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David Horovitz of The Jerusalem Post interviews Bernard Lewis.
Bernard Lewis, the renowned Islamic scholar, believes that at the root of the protests sweeping across our region is the Arab peoples’ widespread sense of injustice. “The sort of authoritarian, even dictatorial regimes, that rule most of the countries in the modern Islamic Middle East, are a modern creation,” he notes. “The pre-modern regimes were much more open, much more tolerant.”
But Lewis regards a dash toward Western-style elections, far from representing a solution to the region’s difficulties, as constituting “a dangerous aggravation” of the problem, and fears that radical Islamic movements would be best placed to exploit so misguided a move. A much better course, he says, would be to encourage the gradual development of local, self-governing institutions, in accordance with the Islamic tradition of “consultation.”
Lewis also believes that it was no coincidence that the current unrest erupted first in Tunisia, the one Arab country, he notes, where women play a significant part in public life. The role of women in determining the future of the Arab world, he says, will be crucial.
Once described as the most influential post-war historian of Islam and the Middle East, Lewis, 94, set out his thinking on the current Middle East ferment in a conversation with me before an invited audience at the home of the US Ambassador to Israel, James Cunningham, a few days ago. Excerpts:
Does the current wave of protest in the region indicate that, in fact, the Arab masses do want democracy? And is that what we’re going to see unfolding now?The Arab masses certainly want change. And they want improvement. But when you say do they want democracy, that’s a more difficult question to answer. What does “democracy” mean? It’s a word that’s used with very different meanings, even in different parts of the Western world. And it’s a political concept that has no history, no record whatever in the Arab, Islamic world. …
… And so to the Israel question. Israel, like everybody else, was taken completely by surprise. How should Israel be responding to these protests?
Watch carefully, keep silent, make the necessary preparations.
And reach out. Reach out. This is a real possibility nowadays. There are increasing numbers of people in the Arab world who look with, I would even say, with wonderment at what they see in Israel, at the functioning of a free and open society. I read an article quite recently by a Palestinian Arab whom I will not endanger by naming, in which he said that “as things stand in the world at the present time, the best hope that an Arab has for his future is as a second class citizen of a Jewish state.” A rather extraordinary statement coming from an Arab spokesman. But if you think about it, he’s not far wrong. The alternative, being in an Arab state, is very much worse. They certainly do better as second class citizens of the Jewish state. There’s a growing realization of that. People would speak much more openly about that if it were safe to do so, which it obviously isn’t.
There are two things which I think are helpful towards a better understanding between the Arabs and Israel. One of them is the well-known one, of the perception of a greater danger, which I mentioned before. Sadat turned to Israel because he saw that Egypt was becoming a Russian colony. The same thing has happened again on a number of occasions. Now they see Israel as a barrier against the Iranian threat.
The other one, which is less easy to define but in the long run is probably more important, is [regarding Israel] as a model of democratic government. A model of a free and open society with rights for women – an increasingly important point, especially in the perception of women.
In both of these respects I think that there are some hopeful signs for the future.
John Steele Gordon spots some foolishness in the Daily Beast.
Ezra Klein, whistling bravely past the graveyard, has a piece in the Daily Beast today in which he argues that the fight over public unions in Wisconsin is
“the best thing to happen to the union movement in recent memory. Give the man some credit: In seven days, Walker did what unions have been trying and failing to do for decades. He united the famously fractious movement, reknit its emotional connection with allies ranging from students to national Democratic leaders, and brought the decline of organized labor to the forefront of the national agenda. The question is: Will it matter?”
The answer, I’m confident, is no. As Klein points out, union membership as a percentage of the workforce has been declining steadily for decades (it peaked about 1953). As manufacturing jobs continue to decline, thanks to globalization, automation, and other forces more profound than the union movement ever was, it will continue to decline until it is essentially one with the Greenback Party and the Wobblies. And for the same reason: they were an answer to yesterday’s problems, not today’s.
Klein’s arguments are remarkably out-of-date, but then, of course, so is liberalism. …
Writing in Forbes, Henry I. Miller says there should be warning labels on NY Times articles.
The New York Times was once known as the “newspaper of record.” Now, its reputation is for bias and inaccuracy. And not only about politics. Its commentary and even “news” articles about the genetic engineering of plants are so distorted and perverse that one wonders whether there is an antagonistic corporate policy on the subject.
The paper’s environmental correspondent Keith Schneider, science/business reporter Andrew Pollack, Sunday magazine writer Michael Pollan, food writer Marian Burros and columnist Denise Caruso are all serial offenders. The latest Times’ blast at one of the most stunning technological successes of the last quarter century came on Feb. 15 from Mark Bittman, who does regular commentaries “on food and all things related.” His ignorance is breathtaking.
Bittman manages to regurgitate all the shopworn myths that surround the genetic engineering of crops: That it’s unneeded, unwanted, unregulated, unproven and unsafe. As Bill Kahrl, the legendary former opinion editor of the Sacramento Bee, said to me about the piece, “Is there any sin – of misinformation, illogic, deception, bully-ragging, incitement or hysterical paranoia – that Bittman does not commit here? It’s like a case study in everything wrong.” …
John Podhoretz clears up the history of part of the conservative canon.
The clearest example of the bizarrely naive quality of hermetic liberal provincialism was attributed to the New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael almost 40 years ago, and has been discussed in right-wing circles ever since. It went something like this: “I can’t believe Nixon won. I don’t know anyone who voted for him.” Several years ago, I went on an admittedly desultory search for the original quote and was unable to locate it. …
Hot Air has some interesting Ted Kennedy gossip.
No doubt Judicial Watch’s release of old FBI files on Ted Kennedy will get a lot of attention on his partying ways, but that might miss the larger point. It took Judicial Watch three tries to get the FBI to release its unredacted files on Kennedy from a 1961 trip to Chile, Colombia, and other Latin America nations, which the FBI fought on grounds of national security. When the redactions were finally removed, however, it seems clear that the FBI acted to protect Kennedy’s reputation rather than American security: …