As the mainstream media fall into increasing disrepute, new information sources are rising up across the Internet. None is greater to my mind than MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, which began by surveying the Arab written press, but now provides verbatim television clips from their video outlets as well with simultaneous translation. Usually there is also a transcription and, like CSPAN, rarely do the MEMRI people comment – of if so, only briefly. Instead we are treated like adults, allowed to draw our own conclusions. Of course, selection itself is a comment, but no system is perfect, obviously. Still, I trust MEMRI more than almost all newspapers, television networks or websites.
Today their televison monitor project has a fascinating clip of Cairo’s Al-Ahram Research Center Expert Dhiaa Rashwan telling an interviewer that Israel carried out the recent Sinai bombings (thus deliberately murdering its own citizens):
Interviewer: Let me understand what you are saying, Dr. Dhiaa. Do you claim that this operation bears Israeli fingerprints and that Israel is behind it? What would lead Israel to carry such an operation?
Dr. Rashwan: Such operations realize higher Israeli goals. We must note that not only did Israel announce from the outset that Al-Qa’ida was responsible for the operation, but the top security authorities, and even the Israeli Defense Minister, announced that they exclude the possibility of Palestinian involvement in the operation, while Israel’s natural reaction in such cases would be to claim Palestinian involvement.
The main goals of this operation are as follows: First, to convince the world that Egypt is not a stable country, thus opening the door for external involvement, specifically Israeli and American, for the so-called preservation of security and eradication of terrorism in the region.
Second, [the attack] gives Sharon a green light not only to strike the Palestinians in the occupied territories under the pretext of fighting terrorism, but also a legitimate justification for striking the Palestinians abroad because Israeli citizens were attacked abroad.
When I see/read material likes this, I ask myself whether people like Dr. Dhiaa believe the insanity they are spouting or whether it is just propaganda. Either conclusion is quite scary. And whatever it is, you can be sure projection is a heavy component.
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15 Comments
1. Terrye:Roger:
I have wondered the same thing myself. After all they go to such lengths to justify the carnage after these attacks, why blame someone else? If you make Osama a hero don’t be surprised when buildings blow up. I think they know it is bulls***, this is just a way to avoid dealing with the reality.
I mean are people like this man really so different from Michael Moore?
Oct 11, 2004 - 4:53 pm 2. Syl:I think the order of the two reasons is revealing.
One would think hatred of Israel would be first.
He’s trying to protect Egypt’s image to the West.
I guess Bush’s deterrance plan is working.
Oct 11, 2004 - 5:10 pm 3. chuck:I think they actually believe it. I met an old Egyptian acquaintance who actually thought it possible that the WTC attack was planned by the Mossad. That said, I think there is a sort of double reality. An Egyptian might claim that WTC was a Jewish plot, but at the same time admire Osama for his strike. So, people are weird, eh.
Oct 11, 2004 - 5:21 pm 4. Syl:You’d think they’d all been Chomskyized. Though Edward Said thought in much the same terms.
BTW, from LGF, we get this other item from Egypt. Mubarak, obviously one of Kerry’s ‘world leaders’, has called for a terror conference at the U.N.
And, surprise, cough, cough, the Palestinians don’t count:
A teror conference. Just like Kerry.
What a smirk.
Oct 11, 2004 - 5:37 pm 5. Rick Ballard:When I see/read material likes this, I ask myself whether people like Dan Rather believe the insanity they are spouting or whether it is just propaganda. Either conclusion is quite scary. And whatever it is, you can be sure projection is a heavy component.
When I see/read material likes this, I ask myself whether people like Mark Helperin believe the insanity they are spouting or whether it is just propaganda. Either conclusion is quite scary. And whatever it is, you can be sure projection is a heavy component.
When I see/read material likes this, I ask myself whether people like John Kerry believe the insanity they are spouting or whether it is just propaganda. Either conclusion is quite scary. And whatever it is, you can be sure projection is a heavy component.
I’m sorry, what was the question, again?
Oct 11, 2004 - 5:41 pm 6. John Moore ( Useful Fools ):I rarely read MEMRI any more. The odds of finding an interesting article rather than insane ranting are low.
I have no idea how MEMRI selects which articles to translate.
In any case, if you want to find out how crazy many in the media in the middle east are, or their rulers want them to be, MEMRI is a great resource.
Oct 11, 2004 - 6:01 pm 7. mrp:MSM credibility seems to be cratering across The Pond, too. For the first time, the Telegraph Group has pulled a Mark Steyn column.
Mr. Steyn courageously posted the op-ed piece at his website. A hard-hitting, biting bit of prose that tries to knock some sense into the somnambulant British commentariat. Shades of 1938, I think. They have eyes, but cannot see.
Oct 11, 2004 - 6:17 pm 8. mrp:From the Rashwan interview:
The main goals of this operation are as follows: First, to convince the world that Egypt is not a stable country …
Second, [the attack] gives Sharon a green light not only to strike the Palestinians in the occupied territories under the pretext of fighting terrorism, but also a legitimate justification for striking the Palestinians abroad because Israeli citizens were attacked abroad.
This is pretty much boilerplate buck-passing as practiced in the autocratic Middle East. The important thing in these interviews is not whether the viewers actually believe that the Israeli government would kill Israeli men, women, and children. No, the important thing is for Dr. Rashwan and the other talking heads blathering on Egyptian state television NOT to blame the bombings on the Egyptian government, or mention lax security, corrupt officials, non-existent emergency planning, and general incompetence.
Considering the consequences, for Rashwan to be honest and blame the Egyptian security services for the attack would be unthinkable.
Oct 11, 2004 - 6:48 pm 9. Jamie Irons:mrp
No, the important thing is for Dr. Rashwan and the other talking heads blathering on Egyptian state television NOT to blame the bombings on the Egyptian government, or mention lax security, corrupt officials, non-existent emergency planning, and general incompetence.
Exactly. This is why the Arabs will go nowhere until these autocracies are overthrown.
Jamie Irons
Oct 11, 2004 - 7:09 pm 10. Rick Ballard:This is why the Arabs will go nowhere until these autocracies are overthrown.
Jamie, I don’t think that just overthrowing autocrats will do it. The longer I look at the practice of the central tenets of Islam the less likely I think it possible that representative democracy can flourish. Why has India been stable (more or less) since the British withdrawal and Pakistan has been unable to achieve stability? Turkey is the only Islamic democracy extant today and even there the militants make continuing secular government problematic. I’m very leary of the projection aspect of this from our side as well as from theirs.
Oct 11, 2004 - 7:48 pm 11. Peter Boston:I have a wierd theory, not on who caused Taba, but on the outcome precipitated by it. Don’t pay any attention to what anybody says but watch what they do.
Egypt will militarize the Sinai, and then Gaza as the Israelis withdraw. Not to confront Israel, but to cover its back when Israel simultaneously moves the IDF into the Bekka, and possibly southern Syria (depending on Assad’s moves), while the Israeli AF takes out the Iranian nuclear weapons sites.
Timing would be after the January election in Iraq. The two things to watch for that would keep this crazy idea alive would be the buildup of Egyptian troops in the Sinai with no corresponding Israeli response, and the movement of multiple US carrier battle groups to the Persian Gulf area before the end of the year. The Islamists will counter with assassination attempts on Mubarak’s successor-son. Assad is in the game if he withdraws the bulk of Syrian forces from Lebanon to just over the border in Syria where they would block Hizbu’allah/Al Qaeda escape routes.
Both Egypt and Syria have had love-hate relationships with the Muslim Brotherhood (Al Qaeda, Hamas, Islamic Jihad). Mubarak wants to pass power to his son. Assad wants to stay in power. They both must be feeling a bigger threat from the Muslim Brotherhood than the Cowboy.
Oct 12, 2004 - 1:56 am 12. Cynic:It seems that logic is also sadly lacking.
As Eurabian Times posts:
http://www.eurabiantimes.com/archives/2004/10/let_us_put_troo_1.php
“Let us put troops into buffer zone, Egyptians urge”
in which he comments on a Telegraph story.
How stupid it is to provide the Egyptians with an excuse to have tanks up on the border again.
Especially after the frigid peace they entered into for all these years.
Oct 12, 2004 - 6:53 am 13. chriss:Two fascinating aspects of this guy’s rant:
First it shows that Middle East despots are looking over their shoulder, concerned about a US-led regime change. THIS IS A GOOD THING.
Second, he first says the fact that Israel blames al Qaeda and not the Palestinians is proof that Israel is behind the attack. Then he says that Israel will use this as justification to attack Palestinians outside of Israel. Lunatic, but sadly not fringe.
Oct 12, 2004 - 9:47 am 14. Byron00:‘Pas de deux’ is a psychiatric term for the conjoined madness of two people. What should we call the conjoined madness of millions? ‘Pas de l’abattoir’ ? ‘Pas de mort’ ? In our own society, of course, we have people who believe in abductions by space aliens and much more. The difference is that the larger culture does not support such paranoid nonsense. But imagine if it did.
Oct 12, 2004 - 5:10 pm 15. Byron00:Oops. The psychiatric term, I am correctly informed, is ‘folie a deux’. Pas de deux is used in social psychology to describe certain kinds of mutually reinforcing and problematic two-person interaction patterns, as can become elaborated between, for example, a husband and wife, or a parent and child. Maddening perhaps, but not madness.
I blame this misunderstanding entirely on the French.
Oct 12, 2004 - 6:20 pm