BEIRUT — How quickly and easily the Middle East and the world seem to accept mass brutalization of Palestinians as a normal state of affairs. Yet an important lesson of our age is that Palestinians themselves will not passively acquiesce in this fate forever. The third generation of Palestinians since the nakba — the shattering and exile of the Palestinians that was part of the birth of the Jewish Israeli state in 1947-48 — has indicated through two intifadas and the current Hamas-led resistance that it will fight back and force a reshuffling of the political and diplomatic cards when the status quo becomes unbearable.

Israel’s siege of Gaza since the Hamas electoral victory of 2006 has been widely supported by major Western powers, and quietly supported by some Arab quarters. Hamas and other smaller resistance groups responded by confronting Israel and the Fateh leadership of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, leading to a small war between Hamas and Fateh in 2007 and a larger conflict between Hamas and Israel in 2008-09.

Now, months later, the Gaza situation seems to have returned to its default state of siege, stagnation, de-development and oblivion. This includes continued mass reliance on international charity simply to feed most of the residents of Gaza — but at levels of nutrition well below what is required for normal growth and development. Last year, according to data from UNRWA (the UN agency responsible for providing Palestinian refugees with their basic needs), children in Gaza were showing signs of stunting that reflects malnourishment which normally takes a few years to manifest itself. That means they are shorter and smaller than they should be for their age.

It seems then that not only are the Palestinians of Gaza denied the rewards of their democratic elections, and denied the opportunity to travel normally and trade with the world, but they are also being denied the right to their biological capacity to grow and develop as normal human beings.

Though politically dehumanized, Palestinians will not also accept being physically miniaturized.

So we can be sure of one thing now, when Gaza appears quiet on the surface: The Palestinians in Gaza are not passively watching their own dehumanization on television and wallowing in self-pity. What they are doing, and how their actions will translate into new political or military dynamics, is not evident on the surface. What is clear is that the status quo will not hold, and will be shattered in ways we cannot now predict.

This has been aptly stated in a new report by the prescient and honest analysts at the International Crisis Group (ICG), in a report entitled Gaza’s Unfinished Business (available at http://www.crisisgroup.org ). It notes that three months after the December-January Gaza war, “urgency has given way to complacency and complacency to neglect…If the underlying factors that precipitated the Gaza war are not addressed, Hamas and Israel could soon find themselves on the edge of another explosion.”

The fundamental crisis today, ICG reminds us, is not humanitarian but political. “If the siege remains, Hamas could launch large-scale attacks. If weapons smuggling and rocket fire persist, Israel could mount a new offensive. Without some Palestinian unity, Gaza’s rebuilding will not begin. In short, defusing this crisis requires a sustainable Israel-Hamas ceasefire, Gaza’s reconstruction and Palestinian reconciliation.”

A vital first step is a credible ceasefire agreement that includes re-opening Gaza’s borders and stopping attacks against Israel. ICG also argues wisely that the Quartet should soften its insistence on any Palestinian unity government accepting Israeli demands on recognition and security as an entry ticket into negotiations. Instead the Quartet and the world should judge a new Palestinian unity government, “on what really counts: willingness (or not) to enforce a mutual ceasefire with Israel, acceptance of the PLO Chairman’s authority to negotiate an agreement with Israel and respect for the results of a referendum on an eventual accord.”

Such unbiased, facts-based analysis looks at Palestinian and Israeli rights as goals of equal magnitude that need to be implemented simultaneously. This is in sharp contrast with the American- and Israeli-led Quartet, which — persistently unsuccessfully — demands commitment to Israel’s security as the starting point for any diplomacy.

“The world is adjusting to the status quo, but the status quo is not sustainable,” warns Robert Malley, ICG’s Middle East Program Director. “Getting out of the current deadlock will require courageous and forward-looking adjustment by all — Palestinians, Israel and the international community alike. Otherwise, a besieged Gaza once again will reach a boiling point.”

It’s very simple, really. When Jews were dehumanized and brutalized in Christian Europe, they broke out of their siege and created their state of Israel. The Palestinians are now at a similar stage of national traumatization, resistance and rebirth. Human beings do not take kindly to being miniaturized.

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: 27 April 2009
Word Count: 800
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BEIRUT — Once in a while a wave of ideas sweeps across societies and countries, and when combined with political and social activism it changes global history for a period of time. We are living through such wave now in the global Islamist movement that has swept across much the Arab-Asian region and pockets of other societies since the late 1970s. Many different forms of Islamist movements have come and gone, some have endured for decades, most have embraced non-violent change that starts within the hearts of pious men and women, a few have veered off into violent confrontation or terrorism — and all others have generated significant opposition to them at home or abroad — especially after the 9/11 attacks by Al-Qaeda against the United States.

Islamism, broadly defined, encompasses many dozens of different forms of nationalist, local, religious, charitable, social, economic, military resistance, and the occasional terror movements. It is also one of the most controversial, misrepresented and misunderstood movements.

We are fortunate in this respect to have available a new book that provides, in my view, one of the most comprehensive, accurate and useful analyses of the core philosophy and motivating political principles of political Islamism that is available to English-speaking readers. The book is, Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution, by Alastair Crooke (Pluto Books, New York and London, 2009, 302 pp.). It cuts through much of the ideological venom, post-9/11 vengefulness, neo-Orientalist stereotyping — or the mere simpletonian nonsense — that characterize much of what is said and written about Islamist movements in much of the Western world and Islamic societies alike.

Crooke, based in Beirut, knows the Islamist movements intimately, because he has worked or interacted with them in various capacities in the Middle East and Afghanistan-Pakistan for the past three decades, whether in his long service with the British government or the European Union, or more recently as founder and co-director of the Conflicts Forum, an NGO that focuses on meetings and exchanges between Islamist movements and interested parties in the Western world.

The book’s strength, aptly captured in its title, is that it distills into ten chapters the most important core motivating forces of Islamism as it has developed in our generation, especially since the Iranian revolution of 1979. Though he traces Islamism’s historical roots in the early 20th Century and beyond, he concentrates on systematically analyzing the philosophical, ethical, cultural, religious, economic, psychological, national and political values that are important in two respects:

• They explain why and how Islamism, through the lens of “resistance,” has mobilized hundreds of millions of individuals who seek to change the way their societies, politics, and economies operate.

• They clarify the essential differences and even confrontations between Islamic values and the drivers of “Western” values that derive largely from the Euro-centric nation-state anchored in its brand of democracy, secularism, individualism and materialism.

Crooke focuses heavily on philosophical and ethical differences between Islamism and Western traditions, noting that the West keeps misreading events in the region “because the West interprets Islam as a simple struggle over power and sovereignty. It is not. It is a distinctive view of human behavior that posits an alternative method of thinking about the human being; his and her place in the natural order; his and her conduct towards others; his or her place in society; the ordering of his and her material needs, and the management of politics.”

The heart of the Islamist revolution is the revival of the radical Quranic message about social justice, centered on the divine command to individual Muslims to struggle and fight daily for justice and for human respect and compassion. These philosophical perspectives were translated into operational politics and mass resistance by a string of powerful personalities in the 20th Century that included Sayyed Qutb, Mohammed Baqir Sadr, Musa Sadr, Ali Shariati, Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini, Hassan Nasrallah and others. His chapters on Hamas and Hizbullah explore how those two groups, reflecting their local conditions, translated their Islamist values into strong movements that are locked in ideological and military battle with some of their foes.

A critical common element for all Islamist movements, heavily sparked by the Iranian revolution, is the sense of empowerment and action, refusing to acquiesce to others who enjoy superior power or who claim superior rights over other human beings. Resistance changes the balance of power and the terms of debate among parties that had suffered severe power and rights disparities.

Islamist movements will succeed or fail largely, “on the basis of their ability to offer a clear alternative social and economic vision from the Western model for the distressed and poor in their societies,” he says. The Islamist revolution is in its early days, he concludes, and the coming period will see considerable fluidity, tension and change.

This is one of the most substantial and useful books on Islamism to appear in a generation. It may not change many minds among those who support or oppose Islamist movements, but it will provide a combination of clarity and factual information about this phenomenon that has been sorely missing from the debate.

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: 22 April 2009
Word Count: 850
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BEIRUT — The moment of reckoning in US-Israeli relations is approaching much more quickly than could have been anticipated months ago, due to two related developments: the hardline position of the new Israeli government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the obvious but undeclared linkages between progress in US-Iranian relations and progress in Arab-Israeli peace-making.

The friction between the US and Israeli positions on how to proceed in Arab-Israeli peace-making was on stark display in Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem last Thursday, April 16. The US Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell re-stated the American commitment to a two-state solution, while the Israeli prime, interior, and foreign ministers flew off on new tangents designed clearly to delay and sidetrack any serious negotiations.

The fascinating new diplomatic landscape that seems to be emerging sees the United States and the Palestinians firmly seeking a two-state solution, while the Israelis occupy rather different terrain. Israel now emphasizes four priorities: ending the mini-rocket attacks against Israel from Gaza, dealing with the issue of Iranian nuclear weapons development, improving the economy of the occupied Palestinian territories, and securing Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state as a first step towards any peace talks.

This occurs at a time when, according to Israeli press reports by respected writers like Shimon Shiffer in the newspaper Yediot Aharanot, the Obama administration is quickly losing patience with Israel’s position and has expressed a determination to conclude an agreement for Israeli-Palestinian peace on the basis of two adjacent states by the end of Obama’s first term. Washington reportedly is quietly signaling its displeasure with the Netanyahu stance.

It is too early to tell whether we are witnessing the early stages of the United States slowly taking back control of its wider Middle East policies from Israel and the Washington-based pro-Israeli extremists in Congress, lobbies and think tanks who hijacked it in recent decades. It would be exciting and historic indeed for the US to pursue Middle East policies that foster American national interests, while responding rationally to the legitimate interests of the Israelis, Arabs, Iranians and Turks who actually live in the region.

Israel’s current evasive tactics are not new. Most Israeli governments in the past 40 years have adopted positions that generally seek to postpone the country’s coming to grips with three critical realities: ending colonization of — and withdrawing from — all the Arab lands occupied in 1967; accepting the creation of a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, with Jerusalem as the shared capital of Israel and Palestine; and, agreeing to a negotiated, mutually-acceptable resolution of the 1947-48 Palestinian refugees issue that is based on relevant UN resolutions and refugee law.

The last four American administrations led by presidents Bush and Clinton failed to push Israel to negotiate seriously on these issues. The cost of such a reckless policy has become too high for the United States to accept indefinitely, it seems. Total American acquiescence to hardline Israeli positions has pushed most of the 400 million or so people in the Middle East to rise up defiantly and angrily against the United States and Israel. The result has been a Middle East widely ravaged by wars, rebellions, terrorism, occupation, resistance and increasing desperation — manifested in inter-linked conflicts and ideological confrontations in half a dozen distinct arenas.

The United States has taken a courageous initiative in revising its policy of pressure, threats and boycotts towards Iran and Syria, and that policy will have more chances of succeeding if Israeli-Palestinian and wider Arab-Israeli peace talks proceed in parallel. A critical first step in that direction remains securing Israeli acceptance of equal and simultaneous rights for Palestinians and Israelis — rather than the failed policy of demanding a priori Arab recognition of core Israeli demands on security and statehood, before Arab rights can be discussed or Israeli colonization reversed.

This is the crucial and pivotal peace-making principle on which the United States and Israel have yet to clarify their positions. The US’ rhetoric accepts this, but its policy on the ground has not supported such a position. The Israelis seem opposed to it in rhetoric and practice. The Arabs — after decades of refusing to do so — have clearly supported parallel Israeli and Arab national rights, to be achieved through peaceful negotiations. This is the moment for the Arab world, and the Palestinians in particular, to reaffirm more clearly than ever their willingness to live in peace with a majority-Jewish Israeli state that treats all its citizens equally, ends its colonization policies, withdraws from lands occupied in 1967, and coexists with a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem.

George Mitchell’s mediating task is clear, and he certainly has the experience and the skills needed to succeed. What remains unclear is where his own American government stands on these issues. We may soon find out.

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: 20 April 2009
Word Count: 815
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PHOENIX, Arizona — The American government‘s decision to join the international negotiations with Iran over the latter’s nuclear energy program is a historical marker or immense importance — certainly one of the most important diplomatic turning points of our time, in my view. It marks the first time in recent memory when a developing country branded as part of the ‘Axis of Evil’ by the last American administration forced the current president in Washington to reverse American policy and make what might appear to be a humiliating about-face — more or less admitting defeat in the face of Iranian resistance, defiance and persistence.

The core of this reversal in American policy pertains to the fact that Washington now will join the 5+1 group (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) who have been negotiating fruitlessly with Iran for some years in the continuing negotiations on Iran‘s nuclear industry. The George W. Bush administration had insisted that it would only negotiate with Iran if Tehran suspended uranium enrichment, and had led several rounds of UN Security Council sanctions against Iran. So now the United States is negotiating with an Iran that moves ahead with its enrichment.

This is not a sign of weakness by the United States, but rather a sign of wisdom and realism for which it should be commended. The Obama administration was sensible enough to realize that the aggressive Bush policy had failed, for many reasons The US was fighting a losing battle, against a determined foe. It took real courage and self-confidence for the Obama team to change their policy without feeling that the US was humiliated and lessened in the eyes of the world. Exactly the opposite is happening: The United States will be more respected for behaving rationally, instead of behaving idiotically and hypocritically — as it had done under Bush and his Minister of Mindlessness Condoleezza Rice.

It is critically important that these negotiations succeed, because lowering the temperature between the United States and Iran — and allowing Tehran to enjoy normal relations with the leading Western powers — is the most important way to make progress on the many other localized conflicts and tension points in the Arab-Asian region. Two things would now seem to take priority.

The first is for Iran to reciprocate the American move. The Iranian supreme leader and president have both said in recent weeks that Iran would welcome talks with the United States if these were held in a context of seriousness, trust and reciprocity. They said Iran would act in good faith if the US would do so. The American decision to drop its failed old policy and join the negotiations is a procedural move that should be reciprocated by a move of equal magnitude by Iran. It could be related to non-nuclear issues — like promoting more people-to-people relations — or it could be related to issues like inspections of its nuclear facilities, providing some but not all answers to lingering questions about its alleged nuclear weapons program, or even a symbolic move like suspending enrichment for two months in 2,000 of its 7,000 enriched uranium-producing spinning centrifuges — perhaps because they needed cleaning or maintenance.

Every sign of wisdom, humility and courage deserves a counter-sign. This is the moment Iran has been working towards for years — to show that it negotiates with the United States on equal terms, after forcing the US to accept its position. This is a moment and an opportunity that Iran should not waste, but neither should it gloat about its success to date, or over-play its hand.

The second thing that should happen is that both sides should work more diligently to redefine the aim of the current negotiations. Iran has a uranium enrichment program, so preventing it from mastering this technology is no longer a realistic goal. Suspending all its enrichment does not seem logical either. More realistic, as Harvard University professor Stephen Walt and others argue, is preventing the development of an Iranian nuclear bomb.

When I asked his fellow Harvard professor Steven Miller — a leading American expert on nuclear non-proliferation who also knows Iran from visits there — what we could expect from such an approach, he quickly listed a series of points that Iran had already said it would accept or would seriously discuss, and that would help ensure that it did not weaponize its nuclear assets. These all relate to inspections of its facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency, enrichment levels and quantities, co-production with Western partners, or working within a regional consortium of states that all use enriched uranium for nuclear fuel.

In other words, Miller said, “this suggests that there are arrangements potentially acceptable to Iran that would make it quite difficult for Tehran to secretly use its declared nuclear facilities for weapons purposes.”

Courage and boldness on both sides can initiate serious diplomatic engagement, which in turn can lead to breakthroughs that can transform the entire Middle East.

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: 13 April 2009
Word Count: 821
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CHICAGO — President Barack Obama’s speech to the Turkish Parliament on Monday, April 6, was another milestone in what appears to be his continuing attempt to steer the American ship of foreign policy in new directions. He made some important new statements and changes in style, while repeating some silly old bad habits and simplistic insults. If he intended to address the Islamic world and signal a more humble, realistic policy towards majority-Islamic countries, he gets high marks for intent and execution, and medium marks for substance.

He reminded us once again of three linked issues: The United States has serious problems with some Muslims and some quarters of the Islamic world; it is trying to acknowledge and redress those problems with a refreshing combination of courage, humility and honesty; but, it still suffers deep structural flaws in achieving this worthy goal.

The most significant thing about Obama’s speech in my view was the disparity between how he addressed all the tough issues that matter to Turkey — EU admission, Kurdish relations, Armenian history, Cyprus, democracy consolidation, and South Caucasus states — while only offering soft rhetoric and hollow generalities when speaking about American relations with the Islamic world. Specificity reflects seriousness, while generalities reflect hesitation.

Obama should be commended and applauded for tackling these issues to begin with, but he should be chided for resorting to simplistic nothingness in four areas. The first is his meaningless statement that “the US is not at war with Islam”. He might be surprised to learn that neither is Islam at war with America or Americans. He would be much better advised to stick to the facts by noting that a very small number of criminal Muslims attacked the United States, and his country is justifiably fighting them and trying to bring them to justice. By addressing “Islam” as a protagonist, he recklessly transforms specific quarrels into civilizational, religious and cultural battles.

His second mistake is to speak glowingly of respect for the Islamic faith and all it has contributed to the world, while always counter-framing his words in the context of terrorism and warfare. He should instead speak of the rights that individuals and countries expect to enjoy in a world governed by law and mutual commitments to sovereign rights. Muslims don’t need an American president or anyone else to tell them they have a fine cultural heritage; they know that intuitively, and simply by living their faith and values. They want to hear from the leader of the world’s strongest nation that he respects the rule of law that is applied equally, fairly and consistently to all countries, regardless of their religion.

The third mistake he makes — a genetic weakness for all American officials, it seems — is that he frames the tensions between some Muslims and some Americans in terms of religious differences, rather than acknowledging that most criticisms of the United States in the Arab-Asian heartland of Islam reflect anger with US foreign policies. The problem is not faith, it’s foreign policy – specifically American policies supporting Israel or supporting dictators and autocrats throughout the Arab-Asian region. By evading these core problems, he ends up slightly comically and unsuccessfully flailing for substitute issues to address.

The fourth weakness in Obama’s speech and his general approach is to single out Iran as a potential menace for allegedly wanting to develop nuclear weapons, and chiding Iranian leaders like a school teacher talks to children. This totally negates and sidelines his remarks about wanting to deal with Iran on the basis of “mutual interests and mutual respect.” If that were the case, he would speak instead about working with Iran and others to implement all relevant international laws and regulations to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, while affirming every country’s right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

These criticisms of Obama’s shortcomings should not detract from his commendable change in tone and direction from the horrors of the George W. Bush years. One intriguing new twist in his remarks was the insistence three times in one paragraph that Israelis and Palestinians both must honor commitments, change their ways, and make new moves to achieve the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security. This is not major new policy — but it does seem like another small shift towards repositioning the United States as a credible mediator that seeks to work simultaneously for the rights and best interests of both Israelis and Palestinians. Rarely has an American president spoken so clearly about both Israelis and Palestinians needing to change their ways to achieve peace.

We have here only vague hints couched in nice rhetoric, but they are intriguing hints that should be watched for signs of policies that affirm them. Large ships adjust their course slowly and incrementally. Obama turned the wheel a few degrees in Turkey this week.

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: 08 April 2009
Word Count: 812
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BOSTON — For years, pro-Israeli zealots and other fanatics in the United States who run out of arguments quickly revert to their fallback position that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East — and thus should be supported against Arab dictators. There is some truth to this argument, but not compelling integrity; Israel is indeed a domestic democracy for its Jewish citizens, and most Arab countries are not convincingly democratic.

But this is diversion, not a serious discussion. It is also less pertinent in view of the new Israeli government, which suggests that hypocrisy, rather than democracy, may be the defining characteristic of Israeli policies. Equally troubling, shabby hypocrisy also defines those in the United States who unquestioningly support Israel and its excesses, and who parrot the argument that Israel is the only democracy in the region.

Hypocrisy rather than democracy is now the Israeli-American hallmark because of the increasingly stark and vulgar double standard that is applied to the behavior of Israeli and Palestinian governments. This is highlighted by the pronouncements of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and his foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman. These included a refusal to commit to a two-state solution as the goal of a negotiating process, a rejection of continued commitment to the “Annapolis Process,” and only vague commitments to negotiating with a view to reaching a peace agreement.

The silence from the United States on these positions has been profound, and troubling, but this is perhaps understandable in view of the fact that Washington is still formulating its strategic and tactical policies in the region and completing its cast of characters who will manage Middle East policy, while also dealing with more pressing priorities. Opposing Israel too strongly in Washington is a sure recipe for one-term political life expectancy, and Obama and Company have to decide if they wish to take on the pro-Israeli machine and maniacs in Washington so soon.

The real problem with Israel’s position, though, is with the double standards that differentiate it from what is demanded of the Palestinians. For decades now, Israel and the United States have routinely demanded that the Palestinians make precise, explicit and public acceptances of Israel’s right to exist, ending the use of violence, and recognizing past agreements. This was the case with the PLO which finally formally “renounced terrorism” and accepted “Israel’s right to exist” in the late 1980s. It is the case with Hamas today, with whom Israel, the United States, the Europeans, Russia and the UN (via the Quartet) refuse to deal until it recognizes Israel, renounces the use of violence, and accepts previously reached agreements.

It is not clear to most of the world, beyond the hypocrisy-democracy heartland in Tel Aviv and corners of the West, why the Palestinians are asked to show strict compliance with past agreements and a priori formal recognition of the enemy before any talks can start, while no such comparable standards are applied to Israel. This is precisely what colonialism is all about — one law for white men, and a different, harsher set of rules for the native darker people. It is also why the entire world experienced an anti-colonial revolt in the past century. As Israel is the last active colonial enterprise in the world — and Foreign Minister Lieberman lives in a colony of settlers from abroad — it is not so surprising to see the values of colonial discrimination and subjugation applied to the practice of politics and diplomacy when Israel is concerned.

It is shocking, though, to see the United States and other major democratic Western powers that support, and claim to value, Israel in part because of its democratic values, stand largely silent and immobilized in the face of Israel’s brazen hypocrisy and double standards. Israel’s behavior seems like the mirror image of their own fickle morality and expedient double-standards.

The continuing sharp contrast between the two different political and moral standards applied to Israelis and Palestinians is one of the reasons that the well-meaning officials associated with Yasser Arafat, and now with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, have proven to be a hapless band of political amateurs who have been unable to make war or peace with Israel, or to develop a meaningful, credible diplomatic relationship with major Western powers. Not surprisingly, they have slowly lost credibility with their own Palestinian public, and ceded space and power to Hamas and others who demand politics based on more than pleading, and diplomacy anchored in more than dependency.

Two states for Israel and Palestine are hard enough to achieve through peaceful negotiations these days. They are impossible to envisage at all if we also play this game according to two sets of rules, one for White Man Zionists and another for Dark Boy Arabs.

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: 06 April 2009
Word Count: 794
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BOSTON — One of the important, even historic, changes taking place in the United States these days is the slow but steady erosion of the once absolute taboo to speak out about the excessive influence of pro-Israeli groups on the country. Pro-Israeli forces in politics and the mass media can still destroy a public career, especially for a politician, but the stranglehold on discussing this phenomenon is slowly loosening.

I witnessed one example of this earlier this week when I participated in the second annual symposium on Gaza, jointly organized by and hosted at two outstanding universities, Harvard and MIT. Equally noteworthy was its sponsorship by mainstream units at the universities — including MIT’s Center for International Studies and the Program on Human Rights and Justice, and Harvard’s Middle East Initiative at the Kennedy School, the Center for Middle East Studies, and the Human Rights Program at the Harvard Law School.

A respected member of Congress who had recently visited Gaza, Brian Baird from Washington State, made the opening comments, which were strongly critical of Israeli actions in Gaza — especially the excessive and disproportionate use of force — and of the American position supporting Israel.

Most of the speakers criticized Israel and supported Palestinian rights, pointing out the importance of the “resistance” of the Palestinians in Gaza who refused to be removed from history or from their land by the force of Israeli settler-colonialists’ violence. Boston University Political Science Professor Irene Grendzier suggested that two phenomena have defined events in the Middle East in recent years — the problem of weapons of mass destruction, but also the problem of “weapons of mass deception” in the United States public arena.

The deliberate deception of the American people about realities on the ground in Israel and Palestine was one reason the US government and public could take a position of “overwhelming silence” on the recent Israeli assault on Gaza, and its continuing strangulation of that society.

“The deception is breaking down slowly, however” she said, because of the availability of alternative sources of news — available to anyone who sought it out on the internet or non-American television services. This meant that “we are witnessing the public beheading of Israeli myths on events in Palestine.”

Other speakers — Arabs, Americans, Israelis, Europeans — made similar points that emphasized how the gravity and often the criminality of Israeli actions in Gaza were at once facilitated and exacerbated by American and other foreign policies. Oxford University lecturer Karma Nabulsi said that a consistent aim of American-Israeli policies was to deny the Palestinians the right to represent themselves, and then also to deny them the right to resist when faced with occupation and assault.

One of the new dangers represented by Israeli policies, according to University of California Hastings College of Law George Bisharat, is the “brutalization of international law that may long outlive the events of Gaza.”

For example, Israel has sought to sideline the pertinence of established International Humanitarian Law that governs the responsibilities of an occupying power, and instead seeks to define its encounters with Palestinian civilians in terms of the rules governing the law of armed conflict, i.e., it can shoot to kill at will, if it views all Palestinians as enemy combatants.

Israel also tries to convince the world that it no longer occupies Gaza, while in fact it now “operates remote but effective control of Gaza,” by controlling all borders, waters and air space, and reserving the right to enter or attack Gaza at will — which is considered an occupation in international law that is based on the principle of “effective control.”

He touched on a theme that recurred often at the symposium, and that dominates most discussions on the United States and the Middle East: What will the Obama administration do in the face of continuing Israeli excesses, such as expansion of settlements? Bisharat thought that Obama’s de-emphasis of George W. Bush’s “global war on terror” and the desire to recover American credibility around the world might spur Washington to refocus on the rule of law as a guiding global principle for the conduct of all states — without making an exception for Israel.

While most of these positions are not new, it is a sign of change that such views can be expressed in a public symposium at two of the leading American universities. It means that Israel’s excessive actions against Palestinians can be discussed more openly, and rebuked if necessary. Though this is noteworthy, it is not decisive until it touches on the conduct of Congress and the White House. The early signs are clear nevertheless. The strict taboos that pro-Israeli zealots and political thugs imposed on the American public are slowly cracking, which can only be in the long-term best interest of the United States, Israel and the entire Middle East.

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: 01 April 2009
Word Count: 808
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GENEVA — At a gathering of experts in international humanitarian law (IHL) in Geneva last week, much of the focus was on countries and societies where Muslims form a majority of the population. There was also discussion of terrorism, and how groups that engage in terrorism can be dealt with in relation to IHL. Much of this discussion centered on terror in and from Islamic societies.

This is understandable to a large extent, given the massive media coverage of the terror that has become such a common and disfiguring part of many Muslim-majority societies. It would be the same if a discussion of modern anti-Semitism ended up talking mostly about Christian Europe and Russia; or a discussion of covert operations for regime change talked mostly about the United States and Great Britain in the past 50 years; or a review of settler-colonialism and ethnic cleansing centered largely on modern Israel and Apartheid South Africa.

Some historical concepts are indelibly associated with some parts of the world. The association of terrorism with Islamic societies is a sign of our times. When I was asked to speak on these issues, I suggested that the best way to get an accurate and complete picture of Islamist political trends and the role of terror in these lands was to acknowledge six elements that sometimes converge, but often do not:

• Islam the religion, which has many varieties around the world;
• Muslims as individual men and women who seek the comfort of dignified citizenship within stable statehood;
• Islamism as a widespread phenomenon of political mobilization and expression that transcends countries and religious movements;
• Nationalist Islamists who operate within their own country context, with a view to liberating themselves from foreign occupation or changing state policies;
• Social and community Islamism that sees individuals living their lives and organizing their local communities according to Islamic dictates of justice, modesty, compassion and generosity; and,
• Salafist militants and terrorists like Al-Qaeda and smaller groups that have sprung up around the world, that see themselves fighting a global defensive jihad to protect the Islamicumma (community) from foreign domination or internal subversion and corruption.

When I hear people speak about “what’s wrong with Islam” or “Islam and the West,” my immediate response is to remind them that there is no such thing as a single “Islam” that can be diagnosed, analyzed or engaged as a monolithic whole. The variety and dynamism of changes in Islamic societies, and in the hearts and minds of individual Muslims, is staggering these days. This is understandable, given the intensity of the degradation that many Muslim-majority societies have suffered in the past half century of foreign manipulation, domestic mismanagement and abuse of political power, and local deterioration of social, environmental and economic conditions.

The six different forms of Islamist identity and expression that I suggested above evolve constantly, reflecting changing realities at the local level in most cases. Turkey has become the world’s most impressive democratic, constitutional and largely secular Muslim-majority society, and one of the few where the military and security forces are largely under civilian oversight. Egypt, on the other hand, sees Islamism spread throughout society mostly in the form of the increasing piety of individuals and the activism of groups at the community level — while Islamist parties like the Muslim Brotherhood engage in formal politics, knowing very well that the military-dominated ruling elite will always control policy.

It is noteworthy that the overwhelming majority of Muslims and Islamist groups have rejected the violent strategy of the small Salafist militants such as Al-Qaeda. But it is also worrying that the core grievances of both the militants and the non-violent majority are virtually identical. Salafist militants decide to bomb foreigners and Muslims alike, but the majority of disgruntled Muslims deal with their predicament of imprecise citizenship rights in slightly incoherent and often corrupt countries by trying to lead more pious lives, while challenging the status quo and the power elite as they can.

If we disaggregate Islamic societies or Muslim-majority countries into my suggested six categories of individuals, community, political, transnational and nationalist groups, core religious values, and a handful of extremists, we would appreciate that most Muslims and Islamist groups have responded to their individual and national predicaments with patience, rationality and non-violence.

Most of them — individuals and movements alike — are still trying to express their grievances and articulate the positive values (justice, equality, accountability, rule of law, compassion) that they would like to see define their lives and societies. The handfuls of criminals and anarchists in the Islamic world should not detract from the reasonable aims of the majority any more than anti-Semites, settler-colonialist fascists or criminals should be allowed to define the entirety of Christian Europeans, Israelis, South Africans, or Americans and British.

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 March 2009
Word Count: 800
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BEIRUT — US President Barack Obama continues to make intriguing gestures in the Middle East that seem to soften or even reverse the policies of the George W. Bush administration, the latest being his video taped message to the Iranian people and leaders on the occasion of the Nowruz holiday that ushers in Spring. Obama should be commended for his initiative, which started from his first moments in office when he made a gesture to the people of Iran during his inaugural address.

Obama said in the message that, “My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties…This process will not be advanced by threats. We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.”

He made this intriguing gesture in the context of his administration earlier this month extending sanctions against Iran for one more year, on the basis that Washington sees Iran as posing a threat to US national security. If sticks and stones speak louder than words, the American sanctions against Iran would seem to convey a much tougher posture than the reconciliatory video message. This would seem to be the first contradiction the United States needs to sort out in its overtures to Iran.

Another one is the tendency to reach out with happy words that preach friendship and mutual respect, while also laying down the law on what Iran must do if it wants to be invited for tea at the White House. Obama said the United States wanted Iran to take its “rightful place in the community of nations,” but he also laid down some markers for Iran’s behavior, noting that Tehran would have to do its part to bring about reconciliation.

“You have that right — but it comes with real responsibilities, and that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization,” he said.

He went on to add, “And the measure of that greatness is not the capacity to destroy, it is your demonstrated ability to build and create.”

We should not underestimate the courage and self-confidence it took for Obama to move in this direction and to make several gestures towards Iran since taking office. He reflects real strength, political realism and much humility in being able to reverse many aspects of the belligerent Bush approach and instead to reach out to Iran.

Yet the persistent flaw in the Obama approach that might prove to be fatal is a lingering streak of arrogance that is reflected in both the tone and the substance of his message. This is most obvious in his insistence – after telling the Iranians that they are a great culture with proud traditions, which is presumably something they already knew, experienced and felt on their own — on lecturing Iran about the responsibilities that come with the right to assume its place in the “community of nations”, and then linking Iran’s behavior with “terror of arms” and a “capacity to destroy.”

It is difficult to see how Washington feels the positive gestures of reaching out can be reconciled with the American president’s irrepressible need to lecture others about the rules of righteous nationhood. One of the principal complaints that Iran has against the United States – and this is mirrored in widespread Arab and Islamist resistance to the United States and its allies – is the lingering colonial tendency by the leading Western powers to feel that they write the rules for the conduct of other nations.

This complaint is exacerbated by hearing the Americans warn against the “ability to destroy” and the danger of using “terror or arms” — while Washington sends hundreds of thousands of its troops around the world on destructive yet dubious missions, backs its allies in various Arab countries with a gusher of arms, and enthusiastically stands by Israel in the latter’s actions in Lebanon and Palestine in what many see as a policy of state terror.

The American gestures to Iran seem sincere and serious, but from the Iranian perspective they still suffer from the persistent structural weakness of dictating the rules of the game to Iran and others in the Arab-Asian region, rather than engaging in a genuine dialogue. This flaw should not detract from the constructive effort that the Obama administration is making or blind us to the real shifts it has already initiated. At some point, though, Obama has to decide if he wants to dictate rules, or engage in real dialogue, because the two cannot happen together – especially if the standards of behavior the United States wants to see from Iran are often ignored by Washington itself along with its closest allies, such as Israel.

We can celebrate Nowruz together and usher in a genuinely new Spring, or we can soon celebrate April Fool’s day, but in the world of diplomacy and political relations we cannot do both at the same time.

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 March 2009
Word Count: 828
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BEIRUT — If rhetoric is the first step towards action, then one of the rhetorical trends of our time that indicates a giant step backwards towards inaction is the American and European tendency to describe Israel’s aggressive and illegal actions in the occupied Palestinian territories in increasingly soft and imprecise terms.

For years, the US government used to call the Israeli settlements “illegal” and an “obstacle to peace,” but in recent years those terms have been replaced by a mere “unhelpful.” On her first official trip to the region earlier this month US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton referred to the Israeli demolition of Palestinian Arab homes in East Jerusalem as “unhelpful.” Earlier this week, the European Union presidency said that Israel’s demolition of homes in the Silwan neighborhood of Jerusalem “threatens the viability of a comprehensive, just and lasting settlement, in conformity with international law.”

If I were the Israeli government, I would be laughing all the way to my next colonial adventure in destroying Palestinian homes and infrastructure, uprooting Palestinian Arabs and replacing them with imported settlers from Israel, or Brooklyn, or Russia, or from wherever the world’s longest running modern colonization venture gets its human ammunition and reinforcements. It is bad enough when two of the world’s most powerful governments pull back from their previous positions of branding Israel’s contraventions of international law and UN resolutions as illegal and impermissible and instead call them “unhelpful” or just a threat to a lasting settlement. It is infinitely worse when the United States and the EU spend half their waking hours trying to spread democracy and the rule of law to the rest of the world while watering down a central Israeli contravention of the rule of international law. t Israel must be quietly and comfortably amused at every American and European official in sight.

The rhetorical downgrading of Israel’s criminality is a problem in many respects — assuming that it is still OK to use the word criminality to describe the contravening of the law. That, at least, is what my beloved British and American teachers in primary and high school taught me when I learned English: Use the precise, accurate word when you have it at hand, and do not beat around the bush. Clarity is good for communication.

The first problem with Western obsequiousness before Israel’s intimidation is that it perpetuates the Zionist colonial enterprise in a manner that is harmful to all concerned, including Israelis and Palestinians of course, but also Westerners who end up being sucked into our maelstrom of violence. The second problem is that it helps to disqualify the United States, the EU and others who share their position — such as the UN, increasingly — from playing the role of active, credible mediator. Arabs and Israelis cannot solve their conflict on their own, and mediation by the Turks or Egyptians can only move things forward so much. A permanent, comprehensive negotiated peace agreement requires intensive American and European involvement in negotiations, in consummating an agreement, in peace-keeping, and in promoting post-peace economic growth. This is impossible if the US and EU have no credibility.

A third problem with the cowardice of sheltering in the safe world of “unhelpful” rather than “illegal and impermissible” Israeli colonies is that those Western powers who choose this route send a terrible message: They have been denying and ignoring the rule of law when it comes to Israeli actions over more than four decades, but enthusiastically preach and promote the rule of law when it comes to their aspirations to transform the Arab and Islamic world. A little bit of hypocrisy is standard fare for politicians; but when this has been elevated to the level of official policy that transcends administrations, decades and then generations, it enters the realm of the pathological.

Great powers and noble organizations that disrespect their own rules are not so great in the eyes of a bewildered world that thought that decolonization concluded about half a century ago, but wakes up every morning to find itself the continuing victim of new forms of criminal colonization — in the form of Zionist-Israeli settlers, or Western diplomats whose forked tongues make them resemble rattlesnakes walking on two feet.

Colonialism is either legal or illegal, acceptable or criminal. Laws matter, or they don’t matter. There is no such thing as “unhelpful” colonialism, any more than there is merely “naughty” rape, “awkward” murder, or “unfortunate” incest. Why is it that those in the West who celebrate and seek to export their commitment to the rule of law find it so hard to adopt both the rhetoric and policies that acknowledge the criminal illegality and political catastrophe that is the modern and continuing Israeli colonial rampage?

What is it that makes giants in the West become eunuchs in the face of Israeli deeds?

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: 18 March 2009
Word Count: 802
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