More on Jerusalem

In recent weeks I've become less optimistic regarding a definitive peace process between Israel and Palestine. With the supposed resignation of Abbas, it seemed that the Palestinian Authority was on its way out. Although the PA has a limited amount of autonomy and is dependent on Israel for transport and utilities etc., I think that it's important that Palestinians have something that at least resembles a representative entity.

In more recent bad news, Israel has removed more Palestinians from Jerusalem. It doesn't feel like a stretch to draw the conclusion that Israel has little or no intention of taking meaningful steps toward peace in light of events like this one. It seems incongruent to pay lip service to peace, all while denying water rights and denying people access to their capital.

Palestinian Election

This article is in Swedish, but what it says is that the Palestinian president, Mahmud Abbas, will not seek reelection. He is to explain his decision later today.

Oh dear....

Shenanigans of the highest order.

Ongoing research

As I continue to research water distribution in the Middle East, I find it increasingly difficult to sympathize with Israel. The conditions that Palestinians are made to endure by Israeli authorities make Zionism a very bitter pill for me to swallow. It's particularly frustrating to read articles and reports that place Palestinian per capita water consumption at around 70 liters/day, whereas Israeli water consumption is closer to 300 L/day. Approximately 190,000 Palestinians are without running water, and close to 95% of available water in Gaza is contaminated and unfit for human consumption.

Israeli authorities have placed restrictions on virtually every part of the infrastructure necessary for providing Palestinian territories with potable water for household use and agriculture. It seems that Israel could take a big step toward peace and at least abide by the basic human needs of their neighbors.

Settlements

I was reading an article on the peace process between Israel and Palestine that continues to illustrate the difficulty that Israeli insistence on maintaining their settlements is causing the peace process.

This issue ties into my research paper, as the settlements in the West Bank are almost exclusively supplied with water that is technically Palestinian; it is drawn from the aquifer beneath the West Bank.

It's interesting to me that people are surprised that Palestinian farmers get in a huff when their water is restricted in order to better supply Israeli suburbanites.

Response

I reacted very strongly to the attitudes of the Israeli settlers in the video. Specifically, they struck me as being delusional. One woman spoke about the settlers having no hate in their hearts and how the problem was completely dependent on spiteful Palestinians. Another man mentioned the Israeli's right to the land by virtue of ancient history and tradition.

The woman's point galled me because she must have engaged in some willful act of ignorance to believe a statement like that. I recently read an article in the Economist that described the mutual antagonism between Palestinian farmers and Israeli settlers, who have taken to destroying Palestinian olive groves near their settlements. If the government targets terrorists, I can at least see where they're coming from. When citizens begin destroying one another's livelihoods, however, I have a harder time keeping quiet.

Equally frustrating was the man's assertion that the Israeli's have a greater right to the land by virtue of biblical history. His point is so fallacious it hurts. By the same logic, the descendants of Hammurabi would be able to stake a valid claim to southern Iraq and Kuwait.

Deterrence

We recently talked about deterrence in class, and it got me thinking about deterrents in the Middle East and how Israel might figure into that. Given Israel's special relationship with the United States and the arms that it makes Israel privy to, is it possible that Israel serves as an important deterrent to large scale violence in the Middle East?

Do they depend on us?

Today in class the question of whether or not Saudi Arabia and other oil producing companies are as dependent on the industrialized world that uses most of the world's petroleum. While I think that the relationship is most certainly a two-way street, and that an oil boycott would also devastate the Gulf Countries, I also don't see that happening anytime soon.

Given how the United States reacts to even the smallest tremor in the oil market and that the industrialized world has little or no framework for dealing with the rapid withdrawal of Middle Eastern oil from world markets, what are the odds that the industrialized nations of the world without their own oil supply could actually organize a coherent boycott of a country like Saudi Arabia? Slim to none is my best guess.

The history of the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia speaks very strongly in favor of this notion. Despite the US' "commitment to human rights" and Saudi Arabia's ties to any number of groups looking to hurt the US, American foreign policy has been nothing if not tolerant of Saudi shenanigans since the Sauds struck oil.

Solutions?

On Tuesday we discussed the trouble that NGOs have in the Middle East, as a lot of them receive funding from Europe, which makes them suspect in the eyes of Middle Easterners. It made me think about how to finally escape the colonial dynamic that has haunted Europe's relationships with just about everywhere, and it's hard to reach any kind of definitive conclusion that seems even remotely feasible.

I suppose one solution might be to impose something like a lock-in. Withdraw completely from the region and let them settle their differences as best they will. Obviously this wouldn't work, since the Western world has a vested interest or two in the Middle East.

That the first thought that comes to my mind is "well, I suppose a nuclear apocalypse might solve the problem" is a testament to how hopeless it all seems. The article by Ian Lustic proposes that the most natural means of state building (war) is forgone at this point. The West has too much riding on stability in the Middle East to allow a natural formation of nation-states to take place, and even if it didn't, the presence of nuclear weapons makes the prospect of a difference-settling brawl pretty daunting.

So the question is, how can the Middle East attain a self-sustaining peace by artificial and moderated means that doesn't involve armed conflict?

I don't know.

War Crimes?

In a recent article by the bbc, an Israeli minister was accused of war crimes associated with a military action in Gaza in 2002.

Although the allegation itself is questionable, it is very interesting that Yaalon was advised against traveling to the United Kingdom in lieu of the accusation. Despite the fact that the UN has a long history of labeling Israeli military actions and policies both war crimes and violations of human rights, it's significant that a government official has actually run the risk of seeing substantial consequences.

Although Israeli sources claim that Yaalon took the advice in order "avoid playing into the hands of anti-Israel propaganda," the Palestinian activists responsible for the allegations still managed to leverage enough pressure to cause the cancellation of Yaalon's planned visit to the UK.

Whether he actually runs any risk of being arrested for war crimes upon his arrival in the UK is also not what interests me the most. Given that the United Kingdom and Israel have a history of close collaboration and bipartisanship, it will be very interesting to see how this incident affects their relationship.

Do all terrorists wear turbans?

The most recent terrorist attacks on Western targets in Europe and America were perpetrated by groups originating in the Middle East and served the same broad ideological purpose. Although the grievances that drove individual actors were varied, the overarching goal was made very clear by its supporters: to expel Western powers from the Middle East. In the words of Osama bin Laden: “To America I say I swear by God the great... America will never taste security and safety unless we feel security and safety in our lands and in Palestine.” Although groups like al Qaeda are by no means the only ones that take direct aim at the United States and Europe, they are the only ones in recent memory that have been able to execute attacks of the same magnitude as the London bombings or the attack on the World Trade Center.

For this reason, the West has a strong tendency to associate terrorism with the Middle East. The largest and most publicized attacks on western powers have been perpetrated by groups that are distinctly Middle Eastern that serve goals that are very specific to the Middle East. These attacks have also been very widespread in terms of geography; they have targeted a number of different nations, both America and a number of European, and are not fettered by the local nature of their struggle. This scope of ambition makes terrorism in the Middle East particularly noteworthy in the popular consciousness of the Western World.

For instance, the Tamil Tigers have been active in Sri Lanka since the 1970s and have taken a terrible toll, however they are not viewed in the same light as networks such as al Qaeda. This is because the Tamil Tigers are limited to a specific area. They have had no need to globalize their efforts, as their goals are local. In the Western media, Sri Lankan terrorists are a Sri Lankan problem.

Terrorism that originates in the Middle East, on the other hand, is broader in scope: it endeavors to change the policies of the entire Western world, rather than attacking some local governance over a relatively small domestic issue. Osama bin Laden, for example, wishes to see a major shift in American foreign policy that would not only require the United States to compromise its energy security, but also turn away from one of its most powerful interest groups.

Because of the scale of intent harbored by Middle Eastern terrorists and the prominence of their successes, it is nearly unavoidable that discourse on terrorism in the West will be dominated by talk of the Middle East. In their efforts to change the policies of the West, terrorists from the Middle East have left their adversaries in an awkward spot with two highly unappealing options: concede to the demands of terrorists in the Middle East, or commit to unpopular, expensive, and painful actions to silence them, which makes them particularly salient in the minds of Westerners.

Homosexuals in Arabia

When I read the article on gay rights in Iran, I was reminded of a book I read a number of years ago on Saudi Arabia. It was written by John Bradley, who lived in Saudi Arabia as an expat reporter for a number of years. It featured one chapter that dealt with homosexuality in Saudi Arabia, the gist of which was that because Saudi society keeps such a tight lid on male-female interactions, young men and women are want to turn to members of the same sex instead.

What stood out in this chapter was the apparently casual attitude that people have toward GUM (gay until marriage) behavior. Although technically disallowed by Sharia, Bradley would have it that people are more often than not content to watch through their fingers. In the same vein, it's interesting to me that Iranian society views post-operation transsexuals in a more lenient light than "regular" gay people. To my Western sensibilities, it seems easier to flee the country than arrange for your secretary to have a sex change in order to marry them, but I suppose that just goes to underscore the cultural gap.