Please take a moment to visit and log in at the subscriber area, and submit your city & country location. We will use this information in future to invite you to any events that we organize in your area. William Quandt's Embarrassing Memo
by Daniel Pipes
May 24, 2010
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2010/05/william-quandts-embarrassing-memo
William Quandt, Middle East specialist on the National Security Council in 1977.
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While working on documents at the Carter Center, a researcher from the Menachem Begin Heritage Center came across a declassified action memorandum from William Quandt, Middle East specialist on the National Security Council, to his boss, Zbigniew Brzezinski. (Click here for the document in full.) Dated May 18, 1977, it was written just one day after Begin's breakthrough victory over Labor, the first time any other party had beaten Labor since the State of Israel had been founded 29 years earlier.
The memo makes for deliciously instructive reading. Count the mistakes in Quandt's opening analysis:
Much of our strategy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict has been predicated on the assumption that a strong and moderate Israeli government would at some point be able to make difficult decisions on territory and on the Palestinians. Now we face the prospect of a very weak coalition, a prolonged period of uncertainty, and an Israeli leadership which may be significantly more assertive in its policies concerning the West Bank, Palestinians, settlements, and nuclear weapons.
The Arabs will no doubt read the Israeli election results as signifying an end to the chance of getting to Geneva this year, and possibly the end of any hope for a political settlement, and we may see them begin to take out insurance by patching up quarrels with the Soviets, digging in their heels on peace terms , and acting more belligerently on oil prices.
In fact, Begin's government made the difficult decisions Labor had not taken, his coalition endured, the Egyptians became more forthcoming, their rift from the Soviets deepened, and oil prices were not affected (until the fall of the shah shot them up).
The rest of the memo consists mainly of five bullet points in which Quandt outlines tactics by which to weaken Begin, with this passage the key to the approach:
Begin should be allowed to make his own mistakes. If he takes positions in his talks with us that preclude the continuation of our peace initiative, we should not hesitate to explain what has happened. Israelis can then draw their own conclusions, and perhaps the next election in 1978 or 1979 will produce different results.
In fact, Begin won reelection in June 1981 and his successors went on to dominate Israeli politics for 27 out of the next 33 years. But by 1981, of course, American voters had thrown Jimmy Carter out of office, meaning that Brzezinski no longer needed Quandt's sage advice.
Comments:
(1) Asked to comment on these documents, the director-general of the Begin Heritage Center, Herzl Makov, noted their relevance to current U.S.-Israel relations: "It's interesting to see history repeat itself. Just like now, we see that the Carter administration made every mistake possible about the political situation in Israel, I think that in 30 years, studies will show that the Obama administration made the same mistakes. History will tell which administration was worse for Israel."
(2) In this memo, Quandt – who has a Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and went on to become president of the Middle East Studies Association as well as the Edward R. Stettinius, Jr. professor of politics at the University of Virginia – neatly encapsulates the incompetence of academically trained Middle East specialists. (May 24, 2010)
Related Topics: Arab-Israel conflict & diplomacy, History, Middle East studies, US policy
Praising Military Slavery
by Daniel Pipes
May 18, 2010
updated May 20, 2010
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2010/05/praising-military-slavery
If Saleh Al-Fawzan, a prominent Saudi religious figure justifies slavery in Islam, why not an Egyptian writer praise the Muslim practice of slavery?
In an article titled "The Polity of Islam and the Treatment of Slaves" appearing on the popular Arabic-language news website Moheet (English translation here), Mu'min ad-Dassuqi softens and extols the Muslim slave system:
in Islam, slaves were raised properly, and great leaders emerged from them, especially in the era of the Mamluks who ruled the world. In other words, slaves were not treated in a manner that did not respect their humanity and dignity.
The Mamluks whom he refers to were the slave-rulers of Egypt from 1250 to 1517 A.D., surely the most bizarre dynasty in world history. Dassuqi recounts the education of a typical slave soldier, his advance through the system, culminating in his possibly becoming head of state – all without ever becoming free.
Comments:
Dassuqi uses my 1981 book, Slave Soldiers and Islam (summarized here), as a foil for his riff.
He mangles what I wrote. For starters, he claims I "attacked the Islamic religion," which is something I have never done. I challenge him to document this statement.
Unsurprisingly, Dassuqi also gets basic historical facts wrong. For one, the Mamluks hardly "ruled the world"; Egypt and Syria, yes, and at times the Hijaz and into Libya, but not more.
He deceives by comparing ordinary slaves in the West to elite slaves in the Muslim world. Would he lavish similar praise on the condition of the wretched Zanj in Iraq or of female sex-slaves through the centuries? Even among elite slaves, it is preposterous to claim they enjoyed respect for "their humanity and dignity." Slavery was inhumane and undignified at every step.
This justification of military slavery shocks me. During my long years of working on this subject during the 1970s, I admit, it never occurred to me that Muslims would one day embrace this repulsive institution of an earlier age.
"Everything Muslim is good" would seem to be Dassuqi's mentality. That he defends the indefensible points to the present state of Islamist domination and Muslim moral impoverishment.
Egregious as Dassuqi's article is, it compares favorably with the experience I had just over a decade ago with an Egyptian diplomat. Here is a letter I wrote on December 9, 1999 to Ambassador Ahmed Aboulgheit at Permanent Mission of the Arab Republic of Egypt to the United Nations in New York:
I write to protest the behavior of a member of your staff, Mr. Ahmed Darwish.
Mr. Darwish on Dec. 8 came as a guest to an event on slavery in the Middle East sponsored by my organization, the Middle East Forum. At one point, when I, acting as moderator, mentioned that I have written a book on slavery and began to speak about the treatment of this issue in the Holy Qur'an, Mr. Darwish loudly and rudely interrupted me. He demanded the floor and would not let me continue speaking. I repeatedly asked him to be quiet so I could proceed with my analysis, offering him a chance to speak afterwards. He repeatedly refused to do so, instead insulting me and announcing that he would "die for Islam."
Only when I called for security agents to come to the room where our meeting was taking place did Mr. Darwish leave. Even then, his rude behavior continued, as he demanded (and received) from my staff the return of the money he paid for lunch.
A number of those in attendance, including several women, later expressed their fear that Mr. Darwish was armed and would use violence. For your information, this entire exchange is on audiotape, should you wish to hear it.
Mr. Ambassador, I have had the privilege of living for three years in your country and I know that this is not the way that Egyptians act - and especially not a diplomat who represents his country. I hope you will issue a public reprimand to Mr. Darwish as well as an apology to me and, through me, to all those who attended yesterday's meeting.
David Steinmann, who attended this event, also wrote to Aboulgheit one day later:
I regret to have to write to you in connection with an unfortunate outburst by one of your staff members, Mr Ahmed Darwish, at a recent event which the Forum sponsored in New York City.
… the intemperance and perceived potential violence of Mr. Darwish's behavior alarmed and frightened many of the people in attendance at our Forum. Never before have we had to call for security people to come to one of our meetings and I am most sorry to say that that was occasioned this time by an Egyptian diplomat. …
To have Mr. Darwish tell Dr. Pipes. our director and a renowned scholar, that he was not entitled or permitted to have an opinion or to speak about anything to do with the Holy Qur'an, flies in the face of everything that Americans believe about an open society, free speech and intellectual and academic pursuits. I can assure you that, in the eyes of the people in attendance, his outburst did much damage both to their perception of Egypt as well as to our understanding of how these kinds of issues are or are not dealt with in the Middle East.
I hope that you will take appropriate steps to make amends for Mr. Darwish's behavior and to assure that that kind of behavior is not repeated by anyone representing your fine country.
(May 18, 2010)
Related Topics: Daniel Pipes autobiographical, History, Slavery This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.
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