each other to make some tough decisions in their history. If Palestinians genuinely decide to negotiate and abandon their dream of destroying Israel, Israeli majorities will force their leaders to make equally tough decisions.

Sure, it may take years to undo the mess in the Middle East. But history slowly laid the crucial groundwork of public opinion. We know what the people want, and the people really are ready to live side by side in peace.

Now, doesn't that merit stopping the presses?

The Globalist: The Dutch PR Problem

http://www.theglobalist.com/storyid.aspx?StoryId=5337

SQUINT through the thick clouds of smoke in Amsterdam’s Café de Jaaren and you can almost see the anguish floating over the newspaper-strewn tables.

With their foreheads resting heavily on their hands, Amsterdammers are gravely reading the latest news about the Ayaan Hirsi Ali affair.


Hirsi Ali is the controversial Somali immigrant who became a fierce critic of Islam’s treatment of women — and of Europe’s acceptance of repressive and intolerant Islamic traditions in their midst.

Resignation

She became a member of parliament, endured continuous death threats and lived in hiding. Then, last week, she resigned her seat in parliament after the Dutch immigration minister, Rita Verdonk, declared her citizenship invalid.

A television program had brought attention to lies in Hirsi Ali’s asylum application. She had already confessed to those lies years earlier, saying she was trying desperately to flee an arranged marriage.

Citizenship ruling

The citizenship ruling may now be reversed — both Parliament and the Prime Minister ordered Verdonk to find a way for Hirsi Ali to remain Dutch. Even so, she is now moving to Washington, where she is sure to become a superstar.

The latest news for readers in the café comes from the always-bland Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, who somehow managed to keep a low profile while the nation simmered.

Balkenende has now spoken: He is worried, very worried, he says, about the harm to the Netherlands’ image caused by the Hirsi Ali affair.

Dutch intolerance

Newspapers all over the world have carried editorials mercilessly skewering this manifestation of Dutch intolerance. The time for action has come.

Dutch ambassadors around the world have now been ordered to get to work at counteracting this alarming assault on the traditional Dutch standing as international paragon of all that is good and tolerant.

Avoiding conflict?

Holland has long basked in its self-image as a bastion of tolerance, and it has done an impressive job of spreading that image around the world.

Sure, the Netherlands is the land of gay marriage and legal prostitution and coffee shops listing varieties of marijuana on their menus. But the truth about this country is that, above all, it is a nation that cannot handle conflict.

If people want to smoke a little pot, why fight them? If gay couples want to get married, it’s their lives. If the Nazis want to deport a few thousand Jews, who are we to stand in their way?

Little more than a fantasy

Instead of worrying about the national image, Balkenende would do well to look into the national spine. Dutch values appear to be hiding inside a self-image that is little more than fantasy — a fantasy the world has accepted without challenge.

Consider the story of Anne Frank. The Dutch have somehow managed to shine in the warm glow of the Anne Frank story. A line of visitors permanently snakes around the corner from the house on the Prinzengracht where the young Jewish diarist, a refugee from Germany, hid from the Nazis.

Most visitors think of the Dutch as her saviors. But they forget the end of the story. Anne Frank, like more than seventy percent of the country’s Jews — the greatest percentage in Western Europe — was sent to her death, betrayed by her neighbors.

Seven guilder

The Dutch, who still see their WWII history through as a heroic fantasy of resistance, did in fact resist in small numbers. But they also provided Western Europe's largest contingent of volunteers to the Waffen SS.

The Dutch have not proven particularly brave at standing up for their principles or defending anything or anyone who made them uncomfortable.

When the news surfaced that the Dutch government was stripping Hirsi Ali of her citizenship, turning her into a stateless refugee, my Dutch friend, an adult child of Holocaust survivors, told me, her voice cracking with anger, “Nothing has changed from when they would turn in a Jew for seven guilders.”

Submission

If you think it’s a stretch to conflate the Hirsi Ali saga with the Holocaust ponder for a moment the unspeakably selfish and cowardly behavior of Hirsi Ali’s neighbors.

In 2004, the short film “Submission” was aired on Dutch television. The film, written by Hirsi Ali and directed by Theo van Gogh, was an attack on Islam’s treatment of women. Nothing ignites Hirsi Ali’s passions more.

Dangerous protest

Having herself endured genital mutilation and a forced marriage, she cries out that practices such as these must be stopped, particularly in the West.

The Dutch, who still see their WW II history through as a heroic fantasy of resistance, in fact resisted in small numbers.

The film also ignited her enemies, who promptly assassinated van Gogh, pinning to his body a note warning that Hirsi Ali was next on the assassination list.

The authorities knew the threat was real. She went into hiding, moving constantly and growing miserable in the process. Finally, she found a place in the Hague, where she said she was finally happy, despite having to share the apartment with security personnel and having no personal life.

Eroding property values

Her neighbors protested, saying the presence of a threatened woman eroded their property values. Besides, they argued, they felt unsafe living near her.

After all, someone wanted to kill Hirsi Ali. They felt endangered and inconvenienced. The neighbors went to court and a Dutch judge agreed with them, ordering Hirsi Ali to vacate her home in four months.

The entire nation felt endangered and inconvenienced by Hirsi Ali. That’s why she has to leave. She stood up for the principles of an open, secular, liberal democratic society when other members of that society refused to face them. Then they blamed her for the threat.

Prophetic cartoons

When Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad sparked riots, the media outlets, as most others around the world, decided not to publish the cartoons.

She disagreed. “The cartoons should be displayed everywhere,” she argued. Muslim radicals, she said, constantly say Christians and Jews are inferior. They demean and attack women, gays, and other religions. Then they demand reverence for their beliefs.

The West, she said, must stop turning the other cheek. Hirsi Ali insists that we must “defend the right to offend.” That approach is exactly the opposite of the preferred way of doing business in the Netherlands.

Path of least resistance

Here, the path of least resistance is one of going along, risking as little as possible, not making a lot of waves. Immediately after the announcement that she would lose her citizenship, a poll found 80% approval for the decision.

When the decision raised international criticism, the number dropped to about 50%.The Dutch hold many easy, uncontroversially high-minded ideals and courage-free convictions.

They like to send cash to the poor and help feed the hungry. But they hate conflict. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a 21st century example of the cold hearts and cartilaginous spine that sent more than 70% of Dutch Jews to their deaths in the 20th century.

Holland’s problem is not one of public relations. It is one of nerve, spine and, most of all, heart.

MiamiHerald.com | 05/01/2006 | Bin Laden, al Qaeda losing support in Muslim world

MiamiHerald.com | 05/01/2006 | Bin Laden, al Qaeda losing support in Muslim world

It looks like campaign season is in full swing in the heart of the terrorist world. In just the last two weeks we have heard from Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab al Zarqawi and Ayman al Zawahri. Maybe it's election year. Maybe al Qaeda is about to hold primaries, and the ads filling the airwaves come from the candidates with the best fundraising machines, while the other candidates are working on their yard signs, roadside bombs and suicide belts.

Al Qaeda is going through a leadership crisis, and the tapes play a part in a furious political campaign. The tapes all carry the old standards about the evil crusaders. The wicked Zionists and even a Hindu-Zionist-Crusader alliance for a new geopolitical twist. But beneath the jihadist rhetoric, there are ''vote for me'' slogans playing in the background.

For years we've heard from the Bush administration claims that al Qaeda is ''on the run,'' because we're ''smoking them out'' and they're ''desperate.'' Despite being on the run, smoked out and desperate, they have continued blowing themselves up, along with hundreds of children, mothers, fathers and other assorted innocent civilians.

Slaughtering civilians may pass for success in the world of terrorists, whose peculiar theology holds that God rewards those who inflict suffering on the living. Success by the terrorists, however, started turning Muslims against al Qaeda very soon after September 11.

If al Qaeda played by democratic rules, Osama bin Laden would have been elected leader of the Muslim world on September 12. In my travels through Muslim areas in the first couple of years after 9/11, I saw bazaars filled with bin Laden T-shirts and heard Muslims, young and old, rich and poor, speak admiringly of the man. Al Qaeda, however, has not done a good job of holding on to its popularity.

Jihadist attacks against civilians in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Indonesia, Jordan and, of course, Iraq, left a trail of heartbreak through the Muslim world and started turning Muslims everywhere against the group and its leader. A 2005 survey by the Pew organization showed support for terrorism and for bin Laden dropping precipitously among Muslims from the levels recorded in 2003. In some countries, bin Laden still held sway, but almost everywhere Pew looked it found support for bin Laden and his methods sliding steadily.

Terrorists, obviously, don't rule by democratic mandate. And even if their popularity ratings reach sub-Bush levels, they can still inflict much harm. Terrorist recruiters do extremely well in certain demographics, notably among psychopaths. That helps boost the blood flow, but it turns away popular support. And global jihad does require some degree of popular support. That's where Zarqawi and bin Laden have their problems.

When Zarqawi, one of the top recruits from the psychopath demo, started videotaping himself hacking the heads off his hostages, al Qaeda's popularity in Iraq began declining. Jihadists had hoped Iraq would become the epicenter of their new caliphate. But Zarqawi's tactics turned the Iraqi people fiercely against him and his movement. Bin Laden's deputy, al Zawahri, told Zarqawi to cool it in Iraq. And Zawahri was very possibly demoted.

Word began to spread that Zawahri had lost the leadership of al Qaeda in Iraq. A tape from al Zawahri, released on April 13, has the Egyptian doctor praising the ''beloved brother'' in Iraq; a clear political endorsement. But then came word from bin Laden, who has become so quiet lately that many wonder how much he even matters any more.

Bin Laden knows that his broad popular support comes from portraying the struggle as one against the West. The self-anointed defender of downtrodden Muslims spoke against international efforts to stop the genocide of Muslims in Darfur. An international force to stop the killing, he said absurdly, would constitute an assault on Islam; anything to stoke the party base and fire up the masses against the West.

But the Muslim masses are beyond getting fired up by al Qaeda. Bin Laden ''praised'' Zarqawi for taking a lower profile in Iraq. That sounds like a serious demotion for the man who aspires to succeed bin Laden as the next leader of the movement for a new caliphate.

Campaign season is on. The polls show overall support for al Qaeda dropping. But, as in every primary, the key vote comes from the party base. Even with low poll numbers, these committed activists can -- and will -- set off deadly fireworks.