Ha'aretz on Qatar's Emir

I haven't done a close check of even the English media, but sense that the Israelis are having a field day with the Wikileaks cables, claiming that they vindicate Israeli policy in multiple ways. This Ha'aretz lede is an example:

"Israelis can't be blamed for mistrusting Arabs, according to remarks by the ruler of the Arab state of Qatar released by the WikiLeaks group in the latest of a string of surprising revelations.

"Qatar's Emir, Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, made the comments in a meeting with U.S. Senator John Kerry on February 23. A report of their discussions, obtained by the WikiLeaks group, was filed by America's Ambassador to Qatar Joseph LeBaron."

That summary is based entirely on the following:

"The Amir cautioned that the Syrians will not accept everything the U.S. proposes, stressing that the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights continues and that the return of this land to Syria is paramount for Damascus. The Amir observed that the 'Syrians have lost confidence in the U.S. and that the Israelis now have the upper hand in the region because of the support of the United States.' The Israeli leaders need to represent the people of Israel, who themselves do not trust Arabs. The Amir said this is understandable and 'we can't blame them' because the Israelis have been 'under threat' for a long time...

"'What has changed, continued the Amir, is that Arabs 'for sure' now want two states -- Israel and Palestine. When you consider that many in the region perceive that Hizballah drove Israel out of Lebanon and Hamas kicked them (at least initially) out 'of the small piece of land called Gaza,' it is actually surprising that the Israelis still want peace. The region, however, is still 'far away' from peace,
concluded the Amir."

First off, I don't totally understand what Emir Hamad is getting at with his surprise that the Israelis are still interested in peace, though if there's a general tendency to use "Israelis" and "Arabs" as shorthand for the political leaders of the various countries it could related to such leaders' fears of looking weak on the regional stage. Taken as a whole, however, and especially within the context of the entire cable, this is not some general admission of Arab perfidy, but rather a simple assessment of the effects of conflict on public opinion and a recognition that democratically elected leaders are more representative of such opinion.

The emir also asserted that Hamas would accept the 1967 borders, but would not say so publicly because of its reliance on popular support. That same point was also made in this related cable, which also explicitly warned against a Fatah-only approach. None of this made it into the Ha'aretz article.

Marc Lynch has called attention to the way in which lots of people are just using the cables to support their own existing ideas, with his focus being Iran. This is another example of that.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Midan Tahrir

This is Midan Tahrir in downtown Cairo. The red building is the Egyptian Museum.

Elections in the Dark

Bahey eldin Hassan reports on the Egyptian regime's crackdown in advance of Sunday's parliamentary elections:

"In the span of only a few weeks, the whole media scene was changed. The outspoken editor of Egypt's most independent newspaper was removed and its editorial policy changed, widely read columns critical of the government in various papers were stopped, television talk shows were canceled, a program presenter was removed, a popular talk show host was forced to take a sudden vacation, and another program was compelled to temporarily broadcast from Tunisia.

"Following the proverb that says strike whoever is in reach and those roaming free will fear, 12 private television channels were suddenly shut down on the grounds that they broadcast religious hatred, while of course religious hatred aired by state-owned television channels, papers, and publishing houses has long been ignored. This move struck fear into the owners and staff of other private channels, especially when warnings were issued to several others soon thereafter. All channels and talk shows began to review their policies. Interest in election coverage waned, heated debates disappeared, and television coverage was altered to focus on criticism of the Muslim Brotherhood or non-political technical observations. The list of prohibited persons grew longer, and a second list was added for those who are banned from appearing live. Even Al Jazeera, the best outlet for coverage of the 2005 elections, succumbed to the veiled threat of closing its office, Moroccan-style, by reducing its criticism.

"Independent newspapers have devoted less space to elections than in 2005, and the red lines have proliferated. Front-page-worthy news is now found on page four or six, as self-censorship has increased. Statements by human rights groups and others on the elections are ignored, even for topics that would have been on the front page a few months ago. Tightening the siege on the media, the Ministry of Information formed a McCarthyite committee to investigate the media's adherence to 'professional standards' and ensure that it expresses no misgivings about the elections."

Arab Water Problems

Many analysts cite water shortages as a reason for the instability in Yemen, and I've also seen it come up in discussions of insecurity in Iraq's southern Euphrates valley. In her 2007 book Water Sheikhs and Dam Builders, Francesca de Chatel thematically recounts her travels to learn about water in the Arab Mediterranean countries by interviewing farmers, urban consumers of water, engineers, government officials, and others.

While "water wars" are often used as a hook to draw attention to the problems of water scarcity in the Middle East, de Chatel portrays expert opinion as denying that as a serious possibility. The reason is simply that ways to gain more water peacefully, such as by building desalination plants, are much cheaper than the cost of warfare. I found myself thinking that such an analysis probably holds true for states, but is much less true for local groups in weak or collapsed states. For this reason, discussions of the likelihood of "water wars" may turn on how one defines an individual "war."

I think de Chatel is definitely right, however, when she says that an emphasis on the potential for conflict distracts from the more immediate concerns of managing the scarcity. I was struck by her account of how peoples in the region simply failed to perceive the reality of water scarcity, much less to act on it. Another part of this equation is the way governments treat water scarcity problems as almost exclusively one of supply rather than looking at ways to reduce demand. They then try to solve these supply problems by sometimes harebrained engineering schemes with no real consideration given to the long-term consequences.

De Chatel's book is a great introduction to water in the Middle East, giving a careful, very readable account of water symbolism in regional cultures and highlights of water management before discussing the modern issues. In a region for which accessible studies of water issues are almost as scarce as water itself, it is a welcome contribution.

Iraq in the 1990's

In my "History of Shi'ism" class last Tuesday, I commented that the 1990's needed far more attention as a period in Iraq's history. When I told someone today I was attending a panel on 1990's Iraq, she replied with furrowed brow that she didn't know much had been done on that period. And indeed in introducing the panel, Reidar Visser commented that the period merited a great deal more attention, with most of what has been done focuses on Iraq's foreign relations rather than the interesting internal events and transformations.

That session, however, highlighted some interesting things that are being done on the history of southern Iraq in what I suppose we can call the late Ba'athist period. Two of the papers focused on the 1991 uprisings in the south. Abbas Kadhim of the Naval Postgraduate school explained a massive oral history project on those events, in which he was himself a participant and which he says is misunderstood even by the best historians who address it. This project is underway but still evolving, and as he plans to make the raw primary source material generally available, it will represent a treasure trove, not only for the Shi'ite uprising, but probably for other matters incidentally related as part of the oral narratives. Charles Brown, a U.S. government official and the panel organizer, also discussed his work with the Open Source Center's transcripts of SCIRI's Voice of Rebellious Iraq concerning those events.

The panel's first paper, by Cornell University's David Siddhartha Patel, primarily focused on the late 1990's, though with a broader historiographic focus which could probably pertain to the entire period under consideration. Patel's major criticism of current understandings of late Ba'athist Iraq are that they focus too much on the regime as the only important actor, with far more attention needing to be paid to the changes which developed from below. What he proposes, and I draw this summary not only from his paper, but also from his responses to questions, is that the central authorities in Baghdad associated with Saddam Hussein lost control of much of the country, in which local officials developed their own informal fiefdoms based on the perception of government authority and access to resources. Because resources became increasingly scarce, those who could access those resources on behalf of clients became important local power brokers. As examples, he mentioned tribal shaykhs whose claim to influence was their ability to get the plastic sheeting necessary for protecting crops and the respect of letters of endorsement from the Sadr movement in accessing facilities at a local level.

What's the takeaway from this? Interesting and important things are starting to happen in our understanding of Iraq in the years between 1991 and 2003, things will may radically reshape our perceptions of what transpired both before and after the U.S. invasion.

Israeli Foreign Policy, 1967-1971

I arrived at this year's Middle East Studies Association annual meeting later than usual because of a combination of its location in San Diego, at the opposite end of the country from me, and my Sunday afternoon presentation time, which necessitates my missing class Monday. I decided not to miss Friday, as well, and so didn't get here until late last night.

My approach to large conferences seems different from most people I know, who attend almost exclusively sessions in their research specialization, however they define it. I definitely pick up some of those, but am often more drawn to sessions in other areas, particularly those I am responsible for teaching or which seem important for outreach purposes, which feature top scholars in the field. I figure this gives me a way to keep up with what's really happening in these other fields, based not only on the papers themselves, but on the audience reaction to them. In fact, the one session today which I went to because of its proximity to my core areas of expertise was the one from which I didn't get that much, simply because the papers, while clearly excellent in their own right, didn't really engage their material in the way I expected them to, and in fact did so in a way that I've simply never found that engaging.

On the other hand, the session "At a Crossroads: Moments of Decision in Israeli Foreign Policy", which featured papers by Oxford Avi Raz, UC-San Diego's Gershon Shafir, and UCLA's Leonard Binder, definitely provided me with useful information and perspectives. I don't feel comfortable explaining Binder's, which I could tell was a response to a Stephen Walt book where I know most of the facts of Middle Eastern history and the issues involved in the debate, but not in detail how the two relate to each other, if you take my meaning. I will say I'm dubious of his central contention, which is that Arab states in the past few decades have tended to form alliances with those they perceive as threatening, which opposes Walt's traditional realist views that states seek allies to counter threatening powers.

I will, however, call attention to Raz's paper on Israeli attempts to limit the repatriation of refugees to the West Bank after the Six Day War, which clearly indicates that in contrast to the idea that the Israeli government was instantly ready to return occupied land for peace, the government of Prime Minister Levi Eshkol saw the area as a potential future part of Israel, with a desire to limit the Arab population accordingly to preserve the Jewish demographic advantage.

Gershon Shafir's work also questioned the Israeli desire for peace by examining the reasons for Israel's refusal to engage with the 1971 Sadat Initiative, concluding that two key elements were the desire to keep settlements in the Sinai Peninsula and the weakness of an Israeli peace camp in the wake of what was seen in Israel as a war of necessity against Arab aggression. One of his final points was that the old canard that the Arabs "never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity" applied just as much to Israel. The discussant, Concordia University's Neil Caplan, was unenthusiastic about that formulation, suggesting that the "missed opportunity" idea usually just served the political ends of whomever was saying an opportunity was missed, but Shafir countered by saying his only qualm about the term regarding 1971 was that the opportunity wasn't "missed" so much as "avoided." I suspect the Arab League proposal that's been floating around since 2002 will one day be added to the list.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Galata Bridge

This bridge over the Golden Horn connects the heart of Istanbul proper with the former commercial district of Galata.

Iraq's New Government

The formation at last of a new Iraqi government feels like a moving target, especially since as Reidar Visser notes, some stuff still needs to happen for the deal to work. Nonetheless, I'll endorse Marc Lynch's concise, mainstream summary:

"It's being widely reported that a deal has finally been reached among the major Iraqi political blocs on the outlines of a new power-sharing agreement which would produce -- finally -- a new Iraqi government. There's still plenty of ways for this to go off the tracks, of course, but if the deal holds then it looks an awful lot like the outcome will be pretty much exactly the government which I and most everyone else expected before the elections... and an awful lot like the old government. The deal as reported has Nuri al-Maliki staying on as Prime Minister, Jalal Talabani staying on as President, Tareq al-Hashemi and Rafi Issawi staying on as Deputy Prime Ministers, and Usama Nujaifi taking over as Speaker of the Parliament. Ayad Allawi would be offered the position of head of a new National Council for Strategic Policies. The name being circulated for Foreign Minister -- Saleh al-Mutlak -- is intriguing and sure to be controversial, but that's the exception. Try not to remember that the March 2010 election had been touted as a triumph for 'change.'

"Despite the inevitable arguments here in Washington, this outcome really shouldn't be seen as a victory for either Iran or the U.S. It is hardly a show of strength for Tehran that it was unable to impose its will on Baghdad's politics for 8 long months, and that the final composition of the government reflects most of Washington's key interests. Both Iran and the U.S. were backing Maliki by the end, but he wasn't either's first choice -- Iran would have preferred a more pliable candidate from the Shia list rather than the pugnacious Maliki, while the U.S. probably would have originally preferred Allawi. Neither got their first choice, neither will be terribly disappointed. Washington had clearly signaled that it wanted a broadly inclusive government, and that's what it seems to have gotten."

Virtual Marriage Brokers

The National reports on the role of social media in Omani courtship:

"Until recently, matchmakers had a corner here on the marriage-brokering market, navigating the complex ties of kin and tribe to arrange the nuptials of two young people who are not in love or may even have never met. Their services were invaluable in a culture where it is taboo for two young people to court in public or even meet alone before marriage.

"But now Omani youth are increasingly logging on to social networking websites to find romance, and even a spouse. Popular sites such as Facebook allow them to sidestep matchmakers - typically elderly women - giving them the privacy and freedom to cultivate relationships that sometimes lead to marriage.

"Reem al Hinai, 27, a customer service executive working for a telecommunications company in Muscat, said: 'If you cannot flirt face-to-face because of parental restrictions, then Facebook can do it for you at a distance. In some cases, it leads to marriage to a person of your choice.'

"Ms al Hinai met her husband 18 months ago on Facebook. They logged on and 'talked' for hours every day before they met secretly three months later at a friend's house. They were married seven months later...

"Statistics from Oman's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority show more than a third of Oman's internet users, or 2.5 million web subscribers, have a Facebook account."

The article didn't say whether there were any actual internet dating sites with a large Omani presence.

Gadaym Izik

Issandr El Amrani calls attention to developments within Western Sahara:

"One of the most under-reported stories in the Arab world at the moment is the camp protest taking place at Gadaym Izik, near Laayoune, in Western Sahara. Over 8,000 tents have been set up, gathering at least 10,000 people, to protest economic inequality and Morocco's control of the territory's resources (phosphates and fishing for the most part.) Interestingly, though, the protest does not seem to be Polisario-led or to be making direct requests for self-determination or independence. Talking to people familiar with the protest, it seems to be beyond the control of either pro-Moroccan or pro-Polisario Sahrawis and even local activists (who are mostly pro-independence, even if they retain a degree of independence from the Polisario).

"Something has been brewing for several years in Western Sahara, reflecting the local population's dissatisfaction with economic governance, and to some extent its expectation that the government should provide jobs and redirect revenues from local resources to the population, partly due to the longstanding Moroccan practice of providing subsidies and various forms of rent to Sahrawis to secure their support. How this relates to the Polisario movement is very ambiguous — on the one hand the Polisario is recognized in international law as the legitimate representative of the Sahrawis (which even Morocco recognizes since it negotiates with it), on the other the Tindouf leadership has become relatively alienated from the Sahrawis in Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara. But today it seems the major new dynamic is not coming from Tindouf, which makes all of the political actors involved nervous."

Reaction Against al-Qaeda

Muslims in Egypt from all shades of the theological spectrum are speaking out against al-Qaeda in Iraq's anti-Christian declaration:

"But instead of turning against Christians, calls to protect them echoed from throughout Egypt's Islamic community.

"'This is something to be rejected and strongly denounced, and it serves none but those who want to spark discord and target national unity,' the head of Al-Azhar University, Ahmed al-Tayeb, said.

"Pope Schnouda III, the head of Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church, used his weekly address in Cairo on Wednesday to praise Al-Azhar and the 'sympathy' Christians have received from Egyptian newspapers, intellectuals and the ministry of interior, which has posted extra security outside churches.

"Leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, an outlawed Islamist group that represents the strongest opposition to Egypt's ruling political party, also strongly condemned the ISI and its statements.

"'The Muslim Brotherhood is stressing to all, and primarily Muslims, that the protection of holy places of all monotheistic religions is the mission of the majority of Muslims,' the group said."

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Iraqi al-Qaeda and Christians

The fact an important Iraqi group acting under the al-Qaeda label has declared war on all Christians is disturbing:

"An al Qa'eda group in Iraq has declared Christians 'legitimate targets' as a deadline expired for Egypt's Coptic church to free women allegedly held after converting to Islam, SITE monitors said today.

"The self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) said in an internet statement that its threat was justified by the church's refusal to indicate the status of the women it said were being held captive in monasteries, the US-based monitoring group said...

"The group, which claimed the attack on Christians in a Baghdad church that ended on Sunday with the killing of 46 worshippers as security forces attempted to free them, had said that the attack was to seek the release of the alleged converts in Egypt.

"'Let these idolaters, and at their forefront, the hallucinating tyrant of the Vatican, know that the killing sword will not be lifted from the necks of their followers until they declare their innocence from what the dog of the Egyptian Church is doing,' the ISI said in its latest statement.

This is qualitatively different from the original al-Qaeda's rhetoric against "Crusaders," and more like the tone many Islamist militants have adopted toward Jews. If this willingness to push open communal warfare spreads, it will have important consequences for the large Christian communities found throughout the Middle East. Although not the most important aspect of the story, it's also worth noting the conflation of different Christian groups, as the states motives involve a delicate communal affair among Egypt's Copts and the Qur'an-burning threat by a Florida pastor, but the massacre was carried out at a Chaldean Catholic church and the statement clearly references the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

111th Congress

I agree with Ezra Klein:

"Republicans will probably win the House today. They might win the Senate, too. But either way, the brief moment in which Democrats not only controlled Congress, but held enough seats to do big things, is over. And it'll end in defeat.

"Actually, scratchthat. It'll end in a few dozen politicians losing their jobs. But if you see the point of politics as actually getting things done, the last two years, for Democrats, have been a stunning, historic success. Whatever else you can say about the 111th Congress, it got things done...

"That this has been the most 'do-something' Congress we've seen in 40 years hasn't made much of an impression on the public. Multiple polls have found that only a minority of voters know that the 111th Congress got more done than most congresses. That's true even among Democrats. Nor has their productivity made the 111th Congress popular. But if they failed as politicians, they succeeded as legislators. And legislating is, at least in theory, what they came to Washington to do."

You actually need to read the whole thing.