http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/brotherhood-crisis-in-egypt-alters-political-thinking-in-the-middle-east#full

The fragmenting of the Muslim Brotherhood movement throughout the Middle East was always likely to be a consequence of the ouster of Mohammed Morsi, the former Egyptian president. Given not only Mr Morsi’s removal, but also the subsequent sustained efforts to crush the Brotherhood as an organised political movement, adaptation of one form or another became almost inevitable. We are now seeing signs that different parts of the movement are, predictably, drawing radically different lessons from the Egyptian fiasco.

Most striking is the adaptation by the Brotherhood-affiliated Tunisian party Ennahda, which has made a series of recent compromises that show a determination to avoid the fate of their Egyptian colleagues.

First, they agreed to a mixed presidential and parliamentary system, as opposed to a mainly legislative one more advantageous to them.

Second, after they were at least indirectly blamed for the assassination of two leading secularist politicians, and after a series of intense political protests and negotiations, they agreed to dissolve their governing troika cabinet. On Thursday, Ali Larayedh, Ennahda’s prime minister, stepped down in favour of technocrat Mehdi Jomaa who will form a non-partisan cabinet to oversee new elections.

Even more strikingly, the Tunisian constituent assembly is moving quickly to approve an impressively conciliatory new constitution. The articles thus far agreed show how far Ennahda has been willing to go to avoid any Egyptian scenario and to create, instead, a climate of consensus contrasting that of vendetta and gridlock that gripped the country during the last, disastrous, year of their rule.

Almost half the draft constitutional articles has been approved. They have already secured Tunisia as a civil state based on citizenship and the rule of law. The official religion is Islam, but nowhere is sharia mentioned as a source, or even an inspiration, of legislation. Instead, power is specifically said to flow from the will of the people, not any divine source.

Women have been guaranteed equal rights in two key articles, both of which could have been strengthened, but are nonetheless far-reaching. Takfir – accusations of apostasy – and other incitement to violence are banned.

Not only is freedom of religion guaranteed, so, crucially, is freedom of conscience, which can only mean freedom not to have a religion at all. Freedom of thought and expression are guaranteed, and not subject to “prior censorship”.

The constitution is not completed, but as it now stands, it represents both the cutting edge of republican constitutionalism in the Arab world, and also a new willingness to compromise by an Islamist party dealing with a secular majority.

Ennahda is clearly evolving, but under duress. It was forced to resign, and made a calculated gamble that conciliation will be more productive in the long run than confrontation. Egypt is clearly the key object lesson in this calculation, and it is a wise one.

Tunisian secularists, too, are showing a greater willingness to work with each other and the country’s powerful labour movement, as well as with Ennahda, to achieve a consensus framework for the country’s political structure. What they’ve collectively come up with is hardly perfect, but in its contemporary regional context, it’s inspirational.

But the regional Brotherhood crisis is also giving rise to splinter groups. In Egypt, where the Brotherhood has been declared a “terrorist organisation” and membership punished by law, there have been a series of bombing and other attacks – some of these have been claimed by Sinai-based extremists (who may or may not be working in coordination with the Brotherhood) – and others that have not been claimed by anyone. The government blames all of them on Brotherhood elements.

Many observers anticipate the emergence of radicalised, violent groups from the Brotherhood’s disaffected and disillusioned membership. Some of these attacks in Egypt’s cities may be early precursors of this.

At the same time, several shadowy youth movements are purportedly emerging on the margins of the Egyptian Brotherhood. Some seem more belligerent, and even violent, in their attitudes. Others seem to blame their elders for rhetorical fixation on martyrdom, paranoia and confrontation, and wish to reach out to the broader public with a more optimistic message about social justice.

There are also persistent reports of dissatisfaction among Ennahda members, especially the youth, that their leadership has been too conciliatory. On the other extreme, the Brotherhood-affiliated party in Morocco has denied all links to the regional movement, and heaped praise on the King.

So what we appear to be witnessing is a scramble by Brotherhood-style Islamists to adapt to post-Morsi realities, most effectively and positively, at least for now, in Tunisia. Where Brotherhood parties are collapsing, the biggest winners appear to be the Salafists, who challenge them from their religious right, but have little hope of ever governing any Arab society.

Brotherhood leaders and members alike must now evaluate two primary models. Was the Egyptian party too inflexible? Or is the Tunisian party being too flexible, thereby requiring a more confrontational approach?

Can the Brotherhood even survive as a major ideological and political Arab player in the long run? Or will it eventually fragment into opposing camps of violent radicals, obscurantist traditionalists, and post-Islamist constitutionalists?

The emergence of these three competing trends seems the most likely scenario for what will then be remembered as a once powerful and influential, but passé, Muslim Brotherhood movement in the Arab world.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/140623/hussein-ibish/the-sharon-doctrine

For most Arabs, no Israeli in history is more synonymous with violence and Israeli expansionism than Ariel Sharon. His name quickly conjures the worst massacres, deepest pro-settlement fanaticism, and most extreme nationalistic provocations in the Palestinian bill of particulars against Israel. Less readily appreciated by most Arabs is the complexity of Sharon’s legacy and the important lessons, both positive and negative, his final policies suggest for peace.

For most of his life, Sharon was the epitome of what has been called “gun Zionism”: the notion that Jewish Israelis have a kill-or-be-killed relationship with the Arabs, and above all the Palestinians, surrounding them. He spent most of his professional life armed, first as a teenager in the Jewish underground under the British mandate in 1942, and then as a Haganah fighter in the so-called “Battle for Jerusalem” in the fall of 1948. Sharon quickly earned a reputation as a maverick best suited for missions that required ruthlessness — before long, he was placed in charge of Israel’s early “special operations” Unit 101.

This group eventually specialized in tit-for-tat raids with Palestinian guerrilla groups, which often resulted in civilian deaths on both sides. The most notorious of these was the Qibya massacre in 1953 when troops under Sharon’s command attacked a West Bank village and killed 69 Palestinians, two thirds of whom were women and children. Sharon later wrote that he had believed that the civilians had already fled the village when their homes were destroyed, although contemporaneous documents cast doubt on that account. Sharon told his troops the purpose of the attack was “maximal killing and damage to property,” and reports from both the Israeli military and UN observers are consistent with a deliberate effort to kill civilians as opposed to Sharon’s version.

In Israel’s conventional wars with Arab armies, Sharon was generally regarded as an effective, but unpredictable and undisciplined, commander. But the Israeli public was quick to lionize his performance in the 1973 war, during which he was credited with creative maneuvers that defeated Egypt’s Second and Third Armies on the crucial southern front. National fame led to a political career, and in 1981, Sharon became Israeli Minister of Defense.

That made Sharon Israel’s de facto commander-in-chief during the country’s invasion of Lebanon. In September 1982, Sharon’s forces facilitated and, in effect, permitted a large massacre of Palestinian civilians by Lebanese Christian militias at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps under Israeli control. Although Lebanese carried out the actual killings, the Israeli government in general, and Sharon in particular, are almost universally considered by to be responsible. As Israel’s defense minister at the time, the troops controlling the camps were under his direct command. Israel’s own Kahan Commission of official inquiry into the massacre held the Israeli military “indirectly responsible” for the massacre and found that Sharon “bears personal responsibility” for not anticipating the entirely predictable killing or taking any measures to stop it. The Commission recommended his removal from office.

The bodies piled up in Sabra and Shatila irrevocably defined Sharon’s reputation for Arabs and many others. For almost two decades, his political career languished on the margins. But, as memories faded, he clawed his way back into favor, cultivating a growing constituency on the ultra-nationalist right during the first premiership of Benjamin Netanyahu. Succeeding Netanyahu as head of the Likud party, Sharon proved that he had maintained his talent for provocation. In September 2000, Sharon, accompanied by large numbers of police officers and some Israeli extremists, marched through the Haram Al-Sharif complex, also known as the Temple Mount, and declared that the holy Muslim sites there would remain under permanent Israeli control.

In most Palestinian and Arab narratives, this is considered the beginning of the second intifada. Standard Israeli narratives, by contrast, hold that Palestinian President Yasser Arafat launched it through deliberate Palestinian violence after the failure of the Camp David summit in the previous summer. Both versions are contradicted by the definitive Mitchell Commission Report, which cites instead Israeli border police use of live fire against Palestinians at same holy site a few days after Sharon’s visit. But if Sharon was trying to provoke an incident, as the Mitchell Report strongly implies, he certainly succeeded.

The subsequent explosion of the Second Intifada propelled Sharon, at long last, into the premiership, in February 2001. His attitude towards the conflict was tough by Israeli standards (and even by Sharon’s own standards) and ensured that many more Palestinian civilians perished than Israelis. Yet as he was confronting, perhaps for the first time in his career, a conflict that clearly had no military solution, he endorsed, with some reservations, the U.S.-led Roadmap for Peace in 2003. And, in 2004, Sharon explicitly acknowledged the need for a Palestinian state. He even started referring forthrightly to the Israeli “occupation” of Palestinian lands, something most Israeli right-wingers rarely admit.

Sharon was shifting. But why? In general, Israeli leaders who have gone from being pro-occupation to supportive of Palestinian statehood have been impelled by the same factor: demographics. Sharon was no more able to answer what Israel was to do with 4.5 million occupied Palestinians — men and women whom it could neither incorporate nor peacefully dominate — than his predecessors. The only viable conflict-ending solution was a Palestinian state.

Sharon was not the Israeli leader who would make a final peace agreement with the Palestinians. But he did take a major step, the implications of which Palestinians and Israelis alike cannot underestimate: he evacuated settlements in both Gaza and the northern West Bank. Sharon did not do this in the interests of peace. He did it as an Israeli national imperative, and a way to resolve a strategic liability. Sharon’s action is sometimes erroneously described as a “withdrawal” from Gaza, but Sharon more accurately termed it a “unilateral redeployment.” In other words, Sharon’s shift was not one towards an agreement with the Palestinians, but rather towards increased Israeli unilateralism. His action was entirely pursuant to Israeli interests and conducted without any agreement on the Palestinian side.

In his unexpected action, Sharon faced and overcame substantial resistance from the settlement movement in Israel. By explaining why the evacuation was a strategic and military necessity, he ultimately mobilized the support of a large Israeli majority. Indeed, the experience led him to leave the Likud and form a new center-right party, Kadima, shortly before the stroke that incapacitated him. Several Israeli journalists have suggested that Sharon was anticipating repeating a larger withdrawal in the West Bank should he become Kadima’s first prime minister.

There are two crucial lessons to be drawn from Sharon’s last major action and final legacy, one positive, the other negative. On the positive side, Sharon demonstrated that settlements can, in fact, be evacuated. Because of his actions, it is no longer even possible to ask whether the Israeli government is capable of dismantling settlements. The questions are simply when and where they will choose to do so. And that means that none of the existing settlements and other demographic, infrastructural, topographic, or administrative changes Israel enforces in the occupied territories should be regarded as irreversible. The implications of this for the prospects of a two-state solution are profound.

On the negative side, Sharon yet again demonstrated that unilateralism between Israel and the Palestinians is a dead-end that only produces more conflict. Unilateral acts do not leave a party on the other side that has entered into a mutual agreement for its own reasons and therefore has a stake in making things work. It would have been wiser for Palestinians to have responded to the Gaza redeployment differently — in the event, they allowed Gaza to fall into the hands of Hamas rather than reflecting a well-functioning and properly-governed society. But Israel did not give them any clear incentive to see the action as an opportunity for progress. Exactly the same can be said of Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, which was as unilateral as its various invasions of that country had been.

Israelis should consider this when they complain that their “withdrawals” from Lebanon and Gaza were “rewarded” with rocketfire from Hezbollah and Hamas. To conclude that Arabs are recalcitrant or that agreements with them are impossible is to badly misread the reality of such policies. What unilateralism produces is a change in the context of conflict, not an end to it. The same would almost certainly apply to any Israeli unilateral action, as reportedly contemplated by Sharon, in the West Bank.

One need only contrast the track record of unilateralism with that of mutual agreements between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The peace treaty with Jordan is rock solid, and that with Egypt has survived the transitions from Anwar Sadat to Hosni Mubarak to military rule to Mohamed Morsi and now the new, interim Egyptian government, entirely unscathed. Even the armistice with Syria has been largely satisfactory from the Israeli point of view.

The real legacy of Israel’s most famous and notorious practitioner of “gun Zionism” was to simultaneously demonstrate that the government of the State of Israel is, despite all its doubts, capable of overriding the settler movement in the greater national interest, but also that if it does so unilaterally, it will be a dead-end. Whether Sharon himself would have come to see this by now, or would have clung to a vision of unilateralism — as so many on the Israeli right are increasingly coming to embrace — we cannot know. But, even if he never got the chance to draw the right conclusions from the unsatisfactory consequences of his final policies, the rest of us can, and must, act on their implications.

http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/its-wrong-to-use-history-to-serve-political-narratives

Virtually every contemporary national project tries to exploit ancient history, traditions and legends to justify its own agenda and discredit opposing ones. Examples can be found the world over. But it’s hard to identify a starker instance than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its competing narratives.

When Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, referred to Jesus in his recent Christmas greeting as a “Palestinian messenger”, the Israeli government accused him of an “outrageous rewriting of Christian history”.

Numerous pro-Israel commentators insisted that “Jesus was a Jew,” and that this only underscores the ancient Jewish connection to the land versus the supposedly tenuous Arab one.

Accepting, for the sake of argument, the traditionally-inherited histories about Jesus, both sides are right and wrong, factually and, especially, politically.

Israelis and their supporters are right that Jesus was born Jewish. But unless they are converts to Christianity or Islam, they accord him no religious significance. Jewish Israelis are on very shaky ground pointing to Jesus as a proto-Israeli, or anything other than a very heretical Jew at best.

Palestinians can make the counterargument that Jesus was the founder of Christianity, and that while he was born Jewish he became the first Christian, and was later identified as a prophet of Islam. Since the Christians and Muslims of the land almost entirely identify as Palestinians, by that logic Jesus was a proto-Palestinian.

Except that this is all historical, intellectual and political rubbish from both sides. No one can deny the deep Jewish history and emotional connection to this land in general. Still less can one deny not only the deep Palestinian history and presence on the land, but even more specifically, their emotional connection to individual homes in particular villages, whether or not they were destroyed by Israel after 1948.

Many Jews yearned, and some still do, for a generalised territory called the “Land of Israel.” Palestinians yearn for that same land, and also particular houses at specific addresses, many of which do not exist anymore, but for which they still cherish the old iron keys.

But the contemporary Zionist idea is only about 100 years old, and the Palestinian national project younger still. In the 1930s, the word “Israeli” meant nothing at all. It did not exist. And the word “Palestinian” typically referred to British colonial institutions, not the Arab population of the country.

To be sure the words “Jew” and “Arab” have much longer histories. But both have been utterly transformed in their generally understood meaning over the past century, although few bother to trace the crucial transformations of these surprisingly unstable and contested identity categories.

Meanwhile, elaborate narratives have been constructed across vast sweeps of history to justify each national project and delegitimise the other.

Israelis and many other contemporary Jews see themselves as the living embodiment of those ancient histories, traditions and legends. Moreover, they dismiss Palestinians as relative latecomers.

Palestinians, by contrast, tend to see themselves as the aggregate descendants of all the peoples of the ancient and contemporary history of the land, including biblical Hebrews. And they tend to cast the Jewish Europeans who founded Israel as usurping colonists from the 20th century with probably little or no direct lineal descent from the ancient peoples of the area.

Given these narratives, it comes naturally to Palestinian Muslims and Christians to see Jesus as a key forebear, while many Jewish Israelis take umbrage.

Meanwhile, in pride of place at prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office is a recently discovered 2,000-year-old Hebrew seal bearing the name “Netanyahu.” He wastes no opportunity in presenting it, and pointing out that his own name is also “Netanyahu.”

Except it’s hardly so straightforward. His grandfather, Nathan Mileikowsky, used “Netanyahu” as a pen name, and his father Benzion formally changed Mileikowsky to Mr Netanyahu when he moved to mandatory Palestine in the 1920s.

Mr Netanyahu may think he’s demonstrating some great historical continuity, but his gesture only highlights the conscious, artificial and carefully constructed appropriation of the past inherent in most contemporary ethnic national narratives. One could hardly ask for a better example of this cynical bunkum.

Except, perhaps, the ridiculous tug-of-war between Palestinian Muslims and Christians versus Jewish Israelis over Jesus. If one believes the traditions, then Jesus was born a Jew, but became the first Christian and a crucial Muslim prophet. Does that make him an emblem of Israel, or of Palestine?

The only rational answer is: neither. For nothing that took place, and no one who lived, 2,000 years ago actually has anything to do with contemporary political movements constructed in living memory to serve the present needs of modern constituencies.

All efforts to appropriate ancient history, traditions, myths and legends to serve contemporary political purposes ought to be immediately recognised for what they are: a grotesque and manipulative shell game.

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/528063-the-assad-equation

An alarming precedent in international relations is being established in Syria by rewarding gassing civilians

 

The worst fears of those who doubted the wisdom and effectiveness of the agreement between the international community and the Assad regime to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles and capability are rapidly being realized. Today’s “deadline” to ship the most serious material out of the country produced no movement. And a new precedent in international relations with potentially far-reaching and alarming consequences – call it “the Assad equation” – is unmistakably unfolding.

Whatever signals the West intended to send through the agreement, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has clearly taken it as an implicit green light to use all other weapons with increasing intensity in his onslaught against both rebels and Syria’s defenseless civilian population.

The way the regime is “implementing” the agreement demonstrates they see it primarily as a useful distraction for the international community from the vicious war it is conducting against the Syrian people. The regime probably doesn’t care that much about chemical weapons. But, as they are making abundantly clear, when they can avoid compliance, they will.

Reports suggest that today’s “deadline” for shipping most of its chemical weapons stockpile out of the country is being systematically procrastinated. Indeed, according to reports by those involved in the process on the UN and international side, the weapons have not even begun to be moved.

Anyone who finds it convenient can cite logistics, winter weather, and, of course, the ongoing conflict for such “delays.” All of these complications were fully understood and, presumably, factored into the equation when the December 31 deadline was agreed upon. But the process required to ensure that Syria retains no chemical weapons in the timeframe the agreement sets forth was always implausible at best and, at worst, practically impossible to either accomplish or verify.

The plan to transport Syria’s declared 1,200 tons of chemical weapons material requires its transfer from 12 different sites around the country by road to the northwestern port of Latakia. This means, in effect, that the agreement both relies on and therefore implicitly endorses military measures the regime can claim are necessary to secure the areas required for this macabre long-haul convoy.

The agreement not only makes Assad a partner with the international community in the project of getting rid of his own chemical weapons following their use against civilians, but it can also be cited to justify regime offensives in order to ensure their control of all the necessary areas and roads for this transfer.

International authorities say the regime now has “virtually all” of the necessary “logistical and security assets” in order to bring these weapons to Latakia. But to cite this as a positive development can also only mean de facto endorsement of regime control over key areas and transportation corridors of the country.

Assad, therefore, appears to have discovered or pioneered a new principle of international relations: lost legitimacy can be restored, and a consensus in favor of regime change can be profoundly compromised by dumping poison gas on civilians, including hundreds of children.

This, then, is “the Assad equation,” and dictators around the world must surely be taking note of the increasingly obvious and substantial benefits to the regime of having committed a heinous war crime.

Worse still, there is no sign that the international community’s patience is being particularly tested by how the agreement is playing out. The regime is predictably dragging the process on as long as possible, which they will certainly continue to do, citing any number of plausible-seeming technical and security problems.

Worst of all, and although the West and the United States could not have intended this, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Assad dictatorship regards the chemical weapons-focused process as, in practice, providing cover for an intensification of massive attacks, including against unarmed civilians, by even the fiercest “conventional” weapons.

The ongoing barrel bombing onslaught in Aleppo in which at least 500 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in recent days exemplify this dynamic. International eyebrows are hardly raised by such butchery anymore.

Indeed, the main development in the Western policy conversation since the agreement – the increasing use of heavy weapons against Syrian civilians notwithstanding – has been the emergence of establishment constituencies that openly endorse the survival of the regime as “the least bad option” for the West in Syria.

Today’s will hardly be the last missed deadline or breach of the agreement. An endless string of them may be readily anticipated. Meanwhile, Syria will continue to be immolated as the rest of the world shrugs or, in the case of Russia and Iran, applauds.

As things stand, the “Assad equation” is emerging as a chilling but unmistakable new principle of international relations. And there seems little interest in Washington or other Western capitals in correcting this perilous precedent.

http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/the-existential-struggle-for-the-heart-of-political-egypt#full

While some parts of the Arab world are dividing along sectarian and sometimes ethnic lines, the smouldering unrest in Egypt is entirely ideological. Partisans on both sides view it as an existential struggle to define Egypt’s identity – and all conflicts of this type tend to be bitter and brutal.

Political life is determined entirely by narratives and most elements of politics are entirely subjective. And even when objective realities – economic, geographical, climatic, and so forth – do sometimes assert themselves, the way they are interpreted depends entirely on the perceptual framework within which different groups of people operate.

A minimum level of narrative coherence is necessary for social stability. When the world views of key constituencies in any given society become fundamentally irreconcilable, this can provide a ready basis for protracted unrest and even civil conflict.

The violence currently racking Egypt has taken alarming turns in both the daily routine and the nature and kind of conflict in the country. And the prospects for a stable, orderly constitutionalism – if not fully developed democracy – in Egypt are profoundly undermined by this rapid deterioration.

The violence itself is merely a symptom – and only one of them – of a deepening divide cutting Egyptian society into at least two, if not more, hostile factions that view themselves as exclusively legitimate and the other as entirely illegitimate.

In contrast to the sectarian and ethnic violence in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East, Egypt is haunted by the spectre of a very different model of nightmarish Arab state disintegration: the ideologically-driven conflict between Islamists and the government in Algeria in the 1990s.

The Egyptian government’s narrative since the overthrow of Mohammed Morsi has been that the military intervened, after overwhelming public demand, to stop the misrule of an out of control party and president who faced no other political checks. From the outset, they accused Mr Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood of having deep ties to Salafist-Jihadist extremists in Sinai.

This account has been significantly strengthened by the evidently furious reaction of the Sinai-based extremists to Mr Morsi’s removal, and their reported offer in the days and weeks immediately following that violence would cease if he were restored to office. With both the government and the Muslim Brotherhood raising the stakes, violence has been spreading throughout Egypt.

From the government’s point of view, there is no real distinction between the actions and policies of the Brotherhood and those of Ansar Beit Al Maqids – which claimed responsibility for the massive bombing of a security headquarters in Mansoura – and other Sinai extremist groups.

Because they are regarded as acting in cahoots, the Brotherhood is assumed to be responsible. And the Brotherhood only encourages this assumption by not simply condemning the attacks but rather blaming them on the government, and even a fictional “Christian militia”.

Many who embrace this narrative, or even most of it, would find last week’s designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation by the Egyptian government to be both predictable and, perhaps, justifiable, whether or not they view the decision as wise.

The narrative of the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters, by contrast, suggests all of this is nothing but excuses for a counter-revolutionary crackdown.

It always anticipated that the military and the rest of the Egyptian establishment would never allow an elected Brotherhood presidency and would find some rationalisation to overthrow it.

Everything that has followed has been interpreted through this framework as a campaign to destroy the Brotherhood jail, persecute and kill its members, and blame it for all kinds of things it has nothing to do with. The Brotherhood worldview predicts such a response to any political success, and its political comfort zone is much more attuned to the underground than the open air.

Indeed, a primary public and rhetorical reaction of the Brotherhood narrative to the removal of Mr Morsi was to predict the virtual inevitability of a violent backlash.

So, in addition to feeling framed and persecuted, this narrative also allows its adherents to feel vindicated in their prediction of mounting chaos. So far, a sizeable majority of socially active Egyptians still seem to be leaning towards the government narrative, even as some elements of the Brotherhood narrative are spreading even into some “liberal” and “revolutionary” constituencies that do not and never will like any Islamists.

Politically engaged Egyptian society appears divided between a larger group that adheres to some version of the government narrative, and a smaller but substantial one – such as the students recently protesting at Al Azhar University – who seem to embrace the Brotherhood’s perspective.

As Egyptians increasingly see each other not as fellow Egyptians but rather as “terrorists” versus “counter-revolutionaries,” the potential increases for a prolonged and widespread social and political crisis that pervades every aspect of society. And the prospects for the minimum shared narratives needed for political functionality, and law and order, fade.

Egypt is neither about to become the next Algeria, nor is it yet entering its own “year of living dangerously”. But the elements for intensified and prolonged civil strife are clearly growing, as its society is experiencing a breakdown in a minimal shared belief about what “Egypt” is, and what it means to be “Egyptian”.

http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/us-must-be-clear-about-its-objectives-in-the-middle-east-next-year

For American relations with the Arab world, 2014 must be a year of clarification. An unprecedented series of question marks accumulated throughout 2013 about the role of the US in the region. This trend cannot continue. Long-standing strategic relations require renovation, and the onus for this cannot fall exclusively on either Arabs or Americans alone.

Both the regional landscape and American policy have been in tremendous flux. Americans worry that the region is spinning out of control and question their own ability to influence these events. Those in the Middle East who look to the US to play a stabilising role seem flummoxed by America’s apparently cautious and occasionally unpredictable reactions.

In one instance, though, calculated ambiguity has proved helpful. John Kerry’s extraordinary efforts to resuscitate Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have yielded talks amid the utmost secrecy. Rarely has there been such a tight lid both within Washington and among the parties involved, despite dubious leaks from marginal figures.

Mr Kerry has protected the process from domestic politics on both sides, but at the necessary cost of allowing scepticism to grow.

No one should expect 2014 to deliver a final peace agreement. But an understanding to extend the talks has now become far more plausible. A potential formula could include Palestinian acknowledgement of Israel as a Jewish homeland, and Israel’s acceptance of the 1967 borders with mutually agreed land swaps as the basis for a future border. If negotiations are extended for at least an additional year, this could provide a basis for further progress.

Next year will also clarify the trajectory of American negotiations with Iran. The interim agreement is supposed to set the stage for a broader resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue.

One interpretation holds that the US and Iran must have seen some possibility of deeper rapprochement, and that this is the ultimate goal both seek. Another view perceives them as buying time. A third perspective takes the negotiations at face value, believing the parties are engaging without any firm assumptions.

If a wide-ranging nuclear deal is to be achieved, it will probably start to take shape over the next year. And, if it involves any broader Iranian-American understanding, there will surely be signs of that too. If, on the other hand, the interim agreement is simply extended without additional progress, that would indicate this year’s “breakthrough” was just a play for time.

Finally, there is a strong possibility of a breakdown of negotiations altogether, and a return to the standoff that logically culminates with American military action.

The future of US-Iranian talks will have profound implications for the security concerns of America’s Gulf allies. Doubts, and even grievances – most dramatically aired in an unusually blunt New York Times op-ed by the Saudi ambassador to the UK – are therefore also likely to either be exacerbated or attenuated in the coming year.

Egyptian-American relations require significant attention as well. Mr Kerry has toned down some American reservations about the removal of Mohammed Morsi from office. But aspects of US-Egyptian relations remain suspended, particularly military cooperation, as Washington is still uncomfortable with some of the Egyptian government’s policies.

Given how the political landscape is developing, strategic relations between the US, the Gulf states and Egypt are likely to move in similar directions. In 2014, these relationships will either improve or deteriorate from the current unusual and unsustainable ambiguity, depending on what both sides do and say.

The most difficult policy challenge facing both Arab governments and the US will be Syria. There has long been a predominance of opinion in Washington that the United States “lacks good options” in Syria and therefore should do little.

The rise of Al Qaeda-linked groups, and fading fortunes of non-Islamist armed opposition, has produced an increasingly vocal constituency in the American establishment for actually endorsing Bashar Al Assad’s continuation in power.

The self-fulfilling notion that the US has “no good options in Syria” seems increasingly vindicated to its proponents. But the hands-off approach that followed has been a major factor in ensuring options are limited. This is a self-defeating, self-fulfilling and self-perpetuating policy mistake. And it could persist for years.

Moreover, as long as the US insists that Mr Al Assad must go, while simultaneously working with him as a partner in destroying his chemical weapons, American policy will continue to seem at cross purposes with both itself and the interests of its Arab allies.

Syria’s horrifying conflict is the most urgent regional issue because of its intense violence, huge casualties, refugee crisis, destabilising “spillover” effect and function as a sectarian proxy battlefield. But it’s also, unfortunately, the conundrum most likely to prove resistant to clarification, let alone resolution.

Nonetheless, 2014 ought to provide clarity on several difficult questions between the US and some of its key Arab allies.

The interests that first drew them together haven’t fundamentally altered.

Therefore neither should the core strategic calculation of cooperation, so 2014 should be the year of repairing the American-Arab strategic partnership where it has been recently fraying.

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/525838-the-real-man-of-the-year-jos-mujica

By leading Uruguay to become the first nation to fully legalize marijuana, José Mujica has struck a long-overdue and brutal blow against organized crime.

 

Many decades ago, in its heyday of influence, TIME Magazine inaugurated its annual “Man of the Year” designation. Always a marketing ploy, it’s meant to reflect the person who either made most news or created most change in the preceding 12 months. It’s since become an anachronism, but still gets attention. This year TIME selected Pope Francis.

Given the vast number of Catholics, and how much the freewheeling, maverick new Pope has challenged many ossified orthodoxies in short order, the choice is perfectly defensible. In centuries past, such a provocative leader might have met a grim fate.

One can easily imagine a Renaissance Vatican banquet at which, the general attention somehow diverted, a hollow ring is deftly opened, pestilent powder then artfully sprinkled into the papal goblet before a hearty toast… and, with a little sip, farewell Pope! Call forth the Camerlengo.

But we are, thankfully, long past such things, we trust.

Like many others, with all due respect to the editors of TIME, I have my own preference. A unique political leader, the President of Uruguay, José Mujica, was already a potentially sentimental candidate. But with one unprecedented gesture, he has now become a deeply compelling one.

Mujica’s  visionary breakthrough is that he has had the courage to lead his small, and now happy and stable, country to take the obvious, logical, and rational step that so many others around the world cower from in abject terror: legalizing marijuana. Uruguayans who wish to smoke cannabis must now simply register with the government and limit themselves to 40 grams a month.

Mujica has pointed out the simple and obvious truth: the marijuana trade in his country is at least a $40 million industry that will no longer be controlled by gangsters but instead be legally regulated and taxed by the state. This non-addictive, non-toxic, organic plant that some people find pleasant – personally, I do not like it and never touch the stuff – will no longer fund the underworld in his country. The insane, near universal, prohibition has finally been lifted by a sensible country led by a sensible man. Why this took so long is the only possible question.

One possible answer is the positively hysterical reaction of the UN’s International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), which has condemned Uruguay for acting without its exalted permission and called its decision “illegal.” In his patented plainspoken manner, Mujica gave the ghastly INCB chief inquisitor Raymond Yans exactly what he deserved: “Tell that old man to stop lying,” he said. “Because he sits in a comfortable international platform, he believes he can say whatever nonsense.” Amen!

Mujica notes that the sublimely hypocritical Yans never said a word about European countries or American states that decriminalized cannabis, but has gone on a rampage against Uruguay, even accusing it of “piracy.”

Yans is a lowly international lickspittle whose bleating is properly waved aside with the utmost derision. Mujica has dealt with far sterner opponents: he’s a veteran of the Tupamaros armed revolutionary movement, who has since become a center-leftist, creative thinker, and uniting figure in Uruguay. But in his revolutionary days, he served over 15 years in prison, two of them at the bottom of a well amid the rats and spiders.

He and the other Tupamaros were the objects of one of the more elaborate historical experiments in torture. This was, unfortunately, overseen not only by Uruguay’s fascist  government but also the CIA’s torture guru Dan Mitrione, officially head of the” Office of Public Safety” mission.

Mitrione is reputed to have advocated, instructed, and experimented with torture in Uruguay as an art form. “The precise pain, in the precise place, in the precise amount, for the desired effect,” was reportedly his credo, but always leaving “some hope … a distant light” of survival and relief. He also advocated a little additional torture after the required information was extracted as a disincentive to further subversion.

In 1970 Mitrione was kidnapped and assassinated, but tellingly not tortured, by the Tupamaros.

With the restoration of a constitutional democracy in 1985, Mujica was freed. He became a populist politician, living in ostentatious austerity on a farm and driving a dilapidated Volkswagen. He is reputed to be “the poorest president in the world,” purportedly giving 90% of his $19,000 annual salary to charity.

Populism of this style can be its own kind of demagoguery and hype. I have long been intrigued by him, but remained somewhat skeptical.

Now that Mujica has had the vision to lead Uruguay to legalize marijuana (and abortion, for that matter), one can only say “bravo, and may others have the guts to follow suit.” Otherwise, the rest of the world can continue to arrange their laws for the convenience and empowerment of organized crime, at the expense of both the public and rational governance.

http://www.thenational.ae/article/20131214/OPINION/131219524

The unstable and unhealthy relationship of dominance and subordination, of discipline and control through violence, built into Israel’s occupation was graphically illustrated this week in two separate, tragic and bloody incidents.

Last Saturday, a 15-year-old Palestinian child, Wajih Wajdi Al Ramahi, was shot in the back and killed by Israeli occupation forces. The soldiers were sniping from a watchtower near the Israeli settlement of Bet-El. There are conflicting accounts of what happened, but even the official Israeli military version as it now stands is utterly damning.

The Israeli army says it deployed soldiers to “ambush” and “apprehend” stone-throwing Palestinian youths. In other words, the soldiers were lying in wait for the children. They duly appeared, and seeing the soldiers, according to the Israeli army, began throwing rocks from a distance of 150 metres (therefore posing no actual threat). The Israeli military says then “the squad commander began the procedure for arresting a suspect and shooting was only in the air.”

And yet somehow Wajih ended up lying on his face, dead on the ground, shot in the back by the army of occupation. Nothing in the official Israeli account begins to justify or explain what happened to him. Everything points to what can only be described as a calculated ambush that led to a completely indefensible homicide.

Lest anyone think this incident is a bizarre aberration, not only have 23 Palestinians been killed by Israeli occupation forces this year in the West Bank, the history of the Al Ramahi family is an object lesson in the nature of the Israeli-Palestinian relationship.

This family originates from the village of Muzayriah, which was destroyed by Israel in 1948. Residents of that town and 36 other destroyed villages, including the Al Ramahi family, now live in the Jalazun refugee camp, near where Wajih was shot and killed.

His father, a Fatah activist, was jailed by Israel from 1972-1992. Occupation forces destroyed two of the family’s homes and boarded up two more. The family says two other close relatives were killed by Israeli troops in the past 15 years: Mohammed Ahmed, 14, and Mohammed Jamal, 21. To cap it all off, Wajih’s older brother and two of his cousins are currently in Israeli custody and awaiting trial.

But the violence is a two-way street. There’s another Palestinian in Israeli custody today, formally indicted this week for murdering an Israeli soldier last November.

Sixteen-year-old Hussein Sharif Rawarda, from Jenin, is accused of stabbing and killing 19-year-old Eden Atias while he was asleep on a bus in northern Israel. Rawarda claimed he was acting on behalf of his jailed uncles. But his father, who condemned the killing, said his son was apolitical and probably motivated by economic distress.

The two grievances are inextricable. The entire system – social, economic and political – that Israel operates in the occupied territories can only be described as separate and unequal. The particular stressor on any occupied individual may manifest as social, political or even economic, but they all arise from the violent system of domination by a foreign occupying power.

Although it was written long ago and about a different time and place, Frantz Fanon’s 1961 essay Concerning Violence – for all its undoubted historical and ideological anachronisms, and naive enthusiasms – remains the best overall guide to the psychological dynamic between the oppressor and the oppressed.

Its descriptive contrast between “the settlers’ towns” and “the native town” is uncannily evocative of the present day occupied Palestinian territories. And his evaluation of the psychology of these relationships applies as precisely to Israelis and Palestinians as any Fanon may have had in mind more than 50 years ago.

Fanon describes precisely the deforming and dehumanising impact on both the occupier and the occupied: “The violence of the colonial regime and the counter-violence of the native balance each other and respond to each other in an extraordinary reciprocal homogeneity.”

And so 15-year-old Wajih lies shot in the back like a stray dog, while 16-year-old Hussein is about to stand trial for murdering 19-year-old Eden in his sleep.

Routine tragedies demonstrate how and why the status quo is simply unmanageable, with millions of disenfranchised Palestinians living for decades under Israeli military rule with no end in sight. The relative calm that has recently prevailed, and that is now fraying, cannot be maintained if the situation on the ground continues to deteriorate. For everyone’s sake, conditions for Palestinians must be immediately improved, and in overt preparation for independent statehood.

The relationship of occupied Palestinians and Israeli occupation forces is essentially that of prisoners and prison guards. There is an ordered, legalised hierarchy of power and privilege inherent in the occupation. There is nothing hard-wired in either Israeli or Palestinian culture that makes people on either side relate to each other as they do.

Instead, each individual acts out the position to which they are assigned in a highly structured interaction between rulers and ruled. The same formula could be transplanted between any two other national groups anywhere in the world with similar results. A mere reversal of fortunes would likely see a concomitant reversal of roles.

Violence, incitement and abuses can and should be minimised by all authorities. But there is only one way to actually end this vicious circle of inhumanity. The occupation must end, so Israelis and Palestinians can live, at long last, not as the oppressors and the oppressed, but side-by-side as citizens of equally sovereign, independent states.

http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/time-for-arabs-to-be-active-in-washingtons-policy-circles#full

There has been a wide range of reactions in the Arab world to the interim nuclear agreement between Iran and the international community. But a clear common thread is concern about the long-term trajectory of American policy towards the region. The good news is that there are practical, effective measures the Arab states could take to have more input into the American foreign policy conversation.

There is a subtext of anxiety detectable even among Arab societies that have emphasised the prospects for greater regional stability suggested by dialogue with Iran. Most of the Arab world does seem to be wondering where, exactly, American policy is going and, indeed, is worried about it. And that, precisely, should spur interest in impacting the American conversation about the region.

Arab concerns are understandable. Over the past 30 years, Iran has emerged as a would-be hegemonic power that effectively uses proxies that engage in extreme forms of violence, and a potential second regional nuclear power (alongside Israel). The prospect of any version of an American “policy shift” towards Tehran, and therefore perhaps also towards its regional clients, is bound to provoke Arab unease.

Alarm is premature. A change in focus on crucial matters of international relations requires the slow and public building of a consensus before it can genuinely reorient Washington’s fundamental attitudes. The behemoth of American foreign policy almost always moves glacially. It is answerable to a vast and complex political system, with a huge range of inputs and influences that go into shaping the core basis of policy. And Arabs can do much more to influence this conversation.

The idea that the United States is preparing to shift its focus towards an understanding with Iran and its allies at the expense of Arab states is still implausible. Such thinking would imply that secret US-Iranian contacts must have dealt with a far broader range of issues than simply the nuclear file, and made at least some movement in each other’s direction for the nuclear issue to become a viable negotiation.

These anxieties tap into a deep and persistent Arab nightmare: that the great powers will ally with any and all other Middle Eastern entities – Israel, Turkey and even Iran – but always at the expense of the region’s majority, the Arabs. There is a historical basis for these visceral fears, but also a degree of fatalistic passivity. Arabs can do much to impact their own future.

After all, the US remains deeply enmeshed with its Arab partners, even at a time of strained relations with key players such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The commercial, military, intelligence, educational and cultural links are too deeply rooted to be quickly upended.

Moreover, the “breakthrough” with Iran remains limited in scope and, as both sides insist, time-sensitive. The sanctions are only partially lifted, and some of the most damaging – such as the exclusion of Iranian financial institutions from the SWIFT code network which cripples its banking sector – are still in place.

And, while the prospects for the kind of short-term, time-buying agreement reached in Geneva long seemed promising, a broader agreement significantly rolling back Iran’s nuclear programme and dealing with other strategic issues will be far more challenging.

On both sides, it may be up against the clock. Hardliners in Iran have made their opposition perfectly evident to even the limited concessions to which Tehran has thus far agreed. And, within a year or so, the American electoral cycle will resume. The issue of negotiations with Iran will undoubtedly be subject to broad debate and scrutiny, and, in all probability, powerful and focused political attacks.

A somewhat more plausible, but still from an Arab point of view alarming, scenario is that the US is seeking to create a balance of power between what amount to Sunni and Shiite regional alliances. Such an equilibrium, this logic holds, would allow the US to start to draw down its own posture in the region and concentrate on the long-ballyhooed “pivot to Asia”. But, again, there still isn’t any real evidence to support such a conclusion.

Yet if such fears are indeed causing significant anxiety in Arab capitals and policy circles, there remains a powerful and largely untapped means to effectively communicate such concerns in Washington. Most of the US’s Arab allies still have not developed a consistent, on-the-ground presence in Washington policy circles.

Instead, they cultivate highly focused and specific relations with entities like the department of defense. Beyond that, their policy interventions tend to be reactive, limited and even sporadic, rather than proactive and sustained. This will not have a major impact on US decision-making.

Developing such influence necessitates building partnerships with experienced and effective American advocates with a genuine understanding of, and affiliation with, Arab interests. A sustained, professional partnership must be based on integrity and common understandings rather than a simple exercise in public relations. The Arab states need American partners, not clients or customers.

This is not a challenge of marketing. It is a challenge of policy intervention. Arab interests still have a real opportunity and time to do far more to influence the decision-making and policy framing process in Washington.

If Arabs are concerned about where US policy towards the Middle East is headed, the cultivation of genuine American partners for sustained policy intervention is one of the most direct and effective correctives possible.