By James M. Dorsey
Deutsche Welle
The protests in Libya against corruption throw up the question whether the Tunisian crisis heralds the beginning of the end for autocratic Arab leaders. The West is encouraged and is hoping for lasting change.
The specter of authoritarian regimes falling like dominoes may however be overly optimistic. While there is no doubt that developments in Tunisia have emboldened the discontent across a swath of land stretching from Morocco to the Gulf, it remains to be seen, according to analysts, whether protestors in other Arab countries have the wherewithal to sustain demonstrations and casualties for weeks and to what degree Arab governments have learnt lessons from the Tunisian experience.
Demonstrations in Algeria subsided last week after authorities moved to roll back increases in prices of commodities. Protestors in Jordan have yet to show that they are cut from the same cloth as their counterparts in Tunisia.
Protests in Libya erupted three days ago, but have so far largely gone unnoticed by the international media with the exception of a few reports in the Arab press as well as statements and videos circulated on the Internet by Libyan opposition groups. The Libyan opposition website Almanara reported that demonstrators had clashed with security forces in the town of Al Bayda, 800 kilometers (500 milies) east of Tripoli, after throwing stones at government offices in the town and setting a government office on fire. The protesters were demanding "decent housing and a dignified life," Almanara said.
Libyan activists and opposition groups reported that hundreds of people had also occupied some 600 empty apartments in Beghazi, Libya's second largest city, and 800 units in Bani Walid, southeast of Tripoli. The activists said the squatters had been expecting to move into new homes promised to them under a government housing scheme, but had seen apartments they had already paid for awarded to others.
"Bani Walid has no basic services; thousands of people are without houses and the local authority is corrupted, it only delivers services with bribes. Nothing will make Bani Walid calm but freedom, justice and transparency," the opposition National Front for the Salvation of Libya said in a statement on its website. The Front reported that the lawyers in Benghazi were joining the protests of the squatters.
Lessons to be learned?
Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gaddafi appears to have drawn a lesson from President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's failed handling of the protests in Tunisia, ordering police to avoid clashes with demonstrators while protecting government buildings. The country's Revolutionary Council said in a statement that it would investigate the complaints and promised that "all the problems will be solved soon through the legitimate authorities."
At the same time, however, Gaddafi true to his idiosyncratic eccentrism, voiced what other leaders probably believe but have kept to themselves. Describing the departure of Ben Ali as "a great loss" for Tunisia, the Libyan leader said he still considered Ben Ali the country's constitutional leader.
The United States and the European Union have so far responded cautiously to the wave of protests in the Arab world, fearing that the unrest could destabilize the volatile region and bring anti-Western forces to power. "The European Union has an interest in keeping a strong partnership. This is why countries including France, Spain and Italy have not clearly condemned what happened," Ivan Ureta, a professor of international relations at King's College in London, told Deutsche Welle.
A key concern for the US and the EU is that the protests in most Arab countries like Libya and Jordan, where thousands demonstrated over the weekend against government economic policies and called for the resignation of Prime Minister Samir Rifai, are backed by Islamist opposition forces.
"As in all cases of revolution, you must be careful what you wish for. The politics and demographics in these countries mean that what replaces the corrupt old regimes could be even worse; strengthening the hands of terrorists and radicals," says Mark Almond, a visiting professor in international relations at Ankara’s Bilkent University.
Islamist influence
Analysts note that the absence of Islamists in the Tunisian protests is because Tunisia, unlike other Arab countries, has since its independence aggressively sought to ban Islamists from public life.
"Most influential Tunisian Islamists now live abroad, while those who remain in Tunisia have been forced to form a coalition with unlikely secular and communist bedfellows. The nature of the opposition and the willingness of the Tunisian government to back down are not coincidental. If it had been clear that Islamist opposition figures were playing a large role in the current unrest, the government would likely have doubled down on repressive measures," says Michael Koplow, a doctoral candidate at Georgetown University, in a commentary in Foreign Policy.
Islamists are nonetheless certain to exploit the widespread discontent and may benefit once protesters realize that change involves a lot more than toppling a corrupt and authoritarian leader. Ben Ali's departure has thrown Tunisia into turmoil. The country, at least for now has lost tourism, one of its main sources of foreign income. With the evacuation of thousands of European tourists, it will be some time before Tunisian tourism regains lost ground.
The rise of secularism
In a first sign of the reemergence of the Islamists, Rached Ghannouchi, the 69-year old leader of Tunisia's banned Nahda or Renaissance movement, announced on Sunday that he was returning to Tunisia from his 22 years in exile in London.
Analysts say that Ghannouchi will encounter a country very different from the one he left. While he still may have supporters in Tunisia, he does not have an infrastructure and many of those Islamists that remained in the country have radicalized and are likely to see Ghannouchi as a spent force too willing to compromise.
More importantly however, Tunisia's long-standing suppression of the Islamists has allowed secularism to build roots that many Tunisians will want to preserve. Tunisian-born Israeli sociologist Claude Sitbon notes that Tunisians on the Internet joked that Ghannouchi would be met at the airport by bikini-clad women. "Women have achieved an amazing status in Tunisia. They wear jeans in the street and bikinis on the beach; women are judges and ambassadors. Tunisians won't want to lose that," Sitbon says.
Showing posts with label Libya. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Libya. Show all posts
Monday, January 17, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
Twin Threats of Protests and Cessation Set Stage for Change in MidEast and North Africa
By James M. Dorsey
A rare wave of protests across the Arab world against widespread economic mismanagement, unemployment, corruption and lack of civil liberties as well as the probable partition of Sudan potentially set the stage for the redrawing of the political map of the Middle East and North Africa.
The protests and referendum likely to establish oil-rich southern Sudan as an independent state spotlight the failure of most Middle Eastern and North African regimes to provide economic prospects for their populations and guarantee security and equal rights for religious and ethnic minorities. A spate of recent deadly attacks targeting Christians in Iraq and Egypt has further focused attention on inflamed religious and ethnic tensions and the region’s lack of minority rights.
Middle Eastern governments fear, according to officials and Western diplomats, that an independent southern Sudan will fuel nationalist aspirations of rebels in Darfur, secessionists in southern Yemen; Shiite rebels in northern Yemen; non-Islamist controlled parts of Somalia; Kurds in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey; Berbers across North Africa and Azerbaijanis in northern Iran. The region’s military and security dominated regimes also worry that the protests will further embolden their populations to vent boiling anger and pent-up frustration with long-standing authoritarian, corrupt and incompetent rule. Last week’s warning by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) that record food prices are likely to increase even more as a result of erratic global weather patterns threatens to further tempers and tensions.
Several Arab states have moved to curb commodity prices in a bid to prevent the riots from spreading to their countries. Libya abolished taxes and custom duties on wheat-based products, rice, vegetable oil, sugar and infant milk. Morocco has begun subsidizing imports to ensure that the price of soft milling wheat does not rise in tunes with hikes on world markets.
Jordanian King Abdullah in a bid to prevent an escalation of mounting tension between Palestinians and East Bank Jordanians this week ordered his government to reduce prices of commodities, particularly rice and sugar, freeze plans to raise public transportation fees and accelerate initiation of job creation projects. The order came as Jordanian trade unions called for nationwide demonstrations on Friday to demand better living standards and the resignation of Prime Minister Samir Rifai. Jordan’s Islamist opposition said it had yet to decide whether it would support the protest, but warned that price hikes would spark “an unprecedented explosion” similar to the turmoil in Tunisia and Algeria.
“The government is seeking to contain mounting public resentment. Events in Tunisia and Algeria are forcing it to act because Jordanians have seen that protests produce results,” says Mohammed Masri, an analyst at the University of Jordan’s Center for Strategic Studies. Masri was referring to Algeria’s weekend decision to reduce commodity prices in response to sustained daily protests that left at least three people dead, the Tunisian government’s inability to quell a month of demonstrations in which so far up to 50 people are believed to have been killed and Tunisian President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali’s bid this week to meet some of the protestor’s demands by announcing that he would not again run for office when his term ends in 2014, firing his interior minister, promising to release detained demonstrators and launching an investigation into corruption. “Price hikes are certain to increase anger at the government’s policies,” said Zaki Bani Rsheid, a Jordanian Islamic Action Front spokesman.
While the demonstrations in Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt as well as recent soccer riots in Jordan and Iran and human rights-related protests in Kuwait are unlikely to immediately overturn governments, they signal a growing popular refusal across the region to continue to accept the status quo. Even in Saudi Arabia where public protests are particularly rare, unemployed teachers are publicly protesting government job creation policies. Tunisian trade unions have said they would continue their protests despite Ben Ali’s announced concessions.
The hardening of the region’s social and economic battle lines creates stark choices for both Middle Eastern and Western governments. Desperate to cling to power, Middle Eastern regimes are likely to increase repression coupled with window dressing measures that create the impression of responding to widespread discontent rather than opt for real political, economic and social reform. This week’s concessions by Ben Ali come after the president’s efforts to squash the protests by charging that the protesters were being manipulated by foreign terrorists failed. Ben Ali’s assertion contrasted starkly with the fact that Al Qaeda’s North African affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), has been conspicuously silent about the ongoing turmoil in its theater of operations and the fact that the protests were void of any Islamist tint.
Western diplomats say that the fact that a majority of the dead in Tunisia were killed by security forces after the Obama administration, the European Union and the United Nations called on Tunisia to exercise restraint in the use of force and respect fundamental freedoms point to a sense of alarm within the government that makes it less susceptible to US and European pressure. “It’s inconceivable that they are not worried that this is the beginning of the end,” one diplomat said.
On a visit to Qatar this week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton nonetheless signaled that the United States and its European allies may be less persistent in their long-standing preference for stability in the Middle East and North Africa rather than democracy that could initially bring Islamic and more nationalist forces to power – a policy that has fueled anti-Western sentiment among large segments of the region’s population.
Addressing the Forum for the Future launched in 2004 by the G-8 group of industrial nations as a way to promote growth of nongovernmental civil group, Clinton bluntly challenged Middle Eastern leaders to open their political systems and economies and warned that "the region's foundations are sinking into the sand." Clinton said the region's governments need to share power with civic and volunteer groups to tackle issues like exploding populations, stagnant economies and declining natural resources. Pointing to unemployment rates of 20% and up, the secretary said "people have grown tired of corrupt institutions and a stagnant political order" and are demanding reforms, including eradication of corruption.
A rare wave of protests across the Arab world against widespread economic mismanagement, unemployment, corruption and lack of civil liberties as well as the probable partition of Sudan potentially set the stage for the redrawing of the political map of the Middle East and North Africa.
The protests and referendum likely to establish oil-rich southern Sudan as an independent state spotlight the failure of most Middle Eastern and North African regimes to provide economic prospects for their populations and guarantee security and equal rights for religious and ethnic minorities. A spate of recent deadly attacks targeting Christians in Iraq and Egypt has further focused attention on inflamed religious and ethnic tensions and the region’s lack of minority rights.
Middle Eastern governments fear, according to officials and Western diplomats, that an independent southern Sudan will fuel nationalist aspirations of rebels in Darfur, secessionists in southern Yemen; Shiite rebels in northern Yemen; non-Islamist controlled parts of Somalia; Kurds in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey; Berbers across North Africa and Azerbaijanis in northern Iran. The region’s military and security dominated regimes also worry that the protests will further embolden their populations to vent boiling anger and pent-up frustration with long-standing authoritarian, corrupt and incompetent rule. Last week’s warning by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) that record food prices are likely to increase even more as a result of erratic global weather patterns threatens to further tempers and tensions.
Several Arab states have moved to curb commodity prices in a bid to prevent the riots from spreading to their countries. Libya abolished taxes and custom duties on wheat-based products, rice, vegetable oil, sugar and infant milk. Morocco has begun subsidizing imports to ensure that the price of soft milling wheat does not rise in tunes with hikes on world markets.
Jordanian King Abdullah in a bid to prevent an escalation of mounting tension between Palestinians and East Bank Jordanians this week ordered his government to reduce prices of commodities, particularly rice and sugar, freeze plans to raise public transportation fees and accelerate initiation of job creation projects. The order came as Jordanian trade unions called for nationwide demonstrations on Friday to demand better living standards and the resignation of Prime Minister Samir Rifai. Jordan’s Islamist opposition said it had yet to decide whether it would support the protest, but warned that price hikes would spark “an unprecedented explosion” similar to the turmoil in Tunisia and Algeria.
“The government is seeking to contain mounting public resentment. Events in Tunisia and Algeria are forcing it to act because Jordanians have seen that protests produce results,” says Mohammed Masri, an analyst at the University of Jordan’s Center for Strategic Studies. Masri was referring to Algeria’s weekend decision to reduce commodity prices in response to sustained daily protests that left at least three people dead, the Tunisian government’s inability to quell a month of demonstrations in which so far up to 50 people are believed to have been killed and Tunisian President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali’s bid this week to meet some of the protestor’s demands by announcing that he would not again run for office when his term ends in 2014, firing his interior minister, promising to release detained demonstrators and launching an investigation into corruption. “Price hikes are certain to increase anger at the government’s policies,” said Zaki Bani Rsheid, a Jordanian Islamic Action Front spokesman.
While the demonstrations in Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt as well as recent soccer riots in Jordan and Iran and human rights-related protests in Kuwait are unlikely to immediately overturn governments, they signal a growing popular refusal across the region to continue to accept the status quo. Even in Saudi Arabia where public protests are particularly rare, unemployed teachers are publicly protesting government job creation policies. Tunisian trade unions have said they would continue their protests despite Ben Ali’s announced concessions.
The hardening of the region’s social and economic battle lines creates stark choices for both Middle Eastern and Western governments. Desperate to cling to power, Middle Eastern regimes are likely to increase repression coupled with window dressing measures that create the impression of responding to widespread discontent rather than opt for real political, economic and social reform. This week’s concessions by Ben Ali come after the president’s efforts to squash the protests by charging that the protesters were being manipulated by foreign terrorists failed. Ben Ali’s assertion contrasted starkly with the fact that Al Qaeda’s North African affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), has been conspicuously silent about the ongoing turmoil in its theater of operations and the fact that the protests were void of any Islamist tint.
Western diplomats say that the fact that a majority of the dead in Tunisia were killed by security forces after the Obama administration, the European Union and the United Nations called on Tunisia to exercise restraint in the use of force and respect fundamental freedoms point to a sense of alarm within the government that makes it less susceptible to US and European pressure. “It’s inconceivable that they are not worried that this is the beginning of the end,” one diplomat said.
On a visit to Qatar this week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton nonetheless signaled that the United States and its European allies may be less persistent in their long-standing preference for stability in the Middle East and North Africa rather than democracy that could initially bring Islamic and more nationalist forces to power – a policy that has fueled anti-Western sentiment among large segments of the region’s population.
Addressing the Forum for the Future launched in 2004 by the G-8 group of industrial nations as a way to promote growth of nongovernmental civil group, Clinton bluntly challenged Middle Eastern leaders to open their political systems and economies and warned that "the region's foundations are sinking into the sand." Clinton said the region's governments need to share power with civic and volunteer groups to tackle issues like exploding populations, stagnant economies and declining natural resources. Pointing to unemployment rates of 20% and up, the secretary said "people have grown tired of corrupt institutions and a stagnant political order" and are demanding reforms, including eradication of corruption.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Oil and Gas Finds Fueling Tension in Eastern Mediterranean
By James M. Dorsey
(In)Coherenci / World Politics Review
Oil and gas discoveries in the eastern Mediterranean are ratcheting up tensions in a region that already has its fair share of pernicious disputes. Rival communities on the divided island of Cyprus, as well as Turkey and arch-enemies Lebanon and Israel are staking claims in one of the world's newest oil frontiers.
The region's deposits are minor compared to the Persian Gulf, but for small nations like Israel and Cyprus they hold substantial promise. But rather than providing an opportunity for stability through economic cooperation, the discoveries raise the specter of renewed conflict as the parties push ahead with deals to start exploration.
Complicating matters is the fact that the deposits are in international waters, historically a reason for nations to call in the gun boats in the absence of a production-sharing agreements. The potential threat is heightened by the state of war between Israel and Lebanon and tension between Turkey and Cyprus over Turkey's backing of Turkish Cypriots in their dispute with the island's Greek Cypriot majority.
While Israel and Lebanon have warned that their economic rights in the eastern Mediterranean may constitute a casus belli, Turkey and the two Cypriot communities have so far steered clear of military threats in their perennial disputes over oil and gas.
Turkey's announcement last month that it will soon begin to explore for oil in a 288,000-square-kilometer area between the southeastern Turkish city of Mersin and the northern coast of Cyprus has nonetheless fueled tension. Turkey maintains an estimated 40,000 troops in northern Cyprus since its invasion of the island in 1974 and is the only country to have recognized the north's self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).
The internationally recognized Greek Cypriot government, the Republic of Cyprus (ROC), which represents the island in the European Union, accuses Turkey of acting as a "bully" in disputes over oil-exploration licenses that are a continuous point of friction in two-year-old peace talks aimed at ending one of the world's most enduring conflicts.
Turkey and the TRNC have denounced ROC negotiations of oil-exploration deals with Lebanon that will also include Syria, arguing that it lacks the authority. Lebanon and the ROC signed an exclusive-zone agreement in 2007 to demarcate an undersea border that would determine the areas in which each may grant oil- and gas-exploration licenses. ROC signed a similar agreement with Egypt, and in September it concluded a memorandum of cooperation with Israel for the surveying and mapping of joint-research energy projects.
ROC initially licensed companies in 2007 to explore blocks in a 20,000 square-kilometer area. Texas-based Noble Energy, an independent oil company, together with its Israeli consortium partners, Delek Drilling and Avner Oil and Gas, acquired a license, but Turkey's opposition persuaded majors such as ExxonMobil, BP, China National Petroleum Corporation and India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation not to participate. Noble, as well as Libya's National Oil Company, are expected to participate in a second ROC licensing round next year.
Turkey has warned the Lebanese and the ROC governments that it is "determined to protect its rights and interests" and will "not allow attempts to erode them." Turkish officials, however, believe that Lebanon and the ROC will not start exploration any time soon. Amid mounting tension in Lebanon over the proceedings of a United Nations investigation into the 2005 killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Ankara believes that parliament is unlikely to focus on the agreement once it is presented for ratification.
As a result, Turkey and Israel may be laughing all the way to the bank. Israel has completed preliminary exploration and is preparing to begin extracting gas in 2012. Israel hopes the oil and gas finds will make it energy-independent, but its preliminary efforts have Lebanon up in arms. Staking its claim on the potential reserves, Lebanon sees newly found oil and gas wealth as its ticket to paying off its $50 billion national debt.
Lebanon accuses Israel of intending to siphon the gas from reserves off the northern Israeli coast that it says are rightfully Lebanese. Israel denies the claim and says that the three fields it has invested in lie between it and Cyprus.The largest of the fields, Leviathan, is estimated to hold 16 trillion cubic feet of gas worth billions of dollars.
The fields are in international waters between Israel and Cyprus, beyond the maritime borders that extend 12 nautical miles off the coasts of both countries. Under international law, Israel or Cyprus could declare an exclusive economic zone that extends 200 nautical miles beyond their maritime borders, but so far neither has opted to do so. Israeli officials say they see no need to make such a declaration because the reserves lie under Israel's continental shelf.
The conflicting Israeli and Lebanese claims have both countries rattling their sabers. Israeli Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau has warned that Israel "will not hesitate to use force" to protect its investment. In response, Lebanese parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri called for speedy approval of proposals for oil and gas exploration off the coast of Lebanon as "the best way to respond to Israeli threats."
It will take years for Lebanon to prove its claims that Israeli exploration and production would violate Lebanese territory. Even if it does, Beirut lacks the military muscle to do anything about it. That frustrating realization is likely to complicate efforts to reduce tension in a region that already has enough flash points.
(In)Coherenci / World Politics Review
Oil and gas discoveries in the eastern Mediterranean are ratcheting up tensions in a region that already has its fair share of pernicious disputes. Rival communities on the divided island of Cyprus, as well as Turkey and arch-enemies Lebanon and Israel are staking claims in one of the world's newest oil frontiers.
The region's deposits are minor compared to the Persian Gulf, but for small nations like Israel and Cyprus they hold substantial promise. But rather than providing an opportunity for stability through economic cooperation, the discoveries raise the specter of renewed conflict as the parties push ahead with deals to start exploration.
Complicating matters is the fact that the deposits are in international waters, historically a reason for nations to call in the gun boats in the absence of a production-sharing agreements. The potential threat is heightened by the state of war between Israel and Lebanon and tension between Turkey and Cyprus over Turkey's backing of Turkish Cypriots in their dispute with the island's Greek Cypriot majority.
While Israel and Lebanon have warned that their economic rights in the eastern Mediterranean may constitute a casus belli, Turkey and the two Cypriot communities have so far steered clear of military threats in their perennial disputes over oil and gas.
Turkey's announcement last month that it will soon begin to explore for oil in a 288,000-square-kilometer area between the southeastern Turkish city of Mersin and the northern coast of Cyprus has nonetheless fueled tension. Turkey maintains an estimated 40,000 troops in northern Cyprus since its invasion of the island in 1974 and is the only country to have recognized the north's self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).
The internationally recognized Greek Cypriot government, the Republic of Cyprus (ROC), which represents the island in the European Union, accuses Turkey of acting as a "bully" in disputes over oil-exploration licenses that are a continuous point of friction in two-year-old peace talks aimed at ending one of the world's most enduring conflicts.
Turkey and the TRNC have denounced ROC negotiations of oil-exploration deals with Lebanon that will also include Syria, arguing that it lacks the authority. Lebanon and the ROC signed an exclusive-zone agreement in 2007 to demarcate an undersea border that would determine the areas in which each may grant oil- and gas-exploration licenses. ROC signed a similar agreement with Egypt, and in September it concluded a memorandum of cooperation with Israel for the surveying and mapping of joint-research energy projects.
ROC initially licensed companies in 2007 to explore blocks in a 20,000 square-kilometer area. Texas-based Noble Energy, an independent oil company, together with its Israeli consortium partners, Delek Drilling and Avner Oil and Gas, acquired a license, but Turkey's opposition persuaded majors such as ExxonMobil, BP, China National Petroleum Corporation and India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation not to participate. Noble, as well as Libya's National Oil Company, are expected to participate in a second ROC licensing round next year.
Turkey has warned the Lebanese and the ROC governments that it is "determined to protect its rights and interests" and will "not allow attempts to erode them." Turkish officials, however, believe that Lebanon and the ROC will not start exploration any time soon. Amid mounting tension in Lebanon over the proceedings of a United Nations investigation into the 2005 killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Ankara believes that parliament is unlikely to focus on the agreement once it is presented for ratification.
As a result, Turkey and Israel may be laughing all the way to the bank. Israel has completed preliminary exploration and is preparing to begin extracting gas in 2012. Israel hopes the oil and gas finds will make it energy-independent, but its preliminary efforts have Lebanon up in arms. Staking its claim on the potential reserves, Lebanon sees newly found oil and gas wealth as its ticket to paying off its $50 billion national debt.
Lebanon accuses Israel of intending to siphon the gas from reserves off the northern Israeli coast that it says are rightfully Lebanese. Israel denies the claim and says that the three fields it has invested in lie between it and Cyprus.The largest of the fields, Leviathan, is estimated to hold 16 trillion cubic feet of gas worth billions of dollars.
The fields are in international waters between Israel and Cyprus, beyond the maritime borders that extend 12 nautical miles off the coasts of both countries. Under international law, Israel or Cyprus could declare an exclusive economic zone that extends 200 nautical miles beyond their maritime borders, but so far neither has opted to do so. Israeli officials say they see no need to make such a declaration because the reserves lie under Israel's continental shelf.
The conflicting Israeli and Lebanese claims have both countries rattling their sabers. Israeli Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau has warned that Israel "will not hesitate to use force" to protect its investment. In response, Lebanese parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri called for speedy approval of proposals for oil and gas exploration off the coast of Lebanon as "the best way to respond to Israeli threats."
It will take years for Lebanon to prove its claims that Israeli exploration and production would violate Lebanese territory. Even if it does, Beirut lacks the military muscle to do anything about it. That frustrating realization is likely to complicate efforts to reduce tension in a region that already has enough flash points.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Gaza Negotiations: On Whose Terms?
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's remarks in Paris after meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy were telling in terms of what the Gaza war is really about. Livni left no doubt that Israel's campaign against Hamas is not designed to destroy the organization but to cut it down to size. The Israel-Hamas fight seeks to determine the balance of power in future negotiations that would permanently end violent conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
Despite Israeli rhetoric, Israeli officials across the political spectrum agree that Hamas cannot be defeated militarily, at least not at a price Israel would find acceptable or feasible. To totally destroy Hamas, Israel would have to re-occupy Gaza, a move it is unlikely to make, even as some form of ground offensive seems imminent. As a result, Israel realizes that Hamas is in Gaza to stay for the foreseeable future, and probably would re-win the West Bank in a free and fair election.
Indeed having learnt a lesson in Lebanon where Hizbollah prevented Israel from achieving its goal of destroying the Islamists, Israeli officials limit their announced goals for the military campaign against Gaza to 'creating calm in the country's south' and 'changing the security environment.' Livni made a point in Paris of saying that overthrowing Hamas was not an Israeli goal. "We affected most of the infrastructure of terrorism in the Gaza Strip and the question whether it's enough or not will be according to our assessment on a daily basis," the foreign minister said.
That assessment largely involves a judgment of whether Israel can pound Hamas into submission. That would likely involve Hamas accepting a ceasefire that guarantees a halt to future rocket attacks, in part by Hamas accepting that access to the strip will be controlled by Israel, Egypt and the Palestine Authority. That would be a far cry from Hamas' demand for unconditional opening of all border crossings which would grant it a significant say in what goes in and out of Gaza.
Ironically, Hamas, if it can be contained and subdued, serves Israeli strategy. The split between Fatah and Hamas has weakened the Palestinians and strengthen Israel. Fatah, which dominates the Palestine Authority on the West Bank, has lost credibility because of widespread corruption, it's siding with Israel and the United States in seeking to isolate Hamas and its inability to stop Israeli settlement activity and increasingly harsh restrictions on Palestinian movement in the West Bank as well as its failure to secure a settlement acceptable to Palestinians. Hamas, meanwhile, has inherited the mantle of Palestinian resistance from Fatah.
For Israel, the question is whether it can rob Hamas of that mantle and force it to accept realities on the ground. With other words, the current military campaign aims to tame rather than crush Hamas. Ultimately this would make Hamas a negotiating partner acceptable to Israel, one that would likely enjoy greater popular support and credibility than the Palestine Authority. Israel has long blamed lack of progress in peace talks on the absence of a credible and effective negotiating partner even if its policies contributed to preventing the emergence of such a partner. Israeli leaders moreover realize that destruction of Hamas would leave a power vacuum in Gaza with no credible force to fill it.
Israeli hopes that its blockade of Gaza that started shortly after Hamas took control of the strip in 2007 would spark a popular uprising against the Islamists were dashed, leaving Israel with the choice of engaging with a strong, defiant Hamas or seeking to cut it down to size. Israel's message now delivered through the barrel of a gun is simple: if you want to retain control, forget your popular mandate to resist occupation and hold on to power on our terms and with our consent.
As a result, Israel despite its rhetoric has so far largely refrained in the current campaign from killing senior Hamas leaders. Nizar Rayyan, the most senior leader killed so far, was a hard liner, who advocated the resumption of suicide bombings in Israel and sent his own 17-year-old son on a suicide mission; an act that made him a symbol of personal sacrifice among the Palestinians. A prayer leader, who frequently appeared armed in the company of members of Hamas' military wing, Rayyan, played a key role in coordinating between the group's political and military arms. Rayyan, according to Radio Netherlands, initiated Hamas' human shield tactic when Israel in 2005 began targeting the homes of Hamas activists. He would take women and children to the roofs of threatened buildings to prevent Israeli bombardments, a tactic that saved dozens of activists. The tactic failed today when Rayyan's four wives and nine of his 12 children died alongside him in the rubble of a four-story apartment building in the Gabalia refugee camp. He clearly was not a figure who would fit into Israeli plans for Hamas.
The possibly imminent ground battle is likely to determine the balance of power between Israel and Hamas. Hamas and other Islamist groups, including Islamic Jihad, believe a ground battle will give them a strategic edge despite Israeli military superiority. The ground battle and the struggle for whose terms will frame future negotiations involves a geo-politically equally important battle over the degree of Iranian influence in the region. Hamas and other Palestinian Islamists like Hizbollah, which made its military mark in 2006, enjoy varying degrees of Iranian support. Speaking in a rare interview to The National, Islamic Jihad commander Abu Bilal said Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel were designed to lure Israeli ground troops into Gaza. "We are praying for the tanks to come so we can show them new things. We have made many preparations for the coming battle and all of our fighters wait for the chance to kill them," Abu Bilal said. The National quoted sources close to Islamic Jihad as saying many of its fighters had in recent years been trained by Hizbollah, whose combatants surprised Israel with their ability to ambush Israeli tanks. Hizbollah fighters, however, enjoyed far easier access to advanced Iranian weaponry than do their counterparts in Gaza.
The outcome of the Israel-Hamas battle for determination of the terms of any future negotiation is certain to impact domestic politics in Arab countries. A tamed Hamas forced to tune down its rhetoric and accommodate realities on the ground would provide less of a boost to Islamists across the region than a Hamas that emerges as a perceived, defiant victor capable of withstanding the onslaught of Israeli military superiority.
A majority of Arab governments, fearful that a Hamas victory would strengthen Islamists in their own backyard, have allowed public protests in a bid to channel mounting domestic anger and frustration. Yet, cracks are appearing in that approach as the gulf widens between Arab official impotence and/or unwillingness to effectively on behalf of Gaza and public demands for a response. Egyptian police detained 20 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, according to security officials, as the group called for mass demonstrations against the Israeli offensive.The Brotherhood said police rounded up at least nine members in four provinces.
The Brotherhood like its counterparts in Jordan and Mauritania, together with Egypt, the only Arab countries to have diplomatic relations with Israel, is calling for a breaking off of ties with the Jewish states. Of the three, Mauritania is the weak link in the chain. Libya and several Gulf states have reportedly offered financial assistance if Mauretania were to cut its diplomatic relations with Israel. Mauritania is walking a tightrope. Breaking off relations would open the impoverished nation to enhanced financial support from its Arab brethren and strengthen its position in disputes with Algeria, but threaten its important security and economic ties to the United States and the European Union.
Saudi Arabia, where demonstrations are legally banned, has opted for a complete clampdown because it fears that anti-Israel protests would open a Pandora's Box that would lead to demonstrations on domestic Saudi issues and demands for greater freedom. A Saudi human rights group, Human Rights First Society, reports that two Saudi activists, Khaled al Omeir and Mohammed al Otaibi, were arrested this week as they arrived for a demonstration in predominantly Shiite Qatif and Safwa. Police dispersed hundreds of protesters with rubber bullets.
The Saudi human rights group also said that authorities had detained a prominent radical Saudi cleric, Sheikh Awad al Qarni, after he had issued a fatwa endorsing attacks against Israelis wherever they may be. "Their blood should be shed as the blood of our brothers in Palestine has been shed. They should feel pain more than our brothers," Al Qarni said. Al Qarni's fatwa came days after Damascus-based Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal called for suicide attacks on Israel.
In what must be a bid to further fuel fears of enhanced Iranian regional influence against the backdrop of the Gaza crisis, Saudi-owned Asharq Al-Awsat reports in a story entitled "A Chilling Report From Paris" that Iran is a "short distance" from securing its needs to make a nuclear warhead. Amir Taheri, a prominent, conservative columnist, who left Iran with the fall of the Shah, quotes a report prepared for the French National Assembly and submitted to President Sarkozy as saying that Iran will join the nuclear club no later than the end of 2011. "…it makes it clear that 2009 may be the last year in which the major powers would be able to persuade the Islamic Republic not to cross the threshold of making the bomb... If it is decided that Tehran should be stopped before the threshold at all costs, bolder diplomatic initiatives and/or military action might be needed," Taheri writes.
Perhaps more immediately, the Israeli attack on Gaza highlights a potentially vexing challenge for the Obama administration: how to deal with Hamas if Israel fails to cut it down to size. Matthew Levitt, a counter-terrorism and intelligence analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, warns that acceptance of Hamas despite its advocacy of violence because it controls Gaza would convince radical Islamists across the region that they need not moderate their tactics to gain international recognition. ” The message to violent Islamists throughout the region must be clear: Terrorism and politics cannot go hand in hand,” Levitt says.
Instead, he advocates encouraging political reform within the moderate Palestinian camp dominated by Fatah. Fatah pledged reform after its devastating electoral defeat to Hamas in 2006 but failed to follow through. He further suggests increased US, Israeli and European efforts to improve the day-to-day lives of West Bank residents through development and law-and-order and security assistance. Finally, Levitt advocates a strengthening of the siege of Gaza by pressing Egypt to effectively police its border with Gaza so that Hamas can no longer smuggle funds and supplies into the strip. Fact of the matter is, these policies have all been tried, and their failure is what led to the Israeli assault.
They failed because sanctions and boycotts seldom prove to be effective incentives for populations to revolt against an incumbent authority and perhaps more importantly because Palestinians will remain incapable of putting their own house in order as long as Israel does not demonstrate real commitment to the Palestinian right to a state that is viable and independent. “That such a clear commitment has not been made to this day is far more revealing of Israeli intentions and US/European indifference than any number of confidence-building measures that have left entirely unchanged the Palestinians' status as a people under the heel of a crushing and open-ended occupation,” says Henry Siegman, a visiting research professor at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies, writing in The Nation.
Siegman’s argument was recently supported by none other than outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in an interview with the New York Review of Books. A long time hawk and supporter of a Greater Israel that would incorporate the West Bank, Olmert,conceded that Israel cannot achieve peace without a return of "all, or nearly all," of the territories occupied in 1967 and agreement that East Jerusalem would be the capital of a Palestinian state. Omert’s statement contradict policies he adhered to while in government. Olmert said Israel had achieved peace with Egypt but not with Yasser Arafat’s PLO and Syria because it had advised Egypt in advance of negotiations that it would withdraw from all occupied Egyptian territory and that it was prepared to negotiate implementation of that goal. The Israeli position was conveyed to Egypt during secret talks in Morocco prior to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s 1977 visit to Jerusalem between then Israeli Defense Minister and an Egyptian general.
That, Olmert said, is something Israel has refused to say to the Palestinians or the Syrians, and that is why all previous negotiations have gone nowhere. On the contrary, starting with Dayan, Israeli policies were always devised to retain as much of the occupied territories as possible even if that meant not resolving the Palestinian issue. Asked in the late 1970s about a solution to the occupation, Dayan responded: "The question is not 'What is the solution?' but 'How do we live without a solution?'" Geoffrey Aronson director of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, and a veteran observer of Israeli settlement policy says that "living without a solution, then as now, was understood by Israel as the key to maximizing the benefits of conquest while minimizing the burdens and dangers of retreat or formal annexation."
Given its military, economic and diplomatic superiority, Israel had until now little real incentive to accommodate a weak, virtually impotent adversary. The Israel Hamas struggle to determine the balance of power coupled with the growing Israeli realization that continued occupation poses a demographic threat to the Jewish nature of the state of Israel could however turn solving the Palestinian issue an Israeli vested interest. And that may provide the Obama administration with the opportunity to succeed where past US governments have failed. To do so, the administration would have to help restore a balance between Israel and the Palestinians by leveraging its unquestioned support for Israel to ensure that Israel commits in advance of negotiations to implementation of the international consensus embodied in UN Resolutions 242 and 338, the 1993 Oslo Accords, the 2003 road map and the 2007 Annapolis understandings involving an end to Israeli settlement policy and mutually agreed changes to the pre-1967 borders that would delineate Israel and Palestine. That is a tall order for any US President and certainly for one who comes to office with a multitude of domestic and international crises on his plate.
Despite Israeli rhetoric, Israeli officials across the political spectrum agree that Hamas cannot be defeated militarily, at least not at a price Israel would find acceptable or feasible. To totally destroy Hamas, Israel would have to re-occupy Gaza, a move it is unlikely to make, even as some form of ground offensive seems imminent. As a result, Israel realizes that Hamas is in Gaza to stay for the foreseeable future, and probably would re-win the West Bank in a free and fair election.
Indeed having learnt a lesson in Lebanon where Hizbollah prevented Israel from achieving its goal of destroying the Islamists, Israeli officials limit their announced goals for the military campaign against Gaza to 'creating calm in the country's south' and 'changing the security environment.' Livni made a point in Paris of saying that overthrowing Hamas was not an Israeli goal. "We affected most of the infrastructure of terrorism in the Gaza Strip and the question whether it's enough or not will be according to our assessment on a daily basis," the foreign minister said.
That assessment largely involves a judgment of whether Israel can pound Hamas into submission. That would likely involve Hamas accepting a ceasefire that guarantees a halt to future rocket attacks, in part by Hamas accepting that access to the strip will be controlled by Israel, Egypt and the Palestine Authority. That would be a far cry from Hamas' demand for unconditional opening of all border crossings which would grant it a significant say in what goes in and out of Gaza.
Ironically, Hamas, if it can be contained and subdued, serves Israeli strategy. The split between Fatah and Hamas has weakened the Palestinians and strengthen Israel. Fatah, which dominates the Palestine Authority on the West Bank, has lost credibility because of widespread corruption, it's siding with Israel and the United States in seeking to isolate Hamas and its inability to stop Israeli settlement activity and increasingly harsh restrictions on Palestinian movement in the West Bank as well as its failure to secure a settlement acceptable to Palestinians. Hamas, meanwhile, has inherited the mantle of Palestinian resistance from Fatah.
For Israel, the question is whether it can rob Hamas of that mantle and force it to accept realities on the ground. With other words, the current military campaign aims to tame rather than crush Hamas. Ultimately this would make Hamas a negotiating partner acceptable to Israel, one that would likely enjoy greater popular support and credibility than the Palestine Authority. Israel has long blamed lack of progress in peace talks on the absence of a credible and effective negotiating partner even if its policies contributed to preventing the emergence of such a partner. Israeli leaders moreover realize that destruction of Hamas would leave a power vacuum in Gaza with no credible force to fill it.
Israeli hopes that its blockade of Gaza that started shortly after Hamas took control of the strip in 2007 would spark a popular uprising against the Islamists were dashed, leaving Israel with the choice of engaging with a strong, defiant Hamas or seeking to cut it down to size. Israel's message now delivered through the barrel of a gun is simple: if you want to retain control, forget your popular mandate to resist occupation and hold on to power on our terms and with our consent.
As a result, Israel despite its rhetoric has so far largely refrained in the current campaign from killing senior Hamas leaders. Nizar Rayyan, the most senior leader killed so far, was a hard liner, who advocated the resumption of suicide bombings in Israel and sent his own 17-year-old son on a suicide mission; an act that made him a symbol of personal sacrifice among the Palestinians. A prayer leader, who frequently appeared armed in the company of members of Hamas' military wing, Rayyan, played a key role in coordinating between the group's political and military arms. Rayyan, according to Radio Netherlands, initiated Hamas' human shield tactic when Israel in 2005 began targeting the homes of Hamas activists. He would take women and children to the roofs of threatened buildings to prevent Israeli bombardments, a tactic that saved dozens of activists. The tactic failed today when Rayyan's four wives and nine of his 12 children died alongside him in the rubble of a four-story apartment building in the Gabalia refugee camp. He clearly was not a figure who would fit into Israeli plans for Hamas.
The possibly imminent ground battle is likely to determine the balance of power between Israel and Hamas. Hamas and other Islamist groups, including Islamic Jihad, believe a ground battle will give them a strategic edge despite Israeli military superiority. The ground battle and the struggle for whose terms will frame future negotiations involves a geo-politically equally important battle over the degree of Iranian influence in the region. Hamas and other Palestinian Islamists like Hizbollah, which made its military mark in 2006, enjoy varying degrees of Iranian support. Speaking in a rare interview to The National, Islamic Jihad commander Abu Bilal said Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel were designed to lure Israeli ground troops into Gaza. "We are praying for the tanks to come so we can show them new things. We have made many preparations for the coming battle and all of our fighters wait for the chance to kill them," Abu Bilal said. The National quoted sources close to Islamic Jihad as saying many of its fighters had in recent years been trained by Hizbollah, whose combatants surprised Israel with their ability to ambush Israeli tanks. Hizbollah fighters, however, enjoyed far easier access to advanced Iranian weaponry than do their counterparts in Gaza.
The outcome of the Israel-Hamas battle for determination of the terms of any future negotiation is certain to impact domestic politics in Arab countries. A tamed Hamas forced to tune down its rhetoric and accommodate realities on the ground would provide less of a boost to Islamists across the region than a Hamas that emerges as a perceived, defiant victor capable of withstanding the onslaught of Israeli military superiority.
A majority of Arab governments, fearful that a Hamas victory would strengthen Islamists in their own backyard, have allowed public protests in a bid to channel mounting domestic anger and frustration. Yet, cracks are appearing in that approach as the gulf widens between Arab official impotence and/or unwillingness to effectively on behalf of Gaza and public demands for a response. Egyptian police detained 20 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, according to security officials, as the group called for mass demonstrations against the Israeli offensive.The Brotherhood said police rounded up at least nine members in four provinces.
The Brotherhood like its counterparts in Jordan and Mauritania, together with Egypt, the only Arab countries to have diplomatic relations with Israel, is calling for a breaking off of ties with the Jewish states. Of the three, Mauritania is the weak link in the chain. Libya and several Gulf states have reportedly offered financial assistance if Mauretania were to cut its diplomatic relations with Israel. Mauritania is walking a tightrope. Breaking off relations would open the impoverished nation to enhanced financial support from its Arab brethren and strengthen its position in disputes with Algeria, but threaten its important security and economic ties to the United States and the European Union.
Saudi Arabia, where demonstrations are legally banned, has opted for a complete clampdown because it fears that anti-Israel protests would open a Pandora's Box that would lead to demonstrations on domestic Saudi issues and demands for greater freedom. A Saudi human rights group, Human Rights First Society, reports that two Saudi activists, Khaled al Omeir and Mohammed al Otaibi, were arrested this week as they arrived for a demonstration in predominantly Shiite Qatif and Safwa. Police dispersed hundreds of protesters with rubber bullets.
The Saudi human rights group also said that authorities had detained a prominent radical Saudi cleric, Sheikh Awad al Qarni, after he had issued a fatwa endorsing attacks against Israelis wherever they may be. "Their blood should be shed as the blood of our brothers in Palestine has been shed. They should feel pain more than our brothers," Al Qarni said. Al Qarni's fatwa came days after Damascus-based Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal called for suicide attacks on Israel.
In what must be a bid to further fuel fears of enhanced Iranian regional influence against the backdrop of the Gaza crisis, Saudi-owned Asharq Al-Awsat reports in a story entitled "A Chilling Report From Paris" that Iran is a "short distance" from securing its needs to make a nuclear warhead. Amir Taheri, a prominent, conservative columnist, who left Iran with the fall of the Shah, quotes a report prepared for the French National Assembly and submitted to President Sarkozy as saying that Iran will join the nuclear club no later than the end of 2011. "…it makes it clear that 2009 may be the last year in which the major powers would be able to persuade the Islamic Republic not to cross the threshold of making the bomb... If it is decided that Tehran should be stopped before the threshold at all costs, bolder diplomatic initiatives and/or military action might be needed," Taheri writes.
Perhaps more immediately, the Israeli attack on Gaza highlights a potentially vexing challenge for the Obama administration: how to deal with Hamas if Israel fails to cut it down to size. Matthew Levitt, a counter-terrorism and intelligence analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, warns that acceptance of Hamas despite its advocacy of violence because it controls Gaza would convince radical Islamists across the region that they need not moderate their tactics to gain international recognition. ” The message to violent Islamists throughout the region must be clear: Terrorism and politics cannot go hand in hand,” Levitt says.
Instead, he advocates encouraging political reform within the moderate Palestinian camp dominated by Fatah. Fatah pledged reform after its devastating electoral defeat to Hamas in 2006 but failed to follow through. He further suggests increased US, Israeli and European efforts to improve the day-to-day lives of West Bank residents through development and law-and-order and security assistance. Finally, Levitt advocates a strengthening of the siege of Gaza by pressing Egypt to effectively police its border with Gaza so that Hamas can no longer smuggle funds and supplies into the strip. Fact of the matter is, these policies have all been tried, and their failure is what led to the Israeli assault.
They failed because sanctions and boycotts seldom prove to be effective incentives for populations to revolt against an incumbent authority and perhaps more importantly because Palestinians will remain incapable of putting their own house in order as long as Israel does not demonstrate real commitment to the Palestinian right to a state that is viable and independent. “That such a clear commitment has not been made to this day is far more revealing of Israeli intentions and US/European indifference than any number of confidence-building measures that have left entirely unchanged the Palestinians' status as a people under the heel of a crushing and open-ended occupation,” says Henry Siegman, a visiting research professor at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies, writing in The Nation.
Siegman’s argument was recently supported by none other than outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in an interview with the New York Review of Books. A long time hawk and supporter of a Greater Israel that would incorporate the West Bank, Olmert,conceded that Israel cannot achieve peace without a return of "all, or nearly all," of the territories occupied in 1967 and agreement that East Jerusalem would be the capital of a Palestinian state. Omert’s statement contradict policies he adhered to while in government. Olmert said Israel had achieved peace with Egypt but not with Yasser Arafat’s PLO and Syria because it had advised Egypt in advance of negotiations that it would withdraw from all occupied Egyptian territory and that it was prepared to negotiate implementation of that goal. The Israeli position was conveyed to Egypt during secret talks in Morocco prior to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s 1977 visit to Jerusalem between then Israeli Defense Minister and an Egyptian general.
That, Olmert said, is something Israel has refused to say to the Palestinians or the Syrians, and that is why all previous negotiations have gone nowhere. On the contrary, starting with Dayan, Israeli policies were always devised to retain as much of the occupied territories as possible even if that meant not resolving the Palestinian issue. Asked in the late 1970s about a solution to the occupation, Dayan responded: "The question is not 'What is the solution?' but 'How do we live without a solution?'" Geoffrey Aronson director of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, and a veteran observer of Israeli settlement policy says that "living without a solution, then as now, was understood by Israel as the key to maximizing the benefits of conquest while minimizing the burdens and dangers of retreat or formal annexation."
Given its military, economic and diplomatic superiority, Israel had until now little real incentive to accommodate a weak, virtually impotent adversary. The Israel Hamas struggle to determine the balance of power coupled with the growing Israeli realization that continued occupation poses a demographic threat to the Jewish nature of the state of Israel could however turn solving the Palestinian issue an Israeli vested interest. And that may provide the Obama administration with the opportunity to succeed where past US governments have failed. To do so, the administration would have to help restore a balance between Israel and the Palestinians by leveraging its unquestioned support for Israel to ensure that Israel commits in advance of negotiations to implementation of the international consensus embodied in UN Resolutions 242 and 338, the 1993 Oslo Accords, the 2003 road map and the 2007 Annapolis understandings involving an end to Israeli settlement policy and mutually agreed changes to the pre-1967 borders that would delineate Israel and Palestine. That is a tall order for any US President and certainly for one who comes to office with a multitude of domestic and international crises on his plate.
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