It is difficult for the Western liberal to observe the new Middle
East. His worldview is based on criticizing the West and granting
sweeping amnesty to those who are seen as its victims. This liberal’s
code of values forbids him to define Third World evil as such. So he
demonstrated against the war in Vietnam, but kept silent in the face of
the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia. He opposed the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, but kept silent in the face of the oppression in Iran.
This
is why he hastens to denounce Israel, while displaying leniency toward
Hamas’ fascism. The Western liberal knows how to rise up against Western
exertion of force and likes doing so. But at the sight of Arabs
slaughtering Arabs, he is lost. Whom will he rage against? Whom can he
demonstrate against? At whom will he feel holy fury?
...
The new Middle East is now raising penetrating questions that must
generate an upheaval in liberal thought. Liberals can no longer ignore
the awful plague of Middle Eastern brutality and the fact that millions
of Arabs live with no rights and no future.
While voicing
justified criticism against Israel (for the occupation, settlements,
racist fringes), they must lift their eyes and see the expanse in which
Israel is located. An expanse in which Yazidis are massacred and
Christians are persecuted and women are stoned. An expanse in which
there is no democracy, or peace, or grace. This is a Middle East that
liberals must see as it is – and deal with its diseases courageously.
The Sykes–Picot Agreement, officially known as the Asia Minor Agreement, was a secret agreement between the governments of the United Kingdom and France,[1] with the assent of Russia, defining their proposed spheres of influence and control in the Middle East should the Triple Entente succeed in defeating the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The negotiation of the treaty occurred between November 1915 and March 1916.[2] The agreement was concluded on 16 May 1916.[3]
The agreement effectively divided the Arab provinces of the Ottoman
Empire outside the Arabian peninsula into areas of future British and
French control or influence.[4] The terms were negotiated by the French diplomat François Georges-Picot and British Sir Mark Sykes. The Russian Tsarist government was a minor party to the Sykes–Picot agreement, and when, following the Russian Revolution of October 1917, the Bolsheviks exposed the agreement, 'the British were embarrassed, the Arabs dismayed and the Turks delighted.'[5]
ISIS, the al-Qaeda spin-off that has effectively destroyed Iraq in the last few months, aims to dismantle the Sykes-Picot agreement altogether. That's likely to lead to massive bloodshed in the Middle East, where the only true loyalty is - not even to Islam - tribal.
Here is an English language video from ISIS explaining their goal. Because YouTube has removed ISIS videos before, I downloaded this one.
Let's go to the videotape.
Thanks to US President Hussein Obama, there really isn't anyone to stop them. At least until they meet Israel.
Kedar: It's time to end the fantasy of a 'Palestinian people'
Professor Mordechai Kedar says it's time to end the fantasy of a 'Palestinian people.' But first, let's look at this video in which Kedar talks about the possibility of 'peace' between Israel and the Arabs.
Despite the benefits of this ambiguous situation, Israel should adopt
a clearer policy: Since the PLO has not abandoned its plan to destroy
Israel, it must end the dream of establishing a state under the rule of
this organization. The Hamas movement began the process in Gaza, and
Israel must continue it in Judea and Samaria in order to establish seven
city-states and to leave the rural areas under Israeli control.
The seven city-states will free most of the Arab population in Judea
and Samaria from Israeli control and Israel can offer citizenship to
residents of the rural space. These city-states based on local clans
will be real entities and not the fantasies of some Palestinian
intellectuals and tired Israeli souls regarding the existence of a
single united Palestinian people in Gaza and in Judea and Samaria.
The Palestinian people exist just as the Syrian people do, the Iraqi,
Libyan or Sudanese people. The social reality in the Middle East is
rooted in the culture of the tribe, the ethnic group (Arabs, Kurds,
etc.), the religious group (Muslims, Druze, Alawites, Christians, etc.)
and sectarian group (Sunni, Shia, etc.). Only countries based on one
homogeneous group can survive in this area, and provide their citizens
with a reasonable life.
Israel must base its policy on reality, not on dreams and fantasies of a new Middle East.
But the West is wrong to think it has no good options. It has a
superb and just option, one that will let history unfold as it should
have long ago. That option — to break up Syria into coherent nations —
was proposed earlier this summer by former U.S. Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger in a gathering at the Ford School.
“First of all,
Syria is not a historic state. It was created in its present shape in
1920, and it was given that shape in order to facilitate the control of
the country by France,” he began, explaining the root of the present
crisis.
“Secondly, it’s a country that is divided into many
ethnic groups, a multiplicity of ethnic groups, and that means that an
election doesn’t give you the same results as in the United States
because every ethnic group votes for its own people … Moreover these
ethnic groups are very antagonistic to each other. You have Kurds,
Druzes, Alawites, Sunnis and 10 to 12 Christian ethnic groups.”
The
notion that these groups could ever get together and form a coalition
government, as proposed in the Western media, is not only unrealistic
but “inconceivable,” says Kissinger. “On the whole it is an ethnic and
sectarian country… it is now a civil war between sectarian groups.”
Kissinger
believes Syria should and will break up in some fashion — indeed, the
independent-minded Kurds have already created a de facto state with a
potent military, the Druze have their own militias and Assad’s ruling
Alawites, in preparation for a retreat to their traditional homelands
should they lose the civil war, have heavily fortified Alawite
territory. This break up, sooner rather than later, is Kissinger’s
preferred outcome yet the West is misguidedly acting to thwart it.
Plan
A for the West, President Obama explained this week, would be “a shot
across the bow” — limited bombing to teach Assad a lesson while allowing
him to remain in power. This plan, many believe, not only risks a
larger war by a panicked Assad but also could backfire by enhancing
Assad’s stature at home and in the Arab world, in that he could claim to
have withstood an attack by the combined colonial powers.
So
what would the effect be if the Western nations chose neither the
do-nothing option nor a risky military attack but adopted instead a
Kissinger-inspired Plan B — a principled declaration that they favour a
division of Syria into its constituent nations, starting with an
independent Kurdish state in what is now Syrian Kurdistan?
Without
dropping a single bomb, this declaration would create a win for the
Kurds, a pro-Western people who are also one of the largest ethnic
groups in the world without a state of their own. It would create a win
for the West, who would now have a pro-Western state in what has long
been hostile territory. It would create a humiliating loss for Assad,
who would be seen to have presided over the dismemberment of his
country. And most importantly in meeting the West’s immediate security
needs, it would send a chill through Iran’s mullahs, who have to date
been impervious to Western boycotts and other attempts to end Iran’s
drive for nuclear weapons. Iran, which has Kurds of its own along with
other restive minorities, would now contemplate the prospect of the
dismemberment of its own state – Iran’s dominant Persians represent only
about 60% of the country’s population. A Western declaration of support
for Iran’s Kurdish minority would deter the mullahs as nothing else
has.
Well, yeah. But for the United States' word to mean something, wouldn't they have to be seen as willing to back it up?
Everyone who is involved with high tech in Israel in any way has been asked to participate or has participated in an event promoting 'Palestinian' high tech. Yes, including me. The unstated goal of each of these events is that through working together on high tech projects, Israelis and 'Palestinians' will see each other as human beings with a basic humanity in common, and that this will somehow magically lead to peace.
So far, it's been very successful in creating a lot of 'Palestinian' high tech ventures through Israeli venture capitalists and through most, if not all, of the American companies who have large investments here. That would include Cisco (which plays a major part in the story below), Google, Intel, Microsoft, etc.
I have mentioned several times on this blog attending a lecture back in the '90's by Natan Sharansky, in which he talked about trying to interest the 'Palestinian' leadership in economic projects during his term as Minister of Industry and Trade. The theory behind such efforts is that if the 'Palestinians' have something to lose economically to terrorism, it will make them think twice about promoting or undertaking it. Sharansky reported that the 'Palestinian leadership' had no interest in any economic projects - they were only interested in how much land they were going to get and how much arms and ammunition they were going to receive to try to take and hold that land.
About a month ago, Richard Behar published an article in Forbes, which included interviews with 'Palestinian' entrepreneurs and which was about the efforts of Cisco - which has invested a huge amount of money in Israel - and its CEO John Chambers to encourage 'Palestinian' high tech. I didn't blog the articlefor several reasons, although I did read it. Yesterday, I was pointed to another Forbes article by Behar, which is mostly about 'Palestinian' reactions to the original article (the Israelis who were interviewed all reacted positively). Those reactions were mostly fury, demands that the article be taken down from the magazine's web site, and fear of being labeled 'collaborators.'
But the vast majority of Palestinians who were featured by FORBES
reacted with disappointment, upset, and sometimes fear or fury.
Referring to it as a “political article,” several requested that the
entire piece be removed before they would even discuss their feelings
with me. (Sorry, that’s not an option.) Some worry that the story will
harm their businesses by sparking retaliation from Arab extremists. One
says he’s already seeing such a backlash. Only three Palestinians named
in our reports spoke positively about them.
The reasons for that are obvious. Many Israelis who are involved in these efforts believe that if they enable the 'Palestinians' to stand on their own economically, it will be much easier for peace to happen. People who have wealth to protect would rather have peace than have their wealth destroyed. But the 'Palestinians' - either due to their education to hatred for generations or due to fear of standing up to their leadership - do not see these efforts as even being aimed toward peace.
Meanwhile, the word “peace” keeps popping into my head as they expound
about their goals and impressive accomplishments. I try and swat the
word away, like it’s a nasty locust, because I know that most of the
Palestinians who are training and/or working with Israelis on high-tech
ventures are emphatic that these are not efforts at peace, or a
‘normalization’ of relations — or some kind of tiptoeing substitute for
their own state. I get it. They are simply being sensible, taking
advantage of the immeasurable knowledge that exists inside their
next-door neighbor’s “Start-up Nation” – a global technological
powerhouse in a country the size of New Jersey — to help develop a
similar economy.
Even the 'Palestinians' who are arranging the collaboration (why do I hesitate to use that word?) between Israeli and 'Palestinian' high tech entrepreneurs refuse to see them as a stepping stone to peace.
Flash forward. “Your articles are very political and I am very upset,”
writes Sam Husseini, one of the men at that April dinner, whose company (LionHeart)
is the recruiter of Palestinian CEOs and managers for Cisco-sponsored
trainings. “I spoke with many Palestinians here that you quoted in the
articles and almost all are very upset. This will definitely hurt our
businesses. I honestly don’t know how to react to this…We need this
[article] removed NOW. Please.”
Later, by phone, Sam says: “You should have run it by us first. The
first thing we would have told you is move the word ‘peace’ out of the
article.”
Huh? Move it to where? How could peace not be mentioned in
any article that discusses Palestinian-Israeli co-ventures? (Talk about
ignoring the proverbial elephant in the room.) In virtually every
interview I conducted with Israelis and Palestinians, I touched on
politics and the conflict. Even Husseini, during the Ramallah dinner,
volunteered that “I don’t understand the tactics of Abbas or Netanyahu
[the leaders of the Palestinian Authority and Israel, respectively] — I
think they’re both idiots.” Was such talk strictly for dinner
consumption? It would be unfair to readers to make believe that politics
isn’t omnipresent in a place like the Middle East – lurking in every
corner, every sentence, every glance.
“But the thing is, we live here,” responds Sam. “The whole
article is written for the American audience, which doesn’t understand
the complexities of life here. But for us, Israelis and Palestinians, we
see that this took advantage and turned something that is non-political
into a political statement. You’re gonna hurt a lot of Israelis and
Palestinians.”
What do the 'Palestinians' want? What do they fear? And if they really want peace, why is their leadership taking them in a different direction? Perhaps these comments by historian Benny Morris about Egypt's peace treaty with Israel will elucidate the answer.
Morris then makes a comparison between Palestinians and neighboring
Egyptians — worth including here due to the tremendous upheaval that is
unfolding in that country. “And don’t forget,” says Morris, “while Egypt
had and has a peace treaty with Israel, its middle class completely
rejected and rejects Israel – all and any contact with the Jewish state
(the lawyers, doctors, academics associations – all are flatly
rejectionist, the very people called ‘secular’ and ‘liberal’ by the
approving Western press. They may be liberal about democracy, women,
human rights – but not about Israel and its existence. The same probably
applies to the Palestinian middle class, but it is not averse to
clandestine cooperation to make money for itself. That’s part of the
problem.”
Morris is right about Egypt. Recall this from the Egyptian blogger Sandmonkey.
But
then I rememebrd that we- the majority of us anyway- don't want peace
with Israel, and are not interested in any real dialogue with them. We
weren't then and we are not now. The Entire peace process has always
been about getting the land back, not establishing better relations.
Even when we do get the land back, it's not enough. People in Egypt
lament daily the Camp David treaty that prevents us from fighting. In
Gaza they never stopped trying to attack Israel. In Lebanon Hezbollah
continued attacking even after the Israeli withdrawel. And the people-
the majority of the arab population- support it. Very few of us are
really interested in having any lasting Peace or co-existance. I mean,
if our left is asking for war, what do you think the rest of the
population is thinking?
I think that the Israeli want peace with
us because they don't want their lives disrupted. They don't want to
have the IDF soldiers fighting in Gaza, rockets coming into their towns
from Hamas or having to go to wars against Hezbollah to get their
soldiers back. I think they want peace because they want their peace of
mind. They view us as if we were a headache. We view them as if they
are a cancer.
But is Morris right about the 'Palestinians'? Are they also a case where the leadership is engaging in 'peace talks' to get money from the West, while the middle class really has no interest in it? Honestly... I don't believe that.
Yes, there are many 'Palestinians' who genuinely hate Israelis, and who would do anything to murder us. Maybe even most 'Palestinians.' They are that way because they've been brainwashed by their leaders or because they have lived in poverty for the last 46-65 years because they fled their homes when the Arab countries ordered them to do so. They've been held hostage for the dream of the 'right of return' by the 'Palestinian leadership' and by the Arab countries themselves. But they're not the high tech entrepreneurs.
The high tech entrepreneurs are the smart people (and the 'Palestinians' are reputed to be the smartest of the Arabs). They fear that the 'Palestinian leadership' and the Arab countries will discover one of their deepest, darkest secrets: That deep down, they don't care about an independent 'Palestine' and would be happy to live as a minority in a Jewish state (Israel) that treats them far better than 'Palestine' would ever treat them. If you think I'm making this up, or that I'm imagining things because they're pro-Israel, please consider this (source here).
The awkward fact is that the 270,000 Arabs who live in East Jerusalem
may not be very enthusiastic about joining Palestine. The survey, which
was designed and supervised by former State Department Middle East
researcher David Pollock, found that only 30 percent said they would
prefer to be citizens of Palestine in a two-state solution, while 35
percent said they would choose Israeli citizenship. (The rest said they
didn't know or refused to answer.) Forty percent said they would
consider moving to another neighborhood in order to become a citizen of
Israel rather than Palestine, and 54 percent said that if their
neighborhood were assigned to Israel, they would not move to Palestine.
The
reasons for these attitudes are pretty understandable, even healthy.
Arabs say they prefer Israel's jobs, schools, health care and welfare
benefits to those of a Palestinian state -- and their nationalism is not
strong enough for them to set aside these advantages in order to live
in an Arab country. The East Jerusalemites don't much love Israel --
they say they suffer from discrimination. But they seem to like what it
has to offer. Remarkably, 56 percent said they traveled inside Israel at
least once a week; 60 percent said access to its Mediterranean beaches
was "very important" or "moderately important" to them.
"Quite
clearly there is a discrepancy between people's attitudes and the
assumption that Palestinian neighborhoods should be part of Palestine,"
said Pollock, whose work was sponsored by Pechter Middle East polls and
the Council on Foreign Relations. "That's not actually what the people
want."
How many of those 'Palestinian' entrepreneurs who have been exposed to Israelis feel the same way?
Those 'Palestinians' who have tasted what it means to live in a free state (which 'Palestine' will never be) understand that notwithstanding their tribal loyalties, they and their families will be better off living in Israel and working with Israelis. Take, for example, journalist Khaled Abu Toameh (source here):
But just as frightening as Arab Palestinian bloggers and journalists
being arrested for posting on their Facebook pages is the steady
drumbeat of pressure that is leading to a decrease in coverage by
western journalists who, presumably, are not as vulnerable to the
capricious selections for punishment designed to suppress criticism of
the ruling regime.
In addition to whispered discussions being
heard in Ramallah about the “Facebook Police” are the directives issued
to western journalists to focus their reporting on “Israel’s
‘occupation’” and refrain from prying into alleged corruption committed
by PA officials, because “nothing else is newsworthy and nothing else
should be reported.”
Some western journalists have been warned
not to work with Arabic speaking reporters who fail to toe the
“All-Occupation, All The Time” reporting. This is how the PA controls
not only their own media outlets, but those western outlets. All too
many simply play along rather than stand up for press and speech
freedoms and possibly risk losing access. For those journalists who
behave and report primarily about the occupation, the rewards are access
to senior officials. Senior PA officials told Arab Israeli journalist
abu Toameh, “Even the Jews at Haaretz behave themselves and for that
they are rewarded with interviews of PA President Mahmoud Abbas.”
It
is not only individual journalists who are being intimidated, but
entire news sites critical of the PA have been blocked on the internet.
A report in late April revealed that several websites which had
reported on corruption within the PA were blocked, including Inlight
Press, which had revealed that the PA had been monitoring the phones of
Mahmoud Abbas’s opponents.
Abu Toameh left the 'Palestinian territories' 30 years ago to report for the Jerusalem Post.
What Behar is confronting is 'Palestinians' who may not want peace with Israel, but who are willing to live in peace with Israel anyway and who fear being exposed as 'collaborators' in front of members of their tribes. The only way this will stop is if the world stops subsidizing the 'destroy Israel' narrative pushed by the 'Palestinian Authority,' stops financing UNRWA to maintain the dream of destroying Israel through the right of return, and forces the 'Palestinian street' to grow up and earn a living. It's not likely to happen to anytime soon. The profits will continue but they won't lead to peace.
What this means, said Taqi, is that any attempt to broker a
diplomatic solution must begin with a cease-fire, and with combatants
holding different slices of territory. The future Syria that emerges
will have to be a more decentralized state, reflecting the intense
feelings of communal separation and rage that have emerged over the past
two years of war.
This blunt analysis is useful as the United States and Russia explore arrangements for a Geneva peace conference,
perhaps in October, that might bring together the regime and the
opposition for talks. “It may not be possible to reestablish a national
convention based on a central state,” warned Taqi in a recent research
paper. “We need . . . a state where all regions have a high percentage of decentralization.”
Taqi
argued that as the Alawite-led regime and the Sunni opposition hunker
down in the regions they control, they are turning to external powers
for their political and economic lifelines.
The Assad regime depends on its patrons in Iran and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah
militia in neighboring Lebanon. The regime has focused on holding the
strip of territory from Damascus to the Alawite homeland of Latakia
in the northwest, relying on perhaps 100,000 regime troops and Alawite
militiamen, plus Hezbollah fighters. This “Assad-istan” is, practically
speaking, an extension of the Hezbollah-controlled Bekaa Valley.
The Sunni-led opposition is similarly turning to its regional patrons. Taqi noted that Syrian olive-oil producers moved their presses to Turkey. Likewise, the wheat harvest in northern Syria
has gone to Turkey, while petroleum is being shipped to either Turkey
or Iraqi Kurdistan. Economic activity in the liberated Sunni regions of
southern Syria around Daraa is now linked to Jordan. Damascus isn’t the
country’s economic hub any longer.
These regional players, with
their own agendas, will keep pulling Syria apart until a functioning
national government can be reestablished. Taqi’s point is that these
regional players shouldn’t be allowed to make the situation even worse
for their own selfish reasons.
“The country should enter what is
similar to a quarantine until it is cured from the sectarian disease,”
he wrote. “Without doing so, there would be no peace after peace . . . The state would dissolve for good.”
What
are the chances for gradually healing sectarian divisions, in the way
Taqi urged? His approach is similar to what is recommended by Gen. Salim
Idriss, the commander of the moderate wing of the Free Syrian Army. But
it’s in stark contrast to the views of the al-Qaeda-linked extremists
who have control of much of the liberated territory. These extreme
groups speak of a jihadist emirate in their regions of Syria, perhaps
linked with a similar al-Qaeda mini-state in the Sunni regions of
western Iraq. As for the Kurdish opposition, it favors a Kurdish canton
along the lines of Iraqi Kurdistan.
The
regime has seemed equally bent on division. “The manner in which the
regime has responded to its opponents strongly suggests that it
considers the bulk of the Syrian population and territory not even worth
governing,” wrote Frederic Hof,
a leading U.S.-Syria expert, in a paper published last week by the
Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Middle East Center. “Why else would it
subject neighborhoods filled with Syrian citizens to merciless artillery
shelling, aerial bombing, and missile strikes?”
Lee Smith predicted this more than a year ago, and honestly, I'm not sure it's such a bad thing. In fact, it may be the only way that these different ethnic tribes don't slaughter each other. Syria, Jordan and Iraq were all created artificially with borders drawn by Britain and France after World War I. After centuries of war, they're not suddenly going to learn to get along. Separating them - preferably with a strong international peacekeeping force - may be the only way to keep them from slaughtering each other. The problem is that al-Qaeda won't go along.
Today, Assad’s forces are stretched impossibly thin. Months ago came the first evidence, as regime troops found that whenever they quelled the uprising in one town, another town rose up. Assad didn’t have enough loyal hands to put the rebellion down everywhere once and for all. The presence of Iranian and Hezbollah troops was further proof that Assad was shorthanded. And now rebel forces are fighting for control of the borders with Turkey and Iraq, while the regime has moved troops from the Golan Heights border to defend Damascus. The mighty Syrian Army is nothing but a sectarian militia defending a shrinking territory.
As Tony Badran, a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, has documented, the regime seems to be waging a campaign of sectarian cleansing in order to carve out a rump state along the Mediterranean coast, reflecting the geographical contours of the traditional Alawite heartland, with its capital in Latakia. The regime has lost the -hinterland and may be on the verge of losing Damascus, but it is still counting on survival. If Assad can’t have all of Syria, then he and his Russian and Iranian backers will console themselves with an Alawite state on the Mediterranean. The Obama administration should ensure that this doesn’t come to pass.
Read the whole thing. I'd be as happy as the next guy to see Bashar go (although I doubt I'm going to be any happier with his likely replacements), but it bears pointing out that one of the problems with countries like Syria, Iraq and Lebanon is that their 'national identities' are a fiction, and given the opportunity they will descend into ethnic tribalism. Is that the direction in which we are heading? Is an Alawite state in part of Syrian a trend setter? If it is, it may not be so bad for Israel. We'd have more enemies but they would be significantly smaller.
There's been a massive sell-off in the Saudi stock market this week, and the reason is really quite simple: The Saudi royal family is between a rock and a hard place.
The latest sell-off was triggered by the arrest of a Shi’ite cleric in the Kingdom’s Eastern Province after he called for democratic reforms and a constitutional monarchy. The province is home to Saudi Arabia’s aggrieved Shi’ite minority and also holds the country’s vast Ghawar oilfield, placing it at the epicentre of global crude supply.
...
In Bahrain, the island nation’s Sunni elite holds sway over a Shi’ite majority that is denied key jobs and has a token political voice, making it a trial run for Saudi Arabia’s near-identical tensions in the Eastern Province.
Bahraini dissidents have so far been much bolder, prompting a bloody crackdown last month when at least seven people were shot by the military. The ruling family – under intense pressure from Washington to stop the killings – has since held out an olive branch to protesters and let the radical Haq leader Hassan Mushaima return from exile, yet the crisis is far from contained.
My Mushaima said on Wednesday that protesters have “the right to appeal for help from Iran” if Saudi military units interfere in the struggle. Tanks were seen crossing the 17-mile causeway from Saudi Arabia to Bahrain on Tuesday.
“These were supposed to be Bahrain’s tanks returning from Kuwait: that is not a credible story,” said Firas Abi Ali, a Gulf expert at the risk group Exclusive Analysis.
He said the outcome in Bahrain will set the template for events across the border. “There is no good outcome from this for Saudi Arabia. If Bahrain offers concessions, the Saudi Shia will demand similar concessions. If they crack down, they risk an uprising. These people do not want to live under the House of Saud,” he said.
Saudi activists have called on Facebook for a “Day of Rage” on March 11, despite the penalty of lashing for street protest. A similar call to arms in Syria fizzled because people were frightened, and the security forces nipped it in the bud. “We will be watching closely to see how many people turn up, and how far their demands go,” said Mr Abi Ali.
Saudi King Abdullah has scant leeway. His own legitimacy stems from Wahabi clerics, who refuse any compromise with the Shia. He is 87 and in poor health, raising the prospect of an imminent succession struggle that favours the hard-line interior minister Prince Nayef. He would undoubtedly crush any protests. The monarchy has sought to gain time by spending an extra $36bn (£22bn) on welfare and salaries, but patronage politics may strike the wrong note at this stage.
What we're seeing is the chickens from 90 years ago coming home to roost. The West attempted to divide the Middle East into nation states in the hope of making them Western-style democracies. They have failed on two counts. First, the division was accomplished by paying off the strongest tribes in the region, ignoring the inevitability that who is the strongest tribe is a cyclical notion, and that the day would come that the al-Saud's and the Khalifa's would not have the consent of other tribes to govern them. Second, loyalty in this part of the world remains the loyalty of the tribe - and in the grander scale of the sect of Islam. There is no Western-style notion of loyalty to the nation state.
I've seen a lot of comments that what's going on now is the Arab world's 1848. That might be true in Egypt, which is an ancient and cohesive society and it may even be true in Tunisia. But it's not true in countries like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Libya, and further down the road Jordan and Oman. For those countries, what we're seeing is 1848 in reverse: A withdrawal from nationalism in favor of tribal loyalties.
Time Magazine is reporting that Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi has ordered his security forces to sabotage the country's oil installations.
There's been virtually no reliable information coming out of Tripoli, but a source close to the Gaddafi regime I did manage to get hold of told me the already terrible situation in Libya will get much worse. Among other things, Gaddafi has ordered security services to start sabotaging oil facilities. They will start by blowing up several oil pipelines, cutting off flow to Mediterranean ports. The sabotage, according to the insider, is meant to serve as a message to Libya's rebellious tribes: It's either me or chaos.
Two weeks ago this same man had told me the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt would never touch Libya. Gaddafi, he said, had a tight lock on all of the major tribes, the same ones that have kept him in power for the past 41 years. The man of course turned out to be wrong, and everything he now has to say about Gaddafi's intentions needs to be taken in that context.
The source went on and told me that Gaddafi's desperation has a lot to with the fact that he now can only count on the loyalty of his tribe, the Qadhadhfa. And as for the army, as of Monday he only has the loyalty of approximately 5,000 troops. They are his elite forces, the officers all handpicked. Among them is the unit commanded by his second youngest son Khamis, the 32nd Brigade. (The total strength of the regular Libyan army is 45,000.)
My Libyan source said that Gaddafi has told people around him that he knows he cannot retake Libya with the forces he has. But what he can do is make the rebellious tribes and army officers regret their disloyalty, turning Libya into another Somalia. "I have the money and arms to fight for a long time," Gaddafi reportedly said.
As part of the same plan to turn the tables, Gaddafi ordered the release from prison of the country's Islamic militant prisoners, hoping they will act on their own to sow chaos across Libya. Gaddafi envisages them attacking foreigners and rebellious tribes. Couple that with a shortage of food supplies, and any chance for the rebels to replace Gaddafi will be remote.
This highlights one of the key points that most Westerners don't understand about the Middle East. With the exceptions of Egypt and Israel, there's no true nationalism and no sense of belonging to a country. There's only a sense of belonging to a tribe and the only loyalty - for generations - is to a tribe. Libya, like Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria and other countries, is a creation of Western mapmakers. It commands no nationalist loyalty. There's no 'melting pot,' and little true integration.
Add to that the fact that many of these people are uneducated and are fierce believers in militant Islam, and you have a real recipe for disaster.
Anyone who watched Gadhafi's hour-long rant on Tuesday night knows that this story is entirely plausible. (And please recall that Saddam Hussein tried to do the same thing during Gulf War I until he realized that Bush I wasn't going to throw him out).
Some of you may recall a post I did in July 2009 about tribal bickering at a soccer game in Jordan between a Jordanian team and a 'Palestinian' team.
Approximately 70% of Jordan's population is 'Palestinian.' The family of King Abdullah (known as the 'Hashemites') is transplanted from the Gulf region. It was 'given' the 'Kingdom' of Jordan (then known as Trans-Jordan) as a consolation prize by the British after losing custodianship over the Islamic holy places in Mecca and Medina to their cousins the al-Faisals (the Saudi royal family). I'll explain that more fully below.
In the meantime, the 'Jordanians' (the King's family? the nomadic Bedouin tribes from the area who never crossed the Jordan River into Israel seeking economic opportunity?) nearly started a brawl at a soccer game over the weekend. The soccer game was between - get this - a 'Jordanian' team and a 'Jordanian - Palestinian' team:
The tensions reached their peak over the weekend when tens of thousands of fans of Jordan's Al-Faisali soccer team chanted slogans condemning Palestinians as traitors and collaborators with Israel. Al-Faisali was playing the rival Wihdat soccer team, made up of Jordanian-Palestinians, in the Jordanian town of Zarqa.
Anti-riot policemen had to interfere to stop the Jordanian fans from lynching the Wihdat team members and their fans, eyewitnesses reported. They said the Jordanian fans of Al-Faisali hurled empty bottles and fireworks at the Palestinian players and their supporters.
Reports in a number of Jordanian newspapers said that the Jordanian fans also chanted anti-Palestinian slogans and cursed Palestine, the PLO, Jerusalem and the Aksa Mosque.
Imagine that? They 'cursed' the 'holy' Aqsa mosque. Well, that ought to tell you that even they know that the mosque was never a Muslim holy site. It was built atop a Jewish holy site to try to vanquish Jewish claims to the site - a pattern Muslims have repeated all over the world (ask the Hindus in India).
What those of you who have not lived in the Middle East may not realize is that the entire concept of a 'Jordanian' or 'Palestinian' is nothing but a fiction. These people are all Arabs from different tribes and families, but essentially ethnically all the same people. They're less different from each other than the Jets are from the Sharks.
That incident was deemed important enough that US charge d'affaires in Amman Lawrence Mandel wrote a cable about it to Washington. Wikileaks released that cable on Monday.
According to the dispatch, written on July 28, 2009, by the US charge d’affaires in Amman, Lawrence Mandel, “Anti-Palestinian hooliganism and slogans denigrating the Palestinian origins of both the Queen and the Crown Prince led to the cancellation of a July 17 soccer game” between two rival teams, one – Faisali – which “is the favored team of tribal East Bankers,” and the other – Wahadat – the “proxy champions” of the Palestinian Jordanians.
Faisali supporters chanted about the Palestinian origins of Queen Rania with the cheer, “Divorce her you father of Hussein, and we’ll marry you to two of ours.”
According to the dispatch, “There is broad recognition throughout Jordan that the Faisali-Wahdat incident exposed the uncomfortable gap between East Bankers and Palestinian-origin Jordanians – one that most would rather keep well-hidden for the sake of political stability.
“The connection between this rift and the Hashemite monarchy, including the newly-appointed Crown Prince, makes the incident even more unsettling.”
The charges d’affaires said that even the “most forthcoming contacts” were reluctant to talk about the issue, “recognizing that it strikes at the core of Jordanian identity politics.”
One source was quoted as saying that non-Palestinian East Bankers are “uncomfortable with the increasing pressures for reform that will inevitably lessen their near-monopoly on political and social power.”
The dispatch said that Jordan’s “self-censoring media” did not deal with the hooliganism at the game, nor tell why the game was called off. Internet news sites, however, were replete with commentary on the game.
Many on the Internet “defended the Faisali supporters as ‘real’ Jordanians fighting against undue Palestinian influence.”
According to the dispatch, “The King’s silence on the game and its political implications is deafening. High level government contacts and members of the diplomatic community are puzzled by the King’s failure to respond to a verbal attack on his family that also dips into Jordanian identity politics.”
While perhaps unintentional, the dispatch read, “The King’s silence has effectively empowered the pro-status quo establishment.”
And of course, the 'pro-status quo establishment' consists of people who will never allow the dispute between Israel and the 'Palestinians' to be resolved unless it means that they can push their entire 'Palestinian' population back across the Jordan River.
What many people outside the region don't appreciate is the extent to which so much of the rivalry here is tribal rather than ethnic or religious. Sure, there are rivalries between Sunnis and Shia, between Christian Copts and Egyptian Muslims, and between Jordanian Bedouin from the royal family and 'Palestinians.' But the entire notion of dividing the Middle East into nation states is an artificial one imposed by the British and the French in the 1920's. The real divisions here are based on tribes and families (even in Israel by the way - although the divisions here are much, much less sharp than in the Arab world). That's the real reason why this region hasn't known peace for the last 100 years. The divisions among the tribes always ensure that there are new things to fight about.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
