In
mid-January, when Israel
further tightened its blockade
of the Gaza Strip, it hurriedly
assured the world that a “humanitarian
crisis” would not be
allowed to occur. Case in
point: Days after the intensified
siege prompted Hamas to breach
the Gaza-Egypt border and
Palestinians to pour into
Egypt in search of supplies,
Israel announced plans to
send in thousands of animal
vaccines to prevent possible
outbreaks of avian flu and
other epidemics due to livestock
and birds entering Gaza from
Egypt. Medicines
for human beings, on the
other hand, are among the
supplies that are barely
trickling in to Gaza now
that the border has been
resealed. Full
Story>>
At
an intersection in front
of Nablus city hall, a pair
of women threaded a knot
of waiting pedestrians, glanced
left, then dashed across
the street. “What’s
this?” an onlooker
chastised them. “Can’t
you see the red light?” Not
long after, his patience
exhausted, the self-appointed
traffic cop himself stepped
off the curb and made his
way to the other side of
the boulevard. Such is life
in the West Bank on the eve
of the meeting in Annapolis,
Maryland, where the Bush
administration intends to
create the semblance of a
“peace process” between
Israel and the Palestinians
for the first time since it
assumed office. There is excitement
in Palestinian towns about
the urban order newly emerging
from years of chaos; there
is a willingness to play by
the rules even as many remain
convinced that doing so will
not get them very far; and,
lastly, there is the reality
that when the waiting grows
tiresome, people will again
take matters into their own
hands. As for the Annapolis
meeting itself, it is being
greeted with indifference,
with few believing it will
lead to either meaningful change
in their daily lives or substantive
progress toward the end of
an Israeli occupation now in
its fifth decade. Full
Story>>
The
White House is pressing ahead
with its stated goal of persuading
the UN Security Council to
pass far-reaching sanctions
to punish Iran for refusing
to suspend its nuclear research
program. Sanctions are what
President George W. Bush
is referring to when he pledges
to nervous US allies that
he intends to “continue
to work together to solve
this problem diplomatically.” The
non-diplomatic solution in
this framing of the “problem,” presumably,
would be airstrikes on nuclear
facilities in the Islamic
Republic. Full
Story>>
For
the second time in less than
a year, in the final week
of September the 24,000 workers
of the Misr Spinning and
Weaving Company in Mahalla
al-Kubra went on strike --
and won. As they did the
first time, in December 2006,
the workers occupied the
Nile Delta town’s mammoth
textile mill and rebuffed
the initial mediation efforts
of Egypt’s ruling National
Democratic Party (NDP). Yet
this strike was even more
militant than December’s.
Workers established a security
force to protect the factory
premises, and threatened
to occupy the company’s administrative
headquarters as well. Their
stand belies the wishful
claims of the Egyptian government
and many media outlets that
the strike wave of 2004-2007
has run its course. Full
Story>>
Back
in the fall of 2006, student
elections at the American
University of Beirut produced
an unexpected aesthetic:
female campaigners for the
predominantly Christian Free
Patriotic Movement (FPM)
of the ex-general Michel
Aoun sporting button-sized
portraits of bearded Hizballah
leader Hasan Nasrallah on
their stylish
attire. “Hizballah stands
for the unity and independence
of Lebanon, just as we do,”
went the party line, as reiterated
by Laure, an activist business
student clad in the movement’s
trademark orange. “And imagine,
the Shi‘a and us,” she mused,
off-script and with a glance
at her co-campaigners, covered
head to toe in the black
gowns of the staunchly Islamist
party, but spiced up with
bright orange ribbons for
the occasion. “How many we
will be.” Full
Story>>
The
latest crackdown by the Egyptian
state on the Muslim Brotherhood
began after a student demonstration
at Cairo’s al-Azhar University.
Dressed in black, their faces
covered with matching hoods
whose headbands read samidun,
or “steadfast,” on December
10, 2006 several dozen young
Muslim Brothers marched from
the student center to the
university’s main gate. Six
of the masked youths, according
to video and eyewitnesses,
lined up in the middle of
a square formed by the others
and performed martial arts
exercises reminiscent of
demonstrations by Hamas and
Hizballah. Full
Story>>
On
July 23, the day after the
ruling Justice and Development
Party won Turkey’s early
parliamentary elections in
a landslide, Onur Öymen,
deputy chairman of the rival
Republican People’s Party
(CHP), interpreted the results
as follows: "If you
are in need and hungry, if
you are not at all content
with your life, if you criticize
the government every day
from dusk till dawn and you
then vote for the very same
government, there must be
something which cannot be
explained with logic." Full
Story>>
Since
their government has not,
Shoshi Anbal and a posse
of her fellow Tel Aviv housewives
are preparing to engage in
diplomacy with Syria. On
May 18, they assembled along
the Israeli-Syrian frontier
to applaud what at the time
was Syrian President Bashar
al-Asad’s latest iteration
of his call for negotiations
to end the 40-year standoff
over the Golan Heights, occupied
by Israel in 1967, and indeed
the legal state of war prevailing
between the two states since
1948. “Asad! Israel
wants to talk,” the
women chanted. And, less
reverently, “Let’s
visit Damascus -- by car,
not by tank." Full
Story>>
Widespread
apprehension attended the June
2005 election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
to the presidency of the Islamic
Republic of Iran, at least among
those Iranians who had approved
of the country’s direction under
the reformist clerics led by
President Mohammad Khatami.
Their worries had little to
do with Ahmadinejad’s signature
campaign issue, the flagging
Iranian economy, and much to
do with potential reversal of
the political and cultural opening
under Khatami, now that hardline
conservatives controlled every
branch of the government. The
opening had begun to close long
before the hardliners’ accession
to power, of course, but many
Iranians feared that Ahmadinejad
would seal it tight, by shuttering
the remaining opposition or
independent publications, for
instance, or by censoring books,
music, film and theater, dismantling
satellite dishes, imprisoning
political activists and more
rigorously imposing an “Islamic”
dress code. Full
story>>
Residents
of Lebanon might be forgiven
for wanting to forget the last
12 months. The month-long Israeli
onslaught in the summer of 2006,
economic stasis, sectarian street
violence, political deadlock
and assassinations -- most recently
that of Future Movement deputy
Walid ‘Idu, who perished
along with ten others in a June
13 car bomb explosion -- have
weighed heavily upon the country.
It is as if the dismembered
corpse of the 1975-1990 civil
war -- assumed to be safely
buried -- has been exhumed and
reassembled, all the more grotesque.
Since May 20, the Palestinians
in Lebanon, too, have been made
to relive past nightmares. Full
Story>>
An
outpouring of retrospectives
-- good, bad and indifferent
-- has marked the fortieth anniversary
of the June 1967 Arab-Israeli
war. Predictably, and perhaps
appropriately, most looks backward
have also attempted to peer
forward, and consequently most
have focused on the impasse
between Israel and the Palestinians.
This question, though predating
1967 and not the only one left
unresolved by the war, is nearly
synonymous with “the Middle
East” in the global media. Plentiful
as the 1967 commentary has been,
the relative silences have also
spoken volumes. Middle East
Report asked six critically
minded scholars and analysts
for their reflections on what
has been missing from the conversation
about Israel-Palestine occasioned
by the passage of 40 years since
that fateful June. Full
Story>>
Interventions:
A Middle East Report Online
Feature
Sometime
in the late 1990s, employees
in the Israeli State Archive
unintentionally declassified
an array of police documents.
Many of the files consisted
of the unremarkable personal
data of prostitutes, petty thieves
and black marketeers, but others
dealt with a far more sensitive
matter: the Palestinian Arab
minority in Israel during the
1950s and 1960s. Though these
“Arab files” also
contained records of mundane
criminal cases, most of the
documents concerned the politically
explosive subject of Palestinian
Arab collaboration with the
Jewish state. By means of the
mistaken declassification, the
actions, methods and goals of
multiple Israeli security agencies
among the Palestinian Arabs
of Israel -- in short, the entire
history of two decades of espionage
directed at a group of Israeli
citizens -- lay exposed. At
the heart of these documents
was detailed information about
individuals and families and
the well-guarded secrets of
what they “gave”
and what they “got”
in return. Many retired collaborators
are still alive. Full
Story>>
MERIP
OP-EDS
A Country at a Crossroads The Austin-American Statesman (Austin, Texas) November 9, 2007
Kamran Asdar Ali
"A
very frank discussion"— so President Bush described
his Nov. 7 telephone
conversation with Pervez Musharraf, four days after the Pakistani
general
imposed a state of emergency and dissolved the high court expected
to rule
his continued presidency unconstitutional. And frank the discussion
probably
was: In the face of spirited protest in Pakistan, and a querulous
press in
Washington, back-channel pressure succeeded in persuading Musharraf
to
promise parliamentary elections. Yet the generous U.S. aid earmarked
for
Pakistan — on top of nearly $10 billion since 2001 — is
quite evidently not
at risk.
What may be at risk is Musharraf's tenure as head
of the military government. Full
story>>
The
war debate in Washington is bogged down. Partisan rancor is one
reason why, and bipartisan desire for US hegemony in the oil-rich
Persian Gulf is
another. But many Americans are vexed by a nobler concern: that
a
“precipitous” US departure from Iraq would leave intensified
civil war,
ethnic-sectarian cleansing and massive refugee flows in its wake.
This
concern is legitimate. Unfortunately, the sad fact is that Iraq’s
civil war
and humanitarian emergency have grown steadily worse as the US
military
deployment there wears on. Full
Story>>
Should
the United States, seeking to recalibrate the balance between
security and liberty in the "war on terror," emulate
Israel in its treatment of Palestinian detainees? That is the position
that Guantanamo detainee lawyers Avi Stadler and John Chandler
of Atlanta, and some others, have advocated. That people in U.S.
custody could be held incommunicado for years without charges,
and could be prosecuted or indefinitely detained on the basis of
confessions extracted with torture is worse than a national disgrace.
It is an assault on the foundations of the rule of law. Full
Story>>
There
is an oft-told Palestinian allegory about a family who complained
their house was small and cramped. In response, the father brought
the farm
animals inside -- the goat, the sheep and the chickens all crowded
into the
house. Then, one by one, he moved the animals back outside. By
the time the
last chicken left, the family felt such relief they never complained
of the
lack of elbow room again. Full
Story>>
The
Palestinians have long sought, and Israel has long resisted,
the internationalization of efforts to construct a process that
would lead to a durable and comprehensive peace. Independent advocates
for a just peace have echoed this call out of the realization that
the near monopoly of Washington on stewardship of Israeli-Palestinian
diplomacy has hindered -- and even obstructed -- meaningful progress.
Never has this fact been more glaring than during the two administrations
of President George W. Bush. Full Story>>
On
a quiet, one-way street in Cairo's middle-class Manial district,
two bored security guards sit idly sipping tea. The building behind
them houses a small apartment that serves as the main offices of
the Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest Islamist group in the Middle
East. In Egypt, the Brotherhood is the country's largest opposition
group and its best-organized political force. No one would
know it from the headquarters' modest appearance, but the Brotherhood
is likely to be the dominant force in Egyptian politics in
the future. Yet the United States stubbornly refuses to deal
with the Brotherhood, taking its cue from the sclerotic and
hopelessly corrupt regime of Hosni Mubarak. Full Story>>
Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice concluded her second trip to the Middle
East in a month with little to show for her efforts. The meeting
she hosted between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas
(Abu Mazen) and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was undermined
the day before it began. Olmert announced that Israel and the
United States had agreed that they would boycott the Palestinian
government of national unity which will be formed on the basis
of the accords reached in Mecca unless it recognizes “the
right of the State of Israel to exist,” stops “terrorism” and
agrees to fulfill the agreements signed by the PLO.
Such
demands appear to be sensible requirements for a diplomatic process.
But in fact they are one-sided and hypocritical. Full
Story>>
