Roger Cohen's "Arabs Will Be Free": Sickening

The following blog entry, which was submitted as an online comment in response to Roger Cohen's op-ed, "Arabs Will Be Free", was censored by The New York Times. Abusive? Not on point? Judge for yourself. To what depths has The New York Times descended? And they want me to purchase an online subscription to their newspaper . . .

In a New York Times op-ed entitled "Arabs Will Be Free" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/opinion/29iht-edcohen29.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss), Roger Cohen would equate the democracies of Turkey, Lebanon and Israel. As one who has spent time in all three of these countries, I am deeply disturbed by Cohen's comparison.

In an opinion piece entitled "While democracy is advancing in Turkey", written by Serkan Demirtaş and published on Friday by Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review (http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=while-democracy-is-advancing-in-turkey-2011-03-25), it is observed, inter alia, that in Turkey:

• 68 journalists have been jailed, hundreds more are being prosecuted, and this country ranks 138th in the Reporters Sans Frontiers index of countries in terms of free media;
• hundreds of people from academia, civil society and the business world have been held in prison for years without being convicted of any crime;
• there is massive illegal wiretapping;
• personal privacy is violated almost every day, and it is widely believed that the judiciary is no longer independent, the media is biased, and democratic rights and freedoms are limited by growing government pressure.

Regarding Lebanon, Cohen tells us:

"Talk to Hezbollah: That’s obvious. It’s no terrorizing monolith."

Hezbollah is "no terrorizing monolith"? Cohen fails to mention:

• the 2005 murder of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri by Hezbollah;
• Hezbollah's bombing of the Jewish community center building in Buenos Aires in 1994, which killed 85 people and injured hundreds;
• the 1984 kidnap and murder by torture of William Francis Buckley by Hezbollah.
• the 1983 bombing of the Beirut barracks housing the U.S. members of the multinational peacekeeping force in Lebanon, which killed 220 Marines, 18 Navy sailors, and three Army soldiers. Attempts at rescuing survivors from the rubble were subsequently hindered by Hezbollah sniper fire.

I go to sleep and still see the bodies of persons murdered by Hezbollah in my dreams.

Israel's democracy? Not by any means perfect, but how does Cohen begin to compare Israel's ultra-Orthodox Shas party with Hezbollah, which has a "militia" that can easily overpower the Lebanese army, and which is regularly used to intimidate other Lebanese factions. Unlike Shas, which has no military wing whatsoever, Hezbollah currently has an arsenal of more than 40,000 rockets and missiles, provided by Syria and Iran.

The power of Israel's democracy? In Turkey and Lebanon wives, mothers, daughters and sisters are regularly victims of so-called "honor killings". In Israel, on the other hand, a former president has just been sentenced to seven years in prison for raping a former employee and sexually harassing two other women. Although an embarrassment to Israel, it also serves as a reminder of the power of Israeli democracy, where women's rights will not be trampled, where a woman heads the main opposition party, and where a woman serves as the chief justice of Israel's Supreme Court.

Cohen writes:

"Democracy is a messy all-or-nothing business. That’s why I love it. You can no more be a little bit democratic than a little bit pregnant."

Sorry, but I don't buy this. As evidenced by the number of Turkish journalists currently languishing in prison, there are obviously countries that call themselves "democratic", but which do not respect the fundamental principles of this form of government.