Why is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan behaving like a bully? The short answer is because he believes he can get away with it.

He apparently thinks he has no real challenger at home or abroad and so he can push the envelope to his advantage and get away with it.

The bullying starts a home where Erdogan sees plots and coups everywhere. When it is not his US-based arch-rival Fethullah Gulen orchestrating coups against him, it is George Soros who is seeking to undermine his government.

“There are Soros-like people behind the curtains who seek to stir up things by provoking revolt in some countries,” he said February 19.

Even Turkish courts have got it wrong when they “dared” to free civil society figure Osman Kavala and other defendants in the trial of the 2013 Gezi protests. Those protests were a “despicable attack just like military coups,” Erdogan said. “They were not innocent riots.”

On Planet Erdogan, judges can send people to jail the same day courts acquit them, as they did in the case of Kavala and company.

Authoritarian minds do not see the world as it is. It is all centred on them and geared to obstructing the path of the righteous sultan.

Internationally, Ankara’s bullying goes full throttle, too. The three traditional guardrails that kept Turkish politics in check — the United States, the European Union and Russia — are occupied elsewhere.

US President Donald Trump is trying to get re-elected and tending to his personal and personnel problems. The European Union is kept busy by the follies of Brexit, which kept it focused on the saga going on between London and Brussels.

The third major player in this equation, Russia, where President Vladimir Putin is into his own ego trip and engaged in Syria where Russians have become deeply involved in the country’s civil war.

In the Arab world, Erdogan apparently thinks there is no figure strong enough to oppose the man who believes he is the new sultan. Furthermore, his prescience counts on the help of the Muslim Brotherhood to secure his leadership of the Islamic world. At least, so he thinks.

So the bully bullies on.

After dispatching thousands of mercenaries and extremists from the Syrian battlefield to fight in Libya, he denounced European peace efforts as undue interference in the oil-rich North African country. He is so blinded by his own ego that he fails to realise his brazen interference in Libyan affairs.

Erdogan criticised the European Union’s decision to launch a maritime effort focused on enforcing the UN arms embargo around Libya, accusing European countries involved of “interfering.”

“I want to specifically mention that the EU does not have the right to make any decision concerning Libya,” Erdogan said. “The EU is trying to take charge of the situation and interfere.”

“You have no such authority,” Erdogan clamoured.

He is strangely posturing as if Libya was once again part of the Ottoman Empire with himself as grand vizier. He applauded the decision of his Libyan protege, Government of National Accord Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, to withdraw from Libyan peace talks in Geneva.

Erdogan does not hide his proclivities to war and military force, anywhere. In Syria, he betrays the same disposition in his showdown with Russia and his support to terror-inclined jihadists.

Countries in North Africa and the Middle East are showing signs of wariness about his behaviour.

It is time that the Russians, the Europeans and the Americans wake up to the mounting threat at the crossroads of the Middle East and Europe.

There are reports of a push back by countries of the region being coordinated by Egypt. Many other countries are also concerned by his bullying and with good reason.

Claude Salhani is a regular columnist for The Arab Weekly.

Copyright ©2020 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 20 February 2020
Word Count: 620
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The battle to replace Donald Trump in the White House got properly under way with the Democratic Party primary election in New Hampshire, so it’s worth examining the state of Trump’s signature campaign promise from 2016: the wall.

How’s that been going?

Well, the wall is up — virtually — and is taking over many more aspects of American public discourse than originally proposed. Illegal immigration through the US-Mexico border, Trump’s alleged justification for building a wall, continues to fall.

However, the US president continues to throw up bureaucratic barriers even to legal entry and immigration. The number of refugee admissions to the United States fell to the lowest level on record last year, fewer foreign students and tourists were going to the United States and fewer green cards were being issued, the US State Department said.

By some estimates, Trump’s vow to bar all Muslims from entering the United States has taken effect in the past two years in the form of varying levels of travel and immigration restrictions on an estimated 7% of the world’s population. More than 135 million people in seven, mainly Muslim countries have been affected.

The Migration Policy Institute, a Washington think-tank, said the number of permanent visas given every month in 2017-18 to nationals of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen fell 72%.

In the first week of February, Trump extended travel and immigration restrictions to another six countries. As of February 22, people from Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Eritrea, Nigeria, Sudan and Tanzania will no longer be able to permanently migrate to the United States but are allowed short-term travel.

This, too, is a “Muslim ban” of sorts. Except for Myanmar, where Muslims account for 4% of the population, Muslims are more than one-quarter of the population of the countries newly targeted by Trump. Tanzania, for instance, is 30% Muslim and Kyrgyzstan is 86%.

A pattern is emerging from Trump’s travel and immigration restrictions. The target countries either have dark-skinned people or large numbers of Muslims or both. As US Senator Kamala Harris, a Democrat from California, recently posted on Twitter: “Trump’s travel bans have never been rooted in national security — they’re about discriminating against people of colour. They are, without a doubt, rooted in anti-immigrant, white supremacist ideologies.”

Admittedly, the Trump administration’s overall policy betrays a broader hostility to any category of foreigner — legal, illegal or asylum-seeker — seeking to enter the United States. But the original targets — Muslims — have been distinct and symbolic and they have always been the foundation of the virtual border wall.

On that foundation have been laid the bricks that constitute the virtual wall. The bricks are a steady stream of administrative decisions. There are orders to bar entry to the United States for certain groups of people from certain countries. There are orders to reduce the annual quota of refugees that America is willing to take.

The administration has made it practically impossible for asylum claims at the US border to have any chance of successful resolution. Brick by brick, the impediments Trump has placed to entry into the United States have had the cumulative effect of an impenetrable if invisible wall.

It is more consequential than the nearly 200km of physical border wall completed by the Trump administration. The virtual barrier will serve as a greater deterrent than the 130km of wall that Trump’s new budget proposal for this fiscal year says he wants to build. And, were Trump to be re-elected in November, it’s almost irrelevant that he finish the full 725km of barriers planned by 2021. The virtual wall would be the more important and the greater deterrent to travel to the United States by Muslims and dark-skinned people.

That’s partly because Trump’s virtual wall suggests to those who live and work in its boundaries a deep and abiding sense of security. It is a false sense, premised on the assumption that the American people are either too stupid or too lazy to notice that their problems do not arise from Muslim and dark-skinned migrants. It is meant to disguise the painful reality that the gains of US economic growth are unevenly distributed, that Trump as president has only aggravated income inequality with his 2017 tax law and that a strong safety net and affordable healthcare remain a distant dream in the world’s richest country.

In their 2016 book, Framing Immigrants: News Coverage, Public Opinion and Policy, Chris Haynes, Jennifer Merolla and Karthick Ramakrishnan explored the discourse about immigration in the United States.

They said attitudes towards immigration change when the economy is faring badly or when politicians bring up the issue. Ramakrishnan suggested the politicians are the more influential. By Trump’s own, somewhat disingenuous, account, the US economy is doing very well. So the focus on immigration is clearly based on a darker vision of foreigners as criminals, competitors and a burden on the American state.

The virtual wall takes the United States back to a century ago, when being white was key to acquiring US citizenship and there were barriers to immigration for all but Caucasians and Western Europeans. In the 21st century, though, it merely highlights the growing dissonance between Trump’s America and the country’s founding ideals.

Rashmee Roshan Lall is a regular columnist for The Arab Weekly. She blogs at www.rashmee.com and is on Twitter @rashmeerl

Copyright ©2020 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 17 February 2020
Word Count: 863
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ISTANBUL — Hardliners are expected to win big in Iran’s parliamentary elections February 21, ending a string of election victories by “pragmatists” in recent years and setting the stage for the 2021 presidential poll, analysts said.

Tensions between Iran and the United States over Tehran’s nuclear programme form the backdrop of the election for the 290-member chamber. More than 50 million voters are asked to go to the polls amid economic pressure from US sanctions and a credibility crisis for the regime following the violent suppression of street protests in November and the downing of a Ukrainian passenger jet by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in January.

The election is a political test for competing political camps in Iran as they stake out positions for the looming succession of 80-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

“These elections are significant because they are paving the ground for a conservative takeover of Iran’s elected institutions for the first time since 2012,” Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group, said by e-mail.

The hard-line IRGC, which has gained considerable economic and political influence, could see its power strengthened as a result of the election.

“The tendency is towards a more hard-line polity in the Islamic Republic with a more prominent role of the IRGC,” Ali Fathollah-Nejad, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Centre, said in a message in response to questions.

“I think this kind of horizon is also understood by the Iranians who, in protests in the wake of the shooting down of the passenger jet, were shouting slogans against the IRGC and their willingness to sustain a conflict with the US to divert attention from popular discontent as well as an eventual de facto rule by them that might emerge down the road.”

The current parliament, elected in 2016, has more than 100 “reformists” and “moderates,” while the rest of the chamber is split between independents and hardliners. Pragmatists won the last two presidential elections, in 2013 and 2017, but President Hassan Rohani is barred from running in 2021 after two terms.

In the run-up to the parliamentary elections, the powerful Guardian Council, a constitutional watchdog that vets prospective candidates, barred approximately half of the more than 14,000 people who applied to enter the race. The majority of those rejected were reformist and moderate candidates but there were also hardliners among those barred, as well as 90 current lawmakers.

Rohani, whose pragmatist camp could be weakened in the election, criticised the council’s approach, saying it had hurt “competition and participation.”

“The greatest danger for democracy and national sovereignty is the day when elections become a formality,” the government’s website quoted Rohani as saying in a meeting with provincial governors in January.

Vaez said that by weeding out reformist candidates, the regime demonstrated its determination to minimise internal debates.

“The system’s tight grip in vetting the candidates shows that it doesn’t want to take any risks in these elections and seeks a pliant parliament that would allow for internal consolidation in the face of external threats,” Vaez said.

Moderates and reformists have championed improved ties with the West and expanded social freedoms but they suffered major setbacks since US President Donald Trump’s election in 2016. Trump pulled the United States out of Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, setting the agreement — championed by Rohani — hurtling towards collapse and re-imposed sanctions that sent Iran’s economy into free fall.

“The hardliners in Iran have lost every election since 2012 but Trump has been a political boon for them by completely discrediting their pragmatic rivals who invested their entire political capital in the 2015 nuclear deal, which is hanging by a thread now,” Vaez said.

He added that the February 21 vote could provide clues for next year’s presidential race and beyond.

“The takeover of the parliament by the hardliners is likely to harbinger a similar development in 2021 presidential elections. With the supreme leader’s succession looming on the horizon, the stakes for the control of these power centres are quite high.”

Angry protests followed attempts by the IRGC and hardliners to deny the IRGC’s responsibility for the downing of the Ukrainian jet in January but Fathollah-Nejad said the pragmatists also had a problem.

“There is still a lot of public scepticism vis-a-vis all wings of the regime,” he said.

Pragmatists could “try to portray themselves as some kind of an opposition to this kind of effort by the hardliners to monopolise power,” he added, “but, yet again, the context is that also the reformists have lost much credibility in view of large sections of the population over the past few years” because they failed to deliver on their promise of economic and political improvement after the signing of the 2015 nuclear agreement.

As both hardliners and pragmatists struggle to create enthusiasm, voter turnout will be a key factor. A high participation rate is likely to be seen by the regime as a vote of confidence in the Islamic Republic despite mounting economic and political problems. Turnout in the 2016 parliamentary election was nearly 60%.

Thomas Seibert is an Arab Weekly contributor in Istanbul.

Copyright ©2020 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 17 February 2020
Word Count: 846
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ISTANBUL — Women’s rights activists in Turkey said they are concerned that an amnesty planned by the government could result in impunity for child abusers.

“This bill will not become law and it must not become law,” said Selin Nakipoglu, a lawyer and activist.

The draft proposal is part of a wide-ranging amnesty plan that could free tens of thousands of prisoners by reducing mandatory prison times for a range of crimes and widening the use of alternative criminal justice methods such as house arrest and probation.

The amnesty has been postponed several times and Turkish Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul said the final version of the bill would become clear only after consultations between political parties in parliament. Women’s rights activists said they expect the package to be tabled in parliament this month. There is no official timetable by the government.

Convicted sex offenders, drug dealers and members or organised crime gangs, as well as people sentenced under Turkey’s controversial anti-terror laws, would be excluded from the amnesty, the government said. However, a planned exception for certain sexual offences would amount to an “amnesty for rapists,” Hulya Gulbahar, a women’s rights activist said by telephone.

The proposal says a sexual offender could be released from prison if the age difference between him and the victim is less than 15 years, if there is no criminal complaint and if the offender and the victim are married. Turkey’s governing Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has roots in political Islam, withdrew a similar bill in 2016 because of protests. A group of 197 women’s rights organisations called on the government to cancel the new draft as well.

The AKP said the bill could protect thousands of families in socially conservative sectors of society from harm.

Many conservative families marry off their daughters before they reach the legal age of 18 in religious ceremonies called “imam weddings” but thousands of husbands end up in prison when underage wives are registered in hospitals when they give birth, triggering criminal charges by prosecutors. Reports said 4,000 families could be affected. The law would be a one-off amnesty so sexual intercourse following an “imam wedding” would count as a crime after a yet to be determined cut-off date.

Women’s rights groups rejected the government’s argument that an exception from prosecution in such cases is beneficial for young mothers because many are left penniless when their husbands are in prison. Activists said the bill would legalise child abuse if it became law.

Murat Emir, an opposition lawmaker in Ankara, said last year that teenage pregnancies in Turkey were much more widespread than thought. Citing figures from Turkey’s statistics office, he said 84,500 girls under 18 had given birth since 2014. He said in parts of eastern and south-eastern Turkey, among the poorest and most conservative regions of the country, girls as young as 11 years were married off.

Gulbahar said the draft proposal was not an isolated initiative but an element of a broader effort by the AKP to implement ultra-conservative social policies.

“This amnesty project is part of the same policies that also include child marriage and an advice to couples to have many children,” she said.

Nakipoglu agreed. “This policy means underpinning the system of male dominance with religious rules and taking a stance against gender equality,” she said by telephone.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan regularly calls on Turkish families to have at least three children to save the country from going the same way as aging Western societies. In a recent speech, he complained that the average age of people getting married in Turkey is rising and that many Turks never get married at all. Official figures indicated that the median age in Turkey had risen from 28 years in 2007 to more than 32 years in 2019.

Nakipoglu said her sources told her that the amnesty draft had been tabled after pressure by Islamic groups close to the AKP.

Two years ago, Turkey’s state directorate for religious affairs, which oversees the practice of Islam in the country and administers its more than 80,000 mosques, caused an uproar with a statement on its website saying that Islam allowed 9-year-old girls to be married. The post was taken down after protests and the directorate published a sermon condemning child marriages.

Women rights groups said they are determined to fight the new proposal.

“It will not be easy to stop it,” Gulbahar said. The AKP and its right-wing partner, the Nationalist Movement Party, a driving force behind the amnesty package, have a comfortable majority of seats in parliament.

Repeated delays in getting the package to parliament could be a sign that the government side is not convinced that society would accept the amnesty proposals, however.

Gulbahar pointed to a recent stir caused by a religiously conservative professor at Istanbul’s Yildiz University, Bedri Gencer. In a tweet, Gencer argued that a massive earthquake in eastern Turkey that killed 41 people in December was caused by Turkey’s decision to ban underage marriages even though the unions were allowed by God. Following protests against the statement, Yildiz University distanced itself from Gencer, saying the tweet had been “unacceptable.”

Thomas Seibert is an Arab Weekly contributor in Istanbul.

Copyright ©2020 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 13 February 2020
Word Count: 859
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ISTANBUL — Raising the stakes in an already volatile situation in the embattled Syrian province of Idlib, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued warnings against Syria and Russia that amounted to a “declaration of war,” an analyst said.

The threats triggered a sharp response from Moscow, accusing Turkey of failing to rein in rebels in Idlib. The exchange sent the Turkish-Russian alliance in Syria to a low point.

Erdogan’s speech February 12 addressing lawmakers of his ruling Justice and Development Party in Ankara came after 13 Turkish troops were killed in clashes with Syrian government forces in Idlib since the start of the month.

Erdogan’s nationalist ally, Devlet Bahceli, on February 11, said Turkey should prepare to march on Damascus to stop the Syrian offensive in Idlib that is threatening to send hundreds of thousands of refugees into Turkey, a country that already houses 3.6 million Syrians.

Even though it came just hours after Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to iron out their differences in a telephone call, the speech by Erdogan included sharp accusations against Moscow. He suggested that Turkey would see agreements with the Kremlin, such the deal on Idlib reached in Sochi in 2018, as null and void if attacks on Turkish troops in the province continued.

“I hereby declare that we will strike regime forces everywhere from now on regardless of the Sochi deal if any tiny bit of harm is dealt to our soldiers at observation posts or elsewhere,” Erdogan said in reference to 12 Turkish observation points in Idlib set up under agreements with Russia.

Erdogan said Turkey was determined to push Syrian government forces beyond the observation posts by the end of February. “We will do this by any means necessary, by air or ground,” he said. Aircraft striking settlements in Idlib would “no longer move freely.”

The United Nations said about 700,000 people are on the move, with many seeking shelter along the closed Turkish border in the north-western Idlib.

“I want particularly to underline that the [Syrian] regime and Russia, together with regime-aligned forces, take aim at the civilian population coming from the east,” Erdogan said. “The goal is to clear the region [of civilians] and push the people of the region towards our borders.”

The Kremlin said in a brief readout of the call that Putin and Erdogan had agreed on the importance of implementing Russian-Turkish agreements on Syria and that contacts between Syria and Russia about the situation should continue.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Turkey of flouting agreements it had made with Russia to neutralise militants in Idlib and said militant attacks on Syrian and Russian forces in the region has not stopped.

“We continue to note with regret that these groups are carrying out strikes from Idlib on Syrian forces and also taking aggressive action against our military facilities,” Peskov said.

However, Erdogan said Turkey was determined to act. “We will do what is necessary without waiting for never-ending conferences,” he said.

The Turkish leader highlighted a controversial principle of his Syria policy: the aim to remove Syrian President Bashar Assad from power. Turkey played down that goal in recent years to smooth relations with Russia, Assad’s main backer.

“The fight for freedom of the Syrian people is a fight for survival for Turkey’s 82 million people,” Erdogan said.

His speech did not burn all bridges with Moscow. A Turkish delegation is to soon go to Moscow to discuss Idlib, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said.

But Erdogan’s words were a clear signal that Turkey views its cooperation with Moscow as having limits and that Ankara was not willing to sacrifice what it sees as Turkey’s core interests in order to work with Russia.

Kerim Has, a Moscow-based expert on Turkish-Russian relations, called Erdogan’s speech a “declaration of war” against Syria. “It’s his ‘personal war,’” Has said about Erdogan.

“Turkey doesn’t need a war with Syria but it seems that he needs [one] to consolidate his power inside country even in the short term,” Has added, “but I think it’s a miscalculation for him.”

Has said Moscow was likely to back Damascus in a military confrontation with Turkey while avoiding a direct one with Turkish troops but he stressed that the Kremlin had other means of pressuring Ankara.

“Moscow can put into force again some economic, tourism sanctions, personal blackmailing tools against Erdogan to force him [to accept] Russian rules,” he said.

The United States is eager to exploit the Turkish-Russian tensions over Idlib to rebuild a relationship with Ankara that has gone from crisis to crisis in recent years. James Jeffrey, the US envoy for Syria, was to meet with Turkish officials. The US Embassy said they would discuss working together towards a political solution to the conflict.

“Today, our NATO ally Turkey is facing a threat from Assad’s government and Russia. We are here to assess the situation with the Turkish government and offer support if possible,” Jeffrey said after his arrival in Ankara February 11.

Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar called for NATO assistance for Turkey in Syria. “NATO countries, NATO, Europe and the world must look at this issue more closely and must provide serious, concrete support,” he told the Associated Press.

Thomas Seibert is an Arab Weekly contributor in Istanbul.

Copyright ©2020 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 12 February 2020
Word Count: 870
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Ankara’s administration, a coalition of hard-core Islamists and relentless nationalists led by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is the elephant in the room whose presence is felt by EU members and some countries in the MENA region. Those countries, once encouraged by Turkey’s growing economy and democratisation prospects, are in shock and unsure of how to address Ankara’s bold violation of international norms.

Looking through the UN Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Turkey, I noticed that many countries had adopted low-key stances in their assessments and in their recommendations about Ankara’s policies. Countries that took a bolder line, such as those in North America or Western Europe, are merely shouting into an echo chamber.

Altogether, Turkey received 450 recommendations as part of the review, highlighting its dire human rights record.

The UPR review is a 5-year process in which a country’s human rights record and respect for rule of law are “X-rayed” and subjected to critiques that it is expected to respond to promptly.

In Turkey’s case, none of the expectations was met. When it was hit with a barrage of criticism in the United Nations’ grand hall in Geneva, the Turkish delegation responded with full defiance and arrogant hostility. It refused to acknowledge any concerns and reverted to its tired pretext of “fighting terrorism.”

The fact that Turkey tops the league of oppressive regimes, keeping more than 55,000 dissidents — which it labels “domestic enemies” — as political prisoners was not seriously discussed nor were the myriad other ways Turkey disregards the rule of law.

The fact that more than 130 journalists and many more intellectuals have been unjustly held in detention seemed not to worry the Turkish delegation, whose chairman, Deputy Foreign Minister Faruk Kaymakci, argued, in a nutshell, that such imprisonments were all about fighting terrorism. No one, especially journalists, he argued, are above the law.

Another issue not brought up in the UPR session but was addressed at side events in which I took part was Turkey’s widespread use of torture which, of course, it categorically denies. However, as documented by Sebnem Korur Fincanci, the president of the Human Rights Foundation in Turkey, torture is being systematically used throughout the country, often against Kurdish and alleged Gulenist prisoners.

Most of the bitter facts are on the record. As pointed out by the International Observatory of Human Rights, Turkey has not come close to upholding its UPR promises.

It stated: “In the period under review, the government has weaponised the legal system and terror legislation to restrict free expression. By means of freedom of expression and freedom of press Turkey now stands far below where it was back in 2010, when the first UPR cycle was compiled.”

I could not help but notice the sense of helplessness in diplomats and Western NGO representatives in my talks with them. Most did not hide the fact that all forms of “friendly ammunition” to persuade Ankara to return to respect for rule of law had nearly run out. Erdogan’s administration is increasingly defiant towards outside criticism as his regime grows into one of the most oppressive in the world.

The day after the UPR session, further confirmation of Turkey’s misconduct landed on their desks. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), in its annual activity report issued January 29, ranked Turkey first in terms of violations of freedom of expression in 2019.

Of the 68 judgments in which the court found violations of freedom of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, 35 were filed by Turkish citizens.

The EHCR report reminded us that Turkey’s intolerance for dissent was becoming a chronic feature of the state: “The country single-handedly committed more violations regarding this issue than the rest of the member states combined throughout 1959-2019, committing 356 of the total 845 violations,” ECHR stated.

It added: “In 2019, the ECHR delivered 113 judgments on Turkey, finding at least one violation in 97 of these cases. During the period of 1959-2019, the court delivered 3,645 judgments for cases coming from Turkey, finding the country at fault in 3,225 of these cases.”

This harsh indictment, combined with Turkey’s expansionist ambitions and militarised foreign policy, shows a need to urgently revise the appeasement policies being pursued in the European Union’s top circles.

One thing is clear: Ostrich patterns from Turkey’s concerned allies, if continued, will not only create a monster but inflict deeper damage on large parts of Turkish society.

Yavuz Baydar is a senior Turkish columnist, and news analyst. A founding member of the Platform for Independent Journalism (P24) in Istanbul, he has been reporting on Turkey and monitoring media issues since 1980. A European Press Prize Laureate in 2014, he is also the winner of Germany’s ‘Journalistenpreis’ in 2018.

Copyright ©2020 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 05 February 2020
Word Count: 742
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TUNIS — US President Donald Trump disclosed his much anticipated Middle East peace plan January 28, outlining a two-state vision that would grant Israel new coveted territory and hamstring any future Palestinian state.

As expected, the blueprint to end one of the world’s most intractable conflicts was immediately dismissed by Palestinian leaders as one-sided, making the prospect of any negotiated settlement unlikely.

But the deal did put forward a framework that some Arab countries said could work as a “starting point” — including eventual Palestinian statehood with a $50 billion development plan and a temporary freeze of Israeli settlements. The provisions would also provide for a Palestinian capital on outer portions of East Jerusalem, such as the suburb of Abu Dis, and maintain the status quo at the central Jewish and Muslim holy sites known as the temple mount, or “Haram al-Sharif.”

For Israel, the deal would help achieve a series of longstanding objectives, including full sovereignty over the disputed city of Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and settlement blocs within the West Bank. It would also assuage their security concerns by forbidding Palestine from developing a military or forging military or security ties with states not approved by Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, standing by Trump in the White House as the US president unveiled the deal, said the plan was a “historic breakthrough” and hoped to act on its parameters as soon as possible. He vowed to move forward on plans to annex the Jordan Valley and settlements within the West Bank, which Israel’s parliament is set to hold a vote on in several weeks.

The plan was not universally lauded by Israelis, however, receiving pushback from some right-wing settlers who objected to the prospect of any future Palestinian state at all.

“We can’t agree to a plan that includes forming a Palestinian state, which will constitute a threat to Israel and a great danger to the future,” said David Elhayani, head of the Yesha Council that represents settlers in the West Bank, highlighting a divergence of views among Israeli hardliners.

Some US allies in the West lent moderate support to the proposal, with UK Foreign Minister Dominic Raab calling it a “serious proposal” and urging Palestinians “to give these plans genuine and fair consideration.”

The European Union was more cautious, saying only that the initiative “provides an occasion to re-launch the urgently needed efforts towards a negotiated and viable solution.”

The deal drew stinging criticism from some of Trump’s Democratic opponents in the US, however, who are in the midst of a tough primary race ahead of presidential elections this year.

US Senator Bernie Sanders, a frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, said the deal was “unacceptable” and would “perpetuate the conflict, and undermine the security interests of Americans, Israelis, and Palestinians.”

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, also a contender for the Democratic nomination, called the deal a “sham” that was geared at accelerating Israeli annexation. “Trump’s ‘peace plan’ is a rubber stamp for annexation and offers no chance for a real Palestinian state,” said Warren. “…I will oppose unilateral annexation in any form — and reverse any policy that supports it.”

But the issue was predictably most contentious in the Arab and Muslim world, where the US has aggressively lobbied for support from some governments traditionally sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.

The United Arab Emirates Saudi Arabia  and Egypt, all strong US allies, issued statements granting some legitimacy to the US effort.

The UAE’s Ambassador to the US said the plan was an “important starting point for a return to negotiations,” while Egypt’s foreign ministry said the proposal warranted “thorough consideration.”

Officials from Iran, Turkey, Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and Yemen’s Houthis, however, were all deeply critical of the deal.

Some analysts said the deal seemed less achieved at securing a real solution than at jumpstarting Israeli annexation and shifting the parameters of any future negotiations, even as it included more concessions to Palestinians than had been anticipated.

“Front-loading the annexation seems to destroy the plan on the very day it’s released,” David Makovsky, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told the New York Times. “It reaffirms the worst fears that this is more an annexation plan than a peace plan.”

Palestinian leaders from all sides were equally pessimistic. Angered by a process they believe has been stacked against them from the start and hopeful that more favourable conditions could be reached under a future US Democratic administration, all major Palestinian representatives came out against the plan.

“When we are united, neither Netanyahu nor Trump dares to take away our rights,” said senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya after a rare meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.

Meanwhile, thousands took to the streets in the besieged enclave of Gaza to denounce the US administration’s proposal, and greater unrest is expected if Israel proceed with annexation plans.

Stephen Quillen is an Arab Weekly correspondent in Tunis.

Copyright ©2020 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 30 January 2020
Word Count: 809
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Turkey is in a historically critical phase concerning its present and its future. Much of the debate is focused on one crucial question: Can Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan consolidate power around his person and cadres loyal to him or will he face increasing difficulties ensuring control over key institutions?

Given the apparent lack of exit strategy for him as Turkey’s “system crisis” deepens, the question seems intractable. The situation is one of unprecedented limbo for Turkey and its political class.

What adds to the dilemma is the type of balance between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its minor partner the National Movement Party (MHP) on the one hand and the opposition bloc on the other.

A poll by one of the few reliable pollsters, Ankara-based Metropoll, indicated that the AKP-MHP alliance has 51% favourability while the secular main opposition Republican People’s Party does not draw more than 25% favourability. Its nationalist opposition partner, the Iyi party, has fallen below the critical 10% threshold needed to enter parliament and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party polls just above that level at 11%.

Discontent among the voters, because of economic hardships, brews beneath the surface. Those who oppose moves to send troops to Libya are slightly more than 50% of the public. The controversial Canal Istanbul project is another issue that doesn’t seem to convince large numbers of voters in the massive Greater Istanbul Municipality area.

Yet, as pointed out by Metropoll director Ozer Sencar to Ahval News, the “concerned voter” bloc within the AKP is not convinced by what the opposition offers as a political alternative.

This snapshot is good news for Erdogan. It gives him time to construct a future in his favour but, as Canal Istanbul, Libya and East Med examples show, the “plunge first, think later” mindset, seems to hardly stir the bureaucracy in Ankara and a sense of despair gains ground.

Turkey’s main opposition leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, voiced such “deep establishment concerns” in a meeting with journalists recently. Kilicdaroglu has a deeply rooted background as a bureaucrat in Turkish state apparatus; thus his remarks have particular pertinence.

For the first time, he said, “Turkey’s dependency on Russia is increasing. We are dependent in energy up to 60% to Russia. This is wrong. More important, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin began shaping Turkey’s foreign policy. Especially in Syria and Libya, Putin’s words have the final say.”

In another part of the meeting, Kilicdaroglu is said to have raised alarm over Erdogan’s steady attempts to take full control of the Turkish judiciary and persistent restructuring of Turkish Armed Forces.

The stalemate in the balance of power between the government and the opposition blocs in Turkey, coupled with a toothless parliament, creates a dangerous vacuum that may lead to a crash unless Erdogan pays attention to the calls for a return to responsible policies and abandons his bellicose moves in the region.

A report by the RAND Corporation shed light on the minefield-like crossroads where Turkey finds itself. Based partly on the Pentagon’s insider assessments, it warned: “Turkey’s assertive foreign policy moves include support for political Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood — a group viewed as terrorists by Gulf monarchies and Egypt — and its bid to claim a share of the Eastern Mediterranean hydrocarbon wealth.”

Equally important, the 243-page report argues that mid-rank officers in the Turkish Armed Forces are “deeply worried” about purges that have taken place since the botched coup in 2016 and that this may lead to another disruptive attempt. Erdogan is aware of this, it adds.

RAND outlines four scenarios ranging from a Turkey remaining somewhat part of the Western alliance to a full-scale “de-anchoring” of its previous alliances and moving towards Russia and China but leaves a question mark on Erdogan’s map towards 2023 — the year of the centennial of the Turkish Republic.

What is clear is that his assertive, adventurist, crisis-oriented policies have begun to accumulate negative energy beneath Ankara’s political fault lines.

Yavuz Baydar is a senior Turkish columnist, and news analyst. A founding member of the Platform for Independent Journalism (P24) in Istanbul, he has been reporting on Turkey and monitoring media issues since 1980. A European Press Prize Laureate in 2014, he is also the winner of Germany’s ‘Journalistenpreis’ in 2018.

Copyright ©2020 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 28 January 2020
Word Count: 660
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Russia’s appointment of a new government drew the attention of many in the Middle East eager to see how the country’s foreign policy could shift. It soon became clear there would be few changes in that department because Moscow country reappointed as foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, a tough diplomat who has headed the ministry since 2004.

Days before the reshuffle January 21, Lavrov gave an indication that Russia would push its ambitious foreign policy, saying Russia would position itself as an important actor in foreign affairs.

“The world is clearly continuing to tremor,” he said during an annual news conference on Moscow’s policy abroad. “The key destabilising factor is the aggressive stance of a number of Western countries, most of all our American colleagues.”

Russia’s assertive foreign policy, the Kremlin has realised, is an effective way to invigorate Russians’ sense of patriotism and uphold public support for Russian President Vladimir Putin at home, even as much-needed funds continue to be diverted away from social programmes.

Domestically, Lavrov is the second most popular member of Russia’s cabinet, behind Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, but how much sway he has over the country’s foreign policy is unclear.

Many diplomats and experts say Putin is the sole mastermind of Moscow’s foreign policy and defence initiatives. That said, Lavrov is clearly the president’s most trusted aide and lieutenant in foreign policy, giving him serious influence over the country’s policies in countries such as Syria, Libya and Afghanistan.

Russia has been a major player in the Middle East at least since 2015, when it intervened militarily in Syria. By reversing the course of the Syrian civil war in favour of an old client, Syrian President Bashar Assad, Moscow’s message to other leaders and rulers in the Middle East was that it is a reliable partner. The intervention in Syria allowed Moscow to position itself as a valuable interlocutor to all parties to the region’s conflicts.

Rapprochement with Israel, however, was the most dramatic recent turnaround in Moscow’s diplomatic relations. Russia’s emergence as a major presence in Syria meant that the Israelis had no choice but to maintain good relations with Moscow. Some Israeli officials are hoping that Moscow will help them deal with the biggest threat their country faces from Syria: Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah.

However, Israel’s expectations could push Moscow too far. Russia, after all, is Tehran’s ally in Syria despite differences that emerged between the two countries. Whatever disagreements Russians and Iranians may have on the ground in Syria, which include their support of rival factions in the Assad regime, they have succeeded in reducing them.

Going forward, Russia will do its best to maintain good terms with everyone, including Iran and its regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Israel, as well as Turkey and the Kurds, with Assad’s regime and its opponents.

The logic is simple: Russia sees no advantage in playing the role of regional policeman and sees every advantage in pursuing geopolitical and commercial gains without taking unwarranted risks.

This strategy contrasts with that of the United States which, as the dominant power in the Middle East, bears the cost of maintaining order and defending its strategic allies against security threats posed by Iranian expansionism or extremists from terror groups.

However, while the United States maintains dominance, particularly in the Arab Gulf region, Russia has strengthened ties with Gulf countries, particularly Saudi Arabia.

In October 2017, Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud became the first Saudi monarch to visit Moscow, a decade after Putin’s official visit to Riyadh. Then, at the opening of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz rubbed shoulders with Putin, another sign of close personal ties between the countries’ leaders.

For Moscow, the Arab Gulf is an opportunity and a lucrative defence market that can absorb Russian-made gear.

At the same time, upgraded relations between Moscow and Riyadh do not change the fact that Iran remains Russia’s partner of choice. Although the two countries’ interests are sometimes misaligned, Russia’s diplomatic, defence and trade ties with Tehran are better than at any point in history.

Still, one should not forget that Russia’s and Iran’s victory in Syria has led to a divergence of interests. While Russia wants to see Syria return to the status quo and reap the benefits of peace and reconstruction, Iran has been exploiting Syria as a platform for its expansionist aspirations and its campaign against Israel.

Riyadh, as a result, knows that its strategic interests lie in upgrading its relationship with Moscow. In addition to their stake in the outcome of the Syrian conflict and rivalry with Iran, the Saudis have a growing interest in coordinating oil production with Russia at a time when both are grappling with a surge in US energy production.

Russia’s return to North Africa is also significant, given the United States’ disengagement from the region. The relationship between Moscow and Cairo, interrupted in the 1970s with the latter’s pivot towards the United States, underwent a significant upgrade after the 2013 revolution in Egypt and the rise of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Criticised in the West for human rights abuses, Sisi found in Putin a key partner who can help him buttress domestic standing and prop up leverage vis-a-vis Cairo’s traditional ally, Washington. Egypt has also emerged as an important customer for Russian arms.

The relationship between Cairo and Moscow goes way beyond that to include the two countries’ influence in other parts of the Arab region, particularly Libya. There, Russia and Egypt have worked together in supporting the eastern-based Libyan National Army, led by Field-Marshal Khalifa Haftar, in Libya’s civil war. However, divisions within Libya have multiplied and drawn in international players, including Turkey, France and Italy.

Moscow seems to be hoping to have a say in negotiations about the conflict and eventually re-establish commercial opportunities derailed by the ouster of former leader Muammar Qaddafi.

Despite the challenges Russia faces on the international arena and in the Middle East, Putin and Lavrov as a team have achieved a string of victories in the past year. Washington’s confused agenda provided an opening for Moscow to expand its clout in Syria, while Turkey purchased a sophisticated new air-defence missile system from Russia despite objections from the White House.

Last October, Putin fashioned a pact with Turkey to establish a buffer zone along Syria’s border, further raising Moscow’s profile as a power broker in the Middle East while weakening the United States’ influence.

These victories will encourage Russia to stay the course and stick to foreign policy fundamentals that have allowed it to grow into a diplomatic powerhouse. Lavrov’s experience and energy will further Russia’s defiant position and the geopolitical muscle it exercises within the UN Security Council.

Iman Zayat is the Managing Editor of The Arab Weekly.

Copyright ©2020 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 27 January 2020
Word Count: 1,123
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In December, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson led his Conservative Party to a huge parliamentary majority, which gave him leeway to steer Brexit, controversial trade talks with the United States and almost any issue in whichever direction he chose.

On January 21, the British government was defeated in the House of Lords on an issue that revolves around moral crime and compassion rather than commerce and statutes.

The House of Lords vote was about Johnson’s decision to deny unaccompanied child refugees currently in Europe the right to be united with their families in the United Kingdom. They are a small number. Safe Passage, an NGO that supports child refugees, said 2,307 unaccompanied children applied for asylum in the United Kingdom in 2017-18. Just more than half were granted it or “another form of leave” to remain in Britain, said Safe Passage.

Alf Dubs, the opposition Labour Party peer who proposed the amendment to the Johnson government’s legislation, was a child refugee from the Nazi persecution of Jews. Dubs, who arrived in the United Kingdom in 1939 as a refugee from Prague, said the government’s defeat in the upper house was “based on humanitarian principles.”

As it happens, those “humanitarian principles” are likely to prove too weak to withstand the force of Johnson’s massive parliamentary majority. The lower house can insist on passing the law without the Dubs amendment and Brexit Britain, as per Johnson’s breezy rendering, will go on to be buccaneering and bold-faced about Europe, about trade deals and, yes, about vulnerable children.

In the week Britain considered its capacity for compassion, Norway faced a similar test. The country’s governing centre-right coalition lost a long-serving ally, the anti-immigration Progress Party. Progress withdrew from the government over a cabinet decision to repatriate a Norwegian woman from Syria so that one of her young children could receive medical treatment.

The 29-year-old mother, who is of Pakistani ethnicity, left Norway for Syria in 2013, lived in territory controlled by the Islamic State (ISIS) and married twice while in the caliphate, both times to ISIS fighters.

Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg explained the woman’s return to the country saying her sick child needed treatment and that’s “what is important.” Solberg summed up her government’s dilemma as follows: “to bring home a child with his mother or risk that a sick 5-year-old child might die.” She added: “To me, it was important that the boy came home to Norway.”

Note the word “home.” The child, who has never known Norway, is allowed to go “home” but the Norwegian born-and-bred mother’s return is controversial. Why?

“This woman has turned her back on us,” said Jon Engen-Helgheim, a Progress Party spokesman. “She hates all that we stand for. She joined a gruesome terror army and contributed to prosecution, decapitation, burnings and the murder of innocent women, children and adults. We do not want her kind in Norway and we certainly don’t want Norwegian authorities spending enormous resources getting them to Norway.”

There are two problems with that statement. Like it or not, the woman belongs to Norway and that’s where she should be tried. Second, it’s not as if she doesn’t face consequences in Norway for her apparent allegiance to ISIS. The Norwegian Security Police has charged the woman with “participation in a terrorist organisation” and she faces up to six years in prison.

The Progress Party spokesman’s words and the British government’s deeds prompt the question: Why are they behaving like this?

Much of the literary world has been marking the 70th anniversary of the death of George Orwell. Accordingly, it’s worth repeating a truth Orwell stated as he watched the horrors of fascism and hate towards “the other.” “Sometimes,” said Orwell, “the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.”

Let us restate the obvious in searching for the answer to that question about Britain and Norway. Certain groups of people are being dehumanised and cast as the “other” because of fear. Because of that, the crime of hate is being normalised.

Rashmee Roshan Lall is a regular columnist for The Arab Weekly. She blogs at www.rashmee.com and is on Twitter @rashmeerl

Copyright ©2020 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 27 January 2020
Word Count: 671
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