AMMAN, Jordan — The lingering fallout from the November 9 terror attack against three hotels here in the Jordanian capital Amman continues to be characterized by a peculiarly Jordanian combination of determination and indecision. A bold and courageous willingness by King Abdullah II and his state security capabilities to confront the criminals who kill civilians throughout the region and the world is somewhat countered and contradicted by a corresponding meekness in promoting the kind of domestic political reforms that would pull the rug out from under the terrorists in Jordan and regionally.

Amman today is a city of swirling political emotions, sentiments, expectations, and, above all, rumors, as the consequences of the November 9 attack remain unclear to most people. At the same time, there is a widespread sense that things cannot stay the same. Fighting terrorism with the same old methods will work to a large extent, but will not prevent determined criminals from doing their evil deeds. A qualitatively different kind of anti-terror policy is needed, and Jordan is one of the few places in the Arab world that could envisage moving down that path.

I mentioned in my last column that Jordan, unlike most other Arab states, has a special opportunity to make the sorts of historic, substantive changes in its society that could provide the first successful Arab example of a country that fights terror effectively and over the long term. It can do this not only by military, security and intelligence means, but rather by the more effective method of mobilizing all Jordanians to forge a political culture of inclusion and accountability that gives the terrorists and extremists no fertile ground in which to operate.

The general problem and threat throughout the Middle East, and increasingly globally, is the spread of an extremist political ideology that uses violence against its own societies and foreign targets. Terror by Osama Bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi are symptoms of a deeper malaise, and older distortions and tensions in Arab society. These are fundamentally political in nature, along with economic and social aspects that cannot be ignored. The core pan-Arab problem that has allowed fundamentalist religious extremism to flourish and small terror groups to emerge is the problem of abuse of political authority and economic resources in societies where average citizens feel increasingly alienated and powerless. Defeating terror requires eliminating the underlying political environment that allowed it to breed in the first place.
The antidote to terror is not only security measures managed by police and intelligence agencies, or tougher new laws enforced by ministries of interior. The antidote to terror is a political and economic culture in which the majority of ordinary citizens feel empowered, represented and respected as citizens with equal rights. This kind of citizenry working closely with its security agencies can then provide that combination of political legitimacy, social tranquility, and technical police efficiency that will defeat existing terror groups and prevent new ones from springing up.

Jordan could pioneer this concept if it can muster the courage and boldness on the political front that its King Abdullah has already shown on the security front and in his assertions of the moderate Islam that is represented by his own Hashemite family that descends from the Prophet Mohammad. Practical political changes are now needed to transform popular indignation and the leadership’s moral boldness into a new phenomenon — Arab democracy — in which security agencies connect with and are empowered by their own citizenry, but also are held accountable to it. The security-citizenry link is crucial because it represents that pivotal power relationship that now drives much of the Arab world’s discontent, and that in turn makes the political and social environment open to extremist movements.

I would like to suggest some specific examples of procedures that could be instituted in Jordan and all other Arab countries to forge a closer, healthier, relationship among the security services, the political institutions and the citizenry as a whole. Jordan is uniquely placed today to do this because of the rare combination of assets and conditions that define the country. It enjoys a strong wave of public support for the king and leadership. The political elite has spoken often and impressively of setting an example of democratic transition and political reforms for the entire Arab world, but without its deeds matching its words to date. The security system — police, intelligence department, armed forces and others — is both efficient operationally and respected throughout society. It is time to bring these three forces together into a more profound political culture.

Four specific areas of innovation can be explored, which would benefit the security agencies as well as the public at large. The first is to forge a more formal, institutional link between the security system and the public through some sort of civilian oversight body that meets regularly with the security leadership to evaluate policies and strategies, discuss complaints (from all parties), evaluate budgets, make suggestions, and, most importantly, generate a sense of accountability and solidarity that is not always there now. A small group of distinguished men and women could be appointed by the king as a security sector advisory and oversight council, a modest first step towards a more institutionalized accountability mechanism that could be developed later. An even more limited trial could be done by appointing a civilian oversight committee to review the work of the anti-corruption department within the intelligence department.

The second step would be to open the security sector to greater cooperation with the mass media, starting with regular interviews and press briefings, including background and off-the-record briefings. If citizens knew more about the work, methods, concerns and aims of the security agencies this would have two powerful impacts: it would take away much of the sense of marginalization and powerlessness that many citizens feel in the face of their state security systems, whom most citizens assume can act with impunity; and it would conversely prompt many citizens to cooperate legitimately with their police and security sector. More openness and mutual trust between citizen and security agencies would benefit both.

The third possible move would be to forge a more structured relationship of mutual accountability between the security agencies and both the elected lower house of parliament and the appointed upper house. This sort of give-and-take could happen in public at one level — the televised discussion of the security sector budget, for example — while other issues would need to be discussed in closed committees. If Arab parliaments have no say in the running of Arab security systems both will eventually experience serious credibility problems with their own citizens, which is already evident across the entire Arab world.

My fourth suggestion relates to the police force, which is the security agency that has the most direct, daily contact with the public at the local neighborhood level. It is vital that police-community relations be improved and injected with a mechanism for two-way communication, feedback, complaints and problem-solving initiatives. It would be relevant now to establish some local police-community relations councils that include not just the traditional sheikhs and tribal and business leaders; young people — including women, who have their own security issues to raise — need to be included in this sort of effort. The police cannot ensure security alone; they can only do so with the active participation of the entire community, and that requires a deeper, more egalitarian level of communication between police and citizen.

Forging a healthy, transparent, mutually satisfying citizen-security sector relationship is absolutely crucial to the three goals that Jordan seeks to achieve, and that confront all other Arab lands as well: fighting the terror threat, promoting a stable society that does not give rise to extremist movements, and achieving a dignified, prosperous life for all citizens through political, economic, social and educational reforms.

At some point some Arab government will have to stop talking about these goals and start taking practical measures to achieve them. Jordan has the best opportunity to do that given its unique set of circumstances today. I hope it does so, and generates that one elusive example of a democratic, inclusive, accountable Arab political culture in which stability emanates from the dignity and self-confidence of a satisfied citizenry, rather than from the more common pan-Arab phenomenon of open-ended security laws and often unaccountable security and police agencies.

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

Copyright ©2005 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 23 November 2005
Word Count: 1,388
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AMMAN — It is just ten days since the terrible bombings of three hotels in Amman, Jordan, by the Iraq-based Jordanian terrorist and Osama Bin Laden ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. In talking with Jordanian political activists and analysts, average citizens and officials alike during that time, the security challenge and dilemma facing King Abdullah II become very clear. Can traditional security methods stop the inhuman murder of civilians that is Zerqawi’s trademark, or is a bold political leap needed to do the job?

Meeting this challenge could also be an opportunity, though. This requires the Jordanian leadership and society being as bold politically as they have been morally courageous in confronting terrorism and affirming their determination to take on and defeat Zerqawi and his ilk. Moral outrage and tougher security, though, will not get the job done, important as they are.

It is clear that Jordanian society faces much more than just a security problem emanating from Iraq in the wake of the Anglo-American invasion, occupation, and reconfiguration of that country. If this were approached mainly as a security problem, a solution will not be found. The Zerqawis of this world will kill innocent people for years to come, because they will tap an endless supply of willing suicide bombers in the current political context of tension, occupation, limited franchise, and widespread socio-economic stress and degradation throughout the Arab world.

This is also not only a Jordan-, Iraq- or Zerqawi-specific problem. The multi-tiered challenge in Jordan comprises the same set of state-building issues and political riddles that have confounded every other Arab government and society in the past half a century.

It is crucial in this respect to note two important, related but also separate facts: It is novel and significant that the Amman terror bombers were Iraqis who come from the current Iraq-based cohort of killers; but we must not lose sight of the wider dilemma that terror attacks by Arabs against their own or neighboring countries have been a chronic, even structural, problem since the mid-1970s, and Zerqawi entered the terror business against Jordan and other targets well before the Iraq war.

Furthermore, the core issue of contention is not religion. It would be a big mistake and diversion to frame this as a battle of religious thought, ideology, interpretation, leadership or legitimacy, as some Arab or Islamic leaders are tempted to do. This would play into the hands of Bin Laden and Zerqawi in the same way that George Bush and Tony Blair fell into the trap of waging a “global war on terror” that has also turned out to be a global recruiting poster and fountainhead for terrorists — with Jordan merely the most recent victim.

While Jordanians and many others understandably focus on security, religious ideology, Zerqawi and Iraq as immediate concerns, the core problem is deeper, wider and older than all these. It is the problem of political violence that was once directed at narrow targets within a few Arab countries, and has now morphed and expanded into political terrorism that crosses Arab borders and travels the world.

Jordan or any other country will not succeed if it responds to such terror by doing that which Arab states have always done: shuffling around officials cut from the same mold, and introducing tough new anti-terror legislation. The British government did just that in Northern Ireland for a quarter century, and failed when it sought to end terror and political extremism mainly through police tactics; it only succeeded when it brought political and economic solutions to bear on the terror that was, ultimately, a symptom of political, economic and nationalistic grievances. Israel similarly continues to learn the same lessons. There is no legislation harsh enough or security service tough enough to stop suicide bombers who target pizza parlors, bus stops and hotels. And if a guard and fence are placed around every one of these places, the bombers will attack hairdressers and sheep markets.

A more effective approach is needed, which is why Jordan — unlike, say, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, or Egypt — is so intriguing and potentially promising today, as it girds to raise the intensity of battle against the terrorists who have assaulted it for decades. This is because the multiple causes, consequences and potential deterrents of political terrorism may dovetail nicely with a set of current issues and trends within Jordan, possibly generating bold new policies that could provide that breakthrough antidote to political extremism and violence that has eluded the entire Arab world.

Specifically, three important factors in Jordan should be grasped today in a more clear and effective way if serious progress is to be made in the Hashemite Kingdom’s own running war against terror that has endured for decades: These are political reform, security reform, and, most importantly, the intersection between governance and security. Jordan has a rare, historic opportunity today to achieve that which no Arab country has achieved, or even dared to attempt: to deter political extremism and ensure its security through a political process that meshes into a single dynamic the imperatives of political reform, genuine democratization, economic growth and prosperity, equality for all citizens, and civilian oversight of the security services.

In my next column, I will offer some specific proposals on how Jordan could approach this delicate but critically important challenge, so as to aspire to become the first democratic, stable and prosperous Arab state.

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

Copyright ©2005 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 19 November 2005
Word Count: 896
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MANAMA, Bahrain — The role of religion in public, personal and political life in the Arab world has become a common issue of discussion at gatherings that look at trends in the Middle East. Unfortunately, though, the subject is usually discussed with such intense passion and ideological bias that useful analysis is hard to achieve.

That is why the discussion on religion in business, education and politics in the region that took place a few days ago at the Arab Business Council annual meeting here in Bahrain was so useful and important. Instead of heated argument, a tempered, probing discussion of the issue took place, based on empirical data from a new poll of six Arab countries by the leading American pollsters Zogby International, headed by the respected John Zogby. The poll, based on face-to-face interviews in Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) during October, asked citizens and residents for their views on education, business and the importance of Shari’a (traditional Islamic) law.

Three important overall results struck me, and many others here, as significant, suggesting that the issue of religion in public life is more nuanced and less frightening than it is often made out to be by many people both in the Middle East and abroad. The three are that: Arabs and Muslims in this region hold a very wide range of views on religion’s role in their lives and do not share monolithic perspectives; religion is an important part of people’s identities and therefore should apply to business and governance in a manner that raises the quality of life; and, people should continue to interpret religious law and its everyday applications.

The first point has always been clear to citizens and residents in the Middle East, but has been heavily obfuscated or ignored by a growing Western tendency to paint Arabs, Islam and Muslims in a single color. The poll reconfirmed yet again that Arabs hold a very wide range of views on the role of religion in their public lives, reflecting, for example, the same sort of lively debates on abortion, evolution, or prayer in public school that defines American culture. There is no such thing as “an Arab view” on Islamic governance or applying Shari’a law. There are many different and often conflicting views, within countries as well as across the region.

The second point is that Arabs tend to be very comfortable with religion playing a public role in their societies, but they want the religious impact to produce positive results, in terms of good government, honest business and quality education that improves their children’s life prospects.

A majority of respondents, except Lebanon and Jordan, want to apply Islamic Shari’a law to business operations (82 percent in Saudi Arabia, 69 percent in UAE, 58 percent in Morocco and 50 percent in Egypt). In Jordan just 39 percent favor this, and in Lebanon majorities of both the Muslim and Christian populations soundly reject applying Shari’a.

The third and perhaps most significant point is that while a majority of citizens polled said Shari’a law should be applied to businesses, they also believe that further interpretation is needed to allow businesses in the Muslim world to integrate into the global economy. In other words, most Muslims in this region see Islam and the laws derived from it as living, evolving phenomena that are inspired or dictated by the Divine, but that require constant human reinterpretation to best serve temporal needs like education, business and governance.

Majorities or pluralities in every nation said that further interpretation is needed (78 percent in the UAE, 60 percent in Morocco, small majorities in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, and just two-fifths of the populations in Egypt and Jordan).

One important issue that keeps many analysts and politicians busy in the region these days is the prospect of Islamist movements — Hamas, Hizbullah, the Muslim Brotherhood — winning democratic elections and coming to power peacefully. The citizens polled across the Arab world “differed substantially on whether they would trust a popularly elected Islamic government to abide by the rules of a democracy,” the survey analysts concluded.

Asked whether they would trust an elected Islamic government to follow democratic rules, 72 percent of Saudis and 70 percent of UAE residents said yes, while just 36 percent in Lebanon agreed. Skepticism was highest among Christians in Lebanon — just one in five believes an Islamic government would abide by the laws of a democracy. People in Morocco, Egypt, and Jordan are more lukewarm to this idea, which is supported by pluralities ranging from 39 percent to 46 percent.

The survey also documented “a striking split between various Arab states on the quality of their education systems.” Just 15 percent of Egyptians believe their system prepares young people for successful careers in today’s global economy, while 56 percent of Saudis and UAE residents hold this view.

The Arabs polled also had very different outlooks on the influence of religion on education in their states. Majorities in Egypt and Lebanon believe religion holds too little sway on education and preparing youth for the future (although in Lebanon, this is only a majority viewpoint among the Christian portion of the population). A 54 percent majority in the UAE believes religion is too powerful an influence, though in all other polled countries just 30 percent or less shared this view. In Saudi Arabia, 45 percent believe religion’s influence on education is about right and 24 percent think it is too little.

There is much food for thought in these poll results for those who would like to analyze the reality of an Arab-Islamic region that is very differentiated and nuanced in its views on religion and public life, rather than the imagined Arab world where all people think the same.

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

Copyright ©2005 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 16 November 2005
Word Count: 963
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BEIRUT — The terror attack against three hotels in Amman, Jordan, November 9, represents a qualitatively significant and troubling step in the global dynamics of terror and the “global war on terror”. While terror attacks against local and foreign targets in Jordan are not new, this one has special significance, if, as claimed, it is the work of Osama Bin Laden’s main man in Iraq and the Middle East, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

As such, it represents another fateful step in the expansion of terror tactics throughout the Middle East. This in turn highlights a negative consequence of the Anglo-American-led war in Iraq, and the impossible predicament this generates for most people in the Arab world. Jordan today reflects the dilemma of those hundreds of millions of Arabs who oppose American policies in this region and also suffer from their consequences of widening instability and terror.

Jordan has long been vulnerable to terror attacks because of four broad strands of its policies — a tradition of close relations with and dependence on Western powers (the U.K., then the U.S.); a penchant to run against the grain of Nasserite-and Baathist-style emotional Arab nationalism; a close but awkwardly competitive relationship, and occasional confrontation, with Palestinian nationalism; and, a penchant secretly to explore means of coexistence with Israel and Zionism as a means to ensuring Jordan’s own survival and prosperity, culminating in the 1994 Jordan-Israel peace treaty.

For these and other reasons, Jordan has suffered ideological opposition and a sustained series of terror attacks in the country and abroad for decades. Thus from its early days of proto-statehood in the 1920s Jordan has had to create a very efficient security system, with a combination of coverage by the armed forces, the police and the general intelligence department that has been the envy of other security agencies in the developing world.

Jordanians largely have supported and appreciated the work of their security services, for the stability and daily life normalcy they provide. The cost, in terms of stunted domestic political freedoms and participation, and stifled cultural expression, has been one that most Jordanians grudgingly accept to pay, particularly in contrast with the war, violence and chaos that has intermittently plague nearby countries. Jordan’s pragmatic state-building formula has been a relatively successful one that has also absorbed millions of Palestinian refugees and emigrants from other Arab lands into the national demographic fabric, despite occasional stresses.

In the past four years Jordan’s sustained record of stability in the face of regional tensions and ideological foes has had to absorb the new challenge of the consequence of siding with the United States on the “global war on terrorism”. Jordan has always fought terror vigorously and effectively, given its status as a favorite target of terrorists; but it had usually done so within a regional context, a sort of ugly game amongst local protagonists who knew each other well and kept it all in the neighborhood. Jordan, Syria, Iraq, the PLO, Libya and other players would fight each other one year, then form unions the next. This roller coaster of unpredictability and rolling contradictions has been a constant feature of the modern Arab world that confounds outsiders, but nevertheless defines local behavior.

Since September 2001, the local neighborhood and its peculiar political and terror games have gone global. The United States has entered the picture with an army that still dominates events in Iraq. The rules of the game have changed. The dominant dynamic that now defines events pits the United States’ neo-conservative-driven ideology and armed forces, and their global and Middle Eastern government partners, on the one hand, against a range of anti-American populist and terrorist forces, on the other. The anti-American forces include two very different groups: first, the mass public opinion sentiments in the Middle East that reject American policies and military interventions, but aspire to changes through peaceful political action and resistance; second, the small band of terrorists who are inspired and led by Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda group and offshoots like Zarqawi in Iraq.

The November 9 attacks in Amman may represent the most dramatic example of the confused consequences of the Anglo-American-led war in Iraq. Under its present indirect American military management, Iraq has become the main training ground and motivating force for Bin Ladenist terrorists in the Middle East. Some of these deadly militants are starting to implement the policies that they have always espoused, mainly targeting the U.S. and its global allies in the war on terror, along with Arab governments whom they view as equally culpable of crimes against the Islamic realm.

The new dilemma for countries like Jordan is acute: the Jordanian population that strongly opposes American foreign policy now also suffers the crimes of terrorist forces that have been motivated anew by the consequence of American policies in Iraq and other lands. Iraq today has become the spawning ground for the current wave of terrorism that is mainly targeting Iraqis and other Arabs. Jordanians and Arabs elsewhere who want to fight against terrorism — and have done so for decades — find themselves in the awkward position of not knowing whether this is best done by supporting or opposing Anglo-American policies in Iraq.

The larger dilemma that confounds all concerned — Jordanians, other Arabs, Americans, Israelis, and our friends in Micronesia who have been peculiarly quiet recently — is that military-based policies in Iraq, Palestine and other places that are marketed as promoting security in fact tend to promote new forms of violence, and wider circles of vulnerability. That Jordan, the paradigm of security and proven friend of the West, should now be the latest victim of this dilemma suggests just how intense and virulent it is.

This also reminds us all — Arabs, Americans, Israelis — of the urgent need to review our penchant to seek security by military means, instead of through political dignity, the rule of law equally applied to all, and socio-economic concord. These ultimately are the only proven tools that fight terror, and affirm human decency and national security.

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

Copyright ©2005 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 11 November 2005
Word Count: 994
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BEIRUT — The pattern of young people from the Middle East and North Africa getting into trouble — as we used to say in the 1960s — has evolved in recent decades from isolated and episodic incidents into a veritable global phenomenon. The “trouble” these days, however, is not local gangsterism or self-inflicted problems with drugs or crime. The structural problems of young Arabs, North Africans and Asians — economic, social and political — have emigrated with them to other parts of the world. Many in our region and abroad have warned for three decades now of the dangers of ignoring the obvious stresses and disequilibria that plague so many young people in the Arab-Asian region. The cost of continued inaction and irresponsibility is not only higher now, it is also spreading around the world.

The news Tuesday was typical: young men of North African origin burn cars and clash with police throughout France for nearly two weeks straight. Smaller incidents of random violence plague German cities. Young Middle Eastern immigrants are arrested in Australia before setting off a potentially catastrophic series of terror bombings. Throughout the Middle East and North Africa, young men continue to feed the recruiting lines of suicide bombers, resistance fighters, social-economic and political militants, freelance terrorists and legitimate, peaceful Islamist activists, all sharing a common attribute across the continents. They are dissatisfied with their current status and prospects in society and they will no longer stew in silence. They have moved beyond passive acceptance of their fate to the point of engaging in dynamic, violent actions that they see as assertive, redemptive or simply an appropriate expression of their anger, humiliation, marginalization and, above all, fear.

The causes of the violent, often nihilistic, acts of young Middle Eastern men around the world are neither unknown nor beyond the realm of corrective policies. There are no puzzles here. The core problem is mass degradation and alienation that manifest themselves in two milieus simultaneously: in urban belts of educated, usually unemployed, young men throughout Arab-Asian towns and cities; and in the parallel urban zones of mass disenfranchisement and marginalization that have become more common and visible in Western Europe, North America and Australia.

This is a cruelly recurring problem of inadequate integration and citizenship rights that plagues a young man in his own country, and again when he and his family emigrate to Western lands. Arab experts and colleagues abroad have repeatedly documented the multi-faceted malaise of Arab youth: poor education, abuse of power, limited and unequal economic opportunities, lack of personal freedoms, cultural alienation, substandard housing, poverty, quality of life disparities, hyper-urbanization, the stresses of internal or international migration, low global competitiveness, weakening family and community networks, changing gender roles, the impact of global media, and increasing environmental pressures, to mention only the most obvious.

These problems that push young Arabs to violence are firmly anchored in the overarching weaknesses and distortions of their home societies, where power is wielded without sufficient accountability, education is provided without enough opportunity, and people often are not allowed by law even to express their basic social, religious, ethnic and political identities. The consequent tensions that build up are briefly alleviated or postponed through consumerism and materialism, enjoying Baywatch and Batman on television, or repeatedly denouncing America, Israel, British colonialism, and all the Arab leaders in passionate oratory.

This diversionary interlude lasts for, oh, about five-to-seven years in warm climates, and seven-to-ten years in cooler ones. Then, one day, the human spirit snaps. Baywatch, Batman, subsidized falafel sandwiches, and cell phones with cameras and music players no longer compensate for the existential fears that haunt many of our youth.

Our collective problem in the north and south alike is that we are talking about nearly a hundred million men and women who fall into this category of disenchanted adolescents and under-30 youth whose fundamental humanity has been pushed beyond the limits of its genetic and emotional programming. The sheer numbers are both telling and numbing: The population of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has increased from some 60 million in the 1930s, to 112 million in the 1950s, to over 415 million today — an astounding seven-fold increase in just three generations. The population will not stabilize until it doubles again to over 800 million by around 2050.

International Labor Organization (ILO) data shows that high population growth rates in the past decade have been coupled with a high labor force growth rate of 3.3 per cent a year. Labor markets have done a poor job in trying to absorb the 3.6 million people every year who enter the job market; they will do no better from now until 2015, during which the labor force is expected to grow by 2.6 percent annually, meaning that some four million new workers will seek jobs every year. Only one in every third young person is working, in a region that suffers the highest youth unemployment rates in the world — around 30 percent.

One reason for this, the ILO notes, is that the education system produces unemployable youth. Graduate unemployment reaches up to 50 percent and more in Jordan and Yemen, and 27 percent in Morocco. This challenge of a large number of educated, unemployed young men and women will persist for decades ahead, because of the peculiarly young age of the Arab population. Those aged 20-24 years have increased from 10 million in 1950 to 36 million today, and will reach at least 56 million by 2050, because the under-15 population in the MENA region comprises 36 percent of the total population (compared to just 16 percent in Europe).

The really shocking thing is not staggering data, or the shocking political and human implications — but that none of this is new or surprising. These trends have been documented and pointed out for at least a generation. I remember when such statistics and projections were first broached in the region in the late-1970s, eliciting raised eyebrows, but not much else.

Burning cars in Paris and interrupted terror bombings in Sydney may achieve that which a generation of indigenous, patient scholarship, analysis and activism in the Middle East and North Africa have not elicited: serious political and economic reforms that assert the basic rights or Arab citizens to live in societies defined by decency and equality, and the indelible humanity of Arab youth who have been deformed beyond recognition by the inequities of their own tortured political cultures.

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

Copyright ©2005 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 08 November 2005
Word Count: 1,078
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UNITED NATIONS, New York — Syria and Lebanon have received center-stage attention at the UN Security Council here in New York this week, but the ongoing diplomatic action related to these two countries may well cast its net much further afield in due course. The events we witnessed this week will impact on Syria and Lebanon, but are equally important for four other parties: the United States and its engagement of the world, the credibility and impact of the UN in the Middle East and other regions, the revival of close diplomatic cooperation between the US and its European partners (especially France), and governments and their security agencies throughout the Middle East, who should expect to be held to a higher standard of accountability.

This is my conclusion from discussions this week with knowledgeable diplomats, analysts, and international and American officials here and in Washington, who have been deeply involved in Security Council Resolution 1636 (demanding Syrian compliance with the investigation of the murder of Rafik Hariri) and the UN Secretary-General’s follow-up report on Syrian compliance with Resolution 1559.

Just as interesting as their separate analyses is their striking unanimity on the implications behind the current diplomatic effort to pressure Syria and hold accountable anyone proven to have been involved in the Hariri murder. The main thrust of the ongoing diplomatic effort is to force Syrian compliance with the UN-mandated murder investigation headed by Detlev Mehlis, and to let the facts of the investigation and the subsequent court trials lead where the facts take them.

The historical significance of this was succinctly explained to me by Shashi Tharoor, the UN’s seasoned Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, who has followed such things for years.

“This is an unprecedented act by the UN,” he said, “to appoint an investigator responsible only to the international community, essentially looking into the conduct of governmental agencies or individuals attached to them having committed a capital crime in another state. This is epochal as an event, and also is an important element in the development of the United Nations as an institution that pursues justice around the world.”

While stressing that nobody has been convicted, he explains that, “This is an investigation that raises issues, points out possibilities, certainly raises questions and suspicions. At this point nobody has been convicted of anything and we at the UN are not sitting here pointing fingers at any particular individual, government or regime. What we are saying is that it certainly looks like some people who have an association with the government or government agencies in Syria, and people who have an association with some aspects of the government of Lebanon, may be implicated in the assassination of a former prime minister, and that is serious enough.”

Other international and American sources who prefer not to be named because of their sensitive positions and involvement in the diplomatic effort stressed the significance of the unanimous 15-0 vote on Resolution 1636 last Monday. The resolution demanded that Syria comply with the UN investigation, and only vaguely mentioned “further action” should Syria not cooperate.

This reflects three key dynamics that may be significant in this and other situations in the Middle East. European, especially French, diplomatic advice, combined with the assertive foreign policy management of Condoleezza Rice, is impacting on Washington’s approach to changing the behavior of countries in the Middle East. There is a visible tempering of the previous American attitude, driven by the neo-conservative triumphalists, that “Washington should use diplomatic and military force to clear the decks in the Middle East and let the cards fall where they may,” in the words of one source who has been directly involved in international diplomacy in the Middle East for many years. And, the international community is determined to pursue the Hariri murder investigation in a methodical, step-by-step manner — meaning that the probe will penetrate into those areas in the Syrian governance system that have been identified as leads worth pursuing.

“All the parties seem to have learned the mistakes of Iraq,” one international source said, “and in this case they are sequencing and prioritizing moves one step at a time.”

An American analyst who has followed the case closely mirrors the views of other sources who said that French and international diplomats repeatedly advised the Americans that achieving unanimity is more important than using strong language in UN resolutions, as 1636 seems to confirm. The diplomatic focus consequently has remained on Lebanon and the Hariri murder investigation. The key aim in the short run is to maintain the impact and credibility of the Mehlis investigation, by keeping it Lebanon-specific, especially as this relates to the desire to question Syrian officials and perhaps others.

Though Washington has tempered its tactics, its end game, or final outcome, remains rather unclear to most analysts and participants in this process. Opinions vary on whether the U.S. would like to bring down the Syrian government, or simply pressure it enough to change its policies on Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine-Israel, Hizbullah and related regional matters, such as ties with Iran and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

An American source explains that Washington seems to have reined in its inclination to change the Syrian regime: “The neo-cons in the government who used to say ‘anything is better than Bashar al-Assad’ no longer have the upper hand. The diplomatic pressure will continue, but without a clear strategy on where this will lead, either in terms of sanctions, low-cost regime change, or just a change in regime behavior in Damascus.”

This is partly explained by the fact that U.S. policy that had been largely driven by Pentagon civilian hawks in recent years is now back in the hands of the State Department; it is also influenced by other factors, such as European engagement, the fallout from Iraq, and President Bush’s domestic political troubles.

The shift in American tactics may also betray an intriguing but unproven new angle: that legitimate international diplomatic action against Syrian or other suspects in the Hariri investigation could be an effective route to promoting democratic changes in other parts of the Middle East.

“These UN resolutions suggest to some that Lebanon can be the epicenter of change and democratic transformations in the Middle East,” one international diplomat said. He added that is so “especially because Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and the Lebanese government have risen to the occasion and done their job.”

Where does this leave the Syrian regime? Again, the unanimity among those informed American, European, and international sources I talked to was striking, as they all thought that the government of President Assad faced an existential choice regardless of how it responded to the latest UN resolution. The leadership in Damascus will face trouble if it defies the UN, and it will also have difficulty complying with the demands to allow the Mehlis team to question senior security officials, including members of the Syrian president’s family, privately and outside the country.

The consensus seems to be that the Syrians are cornered due to their own mistakes in not responding more clearly, and earlier, to the demands of the international community. Their only feasible response now is seen to be to comply fully with UN demands, which would ultimately exonerate the innocent and hold accountable any individuals whom fair court trials might reveal to be guilty.

UN officials themselves are careful about gauging the implications of current events, while noting their significance. Tharoor explains that Resolution 1636 and the follow-up to 1559 “are sui generis, cases that stand by themselves, but the UN is an organization where precedents are always noticed. The history of the UN shows that when something has been done once, it obviously echoes throughout the region.”

Could these and other relevant UN actions in the Middle East and abroad be interpreted as implying a renewed level of UN engagement with the problems of the ME?

“I would like to think so,” Tharoor says. “I think the Security Council has shown that it understands the importance of this region and it realizes that the problems that have arisen require sustained and serious attention. Those of us who have been worried about the Security Council’s failure to act more decisively on other issues in the area can take heart from this process, because it suggests that this is something they can build upon. The precedent-setting nature of decisions in the Council suggests a more than interesting constellation of events.”

Indeed, a terror attack and mass murder in Lebanon have triggered an international investigation and a strong diplomatic consensus on an expected political response by the Syrian government. The reverberations of all this may well move to other parts of this region in due course. Keep watching Lebanon with one eye, and the rest of the Middle East with the other.

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

Copyright ©2005 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 05 November 2005
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THE UNITED NATIONS, New York — I was at the United Nations in New York Monday when the Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1636 demanding Syria’s full cooperation on the investigation of the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. It was very clear that Syria is in much deeper trouble than it seems to acknowledge. The significance of Monday’s vote is that the United Nations Security Council took the unprecedented step of taking specific action to support an international investigation into the actions of individuals and organizations in one country (Syria) related to a capital crime committed in another country (Lebanon).

Bashar Assad and the Syrian government are being squeezed into a diplomatic corner, isolated and pressured politically, and are having their sovereignty slowly whittled away. This important trend was manifested by five key aspects of the resolution: it was adopted unanimously, under Chapter VII of the UN Charter that requires mandatory compliance and authorizes enforcement measures in the presence of the foreign ministers of most council members, repeatedly affirms a concern about possible Syrian involvement with the Hariri murder terror attack, and demands specific Syrian actions, including detaining officials and individuals who are part of the inner circle of power and are considered as suspects in the attack.

Damascus does not seem to realize that its traditional responses to foreign pressure — delaying, denying, giving in just enough to prevent the worst threats from materializing, pointing out the contradictions between how the world treats Syria and Israel — no longer work. The world is unimpressed, unconvinced and unmoved. It has responded by making Syria the international test case and example of a political dynamic that has heretofore been a purely American enterprise — demanding changes in Arab states’ behavior in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, as a means of “draining the swamp” and reducing the threat of extremism and terror from our region.

An intriguing element in the proceedings Monday was the disdainful manner in which the U.S. and U.K. foreign ministers personally criticized Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Sharaa after his comments on the resolution. The U.K.’s Jack Straw called the Syrian remarks “grotesque and insensitive” and “at best, absurd,” and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice later referred to Sharaa’s comments as a “really unbelievable tirade” and “a truly strange presentation.”

The combination of the political pressure and the aggressive rhetoric against Syria reflect less a genteel diplomatic process and more an exasperated attempt to discipline an unruly adolescent or wayward family member.

The unanimous nature of the resolution also must be seen in the light of another important development that is very clear here at the UN headquarters in New York: in the first year of George W. Bush’s second term, the United States has started to scale back on its unilateral military approach to changing the world after 9/11, and instead is selectively using a much more multilateral approach, anchored in working with the Europeans and through the Security Council.

As such, Resolution 1636 is as much about affirming a legitimate form of international intervention in the internal affairs and external behavior of individual states as it is about addressing the specifics of the Hariri murder investigation. Respected American analysts in Washington who follow these things closely believe that “realists” in the U.S. administration are implementing policies that still aim to achieve the same goals that were first defined by the neoconservatives a few years ago, but on the basis of the lessons of America’s troubles in Iraq.

“We can only do one Iraq at a time, because it’s all-consuming” one respected analyst-columnist told me, “so there is a deal to be done with Syria, where the U.S. wants behavior change, not necessarily regime change.”

The Iraqi link in the Syrian situation is a critical one from the American perspective, as Rice made clear in her remarks at the UN. She specifically singled out Syria’s “Šfalse statements, its support for terrorism, its interference in the affairs of its neighbors and its destabilizing behavior in the Middle East. Now the Syrian government must make a strategic decision to fundamentally change its behavior.”

Many analysts in Washington seem to agree that the U.S. has limited military options in Syria while it is bogged down in Iraq, does not want to risk chaos in two large Arab countries at once, and is concerned about who might replace Assad should regime change be attempted. This suggests again that a deal is there to be made, whereby the Syrian regime complies with demands to change its regional behavior in return for retaining power inside Syria. This is so especially since Rice and other American officials tend not to stress Syria’s domestic policies, but focus instead on its regional links, to Iraq, Palestinians, Iran, and Hizbullah in Lebanon.

The steady stream of UN resolutions pressuring Syria will continue, with another one expected soon on Syria’s compliance with previous UN resolutions demanding that it stop interfering in Lebanon. The demands being made on the Syrian president and regime are increasingly difficult for them to meet, but the demands are only getting more severe with each new resolution.

If a deal can be made, its outlines will have to be made clear in the coming six weeks, before the mid-December deadline set by Monday’s resolution. The chances of this happening are good, I suspect, but it will probably require significant internal changes that modify the bases of the Syrian regime’s legitimacy and incumbency, somewhat akin to what Mikhail Gorbachev did in the Soviet Union shortly after he took power.

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

Copyright ©2005 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 02 November 2005
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BOSTON — This is a moment of potential change in Washington and its foreign policy, for two main reasons: domestic pressures, legal problems and strengthening opposition may reduce the president’s power in the last years of his second term, and new approaches or tactics may be sought to address some of the nagging issues that challenge the U.S. abroad, especially in Iraq, Iran and the declared American policy of promoting democracy and freedom.

The Middle East has been the focus of the Bush team’s foreign policy since September 11, 2001, and it continues to define important aspects of America’s engagement with the world. Viewed from both the United States and the Middle East alike, the relationship between these two regions seems to touch on a series of issues that is each important in its own right. Together, they comprise a rich and compelling agenda of mutual engagement that offers both befuddling challenges and historical opportunities. And into this broad tapestry of issues has now been added the striking and important announcement that was made in Washington earlier this week, that efforts “to bolster the growth of democracy” are now among the top three missions for American intelligence agencies around the world.

This is intriguing, to say the least, and a very positive development in many ways, but also perilous in others. It has to be viewed within the wider context of the multiple big issues that define U.S.-Middle East relations, which I would list as follows: Iraq; Arab-Israeli peace-making; Iran’s nuclear industry; terrorism; weapons of mass destruction proliferation; promoting democracy and the rule of law; enhancing socio-economic development and meeting basic human needs; Turkey and its moves towards the European Union; global diplomatic intervention in the Lebanon-Syria arena via the UN Security Council; and, securing energy supplies.

Other issues in the region also deserve our attention, such as Darfur, women’s status and rights, youth conditions and prospects, minority rights, migrant workers’ rights, and water and other environmental issues, to mention just a few. But the ten issues I mentioned above resonate widely around the region and the world, and in most cases have already generated serious interventions by foreign powers. The United States, whether one likes it or not, remains the major power that usually tries to define the agenda, and the means, of foreign intervention in the Middle East. This is done through war and occupation, regime change threats or implementation, economic pressures and embargos, diplomatic action, or positive economic and other inducements that aim to foster changes in the behavior of various Middle Eastern governments or political movements.

At this moment of subtle reassessment in how it intervenes and engages diplomatically in the region, Washington is also absorbing the important lessons of several parallel dynamics: its difficult military and political experience in Iraq, the more successful effort to pressure Syria via UN Security Council resolutions, the ongoing diplomatic engagement of Iran via the Europeans, the apparent breakthrough on nuclear issues with North Korea, and the still strong backlash around the world to U.S. attempts to define a global agenda in fields like fighting terror, promoting democracy and holding accountable perpetrators of war crimes or crimes against humanity.

So when Washington’s new strategy document formally makes promoting democracy among the top three missions for its intelligence agencies (the other two are to counter terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction), we in the Middle East should judge this in the wider context of the issues that concern us and the dynamics that bind us to the U.S. and other foreign powers. In this respect, it is certainly good that Washington now institutionalizes democracy and the rule of law as primary, long-term goals of its foreign policy, moving beyond only the rhetorical flourishes of presidential speeches aimed mainly at domestic audiences.

It is more problematic that this is to be done in part through the work of the CIA and other intelligence agencies. This is not unusual for the United States, though, which normally talks about and dances around the challenge of promoting democracy and freedom in the Middle East, rather than grappling with it directly through a more consistent set of policies that seek freedom in Palestine as well as Iraq, and democracy in Tunisia as well as Lebanon. It is somewhat awkward for the U.S. to promote democracy through spies and spin doctors, i.e., its intelligence agencies, and its rather naive public diplomacy efforts now headed by the heroic Karen Hughes, who carries the burdens of her impossible mission on her strong Texan shoulders.

Despite these misgivings, the world should seriously explore this new American strategy. We should welcome the professed American goals to promote democracy, especially throughout the Middle East, but we should also make it clear that this policy will fail if it is implemented with the same inappropriate tactics and tone — unilateralism, militarism, selective and erratic implementation, dictating goals, trying to buy partners and friends — that have plagued other American efforts in this respect.

We who are the intended beneficiaries and targets of this policy should engage the U.S. and others in the West to ensure that this policy achieves the results of flourishing Middle Eastern democracies that we have long sought for ourselves. Such success requires a change in traditional American diplomatic policies, tactics and styles, as well as a change in Arab attitudes that have generally shunned or discounted the seriousness of American efforts in this direction.

An American intelligence agencies strategy document on promoting democracy and the rule of law around the world is a lot more meaningful in my book than a speech by the American president. We must move quickly to find out if this is another Western or American deception, or a serious strategic shift. We must call America’s bluff on this, to determine if it is, indeed, a bluff or not. If it is serious, however, we would be criminally negligent to ignore what may be a historic opportunity for Arabs, other Middle Easterners, Americans and the Western democracies as a whole to work together — perhaps for the first time in the past century — for goals that would generate a win-win situation for all concerned. We have work to do.

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

Copyright ©2005 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 29 October 2005
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As Israeli-Palestinian war-and-peace-making prospects continue to bounce around like a ping-pong ball in a wind tunnel, some important new survey evidence has just been published that warrants the attention of those who work for peace and normalcy in the entire Middle East. The work in question is a public opinion survey of Palestinians that questioned them on their attitudes to their own security services, including the police, army, intelligence, and the various armed militias and neighborhood political or gang-like groups.

It helps us understand, for example, why there is continued strong support for the Palestinian political militias and underground resistance groups that continue to attack Israelis, as happened again earlier this week with such negative impact on Israeli-Palestinian peace-making efforts. It also shows that most ordinary citizens prefer the rule of law to the rule of the gun. There is a powerful message here to Israeli and Palestinian leaders, and to those around the world who seek to assist them both.

The survey’s summary results have just been published by the two Swiss-based groups that conducted it, the Geneva Center for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) and the Graduate Institute for Development Studies at Geneva University. The survey, entitled Palestinian Public Perceptions of Security Sector Governance, was overseen by Arnold Luethold, Riccardo Bocco and Luigi de Martino, whose initial summary report is now available on the web at http://www.dcaf.ch/mena/Palestinian_Perceptions.pdf.

The study’s importance relates both to the Palestinian-Israeli situation and to the wider context of the whole Middle East, where many governance systems and a few entire countries are run by security agencies like personal fiefs. Understanding the relationship between ordinary citizens and the security-military services that dominate them is the critical first step towards serious security sector reforms, without which political and economic reforms in the region will remain an incomplete effort and an elusive dream.

The July 2005 survey involved 1,500 individuals living in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, asking their views on public sector security forces and the relevant civilian bodies needed to oversee them, including the judiciary. I contacted DCAF’s Senior Fellow and head of their Middle East program Arnold Luethold to find out more about the survey’s significance, in his view. He said that “Understanding how the public views the security sector and its activities is important for good governance, and it is also an important tool for evaluating the direction of future reforms. By giving the public a voice in the discussion of their own future security, public perception studies are a step towards greater inclusiveness in the management and oversight of security issues. They are also a means for establishing public accountability of the security sector and involving civil society in its governance.”

Among the report’s key findings are the following:

* The feeling of security among the Palestinian population increased significantly from October 2004 until July 2005. A majority of Palestinians perceive Israeli occupation as the main threat to their security, with the lack of socio-economic improvement being the second most important reason for the feeling of insecurity.

* Palestinians place high trust in unofficial (non-statutory) forces. After the Civil Defense, non-statutory armed groups such as the Al-Aqsa and Al-Qassam Brigades are the most trusted organizations amongst Palestinian security organizations in the occupied Palestinian territories. Organizations controlled by the Palestinian Authority, such as the Preventive Security, General Intelligence, National Security and Civil Police, scored significantly lower trust levels.

* Despite the high level of trust in these non-statutory armed groups, a majority of respondents are in favor of dissolving them (56 percent say this is a very important measure, reaching 69 percent in the refugee camps in Gaza). The reasons for this apparent contradiction — high trust but also a desire to disband the armed groups — is an issue that will be explored in more depth.

* The Sharia (Islamic religious) courts are the most trusted judicial institutions (50 percent expressed very high trust). In second place were Palestinian clan-based customary law institutions, with the official Palestinian Authority judicial institutions ranking comparatively lower.

* There is strong and widespread support for security sector reform among the Palestinians. When asked to rate the importance of eleven concrete security sector reform measures, a sweeping majority of respondents (82 to 97 percent) considered all proposed measures as either ‘very important’ or ‘rather important’.

* Fighting corruption and nepotism were the top priority (84 percent considering this as ‘very important’). Equally important were legal prosecution of security personnel responsible for human rights violations and establishing an ombudsman to investigate citizens’ complaints.

* There is strong demand for accountability and increased oversight of the security services. A majority of respondents in all areas want the Palestinian Legislative Council to increase oversight of the security apparatus.

* The Palestinians support changes in the judiciary to strengthen the rule of law, with 74 percent or higher approving measures to strengthen the legal framework, improve the functioning of the judiciary, unify the Palestinian legal code and improve the training of judges and prosecutors.

The authors of the survey report conclude that, “strong and widespread support for in-depth reform suggests that the security sector has largely failed to meet the Palestinian people’s expectations and finds itself in a major crisis of confidence and legitimacy. Unless confidence in the official institutions is restored, popular support for substitute organizations, such as private militias and parallel court systems, is likely to grow.”

These findings are also relevant for the entire Arab world, not just Palestine, because public aspirations for more emphatic rule of law and less impunity by security services seem widespread throughout the region. The very legitimacy of prevailing governing elites and systems is deeply linked to the performance of the security and judicial systems, which makes this sector so vital for reform efforts throughout the Arab world.

DCAF’s Luethold was very clear about the implications of the survey findings, which officials in the region and abroad would do well to heed. He told me: “In the eyes of ordinary Palestinians, Israeli occupation and weak Palestinian governance have at least two things in common: They increase the feeling of insecurity amongst the population, and limit the prospects of economic development. It is therefore not surprising that Palestinians look for change, not only from outside, but also from inside. The widespread and overwhelming popular support for Palestinian security sector reform sends a strong message to the Palestinian Authority to put its house in order and to give top priority to fighting corruption and nepotism and increasing political oversight and control of the security forces. The mission of the Palestinian Authority could be made less impossible if Israel accepted to create an enabling environment, and more attractive if the international community linked its assistance programs to tangible outcomes in areas where the Palestinian people want change to occur.”

The linkage between development and security has always been clear, but is becoming more urgent these days throughout the entire region. This survey is one more piece of evidence that, as Luethold expressed it, “good governance rests on functioning institutions not on individuals. Improving security sector governance therefore often requires either improving the functioning of existing institutions or establishing new ones, or a mix of both. In the long run, development assistance cannot compensate for the lack of such institutions, but it can help a society develop its institutions.”

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

Copyright ©2005 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 19 October 2005
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CHICAGO — Publicly supporting equal rights for Palestinians alongside Israelis has always been a risky venture in the United States, as an American professor who heads the only Middle Eastern studies center at an evangelical American university is discovering these days. The Reverend Donald Wagner, professor and director of the Center of Middle Eastern Studies at North Park University and Seminary in Chicago for the past ten years, has had his tenure appointment blocked and, with two other prominent Palestinian clergymen, is being subjected to a campaign of criticism and vilification in the American and Israeli press.

I have known Rev. Wagner and his work for justice, peace and security for all in the Middle East for over 25 years. I have always known him to be a man of deep compassion, and of moral depth and equity towards all human beings. So I visited him in his office in Chicago last week to enquire about the nature of the attacks against him, and the reasons for them.

He thought that concern was growing among pro-Israeli groups about the impact of the Presbyterian Church’s campaign to study selective divestment of investments in American and multinational companies that do business with the Israeli armed forces. Consequently, he charged, a public campaign had been launched to silence the voices of Christians demanding justice, peace and security for Palestinians alongside Israelis.

“There seem to be two levels of the current campaign. One in general is directed against professors and Middle East studies programs by Campus Watch and similar groups, using internal and external pressure on funders to reduce any kind of pro-Palestinian or justice-oriented program calling for a two-state solution and a full Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab lands,” he said.

Part of this thrust, he feels, was the blocking of his own tenure two years ago, despite faculty support, by a handful of very conservative evangelicals representing a fringe element, but in powerful positions in the university. He feels this was due to his “controversial advocacy of justice for Palestinians, my opposition to the war in Iraq, and my theology.”

The second level of opposition then emerged around the Presbyterian Church’s position to divest and his opposition to Christian Zionism and rightwing Christian fundamentalist advocacy of pro-Israel positions based on Armageddon theology, which he has done much writing on. He became very outspoken on those issues, wrote articles in the press, and did many radio and television appearances, speaking on behalf of the divestment question.

“We call for phased, targeted and selective divestment, or financial engagement, on a moral basis, reflecting 35 years of asking the U.S. government to have a consistent policy on human rights and international law,” he explains.

This is not a totally new or unique church position. The Presbyterian Church for 35 years has had resolutions and a clear position, calling for a full Israeli withdrawal, the end of occupation and settlements, and a two-state solution.

“We finally said we need to take a bold act as a denomination and stand with our sisters and brothers who are suffering, and take a nonviolent, symbolic act on behalf of a just peace,” he says. “This is where divestment from U.S. and multinational corporations doing business with the Israeli armed forces or any Arab terrorist group comes in. We will divest from any such firms, and as Presbyterian American clergy we will not benefit from another people’s suffering. We see this as a consistent, ethical and moral position, though it’s also very symbolic in view of the relatively small financial amounts involved.”

The church has taken equally activist positions on South Africa, Sudan and other situations. A church committee continues to study the matter and is now engaging U.S. industries like Caterpillar, Motorola and others about their involvements with the IDF, as well as some large American banks who may have been involved in dealings with Arab groups accused of terrorism, like Hamas.

He says that others who have been targeted along with him include the leading Jerusalem-based Christian Liberation Theology group Sabeel, headed by Canon Naeem Ateek, and the Reverend Mitri Raheb of Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem and director of an international Christian center in Bethlehem.

Wagner says that a campaign of misinformation has been launched, “based on a paper written by a Rabbi Poupko, who is a rabbinic adviser to the Jewish Federation in the Midwest. It accuses the three of us of being advocates of the theological argument about the Jews being the Christ killers and a whole history of anti-Semitism. What he’s done is twisted a lot of our writings with a number of illogical analyses, trying to paint us into the corner of being anti-Semitic.”

The attacks have spread into respectable newspapers in Israel and the United States, with the aim, Wagner says, of “trying to de-legitimize us as spokesmen and make us look like extremists, and also to bait us into the anti-Semitic argument, so as to switch us away from the legitimate justice and anti-occupation arguments we’re raising.”

He says that “many Zionist and pro-Israeli Christian groups are frightened by the church’s phased divestment idea because it exposes the immorality of the occupation, and raises the justice issues. They see South Africa in the background, and they’re afraid. More and more denominations are studying this issue now, so these groups are targeting us to try and nip this movement in the bud and taint those who advance this argument as extremists.”

The significance of the case of Rev. Wagner and North Park University stems partly from the fact that this is the only Christian evangelical university in the U.S. with a Middle East studies center. A voice that could have a significant impact in the important American evangelical community is clearly targeted, because of legitimate analysis, criticism and opposition to political policies by the state of Israel, which remains a dangerous position to take in the United States.

Wagner believes he and his colleagues are “raising legitimate issues about Israel-Palestine, critiquing Christian Zionism and end time theology, and trying to reach out to evangelicals and progressive forces in the Christian community. We’re also saying that Christianity is disappearing in the Holy Land, especially in the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem, largely due to the results of the Israeli occupation and a lack of peace and justice. Christianity will vanish in the Holy Land if this trend persists, and it’s interesting that our critics never even attempt to answer my argument about the consequences of occupation or the fate of Palestinian Christians. These pro-Israel and Christian Zionist groups try to shift the focus of the debate to accusing us of anti-Semitism, and saying that Christians are leaving because of Islam. We reject and resist that argument, and one result is this smear campaign we are being subjected to.”

Wagner is worried that such campaigns, especially against Christian groups in Palestine, aims to “silence the prophetic voices of Palestinian Christians, like Sabeel, Cannon Ateek and Rev. Raheb, so they can say that our friends in the Christian community are the Christian right and those who support the Sharon policies.”

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

Copyright ©2005 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 12 October 2005
Word Count: 1,185
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