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$12 WINTER 2011 VOLUME 18, NUMBER 1 Jonathan Schanzer Bat Ye’or Palestinians’ Online Chat about Israel OIC vs Israel Nidra Poller French Foreign Policy Bites at Home Damla Aras Andrew Roe Turkey’s Ambassadors Lessons from Waziristan vs Interview Erdoðan Alexander Downer Australia’s Former Foreign Minister Hilal Khashan Ali Alfoneh Lebanon on the Brink Khamene’i Bruce Maddy-Weitzman vs Israel’s Berber Friends Ahmadinejad Plus . • Reviews by Berman, Gartenstein-Ross, Ibrahim, Karmon, Sarsar, Schanzer, Schwartz, and the Editors • Operationally: The Forum exerts an active in- fluence through its projects, including Campus Watch, Islamist Watch, the Legal Project, and the Forum Washington Project. www.MEForum.org • Philanthropically: The Forum distributes nearly $2 million annually through its Education Fund, The Middle East Forum works to define and promote helping researchers, writers, investigators, and ac- American interests in the Middle East and to protect the tivists around the world. 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Ginsberg Benjamin Gordon Myrna Linsenberg Eugene M. Grant Brian Grodman Amy Shargel Seymour G. Mandell N. Richard Greenfield Lawrence K. Grodman Managing Director Michael Mooreville Martin Gross Irene Pipes Jeremy T. Rosenblum Leon Korngold Mark H. Rubin Milton S. Schneider David J. Kudish Herman Swartz William Seltzer Joshua Landes Judith Swartz Murray H. Shusterman Donald M. Landis George A. Violin Edward M. Snider Robert J. Levine Harry C. Wechsler Ronni Gordon Stillman Peter B. Levy David Wolf Thomas H. Tropp Harley Lippman Maxine Wolf WINTER 2011 VOLUME 18, NUMBER 1 3 Bat Ye’or, Delegitimizing the Jewish State A global Islamic organization plots an anti-Israel campaign 15 Jonathan Schanzer, What Palestinians Are Saying Online A study shows Palestinian opposition to peace and political reform 25 Nidra Poller, A French Intifada France’s “Arab policy” backfires domestically 37 Andrew M. Roe, What Waziristan Means for Afghanistan Britain’s colonial experience offers insights for the current conflict 47 Damla Aras, Turkey’s Ambassadors vs. Erdoðan Ankara’s diplomats question their prime minister’s foreign policy 59 Interview: Alexander Downer, “Proud of the Role We Played in Saddam’s Overthrow” A former Australian foreign minister reconsiders Middle Eastern conflicts 65 Dateline: Hilal Khashan, Lebanon on the Brink Lebanon’s prime minister prefers stability to justice 73 Dateline: Ali Alfoneh, Khamene’i’s Balancing Act As sanctions bite, Iran’s Supreme Leader seeks to assert his authority 79 Dateline: Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, Morocco’s Pro-Israel Berbers The Amazigh view the Jewish state as an ally against Islamism REVIEWS 86 Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Do American Muslims Support Terrorism? A new book does little to allay fears about increasing radicalization 89 Brief Reviews Arab reform ... Ottoman caliphate … Iranian hegemony … Hamas politics / 1 Editor Publisher and Review Editor Efraim Karsh Daniel Pipes Deputy Publisher Senior Editors Raymond Ibrahim Patrick Clawson Denis MacEoin Editorial Assistants: Michael Rubin William Aquilino Managing Editor Judy Goodrobb Board of Editors Fouad Ajami James R. Russell Johns Hopkins University Harvard University David Cook Franck Salameh Rice University Boston College Martin Kramer Philip Carl Salzman The Shalem Center McGill University Timur Kuran Saliba Sarsar Duke University Monmouth University Habib C. Malik Robert B. Satloff Foundation for Human and Humanitarian Rights The Washington Institute for Near East Policy in Lebanon Sabri Sayarø James Phillips Sabancø University The Heritage Foundation Kemal Silay Steven Plaut Indiana University University of Haifa Lee Smith Dennis Ross Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C. Steven L. Spiegel Barry Rubin University of California, Los Angeles Global Research in International Affairs Center Kenneth W. Stein Emory University 2 / MIDDLE EAST QUARTERLY WINTER 2011 Delegitimizing the Jewish State by Bat Ye’or n a move that caught the Israeli government and the Jewish world by complete surprise, on October 21, 2010, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cul- Itural Organization (UNESCO) declared the Tomb of the Hebrew Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem “an integral part of the occupied Palestinian territo- ries,” admonishing the Israeli decision to add these biblical shrines to the list of Jewish historical and archaeological sites as “a violation of international law.”1 What is less known, however, is that the driving force behind “the attempt to detach the Nation of Israel from its heritage” (to use Israeli prime minister Netanyahu’s words)2 was the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which pressured UNESCO to issue the declaration and drafted its initial version.3 U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki- moon has recently described the OIC as “a strategic and important partner of the U.N.”4 In fact, it has been the OIC that has successfully exploited its marked preponderance at the U.N.—where it constitutes the largest single voting bloc—to turn the world organi- zation and its specialized agencies into effective tools in the attempt to achieve its goals, two of which are to bring about Israel’s eventual demise and to “galvanize the umma [Islamic world] into a unified body.”5 fifty-six Muslim and other states, as well as the THE OIC’S ISRAEL Palestinian Authority.6 Though boasting a glo- OBSESSION bal range of objectives from the “promotion of tolerance and moderation, modernization, [and] Established in September 1969 as the “col- extensive reforms in all spheres of activities,” to lective voice of the Muslim world,” the OIC has evolved into the second largest intergovernmen- tal organization after the U.N., bringing together 1 “Executive Board adopts five decisions concerning UNESCO’s work in the occupied Palestinian and Arab Territories,” UNESCO Media Services, Paris, Oct. 21, 2010. 2 Jerusalem Post, Oct. 29, 2010. 3 See, for example, International Islamic News Agency (Jeddah), Bat Ye’or is the author, most recently, of Eurabia: Mar. 3, 2010; “Decisions Adopted by the Executive Board at Its The Euro-Arab Axis (Fairleigh Dickinson Univer- 184th Session,” UNESCO, executive board, Paris, May 14, sity Press, 2005). This article contains extracts from 2010. 4 World Bulletin (Istanbul), Sept. 28, 2010. her forthcoming book Europe, Globalization and 5 “About OIC,” Organization of the Islamic Conference, Jeddah, the Coming Universal Caliphate (Fairleigh accessed Nov. 7, 2010. Dickinson University Press, 2011). 6 Ibid. Bat Ye’or: OIC Anti-Israel Campaign / 3 the cultivation of “good governance and pro- were the international conferences on the “Pro- motion of human rights in the Muslim world,”7 tection of Islamic and Christian Holy Sites in this body has constantly and disproportionately Palestine,” held in Rabat in 1993 and 2002 and focused on Israel and its supposed misdeeds. It in Amman in November 2004 respectively un- was established in response to an attempt by a der the patronage of the Moroccan and Jorda- deranged Australian to set fire to the al-Aqsa nian monarchs. An examination of conference mosque, which was duly blamed on “the mili- activities reveals a systematic effort to devise tary occupation by Israel of Al-Quds—the Holy an anti-Israeli media strategy that was to be City of Jerusalem.”8 The “State of Palestine” (i.e., adopted not only by Arab and Muslim states the then-five-year-old Palestine Liberation Or- but also by international groups and organiza- ganization or PLO, estab- tions, including some of the U.N.’s most pow- lished as a tool for pro- erful agencies. OIC activities moting the expansionist reveal a ambitions