Middle East

An article printed in the Jerusalem Post this past week provides an interesting overview of the rising popularity of victims’ families filing lawsuits in Israeli courts against the Palestinian Authority since the start of the second intifadah.

The Israeli government has openly admitted that it has not only the right, but the obligation, to protect its citizens and defend itself against threats via a proactive campaign in the West Bank, typified by checkpoints, daily raids, arrests, and targeted killings and the construction of the infamous separation wall.

Such tactics severely limit the Palestinian Authority’s ability to enact their own security measures. For example, Palestinian security forces are prohibited from venturing outside their designated jurisdictions and in most cases, are unable to conduct operations at night.

This is a source of confusion for many moderate Palestinians, who argue that if Israel has asserted its right to defend itself by conducting a military campaign in the West Bank that not only overshadows the efforts of the PA, but in fact restricts its ability to function, how is it that the Palestinian government be held accountable? Still, some figures, such as Nitzana Darshan-Leitner a lawyer representing one of the Israeli victims, have gone so far as to say that the PA itself is responsible for the ongoing attacks

Earlier this month the U.S. administration made it clear that they have opted to play neutral on this issue, recognizing the potential damage to the fragile West Bank economy the nearly 1 billion dollars in payouts the PA faces in these lawsuits could pose, but has stopped short of making any statements that would make them seem unsympathetic to the families of victims.

In this case, in terms of securing the West Bank, both Israelis and Palestinians might agree that the term ‘Palestinian Authority’ can sometimes be a bit of a misnomer.

I’d like to express my appreciation to the Foreign Policy Association and Brian O’Neill for giving me the opportunity to take the reigns on the Middle East blog this week.

 This past week the Ramallah-based Mohammed Assadi of Reuters put together a nice piece that captures the frustration of ailing Fatah veterans, who are growing increasingly concerned with the lack of fresh faces (and ideas) within the party.  

Assadi spoke with respected Fatah leader Qaddura Fares, who humorously remarked we don’t want members whose pockets are filled with medications, which echoes a common perception on the streets of Ramallah that Fatah’s top brass spend more time at the doctor’s office than at the negotiations table.

The crisis facing Mahmoud Abbas has been compounded in light of the souring of the most recent efforts of the PA and Israelis to move forward since Annapolis. The inability of Fatah to persuade the Israelis to curb checkpoints, raids, and settlement growth, the recent death of Hamas’ Majed Barghouti while in PA custody, and the brutal bombardment of Gaza have left many young Palestinians further disillusioned with their current government and the stalemate it seems to be facing.  The overriding concern, then, is the plausibility of Palestinians seeking alternative representation.

Such a fear became much more real this past week when the findings of a survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research were made public, claiming that if elections were held today Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh would likely be victorious.

The increasing severity of the issue has prompted the aging party to begin asking itself some serious questions and to consider holding the first internal party elections in almost twenty years, which, according to a 2007 Census, is longer than half of the Palestinian population has been alive.

Afshin Molavi has a shrewd New Republic piece on the Iranian elections, and the schism in the conservative branch. Despite reformists being largely banned from running, and the general assumption being that conservatives- or, as they call themselves, “Principalists”- consolidated their power, Molavi argues that a surprising number of seats went to a pragmatic branch of the Principalists, not tied to President Ahmadinejad.

Most of the remaining seats went to conservatives–a camp that is divided between hard-liners generally in sync with Ahmadinejad and a group of “pragmatic conservatives,” who tend to be unsympathetic to the Iranian president. The divide generally splits between the United Principlist Front, affiliated with Ahmadinejad, and the Comprehensive Principlist Front, associated loosely with the pragmatic conservative camp. The pragmatists reportedly won 79 seats, as compared to the 83 seats won by hard-liners–an impressive showing given hard-line control of the state media and traditional patronage networks.

I think the only real flaw in Molavi’s piece was that it made no mention of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khameni. Despite all the justifiable uproar over Ahmadinejad, Khameni is right now the most important person in Iran. Indeed, Ahmadinejad’s raving actually helps keep Khameni and his mechanisms in the background, consolidating his power. If you are interested in this- and you should be- read Karim Sadjadpour’s long essay on Khameni, published by the Carnegie Endowment. The link will send you to where you can download the .pdf file. It is long- some 40 pages- but very worth it.

On a side note, I’ll be away from the blog for about a week. We’re having a guest blogger, Kevin Nolan, who works with independent media organizations in the West Bank. I’m looking forward to reading someone who is on the ground-floor.

Not an interesting piece by me, of course.  Let’s not be ridiculous.   FPA War Crimes blogger Daniel Graeber has an excellent piece in UPI on the long-term consequences of arming Sunni militants to fight al-Qaeda.   He discusses why this is a short-sighted plan, and one possibly doomed to blow-back in even more violence and mayhem, moreso, I think, than anything al-Qaeda could inflict.

 But as the Sons of Iraq increasingly shed blood for the country, they are growing increasingly disenfranchised with the political rewards. Iraqis, including the Awakening Councils, want peace and stability, but as in any form of participatory government, they also want power. In Diyala province recently, members of the Sons of Iraq abandoned their checkpoints in protest of the Iraqi central government’s choice for police chief, who happened to be Shiite. That’s just one minor example of the swelling tide of political discontent emerging from the Awakening Councils, as many simply see no purpose in continuing the fight as the Awakening came with few rewards. Adding to the complexity is the tenuous cease-fire by the fighters loyal to the Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, who many of the Sawha forces fear.

Read the whole piece.  Graeber brings up historical and regional analogies, and offers a shrewd analysis of how this can blow up.   The plan of arming one set of militants to fight the another, a strategy that is both over-arching and disturbingly ad hoc, redounded poorly against the US in Gaza, and can do so in Iraq in larger and more frightening ways.

The New Republic has an essayby Zvika Kreiger about the construction boom in Mecca, including a luxury hotel right across from the Kaaba.   This is controversial, largely because hundreds of holy sites are being destroyed. 

Over protests by groups like the Islamic Supreme Council of America and the Muslim Canadian Congress, Saudi authorities have authorized the destruction of hundreds of antiquities, such as an important eighteenth-century Ottoman fortress in Mecca that was razed to make way for the Abraj Al Bait Towers– a move the Turkish foreign minister condemned as “cultural genocide.” An ancient house belonging to Mohammed was recently razed to make room for, among other developments, a public toilet facility. An ancient mosque belonging to Abu Bakr has now been replaced by an ATM machine. And the sites of Mohammed’s historic battles at Uhud and Badr have been, with a perhaps unconscious nod to Joni Mitchell, paved to put up a parking lot. The remaining historical religious sites in Mecca can be counted on one hand and will likely not make it much past the next hajj, Angawi says: “It is incredible how little respect is paid to the house of God.”

Kreiger talks about how replacing the sacred with the profane is being supported full-throatedly by the Wahaabi clerical establishment.   Normal Saud/Wahaab political connections could come into play, but the more interesting reason- or co-reason- is that Wahaabism believes that anything that isn’t actually Allah is not worthy of veneration, as it becomes polytheism.   So taking these things out actually increases religious devotion, as you are no longer distracted.    It’s nice, in a way, that the construction modern hotels and luxury shops in Islam’s most sacred city isbeing defended by atavistic clerics.    It helps illustrate the eternal and torturous contradictions of both religion and politics. 

If you want to read a decent novel about the Kabaa, about Mecca and Jerusalem, I would recommend The Rock by Kanan Makiya.   Gets into the history, myth and legend of early Islam, and paints a fascinating picture of Jerusalem in the 7th-century.   If you don’t want to read a novel about that…I don’t know- Joyce?  Up to you, I guess.

Two attacks in Yemen today, onenear the US Embassy in Sana’a and another in the southern province of Abyan.  As of right now, the Yemeni government doesn’t see this as targeting the US Embassy, but rather as a “purely criminal incident”.    To be sure, the mortars in Sana’a hit a school, some 500 meters from the Embassy.    So well it could easily have been an attack on American interests, it could also have been a local matter.

Now, in the last Yemen post here, the jihadi journal “Echo of Battles” was discussed, and it was noted that the last issue directly presaged an attack.   So that does lend some credence that this could have been an al-Qaeda operation, designed to co-incide with the publication of the newest issue.  Possibly one could say smart money is on that, but I think it is short-sighted to think jihadism is the only problem or the sole source of violence in Yemen.  

The attack in the south is a little different.  It does carry the scent of Islamic militancy, but it is unsure whether it is al-Qaeda, the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army, or possible any other splinter group.  While many- most, even- Islamic militant groups share the same broad aims and are driven by similar motivations, it is wrong to think of them as monolithic.   It might be comforting to do so, and possibly fit a pre-conceived political viewpoint, but it does nothing to help the problem.  There has no been a single movement in the history of the world that wasn’t beset from conception with dissidents, schismatics, heretics.   To imagine al-Qaeda, and Islamic militancy more broadly, to be any different is simply counter-productive.

This is from October, but it is still interesting.  Congressional testimony about Iran, from Karim Sadjapour (.pdf file).    The piece is nuanced and fair, with interesting reccomendations on how the US should deal with Iran, specifically how we can influence the people, rather than the government. 

I suppose there could be a first time for anything.   The European Union is joining the US in calling for pressure on Syria to be constructive in helping Lebanon get past its current, dangerous political crisis.    Hezbollah does not agree.

What Solana said is far from being objective. It is an echo of the United States‘ position,” Hizbullah said in a statement.

“An independent European policy on Lebanon is more beneficial to Europe than simply repeating the US position,” the statement added.

Now, I am sure there is more to both Hezbollah’s statement and to the EU position.  But it is perhaps telling that it reads as if Hezbollah objects to Syria being asked to play a positive role.   To this author, that doesn’t seem too much to ask. 

Meanwhile, a top Shi’ite cleric protests that Hezbollah only has arms for self-defense, and, if Israel would stop attacking, there would be no need for weapons.

BKIRKI: Senior Shiite cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah said on Monday that Hizbullah “gathers its weapons for self-defense.”

“If attacks against us stop, with the presence of firm guarantees, then there will be no need for weapons,” Fadlallah said before a delegation of American businessmen and religious figures. “Why doesn’t Israel drop its weapons which have killed our people?”

“We encourage all people to get rid of weapons and have arms of love instead,” he added. “But when our enemies try to kill us, what will we do?”

Several Yemeni papers have reported that at-large al-Qaeda leader Qasim al-Raymi has been spotted at a funeral in Sana’a.   Al-Raymi, according to al-Needa, was spotted by an eyewitness in Sana’a beautiful, tangled Old City.   This report is seconded by al-Sahwa (which also has a picture of al-Raymi). 

(Thanks to Greg for his translation skills)

Al-Raymi has been moving up the ranks of al-Qaeda in Yemen since the jailbreak of 2005.   In this, perhaps the most seminal moment of Yemen’s struggle with jihadism, 23 suspected terrorists literally tunneled their way out of prison.   The prison experience, combined with the influx of veteran jihadis returning from Iraq, has shaped what some (including this author) are calling the second generation of al-Qaeda in Yemen.

Here, from al-Arabiyya, is a powerful graphic depicting what the prison break almost assuredly looked like.

For a bit more on al-Raymi, here is from Greg’s description of the escapees.

Qasim Yahya Mahdi al-Raymi (b. 1977): Al-Raymi is from Sanaa, and was also known by the kunya Abu Hurayrah al-San’ani. His younger brother, Faris, who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, was killed in mysterious circumstances in Sanaa in June 2007 after leaving his house in the company of Zakariya al-Yafa’i, another escapee. Another brother, Ali, is listed as being in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay. Al-Raymi was arrested in connection with a series of explosions in the al-Qadasayah district of Sanaa in 2002. He was charged with being part of the cell that was planning to attack five embassies in Sanaa. During his trial in 2004, al-Raymi threatened to cut off the leg of Said al-Akil, the public prosecutor. Al-Akil’s house was subsequently attacked with a hand grenade later that week. Al-Raymi was sentenced to five years in prison on August 30, 2004, which was later upheld by a superior court in February 2005.

Al-Raymi appearing like this is somewhat amazing.   It is an incredibly bold move, showing his face in the capital- while Yemeni Political Security isn’t the most efficient of its kind in the world, it is far from incompetent.   Al-Raymi was sending some kind of message.  What that message is constitutes the pressing question.

A clue could be in the second issue of an on-line jihadi mag (link not working- will try to fix later), called “Echoes of Battle”.    In it, the Yemeni organization seems to have changed its name from “Al-Qaeda Organization of Jihad in Yemen” to “Al-Qaeda Organization of Jihad in the Southern Arabia Penninsula.”   This is somewhat bolder, both more atavistic and future-looking (similar to many of al-Qaeda’s goals).   It would appear that as the al-Raymi and his contemporaries wage their internecine battle against the older generation, they are also expanding their goals and their reach.   Much like al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, they no longer present themselves as merely a national movement.   It is also worth noting that the first issue of “Echoes of Battles” directly presaged an attack on foriegn tourists.  We’ll see if this is their calling card, or if that was just a coincidence.

(apologies for the narcissistic links today)

Good article from The Middle East Times about Iraqi journalists defying death threats.   I don’t know if this qualifies as “good news” or not, given the circumstances, but it is pretty inspiring.