Rubin Reports

Moderate Muslims have been neglected and isolated by this project which has helped the radicals, Islamists, and pro-terrorists.

This story brought home to me that to do one’s task rightly, to bear witness honestly, and to face the consequences without flinching should be the hallmarks of my field.

Even Muslim Brotherhood think-tanks have said that the Shia, and especially Iran, are more dangerous threats than is Israel.

The non-member 'state' status will sink the Palestinian leadership even deeper into an obsession with intransigence in practice and paper victories that mean nothing in the real world.

The story was broken by Alex Fishman, defense correspondent of Yediot Aharnot, Israel’s largest newspaper. Fishman is considered to be a reliable reporter with good sources in the Israeli government.

Why would a leading figure in Turkey's ruling Islamist party identify the era of rising Islamism as a “great shame…[in which the Middle East ] fell prey to the thirst of barbarian bloodshed”?

Because of political reasons and especially due to the ideological monopoly of certain forces over Western institutions, most of the academics, analysts, journalists, and politicians who speak on these issues get away with pushing the moderation thesis. They are virtually never asked to provide proof. This wrong idea thus sets current U.S. policy and creates a great risk of future crisis, instability, repression, and severe damage to U.S. interests.

You have a massive counterterrorist project costing $1 trillion but when it comes down to it the thing repeatedly fails.

Why is Israel releasing the worst terrorists for no gain, not even good publicity?

I sat there speechless. I simply couldn't believe what I was hearing.

Libya tells the story with a terrible irony but we should understand precisely what is going on and how the situation in Libya differs from that in Egypt. For it is proof of the bankruptcy of Obama policy but perhaps in a different way from what many people think.

Just to make the point clear, I did not cherry-pick these examples. These are the first 11 which constitute the first page.

A reader asks: “I agree that democracy and economic development are not panaceas for the Middle East, just as they are not for any other location on the planet. But aren't they a start? And since it is possible to chew gum and walk at the same time, does it hurt to at least pay lip service to doing things to bring the rest of the Middle East into the 21st century? And what would those things be in your opinion?” As you noted, both candidates in the presidential election spoke of economic development as a top priority in their Middle East policy. This sounds good to voters but is pretty meaningless.

While war with Iran might eventually be inevitable and necessary, that’s not true at this moment - when Iran is far from being able to build nuclear weapons, much less deliver them on missiles. And such an operation does genuinely pose serious problems for Israel and also - even if it does not participate directly in any way - for the United States.

What the Obama Administration has done is like trying to reduce crime by turning over the cities to the Mafia and letting it make the laws and also run the police and court systems.

The ideas that this is some far left thing is a slander by Islamists.

One of my most fun professional memories was when I walked endlessly, circling round and round and round that hall in Algeria in November 1988 with a burly, no-nonsense, and brilliant newspaper correspondent named Youssef Ibrahim, who was then working for the New York Times. Friendly, funny, sarcastic, and with absolutely no illusions or romanticism about the absurdities of Arab politics and the idiocies of Arab political ideology, Ibrahim’s only shortcoming is that there are not one thousand more exactly like him. If he was the kind of person leading Arab countries and people they would be far more prosperous, peaceful, happier and democratic.

The Palestinian Authority has received more aid money per person than anyone else in history and yet the results have been remarkably unimpressive. The Western taxpayers give the money, the PA leaders steal or use the money for political purposes, and the average Palestinian suffers more from this situation than from the largely extinct "Israeli occupation."

The Palestinian Authority is in a box of its own making. It cannot win militarily against Israel, nor will it engage in serious diplomacy with Israel.

If a radical movement seizes control of the state and can hold it for a very long time, it can fundamentally transform policies and foreign policy.

Did President Obama have to lie in a UN speech?

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.

Middle East expert, Barry Rubin discussed the region, prospects for peace and revolutionary Islamism.

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

The Obama administration’s portrayal of the assassination of Osama bin Laden as some courageous decision shows more than anything how weak the President is. A normal U.S. government would have taken this choice for granted, and not felt the need to stress the president’s alleged machismo.

It is now conceivable that the two leading presidential candidates will be Islamists and thus Egypt will have an Islamist president. That would mean the timetable for turning the country into an Islamist Sharia state could be vastly accelerated.

What happens, then, if the regime doesn’t give in and the army doesn’t stop the demonstrations?

Is there no one who remembers this recent history?

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.

Does anyone think the Palestinian Authority will resist daily attacks from Hamas and Fatah radicals?