Mitt Romney’s vice presidential nominee pick, Congressman Paul Ryan, doesn’t have a lot of foreign policy experience. But neither does Romney himself, nor did President Barack Obama when he was nominated by the Democratic Party four years ago. Romney’s selection confirms the conventional wisdom that, barring unforeseen developments, this will be an election almost entirely fought over domestic policy issues, particularly the economy.

But Ryan has tried to stake out some foreign policy credentials in the past, telling the Washington Examiner, “I’ve read all of Bernard Lewis’ books” about the Middle East. I rather doubt that. Lewis has had a long and complex career as an academic and a public intellectual, and his bibliography is extensive and in many ways eclectic. I wonder, for instance, if Ryan ever picked up Lewis’ short, thoughtful and erudite volume History — Remembered, Recovered, Invented (Princeton University press, 1975), in which he sketches the use and abuse of history by several contemporary Middle Eastern states, including Israel.

To those familiar with the true range of his work, there are almost two versions of Bernard Lewis: the mild-mannered Dr. Lewis who writes serious and learned books like History by day, and the hyper aggressive Mr. Bernard who emerges at night to champion the superiority of Western culture and pen apologias for Israel and—when it was a close Israeli ally—Turkey as well. Indeed, Lewis has been dogged by controversies regarding his strangely shifting positions on the Armenian genocide during the First World War.

Lewis’ writings appeal to hawkish conservatives, among others, because they have consistently championed an aggressive, and sometimes even belligerent, attitude towards the non-Western, and above all Arab, worlds. This was particularly the case in the run-up to the Iraq war, which Lewis strongly supported.

In the later part of his career, Lewis has argued with increasing stridency that the West and the Islamic world, particularly the Arabs, are engaged in a long-standing “clash of civilizations,” a term he coined and was subsequently popularized by Samuel Huntington. “I have no doubt that September 11 was the opening salvo of the final battle,” in this epic confrontation, Lewis told Michael Hirsh of the Washington Monthly in 2003. Lewis reportedly had a series of influential meetings with then Vice-President Dick Cheney in which he urged swift and decisive action against the regime of Saddam Hussein, a view he also promoted in numerous publications.

Lewis never argued that Saddam was actually involved in the 9/11 attacks, an argument restricted to only the most paranoid conspiracy theorists. But he did suggest that by allowing Saddam to remain in power after the 1990-91 Gulf War, the United States had created the impression that it was “a soft and demoralized enemy,” that could be attacked “with impunity.” The main purpose of the invasion of Iraq, he argued, was to reverse that misapprehension. He also argued, as did some neoconservatives, that overthrowing Saddam would somehow improve the chances for Palestinian-Israeli peace, although this naturally proved totally incorrect.

At a deeper level, Lewis attributes not just the essential features of modernity to Western culture, but all the values and aspirations associated with human rights, democracy and individual equality. His writings leave Western readers with the comforting sense that almost everything valuable in the world not only stems from the West, but can only be acquired by postcolonial societies through mimicry.

Moreover, he doubts that the Islamic world is capable of even such mimicry, suggesting that, “traditional Islam has no doctrine of human rights, the very notion of which might seem an impiety.” This is supposedly in contrast to Judeo-Christian traditions in which human rights are innate and God-given, but the same argument might just as easily be applied to those faiths as to “traditional Islam.”

Lewis is essentially a defender of colonialism or, more precisely, a critic of anti-colonialism. For without colonialism, how could right-thinking, modern decency have ever penetrated the non-Western world, since, in his view, all other cultures lacked any of the essential bases for a healthy modernity?

It’s almost impossible to argue with the contention of the late Edward Said that Lewis’ modus operandi essentializes both the West and the Islamic world, constructing them as polar opposites in a binary struggle that sometimes degenerates into a Manichaean vision of good versus evil. No wonder it played so well in certain sections of the George W. Bush administration. After all, you were either with us or with the terrorists.

If Paul Ryan is ready to put aside the wretched tomes of Ayn Rand and delve deeply into scholarship on the Middle East, he would do well to begin with Albert Hourani’s A History of the Arab Peoples (Faber and Faber, 1991) as an outstanding starting point. There is no reason not to read Bernard Lewis, in combination with many other authors, but any reader, including Congressman Ryan, should understand where, exactly he’s coming from, and that his worldview led us into the Iraq war fiasco, among other mistakes. The lessons of history are important. But so are the lessons of following the advice of some historians.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/15/dr-lewis-and-mr-bernard.html

Mitt Romney’s vice presidential nominee pick, Congressman Paul Ryan, doesn’t have a lot of foreign policy experience. But neither does Romney himself, nor did President Barack Obama when he was nominated by the Democratic Party four years ago. Romney’s selection confirms the conventional wisdom that, barring unforeseen developments, this will be an election almost entirely fought over domestic policy issues, particularly the economy.

But Ryan has tried to stake out some foreign policy credentials in the past, telling the Washington Examiner, “I’ve read all of Bernard Lewis’ books” about the Middle East. I rather doubt that. Lewis has had a long and complex career as an academic and a public intellectual, and his bibliography is extensive and in many ways eclectic. I wonder, for instance, if Ryan ever picked up Lewis’ short, thoughtful and erudite volume History — Remembered, Recovered, Invented (Princeton University press, 1975), in which he sketches the use and abuse of history by several contemporary Middle Eastern states, including Israel.

To those familiar with the true range of his work, there are almost two versions of Bernard Lewis: the mild-mannered Dr. Lewis who writes serious and learned books like History by day, and the hyper aggressive Mr. Bernard who emerges at night to champion the superiority of Western culture and pen apologias for Israel and—when it was a close Israeli ally—Turkey as well. Indeed, Lewis has been dogged by controversies regarding his strangely shifting positions on the Armenian genocide during the First World War.

Lewis’ writings appeal to hawkish conservatives, among others, because they have consistently championed an aggressive, and sometimes even belligerent, attitude towards the non-Western, and above all Arab, worlds. This was particularly the case in the run-up to the Iraq war, which Lewis strongly supported.

In the later part of his career, Lewis has argued with increasing stridency that the West and the Islamic world, particularly the Arabs, are engaged in a long-standing “clash of civilizations,” a term he coined and was subsequently popularized by Samuel Huntington. “I have no doubt that September 11 was the opening salvo of the final battle,” in this epic confrontation, Lewis told Michael Hirsh of the Washington Monthly in 2003. Lewis reportedly had a series of influential meetings with then Vice-President Dick Cheney in which he urged swift and decisive action against the regime of Saddam Hussein, a view he also promoted in numerous publications.

Lewis never argued that Saddam was actually involved in the 9/11 attacks, an argument restricted to only the most paranoid conspiracy theorists. But he did suggest that by allowing Saddam to remain in power after the 1990-91 Gulf War, the United States had created the impression that it was “a soft and demoralized enemy,” that could be attacked “with impunity.” The main purpose of the invasion of Iraq, he argued, was to reverse that misapprehension. He also argued, as did some neoconservatives, that overthrowing Saddam would somehow improve the chances for Palestinian-Israeli peace, although this naturally proved totally incorrect.

At a deeper level, Lewis attributes not just the essential features of modernity to Western culture, but all the values and aspirations associated with human rights, democracy and individual equality. His writings leave Western readers with the comforting sense that almost everything valuable in the world not only stems from the West, but can only be acquired by postcolonial societies through mimicry.

Moreover, he doubts that the Islamic world is capable of even such mimicry, suggesting that, “traditional Islam has no doctrine of human rights, the very notion of which might seem an impiety.” This is supposedly in contrast to Judeo-Christian traditions in which human rights are innate and God-given, but the same argument might just as easily be applied to those faiths as to “traditional Islam.”

Lewis is essentially a defender of colonialism or, more precisely, a critic of anti-colonialism. For without colonialism, how could right-thinking, modern decency have ever penetrated the non-Western world, since, in his view, all other cultures lacked any of the essential bases for a healthy modernity?

It’s almost impossible to argue with the contention of the late Edward Said that Lewis’ modus operandi essentializes both the West and the Islamic world, constructing them as polar opposites in a binary struggle that sometimes degenerates into a Manichaean vision of good versus evil. No wonder it played so well in certain sections of the George W. Bush administration. After all, you were either with us or with the terrorists.

If Paul Ryan is ready to put aside the wretched tomes of Ayn Rand and delve deeply into scholarship on the Middle East, he would do well to begin with Albert Hourani’s A History of the Arab Peoples (Faber and Faber, 1991) as an outstanding starting point. There is no reason not to read Bernard Lewis, in combination with many other authors, but any reader, including Congressman Ryan, should understand where, exactly he’s coming from, and that his worldview led us into the Iraq war fiasco, among other mistakes. The lessons of history are important. But so are the lessons of following the advice of some historians.

Seizing on the momentum created by the attack on Egyptian forces in the Sinai Peninsula last week, new Egyptian President Mohammad Morsy took several bold moves this weekend. One of them was firing the country’s most senior military leaders. These moves not only consolidate Morsy’s personal and ex officio power, they in effect reverse the traditional hierarchy of authority between military and civilian leaders in Egypt.

Even more significantly, Morsy has attempted to reverse the “supplemental constitutional articles” that the military issued on August 12 (just before the recent presidential election) an act which purports to restore presidential and legislative powers back to those elected bodies. The fight for the future of Egypt may have reached a turning point.

The Sinai attack was, perhaps, the last straw for the leadership of the already-unpopular chiefs of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. That leadership could no longer claim to be effective defenders of the Egyptian state, giving Morsy the opportunity to first clean house at a lower level (which he did last week) and then eliminate the senior leadership this weekend. He dismissed SCAF leader Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi and his second-in-command, General Sami Annan, the two men who essentially led Egypt since the fall of deposed President Hosni Mubarak.

It appears likely that Tantawi’s replacement, General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, was aware of and agreed to this dramatic upheaval. It’s widely speculated that other military leaders also connived in the shakeup. In spite of the announcement, SCAF remains an institution with considerable authority over military matters.

Al-Sisi is well known to American military and political officials, and has had numerous dealings with Israeli authorities as well. So Morsy’s move probably does not auger a transformation in Egypt’s military or foreign policies, or the complete sidelining of SCAF as an institution. Indeed, following the Sinai attack, both sides report that Egyptian-Israeli security coordination has reached levels unseen in many years.

Morsy is framing these moves in both legal and “national interest” terms, but they certainly serve to consolidate his power, that of the presidency, and, therefore, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Other opposition figures largely welcomed his actions, particularly those that restore traditional powers to the presidency and the legislature and overturn what was largely seen as a military power grab in the run-up to the presidential election. Morsy may be trying to assuage concerns about Muslim Brotherhood domination of the government by also appointing a new vice president, reform-minded judge Mahmoud Mekki. But it’s impossible not to see the gestures as a power grab of his own.

Since the fall of Mubarak, however, the Muslim Brotherhood has had a history of overreaching. It tried to stack the first formation of the Constitution-drafting Constituent Assembly with Islamists, only to be met with widespread objections from all non-Islamist constituencies. And it undermined its credibility with a sudden reversal of its long-standing pledge not to put forward a presidential candidate. If it is not careful, the Brotherhood may again assert powers beyond its elected mandate, which would beunacceptable to a huge swath of Egyptian society that will not tolerate Islamist domination of the country.

Many Egyptians are no doubt hoping that the new moves clarify the untenable confusion about lines of authority between elected and unelected institutions that have characterized the post-Mubarak era. But if they come to feel that Morsy and the Brotherhood are beginning to consolidate total control over the government, particularly by acting beyond the legal limitations of the office of the presidency, this could ultimately backfire.

As it stands, allegations of a presidential “coup” are largely restricted to supporters of the deep state and the existing institutions that are holdovers of the Mubarak era. The appointments of Al-Sisi and Mekki are no doubt intended to mollify such concerns. But Morsy will have to tread carefully in coming months. He was elected by a clear, but narrow, margin over former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq and Egyptian society remains deeply divided between Islamists and non-Islamists. If he is seen as going too far, a backlash against him could be swift and possibly overwhelming.

It is likely that there will be a legal pushback against Morsy’s overturning of the “supplemental constitutional articles,” particularly sicne Morsy took his oath of office under the very terms of that declaration. He has, in effect, overturned the very system through which he attained office. The power struggle in Egypt has been largely playing out in the court system, but has been less about law and more about raw political power. That’s likely to continue, in spite of the recent upheaval.

The courts retain widespread authority and apparently continue to view the rise of the Brotherhood with skepticism if not alarm. If they do rule against him in the inevitable legal challenges, his willingness to enforce court rulings will indicate whether or not the Brotherhood accepts the separation of powers and recognizes the authority of the judiciary or is prepared, in effect, to go it alone in defiance of legal rulings.

As things stand, Morsy now has almost unfettered authority in Egypt, at least in theory. With the legal status of the sitting Parliament uncertain, he appears to have asserted sole power to enact, confirm and enforce legislation, declare war, and oversee the formation and function of the Constitution-drafting Assembly. New parliamentary elections are more crucial than ever. But until they happen, the power of the president, at least on paper, appears virtually absolute. In practice, there remain many other centers of power, including the new SCAF leadership and the judiciary.

Assuming that the military and, for the meanwhile, the courts, allow Morsy’s decisions to go effectively unchallenged, Egypt, in effect, has a new dictator, albeit an elected one. Beyond the urgent need of restoring legislative authority through new elections, the power struggle in Egypt will increasingly focus on the crafting of the new constitution, which will either produce a system that involves real checks and balances or which consolidates yet another system in which the presidency wholly dominates the political system.

Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s visit to Israel was marked by a series of largely boilerplate comments about the special relationship between the United States and Israel. And, like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he almost entirely avoided the question of peace and the two-state solution, preferring to focus on the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear weapons. In his speech in Jerusalem, the word “Palestinian” did not once cross his lips.

But certainly Romney’s most striking remark, from a Palestinian point of view at least, came when he spoke to the in-crowd.

Romney explained to some 40 wealthy donors at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel that he was putting the economic puzzle together:

As you come here and you see the GDP per capita, for instance, in Israel which is about $US21,000, and compare that with the GDP per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality.

Not only did Romney get the economic figures entirely incorrect—Israel’s per capita GDP is about US$31,000 while the Palestinians’ is at US$1,500—he attributed this difference to “culture.”

Romney reportedly told the group—which, by the end of the night had given him around $1 million for his campaign—“Culture makes all the difference. And as I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things.” He also bizarrely attributed Israel’s relative prosperity in contrast to Palestinian impoverishment to “the hand of providence.”

Romney and his team would be well advised to consult the latest World Bank report on the state of the Palestinian economy released July 25th of this year. The report emphasizes the need for the creation of a more robust private Palestinian economic sector and education reform and named the major constraints to private sector activity as tight Israeli restrictions on movement and resources.   It’s quite straightforward:

The Government of Israel’s (GOI’s) security restrictions continue to stymie investment…Despite the easing of some [Israeli] restrictions, most of the constraints on movement of people and access to resources have remained in place, constraining investment and productivity growth.

These restrictions, along with a dependence on international aid are a function of not providence, but, well, the occupation. The report notes that the occupation “has skewed the economy towards the public sector and non-tradables.”

The bottom line: “The major constraints to private sector activity are the tight Israeli restrictions, and growth will not be sustainable until Palestinians have access to resources and are allowed to move freely.” To be sure the report notes that there is much the Palestinians need to do, particularly in shifting education reform to produce a more dynamic and employable workforce geared towards a robust private sector. But it also makes clear that the development of such a sector depends even more on the easing of Israeli restrictions that are the consequence of its occupation policies.

So much for “culture” and the “hand of providence.” It’s not surprising that Gov. Romney went to Israel to pander to the myriad American constituencies that are committed to uncritical support for Israel. But it’s indefensible that he would seek to blame Palestinian impoverishment entirely on Palestinian culture and policies while ignoring the obvious, inescapable and undeniable onerous effects of the occupation, which he did not in any way mention. These have been identified not only by the most recent World Bank report but by all serious investigations into the state of the Palestinian economy as central to its most pressing problems.

Denying and ignoring the occupation has become a parlor game in much of American political culture, and an active, powerful political movement in Israel that seeks to establish a greater Israeli state. There is no doubt that if Romney wins the presidency, his policies will reflect traditional American approaches to two states and not, whatever it may mean, “the opposite of what President Barack Obama has done.”

But seeking to curry favor with Israel and its American allies by gratuitously insulting the Palestinian people and ignoring, and in effect denying, the reality and effects of the occupation Romney does no favors to Israel or the Palestinians, and certainly doesn’t enhance the national security interests of the United States.  Don’t try your hand at foreign policy without doing your homework first.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/26/debate-aversion-therapy.html

The one thing almost all observers agree on is that progress towards realizing a two-state solution is on indefinite hold for the foreseeable future. This means we are facing an open-ended interregnum that all parties can use to seriously debate their options and to act unilaterally to either promote or obstruct peace. The problem is that both Israelis and Palestinians are mystifyingly avoiding their crucial national debates so that the real momentum has been handed over to some of the most dangerous forces at play, particularly the Israeli settlement movement.  Today’s disturbing New York Times op-ed by Dani Dayan demonstrates the current triumphalist spirit of the greater Israeli project.

Most Israelis, living far from the occupation in the central coastal area around Tel Aviv, appear to be living in a dangerous collective denial about the threat this poses to their future. They are choosing to ignore it, and there seems to be no stomach for confronting or restraining the settler movement.

Every poll shows that the Israeli majority wants a two-state solution. Yet they are doing nothing to stop the settlers and their supporters from seriously damaging the chances of such an outcome. Settlement construction has rarely been more vigorous; the number of settlers in the occupied West Bank, according to the Israeli government, has surpassed 350,000. And that frightening figure doesn’t include the settlers in occupied East Jerusalem.

Numerous other measures are entrenching the occupation in significant ways. The recent official recognition of a university in the Ariel settlement, which is a panhandle deep into what would have to be any future Palestinian state, is only one such example.

Meanwhile, the Israeli extreme right is increasingly calling for the creation of a greater Israel involving the annexation of most or all of the occupied West Bank. A recent conference to that effect in Hebron demonstrated the momentum this movement has gained, as do numerous commentaries in the Israeli media. And, of course, the Levy Committee Report recommendations in effect advocated doing exactly that.

So the only real long-term vision being promoted and actively pursued in Israel is the untenable notion of transforming the occupation into permanent Israeli rule in the West Bank without giving full political rights or citizenship to its Palestinian population (Gaza goes unmentioned). In other words, the political and practical dynamics in Israel are moving the country ever closer to becoming a formalized apartheid state. The rest of Israeli society appears to be reacting with a collective shrug.

The Palestinians, too, are avoiding their own crucial national debates. Palestinians need to develop a coherent strategy for dealing with a protracted period in which real progress with Israel on agreeing to an end to the occupation is likely to be forestalled.

But both the public and much of the leadership appear fixated on issues that are largely symbolic. The most telling barometer of this is the uproar over the question of whether or not the late President Yasser Arafat was poisoned, and if so by whom.  The Palestine Liberation Organization was recently able to secure its latest hollow victory, UNESCOrecognition of the Church of the Holy Nativity in Bethlehem as a World Heritage Site in its newest member, Palestine.

And the leadership is apparently seriously contemplating an effort at the UN to secure non-member observer state status for the PLO mission. Not only would such recognition do little to alter the prerogatives of the Palestinian mission at the UN, it wouldn’t change any aspect of the strategic equation on the ground or improve the life of a single Palestinian.

These symbolic issues are not only a kind of collective evasion of the crisis facing the Palestinian people, but some of these moves, such as renewed UN efforts, could come with very high real costs in terms of relations with, and aid from, the West. As a consequence of last year’s UN bid, Western aid has been cut to about half of its previous level and much of American support for the Palestinian Authority for fiscal year 2012 is now, once again, subject to congressional holds. Some news reports have even suggested that the US is privately urging Arab states to withhold aid to the PA in order to pressure them not to resume any UN initiatives.

Meanwhile, many grassroots pro-Palestinian activists in the West are pursuing quixotic boycotts against Israel that are unlikely to be realized, would also be almost entirely symbolic, and are disconnected from the broader national strategy, such as it is, of the Palestinian leadership. Much of these efforts are connected to a one-state aspiration that, in practice, has only been adopted as a cause by the most extreme factions in Israel, which are seeking to realize it as a “separate and unequal” entity. In effect, the one-state agenda has predictably fallen into the hands of the settler movement, which is the only party on the ground seeking to implement any version of it.

Some Palestinians and their supporters in the West are placing most of their hopes on the emergence of a widespread movement of nonviolent resistance against occupation. And while there are some efforts to promote a culture of nonviolence among Palestinians, there is still a widespread misunderstanding that conflates nonviolent with unarmed resistance. Protests that routinely degenerate into rock-throwing are not, in fact, nonviolent. They fail to mobilize the moral power that genuine nonviolence evokes. Not fighting back in any way against oppressive forces when they engage in violence pricks the conscience of the dominant society and the world—which is what nonviolent Palestinian resistance needs to do.

Others place their hopes in national reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, which, as things stand now, simply won’t happen. Neither do these parties agree on anything substantial nor do they have any incentive to share power. Under such circumstances, national elections remain, unfortunately, out of the question.

Majorities on both sides are sacrificing their agency and are thereby allowing a dangerous and untenable status quo, that could erupt into another round of violence at any moment, to continue.

So how do we move forward? To start, the Israeli majority that favors peace must begin to reassert its agency by forcefully pressing its government to rein in the settler movement, halt settler violence, dismantle outposts and stop the expansion of existing settlements, particularly those that cut deep into the occupied West Bank. Moreover, it can loudly and clearly insist that Israel views its presence in the territories as a temporary occupation that will be resolved and ended through future negotiations with the Palestinians.

Palestinians should redouble their commitment to the institution-building program led by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad that has created many positive changes on the ground, improved the quality of Palestinian life, and begun to lay the foundations for a successful independent Palestinian state.

To do this, they will have to work to repair their relations with the West and restore the aid that was so central to its successes in recent years. Palestinians, Israelis and the world at large should pay careful attention to the recommendations of the most recent World Bank report, which stresses the centrality of international aid to the PA, the need for fostering a robust private Palestinian economic sector, and the crucial importance of education reform, as well as the onerous effects of continued Israeli restrictions.

Neither side is benefiting from the politically convenient but extremely dangerous bout of self-imposed debate aversion therapy. The majorities in both societies are likely to pay a high price if they continue to surrender their agency, avoid crucial debates and avert their eyes from what is actually happening around them.

But, of course, this wasn’t just any ailing and frail 75-year-old man. It was Yasir Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, president of the Palestinian Authority, and national symbol of the Palestinian cause. This was the man who had overseen the revival of the Palestinian political and national identity, and who held a certain iconic status even for his most bitter Palestinian critics.

From the outset, there was a refusal to believe that such a “great man” could have died a squalid, mundane death. For many, his ending had to be heroic and romantic. He must have been assassinated. Anything less wouldn’t do justice to his mythological, larger-than-life status. As early as November 2004, Palestinian journalist Maher Ibrahim wrote in the Dubai-based newspaper Al-Bayan, “Israeli Radiation Poisoning Killed President Yasser Arafat.” A Palestinian grocer, Terry Atta, reflected public sentiment that has been widespread since Arafat’s death when he recently told Abu Dhabi’s The National newspaper, “We all knew it was poisoning.”

As with the endless theories about “who killed JFK,” the Arafat murder conspiracy theories reflect a natural human tendency to protect the mythic and the iconic from the prosaic: How could a giant like John F. Kennedy have simply been shot by a pathetic loser like Lee Harvey Oswald? Counterintuitively, narratives about grand conspiracies are reassuring, while random twists of fate can be deeply unsettling: Is reality really so terrifyingly arbitrary?

Some Israelis, such as Lenny Ben-David, former deputy chief of mission of Israel’s embassy in Washington, meanwhile, seized the opportunity to suggest that their hated enemy was a “sexual deviant” who had died of AIDS. Conspiracy theories in all directions have never relented from the moment Arafat passed away, and Palestinian leadership bodies have established more than one commission of inquiry to discover “who killed Arafat?”

Enter Al Jazeera English. This week, with enormous fanfare, the Qatar-backed satellite channel released a TV special and series of articles reporting that a Swiss lab has found elevated traces of polonium 210 — a chemical element more than 250,000 times as toxic as hydrogen cyanide — on some of Arafat’s possessions, including his trademark kaffiyeh headscarf, provided to the network by his widow, Suha. As the channel must have known, and probably intended, this “revelation” unleashed a veritable tsunami of speculation, virtually all of it utterly baseless.

In a manner reminiscent of Glenn Beck, the conspiracy-minded American talk-show host, the station, in effect, insists it is “only asking questions.” But only the most naïve could doubt that the channel’s managers were well aware their story would prompt an orgy of conspiratorial theorizing.

Millions of people now appear to be convinced that Arafat died of polonium poisoning, much like the former KGB agent turned Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko. Many Arabs are blaming Israel. Others, following not particularly subtle hints in various aspects of Al Jazeera’s coverage, are suspecting an inside job conducted by rivals within Fatah. And numerous Israelis, including some former officials, have been once again hinting at a “secret illness,” as reported by Reuters correspondent Dan Williams on Twitter, obviously returning again to the utterly discredited AIDS theory.

There are at least three gaping holes in the Al Jazeera story that render it, in effect, little more than baseless, and indeed irresponsible, speculation.

First and most importantly, Arafat’s symptoms are well documented and completely inconsistent with 210PO (polonium) poisoning. Unlike Litvenenko, he didn’t lose his hair and his bone marrow was found to be undamaged. He also staged at least one brief recovery, which wouldn’t be possible in the case of polonium poisoning. It should be added that his symptoms were also completely inconsistent with AIDS.

Second, the Swiss lab report on which the Al Jazeera story relies, clearly states that its findings are inconclusive and provide no basis for concluding polonium poisoning, especially since his symptoms were inconsistent with that. The report also states that further testing may reveal that the 210PO levels detected may prove to have been naturally occurring, albeit unusually high.

Third, the provenance of the items in question is not well-established, and therefore the relationship between the 210PO levels discovered on them and Arafat’s condition is very much in doubt. Even an exhumation of the body, which the Palestinian Authority (PA) is reportedly considering, may not prove conclusive, as 210PO has a very short half-life of 137 days.

Finally, the timing of the Al Jazeera story is extremely suspicious. The PA leadership is currently embroiled in a series of controversies involving police brutality against demonstrators,suppression of dissent, potentially politically motivated corruption trials, and a growing financial crisis that has made paying the salaries of public employees extremely difficult.

The PA’s woes have paralyzed its diplomacy. A recent planned meeting of Palestinian officials with Deputy Israeli Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz fell through, at least partly due to public pressure. An upcoming meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and French President Francois Hollande, apparently designed to persuade the Palestinians not to renew their efforts for further recognition at the United Nations, is also meeting with considerable Palestinian public opposition.

Al Jazeera has a history of trying to discredit the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah, most notably with the release of a dump of often undated and unsigned documents from the PLO negotiation support unit in January 2011. The current report, which fails to make a convincing case that Arafat was killed by 210PO poisoning, seems to be only the latest iteration of this pattern.

The core reporting in the Al Jazeera story doesn’t constitute journalistic malpractice, but the sensationalism with which it is being presented is clearly designed to reignite the rumor mill about Arafat’s supposedly mysterious death. But the burden of proof on those who would claim that the death of a sick, 75-year-old man who ended his days in miserable squalor following an exceptionally difficult life was due to anything other than natural causes — as established by his doctors at the time — is extremely high. So far, nothing, including the new Al Jazeera report, even begins to meet that burden.