The "Peace Process" Is a War Process -- Daniel Pipes Realizes

UPDATING 4-19-2010 see at bottom

The "peace process" means peace of mind for antisemites.

Daniel Pipes made some quite correct observations about the "peace process" in a recent column.
They should be obvious to everyone but are not. Pipes makes these observations while writing about the "silver lining" of the present Israel-USA contretemps.

First, the "peace process" is in actuality a "war process." Diplomatic negotiations through the 1990s led to a parade of Israeli retreats that had the perverse effect of turning the middling-bad situation of 1993 into the awful one of 2000. Painful Israeli concessions, we now know, stimulate not reciprocal Palestinian goodwill but rather irredentism, ambition, fury, and violence.
. . . .
Fourth, U.S.-Israel tensions increase Palestinian intransigence and demands. Israel in bad standing empowers their leaders; and if the tensions arise from U.S. pressure for concessions to the Palestinians, the latter sit back and enjoy the show. This happened in mid-2009, when Mahmoud Abbas instructed Americans what to extract from Jerusalem. . . [here]

As a Jerusalemite, I can confirm Pipes' observation that the peace process is a war process. The more "peace processing" going on, the more Arab terrorism. More Israeli withdrawals or concessions of territory lead to rockets from Gaza and Lebanon. We live in an Orwellian world.

And of course, Washington hostility to Israel just encourages the intransigence of Arabs who have no desire to make peace with Israel and are inspired by Washington's hostility to Israel. Indeed, hostility to Jews is deeply embedded in the Muslim religion since Muhammad. Likewise the belief in perpetual war against the infidels is embedded in Islam --with truces, to be sure, when the infidels are stronger. The Quran does not make peace a supreme principle but rather war to subdue and humiliate the infidels and make them pay tribute. This is enunciated in Quran 9:29 in regard to Jews and Christians specifically.

Of course, some Arabs prefer peace to war. But an Arab leader/ruler has to justify peace --needs an excuse for peace-- by pointing to the greater strength of the infidel, in this case Israel. By weakening Israel strategically through territorial concessions of strategic areas needed for defense (such as the Jordan Valley and the north-south Judea-Samaria mountain ridge), Israel becomes obviously weaker. In this case, leaders/rulers who prefer peace would lose their excuse for peace because Israel would seem obviously weaker.

And all of the above does not deal with the issue of denying the human and civil rights of Jews by, for example, forbidding them to live in parts of Jerusalem. Yet Jerusalem has had a Jewish majority population since the mid-19th century, since 1853 at least, according to the French historian and diplomat of that time, Cesar Famin, whose figures were published by Karl Marx in an article in the New York Tribune, Horace Greeley's paper, on 15 April 1854. Furthermore, Arab forces began driving Jews out of parts of Jerusalem in December 1947. These parts became parts of what was the Judenrein "Arab East Jerusalem" for 19 years between 1948 and 1967, a sector of the city occupied by the Arab Legion of Jordan. This is in addition to the importance of Jerusalem to the world, especially to Christians and Muslims, being due to its ancient role in Jewish history and religion.

Obama's anti-Israel policy, his favoring of a racist anti-Jewish apartheid policy is dangerous, threatening and repugnant. However, as Pipes says, it may have its silver lining.
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UPDATING 4-19-2010 Lebanese blogger Tony Badran writes about how Syrian thug-in-chief, Bashar Assad, views peace and war:
"Assad’s mantra is that 'peace and resistance are two sides of the same coin.' As he sees things, it’s not either peace or resistance. For him the two are simultaneous tools of attrition, with peace talks providing Syria with impunity as Assad pursues “resistance.” In his conceptual framework, the peace process is just warfare by other means." [here]
Veteran "peace processor", Aaron David Miller, looks at the "process" and at Washington's ME policy more skeptically now. He compares it to a dogmatic religion [here]. Rick Richman comments on Miller's comments [here]
Youssef Ibrahim of the NYSun, formerly ME correspondent for the NY Times, quotes from and comments on A D Miller's article [here]. Ibrahim shows that the so-called "palestinian" issue is not the main concern of several important Arab govts. Yet the Obama gang keeps on hawking that issue's supposed centrality to Arab and Middle Eastern concerns like a huckster in the marketplace, although nobody's buying.

Was Karl Marx a Zionist NeoCon? -- Part 2 -- Was Marx the Previous Incarnation of Hugh Fitzgerald?

It is clear that Karl Marx would be considered quite politically incorrect today. He had a low opinion of Islam and Islamic society and of its capacity for civilization. Nevertheless, the Bolsheviks early declared their support for the political claims of Muslim peoples and nations against those of non-Muslims, even those of dhimmi peoples who had suffered mass murder at Muslim hands, like the Armenians [see here]. Curiously, the Bolshevik pro-Muslim, pro-Arab policy converged with that of the British Empire --supposed imperialist enemies and betes noires of Communism. This was especially so in the Land of Israel, where the British government was supposed to help Jews return to their ancient homeland and to foster development of the Jewish National Home, designated by the San Remo Conference and the League of Nations.

Here Karl Marx sounds like Hugh Fitzgerald, the learned anti-Islamist of the JihadWatch/DhimmiWatch websites. Even in 1853 there was a pro-Islamist or Turcophile press in Britain, just as today. According to Marx, this Turcophilic press was based on wealthy capitalists, bourgeois, politically Liberal, whose voice was the The Daily News, and who were interested in developing trade with the Ottoman Empire. Sound familiar? How about American business interests and publications that call for a pro-Arab policy against Israel on the grounds of business and trade? Marx first summarizes their argument:

"It is said that Turkey is decaying; but where is the decay? Is not civilization rapidly spreading in Turkey and trade extending? Where you see nothing but decay our statistics prove nothing but progress." [Marx's summary of the Turcophile position]

Here is Marx's response. He first points out that much of the trade with Turkey is in goods that go on from there to other countries, just as Holland imported many goods in transit to Germany:

. . . what every statistician would immediately, in the case of Holland, treat as a clumsy concoction, the whole of the Liberal press of England, including the learned Economist, tries, in the case of Turkey, to impose upon the public credulity. And then, who are the traders in Turkey? Certainly not the Turks. Their way of promoting trade, when they were yet in their original nomadic state, consisted in robbing caravans; and now that they are a little more civilized it consists in all sorts of arbitrary and oppressive exactions. Remove all the Turks out of Europe, and trade will have no reason to suffer. And as to progress in general civilization, who are they that carry out that progress in all parts of European Turkey? Not the Turks, for they are few and far between [in European Turkey], and can hardly be said to be settled anywhere except in Constantinople and two or three small country districts. It is the Greek and Slavonic [Slavic] middle class in all the towns and trading posts who are the real support of whatever civilization is effectually imported into the country. That part of the population is constantly rising in wealth and influence, and the Turks are more and more driven into the background. Were it not for their monopoly of civil and military power they would soon disappear. But that monopoly has become impossible for the future, and their power is turned into impotence except for obstructions in the way of progress. The fact is, they must be got rid of.

Strong words from Marx, a Hugh Fitzgerald avant la lettre. Needless to say, we do not wholly agree with Marx. He does not give credit to the civilizing role of the Jews living in the Balkans. Further, Albania had a Muslim majority already at that time, and Bosnia and Kossovo had large Muslim minorities, perhaps a Muslim majority in Kossovo, maybe. But the more than 150 years that have passed since Marx wrote these lines do show that Islam is an obstacle to civilization. So why do the United States and the United Kingdom [Britain] insist on promoting political Islam in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, for example? Or through the pro-terrorist, pro-barbarian Annapolis Conference?
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Coming: Peace Process frauds and lies, peace follies, peacemongering = warmongering, Jews in Jerusalem, Hebron, and elsewhere in the Land of Israel, etc.

Muslim Oppression of Non-Muslims in Jerusalem, the Jews at the bottom of the social ladder, 1853, a contemporary French diplomat's account

Jerusalem in the mid-19th century was firmly under Muslim control, although non-Muslims were the clear majority of the population. Jews alone made up an absolute majority, and the Christians made up about a quarter. Cesar Famin, a French diplomat, historian, and man of letters, described the Holy City in a book published in 1853 [see the previous post].

Famin reports, moreover, that the Jews --despite being a majority of the Holy City's population-- were at the bottom of the social ladder, even below the Christians, who were dhimmis or rayahs like themselves. We will publish a series of relevant quotes from his book in English translation followed by his French original.

"The Muslims, who make up about one-quarter of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, are the masters here in every matter. This population, made up of Turks, Arabs, and Moors, is harsh to the Christians and the Jews, eager for gain, cruel to the weak, intolerant and jealous towards all those who do not share their beliefs."

Les musulmans, qui forment a peu pres le quart des habitants de Jerusalem, sont ici les maitres en toute chose. Cette population, composee de Turcs, d'Arabes, et de Maures, est rude aux chretiens et aux juifs; apres au gain, cruelle avec les faibles, intolerante et jalouse a l'egard de tous ceux qui ne partagent pas ses croyances. [p50]

Karl Marx by the way paraphrased and translated this passage in his own article in the New York Daily Tribune [quoted in earlier posts].

After relating how Ottoman soldiers control entry into the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Famin goes on [Part of this passage too is paraphrased by Marx]:
". . . but of all the foreign nations that frequent the holy places subject to the good pleasure of the Muslims, there is none more ill-treated and more subject to extortion than the Jewish nation.
"We have seen above that the Jews form by themselves more than half of the population of the holy city. They inhabit in Jerusalem a quarter named after them (Hareth-el-Yahoud), . . . this quarter. . . is situated near the Sterquiline gate or the Rubbish Gate [now usually called the Dung Gate in English], now called the Mugrabi Gate. Thus, we may say that the expulsion of these former owners of the country is complete."

. . . mais de toutes les nations etrangeres qui frequentent les lieux saints sous le bon plaisir des musulmans il n'en est pas de plus maltraitee et de plus ranconnee que la nation juive.
On a vu plus haut que les juifs forment a eux seuls plus de la moitie de la population de la ville sainte. Ils habitent, a Jerusalem, un quartier auquel on a donne leur nom (Hareth-el-Yahoud), . . . Ce quartier. . . est situe pres de la porte Sterquiline ou des immondices, appelee maintenant porte des Maugrabins. Ainsi on peut dire que l'expulsion de ces anciens maitres du pays est complete. [ p 51-52]

This passage too was translated and paraphrased by Marx. We continue:
"In our times too, many projects for reestablishing the Jewish nation as a political society, and for reintegrating it in the homeland of its ancestors have been conceived and loudly announced; the support of men praiseworthy for their character, influential due to their wealth or their position, has not been lacking for these chimerical attempts which have never been crowned with even the most ephemeral success. To whatever faith one belongs, whatever degree of faith one carries in one's heart, there are however historical facts before which one must bend. The dispersion of the Jewish people has been consommated, and one may say that it will never end"

De nos jours aussi on a concu et annonce fastueusement bien des projets pour reconstituer la nation juive en societe politique, et pour la reintegrer dans la patrie de ses ancetres; l'appui d'hommes recommandables par leur caractere, influents par leur richesses ou leur position, n'a pas manque a ces chimeriques tentatives, qui n'ont jamais ete couronnees meme par le succes le plus ephemere. A quelque croyance qu'on appartienne, quelque degre de foi qu'on porte dans son coeur, il est cependant des faits historiques devant lesquels il faut s'incliner. La dispersion du peuple juif est consommee, et on peut dire qu'elle n'aura jamais de fin [pp 53-54]

Famin is wrong in insinuating that the Jewish exile will never end. Indeed, there may always be a Jewish dispersion, but the population of the Land of Israel is now Jewish in its majority, just as Jerusalem had a Jewish majority in Famin's day.
Famin goes on, offering us more depiction of Jewish suffering in Muslim-dominated Jerusalem that is politically incorrect by today's standards:
"Nothing equals the misery and the sufferings of the Jews of Jerusalem, the constant object of the insults and intolerance of the Mohammedans, insulted by the Greeks, in hostile relations with the Latins. . ."

Rien n'egale la misere et les souffrances des juifs de Jerusalem, objet perpetuel des avanies et de l'intolerance des mahometans, insultes par les Grecs, en hostilite avec les Latins. . . [p 54]

Here too Marx copied from Famin. Speaking of the Jews in Jerusalem, Famin writes:
"While waiting for death, they suffer and pray; they weep over the misfortunes of Zion . . . "

En attendant la mort, ils souffrent et ils prient; ils pleurent sur les malheurs de Sion . . . [p 54]

Somehow, the oft vaunted tolerance of the Muslims towards Jews does not seem to appear in Famin's account. It is clear that the Jews not only suffered as dhimmis, like the Christians, but that they were at the bottom of the social ladder, since the Muslims treated them worse than they treated Christians and since Christians too treated the Jews with a high hand. Henry Laurens of the prestigious College de France, considered the top French expert today on the modern history of the Land of Israel, skipped over this evidence and similar accounts in his deeply flawed, two-volume work, La Question de Palestine, purporting to be an accurate history of the Land of Israel since Napoleon. His book by the way simply overflows with reference notes, but some contemporary evidence does not find its way into the book. Like the New York Times, Laurens prints what fits his argument, which favors Arab nationalism, Islam, and the PLO.

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Coming: more on Jews in Jerusalem, poems of Zion, BBC on the Holocaust, etc.