Mubarak family fortune could reach $70bn, say experts | World news | guardian.co.uk

Image via WikipediaMubarak family fortune could reach $70bn, say experts | World news | guardian.co.uk

Egyptian president has cash in British and Swiss banks plus UK and US property

President Hosni Mubarak's family fortune could be as much as $70bn (£43.5bn) according to analysis by Middle East experts, with much of his wealth in British and Swiss banks or tied up in real estate in London, New York, Los Angeles and along expensive tracts of the Red Sea coast.

After 30 years as president and many more as a senior military official, Mubarak has had access to investment deals that have generated hundreds of millions of pounds in profits. Most of those gains have been taken offshore and deposited in secret bank accounts or invested in upmarket homes and hotels.

According to a report last year in the Arabic newspaper Al Khabar, Mubarak has properties in Manhattan and exclusive Beverly Hills addresses on Rodeo Drive.

His sons, Gamal and Alaa, are also billionaires. A protest outside Gamal's ostentatious home at 28 Wilton Place in Belgravia, central London, highlighted the family's appetite for western trophy assets.

Amaney Jamal, a political science professor at Princeton University, said the estimate of $40bn-70bn was comparable with the vast wealth of leaders in other Gulf countries.

"The business ventures from his military and government service accumulated to his personal wealth," she told ABC news. "There was a lot of corruption in this regime and stifling of public resources for personal gain.

"This is the pattern of other Middle Eastern dictators so their wealth will not be taken during a transition. These leaders plan on this."

Al Khabar said it understood the Mubaraks kept much of their wealth offshore in the Swiss bank UBS and the Bank of Scotland, part of Lloyds Banking Group, although this information could be at least 10 years old.

There are only sketchy details of exactly where the Mubaraks have generated their wealth and its final destination.

Christopher Davidson, professor of Middle East politics at Durham University, said Mubarak, his wife, Suzanne, and two sons were able to accumulate wealth through a number of business partnerships with foreign investors and companies, dating back to when he was in the military and in a position to benefit from corporate corruption.

He said most Gulf states required foreigners give a local business partner a 51% stake in start-up ventures. In Egypt, the figure is commonly nearer 20%, but still gives politicians and close allies in the military a source of huge profits with no initial outlay and little risk.

"Almost every project needs a sponsor and Mubarak was well-placed to take advantage of any deals on offer," he said.

"Much of his money is in Swiss bank accounts and London property. These are the favourites of Middle Eastern leaders and there is no reason to think Mubarak is any different. Gamal's Wilton Place home is likely to be the tip of the iceberg."

Al Khabar named a series of major western companies that, partnered with the Mubarak family, generated an estimated $15m a year in profits.

Aladdin Elaasar, author of The Last Pharaoh: Mubarak and the Uncertain Future of Egypt in the Obama Age, said the Mubaraks own several residences in Egypt, some inherited from previous presidents and the monarchy, and others the president has commissioned.

Hotels and land around the Sharm el-Sheikh tourist resort are also a source of Mubarak family wealth.

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China, Twitter and 20-Year-Olds vs. the Pyramids - NYTimes.com

China, Twitter and 20-Year-Olds vs. the Pyramids - NYTimes.com

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Amman, Jordan

Anyone who’s long followed the Middle East knows that the six most dangerous words after any cataclysmic event in this region are: “Things will never be the same.” After all, this region absorbed the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of Google without a ripple.

But traveling through Israel, the West Bank and Jordan to measure the shock waves from Egypt, I’m convinced that the forces that were upholding the status quo here for so long — oil, autocracy, the distraction of Israel, and a fear of the chaos that could come with change — have finally met an engine of change that is even more powerful: China, Twitter and 20-year-olds.

Of course, China per se is not fueling the revolt here — but China and the whole Asian-led developing world’s rising consumption of meat, corn, sugar, wheat and oil certainly is. The rise in food and gasoline prices that slammed into this region in the last six months clearly sharpened discontent with the illegitimate regimes — particularly among the young, poor and unemployed.

This is why every government out here is now rushing to increase subsidies and boost wages — even without knowing how to pay for it, or worse, taking it from capital budgets to build schools and infrastructure. King Abdullah II of Jordan just gave every soldier and civil servant a $30-a-month pay raise, along with new food and gasoline subsidies. Kuwait’s government last week announced a “gift” of about $3,500 to each of Kuwait’s 1.1 million citizens and about $850 million in food subsidies.

But China is a challenge for Egypt and Jordan in other ways. Several years ago, I wrote about Egyptian entrepreneurs who were importing traditional lanterns for Ramadan — with microchips in them that played Egyptian folk songs — from China. When China can make Egyptian Ramadan toys more cheaply and appealingly than low-wage Egyptians, you know there is problem of competitiveness.

Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Tunisia today are overflowing with the most frustrated cohort in the world — “the educated unemployables.” They have college degrees on paper but really don’t have the skills to make them globally competitive. I was just in Singapore. Its government is obsessed with things as small as how to better teach fractions to third graders. That has not been Hosni Mubarak’s obsession.

I look at the young protesters who gathered in downtown Amman today, and the thousands who gathered in Egypt and Tunis, and my heart aches for them. So much human potential, but they have no idea how far behind they are — or maybe they do and that’s why they’re revolting. Egypt’s government has wasted the last 30 years — i.e., their whole lives — plying them with the soft bigotry of low expectations: “Be patient. Egypt moves at its own pace, like the Nile.” Well, great. Singapore also moves at its own pace, like the Internet.

The Arab world has 100 million young people today between the ages of 15 and 29, many of them males who do not have the education to get a good job, buy an apartment and get married. That is trouble. Add in rising food prices, and the diffusion of Twitter, Facebook and texting, which finally gives them a voice to talk back to their leaders and directly to each other, and you have a very powerful change engine.

I have not been to Jordan for a while, but my ears are ringing today with complaints about corruption, frustration with the king and queen, and disgust at the enormous gaps between rich and poor. King Abdullah, who sacked his cabinet last week and promised real reform and real political parties, has his work cut out for him. And given some of the blogs that my friends here have shared with me from the biggest local Web site, Ammonnews.net, the people are not going to settle for the same-old, same-old. They say so directly now, dropping the old pretense of signing antigovernment blog posts as “Mohammed living in Sweden.”

Jordan is not going to blow up — today. The country is balanced between East Bank Bedouin tribes and West Bank Palestinians, who fought a civil war in 1970. “There is no way that the East Bankers would join with the Palestinians to topple the Hashemite monarchy,” a retired Jordanian general remarked to me. But this balance also makes reform difficult. The East Bankers overwhelmingly staff the army and government jobs. They prefer the welfare state, and hate both “privatization” and what they call “the digitals,” the young Jordanian techies pushing for reform. The Palestinians dominate commerce but also greatly value the stability the Hashemite monarchy provides.

Egypt was definitely a wake-up call for Jordan’s monarchy. The king’s challenge going forward is to convince his people that “their voices are going to be louder in the voting booth than in the street,” said Salah Eddin al-Bashir, a member of Jordan’s Senate.

As for Cairo, I think the real story in Egypt today is the 1952 revolution, led from the top by the military, versus the 2011 revolution, led from below by the people. The Egyptian Army has become a huge patronage system, with business interests and vast perks for its leaders. For Egypt to have a happy ending, the army has to give up some of its power and set up a fair political transition process that gives the Egyptian center the space to build precisely what Mubarak refused to permit — legitimate, independent, modernizing, secular parties — that can compete in free elections against the Muslim Brotherhood, now the only authentic party.

If that happens, I am not the least bit worried about the Muslim Brotherhoods in Jordan or Egypt hijacking the future. Actually, they should be worried. The Brotherhoods have had it easy in a way. They had no legitimate secular political opponents. The regimes prevented that so they could tell the world it is either “us or the Islamists.” As a result, I think, the Islamists have gotten intellectually lazy. All they had to say was “Islam is the answer” or “Hosni Mubarak is a Zionist” and they could win 20 percent of the vote. Now, if Egypt and Jordan can build a new politics, the Muslim Brotherhood will, for the first time, have real competition from the moderate center in both countries — and they know it.

“If leaders don’t think in new ways, there are vacancies for them in museums,” said Zaki Bani Rsheid, political director of Jordan’s Islamic Action Front, the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm. When I asked Rsheid if his own party was up for this competition, he stopped speaking in Arabic and said to me in English, with a little twinkle in his eye: “Yes we can.”

I hope so, and I also hope that events in Egypt and Jordan finally create a chance for legitimate modern Arab democratic parties to test him.

Julian Assange - FROST OVER THE WORLD - Al Jazeera English - The WikiLeaks founder about secrets, leaks and why he will not go back to Sweden.

Julian Assange - FROST OVER THE WORLD - Al Jazeera English




Julian Assange, the co-founder of the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks - which is currently releasing over 250,000 confidential American diplomatic cables - is in the UK fighting extradition to Sweden where he is wanted on charges for sexual assault.

He joins Sir David to talk about a host of issues, from his personal situation to the role of WikiLeaks as a bastion of transparency, championing the right to reveal government secrets, when it is in the publics' interest.

When he co-founded WikiLeaks he saw that he could encourage, through successful examples, people to step forward to reveal abuses by governments - to produce more justice. Subscribing to the motto that 'courage is contagious', Assange claims not to be an anarchist, rather his modus operandi is to promote responsible governance.

Now his lawyers are concerned that he will end up in an American jail, either directly through extradition from the UK, or through extradition from Sweden.

Assange heavily implies that receiving a fair trial in Sweden is doubtful. Why was the most senior prosecutor in Sweden removed (and replaced) after he said there was "no evidence or even suspicion" of rape? Why do Swedish authorities refuse to provide British officials with any evidence of crimes Assange allegedly commited - including witholding the statements of the victims?

He is hesitant to blame his two accusers for their allegations against him, suggesting they could be innocently caught up in a greater political scheme.

In Israel, When Is A Jew Not Jewish Enough? : NPR

In Israel, When Is A Jew Not Jewish Enough? : NPR

When is a Jew not Jewish enough? It's a question that's troubling the Israeli Defense Forces these

days — and it's affecting a number of American Jews.

Jonathan Leavitt is originally from California. He made aliyah — the migration to the Jewish state — this year. Stocky with blue eyes and a laidback manner, Leavitt says he came to Israel to serve in the IDF because he believes in the homeland of the Jewish people.

"Upon arriving to Israel, I was excited, a lot of motivation, feeling more Jewish, probably, than I'd ever felt in my whole life, and I didn't know what I was in for," he says.

It wasn't until Leavitt arrived that he was told that according to Jewish law in Israel, he isn't considered a Jew.

"I can recall the lady working behind the desk asking me what religion I practiced, and I thought that was an odd question, coming from them in Israel. And I said, 'I'm Jewish, obviously,' and she replied, 'I'm sorry, we can't put that into your ID.' And I said, 'Why? I have a letter from my rabbi, I've been bar mitzvahed.' And she said, 'According to the rabbinate, you are not Jewish enough,'" he recalls.

The problem was Leavitt's mother. She was not born a Jew; she converted.

That's not an issue to a family like the Leavitts. Like most Jews in the U.S., Leavitt's family belongs to the more liberal branches of Judaism, the Reform or Conservative movements.

In Israel, however, religious life is dominated by the Orthodox and increasingly the ultra-Orthodox.

Unless those seeking to join the Jewish faith undergo Orthodox conversion, they are simply not legally recognized as Jews in Israel, and that applies to their offspring as well.

Jewish Identity Questioned

The fight came to a head this summer when American Jewish leaders succeeded in shelving a bill in the Israeli Knesset, the parliament, because it would have given even more control over conversions to the ultra-Orthodox community in Israel.

But the issue is far from resolved.

Leavitt says having his Jewish identity questioned has left a bitter taste in his mouth.

"I thought to myself, what did I come here for if I'm not going to be allowed to be a part of this culture? I can fight for them, I can die for them, I can go to the army and give up my life, and give up my freedom, but I don't have the same rights?" he says.

"I'm not Jewish enough for them, and it was heartbreaking," he adds.

Another American immigrant in the IDF is facing the same situation. He's from the northeastern United States but doesn't want his name used for fear of repercussions.

"Even the Israeli Jews who are entirely secular, [who] don't observe anything and really have no connection to their Jewish religion, are considered more Jewish than I am," he says.

The army offers its own three-month conversion course for those serving. Those who pass will be considered Jewish by the Israeli government, with the right to get married and be buried in Israel.

The young man from the American northeast is going to take the course.

"For me, I made aliyah, I'm going to live here, so for me it's a bit more important to really be able to function entirely in every way in Israeli society. I can get married, I can do all of the things that Israeli Jews can do," he says.

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U.S., allies answer terror challenge

One of these allies was the Muslim nation of Saudi Arabia. The Islamophobia spreading throughout America damages our relations with our Muslim friends. We need these friends to beat Al-Qaida. It time for Americans to act like adults and reject stereotypes and fear.
John H. Armwood

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Interview With Controversial 90 Year Old Former White House Correspondant Helen Thomas

Pioneering journalist Helen Thomas, the first woman to serve in the White House press corp, is heard here for the first time since she resigned from her White House post after stating; “Tell ‘em to get the hell out of Palestine…. They should go home… [to] Poland, Germany.”)referring to the European Israeli settlers who were part of the founding of the state of Israel.
Ms. Thomas parents were from a part of Syria which is now in Lebanon. She has expressed a resentment which is felt throughout the Arab world towards settlers from Europe who settled in Israel. Thomas's words contained an incredibly open degree of frankness for someone in public life. However she is 90 years old. Elderly people are not known to mince their words. The real question is whether the statements were in fact anti-Semitic? I think they were.
I agree that modern Israel is in large part a settler colony with many European immigrants. But many of these immigrants have ancient ties of both blood and religion to Palestine. On the other hand how would we feel if first nations people (Native Americans) demanded the land of America back? Of course wee would not like it. Many Americans would take up arms to defend what they believe is rightly theirs. This is the quandary. Palestinians feel their land has been stolen. Israel's feel they are in the homeland that was promised to them thousands of years ago by God. This presents what appears at first blush to be a zero sum game. If onw person wins the other loses. It does not have to be this way.
The better approach for Palestinians and the Arab world as a whole is the approach pioneered by Nelson Mandela and the African Nationalist Congress in South Africa. The white settlers stole the land from the people of South Africa, oppressed and murdered them in a most barbaric manner. In spite of this great evil perpetrated by the Boers, The British and the Apartheid regime, Mandela decided to forgive these people of their evil deeds and laid the groundwork for a new society that incorporated everyone. Israel is not South Africa but if the south African people can forgive the white population of South Africa for its crimes against humanity the Arab world and the Palestinians can make peace with Israel. Forgiveness is redemptive. Hate is self consuming. Yasser Arafat, the late head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization wasted a major opportunity to make peace with Israel at the end of the second Clinton administration. This was the best deal that the Palestinians will see in our lifetime. This failure to make peace is the biggest reason that there is continued Palestinian suffering today. The surrounding Arab nations, along with Iran have a vested interest in portraying Israel as the great evil. In this manner they can blame all of their individual countries problems on Israel and maintain their tyrannical, undemocratic regiemes.
Unfortunately Helen Thomas and many people in the Arab world do not accept that Israel exists and will continue to exist whether they like it or not. Peace is the only answer. Ms. Thomas should have taken the approach of a Mandela and used her influence to foster reconciliation not division. Regrettably she did not do this.
Israel has been the victim of horrific and barbaric terrorist attacks and four wars since its inception as a nation. All four wars were initiated by its neighbors, even the 1967 war where Israel attacked first after her neighbors began massing troops on Israel's borders.
The Jewish people suffered the holocaust immediately prior to the founding of modern Israel, the greatest mass murder of the 20th Century. Many legitimately argue that the Palestinian people should not pay for Germany's great evil. The point is it is way past time to argue about the circumstances surrounding the founding of Israel. The question now is how can everyone in the area live in peace. Israel has much to offer its neighbors in the areas of economic and technological development. A resolution of the Palestinian conflict would bring a tremendous peace dividend to the whole region. In addition it might lead to the democratization of the whole region.
Helen Thomas does not understand the big picture of how Israel and the rest of the world are interrelated. Peace is the only answer.
John H. Armwood

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Afghan war unwinnable quagmire, ex-CIA man says

Afghan war unwinnable quagmire, ex-CIA man says

THE war in Afghanistan is an unwinnable quagmire and poor US intelligence is leading to the deaths of Australian soldiers, a visiting former CIA officer says.

Robert Baer, a decorated CIA field officer of two decades experience who had spent years in the Middle East, said any chances the US and its allies had of defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan had already been squandered. The Coalition was fighting an unwinnable war, he said, and this was the case because victory required reliable intelligence.

''[US intelligence agencies] have the same problem they had before 9/11. It is a system that doesn't work.''

That system sees CIA operatives and allied intelligence officers unable to gather reliable information because security concerns do not allow them to travel widely. And most do not speak the local language. ''They're all stuck behind the wire; they don't get out … it's like the crusades where you're stuck on your castle imagining what the natives are doing,'' he said.

Describing Washington DC as a ''blank spot on the map'', he said that despite the massive growth of the intelligence agencies post September 11, 2001, there remained systemic failings.

''American intelligence after 9/11 has been unable to co-ordinate … the FBI will not share with the CIA. CIA has operational databases which they won't share with even others inside the CIA.''

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The Korean Herald

[Park Sang-seek] China and N. Korea vs. U.S. and Israel (Ignorance In The Academic Circles Of A Close Ally)

When U.S. government leaders attacked China for the latter’s duplicity in connection with the Cheonan incident, the Chinese leadership counterattacked the United States for its hypocrisy by citing the U.S.’s “willful blindness” in dealing with Israel’s commando raid on a Gaza flotilla in the Mediterranean Sea.

To many outside observers, including specialists and ordinary people all over the world, it is a conundrum that the United States acts like a protector over Israel while China does the same in its relations with North Korea. One thing is clear: Both the U.S.-Israel relationship and the China-North Korea relationship are similar in many respects, but it is difficult to characterize them. It is important to find out why the United States and China side with Israel and North Korea, respectively, when the latter two get mired in serious disputes and conflicts with their respective historical enemies: Palestine (and the Arab states) and South Korea. Otherwise, it will be difficult to find a peaceful solution to either the Arab-Israeli conflict or the Korean conflict.

The U.S.-Israel relationship is similar to the China-North Korea relationship; The Arab-Israeli relationship affects the U.S.-Israel relationship while the South-North Korea relationship does have the same impact on the China-North Korea relationship. In concrete terms, the United States tries to mediate the Arab-Israel conflict taking a “neutral” position but it sides with Israel when it believes that Israel’s vital interests are undermined. The same can be said about China’s behavior in relation to the South -North Korea conflict.

There is also a striking similarity between the reasons for their oscillating behavior.

Historically, the United States supported Zionism and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. However, there has been a division within the foreign policy establishment and among the people: The advocates for a neutral position and the pro-Israeli position. The former group maintains that for strategic and economic reasons (specifically, Middle East oil), the United States should not antagonize the Arab world and destabilize the Middle East by supporting Israel.

However, throughout the post-World War II period, the U.S. policy has been basically pro-Israel with some minor fluctuations such as Eisenhower’s neutral position in the 1956 Suez Canal crisis and Carter’s firm demand for the Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories. The United States has treated Israel as a de facto ally and included it in their non-NATO allies in 1989. Public opinion has been also fluctuating around the mid-point. However, the incumbent government has rarely been dominated by the neutral or pro-Arab elements.

Many observers, American and foreign, believe that Jewish influence in the American government is very strong. Because of this pro-Israeli policy, the Arab people have become strongly anti-American. In this situation, the United States is caught in a dilemma: Its strategy to counter the anti-American forces through the U.S.-Israeli alliance strengthens these forces. They resort to any means to defeat the U.S.-Israeli alliance, including terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.

China suffers from a similar dilemma. It established diplomatic relations with North Korea immediately after it seized power in 1949, fought with North Korea during the Korean War and concluded a military alliance in 1961. Throughout the post-World War II period, they have always emphasized a lip-tooth relationship, even after China established diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992.

Since the cold war was over, China has been ostensibly pursuing an equidistance policy toward the two Koreas, but it has never abandoned the alliance relationship with North Korea. The pro-North Korea group in the Chinese leadership is still strong, although it is not so influential as the Jewish lobby in the United States. Just as in the case of the U.S.-Israel relationship, so China pursues a strategy to counter great power influence in the Korean peninsula through the Chinese-North Korean alliance.

But it is caught in a dilemma: It antagonizes the United States and Japan as well as South Korea. It tries to calm this rising antagonism by maintaining that China’s protective policy toward North Korea is to preserve the status quo and ultimately to prevent another Korean war. Just as the United States tries to assuage the Arab world that it makes every effort to preserve peace and security in the Middle East and prevent the nuclearization of the Middle East for this purpose, so does China tries to persuade the United States and South Korea to restrain themselves from seeking a military solution.

But this is argument is self-contradictory as the U.S. argument. Just as the United States cannot convince the Arab world of the denuclearization of the Middle East without denuclearization of Israel, so cannot China persuade the other parties concerned of its double standard policy toward the Korean peninsula.

By Park Sang-seek

Park Sang-seek is a professor at the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies, Kyung Hee University. ― Ed.

______________________________________

The ignorance that Park Sang-seek expresses in this article is astounding. He obviously knows nothing about the reasons Israel moved into the Gaza Strip. Israel was being shelled with rockets on a daily basis. How would he feel if Seoul was shelled by North Korean rockets on a daily basis? Israel's reaction to those attacks was was overly harsh. But its invasion was clearly justified. Civilians in Gaza were indiscriminately killed. This was wrong and the U.S. government criticised Israel's actions.

I read many newspapers from around the world daily and I have found only one place where I have read such a ridiculous comparison. Israel has committed many wrongs but Israel has also been the recipient of many vicious and cruel attacks. No one has clean hands in this part of the world. The Palestinian occupation must end. But it must be recognized that Israel's neighbors have collaborated in maintaing the current occupation for their own, domestic, political reasons. Only Jordan and Egypt, among Israel's neighbors, have even recognized its right to exist. Park does not even mention this reality. Who has denied the right of the DPRK to exist? This is a pathetically poor piece of journalism. Read the OP-Ed piece written by Thomas L. Friedman for an intelligent reading of the dilemma America faces in its relationship with Israel. It appears that anti-semitism is alive and well among some academics in the ROK. His "Jewish lobby" comment is a obvious example of his apparent bigotry. His analysis is on the level of an undergraduate student at a low rated American university. I hope that he is not a significant influence on foreign affairs in Korea. The problem is that views like these are part of the conventional wisdom in academic circles of countries who are our allies, let alone our enemies. Israel must do a better job at presenting itself to the world.

Even worse the ideas that Park Sang Seek is expressing are not is own. He is just paraphrasing views found in an article in "The Independent Newspaper written by Adrian Hamilton: "Israel had few enough friends to start with"   This article would be considered largely plagiarized if he was a student in one of my university classes.

John H. Armwood

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Op-Ed Columnist - Steal This Movie - NYTimes.com

Steal This BookOp-Ed Columnist - Steal This Movie - NYTimes.com

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

I just saw a remarkable new documentary directed by Shlomi Eldar, the Gaza reporter for Israel’s Channel 10 news. Titled “Precious Life,” the film tracks the story of Mohammed Abu Mustafa, a 4-month-old Palestinian baby suffering from a rare immune deficiency. Moved by the baby’s plight, Eldar helps the infant and mother go from Gaza to Israel’s Tel Hashomer hospital for lifesaving bone-marrow treatment. The operation costs $55,000. Eldar puts out an appeal on Israel TV and within hours an Israeli Jew whose own son was killed during military service donates all the money.

The documentary takes a dramatic turn, though, when the infant’s Palestinian mother, Raida, who is being disparaged by fellow Gazans for having her son treated in Israel, blurts out that she hopes he’ll grow up to be a suicide bomber to help recover Jerusalem. Raida tells Eldar: “From the smallest infant, even smaller than Mohammed, to the oldest person, we will all sacrifice ourselves for the sake of Jerusalem. We feel we have the right to it. You’re free to be angry, so be angry.”

Eldar is devastated by her declaration and stops making the film. But this is no Israeli propaganda movie. The drama of the Palestinian boy’s rescue at an Israeli hospital is juxtaposed against Israeli retaliations for shelling from Gaza, which kill whole Palestinian families. Dr. Raz Somech, the specialist who treats Mohammed as if he were his own child, is summoned for reserve duty in Gaza in the middle of the film. The race by Israelis and Palestinians to save one life is embedded in the larger routine of the two communities grinding each other up.

“It’s clear to me that the war in Gaza was justified — no country can allow itself to be fired at with Qassam rockets — but I did not see many people pained by the loss of life on the Palestinian side,” Eldar told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “Because we were so angry at Hamas, all the Israeli public wanted was to [expletive] Gaza. ... It wasn’t until after the incident of Dr. Abu al-Aish — the Gaza physician I spoke with on live TV immediately after a shell struck his house and caused the death of his daughters and he was shouting with grief and fear — that I discovered the [Israeli] silent majority that has compassion for people, including Palestinians. I found that many Israeli viewers shared my feelings.” So Eldar finished the documentary about how Mohammed’s life was saved in Israel.

His raw film reflects the Middle East I know — one full of amazing compassion, even among enemies, and breathtaking cruelty, even among neighbors.

I write about this now because there is something foul in the air. It is a trend, both deliberate and inadvertent, to delegitimize Israel — to turn it into a pariah state, particularly in the wake of the Gaza war. You hear the director Oliver Stone saying crazy things about how Hitler killed more Russians than Jews, but the Jews got all the attention because they dominate the news media and their lobby controls Washington. You hear Britain’s prime minister describing Gaza as a big Israeli “prison camp” and Turkey’s prime minister telling Israel’s president, “When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill.” You see singers canceling concerts in Tel Aviv. If you just landed from Mars, you might think that Israel is the only country that has killed civilians in war — never Hamas, never Hezbollah, never Turkey, never Iran, never Syria, never America.

I’m not here to defend Israel’s bad behavior. Just the opposite. I’ve long argued that Israel’s colonial settlements in the West Bank are suicidal for Israel as a Jewish democracy. I don’t think Israel’s friends can make that point often enough or loud enough.

But there are two kinds of criticism. Constructive criticism starts by making clear: “I know what world you are living in.” I know the Middle East is a place where Sunnis massacre Shiites in Iraq, Iran kills its own voters, Syria allegedly kills the prime minister next door, Turkey hammers the Kurds, and Hamas engages in indiscriminate shelling and refuses to recognize Israel. I know all of that. But Israel’s behavior, at times, only makes matters worse — for Palestinians and Israelis. If you convey to Israelis that you understand the world they’re living in, and then criticize, they’ll listen.

Destructive criticism closes Israeli ears. It says to Israelis: There is no context that could explain your behavior, and your wrongs are so uniquely wrong that they overshadow all others. Destructive critics dismiss Gaza as an Israeli prison, without ever mentioning that had Hamas decided — after Israel unilaterally left Gaza — to turn it into Dubai rather than Tehran, Israel would have behaved differently, too. Destructive criticism only empowers the most destructive elements in Israel to argue that nothing Israel does matters, so why change?

How about everybody take a deep breath, pop a copy of “Precious Life” into your DVD players, watch this documentary about the real Middle East, and if you still want to be a critic (as I do), be a constructive one. A lot more Israelis and Palestinians will listen to you.

The Op-Ed title "Steal This Movie" is a parody of a title of a book written late sixties American radical Abbie Hoffman.  The book "Steal This Book" was written in 1970 and published in 1971.   I can remember buying it when it came out as if it were yesterday. 

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