https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/stop_assuming_christians_are_the_enemy

The appalling attacks against Christians in Egypt and Iraq signal a disturbing new campaign on the part of the most extreme Islamists in the Arab world to massacre, and presumably attempt to drive out, Christian communities. It is important to understand the linkage between these two apparently unconnected events, because they fit broader patterns in both their own societies but also, and more ominously, a broader pattern sweeping the Arab world and other parts of the Islamic world.

It’s perfectly true that the attacks on Christians in Iraq are a subset of the widespread sectarian violence that has accompanied the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime and the difficulty of creating a new order in that country. Most sectarian violence has focused on Sunni-Shia tensions and a kind of ethnic cleansing in neighborhoods of Baghdad and other parts of the country, creating sectarian zones. But this intra-Muslim violence in Iraq has been mainly in the context of a battle for power in the post-Saddam era, with sectarian communities feeling vulnerable and seeking protection in relatively homogenous enclaves policed by militias.

The violence against Christians is of a different order. A church massacre in Baghdad last October was followed this Christmas by bomb attacks against Christian homes, leaving at least two more dead and 16 injured. Al-Qaeda and its affiliates are conducting a campaign to try to drive the remaining Christians out of Iraq, and at least 6,000 have fled to northern Iraq or neighboring countries. Perhaps half of the community has fled since the American invasion. There is no way to read this violence as anything other than sectarian cleansing through murder and terrorism.

In Egypt, the context is both very different and distressingly similar. Tensions between the majority Muslim community and the large and heavily-discriminated-against Coptic Christian minority have been increasing, particularly in and around Alexandria, in recent months. The Alexandria church bombing has to be seen in that context, and more broadly in the way many Islamists view Christians as a toehold of the West in what otherwise ought to be a purely “Islamic” society in the making.

The most direct link is that the lunatics of the so-called “Islamic State of Iraq,” which is what the self-described Salafist-Jihadists or Al-Qaeda elements in Iraq are calling themselves these days, are justifying their attacks on Iraqi Christians by pointing to alleged persecution by Coptic Christians of converts to Islam in Egypt. It’s a preposterous excuse, of course, but it certainly provides a context for connecting the anti-Christian rampage in the two countries.

The Christian communities in the Arab world are simply soft targets – relatively undefended, unloved, and regarded by far too many Muslim compatriots as suspicious, unwelcome and possibly disloyal. The days in which Arab identity could trump sectarian animosities are waning fast, though there remain huge segments of Muslim society in both Egypt and Iraq, as well as elsewhere in the Arab world, that cling to a more inclusive sensibility.

In Iraq, the extremists see an easy opportunity in attacking Christians in an era when attacks against other Sunnis, Shia or Western forces have become, for many complicated reasons, much more difficult. In Egypt too, the relatively undefended character of the Coptic community has made it a distressingly inviting target.

In Egypt, this problem has been underlined by the fact that while large segments of Egyptian society have reacted with outrage, the government’s response so far has included unconvincingly blaming outside elements, followed by violent attacks by security forces against Coptic protesters and their allies. Just because there is an obvious link between anti-Christian violence in Egypt and Iraq doesn’t mean the Alexandria massacre was the work of “outside agitators” – Egypt has plenty of Islamist and indeed “Salafist-jihadist” fanatics of its own. That the same anti-Christian agenda is manifesting itself in separate Arab countries simultaneously makes the problem worse and more widespread, not simpler and more isolated as governments would probably like to pretend.

All of this anti-Christian violence, however, comes in the context of rising rhetoric throughout the Arab world and other parts of the Muslim world that is paranoid and chauvinistic, and which sees all religious minorities as unacceptably heterogeneous and dangerous. Christians, of course, are particularly suspect since they are alleged or presumed to have particular ties to or sympathy with the West, which is cast as the eternal and implacable enemy.

Though the immediate contexts for the attacks in Egypt and Iraq are quite different, the Arab Muslim cultural context is exactly the same: an increasing desire to impose a false religious and cultural homogeneity on a heterogeneous Arab world and to repress or drive out disparate elements, including Christians, Shia, smaller Muslim sects like the Ahmadiyya or various Sufi groups, and secularists and other liberals. Parts of Arab political and Muslim religious culture that would repudiate violence nonetheless promote the thinking that ultimately rationalizes it by embracing a paranoid and chauvinist worldview.

The real blame lies with the killers themselves, but the ultimate responsibility for this carnage must be placed disturbingly far and wide throughout contemporary Arab political and religious attitudes, in an all-too-common delusional perspective that sees enemies and traitors in every corner and is convinced that the world is out to get us.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ziad-j-asali-md/honesty-and-hypocrisy-in-_1_b_803861.html

The murderous bomb attacks against Christian communities in Egypt and Iraq have been roundly condemned by most political and religious leaders, commentators and public opinion in the Arab world. They have also been met with an outpouring of passionate condemnation by ordinary people who have taken to the streets to express anger and demand justice. People have sensed the danger to their whole society inherent in such atrocities. The Alexandria church massacre could be a wake-up call to reverse dangerous trends, or it may be the beginning of unraveling of the bonds that keep people of different faiths and backgrounds together as citizens.

However, the effort to place the blame solely on outsiders or extremists for these attacks glosses over a much deeper and more troubling context. While there is little sympathy for the outrageous crimes of the fanatic extremists outside of their own ranks, these murderous radicals are in fact taking some prevalent societal attitudes to a cold bloodied and logical, albeit extreme, conclusion. Emerging out of a pervasive reality of powerlessness and inequity, political trends in the Arab world have given rise to a belligerent chauvinistic sensibility that has increasingly valorized the Islamic identity and regarded the rest of the world, especially the West, with deep suspicion and hostility.

These attitudes are promoted from the top down, through government-sponsored media, educational and religious institutions, and from the bottom up, in the home at the dinner table and online through a social media echo-chamber featuring a radical chic discourse aimed at restless young people. The worst ideas generally come from Islamist religious institutions, leaders and political opposition groups, which frequently argue that there is not only a conspiracy against the Arabs to prevent their development, but a global campaign to destroy Islam itself. Moderate voices who view the world in political rather than religious terms are outnumbered and function outside the parameters and comfort of political correctness. They try valiantly to stand for universal values while having to contend with constant intimidation because of their principled opposition to extremism.

The hegemonic narrative of relentless victimization at the hands of an all-powerful West frequently focuses on the theme of double standards, to which Arabs certainly have been subjected. However, this same ideal of a single standard is rarely applied in an introspective or self-critical manner. The contribution of Arabs and Muslims to their own failures, powerlessness, socio-economic inequities and dysfunctional systems are mentioned without any serious pursuit of corrective measures. The real blame for the failure, however, is consistently laid at the door of a hostile and manipulative West, led by America, and their regional amorphous client elite.

The question of religious minorities is an ideal place to begin examining the double standard argument. When given the opportunity, Muslims keep flocking to the West, where Muslim communities are growing and thriving, although they also face an increasing threat of discrimination and cultural hostility.

Christian and other religious minorities in the Arab world, however, are generally shrinking and withering, and are now facing a murderous campaign of attacks that seem consciously designed to try to drive them out of the region, or at least certain countries, once and for all. The fact that the vast majority of the victims of Islamist terror have been Muslims must not belittle the distinctive brutality of these attacks on Christians. These people were killed simply because they were Christians, with the evident aim of scaring them away from the country and possibly the region. Muslims have generally been killed because they happened to be in the way of those who use terror to achieve power and political objectives, including significant intra-Muslim sectarian violence in Iraq that intended to force communities to relocate.

It can’t be enough for Arab and Muslim governments, and some media and organizations, to simply condemn obviously unacceptable outrages such as the recent massacres. In several Muslim countries religious minorities face discrimination, restriction of rights, laws against blasphemy, apostasy and “insults to religion,” prohibitive constraints against building and reconstructing houses of worship, and the aggressive state-sponsored promotion of not only Islam, but certain narrow versions of it. All these realities need to be opposed in a consistent manner by those who would credibly defend Muslim rights in the West without engaging in double standards of their own.

Without even addressing circular arguments about who is defending themselves against whose aggression, the work that must be done to counteract narratives of intolerance and exclusion everywhere must be performed officially and legally, as well as at the social and community level both here and in the Middle East. It would be almost impossible to find explicit support from Arab or Muslim Americans for wanton acts of violence against civilians, but easy to find echoes of the sentiments of victimization and self-righteousness from which they ultimately derive. Even among Arab and Arab-American Christians and other minorities it is readily possible to encounter such views.

Of course, others have a great deal of work to do as well. The problems of Islamophobia spreading in the West, and growing blatant anti-Arab racism in Israel, need to be confronted at every level, without fear or favor. Marauding lawless bands of Israeli settlers, and American religious and ideological fanatics who advocate racism, must be held accountable. It is vital that communities, identity groups and societies take more responsibility to proactively define boundaries regarding what will be accepted as “respectable” discourse or conduct and what clearly crosses the line and has to be confronted as socially and politically dangerous even, and perhaps especially, if that means breaching expectations of ethnic, cultural or religious solidarity.

Critics will complain that we are conflating apples and oranges, casting the net of blame too widely or being unfair. What we are in fact doing is the unavoidable task of drawing connections between words that begin with hypocrisy and chauvinistic bluster, continue on into the promotion of intolerance, fear and hatred, and finally, in the hands of the most extreme, erupt into unconscionable acts of violence. This progression needs to be addressed as much at its source as its outcome if the trend is to be reversed.

Too few voices and organizations in Arab and Muslim societies, and the Arab-American community for that matter, repudiate much of the rhetoric that ultimately, when taken to its logical conclusion by demented murderers, leads to this kind of appalling violence. Their default position is to cite various injustices and to ask others to understand the motives for violence by pointing to a double standard argument or other rationalizations. This approach means that most of Arab societies, and many in the Arab and Muslim American communities, are in effect opting for silence. This doesn’t mean that this silent or ambivalent majority condones murderous acts by extremist fanatics, far from it. But these massacres in Egypt and Iraq demonstrate that everyone has a responsibility to be more vigilant and to recognize that the language of hate and intolerance can ultimately lead to unspeakable violence and should not be tolerated and countered by responsible choices.

In our own country, the most vociferous proponents of the Arab and Muslim victimization narrative, those who blame the West, especially America or “the white man,” for all the ills that befall the Arabs and Muslims, and those who most loudly advocate against the legal and societal harassment of Arabs and Muslims in the United States, take full advantage, as they are entitled to, of the American system and find shelter in the comfort and security of its freedoms. The damage they do in being the loudest and most anti-American voices emanating from the vulnerable Arab and Muslim immigrant communities, who already feel besieged, is to provide ammunition to the demagogues and profiteers of racism and peddlers of hate and fear of Arab and American Muslims, and to empower and encourage the worst racist and chauvinistic tendencies in this country. Minorities in this country have achieved their communal and collective objectives by working the system as they redefine it, and gaining support and power by courageous but peaceful confrontation with injustices, by use of the law and the political system, and not by rejecting the system as inherently corrupt and uncorrectable. And certainly not by murdering unarmed military personnel or civilians, or by plotting to blow up planes or public squares.

For Arab and Muslim Americans silence is not a safe option. No group is more vulnerable to the consequences of the next terror attack, or to policies based on fear and exclusion. What happens, and does not happen, in the Arab and Muslim world matters here at home. This assertion needs no explanation after September 11, 2001. The relentless wars against minorities, and not just Christians in the Middle East, whether official, societal or even just criminal, waged by those who aim to divide the world into large, mutually-exclusive and warring religious and ethnic blocks is not just a threat to America and its values. It is a specific and imminent danger to Arab and Muslim Americans, who must, for their own urgent necessity, oppose such politics and rhetoric. They need to develop a higher degree of honesty in their discourse and demand that a more elevated sense of responsibility be conveyed and articulated by their elites and leaderships.

The present tragic course of events, with mal-distribution of power and resources in the Arab and Muslim world, and a deepening sense of victimization that is increasingly directed at the West, especially America, and its friends and allies, will eventually break through the coercive measures that have thus far maintained the intrinsically unstable status quo. If serious change is not effected in short order, this dam will burst and after that comes the deluge. Ideas, deeds, programs and a modicum of peace in Palestine are urgently needed to give a fighting chance to forces of moderation and sanity everywhere.

To survive, and to compete globally, Arab and Muslim societies need to embrace their cultural, religious and ethnic mosaics, and view their diversity as strength rather than weakness. They need to embrace a culture that values not only individual rights and foregrounds the role of the citizen in political and social life, but minority rights as well. The values of pluralism, peaceful resolution of disputes and inclusivity are the only effective antidote to the poison of extremism and extremist violence. Embracing these values will require a change in social and political culture, and for that, every Arab, and Arab and Muslim American, must take up their share of the responsibility. They must speak publicly and courageously for these values here and in the Middle East. The price of silence is prohibitive. The forces of fanaticism, violence and exclusion must not be allowed to prevail.

http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=226069

The diplomatic effort to secure bilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, especially in Latin America, or upgrades to the diplomatic status of Palestinian missions in the West is a net positive, as long as it does not undercut Palestinian relations with the United States.

Last week, Ecuador recognized Palestine in its 1967 borders, and Paraguay has said it will soon join what looks to become a virtually unanimous South American recognition of Palestine. Reports suggest that the United Kingdom is preparing to upgrade the mission of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the international representative of the Palestinian people, joining France, the United States, Portugal and Norway, which have all already done so.

The Latin American recognitions obviously embrace Palestine as, at least in theory, a fully-sovereign state with fully normalized diplomatic relations, and imply that it should be a member state of the United Nations. The Western upgrades to PLO missions have raised the status of Palestinian officials to ambassadorial or near-ambassadorial rank, thereby treating the representatives of Palestine as if they were officers of an established fully-sovereign state.

All of this seems to have taken Israel by surprise. If that’s the case, it only underscores the extent to which many Israelis are living in a state of denial about the viability of the occupation and the plausibility of preventing Palestinian statehood.

It is true enough that Israel has the military means to continue to deny Palestinians independence, and to colonize East Jerusalem and the West Bank, through force of arms. But what some Israelis appear to have failed to comprehend is the international stake in ending the occupation.

The world has not turned against Israel. There is still an overwhelming international consensus that it is a legitimate member state of the United Nations. Even in the Arab world the appetite for a long-term project aimed at the dissolution of the Israeli state has been relegated to the political fringes. While many Israelis mistakenly conflate outside reaction to the occupation with that toward their state, misrecognizing opposition to the occupation as “delegitimization” of Israel, the rest of the world sees the distinction more clearly than ever.

This point of view is most importantly being embraced in Washington, certainly by the administration of US President Barack Obama and also by many important members of Congress. There is a virtual consensus in the foreign policy establishment surrounding the government that resolving this conflict by ending the occupation is essential, not optional, for the United States. Many Israelis do not seem to have understood or truly processed the extent to which the United States now sees Palestinian statehood as essential to its own national interests and therefore “inevitable.”

Israeli Industry, Trade, and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer recently tried to warn his fellow Israelis that, “I wouldn’t be surprised if the US will also recognize a Palestinian state in the coming year, and then we will have to provide explanations as to how it happened.” This is probably an exaggeration as the United States will almost certainly continue to push for an agreement, but it recognizes the deep-seated American determination for the creation of Palestine.

But it is also essential that Palestinians realize this as well. Pursuing recognition in Latin America and mission upgrades in Europe is normal and positive diplomatic activity. Insofar as it causes Israel discomfort, that is largely beside the point. However, Palestinians need to be very careful to protect their relationship with the United States and the emerging American consensus in favor of ending the occupation and establishing a state of Palestine.

For a start, the United States has been the single biggest donor to the Palestinian Authority and increasingly used cash treasury-to-treasury transfers meaning that the authority has been able to use much of this aid at its own discretion. More importantly, Washington is the only country that under the current circumstances could conceivably broker an agreement with Israel whereby the Palestinian state is actually established. Palestinians will not be able to force their independence on Israel; they will have to somehow get the Israelis to agree to it. And for that, American support, cooperation and leadership is indispensable.

Thus far the Obama administration doesn’t seem to be particularly bothered by the Latin American recognitions, and earlier this year engaged in its own diplomatic upgrade of the Palestinian mission in Washington. But it did not like being put in the position of blocking PLO efforts to upgrade its status at United Nations agencies. Apparently the United States understands the need for Palestinians to pursue increased international recognition at the bilateral level, but isn’t ready to allow the issue to become multilateral, for fear that this might compromise, or supersede, the negotiations that Washington is overseeing.

The bottom line is that Palestinians need to be extremely careful here. Recognition from Paraguay and ambassadorial status in the UK is highly desirable, but the American consensus in favor of ending the occupation and establishing a Palestinian state is the only real, powerful and actionable political leverage the Palestinians have that can actually achieve the goal of independence.

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/annoying_palestine_is_on_the_right_track

Last week the US House of Representatives adopted a resolution threatening a potential cutoff of aid to the Palestinians if they unilaterally declared statehood. It was essentially meaningless bluster, taking a strong stance against something the Palestinians aren’t currently pursuing or even seriously considering.

The real context of resolution is not Palestinian unilateralism, but multilateralism and, especially, bilateralism, and there’s a big difference between the three. Most Palestinian officials acknowledge that as an occupied people with the deck stacked against them, they haven’t got the power to do very much unilaterally.

In 1988, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) unilaterally declared an independent Palestinian state in the pre-June 1967 borders. Many developing countries recognized that state. But nothing happened. The only real consequence was to make any future unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence possibly look like a repetition of this embarrassing failure.

The Palestinians are also aware that the physical presence of the formidable Israeli military in the occupied territories means that, as a practical matter, Palestinian independence ultimately depends on Israeli acquiescence, however reluctant; on their own, the Palestinians are unlikely to be able to achieve it. So it’s always been obvious that third-party intervention is essential. During most of the past two decades, both Palestinians and Israelis have looked mainly to the United States, and there is no doubt that in the final analysis an American role as broker and more, is simply indispensable.

However, in the past couple of years, faced with diplomatic impasses, Palestinians have been developing a creative set of new strategies to augment these indispensable negotiations – notably state-building, nonviolent protests and settlement boycotts. They have also been pursuing multilateral and bilateral recognition, but not the unilateralism denounced by the US Congress.

The first efforts, aimed at upgrading the status of Palestinian representation in various UN bodies, were largely blocked by the United States on the grounds that they bypassed the negotiating process. Indeed, US Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton recently warned Palestinians that “unilateral efforts at the United Nations are not helpful and undermine trust.”

Actually, such efforts aren’t unilateral at all, they are multilateral. It’s not surprising that Washington would view such efforts as a kind of end-run around the negotiating process it oversees, but it clearly makes sense for Palestinians to try to enhance their global diplomatic status in preparation for what Clinton has described as “inevitable” Palestinian statehood.

Importantly, the secretary didn’t say anything about the main effort currently being pursued by Palestinian diplomats, which is a series of upgrades to bilateral diplomatic relations. This has most spectacularly borne fruit in Latin America, with Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Bolivia all having recognized Palestine within its 1967 borders in recent weeks. More recognitions are expected to follow shortly. In addition, Norway, France and other European countries had been quietly upgrading the diplomatic status of the PLO missions in their countries.

Slowly but surely, the world is adding Palestine to the roster of fully recognized countries and laying the groundwork for its future admission as a member state of the United Nations. If the Americans are annoyed by this, they’re not saying so publicly. It’s not clear why they should be. Since Washington views Palestinian statehood as “inevitable,” and in the end this can only be achieved with Israeli acquiescence and through negotiations, the US role as primary midwife in the birth of this new state is unchallengeable.

Palestinian unilateralism on independence has already proven its pointlessness back in the 1980s, and the Kosovo model – unilaterally declared independence immediately recognized and supported by most of the world’s most powerful countries – isn’t really available to them, at least at this stage. However, this diplomatic offensive for recognition is not only purposive and meaningful; it dovetails perfectly with state-building and, indeed, with American-brokered negotiations with Israel.

The Israelis may be annoyed, but as they continue settlement construction in violation of international law, the “road map” and clearly stated American and international opposition, they’re not in any position to be wagging fingers at anybody about complicating delicate diplomacy.

Palestinians obviously have to pursue negotiations aimed at an agreement with Israel that secures its acquiescence to Palestinian independence. But at the same time, it is vital for the Palestinians to pour as much energy as possible into state-building that prepares them for that independence; to continue pursuing measures that challenge the abusive practices of the occupation; and to seek to upgrade their diplomatic status multilaterally and bilaterally.

Palestinian statehood is becoming inevitable as Clinton says. Diplomatic recognition of that necessary, indispensable state-in-the-making from countries in Latin America and elsewhere, no matter how much it might annoy the Israelis, is simply another recognition of that fact and an important step in the right direction.

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/not_walking_away_from_peace_just_yet

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s speech at the Brookings Institution on December 10 has again shown that the Obama administration is not willing to walk away from efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in spite of the obstacles and setbacks it is facing. The position Clinton laid out presents an important potential opportunity for Palestinians to make the point that they are ready for and serious about peace, and to test Israel’s willingness.

Clinton delivered a well-balanced and clearheaded appraisal of US interests and was unambiguous about the importance of ending the conflict and the occupation. The secretary gave what is probably the strongest ever statement by a senior US official about Palestinian statehood, calling it “inevitable.” She described the occupation as “unacceptable” and “unsustainable,” and left no doubt that from the American perspective it must be ended.

Clinton also said the Obama administration plans to intensify its support for Palestinian state-building efforts. Since it now views Palestinian statehood as inevitable, Washington has a strong interest in using the state-building program to advance that cause in parallel to the diplomacy and to lay the groundwork for a successful, rather than a failed, state.

The secretary cautioned Palestinians against unilateral diplomatic moves, and Israel, in slightly stronger language, against “provocative announcements on East Jerusalem.” And she dismissed out of hand any notion of “economic peace,” saying that “economic and institutional progress … is not a substitute for a political resolution,” and that such ideas are “wrong” and “dangerous.”

In addition, Clinton left no doubt that the US remains committed, perhaps more than ever, to resolving the conflict through an agreement that establishes a Palestinian state. US diplomatic language on this point is deepening and intensifying, and this reflects a growing policy commitment to that outcome.

Clinton also said the US will press the parties to make their positions on key final-status issues as specific and clear as possible. This could spell trouble for leaders on both sides (particularly Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu), who for political reasons prefers to remain ambiguous about some controversial questions. If the Palestinians present straightforward positions on the final-status issues and Netanyahu does not, it will not only be an enormously clarifying development, but will also potentially set the stage for a more assertive American role in spite of Israeli objections.

It would be wrong to be cynical when senior US officials make Washington’s commitment to this outcome so unmistakably clear. The US has many options, but the situation is so delicate that most of them would probably make matters worse. The path the administration has chosen – to make sure everyone understands what is expected at the end of the day and that the US is not walking away – and at the same time emphasizing caution and recognizing the delicacy of the politics on both sides while pushing them to reveal their own intentions, is probably the most advisable course at present.

A combination of quiet diplomacy, looking for openings with the parties and getting them to take clear, specific positions on core issues, along with intensified support for state-building, might be the only serious, politically plausible US response at this stage.

Palestinians were unwise to allow themselves to be sucked into the settlement freeze extension gimmick, and should welcome the opportunity to focus on final-status issues, such as borders and Jerusalem. In the end, any practicable agreement will require Israel to relinquish control over a considerable amount of the settlements it has built anyway, so the settlement issue is a subset of the border issue, which is the real bone of contention.

No matter how frustrated they might be with the failure to secure an extension to the partial, temporary settlement freeze moratorium, Palestinians should welcome the renewed and rhetorically intensified US commitment to ending the occupation and securing the establishment of a Palestinian state. The bottom line is that while Washington remains committed to Israel’s security, it is also committed, in its own interests, to Palestinian independence and an end to the Israeli occupation. In other words, the world’s only superpower and Israel’s patron is genuinely committed to securing the Palestinian national goal.

Clinton gave the Palestinians a lot to work with and welcome, but, like the Israelis, they have yet to convince Washington of their seriousness about achieving a negotiated agreement. They should embrace the secretary’s call for the parties to take clear positions on final-status issues and lay out their vision for the future as specifically as possible. They would then probably be able to demonstrate that their vision of the future is closer to the US view than Israel’s is, assuming the Israelis are willing to reveal any vision at all.

Palestinians would thereby give the United States every reason to increase its support for the party better in sync with its own policies.

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/a_narrow_road_to_palestinian_freedom

A narrow road near the small West Bank village of Qarawat Bani Hassan is now the implausible epicenter of the Palestinian drive for freedom and independence. At first glance, the two-kilometer stretch is remote and of little practical significance, since it does not lead to any major hub and has no strategic value. But it is, quite literally, the frontline of the Palestinian state and institution-building program being led by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

The road’s significance comes from two crucial political facts. First, it is located in Area C, constituting 60 percent of the West Bank that the interim Oslo Accords, which were supposed to last for only five years between 1993 and 1998, designated to remain under full Israeli control. And second, the paving of the road was organized and paid for by the Palestinian Authority under the state-building rubric.

Consequently, and citing their alleged prerogatives in Area C, the Israeli authorities have destroyed the paved asphalt. Both Fayyad and local villagers have vowed to repave it time and again, and the Palestinian Authority has already allocated funds to do just that.

This road, in its own small, understated way is the first major practical embodiment of the long-term political and strategic logic of the Palestinian state and institution-building program, and a modest, quiet demonstration of how that that project inevitably leads to powerful challenges to the occupation.

The state-building program confronts Israel with a simple question about not only Areas A and B, but C as well: Is this land going to be part of the Palestinian state or is it part of Israel? If it is part of Israel, what’s the point of even discussing a two-state solution? But, if it is ultimately going to be part of a Palestinian state, how can that state ever be created if Palestinian infrastructure, development and institution-building are actively thwarted by the occupation? Who will create this state if not the Palestinians, and how can they if they are physically prevented from doing so by the Israeli military?

All of these questions lead to the most important one Israel has to ask itself, one on which there is no clarity or consensus whatsoever among Israeli leaders: What is their vision of the future in the occupied Palestinian territories? In other words, what do they intend to do with this land and the millions of stateless noncitizens who live there? What is it that Israel ultimately wants?

By channeling Palestinian energies into the mundane, workaday tasks of building state infrastructure and institutions, Fayyad is deliberately breaking from a well-established tradition of “heroic” and romantic Palestinian nationalism based on grand gestures and, even more typically, grand statements. There isn’t anything in the history of contemporary Palestinian nationalism that would have allowed us to predict that the act of paving a two-kilometer road in the middle of nowhere would actually become a potentially important moment, however understated, in the Palestinian struggle for freedom. But that’s exactly what has happened.

The state-building program, which has largely been welcomed by Israelis as long as it is restricted to constructive efforts and security cooperation in Area A, can only survive if it grows and expands. It does not allow for stasis. It was a matter of time before it began to creep into Area C and elsewhere, confronting Israelis with the difficult but unavoidable questions. As the quiet battle over this road demonstrates, Israel has a simple choice forced upon it by the state-building program: Either allow it to spread into Area C and continue to expand in every way, or interfere and, in effect, kill the entire project. If Israel chooses the latter, it will announce to the world and to itself that it never intended to allow a viable Palestinian state and must then explain to the world and itself precisely what its alternative is.

State-building efforts are also quietly at work in occupied East Jerusalem, with the Palestinian Authority renovating and re-inaugurating schools and other institutions. Israel has prevented Fayyad from going to ceremonies marking those efforts, but appears to be surprised to learn about what the Palestinian Authority was quietly doing to address Palestinian needs, even in Jerusalem.

Those who denounce the state-building effort and the Palestinian Authority’s activities generally as “collaboration” fail to understand the way in which that project inevitably leads to confrontations with the occupation that force moral and political clarity; or these critics oppose Palestinian statehood altogether in favor of a broader agenda.

However, as demonstrated by the “Freedom Road,” as Palestinians have now dubbed this little stretch of asphalt, built into the logic of the state-building program is what will increasingly become a series of quiet altercations with the occupation that will either lead, both practically and politically, to the creation of a Palestinian state, or force Israel to openly admit it will never allow any such thing to happen.

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/four_lions_is_no_laughing_matter

Chris Morris’ new film “Four Lions,” which attempts to satirize “homegrown” Jihadist terrorists in the United Kingdom, is a disappointing and distasteful fiasco.

Morris is best known as a British television current affairs satirist on programs such as “The Day Today” and “Brass Eye” who revels in controversial and edgy subjects. “Four Lions” premiered at the 2010 Sundance film festival, has done well at the box office and received considerable and largely positive attention in the United States and the UK. The theater in which I saw the film in Washington DC was sold out, and the audience appeared extremely receptive in spite of elements of working-class northern English and South Asian immigrant cultures that few Americans are familiar with.

“Four Lions” tells the story of four young British Muslims in Sheffield who have, for reasons the film does not explain, decided to embrace the ideology of Al-Qaeda and conduct terrorist acts in the UK. Two of the men, Omar and Waj, go to Pakistan for “mujahideen training,” during which they accidentally blow up a terrorist training camp.

The other two extremists are the particularly dimwitted Faisal and the most extreme and irrational of the group, Barry, an English convert. Their essential features, both as individuals and as a group, are extreme stupidity and incompetence, which do not prevent them from being very menacing. But at heart, this is just another version of the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. Inevitably, however, the four end up causing brutal mayhem at the London Marathon.

Since the film focuses on an extremely serious, important and under-analyzed (maybe even under-conceptualized) phenomenon, it should have been both funny and insightful. Unfortunately, it is neither.

That there are people like the ones depicted in the film is beyond question. That some of these people really are as bizarre and incompetent is also evident from counterterrorism surveillance and several spectacularly bungled attempted “homegrown” Jihadist attacks, particularly in the United States. The extremists, their radicalism and, in some cases their stupidity, are not only legitimate grounds for satire, they virtually scream for it. Yet “Four Lions” fails miserably both as a satire and as a critique.

It’s not really an Islamophobic movie, I hasten to add. The only aspect of the film that rings profoundly false and might be considered socially and politically objectionable is the representation of Omar’s young professional wife, not to mention his cheerful young son, as calmly and demurely supportive of his plan for suicidal terrorist mayhem. The record strongly suggests that such extremists go to great lengths to hide their plans not only from others in their Western Muslim communities broadly; but specifically also from family members including parents and spouses. I’m as skeptical about Omar’s wife representing a real phenomenon as I am convinced that he does.

Morris has said that he believes he has made “a good-hearted film,” but I don’t know how he could possibly think so. There’s nothing wrong with black comedy, at which the British excel, or gallows humor for that matter, but the image of a mentally challenged would-be terrorist suddenly exploding because he has wrapped himself in a homemade bomb and inadvertently collided with a sheep just isn’t that amusing. This is the most troubling thing about “Four Lions”: it sounds funny in theory, and it should be funny, but in practice it merely proves to be predictable, tedious and frequently repulsive.

The humor in the film, for those familiar with the evolution of British comedy, is mostly old-fashioned, drawing mainly from the Peter Cook tradition, especially the millennialist fools in his classic “The End of the World” sketch from the “Beyond the Fringe” review, which debuted in 1960. The voice of these “Jihadist British Muslims” is, in both tone and structure, pretty much indistinguishable from what was on offer at the Edinburgh Festival 50 years ago.

Morris has defended his script by pointing out that he has drawn some of his material from actual counterterrorism surveillance documents. No doubt that’s true. But I doubt that, ludicrous and disturbing as many of those conversations may be, they are anymore more entertaining or amusing than his film proves.

In the final analysis, satire has to have a point. “Four Lions,” insofar as I can tell, simply doesn’t. Yes, such people exist, and they’re frequently morons. Yes, ignorant, weird converts are often the most extreme ones (Barry keeps insisting that what they really should blow up is the local mosque to “radicalize the moderates”). Yes, the police are often equally cretinous, and occasionally perhaps equally ruthless. Yes, at a certain level political extremism proves in practice to be a sick joke. We knew all that already.

I watched Morris’ film carefully, and I just have no idea what, beyond such obvious and even undeniable banalities, he was really trying to communicate to his Western audiences. The danger with this kind of satire is that it trivializes a serious set of problems, and the payoff has to be insight or analytical clarity offsetting such trivialization. “Four Lions” tries much too hard to be edgy without ever actually asking any of the most difficult questions its subject matter begs. In the end, it’s as foolish and incompetent as are its own main characters.

http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/10/muslim_extremism_stems_from_alienation.html

The recent arrest of Farooque Ahmed on charges of conspiring with undercover law enforcement officers to bomb metro stations in the greater DC area has once again turned attention to the growing problem of “homegrown” terrorist threats emerging on the fringes of the Muslim American community. While this overdetermined phenomenon lacks a single, discrete cause or simple profile, some rough outlines can be confidently sketched about the nature and motivation of this form of extremism.

First and foremost, these “lone wolf” or spontaneous homegrown eruptions of Al Qaeda-inspired terrorist impulses, like most forms of domestic terrorism, would appear to be principally the result of alienation. This alienation, from mainstream American society and
culture or US government policies, sets the stage in an individual’s mind for an interest in extremist ideology. Particularly when combined with personal crises or meltdowns, alienation, extremist ideology and despair are frequently found at the basis of violent outbursts or impulses.

In the case of domestic Muslim extremism, alienation is almost always not only from mainstream American society, but from the mainstream Muslim American community as well. In almost all recent cases of domestic Muslim extremism, the accused have been little, if at all, known to local Muslim communities, and almost never engaged in local mosque, community or civic activities. This means that while Muslim Americans will collectively and unfairly pay a price for this kind of extremist sentiment or activity, there is very little their community organizations can do to protect against it.

Such extremists do not have a theology as such, and are largely driven by political rather than religious ideas, although their sense of the political may be expressed through religiously-inflected language. Generally speaking such extremists are motivated by a paranoid and chauvinist worldview akin to ethnic nationalism. This is also true of the more organized self-described “Salafist-Jihadist” groups like Al Qaeda in the Islamic world.

Essentially, this worldview centers on the notion that there is a colonialist and predatory relationship between the West and the Islamic world, motivated by some nefarious purpose ranging from control of the region’s natural resources to a global conspiracy to destroy or defeat Islam as a religious or political force. As with all forms of violent extremism, these individuals see themselves as “fighting back” against an aggressive enemy, although in the Arab and Islamic worlds the fight is focused mainly on local regimes that are seen as either too pro-Western or insufficiently “Islamic,” or both.

The recent spate of cases involving Americans of Pakistani and Afghan origin that seem to be connected to anger about US military presence and activities in Afghanistan or drone strikes in Pakistan demonstrate the connection between some of these extremist sentiments and more widespread objections and even outrage about US policies prevalent in those societies.

This worldview is also the latest soup du jour of an apparently omnipresent appetite for political extremism at the margins of both American society and many parts of the world. It taps into sentiments of alienation, grievance, injustice, righteous anger and implacable opposition to the status quo that would have drawn vulnerable individuals into the orbit of violent ultraleft factions in the 1960s and 70s or the ultraright militia movement in the 1990s, to cite two other recent examples. The apparently disproportionate number of converts to extreme versions of Islam involved in such violent radicalism is another indication of this phenomenon.

The good news is that very few of these cases have resulted in injury or loss of life, and many of them seem to involve individuals with the apparent willingness but not the ability to actually cause harm. In several high-profile cases, undercover law enforcement officers egged these individuals on, sometimes to the point of appearing to border on entrapment.

In other cases, especially involving individuals with military training such as the Fort Hood murder Maj. Nidal Hasan, as with the Oklahoma City bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, the tragedies have been all too real.

But, while there is no doubt homegrown, spontaneous and “lone wolf” instances of domestic Muslim American extremism are a growing concern, especially for the Muslim American community itself which pays the highest price for such radicalism, the reality is that the actual threat it poses to life and property is, as far as anyone can tell, very limited indeed. As long as it remains, as it is, a marginal phenomenon attracting fringe, alienated and isolated individuals, it will be a challenge with which our society can readily cope.

http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=28628&lan=en&sid=0&sp=0&isNew=1

Whether or not a solution to the crisis over settlements is achieved in the coming days, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations are in serious trouble. The Israeli daily Ha’aretz quoted unnamed Western officials as saying the talks are “going nowhere.” And the most cautious, sober and measured of the senior PLO leadership, Yasser Abed Rabbo who is a member of the negotiating team, has been moved to declare that, “there will be no serious political process with Netanyahu’s government.”

Most reports strongly suggest that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been unforthcoming on permanent status issues. According to these sources, Netanyahu refuses to meaningfully discuss core question such as borders and insists that security must be the main issue at this stage. This has led to frustration not only among the Palestinians and other Arabs, but in many circles in the West and the United States.

This frustration is amplified by Netanyahu’s refusal thus far to accept an exceptionally generous American inducement package in exchange for a 60-day extension to the partial settlement moratorium that expired in September. Indeed, the New York Times called the package “overly generous.” Moreover, it is unclear what the Obama administration expects to be different in two months time, when the parties are likely to find themselves in precisely the same situation. If the Americans have a game-changing approach to unveil over the course of eight weeks, it’s the best-kept secret in Washington.

The American hope may be that borders can be agreed in short order, rendering the settlement issue largely moot, but the parties themselves show little sign of believing that. We therefore have to face the fact that negotiations would appear to be both stalled in substance and threatened with a political crisis that may produce a breakdown. It might be possible to keep the ball in the air by returning to indirect negotiations or finding some other temporary stopgaps. But the experience of the past few weeks does not augur well for prospects of any kind of significant success in the foreseeable future.

The prospect of a breakdown again raises the spectre of another intifada, since many Palestinians may conclude that the occupation is either permanent or that diplomacy is simply an ineffective tool in resolving it and that a new uprising is the only remaining way to pressure Israel.

The flashpoints are obvious. Especially in Arab neighbourhoods of occupied East Jerusalem, tensions are running high. Recently a Palestinian man was shot under extremely questionable circumstances by a settler guard, and a 14-month-old baby was killed by teargas fired by Israeli security forces. Numerous buildings and even neighbourhoods are under fierce contention between aggressive settlers supported by both the national and municipal Israeli authorities and Palestinians struggling to cling onto their homes. If another intifada erupts, it may very well begin there.

But it is essential that Palestinians do not turn to, or allow themselves to be sucked into, another round of violence with Israel. A third intifada would undoubtedly follow the pattern established by the relationship of the end of the first intifada to its beginning, and of the second intifada to the first; a process has entailed ever-increasing levels of violence, death and religious fanaticism on both sides. Because of this pattern, the consequences of the second intifada were disastrous for the Palestinian people and national movement. A third is likely to be even worse.

For Israel, a third intifada could well signal the squandering of the last opportunity to divest itself of the occupation in a rational, workable manner, rendering what will become the de facto Israeli state as neither Jewish nor democratic in any meaningful sense and developing and entrenching an apartheid character especially in the occupied territories.

It is imperative that some way is found to keep diplomacy alive, even if it means a return to less-than-optimal indirect negotiations. In the end, both parties have no option but to work towards a negotiated two-state peace agreement or continue with an ever-deteriorating conflict. It is essential that international actors such as the United States, the European Union and the Arab League help find a formula to allow Israel to make restrained settlement expansion, and the Palestinians to make continued negotiations, politically plausible among both of their domestic constituencies.

In the meanwhile, Palestinians should redouble their state and institution building efforts with international support, recently reiterated by both the United States and the Quartet. And they should continue to explore what kind of momentum can be secured to complement diplomacy through non-violent protests, and boycotts of settlement, but not Israeli, goods. Confronting the occupation at every level is essential, but a return to violence, no matter who instigates it, would be a disastrous miscalculation on the Palestinian side.

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/biding_time

The United States will most probably succeed in convincing Israel to extend its partial and temporary settlement moratorium for another two or three months. It has already offered a package of benefits that seems completely disproportionate to what is being asked for, and which even US newspaperThe New York Times has described as “overly generous.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has, at the time of writing of this column, declined to accept what was being offered and is apparently holding out for more. And no wonder. The US administration looks desperate, almost panicked, to keep the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians going until after the US November midterm elections.

On Thursday, Washington signed a deal long-coveted by Tel Aviv to sell the new and highly-advanced F-35 stealth fighter jets to the Jewish state, a rarefied military support that is completely unconnected to Israel’s cooperation on peace. Reports said that the US administration might even commit to some kind of a long-term Israeli security presence in the Jordan Valley after a Palestinian independence becomes a reality, a thing that would be considered a deal breaker for many Palestinians. In other words, Washington might be offering Israel commitments it cannot live up to in the long run.

But the bigger question remains: What is really the point behind all this?

Keeping the Middle East peace talks going is an important, laudable and essential goal. After all, nothing will ever be resolved without diplomacy. However, why the US administration is fetishizing a settlement freeze which will be short-lived and which has always been a political gimmick rather than a real restriction on settlement expansion is highly questionable. Obviously, the most immediate goal is to find a formula allowing the Palestinians to remain in the negotiations. A settlement moratorium extension would certainly guarantee that. But what then?

It is not clear what would change in eight or even 12 weeks. The only difference would be that Israel will then have under its belt a large number of US concessions and guarantees without having done anything substantial to earn them. Wouldn’t the damage to the credibility and viability of negotiations and the Palestinian negotiators be even greater then?

It is possible that the US administration has a plan, but if it does, then it is the best-kept secret in Washington. No one knows what Washington expects to accomplish within two or three months should Tel Aviv agree to extend its settlement freeze. The widespread suspicion is that the US will deal with that problem when it is faced with it.

But this has to be more than an exercise in kicking the can down the road. There couldn’t be a greater tragedy for the parties, the region and the political environment in general than for those who maintained from the beginning that failed negotiations would be worse than no negotiations to be proven right in the end.

The US administration now finds itself riding the tiger: in two or three months, it will probably be able to either seize the postelection moment to start really cracking heads together on peace – a thing that will come at an exorbitant price – or it can face one of the most humiliating US diplomatic failures in living memory. One thing is for certain, we are getting to the point where there really isn’t a lot of middle ground left.

So, if Israel decides it makes most sense to just pocket whatever it is the US is offering in exchange for a few weeks of more of the same – even if it comes at a certain political cost to Netanyahu – then Washington will have to act quickly in order to prevent a humiliating and possibly disastrous rapid return to the political crisis of the past few weeks.

The most obvious measure would be an effort to have all parties move quickly to negotiate the future borders of a Palestinian state and to try to resolve the issue before the settlement freeze expires. While it is true that most points pertaining to the land issue have been negotiated almost to completion in the past, there is every reason to be skeptical that the present Israeli government and Palestinian leadership would be capable of reaching a formula in the immediate future that satisfies both parties. This would also leave the question of Jerusalem unresolved, and potentially explosive, unless both sides agree to maintain the status quo along the lines of the Clinton parameters, with Israel only building in established Jewish neighborhoods.

It would probably make more sense to focus in the immediate future on realities on the ground, deliverables that will improve the quality of life for both parties, such as increased security arrangements for the Israelis and an expansion of the Palestinian Authority’s role in West Bank Areas B and C that are presently under Israeli control. But until the crisis over settlements, which is not only an Israeli-Palestinian problem, but an Israeli-US one as well, is resolved rather than endlessly postponed, it is not going to be possible even to focus on modest deliverables, let alone permanent status issues.