Tag: barry rubin

This is not a post that I wanted to write, though I knew it was coming.

Barry Rubin's was a rare voices of clarity in the Israeli academia and in Jewish media. He was one of the good guys.

There is no middle ground: if we talk about Islam as a source of terrorism, our values will be compromised and the greatest nation on Earth will crumble. The choice made is to forbid considering Islam as the motive - so that we can...what? Be taken down in a halo of smug superiority by those who exploit this latest greatest American Achilles Heel? Rubin points out, most current policy makers and opinion shapers prefer to avoid considering Islam as the motive for terrorism. The fear of short term pain is indulged, at the expense of preventing the real danger that will follow. And we are being lied to - "albeit for virtuous reasons" - by the politicians and the mainstream press.

Perhaps these seeming word games and niceties are beyond the interest or comprehension of many people, but everyone involved directly on this issue knows exactly what is happening.

U.S. influence is markedly less than we – or our enemies – think it is, or ever thought it was.

Obama Administration policy is to put into power yet another anti-Western regime that will oppress its own people and put a high priority on trying to wipe out Israel.

When solidarity along group lines takes priority and the line is that all of “us” must unite against the “other” no matter what truth, logic, or justice dictates then that means serious trouble. And guess what? That is the line of the Obama Administration and its Newest Left supporters.

As Muslim crowds dissipate and American diplomatic missions return to normal activities, here are three final thoughts on the riots that began this Sept. 11 and killed about thirty.

The first thing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does is send a warm message of congratulations to the reelected president.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has written an op-ed piece about what’s wrong with President Barack Obama’s Middle East policy and what he would do if he is elected president. There aren’t many surprises but it reminds us how far Romney has to go before he can be said to have articulated a clear foreign policy of his own.

With Muslims attacking American embassies in the Middle East and rioting all over the world over an obscure youtube video, the U.S. State Department and the E.U. can no longer seriously contend that anti-Americanism, anti-Westernism are due to support for Israel or the fact that a Palestinian state has not been established or an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord has been signed.

The United States is only at the start of a nasty conflict in Libya which is going to be very anti-American. It is shocking that there is so little recognition of that fact and an apparently sincere belief that all the problems there are due to a You-Tube video. Having a big problem is bad enough; refusing to recognize that one has a bad problem is potentially fatal.

Of course, Romney was correct in what he said. Indeed, he was merely stating the obvious. In the current upside-down era, telling the truth is heresy, or at least there are powerful establishment figures who try to make it seem so.

Barack Obama is not a Communist, a fascist, a Muslim, a Marxist, a Progressive or even a socialist. Obama and those who control much of America’s academia, mass media, and entertainment industry—plus a number of trade unions and hundreds of foundations, think tanks, and front groups—are believers in a new, very American form of leftism.

Egypt, the Arab world’s most important single country, has been turned from an ally of America—albeit an imperfect one of course—in maintaining and trying to extend Arab-Israeli peace into a leading advocate of expanding the conflict and even potentially going to war.

Muslim communities in Europe and America hardly ever renounce terrorism or fight the Islamists. Why? Because those radical forces are in power, often with collaboration from Western leftists.

It’s the age of revolutionary Islamism, especially Sunni Islamism. And you better learn to understand what this is all about real fast.

If ever I've seen a single sentence that spells disaster in the Middle East, this is it:“`People say things in a campaign and then when they get elected they actually have to govern,’ [U.S. State Department] spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.”

O’Donnell says that “liberal” should not be a dirty word but a badge of honor. I agree. It should be, but it has been tarnished far less by conservatives’ attacks than by radicals who have hijacked that word and use it for an agenda that is bankrupting the United States, reducing liberties, and making a mess of U.S. foreign policy.

People don’t want to be told to sacrifice, especially because they suspect that the elite isn’t doing so and that this same elite is responsible for the mess. So they can be—easily?—manipulated into voting for those who tell them to eat, drink and be merry, with a minimal tax on billionaires and millionaires paying off the caterer.

The 'Islam-is-good school' makes the West defenseless to understand and deal with the threat. The 'Islam-is-bad' school discredits serious critiques of Islamism and honest analysis of Islam, thus letting their opponents win the debates and blind the West to the best strategy and potential allies.

At times we seem to be living in the updated version of Ignazio Silone’s remark, “The final conflict will be between the Communists and the ex-Communists.” All too often, we cannot depend on Western-trained intellectuals in positions of power who either buy into leftist ideology or tremble in fear of being called racists or Islamophobes.

Israel is apparently going to have elections this autumn and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will almost certainly win by a big margin. Understanding why explains a lot about the country that people think they know the most about but in fact comprehend the least.

As you know, just about everyone in the world outside of Israel has been claiming that an attack is imminent or that it is only being held back by the U.S. government. My argument has been that this is simply untrue. Most of the Israeli strategic and intelligence leadership oppose an attack, for the same reasons I do. Moreover, these people don’t believe it is going to happen in the near future.

Egypt will hold its presidential election May 23-24 with a possible run-off June 16-17. It is impossible at this point to predict what’s going to happen but I can make a good guess. Eight weeks from now Egypt will be led by either a radical anti-American Islamist who wants to wipe Israel off the map or by a radical anti-American nationalist who just hates Israel passionately.

Moynihan was one of the first people to try to deal with the lurch leftward of the liberal and Democratic streams that is now so dangerously dominant in America.

How to respond to the misinformation and fear that makes a potential Romney voter a soft-core Obama supporter.

It is astonishing to note how much the Obama Administration, supposedly so sensitive to the views of Arabs and Muslims, has ignored the concerns of America’s own Arab allies.

Romney must respond to attacks like Gingrich or New Jersey governor Chris Christie would. A gentlemanly, gloves-on strategy will not win this election. This does not mean Romney should call Obama a socialist or Marxist. Instead, he should show that he’s the mainstream candidate while the Obama administration is out of step with historic, successful American practice.

It is the year 2012, people are walking around with smart phones and all sorts of undreamed of gadgets, the "Arab Spring" continues, and an African-American is president of the United States. Times have changed. Yet the hysterical hatred for Israel in the Arabic-speaking world and among Muslims in general has only increased; the philosophy of rejectionism is as strong as ever, or maybe even stronger.