Yesterday I noted that opposition to the President’s outstanding speech in Cairo was forming the basis for a new de facto far-right/ultra-left anti-peace coalition that was springing up organically due to shared antipathy on the political extremes to Obama’s efforts to create momentum towards Israeli-Palestinian peace. The phenomenon is interesting and instructive, to a point, but this is getting ridiculous. Some people are going so far that they are almost switching sides, and indeed are openly endorsing extremists on the other side to reinforce their own radicalism in the face of an Obama-driven surge of moderation momentum. Some of the examples below ought to make any sensible person’s head spin and demand some thoughtful analysis.
How about this one? At Commentary magazine’s blog, Ira Stoll actually disputes President Obama’s claim that, for Palestinians, violence is “a dead end,” arguing instead that Palestinian violence is responsible for positive American policy and rhetorical changes: “sadly, were it not for ongoing terrorist attacks against American and Israeli targets, President Obama would not be in Egypt comparing the Palestinian Arab cause to that of the captive nations of Eastern Europe or American blacks.” Stoll seems to be suggesting that it would therefore be logical for Palestinians to back Hamas and other organizations that argue that violence is indeed the key to moving forward on Palestinian national aims. Obviously this is wrong, but it is indeed amazing, exasperating and depressing to see a committed Zionist (of all people) at Commentary (of all venues) essentially endorsing Hamas’ strategy and tactics.
Professional Islamophobe and supporter of World War II Japanese internment, Michelle Malkin agrees with the Arab ultra-left that Obama’s speech was empty rhetoric that merely hides a continuation of the Bush approach: “For all the hype about fresh starts and new beginnings, Obama embraces the same blind dhimmitude that plagued the Bush adminstration and foggy-headed bureaucrats that infect Foggy Bottom. Same old, same old.” Different starting points, to be sure, but the same conclusion.
The Angry Idiot, Assad AbuKhalil, whose emotional tirade against Obama’s remarks was considered in my earlier examination of the far-right/ultra-left anti-peace coalition, later admitted that “I am rather shocked at the very positive tone of coverage of Obama’s speech in Arab media,” but, on second thought consoles himself and his readers with the extremely weak argument that “the goodwill that met Obama in Egypt is less about him and more about Bush: Bush was so hated and detested in the region, that his successor would enjoy a grace period no matter what." So, nothing to do with the speech then. Just inexplicable, naïve positivity, and relief at the absence of Bush. There is no possibility, one would surmise, of such folks ever considering that everyone else is picking up on serious changes that are real, but that they are unwilling or unable to acknowledge due to political extremism, the fact that they are already on record denouncing Obama in the ripest possible terms and are unwilling to admit any error, or the fact that they are so antagonistic to the American political system that they would never admit that it is actually moving policy in the right direction. AbuKhalil’s favorite term for the President? "Bushobama." Perhaps Malkin will adopt it as well, since she certainly shares the sentiment.
The overgrown juvenile delinquents at Kabobfest, perhaps the most embarrassing site on the entire net (at least for Arab-Americans), chime in with their own inimitable blend of putrid radicalism and infantile nonsense. They underscore their anti-Obama fanaticism with a truly disgusting and repulsive “cartoon” that I will not describe, and I caution readers to think twice before viewing it through this link. As for their “analysis” of the speech itself, it is a rambling diatribe that is striking reminiscent in its style and lack of sophistication to Robert Spencer’s rabidly Islamophobic commentary, but from an Arab ultra-left perspective. It is so ill-informed that it even suggests that John Adams owned slaves. They conclude from the speech that “actual change will be minimal, if not in the wrong direction (as in the case of a fraudulent Palestinian ‘state,’)” language that might have been directly lifted from the most rabid right-wing pro-settler site on the Internet and providing yet another example of how extremists from both sides can easily become indistinguishable when it comes to responsible measures that are required to develop the peace agreement they all oppose.
After all this, its no surprise that the Jewish far-right winger Daniel Pipes also agrees with the Arab ultra-left that Obama’s speech “broke little new ground but raised to new heights the art of sugaring words in ways appealing,” not to Arabs or Muslims, but “to Islamists.” In fact, most Islamist reaction in the Middle East has, of course, been more in line with Pipes’ dismissal of Obama’s initiative than with anything endorsed by the President – indeed, it is the Islamist far-right and elements of the ultra-left that are the main voices of skepticism about Obama’s speech in the Arab media at the moment. But Pipes never sullies his arguments with anything as sordid as the facts.
Pipes is an amazing case study in the extremist mindset. Daniel Luban reports on Jim Lobe’s always interesting blog, that he has actually endorsed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the upcoming Iranian presidential election: “I’m sometimes asked who I would vote for if I were enfranchised in this election, and I think that, with due hesitance, I would vote for Ahmadinejad,” Pipes said. The reason, Pipes went on, is that he would “prefer to have an enemy who’s forthright and obvious, who wakes people up with his outlandish statements.” This, obviously, is the right-wing Zionist equivalent of Ali Abunimah’s outrageous “I hope Avigdor Lieberman wins Israeli election big” and “go Bibi!” comments – which might well have issued directly from Pipes himself.
All of this is a phenomenon well worth tracking and studying. How is it that political extremism drives people on the fringes of competing perspectives (whether ethnic, religious or ideological, or some combination of them) into each other’s camp, in effect, to come to the same (totally wrong) conclusions from diametrically opposed starting points, and begin to articulate each other’s positions and endorse each other’s candidates and strategies? Obviously, a mutual antipathy towards pragmatic and constructive political developments draws even diametrically opposed extremists into a shared opposition to what is reasonable, leading counterintuitively to similar and compatible analyses and conclusions. Therefore, those who are not interested in compromise between Israel and the Palestinians, whether they are driven by sympathy for Israeli or Palestinian maximalist ambitions, will predictably unite, if on nothing else, then at least in opposition to efforts by responsible actors like President Obama to lay the groundwork for a reasonable compromise.
What is more difficult to explain is what drives people like Stoll, Abunimah and Pipes to actually endorse candidates and strategies representing extremism of the opposite variety. Their arguments are clear, and essentially amount to the old Trotskyite idea that one should always "push the contradictions" to the breaking point, and that the worst elements in any given system or society should be strongly encouraged so as to "expose the rot" that supposedly permeates the enemy. By encouraging the other side to act as badly as possible, this logic suggests, one is hastening their defeat and revealing their "true nature." Anti-peace extremists who hope and believe that they can achieve some kind of total victory, whether military or political, over the other side and eradicate either Israel or Palestinian nationalism respectively, and therefore adopt such reckless rhetorical tactics, are playing fast and loose with the lives and futures of millions of people in the Middle East by encouraging the worst elements in each other’s societies and volunteering as cheerleaders for mayhem. This grotesque irresponsibility stands in stark contrast to President Obama’s efforts to make progress, and the well-established commitment of the vast majority of both Palestinians and Israelis to live side-by-side in two states in peace and security.
I have previously observed that it is useful to have opponents that are slightly unhinged, and wishing for the other side to make mistakes and go too far is only human — up to a point. Surely for all reasonable people there has to be a limit to how far this can go. Rationalizing the strategy of suicide bombing, endorsing Lieberman and Amhadinejad, and so forth takes this normal human political impulse to pathological and grossly irresponsible extremes. In other words, such dramatic distortions of judgment may be inevitable byproducts of an extremist political orientation, and perhaps cannot be avoided once extremist attitudes are adopted.
These are only tentative steps in understanding what is really a very strange and counterintuitive process that is taking place among anti-peace extremists on both sides, and I suppose one will have to make additional progress in analyzing it, assuming it continues, in the coming months. A much better outcome, however, would be for the extremists themselves to grow up, cut the crap and start acting like reasonable, responsible human beings rather than egging each other on to ever worse levels of vitriol and, ultimately, violence.
[NOTE: Since original posting this blog entry, I have discovered that Hassan Haidar makes a similar point in today’s edition of al-Hayat about extremists in the Middle East, which is well worth reading.]