If Netanyahu Lies, Why Do We Keep Listening? Wednesday, Nov 9 2011 

Foreign Affairs and Iran and Israel and Middle East and Palestine and peace process and US Foreign Policy , , , , , , , , , , , , Sandboxer 10:50 pm

By Sharmine Narwani

For Middle East watchers, the revelation that a major head of state called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “liar” is, well, not exactly news. French president Nicholas Sarkozy needs to get in line behind the many other politicians who have thrown up their arms over Netanyahu’s unusual – even for politics – propensity for duplicity.

Former Clinton White House Spokesman Joe Lockhart, in his book “The Truth About Camp David” calls the Israeli prime minister, “one of the most obnoxious individuals you’re going to come into – just a liar and a cheat. He could open his mouth and you could have no confidence that anything that came out of it was the truth.”

The latest brouhaha over Netanyahu’s character emerged at the G-20 meeting in Cannes last week, when reporters unintentionally caught three minutes of candid conversation between Sarkozy and US President Barack Obama. Here is the conversation according to the New York Times:

“I cannot stand him,” Mr. Sarkozy was quoted as saying. “He is a liar.”
Mr. Obama is reported to have replied, “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day!”

My reaction was two-fold. Firstly, why does the president of the United States have to “deal” with Netanyahu “every day?” Israel’s strategic value to the United States has never been less apparent at a time when its pariah value is on the rise globally. In 2010, this thinking entered the political mainstream when CENTCOM’s then- commander General David Petraeus and US Vice President Joe Biden publicly suggested that the Jewish state may even be a liability in certain vital policy areas. (more…)

 

Feeding The Beast: When Journalists Fuel Harmful Narratives Monday, Sep 12 2011 

Arab Awakening and Foreign Affairs and Iran and Israel and Media and Middle East and Turkey and US Foreign Policy and US Politics , , , , , , , , , , , , , Sandboxer 8:57 pm

By Sharmine Narwani

Typing away the truth?

I recently spoke with a friend who has been in and around Washington’s Mideast foreign policy establishment for three decades. “I have never seen policymakers so confused,” this political insider told me in regard to US plans in the region.

The old paradigms of supporting Israel unconditionally, marginalizing political Islam and propping up dictators we whitewash as “moderates” do not hold when the region is experiencing such fundamental shifts. Especially when our policies were such dismal failures before the Arab Awakening even hit our television screens.

So it is disheartening to see so many analysts, reporters and commentators still transfixed with old narratives – none of which serve to encourage the innovative policy reassessments needed to deal with this spanking new world.

Two recent examples:

Plumbing New Depths in Support of Israel
“In 2003, France and Germany’s decision not to allow coalition troops to use their territory in the effort to depose Saddam Hussein in Iraq not only was a blow to their alliance with the US, but set in motion circumstances that ultimately helped create the insurgency.”

For the record, I don’t blame France and Germany for jumpstarting a legitimate insurgency against occupying US forces. But Jonathan S. Tobin, writing in Commentary last week, did just that. Except, instead of invoking France and Germany – also close US allies who refused to participate in our misguided Iraqi adventure – Tobin was writing about “Turkey.”

Sounds just as stupid with “Turkey” in there, now doesn’t it?

The backdrop to Tobin’s bizarre conclusion is the recent emergence of a more assertive Turkey on the global stage, which – like other emerging powers – gently nudged aside the United States from its post-Cold War role as the sole arbiter of All Things. While Washington remained cautiously watchful of Turkey’s new direction, all attempts at diplomatic neutrality came to a screeching halt when Ankara dared to criticize Israel for its brutal assault on the Gaza Strip in 2009 and for its 2010 killing of nine activists on the Turkish-origin Mavi Marmara flotilla ship headed for Gaza.

As the war of words escalated between the two countries, our no-space-between-us-and-Israel clause in The Contract kicked in and we got nasty. Washington pundits began to question Turkey’s strategic importance to the US and started dropping the dreaded “Islamist” moniker in all references to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP-led government. Punishing Turkey took many forms – including approving in committee a contentious congressional resolution declaring the 1915 Armenian massacre a “genocide” and boycotting the 2010 Anatolian Eagle military exercises with the longtime NATO ally.

Turkey gained a brief reprieve when the Arab Awakening swept through the Middle East and Ankara became an important Muslim ally in ushering through support for NATO air cover of Libya and challenging the Syrian government’s treatment of protestors. Turkey threw its NATO allies a further bone by agreeing to host a US-allocated early warning radar on its soil as part of a plan to deter ballistic missile threats.

But new hostilities between Turkey and an ever-intractable Israel threaten to once again light a fire under the Jewish state’s supporters in the United States. Ignoring Ankara’s vast strategic value to Washington, commentators like Tobin are grasping at straws to once more strike some blows against Israel’s latest nemesis.

A NATO member since 1952; the world’s 16th largest economy; second largest standing armed force in NATO with over one million soldiers; a founding member of the United Nations, OECD and the G-20 major economies…

Just imagine – Turkey being blamed for Iraq’s insurgency. Wow…just wow.

Sadly, this is the kind of extrapolation in political reasoning that has made this truly a mad, mad, mad world. Welcome to punditry in Washington, DC. (more…)

 

In Lebanon, The Plot Thickens Wednesday, Aug 31 2011 

Foreign Affairs and Hezbollah and Israel and Lebanon and Middle East and Uncategorized and United Nations , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Sandboxer 3:03 pm

By Sharmine Narwani

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), the UN Security Council-initiated investigation into the February 14, 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, formally unveiled its indictment of four alleged Hezbollah “supporters” last week.

There was nothing new in this document. Almost all details had been leaked to various media outlets at separate intervals since 2009.

But it is a compelling read nonetheless. There is no longer any need for conjecture, supposition or doubt – the heart of the case against the accused is now spelled out in black and white.

A Case Built Entirely on Telecommunications Data
The Tribunal’s case appears to be built on a simple premise: the “co-location” of cellular phones – traceable to the accused four – that coincide heavily with Hariri’s whereabouts and crucial parts of the murder plot in the six weeks prior to his death.

Using Call Data Records (CDRs) – which track incoming and outgoing calls, time, date, duration, and importantly, the location from which calls are made (identifiable by the nearby “cell towers” that carry a mobile phone call) – the STL identified a covert network of mobile phones called the “Red Network” used in the planning of the assassination.

The Tribunal reveals that CDR analysis links the Red Network to four other colour-coded cell phone networks, some of which are non-covert, i.e. the Personal Mobile Phones (PMPs) of the indictees. In short, what this means is that the suspected covert phone networks (Red, Blue and Green) were very frequently making calls from the same areas as the personal mobile phones of the four accused men.

Indeed, the intricate details and frequency of the various phone call-overlaps between the covert Hariri-tracking networks and the personal phones of the indictees make this appear to be a slam-dunk case. How could any of this be coincidence? In the two hours before the assassination, there were 33 calls along Hariri’s route within the Red Network alone, co-located with the PMPs of the suspects.

Not So Fast…
But there isn’t a literate soul in Lebanon who does not know that the country’s telecommunications networks are highly infiltrated – whether by competing domestic political operatives or by foreign entities. For its part, the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah – with which the indictees are allegedly affiliated – has spent much of the past year explaining in painstaking detail the hazards of relying on telecom data that is readily penetrable by the state’s enemies.

This narrative has been backed by Lebanese officials, convicted “spies” and outed employees of telecom companies.

But how does this impact the STL’s meticulous circumstantial case?

On the one hand, Hezbollah supporters may very well have assassinated Rafiq Hariri – whether through direct orders from the resistance group’s leadership or in conjunction with other individuals or governments.

On the other hand, the telecommunication analysis provided by the Tribunal could instead represent an intricately planned and executed effort to frame Hezbollah.

It could go something like this:

Assume for a moment that there was in fact a genuine Hezbollah surveillance operation to track the whereabouts of Hariri. This, in itself, is not unusual by Lebanese standards – it is widely assumed in the Middle East that political camps engage in this kind of monitoring activities of key figures. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah last summer even televised intercepted Israeli video footage tracking Hariri’s various routes to and from Beirut in the time period leading up to his death. No biggie, right?

Caveat: In this scenario, the Hezbollah operatives use their personal mobile phones during their surveillance ops. They have no covert phones as suggested by the Tribunal’s colour-coded networks theory. In fact, the colour-coded networks and their history of phone calls don’t even really exist – they have been entirely fabricated and then cleverly co-located with the Hezbollah PMPs by an unknown entity that hacked into cell tower data logs.

Or assume instead that the assassination plot is entirely accurate as outlined by the STL. There were indeed colour-coded covert networks led by the Red Network to carry out the dirty deed – only no Hezbollah operatives were involved.

Caveat: In this scenario, an unknown entity has simply co-located targeted Hezbollah-supporter PMPs with the colour-coded Networks to make it seem as though there is a connection with these individuals. (more…)

 

“Irhal Amreeka” Monday, Aug 29 2011 

Arab Awakening and Foreign Affairs and Israel and Middle East and US Foreign Policy , , , , , , , , , Sandboxer 3:52 pm

By Sharmine Narwani

Note: The Arabic “Irhal,” which means “Leave” or “Go away,” is the most powerful slogan of the Arab Awakening that has emerged through much of the Middle East and North Africa since January 2011. It has been chanted against dictators in street protests in every Arab nation facing popular discontent.

The Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei yesterday demanded the immediate departure of Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa amidst growing international criticism of mass human rights violations in Bahrain.

Iran announced it is taking the lead in pushing through a binding resolution by the 118-member state Non Allied Movement (NAM) to sanction the import of oil products and pearls from the Bahraini island state and has leveraged its web of global relationships to sanction members of the Khalifa family and their closest financial and political allies in order to squeeze the nation’s economy and hasten the demise of the ruling clan.

For his part, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad revealed a joint initiative by the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guard (IRRG) and the country’s armed forces to position Shahab and Fajr missiles in Iraq and Syria, and to train opposition forces in all six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states to mount defensive and offensive strategies to undermine the Bahraini regime.

Sounds familiar? Hint: Yee-haw.

Irhal Amreeka
As popular, street-based movements to force domestic reforms sweep through the Arab world, the only fixed criteria in this widespread social “experiment” is the dogged interventions of the United States and its allies.

From Tunisia to Bahrain to Syria to Yemen to Egypt to Libya, US footprints mar the otherwise indigenous Arab political sandstorms hurling through the region.

Noble initiatives to hasten much-needed political reform and economic stimulus would be welcomed with open arms by most Arabs. But the United States has shown little interest in these developmental essentials, instead focusing entirely on a strategic holy trinity:

1) Unfettered access to cheap oil
2) Advancing Israeli hegemony over its Arab neighbors
3) Regime-change in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Why is this ham-fisted shortlist the only driver of our Mideast foreign policy? The core of our problem is that the halls of policymaking in Washington are filled with ideologues, not area specialists. Our decision makers therefore follow political agendas — usually attached with an umbilical cord to pro-Israel interest groups – and not nuanced diplomatic imperatives that could foster positive relations based on universal values and respect for national sovereignty. (more…)

 

Rupert Murdoch and Hezbollah’s “Scuds” Saturday, Jul 23 2011 

Foreign Affairs and Hezbollah and Israel and Lebanon and Media and Middle East , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Sandboxer 1:50 pm

By Sharmine Narwani

You would think Rupert Murdoch had enough troubles on his hands. You might even imagine that the evidence of illegal doings hemorrhaging from his now-defunct News of the World tabloid would urge him – at least temporarily – to slam the brakes on journalistic hackery throughout his media empire.

Instead, last Friday, Murdoch’s UK flagship paper, The Times of London, published a highly implausible piece alleging that Syria has transferred Scuds to Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah – and quoting only the anonymous and increasingly ubiquitous “western sources,” “intelligence sources” and “Israeli sources” that seem to accompany all Middle East news items guaranteed to eventually be debunked by history.

This story is already dead in the water, attesting to its fundamental lack of credibility. The United Nations Security Council would be passing a resolution right about now if the article had any legs to it – especially in light of its trigger-happy readiness to churn out resolutions on Syria and Lebanon in recent years.

But the question remains – why do Murdoch and others with editorial agendas manage to get away with planting propaganda pieces disguised as news?

I have not linked to the Times article because it is behind a pay wall, but these are the highlights of the piece by Richard Beeston, Nicholas Blanford and Sheera Frenkel entitled “Assad Builds Secret “Missile City” As He Arms Hezbollah With Long-Range Scuds:”

With the help of experts from Iran and North Korea, Damascus is pressing ahead with its development of sophisticated missiles at a secret site nicknamed “missile city” built into Jebel Taqsis, a mountain near the opposition stronghold of Hama…The missile programme is allegedly run by the Scientific Studies and Research Centre in Damascus, an organisation that is already on a US sanctions list….The Times reported last year that Hezbollah had taken delivery of two advanced Scud-D surface-to-surface missiles with a range of 700km (430 miles). Since then the Syrians have handed over eight more of the ballistic weapons, which have been assembled with the help of North Korean experts…

The article then goes on to claim:

Sources close to Hezbollah told The Times that the flow of weapons entering the Bekaa Valley from Syria accelerated in March when protests erupted against the Assad regime. One Hezbollah fighter joked that the scale of the arms shipments into Lebanon was so great that “we don’t know where to put it all”. Another said it was only a contingency measure. “We can send it all back when things calm down in Syria” he said.

Sources, Sources, Sources
I can tell you with near certainty that an actual “Hezbollah fighter” would not be caught dead talking about the group’s alleged weapons with a reporter. In the course of my research, I have met at length with an array of Hezbollah officials, including their former southern chief Sheikh Nabil Kaouk. The group never provides information about their military capabilities, weapons systems, troop numbers or whereabouts unless publically stated by their officials, and that, usually, as a pre-emptive decision to further a deterrence stance.

Information about Hezbollah’s military capabilities are on a need to know basis only, and it is doubtful that even the organization’s most prominent public figures in Lebanon – the non-military faces of the group – know anything of value about weapons caches or positions, let alone a mere “fighter” or “sources close to Hezbollah.”

One of the article’s authors Nicholas Blanford – Beirut correspondent for The Times – in his well-received 2009 book Killing Mr. Lebanon doesn’t even manage to get past the first few pages without referring to Hezbollah’s legendary “veil of secrecy.”

In this, Blanford is spot on. The idea that a Hezbollah fighter – whose very life depends on the element of surprise in any battle with Israel – would reveal information about weapons to a journalist, of all people, is akin to suggesting that a veteran Navy Seal soused to the gills in a bar in Faluja would wax poetic about the “secret” location of a sophisticated new cache of American arms to a bunch of bearded strangers.

What galls most, however, is that the Times article provides not a single on-the-record source on news of this significance. I understand fully that journalists are sometimes faced with publishing pieces with no source on record – that is the nature of the information business, where many sources will not risk jobs, careers and lives to lend their names to a story. But usually the rule of thumb is to use anonymous information when it is not evidently self-serving.

To publish a piece that maligns Western foes Syria and Hezbollah using exclusively Western and Israeli diplomatic and intelligence sources cannot reasonably be viewed as much more than propaganda. The quotes by a “Hezbollah fighter” and “sources close to Hezbollah” excepted, of course. Those strain credulity for anyone with more than a passing knowledge of the highly-disciplined and tight-lipped organization.

As a consequence, the Times article reads like an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) press release, and there have been plenty of those detailing unprovable or patently false Hezbollah-weapons stories over the years. (more…)

 

Israel’s “Faux” Golan Border Tuesday, Jun 7 2011 

Lebanon and Israel and Middle East and Syria and Arab Awakening , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Sandboxer 10:06 pm

By Sharmine Narwani

On Sunday, around 1,000 unarmed civilians marched to the ceasefire line between Syria and the Golan Heights to protest Israel’s occupation of Arab lands following the 1967 war. Hours later, in the worst bloodshed since the 1973 war between Israel and Syria, up to 23 civilians were dead and hundreds wounded after Israeli troops opened live fire on the protestors.

In the West Bank, fellow protestors were only injured, as Israeli troops used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse crowds that were only a few feet away from them.

In Majd al Shams on the occupied Golan Heights, however, the Palestinian and Syrian demonstrators were many yards away – behind barbed wire fences – never having crossed any ceasefire line.

As was the case with the 11 unarmed protestors in Lebanon killed by Israeli forces on May 15 in Maroun al Ras. Those civilians had not crossed any border either.

Israel’s fears are understandable. The notion that Palestinians and Syrians can “just walk home” to their occupied houses and villages could destroy the deterrence barriers that Israel has worked hard to erect since 1948 and 1967. Which is why it was important for the Jewish State to teach these populations a lesson, even if it meant killing a few dozen.

That makes Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu no different than Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, Syria’s Bashar al Assad, Bahrain’s Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh – and other autocrats still waiting their turn.

All fired live rounds at unarmed civilian populations voicing their grievances and exercising their right to congregate in public.

Justifying Civilian Death
Just three weeks earlier, on May 15, Palestinian and Syrian protestors in the Golan Heights broke through the barbed wire fence, poured over the ceasefire line, met up with friends and relatives, and then went home. One particularly determined fellow – 28-year-old Hassan Hijazi who was galvanized by a Facebook group to join the protests – even decided to visit his parent’s old house in Jaffa and hitched a ride alongside some Israeli soldiers to get there. He later turned himself in to authorities and was duly escorted back to the ceasefire line by security agents.

That very recent incident contrasted sharply on Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s portrayal of the Golan demonstrators as “extremist elements” who “are trying to break through our borders and threaten our communities and our citizens.”

As the Israeli spin machine went into overdrive, we were subjected to the kinds of drivel we are by now used to hearing from regional dictators on their last legs:

The it-wasn’t-us argument: “A Syrian mine exploded, seemingly because Molotov cocktails thrown at (Israeli) forces started a bush fire which caused the explosion of the mine, a number of mines even,” an Israeli army spokeswoman said – ostensibly blaming the deaths on mines and not IDF bullets.

The deflection argument: “We believe that the Syrian regime is focusing the world’s attention on the border with Israel instead of what is happening there,” said another military spokesperson.

The extremists-are-involved argument: Oops. Netanyahu did that one himself.

Military spokesman Yoav Mordechai called the killings “a measured, focused and proper response.” The only thing that apparently needs “measuring” is his sanity – the videos of the Golan clashes clearly show protestors behind a barbed wire fence being shot at by Israeli sharpshooters. Like target practice. (more…)

 

On Our Way to Palestine… Tuesday, May 17 2011 

Israel and Lebanon and Middle East and Palestine , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Sandboxer 6:34 pm

“You know what scares Israel more than Arab armies or Iranian nukes? Palestinian refugees simply walking home.” - Seen on Twitter on Nakba Day

Sunday marked the Nakba — or day of “catastrophe” in Arabic — referring to the 1948 declaration of Israel when more than 700,000 Palestinian civilians were made homeless overnight.

In remembrance of the Nakba, last weekend thousands of Palestinians and their supporters marched from Syria (video), Gaza, Jordan, the West Bank, Egypt and Lebanon toward Israel’s borders, and were — in most cases — thwarted, sometimes violently, from reaching their destination by Arab security forces.

Israeli troops in turn injured, killed and arrested scores of demonstrators demanding their Right of Return in Qalandia, East Jerusalem, the Erez Crossing, Golan Heights and Maroun el Ras.

Today, Palestinian refugees and their descendants number around 5 million worldwide.

Nour Samaha, a 28-year-old freelance Swiss-Lebanese writer based in Beirut for the past 18 months, participated in the Lebanese Nakba march to Palestine. Her story, posted on Facebook, is riveting: Nour’s day begins with smiles and excitement, and ends with rage, shock and disillusionment. Most compelling for me though is that as the violence of the day unfolds, well-meaning young protesters don’t run scared — they get angrier:

“The more bodies were pulled away from the fence, whether dead or wounded, the more we, as a crowd, wanted to be there. To help, to support, to get angry, to chant, to do whatever was necessary to defend.”

From Tahrir Square to Pearl Square one wonders at the courage of the Arab youth who stand firm in the face of live bullets and truncheons. Are they crazy? So many of these brave organizers and participants are middle class and/or educated — they have much to lose.

Nour’s story — told in her own words below — illustrates how easily a simple yearning for justice can morph into a non-negotiable determination to wrench that prize any which way. The real lesson for Arab autocrats and Israel is that violence against today’s protesters can no longer gain them the upper hand for very long. Something new is in the air and it’s wildly contagious — spreading from Tunis to Manama, Benghazi to Maroun el Ras:

Sunday 15th May, 2011.

7.30am, Nada calls. “The buses are already full and they told us if we want to hitch a ride we’d have to stand the whole way down, is there space with you?” The buses are full? Big smile on my face. “Of course!” Quick change of plan, and I wait for Rana before we set off to pick up Nada and Lara and join Ahmad in Khalde.

After a stop for coffee, we began our journey down, with Ahmad leading our two-car convoy. It was very unlikely we would get lost though, because every kilometre or so we’d pass half a dozen buses decked out with Palestinian flags, clearly heading in the same direction as us. And if somehow we missed those, someone had kindly taken the time to signpost the entire journey down with directions to Palestine. I guess for future reference, you know, after we’ve liberated it and we can make plans to hang out in Haifa for the weekend. Forward planning; I like.

Adorned with keffiyehs, and draping flags out of the car window, we laughed at those who had predicted the worst for us that day, rather, exchanged ideas of how we would cross the border fence. “What did you hear?” “Someone said they’re going to shoot at us.” “They wouldn’t dare!” “I wonder how many of us are going to show up?” “I wonder how many of THEM are going to show up?” “Look! More buses!” Nada told us she had promised her father that she won’t be the first person to break across the border, “but I will be the second!”. Ohh yay, I get to be the first. (more…)

 

Three Mideast Stink Bombs Friday, Apr 8 2011 

Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Sandboxer 8:28 am

By Sharmine Narwani

Popular revolts may be spinning through the Arab world with a fervor and determination not seen in decades, but efforts to sidetrack the reform momentum are also gaining strength.

Three issues have plagued the region for decades and threaten to derail progress at every turn. I call them the Mideast’s “Stink Bombs” – hyper-divisive issues that inflame passions and serve a politicized minority only: 1) Religious vs. Secular; 2) Sunni vs. Shia; 3) Arabs vs. Iranians.

While protestors have been cautious in avoiding confrontations on these issues (who said the Arab Street is not smart?), political figures inside and outside the Mideast, and extremists on all sides, have sought at regular intervals to undermine national and regional unity with these polarizing issues.

The Stink Bombs have subverted the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, al Nahda in Tunisia, the Ikhwan in Jordan, and stirred sectarian strife between Shia and Sunni in Bahrain and Yemen – two countries that also depend on the Iran card to justify all their unlawful actions against civilians. The Stink Bombs have worked to prevent common cause on the Palestinian issue, and to undermine regional resistance to US, Israeli and western hegemonic designs, by keeping populations divided and in conflict.

Confidence in government authorities is at such a low ebb among Arab populations, that in some cases, these threats are being ignored or challenged head on. But that will not always be the case, and protestors and reformists alike will need to be vigilant in guarding against attempts to hijack progress with these long-held dogmas.

Let’s look at the Stink Bombs in more detail:

Stink Bomb #1: Religious versus Secular
This one has been played out skillfully through narratives that have long sought to associate Islam with extremism and terrorism. Washington’s close friends in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Morocco, Algeria and other places have exploited the “Islamist” narrative to put a lid on moderate Muslim groups within their countries and gain unfettered US political and financial support for their elite.

For decades, grassroots Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood have been either banned outright or subjected to intimidation, detentions and political machinations that have deprived them of fair participation in governing bodies. After September 11, Washington’s narratives on Islamists held them all to be one and the same – on virtual par with America’s greatest enemy, Al Qaeda – and any effort to differentiate between groups was largely ignored in the political mainstream.

Any non-ideological US area specialist could have pointed to half a dozen groups on the US list of terrorist organizations that should not have been featured in that unfortunate blacklist, but they would have been fighting a tidal wave during the height of the Afghanistan and Iraq occupations, the 2006 Lebanon war, and the orchestrated removal of Hamas after its election victory.

When the Bush administration failed to achieve even its most elementary war goals, then UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband took a half-hearted shot at pointing out the obvious:

Miliband wrote in the Guardian in January 2010 that efforts to “lump” extremists together had been counterproductive, playing “into the hands of those seeking to unify groups with little in common.”

But instead, the West stood aside during recent elections in Egypt and Jordan when the ruling secular establishments absolutely undermined the participation of their respective Islamist political candidates and parties.

Copts forming protective circle around praying Muslims

During the wave of protests in Tahrir Square in January and February, the world witnessed the schism between populations and their rulers on this hot-button issue. After attacks on politically-secular Coptic Christians who make up ten percent of the nation’s populace, Egyptians demonstrated their skepticism about the source of this sectarian strife in a startling display of unity. That Friday, Copts linked arms to form a protective circle around praying Muslims. On Sunday, Muslims returned the favor for Christians.

To be sure, secularists and religious minorities don’t face an easy time in the Middle East, particularly with the boom in Salafist extremism and growing conservatism experienced, in particular, after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Of the three Stink Bombs, this is the one that has some legs in a troubled Middle East where foreign intervention and autocratic rule has ensured stagnation on the political and social fronts. But this does not negate the very real threat that religious and secular groups – both ideologues in their own way – can be exploited to divide and manage populations.

Stink Bomb #2: Sunni versus Shia
With roots in an age-old rivalry between those who believed the Prophet Muhammad’s successors should be selected from among his faithful companions (Sunni) and those who believed that Muslims should be led by members of the Prophet’s family (Shia), this issue is essentially a political one – the Sunni and Shia share the most fundamental Islamic beliefs and articles of faith, after all. (more…)

 

Getting in Line for a Revolution Thursday, Feb 3 2011 

Egypt and Foreign Affairs and Israel and Middle East and US Foreign Policy , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Sandboxer 12:19 pm

What is interesting about the tsunami of change sweeping through the Middle East this past month is that the “dumb, undeserving-of-democracy” Arab masses have turned out to be magnificently saavy, efficient , focused and determined in flipping over longstanding dictatorships.

And it turns out they are polite too. Arab populations from North Africa, the Levant and the Persian Gulf have now, quite organically it seems, devised a wait-your-turn system for overthrowing the Middle East’s iron-fisted leaders.

Opposition groups and ordinary citizens have come to the streets in Yemen, Jordan, Palestine, Bahrain and Algeria recently to air their grievances and demand change. But they are not going full throttle quite yet. First, they are waiting for the brothers and sisters in Egypt to finish.

As Egyptians did when Tunisians were focused on overthrowing the 23-year-old dictatorship of now deposed president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Which leader is next is anyone’s guess. But I bet that every subsequent uprising will be leaner and smarter than the last. The Arab masses are learning quickly:

When the Egyptian security forces sent thugs onto the streets to foment chaos and turn folks against the protestors, Egyptian bloggers and commentators hit the media and social networks to warn about these tactics – quickly pointing out that Ben Ali’s presidential guard had attempted the same a few weeks ago.

When the inevitable US and Israeli warnings came about Islamic fundamentalists hijacking the protests, the moderate Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) released statements to the contrary and aligned themselves behind Mohammad El Baradei, a secular, Nobel Peace Prize-winning, potential presidential candidate.

When warnings came that Egypt’s Coptic Christians – ten percent of the nation’s population – would be targeted by the “mobs,” not only did that not happen, but Copts formed human chains to protect their fellow Muslims from government forces during prayer time.

It was literally just one week ago when American and mainstream Arab commentators were saying that what happened in Tunisia could not possibly happen in Egypt. That even if Egyptians hit the streets, it would take much, much longer to impact the entrenched government of Hosni Mubarak, if at all. (more…)

 

Kill the “Peace Game” Saturday, Jan 8 2011 

Foreign Affairs and Israel and Middle East and Palestine and peace process and US Foreign Policy , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Sandboxer 9:12 pm

The Palestine-Israel conflict is no pesky regional skirmish. This century-long battle over territory threatens to draw the entire global community into its bowels if it is not dealt with soon, and the only way out of the current paralysis is to kill the “peace process” once and for all.

There is no other way to end our dependence on the “process” – hoping that another tweak here or there might be the one to produce a breakthrough. No it won’t, and we need to destroy this addiction in order to think straight for a change.

Some realities to consider:

Nineteen years of a drawn out “peace process” has seen the establishment and institutionalization of a “peace industry” so gargantuan and far-reaching that it makes the United Nations look like a nimble start-up operation.

From Madrid to Oslo to Annapolis to the Quartet, we are hampered by agreements, roadmaps and conditions that create a thicket of red tape and limit our maneuverability. Layer upon layer of superficial “process” obscures the path forward. Which is why we are standing quite still.

Playing Games with Peace

Even the participants are fake. The Palestinian “Authority” – well – has none. We squeezed out the elected body and inserted our own players. When we throw eve-of-peace-talks ceremonies at the White House, we invite Egypt and Jordan, who have absolutely nothing of substance to contribute. And we studiously ignore all the parties that count – Hamas and Syria are fundamentally unavoidable in any settlement.

Welcome to the Middle East Peace Game – in which we get to choose the players, make up the rules and set the time table.

Excluded from The Game is anything remotely resembling an actual solution, or any meaningful negotiation around the contentious core issues. We don’t want this game to end. Like NATO and the other Cold War games we set up – we are not sure exactly how to dismantle them and have long since forgotten the end goal. The goal, it seems, is to simply stay in “play.”

So here we are at the start of 2011, entering the 20th year of the “Peace Process.” The reality of establishing two states died years before the idea did – just around the time we realized that Israel had used the peace process to sneak in half a million Jewish settlers into the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, thereby ending the land-for-peace basis of any lasting agreement.

Bad Assumptions = Bad Results
Established by the Oslo Agreement to allow Palestinians to begin a process of self-governance, the Palestinian Authority (PA) instead turned out to be a nifty way to remove Israeli troops from the daily grind of confrontation, whilst quite brilliantly allowing Palestinians to administer their own occupation.

And we threw money at our handpicked Palestinian leadership – creating graft, corruption and a sense of entitlement the likes of which has not been seen since the CEO of Halliburton became Vice President of the United States. In the process, we cordoned off the “opposition” into a hellhole called Gaza, and sought to destroy them by punishing an entire civilian population.

So focused were we on establishing players and rules, not for one honest second did we drill down on the core issues required to resolve this most divisive conflict. These were: 1) determining the borders of Palestine and Israel; 2) determining the status of East Jerusalem 3) determining the fate of millions of Palestinian refugees; 4) determination of sovereignty issues – water and air space rights; security…

The Peace Process Industry instead created a thousand other issues to be addressed first: who is in charge of guarding the grove of olive trees below that hill, around the corner from Abol Abed’s house? Who is going to ride in the second car when the PA president visits a town in Sector C? Who is going to collect taxes from the Palestinian worker building a gazebo for a Jewish settler family in illegally confiscated land? And other such numbing minutae. (more…)

 

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