Now do you understand why I am afraid? by Denis MacEoin

I’m afraid. Let me try to explain why. I was born four years after the end of the Second World War. Throughout my childhood and early youth, I was taught about why that war had been fought, why it had been essential to defeat Nazi Germany, and why we must never let something like that happen again. Above all, it was instilled in me that we must never allow a second Holocaust to happen. It had been the greatest crime in human history, and the Nazis had been the greatest criminals of all time.The worst thing about the Third Reich was that it came to power in a modern nation, a nation that prided itself on its culture, its science, its legal system, its religious and social values. This was the horror, that something primitive, bestial, and anti-human came out of what both Germans and their neighbours considered a civilized and progressive people. Even today, when we read or watch newsreels about the Reich, the Nazi Party, the SS, the vast apparatus of that singular evil, we are confronted by a cold-hearted wickedness that has no parallel in modern history. It remains the supreme evil of modern times, despite the emergence of many tyrannies and tyrants since its time.When we think of German fascism, we think of the ruthlessness of the blitzkrieg, the extermination of villages, the destruction of Warsaw, the mass killings of Jews by einzatsgruppen, the torture and murder refined by the Gestapo, the utter abuse of innocence by a conscious option for evil, and, above all, the death camps. To my generation, the swastika and the totenkopf, the chic black uniforms, the rallies, the goose-stepping formations, the diving stukas, the barbed wire, the piano-wire hangings, the gas chambers, the watchtowers, the jackboots, the Hitlergrüss salutes, the lightning-flash SS badges, the black coats of the secret police, the U-boat packs, and the overweening arrogance all spoke of one thing: an evil so removed from good that it should never be repeated, however long the human race endures.I began by saying I am afraid. Afraid of what? Of the truth that, just over sixty years after the end of that long and costly war, after the Nuremberg trials that laid bare Germany’s infamy, after the sorrow and grief that consumed Europe and Russia, I hear our understanding of that evil abused. It is as if a new generation has forgotten what Nazism was all about, as if all our common understandings have been twisted until they are no longer recognizable.In what way? In the repeated statements found among sections of the left and centre that describe Israelis as Nazis, that speak of a ‘Palestinian Holocaust’, that define Israel as the new Reich and its actions on a par with those of Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. It is scarcely possible to say how sick and frightened it makes me to read such remarks, not least when I realize that they are often made by seemingly intelligent, well-educated people. What is worse, they have become part of a wider distortion of historical truth that denies the Holocaust, blames the Jews for having provoked Hitler and everyone who ever persecuted them throughout history, and finds an excuse for its anti-Semitism in mealy-mouthed declarations of guiltlessness: ‘I am only anti-Zionist’.So let’s put some of this to rest. Leaving aside the Suez debacle (in which Britain and France were also involved), Israel has only ever fought defensive wars. Again and again, Israelis have fought, not just for their own lives, but for the life of their nation — a nation created to provide a haven for Jews in a world that had just disposed of six million of them. They have never used the total war tactics of the Nazis, nor have they once envisaged the genocide of the Palestinians. If they had really been Nazis, does anyone imagine they would have left a Palestinian alive? If they really used Nazi military tactics, do you think the death toll in the recent war in Lebanon would have been around 1,000, most of the dead Hizbullah guerrillas?There’s simply no point in using derogatory terms like ‘Nazi’, ‘genocidal’, or ‘racist’ if they don’t fit. And such language doesn’t fit Israel. Criticize Israel by all means — Israelis do it all the time — but play fair. Too many people on the Left have betrayed their own ideals of honesty and justice by demonizing a people whose only wish is for peace and security. There are things wrong about Israel, and you should take care to identify them and write to your nearest Israeli embassy about them: you’ll find a listening ear, and maybe your criticisms will do real good. But there’s no point in standing on street corners with a megaphone, yelling to the general public that Israelis are Nazis, because only someone as badly informed as yourself will listen to you.What frightens me more than anything, though, is the hypocrisy. Left-wingers and liberals always had an honourable history of opposition to anti-Semitism. They stood up for Jews, in the same way Jews in the 60s were among the most active figures in the American Civil Rights Movement. Back in the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s, it was a matter of honour for liberals to defend the Jews in their own countries and Israel abroad. But now? The Left has sold out totally to the lure of anti-Semitism. ‘We only hate Israel, not Jews,’ you say? Then why have so many left-wingers and liberals joined forces with the Palestinians and other Arabs, or with Iranians or Pakistanis, whose cultures are saturated with the most obnoxious anti-Jewish imagery and rhetoric that has existed outside the Third Reich? I’m not talking here about something half-hidden, some dirty secret that you might well not have come across. I’m talking about mainstream TV shows, broadcasts on a variety of national radio stations, children’s cartoons, school textbooks, mosque sermons, and large political rallies.It’s all there: the hooked noses, the grasping hands, the conspiracies, the sacrifice of Christian and Muslim children, the mixing of their blood with matzo flour, the secret cabals, the sheer Nazi-like horror of the filthy, blood-sucking, world-dominating Jew. If you think you’re a liberal, then what in God’s name induces you to throw in your lot with real Nazism, pour scorn on Jews who have been fighting for their lives for well over sixty years, and then gallingly call those same Jews Nazis?You say you haven’t seen any of this? Then you really are a fool to give your support to a society you know next to nothing about. You consider Hamas ‘freedom fighters’: have you noticed the salute they give in rallies? You think of Hizbullah as ‘heroes of the resistance’: have you ever seen how they salute? If it was Hitler up on the podium, no-one would be surprised.This all requires a more detailed discussion. For the moment, I will only say that this link between modern Arab anti-Semitism and the Third Reich variety is not accidental. While Jews were dying in Auschwitz and Buchenwald and Birkenau, the Palestinian leadership was collaborating with the Reich, recruiting troops for the SS, and planning to build a death camp in Hebron. Jew-hating fascism did not die with the overthrow of the Third Reich: it moved to the Arab world where, believe it or not, the world’s liberals now sing its praises, thinking they are fighting for Palestinian freedom. If you are still in any doubt about how sick this is, read the Hamas Charter, which openly calls for the slaughter of all the Jews in Israel, or early documents of Hizbullah, where the same aim is made explicit, or the more recent calls by the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad, to wipe Israel from the map. They want to finish the job Hitler started. Don’t take my word for it, read any of the books and pamphlets in which just this claim is made. I forgot, you probably don’t read Arabic. I do. Don’t you think that you, as an intelligent and open-minded liberal, might actually base your view of this on something more solid than a couple of articles in The Guardian? I read The Guardian too, but I don’t swallow everything its extraordinarily biased op-eds say about the Middle East.Where does this leave us? You, the anti-Israel liberal, me, the pro-Israel liberal. At loggerheads, I suppose. But there is a difference: I believe in your inherent goodness because some sort of love of humanity must inform your political options, your love of free speech, of human rights, of the right of all peoples to independence and nationhood. I know you are impelled to support the Palestinian cause because of such imperatives, and I admire your impulse. But I also think — or, rather, know — that you are ignorant, perhaps profoundly so. Otherwise, I cannot in all conscience imagine why you would so freely give your voice and your actions to support a people who seek only genocide, and withhold your support from the very people that has suffered the greatest act of genocide in the last or any other century.If you believe in the self-determination of peoples, why do you condemn the establishment of the single state of Israel, the only Jewish state in two thousand years? From the very beginning, the people of Israel have sought for the creation of an Arab state next to theirs. Given peace and security, there are few limits to what Israel would do to make a Palestinian state an economic and social success. They have never talked of genocide. The Palestinians talk of little else. Hamas explicitly rejects peace treaties, peace conferences, compromises, and negotiations. Why would a peace-loving liberal extend the hand of greeting to such intransigence and spit on the hand that offers all of that and more? If liberals can support the worst sort of anti-Semitism, doesn’t that open the way to forces that will crush us all, Jews and non-Jews alike? I’m afraid. Let me try to explain why. I was born four years after the end of the Second World War. Throughout my childhood and early youth, I was taught about why that war had been fought, why it had been essential to defeat Nazi Germany, and why we must never let something like that happen again. Above all, it was instilled in me that we must never allow a second Holocaust to happen. It had been the greatest crime in human history, and the Nazis had been the greatest criminals of all time.The worst thing about the Third Reich was that it came to power in a modern nation, a nation that prided itself on its culture, its science, its legal system, its religious and social values. This was the horror, that something primitive, bestial, and anti-human came out of what both Germans and their neighbours considered a civilized and progressive people. Even today, when we read or watch newsreels about the Reich, the Nazi Party, the SS, the vast apparatus of that singular evil, we are confronted by a cold-hearted wickedness that has no parallel in modern history. It remains the supreme evil of modern times, despite the emergence of many tyrannies and tyrants since its time.When we think of German fascism, we think of the ruthlessness of the blitzkrieg, the extermination of villages, the destruction of Warsaw, the mass killings of Jews by einzatsgruppen, the torture and murder refined by the Gestapo, the utter abuse of innocence by a conscious option for evil, and, above all, the death camps. To my generation, the swastika and the totenkopf, the chic black uniforms, the rallies, the goose-stepping formations, the diving stukas, the barbed wire, the piano-wire hangings, the gas chambers, the watchtowers, the jackboots, the Hitlergrüss salutes, the lightning-flash SS badges, the black coats of the secret police, the U-boat packs, and the overweening arrogance all spoke of one thing: an evil so removed from good that it should never be repeated, however long the human race endures.I began by saying I am afraid. Afraid of what? Of the truth that, just over sixty years after the end of that long and costly war, after the Nuremberg trials that laid bare Germany’s infamy, after the sorrow and grief that consumed Europe and Russia, I hear our understanding of that evil abused. It is as if a new generation has forgotten what Nazism was all about, as if all our common understandings have been twisted until they are no longer recognizable.In what way? In the repeated statements found among sections of the left and centre that describe Israelis as Nazis, that speak of a ‘Palestinian Holocaust’, that define Israel as the new Reich and its actions on a par with those of Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. It is scarcely possible to say how sick and frightened it makes me to read such remarks, not least when I realize that they are often made by seemingly intelligent, well-educated people. What is worse, they have become part of a wider distortion of historical truth that denies the Holocaust, blames the Jews for having provoked Hitler and everyone who ever persecuted them throughout history, and finds an excuse for its anti-Semitism in mealy-mouthed declarations of guiltlessness: ‘I am only anti-Zionist’.So let’s put some of this to rest. Leaving aside the Suez debacle (in which Britain and France were also involved), Israel has only ever fought defensive wars. Again and again, Israelis have fought, not just for their own lives, but for the life of their nation — a nation created to provide a haven for Jews in a world that had just disposed of six million of them. They have never used the total war tactics of the Nazis, nor have they once envisaged the genocide of the Palestinians. If they had really been Nazis, does anyone imagine they would have left a Palestinian alive? If they really used Nazi military tactics, do you think the death toll in the recent war in Lebanon would have been around 1,000, most of the dead Hizbullah guerrillas?There’s simply no point in using derogatory terms like ‘Nazi’, ‘genocidal’, or ‘racist’ if they don’t fit. And such language doesn’t fit Israel. Criticize Israel by all means — Israelis do it all the time — but play fair. Too many people on the Left have betrayed their own ideals of honesty and justice by demonizing a people whose only wish is for peace and security. There are things wrong about Israel, and you should take care to identify them and write to your nearest Israeli embassy about them: you’ll find a listening ear, and maybe your criticisms will do real good. But there’s no point in standing on street corners with a megaphone, yelling to the general public that Israelis are Nazis, because only someone as badly informed as yourself will listen to you.What frightens me more than anything, though, is the hypocrisy. Left-wingers and liberals always had an honourable history of opposition to anti-Semitism. They stood up for Jews, in the same way Jews in the 60s were among the most active figures in the American Civil Rights Movement. Back in the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s, it was a matter of honour for liberals to defend the Jews in their own countries and Israel abroad. But now? The Left has sold out totally to the lure of anti-Semitism. ‘We only hate Israel, not Jews,’ you say? Then why have so many left-wingers and liberals joined forces with the Palestinians and other Arabs, or with Iranians or Pakistanis, whose cultures are saturated with the most obnoxious anti-Jewish imagery and rhetoric that has existed outside the Third Reich? I’m not talking here about something half-hidden, some dirty secret that you might well not have come across. I’m talking about mainstream TV shows, broadcasts on a variety of national radio stations, children’s cartoons, school textbooks, mosque sermons, and large political rallies.It’s all there: the hooked noses, the grasping hands, the conspiracies, the sacrifice of Christian and Muslim children, the mixing of their blood with matzo flour, the secret cabals, the sheer Nazi-like horror of the filthy, blood-sucking, world-dominating Jew. If you think you’re a liberal, then what in God’s name induces you to throw in your lot with real Nazism, pour scorn on Jews who have been fighting for their lives for well over sixty years, and then gallingly call those same Jews Nazis?You say you haven’t seen any of this? Then you really are a fool to give your support to a society you know next to nothing about. You consider Hamas ‘freedom fighters’: have you noticed the salute they give in rallies? You think of Hizbullah as ‘heroes of the resistance’: have you ever seen how they salute? If it was Hitler up on the podium, no-one would be surprised.This all requires a more detailed discussion. For the moment, I will only say that this link between modern Arab anti-Semitism and the Third Reich variety is not accidental. While Jews were dying in Auschwitz and Buchenwald and Birkenau, the Palestinian leadership was collaborating with the Reich, recruiting troops for the SS, and planning to build a death camp in Hebron. Jew-hating fascism did not die with the overthrow of the Third Reich: it moved to the Arab world where, believe it or not, the world’s liberals now sing its praises, thinking they are fighting for Palestinian freedom. If you are still in any doubt about how sick this is, read the Hamas Charter, which openly calls for the slaughter of all the Jews in Israel, or early documents of Hizbullah, where the same aim is made explicit, or the more recent calls by the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad, to wipe Israel from the map. They want to finish the job Hitler started. Don’t take my word for it, read any of the books and pamphlets in which just this claim is made. I forgot, you probably don’t read Arabic. I do. Don’t you think that you, as an intelligent and open-minded liberal, might actually base your view of this on something more solid than a couple of articles in The Guardian? I read The Guardian too, but I don’t swallow everything its extraordinarily biased op-eds say about the Middle East.Where does this leave us? You, the anti-Israel liberal, me, the pro-Israel liberal. At loggerheads, I suppose. But there is a difference: I believe in your inherent goodness because some sort of love of humanity must inform your political options, your love of free speech, of human rights, of the right of all peoples to independence and nationhood. I know you are impelled to support the Palestinian cause because of such imperatives, and I admire your impulse. But I also think — or, rather, know — that you are ignorant, perhaps profoundly so. Otherwise, I cannot in all conscience imagine why you would so freely give your voice and your actions to support a people who seek only genocide, and withhold your support from the very people that has suffered the greatest act of genocide in the last or any other century.If you believe in the self-determination of peoples, why do you condemn the establishment of the single state of Israel, the only Jewish state in two thousand years? From the very beginning, the people of Israel have sought for the creation of an Arab state next to theirs. Given peace and security, there are few limits to what Israel would do to make a Palestinian state an economic and social success. They have never talked of genocide. The Palestinians talk of little else. Hamas explicitly rejects peace treaties, peace conferences, compromises, and negotiations. Why would a peace-loving liberal extend the hand of greeting to such intransigence and spit on the hand that offers all of that and more? If liberals can support the worst sort of anti-Semitism, doesn’t that open the way to forces that will crush us all, Jews and non-Jews alike?Now do you understand why I am afraid?
Denis MacEoin
maceoin@btinternet.com
http://mid-eastplus.blogspot.com/Denis MacEoin
maceoin@btinternet.com
http://mid-eastplus.blogspot.com/

Israel, the filthy germ by Israel, the filthy germ

Israel, the filthy germ
Denis MacEoin

One of the first things that strikes the visitor to Iran is how polite everybody is. Hands go on chests (male chests anyhow) in a gesture of humility, it is commonplace to address someone as jenab, ‘your excellence’, to call oneself ‘your sacrifice’, and much besides. It’s an old fashioned society in which interpersonal relations are valued at all levels.
But ever since the revolution of 1979, there are more and more ways of insulting anyone perceived to be the enemy of Iran or Islam. Almost the first slogan of that revolution was marg bar-Amrika, ‘death to America’. Later, marg bar-Isra’il was added to the chants after every Friday prayer meeting. Verbal insults were matched by vicious disrespect for the most basic human dignity, in the parading of the US embassy hostages, the broadcasting of film of the US pilots burned in their helicopters during the failed Eagle Claw operation to rescue those hostages, the 2006 exhibition of cartoons mocking the Holocaust and its victims, or the conference on Holocaust denial held later that year.
Now, Ahmadinejad has made a speech in which he describes Israel as ‘a filthy germ’ and ‘a savage beast’. A few days earlier, Muhammad ‘Ali Ja’fari, commander-in-chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards wrote to Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah, saying ‘In the near future, we will witness the destruction of the cancerous germ of Israel by the powerful and competent hands of the Hezbollah combatants’. Clearly, Ahmadinejad’s words are not just the expression of some personal pique. They could even spark a war.
All of this talk of germs and viruses is disturbingly old hat, but none the less vicious for that. In 1942, Adolf Hitler declared that ‘the discovery of the Jewish virus is one of the greatest revolutions that have taken place in the world’. Elsewhere, he says Jews are like ‘tubercles which can infect a healthy body’. You find this everywhere in Nazi discourse. German has been infected by the Jews, their destruction will bring it back to health. Dr. Fritz Klein, one of the infamous Nazi doctors, said ‘The Jew is the gangrenous appendix in the body of mankind’ and continued ‘whether you want to call it an appendix or not, it must be extirpated (exterminated, eradicated: ausgerottet)’
Familiar? On many occasions, Iran’s outspoken president has called for the destruction of Iran. Don’t be misled by attempts to water this down: in one speech he calls on the Islamic nations to ‘exterminate’ Israel (qal’ o qam’ kard). His aim, like that of Hezbollah and Hamas among others, is the total elimination of Israel. Since Hezbollah’s apparent (though only apparent) victory in the 2006 war with Israel, Iran and its allies have grown in confidence. They now think they are only a short time from total success. Yet the international community does next to nothing to prevent a second Holocaust, a second cleansing of the Ewige Jude, the eternal virus.
One might ask some pointed questions. For one thing, in what way does the existence of Israel threaten Iran, whether in the short or long term. In all the years it has existed, there have been no signs of the Israeli virus passing on infection to its surrounding states — quite the contrary, in fact. Some virus. Some threat. Does Israel plan to expand aggressively beyond its current boundaries? If that had been the Israeli scheme, they would have done it many years ago. Israel doesn’t border on Iran, and the countries between them are all hostile to Israel.
The only way Iran would ever benefit from Israel’s death would be to raise its own esteem among the anti-Israeli nations. Given that Iran’s theological position is many football fields away from that espoused by other Muslims except the Iraqi and Lebanese Shi’a, that boost to Iran’s status would be undeniably welcome; but it would do absolutely nothing to expunge the taint of being a Shi’ite country.
But let’s just look at what Ahmadinejad is saying about Israel in another light. The fact is that Israel is the only genuine democracy for a long way about. There is no other country in the Middle East that is a successful multi-party state, that has a democratic system of law, that gives full rights to religious and ethnic minorities, women, and homosexuals; that does not censor its press or book publishers; that has such high numbers of university graduates; that participates so seriously in international aid provision; and that has such an international standing in medical and technological research, producing the most vibrant economy in the region.
If this is indeed a virus, we must surely expect democracy and human rights to spread like a benign plague across the region. In fact, Israel’s Arab (and Iranian) neighbours have proved remarkably resistant to every strain of the virus that has reached them. Surely any decent-minded person should be hoping for the Israel virus to get its teeth into Egypt or Syria or Jordan.
If there is a virus, it has to be the curious one that has infected so many in the West, notably on the left. No matter how strong the moral and rational arguments in Israel’s favour, this benighted group persists in mouthing slogans, calling for boycotts, boosting terror groups like Hamas (freedom fighters even when they are attacking kindergartens), and denying any rights to Israel whatever. And when the Islamic state has been established, and they start stoning women and hanging gays and killing the Baha’is, and imprisoning the socialists, no doubt our brave enemies of Israel will slink off to find another cause. May that day never come.

Professor Barry Rubin ME Affairs

Professor Barry Rubin,Director, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center Editor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal Editor, Turkish Studies

The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East

Barry Rubin, The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East. Can be ordered at: http://www.amazon.com/Long-War-Freedom-Struggle-emocracy/dp/0471739014

The fate of many a current crisis--and much of America’s and even the whole world’s future—depends on the struggle for power in the Arab world. In The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in The Middle East Barry Rubin narrates the battle among reformers, regimes, and radical Islamists. He pays tribute to the liberals’ courage but also points to their weakness, lack of success, and the tremendous forces against them. Among the issues covered are the battles among Arabs to define Islam, America, Israel, the war in Iraq, women’s rights, and terrorism.
$25.95 cloth/ ISBN: 0-471-73901-4/To order can call 1-800-255-5945. In Canada, call 1-800-567-4797.

Professor Barry Rubin,Director, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) CenterEditor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) JournalEditor, Turkish Studies

THE TRUTH ABOUT SYRIA

THE TRUTH ABOUT SYRIA

By Barry Rubin
Palgrave-Macmillan, 2007


Among the biggest world problems and greatest threats are terrorism, radical Islamism, and Middle East crises. Among its greatest challenges are the Iraq issue, the growing power of Iran, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. In all of these issues, Syria plays
a central role; in most of them it is one of the greatest or the number-one obstacle. Today, Syria sponsors terrorist groups that attack the United States, Iraq, Israel, and Lebanon.
Syria is also central to America’s current role in the world, the dangers it faces, and the wars that engage it. This book provides a comprehensive explanation of Syria’s regime, interests, policies, and society. In turn, Syria provides a model for understanding the Arab and Muslim worlds today.
While the Syrian regime poses as being desirous of peace and engagement with the West, in fact its institutions, ideology, propaganda, and activities go in the exact opposite direction. To survive, the minority-dominated, dictatorial, and economically incompetent government needs radicalism, control over Lebanon, regional instability, anti-Americanism, and using Israel as a scapegoat.
The Truth About Syria explains how the country has run; how it tries to attack U.S. interests; and why the regime is incapable of another type of policy.
Barry Rubin has been a writer and analyst on the Middle East for more than 30 years. He was written 23 books and edited an additional 32 books on the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy. Dr. Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, the world’s largest journal on the region.
ISBN - 10: 1-4039-8273-2; ISBN-13: 978-10439-8273-5.
To order from Amazon:

For more information on the book:

Review copies-- "Ellis Trevor"
Publicity information-- "William Smith" william.smith@stm artins.com

Professor Barry Rubin,Director, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) CenterEditor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) JournalEditor, Turkish Studies

THE CASE OF THE MURDERED MOUSE

THE CASE OF THE MURDERED MOUSE

By Barry Rubin

Professor Barry Rubin,Director, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) CenterEditor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) JournalEditor, Turkish Studies

Background: The Hamas satellite TV channel produced a children’s show Tomorrow’s Pioneers, which should have been called Tomorrow’s Suicide Bombers, designed to get children to kill Israelis, or Jews in general, and participate in a radical Islamist attempt at world conquest. We know this because that is what the show’s hosts and their mascot, the high-voiced Farfur the mouse (based on Mickey) said. International media often reported that the show only asked the children to “fight” or “resist” Israel but this was a clear misrepresentation of the program’s incitement to terrorism, antisemitism, and even—in a departure from past Hamas propaganda—calls for an Islamist-dominated planet.
Given the controversy around Farfur, however, Hamas decided to make him a true example for the children to emulate, by becoming a martyr. Thus, Al-Aqsa television claimed that Farfur was murdered by an Israeli official wanting to grab his land. But is that true? The killing was not actually shown on television. One wonders….
Gaza City, another hot and dreary night. The air was unbearably humid and still off the Mediterranean. It was sweltering. Especially for those of us who lacked air-conditioning. I can’t afford it because business isn’t too good. My name is Sami Spade and I’m a private detective. A good and honest one, which is to say a very poor one.
I can’t even afford a secretary. It isn’t that there isn’t a lot of crime around Gaza City but the police are corrupt, the courts are corrupt, and most of the crime is being done by the authorities and their friends, relatives, patrons, and clients. Kidnappings? In plenty but those who grab people are too powerful to get them sprung. Disappeared people? There are lots of folks who want them to stay disappeared. Extortion, terrorism, gun battles. Above my pay level. That’s for sure.
And that’s why I was surprised by a knock on my door. Well, not a knock exactly, more like a scratching. It was persistent. The rent was overdue, of course, but my landlord didn’t scratch at the door, he knocked it down altogether. Curious I carefully tiptoed to the portal and with a single heave pulled it open fast.
To my amazement a tiny mouse fell across my threshold heavily to the floor with an anguished squeak.
“Who are you and what do you want? I haven’t got any cheese,” I growled.
The mouse got up and dusted himself off. “You got me wrong. I don’t need no stinkin’ cheese,” said the mouse. “I’m here on business.” The mouse looked around, “Quite a hole ya got here,” he added.
“What kind of business do you have with me?”
“An investigation of course. You’re a PI aren’t you.”
“That’s what it says on the door, rodent,” I answered.
The mouse looked hurt. “We don’t like that term. You don’t have to get personal,” he answered softly.
“Sorry,” I said back. “Ok. Come in and sit down.” The mouse walked in and climbed on my only other chair. I settled behind my desk, checking the drawer to make sure my .45 automatic was there. Just in case. The mouse could be setting a trap. “Any way, how can a mouse pay for a PI?”
“Don’t worry,” said the mouse smugly. “I have a lot of dough, a lot of bread even. But let me explain. My name is al-Hammett. But I’m so fast that my friends call me Dash.”
“Dash al-Hammett,” I mused, “sounds familiar. What’s up?”
“Have you heard of Hamas’s biggest TV star? Farfur? He’s my cousin. Or should I say he was my cousin. Farfur has been murdered. I have a very rich uncle who lives in Hollywood, name of Mickey. He wants to find out what really happened to Farfur. And he’s willing to pay. How about 500 dinars a day plus expenses?”
I couldn’t help but whistle. “Sounds pretty good to me. Tell me more.”
“As you know, Hamas says that Israel did him in because he wouldn’t sign over his land. I think it’s a frame. That Saraa, the teenage host? I never trusted her. And Mickey said something before he died.”
“Yeah?”
“He told me that if anything happened to him not to believe it was the Israelis. Look, Sam, I know you don’t mix in politics….”
“I’ve found it’s a lot healthier that way.”
“Sure I know what you mean. But here’s the story. All the Arab regimes and radical movements blame America and Israel for everything to cover up their own crimes. Right?”
I nodded. “Everyone knows that, everyone but most of the Western Middle East experts, a lot of the journalists, and some of the politicians. So you think that’s what’s going on here?”
“Absolutely. Maybe Farfur got the goods on some corrupt act or something. And they knocked him off because he knew too much. Wouldn’t be the first time. Will you take the case?”
“Sounds pretty risky,” I said.
“OK, make it 600 dinars a day.” He reached into a pouch around his waist and pulled out a thick wad of bills.
“You have a deal,” I said.
Later that night, much later, I headed for Al-Aqsa TV studios, wearing my trench coat and fedora. There were no stars and the night was dark. I had the tools of my trade with me and the night-watchman there was known to fall asleep on the job. Sure enough I easily jimmied the backdoor, slid inside, switched on my flashlight, and headed straight for Saraa’s office. It wasn’t hard to find the documents. They were right on her desk. They told the real tale. Farfur wasn’t killed by the Israelis. He had decided that Gaza was too hot for him, he was fed up by the lies, the propaganda, the killing. Makes sense. Hell of a job, luring little children to blow themselves up by giving them promises of rewards in heaven. Makes me sick to my stomach just to think of it.
Suddenly, I heard a sound and darted behind the desk. It looked like the whole Hamas army barrelled in. I had set off a silent alarm. I looked at the window and then I looked at the machineguns levelled at me. It was no contest. I raised my hand.
“So, Sami Spade,” said their leader. I knew who he was, too, Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister. “We meet again.”
“Listen, Haniyeh I retorted,” knowing only a tough act could let me bluff my way out. “I know about your scheme. You murdered Farfur because he was going to flee and tell all about your con game.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Ah, Sami you have always been a sucker for a pretty face or a big bank roll. Do you think you can fight us? We write op-eds in the New York Times and Washington Post about how we want peace!” His henchmen guffawed. “The Europeans are ready to give us lots of money!” One of the gunsels started to shake with mirth. “And even the U.S. State Department is talking about dealing with our brothers in Egypt and elsewhere!” The gunsel actually fell on the floor and rolled around laughing hysterically.
“Do you think you can stop us? Soon we will be even in New York, like our friends on September 11.”
“There are areas of Brooklyn I wouldn’t go into if I were you,” I sneered.
“Don’t worry about us, Sam. Everyone will think that we can be made moderate. And everyone will think that the Israelis murdered Farfur, just like we made them think they killed Muhammad al-Durra.”
“You won’t get away with it. The democracies will resist you and help the liberal Arabs fight you. Don't you know that September 11 changed everything?”
“Oh, yes,” smiled Haniyeh. “You just don’t get it. The last man who said that is now the most unpopular leader in the world. You see, the decadent West thinks that sex sells while we believe that antisemitism sells even better. Take him away, boys,” Haniyeh gestured.

Barry Rubin is director of the GLORIA Center http://gloria.idc.ac.il and editor of
the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal
http://meria.idc.ac.il. His latest book is The Truth About Syria
(Palgrave-Macmillan) http://www.palgrave-usa.com/catalog/product.aspx?isbn=1403982732

************************************************
From Translation of Palestinian Media Watch Bulletin - July 1, 2007
“Hamas TV Mickey Mouse beaten to death by Israeli - becomes Martyr in final episode “by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook
[Text:] “Farfur in Interrogation”Israeli interrogator: “Sit down, Farfur… Farfur, we want to buy the land, we will give you a lot of money. You will get a lot of money, and we will take the documents.”Farfur: “No!! We will not sell our lands to terrorists!”Interrogator: “Farfur!!! I want you to give me the documents, give me the documents!”Farfur: “I’m not giving the documents! Not giving! Not giving!”Interrogator: “Farfur!!! [Visual: interrogator beats Farfur] Farfur! Hand me the documents. Farfur! Hand me the documents, Farfur!”Farfur: “I am not handing them to criminals, to terrorists!”Interrogator: “You call us terrorists, Farfur?! [Visual: interrogator beats Farfur again] Take this! Take this! Take this! Take this!”Farfur: “Stop! Stop!” Saraa’: “Yes, our children friends, we lost our dearest friend, Farfur. Farfur turned to a Martyr while protecting his land. He turned into a Martyr at the hands of the criminals, and murderers. The murderers of the innocent children… [Talking to a child caller] You saw that the Jews let Farfur die as a Martyr. What do you want to say to the Jews?”Shaimaa’, 3 years old, on the phone: “We don’t like the Jews because they are dogs! We will fight them!”Saraa’ [sarcastically]: “No, the Jews are good, oh Shaimaa’. The Jews are our friends, and we play with them, isn’t it so?”Shaimaa’: “They killed Farfur!”Saraa’: “That’s right, oh Shaimaa’. The Jews are criminals and enemies, we must expel them from our land.” [Hamas, Al-Aqsa TV June 27, 2007]

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