Translation

At the top of my Google News page a couple of hours ago was a BBC headline according to which the Israeli deputy defence minister, Matan Vilnai, had said that if the Palestianian rockets did not cease to fall, then Israel would bring them a 'holocaust'. You can imagine the reaction, if you haven't already seen it. I thought, how inept can you get?

Trouble is, he didn't say it. Reuters buggered up the translation. As translated, the quote went:

‘The more Qassam (rocket) fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they (the Palestinians) will bring upon themselves a bigger “shoah” because we will use all our might to defend ourselves'.

Melanie Phillips explains

Reuters translated the Hebrew word ‘shoah’ as ‘holocaust’. But ‘shoah’ merely means disaster. In Hebrew, the word ‘shoah’ is never used to mean ‘holocaust’ or ‘genocide’ because of the acute historical resonance. The word ‘Hashoah’ alone means ‘the Holocaust’ and ‘retzach am’ means ‘genocide’. The well-known Hebrew construction used by Vilnai used merely means ‘bringing disaster on themselves’.

The BBC has now (as of 14.58) changed both the translation and the article.

Israeli raid on Syria

Is this the truth about the Israel's bomb raid in Syria this September?

In early July the Israelis presented the United States with satellite imagery that they said showed a nuclear facility in Syria. They had additional evidence that they said showed that some of the technology was supplied by North Korea.

One U.S. official told ABC's Martha Raddatz the material was "jaw dropping" because it raised questions as to why U.S. intelligence had not previously picked up on the facility.

Officials said that the facility had likely been there for months if not years.

Inspires you with confidence in our intelligence agencies, doesn't it?

I think it must be something like this. Otherwise, how else do you explain the reverberating silence around the Arab world after this raid? Either they knew, or the Israelis convinced them with the evidence; either way, they must have approved. Unsurprisingly.

His ya-yas are out

Creationism ("Darwin caused Fascism and Communism"), the conspiracy of the freemasons, Holocaust denial, Anti-semiticism and The Protocols. Is there any Western nonsense that the Middle East won't swallow and regurgitate? Now someone has kindly sent almost every school and university in France L'Atlas de la Création by a Turk going under the name of Harun Yahya. One of the many illustrations in the book shows the Twin Towers burning above this caption:

Those who perpetuate terror in the world are in reality the Darwinists. Darwinism is the only philosophy which validates and encourages conflict.

There's much more about this happy chap at Direland.

(Via Instapundit)

There moral, and there's moral

Nick Cohen has written a book called What's Left: How Liberals Lost Their Way about ... well, what the title says (but in American - how come?). He wonders how so many of the well-intentioned could march in their millions to defend a brutal dictator, how they could give support and succour to any group, no matter how inimical to their purported values, as long as it opposed the US.

There is a long excerpt from the book here and it is well worth reading. The only problem I have with it is that his argument is entirely 'surface moral' (I'll explain that later). Saddam Hussein was a very bad man and it was a good thing to get rid of him. Agreed. But it wasn't Saddam's badness that induced us to help the Americans spend immense quantities of blood and money in getting rid of him. It was in our interests to get rid of Saddam. Just as it is in our interests to support a stable, relatively democratic Iraq.

It is also in the interests of Iraq and much of the rest of the world, though I wouldn't claim that benevolence had much part to play in the decision. Nevertheless, the possibility that a stable, untyrannical and non-theocratic state could be established in the Middle East was in the interests of virtually everybody who is not a Jihadist. In a region that is a perpetual social disaster contributing nothing to the world but its unrest and violence, a state that broke the Middle Eastern mould might make a big difference.

It may yet turn out well, after a generation or two. But, for me, the saddest thing is what happened here. Our leaders found it necessary to hide behind the loincloth of WMD, and they did so because they didn't believe the comfortable public of the democracies could live with the role of enforcer of world order, with the strategic vision which imposes that sometimes those that can, must. They were probably right. A public narcotised by the present tense sentimentalism of television images of suffering is not only incapable, but unwilling to look a little further ahead and take on the responsibilities of power. It doesn't bode well for our ability to keep power.

The decision to take down Saddam was moral but in a deeper, long-term sense than that of his 'badness'. Yes, he might have done even worse, but, more importantly, it was what Iraq could be that made this important. I'm not saying that it's going to work, but it might. And if it does, it will be to the benefit of all of us.

As a society we may be spoilt children, but on the other hand, it does mean that we have the image below to treasure forever.

One group of SWP stalwarts were joined, for the first march in any of their histories, by their mothers.

BBC on Israel

What to expect from the BBC's coverage this year. Stephen Pollard.

A BBC mole has sent me this briefing for BBC staff from the BBC's Middle East Editor, Jeremy Bowen, on what lies ahead this year.

It’s all too predictable. The "fragmentation" of Palestinian society has, in Mr Bowen’s view, nothing to do with the Palestinians and everything to do with Israel (“the death of hope, caused by a cocktail of Israel's military activities, land expropriation and settlement building – and the financial sanctions imposed on the Hamas led government”). Indeed, Israel is to blame for almost everything. The Palestinians are not responsible for anything; Israel is the culpable party.

(via Tim Blair)

Five + one catastrophes

In an article in the New York Sun, Youssef Ibrahim deals with the proposition that all the problems in the Middle East are down to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

He lists the five "catastrophes" of the Middle East:

• Internecine conflicts in Iraq, Lebanon and among Palestinian Arabs;
• Absence of representative governments for 350 million Arabs;
• Uneven distribution of wealth and corruption;
• Widespread illiteracy, poverty, and illness;
• Disenfranchisement of women.

To which he could have added the reheating friction between Sunnis and Shias as Iranian power reaches out towards the Mediterranean.

The obvious question is: how would resolving the Israeli-Palestinian question resolve those? Obviously, it is a comfort for seekers of simple solutions to find them all west of the Jordan, but it's an illusion. Moreover, it is one that feeds the rampant delusion of the Islamists and represents a significant victory for their propoganda campaign. I have one word in reply: disaggregate.

Behind the Wahhabis

Roger Simon has one of those illuminating moments which demonstrate that, no matter if across ethnic, religious or cultural barriers all people share so much, there are some tics that can only be picked up in particular places at particular times, some aberrations that are so irrational that future millennia will have to dig hard and deep to understand (let us hope).

In a taxi in Seattle, Simon got talking to the driver, a Somali, who with very little provocation launched into an impassioned attack on al-Queda. He called it "a danger to all mankind" and said it was backed by Saudi Wahhabi money.

He didn't just leave it there. He explained as well who was behind this violent takeover of his religion; ie who was behind Saudi Wahhabism.

Who? Well, it's obvious, isn't it? The Israelis. How did he know this?

The man replied by talking about his childhood, his Islamic education. He had learned about the Jews from the Koran. That was the truth, of course.

See my post on Ayaan Hirsi Ali's recent piece on the Holocaust and my exchange with Wodge in the comments.

Wake up

Tony Blair speaking yesterday in Dubai.

There is a monumental struggle going on worldwide between those who believe in democracy and modernisation, and forces of reaction and extremism. It is the 21st century challenge. Yet a great part of our own opinion either thinks there is no common theme to it all; or if there is, is inclined to believe that it is our - that is America and its allies - fault that this is so.

In any other situation in which terrorists with almost incredible wickedness butcher completely innocent people, provoke sectarian conflict, spread chaos and despair, in almost any other situation we would say well our response should be to stand up and fight back. In Iraq, in Afghanistan, but seeping across the board, voices instead say: we shouldn't be involved: better leave well alone; it is none of our business.

Here are elements of the Government of Iran openly supporting terrorism in Iraq to stop a fledgling democratic process, trying to turn out a democratically elected Government in Lebanon, flaunting the international community's desire for peace in Palestine - at the same time as denying the Holocaust and trying to acquire a nuclear weapon capability: and yet a huge part of world opinion is frankly almost indifferent. It would be bizarre if it weren't so deadly serious.

We have in my view to wake up...

We should stop buying into this wretched culture of blaming ourselves, of pandering to a wholly imagined grievance on the part of those we are fighting. We should take on the nonsense that says when terrorists who claim to be Muslim kill innocent and true Muslims in Iraq or Afghanistan, that it is somehow the fault of American and British soldiers being present there.

We should proclaim what is so obviously correct, that what holds back the Palestinian people are not those of us striving to make a reality of a stable, viable Palestinian state next door to Israel, but those who pretend to champion that cause but deny the very two state solution that is Palestine's only hope of salvation.

Opposition is only for the strong

This article by the Tunisian columnist, Zyed Krichen, consists of excerpts from the French original. Most of the English version is made up of a list of acts of censorship and worse in Islamic societies, the majority of which occur after 1973. There are a lot, and as he says, it is an incomplete list.

He begins by noting how different it all was in Islam's first three centuries.

However, without glorifying the past, [it must be pointed out that] such things did not happen during the first three centuries of Islam, [which was] the golden age [of Islam]. [True], the political authorities killed dissidents and revolutionaries - but no one saw books burned, and freedom of thought was at its peak. No controversial topic was avoided in philosophical or theological debate. From the authenticity of the prophecies to the very nature of divinity - each doctrine had its proponents, its platforms, and its leading [thinkers]...

And consider the delightful freedom that pervaded Arab literature [in those days]. One could say anything, write anything, sing about anything... the love of women, sex, and wine, and even [the love] of boys... [Even] the sacred could be laughed at, and [religious] devotion as well... This golden age was also the age of that eclectic and refined aestheticism of which Abu Hayane Attaouhidi wrote so beautifully.

Why was it different then? They were strong, and the strong are less afraid. Why do you forbid things? Because you are afraid of them. Because you think they will hurt you. Just as the Ottoman authorities frustrated the introduction of printing for three hundred years as the empire grew weaker and weaker. Unsurprisingly, among the first books to be printed were military studies examining why it was that the Europeans always won the battles.

I realise this is pointing out the obvious. It's just that sometimes, after the nth Baghdad suicide bombing with tens of victims and people over here throwing up their arms and bowing their heads to surrender to the first candidate, it is salutary to remember that suicide bombings and oppressive censorship are alike signs of weakness.

The princes and the pea

The following is from an interview by Pierre Heumann of the Swiss weekly Die Weltwoche with the Editor-in-Chief of Al-Jazeera, Ahmed Sheikh.

Do you mean to say that if Israel did not exist, there would suddenly be democracy in Egypt, that the schools in Morocco would be better, that the public clinics in Jordan would function better?

I think so.

Can you please explain to me what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has to do with these problems?

The Palestinian cause is central for Arab thinking.

In the end, is it a matter of feelings of self-esteem?

Exactly. It's because we always lose to Israel. It gnaws at the people in the Middle East that such a small country as Israel, with only about 7 million inhabitants, can defeat the Arab nation with its 350 million. That hurts our collective ego. The Palestinian problem is in the genes of every Arab. The West's problem is that it does not understand this.

Now, whose problem is that? How do you negotiate with that?

Just to illustrate the intellectual short circuit that goes on here (and is similar to what happens in the heads of the French terrorists I spoke about here), the exchange above was immediately preceded by this.

I told my son to emigrate to the West for the sake of my grandson.

You sound bitter.

Yes, I am.

At whom are you angry?

It's not only the lack of democracy in the region that makes me worried. I don't understand why we don't develop as quickly and dynamically as the rest of the world. We have to face the challenge and say: enough is enough! When a President can stay in power for 25 years, like in Egypt, and he is not in a position to implement reforms, we have a problem. Either the man has to change or he has to be replaced. But the society is not dynamic enough to bring about such a change in a peaceful and constructive fashion.

Why not?

In many Arab states, the middle class is disappearing. The rich get richer and the poor get still poorer. Look at the schools in Jordan, Egypt or Morocco: You have up to 70 youngsters crammed together in a single classroom. How can a teacher do his job in such circumstances? The public hospitals are also in a hopeless condition. These are just examples. They show how hopeless the situation is for us in the Middle East.
[Emphasis added]

Our societies are screwed. Israel always beats us in a fair fight. We despise ourselves. If we can beat Israel, we will like ourselves again and everything will be OK.

(via Harry's Place)

Update
In a similar vein, Ahmadinejad lets slip the key to human redemption.

The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon the same way the Soviet Union was, and humanity will achieve freedom.

Iran (be)heading for leadership battle

According to Michael Ledeen at Pajamas Media, things are on the move in Iran. Supreme Leader Ayatollah ali Khamenei is evidently very close to meeting some of the heroic martyrs he has helped towards dusty death and the blood-letting to decide his successor is well under way. Students are demonstrating on the campus of Tehran University, calling for a “death to despotism,” and “death to the dictator.” Speaking of which,

A week ago, the Majlis (the national assembly) passed a law effectively reducing the presidential term of Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nezhad by a full year. This was universally seen as an attack in favor of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ahmadi-Nezhad’s most visible political rival, and a candidate to succeed Khamenei.

Regime Change Iran has more on the protests here and here, including a photo of a poster reading, “AS IF WE WANT ANYTHING OTHER THAN FREEDOM”.

(via Dinocrat)

Past sins, present virtues

For those unfamiliar with him, Victor Davis Hanson is one of the major voices in the pro-war camp in the US. He's a Classics academic, firm believer in the superiority of Western civilisation and has not performed any U-turns recently. Here's what he has to say about past US policies.

The United States had been far too friendly with atrocious regimes in the Middle East. And when bloodletting inevitably broke out, either internally or between aggressive regimes, too often we cynically played one side off the other. Or we backed repugnant insurgents, with little thought of the "blowback" that would result. We outsourced sophisticated arms and training to radical Islamists fighting against the Soviet-backed Afghan government.

We hoped the murderous Saddam might check the murderous Iranian theocracy -- and then again sold arms to the mullahs during the Iran-Contra affair. We breezily called for an uprising of Shi'ites and Kurds only to abandon them to be slaughtered by Saddam after the first Gulf war. We cynically gave the Mubarak dynasty of Egypt billions in protection money to behave. While we thought we were achieving short-term expediency, American policy only increased long-term instability by not pressuring these tyrants to reform failed governments.

I put this here because of a discussion I've been having with Wodge. He has pointed out, as have many others, that the US record in supporting dictators of Saddam's ilk is not a reassuring one. Agreed, though I don't find this as heinous as he obviously does. This is especially so in the Middle East where you choice of rulers is not of the widest. However, there is a more important point.

The alternative to the Bush doctrine of "trying to help democratic reformers" is the old 'realism' outlined by Hanson above. That is, from a range of nasties, you help the nasty least dangerous for your own interests. The alternative is not, as is often implied, leaving them all alone because that would be the decent thing to do. It would not.

The result would be, now more than ever, the growth of regimes not only antithetical to our values, but dangerous to their own people and to the rest of the world. With the Middle East on the verge of a nuclear arms race, with its unemployed, alienated masses of young men and a well-developed ideology and methodology for turning them into weapons, the prospect of the US withdrawing into itself is truly frightening.