Swedish Embassy in Syria Accused of Taking Bribes From Iraqi Refugees

GMT 3-11-2008 21:31:14
Assyrian International News Agency
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(AINA) -- Iraqi asylum seekers in Syria have been tricked into believing that they can bribe their way to a better place in line in the queue to the Swedish embassy. The first time I came across these falsifications, was when Marie-Jeanette Löfgren and I produced two documentaries for the program Kaliber on SR (the Swedish state owned radio station). Already on the second day after we landed in Syria, September 2007, I asked Chatarina Kipp, the Swedish ambassador in Syrian's capital city Damascus, if she had heard of the bribes. She dismissed it as rumour and hearsay. Yet a translator who has the pavement outside of the Swedish embassy as his office, claimed that it is true and that I only needed to sit with him for an hour before some of the Iraqis, who were extremely frustrated, would tell me about the bribes.

It took only five minutes before two Iraqi women came forward to Abu Ahmad, the translator, to get help filling in the Swedish migration papers. Abu Ahmad chatted with the women while, in the burning sun, he filled in the documents on his old typewriter. "A man came to me and asked what my business was with the Swedish embassy. I said that I wanted to book an appointment but that they had a long queue. He said I shouldn't be worried because he could make sure that I could jump the queue for just a few hundred dollars", explained one of the women to Abu Ahmad so that I heard it.

When I returned home I kept in touch with Abu Ahmad. I called him twice a week to get an idea how the bribery situation had developed. Amongst other information he explained that four people were involved. Abu Akram, who was the chauffeur and visa validator for the embassy, a cousin of him who worked in the visa office and yet another cousin called Riyad, owner of translation office Tabbaa Trading, on the other side of the street from the Swedish Embassy. Abu Ahmad also explained that the boss, he that pulled all the strings, was not related to the others. He is supposedly called Diaa and is Iraqi, whereas the other three are Palestinians.

With this information as a start, I travelled around Sweden. I visited social clubs and refugee hideouts to discover if there were Iraqis in Sweden that knew of the bribe situation. It was shown to be a public secret, many were aware of the falsifications . But to get nearer to the, case, much much nearer, I decided to meet a middleman in Sweden, someone who was paid so that one of the Iraqis family members can jump the queue in Syria.

I took the train to Jönköping, where I and one of the Iraqi asylum seekers planned to have a coffee with one of Diaas' middlemen. On the train I tested my hidden tape recorder, which worked perfectly. I called the refugee who explained that they sat in the corner of the train station's café. On the way to them the recorder jammed. It stopped working. I called one of Kaliber's producers, panicked. We agreed that I should record the conversation through my mobile, which should be on during the whole meeting with the middleman.

I fed them a story that I had recently married an Iraqi and wanted her to move faster up the queue. I didn't want to wait nine months for the love of my life to move to Sweden. He told me about Diaa, about Tabbaa Trading and about a person from the embassy that worked for them. I would pay around $800, or rather my wife would pay Diaa in Damascus. The middleman gave me a number to another middleman, a person it was claimed was Diaas brother in the Stockholm area.

We received help from an Iraqi to ring the brother.

"With God's help you'll get help", he said when we asked if my wife could jump the queue.

In December there were many Iraqi asylum seekers who explained to the Swedish embassy in Syria that they were forced to pay large sums of money but had not been successful in their attempts to jump the queue.

"We noticed that there were many Iraqis that came to us who had no appointment but claimed they had. They had paid money to a company, Tabbaa Trading", said Leif Ericsson at the embassy when I called him today.

Ericsson also said that he didn't know anyone employed by the embassy who could be involved -- two Iraqis claim that they have informed him about that.

"Abu Akram is one of those who left when his involvement in the bribes was exposed", claimed an Iraqi who is in Södertälje.

"It isn't true that he left because of that but due to health reasons. We have a doctor's certificate that states he couldn't perform his work duties", explained Ericsson in defence of Abu Akram.

"But are you not aware that he could be a relative of Riyad at Tabbaa-trading and one of your employees in the visa office", I asked.

"We are not aware of any family links", answered Ericsson.

In December the Swedish embassy reported their suspicions of falsifications to the Syrian Foreign Office, which has since been passed over to the Syrian authorities responsible.

I have called Iraqis in Sweden to try to find out what they knew about arrests.

"They arrested four people but all have been released and Diaa is actually on his way to Sweden", said one with insider knowledge on the Tabaa-trading company.

One can ask how this could happen. A corrupt Iraqi in Syria who might have gained millions of dollars through deceiving Iraqis that they can jump the queue to a meeting with the Swedish embassy.

"Basically the situation is that when there are long queues then unfortunately there is a market, and it is a real shame that there are people out there that will use other people in this way. A good step towards dealing with this is that we have reduced the waiting time to around six months through people contacting other Swedish embassies in the region", Ericsson was happy to inform.

From the embassys Internetsight:

2007-12-10 Important information!

The Embassy of Sweden will henceforth not accept documents handed in to the embassy by Tabbaa Trading.

It has come to the attention of the Embassy of Sweden that a company by the name of Tabbaa Trading (their office is in the basement of the school Daouhat Al Hurryah which is located next to the Swedish Embassy) has been involved in activities concerning "facilitation" for residence permits to Sweden that are not up to standard. Some individuals have apparently paid money to persons in the office to try to bypass the queuing system of the Embassy of Sweden.

The Embassy of Sweden will therefore as of 9 December 2007 not accept appointments by e-mail, request for earlier appointment, application for residence permit or visa or any other assorted documents prepared by Tabbaa Trading.

E-mails and documents prepared by Tabbaa Trading and handed to the Swedish Embassy will be refused.

The Embassy of Sweden therefore strongly urges applicants for residence permit or visa who are in need of help in filling in applications or to e-mail the Embassy for an appointment to use another service.

Leif Eriksson
First Secretary / Migration Attaché
Embassy of Sweden
Damascus, Syria

By Nuri Kino

Nuri Kino is a journalist in Sweden specializing in investigative journalism, and is one of the most highly awarded journalists in Europe (CV ). He is an Assyrian from Turkey. His documentary, Assyriska: a National team without a Nation, was awarded The Golden Palm at the 2006 Beverly Hills Film festival.

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March 11, 2008
Top U.S. Commander in Mideast to Retire Early

By THOM SHANKER and DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON — Adm. William J. Fallon, the top American commander in the Middle East whose views on Iran and other issues have seemed to put him at odds with the Bush administration, is retiring early, the Pentagon said Tuesday afternoon.

The retirement of Admiral Fallon, 63, who only a year ago became the first Navy man to be named the commander of the United States Central Command, was announced by his civilian boss, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who said that he accepted the admiral’s request to retire “with reluctance and regret.”

President Bush said Admiral Fallon had served his country with “honor, determination and commitment” and deserved “considerable credit” for the progress in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But despite the warm words from Mr. Bush and Mr. Gates, there was no question that the admiral’s premature departure stemmed from policy differences with the administration, and with Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American commander in Iraq.

Mr. Gates acknowledged as much when he said that Admiral Fallon, in asking permission on Tuesday morning to retire, had expressed concerns that the controversy over his views were becoming “a distraction.” But the secretary labeled as “ridiculous” any speculation that the admiral’s retirement portends a more bellicose American approach toward Iran.

Admiral Fallon had rankled senior officials of the Bush administration with outspoken comments on such issues as dealing with Iran and on setting the pace of troop reductions from Iraq — even though his comments were well within the range of views expressed by Mr. Gates.

Officials said the last straw, however, came in an article in Esquire magazine by Thomas P. M. Barnett, a respected military analyst, that profiled Admiral Fallon under the headline, “The Man Between War and Peace.” The article highlighted comments Admiral Fallon made to the Arab television station Al Jazeera last fall, in which he said that a “constant drumbeat of conflict” from Washington that was directed at Iran and Iraq was “not helpful and not useful. I expect that there will be no war, and that is what we ought to be working for. We ought to try to do our utmost to create different conditions.”

Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, was asked at a news briefing on Monday to comment on the controversy. Mr. Morrell said Mr. Gates and the admiral maintained a good working relationship, but that, like all military commanders, Admiral Fallon served at the pleasure of the president.

Mr. Gates said on Tuesday that Army Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey would take Admiral Fallon’s place until a permanent replacement is nominated and confirmed by the Senate.

The Esquire article quotes Admiral Fallon as urging a “combination of strength and willingness to engage.”

Readers of the Esquire article who are among the admiral’s boosters said they did not believe on reading that piece that Admiral Fallon himself had made comments that could be viewed as insubordinate to the president.

But the cast of the lengthy piece put the admiral at odds with the White House.

“If, in the dying light of the Bush administration, we go to war with Iran, it’ll all come down to one man,” the article begins. “If we do not go to war with Iran, it’ll come down to the same man.”

Both Mr. Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, have maintained an unwavering public line that disagreements with Iran should be resolved diplomatically, and that any military option remained only the last resort.

“I think that the secretary has made clear and I think Admiral Fallon has made clear that the first priority of this administration is to deal with our problems with Iran in a diplomatic fashion,” Mr. Morrell said Monday. “That is our first hope. That is our first effort. However, we have all made clear, time and time again, that nothing, no avenue is off the table.”

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, pounced on the retirement announcement, calling it “yet another example that independence and the frank, open airing of experts’ views are not welcomes in this administration.”

When Admiral Fallon was nominated in January of 2007 to be commander of American military forces across a region where they are engaged in two ground wars, it struck many analysts as odd. When he was confirmed for the post, he replaced Gen. John Abizaid as the top officer of Central Command.

At the time, a range of senior Pentagon civilians and military officers said Mr. Gates had recommended that Admiral Fallon move from his post as commander of American forces in the Pacific to bring a new strategic view — as well as maritime experience — to the Middle East.

The admiral began service through a commission from the Navy’s Reserve Officer Training Program, as opposed to the more prestigious Naval Academy. He later graduated from the Naval War College and the National War College, and earned a master’s degree in international studies from Old Dominion University.

Although known for being tough on his subordinates, Admiral Fallon also developed a reputation for nuanced diplomatic negotiations with friendly nations — and some with whom the United States has more prickly ties. Earlier in his career, when he was the American military commander in the Pacific, he annoyed conservatives by taking what they considered an overly conciliatory stance toward China.

Mohamed Sifaoui: "I Consider Islamism to Be Fascism"

Middle East Quarterly
Spring 2008, pp. 13-17
http://www.meforum.org/article/1870

Mohamed Sifaoui was born on July 4, 1967, and spent most of his childhood in Algeria. He holds a master's degree in political science and studied theology for two years at the University of Algiers and for two additional years at Zeitouna University's Institute of Theology in Tunis. In 1994, he began work for the Algerian daily Le Soir and survived a February 11, 1996 bomb attack at Le Soir's headquarters at the Maison de la Presse. In 1999, the French government granted him political asylum after he received death threats both from Algerian Islamists and the military. In Paris, Sifaoui works at the French weekly Marianne. Between October 2002 and January 2003, he infiltrated an Al-Qaeda cell in France in order to research his book, Mes frères assassins: Comment j'ai infiltré une cellule d'Al-Qaïda. (My assassin brothers: How I infiltrated an Al-Qaeda cell).[1]

Sophie Fernandez Debellemanière, a former intern at Le Figaro and The Weekly Standard, interviewed Sifaoui in Paris on September 12, 2007, after meeting him at a 9-11 ceremony on the Champ de Mars.

In Islamism's Cross Hairs

Middle East Quarterly: Did you flee Algeria because of the terrorist attack on Le Soir?

Mohamed Sifaoui: No. Throughout the 1990s, I was determined to stay. I only left in 1999 when I was sentenced to one year in jail for insulting the head of state. I had criticized President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's reconciliation policy because I considered it unfair to grant amnesty to a terrorist without even judging him. The Algerian government talked about peace without ever recognizing there was a war. The terrorists suddenly got themselves released with the same rights as the victims' families. Bouteflika's behavior towards his people was criminal. They wanted to send me to jail at the same time they were releasing criminals.

MEQ: You stayed longer than most. Were people right to leave Algeria?

Sifaoui: The intellectuals and journalists who left Algeria when the murders started in 1992 were right to do so because the risk was real. Survival instinct is natural and legitimate. It would be indecent to judge them because fear is a legitimate human feeling. In this sense, I was the one being unreasonable by risking my life to stay.

MEQ: Why did you stay in Algeria?

Sifaoui: I didn't want to leave the country under pressure, because of the possibility of another terrorist attack. Nor do I believe that I was especially brave to stay. It is not a question of being brave or weak. The only thing that matters is the message and the values that you want to transmit. As a journalist, I felt that I had to stay. We never obtained press freedom in Algeria, but I wanted to struggle to get a small part of it. We made some progress, but then, Islamism took us backward. By staying, I wanted to show that I would not accept submission to Islamist censorship and its diktat.

MEQ: Are you still worried? After all, two bodyguards are supervising this interview.

Sifaoui: No, I am not worried. I have built sort of a shell around me. I keep calm, and I do not panic. Honestly, I prefer not to think about it; otherwise, I would worry too much.

MEQ: Are you proud today to have risked your life for your ideas?

Sifaoui: Yes, because I am lucky enough to be alive. It is a shame that those who died did not leave for safety. I stayed because I felt that I was able to accomplish this act of resistance. Each person resists in his or her own way; each does what he or she feels able to. Among the members of the World War II resistance, some hid other resisters; some hid Jewish families or helped them escape to Switzerland, and some failed only to denounce them. For me, at this time, my resistance to fundamentalism is based on a determination not to concede any ground to the Islamists but to keep on writing and to defy danger everyday.

MEQ: What was your reaction to Al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri's appeal on September 20, 2007, "to wipe sons of France and Spain" out of the Maghreb?[2]

Sifaoui: I've been expressing the same warnings about Islamist terrorism for years. Zawahiri's statement doesn't surprise me. Since the GSPC [Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat] pledged its allegiance to Al-Qaeda in September 2006, Algerian terrorists and Al-Qaeda leaders expressed their objective very clearly: Intensify terrorist attacks against the Algerian regime and its institutions, as well as against lay and democratic people, targeting Western and especially French citizens.

MEQ: Do you believe that Zawahiri was referring to the descendants of former colonists in Algeria by using the expression "sons of?" Or was this the result of too literal a translation of the Arabic?

Sifaoui: No! This has nothing to do with any literal translation! Zawahiri is referring to all French and Spanish citizens by saying "sons of." Al-Qaeda's targets are all the French and Spanish citizens in the Maghreb.

MEQ: Less than twenty-four hours after the release of Zawahiri's message, a terrorist attack in Lakhdaria in northern Algeria, fifty miles southeast of Algiers, wounded two French citizens, one Italian, and six Algerians.[3] Is this attack a sign that the European presence in the Maghreb is in jeopardy?

Sifaoui: I would not be so pessimistic, but such a quick reaction indicates how organized and coordinated Al-Qaeda and the GSPC are. It also shows the Algerian regime's incapacity to deal with terrorism.

An Islamist and Fascist Nexus?

MEQ: Would you use the term Islamo-fascism to describe this threat?

Sifaoui: I certainly am one of the first Muslims to consider Islamism to be fascism. This is not a subjective decision but rather a serious, academic argument. Fascism and Islamism are comparable in many aspects: Fascism, without evoking all its particularities, bears similarities to trends also present in Islamism. I am, of course, making a reference to their will to exterminate the Jews. On this point, the Islamists may go even further in their doctrine than the Nazis did, considering that the end of the world could only occur when there are no Jews left on earth. In the three monotheist religions, apocalypse, end of the world, and doomsday exist and are liturgical events invested with a high degree of spirituality. Hence, the Islamists interpret the end of the world in a very special way. Whereas it is written nowhere in the Qur'an, exegetes describe the end of the world as the day when even the trees and rocks will be able to talk and tell the Muslims: "Come here, there is a Jew hiding behind me. Come and kill him." And this would go on, until there would not be any Jew left on earth. This ideology is pure fascism.

MEQ: Are there other similarities?

Sifaoui: The will to exterminate or do harm to homosexuals is another similarity between Nazism and Islamism. The Islamists, also, say that they are the best community in the world, a superior race thanks to their beliefs. They use political means to arrive at this erroneous exegesis. I do not fear to call it fascism. And there are many more similarities between fascism and Islamism.

Islamism vs. Moderate Islam

MEQ: Do you believe it is possible to criticize Islamism without being called a racist?

Sifaoui: Absolutely, I would say that one must criticize Islamism. When I am criticizing Nazism, I am not being anti-German.

MEQ: When did you feel for the first time that you had to criticize Islamism?

Sifaoui: I have always felt that it was a moral duty.

MEQ: Do you believe that moderate Islam exists?

Sifaoui: Of course, it does. If the majority of Muslims were not moderate, Islamists would have destroyed the Western world a long time ago. Despite its technological lead, its nuclear power, and all its armies, the Western world would never be able to face an Islamist world entirely convinced by the terrorist cause. One billion people supporting Al-Qaeda would reduce the rest of the world to ashes. Islam contains violent texts that need not be applicable today. Islam is a religion of moderation. I know because I studied theology for four years.

Perhaps 20 percent of Muslims on the planet must be totally reeducated. We have to fight them politically, ideologically, and also militarily. Western societies do not fight them well; whenever they try to do so, they end up strengthening them.

One proof that moderate Islam exists is the huge number of sympathy messages that I received from Muslim people when my investigative story on Al-Qaeda Salafist networks, J'ai infiltré une cellule islamiste, was broadcast on French television M6.

Iran

MEQ: Given the Islamists' vision of apocalypse, do you believe that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would fear reprisal should Iran attack Israel? Should Western analysts rely on Iran's rationality?

Sifaoui: Too many Western analysts look at any adversary through a Western lens. Western analysts believe that Al-Qaeda is as rational as the Basque separatist group ETA [Euskadi Ta Askatasuna] or the Irish Republican Army. My personal history, culture, and investigative journalism work allow me to understand what Westerners cannot see: Iran will attack Israel as soon as it can.

MEQ: Doesn't Iran take into account the eventuality of its own destruction?

Sifaoui: No, it does not. Martyrdom is exalted in Iran. Iranians view annihilation positively. The Islamists' main purpose is to create the conditions for the West to believe that chaos is possible. The argument that says that Iran will not attack Israel because of immediate and massive retaliation from Israel and the United States is absolutely wrong. The Islamists would welcome such retaliation in order to cement coalitions among Muslim peoples and to encourage riots in the Arab street. U.S. military action, or even its prospect, coincides with Islamists' interests. That is the reason why I was against the war in Iraq.

MEQ: Can you explain?

Sifaoui: Between October 2002 and January 2003, I spent four months infiltrating an Al-Qaeda terrorist cell in France. Two months before the launching of the Iraq war, when I was in the midst of the group, one of the Islamists said, "Now we are going to pray for George Bush to attack Iraq." I was surprised and acted as if I were stupid: "Really? Why do you want America to kill our brothers?" The most clever and elevated in Al-Qaeda's hierarchy, Amara Saïfi [the GSPC's emir in London] whispered to me, "All over the world, our brothers are now praying for George Bush to attack Iraq. War between the Muslim world and the Western world is bound to happen. Unfortunately, Muslims are too divided. Far too many of them do not pray regularly and neglect religion and jihad. In order to unify and mobilize all these people, we have to continue what we initiated on 9-11. We attacked America to make her retort everywhere in the Muslim world, in order to create a real war between Muslims and the West, and especially Israel."

MEQ: That's incredible.

Sifaoui: Another of the group added, "Once Iraq is at war, many of our brothers will go there to fight jihad. George Bush will have answered our prayers by suppressing our enemy Saddam Hussein and unifying the Muslims in jihad. Then as Westerners do not know how to fight attrition wars, we know that they will inevitably get stuck. We will wait until they leave in order to establish an Islamist state in Iraq. This war will be a pretext to launch terrorist attacks in Europe as well."

Unfortunately, you can see their theory is valid. They predicted exactly what is happening.

[1] Paris: Le Cherche-midi Editeur, 2003.
[2] Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Special Dispatch Series, no. 1721, Sept. 21, 2007; "Warden Message," Embassy of the United States of America, Algiers, Algeria, Sept. 24, 2007; Andrew Black, "Recasting Jihad in the Maghreb," Terrorism Monitor, Oct. 25, 2007.
[3] "Warden Message," Sept. 24, 2007.

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Unedited thoughts.

Is this coming Election more Generational than Party Focused?

There is a phenom happening in America today.
Voters are sick and tired of empty rhetoric from both the Republican and Democratic parties olde’ guard. The typical ‘messages’ of big government as opposed to small government, federal programs vs. individual rights and choices. Yes those are important but they don’t carry the same weight they have in the past.

Today is an American where a significant voting block are young people who never experienced the Cold War era, or Vietnam, some of the shaping events of those of use who are considered ‘baby boomers’.

David Ignatius makes some great points in his article “The Value of Newness” which points out how other major nations have leaders who see the world in global terms as opposed to Cold War terms.

So many of the ‘young’ people I talk to (under 50), in that post baby boom era, are talking about issues different from my generation by simple virtue that we have lived thru the Cold War and the Vietnam War. No question the vision for the future is different.

Question of developing human capital, ways to better understand the role of America in the world and essentially a new language that moves beyond war, to a world that deals with poverty and disease and renewable and sustainable energy.

The issues are simply different. The time has come when the USA is prime for new leadership which will somehow emerge our needed military institution, yet transform that institution into a deparment that will develop and employ soft tools of war. Perhaps we should change the very nomenclature and call it the Department of Peace. Perhaps its time for American’s to rethink a new framework that can better and more effectively integrate post take down of bad actors on the world stage with a nation building force to bring the said dis-connected state ‘online’ in such a way to attract foreign direct investment.

The notion that nation/state warfare could be a think of the past and the development and protection of supply chains the way of the future might just be where those of the political baby boomer era fade into retirement and those who ‘get it’ on globalization come to the forefront.

The Value of Newness By David Inatius Washington Post


The Value of Newness
By David Ignatius
Sunday, February 24, 2008; B07

"When it comes to foreign policy, experience is a highly overrated asset." So says a former British foreign service officer named Jonathan Clarke, who has created a blog called Swoop ( http://theswoop.net) dedicated to undermining Washington's fondness for conventional wisdom.

What my friend Clarke means is that the set of issues and strategies that shaped the Cold War generation has passed. He's a product of that generation, having served at the sharp end of the spear for the British government in various Cold War hot spots. But that era is over. The intellectual matrix formed by the Soviet threat, and before that by Hitler's rise in Germany, needs to be reworked. There is a new set of problems and personalities -- and if America keeps trotting out the same cast of characters and policy papers, we will fail to make sense of where the world is moving.

The experience issue will dominate the final weeks of the Democratic primary campaign. Hillary Clinton's only remaining trump card is that she has been in the White House before and will be ready, as she repeats so tirelessly, from Day One. But ready for what? For a recapitulation of the people and policies that guided the country in the past? That's an attractive proposition only if you think that the world of the 1990s -- or '80s, or '70s -- can be re-created.

The experience gap will overshadow even more the general election race against John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee. With his every sinew, McCain embodies the idea of a wise, battle-tested man. "I'm not the youngest candidate, but I am the most experienced," he said after winning the Wisconsin primary Tuesday night. It's clear he hopes this pitch will carry him all the way to the White House. He's the tough old fighter pilot; he has fought the Cold War battles; he knows how to protect the nation in a time of danger. That's the McCain strategy in one compound sentence.

The assumption that experience equates with good judgment is a hard one to shake. We tend naturally to defer to the person who has been there before, measured the adversary, learned how the game is played. Yet if ever there were a test of the efficacy of experience, it was the Bush administration's decision to go to war in Iraq and its subsequent management of the postwar occupation. Bush's national security advisers were arguably the most experienced in modern times. But their performance was often very poor. That was partly, I think, because they overlaid the post-Sept. 11 challenges on a Cold War template about the uses of military power.

We are the last major nation to make the transition from Cold War thinking to something new. China and India are rising thanks to new leadership elites that understand how to succeed in global markets; Russia is about to elect a new president whose formative experiences came after the fall of the Soviet Union; Pakistan has just rebuffed its own durable Cold Warrior, Pervez Musharraf; even Fidel Castro, perhaps the iconic survivor of the Cold War, has decided to step down. Only in America could John McCain seriously campaign for leadership as a symbol of the past.

The utility of inexperience was explained to me last week by Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman for President Vladimir Putin. He said that what's attractive for Russians about Dmitry Medvedev, who is certain to be elected as Putin's successor next Sunday, is that he embodies "a generation that was not shaped by the Soviet Cold War way of thinking." Putin himself is a transition figure, a man formed by his experiences as a KGB officer. But after him, explained Peskov, comes a generation of Russians who don't carry the same baggage. They have traveled the world, seen things their parents could never imagine, looked at problems with fresh eyes.

To prepare for the next stage of the U.S. presidential campaign, try this thought experiment: Imagine the television footage of Barack Obama's first trip abroad as president -- the crowds in the streets of Moscow, Cairo, Nairobi, Shanghai, Paris, Islamabad. Now try to imagine the first visit by President John McCain to those same cities. McCain is a great man, and he would be welcomed with respect, deference, perhaps a bit of fear. Obama would generate different and more intense reactions -- surprise and uncertainty, to be sure, but also idealism and hope. Now tell me which image would foster a stronger and safer America in the 21st century.

Obama has liabilities as a candidate, but his inexperience paradoxically may actually bolster one of his core arguments -- that he would give America a fresh start.

The writer is co-host ofPostGlobal, an online discussion of international issues. His e-mail address isdavidignatius@washpost.com.

The Arab/Israeli Conflict Debate

by Cinnamon Stillwell
FrontPageMagazine.com
March 10, 2008
http://www.meforum.org/article/1871

A Santa Clara University course optimistically titled, "The Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes," was the setting for a February 26 academic debate on one of the world's most intractable disputes: The Arab/Israeli conflict.

San Jose State University Middle East history lecturer, David Meir-Levy, represented the pro-Israeli side of the equation, and UC Berkeley Islamic studies lecturer, Hatem Bazian, argued the pro-Palestinian position. Interestingly, each embodied the nationality of his respective side of the debate. David Meir-Levy is an American-born Israeli who once served in the Israeli Defense Forces, while Hatem Bazian is a Palestinian native.

Bazian is notorious for his transparently biased approach to the Arab/Israeli conflict. His call for "an intifada in this country" at a 2004 San Francisco anti-war protest is just one of many radical statements. More of an activist than an academic, Bazian personifies the politicization of Middle East studies today.

Meir-Levy, on the other hand, is known for his scrupulous scholarship on the subject of Middle East history. His recent book, History Upside Down: The Roots of Palestinian Fascism and the Myth of Israeli Aggression," as described by Middle East Forum director Daniel Pipes, "applies great common sense where demagogues and ignorami too often dominate."

Throughout the debate, Meir-Levy succeeded in turning history or, rather, the inaccurate historical narrative popular on college campuses, upside down, exposing the fallacy of Bazian's arguments in the process.

Bazian's approach was to vilify Israel and paint the Palestinians as the aggrieved party. But Meir-Levy demonstrated in no uncertain terms that a Palestinian state could have emerged many times over if not for the anti-Semitism that has subsumed their society and, in a larger sense, the Muslim world. "Absent that," he stated, "all issues could be resolved just as other nations have done."

While Meir-Levy was able to expound upon a variety of subjects, Bazian kept consulting his laptop, resulting in an array of flimsy talking points. Meir-Levy took note of the latter, accusing Bazian of engaging in "red herrings," and, at one point, stating coolly, "There's only one thing wrong with what you said. It's contrary to the historical record."

Proving his point, Bazian touted post-Zionist Israeli academic Ilan Pappé as an authority on the alleged "systematic expulsion of the Palestinians" from 1948 onward. Bazian's stated source for this outlandish claim was Pappé's book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.

Meir-Levy then conveyed a revealing admission the author made to him during a 2002 radio debate. As Pappé put it, "I care less about veracity because I have an agenda to advance."

The same could be said for Bazian, whose coterie of falsehoods included the assertion that Israel is depriving Palestinians of water. Bazian, Meir-Levy responded, must have "fallen prey to a misrepresentation." He then set the record straight on Israel's preservation of the water table and rebuilding of the West Bank and Gaza's sewage systems.

Following Bazian's condemnation of Israel's security barrier, Meir-Levy noted that the purportedly ominous wall is composed largely of chain-link fencing. The actual wall section, he pointed out, was built to prevent Palestinian snipers from shooting at Israelis and suicide bombers from getting into Israel. He concluded by stating the obvious: "If there was no terrorism, there would be no fence."

Taking a page from controversial Columbia University professor, Nadia Abu El-Haj, Bazian flatly denied Israel's archeological foundations. "There is no evidence of a major [ancient] Jewish civilization," he stated matter-of-factly.

When not promoting canards, Bazian tried to impress the audience with his credentials. He referenced his position at UC Berkeley several times for no apparent reason, and then went on to do the same with his 2004 appearance on Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor." Yet, he managed to conveniently omit the fact that he was invited on the show to explain his aforementioned "intifada" comments.

In a further display of boorish behavior, Bazian, responding to Meir-Levy's favorable reference to Daniel Pipes, accused Pipes and, for good measure, David Horowitz, of being one of the "the drum beaters of Armageddon."

Despite such heated rhetoric, Meir-Levy retained his composure throughout the debate. In contrast, Bazian gave way to frustration and anger quite easily. At one point, he fumed, "This is not a discussion," and later threatened to end the debate early, exclaiming, "This is nonsense!" But the "nonsense" in question consisted entirely of facts, and it was clear that Bazian, a skilled propagandist when dealing with the uninformed, was no match for the knowledgeable. As Meir-Levy pointed out, "one side in a debate descends into hyperbole when losing."

Nevertheless, some of the students in the classroom were not ready to hear the facts, at least when it came to the bigotry and genocidal ambitions of the Palestinian "resistance." The idea that both sides of a conflict are not on the same moral footing is difficult for those indoctrinated by years of relativism to accept. Several students accused Meir-Levy of demonstrating a "lack of constructive criticism" and of being "overly negative" for his denunciation of what he termed, "Arab Jew-hatred." One young woman asked him, "Why do we have to focus on hatred?" before walking out. The majority, however, remained cordial and stuck it out until the end.

To the protestations of Bazian and his student supporters, Meir-Levy answered with a profound, yet simple, statement: "Peace begins with trust. Trust begins with truth."

Unfortunately, Middle East studies academics such as Bazian appear to have little interest in truth, and it is the students who suffer the consequences. That is why spirited debates such as this one are so important.

Cinnamon Stillwell is the Northern California Representative for Campus Watch. She can be reached at stillwell@meforum.org.