BEIRUT — It is difficult to understand, rationally or emotionally, the full meaning of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s election victory for a fifth consecutive term Sunday, with 89.6 percent of the vote, after two decades in power. One wonders whether we should congratulate the president on his massive victory, or offer him expressions of sympathy because his share of the votes slipped below 90 percent for the first time since he took over power in 1987.

In the world of the modern Arab security state that has prevailed in our region since around 1970, President Ben Ali typifies the new breed of leader who stays in power as long as biology allows him, and justifies his perpetual incumbency as the logical consequence of his people’s appreciation for his combination of stability, development and democracy. Very few people outside the Arab world take this sort of thing seriously; in fact, we Arabs are the laughingstock of the world in terms of domestic governance systems. Yet the destiny of most people in our region remains to live in countries that are ruled for life by ex-officers from the armed forces and internal security systems.

Elections in Tunisia and other such Arab security states are clearly an other-worldly experience, not serious or normal contests where competing candidates offer voters a real choice. A lack of credible opposition candidates and a stifling control of the mass media were only two of the means used to guarantee the ‘re-election’ of the Tunisian president, reflecting the enduring problem of contemporary Arab political governance systems where police and military personnel control the executive branch of government and, consequently, all other sectors of life and society.

Official results from Tunisia’s 26 constituencies released Monday showed that Ben Ali’s victory margin ranged from 84.1 to 93.8 percent of the vote. He did better than that among overseas voters who gave him a resounding 95 percent of their votes. Perhaps the expatriate experience makes Tunisians more fond of both their democratic system and their beloved leader?

Most credible opposition candidates were either banned or are already in exile. Two ‘candidates’ who are close to the government, Mohammad Bouchiha and Ahmad Inoubli, obtained 5 and 3.8 percent of the votes, respectively. The only ‘real’ opposition candidate in the eyes of observers, Ahmad Brahim, secured less than 2 percent of votes. These sorts of results are now found almost exclusively in the Arab world. Nobody else in the world dares to manufacture such incredible ‘elections’ and expect to be taken seriously, yet Arab leaders persist in this charade. Why do Arabs persist in this humiliating silliness?

The Tunisian election reminds us that the most pressing priorities in all Arab countries are squarely anchored in distorted domestic systems. More precisely, the single biggest constraint to the development of the Arab world is the non-stop exercise of power by relatively small groups of men whose unchecked control of the security, police and military services allows them to define how all other sectors of society function, including the economic, educational, and cultural dimensions of life, and the judicial and legislative branches of government. The entire governance system becomes a private domain of control and wealth whose sole function is to perpetuate itself and maintain calm.

The people and citizens of the Arab world have not been able to change this pattern of rule, and — with the exception of the controversial American-led attack on Iraq in 2003 — nor has the rest of the world seen it fit to do anything about it, either. The conclusion must be that life-long, non-democratic, self-appointed Arab presidents are an acceptable phenomenon in today’s world, perhaps because the alternative is more frightening. The life-long presidents and rulers of our region claim that the stability they provide is the single most important requirement of their societies, and nobody seems able to challenge that claim or to change this pattern.

It seems obvious to any rational, honest person who knows the Arab region and other parts of our world, that this is an unnatural way to govern entire countries, because it results in complacent citizens that have been coerced and intimidated into their docile state of being. However, hidden beneath the surface calm of the modern Arab security state are the immense indignities of not being allowed to exercise core elements of one’s fundamental human rights — to speak freely, to hear opposing views, to express cultural and other identities, to organize and mobilize peacefully for social and political change.

Such indignities are suffered quietly, over many years and presidential terms, yet they accumulate over time in the hearts of men and women who appreciate stability, but who also yearn for the ability to exercise the total dimensions of their God-given faculties, to live as total, not partial, human beings.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 28 October 2009
Word Count: 800
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NEW YORK — A month after US President Barack Obama met in New York with the Israeli and Palestinian leaders Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this week gave him the progress report on Arab-Israeli peace-making that he had requested. As expected, it said that very slight progress had been made but the hard work of resuming meaningful peace negotiations remained ahead.

It has been exactly nine months since Obama took office with a pledge to personally work for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace, and the scorecard of results on that pledge looks rather thin and dim. More negatives than positives define the situation, but elements of both can be gleaned from a review of what the Obama administration’s new policy of active mediation has achieved.

On the positive side, the main element is that the United States has recalibrated its own role and has tried to be an active, persistent, and more even-handed mediator. It has publicly demanded that both sides make immediate moves to revive an environment conducive to peace talks — a full settlement freeze from Israel, and gestures of normalization from the Arabs.

The clarity of US aims and its own role is offset by huge unknowns about four critical elements. We do not know:
a) if this issue will remain a priority for long or get lost among the compromises Obama will have to make to succeed on some of the key issues he is tackling at home and abroad;
b) what Obama’s positions are on substantive core issues, like refugees, Jerusalem, borders and others;
c) whether the demands for a settlement freeze and normalization will continue to be the center-piece of initial US mediation efforts; and,
d) how the United States will respond to maintain credibility in the face of Israeli and Arab reluctance to give in to these American demands.

The American diplomatic drive seems a peculiarly solo event, with little apparent participation by Arab, European or other countries that must play a vital role in order for this to succeed. Russia and China are becoming more important players in the region, especially because of their energy connections with Iran. Other important regional actors and dynamics remain in flux, such as the Syrian-Israeli, Saudi-Syrian, or American-Iranian relationships, and these have enormous potential to stimulate or stall the Arab-Israeli peace-making effort.

The main players are also evolving. Netanyahu is both stronger and weaker in resisting the US call to freeze settlements. He is stronger at home for standing up to the United States, yet he is also weaker in the negotiations process because all his attempts to divert or stall the process have been rejected. These include making Iran a greater priority than Israel-Palestine; focusing on economic progress or Salam Fayyad’s Palestinian state-building plan; securing Arab acceptance of Israel as a “Jewish state”; stressing Palestinian security moves and commitments to Israel before anything else happens, or asking for unconditional talks without any prior commitments or gestures.

He remains publicly if half-heartedly committed to negotiating towards a two-state solution, as the United States and the Palestinians want, while his own preferences have been aired and quietly shelved. This required time, and is probably the most important achievement to date of George Mitchell’s persistent diplomatic efforts. The United States appears realistically to be making the best of the stalemate, by using time as an element to remove diversionary issues and getting all parties to focus on the core aim of negotiating a comprehensive peace based on two states.

Mahmoud Abbas is weaker than he was nine months ago and the Palestinian side remains badly divided between Hamas and Fateh. Hamas continues to assert itself as an important player and must be included in a future reconfigured Palestinian government, though it has also become clear that Hamas is a minority party among all Palestinians, enjoying around 15-20 percent popular support. The United States is not pushing too hard because it knows that no progress will be made while the Palestinians remain divided as they are now. Re-legitimizing the entire Palestinian governance system must occur in the next nine months — presidency, parliament, cabinet, security services and the councils of the Palestine Liberation Organization — before any meaningful diplomacy with Israel can occur.

The balance sheet of the last nine months suggests that the United States is committed to playing the role of a persistent, activist and more even-handed mediator, but the principal parties in Israel and the Arab world are not willing or able to accept the initial American demands to prod the process forward. The next nine months are a make-or-break period in which all the parties will have to make clear if they are serious about negotiating a comprehensive peace, and how they approach this issue. Much will depend on whether the United States persists in its mediating role, or quietly gives up and focuses on other issues.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 26 October 2009
Word Count: 812
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NEW YORK — The Goldstone Report on the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza that was released by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) late last month generated a brief flash of publicity because it criticized Israel and Hamas for conduct in the war that could be classified as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The deeper and wider implications of the report, however, have not been sufficiently discussed or acted upon, which is a shame. The Goldstone Report, officially called “Human Rights in Palestine and Other Occupied Arab Territories: Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict,” is important for several reasons:

It represents an unprecedented, impartial and detailed analysis of the conduct of both sides in the Gaza conflict, using massive amounts of information from all available sources (over 300 reports and submissions, many public testimonies, field visits, interviews, satellite images, forensic analysis, etc.).

It holds Israel and Hamas accountable to the same standards of law and morality, making it clear that both sides must be assessed and held responsible for their actions. It suggests doing so by a series of actions by both sides to credibly investigate their conduct in the conflict; if no such probes take place, it calls for the international community to act through the UN Security Council or the International Criminal Court.

It undertakes this action in the context of holding the parties accountable to a universal standard of behavior (during and beyond wartime) that is defined by a series of international codes of conduct, including international humanitarian law, the Geneva Conventions, the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and others.

The investigating committee is particularly credible because it is headed by Richard Goldstone, a former South African judge, former prosecutor for the war crimes trials for former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and one of the most respected international jurists anywhere in the world. That such an eminent individual would lead an investigation that holds Arabs and Israelis accountable to the same universal legal standards is a critical precedent in heretofore failed attempts to end this conflict based on the rule of law.

Therefore his own words in presenting the report to the Human Rights Council are worth recalling and pondering, especially his statements that his commission accepted their mission, “with the conviction that pursuing justice is essential and that no state or armed group should be above the law. Failing to pursue justice for serious violations during any conflict will have a deeply corrosive effect on international justice.”

He emphasized what I believe is the single most important aspect of this commission and report, when he said: “A word about accountability. It has been my experience in many regions of the world, including my own country, South Africa, that peace and reconciliation depend, to a great extent, upon public acknowledgment of what victims suffer. That applies no less in the Middle East. It is a pre-requisite to the beginning of the healing and meaningful peace process…People of the region should not be demonized. Rather their common humanity should be emphasized. It is for this reason that the Mission came to the conclusion that it is accountability above all that is called for in the aftermath of the regrettable violence that has caused so much misery for so many.”

He concluded by calling for action to end the impunity that has existed for so long in the region.

“The lack of accountability for war crimes and possible crimes against humanity has reached a crisis point; the ongoing lack of justice is undermining any hope for a successful peace process and reinforcing an environment that fosters violence. Time and again, experience has taught us that overlooking justice only leads to increased conflict and violence…. The international community must confront the realities highlighted in this report and by doing so find a meaningful basis for the pursuit of peace and security for all the people of the region.”

Israel, the United States, and others who voted against the report’s adoption by the UNHRC last week missed the opportunity to bring the rule of law and impartial juridical accountability to bear upon the apparently criminal actions of both Arabs and Israelis — precisely the sort of action we need to shift from senseless and endless war to conflict resolution based on the rights of all concerned.

Never before have both Arabs and Israelis been subjected to such a combination of forces as are represented in the Goldstone Report process: an investigation by a team with impeccable personal and professional credentials, officially mandated by the UN, investigating the actions of both sides according to a single standard of law and morality, and calling for ongoing accountability so that the impunity of violence against civilians might be curtailed and one day ended.

Those who claim they seek peace but veto this sort of balanced, law-based accountability for criminal actions cannot be taken seriously.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 21 October 2009
Word Count: 817
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STOCKBRIDGE, Massachusetts — I heard the news of Barack Obama receiving the Nobel Peace Prize on a day when I had the pleasure of experiencing the best and worst extremes of American culture: a highway rest stop, and the Norman Rockwell museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The Nobel Prize to Obama was a well-deserved gesture, in my view, but I suspect it is more about the country than the man, and to understand this country you need to wander its extremes.

I know of few places that capture both the pleasures and the perils of modern American culture better than a highway rest stop, where you can pull over to buy gas, food, drink, souvenirs, and reading material, use the restrooms, and simply enjoy a dazzling cultural extravaganza anchored in boundless consumerism. They compress into one space many excessive American habits that are otherwise difficult to capture in a single moment: gas-guzzling cars and vans, rampant consumerism and materialism, overweight men, women and children (myself included) carrying massive trays piled high with fatty foods, refrigerators with 50 different kinds of bottled water — and experiencing all this on the rush.

On this particular stop my mission was well-defined: Use the men’s room, and buy a cup of coffee. I have always been fascinated by the continuous innovation in these rest stop rest rooms, such as hot air-blowing hand dryers, self-flushing toilets, motion-operated paper hand towel dispensers, and sensor-activated water faucets. I always look forward to testing out new models that help us gauge a civilization’s progress, and I was not disappointed. The gadgetry was efficient, hygienic, and technologically satisfying.

In the second part of my precise mission, I wanted to buy a simple cup of black coffee at some basic coffee stand named Pete’s or Joe’s or Wally’s. I ended up at a coffee shop with an Italian name I could not pronounce, understand or remember, surrounded by dazzling machinery that made me think for a moment that I had landed at the Smithsonian Museum’s Air and Space Museum. Regaining my senses, I quickly succumbed to the irresistible and comforting pull of consumerism and bought something called a “mocha caramel nut.” Whatever it was, it was delicious, it had little to do with coffee, and it cost me $2.75.

I had no complaints, though. In just seven minutes, I touched the heart of contemporary America: Consumers on the highway! It was efficient, warm, smooth, satisfying, and slightly expensive — and there were American flags everywhere, on hats, shirts, tattooed arms, and car bumpers. This, I asked myself, was the freedom-based, democracy-validated, over-indulgent consumer culture that American troops are defending or spreading around the world?

The Norman Rockwell Museum is a trip back into another time and mindset, the America of the 1920s to 1960s, when mostly white people lived in safe suburbs in secure, loving homes and went to war only occasionally and reluctantly, to save the world from tyranny. The master illustrator Rockwell eventually transcended his portraits of an idyllic society, and grappled with tough issues like racial integration and the Vietnam war. The best values of the idealized America he painted persist today throughout the land — stable families, safe communities, vibrant democracy, patriotism without chauvinism, and youth’s endless discovery of their world. No “mocha caramel nut” stuff in this world, just a hot cup of black coffee from grandma’s kitchen stove.

I was absorbing these divergent messages of the contemporary highway rest stop and Normal Rockwell’s America just as the Nobel Peace Prize committee honored Obama for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” and, because, “his diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.”

Yes, I thought instantly, this was an appropriate prize. Core American values are indeed shared by most people in the world, and Obama’s words and some initial deeds say the USA will now engage the world primarily through diplomacy and dialogue, rather than sending in the Marines. Shifting the strongest power in world history from a path of reckless military adventurism and political exceptionalism to a policy of negotiating and strengthening the rule of law for all — as Obama has started to do — seems to me a policy worthy of a prize and much praise. The prize does not honor Obama’s achievements, because he has few to date. It honors America’s starting to come to its senses, to reconcile its values with its domestic and foreign policy, and to make peace with itself, above all.

This is good for world peace and security, and it will transform the United States itself. Obama’s America will end up somewhere between the romantic nostalgia of a Rockwell painting and the unsustainable excesses of highway rest stop consumerism that can only be perpetuated by endless foreign militarism.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 14 October 2009
Word Count: 816
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BOSTON — What the new winner of the Nobel Peace Prize has been planning as his policy on the Arab-Israeli conflict is starting to become clearer, but remains mostly unclear. It is clearer because of recent moves on such matters as the Richard Goldstone report on the Gaza war and the pressure on Israel to freeze settlements. But it would be a mistake to jump to conclusions and assume that Obama’s Middle East policy is reverting to the traditional American default position of being in Israel’s pocket. It is too early to judge the United States here, and we should not make the mistake of passing judgment on a policy that is still in the making.

Talks with knowledgeable Washington experts who are involved with the administration and follow it closely suggest to me that the Obama team is much more methodical and strategic in its thinking than any other recent American administration, with a strong focus on pushing for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace as a high foreign policy priority. This does not seem to be coupled, however, with a detailed work plan on how to get from A to B and finally to a full peace.

The sharp, swift and sustained American focus on the total freezing of Israeli settlements has been a highly unusual move for the United States in the Middle East — but also an indicator that Obama is not moving whimsically or aimlessly. Yet it is also not moving with any success, either. The initial articulation of American policy — engage deeply, freeze Israeli settlements, secure Arab gestures of acceptance of Israel, and go for a comprehensive deal — has quickly encountered its first bumps in the road. The American response and next steps remain totally unclear.

There is no consensus among specialists in the United States on what the Obama strategy is and how will he respond to the initial bumps — Israel’s refusal to freeze all settlements; the Arabs’ refusal to make the gestures of acceptance to Israel before Israel makes substance expressions of its will to coexist peacefully with a Palestinian state. The Obama team has responded with unusual but probably appropriate reticence, neither throwing in the towel and giving up, nor blaming either side for the stalemate and pressuring them to accept ultimatums.

Obama knew that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist rightwing government would resist the total settlement freeze, so why did he insist so absolutely? What will he do now? He risks the United States losing face and credibility if he backs off in the face of Israeli stonewalling; he also risks being a one-term president and failing on some of his other major policy initiatives, if he pushes too hard and instigates the pro-Israel lobby groups in the U.S. to fight him on domestic issues as well as in the Middle East.

The most reasoned analysis I have heard from knowledgeable people in Washington who work with the Obama team is that the administration will continue patiently to chart the outlines of what it feels is needed to move towards a negotiated peace, while reacting slowly and patiently to events on the ground — and all the time pushing Arabs and Israelis towards launching a serious negotiation. That negotiating moment is not now, because neither the Palestinian nor Israeli governments is in any shape to negotiate seriously, or to make the substantive concessions required on both sides to seal a deal.

Naïveté has always been part of American policy, as we saw in the juxtaposition of the demand to freeze Israeli settlements with the demand that Arab states make gestures of recognition towards Israel. A better approach would have been to demand that Israel stop an illegal and immoral act — colonization — and also ask the Arabs to stop an equally unacceptable act, like, say, terrorism against civilians, incitement against Judaism, or Holocaust denial.

The Obama administration is focused on a medium-term strategy to push for a comprehensive peace agreement, but at the same time it is also learning about how diplomacy happens in the Middle East. We are still in the phase of Obama’s education on the Middle East, rather than any serious expenditure of American political capital to move from conversations and explorations to actual negotiations. I would expect realistically that by early next year — with Obama pocketing some domestic and foreign policy successes, the Palestinians getting their house in order and electing a new leadership, the Israelis learning that the United States is serious about comprehensive peace-making, and the Arab states doing something more significant than being idle spectators — we may see the full contours of an American policy on Arab-Israeli peace-making, rather than the warm-up strides now taking place. Or we may see a new war, much more destructive than any that has come before.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 12 October 2009
Word Count: 804
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NEW YORK — I was at the United Nations two weeks ago when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas spoke at the 60th anniversary of UNRWA, and his performance was thoroughly empty and unimpressive. Abbas is a spent force, lacking both serious legitimacy and perceptible impact. He hangs on to some thin threads of credibility from his long association with Yasser Arafat and the Fateh leadership from the days when they represented a Palestinian national strategy, and mattered, because they had some self-respect. This is no longer the case, sadly.

I was not surprised, therefore, at the news a few days ago that Abbas had succumbed to Israeli and American pressure to defer consideration of a resolution by the United Nations Human Rights Council on allegations that Israel had committed war crimes in its attack on Gaza last year, as stated in the investigation headed by respected international judge Richard Goldstone.

Here was a rare case of a credible international judge making strong accusations against both Israel and Hamas, and suggesting that their conduct be considered by the UN Security Council. It was an opportunity to bring pressure to bear on Israel through the institutions of the UN, building on the Goldstone report. Abbas caved in to US pressure, though, making it clear that he was more concerned about his relations with Washington than relations with…his own people. The cold-hearted capacity of the PA president to throw away an opportunity to subject Israeli war crimes accusations to serious international scrutiny reveals the almost total and absolute gap between him and his Palestinian people.

Abbas has taken this decision following another equally hollow performance when he met briefly with the American president and the Israeli prime minister in New York. He offered the illusion of action towards a negotiated peace, where in fact there is none. Abbas swallowed his words about refusing to discuss peace-making with Israel until it had frozen its settlement-building program. He was a tragic shell of a man, hollow, politically impotent, backed and respected by nobody.

The total emptiness in the Palestinian presidential chair is a problem that has a solution; in one move Abbas can help rebuild the credibility of the Palestinian presidency while simultaneously strengthening overall Palestinian national unity and political cohesion. He should simply call early elections for the Palestine Authority presidency, not stand as a candidate, and instead devote time to using his other position as head of the Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee to achieve a critical need that has been absent from Palestinian life for several decades: build a national consensus by giving voice to all groups of Palestinians and especially to the refugees living in camps throughout the Middle East.

Abbas’ weakness, like Arafat’s before him in the latter’s last decade of life, has been an infatuation with two elements that are addictive but non-productive: the trappings of power, privilege and incumbency, and a direct line to the US president. Both of these are enticing elements, but they lead to a situation of total powerlessness of the Palestinian leadership and equally severe marginalization of the Palestinian people.

The Palestinian presidency has become an international embarrassment. It generates no respect among the four principal constituencies where it should matter: the Palestinian people, the Israeli people and government, the Arab people and governments, and the rest of the world. It is shocking — unbelievable, in fact — that Abbas should have been able in the past five years to totally waste away the last bits of credibility and respect that Yasser Arafat had left him.

Forget for a moment the deep split among Palestinians as represented by Fateh and Hamas. There is still a national consensus that all Palestinians agree on, as expressed in the seminal Prisoners’ Document that came out of the agreement a few years ago among leading Palestinian factions who negotiated it during their stay in Israeli jails. Fateh as the largest and oldest Palestinian group, and the PLO as the acknowledged umbrella organization for all Palestinians, still enjoy legitimacy and influence that can be revived, if their leaders decide to act according to national political programs that unite the Palestinians and give them voice and impact — rather than Abbas’ current policy of isolating the refugees, marginalizing the Palestinians as a whole, weakening any semblance of national leadership, and keeping at zero the prospects of a negotiated agreement that will achieve the Palestinians’ minimum national rights.

Abbas has failed his people, but he can partially redeem himself and set the stage for his successor to play a more effective role. He should act with honor and confidence by stepping down as PA president, calling a new election to bring in a more legitimate and capable leadership, and focus his energy on where he started his days decades ago when he still had credibility and courage — by reconstituting the PLO as the coordinating body for all Palestinians

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 07 October 2009
Word Count: 813
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BEIRUT — In my frequent travels throughout the Arab world, I have always found a striking and troubling contrast between the rich vitality and humanity of the private realm of Arabs everywhere, and the shallow, demagogic, predictable and generally hollow nature of public activity. This distinction between the private and public realms and how people behave in them may provide useful insights into the wider political and national problems that plague much of our region.

The bizarre nature of the public realm is the one that interests me more. It may hold clues to how our region might one day finally shed its burdensome status as the last collectively non-democratic region in the world, the only group of like-minded and culturally connected states that did not experience the global wave of democratization after the end of the Cold War.

Why is this so? Anyone who moves around this region as I do will quickly notice that the rural landscape has slowly been strangled of its sustainable environmental wealth and economic possibilities, while the urban landscape has been hollowed of its human and cultural vibrancy. Everywhere, the landscape of civilizational advancement has been replaced by a panorama of guns – all kinds of guns in the hands of policemen, army troops, private guards, militias, and undercover security agents. The dominance of security agencies over the public urban spaces has shattered the vibrancy and creativity that once defined Arab cities, whether in the early-mid-20th Century, or in older history.

Walking through our Arab cities today is no longer an uplifting urban experience; it is an exercise in martial voyeurism, a stroll through a gun shop. Guns and pictures of the Great Leader populate and dominate the landscape. We are told this is for our own good, that it will reduce the numbers of bombs and wars that plague many countries. But at what cost?

The lack of opportunity for ordinary citizens to be themselves and to express themselves in ideological, cultural, ethnic, national, sexual or other orientations has transformed the people of the Arab world into little more than an audience of spectators, rather than the participants in cultural and national development that they once were. Faced with a forest of guns that are backed by an army of bureaucrats and security agencies that we must beseech for permission to do anything more meaningful than change curtains, the average Arab citizen has retreated from the public space, ceded it to the troops, and relinquished the essence of his or her humanity — the capacity to freely express themselves, and to enrich their society and fellow citizens with ideas, art, questions.

When our countries were first formed, most people in the Arab World were subjects of the Ottoman Empire, and participants in a very localized culture. They then became citizens of sovereign states, with centralized armies, budgets, flags and borders. Now, the people of the Arab world have lost their attributes of citizenship, and have been transformed into only consumers. Arab nationals have no significant or meaningful way to shape the policies of their governments, or choose, validate, or hold accountable the leaders who run their countries. Robbed of their human capacity for participation, ideas and choice by their own security-backed elites, the average Arab has been left mainly with the option of going out to buy clothes, cell phones and remaindered American and Italian shoes. The common denominator today of Arab urbanism — those great cities that jolted human civilization forward several times in history — is the shopping mall.

All those soldiers and security agents are out there on the streets to keep us safe to go out and shop as much as we want, but to do little else of value or consequence. The residents of Arab cities, that once were vibrant centers of learning, political activity, and cross-cultural exchange, have sheathed their humanity, in favor of credit cards, discounted recliner chairs, and endless varieties of fried chicken.

The transformation of urban Arabism into globalized consumerism is not sustainable. It dehumanizes people, who put up with shopping sprees as their primary life purpose for a decade or two, but then seek more meaningful means of expressing themselves and experiencing their humanity. I do not know what will happen to change the trend we have experienced in recent years, defined by the dominance of our own militarism, the demagoguery and hero worship cult of our leaders, and the emptiness of our public life.

The contrast with Arabs in their private homes and communities is staggering — for there, they regain their humanity. They debate, argue, offer ideas, demand answers, show kindness and compassion, express themselves creatively, and produce things — artistic expression, political thought, cultural creativity — that are not allowed to be displayed in public. A society of consumers without citizens is not a society; it’s a shopping mall, and it will not last very long if that is all it remains, no matter how many guns are out there keeping order.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 05 October 2009
Word Count: 824
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BEIRUT — At almost every international or regional gathering these days on how to fix the assorted problems and deficiencies in the Middle East, a common theme keeps popping up: What is the most effective and legitimate way for foreign parties — governments, international agencies, non-governmental organizations, universities or companies — to help achieve advances in areas like human rights, economic growth, social protection, democratization, or technological advancement?

Many different kinds of international involvement in our region have included armed invasions, covert activities, government-to-government economic and technical aid, and civil society or private sector partnerships. The cumulative track record of foreign engagement in the Middle East is thin, with few clear successes, many wasted efforts, and some counterproductive results such as Arab government spawning “non-governmental organizations” that are organized by members of the ruling elite that siphon off funds which would otherwise go to the truly non-governmental sector. Another problem is the dependency culture, with weak governments and tiny, one-man-show NGOs depending entirely on foreign donors to undertake their work — but with no lasting results when the foreign money stops and the local groups or activities collapse.

I’ve had the opportunity to explore these issues repeatedly with colleagues from the Middle East, the Western world and some leading international organizations. Here are my conclusions on how collaboration or partnership between foreign and Middle Eastern organizations succeed or fail:

1. Any partnership must work cross-sectorally if it wishes to tackle the tough issues of the day, like economic growth, education, political violence, youth and women’s rights, and others. Most pressing issues in our region are a consequence of distortions and excesses in multiple arenas, like politics, security, economics, the environment, education and urban expansion. Thus they can only be addressed meaningfully by a combination of political scientists, economists, sociologists, psychologists, and historians, among others.

2. Action to improve conditions or resolve problems in any sector usually comprises six distinct components: research to identity the problem, analysis to understand it fully, advocacy on policy recommendations, practical interventions to change things, funding, and monitoring and evaluation to assess if change has happened and to hold people accountable. Any foreign group that hopes to achieve anything by joining forces with local actors should only try to work in one, or maximum two, of these six areas, or they will end up doing a lot of work and having no impact.

3. Any international organization that hopes to succeed in our region must enjoy legitimacy and credibility in the eyes of three different but critical players: major Western and international institutions, and also governments and civil society/grassroots groups in the Middle East. Ignoring even one of these three parties will almost automatically guarantee failure.

4. Relationships must be based on institutional rather than personal links, and these relationships must be constantly negotiated and renegotiated to be sure that any joint effort is based on shared priorities and respond to the core interests and values of both sides. Projects initiated and funded by foreign donors alone rarely have lasting impact.

5. Activities should always be co-financed by both the foreign and local parties. Only when people put their money on the line do they take their work seriously and make an extra effort to ensure real impact and sustainability.

6. Partnerships between foreign groups and the private or NGO sectors in the Middle East are often initiated because the Middle Eastern government in question is incompetent to undertake the work in question, such as environmental protection, promoting human rights, or responding to the needs of youth and children. If such partnerships or collaborations are mainly defined by a need to evade the incompetence of local governments, the work is likely to fail because the government will quickly translate its resentments into crushing obstacles.

7. Many of the issues that foreign groups and local non-state actors wish to address are sensitive to the governments or to social traditions, making it hard to do the essential research needed to understand an issue fully. Issues like women’s status, sexuality, youth behavior, and use of the digital world to freely express ideas or identities are usually strictly controlled by the state, and must be approached with care but also rigor.

8. Strategic priorities that are primarily defined in political councils in Europe and North America and then presented to us in the Middle East as “transformational” or “development” projects will always collapse in a pile of wasted time and money, because they reflect foreign rather than indigenous priorities. More effective is a policy that generates strategies and activities on the basis of local research and consultations that allow the people of Middle Eastern societies to define their key problems — and then to partner with like-minded colleagues from abroad to take action to mitigate or resolve them.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 30 September 2009
Word Count: 798
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UNITED NATIONS, New York City — Activities at UN headquarters in New York City Thursday commemorating the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) coincided with the latest political developments revolving around the meeting last Tuesday of US President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Mahmoud Abbas. Political leaders on all fronts have wildly failed the Palestinian and Israeli people’s right to live in secure, stable societies, while the thousands of UNRWA employees have consistently made sure that millions of politically abandoned and physically vulnerable refugees receive the basic services and common decencies that are the birthright of every human being.

The work that UNRWA has done in delivering education, health care, social services and basic protection for many of the 4.6 million refugees registered with it represents the United Nations at its best — helping people at the material level, while drawing attention to the need to ensure their political, national and human rights, even in conditions of vicious warfare.

Some of the refugees live in appalling conditions, especially in Lebanon and Gaza, where unemployment and school dropout rates are often very high. Yet the continued mandate of UNRWA and its adaptation to changing circumstances send the message that the world sees the refugees as people who have basic rights that are not mere slogans, but realities that must be exercised. UNRWA was established in 1949 shortly after the nations of the world issued the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which saw individuals as unique in every way except for their identical right to leave behind the jungle, and to live in conditions governed by access to equal rights guaranteed by the rule of law.

UNRWA is also important to recognize today as a living symbol of the desire and ability of ordinary Palestinians to create a society of integrity, decency and opportunity when they are given a chance to do so. Because UNRWA is staffed mainly by Palestinians, it is something of a microcosm of how a Palestinian society would evolve if it were not subjected to the attacks and pressures of others. Several million Palestinians have passed through hundreds of UNRWA schools in the last 60 years, and many of them have gone on to contribute to the development of the modern Arab world as employees or entrepreneurs in their home communities or further afield.

The Palestine issue has probably been the single most radicalizing and destabilizing force in the modern Arab World — but UNRWA has been the most powerful force for moderation and sensibility among Palestinians who might otherwise have become disruptive and violent if they had been denied the basic services and dignity that UNRWA represents. Thousands of young Palestinians have indeed turned to violence, fighting other Palestinians and Arabs, Israelis or even attacking foreign targets in some cases of particularly absurd terror. Yet if UNRWA did not exist or provide the level and quality of services that keep young men and women healthy and in school or work, the discarded and dispirited Palestinians who would turn to violence would probably number in the hundreds of thousands, if not even a few million.

Perhaps the most important new role that UNRWA has played in recent years has been its increasing determination — represented by its senior officials — to speak out forcefully when the refugees were in the most dire circumstances and in the greatest need of assistance and protection — such as during the recent Israeli attack on Gaza. UNRWA has expanded its role from a provider of basic services to a voice of conscience that reminds the world of two related points: that Palestinian refugees are often helpless and vulnerable and thus must be afforded the most fundamental level of protection that is commensurate with their status as human beings, and, that the international community has a moral and legal obligation to provide that protection while simultaneously seeking the political resolution needed to end the refugeehood and exile of the Palestinians.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Karen Koning AbuZayd put it eloquently in her comment on last Thursday: “The protracted exile of Palestine refugees and the dire conditions they endure, particularly in the occupied Palestinian territory, cannot be reconciled with State obligations under the United Nations Charter…UNRWA stands ready to play its constructive and enabling role to ensure that the Palestine refugee voice is heard and that their interests and choices are reflected in any future agreement.”

Paying attention to the refugees’ voice, interests and choices, as AbuZayd states, is the essence of what we should grasp as we mark this anniversary. Sixty years is a long time for refugees to suffer their miserable conditions, but this period has also shown in UNRWA’s work what can be done when men and women of decency put their mind to it, and when states take seriously their obligation to protect the vulnerable among us.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 28 September 2009
Word Count: 810
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BEIRUT — No concrete results are expected from the September 22 meeting at the United Nations among US President Barack Obama, Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (I write this the morning of the 22nd in Beirut, before the meeting takes place). This marks the end of phase 1 of Obama’s intriguing foray into Arab-Israeli peace-making.

I disagree with the widespread sense that Tuesday’s meeting is mainly a photo opportunity. I think it is more of a farewell souvenir photo for some of the players — though who exactly is leaving the scene is not quite clear. I suspect that peace among Palestinians and Israelis will not be achieved by the trio of Obama, Netanyahu and Abbas. It is not clear, though, which one of them will depart the scene. They are all vulnerable.

It was exactly eight months ago that Obama, on the second day of his presidency, went to the State Department and announced both his personal focus on Middle East peace-making and the appointment of George Mitchell as his special envoy to the peace process. The two other principals — Netanyahu and Abbas — have persisted in their traditional mode of personal behavior and policy directions. Netanyahu has dug in his heels, fortified by the knowledge that his right-wing coalition government and perhaps a small majority of Israelis share his hardline positions, especially on resisting American pressure. Abbas and his government, heavily disconnected from their fellow citizens, are almost mystically absent from the negotiating process that existentially defines the future wellbeing of the Palestinian people.

The important question now is how the Obama team will respond to the realities it has encountered since January. These include the sharp and public Israeli resistance to the American call for a total freeze on Israeli settlements and colonization of occupied Palestinian land, a limp Arab response to the American call for gestures of Arab normalization with Israel, and an unusually blunt Saudi public rejection of that call.

President Obama has put his own and his country’s credibility and name on the line in his repeated demand that Israel freeze settlements unconditionally. Netanyahu responded by rejecting this, and simultaneously expanding settlements. The United States cannot now just throw up is hands in exasperation and say that it tried and failed. What might happen next?

Obama is new to this arena, but Mitchell and some of the other Middle East hands in the administration are seasoned negotiators with direct experience in Arab-Israeli diplomacy. It seems logical to assume that Washington expected this scenario, and has multiple options to activate for Phase 2. All the evidence of Obama’s character, performance in winning the presidency, and policy actions on multiple domestic and international fronts since January indicates that he does not undertake initiatives like this lightly. Rather, he and his skilled aides calculate methodically their assets and liabilities, and then devise a strategy for success, taking into account expected resistance and setbacks. Obama faces a momentary stalemate, but not a surprising one.

He moved decisively on this on the second day of work because he understood how Arab-Israeli peace could impact positively on several major issues he faces, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and terrorism. The Arab-Israeli conflict for Obama is just another policy challenge, like the economy, health care, the automobile industry, Iraq, Afghanistan and others, but a very high priority one in foreign policy. On Mideast peace-making, Obama faces vicious domestic opposition that will not only oppose him, but also try to unseat him. The pro-Israel lobby groups in the United States that have kept a low profile to date will now likely step up their open opposition to Obama’s pressure on Israel to freeze settlements, especially sensing that he is vulnerable because of his multiple challenges on health insurance, Afghanistan and other pressing policy issues.

Mitchell has experienced such hardball tactics before, and Obama has proved himself to be a master at strategic politics. They and their colleagues must now implement one of their Plan B strategies. We have no idea what they have in mind in this respect, but I would bet the house that they – unlike the Clinton and Bush examples of recent years — do have contingency plans and other policy options to use after Phase 1 of their Middle East diplomacy ended in today’s predictable stalemate.

Given his full plate of immediate policy challenges, Obama is not likely to push hard to start Phase 2 of Arab-Israeli peace-making, so we should not expect any dramatic moves. More likely, I suspect, is a slow process whereby Obama clears some of the other pressing issues from his desk — health care and the economy should be on a good course by December — and turns to the Middle East again, probably with a different set of characters in the picture.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 23 September 2009
Word Count: 800
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