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Go Home One Silly Jewish Boy, Maybe Two Silly Jewish Boys...In...

THE SPINE JUNE 16, 2010

One Silly Jewish Boy, Maybe Two Silly Jewish Boys...In Damascus

BY MARTIN PERETZ

They're in Damascus, two State Department techies, at the head of a delegation of commercial techies representing American computer combines (Microsoft, Cisco, Dell and some others) in an effort to lure the ophthalmologist Dr. Assad away from the Islamist camp. You see: Bashar al-Assad loves computer games (sort of like my grandson) and the idea is to entice him into playing with our software and networking eqiupment which he can't have unless he behaves.

The effort would have normally been led by Robert S. Ford, whom the president tapped as ambassador to Assad's court early in the spring. Alas, both Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee aren't sure that this is exactly the time to send an emissary to Iran's faithful client and Lebanon's obsessive tormentor. The committe chairman, secretary of state pro tempore John F. Kerry from my own Bay State, made another of his several forays to Syria...apparently with nothing good to report. Kerry is an old and good friend, and I pity him and his visitations.

Anyway, with Ford kept in the hatch and Kerry having done the trip at least two times, Hillary Clinton has dispatched two of her young men, Policy Planning Staffer Jared Cohen and Special Adviser on Innovation Alec J. Ross, to lead the enticement mission. Cohen has written a book, Children of Jihad, the basis of which is that the new defining demographic is the roughly 60% of the "Muslim world" who are under 30. According to him, youth is the liberating factor in Islam. He has told this tale excitedly on Colbert, CBS, Glenn Beck, the BBC, and MSNBC.

And, of course, youth is also mesmerized by the technologies of immediacy, naughtiness, excitement. If you believe this leads to a sympathy for democracy...

In any case, here is a report on the two boys and their visit to the Damascus playground.

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So, the two men - Policy Planning Staffer Jared Cohen and Special Adviser on Innovation Alec J. Ross - happen to be Jewish. What does being Jewish have to do with their errand as State Department employees? Why is your headline highlighting that fact, and why would you refer to them, two grown men that they are, as "Jewish boys" ? Come on now, marty.

- scrubby

June 17, 2010 at 7:38am

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yeah, really. The silliness is in sending a U.S. high-tech commercial delegation to Syria. The real silliness is Jared Cohen finding a publisher for his book positing "youth is the liberating factor in Islam." That would be the youth who, if they are taught anything other than the Koran in a madrassa, it is the "Jews drink blood while Jews control the economy" version of history while the map of the world on their Damascus classroom wall shows Ottoman Palestine and Lebanon as a province of Greater Syria. The U.S. should start dropping The Gap catalogues over Syria from airplanes. Better use of taxpayer-borrowed-from-China money. Time for Kerry to retire.

- K2K

June 17, 2010 at 8:13am

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It's the silliness of the triumph of hope over the cold sobriety of reality.

- noga1

June 17, 2010 at 8:50am

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more reality versus hope: Is the United Nations delegitimizing both the rule of law AND the United Nations? "...Diplomats, lawyers and others tracking the cases describe the United Nations’ stance on the tribunal as contradictory, if not hypocritical, given the organization’s role in promoting the rule of law globally. ...“You have to look at the culture here,” Judge Michael F. Adams, an Australian judge, said at the end of his stint on the dispute panel in New York. “Someone in the position of under secretary general is never confronted with the requirement that particular questions be answered.” Judge Adams has been notably scathing in his written decisions about the lack of due process in the tribunals. “The United Nations legal system may be an island, but it does not inhabit its own planet,” he wrote in one. ..." nytimes.com/2010/06/17/world/17nations.html?ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=all And, now that there are refugees, and one murder, a buried article on how Iran (and Turkey) are invading Iraqi Kurdistan: "...The Iranian government has said its bombing campaigns are necessary to weaken Kurdish guerrillas that strike in Iran and take refuge in Iraq. The only confirmed casualty has been a 14-year-old girl. The incursions, though, come at a critical time for Iraq — amid the political stalemate over who should lead the next government more than three months after a divided electorate cast ballots, and less than three months before the American military is scheduled to withdraw its last combat soldier from the country. United States forces continue to patrol portions of Iraq’s 910-mile frontier with Iran, but in the Qandil Mountain villages that have suffered the brunt of the Iranian offensive, there are no American, Iraqi or Kurdish soldiers — and the refugees say they are getting little help. “We have been left on our own,” said Bahar Ibrahim, 27, a refugee from Ali Rash, who is eight months pregnant. ..." nytimes.com/2010/06/17/world/middleeast/17border.html?ref=todayspaper seems TNR's spam filter does not like the NYT

- K2K

June 17, 2010 at 9:02am

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If Peretz's characterization is correct (and that's a big if) I think Cohen is wrong. An overabundance of young men is a problem, not the solution to a problem. the REAL solution to the muslim world's integration into the modern world will be a decline in the number of young men, ideally through reduction in family size. Having said that, I have no idea why Cohen's Jewishness has any bearing on his silliness or vice versa. Imagine the sturm and drang if Andrew Sullivan had a similar headline. And, are kerry and Peretz really friends? If so, perhaps we really were better off with GWB.

- miceelf

June 17, 2010 at 9:38am

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George Jonas (author of the book on which the movie "Munich' was based) writes about the age of moral confusion (silliness and sanctimony replacing clarity and integrity): " The Manichean certainties of the 20th century are subtly morphing into the nuanced -- Obamafied? -- uncertainties of the 21st. In an era where shades of grey replace primary colours, will democracies that resist terrorists extradite counterterrorists to autocracies that shelter them? Maybe. If moral equivalence is here, can moral confusion be far behind?" http://www.nationalpost.com/Prepare%20moral%20confusion/3159925/story.html#ixzz0r7P5jorV

- noga1

June 17, 2010 at 9:58am

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Here is the link: http://www.nationalpost.com/Prepare%20moral%20confusion/3159925/story.html

- noga1

June 17, 2010 at 9:59am

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It's moral confusion to believe that there should be constraints on our behavior, even when confronting evil?

- miceelf

June 17, 2010 at 10:07am

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miceelf: "It's moral confusion to believe that there should be constraints on our behavior, even when confronting evil?" I see an increasing number of people questioning why the world tried to stop total war after WW2, and especially since the Yom Kippur War of 1973. not necessarily about good versus evil, more about how to actually defeat your enemy into unconditional surrender, a Genghis Khan revival. Too many frozen conflicts that continue to simmer. Maybe General MacArthur was correct to try to destroy the North Koreans even after China joined them. Here we are 56 years later and now the NKs have nukes and the United Nations is incapable of policing anything.

- K2K

June 17, 2010 at 10:37am

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Well, Pat Buchanan has been questioning why we fought WW2 forever, but he's a special case of bigot. But believing WW2 was a just war doesn't necessarily lead to one believing that it was a good decision to, say, nuke nagasaki. As to destroying North Koreans, well, in retrospect, we look at the world and say if only we didn't have to deal with crazy NK. But we don't know what would have happened in that scenario, it might have been better, it might have been worse. I'm not a pacifist, I don't reflexively think war is always the wrong answer. I was responding specifically to the article noga posted. I guess, and perhaps this is morally naive, but I believe that regardless of the evilness of the enemy, we still have moral obligations, if not to them, then to ourselves. I just don't see why, say, refusing to torture the family members of terrorists would make us "morally confused"

- miceelf

June 17, 2010 at 11:51am

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I failed to read between the lines of George Jonas' question of whether moral equivalence leads to moral confusion to come up with any thought of "refusing to torture the family members of terrorists". Torture of anyone is immoral, but not related to whether Germany should now extradite an Israeli counter-terrorist to Dubai. It is far more important to figure out what is happening in Iraq this week. Took the newly elected MPs three months just to meet, wave the flag, and adjourn after twenty minutes on Monday. On Tuesday, US Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman arrived in Baghdad. Guess Peretz has to fixate on Syria if his dream of a democratic Iraq is now about to go down in flames. The State Department should have begged Ryan Crocker out of retirement, not Feltman, who has zero credibility in the re-sectarianized politics that now grips Iraq, including the conspiracy theory that a US-Kurdish-Israeli-alliance is threatening Iraq! (that theory is reported by The Economist, which is now trying to bring the Iraq stalemate into a newsworthy issue by focussing on Iranian influence and Sunni hysteria, and almost wishing for a military coup to end the political stalemate)

- K2K

June 17, 2010 at 5:07pm

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my correction; The Economist reported an Iraqi Sunni Imam's conspiracy theory about the American-Iranian-Israeli plot to 'destroy Iraq'; and then reports no one in Iraq trusts the Kurds anyway. It is Turkey that believes in the American-Kurdish-Israeli conspiracy; in Pakistan it is the American-Hindu-Israeli conspiracy. (The Afghans only blame America and Christians, so far) The AP reports on Iraq's al-Sistani's move to get involved, noting "...al-Sistani is losing ground to the Afghan-born Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Ishaq al-Fayadh, who is fast establishing himself as Najaf's leading scholar...." an AFGHAN-born Shi'a cleric in Iraq is NOT Taliban, but certainly Iran-friendly.

- K2K

June 17, 2010 at 5:27pm

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06/17/2010 "The Birth of a Bomb: A History of Iran's Nuclear Ambitions" By Erich Follath and Holger Stark "..."Bring me my bow of burning gold / Bring me my arrows of desire / Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold! / Bring me my chariot of fire!" Were the Iranians using the phrase "chariots of fire" as a poetic euphemism for the atom bomb?..." part one at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,701109,00.html

- K2K

June 17, 2010 at 6:38pm

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K2k, good point about the Iraq elections. (sigh)

- miceelf

June 18, 2010 at 9:27am

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miceelf: the media coverage of Iraq is so thin. Hardly the time to be stressing over two State Dept Twitter fans in Damascus. What happens in Iraq could be the game-changer with the Iran-Syria-maybe Turkey dilemma (I still believe the Kurds are a major reason why Turkey is embracing Syria and Iran). Turkey is intensifying it's pursuit (adding with commandos in ground raids to the airstrikes) of the PKK inside Iraq. I assume Obama would prefer symbolic death rather than back down on his combat troop withdrawal schedule promise even if it means an Iranian-backed government in Baghdad by September. One glimmer of hope on Friday in Iraq (My sincere best wishes that Sistani's moral authority bears fruit, even if he does speak Arabic with a Persian accent.): "Top cleric warns Iraq leaders on coalition talks By Hassan Abdul Zahra (AFP) NAJAF, Iraq — Iraq's revered Shiite spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani threatened on Friday to intervene in protracted coalition talks if they do not produce a new government soon. ... Sistani's message that it was past time for a new government to be formed was rammed home by his representatives in sermons around the country at the main weekly Muslim prayers on Friday. "The negotiations and discussions must be stepped up, and the political blocs must know the importance of time in reaching an agreement," his representative in Karbala, Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalai, told the faithful. "All the political blocs must show flexibility in their demands and must let all Iraqi groups take part in serious negotiations," he said. "We hope the political blocs choose ministers according to adequacy and honesty, and the ability to do all the required duties, and not according to political allegiance."

- K2K

June 18, 2010 at 11:47am

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Visits. In re John Kerry. Visitations are sometlhing different.

- ironyroad

June 18, 2010 at 5:05pm

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"Kerry is an old and good friend, and I pity him and his visitations." Do you really think Marty meant to say "visits" and not "visitations"? "vis·it·a·tion   –6. the administration of comfort or aid, or of affliction or punishment: a visitation of the plague. 7. an affliction or punishment, as from god. 8. the appearance or coming of a supernatural influence or spirit."

- noga1

June 18, 2010 at 5:14pm

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Peretz is spending his time reading about Iran's Shi'a 12th Imam Visitation Syndrome. Kerry just wants to be SecState. irony, are you still in Tel Aviv?

- K2K

June 18, 2010 at 8:04pm

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Noga: Yeah it does seem odd, now that you put it that way, but the word appears to be syntactically in apposition to "forays" in the previous clause, so I don't know. If it's intentionally "visitations," however, it's not clear from the context what they might be. K2K:I left Tel Aviv on Thurs -- am now writing this from Brixton public library in south London.

- ironyroad

June 20, 2010 at 10:37am

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irony: Brixton? I would think more dangerous than Tel Aviv ... pretend you are Canadian :)

- K2K

June 20, 2010 at 2:29pm

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Tel Aviv is dangerous?

- noga1

June 20, 2010 at 3:19pm

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"Tel Aviv is dangerous?" NO. my perception is that Brixton is quite rough, and anti-Americanism is fuelled by British tabloids these days.

- K2K

June 20, 2010 at 7:36pm

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Brixton is rough but not as much as 25 years ago. It's certainly not some artifical Masterpiece Theater location that pretends to be "England" on PBS. In any case, that kind of anti-Americanism is usually directed at some real or perceived national policy and not at individual Americans. When I was in Cardiff on Friday I was at a little conference (on a popular culture topic) and my short talk was a bit cheeky in suggesting that both leftwing AND conservative anti-American paranoias had their roots in dismay at the decline of British power after WW2. I got a fairly interested and amused reaction, as far as it went. I have to say that Tel Aviv is, in my limited experience, one of the least dangerous cities I've ever been in.

- ironyroad

June 21, 2010 at 9:03am

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Oh yes, Canadian -- I don't have to. I still have a lot of the Irish accent from my youth, although I haven't lived there for over 30 years.

- ironyroad

June 21, 2010 at 9:15am

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