ON BALANCE, FAILED “ARAB SPRING” GOOD FOR ISRAEL– BUT TRAGIC FOR LIBERALS, CHRISTIANS, AND WOMEN

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Rider on the Storm: Danny Danon, Foreign Policy, Nov. 27, 2013 — Less than two years ago, much of the world believed that a new dawn of hope was cracking in the Middle East.

How the Arab Spring Survived 2013: Noah Feldman, Bloomberg, Dec. 18, 2013 — The news that Tunisia’s competing political factions have broken months of logjam and appointed a technocrat as interim prime minister sets the stage for a year-end review of the events that have followed the Arab Spring.

Women Are the Real Victims of the Arab Spring: Abigail R. Esman, Algemeiner, Dec. 23, 2013 —  The Arab Spring, with the rising tide of hope for democracy and change it ushered in, has turned to autumn. For women it has become an Arab Winter, dark and cold and growing more perilous by the day.

Prince Charles Speaks Up for Persecuted Christians: Majid Rafizadeh, Frontpage, Dec. 20, 2013— Dubbed by the media as an “Arab Spring” or “Arab Awakening,” these events in the Middle East must be reexamined, as they more closely represent a “Tragedy for Minorities” rather than the democratic rebirth that the former names seem to describe.

On Topic Links

Tunisia’s Reawakening: Editorial Board, New York Times, Dec. 18, 2013

South Sudan’s Growing Conflict Reflects Rivalry Between President and His Former Deputy: Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post, Dec. 22., 2013

Iraq is Still Bleeding 10 Years After Saddam Hussein's Capture: Colin Freeman, Telegraph, Dec. 12, 2013

Benghazi Suicide Bombing: Is Libya al Qaeda’s New Hotbed?: Jamie Dettmer, The Daily Beast, Dec. 22, 2013

Yemen Under Attack: Col. (res.) Dr. Shaul Shay, Besa Center, Dec. 12, 2013

Coptic Christians Fear Continued Turmoil, New Constitution in Egypt: Ray Hanania, Arab Daily News, Dec. 16, 2013

A Prayer For the Middle East’s Christians: Prince Charles, National Post, Dec. 20, 2013

RIDER ON THE STORM                                                                          Danny Danon                                          

Foreign Policy, Nov. 27, 2013

Less than two years ago, much of the world believed that a new dawn of hope was cracking in the Middle East. The voice of the people, the aspirations of youth and democracy were marching together to cast out old dictatorships. Many naively believed that freedom was about to triumph over entrenched authoritarianism. It is abundantly clear today that such earnest hopes were uniformly and regrettably misplaced. There is no better reminder of this than the dangerous agreement signed in Geneva by Iran and the world powers that comprise the P5+1 on Nov. 23. As we approach 2014, the Middle East is now on the brink of a new nuclear arms race between the region's Shiite and Sunni forces. The voices of liberal democracy, meanwhile, have been quashed by screaming jet fighters, deadly poison gas, and menacing religious fratricide.

Israelis believe that the age of prophecy is long gone. Yet one need not aspire to be a prophet to draw one remarkable insight that is as unlikely as the Arab Spring itself: Israel is strategically stronger today than it was before this season of upheaval commenced. At the same time, the instability surrounding us serves as a warning that we should not rush into artificially induced and potentially dangerous diplomatic processes in an attempt to alter the existing geopolitical landscape in the Middle East. Now is the time to sit tight, closely observe, and analyze unfolding events — all the while remaining vigilantly on guard against new and unforeseen dangers to the Jewish state. We need to look no farther than to Israel's actual borders — in every direction — for this point to be made.

Let's start with Egypt, the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel. The Egyptian military's rejection of Muslim Brotherhood control has been a near-lethal blow to the Islamist organization's stolid allies in Gaza, Hamas. The current Egyptian government is doing what its predecessor did not: locating and effectively destroying as many as 150 smuggling tunnels from the Sinai Peninsula into Gaza — tunnels that were used to transport weapons and contraband — and moving to end radical Muslim control of large chunks of Gaza. As a result, the boundary between Gaza and Egypt is no longer a leaking sieve for unchecked terrorist travels. Even countries that are technically at war with Israel recognize how the balance of power is shifting in the region. Recent news reports have detailed how Saudi Arabia is furious about the Obama administration's latest actions in the Middle East — especially the recent agreement with Iran — leading to a rapprochement of sorts with Israel. Saudi Arabia now believes that tension between Sunni and Shiite powers has, to a degree, supplanted regional enmity that has historically been directed at Israel. Although one won't read it in the Saudi press anytime soon, millions of people in the Gulf — supported by many minorities including Kurds, Christians, Druse, Sufis, and Baluchis, among others — are quietly banking on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's promise not to allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. This is especially true in light of the recent nuclear accord with Iran.

Even the Syrian crisis has improved Israel's strategic position in the region. While we pray for a speedy and peaceful end to the bloodshed, Israel is fully committed to remaining outside the civil war. This is not our fight. We will continue, however, to act to ensure that "game changing" weapons do not fall in to the hands of anyone who threatens the state of Israel. One result of the conflict is indisputable: a weakened President Bashar al-Assad and the disruption of the line of strategic hegemony running directly from Iran through Syria to Lebanon is a boon to Israeli security. That disruption seems beyond reversal, no matter what might occur in the future. Finally, the situation in Lebanon has shifted as well. The paramilitary group Hezbollah has dispatched many of its fighters to Syria, bogging down men and logistics while at the same time reigniting strong opposition from other Lebanese who want no part in Syria's mayhem. While there is danger that Hezbollah is using the Syrian civil war to train for future battle against Israel, it is even more significant that the so-called Party of God has been attacked with bombs in Lebanon, seen its supply line from Teheran constricted, and had weapons shipments mysteriously destroyed on the ground. Even the European Union has belatedly labeled it the terrorist organization it is.

The Arab Spring has seen the threat posed by all of Israel's traditional, state-based foes either fully eliminated or significantly diminished. On the one hand, this means that, in the short-term at least, citizens of Israel can sleep more soundly at night. On the other hand, the challenge remains to identify the next danger on the horizon in the Middle East. As I like to remind my colleagues, our region is extremely fluid. When I was a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, we held a meeting the day before Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was forced to resign. Not a single expert in the room predicted that this monumental shift was going to take place in 24 hours. We must closely observe the volatile situation in the Middle East with this in mind. Israel might be in a better strategic position to face the historical challenges that undoubtedly face us in the coming years, but events can be hard to predict in this part of the world. As a result, we must remain ever-vigilant to protect the people of Israel.

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HOW THE ARAB SPRING SURVIVED 2013         

Noah Feldman           

Bloomberg, Dec. 18, 2013

The news that Tunisia’s competing political factions have broken months of logjam and appointed a technocrat as interim prime minister sets the stage for a year-end review of the events that have followed the Arab Spring. Keeping up the seasonal metaphor, one could say Tunisia offers a hint of Indian summer in what is otherwise a chilly autumn. The Tunisian economy is shaky, the public is frustrated, and two prominent leftists have been assassinated by Salafists. Yet democracy is still functioning, and a multiparty deal facilitating completion of a new constitution is within reach. While Tunisia has followed a slow, unsteady constitutional process, Libya hasn’t really gotten started. It’s in a holding pattern, with a site for constitutional negotiations chosen but no delegates elected and ethnic minorities threatening a boycott. Egypt, meanwhile has been the focus of altogether too much action. The third new constitution in three years has just been drafted, this time by military authorities who seem to have sidelined democracy for good. Depressing as this is, the situation in Syria — full-blown civil war with no end in sight — is worse.

What do these developments teach us about how democracy forms and how democratic countries like the U.S. can encourage it? The first lesson is that no two countries are alike. Even the three contiguous North African states that saw dictators fall amid popular dissent over several months in 2011 have followed strikingly different trajectories. The forces that brought down Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi were similar. But when it came to rebuilding, differences were more salient. Islamists won elections in all three places, yet they have been distinct from one another. Tunisia’s Ennahda Party has compromised with secularists and incorporated them into a governing coalition. Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood did neither and fell in a military coup. Libya’s elected leaders are Islamist in orientation but so far lack a cohesive party organization, rendering the government largely inert. In Syria, democratic Islamists are both allied with and opposed to radical jihadis, which is what happens when the field of play is war rather than politics.

The second lesson is that deal-making is the single most important skill for a political class seeking democratic stability. Tunisia’s new leaders had relatively little experience running anything, but the political culture of consensus in Tunisia meant that all sides aspire to agreement. Actually reaching a deal can be agonizing, but at least the haggling is intended to get to yes. In Qaddafi’s Libya, decisions were simply imposed from above, so no one today feels much pressure to struggle for consensus. In Egypt, where political Islamism was born, the regime had always treated the Muslim Brothers as an existential threat. So for secularists, it was natural to think there could be no compromise with the Islamists even after they were elected. This led many secularists to support their ouster even when it so obviously meant a return to military dictatorship. The Alawite minority that has long ruled Syria always considered the idea of compromise with the Sunni majority tantamount to suicide. These days, Sunnis tend not to argue the point. As a result, prospects for a negotiated solution seem vanishingly small. Neither side can even produce a credible picture of what a negotiated solution would look like. Outsiders talk about an imposed peace with cantons for different communities that would make Lebanon look like a model of coexistence.

A final lesson is that external states can make a difference, for better or worse. France has encouraged democracy in Tunisia for the most part by declining to put a thumb on the scales in favor of either secularists or Islamists. With no one from the outside telling the Islamists they couldn’t draft an Islamic constitution, internal protests were heard more clearly, and the Islamists dropped Shariah from their constitutional wish list. Luckily for Tunisia, the U.S., with almost no interest in the country, has played essentially no role in its political debates…

The ambivalence of democratic states toward the disaster in Syria has been even more destructive. Unable to decide which is worse, an Iranian backed regime or a potentially Salafist one, the world’s democracies have essentially embraced war without end. With the competing parties having deepened their animosity through extended bloodshed, it’s clear no result will be democratic. The overarching lesson of the last year is that bringing down regimes is much easier than building new, democratic ones. The next time established democracies face a democratic opening in a previously autocratic region, they shouldn’t blithely expect success to come naturally. Rather, they should actively provide incentives for success and consequences for failure.                                                                                  

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WOMEN ARE THE REAL VICTIMS

OF THE ARAB SPRING                                                     

Abigail R. Esman

Algemeiner, Dec. 23, 2013

The Arab Spring, with the rising tide of hope for democracy and change it ushered in, has turned to autumn. For women it has become an Arab Winter, dark and cold and growing more perilous by the day. And nowhere is the situation worse than it is in the country where hopes for democracy and freedom were the highest: Egypt. Such are the findings of a new Thomson Reuters Foundation poll, which showed that women are worse off today in all the “Arab Spring” countries than they were previously. Moreover, throughout the Arab region, violence against women, sexual abuse, and political oppression remain generally the worst in the world. These findings are tragic, not only for what they reveal about the plight of women in the region, but for what they tell us about the future of the “Arab Spring” countries. “Despite hopes that women would be one [sic] of the prime beneficiaries of the Arab Spring,” note the Reuters report’s authors, “they have instead been some of the biggest losers, as the revolts have brought conflict, instability, displacement and a rise in Islamist groups in many parts of the region.”…

Egypt’s numbers are the most telling, however, exposing not just the rise in power of Islamic fundamentalist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, but how very inevitable this result was from the start – and certainly once Hosni Mubarak was displaced. This, after all, is the country where a shocking 91 percent of all women are victims of genital mutilation, a practice clearly endemic (especially in rural areas) even under Mubarak’s so-called secular reign. Since the rise of Islamist factions, however, the situation has become even grimmer, the poll indicates, with rising rates of trafficking and forced marriage. “There are whole villages on the outskirts of Cairo and elsewhere where the bulk of economic activity is based on trafficking in women and forced marriages,” Zahra Radwan, Middle East and North Africa Program officer for the Global Fund for Women, told Reuters. That outcome might have been expected, given the nature of the Muslim Brotherhood-led government that followed Mubarak’s fall. It was the Brotherhood that opposed a UN declaration on women’s rights that would allow women to travel and use contraception, arguing that such a move, which “contradicts established principles of Islam,” would essentially destroy society. (Russia, Iran, and the Vatican also opposed the measure.)

How bad are things in Egypt and Iraq? As No. 1 and No. 2 respectively, they are worse, evidently, even than Saudi Arabia, which is notorious for its abysmal record in its treatment of women. That ranking alone is shocking: but it also provides an insight for Westerners into the undercurrent and power of Islamic fundamentalism and Islamism in those Arab Spring countries, and the decreasing likelihood that democracy will take hold in the next decade. In fact, not only do these two countries pose greater threats to women’s lives than even Somalia and Sudan, but the poll finds that the Saudis are beginning to make small strides towards opening doors to women. Saudi women, for instance, will have the right to vote in municipal elections for the first time in 2015; they recently were granted the right to practice law; and thanks to forceful activism, the right to drive may also soon be within their reach.

Indeed, listed as the survey’s third worst country for women, Saudi Arabia scored “better than many other Arab states when it came to access to education and healthcare, reproductive rights and gender violence,” according to the poll’s authors. But even more important was their observation that thousands of younger Saudis who had traveled abroad were returning “with very different ideas about their relative places in the world.” Contrast this development with Syria, which follows Saudi Arabia as the fourth worst country for Arab women. Here, too, Westerners once hoped for a new, democratic, progressive state to rise in place of Bashar al-Assad’s cruel dictatorship. “Many Syrian women worry about the influence of militant Islamists who have taken control of some rebel-held areas,” Reuters reports. Young girls in refugee camps also suffer, the researchers found, where even 12-year-olds have been forced into marriage. The report also describes a “spike in honor killings” in Syria, rising to about 300 a year, though it is unclear whether that number is a significant change from previous years. A 2007 article in the Christian Science Monitor put the number at 200 to 300 annually. In Libya, too, where the world once held so much hope for a free and democratic future, women now face kidnappings along with random arrest, rape, and physical abuse, Reuters found. It is worth noting, however, that the physical abuse numbers may result from a rise in the reporting of such events, rather than from an increase in incidents.

The sad thing is that much of this violence could have been anticipated – and at least in part prevented. Certainly it was naïve to believe that the majority of the women who fought for Mubarak’s removal were any more westernized than the majority of the men. With an illiteracy rate of 35 percent (45 percent of women), in a country where two-thirds of women between the ages of 15-49 support the practice of genital mutilation, the proverbial writing was clearly on the wall. But far more disturbing is the picture that this paints for the future, particularly with a new Egyptian constitution that, for all its lip service to democracy, holds sharia law supreme. If Saudi women are advancing, it is thanks to a new willingness by their government to support (western) education. But such opportunities may be lost to Egypt’s women, and increasingly, to their sisters in Syria, Lebanon, Libya, and even the Palestinian Territories (which scored a miserable 15 out of 22 in the Thomson Reuters study). The inevitable result will not only be a deterioration of women’s rights in these countries, but too, a growing Islamic conservatism as the curtains surrounding the windows to the West – and to the Enlightenment – begin to close. As they do, the threats will continue to grow stronger, not just to Egyptian women’s lives, but to our own.

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PRINCE CHARLES SPEAKS UP FOR PERSECUTED CHRISTIANS                                                     

Majid Rafizadeh

Frontpage, Dec. 20, 2013

Dubbed by the media as an “Arab Spring” or “Arab Awakening,” these events in the Middle East must be reexamined, as they more closely represent a “Tragedy for Minorities” rather than the democratic rebirth that the former names seem to describe. This campaign to persecute minorities— particularly Christians in Muslim countries that have gone through uprisings or revolution like Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Libya, and Yemen— have increased in the Middle East. Currently, Islamist parties are ruling the state, or are operating separately from the government, to implement their ideology throughout the region, serving their materialistic and political goals. The number of Christian is shrinking significantly in the predominantly Muslim societies of the region, to almost a mere 4 percent of the population. Even though Christianity was born in this region, many Christians who see these nations as their homeland are being forced to leave. This raises the question as to whether the Islamist agenda is to wipe out all the minorities in this region, making an Islamic world with Christians disappearing, leaving a unified Muslim region under the rule of Allah, and gaining geopolitical and materialistic interests.

The situation is so tragic that even political figures and Western governments that attempt to be very cautious about their comments on Islam were not capable of denying the severity of the situation any longer. This week, Prince Charles emphasized that the campaign of persecution by extremist Muslims and fundamentalist Islamists is leading to the disappearance of Christianity in the Middle East. According to The Blaze, Prince Charles stated, “It seems to me that we cannot ignore the fact that Christians in the Middle East are increasingly being deliberately targeted by fundamentalist Islamist militants.”  The British royal also made these remarks and comments to various religious leaders. The intensity of the kidnappings, murders, and persecutions of minorities, particularly Christians, is higher in countries such as Iraq, Syria, and Egypt. Prince Charles also added in The Telegraph that, “Christianity was literally born in the Middle East and we must not forget our Middle Eastern brothers and sisters in Christ. … Yet today the Middle East and North Africa has the lowest concentration of Christians in the world – just 4 percent of the population, and it is clear that the Christian population has dropped dramatically over the last century and is falling still further.”

In addition, the Prince of Wales stated that several strategies and tactics such as “intimidation, false accusation and organized persecution” are being utilized in a systematic campaign to force out the Christians, creating an exodus of Christians and other minorities from the region, according to The Telegraph. Furthermore, he warned that in case this systematic persecution by Islamists, extremists, and fundamentalists in Muslim societies did not halt, then “we [will] all lose something immensely and irreplaceably precious when such a rich tradition dating back 2,000 years begins to disappear.” In such cases, when minorities like the Christians and Jewish people of the Middle East are forced out of their homes, their belongings are oftentimes confiscated by Islamists groups (or the state) and distributed among themselves. When I used to live in Syria, in a neighborhood which used to be called Share Alyahood (Jewish Street), many of the houses of the Jewish people— who were forced into exile and out of the country— were being used by the government forces. The owners were not allowed to return to their homeland.

Repeated rapes, instances of torture, kidnappings, and the slaughter of Christians are only some of the methods used by the rising Islamists in the Middle East to force Christians out, frightening them or forcing them into Islamic conversion. But why is there such hatred towards Christians in the region? The persecution of Christians is not implemented because they are part of any militant or political group, or because they are attempting to overthrow the ruling party. The persecution is conducted because of their faith, due to their personal beliefs and religious practices. Several polls have shown that Middle East and particularly the predominantly Muslim societies are the worst places for Christians to live, as these countries are where the most severe persecution takes place towards Christians…

[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link –ed.]

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Tunisia’s Reawakening: Editorial Board, New York Times, Dec. 18, 2013— Three years ago, a 26-year-old fruit vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself ablaze in the central Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid after being shaken down and humiliated by corrupt local officials, setting off an outpouring of anger across the Arab world against tyrannical regimes.

South Sudan’s Growing Conflict Reflects Rivalry Between President and His Former Deputy: Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post, Dec. 22., 2013 — They were an unlikely pair to lead the world’s newest nation — from different tribal groups and different regions, having taken vastly different paths to power.

Iraq is Still Bleeding 10 Years After Saddam Hussein's Capture: Colin Freeman, Telegraph, Dec. 12, 2013— Ten years after the capture of Saddam Hussein, Iraq is at risk of becoming a failed state again as al-Qaeda reclaims vast swathes of the country.

Benghazi Suicide Bombing: Is Libya al Qaeda’s New Hotbed?: Jamie Dettmer, The Daily Beast, Dec. 22, 2013— A suicide bomber detonated a truck loaded with explosives at an army base 30 miles from the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on Sunday morning, killing six soldiers and prompting fears that al Qaeda is now set to exploit the political and militia-related turmoil plaguing Libya.

Yemen Under Attack: Col. (res.) Dr. Shaul Shay, Besa Center, Dec. 12, 2013 — The Republic of Yemen’s demographic and social structure, tribal divisions, perpetual civil wars, and lack of effective central government are taking the country down the path towards failure.

Coptic Christians Fear Continued Turmoil, New Constitution in Egypt: Ray Hanania, Arab Daily News, Dec. 16, 2013 — Arab Spring is a deceptive label created by western leftists as a misnomer for the Islamic revival in Arab countries.

A Prayer For the Middle East’s Christians: Prince Charles, National Post, Dec. 20, 2013— I have for some time now been deeply troubled by the growing difficulties faced by Christian communities in various parts of the Middle East.

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