BEIRUT — In most recent cases of historic political transformations that structurally changed states from autocratic into democratic systems, two or more key actors or constituencies joined forces to topple the old regime and usher in a more just new order, often with foreign partnerships. Russia, Poland, and South Africa are some relevant examples.

When we ask why in the Arab world today real political change, economic reform and less dominance of society by the security systems do not happen in any sustained manner, the answer is usually because domestic groups have not joined forces to foster change. The three main domestic Arab forces for change in recent decades are the mainstream Islamist parties (such as Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hizbullah); many small civil society organizations and liberal activists; and, pockets of incumbent officials and prominent businessmen and women.

By working separately they have had limited impact. The obvious conclusion is that it is time for Arab liberal reformers and peaceful Islamist movements to join forces to foster the change in this region that neither of them has been able to bring about on its own.

The mainstream Islamists are the only groups that have been able to generate the mass numbers and popular credibility that can translate into political power. That power is negated or blocked, though, because the Islamists are feared, suspected, opposed, outlawed, or thwarted by everyone else in the world, and I mean everyone else — their own governments and security services, their liberal activists fellow citizens, their business elites, foreign governments, and non-politicized fellow Muslims.

Consequently, the Arab Islamists have succumbed to several options that reduce their domestic political impact. They accept limits on their representation in parliament, often through voluntary limits on the number of seats they contest. They go underground and migrate abroad, limiting their roles in their own countries. A few give up and adopt violence, and make trouble with bombs and assassinations, thus marginalizing themselves among their people and foreign governments. Islamists tend to focus their organizational prowess on grassroots service activities, and also articulate the grievances of ordinary citizens and discontented elites alike. Islamists are a force, but not a power.

Arab liberals and reform-minded activists, on the other hand, are mostly free to operate publicly as they wish, because their views on democracy, human rights and pluralism tend to appeal to a rather narrow audience. They represent no major populist threat to established regimes. They are well funded mostly by foreign donors and actively cooperate with colleagues abroad. But their impact is limited, mainly because the mass audience is responding to the Islamists in the first instance, or to tribal and ethnic leaders, rather than to a liberal appeal. The rhetoric and institutions of Arab liberal reformers also have been freely adopted and co-opted by the Arab security state, which speaks routinely of reform, human rights and democracy at its own pace.

The means to a breakthrough in the iron wall of Arab autocracy and the harsh rule of the colonels could well be for Islamists and liberal reformers to join forces. Their core values mesh together very naturally: democracy, equality, rule of law, peaceful political participation, majority rule, protection of minority rights, pluralism, clean elections, pragmatism, accountability, anti-corruption, and legitimacy. They differ somewhat on issues such as religious-secular divides, relations with Israel, national vs. religious identity, working with the United States and other Western powers, and some aspects of the public role of women.

The agreements substantially outweigh the disagreements, and can usher in a compelling common political meeting ground that could challenge existing dictatorships and mobilize majorities of citizens in the service of building more decent societies with credible, responsive governance systems. An Islamist-liberal alliance would require compromises by both sides from those who have already shown themselves willing to make such compromises. Witness the evolution of Hizbullah’s governance politics since 1990, the flexibility of democracy activists in Egypt since 2004, and the cooperation between Islamists and secular liberals in the recent elections in Gaza, or in the Hizbullah-Aoun accord in Lebanon. Incumbency achieved peacefully will require eventual accommodation by Islamists and secular liberals alike (as Turkey confirms). It makes sense to make the compromises early and start reaping the rewards.

By joining forces around a common charter of dignified nationalism, genuine democracy, social integrity, and reciprocity in relations with other states — all acceptable core values to both camps — an Islamist-secular liberal coalition would achieve critical goals that the component groups have not been able to achieve separately. Their initial gain would be to boost their collective legitimacy at home and abroad — the Islamists becoming less threatening, and the secular liberals becoming more credible. Their combined clout and respectability could then force the adoption of more representative electoral laws, win majorities in parliaments, and influence or define state policies. Politics is about making good deals. This one seems to be as good as it gets.

Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.

Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 31 May 2006
Word Count: 815
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BEIRUT — The symbolism of political dynamics in Palestinian-Israeli-American relations this week was striking, and troubling. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was in Washington doing the seasonal Israeli-American love dance and celebrating the virtues of their shared democratic values. At the same time, these same Israeli and American governments were killing democracy in Palestine, by sending money, guns and political support to shore up beleaguered Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in his confrontation with the Hamas-led government that had won the January elections.
Abbas’ ultimatum/threat May 25, that he would call a national referendum if Hamas did not within ten days accept his terms for recognizing and negotiating with Israel heightens the absurdities that now define Israeli-Palestinian-American relations. Students of history, political science and physics chaos theory should document and savor these days with enthusiasm, for rarely does one get such a chance to watch the formulation and application of policies that are guaranteed to achieve exactly the opposite of their intended results. Those of us who continue to marvel at the audacity and propensity for long-term instability and violence generated by French and British colonial policies in the Middle East in the 20th Century are now astounded to see Israelis and Americans carry the torch of imperial destruction and incoherence into the 21st Century.

The United States and Israel, now supported by their friends in Europe with silicone backbones, are interfering in domestic Palestinian affairs in a shortsighted, biased manner that will reduce, not increase, the chances of promoting democracy, stability, good governance, and peace negotiations. Their policy of boycotting and financially starving the elected, Hamas-led government and shoring up Abbas’ Fateh faction is more likely to achieve the following five macabre goals simultaneously:

1. Foster more street fighting and political battles between Hamas and Fateh, leading to greater instability;

2. Delegitimize the validity or relevance of democratic elections in the eyes of Palestinians and most other Arabs, perhaps setting back the indigenous drive for Arab electoral democracy a decade or a generation;

3. Bury the already faded credibility of President Abbas by making him an overt stooge of Israel and the United States, effectively turning Fateh into little more than an Israeli-American militia;

4. Enhance the growing regional camp of anti-American, anti-Israeli adherents, fanned variously by Iran and Syria, by mainstream Islamist parties like Hamas, Hizbullah and the Muslim Brotherhood, and, in some cases, by Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist ilk;

5. Weaken the credibility and durability of “moderate” Arab regimes that are friendly with Israel and the United States, some of which have already started to increase their reliance on police state methods of governance.

These consequences may happen simultaneously, or sequentially. But they will happen for sure to some degree, because they are the proven historical consequence of the dynamic before our eyes these days: Foreign military powers that use their brute force and political influence to redraw the domestic Arab and Middle Eastern order to their liking always get their way in the short run, but also always leave behind a structurally unstable situation that eventually blows up because it was neither designed by the locals nor satisfactorily responds to their best interests or legitimate rights.

Blatant interference in Palestinian domestic affairs by Israel, the United States and a neo-flaccid Europe can never substitute for an organic, indigenous democratic process by which the Palestinians reach a national consensus on domestic governance and ties with Israel. The municipal and parliamentary elections of the past two years were critical milestones on that path, which the US, Israel and Europe wisely supported.

Their out-of-control response to the Hamas victory because of Hamas’ refusal to recognize Israel in its current colonial-occupation mode is shortsighted to the degree of being juvenile. The better approach would be to engage Hamas politically in order to nudge it to change those of its policies which are deemed unacceptable by the global consensus, and to make this possible by prodding Israel likewise to change those of its policies — colonization, collective punishments, routine murder — that the world deems equally criminal and unacceptable.

That will not happen for now, it seems, so we have the alternative of Israeli-American-European support for Abbas and Fateh, including the referendum that Abbas has now unsheathed as the new weapon with which to fight Hamas and Palestinian public opinion. The problem here is that the referendum that Abbas brandishes as a crude instrument of American-Israeli hysteria will be seen by Palestinians, and much of the rest of this region, as anti-democratic revenge, rather than as a credible expression of public opinion or democratic self-determination.

We seem to get back to the core problem that prevailing Middle Eastern and global power elites want: to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through compulsory Palestinian concessions and imposed Israeli gains, enforced by the gun and by starvation sanctions if need be. This approach has not worked since the first modern Zionist colonies in Palestine a century and a quarter ago, and it will not work today. It did not work for the British in India or the French in Algeria, and it will not work for the Israelis and Americans in Palestine today. Ask the students of history, political science and chaos theory.

Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.

Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 27 May 2006
Word Count: 865
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BEIRUT — I must, reluctantly, tip my cap to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his propaganda machine for their sheer audacity. The more the Israeli troops, settlers and Israel’s official occupation policies injure and kill Palestinians and make life miserable for the whole population, the more eloquently Israeli officials praise their own humanitarianism in front of the world.

This is a high water mark of Israeli mendacity, in view of the statement issued by the Israeli government and Olmert after their cabinet meeting May 21, when they decided to release some of the Palestinian tax money they have withheld, to finance purchases of medicines by Palestinian hospitals that are running out of essential needs.

The Israeli government statement said: “The State of Israel feels bound — above and beyond its formal obligations — to see to humanitarian concerns, and to the health of those who are ill anywhere. We cannot, under any circumstances, bear the thought of a sick child without medical assistance, solely because of a shortage of drugs, and this has nothing to do with any kind of formal obligation. This is a moral and fundamentally Jewish concern that we want to uphold. We have no intention of helping the Palestinian government, we will not transfer so much as a penny to any Palestinian official, but I say, we will render such assistance as may be necessary for humanitarian needs. This is, has been, and will be, the way of the State of Israel.”

I agree that fundamental Jewish concerns have historically focused on moral needs and deeds, which is the beauty and power of Judaism as a religion and an ethical code. I am reminded of this every time I read a Jewish prayer book that a Jewish friend gave me some years ago, which parallels the depth of ethical concerns in the Koran and the New Testament.

That is precisely why the official policies of the state of Israel are so abhorrent to us and to many others around the world, and why Israel has been the most frequently censured state in the United Nations — because in its relations with the Palestinians the state of the Jewish people routinely ignores and contradicts the ethical profundity of the Jewish people themselves.

Olmert’s and the Israeli government’s expression of deep concern for the health of Palestinian children will get wide play in the global media, but the harsh policies of the Israeli occupation that has lasted for 39 years to date will be less deeply explored. For anyone interested in the facts about the impact of Israeli policies on Palestinian children, a good place to start is the carefully checked data disseminated by the Palestinian Nongovernmental Organization Network (www.palestinemonitor.org). Their data is compiled and verified on the ground by the Ramallah-based Health Development Information and Policy Institute, which has been honored by the World Health Organization for its work in promoting Palestinian health needs. So these people know what they are talking about when it comes to health conditions on the ground in Israeli-occupied Palestine. Some of the facts they provide are as follows.

In just the first two years of the second intifada, from September 2000 to November 2002:

* 383 Palestinian children (under the age of 18) were killed by the Israeli army and Israeli settlers, i.e. almost 19% of the total Palestinians killed; those figures have increased since then.

* Approximately 36% of total Palestinians injured (estimated at more than 41,000) are children; 86 of these children were under the age of ten; 21 infants under the age of 12 months have been killed.

* 245 Palestinian students and school children have been killed; 2,610 pupils have been wounded on their way to or from school.

* The Israeli policy of widespread closure has paralyzed the Palestinian health system, with children particularly vulnerable to this policy of collective punishment. Internal closures have severely disrupted health plans which affect over 500,000 children, including vaccination programs, dental examinations and early diagnosis for children when starting schools.

* During the first two months of the intifada, the rate of upper respiratory infections in children increased from 20% to 40%. Almost 60% of children in Gaza suffer parasitic infections.

* An overwhelming number of Palestinian children show symptoms of trauma such as sleep disorders, nervousness, decrease in appetite and weight, feelings of hopelessness and frustration, and abnormal thoughts of death.

* There have been 36 cases of Palestinian women in labor delayed at checkpoints and refused permission to reach medical facilities or for ambulances to reach them. At least 14 of these women gave birth at the checkpoint with eight of the births resulting in the death of the newborn infants.

The Israeli army killing of Palestinian children continues apace. In its annual report May 16, the respected global human rights organization Amnesty International accused the Israeli army of killing 190 Palestinians, including 50 children, last year.

If these facts are slightly inconvenient for Israeli propagandists and their American mouthpieces, who are working overtime during Ehud Olmert’s visit to Washington this week, imagine how they feel to Palestinian children shot in the back of the neck by Israeli soldiers and settlers. If we are going to discuss the health conditions of Palestinians, or any other people, we should at least have the human decency to talk facts — because human decency is, indeed, the moral legacy of Israelis and Palestinians alike. This is the time to reaffirm it, not bury it deeper under new layers of lies and disinformation.

Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.

Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 24 May 2006
Word Count: 917
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BEIRUT — One day soon — in the coming two decades at most — the contemporary Arab world will finally free itself from the grip of narrow military and security leaderships that have defined our societies for the past half-century. This is not easily done, but it remains the critical lynchpin of the elusive Arab quest for modernity, sustainable development, and just plain old normalcy in political and national life.

I witnessed part of that process at a meeting in Beirut last weekend, when 20 courageous and enlightened Arab members of parliament from six Arab countries gathered to discuss how to bring their military and security systems under parliamentary and civilian control. This is a critical goal because military and security establishments that have dominated modern Arab political life — often through the agency of individuals and families that remain in power for three and four decades — are the single most important underlying reason for our collective national distortions and weaknesses.

Our collective submission to the priority of ensuring security and stability over all other personal and national values has shattered prospects for the growth of liberalism, freedom, dignity, creativity, productivity, self-reliance and a brand of urban cosmopolitan tolerance that once defined this region. The distortions and real costs of countries run by colonels are widespread, severe, and still growing.

The modern Arab security state has bred mass complacency, severe dependency, political apathy, high emigration rates, tendencies among youth to embrace violent movements, rampant corruption, gangsterism and lawlessness, economic inefficiencies and waste, local and global terrorism, proliferation of private militias, wide gaps between leaders and led, profound legitimacy problems among many ruling elites, active revolts and occasional civil wars in many countries, opportunities for foreign political manipulation, and a general frailty of statehood — in sharp contrast to strong, durable personal and communal identities that define most citizens.

Trains run on time, yes; children’s underwear export factories create jobs, for sure; people can walk in the streets at night without fear of attack, I acknowledge — but at an otherwise terrible price that has left this region as the political backwater of the world, and its developmental orphan. Stability is a legitimate and worthy national goal, but stability without basic rights, liberties, and personal human dignity quickly transforms into a stultifying force for stagnation, decay and degeneration.

The imperative now is to end our condition of collective captivity to military orders, and liberate the Arab spirit and mind. Bringing Arab military and security establishments under the oversight and ultimate control of civilian institutions is critical to this goal. This will not happen suddenly, in an Iran-style revolutionary manner. Nor will it happen through the combined agency of the bizarre club of reform rhetoricians that includes George Bush, Tony Blair, Husni Mubarak, Zein el-Abedin Ben Ali, and a host of other Arab and Western leaders whose verbal commitment to Arab democratic reform is suspect at best, and deviously malicious at worse. Change will come, rather, by the actions of courageous, committed Arabs who work with like-minded colleagues from other countries.

The 20 Arab parliamentarians who gathered in Beirut, hosted by both the UNDP’s Programme on Governance in the Arab Region and the Geneva-based Center for Democratic Control of Armed Forces, were joined by another 40 experts, scholars and ex-military officials. The MPs came only from those few countries where there may be a possibility of breakthroughs on this critical issue: Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Kuwait, Palestine and Algeria.

For three days they frankly discussed the enormous obstacles to parliamentary oversight of their military sectors, and determined nevertheless to move ahead because of their awareness of the continuing heavy cost of maintaining the current Arab security states and military-run societies. Meetings like this alone will not change the Arab world, though they do represent a pivotal development that is already visible in some Arab countries: courageous, patriotic individuals who no longer fear to engage their military rulers, and now openly, peacefully, and democratically challenge the rulers’ unchecked power. These are our own elected sons and daughters, demanding the implementation of the concept of the consent of the governed, and brandish the weapons of constitutionality, accountability, transparency and citizenship rights.

Such small signs of big changes are everywhere in this region, and accelerating. Judges are openly challenging their military rulers in Egypt to hold verifiably free and fair elections. On May 15, members of parliament demanded that electoral districts be revised in Kuwait in order to represent the people more equitably. Lebanon arrested and is indicting its top four former security officials for complicity in the murder of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

Arab MPs collectively meeting and working to push for the civilian control of security sectors is significant because of their democratic credentials, their representational legitimacy, their clean motives, their collective potential impact, and the sheer force of their personal courage and wisdom. When the history of modern Arab political rebirth is written, this weekend in mid-May 2006 in Beirut may be remembered fondly as one of several moments when history was nudged ahead by decent Arab nationals and like-minded Western friends who all took their citizenship rights seriously, and worked politically according to realistic agendas and timetables.

Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.

Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 17 May 2006
Word Count: 860
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BEIRUT — Now that the United States and Great Britain are talking increasingly about how to get out of Iraq, could we please try to agree on why they went in there in the first place? I do not say this out of spite or to score points. There are compelling practical consequences to the exercise of military power around the world, especially by countries that feel they can deploy their troops anywhere at will.

Ending the violence and waste in Iraq is an urgent goal, as is withdrawing foreign troops. But equally important is the goal of ending Western military assaults on the Middle East region — the only part of the world that remains subjected to foreign military invasions and sustained occupations since Napoleon’s army entered Egypt in the late 18th Century. This is not history class; this is current affairs and show-and-tell class for most of us in the Middle East.

We fear the Anglo-American exit from Iraq could turn out to be as destructive as their going in, given the terrible mess that foreign invaders have usually left behind in the form of police states or chaotic lands. Just take a snapshot of largely Arab northeast Africa this week in the wake of its post-colonial distress: Tens of thousands of Egyptian police beat up demonstrators asking for the rule of law and an independent judiciary; Sudan with its military-run government is embroiled in a grotesque series of non-stop rebellions and genocides; Somalia is ungoverned, and again suffers hundreds of deaths per week in mindless tribal warfare.

Will the Anglo-American amateur politicians and obedient young soldiers now leave Iraq in a state of turmoil, and turn their aggressive attention and chaos-making machines to Iran, Syria, Hizbullah, Hamas and others who resist Western goals?

The impact of the Iraq war has already been enormous, and mostly negative: rising terrorism and anti-Western sentiments, more vulnerable “moderate” Arab regimes, more deeply entrenched autocratic regimes, blunted democratic transformations, proliferating militias, more states seeking weapons of mass destruction, and state integrity succumbing to ethnic and religious fragmentation, often deliberately promoted by Western policies. Worse things yet will happen when the Anglo-American assault forces depart quickly, leaving behind a fractured land full of angry, armed people.

One of the best analysts of Iraq is Dr. Toby Dodge, lecturer in politics at Queen Mary College of the University of London and a fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. When I asked him here last week for his assessment of the situation, he stressed several key points that are worth pondering:

* The Iraqi invasion was a huge gamble by a combination of risk-taking neo-conservatives who wanted to force open state boundaries around the world to U.S. power, and more traditional “American nationalists” like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld who thought military power should be used aggressively and at will to protect American interests. The American political elite was obsessed with America’s weak influence in the Middle East and used 9/11 as an excuse to attack and change the region.

* The war aimed primarily, in American eyes, to break open the closed Middle Eastern system in order to halt weapons of mass destruction proliferation, stop the expansion of terror networks, and promote more democratic systems that brought the region’s economies into the world system more directly. Iraq was a symbol of all the problem trends in the Middle East, and removing the Baathist regime would be an example of what American power could do to change the map of the Middle East.

* The Iraqi invasion failed due to: lack of sufficient troops to achieve the post-invasion goals; misconceived planning for the post-war period based mainly on idealism and ideological wishful thinking; the expected coup to decapitate the Saddam Hussein regime at the start of the war never happened; the Anglo-Americans ended up doing nation-building instead of political reform because the state structures collapsed; the U.S. underestimated the potency of primordial identities and Iraqi nationalism, and put too much faith in expatriate Iraqis in the U.S. and U.K. who proved not to have much credibility or legitimacy inside Iraq.

* Iraq today is a country and not a state, dominated by two violent groups — the insurgents or resistance that attacks Iraqis and foreign targets, and the various armed militias who comprise over 100,000 men under arms, many of them integrated into the police and army.

Dodge believes the decision to disengage from Iraq will come when a tipping point is soon reached, as political momentum for such a pullout builds in the United States, especially since most “non-ideological” U.S. staff feel the war is lost. The decision to leave, however, is probably too big for George W. Bush to make, and he will most likely leave it for the next president.

Dodge suggests the U.S. pullout from Iraq will be more consequential than getting out of Vietnam was three decades ago. “The consequence of a U.S.-led pullout will be to leave the Middle East as a place where American power is weak, the area is destabilized, and Iran is strong,” Dodge said.

Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.

Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 13 May 2006
Word Count: 886
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LONDON — If we live in the first stages of an “information age,” it is never too early to be sure that we do not repeat the excesses of the past. We should grasp the political and national nature of news and other forms of information, so that we do not replicate in modern, neocolonial media terms the historical colonial experience that peaked in the 19th Century. Media is both the new terrain and weapon of global domination and indigenous resistance between the American-led West and other parts of the world.

Some of these issues came into focus during a two-day gathering I just attended in London, the We Media Global Forum, organized by the U.S.-based The Media Center in association with BBC and Reuters. The discussion focused on the intensity and diversity of new forms of media that challenge the dominant mainstream companies that are either owned by governments or that are often heavily influenced by government policies.

Technology has opened millions of doors to individuals who can now create media “content” and disseminate it to the world through a variety of web-, cell phone- and iPod-based distribution channels. Bloggers on the web are the most dynamic segment on this new universe, offering expert and amateur views alongside live reportage, often from the safety and comfort of their home or office. Individuals also enrich the information universe with photographs, videos and audio broadcasts.

The mass media universe in the West is shifting from its traditional “megaphone broadcast” style to a “network facilitator” mode that incorporates and aggregates the work of “citizen journalists”. In the past two months alone, five million new blogs were created around the world.

Things are slightly different in the Arab world which is witnessing an explosion of new satellite television media, with around 300 stations in operation. This is a reaction to the grim legacy of state-run modern Arab mass media that had little credibility with their people. The global telecommunication revolution allowed independent Arab satellite news and entertainment stations to proliferate, responding to Arab citizens’ thirst for such services.

There proved to be high demand for news, views, sports, films, music videos, and sexy young ladies in tight shirts and jeans delivering the weather for Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region. The success of Al-Jazeera news channel, followed by MBC, Orbit, LBC, Al-Arabiyya and others, sends a sharp message: Ordinary Arab citizens want to exercise their right to access to information. In doing so, they feel liberated from the stultifying autocracy and police state subjugation of their mediocre state-run media that had treated them as idiot-subjects, not as mature adults and citizens with rights.

We now move into an even more fascinating era: a string of world powers is entering the global satellite television arena, broadcasting in English and Arabic, including BBC’s new Arabic service, Al-Jazeera’s new English service, and channels from France, Germany and Russia. The U.S. is already a player with its Arabic-language Al-Hurra television and Radio Sawa. Where European powers in the 19th Century sent their navies around the world to conquer new subjects, today the preferred instrument of global power is the satellite television station.

The diversity and dynamism of the indigenous Arab stations reflect two crucial political dimensions of the news business. Arab-owned stations more extensively report realities on the ground in the Middle East, including the impact of American, British and Israeli foreign policies, e.g., coffins of infants, babies and bridal parties killed in air attacks. They also accurately reflect street sentiment and public opinion throughout the region, which is usually critical of the Anglo-American tradition, Israel, and Arab ruling elites and regimes.

Such dissemination of Arab political sentiments often is unfairly attacked in the West as poor journalism or deliberate incitement against Israel and the United States; in fact, it is more in the realm of good, comprehensive journalism that honestly reports the full scope of events on the ground as well as ordinary people’s views about those events.

I am not surprised that many Western media and political leaders applaud the proliferation of news sources in their societies that more accurately report on their world, while they tend to condemn the same process when it happens in the Arab world in a way that is mostly critical of Anglo-American-Israeli policies. The extensive flow of better news and more views throughout the Arab world is more than a journalism phenomenon. It is a new form of anti-colonial liberation. It is a form of struggle and resistance directed against oppression, occupation, subjugation and denial that are practiced variously by Arab rulers, Israeli occupiers or Anglo-American invaders.

The global media is the new arena of the old dynamic of colonial domination and anti-colonial resistance. It is the only arena where Arabs have been able to fight the Anglo-Americans to a draw, or even to triumph in some cases. No wonder that the West, after regrouping, will now counter-attack with a slew of new Arabic television services.

Gentlemen — and sexy weather report babes — choose your weapons on your remote controls. We are in for an exciting duel.

Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.

Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 06 May 2006
Word Count: 846
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ISTANBUL — Full disclosure from the start: I am a great admirer of Turkey. Of course I am glad that four centuries of Ottoman control over the Arab world ended after World War One, yet I wish that Turks and Arabs had more regular encounters in order for the modern Turkish experience to rub off on us and inspire us. I admire not only the history, power and astounding rhythms of this city of Istanbul that not once, but twice, ruled pivotal regions of the world, in the Byzantine and Ottoman eras. I admire its ongoing trajectory to modernity.

Turkey can teach several important lessons to two groups of people who seem to be increasingly at odds with one another: nationally distressed and wobbly Arabs, and the American-led West that views election victories by Arab Islamist parties with perplexity and hostility.

I am a Turkey fan because this large, predominantly Middle Eastern and Muslim, neighbor to the north is seriously and simultaneously addressing all those core issues of nationhood, citizenship and modernity that the countries and governments of the predominantly Arab-Islamic Middle East generally avoid.

These include important challenges:

* making a full democratic transformation
* deepening the secular tradition
* coming to terms with their own pluralistic identity
* integrating Islamists into the political system
* fostering civilian control over the military
* grappling with the status of minorities and historical traumas
* strengthening human rights guarantees
* promoting a truly productive economy
* maintaining a vibrant civil society
* steadily reforming their country to become eligible for membership in Europe
* while not losing sight of their links with the Middle East and Central Asia; and,
* forging a new, more dignified, less servile, and mutually beneficial relationship with the United States.

Any country that does all this at once is a real and impressive country in my book.

(For those Turks who dispute my calling their country “predominantly Middle Eastern”, preferring to be called European, I offer as compelling anecdotal evidence just one experience: I was in a taxi in the center of Istanbul as the driver suddenly reversed at high speed, drove backwards against the one-way traffic, inside a major traffic circle, or roundabout, at rush hour, in order to avoid going through a few congested streets. Not only did the driver act like a Middle Eastern maniac, but all the other drivers seemed to understand and tolerate this behavior, even to facilitate his lawless and reckless reverse journey against the oncoming traffic. Pretty spectacular, and distinctly Middle Eastern.)

Modern Turkey has always had a core of democratic and secular values since the birth of the modern state after World War One. Yet it has also mirrored the rest of the Middle East in keeping all major national and strategic decisions in the hands of the armed forces, who made ever issue a security issue, and stepped in to run the state at their whim. This is changing rapidly.

Turkey’s experience since 1997-98 has been impressive because it revolves around three related dynamics that also challenge the Arabs. The first is developing a deeper, more pluralistic and inclusive, democracy that can accommodate the participation and even the victory of Islamist parties. Several Islamist surges in the last decade were voided by the armed forces and ruling elite, but more mature attitudes prevailed finally when the current government was formed in late 2002 by the (mildly Islamist) Justice and Development Party (AKP) headed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. This government has enthusiastically championed reforms to bring Turkey into Europe, and has taken bold steps to resolve the conflict with Greece over Cyprus.

The second change has been in the fields of human rights and minority rights, especially the status of Turkey’s large Kurdish minority and how to deal with the allegations of genocide against Armenians a century ago, which the world beyond Turkey widely acknowledges occurred. Government and society here are haunted by the prospect of Turkey shrinking again, if Kurds seek independence or some sort of deep autonomy in their southeastern provinces. But the civilian and military leaders recognize that there is no military solution here, as they also open up the formerly shut doors to discussing the Armenian issue in public.

The third, most important, issue in my view has been the gradual expansion of civilian control over the military, in a political system “whose constitution was written by and for the military in 1982,” according to university professor and columnist Soli Ozel. The constitution was recently amended in a more liberal and democratic manner, he told me, largely as a result of the terms of the European accession process, which the public strongly supports. This, it seems, unlike Iraq, is one way to do external intervention in order to prod Middle Eastern democracy.

The civilianization and democratization of Turkish politics are ongoing, gradual processes. They are crucial to allowing Turkey to deal with its large challenges in the vast arenas of its own identity, history, economy, geography and nationalism — and instructive for the rest of us who watch this process close-up, even from the back seat of a lawless taxi driven by a loveable but modern maniac.

Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.

Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 03 May 2006
Word Count: 864
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AMMAN, Jordan — I came face to face with Arab modernity here in Amman, Jordan, last week, and what a refreshing encounter it was. I renewed my passport in 25 minutes. “Not a big deal,” you may be saying to yourself. Well, it is a big deal. It is a striking if small demonstration of precisely how the antiquated political/administrative systems of the Arab world can change where there is the political will to get modern.

The single most widespread cause of personal annoyance and political resentment by ordinary citizens throughout the Arab world is this: the sense that your Average Ahmad citizen is not treated fairly or decently by his own government and society, but rather suffers the ignominy of corruption, abuse of power, favoritism, disdain, humiliation, and institutionalized discrimination in the pursuit of the most routine and uncomplicated affairs, like renewing a passport.

I flew to Amman from my home in Beirut, expecting to need most of a day to complete the task, based on previous experiences. In fact, when I did renew my passport I had the same sensation as being in a Swiss bakery, a German bank, or a Swedish travel bureau – well, perhaps with the singular difference that a policeman with a machine gun very politely asked to look inside my briefcase as I walked into the building at 9 a.m. on a slow April morning.

I walked into the main hall, picked up and filled in a simple application form, stapled two photographs to it, and then got my first dizzying blast of Mechanized Arab Modernity: A machine with buttons asked me to choose if I wanted a new passport, a renewal, replacing a lost one, a second passport, or other options. I pushed the appropriate button and got a small tag with a number on it. I walked into the main hall, sat on one of many clean benches, and watched the monitors hanging down from the ceiling flash the numbers to be served, pointing with a nifty red arrow to the counter where one was to go. I waited around 4 minutes, saw my number called, went to the appropriate counter, and gave the papers to the man behind the window.

He quickly read through the application, politely pointed out that I had forgotten to write my name in English beneath the Arabic, waited 20 seconds while I did that, stamped all the papers with the exuberance of a rock and roll drummer doing a solo number, gave me another small tag with my name on it, and asked me to go four windows down to the cashier.

I went to the cashier, waited about a minute behind one other person on line, paid my 20 dinars, got yet another little tag with a number on it, and was told to go to the window at the back of the building in 15 minutes to pick up my passport. I did not believe that the new passport could possible emerge from the bowels of the post-Ottoman, post-colonial, Hashemite, Jordanian, Levantine, Arab bureaucracy so quickly. Curiosity demanded that I check out this possibility, just in case. I went immediately behind the building to explore this uncharted terrain, and encountered a landscape of tranquility and efficiency that was as refreshing as it was novel in my lifetime of encounters with the bureaucracy of the modern Arab security state.

A spacious outdoor waiting area was not only outfitted with many clean benches, a water fountain, and a roof to keep out the sun, but also a large ceiling fan to keep things cool in summer. Sure enough, a man behind a counter called out the names of waiting people who came forth to pick up their new passports. I took my seat, waited to hear my name called, and just as promised my new passport emerged 10 minutes later. The entire process, from the moment I walked into the building, took 25 minutes. I walked away with enhanced pride in my Jordanian citizenship, and also a sense that between the opening machine with the buttons and the closing ceiling fan were two important lessons to be learned.

First, the modern Arab security state, if it so wishes, is able to administer services to all its citizens with civility, efficiency and equity, without the need for discrimination, bribery, corruption, or cutting corners. Second, the Jordanian citizens in this little narrative radiated a sensation that I have rarely if ever seen in the encounter between Arab citizen and state: serenity. Because they felt they were treated decently and fairly by their government, the Jordanian citizens in that thoroughly modern hall felt good in their skins. They showed none of the resentment frustration and humiliation that usually define ordinary Arab citizens who are so often crushed and dehumanized by the crudeness and authoritarianism of their own civil servants and soldiers.

Arab citizens who are treated decently behave decently. If we can do passports with dignity, we should also be able to do politics the same way, no? I hereby nominate the man or woman who transformed the passport department to be the next prime minister of Jordan.

Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.

Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 29 April 2006
Word Count: 858
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BEIRUT — Simultaneous developments around the Middle East and wider Islamic realm indicate that the broad movement of “political Islam” has now settled down into three general trends that are important to grasp. Al-Qaeda-style terror-warriors are the smallest but most dangerous group, provoking strong American-led military responses. The middle group in terms of size and impact comprises Iran and allied, predominantly Shiite, Arab movements in Iraq, Bahrain and Lebanon. They focus on self-empowerment and resisting the hegemonic aims of the United States and Israel. The third and largest group is made up of predominantly Sunni mainstream Islamists: Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, the Turkish Justice and Development Party — who increasingly engage in electoral democratic politics, at local and national governance levels.

It is important to note several things: There is a rather wide variety of Islamists, with different goals and tactics, usually spurred initially by local angst. These are evolving rather than static movements, constantly responding to domestic and external stimuli, but always accountable to their home constituencies if they plan to survive and prevail. In a few crucial areas their motivations overlap, though their operational and strategic goals usually differ. They are likely to reconfigure their relationships and alliances in the future, especially in response to external meddling.

This has been something of a typical week in the wide world of contemporary political Islamism. Osama Bin Laden released another threatening audio message. The next day, three bombs exploded in an Egyptian tourist resort. Turkey’s mild Islamist government confronts complex challenges of Kurdish militancy and separatism, growing Turkish nationalism, and a democratic transformation required to meet the terms of joining the European Union. Palestine’s elected government headed by Hamas is threatened at home by its rival Fateh, and strangulated from abroad by the U.S., Europe and Israel. The Iranian government builds on its announcement of mastering small-scale uranium enrichment by defying and provoking the West and Israel, who are trying to prevent its development of a full nuclear fuel cycle. Hizbullah in Lebanon continues to flex its muscles as the largest and best organized Lebanese political group that is also close to Iran and Syria, but faces increasingly vocal calls for its disarmament or incorporation into the national armed forces system. Mainstream Muslim Brotherhood-style movements in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and most other Arab countries continue to explore how they can engage in democratic elections in order to share or control power, without being outlawed or emasculated.

The common denominator among all the Islamist trends is their shared sense of grievances against three primary targets: autocratic Arab regimes that run security states usually dominated by a handful of members of a single family; Israel and its negative impact on Arab societies, through direct occupations or indirect political influence on U.S. policy in the region; and, the U.S. and other Western powers whose military and political interference in the Middle East continues to anger and harm the majority of people in this region.

All three Islamist strands have responded to these grievances by fostering a combination of ideological defiance of the West, armed resistance against Israeli and American occupation forces, and political challenges to Arab regimes. They part ways, however, when it comes to tactics and methods: Al-Qaeda blows up targets everywhere; the Iranian-Shiite groups focus on empowered political resistance and defiance often wrapped in revolutionary rhetoric; and, Sunni mainstreamers resist militarily when appropriate (Hamas in Palestine) but more often concentrate on playing and winning the political game on the strength of their impressive numbers and organization, Turkey being their most impressive performance to date.

Throughout the Middle East and other Islamic lands, citizens who seek to become politically involved to change their world have these three options before them. Two of them — Bin Ladenist terror and the Iranian-led defiance corps — are being fought fiercely by the West, and also by some people in the region. The third option of democratic electoral politics is at a major crossroads now, following the Hamas victory in Palestine, Hizbullah’s strong governance role in Lebanon, and the recent solid performance by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

If the Hamas-led Palestinian government is crushed by a combination of American, Israeli, Palestinian-Fateh and Arab pressure, and the other Arab Islamists in government are squeezed further, this single largest, mostly Sunni, constituency in the world of “political Islam” will become disillusioned and probably give up on politics. Those who preach robust defiance of the West or assaulting it with bombs are likely to gain adherents, which will only intensify the cycle of violence, defiance, occupation and resistance that now defines and often plagues much of the Middle East.

Should mainstream peaceful political Islamism be killed and buried, the subsequent landscape could very well see a coming together of five powerful forces that until now generally had been kept separate: Sunni Islamic religious militancy, Arab national sentiment, anti-occupation military resistance, Iranian-Persian nationalism, and regional Shiite empowerment among Arabs and Iranians. Anyone who thinks that we’ve seen the end of history should hold on to their pants and think again.

Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.

Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 26 April 2006
Word Count: 836
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DOHA, Qatar — Wisdom, equity and realism on Arab-Israeli issues are scarce commodities among former or serving American officials. So it is noteworthy when one of the most experienced and respected ex-American diplomats suggests that a key to peace-making should be Israeli recognition of the right of Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven out in 1948 to return to their homes and lands in what is now Israel. This is what former U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas R. Pickering suggested last week here in Doha, Qatar.

Pickering achieved the personal rank of Career Ambassador, the highest in the United States Foreign Service, at the peak of his 40 years of government service, and more recently worked in the private corporate sector, from which he has just announced his retirement. Speaking in his personal capacity at the inaugural seminar of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, established in conjunction with the Qatar Foundation, he outlined a series of steps that he thought could pave the way for progress in ongoing conflicts in Iran, Iraq and Israel-Palestine.

On the latter, he said that a two-state solution requires a return of 1967 occupied land “approaching 100 percent, with negotiated tradeoffs,” giving the Palestinians charge of their own internal security, and agreeing on foreign guarantees for Palestine’s external security. Jerusalem’s status would be resolved according to the Barak-Clinton ideas of 2000 (essentially: what’s Arab is Arab, and what’s Jewish is Jewish).

His call for Israel to recognize the right of return of Palestinians who left or were driven out in 1948 is noteworthy. No serving or retired American official of such stature and firsthand personal knowledge of the conflict has ever explicitly called for Israeli recognition of the 1948 Palestinians’ right of return. I pursued the matter privately with Pickering after his public talk, and asked if he was referring strictly to the generation of Palestinians who became refugees in 1948. He replied affirmatively, and explained:

“The right of return is controversial and the Israelis don’t want to actually admit or honor this right, for the simple reason that they see it as a slippery slope. Over a period of time they think that the Palestinian and Arab objective is to flood Israel with returning refugees, and therefore, in a sense, ‘demograph’ it out of existence. The real question is whether a right of return could be recognized within negotiated limits. This would give to the Palestinians the recognition they feel is important for themselves, but at the same time protect Israel against a flood of returnees.”

How would his proposal work in practice?

“I would say there are three or four steps,” he explained. “First, recognize the right of return. Secondly, define it. One way to define it in the narrowest way would be to say that anybody who left in 1948 could return, but not their progeny born after 1948. Another way would be to say anybody who left in 1948 could return, along with some family unifications, up to a limit of, say, 25,000, 50,000, 100,000 or whatever the two sides agree on. Third, the other individuals who were involved over the years in one way or another obviously have to be dealt with in a serious way, including by the international community. There I suggest those others who live elsewhere — Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Brazil, wherever — would have a right within some limits set by the Palestinians themselves to go to the new state of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza. Obviously they could not absorb everybody. So point number four would be an international program, very liberally funded, for relocations, in places like Canada, the United States, Australia, whoever is willing to offer to take individuals who have no place but want to start a new life somewhere and who need international help to do that.”

I asked Pickering if he thinks his ideas would be accepted by the parties. He replied: “I came to this answer by asking how a fair and objective observer would try to deal with this problem in an equitable manner, having in mind Palestinian and Israeli interests. I have a sense that when I tried out my ideas, people found objections on both sides, but they were minimalist objections. They were basically objections of trust, or lack of trust, rather than objections of principle.”

Pickering’s suggestion is an important contribution to the long-running but intractable debate on how to resolve the Palestinian refugee problem according to international legitimacy, while also respecting legitimate Israeli concerns and rights. These are serious ideas that deserve serious discussion, so that they can be refined, improved, rejected, modified or adopted. But they should not be ignored, because the refugee issue remains the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and generating new ideas to resolve it equitably should be high on everyone’s priority lists. If perhaps the single most experienced and respected former American career diplomat, with intimate knowledge of both sides in the conflict, grasps the pivotal importance of implementing the Palestinian right of return in a negotiated and equitable manner, the rest of us should listen up.

Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.

Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 22 April 2006
Word Count: 856
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