Israel, the Only Country Standing in the Way of the Mideast Descending into Total Chaos: Robert Fulford, National Post, Mar. 18, 2016— Across the Arab world, dictators denounce Israel as a way of diverting the masses from their miserable condition.
Yemen: The War the World is Ignoring: Kamal Al-Solaylee, Globe & Mail, Apr. 11, 2016— When pictures of a starving Yemeni infant by the name of Udai Faisal began circulating on news feeds around the world recently, I felt optimistic.
Tribalism Drives Middle East Violence: Philip Carl Salzman, Independent Journal Review, Mar. 25, 2016— Take a look at recent news reports from around the Arab world and you'll notice an unusual commonality.
How Middle Eastern States Consolidate Power: Kristin Fabbe, Stratfor, Apr. 2, 2015— Commentators speculating on the chaos engulfing the Middle East almost inevitably point to the Sykes-Picot Agreement as its underlying cause.
Hatred & Human Rights: Lecture by Daniel Pipes (Video): CISA Lecture Series, Mar. 21, 2016
Symposium in Honor of Prof. Barry Rubin: “Israel in a Changed Middle East,” Part 1 (Video): Rubin Center, Mar. 6, 2016
Obama’s Middle East Debacle (Video): Ted Belman, Israpundit, Apr. 4, 2016
Shifting Eastern Mediterranean Alliances: Emmanuel Karagiannis, Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2016
ISRAEL, THE ONLY COUNTRY STANDING IN THE WAY
OF THE MIDEAST DESCENDING INTO TOTAL CHAOS
Robert Fulford
National Post, Mar. 18, 2016
Across the Arab world, dictators denounce Israel as a way of diverting the masses from their miserable condition. Surprisingly, this devious strategy works as well in 2016 as it did in the 1950s. And it fools educated Westerners as easily as it tricks starving Arabs.
“There is a huge campaign to terrorize the Palestinians,” Mudar Zahran says. “As long as the Palestinians fight with the Israelis, no one will turn around and look at what the Arabs are doing to one another.” He believes the Palestinian cause is a necessity for Arab regimes, the cornerstone of their propaganda. But who is Mudar Zahran to make that argument? He’s a rare character in the Middle East — a sharp critic of standard beliefs. He’s an Arab Palestinian-Jordanian, age 42, who directs the Jordanian Opposition Coalition (JOC) from exile in Britain. His well-to-do parents were born in Jerusalem and later moved to Jordan. They sent him to the U.S. to study and he came home with two MAs from the University of Southern New Hampshire. In the Jordanian capital of Amman, he worked in policy jobs for the embassy of Australia and then for the U.S. embassy. Those positions helped him become a confident and articulate journalist. In the process, they turned him into a politician with an unusual agenda.
He’s a Muslim who believes in secular government and Western-style civil rights. He does not believe in the Hashemite Kingdom and Jordan’s current ruler, King Abdullah II. His criticism made him unpopular with the regime and he realized he was in danger. In 2010, he successfully sought asylum in the U.K. He’s been there ever since, keeping in touch with the opposition, serving as a researcher at the University of Bedfordshire and maintaining a powerful presence online. His views of Israel are always surprising. He’s convinced that most Palestinians would rather have Israeli citizenship than Jordanian citizenship — Bedouins too. “The Bedouins in the south of Jordan can’t find food for their children. They are dying of hunger while our king is buying Ferraris.” Zahran probably can’t go home until the regime changes. In 2013, a military court indicted him for “inciting hatred” and insulting the king, the nation and the security services. If convicted, he could face a 15-year jail sentence.
It’s clear that Zahran has created a considerable audience for his speeches and articles. One piece in particular — an article titled, If Israel Disappears — aroused interest as it flashed across the Internet. He says Arabs have wasted seven decades of their existence waiting for Israel’s demise. “Since 1948, we Arabs have been taught that all we need to do is get rid of the Jewish state and everything will go well.” Saddam Hussein, when he was Iraq’s president, adopted the Palestinian flag and flew it alongside his own flag. “We Arabs have put 70 years of our existence on hold while awaiting the glorious day when we defeat Israel and feed the Jews to the fish.” But that day still hasn’t come. Zahran quotes a fellow Jordanian oppositionist, Emad Tarifi, who remarked, “It seems the fish are not betting on us feeding them Jews.”
Instead, Arabs have allowed dictators to impoverish and terrorize the people, in the name of the anti-Zionist struggle. “While Israel made 10 new breakthroughs in cancer and cardiac treatments in the last two years alone, we Arabs developed new execution methods,” like death by drowning in a cage, as ISIL demonstrated. If the enemies of Israel had succeeded in destroying it, Zahran says, Iran would now have nuclear weapons. Instead, Iran learned from Iraq’s experience in 1981, when Israel’s bombers reduced Iraq’s Osirak reactor to rubble.
Zahran argues that if Israel were to disappear now, Iran could extend its influence into Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain the next day, since it would not have to fear an inevitable Israeli response. With Israel gone, ISIL would also reach Jordan. ISIL “does not dare enter Jordan for one reason only — its fear that Israeli jets would catch up with it 15 minutes later.” Zahran believes that Israel is becoming stronger every day through democracy and innovation, while Arab countries are getting weaker through dictatorship and chaos. Speaking as a Jordanian, he says, “We can hate Israel as much as we like, but we must realize that without it, we too would be gone.” It’s briskly refreshing to come across someone who sees the harsh truth, knows it’s dangerous, but nevertheless speaks it aloud.
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YEMEN: THE WAR THE WORLD IS IGNORING Kamal Al-Solaylee Globe & Mail, Apr. 11, 2016
When pictures of a starving Yemeni infant by the name of Udai Faisal began circulating on news feeds around the world recently, I felt optimistic. Even when the accompanying article by the Associated Press informed readers that he died from malnutrition a few days later, I willed myself into thinking that his skeletal face and searing, disproportionately large eyes would serve as a wake-up call to the world.
Instead, as often happens with news from Yemen, the media cycle moved on. Within days, the world, rightly or wrongly, turned its attention to the money-hoarding habits of the rich and famous in tax havens. Any hopes that Udai’s photo would serve as a humanitarian lightning rod, as the image of drowned Syrian child Alan Kurdi did last year, vanished. Granted, a few tweets and status updates on social media delivered the requisite moral outrage by the usual suspects. Otherwise, silence. I should have known better.
As a Canadian of Yemeni origin, I understand that the situation there is much more than a geopolitical challenge. The next picture of a starving (or dying) child could be a member of my family. I have skin in this game, this game of unrelenting war. For several months now, the United Nations and aid organizations have been calling the year-long war in Yemen – between supporters of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, led by Saudi Arabia; and the Houthi (Shia) rebels, with backing from Iran – a humanitarian catastrophe.
A new Unicef report puts the number of Yemenis in need of urgent humanitarian assistance at more than 21 million, or 82 per cent of the total population. At least half of those vulnerable citizens are children. The number of displaced people is now about 2.4 million. Both sides have attacked schools, hospitals and homes, leaving thousands killed and millions traumatized. If the ceasefire that is to begin this week doesn’t hold – and few observers expect it will – the country’s fate enters the stage of complete unknown. What comes after total chaos, anyway? The precedents of Syria and Afghanistan, the two countries with which Yemen is often compared, come to mind. Except that the proximity of those two failed or fledgling states to European shores, and the mass exodus of their people, act as constant reminders to Western leaders of the scale of human suffering, and to the nature of Europe’s porous borders.
Yemen is not so lucky. Tucked in the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, on the other side of the East African horn, Yemen is out of sight and its people seem to be out of mind, plunging the poorest country in the region into its second civil war in a little more than 20 years. Take the Houthi rebels who have picked up a fight with a government that has solicited the full support of the mighty Saudi Arabia and the affluent Gulf countries surrounding it. Despite its ailing economy, Saudi Arabia continues to exert undue influence not only on the Arab world but also on the world stage. No country (except perhaps Iran, by proxy) can afford to start a public relations war with the Saudis, let alone an actual one.
In choosing not to confront Saudi Arabia on its war actions in Yemen, world leaders (and that includes almost all in the Arab world, beneficiaries of the petro-state’s largesse) have turned a blind eye to the plight of Yemeni citizens, currently the globe’s largest collateral damage. Even Canada’s new government has declined to reverse course in a deal to supply the Saudis with armoured vehicles. What price our collective humanity? Fifteen billion dollars and a few thousand jobs in Southern Ontario. I realize what a bind the Liberal government finds itself in with this deal, inked by the Conservatives, but I expect a more coherent and less grim rationale to carrying on with it than the Lady Macbeth-like “what’s done is done.” Otherwise, we’re just part of the dehumanizing silence that greets Yemen’s ongoing tragedy.
TRIBALISM DRIVES MIDDLE EAST VIOLENCE Philip Carl Salzman Independent Journal Review, Mar. 25, 2016 |
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Take a look at recent news reports from around the Arab world and you'll notice an unusual commonality. Egypt's government "struggles to rally Sinai tribes," reads one Reuters headline, while the title of a Gulf News article recounts that former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh "fears tribes will shift allegiance" to his successor, Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi. The Oxford Research reports on the "local, tribal and fragmented" nature of militia power in Libya. CNN covers a U.S. special forces mission to "accompany tribal, Arab and Kurdish forces" in Syria. From the BBC, "Iraqi tribes clash with jihadists in IS stronghold of Falluja." The UAE daily The National proudly notes the "tribal and military influences" in local designer Huda Al Nuaimi's spring/summer 2016 collection.
Ok, you get the idea – tribalism is big in the Arab world. And while it has grown more noticeable with the collapse and weakening of Arab governments in recent years, the trend is not new. The same north Arabian Bedouin tribes that accepted Islam and spread it by the sword also infused the region with a deeply tribal culture, impacting everything from family relations to governance and conflict. Tribal affiliation is based on descent from a common male ancestor; all descendants are deemed to share common interests and to have obligations of solidarity with one another. Descendants of other ancestors are deemed to have different interests and are seen to be opponents, sometimes enemies.
The main principle of tribal life is absolute loyalty to one's lineage group vis-à-vis other groups of the same order and scope: clan vs. clan, tribe vs. tribe, confederation vs. confederation, sect vs. sect, Muslims vs. infidels. Middle Easterners believe that they can count only on their own group to protect their interests. They understand well the motto, "all for one, and one for all." This principle is so basic to tribal thinking that, for most people, it is an assumption about life that goes without saying. Tribesmen are accorded honour based on fulfilling their obligations to the tribe. These tribal characteristics shape the basic assumptions and attitudes of Middle Easterners who inherited their cultural foundation from Bedouin. Islam, arising through the adoption by Bedouin, reflects the structures of tribal life, especially in the opposition between Muslims and infidels.
Middle Easterners looking at their increasingly chaotic world and deciding how they must respond think immediately of their kin group upon which they depend for all things, and other descent groups which are by their structural nature opponents and potential enemies, and from which they can expect nothing good. Opposition, rivalry, and conflict are thus seen to be in the nature of social life. Success, power, wealth, and, above all, honour derives from triumphing over opposition groups. Failure to triumph means the loss of power, wealth, and, above all, honour.
The pervasive and continuous conflict in the Middle East–between clans, tribes, sects, and religions–is a manifestation of this culture. Middle Eastern history is largely a record of tribal conflicts and displacements, expansions and conquests, and invasions and dynastic replacements. "The Arabs are not in a wretched state – they are in a tribal state, and they are doing what they have been doing since time immemorial: conquering each other, demanding allegiance, and living in a state of perpetual war," writes analyst Hussain Abdul-Hussain. "The only difference now is that the Arabs are feuding in cities, and on TV and social media instead of in the desert."
The Arab Middle East is missing the cultural tools for building inclusive, unified states. The West saw violent upheaval for millennia before it began stabilizing with acceptance of modern organizing principles, such as constitutionalism and rule of law, in the past few hundred years. Unfortunately, there are few signs that the Middle East will follow suit anytime soon.
Philip Carl Salzman is a CIJR Academic Fellow |
HOW MIDDLE EASTERN STATES CONSOLIDATE POWER
Kristin Fabbe
Stratfor, Apr. 2, 2016
Commentators speculating on the chaos engulfing the Middle East almost inevitably point to the Sykes-Picot Agreement as its underlying cause. The artificial borders laid down by the colonial-era deal, the argument goes, primed the region for ethnic and sectarian conflict. At some point the borders would have to be redrawn, and when they were, the process was bound to be painful. We need only look at Syria's drawn-out conflict and growing calls for its partition to see that.
But artificial borders are only part of the Middle East's problem. Equally important, though far less understood, is the legacy of the Ottoman Empire and the lasting mark it made on how Middle Eastern states consolidate power. The Ottoman Empire served as the precursor to the modern nation-state for much of the region. At its peak, it spanned from North Africa to the Persian Gulf's periphery. However, Ottoman rule was radically different than that of its early European counterparts or the modern governments that followed it, in part because of one of its defining features: the millet system.
In what was essentially a loose and informal federation of theocracies, the millet system created a network of legal courts that allowed non-Muslim minority groups to rule themselves with little interference from their Ottoman rulers. It emerged, in some ways organically and in others by design, as a means of managing the complexities that came with governing the empire's many and varied religious groups. Christians, Muslims and Jews alike were given a large degree of religious and cultural autonomy, and many religious elites held high economic and administrative posts in the empire.
As centuries passed, the millet system molded local societies and governments around religious identity. The traditions of religious authorities became institutionalized in many places, and people widely began to defer to them. Meanwhile, religious elites enjoyed a fairly high level of autonomy and became deeply embedded in the institutions that today fall under the purview of the nation-state, including legal, administrative, educational and social welfare structures. At first, the millet system proved helpful in governing the Ottoman Empire's diverse subjects. But in the 18th and 19th centuries, the empire's military prowess began to slip relative to its neighbors, and its rulers were put on the defensive. Gradually, it became clear that if the Ottoman Empire were to survive at all, it would have to adopt some of the strategies used by its Western rivals to organize its military and society.
The resulting reforms, known as Tanzimat, aimed to fundamentally reshape the Ottoman state's relationship with its subjects. Previously, the empire's citizens had never been granted rights beyond those guaranteed to Muslims by Islamic law and those that came with the protective status of the millet communities. But in 1839, Sultan Abdulmecid declared that all of his empire's subjects — both Muslims and non-Muslims — also had secular rights that transcended any religious, ethnic or linguistic affiliation. In addition to this borrowed model of secular citizenship, the Tanzimat more clearly defined the millet system and formalized the distinct religious communities. The paradoxical result was that the reforms, originally intended to bridge religious divides, actually reinforced existing fissures within society.
When the Ottoman Empire collapsed in 1923, the distinct religious identities and rifts solidified by the millet system and Tanzimat reforms did not dissolve with it. Instead, they were handed down to the states that emerged in the empire's wake, creating serious obstacles to state-building and modernization efforts. Religious elites could be either potential competitors or powerful allies, or both, to governing officials trying to assert their authority.
In general, the region's new states tended to follow one of three paths as they consolidated power. The first usually occurred in states that European powers failed to occupy and that had a single dominant religion. In these circumstances, states usually just co-opted the religious majority's institutions and leaders in an effort to centralize their authority. In doing so, piety and nationalism were fused into an "official religion," thus weakening religious institutions, domesticating religious rhetoric, binding religious authorities to the state and facilitating the state's growth. In Turkey, for instance, even as Islam was pushed out of politics, banners advocating Ataturk's reforms hung between mosques' minarets. Secularizing reforms were more about asserting the state's control than a genuine attempt to separate religion and state. In the long run, these states were more stable, but they bred exclusionary policies and forced migrations that were largely based on religion. For the religious minorities left behind, inequalities became entrenched. The states, now more homogenous and constantly skeptical of outsiders, often relapsed into authoritarianism.
Alternatively, some states — usually those with colonial occupiers and a solid religious majority — took a hands-off approach to religion instead. Such states tried to sidestep religious institutions as they consolidated power, often accommodating religious minorities (at least initially) in the process. Because this meant religion was not weakened by early cooptation, governments later found it difficult to nationalize the institutions of the biggest religions. Leaders of the dominant religions often positioned themselves in opposition to the state, fueling radicalization and undermining any attempt to create an official Islam friendly to the government.
The final path Middle Eastern states followed was to rely heavily on alliances with religious minorities while quashing other religious rivals. This outcome usually occurred in places ruled by colonial powers and riven by religious factionalism. European colonizers would often resort to indirect rule, designed to prevent nationalist uprisings and maintain minimal authority by forming strategic partnerships with privileged minority groups, such as certain Christian sects in the French-held Lebanon.
More often than not, this gave rise to repressive minority regimes, which in turn led to sectarian strife, militia politics and attempts by third parties to meddle in domestic affairs. All impeded efforts to create strong national identities and establish state sovereignty, while at the same time empowering non-state actors with religious agendas. Given these historical patterns, it is no wonder that Middle Eastern states today seem helplessly stuck between two extremes: religious radicalization and state-sponsored discrimination….
In all three types of states, instability within generates instability without. For one, political leaders rarely have a secure hold on power, and when they feel particularly threatened, they often turn to ethnic, religious or national identities to bolster their legitimacy and improve their chances of survival. This tactic works not only within a single state but also among many. Indeed, politicized identities lie at the heart of three current Middle Eastern conflicts: the dispute between Israel and the Arab world, the competition between Shiite Iran and its Sunni rivals, and the thorny Kurdish question spanning Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.
Even the region's comparatively "stable" states, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran, have exploited religious and ethnic discord outside their borders to gain influence at home and abroad. We need only look at the ongoing civil wars in Iraq and Syria, or at Hezbollah's activities on the Israel-Lebanon border, to see evidence of regional powers becoming entangled in their neighbors' strife. Thanks to the lasting imprint of the Ottoman millet system and the colonial-era practices that followed it, political development and regional stability in the Middle East have become chained to the vagaries of identity politics. But identity politics are a double-edged sword, both a crutch by which states govern and a wedge by which they are driven apart, and they are more likely to prevent stability than create it.
Hatred & Human Rights: Lecture by Daniel Pipes (Video): CISA Lecture Series, Mar. 21, 2016—Discussion with Dr. Chatterley and Audience Q&A
Symposium in Honor of Prof. Barry Rubin: “Israel in a Changed Middle East,” Part 1 (Video): Rubin Center, Mar. 6, 2016—Session 1: State-to-State Issues and the Changed Region
Obama’s Middle East Debacle (Video): Ted Belman, Israpundit, Apr. 4, 2016
Shifting Eastern Mediterranean Alliances: Emmanuel Karagiannis, Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2016—The Eastern Mediterranean is changing fast with its estimated 122 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas reserves (the equivalent of 21 billion barrels of oil) already having an impact on regional patterns of amity and enmity.
