“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…)
I’m not arguing that Shiites have a lot in common with rodents and insects. But you wouldn’t know it by watching Bahrainis and Saudis snuff them out with barely a peep from Western and majority-Sunni Arab nations, both.
Shia-majority Iran, Iraq and the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah have been the most vocal in condemning the outrageous killings, arrests and beatings of Shiites in the Persian Gulf — but they have had to do so with a muffled voice. Each objection from Iran or Hezbollah unleashes a barrage of opportunistic rants by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the U.S. about “Iranian interference” and expansionism.
Which means as long as we can successfully infer a nefarious connection between these groups, one can simply yell “Iran” or “Hezbollah” and kill, torture and imprison Shiites with impunity — in much the same way that we yelled “al Qaeda” and buried hundreds of Sunni Muslims in Guantanamo for years. No matter that we have never ever proven a connection of significance between these coreligionists.
It’s the equivalent of saying all Irish Catholics have a connection to the Irish Republican Army. Or that all Jews take marching orders from Israel.
The Sectarian Bogeyman
To be fair, this isn’t really a sectarian battle — although some would like to spin it that way. This is about autocratic regimes stifling protest, and it just so happens that the largest disenfranchised populations in these places are Shiites.
At the very heart of the matter lies the growing battle for influence in the greater Middle East. These domestic Arab uprisings — while highly desired by their national populations — on a geopolitical level threaten to fundamentally alter the balance of power in the region toward the “Resistance Bloc” — state and non-state actors that reject U.S. and Israeli hegemony in the Mideast.
Shiite-majority Iran is a major influencer in this bloc, which is why it has been so important for Washington and Riyadh to keep the pressure on the Islamic Republic and deprive it of any opportunity to gain further footholds or popular support from non-Shia populations in the region.
When mass protests kicked off in Bahrain on February 14, the peaceful demonstrations in Pearl Square were decidedly non-sectarian. Sunni and Shia came together to demand reform across the board. Yes, the majority of protesters were Shia, but that number falls along demographic lines in a country of around 70% Shiites who have been marginalized politically, economically and socially.
When a brutal, regime-led clampdown ensued with killings and beatings, the mood changed and protesters called for the downfall of the Al Khalifa ruling family. Suddenly “Iran” was being invoked as an instigator for regime change and Saudi troops were “invited in” to quell the protests.
The past month has seen a violent clampdown of a different kind. Bahraini troops — many imported from other Sunni countries — and Saudi forces troll largely-impoverished Shia neighborhoods and villages, arresting activists and violently suppressing any signs of protest — or even normal Shia religious activity.
Hundreds of activists have “disappeared” in the small Persian Gulf nation of 600,000 citizens – one in every 1,000 Bahraini, by one count — and masked men storm into private homes regularly in the middle of the night to detain Shia human rights workers, bloggers and opposition members. (more…)
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…)
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seems to have a tough time grasping what kids on the streets of Cairo and Manama understand with ease. Politicians – elected and otherwise – have no place to hide. Their every turn of phrase, their every move, is digested in real-time across the planet. And there is no such thing as an unsophisticated populace any longer.
When Clinton dusted off the Iran Bogeyman and paraded him around the Senate Appropriations Committee hearings last Wednesday, the transparency of her actions was almost embarrassing – especially in light of a new Mideast strategy unveiled by the Wall Street Journal a few days later: “Regime Alteration,” as opposed to Regime Change.
The plan? To “help keep longtime allies who are willing to reform in power, even if that means the full democratic demands of their newly emboldened citizens might have to wait.”
After some heavy duty lobbying by Arab autocrats and Israel, US policymakers are trying a different tack: “Starting with Bahrain, the administration has moved a few notches toward emphasizing stability over majority rule,” said a U.S. official. “Everybody realized that Bahrain was just too important to fail.”
That means Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Morocco, Jordan and Algeria too. It is worth noting that had this policy been enacted prior to January 25, 2011 we would now be tuning in to Hosni Mubarak’s 16th I-am-not-resigning speech.
But how to silence the angry populations of key allies in the Persian Gulf, namely Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Yemen? Rallying for more representation in government, a fair distribution of national wealth, freedom to congregate and speak freely – these are all legitimate concerns that we surely defend as a matter of principle?
Drag out the “Evil Iran” card, apparently.
Conceding that “Iran has no relations with the opposition, and in some cases are in an adversary relationship with Sunni Muslim Brotherhood groups,” Secretary Clinton told the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday that the Islamic Republic is nonetheless “doing everything they can to influence the outcomes in these places.”
And this is the convoluted reasoning we are to follow:
“We know that, through their proxy, Hezbollah in Lebanon, they are using Hezbollah – which is a political party with an armed wing – to communicate with counterparts in Egypt, in Hamas, who then, in turn, communicate with counterparts in Egypt. We know that they are reaching out to the opposition in Bahrain. We know that they – the Iranians are very much involved in the opposition movements in Yemen. So, either directly or through proxies, they are constantly trying to influence events. They have a very active diplomatic foreign policy outreach.”
Pot Calling the Kettle Black
Clinton’s statements were made on the same day that the The USS Ponce and USS Kearsarge warships entered the Mediterranean Sea on their way to Libya, laden with military equipment and hundreds of marines.
All this within a year of the news that the US would deploy Patriot Missiles in five of the six Arab nations of the Persian Gulf “to counter Iran (and) assuage Israel,” a country that threatens to bomb the Islamic Republic at regular intervals.
Given our provocations in Iran’s neighborhood, it is extraordinary that we charge Tehran with trying to influence regional events. But despite Clinton’s allegations of Iranian intervention in the affairs of neighboring states, the WikiLeaks Cables tell an entirely different story: (more…)
Valentine’s Day, and not a whole lot of love in the Middle East, as clashes between government forces and protestors broke out in Bahrain, Iran and Yemen.
Washington, as usual, did nothing right.
After hemming and hawing through the widespread Egyptian uprising against staunch US-backed dictator Hosni Mubarak, the Obama administration leaped at the opportunity to support the Iranian demonstrators…and completely ignore those in Yemen and Bahrain.
Over the weekend, the US State Department set up a brand new Twitter account in the Persian language called @USAdarFarsi (which translates into “USA in Farsi”) and proactively busted out these gems in anticipation of Iran protests on Monday:
RT @USAdarFarsi: US calls on #Iran to allow people to enjoy same universal rights to peacefully assemble, demonstrate as in Cairo.#25Bahman
RT @USAdarFarsi #Iran has shown that the activities it praised Egyptians for it sees as illegal, illegitimate for its own people.#25Bahman
RT @USAdarFarsi US State Dept recognizes historic role of social media among Iranians We want to join in your conversations #Iran#25Bahman
RT @USAdarFarsi in English: Egyptians=Tahrir … Iranians=Azadi … freedom of peaceful assembly for all. #25Bahman #25Jan #Egypt #Iran
RT @USAdarFarsi in English: Iranians in Sadiqieh square should have same right to protest as Egyptians in Tahrir square. #25Bahman #Jan25
Secretary of State Hilary Clinton spent the weekend spinning her perspectives on Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya and the US-funded Al Hurra, calling for political change in Iran, and openly supporting the aspirations of protestors there. Not a word on protests in US-backed Bahrain or Yemen however.
It is clear that Washington is irritated by Iranian government claims to have inspired the uprisings embroiling the Arab world right now, especially as these are taking place in countries the US once relied on to support its pro-Israel, anti-Iran regional policy positions.
But to actually come out in firm support of protestors in Iran, while remaining quiet about those taking place against their proxy Arab governments is also extremely hypocritical. It seems we never learn.
Western Media Toes the US Line
Worse yet were the media takes on events in Iran on Monday. With all the tweets and videos pouring in, there is still barely any verifiable information available – not that this has stopped both print and television media from jumping into the fray.
My favorite piece of disinformation is this MSNBC news segment where an Iran-based correspondent’s audio feed is juxtaposed with video footage of absolutely massive crowds streaming through central Tehran squares and monuments. My eyes popped until I saw the discreet “Friday” date on the video — the footage is from pro-government celebrations just three days earlier on the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution:
Another bit of disinformation — now quoted widely in the western media — came early on Monday with claims that one protester had already been killed by government forces. A closer look traces this tidbit to the semi-official Fars news agency which attributes the violence to protesters: “One person was shot dead and several were wounded by seditionists (opposition supporters) who staged a rally in Tehran.” (more…)
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…)
Lebanon expects to hear the UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) deliver indictments in the investigation of ex-Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri’s 2005 murder imminently. Tension is rife as speculators ply their trade, and the country has split into predictable camps – those who believe the STL is an “Israeli Project” bent on destroying its biggest regional foe the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah, and those who back the Tribunal, possibly also in hopes that it will neuter the ever-growing strength of Hezbollah and its regional allies.
Nobody seems to focus much attention on the actual murder victim and the 22 others who died alongside him in the massive truck bomb five years ago.
Perhaps that is because Lebanon has seen oh so many assassinations in its decades of civil war, invasions and occupations. So what is one more? And why should this one count more than another?
Quite right. The murder of this Lebanese man has come to symbolize so much more – it is often said that Hariri became “greater” in death than in life.
In identifying through anonymous sources in a May 2009 Der Spiegelarticle Hezbollah members as the main culprits in the assassination, the STL investigation has drawn the two “blocs” in the Middle East to the political – and potentially military – battleground.
Three years of investigations that appeared wholly focused on Syria were thrown by the wayside in early 2009 and the STL’s laser beam shifted to Hezbollah. Opportunistically, many say, as Syria began to be courted at the highest levels of government by the West – away from its regional friends Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas.
In the interim, it appeared that those three years of investigations had been embarrassingly unproductive, as the Syria-focus seemed to be borne entirely from the false testimony of discredited witnesses. Not one. Not two. Over a dozen such “false witnesses.”
“A Western/American/Israeli plot,” yelled half of Lebanon’s body politic, demanding a halt to the STL’s machinations. Suddenly, the docile, plodding-along cooperation of Syrian and Lebanese authorities with the STL’s investigations came to an abrupt halt as questions, suspicions and accusations rose hard and fast to the surface.
What about those false witnesses? What about the one who was spirited away to France under protection? What about the imprisoned Al Qaeda operatives who had already confessed to the crime?
The twists and turns in this plot are astounding. Some examples:
General Jamil el Sayyed - STL victim?
The General
Just before the UN Security Council-backed investigation/Commission moved into its “Tribunal” phase in 2009, it ordered the release of four Lebanese generals who had been arrested shortly after Hariri’s assassination under suspicion. They were never charged – or provided with evidence of their involvement. One of them, General Jamil el-Sayyed, the head of General Security and a Syrian ally, was allegedly contacted by senior Commission official Gerhard Lehman and asked to approach Syrian President Bashar al Assad with a deal:
“The offer,” which Sayyed alleges Lehman made on behalf of Commission head Detlev Mehlis, specifically demanded that Assad pony up “a valuable Syrian ‘victim’ who will confess to the crime for personal or financial reasons – a victim who will conveniently be found dead later – and the Commission will strike a deal with the Syrian regime, similar to the one struck with Libya’s Qaddafi over Lockerbie.”
In a subsequent conversation, Sayyed was warned that non-compliance with this request would result in Sayyed becoming the “victim.”
Sayyed had the foresight to tape some of his subsequent phone conversations with Lehman. He sent three of these to the investigative Commission. He never heard back on this issue, nor did the Commission ever request further information or original copies of the taping. But Lehman and his entire team were replaced shortly thereafter, supposedly because of the “false witnesses” fiasco. The players changed, but Sayyed still sat in prison.
Now out of prison and raging with the injustice of it all, Sayyed has launched a one-man legal tsunami against the STL, demanding his “file” so that he may bring to trial false witnesses and others who provided evidence against him in 2005. STL Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare has fought him all the way, although recent legal wrangling between both parties looks to ensure that Sayyed gets his file shortly.
This case has split the Lebanese Cabinet in the past few weeks. Sayyed wants to take the false witnesses, some Lebanese judges and a few former STL officials to court right now. The pro-STL side of the Cabinet wants to wait for the Tribunal’s findings first. The other side says “why wait?” (more…)
What do US comedian Jon Stewart and Hamas Chief Khaled Meshaal have in common? What does Stewart have in common with Syrian President Bashar al Assad or outgoing Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva or Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for that matter?
For starters, they’re all sick of waiting for the American government to do something useful. And just as critically, they are pretty tired of the “you’re either with us or against us” theme too.
Watching Jon Stewart speaking to more than 200,000 Americans who had traveled far and wide to attend Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” two weeks ago, I was struck by some themes that I repeatedly heard throughout the Middle East this summer.
In August during an <a href=”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sharmine-narwani/khaled-meshaal-on-hamas-a_b_738758.html” target=”_hplink”>interview</a> in Damascus, Hamas Chief Meshaal described a new trend in the Middle East where certain leaders and states were rejecting the notion of being stuck in “blocs” or political camps, always warring with the other side:
<blockquote>Why should we be dividing ourselves into two blocs — either being against America and the West, or acquiescing 100% to them? We do not want to wage a war against the world. Or to sever relations with countries. So the nations and the people of the region want a state model based on self respect — without any enmity with the world.</blockquote>
Not that we would know this back home. The divisive media that Stewart and Colbert rail against for partisan politicking in Washington is on hyper-drive when it comes to the Middle East — creating more fear, more hate than is good for us. It paralyzes our ability to act and ensures that we will have zero policy breakthroughs.
I am fairly sure that Stewart was not thinking about Meshaal when he said “we can have animus, and not be enemies,” but I am equally certain the core of his sentiment — the promotion of the kind of political maturity we used to see in politics where foes could sit around a table, break bread and try to find common ground — is absolutely relevant to our foreign policy breakdown, too. (more…)
This is the second installment of a two-part series. Read the first installment here.
Palestinian resistance group Hamas has beaten some unusual odds to survive today: Israel’s unlawful siege of Gaza has crippled the coastal strip’s economy and left Hamas scrambling to govern a restless population living under increasingly desperate conditions. Its officials and members are targeted by Israel and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA) for detention, torture and extrajudicial killings. Pro-US Arab leaders undermine it at every turn, partly to satisfy American demands, partly because they fear the widespread popularity of any moderate Islamist resistance group among their own populations.
Classified by the US as a “terrorist” organization, Hamas has spent the past year battling armed Salafist extremists who want to enforce Islamic law in the Gaza Strip and who view the Hamas leadership as too weak-willed to challenge Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
It is ironic that Hamas today is criticized for being hardline — and liberal too. Militant — and not militant enough. Islamist — and not Islamist enough. Iranian stooges — and US pawns, both.
I expected to see some of these contradictions in Khaled Meshaal, head of Hamas’ political bureau, when I interviewed him in Damascus recently. What I discovered instead is that, like a select crop of leaders we are seeing in the Middle East today, Meshaal refuses to be seen through one lens only. A real challenge for US policymakers with their unidimensional approach to regional politics.
The former high school physics teacher convincingly argues that the New Middle East is one where nations need to keep their “options open.” He rejects a regional status-quo where countries stay in “blocs” unthinkingly, and vehemently argues against the notion that Mideast democracy and reform cannot advance unless foreign intervention ends.
Meshaal may be more of a geopolitical strategist than suspected, but he also manages to stay infuriatingly “on message” most of the time — never a fun thing when you would love a stray impolitic anecdote. Toward the end of our discussion I asked him about his rumored stash of Dubya jokes, and received nothing but a twinkle in his eye in return, though I could swear he almost caved.
But Hamas’ goal to end Israel’s occupation of Palestine is no laughing matter, and Meshaal’s earnest focus reflects the gravity of events in the Mideast today. In Part 1 of the interview seen here, he addresses the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Hamas’ perspective on the recently launched peace talks. This time around, Khaled Meshaal talks about broader regional issues, including the emergence of the “Resistance Bloc,” the New Middle East, relations with Iran, the Ground Zero mosque…and on a more personal note, his relationship with his father: (more…)
With pundits in most capitals already predicting failure for the US-brokered Palestinian-Israeli peace talks to begin on Thursday, it seems only natural to start asking the question: “What’s next?”
To get a jumpstart on what surely will be an onslaught of new, competing narratives vying for prominence in the post-peace process era, I headed to Damascus to talk to a man who has predicted the failure of this process from the start. And yet who — against all logic — has never been invited to sit at the negotiating table.
Khaled Meshaal, head of Hamas’ political bureau, is an unassuming man who sauntered into our interview room unattended and chatted with me in English while we awaited his staff.
The young father of seven — three daughters and four sons, in that order — is grounded, smart and energetic. We met at 1:00 a.m. when I was fading fast, and he was just getting started. There was a lot of ground to cover, but more than anything I wanted to leave the interview knowing what Hamas stood for. The resistance group, I felt, had left people confused in recent years. By moderating their stances and altering their language to accommodate changing realities in the Middle East, Hamas had become a bit blurry at the edges.
Do they recognize a two-state solution? Do they reject the peace process outright? What do they think about the role and imperatives of the international community in resolving the longstanding conflict between Palestinians and Israelis?
And most importantly for me — how does one today define an organization that has evolved so much since its inception?
Firstly, Hamas is clearly a national liberation movement that has at it roots a “resistance” outlook. It’s focus is the liberation of Palestine from Israeli occupation, and the group’s Islamist character complements rather than competes with Hamas’ political objectives.
Secondly, Hamas’ resistance of occupation is at the heart of its strategies — be they efforts to reach out and engage, or to take up arms. The strategy may change with evolving regional and global realities, but the group’s objectives stand firm.
In a nutshell: While the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority enables Israel to enjoy a pressure-free occupation, Hamas ensures that Israel’s occupation remains always under pressure.
And so we come to this last leg of the US-brokered peace process. Ostensibly, under the internationally-sanctioned land-for-peace formula, a major goal of negotiations is to end Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands. So why then would Hamas not stand fully behind a peace process that sought to accomplish some of its very own goals? And why too would US mediators not invite the participation of a group that won the Palestinian popular vote in their last elections?
Here is what Khaled Meshaal had to say about the prospects and challenges of peace, and where we find ourselves at this moment, on the eve of direct peace talks:
SN: The peace process has been going on for 19 years — what in your view has been the major reason for its failure thus far?
KM: Three reasons. First of all, Israel does not want peace. They talk about peace but they are not ready to pay the price of peace. The second reason is that the Palestinian negotiator does not have strong cards in his hand to push the peace process forward. The third reason is that the international community does not have the capability or the desire to push Israel towards peace.
“You know what scares Israel more than Arab armies or Iranian nukes? Palestinian refugees simply walking home.” - Seen on Twitter on Nakba Day
