The West, it seems, has lost interest in the crimes of Communist Russia now that the Cold War is over. But documents from a smuggled Soviet archive throw light not only on the past but also on the present.

Claire Berlinski  has been examining them. She writes in City Journal:

These documents … were available to anyone who wanted to consult them. But nobody did. Publishers were indifferent. Only a fraction of the documents had been translated into English. This was, I argued, a symptom of the world’s dangerous indifference to the enormity of Communist crimes.

One thing that the documents make clear is that the Soviet Union sponsored terrorism in the Middle East. Those who tried to convey this information during the Cold War to governments, politicians, foreign ministries, the media and academics, were met for the most part with a refusal even to entertain the possibility.  (I was one who tried and came up against a wall of denial – JB.]

It is one thing to know abstractly … that the Soviets sponsored terrorism in the Middle East. It is another to read a newly translated memorandum from longtime KGB head Yuri Andropov to Communist Party general secretary Leonid Brezhnev requesting authorization to fund a detailed plan by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) to kill civilians around the world:

In a confidential conversation at a meeting with the KGB resident in Lebanon in April this year, [PFLP official] Wadia Haddad outlined a prospective program of sabotage and terrorism by the PLFP [sic]. . . . The PLFP is currently preparing a number of special operations, including strikes against large oil storage installations in various countries, . . . the destruction of oil tankers and super-tankers, actions against American and Israeli representatives in Iran, Greece, Ethiopia, Kenya, an attack on the Diamond center in Tel Aviv, etc. . . . We feel it would be feasible, at the next meeting, to give a generally favorable response to Wadia Haddad’s request. …

The documents provide proof that the Russians paid for world-wide anti-US and anti-Israel demonstrations:

Also interesting is a document suggesting the pains taken by the KGB to ensure the eruption of “spontaneous” global demonstrations against Israel. According to the KGB’s estimates, spontaneously outraged Muslims cost approximately a quarter-rupee apiece: “The KGB station in India is capable of organizing a protest demonstration at the U.S. Embassy to India, with up to 20,000 Muslims participating. The expenses for organizing the demonstration would amount to 5,000 Indian rupees and be covered from the funds allocated by the CPSU Central Committee for special measures in India in 1969–1971.”

The Russians were active in stirring up terrorist rebellion and promoting Communist movements in South America:

That there was scarcely a miserable group of miscreants on the planet that the Soviets did not, in some fashion, fund, train, and encourage is vaguely known now by some; it should be widely known by all. … In a 1980 document .. the secretariat of the Central Committee resolves “to grant the request of the leadership of the Communist Party of El Salvador and task the Ministry of Civil Aviation with arranging, in September–October 1980, a shipment of 60–80 tons of small arms and ammunition of Western manufacture from Hanoi to Havana, for the Cuban comrades to transfer it to our Salvadoran friends.”

They sponsored propaganda against the United States to exploit deceptively the issue of racism. The documents show that Soviet support for the Civil Rights movement in America was not provided out of principle but entirely cynically as a Cold War ploy:

Above all, the documents suggest that the most enduringly pernicious fruit of the Soviet Union was its propaganda. The cliché view of the United States as a nation whose foreign policy may best be understood as an expression of racism — an interpretation that continues to hinder American efforts to do the world any good — largely emerged thanks to the Soviet Union’s energetic efforts, as a 1970 document details:

Because the rise of negro protest in the USA will bring definite difficulties to the ruling classes of the USA and will distract the attention of the Nixon administration from pursuing an active foreign policy, we would consider it feasible to implement a number of measures to support this movement and to assist its growth.

Therefore it is recommended to utilize the possibilities of the KGB in African countries to inspire political and public figures, youth, trade union and nationalist organizations to issue petitions, requests and statements to the UN, U.S. embassies in their countries and the U.S. government in defense of the rights of American negroes. To publish articles and letters accusing the U.S. government of genocide in the press of various African countries. Employing the possibilities of the KGB in New York and Washington, to influence the “Black Panthers” to address appeals to the UN and other international bodies for assistance in bringing the U.S. government’s policy of genocide toward American negroes to an end.

The archive has contemporary relevance because they draw “an impressive picture of a world-wide terrorist network, and leave one in no doubt that the Soviet Union deserves all the discredit for the emergence of international terrorism as a major factor in global politics.”

Almost all the terrorist activity throughout the world between the late 1960s and the turn of the century was in the name of left-wing causes, and was promoted in one way or another by the Soviet Union, if not directly by funding and the supply of arms, at the very least by political support in international forums, chiefly the United Nations, and through influence on socialist parties in Europe and “national liberation” movements in the Third World.

Islamic terrorism began with the hijacking of civil aircraft by Palestinians under Arafat’s orders in 1970. He was leader of the PLO, an organization consisting of a number of factions including the PFLP – the Soviet’s foot in the Palestinian door.

In the light of what the documents prove, it would not be an exaggeration to say that Islam’s terrorist war against America and the non-Islamic world in general is an extension of the Cold War. The evil that Communist Russia did lives after it.

Why do journalists believe they are or ought to be exempt from the violence they report?

Last Saturday (February 5, 2011), the reporter Greg Palkot and cameraman Olaf Wiig appeared on Fox News , for which they work, describing how they were attacked by the revolutionary mob in Cairo as they were doing their job. They were obviously badly beaten. Their wounds looked painful. They claimed plausibly that they had feared for their lives.

They deserve sympathy, and they did not suggest that they should have special treatment as newsmen.

But the media in general have taken the wrong side of the conflict between Western civilization and Arab barbarism for at least the last 44 years since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. If sometimes the nature of barbarism is brought home to newsmen in the field with a body-blow, they have no moral standing to justify complaint. There are exceptions, no doubt, and Polkot and Wiig may well be among them. But none should imagine that they have a right to some special immunity that all the world should respect. Barbarians, they should understand, are by nature and definition no respecters of persons.

If journalists from strong societies insert themselves into places where weaker order prevails, they should not expect to be safe. Non-combatant though they are, objective though they may claim to be, their presence has an effect on the events they describe. They’re part of what happens whether they like it or not. They dance with the throng.

If they want to be treated in a civilized fashion, they should promote civilized values. Being anti-American, as so many Western newsmen are, does not wrap them in a sort of moral armor. It approves and encourages belligerence, sometimes extremely savage, of which anyone can be the victim.

Howard Rotberg writes President Obama’s 2015 State of the Union address. It is satirical, but disturbingly close to the all-too-possible.

Here are parts of it from PajamasMedia:

… “While the United States, given its history, adopted a constitutional democracy, I have always taken the position that we cannot force the rest of the world to act like us, and that different cultures are as deserving of respect and tolerance as we are.

[applause]

“Accordingly, we accept the will of the people in the Middle East to act to restore and enhance their Caliphate.

[applause and standing ovation]

… “I received a tremendous amount of criticism for my position on the Iranian led war on Israel of 2013. However, it was Israel’s decision not to accept the proposal made jointly by America and the European Union that Europe was prepared to accept all Israeli Jews with European ancestry for resettlement in Europe, and that our country would accept all Israeli Jews with ancestry from the Arab, Asian, and African countries for resettlement in the United States. We pledged an enormous amount of money and resources for this effort, and it was rebuffed.

“But, still, I say to the remnants of Israeli Jewry, hiding out in the caves of the Judean desert: send us your survivors, your radiation-poisoned and cancer patients. No matter whether they can ever be productive citizens, the U.S. is pledged to assist in this humanitarian crisis.

[applause and standing ovation]

“And let me say to the Iranians: we are sorry that the Israelis launched so many nuclear weapons on your people, in their disproportionate response to your nuclear attack wiping out only one Israeli city. The injustice of that disproportionate response, wherein nearly 20 million Iranian men, women, and children were killed, stands as a light unto the nations as a warning of how we must accept tolerance over vengeance. One can certainly understand the outrage this stirred up in the Muslim world, although we cannot condone the atrocities against the Israeli Jews. …

“We are truly ashamed of the intolerant position of certain Evangelical Christians who have fought against the interests of their own country in this regard, and lost so many young men fighting overseas in the last battles for the Israeli cities.

“For without tolerance, who are we?

[applause]

… “And so, today, after all the bloodshed and all the suffering, a new Islamic identity prevails in the Middle East. We must accept that no Christians and no Jews are entitled to participate in that great nation. I am proud of our record in accepting truly notable numbers of refugees.

[applause]

“Today, I announce that just as we opened our borders to countless Jews and Christians, we are doing the same to permit immigration to America for the countless Muslims of the Middle East who are now choosing to escape the sectarian violence between Shias and Sunnis that has spread from Iraq throughout the entire Middle East. We accept responsibility for all of that, because, as I have reminded the American people many times, it was the fault of the Bush administration for starting an unwarranted war in Iraq and unleashing the sectarian tensions that more authoritative Muslim governments had tempered.

“Notwithstanding my many overtures to the Muslims of the Middle East, there are still so many who blame America for their problems of extreme poverty and internecine violence. Accordingly, I announce today a major move to convince the Islamic world that we in America truly welcome them, wherever they live. We truly are a tolerant nation, willing to have more Muslims immigrate here — for I have made it clear in many past speeches how Islam has played a positive force in America since the founding of our great nation.

[applause]

“My move today is to recognize that Americans cannot roam the world imposing our particular notions of liberty and democracy on the world. The world is composed of many people who find their liberty depends on a religious supervision of all aspects of their daily lives. …

“We recognize that not all people in the world accept our notions of liberty. … To demonstrate that we have learned that tolerance is the most important world value, and not a narrow definition of liberty, we are changing the name of the great statue just off the shore of New York from the Statue of Liberty to the Statue of Tolerance.

[applause, cheering and standing ovation]

“And to absolutely prove the seriousness of our tolerant new order, I have exercised my jurisdiction to order an alteration of the statue, so that instead of a crown on the statue’s head, there will be a hijab. …

Read all of it here.

The production of bio-fuels promotes hunger. Ethanol is the sacrifice of food to ideology.

Driven by its obsession with “green energy”, the left – whose heart, remember, is constantly aching for the wretched of the earth – has food turned into fuel (rather than drill for more oil in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska). The result – the wretched of the earth go hungrier.

This is from Breitbart:

World food prices reached their highest level ever recorded in January and are set to keep rising for months, the UN food agency [Food and Agricultural Organization, FAO] said on Thursday, warning that the hardest-hit countries could face turmoil.

Some of them already have – Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Mauritania, Algeria …

And in its latest survey, the Food and Agriculture Organisation said its index which monitors monthly price changes for a variety of staples averaged 231 points in January — the highest level since records began in 1990. …

The Index rose by 3.4 percent from December — with big increases in particular for dairy [cattle feed becomes more expensive because of the ethanol program], cereal and oil prices. …

The data from the Rome-based FAO showed that prices for dairy products rose by 6.2 percent from December, oils and fats gained 5.6 percent, while cereals went up by 3.0 percent because of lower global supply of wheat and maize. …

The Food Price Index hit 200 points over the whole of 2008 at the height of the 2007/2008 food crisis. It breached that level for the first time in October 2010 with 205 points. …

And this is from FrontPage Magazine:

One of the most common causes of societal discontent, the very factor that led to the ongoing Egyptian protests, is hunger. Unfortunately, worldwide global warming fanaticism has only contributed to this plight. By consuming ever-expansive portions of the world food supply for the production of green bio-fuels, the left has increased the cost of food for those who can least afford it. This has caused much undue suffering for the world’s poor and significantly exacerbated Third World instability — and Egypt is no exception. …

Today, we’re seeing that effect in Egypt and we’re going to see more of it throughout the world unless we can fix the growing worldwide food crisis. We’ve been skating on thin ice, in terms of food supply, for more than a decade now. Between 2000 and 2010, the World Food Price Index, the inflation-adjusted measure of how expensive food is across the globe, almost doubled. In 2000 the index sat at a value of 90. By 2010, the index had risen to a value of 172. That’s a 91% increase in the cost of food over the course of a decade. …

Between 1999 and 2009, the amount of cropland used to grow wheat in America dropped by over 3 million acres, or almost 5 per cent. … The amount of land used to grow rice dropped over 15 per cent; for oats, over 30 per cent; for rye, over 20 per cent; for peanuts and edible beets, over 25 per cent; and for sugarbeets, a shade under 25 per cent. These are some of the commodities that are used, directly and indirectly, to produce the food that once fed the world. And, those statistics are just a few highlights, or lowlights if you will, of the overall trend.

In the US, farmers use ever more land to grow “energy-crops” – chiefly corn and soybeans – because they are subsidized by the government, and ever less for crops that can only be eaten.

Overall, the amount of United States cropland used to grow basic food commodities — crops other than corn and soybeans — has decreased by over 22 million acres since 1999. …

The American taxpayer … ultimately pays the bill for the bio-fuel incentive programs that make growing energy crops more profitable than providing nutrition to the globe.

It’s ironic that the United Nations should be warning about the disastrous results of the food-into-fuel policy, since it is the central church, the Vatican one might say, of the “green” religion.

But don’t take my word for it, consider instead the viewpoint of the organization that has been pushing global warming hysteria harder than anyone this side of Al Gore: the United Nations. According to the UN, almost 10 per cent of world grain production – that’s about 100 million metric tons per year – goes for bi-fuel production. They expect that number to double by 2018. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization says that “competition between the three Fs (food, feed and fuel) is expected to intensify,” which is probably about as close in tone to criticism that one branch of the UN is going to use about another branch: the International Panel on Climate Change.

So it seems that the left has now become more sentimental about the planet than about the poor.

Michelle Obama and her fans might try fussing less about Americans being too fat and think more (if think they can) about why other nations are too thin.

Any hope that revolution in Egypt might lead to democratization must be abandoned now that Obama has taken steps to assist the Muslim Brotherhood into power. President Mubarak banned it with good reason.

It should come as no surprise that Obama is doing this. He’s been helping to empower Islam from the moment he became president. His heart is with Islam. He has no objection to the Muslim Brotherhood. About a year ago Tariq Ramadan, grandson of the Muslim Brotherhood’s founder Hassan al-Banna and proselytizer-in-chief for the organization, who had been kept out of the United States in the Bush years, was given a visa by the Obama administration (see our post, Enter the general of soft jihad, January 23, 2010).

The Muslim Brotherhood openly works for world domination by Islam. From its inception in Egypt in 1928 it called for the re-establishment of the Islamic Empire. Although in recent years its tactic has been to work at conquering the world by non-violent means, infiltration and proselytizing, it’s motto, “Jihad is our path; martyrdom is our aspiration“, makes plain that it has not and will not renounce traditional, sacred, violent jihad. Hamas and al-Qaeda are two of its off-shoots. (Ayman al-Zawahiri,  co-leader of al-Qaeda, joined the Muslim Brotherhood in his early adolescence.)

The prospect darkens.

Hamas, the terrorist organization that rules Gaza,  is a creation of the Muslim Brotherhood, so it’s not surprising that it’s taking advantage of the failure of government in Egypt.

This comes from DebkaFile:

Gunmen of Hamas’s armed wing, Ezz e-Din al Qassam, crossed from Gaza into northern Sinai Sunday, Jan. 30 to attack Egyptian forces … They acted on orders from Hamas’ parent organization, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood … to open a second, Palestinian front against the Mubarak regime. …

Hamas gunmen went straight into battle with Egyptian Interior Ministry special forces (CFF) in the southern Egyptian-controlled section of the border town of Rafah and the Sinai port of El Arish. Saturday, Bedouin tribesmen and local Palestinians used the mayhem in Cairo to clash with Egyptian forces at both northern Sinai key points and ransack their gun stores. …

Hamas terrorists aim to follow this up by pushing Egyptian forces out of the northern and central regions of the peninsula and so bring Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip under Palestinian control. Hamas would then be able to break out of the Egyptian blockade of the enclave and restore its smuggling routes in full. …

For the last 30 years there has been a multinatinal force posted in the area to ensure that Sinai remains peaceful. Now for the first time it is needed to fulfil its mission and keep the peace as hostilities erupt.

So what exactly is it doing? It is going away. It is being withdrawn.

The  Multinational Force & Observers (MFO), most of whose members are Americans and Canadians, are on maximum alert at their northern Sinai base, while they wait for US military transports to evacuate them to US bases in Europe.

This force was deployed in Sinai in 1981 for peacekeeping responsibilities and the supervision of the security provisions of the 1979 Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel under which the peninsula was demilitarized except for Egyptian police. Ending the MFO’s mission in Sinai after thirty years knocks down a key pillar propping up the relations of peace between Egypt and Israel.

Early Sunday, the Egyptian army quietly began transferring armored reinforcements including tanks through the tunnels under the Suez from Egypt proper eastward to northern Sinai in effort to drive the Hamas forces back. The Egyptian troop presence in Sinai, which violates the terms of the peace treaty, has not been mentioned by either of the peace partners. Our Jerusalem sources report the Netanyahu government may have tacitly approved it.

The people of Gaza could seize this moment to overthrow the tyranny of Hamas. Will they? Right now no development in that region is predictable.

Afterword; The Egyptian military is reported to have re-sealed the Gaza border. Mubarak is reported to have fled to Sharm el-Sheikh in southern Sinai.

Will the continuing protests in Egypt bring about a democratic revolution?

Or will Mubarak survive as president?

Or will a worse regime take power?

It seems probable that the armed men who went round the prisons in Egypt and let prisoners out were  Mubarak’s agents. The freed villains set about obligingly looting and raping, while the police were withdrawn, and the populace, the householders, the shop-owners were left to defend themselves and their property with whatever makeshift weapons they could muster. The idea behind these moves was almost certainly to provide Mubarak with an excuse to crack down hard on the protesting crowds. But if it was for that purpose that he then sent in the army, his will was frustrated. The soldiers started at once to fraternize with the protestors.

(Events are moving so fast in Eqypt that by the time any state of affairs is reported, it has probably changed. There are now reports that some police are back on the streets.)

“Experts” are expecting that the outcome of the uprising will be a worse regime than Mubarak’s.

The Muslim Brotherhood, some predict, will seize power. But they have no leader to put in place. Some expect Mohamed Mustafa ElBaradei to take over the presidency. (He was the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency. It was a wonderfully counter-productive idea the UN had, to appoint a Muslim to head the watch-dog organization in the years when Islamic states, chiefly Iran, were hell-bent on becoming nuclear armed powers. Funny that he didn’t manage to deter them.)

ElBaradei, however, has no base in Egypt. He has been living in Vienna for many years.

So will an organization that has no leader match neatly with a would-be leader who has no organization? If so, some say, ElBaradei may become president of an Egypt ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood.

These items of news come from the Jerusalem Post:

Sunday, the Muslim Brotherhood threw its support behind ElBaradei to hold proposed negotiations with the government in order to form a new unity government. …

ElBaradei, in an interview aired on CNN Sunday, said that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak must leave the country immediately.

“It is loud and clear from everybody in Egypt that Mubarak has to leave today, and it is non-negotiable for every Egyptian.” he said. He added that it should “be followed by a smooth transition [to] a national unity government to be followed by all the measures set in place for a free and fair election.”

Addressing Mubarak’s Friday night move to sack his entire cabinet, ElBaradei said, “I think this is a hopeless, desperate attempt by Mubarak to stay in power.” …

The statements came as protests continued in central Cairo, where tens of thousands of protesters were reportedly gathered despite an announced curfew and strong military presence. …

Minutes before the start of a 4 p.m. curfew, at least two [fighter] jets appeared and made multiple passes over downtown, including a central square where thousands of protesters were calling for the departure of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Al-Jazeera (Qatar-based, pro-Muslim Brotherhood) was officially, but apparently not effectively, closed down by Mubarak on Sunday. It is still reporting.

Al-Jazeera anchors on its English satellite channel directed viewers to follow the live Twitter feeds of its correspondents across the country who were updating on a consistent basis via satellite connection, while noting other prominent Twitterers and significant tweets, such as @Jan25Voices which was taking calls from Egyptian protesters and eyewitnesses and tweeting their messages in real time, thus circumventing the blackout in a creative way.

The network itself also found ways to bypass restrictions over the weekend, issuing a statement detailing its efforts: “While ordinary Egyptians have not had access to social networks like Twitter, Al-Jazeera have been using Skype to record messages by members of the public. It have made the recordings available on Audioboo, promoting them through Facebook.”

As the reported death toll rose drastically from 5 on Friday evening to over 95 by Saturday noon, Al-Jazeera broadcast graphic footage from inside hospitals and morgues of bloodied bodies, and of distraught family members. On Saturday, it showed scenes of laughter and amiable exchange between protesters and army officials. Some military personnel were filmed kissing young children and handing them back to their parents.

Also on Saturday night, Al-Jazeera’s live coverage provided viewers with real-time footage and reporting from Cairo as events descended into chaos when looting and vandalism became rampant, and thousands started escaping from prison. …

Al-Jazeera’s combination of mainstream coverage of the events on its satellite channel and website, including correspondents’ reports, expert commentary, interviews, and its staff’s savvy use of social media tools has maximized its influence and has turned it into a force to be reckoned with in the region.

As we have said before (see our post below, Tweet a changing world, January 26, 2011), American technology is transforming the world. The internet is an immense force for freedom – which is, of course, why governments want to control it. True, the forces of repression – Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood through Al-Jazeera – make use of the new technologies too. But in the long run they must surely be liberating?

The angry crowds in the streets of Egypt are demanding freedom. Will they overthrow a secular despotism only to replace it with an Islamic tyranny?

We wait, with an unfamiliar smidgen of optimism, to see if the glimpse of freedom young Egyptians have caught through their iPods will stop them from submitting ever again to the oppressive rule that characterizes the Arab states.

We say in the post below, Hope and change in the Arab world, that the violent revolts could develop into a conflict between a movement for freedom and religious tyranny. We say that if America ignores the dramatic change occurring there, Islamic forces (the militant Iranian Shia regime, the Muslim Brotherhood, Taliban-like al-Qaeda) stand a better chance of winning.

Already the dark Islamic forces are positioning themselves to seize power.

Oliver North writes at Townhall:

What’s most important right now is how the Obama administration handles the increasingly intense cries for greater freedom sweeping from Tunisia to Yemen — threatening every authoritarian Muslim regime in that region save one: Iran’s.

The theocrats in Tehran didn’t foment the “Jasmine Revolution” — the youth-driven popular uprising that forced Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to flee the presidential palace he occupied for 23 years. … But the ayatollahs are capitalizing on the expanding chaos.

Expatriate Iranian opposition figures claim that members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds force have been dispatched to Tunis “to help guide developments.”

Ominous! And worse news follows – if it is true:

Tehran’s government-controlled Fars News Agency has since quoted Jamil bin Alawi, a Tunisian “student activist,” as saying, “The advanced revolutionary and Islamic models like the Hezbollah of Lebanon can provide a bright and promising prospect for Tunisia.”

Jamil bin Alawi sounds to us – as he does to Oliver North, we guess, since he puts the words “student activist” in quotation marks – like a parrot-mouth for the Ayatollahs rather than a spokesman for the Tunisian revolutionaries.

In Egypt — where riot police and the army are confronting angry protesters with tear gas, batons and gunfire — the Iranians may well see another autocratic regime ripe for Islamic revolution. Student-led riots opposing the 30-year reign of President-for-Life Hosni Mubarak erupted Monday in Cairo and quickly spread throughout the country.

Unlike their counterparts in Tunisia and Lebanon, the Egyptian police and army thus far appear loyal to their leader, Mubarak, and the government has all but shut down press access and communications, including many Internet links. …

Now reports are coming out of Egypt that at least some policemen and soldiers are discarding their uniforms and joining the protestors.

The world is changing as swiftly as a turn of a kaleidoscope. The upheaval in the Arab states is momentous. These events could be at least as transformative as the fall of the Soviet Union.

It’s good in itself that that the oppressed are rising against their tyrants, but outcomes are uncertain. Worse despots could take power – but against them too the people might rise.

A vital factor in the mass protests has been the equipment that puts individuals in touch with each other without permission of governments. The uprisings were co-ordinated in Egypt and Tunisia by means of Facebook, Twitter, and cell phones. If millions of Arabs want a bright future enabled by such things instead of lives slogged out in the ancient ways of Islam, then Islam may have had its day.

The conflict now, we hope, is between those who want  the sort of life Westerners have in this twenty-first century, and those who want to restore the old dark world of Islamic superstition, ignorance, and cruelty: a conflict between a movement for freedom and a religious tyranny. It may even spread through all the Islamic world.

If the movement for freedom wins, many good effects could flow from its victory. The Arab countries could be transformed into productive, prosperous  trading nations; their self-crippling opposition to the existence of Israel might stop, and Israel’s Arab neighbors could at last benefit from its presence as a pattern of the modernity they need.

Such a movement towards a bright tomorrow would be more certain of victory if it were helped by an awakened America: an America led by an intelligent administration (which now it lacks).

Whether the West wakes up to it or not, and whether Western politicians encumbered with the mental paraphernalia of outdated ideologies such as socialism like it or not, dramatic change is occurring in the Arab world. If America ignores it, Islamic forces (the militant Iranian Shia regime, the Muslim Brotherhood, Taliban-like al-Qaeda) stand a better chance of winning.

America should actively guide it towards freedom and real democracy – the bright and possible future.

Jillian Becker  January 28, 2011

While the greater part of the Arab World is in upheaval over issues of poverty, hunger, and oppression, fury flares also in the “Holy Land” over the unlikely accusation that the Palestine Authority, led by the politically impotent Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), has conceded too much to Israel in “peace-process” negotiations.

We hadn’t been aware that Palestinian leaders had ever conceded anything – not at least in practice. The whole idea since the ill-advised Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, was that there would be an exchange of “land for peace”. Israel delivered land – shifting every Israeli resident out of Gaza – but did not get peace. It got rockets, suicide bombers, and an intensified world-wide campaign to delegitimize its existence.

The accusation that the PA has betrayed the Palestinian cause has arisen out of the publication of some 1600 leaked documents from “peace-process” negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. The Palestine Papers, as they are called, were given by a person or persons unnamed to al-Jazeera, which gave them to the Guardian newspaper (or so it is said).

Both al-Jazeera and the Guardian are heavily biased on the side of the Palestinians. Or to put it more accurately, they are both frantically devoted to the cause of the Palestinians, and passionately against the existence of the state of Israel. They favor the uncompromising and murderous Hamas leadership to that of the PA (which is the older terrorist organization, Fatah, dressed in a suit.)

You can read what al-Jazeera has to say about the Palestine Papers here. It believes they prove that Israel and America negotiated in bad faith, and the PA conceded too much land to Israel and dropped the sacred demand for the “return of  the Palestinian refugees”.

The Guardian pounced upon the documents in a flush of Schadenfreude. You can read the Guardian’s spin on them here. It believes they prove Israel’s intransigence in the face of Palestinian generosity.

As we are heavily biased on the side of Israel, we prefer this view of the affair by Noah Pollak at Commentary-contentions:

You wouldn’t expect Al-Jazeera and the Guardian newspaper in Britain to do anything but spin the “Palestine Papers” — the leaked transcripts of late Bush administration negotiations between Israeli, Palestinian, and American officials — to the max. And so they have, today, with shocked responses from foreign-policy types. Indeed, an editor at Foreign Policy magazine went so far as to declare on Twitter that the “two state solution is dead” as a result.

But the reality of the papers themselves turns out to be incredibly boring. Yes, during the months surrounding the Annapolis summit in 2008, there were negotiations. Yes, these negotiations concerned issues such as borders, Jerusalem, refugees, security, and settlements. Yes, the two sides discussed land swaps that would enable Israel to retain major settlement blocs. Yes, in private, the Palestinians acknowledged that the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem is not going to be handed over to them and that Israel will not consent to being flooded with millions of Arab refugees. Yes, in private, the negotiators treated each other with respect and even graciousness. No, the talks did not succeed. This is news?

And we find this from The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs interesting:

With the “peace process” a shambles, someone wants to show the Palestinians as moderates, taking “risks for peace” against a nasty, intransigent Israel. Who? … The Guardian itself tells a story in which the British government is strongly implicated.

The leaked material came from a unit called the, “Palestinian negotiation support unit (NSU), which has been the main technical and legal backup for the Palestinian side in the negotiations. The British government has heavily funded the unit. Other documents originate from inside the PA’s extensive U.S.- and British-sponsored security apparatus. The Israelis, Americans and others kept their own records, which may differ in their accounts of the same meetings.”  …

So the British government (read British intelligence) paid for and organized support of the Palestinians in negotiations and The Guardian announces up front that American and Israeli records of the same meetings may be different. Who knew the British were so heavily involved? Why were they and why would their records be different if everyone was in the same room speaking the same language – English – according to The Guardian. Either concessions were offered or they weren’t.

We’re betting they weren’t. [The implication here being that at least some of the papers are British forgeries – JB.]

The most obvious outcome of the leaks has been to enhance the already bloody rivalry among Palestinian groups. Fatah called the documents lies, but Hamas called Abu Mazen and Fatah traitors for giving away Palestinian assets. There were riots in Ramallah yesterday.

The lives of Fatah leaders, especially Abu Mazen’s, are now in danger.

*

C. Gee read the relevant papers and writes:

In countering the Al Jazeera/Guardian revelations one does not need to hypothesize that the documents are a hoax. They can be genuine and still not prove that the Palestinians gave “concessions”; that these concessions were taken to Israel; that Israel refused them; that they were not abandoned by the Palestinians themselves; or would not be abandoned during negotiations when push came to shove. As far as I can see, the documents do not provide sufficient evidence of any of this, let alone all of it. Without that evidence the story of intransigent, duplicitous Israel and beleaguered, earnest Abbas fails. As does any story that Abbas has betrayed his cause.

The characterization of the positions as “concessions” forming an offer made and rejected by the Israelis is a story put upon the Papers by Al Jazeera. What motivated Al Jazeera to concoct that spin is not too hard to guess at, but one does not need to examine motives to show the spin. The documents themselves do not support the story.

In fact the documents could be given an altogether different spin: Abbas, as leader of Fatah (and that is what he is leader of, not the Palestinian people) never deviated from the bad faith demanded by his organization in his conducting of peace negotiations with Israel: negotiate, but never sign away our rights.

Were I a newspaper looking into the story put out by Al Jazeera, I would like to see:

• the documents where the claim is made that they took the concessions to the Israelis, then verification of this in records of the negotiations with the Israelis from all sources
• documents where the claim is made that the Israelis turned them down, and when
• documents where the Palestinians explain on what grounds the Israelis turned them down, then verification and cross-checking of these Palestinian claims with other statements by the Palestinian negotiators and with Israeli records
• an evaluation of how the ‘Negotiating Support Unit‘ is constituted, what its political role is and whether the minutes reflect what was actually said, or a glossed account which positions the speakers – and the unit – correctly for the historical record. (On reading minutes of this Unit, one gets the impression that one is witnessing a soviet committee at work: each comrade is afraid that every other comrade might catch him deviating from the party line and denounce him and displace him. There is none of the candor one might expect among negotiating advisors and their negotiators, and certainly no unambiguous adoption of “concessions”. When AM says “it is illogical” to demand the return of a million refugees, he is saying that it is a pointless negotiating demand, not that it is a concession, not that he has agreed to forfeit the right of return. Everybody in the room would use and understand such code. We see the typical inner workings of a totalitarian system. One can sympathize with AM’s outrage that the very thing he tried to avoid – an interpretation of his statements that he is betraying the cause – has come about.)
• an independent translator verify that the Al Jazeera translations of the documents are correct.

One may step outside the documents to discount the Al Jazeera story. The recent history of negotiations shows time and again that an agreement, with hard compromises from both sides, is in the bag, that it merely awaits signatures, only to have it be abandoned. So far, the evidence points to Palestinian balking. The reasons given are always that the positions described as “concessions” by the Palestinians (and “demands” by the Israelis, which, given the power balance, is perverse) are too onerous and conflict with the inalienable rights of the Palestinians: to their ancestral homeland; to the right of return; to resistance. Sometimes they give procedural reasons: they never the saw the maps, the maps were given to them late, the maps shown did not give as much land as the Israelis claimed, the settlements after all take up too much space.

One explanation for the Palestinian bosses’ behavior is that any “concessions” resulting in an actual peace would be justification for their rivals in Fatah and for Hamas (a rival organization) to topple them, on behalf of that useful, angry, imaginary electorate, Arab public opinion. If they wish to stay in power, they must fulfill the statesman role expected of them by the world and negotiate for a state, but never deliver it, for fear of their rivals ousting or even offing them. The negotiating process must be justified to the rivals (as avatars of Arab public opinion) as part of the “resistance”. This is supported by recent statements by the Palestinians in the wake of the scandal, that the leaks put in jeopardy their successes in “isolating Israel diplomatically”. It is in their interest (which is not to say it might not also be in the Israeli interest, but for different reasons) to spin out the peace process, but never sign a peace treaty. Why else would the Palestinians now be working towards a unilateral declaration of a state with recognition by the UN or individual nations?