Arabs want what Israel has

The upheavals across North Africa and the Middle East have left western commentators looking for reasons why protests over food shortages and living standards turned into routs of regimes that had lasted for decades.

It had been accepted that Arabs, like the peoples of eastern Europe before them, would just have to suffer under political systems that denied them liberty and basic human rights.

Instead, the western media focused on what they saw as the cause – Israel – and ignored signs of the coming revolution that first bubbled to the surface in Tunisia a few weeks ago.

UK writer Nick Cohen provides some answers in The Observer why western commentators got it wrong:

Far from being a cause of the revolution, antagonism to Israel everywhere served the interests of oppressors… antisemitism is a conspiracy theory about power, rather than a standard racist hatred of poor immigrants. Fascistic regimes reached for it when they sought to deny their own people liberty.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the forgery the far-right wing of the decaying tsarist regime issued in 1903 to convince Russians they should continue to obey the tsar's every command, denounces human rights and democracy as facades behind which the secret Jewish rulers of the world manipulated gullible gentiles.

Daniel Pipes is optimistic (link bonus: pic of Mariah Carey) and contrasts this conclusion with the nature of the revolts – that they are “constructive, patriotic and open in spirit.”

He goes on to observe that extremism has been largely absent and that “populations seek something more mundane and consumable than rhetoric, rejectionism and backwardness.”

Red faces over Libya
This week, attention has turned to Libya, where the Gadhafi regime is fighting for survival against the popular and apparently well-armed forces of rebellion.

This has left at least one large venerable learning institution much embarrassed. It received a major donations from one Saif Gaddafi. Melanie Phillips
 takes up the story in her Spectator blog:

The London School of Economics took £1.5m from Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, money which by definition had to have been stolen from the Libyan people, despite being warned to back away by Professor Fred Halliday, the LSE's late and much-missed authority on the Middle East, who never flinched from looking dictators in the eye.
"I've come to know Saif as someone who looks to democracy, civil society and deep liberal values for the core of his inspiration," purred the LSE's David Held as he accepted the cheque.

Two other LSE academics, anthropologist Martha Mundy, who is co-convener of the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine, and John Chalcraft, a politics expert, argued for boycotting Israel in a debate at the LSE last month. The LSE has since paid back the Libyan blood money and has also rejected the boycott.

The Islamists’ real agenda
Meanwhile, some sides of the Arab revolution are not so pleasant, reports John R Bradley in The Spectator’s cover story for February 26, “Arabian nightmare.”

In 2008, Bradley wrote a book, Inside Egypt, in which he predicted the Egyptian revolution, and more recently Behind the Veil of Vice (2010), about the business and culture of sex in the Middle East.

He describes recent events in both Egypt and Tunisia, including the slaughter of a Polish Catholic priest – the first such sectarian murder in its history – and the closing of Tunis’ ancient red-light district.

Bradley says the Islamists will benefit greatly from democracy but not because they want to take control of the government or set tax or energy policy.

“…the influence they seek is cultural totalitarianism. Bereft of sensible, let alone practical, solutions to the real ills that plague their societies, they aim to Islamise society from below…mainly by clamping down on prostitution and the sale of alcohol.”

Another desert storm
An unusual take on Libya has come from Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi politician best known for pushing hardest for the US invasion after 2001 and who has been disowned by just about everyone inside and out of Iraq.

He reminds us, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, of some interesting parallels between the first invasion of Iraq in 1991 and Libya today, when Gaddafi is using his air force to strafe rebels against his regime:

The noose was closing around Saddam's neck when a fateful decision was made in Washington. Prompted by foreign policy ‘realists’ in his administration – such as Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and National Security Council Senior Director for Near East and South Asian Affairs Richard Haass – [President George] Bush [snr] allowed Saddam to fly military aircraft to put down the uprising.

Up to 330,000 Iraqi civilians were killed by Saddam's brutal tactics, which included using helicopter gunships to strafe neighbourhoods and tanks to blast schools, hospitals and places of worship.

Books will be everywhere
A creditor at this week’s meeting held by RedGroup Retail’s administrators told the media afterward that the Whitcoulls business model was sound.

The speaker represented a large global book publisher and endorsed a view expressed here last week. (You may have missed it due to technical difficulties.)

But overseas trends suggest the mass market model for bookselling is over, with the emphasis going on a wider range of goods – exactly what Whitcouls has done and been rubbished for doing so.

The New York Times reports:

Barnes & Noble has been devoting more floor space for displays of e-readers, games and educational toys. Borders, after filing for bankruptcy protection in February, has begun liquidating some 200 of its superstores.

“The national bookstore chain has peaked as a sales channel, and the growth is not going to come from there,” said David Steinberger, chief executive of the Perseus Books Group. “But it doesn’t mean that all brick-and-mortar retailers are cutting back.”

A wide range of stores better known for their apparel, food and fishing reels have been adding books.

This means you are more likely to find books in places where you find other goods of related interest. Niche opportunities abound if more cinemas sell DVDs, gourmet grocery outlets stock cooking titles, self-improvement books pop up at gyms and coffee bars add bestsellers (rather than the other way round).

I have even noticed Takapuna’s organics produce shop now stocks Censored and like-minded conspiracy magazines, suggesting vegetarians are not just alternative in their eating habits.