https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/549942-sisi-will-be-judged-on-performance-not-election-numbers

For all the brouhaha over voter turnout, Egypt’s new president will be judged on his conduct in office

 

After an election that focused on a bizarre tug-of-war over voter turnout, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has been sworn in as the new president of Egypt. Yet he and his new government will not be judged by the minutia of turnout percentages or the size of his mandate, but rather by their performance in office. They face a daunting set of challenges.

In the first, officially scheduled, two days of the voting, Mr. Sisi’s critics made much of what appeared to be a very low turnout. In a move that suggested undue insecurity about these numbers, the election was extended under dubious legal circumstances for a third day, which was also made a national holiday. In the end, turnout was officially tallied at 44%, with over 90% voting for Sisi.

Despite the extra day of voting, this is not a low turnout, particularly given the number of elections Egyptians have had to vote in over the past few years and the overwhelming likelihood of a massive Sisi victory. And it is a gigantic mandate. Yet in the aftermath of the voting, bickering over the question of turnout continued, as if it were actually a major issue.

It’s not.

Mr. Sisi will undoubtedly be judged based on performance in office, and both the turnout and the size of his mandate won’t assuage the Egyptian public if they feel let down again. He faces three major challenges that will be daunting: security, the economy, and a presidency whose powers are greatly curtailed by the new constitution passed after the ouster of former President Mohammed Morsi.

As both his campaign and that of his rival, Hamdeen Sabahi, emphasized, security is a paramount issue in Egypt, given the undoubted terrorist threat the country faces from armed extremists. But the security and economic questions are deeply interconnected. Foreign investment and the Egyptian stock market have been on the rise since Mr. Morsi’s ouster, but investor confidence will depend on multiple factors, including a sense that security and stability are steadily being restored. Without such confidence, it will be harder to attract sustained foreign direct investment.

In addition, Mr. Sisi’s new government faces myriad structural economic difficulties, some of them deeply fraught politically. Egypt’s currency has been steadily losing value, which could deter additional investment. Unemployment has increased to 13% of the labor force, an unsustainable figure. The generation of jobs will have to be a major priority. Egypt also faces a substantial fiscal deficit, and has yet to fully rebuild ties to the International Monetary Fund, which may be key in reducing that deficit on favorable terms.

The country’s ongoing energy crisis is a crucial indicator of how difficult reconciling necessary economic measures with politically unpopular steps is going to be. The country owes almost six billion dollars to international energy companies, and the inability to pay for needed energy has resulted in power shortages across the country.

Eliminating subsidies and electricity tariffs is an obvious measure to reverse this trend. But one can hardly think of a more politically unpopular move. This tension between what may be economically necessary for a major recovery in the long run, and what will prove politically unpalatable in the short run, is a consistent theme throughout Egypt’s economic puzzle. The conundrum, simply, is that a new government cannot maintain credibility and popularity without achieving significant economic progress, but at the same time, the measures required for such progress may often be deeply unpopular.

Mr. Sisi, whose overall economic approach is still unclear, has spoken of massive building projects that he calculated would cost approximately $140 billion. That’s well over half the country’s gross national income, so how even those job-creating measures would be paid for remains unexplained.

The backdrop to these profound challenges is that Mr. Sisi inherits a presidency whose powers have been enormously curtailed by the new constitution. Once a parliament is in place, the president will be able to do little without its cooperation and approval. This is a major change in Egypt’s traditionally presidential-centric system, and how these new theoretically impressive checks and balances will work in practice to get things done quickly, especially if they anger important constituencies, isn’t clear. The ability of public groupings and entrenched interests to use parliament to block executive action – on paper – would be significant. Mr. Sisi is used to running a military. The new Egyptian political system, as laid out in the new constitution, will be a profoundly different matter.

The overall atmosphere in Egypt isn’t particularly reassuring. In addition to profound and deeply interconnected security and economic challenges, the country has suffered yet another blow to political openness: Bassem Youssef’s irreverent and profoundly healthy “Al Bernameg” television satire program, based on Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show,” has been canceled. The host cited fears for his “personal safety and the safety of [his] family,” although he did not say anything to suggest that Mr. Sisi was directly or indirectly involved in making it impossible for his program to continue.

Whatever the source of these intolerable pressures, Egypt has lost an invaluable and highly positive contribution to culture and discourse. Even when facing serious security and economic woes, a healthy society must be able to tolerate, and indeed should celebrate, satire and irreverence. Whoever were exactly the forces that made Mr. Youssef finally throw in the towel, it’s unlikely they did themselves a favor in the long run.

Even in the context of serious security threats, it’s vital that the new government move quickly to improve the political atmosphere in the country, begin to scale back a crackdown that has been far too indiscriminate and heavy-handed, and open, rather than restrict, the free expression of ideas, including critical ones.

Mr. Sisi now has a clear mandate, significant popularity, and will enjoy a political honeymoon – or at least a grace period – from the general public. But without significant indications of an improving security and economic climate, that honeymoon certainly won’t be open-ended, and may not last all that long. When former President Hosni Mubarak fell, so did the era in which Egyptians would tolerate decades of misrule with patience.

Mr. Morsi managed to exhaust his welcome in less than a year through intolerably arrogant and dictatorial conduct. Mr. Sisi is highly unlikely to repeat such a dismal performance, but his presidential authority is much more limited than that enjoyed by either of his two immediate predecessors. And yet the Egyptian public will undoubtedly still be judging him on a performance basis. They have shown their willingness to withdraw consent from unsatisfactory presidents twice in recent years. Anyone, Mr. Sisi included, is potentially subject to some form of popular expression of no-confidence if they don’t meet minimum expectations.

But it’s in the interests of all responsible parties, and especially Egypt and its people, for Mr. Sisi’s new government to succeed with constructive policies. Therefore he’ll need, and should get, substantial foreign support to meet the daunting problems he faces, in addition to as much patience as the Egyptian public can muster given the depth of these shared national challenges, and, once it’s in place, as much cooperation and as little obstruction from the next parliament on reasonable, constructive policies as possible.

http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/obamas-doctrine-will-have-far-reaching-consequences#full

Barack Obama’s graduation speech at West Point Academy last week said much about the way the US may intend to proceed in the Middle East.

Mr Obama’s vision of force as a last resort, terrorism as the primary threat and a strikingly narrow definition of American interests does seem to sound a new tone, albeit one that elaborates on his long-standing foreign policy approach. Those most persuaded by the speech note that it’s strongly in line with American public opinion and commensurate with the US role in a world that is no longer strictly or simply monopolar.

Perhaps Richard Nixon’s landmark Lakeside Speech at the Bohemian Grove in July 1967 is an apt analogue. At this confidential meeting, Nixon first floated the logic that became the “Nixon doctrine”: that both economically and strategically the US could no longer “fight others’ wars for them.” It would provide support, funding and weapons to allies and clients, but there would be no repetition of Korea or, once it was concluded, Vietnam.

This vision held for decades. Even the First Gulf War was more of an anomaly than a repudiation of it. It was only the invasion of Iraq in 2003 that fully broke with Nixon’s Lakeside logic. And it is precisely the folly of the Iraq war, and the mishandling of the Afghan one, that most fully informed Mr Obama’s new conceptualisation, summed up in an analogy about the dangers of people with hammers seeing nails everywhere. Mr Obama, though, seemed to go even further than Nixon had in rethinking the American worldview. Arguably this is because the US is now operating even more among economic and political, if not military, equals than it was several decades ago. But his approach has significant implications for US policy in the Middle East, for its regional allies and for the area’s most volatile issues.

Mr Obama did not mention the problem of Palestine at all. This might be seen as curious, given that even a few months ago it continued to rank among his administration’s top foreign policy priorities. Nonetheless, the president has expressed scepticism in interviews with David Remnick of the New Yorker and Jeffrey Goldberg of Bloomberg about the prospects for diplomatic progress between Israel and the Palestinians. And this is hardly the first significant recent speech in which Mr Obama has avoided the topic altogether.

Still, that a major US presidential foreign policy address could go forward without even an implicit reference to the conflict and the occupation can only be alarming for Palestinians. And it should worry Israelis as well.

Palestinians have seen their issue receding from not only the world stage, but the regional agenda. Former prime minister Salam Fayyad was, perhaps, most forthright in ringing alarm bells about this towards the end of his term in office. It seems that secretary of state John Kerry, who has been courageous and resolute in pursuing the issue, may not have given up entirely. But when, and how, he intends to revisit it, is not clear. For the meanwhile, the policy appears to be to allow the parties to “stew in their own juices.”

The problem is that such a recipe will not have its desired effect if the experience feels more like a gentle candying than boiling in oil. And political leaders on both sides, particularly in Israel, may find the hiatus a relief. Palestinians have found an alternative in the national reunification project, which so far has not resulted in a profoundly negative response, even from Israel. Yet, the price that will ultimately be paid has yet to be reckoned.

The Israeli government and right-wing are probably very comfortable with the current hiatus. But if they were listening carefully to Mr Obama’s address, they should think twice. Not only does “benign neglect” of Palestine almost always end badly for everyone involved, reduced American interest in the Middle East in general, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular, does not suggest a bright future for Israel’s strategic position.

Indeed, the one Middle Eastern issue that seems to have genuinely captured the president’s sustained attention from the outset of his second term is Iran. Looking for some accommodation with Tehran is perfectly consistent with the rest of his stated worldview. A limited understanding preventing a confrontation over nuclear issues may indeed be achievable. But a broader rapprochement is unlikely to be attempted, and, if it were, almost certainly would create more problems than it would resolve.

Mr Obama had been expected to announce a much more robust engagement with Syrian rebels, including US training. He didn’t. That, too, may reflect both an Iran-centric agenda – with Syria policy seen as essentially a subset of that – and the generalised reduction in American power projection he described.

Syria may indicate where Mr Obama is going well beyond where Nixon had. Not only will the United States not fight others’ wars for them. Now, perhaps it might be increasingly less inclined to offer them as much support either. Everyone in the Middle East, Israelis included, should think seriously about the long-term implications of that, if this is indeed what Mr Obama was implying and if, in fact, it presages a sustained new era in American foreign policy.

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/548989-dont-squander-the-popes-pro-palestinian-message

Palestinians should ensure the world long remembers images of Pope Francis’s recent visit

 

Cynics have dismissed Pope Francis’s visit to the Holy Land as a largely meaningless gesture by a religious figure that will change nothing on the ground and therefore has little, if any, significance. Idealists, on the other hand, have celebrated some of the implicit messaging as a turning point for peace, especially from a Palestinian point of view.

The truth lies somewhere in the middle. The Pope’s trip doesn’t actually transform the basic situation on the ground. But Pope Francis has, in a message aimed directly at the Israeli government and public, rather dramatically underscored the international expectation that there must and will be a Palestinian state.

His trip was characterized by competing images and recognitions of the iconography of the national narratives of both sides. But, because there isn’t a balance between the parties, there also wasn’t a balance in the significance of the images that will linger from his trip.

The Pope dutifully laid a wreath at the tomb of the founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, and visited Israel’s Holocaust Memorial and a memorial for victims of terrorism. These are fairly standard diplomatic gestures, though of course they take on new significance when done by the head of the Roman Catholic Church. Yet none of them should cause Palestinians any particular discomfort.

The same cannot be said for Francis’s gestures toward Palestinians. He called explicitly for recognition of what he described as “the State of Palestine.” He singled out the issue of Palestinian prisoners, which is not only dear to the heart of virtually every Palestinian family, but was also a major factor in the breakdown of recent Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.

And, most dramatically, the Pope made an unscheduled prayer stop at Israel’s separation barrier, the hideous, gigantic wall that snakes through the occupied West Bank. The most lingering image of his trip will undoubtedly be Pope Francis quietly pressing his head against one of the ugliest monuments to conflict in the world and silently praying. He did not say what he was praying for or about, but the imagery was powerful and unmistakable.

This was not lost on Israelis. There was an outcry from many on the Israeli right, and the Israeli government said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had tried to explain to the Pope that Israel believes the wall has been a great deterrent to Palestinian terrorism. That argument is belied by numerous revelations that the route of the wall has been “political” as well as strategic, and it begs the question of why Israel, if it wants a wall, doesn’t build it on its own territory but instead in areas under its occupation.

Many Israelis and their allies were reduced to blustering about aspects of the graffiti near that part of the wall where Pope Francis stopped, so dramatically, to pray. This, of course, is another effort to change the subject, which will be essential for Israel and its friends every time international attention focuses on the wall. But no one is going to remember the graffiti that the Pope almost certainly neither knew nor cared about. Everyone is going to remember the image of him stopping and praying at a structure that the Israeli government hopes all outsiders will simply pretend either doesn’t exist or somehow isn’t a gigantic monument to the cruelty of occupation.

There was a final message on the Pope’s parting. Francis invited Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas and Israeli President Shimon Peres to come to Rome to pray with him for peace in coming weeks. He did not invite Mr. Netanyahu. This was not a “snub,” the Vatican was quick to claim, it’s just that the Pope has a particular regard for Mr. Peres, and so he invited him.

Maybe. But, again, the optics send a fairly clear message, and not one that endorses the current policies of the present Israeli government. Indeed, the implicit critique is unmistakable.

Nobody expects that prayer meeting to produce any diplomatic progress, let alone a breakthrough, particularly without Mr. Netanyahu’s presence. And the criticism that Pope Francis’s Middle East trip won’t change any realities on the ground is true, despite its numerous striking gestures in favor of Palestinian claims and aspirations.

But the “all or nothing” attitude that many Palestinians and their supporters take toward international diplomacy and politics has been, and remains, debilitating. Francis’ gestures were highly significant and meaningful. They should be pocketed, and referred to time and again.

Too often Palestinians and their allies squander diplomatic gains by dismissing important rhetorical or symbolic gestures in their direction as insufficient because they do not immediately or independently resolve any of the determinative realities on the ground. “Empty words” is a typical response. At the same time, they are quick to assign enormous significance to, and raise a hue and cry about, words that undermine their basic interests, according them even more importance than they often deserve.

Words matter, and words of support are crucial to the success of any international and diplomatic project. Palestinians just got an enormous boost from Pope Francis, who underlined – particularly for the Israelis – the strong international expectation that there will indeed be a state of Palestine in the foreseeable future. Palestinians would be well advised to embrace that message and not to allow the Pope’s visit, and its striking iconography of peace and an end to occupation, to be forgotten soon.

http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/as-al-maliki-struggles-to-find-support-kurds-seek-an-exit#full

Although his party won the most seats in the recent Iraqi parliamentary election, it’s not easy to see how Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki can form a new governing coalition. And while attention is focused on developments in Baghdad, particularly the dynamics of a bitter inter-Shiite power struggle, events in the Kurdish north may have a more significant long-term impact.

Mr Al Maliki’s coalition has 95 seats, but 165 votes are needed to secure a majority. Where the other 7o are going to come from is distinctly unclear as Mr Al Maliki ­faces stiff opposition, not only from Kurdish and Sunni parties, but also from within the Shiite community.

To form a governing alliance with the Islamic Supreme Council in Iraq and the Sadrist Ahrar group – which are working in close cooperation with each other and could add 65 of the required extra votes, thereby bringing Mr Al Maliki in easy reach of a majority – the current prime minister would have to make some very significant concessions. His Shiite rivals are reportedly demanding the re-establishment of the defunct National Alliance, and in effect conditioning their cooperation with him on a relationship of equality in the government.

The trouble for Mr Al Maliki, though, is that his increasing political vulnerability appears to have created a zero-sum equation with competing Shiite groups. They resent him and sense an opportunity to cut him down to size. However, they, too, face the same dilemma: how to get to a 165 majority with even fewer seats than he has?

Mr Al Maliki knew this all along, and has been hoping to build a new governing coalition around an alliance with Kurdish parties, in particular the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Masoud Barzani. Mr Barzani has, in recent years, been emerging as not only the key Kurdish leader in Iraq, but regionally as well. And when it comes to Mr Al Maliki, he is playing distinctly hard to get. Indeed, both sides in the Iraqi Shiite divide are courting Kurdish support against each other.

In a recent visit to London designed to bolster Mr Barzani’s international credentials – and therefore, by implication, the KRG’s global diplomatic profile and prospects for eventual independence – the Kurdish leader launched a blistering attack on Mr Al Maliki. “The authorities in Baghdad want to control everything,” Mr Barzani complained. “It is not acceptable to us. We want to be partners; we don’t want to be subjects.” He described Mr Al Maliki’s governing style as “totalitarianism”. Mr Barzani even threatened to “boycott everything” to do with national governance in Iraq.

Erbil has several significant grievances against Baghdad in general and Mr Al Maliki in particular. The Kurds feel let down by Mr Al Maliki on the resolution of “disputed territories” especially the flashpoint city of Kirkuk. Along with many Iraqi Sunnis, Kurds have also been highly critical of the government crackdown in Anbar province.

But disputes over oil contracts and revenue-sharing are almost certainly the greatest fault line. With negotiations over a new mechanism for managing the KRG’s energy resources and 17 per cent share of Iraq’s national income at a total impasse, Baghdad has effectively frozen the capital transfers on which Erbil’s budget is deeply dependent. An enraged Mr Barzani said the withholding of this money is “as bad as the gassing of Halabja [by Saddam Hussein] – if not worse”.

Kurdish deeds have been even stronger than this hyperbolic rhetoric. Throughout 2013, the KRG worked with the Turkish government and companies in a series of unilateral agreements and contracts that theoretically required, but did not receive, the approval of the authorities in Baghdad. And last week the Iraqi Kurds began independently exporting petroleum through Turkey’s Ceyhan port via a makeshift pipeline that became practically operational last December.

Both sides accuse each other of violating the law and the constitution through these actions. But the Kurds are doing more than simply making a point. Now that they have crossed the Rubicon of unilateral, independent oil marketing and exporting, there’s likely to be no turning back, no matter what political and financial agreements are reached with Arab Iraqi leaders in Baghdad. This, of course, is why Erbil waited half a year after it became technically possible before taking this momentous step.

Mr Al Maliki’s best bet for staying in the premiership may actually be striking a deal with Kurdish leaders and enough Sunni politicians to form a majority in parliament. But that potential coalition is also theoretically available to his Shiite rivals, and it’s not clear which of them may be able to make a more effective and compelling case to these key constituencies. And, despite the profound antagonism between them, it’s still possible that Iraqi Shiites might find a formula that allows them to unite in a coalition to form a new government.

But whatever happens in Baghdad, by beginning to unilaterally market and export its own oil resources without the consultation or approval of other Iraqis, the KRG just took another major step towards independence. When he was asked about the prospect of Kurdish independent statehood during his UK trip, Mr Barzani did not mince words.

After bitterly complaining about Baghdad’s and Mr Al Maliki’s ­behaviour, he bluntly said: “We are going to have a referendum and ask our people.” It would be folly to dismiss these stated Kurdish intentions as bluster or brinkmanship.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this commentary incorrectly sited 174 as a majority in the new Iraqi parliament. It is here corrected to 165,

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/548020-attacks-on-dissenting-journalists-show-how-scared-hezbollah-really-is

The vicious lies about NOW editor Hanin Ghaddar are a symptom of Hezbollah’s panic

 

I suppose it’s completely pointless to expect gangsters to have any regard for free speech, or, for that matter, the truth. After all, their stock in trade is brute force. It’s always set up on a sliding scale: first comes “friendly advice,” then a “word to the wise” warning. Then the bullying. Then blatant threats. And the logical culmination is some sort of physical attack. Nowhere has this progressive logic of the political hoodlum been in greater evidence than in Lebanon in recent decades.

So when a nationally- and internationally-noted Lebanese journalist has clearly been dragged into the bullying and borderline blatant threat stage of attack by thugs and their henchmen in the public press, it’s essential to raise the loudest possible outcry. The only reasonable collective response is: back off and don’t you dare think about going a step further.

As it happens, Hanin Ghaddar, managing editor of this website, is facing precisely such a campaign of threats and intimidation by Hezbollah, its Lebanese allies, and the hacks and propagandists they employ. Hezbollah front or fellow traveler publications like Al-Akhbar, Al-Manar, and Tayyar all piled onto the lies that she had broken Lebanese law by appearing with Israeli officials at a conference in Washington.

The record is clear: she did no such thing. On the contrary, she stipulated that the conference she attended was structured to enable her to scrupulously abide by Lebanese law. This is confirmed by the hosting organization, all attendees, and the published schedule.

So Hanin is completely innocent of the charges leveled against her. But let’s imagine, counter-factually, that she had actually shared a stage with an Israeli. That might’ve been a violation of Lebanese law. But how would it have compared to the grossly unlawful conduct, on the daily basis, by Hezbollah and its allies?

What would that have been compared to blowing up former prime ministers in the middle of crowded streets? Assassinating journalists or rival politicians on a routine basis? Maintaining a large, well-supplied, and foreign-funded and -dominated private army? Dragging Lebanon into a devastating and pointless war with Israel in 2006?

Or how about Hezbollah’s unilateral intervention in the Syrian conflict, in direct contravention of the Baabda Declaration? And what have they done in Syria except, in effect, help ‘Amo Bashar wipe out scores of thousands of his own people, and drop sarin gas, barrel bombs, and, most recently, chlorine weapons on innocent Syrians?

The idea of such people and their propagandists concocting a campaign of vitriol and hatred against someone based on false accusations of having spoken on a stage with an Israeli, given their own conduct, is the height of effrontery. They even sank to the level of having some of her relatives issue public “denunciations” of her, a familiar tactic Hezbollah has used in the past to try to intimidate Lebanese Shiites who don’t toe the party line.

There’s no doubt why Ghaddar is being targeted so viciously. Hezbollah is sinking into a profound crisis in Lebanon generally, and within the Shiite community in particular, because of its disastrous intervention in Syria. The organization is finding it very difficult to explain to ordinary Lebanese Shiites why their sons should be dying for towns they’ve never heard of, and for a vicious dictator who has nothing to do with their daily lives.

Everything Hezbollah ever claimed about why other Lebanese, including Shiites, should find it somehow acceptable that the organization maintains a huge private army and a foreign policy that has allowed them to drag the country into calamitous conflicts with both of its immediate neighbors has been totally exposed in recent years for the lies they are. Ostensibly Hezbollah’s state-within-a-state is for “resistance” and to protect Lebanon from Israel. In reality, of course, its weapons are used mainly to enforce its domestic political agenda on other Lebanese, and in the service of its Iranian and Syrian patrons, most notably through the intervention in the Syrian conflict.

This is becoming increasingly obvious to even the most credulous of Lebanese. Hezbollah therefore feels particularly vulnerable. Cue the attack on Ghaddar, along with other vicious efforts to fend off its critics, particularly within the Shiite community. There has been a significant push-back in Lebanon against the attacks on her, but so far it’s insufficient.

And what of the media organizations that have led the charge against her? Well, the odious Ibrahim al-Amin, editor-in-chief of Al-Akhbar, has been accused of obstruction of justice for refusing to appear at a hearing of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon investigating the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. Amin is the same charmer who recently opined that the suffering of the Palestinian refugees in the Yarmouk refugee camp outside Damascus was entirely the fault of the refugees themselves.

Al-Akhbar also regularly features the gurglings of one Assad AbuKhalil, who “teaches” unfortunate students at a school called California State University, Stanislaus (no, I’ve never heard of it either). AbuKhalil is quick to condemn anyone and everyone of being a traitor, Zionist, imperialist stooge, or lackey, and every other epithet imaginable.

Yet it was recently revealed that, some years ago, the US Central Intelligence Agency paid him to do something. He issued a denial, in which he asserted that he had never been an employee of the CIA. One plausible explanation, given what’s known and what can be inferred from his own statements, is that some while back the CIA may have paid him to give one or two unclassified briefings. There is no reason to be embarrassed about that, except given what he and his newspaper would have said about anybody else who had done that makes admitting a simple and otherwise banal and straightforward truth quite impossible.

AbuKhalil threatened to sue everyone in sight, but of course he didn’t. And he won’t. Because he would have to submit to discovery and there may be something there, even though no one thinks he was a staff employee of the CIA. But given the attitudes he and Al-Akhbar peddle, is this not the very height of hypocrisy? These are the people who put themselves in the vanguard of the attack on Hanin Ghaddar for giving a public talk at an established Washington think tank on a serious topic, and carefully arranging things to remain within the confines of Lebanese law?

So everybody involved in this campaign of bullying and intimidation against Ghaddar should be on notice. First, she has an extensive national and international base of support. The world is watching. Second, she has bravely vowed to continue her journalism and commentary undaunted by these outrageous scare tactics and abuses. Third, those who are attacking Ghaddar – who did not in fact violate any laws or norms – are shills for mobsters and murderers of the first order, who are guilty of some of the worst crimes imaginable.

And fourth, and most importantly, it’s obvious that this entire outrageous attack on Ghaddar is prompted by a sense of desperation  on the part of Hezbollah and its lackeys, and an intensified impulse to try to squash any dissent within the Shiite community. That’s because such dissent is growing, and the reputation of the organization, even in its main constituency, is rocked to the core for dragging the Lebanese Shiites, and the rest of the country, into by its reckless intervention in Syria.

Hezbollah is clearly scared, and with good reason. The cowardly bullying of an independent-minded and serious journalist – who, thankfully, refuses to be intimidated – could not provide a clearer sign of incipient panic in the self-appointed “Party of God.” So, back off and don’t you dare think about going a step further.

http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/anti-semitism-survey-has-the-potential-to-mislead#full

Anti-Jewish rhetoric and the perception that Arabs are anti-Semitic is a blight on the contemporary Arab world, and poison for the Palestinian national movement. Palestinians must arrive at an agreement with Israel, and therefore have little hope of success if they are seen to proceed from an attitude of ­hatred.

That stipulated, the recent report on global anti-Semitism issued by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) – an international Jewish non-government organisation – is simultaneously illuminating and potentially misleading. Its findings are hardly surprising: it says there are high levels of anti-Semitism globally, and particularly among Palestinians and, to a lesser extent, other Arabs.

The methodology is revealing. The ADL pollsters asked a series of questions regarding Jewish power, conduct, international influence, and loyalty to Israel. In most countries, that’s probably a reasonable barometer of anti-Jewish sentiment, because it may indicate irrational suspicion of Jews and fear or exaggeration of their supposed influence.

However, for Palestinians who have lived under Israeli occupation since 1967 with no end in sight, such questions can’t and don’t mean the same thing as they do to populations in which Jews are a minority.

It’s absurd to ask Palestinians in the occupied territories about Jewish power, loyalty to Israel, influence in the United States, or placing their own ethnic interests first. After all, few Palestinians can remember a time when Israel did not control virtually every aspect of their lives, entirely in the interests of the Israeli military and Jewish settlers. Jewish settlers are privileged by the Israeli state at the expense of Palestinians in a manner that has no present-day analogue.

What answers could one rationally expect? The ripple effects of the occupation naturally flow throughout the Arab world. There is an additional wrinkle: in the Arab world the word “Jew” connotes “Israeli”, which in turn connotes the Israeli military or government.

It’s unlikely that most Palestinians being asked these questions would imagine ordinary Jewish people and families going about their daily business.

This is not to suggest the numbers are wrong or that there isn’t a dreadful, central problem for the Palestinians and Arabs to overcome. Until they do, the Palestinian ability to achieve their national goals will be badly hamstrung.

The ADL survey is potentially misleading in at least two other ways.

It did not, of course, measure Jewish or Israeli attitudes towards Arabs and Muslims, which are likely to be similarly negative if the existing survey results are any guide. Further, in many countries anti-Semitism is part of a broader constellation of chauvinism and xenophobia. In the West in particular, Jews and Muslims tend to be hated by precisely the same people in precisely the same way.

In France, other European states, and even the United States, the correlation between anti-Semitism and Islamophobia is instantaneously obvious both in its manifest and latent rhetorical content and in the perpetration of hate crimes directed against both communities by the same gangs of racists. Hatred of Muslims by others globally is unlikely to be significantly less of a problem than anti-Semitism.

Nonetheless, as Islamists have increasingly adopted classic European anti-Semitic tropes, there’s no question that anti-Semitism has been spreading among Arabs and Muslims. Some Arab-left nationalists, too, spread this poison. While they don’t have much of a political constituency, they continue to define much of the political correctness in the Arab world, with Islamists often mimicking their fundamental worldview.

All data suggest that hatred of Arabs and Muslims is also growing among Jewish Israelis and their allies around the world. What we are looking at, then, is not a decontextualised problem or a cause of the conflict. It is undeniably a consequence of the conflict.

The Zionist movement was not formed because European Jews hated Palestinians or Arabs. The Palestinian and Arab resistance to Zionism was not based on anti-Semitism, but anticolonialism, and their reaction would’ve been the same had the colonists been from Japan or Bolivia.

The most dangerous confusion surrounding the hatred between Arabs and Jews that has arisen over the past century is that it is a cause of the conflict and not an effect. Indeed, supporters of Israel, especially when they want to try to rationalise or justify the occupation, invariably speak in terms of a “culture of hate” or “terrorism” among Palestinians and other Arabs, of a refusal to accept the very concept of a Jewish state merely because of deeply ingrained anti-Semitism.

This gesture, which is the substitution of an effect for a cause, is, in fact, a familiar technique of classical rhetoric, a narrative device familiar from an ancient Greek form of metonymy known as metalepsis.

During the second intifada, at a debate at Harvard Business School, law professor Alan Dershowitz raised the “culture of hate” canard, trying to explain why there was a conflict without acknowledging the central, defining reality of the occupation. I pointed out that he was cynically substituting what was manifestly a predictable and inevitable effect of such a bitter and prolonged conflict for one of its causes.

“I guess I’m a metalepsist, then,” he quipped. I assured him that he was actually just an ordinary sophist.

Because hatred between Jews and Arabs is a direct consequence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the occupation – and not anything deeply seated in Jewish or Arab culture or religious beliefs – the key to ending this hate is, of course, ending the occupation and the conflict.

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/547105-bassem-sabry-an-appreciation

The untimely death of public intellectual Bassem Sabry is a blow to Egypt and the entire Arab world

One always hesitates to write a eulogy. It inevitably feels unspeakably tawdry, because nothing one can put into words can do justice to the person being remembered. Worse, it feels vaguely exploitative. It may not come across that way as a reader, but writing fondly about the departed often feels transgressive. It’s the same sickly feeling one would probably get by crashing an intimate family gathering.

Time, perhaps, ameliorates that feeling of transgression, which is probably why all of my remembrances of those who have passed away tend to come later than people would expect. I suppose I’m hoping that a “decent interval” will make the experience somehow feel less obnoxious.

I waited as long as I could before putting together my thoughts on Bassem Sabry, who passed away at the tragically young age of 31 last month. When I heard about his death, it was immediately clear to me that the Arab world in general, and Egypt in particular, had lost a major asset, someone who would certainly have made an extraordinary contribution in coming years.

Even at his young age, he had already made his mark. He was respected internationally as an activist and thinker of the first caliber. And he takes with him rare qualities that Egyptians and other Arabs have in disturbingly short supply. We simply cannot afford to lose people like him: we just don’t have enough of them.

First, he was an extraordinarily good person. Decent, right down to the core. There are a lot of people all over the world, including the Middle East, who are fundamentally good and decent. Probably most are.

But the unusual thing that Bassem was able to do was to be good and decent both in his politics as he conceptualized them, and in his dealings with those he disagreed with.

The outpouring of shock and raw emotion at his death from people on every side of a deeply divided Egyptian society is the most powerful testament. Radicals, liberals, Islamists, traditionalists, and others all expressed profound sorrow. It’s not that they all agreed with him; most of them didn’t. It’s that he had demonstrated an unusual willingness to treat them all with respect and consideration.

Bassem was a genuine liberal in the best sense of the term. He actually wanted a pluralistic society in which people with serious differences could openly and passionately disagree without being disagreeable. In the contemporary Arab world, Egypt included, there are very few people who are able to not only espouse that ideal but to demonstrate in practice how it looks. Bassem did exactly that. Through openness, patience, and a serious, practical commitment to the values of pluralism and tolerance, he was living out the principles of a decent society.

I regarded his work as crucial not only because I fundamentally agreed with his values, but even more so because, in my view, there was a powerful pedagogical element to the way he was conducting himself: modest and respectful, but unwavering on core ideals. This, his public engagement seemed to say, is how reasonable people ought to conduct themselves in a society in flux and under difficult circumstances. This is what it looks like.

What’s more, Bassem was brilliant in a region and a world that cannot spare its brilliant sons and daughters. He was initially one of a cadre of young Egyptian public intellectuals and bloggers who became known outside of their country in the course of the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak. However, Sabry, at least in my own mind, established himself as particularly insightful when he was the first to predict, several months in advance, that Mohammed Morsi would be the next Egyptian president.

Bassem pieced together a straightforward puzzle, but one that had previously eluded everybody else. Khairat el-Shater would not be allowed to run on technicalities. The Muslim Brotherhood would nonetheless field a Freedom and Justice Party candidate. Morsi would almost certainly be that candidate, and would probably win. No sooner had he sketched out the scenario than the pieces began to fall into place, and exactly what he had anticipated happened.

But even if it hadn’t, because things can always change, it was a brilliant piece of political analysis. After that, I didn’t read Bassem occasionally: I read him religiously. And I had numerous Skype conversations and meetings with him, which I will always treasure. Particularly when discussing Egypt, he invariably managed to teach me something important.

His death was a tragic and untimely loss, not just for his friends and family, but for his country and the region. Bassem Sabry was a rare talent and a remarkable young man. Selfishly, and somewhat transgressively put, we simply do not have enough people of his caliber to spare them to the cruel caprices of fortune.

http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/us-egypt-relationship-still-haunted-by-large-divisions#full

Recent visits to the United States by Nabil Fahmy, the Egyptian foreign minister, and Amr Moussa, the former Arab League chief, illustrate how much work remains to be done to repair US-Egypt relations – and how uphill that battle is going to be.

Both men did their best to explain Egypt’s perspective to Washington audiences, and it’s hard to imagine any two Egyptians better suited to the task. But both faced enormous, almost overwhelming, scepticism from the American policy community and media, and neither made sufficient progress.

Public appearances by these two experienced diplomats drew questions that were not merely sceptical of their perspective but often veered into the hostile. Much of what they encountered was set against the backdrop of recent headlines, making their task all the more complex.

In particular, the two mass death sentences against alleged Muslim Brotherhood supporters were raised time and again.

Although both Mr Fahmy and Mr Moussa said the stories had been misreported, neither man provided a compelling alternative narrative that made their American interlocutors feel they had been profoundly misled.

The current approach appears to miss the mark in several ways.

First, it asks people to wait for the final verdicts without acknowledging that there is something extraordinary and improper about such preliminary mass death sentences.

It should at least be conceded that there is no history of such judicial conduct in Egypt, and that therefore there is a reasonable basis for anyone to express concern.

Messaging cannot simply be about style, but must address existing concerns as well. Not just Americans, but people around the world, especially those who care about Egypt, are concerned about what would seem to be at least one judge handing down unprecedented verdicts in exceptionally high-profile and profoundly sensitive and political cases.

Second, both men rightly emphasised the separation of powers, citing it as a reason why other branches of government cannot interfere with the judiciary.

This begs the question of why the judiciary itself isn’t acting to curb such excesses.

But more importantly, it opens the potential for an important argument. For, if this is a question of separation of powers and neither Mr Fahmy nor Mr Moussa is directly connected to the judiciary, then surely this buys space to legitimately question the conduct of another branch of government, which is responsible for and of itself.

In this instance, not only can one have it both ways, but one really ought to.

The minute separation of powers is invoked, it becomes entirely legitimate to question the conduct of a member of another branch, especially when that official is behaving in an unprecedented manner. Perhaps alarm might be overstated, but surprise and concern would easily fit into a political framework that emphasises the separation of powers and a distinction in government branches.

It’s possible that the political situation in Egypt makes it hard for even the most experienced and adroit of diplomats to publicly take such nuanced positions without facing a potential firestorm of criticism back home. But it’s likely that there is a way to make the case more effectively in Washington without alienating the mainstream in Cairo.

More importantly, such tactical messaging questions are subordinate to a much deeper problem with the strategy of Egyptian messaging aimed at Americans. And it’s a strategic problem that is consistently reflected in the approaches of many key American allies in the Arab world.

The primary takeaway from the Fahmy and Moussa trips must be that, while it is a welcome development to finally have senior Egyptian political figures making the rounds in Washington again, piecemeal or occasional messaging cannot successfully bridge the enormous gaps in perception that have emerged between Egyptians and Americans over the past year.

As many of the closest allies of the United States in the Arab world have been slow to understand, effective messaging in Washington is not conducted in crisis mode or when there are urgent, pressing questions. In that case it will always look like, and may to some extent even be, damage control. But very little headway can be made under such conditions.

Effective messaging requires constant effort, which is consistent and sustained, and that, counterintuitively, will be most effective when there is the least attention on it.

It is precisely during these times of apparent lull that real, sustainable understandings can be developed that are capable of withstanding serious jolts to the system.

And it is precisely in such a workaday environment that deeply-rooted and strategically essential partnerships, such as that between Cairo and Washington, can be reconstructed or repaired after a period of abnormal and unhealthy tensions. And, of course, it’s vital that the practitioners of such networking and advocacy aren’t hamstrung by, or expected to rationalise, indefensible realities.

There’s much the United States itself needs to do, because good relations with Egypt are undoubtedly an important American national interest.

But Egypt and its Arab allies should give serious attention to the slow and steady, low-key and high-impact, day in and day out messaging and relationship-building that will be required for Cairo’s perspective to receive a more sympathetic hearing in Washington.

http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/palestinian-reconciliation-deal-is-only-the-beginning#full

The recent “national unity” agreement between Hamas and Fatah has produced strong reactions in many quarters. But what actual impact it will have depends entirely on what parts, if any, are implemented, and how.

The groups agreed to form a transitional “government of national unity” in the next few weeks, hold national elections in the following six months and explore methods for Hamas to join the Palestine Liberation Organisation. This is extremely similar to previous agreements reached in Cairo and Doha, which were never implemented.

It is possible that, because of internal Palestinian politics and regional conditions, this time something might be done, although Hamas and Fatah actually agree on little more than the fact that they are all Palestinians.

The most straightforward part of the agreement – the formation of a “technocratic” government – was always theoretically achievable, and it could occur now.

It wouldn’t be entirely “non-party,” because Mahmoud Abbas would still head the Palestinian Authority, as well as the PLO. But it might be possible to select a group of unaffiliated “independents” to serve as ministers.

There are reasons to doubt whether even this can be achieved. The parties have not agreed on a prime minister, or even the general framework for selecting one. This first hurdle alone could prove a formidable obstacle.

Moreover, renewed tensions are becoming obvious. Fatah prisoners in Gaza have announced a hunger strike. And last week Hamas staged one of its largest demonstrations in Ramallah since 2007, a calculated provocation towards Fatah and the PA. The banns have been read, but the ceremony hasn’t taken place and yet the honeymoon already seems to have soured.

Nonetheless, if they find it necessary, the two sides could agree on a new cabinet in the coming weeks. But even if they did, the practical impact that would have on core realities is dubious indeed.

Palestinians have a long history of presidential authority, with the only truly empowered prime ministers being Mr Abbas himself during his brief tenure under Yasser Arafat, and, especially, Salam Fayyad.

The otherwise uninterrupted Palestinian presidential tradition would, if anything, only be strengthened if Mr Abbas continued to serve as President – and possibly prime minister as well – with a cabinet of non-party members.

With Mr Abbas still in the presidency, what would Hamas’s role in such a new government actually be? Apparently, mainly one of consent. But it’s hard to see how that, in itself, would do anything to change realities on the ground or Palestinian national policies. Even on paper it sounds like an entirely symbolic arrangement.

Yet two crucial players, Israel and the US Congress, may not see it that way.

Israel has already said that it will not negotiate with any “Hamas-backed” Palestinian government, although the exact meaning of that phrase is open to various interpretations. And Palestinians must be concerned about Israel’s ability to withhold their tax revenues. These funds constitute at least 40 per cent of the PA’s budget and mainly go to pay workers in the vast Palestinian public sector.

The PA is simply not fiscally viable without that revenue.

Some key Arab states do not appear to be particularly enthusiastic about this agreement, so a regional bailout doesn’t appear likely or sustainable as an alternative.

The Obama administration has said that any new Palestinian government must oppose violence, recognise Israel and abide by existing commitments. Mr Abbas has repeatedly stated those conditions will be met. Hamas has not contradicted him, though the group emphasises it still won’t recognise Israel.

But Israel may not accept these reasonable stipulations as sufficient. The US Congress might also cut, or even halt, American aid to the PA if Hamas is perceived to be a part of it, even informally. So, unless the formation of a new Palestinian government under this agreement is handled skilfully, it could yield only symbolic benefits while incurring real and very significant costs.

There are even greater obstacles facing the realisation of the other parts of the accord.

It’s hard to imagine elections being held, particularly given Hamas’s dreadful numbers in recent polls.

And Hamas continues to cling to rejectionist positions regarding Israel that make it impossible for it to join the PLO.

Most implausible is Hamas and the PA merging their security forces. And even if there was a reunification of uniformed Palestinian police and security officers, what about Hamas’ paramilitary force, the Qassam Brigades?

Real reconciliation requires a single national authority and armed force. The differences between the parties have not been significantly eased since the brief and unhappy period of political cohabitation ended in the violence of 2007. The necessary conditions for one side to decisively co-opt, defeat or marginalise the other do not yet exist.

Compromises are always possible, but even then the terms will inevitably favour one group over the other.

So this latest agreement almost certainly won’t, and probably couldn’t, really end the Palestinian national split. The only real questions are, will any aspect of this agreement be implemented, and, if so, at what cost?

http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/the-us-and-egypt-begin-to-recalculate-their-relationship

The United States and Egypt have taken significant strides towards repairing their crucial bilateral strategic relationship. But more needs to be done before a deeper rehabilitation of ties and trust is accomplished.

Major General Mohammed El-Tohamy, Egypt’s intelligence chief, recently led the first major delegation of Egyptian officials to visit Washington since the removal of Mohammed Morsi last summer. Mr El-Tohamy’s Washington trip focused heavily on issues the US and Egypt have in common: counterterrorism and intelligence cooperation, fighting extremism, preserving the peace treaty with Israel and maintaining a stable Middle East region. Nabil Fahmy, Egypt’s foreign minister, has followed him to Washington this week.

Mr El-Tohamy’s visit appears to have been closely linked to the Obama administration’s certification that Egypt remains in full compliance with its peace treaty with Israel. This led to the resumption of military assistance to Egypt, including 10 Apache helicopters and $650 million in other military aid, about half the annual amount allocated for Egypt.

Washington seems to have been moved by a series of broader realisations. First, it has faced sustained criticism by some of its most important Gulf allies for what they perceive to be a strategic miscalculation. Tensions between Cairo and Washington served to undermine wider strategic relations in the Arab world.

Second, almost a year after the military’s intervention, Washington has had to ask itself whether it cares to be semi-permanently at odds with, or highly critical of, a new order in Egypt that seems popular and may not change dramatically for some time. The United States faced the option of a continued deterioration of relations with Egypt, and by extension some other key Arab allies, or beginning to come to terms with a new reality that is developing in Egypt regardless of what Washington thinks.

Third, the Egyptians had already demonstrated a willingness to look in other directions. A large amount of financial assistance has been pledged to the country from friendly Gulf states. More importantly, in February, Egypt secured a major arms deal from Moscow allegedly worth up to $3 billion, including MiG-29 fighter jets and Mi-35 helicopters. Even more startling are reports that Russia might be prepared to sell high-tech weapons to Egypt that it has not previously sold to any other country.

A strong indication that a strategic calculation is informing this American policy shift is that the symbolically significant $260 million in annual economic aid granted to Egypt is still being withheld, along with some other aspects of cooperation, until the state department certifies that Egypt is “taking steps to secure a transition to democracy”.

To many, this is a confusing hierarchy of values. But after scheduled elections take place, certification of progress towards democracy may prove within reach.

Egypt’s options are also limited. Its military is still heavily centred on US equipment and services. Transitioning to another primary supplier would be very costly and prolonged. It is one thing to demonstrate the existence of options, and quite another to try to actually shift to relying on them.

This is especially underscored by the close military relationship the US maintains, and in many ways is expanding, with Egypt’s Gulf Arab allies. Russia’s aggressive actions in Ukraine may have additionally prompted the US initiative to move to restore military ties.

While the interim Egyptian government may be making significant headway in winning over the Pentagon and State Department on strategic grounds, the Washington policy community and much of the media remains a largely hostile environment.

Egyptians who are sympathetic to the new government and the dominant national narrative invariably find themselves subjected to harsh criticism of a kind that Islamists have been largely insulated from in the past three years. Indeed, Islamists are still regarded by much of the Washington policy community with a misplaced aura of authenticity and legitimacy.

This is not just an Egyptian public relations problem. It certainly requires more effective outreach, but also has a real policy dimension.

Egypt needs to pursue its war against terrorists with the lightest possible touch. A second round of mass death sentences handed down Monday against 683 alleged Muslim Brotherhood supporters for the killing of a police officer is not seen as merely a judicial problem in Washington. Instead, such sentences are widely viewed as a symptom of a broader crackdown.

Not even the most critical opponents of the Brotherhood, can defend such verdicts, which have been harshly criticised by the administration. They will cast an avoidable pall over Mr Fahmy’s visit.

Yet Egypt and the United States need each other, as both seem to be starting to recall.

Americans need to register that Islamists are simply not proving popular in post-dictatorship Arab societies, and that Egypt faces a genuine threat from violent extremists. And Egyptians need to understand that the United States government is not cheering for the Muslim Brotherhood, but has legitimate concerns about democracy and human rights.

In order to continue progress in repairing strained relations, both sides are going to have to adjust their perceptions and their behaviour.