Church of the Nativity Brawl

Cleaning the Church of the Nativity once again led to blows:

"Seven people were injured on Thursday when Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests came to blows in a dispute over how to clean the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

"Following the Christmas celebrations, Greek Orthodox priests set up ladders to clean the walls and ceilings of their part of the church, which is built over the site where Jesus Christ is believed to have been born.

"But the ladders encroached on space controlled by Armenian priests, according to photographers who said angry words ensued and blows quickly followed.

"For a quarter of an hour bearded and robed priests laid into each other with fists, brooms and iron rods while the photographers who had come to take pictures of the annual cleaning ceremony recorded the whole event.

"A dozen unarmed Palestinian policemen were sent to try to separate the priests, but two of them were also injured in the unholy melee."

Out of Gas

I may have a new most ridiculous travel story, and it's not from the Middle East. Yesterday, the final leg of my trip to the U.S. for Christmas and the AHA meeting was an Amtrak train from Chicago to Quincy, Illinois. This train came to a halt without power, and three and a half hours later the passengers were all evacuated onto busses, because the train ran out of gas. They did bring in a fuel truck to refill it, but were on standy-by so long the battery died.

The Uncultivated

During breaks in my dissertation writing and job interview preparation, I've been reading Lords of the Land, a book about the history of the Israeli settlement movement by Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar. In the 1980's, a woman named Plia Albek developed the legal regime which authorized ongoing settlement projects using an old Ottoman law which was still on the Jordanian books during the Six Day War:

"Lands that (are) not in the possession of an individual, that is to say he cannot show a title deed, and have never been allocated to inhabitants of towns or villages, and are at a distance from a town or village such that the sound of the voice of a man who is at the edge of the locality can be heard there...such as rocky hills, wild fields and oak forests (these lands) are dead, and anyone who needs them may sow and cultivate this land on license from the authority, for no payment, and on condition that the right of ownership will remain in the hands of the sultan."

In this case, Israel's government takes the place of the sultan. The legal aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have never interested me that much simply because the laws are so obviously written and interpreted in response to social, economic, and political movements that it seems a bit like studying a war entirely through its weaponry. I found this interesting, however, because of the way it highlights the differing views of land ownership in the supralegal realm in which the conflict is actually fought.

On the one hand, you have an old Ottoman system where much of the land was seen as the personal possession of the sultan, which was later extended to the Ottoman government, and then to its successor states. Then you have the religious Zionist view within the settler movement that the land is Jewish because God said so, and because Jews have historically had an emotional connection with it based on history and culture. Opposing this today is the view that these lands are inherently Palestinian. Where does this come from? It's not just the idea that the Palestinian national movement is the local representative of Arab nationalism, but the very idea of a national movement that claims the land as belonging to a people collectively even where there is no government.

This is why, in historical terms, I don't buy the idea that the Zionist project was wrong simply because it involved Jews entering an Arab land, since it's not entirely clear that before the early 20th century people really thought of it that way. It was Ottoman land, sure, but the Ottoman Empire, while always a Muslim state, certainly, didn't start defining its internal community that way on an empire-wide basis until after the loss of the Balkan provinces in the late 19th century. More research obviously needs to be done on the exact interplay of these forces, but especially before World War I there was a lot more going on than a struggle between opposing nationalisms.

This is not, of course, that relevant to what I think should be done with the West Bank today. Palestinian nationalism is here now, there will have to be a state where the Palestinians can live as full citizens, and while in a vacuum I would say Jews have every right to live in Judea and Samaria, in the same vacuum I would say Palestinians have every right to live in Ramla and Jaffa. We don't live in that vacuum.

Ein Kerem

This picture shows the key Christian sites in Ein Kerem. Standing out along the ridge on the left side of the picture is a Russian Orthodox monastery. Below that is the Church of the Visitation, associated with the house of Zacharias and Elizabeth from Luke 1. To the right of that church, across a street you can't see very well, is the Church of St. John, associated with the birthplace of John the Baptist.

Muhammad V and Yad Vashem

Ha'aretz reports on a quiet campaign to have Morocco's King Muhammad V listed with the "Righteous Among the Nations,", those non-Jews who worked to save Jews during the Holocaust:

"Whether Mohammed V, who died in 1961, will become a member of the Righteous remains uncertain, given Yad Vashem's strict eligibility rules. Among the 22,000 Righteous, some 70 are Muslims, most of whom are from Turkey and the Balkans. There are no Arabs among them, according to Yad Vashem spokeswoman Estee Yaari, who added that no formal request had been submitted for the late Moroccan monarch.

"The trickiest criterion is determining whether the late king actually risked his life to save Jews during the rule of the pro-Nazi French authorities from mid-1940 to November 1942, when American troops arrived and changed the balance of power. Citing testimonies of the king's quiet resistance campaign against the French antisemitic edicts, Berdugo claims that the king had indeed done so.

"When the Vichy regime extended its anti-Jewish laws to Morocco in October 1940, the king maneuvered to limit their implementation. A 1941 telegram from the French foreign ministry, uncovered in the mid-1980s, discussed the worsening tensions between the French authorities and the king because of Mohammed V?s unwillingness to distinguish among his subjects. Some Moroccan Jews even claim that he asked the French authorities to bring him yellow stars for his family to wear. Some observers have expressed doubt over the episode, which illustrates the near-mythical aura of the king among Moroccan Jews, the vast majority of whom immigrated to Israel and Europe after Israel's independence and the 1967 war."

Middle East Concerns

Dana Goldstein highlights what people in the Middle East are most concerned about:

"Broken down by country, the people of Lebanon, Morroco, Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey are all most worried about terrorism. But residents of both Israel and the Palestinian territories agree that their biggest problem is 'corrupt leaders.' Common ground! In Kuwait, people are most concerned about 'illegal drugs.'"

Kuwaitis' concern with illegal drugs adds context to this story.

Victory for Gulf Labor

I try to keep track of Gulf labor issues, but completely missed most of this:

"The floodgates have opened. It is the beginning of the end for serious labor repression in the UAE, and the rest of the Gulf is likely to follow. Dubai's employers have been forced to negotiate with (illegally) organized labor and come out second-best...

"These foreign workers have had just one thing going for them over the past few years- they have gotten a lot more organized. Earlier this year, for instance, a riot by dissatisfied workers at the construction site for the world's tallest building, Burj Dubai, led to a sympathy strike by workers expanding Dubai airport, which lies on the other side of the city. Such coordination is not easy to arrange given that unions do not exist, and labor organizers are liable to be deported.

"But it wasn't until October that the big one hit. Depending on who you believe, somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 people put down their tools for 10 days after the government threatened to deport workers who had rioted over unpaid wages. The strikers asked for higher wages, better housing, and improved transportation to construction sites. The industrial action crippled one major contractor, but also spread to other firms. Initial attempts to settle the dispute were unsuccessful, and workers refused to cave in despite a police crackdown that saw no fewer than 4,500 arrested and led to the deportation of 159 of their peers. Eventually, they won out. 4,100 of the detained workers were released, and the strikers won a 20% pay hike. Other companies now look set to raise their own pay scales."

Is Top Secret Anonymous Guy right about the implications of all this? He very well could be. This is a sweeping victory for workers' attempts to improve their material conditions. There remain deeper problems with their legal status, and until these are resolved, backsliding will remain an ever-present threat. At the same time, the workers in the UAE have clearly shown the ability to use the muscle of their numbers and necessity to the Gulf economy to effect change, a lesson the region's rulers will probably not forget. At the very least, serious battle has been joined.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

AQIM Strikes

The organization called "al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb" may be divided, but it struck again yesterday, with attacks on a UN compound an Algeria's Supreme Court. The death toll currently stands at 26, with 177 injured.

Meanwhile, the Jamestown Foundation notes the group's lack of success at mounting serious attacks in Morocco. It seems clear that the while al-Qaeda affiliation may have in some manner allowed the group to enhance its existing infrastructure and operations, it hasn't allowed it to spread into new territory.

Wheel of Time Closer

Ken Jennings reports that Brandon Sandserson is the relief pitcher who will close out Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. I've never read anything by Sanderson, but an interview with him is here. My guess based on that interview is that they wanted someone who was a fan to close out the series, lest a new author drift too far the existing style. Harriet Rigney, Jordan's wife, will still be the editor, and publication is expected in Fall 2009.

Ahmadinejad's Power

For some time now, I've heard rumors that Iran's President Mahmood Ahmadinejad has succeeded in accumulating more power to his office than previous Iranian presidents. Today's Christian Science Monitor takes the same position, but rather than the quiet institutional consolidation I've been hoping for an analysis of, the article focuses entirely on gesture and incident:

"The coup de grâce that has still unsettled Iran's political establishment was the resignation – or forced removal – of chief nuclear negotiator and Khamenei protégé Ali Larijani. After his sixth attempt to resign was accepted in October, Mr. Larijani was replaced by Ahmadinejad loyalist Saeed Jalili, who effectively shut down negotiations with the European Union in his debut solo meeting.

"'The guts! Who could have done that? It was unimaginable a few years ago,' says one veteran analyst in Tehran of Larijani's replacement. 'It is damaging and it is definitely a shrinking of the velayat-e faqih [Iran's rule of the supreme jurisprudent]. It's an advance by Ahmadinejad, and a retreat by Khamenei.'

"'Khamenei has never liked to be seen as overtly meddling…. But Ahmadinejad's bold and provocative moves ... have unsettled the political elite,' says Farideh Farhi, an Iran expert at the University of Hawaii. They 'are wondering if Khamenei is supportive of these rather partisan moves or unable to stop Ahmadinejad.'

"While theories abound about the sidelining of Larijani, some argue that the president's wide latitude is a function of trust, compared to ex-president Mohammad Khatami and two-time president Ali Akbar Rafsanjani."

The last paragraph fits with the article's overall tone, which tends to explain these developments as the product of either personal style or the inactions of Khamene'i. Again, I think there's probably more going on than that behind the scenes. However, Ahmadinejad's staying power despite the continuing serious opposition from throughout the Iranian political establishment is noteworthy, as is the manner in which he has driven Iranian policy since taking office.

From the Annals of Self-Parody

Matthew Yglesias notes a remarkable Wall Street Journal editorial. I'm impressed by this sentence: "What's amazing in this case is how the White House has allowed intelligence analysts to drive policy."

Firefly Episode 12: "The Message"

As a somewhat jaded consumer of fiction, it takes a lot to make me feel like I might tear up. That "The Message" pulls that off is especially remarkable given the fact that its central character is someone we have never seen before and who is not the sort of character who would normally garner our sympathy. However, skillful storytelling on the part of the writers and stellar performances by all regulars and guest stars make this an outstanding episode which justifiably earned Firefly the second of its three Hugo nominations and may represent its finest hour.

"The Message," in a nutshell, is the story of the death of Tracey Smith, a former private who fought with Mal and Zoe in the Unification War. A flashback to a battle during that war tells us a lot about who he was and is, a young man, idealistic and good-hearted enough to get involved for a cause he believed in, but without what you might call the "street smarts" to take care of himself. Mal and Zoe aren't so much his war buddies in the sense they were with Monty from "Trash" as they are surrogate older siblings stuck looking after someone who can't quite take care of himself.

By now we know enough of the Firefly universe to figure what happened next. Like Mal and Zoe themselves, he became something of a drifter, looking for odd jobs to make money. This much and its inevitable result is confirmed at the point where we enter the story, when Mal and Zoe receive his apparently dead body and a voice message in which he admits to unspecified bad calls and falling in with the wrong folk while asking his old friends to make sure his body gets to his family on St. Albans. The scene where the crew listens to this message is very moving, so that when Jayne takes off his hat in respect, it seems to flow from the mood rather than be a device to insist on it.

A big part of the storytelling magic that ensures we will like Tracey comes from the fact we vicariously remember and mourn him before we actually see him in the episode's own time frame. Our entry point into the real story of his last days or weeks comes when a rogue cop played by Richard Burgi comes after Serenity demanding they hand over the body. They quickly discover that Tracey is very much alive, but trying to escape from people he double-crossed after they fixed him up as an enhanced organ smuggler.

The whole plot of this episode really flows organically (no pun intended) from who Tracey is and the broader life situation in which he found himself. As a character, his main faults are an inability to handle himself and a tendency to behave with extreme selfishness when he panics, which happens frequently. This is balanced, however, with the simple humanity of his desire to return home to his family and maybe help his parents afford a better life. Placing this in the same episode in which we learn that Jayne sends money to his mother highlights the fact that these are simply the conditions under which people in the outer worlds have to survive. Although some claim Firefly's premise was unsound, in the modern world with all its technology, you inevitably encounter pockets like this in the developing world, in the interstices of law and order where people just try to get by. In particular, I suspect the "stateless Arabs," Bedouin who resisted settlement programs and found themselves on without a formal place in the post-Ottoman order, would really identify with the characters in this series.

In the end, when he thinks the crew is about to give him up, Tracey again panics, shoots Wash, threatens to shoot others, and kidnaps Kaylee without realizing that's what he's doing, thoughtlessly and cluelessly going back on his own professed desire not to see her in a bad spot. In the DVD commentary, Alan Tudyk, thought the crew could have just explained the plan to him, but I don't see that as a major issue. Book tried to say something, but Tracey had been drinking and wasn't in a trusting or listening mood. As with the rest of the episode, the fundamental dynamic wasn't going to change because it was based entirely on Tracey himself. As Mal points out: "Far as I can see, nobody's made you do anything. You brought this onto yourself. Got in over your head with these stone cold gut-runners, then you panicked, and then you brung the whole mess down on all of us."

Tracey's fate is telescoped in the early battle flashback. Mal says, "Someone's carrying a bullet for you right now, doesn't even know it." How do you escape when the person is yourself? A few lines later, however, Mal also wants to make sure the shell-shocked lieutenant will be in the clear, for as he says, "Weren't his fault he couldn't take it." That encapsulates exactly how we feel toward Tracey. They lead a tough life, and Tracey has clearly turned to despair. In the end, we feel for him, and mourn with the others at his funeral, despite everything, because while his fate did stem from his own weaknesses, they were weaknesses made fatal only by the life he and the others were forced to live.

"The Message," in short, is a character-driven story firmly grounded in the show's premise. I can't end this review without wedging in praise for Jonathan Woodward, whose portrayal as Tracey was critical to the episode's success, as well as Greg Edmonson's strong score, which really set a nice tone for the piece. Without reservation I give this 10/10.

Mal: "Everybody dies, Tracey. Someone's carryin' a bullet for you right now, doesn't even know it. The trick is, die of old age before it finds you."

English in Oman

Gulf News reports on Oman's efforts to strengthen English education:

"Oman is making strong efforts to teach English as the second language to the younger generation but a senior Ministry of Education official feels that there is also a need to create a suitable environment at home so that the language can be easily adopted by pupils.

"'We definitely need to change the mindset, especially at homes,' Aisha Bint Ahmad Suweidan Al Blushi, Deputy Director-General, Education, Ministry of Education, said at a press conference yesterday.

"She said the ministry was making every effort in that direction. 'We conduct English language sessions for parents, especially women, with the stress on reading sessions,' she added...

"Realising the need to educate young Omanis in English language, the ministry has started teaching English language from Grade I instead of Grade IV since 1998."

If I'm reading this right, the ministry is hoping to get parents to read in English to their children almost as soon as they start school. Foreign language education that deep will quickly alter the linguistic and cultural picture of Oman, as it has in other Gulf states.

Babylon 5 Review: "Soul Hunter"

"Soul Hunter" takes an interesting premise and goes absolutely nowhere with it, so that only good writing and direction save this from becoming an incredibly hokey version of stop-the-madman. At best, however, you can only say that this is an entertaining if deeply flawed episode that in no way presages the interesting and at times powerful ways in which Babylon 5 will ultimately explore questions related to religion.

The interesting premise comes in the form of Soul Hunters. Although called an "order," they seem more like a race in that the ones we see look alike and claim immortality. (The latter, incidentally, would seem to be cutting in on Lorien's territory, but I digress.) All we learn about them is that they capture the souls of the dying and preserve them in little orange globes, that the Minbari see them as thieves, and that other races fear them as heralds of death.

This brings up some fascinating questions which the show simply shies away from. Do the Soul Hunters actually take souls, or simply recreate something based on personality elements? In other words, what is the soul? That is episode wisely leaves open, and I'm honestly not sure how one would go about exploring it. Beyond that, however, is the question of what happens if the soul exists and can be preserved. Is it something that someone should do, even against the will of the individual? What do the Soul Hunters gain from having all these souls? This theme could have been examined, but the show goes nowhere with it.

Exploration of issues is short-circuited when another Soul Hunter arrives to proclaim that the first one is disturbed and about to murder someone. From then on, it's a straight action sequence. This was kept engaging, and in fact the whole show moved really well, a testament to Jim Johnston's solid direction and the fact the main characters were extremely well-written, especially Sinclair, Garibaldi, and Franklin. The Sinclair/Garibaldi chemistry in particular is also very strong, while Richard Biggs does a good job creating Dr. Franklin without any significant exposition. For some reason, this episode also came off better visually than most of the rest of the season.

This business of representing the stealing of a soul physically could have been hokey, but since the episode mostly ignores the giant machine involved, it somehow works. I was less convinced by the blue wisps when Delenn was releasing souls at the end. That scene also presents some philosophical issues - do all those souls want to be released? If the collections of Soul Hunters are filled with people who hate them, you'd think they'd notice, and not see only the Minbari as resistant to their ways. On a somewhat related note, Sinclair's sudden declaration in Medlab that the Soul Hunter is a threat seems an oddly unexplained turnaround from his interest in new life earlier in the show.

I'm far too spoiled to offer an opinion on how the revelations and hints went over. I did, however, note an abandoned bit of foreshadowing in the very romantic way Sinclair was depicted after he saved Delenn. Sinclair's departure wasn't known until about a third of the year through the season, and it's pretty clear he was going to marry Delenn, with Catherine Sakai presumably moving into something like the Anna Sheridan role.

In short, this episode introduces some interesting ideas, but stops at introducing them. On the other hand, it's certainly much more entertaining than some of the other early outings, and shows the characters to good effect. Although frustrated with the lost potential, I'll err on the side of generosity and call it 6/10.

Egyptians on Israel

At her new blog, Mona Eltahawy presents some Egyptian views of Israel.

Turkmenistan Dictatorship Watch

It's never been clear to me why some thought "better than Saparmurat Niyazov" would translate into "liberal reformer," but Turkmenistan's President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, while sane, is giving yet more signs that he's still an autocrat:

"Since taking over this year, new Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov has been viewed hopefully as a possible reformer who might open up one of the world's most repressive societies. But a new order to remove all private satellite dishes from homes in Ashgabat -- which critics say could block access to independent information -- is quickly tarnishing that image.

"After holding cordial talks in Brussels last month with EU officials, Berdymukhammedov returned home with a burnished image as a man the West can do business with -- a man apparently set to free up Turkmenistan after the bizarre reign of his late predecessor, Saparmurat Niyazov.

"But in a nationally televised speech on November 30, Berdymukhammedov seemed to take a step backward. He announced he had ordered the minister of communications to remove satellite dishes from apartment blocks in Ashgabat, the capital. In their place, he said, would go 'a single powerful dish' on each building...

"While the president did not specify who would be in control of the single dishes, rights activists suspect the government will now determine what Turkmen can tune in to."

New, Improved Qassams

It looks like Hamas is making good on its threat to increase its Qassam capacity in response to Annapolis:

"Hamas has recently upgraded its Qassam rocket capability in the Gaza Strip, raising grave concern in the Israeli defense establishment.

Senior defense officials say that Hamas is now able to store the rockets for a relatively long period, which would allow the organization to launch a large number of Qassams at one time. Over the past year, the IDF and Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) have said that two developments could prompt a major Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip. One was an improvement in the range of the Qassam rockets, which would place Ashkelon within range. The other was an ability to store the rockets for a longer period of time. It seems that Hamas has already achieved the latter, and is close to achieving the other."

Lisa Goldman

Over the summer, Lisa Goldman went to Lebanon to report on life there a year after the war. When Hizbullah learned of this, they denounced her as a Zionist spy. Now Israel is investigating her for travel to an "enemy state," a crime which carries a penalty of up to four years in prison.

Oman/Kuwait: Water is Life

Earlier this week, in what I expect will be my last trip outside Israel and its immediate neighbors, I ventured over to Kuwait. There is, of course, a great deal to tell, and tell it I shall, in due time. For now, though, I'll note that one of the country's highlights is the science center in Kuwait City, and particularly its aquarium. Many cities have aquariums, but this one happens to be the largest in the Middle East, and the largest tank holds well over one million liters of water. Among the exotic Gulf fish are not only the usual small guppies, cuttlefish, and tiny sea horses, but giant sting rays and several reef sharks, swimming rapidly around their tanks' rock formations with vicious-looking teeth and white-tipped fins to the wonder of the crowds passing by.

Although it's formally called the aquarium, it might be better thought of as a general wildlife complex divided into desert, coastal, and water zones. The coastal zone was the most interesting to me, focusing as it did on an ecosystem that was not so much a mix of land and water the way I'd always thought of it, but a special ecological niche with its own rules, species, and formations. I learned more about sabkha, the salt flats I see referred to again and again in my primary sources, where evaporation and receding waters have left behind soil not just of high salinity, but woven with veins of sediment and laced with small pools which either fill temporarily with the tides coming in and up through underground channels or more enduringly as capillary action draws up water from aquifers near the surface. The latter conditions mean they can also occur inland, and one of the largest is near the Empty Quarter in Oman and called the "Mother of Poisons" in Arabic. One common mineral in Arabian sabkha is gypsum, and when crystals of that transparent substance form around sand, the result is the desert rose. Another interesting point is that mangroves aren't just on shores, but they actually work to extend them outward, as they obstruct the flow of water and lead to the more rapid deposition of sediments. Both sabkha and mangrove swamps create unique ecosystems and forms of life.

It was, however, the desert animals I enjoyed looking at the most. I don't think they were quite as well cared for as those in the Sharjah Desert Park in the UAE, nor were there as many, perhaps because Kuwait is simply a smaller, more ecologically homogeneous country. Also, whereas in Sharjah I was struck by wonder and enchantment, in Kuwait my main sense was cuteness. I was prepared for the special desert adaptations, such as the nocturnal habits and huge ears to help keep the body cool and provide extremely sensitive hearing to help them find the rare desert prey, and so could see them more naturally. Everyone probably knows about owls and kestrels. In addition, there were jerboas, the small, mouse-like creatures which according to the sign could jump a whopping two meters into the air, as well as a proud caracal, a feline predator which usually stood near the glass partition watching the passing people watch him. Winning the cuteness award, however, were the fennecs, the desert foxes which are less than a foot high and weigh only about three pounds. While I watched a jerboa devouring a leaf of lettuce several times larger than him or herself, I heard a young girl proclaim "salaam." Assuming this was yet another local child eager to greet the strange foreigner, I turned around to say, "and aleikum as-salaam," but she was actually talking to the fennecs. What's more, she was actually part of an Arab-American family just in Kuwait for a visit, and "salaam" was one of the only Arabic words she knew, though she had apparently decided it was the appropriate salutation for Kuwaiti wildlife.

The aquarium brought home yet again the importance of water to sustaining life, something I already mentioned in conjunction with Oman with all its fertile wadis and sophisticated ancient irrigation methods. These stable water supplies have lent its settlement geography a stability not found anywhere else along the Gulf coast. To take one example, a city called Izki is known as the center of some sort of minor state contemporary with the Assyrians. Its region, on the desert side of the Sumail Gap in the Hajars connecting the inland with the Batinah coast near Muscat, would be a common one for political powers long after Izki itself declined. Oman also has what is unquestionable the greatest natural beauty, of which I was able to see far too little. Still in my future are the cool hidden valleys of Jebel Shams, one of the highest mountains, and many other valleys of which some are still reportedly unmapped, though in this age of Google Earth those days are probably numbered. Its surface features are also of great antiquity, as the Hajar Mountains are the remains of an obduction zone at the floor of the Tethys Sea which separated Laurasia from Gondwanaland in the early Mesozoic Period.

One of my trips inland was on my first Friday day. I'd taken a shared taxi to Barkah, a coastal city where the road to Rustaq left the main coastal road between Muscat, Sohar, and ultimately the east coast of the UAE. I was actually there hoping to find out about bull-butting, a traditional pastime along the Batinah coast, now long in decline thanks to the encroachment of foreign sports such as soccer. My inquiries, admittedly somewhat random and hesitant since I suspected it would be an odd thing to be asking about, drew mostly amusement. That settled, I took a taxi to Nakhl, a city at the edge of the Batinah where it meets the mountains. This city, like all others on the site of a reliable wadi, is known mainly for its imposing fort. Nakhl and Sohar are the only two places in Oman where Sassanid Persian presence has been detected archaeologically; the fort itself was reportedly begun by the Sassanids, restored under the Second Ibadhi Imamate during the 9th century, by the Nabhanids during the 16th, and by the currently ruling Al Bu Said in the 19th.

I arrived just as the last shops in the city were closing, and had not yet realized that taking the heat of the afternoon off in Oman was simply the thing to do, especially on Friday. Because of this, I mistakenly believed it would be easy to hop a minibus bound for Rustaq up in the mountains. Unfortunately, all the minibuses I saw were actually headed into Nakhl, where the ath-Thowrah spring which kept the wadi flowing was a popular afternoon attraction for the locals. One minibus full of young people was incredulous I wasn't joining them. As I stood at the stop by the highway a couple of truck drivers also offered me a lift, but they, too, were going to ath-Thowrah. Eventually I just decided that I should go to ath-Thowrah and relax, but by then there was no more transportation. I guess everyone was already there =) I did, however, encounter a random taxi headed toward Rustaq, which I was able to commission for the beautiful trip into the mountains.

Rustaq, too, has an imposing fort, and the literary sources claim it was the Persians' inland administrative center. I wound up at a spring rather than the fort, though there was an old ruined fort of some kind there, next to a recently built mosque. I did find the main fort, on the grounds of which was a mosque where Ya'ariba imams would often give their first sermon after elevation. Some locals were gathered around the spring for a picnic, thougng h clearly not as many as at ath-Thowrah, as the spring itself was being developed in some manner I couldn't quite make out. Aided by Paolo Costa's guide to Oman's sacred monuments, I also sought out the tomb of one of the Ya'ariba imams, whose tomb was still a pilgrimage site much like the tombs of the walis in Morocco.

From Rustaq I had hoped to go to Wadi Bani Khurus, one of the countless wadis named for the tribe which owned it. This one, which is being intensively studied by the Palestinian scholar Mu'awiya Ibrahim, stands out because four of the imams during the Second Ibadhi Imamate, Oman's classic period, were of Khurusi origin. The source of the wadi is also part of a rock formation that dates from the late Pre-Cambrian Era, a truly staggering age. Unfortunately I couldn't get a single driver to take me there, leading me to suspect it's one of those that requires 4WD to get to. I settled for a drive through Awf in the Wadi Ma'awil down on the plains beneath Nakhl, the center of power for the tribe of the Julandas who ruled Oman at the time of the coming of Islam. There, past the row of shops in the form of a traditionalish strip mall which you find on the road into many small Omani towns (and Emirati ones, now that I think about it), you get to the area watered by the falaj system, with date palms densely packed together around newer buildings, but still with traditional architecture as is the Omani way.

It was near the end of my stay that I finally made it to Nizwa, another city at the desert end of the Sumail Gap, and Oman's main urban administrative center for most of the last 1400 years. The huge oasis is divided into tribal quarters, though I spent all my time around the city center, which was disappointingly touristy. The main suq was in yet another modern-yet-traditional building, and divided into areas for local crafts (aka tourist souvenirs), fabrics, meat, vegetables, fish, goats, and dates. Yes, I checked out the goat suq, but they were out of goats, though there were a bunch of small iron bars where they had been tethered. In the date suq, I actually bought dates. Nizwa dates are supposedly some of the world's best, and they lived up to their billing. I then ate in some sort of supposed "authentic Omani restaurant," though my Omani friends hadn't heard of anything on their menu. Nizwa Fort, the largest old fort on the Arabian Peninsula, also lived up to its billing. Built at the dawn of Ya'ariba rule during the 17th century, today the government is clearly trying to develop it into an comprehensive historical educational experience for the tens of thousands who visit it each year. Much is still on the drawing board, but there is already a room where people can try on traditional Omani clothing and a gallery with a weapons exhibition.

Behind the fort are a bunch of narrow, winding residential streets, on one of which I finally found the ruins of the 9th-century fort built by the Imam Salt b. Malik, whose deposition was one of the most controversial events in Omani history, one debated for centuries after the fact. It's always hard to explain what I gain from an exposure like this, aside from the fact of being able to look at a place and run through details of its history. Still, one thing I've come to appreciate profoundly during the past 14 months is a sense of historical geography, of the places and distances people traveled and of their relationship with the land they inhabited. I've often said that geography is not just about toponyms, but represents the physical infrastructure for civilization, one an appreciation for which enhances one's perceptions in almost any human-related discipline.

(Note: I realize this is probably a crime, but when I went to Oman, I, uh, forgot my camera. The links above have some good pictures, though.)

Kuwait Towers

These are Kuwait's national symbol, the Kuwait Towers. The smallest is used for illumination and electricity generation. The middle tower in height stores one million gallons of water in its sphere. The lower sphere on the tallest tower is also used for water storage, while the upper one features an observation dome, restaurant, gift shop, and a small exhibit on the destruction of the towers' interiors during the Iraqi occupation.

Har Homa

Both Israelis and Palestinians remember the Oslo years as a time when they made lots of concessions and got nothing in return. On balance, however, I think it's clear that those years served to strengthen Israel's position, and Har Homa is a good reason why. This housing development, which as Dennis Ross explained in The Missing Peace is designed to sever Jerusalem from Bethlehem and thus secure Jewish claims to the entire city of Jerusalem, was opened by Benjamin Netanyahu on the grounds that it was a politically necessary trade-off in exchange for implementing some element of the Oslo Accords, probably a withdrawal. Once Oslo fell apart, of course, military postures proved much easier to change than a neighborhood, and Har Homa remains standing to this day as one of the 1990s' practical legacies.

Now we may be seeing the same pattern, as Ehud Olmert is set to expand the neighborhood, which Israel considers an integral part of Jerusalem and thus not subject to its freeze on West Bank settlement. I suspect that behind the scenes Olmert is talking about coalition politics, or perhaps he really does intend to hold on to far more of Jerusalem than serious peacemakers have traditionally thought possible. Either way, in a few years, these new housing units will be an accomplished fact, and any potential Palestinian state rendered a little less geographically viable.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)