BEIRUT — I have attended hundreds of meetings, conferences and symposia on Arab-Israeli peace-making all my adult life during the past 40 years, and I am able to report that there is good news and bad news. The good news is that Israelis and Arabs wish to achieve a negotiated, peaceful end to their conflict. The bad news is that this inclination to negotiated peace and coexistence is not being translated into a lasting agreement because of Israel’s refusal to come to grips with the core issue that matters for the Palestinians, which is their refugeehood.

The United States’ efforts this year to negotiate a resumption of negotiations captures both of these realities. It seems time to admit that attempts to evade, sugar-coat or postpone coming to grips with the events of 1947-48 in Palestine will always wreck any other signs of progress or hope. The prospects of agreeing on resolving the Palestinian refugee issue are slim right now, but not zero; yet the prospects of achieving a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace without resolving the refugee issue are absolutely zero.

It is time for all parties to the conflict and all those from abroad who try to help resolve it to come to terms with this simple fact. Two things happened in 1947-48 that must be addressed simultaneously and seriously if a lasting peace accord is ever to be forged by Arabs and Israelis: Zionism triumphed and, in its eyes, the state of Israel was established as the homeland of the Jewish people; and, the national community of Palestinians was shattered and half the people were forced into exile, either by deliberate Zionist ethnic cleansing or by the normal dynamics of war that cause civilians to flee temporarily to safer areas.

A permanent resolution of the conflict must simultaneously address the core demands of Zionists and Palestinian and Arab nationalists. When this happened between Egypt, Jordan and Israel, permanent peace prevailed. For the Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese to sign peace agreements with Israel, the same approach is needed, which means a return of occupied land in exchange for normal relations. With the Palestinians, there is the added issue of resolving the refugeehood of the approximately 750,000 refugees from 1947-48, who are now 4.5 million or so.

The challenge that has eluded everyone to date is how to reconcile Zionism with Arabism, e.g., how the Arabs can accept Israel as a predominantly Jewish state, while Israel also acknowledges its role in the refugeehood of the Palestinians and takes steps to end that problem. The Arabs have all accepted the demand that they coexist in peace and normal relations with an Israeli state that is predominantly Jewish, as it is now, with Jews comprising around 80 percent of the population. The Israelis in return have not moved at all towards coming to terms with the legal, political and moral decisions they must make to play their central role in resolving Palestinian refugeehood — since they were the principal party in bringing it about.

It is about time that foreign peace mediators and the principal local actors become serious about addressing the core issues if they want to make progress towards a lasting and fair peace accord. The current Israeli superiority in military power will not bring it lasting peace and security because the Palestinians will not simply disappear into history — no more than the exiled Jews in Babylon went away and never returned. Every time I see a Jewish friend or a foreign peace mediator, I remind them that the Palestinian exile since 1947-48 is now five or six years longer than the Jewish exile in Babylon in the 6th Century BC — where the Zionist hope and idea of return to an ancestral Jewish homeland was first born.

We Palestinians have passed through the same experience, two and a half millennia later, of seeking to end our exile through nationalist self-assertion and reaffirmation, along with patience and hard work. The Palestinian mindset focuses on eventual return, and national reconstitution, in the ancestral homeland. As the ancient Hebrews and modern Jews showed themselves and the world, such powerful mindsets do not disappear into the haze of history.

For now, the Palestinians and all Arabs express a willingness to coexist with Zionism — if the Israelis in turn come to terms with how critical it is to acknowledge and resolve the refugee issue in a reasonable and fair manner that does not negate the idea of a predominantly Jewish state. This is a tough challenge, but it is made tougher by ignoring it. It remains the key to a breakthrough. It is the way that Zionism and Arabism can coexist, though for now it seems that Zionists broadly are not willing to see in Palestinians the same national spirit and rights that they demanded for themselves.

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

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

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Released: 09 December 2009
Word Count: 798
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ISTANBUL — Every time I visit Turkey I ask myself what is it that makes me marvel at the many political and economic developments that make it stand out as the most impressive country in the greater Middle East. Watching Turkey’s significant foreign policy initiatives these days to cement good relations with its neighbors, I think I understand why: This is the only country in the Middle East region that acts like a normal, mature country.

Turkey’s mix of lively domestic politics, dynamic social and cultural life, and strong and internationally expanding economy all come together through the agency of a government that actually leads by taking initiatives, but is also held accountable to the citizens through regular elections. Turkey is the only country in the Middle East region that has both a democratic domestic system and an activist foreign policy. It is refreshing to witness this phenomenon in contrast with the largely passive and often dysfunctional countries across the Middle East.

The critical elements in Turkey’s success that others might learn from strike me as three in particular: freedom of speech and association that allow domestic politics to proceed in the direction defined by a majority of the citizenry; civilian authority over the armed forces and security agencies; and, pragmatic, humble realism in coming to terms with the realities of a pluralistic society where minorities demand rights that the majority should acknowledge.

Take some of this month’s leading stories, for example. An ongoing investigation is looking into accusations that a group of armed services senior officers plotted to overthrow the ruling government by creating chaos in civil society, and the media is covering daily the questioning of former top officers.

Domestically, the political scene and its links to ethnic pluralism remain vibrant, making this one of the rare places in the region where it is not possible to predict the outcome of the next election. Unlike the recent past when only the secular, nationalist Turkish identity was allowed to manifest itself, today the country more honestly addresses the reality of and the demand for equal rights and opportunities by Turkish Kurds, Alawis and others.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made significant overtures to the large Kurdish minority. Whether or not this approach works will be determined ultimately by the citizens, who sent a message in the local elections earlier this year that they were not fully satisfied. The AKP party’s votes and its municipalities won both declined, reminding us that in a truly democratic system the party in power must constantly respond to citizens’ needs and expectations — or lose power.

Turkey no longer attempts the childish sloganeering that Arab ruling elites often use to try and depict all their citizens with a single phrase that is more about forced compliance with regime dictates than it is about responding to citizen rights. The healthy slippage the AKP experienced in the polls confirms that this country is ruled by popular will, rather than autocratic orders from a small band of rulers at the top. Erdogan and the AKP will now have to reconsider their unsuccessful strategy of appealing to nationalists, Kurds and the mild Islamists who comprise the AKP’s base. How refreshing to see a ruling party in a large Middle Eastern country having to adjust its policies and rhetoric in response to citizen votes!

Turkey is also showing everyone else in the region how to do foreign policy in a sensible way, by acknowledging realities (e.g., Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq) and promoting stable political relations on the back of growing economic ties. As professor of international relations at Istanbul Bilgi University and columnist for the daily Habertürk Soli Ozel explained to me, Turkey in the past decade has taken advantage of developments initiated by others — the war in Iraq, Arab-Israeli stalemates — to reposition itself throughout the Middle East, while it simultaneously kept exploring stronger links with Europe. Formerly strained relations with Syria, Iraq, Greece, Armenia, Iran and others slowly improved, often hastened by mutual interests in the spheres of trade, water, energy and security – a policy “based on the principle of zero problems with the neighbors, designed to create zones of stability around the country, avoid confrontation and prepare the conditions for economic expansion,” Ozel explains.

This requires comprehensive peace in the region, which Turkey has sought to prod by mediating and engaging where it could, while Israel “appeared incapable of changing its ways and seriously trying for a peaceful resolution of its conflict with the Palestinians,” he adds. The current Turkish-Israeli cool relations will return to normal soon, but in a context in which Turkey has strong, constructive ties with all other players in the region — a sound strategy that no other major power seems to have attempted.

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

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

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Released: 07 December 2009
Word Count: 798
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DUBAI — The recent opening of an exhibition of contemporary art at Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island arts and culture complex aptly captured the core issue related to the financial stress that sister emirate Dubai is experiencing. The exhibition is entitled “Disorientation II,” which is a good description of what is going on in Dubai these days as it struggles to regain investor confidence while delaying repayment of tens of billions of dollars of debt.

For the second time in a year, Dubai is clearly uncomfortable as the international media dissects three of its fundamental but still secretive driving forces: how the emirate is governed in terms of decision-making at the top levels, what is the full extent of its financial problems, and what is its strategy for pulling out of the current recession and investor doubts. Beyond its debt repayment difficulties, we know almost nothing about the deeper issues and trends, or the strategies to address them — and that is the real weakness of Dubai that has ballooned into a full crisis because cash flow is weak.

“Disorientation” — rather than panic, depression or collapse — is a good word to describe what is going on in Dubai. It is also not a peculiarly Dubaian problem, because the malaise of appearing immobilized and silent at the moment of greatest local stress and global interest is a widespread trait in the entire Arab world. In its moment of economic stress, Dubai is proving remarkably similar to the rest of the Arab world in terms of political governance.

Dubai faces a massive loss of investor confidence in a world it created that is built almost totally on investor confidence. What Dubai needs now — along with short-term cash advances — is to revive trust in its core competencies. The only way to do that — the only way, not the easiest way — is for the political and economic leadership team in the emirate to speak more openly and accurately about the extent of the current stresses, their underlying implications, and the strategy to address them. For if Dubai does not have investor and consumer confidence, it has little else.

Dubai registered phenomenal growth in the last two decades because local, Arab, and foreign investors were willing to keep building and buying real estate developments, go shopping, stay in funky hotels, and enjoy increasingly exotic but captivating forms of entertainment — like indoor ski slopes or sharks in large aquaria. It provided high quality services to the massive oil-fuelled regional Gulf market in fields like transport, advertising and public relations, entrepôt trade, aviation, leisure diversions, and others. Investors leveraged this core business competence into a wider web of real estate speculation that took on a life of its own.

The core business and service roles that Dubai plays in the region remain valid, giving it healthy future prospects if it focuses on its core tasks. Its cash-flow issues and over-leveraged investments reflect problems experienced by many leading global banks and companies recently. The difference is staggering, though, in how General Motors or Citibank responded to their business vulnerabilities with clarity, disclosure, restructuring, strategic refocusing, and new accountability mechanisms, and how Dubai is responding to its similar problems with none of these basic corporate good governance moves.

The leadership of Dubai — meaning Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, primarily — was widely touted in the boom years for being “visionary.” The real quality of leadership test comes now, when Dubai faces the much more demanding task of restructuring, rationalizing and re-launching a more sustainable developmental strategy. I sense lingering disorientation when I keep hearing leading business and political figures speaking in public about how things are back on track, and growth is reviving. Refusing to address one’s core business model problems or design a hard-nosed strategy to fix them over time is a sign of poor management.

Dubai can learn much from others around the world. Now is the time for it to stop trying to be a global pioneer, but instead absorb lessons from others who have weathered the sorts of tests it is now facing for the first time. The most important lesson pertains to the entire Arab world, but is magnified in Dubai because of the extent and speed of its boom-and-bust cycle: Sustainable growth requires that absolute economic power be tempered by the twin forces of transparency and accountability.

Checks-and-balances to guide economic investments and protect people’s rights and interests comprise an explicitly political process. Someone in the Arab world has to seize the moment one day and dare to practice politics, by generating mechanisms that hold economic and security power accountable to the constituencies they serve, namely the citizenry; or where the citizenry is small, the investors. This is Dubai’s real opportunity. Cash-flow is a short-term problem that can be fixed.

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

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

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Released: 02 December 2009
Word Count: 794
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BEIRUT — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement a few days ago that Israel would suspend all new housing construction in the occupied West Bank for ten months, while other building and colonial ventures continue, reminds us that we are passing through another episode of a long-running tale of biblical proportions: Arabs and Israelis reject or stall American peace-making efforts; stalemate ensues amidst mutual accusations of insincerity; Israel takes a unilateral initiative that many hail as a positive step, but that the Arabs see as not enough and mostly deception; and the conflict and stalemate persist for decades.

Like all biblical tales, this one has plenty of drama, tension, heroic and tragic characters, tantalizing transformational possibilities, and nearly cosmic consequences. Also like all biblical tales, it ends on a note of monumental ambiguity: You can read into it anything you wish, and interpret it as you like. Well, it is time to rewrite this script, and shake up the cast. The Palestinians and Arabs should be the ones who take command of their destiny and get more seriously involved in this process as more than just passive victims and spectators.

I have a suggestion. The Netanyahu move does not meet the legitimate demands of the Palestinians, the Obama administration, Security Council resolutions or international law and conventions, yet we should not merely dismiss it and remain diplomatically frozen. Israel is offering to commit only half the crimes it has committed for the last 40 years, by reducing the scale and pace of its colonization of occupied Arab lands. American, British, French and other Western officials find this a positive step forward, and are free to wade in their moralistic mud pits and diplomatic fantasy worlds. We should no longer play this ugly game, whose operative contours are what Israel and its proxies in Washington allow the US government to do in the Middle East.

Rather, the Palestinians and Arabs this week should acknowledge the partial and symbolic gesture by Israel to the United States as precisely what it is: a partial and symbolic gesture to the US, not a serious, substantive move to engage the Arabs in a comprehensive peace process. We should take the next move to generate a new and better dynamic.

After consultations with key players in the region, the Arab League Secretary General should announce that in response to the sincere American effort to re-start comprehensive peace talks, and to take the Israeli gesture to its logical conclusion, a delegation of Arab foreign ministers and the Secretary General of the Arab League will be at UN headquarters in Geneva at 10 a.m. on December 10 to negotiate comprehensive, permanent, mutually agreed peace and coexistence arrangements with the state of Israel.

We will do this on the basis of several principles that reflect our position (the Israelis can bring their position): We go to negotiate under the aegis of the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference mandate that itself mirrors UN Security Council calls for Arab-Israeli negotiations; on the basis of the 2002 Arab Summit Peace Plan that offers a framework of principles for justice, conflict-resolution, peace and coexistence between Arabs and Israelis; acknowledging the relevance of the January 2001 Clinton Parameters and the January 2001 Moratinos/EU Non-Paper that captured the Israeli and Palestinian positions after the Camp David and Taba talks; and, with the United States and UN secretary-general as principal mediators.

We go to Geneva to directly negotiate final status issues, starting with borders, refugees, Jerusalem, and mutual recognition and security. We will do this seriously for three months, after which the process will stop if no agreements or significant breakthroughs to final status accords are reached.

Such a bold Arab response to the Netanyahu proposal would stop the silly legacy of Arabs constantly finding themselves in a weak position of responding to Israeli and American initiatives. It would reflect our commitment to negotiate a comprehensive and fair peace, and force the Israelis to reveal if they are interested in serious negotiations to end the conflict.

We should not respond to Netanyahu’s proposals with only another round of passive Arab rejectionism. We need to get out of the ambiguous biblical epics and move into the definitive world of poker. We should call and raise the Israeli bet, galvanize our peace proposal and reinvigorate Arab diplomacy, challenge the Israelis to negotiate seriously in Geneva on the basis of existing proposals and already negotiated principles that offer both sides their legitimate national rights, and nudge the Americans to be fair and decisive mediators.

This is an opportunity to smoke out the Israelis and Americans from their world of delay and deception, and to see once and for all if they wish to emerge from the mud pits and stand on solid ground of law, reciprocity and genuine peace and security anchored in mutual justice.

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

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

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Released: 30 November 2009
Word Count: 804
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BEIRUT — After a recent series of visits to Arab countries with different political governance systems — Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — I realized that they reflect power structures defined by monarchical rule in Jordan and UAE, republicanism-turned-security state in Egypt, and consensual electoral tribalism in Lebanon. They also offer insights into a new pattern in the exercise of power in most Arab countries.

Assorted centers of power and identity that have existed in our region for many years include royal families, security agencies, tribal forces, the private sector, political ideologies, military resistance movements, and non-governmental organizations. The multiple power and identity centers reflect the reality that the central state and its government no longer are able to fulfill the core attributes and responsibilities of a stable state, which I would list as: identity, sovereignty, statehood, nationhood, citizenship, legitimacy, the exercise of power, human development needs, accountability and security.

Many of the identities and power centers that surfaced in the region since the 1980s have now consolidated into three main forces that dominate Arab politics and power structures, which we can call in shorthand the 3 M’s: monarchy, mosque and market.

The “monarchy” refers to the ruling powers and their multiple security agencies that have a firm grip on society from the top, whether they are formal monarchies (Jordan, UAE and others), ’republics’ where power is concentrated in the hands of small groups of civilian, ruling party and military leaders at the top and passed on from one generation to another (Egypt and others).

The “mosque” refers to movements in society beyond the control of the ruling monarch, of which Islamist movements are the most powerful, but include others such as tribal or ethnic groups, and militias and resistance movements. They often are opposition movements.

The “market” is the most recent power center that has emerged in the Arab world, and is by far the fastest growing one. The most common visual signs of shared urban values in the Arab world these days are billboards that advertise massive shopping malls, American soft drinks and fried chicken, European and Japanese cell phones, German cars, or fancy gated communities and other expensive real estate developments that are affordable mainly to the wealthy (who dominate the “monarchy” and “market” groups).

The private sector “market” forces continue to slowly infringe upon or even completely take over functions once monopolized by the state and the “monarchy,“ such as telephones, education, drinking water and other basic human needs. Multinational money and trans-regional Arab capital are major elements of the “market,” to the point where private investments across the region are probably the single strongest form of pan-Arab integration and solidarity.

The triad of monarchy, market and mosque is not new. It represents the Arab order reclaiming its historical power balance and identity, from the ancient period before Byzantium and also from the early and middle Islamic eras. The symbolism of monarch, mosque and market is captured best in the architecture of the early Islamic Umayyad era, when the caliph’s palace represented political power, the mosque on the other side of the central square reflected religious legitimacy, and the space in between was the commercial market, or souq. The balance among these three principal power centers provided the stability that both citizens and rulers sought, and that merchants needed for sustainable trade and profitability. (This model moved to Medieval Europe, where the palace, the Cathedral and the market in center-city areas mirrored the urban architecture of power from Umayyad Arabia.)

The strength of this system is that it provides stability for some time, as it is an indigenous Middle Eastern form of checks and balances among three forces that need each other. It is also a bizarre form of a perfect market mechanism, with the “mosque” being the demand side of popular sentiment, the “market” providing the supply of goods and services the citizens need, and the “monarch” being the regulator in between who would ideally keep the system in balance. The system’s weakness is that it does not necessarily safeguard the interests of the poor and those in the middle class who do not have entry into any of the three power centers.

It remains to be seen how the masters who rule these three interlinked power centers now proceed with the development of their societies. It is clear that they need each other. From their permanent negotiations to define sustainable relationships, we see private politics taking hold in the region — distinct parties with clear interests contesting and sharing power. The next step in this historical process — as Medieval Europe and 18th Century America experienced — is to move from private to public politics, where the center of gravity is the citizen, and the mosque, monarchy and market serve the citizen, not the other way around as now prevails.

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

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

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Released: 25 November 2009
Word Count: 809
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BEIRUT — The new Lebanese government would do well to put high on its agenda one of the chronic stress points in the country. It is one that now may see glimmers of hope of resolution: Palestinian-Lebanese relations. This is one of the thorniest issues in a country that has been one of the most turbulent areas in the Middle East for the past half-century. It would be totally irresponsible to allow it to simmer and keep boiling over now and then, when a resolution of long-standing disputes and fears appears more possible than ever.

The moment is ripe to address this issue because of several factors that have coincided in recent years. The first and most significant was the Lebanese government decision under former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora in 2005 to launch an initiative that had two broad components: work to improve living conditions in the 12 rather miserable refugee camps in the country, and open a political dialogue with the assorted factions that comprise the Palestinian political community. The government established the Lebanese Palestinian Dialogue Committee (LPDC) for this purpose, and work started on several fronts.

Around $25 million was raised to improve camp conditions. Contacts were initiated with Palestinian political groups. Administrative changes allowed Palestinians to work in dozens of professions from which they had been banned, and the status of hundreds of Palestinians with no legal papers or identity cards started to be rectified.

The process stalled, however, due to the 2006 war with Israel, the subsequent internal immobilization of the Lebanese political system, and the Nahr el-Barid refugee camp fighting after the emergence of Fateh el-Islam there and in Tripoli. But equally significant was the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) statement in early 2008 effectively apologizing to the Lebanese people and government for the past misdeeds of Palestinians in Lebanon, who had often been engaged in domestic fighting or trampled on the sovereignty of the Lebanese government.

Conditions are now ripe for all parties to make serious advances on this issue because both the Lebanese and Palestinian authorities have publicly and officially (and, I would say, courageously) signaled their desire to go beyond past disputes and sensitivities, and rectify an intolerable situation that demeans both the Palestinians and the Lebanese communities. Progress requires acknowledging and seriously tackling the core issues that matter to both sides.

The Lebanese do not want the Palestinians to be permanently settled in the country and become citizens, to take over chunks of the economy, to be a security problem (as has been the case in some camps where armed groups operated and still operate beyond the reach of the government), or to impinge on Lebanese sovereignty. The Palestinians want to be treated like human beings with civil and human rights (e.g., work opportunities, home ownership, access to basic education and health services), to be seen as more than merely a security threat, and to live a dignified life until their national trauma of exile is resolved.

Most of the discussions that take place on this issue often degenerate into reciprocal name-calling and accusations based on past behavior, which is perhaps understandable in view of the bitter history of Palestinians in Lebanon and the cruel and insensitive behavior of elements on both sides.

Several factors converge to make this a moment for change:
• the challenges of rebuilding the Nahr el-Barid camp;
• the development of a new governance system so the camp can be managed by the Palestinians themselves through popular committees, but with security (and thus sovereignty) primarily in the hands of the Lebanese authorities;
• the politically activating expressions by both sides to resolve past mistakes and move ahead to a new relationship; and
• the continued efforts by the LPDC to address and improve tangible problems related to Palestinian living conditions, personal legal status, and work opportunities.

There are two missing elements: first, a top-level political push from both sides to translate positive declarations into real action on the ground; and, secondly, consultations and joint activities among political and technical groups to achieve this action and the breakthroughs that must emanate from it.

For the first time in many decades, Palestinians and Lebanese seem to agree on the critical areas that matter to both: They want to affirm the rule of law, the sovereignty of the Lebanese state, the security and safety of both communities and all others in Lebanon, the dignity and human rights of the Palestinians in Lebanon, the rejection of the permanent settlement or naturalization (tawteen) of the Palestinians in the country, and affirmation of the refugees’ right of return to Palestine.

This is a rich and heretofore elusive foundation on which to move ahead quickly. Prime Minister Saad Hariri and the PLO leadership and fellow Palestinians in Lebanon would do well to acknowledge this, and act on it swiftly and decisively. Such opportunities for historic political progress do not come around very often, and should not be wasted.

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

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

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Released: 23 November 2009
Word Count: 819
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CAIRO — The atmosphere in Cairo this week tells us much about the contemporary Arab world’s view of the Palestine cause in relation to domestic issues in every Arab country. Ordinary Arabs and their governments alike seem fed up with the incompetence of the Palestinian leadership, while remaining strongly committed emotionally to the justice and rights of the Palestinian cause.

Fittingly, it’s emotionally satisfying for Palestinians, but not very promising politically.

The contrast is vividly reflected this week in the national frenzy over the Egyptian football team’s World Cup qualifying playoff match against Algeria in Sudan, in contrast with little attention being paid to the condition of the Palestinians. Years ago, thousands would have marched in the streets of Cairo to express support for Palestinians against Israel’s occupation and colonization policies. Today, it is a sign of the times that the Egyptian border with southern Gaza remains firmly locked. The Palestinian threat to seek support for an independent state at the UN Security Council receives only passing attention, while the authorities are busy organizing an airbridge to send supporters to cheer on their Egyptian national football team in Khartoum.

In many ways it is hard to criticize the Egyptians, who broke away from the Arab pack three decades ago and signed their separate peace agreement with Israel — to be followed 15 years later by the Jordanian-Israeli peace agreement, after the Palestinians tried to negotiate a permanent peace settlement with Israel via the Oslo agreements. That attempt failed, for many reasons, the primary ones being the Israeli lack of seriousness about an end to colonization of Palestinian land, insistence on annexing much of Jerusalem, and refusing to deal with the Palestinian refugees seriously, while on the Palestinian side the use of suicide bombs against Israelis added a fatal blow to the negotiations.

Many attempts to negotiate comprehensive peace in the last three decades have failed, and each time the Israelis and Palestinians fall back on the same rhetorical positions: Israel says it is prepared to discuss peace arrangements without preconditions (its colonization and strangulation of Palestinian land and society being set aside, presumably, as a non-reality), while the Palestinians accuse Israel of not being serious about negotiating peace. Because Israel is militarily stronger and in control of daily life arteries for Palestinians — like entry and exit points, water, food, electricity and fuel — it tends to define conditions on the ground. The Palestinian leadership, for its part, appeals to the world’s conscience and respect for international law, but with little impact, and even less credibility.

The world has slowly tired of the Palestinians in their current political mode, and focused on other issues, because the prospects of a negotiated Arab-Israeli peace seem slim, as diplomatic attempts to reach a full peace have repeatedly confirmed in the last three decades. It is no wonder that Egypt became weary with this and went its own way. Now it cheers enthusiastically and naturally for its national football team, while keeping the gates to southern Gaza firmly shut.

The astounding thing is that the Palestinian leadership over the years has not woken up to the fact that however just and powerful is the cause of Palestine, it is not an inexhaustible well of emotional and political support from others in the Arab region or abroad. We are likely to witness this demonstrated again in the Arab and international shrug of the shoulders in response to the latest Palestinian idea of seeking Security Council recognition for the political fact and formal borders of a Palestinian state. It is hard to imagine a more unrealistic and fanciful idea than this, given that Israel controls the actual land where the borders should be drawn, and the United States — with its veto — controls the decision-making capacity of the Security Council.

It would have been much more productive for the Palestinian leadership to go to the UN and fight for adoption of the Goldstone Report on the atrocities committed mostly by Israel during the Gaza war last year. Having flip-flopped on the Goldstone Report and now threatening to make a meaningless approach to another UN body, the current Palestinian leadership persists in its legacy of living in a dream world. It is deeply detached from its own — and fellow Arab — people who should be its core support. It is also totally disrespected by the Israeli government, and largely ignored by the rest of the world.

This prevails at a time when Israeli war crimes and colonization continue unabated, but are marginalized politically because of the incompetence of the Palestinian leadership. No wonder more and more Arabs and others turn away from the Palestine issue, and give it only perfunctory rhetorical support without making more costly political moves to oppose Israeli policies or help the Palestinians. Israeli national criminality and Palestinian political incompetence are a deadly combination.

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

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

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Released: 18 November 2009
Word Count: 804
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BEIRUT — Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has reverted to an old political trick by saying he will resign and not run for re-election when the next presidential elections are held in early 2010 – and then immediately arranging a series of staged “rallies” in which ordinary people appear to cheer him and demand that he remain in office. The spectacle is as disheartening as it is old and empty, and it is an insult to the dignity and needs of the Palestinian people.

Three separate issues converge here: the person of Abbas and his own achievements, the nature and quality of Palestinian leadership, and the current priorities of the Palestinian people. On all three counts, Abbas should cut short his silly little melodrama, resign as he said he would, and pave the way for a needed revival of effective Palestinian national leadership.

At the personal level, Abbas is widely respected as a sincere man who has devoted his entire life to the Palestinian cause. But this is not a popularity contest, a character test, or one man’s emotional counseling session; this is about the fate of an entire people whose lives are in distress. Abbas worked closely with Yasser Arafat for four decades and has little to show for it. The most useful thing he could do now is to take advantage of his many years of experience by withdrawing from politics as planned, retreating to a quiet university in Palestine, and painstakingly writing down and analyzing every single major episode in which the Palestinians attempted to negotiate a comprehensive peace agreement with Israel, but always failed.

This is important because Palestinians face a crisis of leadership. The unified national Palestinian leadership that came into its own under Arafat in the late 1960s under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) succeeded in important ways. It asserted Palestinian independent action and minimized Arab interference, brought many different ideological groups under the single PLO umbrella, and it forged a realistic national program that sought to create a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.

All three of those assets that Arafat and his colleagues like Abbas generated have frayed or been abandoned completely. The epic, tragic high note of Abbas’ incompetence and failure as a leader at both the personal and policy levels was his move last month to bow to American and Israeli pressure and delay the UN’s consideration of the Goldstone Report on the Gaza war atrocities. He reversed course quickly, but only after revealing his monumental incompetence to engage with instruments of international law, legitimacy, and accountability, and his insensitivity to the plight of his own people who thirsted for precisely such an impartial call to end the savagery and impunity of Israeli arms.

A new Palestinian leadership needs to be elected in order to regain legitimacy that has been steadily squandered in recent years by Abbas and, before him, Arafat in his waning years. This highlights the third issue at stake, and the single most important national priority for the Palestinian people today: to reconstitute a credible national leadership whose first task always has been and remains to speak for all Palestinians in a single voice, in pursuit of realistic political goals.

At one of his orchestrated “rallies” a few days ago, Abbas said the Palestinians remained strong because of their steadfastness and the justice of their cause. Those are admirable qualities, but they are far from sufficient to achieve Palestinian national rights and statehood, and end their refugeehood. A new Palestinian leadership is required to revive the ability to speak in a single voice for all Palestinians, based on mechanisms that allow all Palestinians — especially the refugee camp dwellers in Arab states — to contribute to the formulation of national policies.

Abbas only accentuates his own weaknesses and the dysfunctionalities of the Palestinian national institutions he heads when he engages in silly charades like his current tour of Palestinian towns and villages where the multitudes demand that he remain in power. He demeans himself and his people by reverting to such transparent shallowness and emptiness. The last thing the Palestinians need now is to be reminded that they are on track to become yet another Arab security state with a leader for life who basks in hero worship and personality cults and faces no serious forms of accountability.

He would do much better to go to Burj el-Barajneh, Yarmouk or Jabal Hussein refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan to consult with his fellow refugees, and forge a consensus policy on making peace with Israel, or resisting its occupation and colonization policies if peace is not a possibility today. The Palestinians need honesty, humility, consensus-building and clarity from their leaders, and Abbas gives them none of these.

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

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

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Released: 16 November 2009
Word Count: 794
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BEIRUT — A series of recent reports and statements critical of Israel by respected individuals and institutions reminds us of a vital challenge to coherent national development and safeguarding the rule of law in the Middle East: Why should anyone respect international law and orderly relations among nations if such standards of conduct are not equally applied to all?

Once or twice a week now we hear statements criticizing Israel’s behavior or exhorting it to respect international rules and norms. A few days ago Amnesty International issued a report about how Israeli control of water resources leaves the Palestinians in the occupied territories dangerously deficient in the amount and the quality of their water. A few days later United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Israel to allow the reconstruction of Gaza to proceed, nearly a year after a massive Israeli military offensive crippled the area’s infrastructure and productive capacity.

He noted: “Ten months after hostilities ended in Gaza, we see no progress on reconstruction or the re-opening of borders. Families have not been able to rebuild their homes. Clinics and schools are still in ruins. I urge Israel to accept the UN reconstruction proposals as set forth, recognizing that the only true guarantee of peace is people’s well-being and security.”

These two examples of international pleas to Israel to adhere to international standards of law-abiding decency came just a few weeks after the report of the Richard Goldstone fact-finding mission for the UN Human Rights Council found sufficient evidence that both Israel and Hamas appeared to have engaged in war crimes and even crimes against humanity in their conduct of the war nearly a year ago.

The larger point of such recent developments pertains to the slow degradation and ultimate negation of the rule of law in guiding the behavior of states and individuals. If states, armed groups and individuals see that some states, like Israel, are merely criticized but not seriously pressured or sanctioned because of their consistently criminal behavior — such as building colonies and inflicting mass reprisals against whole civilian populations — they conclude that international law, human rights standards, UN resolutions, international conventions and other such noble instruments have no meaning, and can be safely ignored.

When legal standards are applied only to some people and not all people, they cross the line from law to racism.

The importance of the Goldstone Report was captured in Goldstone’s statement to the UN Human Rights Council, in which he stressed that pursuing justice for all is critical for ensuring accountability, which in turn is vital for ending impunity in the use of violence against civilians. Here are a few of his statements that I believe reflect the essence and importance of his mission, reflecting the core values that the UN system tries to represent and keep alive:

“We accepted [to undertake the fact-finding mission] with the conviction that pursuing justice is essential and that no state or armed group should be above the law. Failing to pursue justice for serious violations during any conflict will have a deeply corrosive effect on international justice…

“The Mission found that the attack on the only remaining flour producing factory, the destruction of a large part of the Gaza egg production, the bulldozing of huge tracts of agricultural land, and the bombing of some two hundred industrial facilities, could not on any basis be justified on military grounds. Those attacks had nothing whatever to do with the firing of rockets and mortars at Israel. The Mission looked closely and sets out in the Report statements made by Israeli political and military leaders in which they stated in clear terms that they would hit at the ‘Hamas infrastructure’. If ‘infrastructure’ were to be understood in that way and become a justifiable military objective, it would completely subvert the whole purpose of International Humanitarian Law built up over the last 100 years and more. It would make civilians and civilian buildings justifiable targets. These attacks amounted to reprisals and collective punishment and constitute war crimes…

“A word about accountability. It has been my experience in many regions of the world, including my own country, South Africa, that peace and reconciliation depend, to a great extent, upon public acknowledgement of what victims suffer. That applies no less in the Middle East. It is a pre-requisite to the beginning of the healing and meaningful peace process. The truth and accountability are also essential to prevent ascribing collective guilt to a people…

“A culture of impunity in the region has existed for too long. The lack of accountability for war crimes and possible crimes against humanity has reached a crisis point; the ongoing lack of justice is undermining any hope for a successful peace process and reinforcing an environment that fosters violence. Time and again, experience has taught us that overlooking justice only leads to increased conflict and violence.”

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

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

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Released: 02 November 2009
Word Count: 810
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BEIRUT — It is difficult to understand, rationally or emotionally, the full meaning of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s election victory for a fifth consecutive term Sunday, with 89.6 percent of the vote, after two decades in power. One wonders whether we should congratulate the president on his massive victory, or offer him expressions of sympathy because his share of the votes slipped below 90 percent for the first time since he took over power in 1987.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Released: 28 October 2009
Word Count: 800
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