Traditional hierarchies and perceptions of the Middle East

Sar Shalom

In a blog post, Paul Krugman wrote about a unifying theory of what leads to broad spectrum of ideologies on both the right and the left. The theory he adopts is that the position one takes on any issue is generally determined by one's position on relating to traditional social hierarchies. If one believes in challenging traditional social hierarchies, that would lead to one set of policy positions, and a set of opposite positions would result from a belief in supporting traditional social hierarchies.

The examples Krugman offers are social insurance and social policy (gay marriage and the like). However, in principle, this could also apply to the Middle East. However, applying this principle to the Middle East would require first identifying what is meant by "traditional social hierarchy."

For much of the Left, there is only one "traditional social hierarchy" that matters in international relations, and that is of Europe dominating everyone else. Thus, if one views international relations through the lens of whether or not to support European world domination, a supporter would side with Israel while a challenger would side with the Palestinians. Hence, we see that much of the Right, which tends to support traditional hierarchies, sides with Israel while much of the Left, which challenges traditional hierarchies, sides with the Palestinians.

However, there are other traditional social hierarchies in play in international affairs. Within the Middle East, there is the region's internal traditional social hierarchy which placed believers at the top, Jews on the bottom, and Christians occupying a station any place in between. Viewing international relations through this lens, supporters of the Middle East's traditional hierarchy would side with the Palestinians while challengers of that hierarchy would side with Israel. Thus we see that right-wing racists like David Duke support the Palestinians while left-wingers with a perspective on Middle Eastern history like Paul Berman support Israel.

A further observation is that it is very difficult to oppose both traditional social hierarchies. Nearly any action taken to challenge Eurocentric hierarchy would have the effect of buttressing, in actuality if not by intent, the Middle East-centric hierarchy. This provides an explanations for an observation Elder of Ziyon made some time ago that leftist Israel-haters take great pains to emphasize that they have nothing against Jews while rightist Israel-haters are open about their Jew hatred. Support of the Middle East-centric hierarchy is inherently judeophobic. From the Left, hatred of Israel is not motivated supporting that hierarchy, even if their actions inevitably lend it a boost. In fact, anti-racism gets to the heart of their identity. Thus, they circle the wagons to defend their anti-racist self-image by asserting that their motives have nothing to do with the support to the Middle East-centric hierarchy that they invariably provide. In contrast, the right-wing supporters of the Middle East-centric hierarchy have no problem with the judeophobia that that hierarchy entails and thus have no need for the mental gymnastics to deny it.

Another example of which traditional hierarchy to select as one's lens comes from Peter Beinart. When he was promoting Crisis of Zionism, he said at interviews that the Zionist establishment was lecturing the younger generation that they should sacrifice liberalism on the altar of Zionism and discovered that their children had instead sacrificed Zionism on the altar of liberalism. This statement only makes sense through the lens of the Eurocentric hierarchy. The typical response to Beinart has been to emphasize everything that has happened in European Jewish history or the contributions that Israel has made to the world. For the likes of Beinart, this can all be summarized as saying that there should be an exception where the Eurocentric hierarchy should be tolerated.

However, we do not need to imprison ourselves in this lens. Viewed through the lens of the Middle East-centric hierarchy, there is nothing incompatible between Zionism and liberalism. However, view world affairs through this lens requires a greater scope of history than is required for the Eurocentric hierarchy. Thus, we need to teach history sufficiently to identify the pillars of the Middle East-centric hierarchy.

The Middle East is not the only region where the Eurocentric hierarchy is opposite the local-centric hierarchy. Indeed, in any non-western locale with an illiberal social hierarchy, challenging that hierarchy would be imposing Western values and thus establishing the Eurocentric hierarchy. Hence Ayaan Hirsi Ali who was a clear victim of the social hierarchy of her native Somalia is vilified by the Left because her escape from that culture exemplifies the triumph of European values of those of her native Somalia. Similarly, today's young Britons today question the authority of their country to outlaw sati in India on the grounds that they should not impose their values on other cultures.

This is Brilliance

Michael L.

This is beauty.

And I am so tired of looking into the face of hatred.



Am I wrong or was not Little Walter a genius?

I think that he was.

I will chime-in on these other weighty matters soon.

I guess... but I am still going fishing.

Consider this an open thread... or whatever you will.

Say Hello to the Devil

Michael L.

This piece is a retread from a Times of Israel thing that I did just about two years ago originally entitled, Pamela Geller: The Bête Noire of Progressive-Left Jewry.

Geller is a gadfly and a troublemaker, but she also happens to be correct and is unjustly slandered as a "racist" and a hateful human being.

The truth is that this woman stands against political Islam and thereby stands up for Jewish people, Christian people, Gay people, women, and liberalism.

She makes Maryscott O'Connor look like a right-wing fascist.

She should be honored, but she is maligned.

.

Anyone who follows the American Jewish press knows that gadfly Pamela Geller was recently disinvited to give a talk on the subject of Sharia at Great Neck Synagogue on Long Island.  The reason for this is because progressives constantly tell one another that Geller is a racist.  And if the progressive-left despises Geller as a racist, no one on the planet despises Geller more than progressive-left Jews.  Your average progressive Zionist, i.e., your average left-wing Jewish pro-Israel activist, despises Geller far more than he or she despises even the most genocidal of Israel’s enemies.  They quite literally loathe Geller more than they do Muhammed Morsi, who has compared Jews to apes and pigs, and they hate her more than Hamas which calls quite clearly for the genocide of the Jewish people.

How is this possible?  It’s possible, although still wrong-headed, for progressive-Zionists to despise Geller more than even Hamas because they believe, and constantly tell one another, that Geller is an “Islamophobe” that spreads hate speech toward Muslims.

David Wood has some words on the matter that I would recommend people give a listen to.

For myself, I have tended to be a rather reluctant supporter of Geller.

The reason that I find myself a reluctant supporter of Geller is because I am not so familiar with the body of her work that I know that her critics are entirely wrong.   What I do know for certain is that there is nothing the least bit racist or bigoted in the subway advertisements that her group, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, put up last year.

There is nothing racist or bigoted or “Islamophobic” about the sentiments in the above ad.  By “savage” she is not referring to Muslims, in general, but to those within the Muslim population who believe that they have a theological obligation to kill Jews and to spread an Islamic caliphate across the planet.  She is referring to the people who committed 9/11.  She is referring to the people who slaughtered the Fogel family and chopped the head off of their three month old baby daughter.  She is referring to those imams in the mosques throughout the Middle East who continually and perpetually call for the murder of the Jewish people wherever we may be found.

Excuse me, but are those people not savages?

Furthermore, when Geller says “Defeat Jihad” she is obviously not referring to the tradition within Islam that Jihad refers to the personal struggle for greater spirituality and relations with the deity.  She is not referring to the notion currently being spread in the United States, within a series of advertisments, that Jihad can refer to jogging or efforts at weight-loss.  Rather, she is referring to the the tradition within Islam that Jihad refers to Holy War – the kind with actual blood.  When the terrorist organization Islamic Jihad decided to name itself Islamic Jihad they were not thinking of prayer, nor the building of bridges through friendship, but of the blood of the infidels.

Ironically, and mister Wood points this out in the video linked to above, it is not Pam Geller who is the bigot, but her detractors who tend to be because they suggest, or imply, that violent Jihadis represent all Muslims.  If Geller calls out the violent Jihad, and her detractors claim that this is an insult to all of Islam, and therefore an insult to all Muslims, this can only mean that her detractors conflate Islam with the violent Jihad.

Now that truly is racist because it implies that Muslims, in general, are no better than the worst terrorists in Hamas, which is to suggest that Muslims are savages.

If Pamela Geller is a racist I have yet to see the evidence.  What I see is a much maligned woman standing up to the enemies of the Jewish people and to the enemies of the infidel west.  What I also see are a whole bunch of moral cowards who defame this woman even as they turn a blind eye to the rise of political Islam throughout the Muslim Middle East.

The rise of political Islam during the Obama administration may be the single most significant geo-political event in world history since the demise of the Soviet Union.  The Muslim Middle East is moving from a period of secular-authoritarian nationalism, as exemplified by people such as Gamal Abdel Nasser, to a period of rising theocratic-authoritarianism in the name of Islam.  This, it should be emphasized, is not an improvement.  On the contrary.  While Hosni Mubarack may have been a dictator he, at least, did not believe in some Allah-given right to slaughter Jews and he did not set himself up as an enemy of the United States and the west.

This is what the Muslim Brotherhood has done and it is precisely what Geller opposes.

Of course, it should be something that anyone who believes in secular democracy should oppose, but they don’t.  Mainstream media throughout the United States and Europe largely pussy-foot around political Islam despite the fact that it represents everything that the secular west allegedly opposes.  Devotees of political Islam (or “radical Islam” or “Islamism”) oppress women, hang Gay people from cranes, and promises the slaughter of the Jewish people and they do so in the name of Allah.

What’s not to like?

Ask Pamela Geller, she’ll have some words.

Texas Cop Kills Two Violent Islamists

Michael L.

They were upset over drawings.

This is one of those drawings.

Actually, the artist is lying to you.

That is Muhammad.



Well, OK, not literally Muhammad.  If so, that would be a rather neat trick for a painter to perform.

From the article:

Authorities were investigating whether the shooting was a terrorist attack.

In the Age of Obama I am just happy that it even occurred to them.

The Obama administration does not actually believe in terrorism, merely random acts of something-or-other by no one in particular.

Two prominent Muslim imams in the Dallas area on Monday denounced the violence in Garland and called on community members "not to be baited" into anger by events like the "Muhammad Art Exhibit."

“As a Muslim community we need to acknowledge hate groups and not get baited,” said Imam Zia ul-Haque Sheikh, the leader of one of North Texas’ largest mosques. “They are trying to provoke the Muslims into doing something wrong.”

They simply do not get it.

No one is trying to provoke anyone.  There is a very long tradition among westerners for standing up for freedom of speech.  The reason that they draw Muhammad and not, say, Moses or Jesus, is because neither Jews nor Christians chop off heads when they feel insulted.

A principle to evaluate people's statements

Sar Shalom

I would like to formalize a principle that we should ask those covering the Middle East to use. Simply, if someone's interests are served by your believing X, whatever X is, then do not consider that person's saying X to be proof that X is true. This does not mean X should be dismissed, only that X should not be considered established without corroborating evidence.

Instead, what we have from the Very Serious media types is that any statement made that fits their pre-existing narrative is taken to be proof-positive that the content of the talk is accurate and any statement contradicting their pre-existing narrative, no matter how much corroboration is available, is to be dismissed. For instance, when Mahmoud Abbas declares that he is committed to two-states if only Netanyahu would yield what is his due or when Netanyahu says during a hotly contested campaign that there will be no Palestinian state during his term, those statements are proof that Abbas is committed to two states and Netanyahu is not, no further information needs to be checked. Similarly, when Netanyahu declares that his determination to stop a Palestinian state is conditional and he only questions the likelihood that the conditions for lifting his opposition would be met, or when Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif declares that eliminating Israel is non-negotiable, both statements are taken for bluster meant to distract from Netanyahu's true aims of dominating the Levant and of Iran's true reasonability.

The most recent manifestation of this phenomenon is Carter's declaring that Mashaal is interested in peace while Netanyahu is not. Carter reached this conclusion when Mashaal told him that he would be interested in Saudi Arabia's peace proposal (h/t EoZ). Did Carter look at any action of Hamas to reach that conclusion? Of course not! He simply started from the premise that all the Palestinians' demands are reasonable and as soon as he heard a statement fitting that premise, he considered his premise proven. The one question to ask Carter about his reasoning process is, "Did Mashaal tell you anything other than what serves his interests for you to believe it?"