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Optimism is dangerous

Israelis, and Jews more generally, are better served by healthy pessimism

Historical and Investigative Research - 29 December 2011
by Francisco Gil-White
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http://www.hirhome.com/israel/optimism_is_dangerous.htm
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More than ever, Israelis, and Jews more generally, should beware of “friends” who tell them not to worry, that everything is going to be fine. Everything will not be fine. However it happens, things are going to get ugly. The only question is whether Israelis, and Jews more generally, will wake up in time and prevail.

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At HIR we have been arguing with our usual vehemence that things are not going well for Israel. In particular, we have warned that the “Arab Spring” bodes nothing but great trouble:

 Here comes the Muslim Brotherhood
Historical and Investigative Research; 9 May 2011; by Francisco Gil-White
http://www.hirhome.com/islam/muslim_brotherhood_1.htm

And yet I must have missed something because yesterday Conrad Black published an opinion editorial in the New York Sun titled: “Israel’s Prospects Have Never Been Brighter, As Arab Spring Fades Into Winter of Discontent.”[1] This was immediately republished on Israpundit to cheery acclaim. I am very busy, but this made me angry.

Irrational optimism got many Jews killed in the Holocaust. It is the reason so many got on the trains. And yet it is just as easy as it ever was to sell irrational optimism to the Jews: they all want it. Denial of reality is the Jewish way of finding psychological solace. It is understandable. It is also deadly. I disagree strongly with Conrad Black, and I don’t believe he is doing the Jewish people any favors. Let us examine what he writes and see if we can spot any errors of logic or leaps to ‘hopeful’ conclusions from zero evidence.

Conrad Black writes:

“...I think that Israel’s prospects have never been brighter... The Islamists may be gaining ground...”

Interesting juxtaposition. Picture Frodo and Sam, the heroes of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, perched atop the mountains overlooking the domains of Dark Lord Sauron. Can you imagine Frodo’s expression if he heard his trusty companion Sam exclaim: “Look, Mr. Frodo! Middle Earth has never been in better shape: the dark shadow of Mordor is spreading!”

It probably bears some resemblance to the face I made when I read Black. Now that the Islamists—who announce in public that they mean to exterminate the Israeli Jews—are “gaining ground,” Black would have us believe that “Israel’s prospects have never been brighter.”

Um... Really? Never?

Not after the Israel victory in the War of Independence? Not after the Israeli victory in the Six Day War? Not before the Israeli defeat of the Oslo Process brought the PLO/Fatah into the Jewish State and gave it control over the Arab population in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza? Not before Gaza was turned over to PLO/Fatah so that PLO/Fatah could give it to the Hamas Islamists so they could turn it into a rocket base? Is it really now—now that the anti-Semitic genocidal Islamists are taking over everywhere in the Middle East—that Israel’s prospects are the brightest?

Ah, but I truncated Black’s text with an ellipsis (…). Perhaps that was unfair. So let us restore the truncated text:

“...I think that Israel’s prospects have never been brighter. The Arab powers are in complete disarray within and among each other. The Islamists may be gaining ground...”

It really doesn’t improve. According to Black, the reason that “Israel’s prospects have never been brighter” is that  “the Arab powers are in complete disarray...” But (naturally) the reason the “Arab powers are in... disarray” is that “the Islamists are gaining ground.” This is a transition period. The disarray will end when the Islamists are completely in control. (This will happen soon.)

The author continues:

“The Islamists may be gaining ground but all indications are that the Arab masses are finally becoming more skeptical about the endless recourse to the red herring of Israel by their leaders to distract them from the despotism and misrule that has been imposed upon them by theocracies and secular states alike throughout the post-colonial era.”

Black claims that “all indications” are that the “Arab masses” are becoming enlightened and therefore also “more skeptical” of the Islamist focus on Israel. Uh huh. But the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood, the ones taking over everywhere, are completely focused on “the red herring of Israel.” And “the Islamists [are] gaining ground” because they are effectively mobilizing the widespread support they have been building with the “Arab masses.” So the “Arab masses” are not “becoming more skeptical” of the Islamist focus on Israel, but all to the contrary.

Then he writes:

“Even if the Islamists shoulder aside the military in Egypt, only the military could return to a war policy against Israel and the Egyptian army won’t do it. The hotheads can burn the Israeli flag in Tahrir Square in Cairo and even sack the Israeli embassy as they started to do last month, but no one is taking Egypt back to war with Israel.”

The author appears to misperceive how the world works. If the Islamists “shoulder aside the military in Egypt” then the Egyptian army will become an Islamist army. Perhaps not overnight, but give it a fortnight. “No one is taking Egypt back to war with Israel”? Really? Nobody? How about the Islamists who “burn the Israeli Flag in Tahrir Square in Cairo and even sack the Israeli embassy,” the same ones who will soon “shoulder aside the military in Egypt”?

Then:

“President Assad of Syria cannot survive as the absolute ruler of that country... There are steady defections from the Syrian army [and] pressures from the Arab league, which is always ineffectual but is something of a weather vane...”

It is probably true that Assad will not survive; he will be replaced by Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood. That is who the defectors from the Syrian army are defecting to (by the way). The author sees a “weather vane” in the Arab League pressure on Assad. Perhaps. Right before the Arab League’s 1948 war against Israel, Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, announced: “This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.”[1a]

Good enough to establish the direction of the “weather”?

Next:

“The enfeeblement of Syria will weaken Hezbollah and Hamas, and fray the supply line from Iran, and reduce pressure on Israel.”

Black seems very confident that this will be the outcome. Iranian leaders, however, seem to think otherwise. On 3 October, Lebanon’s Daily Star reported the following:

“ ‘The power of the U.S. administration is being curtailed and the power of Islamists is growing and flourishing,’ said Abdolhosein Allahkaram, the founder and former leader of Ansar-e Hezbollah and a retired brigadier general of the Revolutionary Guards, echoing views that have been expressed by Iran’s senior religious leaders.”[2]

More recently, on 10 December, World Net Daily reported:

“Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei recently urged more than 2.5 million Muslims on a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia to form ‘an international Islamic power bloc.’ The Ayatollah Khamenei told the listeners the Arab Spring was guided by Islam and said Muslims worldwide should rally to the Islamic cause.[3]

Perhaps Black should be less sanguine about how the so-called “Arab Spring” will disrupt Iranian supply lines to Hezbollah.

Black also says:

“Except perhaps for the demented genocidal ravings from Tehran, which may have to await a new administration in Washington to receive the abatement it requires, the rest of Muslim sabre-rattling against Israel is just histrionics.”

The “demented genocidal ravings from Tehran” have received nothing but material support from Washington administrations across a period of over 30 years, as we have documented.[4] The next administration will not defend Israel from Tehran but all to the contrary, consistent with this history.

Conrad Black:

“Turkey won’t send anymore [sic] ships to Palestine.”

A prophecy based on what evidence? The Mavi Marmara worked wonders for anti-Israel forces; they would be fools not to repeat it. And they are not fools.

And guess what we are now finding out? Just the other day, the Spanish daily ABC published an article with the title: “Libyan Islamists go to Syria to ‘help’ the revolution.”[5] The article reports ABC’s interview of Mehdi al Harati in Syria. The Spanish journalist was a bit surprised to find Harati there because Harati “is the former commander of the Tripoli Brigade, which played a fundamental role in the taking of the [Libyan] capital and the fall of Qaddafi.”  So what was he doing in Syria? He was there to assist the Syrian “revolution,” al Harati stated.

But I am straining your patience. What does any of this have to do, you ask, with Turkey again sending terrorists aboard flotillas—such as the one led by the Mavi Marmara—to provoke incidents with the Israelis who have rightfully blockaded Gaza? Glad you asked. ABC further explains about Harati:

“There is no doubt that Harati is a man of action. This character leaped to prominence after his participation in the Gaza Flotilla in the spring of 2010. ‘I was wounded in the assault on the Mavi Marmara and I spent 9 days in a Tel Aviv jail,’ he tells us.”

So, we have that an Islamist leader of the Gaza Flotilla is also the man responsible for the taking of Tripoli, and is now involved in the Syrian insurrection. So I suppose this means that “Turkey won’t send anymore [sic] ships to Palestine,” because... why? Because it would be too easy (and therefore boring?) now that the Islamists whom Turkey sent in those ships are taking power everywhere in the Middle East?

About Mehdi al Harati, ABC further explains:

“In February, Harati, who lives in Dublin and has an Irish passport, bid farewell to his wife and son, together with other Libyans exiled in Ireland, and went to Libya. There he created the Tripoli Brigade, a group of elite fighters, trained by Qatari advisors, who fought in the final battle for the capital.”

Isn’t that interesting? What was Irish citizen Harati doing before he left Ireland? It seems to me he had to be training for warfare, otherwise it is inexplicable that he was qualified to create and lead a “group of elite fighters.” So what is going on in Ireland? Doesn’t this suggest that Mehdi al Harati is protected and sponsored by the powers that be?

Where do his resources come from? The Spanish daily explains:

“Not too long ago, Harati was implicated in a strange episode when, according to his own story, a band of thieves broke into his home, taking a great store of jewelry and 200,000 pound sterling (about 238,000 euros). Harati told the Police that a great quantity of money had been given to him by a CIA agent to finance his group’s struggle against Qaddafi. The fighter left 200,000 pounds for his wife, in case something happened to him, and he took the rest to Libya.”

How to interpret this? First of all, Harati obviously has a very loose tongue. He talks to everybody. The surprised ABC reporters commented on this: “The Libyans didn’t try to hide their identities.” Perhaps Harati is a bit of an ‘innocent,’ if you catch my drift: he is at the center of things, he feels important, he likes to boast, so he wags his tongue in all directions. But why would he tell the Irish police that the money stolen from him was CIA money to fight the Islamist uprising against Qaddafi? Under what conditions would it make sense for him to do that? Wouldn’t he do this only if he believed himself to be completely protected by the powers that be, powers to whom the explanation of his CIA connection is a way of staying protected? Because in Libya, you see, Harati was second-in-command to Abdul Hakim Belhadj, “the historical leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), the Libyan affiliate of al-Qaeda,”[6] and Belhadj has been linked to the famous Madrid bombings.[7]

 

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Now, what is all this consistent with? It is consistent with US Intelligence assisting the Islamist takeover of the Middle East and North Africa, so as to prepare the ground for the destruction of Israel, as we have been arguing for years.

What? Did I say that? Never mind. “Israel’s prospects have never been brighter.”

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Footnotes and Further Reading
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[1] “Israel’s Prospects Have Never Been Brighter, As Arab Spring Fades Into Winter of Discontent”; By CONRAD BLACK; Special to the Sun; December 28, 2011
http://www.nysun.com/foreign/israels-prospects-have-never-been-brighter-as/87625/

[1a] Howard M Sachar, A History of Israel (New York: Knopf, 1979)p. 333

[2] “Iranians divided over effects of Arab Spring”; The Daily Star (Lebanon); October 03, 2011 02:23 AM; By Kristin Dailey;
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2011/Oct-03/150323-iranians-divided-over-effects-of-arab-spring.ashx#ixzz1hx9X32GX

[3] “FAITH UNDER FIRE: Arab Spring begins weeding out Christians: Proposed 'international Islamic power bloc' can't afford dissent”; World Net Daily; December 10, 201, 12:25 am Eastern; by Michael Carl
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=375985#ixzz1hx9z2aW0

[4] “Will the US attack Iran?: An alternative hypothesis”; Historical and Investigative Research - 23 Feb 2006; by Francisco Gil-White
http://www.hirhome.com/iraniraq/attack_iran.htm

[5] “Islamistas libios se desplazan a Siria para «ayudar» a la revolución: ABC entrevista a un grupo de libios vinculados con el ex yihadista Belhadj que han viajado a Siria para «evaluar» los medios de apoyo a la insurgencia”; DANIEL IRIARTE  / ENVIADO ESPECIAL A YEBEL ZAWI (SIRIA); 12 December, 2011.
http://www.abc.es/20111217/internacional/abcp-islamistas-libios-desplazan-siria-20111217.html

[6] “Libyan Rebel Commander: I Was on the Mavi Marmara”; National Review; By John Rosenthal; December 28, 2011 12:37 P.M.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/286729/libyan-rebel-commander-i-was-imavi-marmarai-john-rosenthal

[7] “El comandante rebelde Belhadj admite que contactó con los cabecillas del 11-M: Afirma que «El Tunecino» le llamó semanas antes de los atentados, aunque asegura que no respondió porque el número le pareció «extraño»”; MIKEL AYESTARAN / ENVIADO ESPECIAL A TRÍPOLI; 10 September, 2011
http://www.abc.es/20110909/internacional/abcp-comandante-rebelde-belhadj-admite-20110909.html


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