I saw that editorial on AJE; they'd picked it up from Spiegel. I have to say I enjoyed it quite a bit.

You know, the quote at the end there is a good one, but there's another quote from a different US Secretary of State that I recall.

In early 1973, US envoy Henry Kissinger (who would become Sec State later that year) told Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, "You must not expect to win at the negotiating table what you have lost upon the battlefield."

On October 6th of that year, Egypt, Syria, and a host of other Arab states launched a surprise attack upon Israel, and achieved the greatest success of arms they had seen thus far.

As a result of the successful Egyptian assault and holding action in Sinai, Israel was moved to return the entirety of the Sinai peninsula. Remember, if you please, that at the start of that war, Israel occupied everything down to the east bank of the Suez canal.

Unfortunately, in choosing to take only a narrow strip along the east side of the canal and then dig in where they could be protected by SAM batteries in Egypt, the Egyptians betrayed their pre-war agreement with Syria. That agreement had called for Egypt to drive on Jerusalem (from the south) while the Syrians attacked the Golan Heights to the north of Israel.

The Syrians were slow to realize they'd been suckered, and threw everything they had into the battles for the Golan. Apparently Sadat deliberately continued the deception for a time. This meant the Syrians were chewed up badly in the Golan, though the casualties they inflicted on the Israelis appear to have been nearly crippling.

Obviously this deception, heavy Syrian losses in what was apparently a very close battle, and the post-war "separate peace" Egypt signed with Israel, all led to a severe strain in relations between Egypt and the rest of the Arab world.

But the point here is that the only time the Islamic world has ever gotten any concessions from Israel was right after a costly, bloody, and (perhaps) nearly successful war.

by RedPossum on 03/18/2010 02:55:30 PM EST

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The great journalism of Der Spiegel. This is by far the best weekly magazin in Germany. People are arguing all the time whether it is too conservative or too left leaning. Even though I consider it too conservative, I think these arguments show that it is usually quite on the money.
Their analysis of foreign politics is also very interesting for foreigners. They post part of it in English under this url:

http://www.spiegel.de/inter national/world/

"The first thing Fascists usually try to do is silencing the opposition."

by opposition on 03/19/2010 01:31:33 AM EST

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