Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Juan Cole -- Direct & indirect effects of terrorism

It appears that up to 1,000 people may have died in today's stampede during a Shiite religious festival in Baghdad. This has definitely been a catastrophe. In one sense, it may have been an accident (similar to deadly panics that periodically occur in other large-scale religious pilgrimages, in crowds at soccer stadiums, etc.), in that whatever event directly triggered this stampede wasn't consciously intended to do so. At the same time, it was also a clear and predictable result of the long-term terrorist strategy of the Iraqi "insurgency," which has included systematic attacks targeting civilians involved in all the major Shiite religious festivals for the past several years--including a previous mortar attack on this procession. Juan Cole's analysis cuts to the heart of the matter.

--Jeff Weintraub

=================

Juan Cole ("Informed Comment")
Wednesday, August 31, 2005

1000 May be Dead in Kadhimiyah Stampede

The mortar attack by guerrillas on the Shiite worshippers heading for the shrine of Imam Musa al-Kadhim had an unfortunate side effect. Later on, someone shouted that there was a suicide bomber in the crowd. A stampede ensued that has killed some 800 persons and the death toll is expected to rise to 1000.

The stampede was a highly unfortunate result of nerves, rumor and mob behavior, and this incident is certainly an outcome of the guerrilla strategy of spreading fear and terror in Iraq.

posted by Juan @ 8/31/2005 10:21:00 AM

----------------------------------------------------------------

Juan Cole ("Informed Comment")
Wednesday, August 31, 2005

The BBC is reporting Wednesday morning that guerrillas fired mortar shells at Shiite worshippers in Kadhimiyah who were going to the shrine of the seventh Imam, Musa al-Kadhim, to commemorate his death. Early reports are that they killed seven and wounded 36.

The guerrillas are attempting to provoke the Shiites to commit violence in turn on Sunni Arabs, in hopes that a civil war will ensue. Such a communal war could make it impossible for the US to remain in Iraq, and impossible for the new government to establish itself, opening the way for a coup by the guerrillas.

The top police officials of the cities of Kirkuk and Baghdad were assassinated on Tuesday. This is not a good sign.

The Closed Door in Darfur (Norman Geras)

The item below mostly speaks for itself.

Let me add one one small peripheral point. Some people argue that it is misleading to describe the ethnic conflict in Darfur as one between "Arabs" and "black Africans," since the janjaweed who are carrying out this atrocity--with support from Sudanese government forces--are really just semi-Arabized dark-skinned nomads who do not differ very much, in "objective" racial terms, from the people they are murdering. In a certain sense, this is correct. When Americans see these "Arabs" and "Africans" on TV, they look pretty much alike. In concrete social and political terms, it is also irrelevant (as irrelevant as pointing out that to divide the US population into "races" is scientifically fallacious). What is relevant is how the Sudanese involved in this atrocity--both victims and perpetrators--define the situation. In that context, the reality is that two ethnic groups have been increasingly distinguished as "Arabs" vs. "blacks" for decades, that the Khartoum regime has increasingly propagated an explicitly Arabist ideology, and that many of the people carrying out this assault on the agriculturalist population in Darfur describe and justify it in terms of an unambiguously racist Arab-supremacist ideology. (For some of the social and historical background see, just for one example, the article by Alex de Waal in the August 12, 2005 issue of the Times Literary Supplement--not yet available on-line--and this piece by Julie Flint & Alex de Waal in the Lebanon Daily Star, "Ideology in Arms: The Emergence of Darfur's Janjaweed")

But even if all this were not true, which it is, what is going on in Darfur would still be an overwhelming atrocity, and the failure of the "world community" to do anything serious to stop it would still be appalling.

It is also, incidentally, the largest ongoing mass murder, mass rape, and ethnic cleansing of Muslims taking place in the world right now (which makes the prevailing silence about it from the Arab & Muslim worlds all the more deafening).

--Jeff Weintraub

===============

Norman Geras (Normblog)
August 29, 2005

The closed door in Darfur

Here's a report from 60 Minutes on Darfur:

(CBS) The United Nations has called it the greatest crisis in the world. The United States calls it genocide.

It's happening in the African nation of Sudan, and 60 Minutes went to see for ourselves. What we saw and what you will see again tonight is evidence of a government-backed campaign to wipe out a race.

There are at least 180,000 dead and more than 2 million on the run.
.....
"The Janjaweed are like a grotesque mixture of the mafia and the Ku Klux Klan," says [John] Prendergast [of International Crisis Group]. "These guys have a racist ideology that sees the Arab population as the supreme population that would like to see the subjugation of non-Arab peoples. They're criminal racketeers that have been supported very directly by the government to wage the war against the people of Darfur."

Survivors say the attacks usually start at dawn, with bombs falling from planes of the Sudanese Air Force.

"And then here come the Janjaweed on camel or on horseback," Prendergast says. "They come rolling into the town, shooting and torching the village, often bringing women to the side and raping women indiscriminately. And in order to ensure that the destruction is complete, the government either sends ground forces to oversee the operation, or the attack helicopters, which often are the most deadly things."
.....
What is the evidence that this is ethnic cleansing, or genocide?

"When the Janjaweed come in, and there is interaction between the Janjaweed and the local people, the Janjaweed are shouting ethnic slogans. They are saying, 'You blacks, you Zurga,' sort of like an equivalent of 'nigger.' 'Get out. You're slaves. You're hyena. Never come back,'" says [Samantha] Power. "When rape is committed, often the same epithets are issued. 'You're gonna give birth to a light-skinned child now.' They see their task, those who are racially motivated, as one of purification."

The rest contains much direct eyewitness testimony. From Saul Bellow:
I know now that humankind marks certain people for death. Against them there shuts a door.
(Thanks: Dave F.)

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Coffee is good for you (scientific proof)

Once again, my faith in science is vindicated--that is, if you wait long enough, it will eventually come up with the result you want. People are always trying to claim that coffee is bad for you.. On the contrary, it seems that drinking coffee can help reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and Parkinson's disease. (You should still eat fruits and vegetables, too. No problem.)

(I am now waiting for science to discover that a high-cholesterol diet is good for you, and that skim milk makes your teeth fall out.)

Long live science,
Jeff Weintraub

======================

The Guardian
Monday, August 29, 2005

Coffee a good source of antioxidants

Patrick Barkham
Monday August 29, 2005
The Guardian


If your hand is trembling over your third coffee of the morning, do not despair. You could be getting more healthy antioxidants from your liquid fix than are from the fruit or vegetables you eat, according to a study of US diets.

Although dates, cranberries and red grapes were the richest source of antioxidants, researchers found these were not a common part of the average American's diet.

The scientists measured the antioxidant content of more than 100 different food items, including vegetables, fruits, nuts, spices, oils and beverages, and then examined national data on the contribution of each food item to the average American's diet.

Both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee emerged as the biggest source of antioxidants, given that Americans do not eat sufficient quantities of fruit and vegetables. Black tea came second, followed by bananas, dry beans and corn.

Helping to rid the body of free radicals, destructive molecules that damage cells and DNA, antioxidants have been linked to a number of benefits, including protection against heart disease and cancer.

The research is the latest in a number of studies to suggest coffee could be beneficial, with consumption linked to a reduced risk of liver and colon cancer, type two diabetes, and Parkinson's disease.

"Americans get more of their antioxidants from coffee than any other dietary source - nothing else comes close," said Joe Vinson from Scranton University in Pennsylvania, who led the research.

While coffee consumption in Britain is lower than in the US, it is estimated that 70m cups are drunk in the UK a day.

But Professor Vinson, who presented the findings at the American Chemical Society's meeting in Washington DC yesterday, advised drinkers to stick to one or two cups.

"Unfortunately, consumers are still not eating enough fruits and vegetables, which are better for you from an overall nutritional point of view due to their higher content of vitamins, minerals and fibre," he said.

Sunday, August 28, 2005

"Letter from an Iraqi Reader" to Juan Cole

Juan Cole posts this communication he received from someone he describes as "an acute Iraqi-American observer." This is to Cole's credit, since on several important issues his correspondent disagrees (to a greater or lesser extent) with Cole's recent analyses.

Some of the points below strike me as more convincing than others, but on the whole it seems clear that Cole is right to describe this person as "acute," and what he has to say is worth pondering. Point #3 strikes me as especially on target (to say the least!), and point #4 as especially poignant.

--Jeff Weintraub

=================

From the weblog of Juan Cole ("Informed Comment")
Sunday, August 28, 2005

Letter from an Iraqi Reader
An acute Iraqi-American observer writes:

' I agree with much of what you wrote in your latest article in Salon.com. However, I think that your genuine good wishes for the iraqi people are superceded by the selfish interest of different groups in Iraq.

Here are a few selfish interests that will play big:

1) Shiites are probably the majority even in Baghdad, or at minimum 50% of the Baghdad population (especially with sadr city's 2 million shiites, and other prominent shiite districts like Sha'ab, Shu'la, Khadhimiya). Almost certainly Baghdad would NOT be included in the shiite federation of the south as envisioned by Al-Hakim and others because then the concept of a federation really doesnt make much sense when you pretty much include all the major cities except for Anbar and provinces to the north. Shiites in Baghdad will not want to be left to being a minority in a "Sunni" federation, and Sunnis in Baghdad will not want to be part of a "shiite" federation. There is a strong possibility then that most shiites in Baghdad would vote AGAINST the constitution over the federalism issue. That would most certainly seal the constitution's fate when combined with votes from Anbar, Sallahudin, and Mosul.

2) You and I might agree that SCIRI is under the thumbs of the mullahs of Iran, but the bottom line is that they do have huge influence in the south. Ironically, in a way it is like the Christian Coalition's over reaching power in US politics. Here you have whackos like Pat Robertson who may not be representative of American Christians in general, but still has influence with the Bush administration. Al-Hakim does NOT represent all shiites, but he does have that kind of influence because he is very well organized in terms of political, social, and security services. While the Christian coalition does not have a militia, they did exploit their superb organizational skills to help bush win the last election. For al-Hakim's supporters, there is no compelling reason for them to give up their selfish interests in the south. So, with regards to your article, I would like to see what you would propose as an incentive for Shiites like al-Hakim to compromise?

3) Baathists....I am all for allowing former Baathists who did not commit major crimes to work in the new Iraqi government, but I think it is quite unreasonable to be forced into letting the baathist party re-establish itself. Baathism was brutal to most Iraqis. For Saleh al-Mutlak to say that the Baathist party is the "best party we ever had" and expect people like me to be sympathetic to him, he has another think coming. When it comes to the Sunnis, they need to get over their feelings that they should be ruling Iraq. In truth, I think most Sunnis simply do not even respect Shiites or Kurds as being worthy of leading iraq. The Sunni view is that Shiites and Kurds did not achieve power independently and are just holding on to the coat-tails of the americans. Why should the Sunnis then take the Shiites seriously. The Sunnis probably think that when America leaves, they can re-assert themselves and rule iraq once again. That is why they are determined to maintain control over the whole of Iraq through a strong central government. That central government will be the vehicle by which they regain their power over the whole of iraq once america is gone. How do you propose to bring them back to reality where they understand that they cannot rule iraq while being less than 20% and not having tanks and helicopters?

4) Iraqis like me are stuck between all these groups. I am religous, but I don't want religion in the constitution. I think federalism is ok as long as it doesnt lead to the break up of Iraq . . . While my wife does wear hijab, I don't want laws in place that force her to. Baathists can go back to work, but I am sickened by people who are heartless and carry the picture of Saddam with pride and forget the suffering he has caused to millions of people. Unfortunately, people with my types of views tend never to be able to hold the same level of influence as the al-Hakim or Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars types. How do you enable moderates to have a stronger say at the table? '

Saturday, August 27, 2005

Andrew Arato on the Iraqi constitutional breakdown

In my recent messages dealing with (and in large part agreeing with) Brendan O'Leary's analysis of politics and constitution-making in Iraq, I pointed out that a sharply different analysis has been offered by Andrew Arato.

(Incidentally, one of the more informed and sophisticated versions of the alternative viewpoint--most of them are superficial and uninformed, in my non-expert but also non-humble opinion--has been pushed for the past few years by Andrew Arato, for example in this recent "Guest Editorial" on Juan Cole's "Informed Comment" website. Arato focuses very heavily on the urgency of overcoming Sunni Arab "exclusion," sees the Kurds as an important part of the problem, and--unlike O'Leary--has always regarded the Transitional Administrative Law as a big mistake. In an earlier version of his piece that I happened to see, Arato remarked that he has "nothing but admiration for the Kurds"--but, admiration aside, it doesn't seem to me that he gives their bottom-line concerns very much consideration. Also, Arato quite properly emphasizes the need for political forces representing the Shia Arabs and Kurds to make significant compromises with the Sunni Arabs, but seems a good deal less troubled by obstructionism and unwillingess to compromise on the part of political forces representing the Sunni Arabs--not to mention their need to come to terms with the fact that they can no longer present themselves as the natural rulers of Iraq. Arato's valuable and intellectually serious analyses of these issues, which I have followed with some care over the past several years, need to be taken seriously, and they offer a refreshing contrast to the usual journalistic simplifications and mindless sloganeering ... but, in the end, I have not found them entirely convincing. However, that's a subject for a longer discussion, another time ....)

Arato is convinced that the latest developments in the Iraqi constitutional negotiations vindicate his position (which, ironically, has increasingly become that of the US government--though too late, from Andrew's point of view). He ends the message below by telling me: "Send this to all your correspondents." I'm forwarding it intact, for people to consider ... with just a few interspersed comments.

--Jeff Weintraub

========================
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: bush pleading and the rule of law
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2005 23:34:04 EDT
From: Aarato1944@aol.com
To: aweintra@sas.upenn.edu


Now even Bush agrees with me, but in vain, because what he gave Hakim (also day before yesterday with his bellicose statement to the Sunni) he cannot take back. He was in a big hurry, and thus delivered himself to the guy with over half the votes. Lets face it, only iran wins no matter which way this bad deal turns out. They did not attack the unity of Iraq, but they get the 9 province mega state. And if that fails, it will be the treachery of the Americans...
Are you ready to say uncle yet, or does it have to get worse still?
OK. As to the rule of law, what has been happening since August 22 is clearly illegal. A committee presented something to the NA.....the NA did not write anything.
Nor did it again amend the TAL.
Nor did it dissolve itself.
So, whehter or not they vote now, they have no right to submit anything to a referendum. But the Iraqi Gov even says they do not have to vote......So who presents the draft to the people, by what right? How do we know it is the Constitutional Assembly's draft? Did it ever have a majority? the law does not say that Hakim and Talabani present a draft to the Iraqi people....nor that an expanded commission does.....the tAL does not know these things even exist. Who wrote this thing? The tAL says the NA writes it....meaning...a committee drafts it and the NA adopts it.....
Some way to build the rule of law (which the draft mentions repeatedly). No consensus. No legality. No publicity. No representation. No nothing. Legitimacy? Maybe to those who know nothing about this subject.
(Dont be afraid to say uncle as you read on....i will think so much more of you if you have enough courage to admit that you were hopelessly and totally wrong. It happens to the best of us. E.G. to your president when he was told to call Hakim.
As to the disinfo campaign against the intractible Sunni leaders, who supposedly dont represent anybody anyway.....Are people who say this kind of stupid thing interested in dealing with the insurrection at all? Three of these Sunni nothings have already been killed, by the way...to indicate their potential importance.

[JW: Yes, the Sunni Arab figures who have participated in the constitutional negotiations have done so at great risk, so there's no reason to doubt their seriousness. But that's not necessarily enough, by itself, to establish that it's disinformation to describe their position as rigid and uncompromising. It may be that, whatever their intentions, they were boxed into a situation that made it objectively and ideologically impossible for them to act constructively, even if the Kurds and Shiites had been more accommodating. Juan Cole's article in Salon on Friday suggests, almost despite itself, that this might well have been the case. Cole's analysis is generally in accord with yours, and he agrees with you that much greater efforts should have been made to accommodate the Sunni Arabs. But along the way, he provides a lot of evidence to indicate that, in fact, the Sunni Arab political forces, including the these constitutional negotiators, have been unwilling and/or unable to negotiate in a constructive or reasonable way. Like you, he thinks there are reasons for this, for which he places the long-term blame on other actors. But be that as it may, it is not disinformation to recognize reality ... even if it's nto the whole picture.]]
I dont know why i am still trying to help you, to do you this favor still. I guess I am generous, and because you say nice things about me. But if by some amazing chance the US government followed my recommendations all along they would be in better position now by far, and on a small scale, and the same is true for you. OK you were for the war. That has something to be said for it, though it is far outweighed in my view by other stuff. The O'Leary-Galbraith-Gelb position has nothing to recommend it at all. There is no peace without the Sunni.

[JW: True. But there is also no peace, and certainly no stable political solution in Iraq, without the Shiite Arabs and Kurds--who do, after all, amount to some 80% of the population.]

You either kill them all, or fight them for ever, establish an ironclad dictatorship over them, or make peace with them. Me and Bush (at the moment, when his generals are bitching at him!!!!) are for the last option.......you guys must be for one of the other three, because no peace is possible on the ground of a Shi'a - Kurd exclusionary bargain. Basta....
Send this to all your correspondents
fraternally
Andrew

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Brendan O'Leary on the Iraqi Constitution (Normblog)

This follows up a message I sent out a few days ago on the politics of constitution-making in Iraq, to which I attached a piece by Brendan O'Leary, "It is past time to reframe thinking on the constitutional reconstruction of Iraq".

This piece is now available on-line.. It has been posted by Norm Geras in an item on Normblog, preceded by a relevant news story from today's Washington Post and some further comments by O'Leary on the latest developments and their significance. (See below.)

As I said in my previous message:
O'Leary is mostly known as a scholar of nationalism, constitutionalism, and ethnic conflict ... and has also been a constitutional adviser to the regional government in Iraqi Kurdistan. I gather that he was in Iraq until a few days ago (and he sent this piece from Istanbul), so he's close to the action.

This is a characteristically perceptive, well informed, and usefully thought-provoking analysis. Whether or not you are fully convinced, you will notice that it effectively takes aim at a lot of the most uninformed, mentally lazy, politically superficial, and morally questionable clichés that pervade current discussions about Iraq and Iraqi politics, and it shows why a lot of the terms of current debates need to be reframed. It also offers a concrete analysis of the dynamics of Iraqi politics, and of the stakes involved in the constitution-making process, that cuts a lot deeper than most other readily available accounts..

O'Leary doesn't pretend to be a detached or neutral observer, and as one would expect, he approaches matters from a broadly Kurdophile perspective. [....] I happen to share these Kurdophile sympathies myself, and I think they make excellent sense for a number of quite compelling reasons, especially given the remarkable record of political and social achievement in Iraqi Kurdistan during its semi-autonomous period since 1991, and the fact that of all the major players in current Iraqi politics, the Kurdish parties happen to have the best positions on democracy, political secularism, women's rights, and so on. [....] [S]ome people will point out that this aspect of O'Leary's perspective should be taken into account in assessing his arguments. I think that's a proper caveat ... but I also don't think it undermines the substance of his arguments in any crucial way. [....] And whether or not one agrees with the arguments in this piece (I do mostly, though not entirely), they offer a useful and illuminating corrective to most other discussions of these issues in the US and western Europe ... and are certainly more in touch with reality, like it or not.
All that is also true of O'Leary's comments in this Normblog piece, which amplify and update some of his central themes.
=> One of the key points that O'Leary has been making for several years is that any hopes for a decent and stable political regime emerging in Iraq must rest, above all, on the foundation of an effective coalition between Kurdish and Shiite Arab political forces, and that this reality is often obscured by a single-minded and politically myopic focus on catering to the concerns of the Formerly Dominant Minority (FDM) of Sunni Arabs and their foreign backers. This seems to me quite right and very important. The attached piece helps to explain why ... and lays out some of the practical implications

(Incidentally, one of the more informed and sophisticated versions of the alternative viewpoint--most of them are superficial and uninformed, in my non-expert but also non-humble opinion--has been pushed for the past few years by Andrew Arato, for example in this recent "Guest Editorial" on Juan Cole's "Informed Comment" website. Arato focuses very heavily on the urgency of overcoming Sunni Arab "exclusion," sees the Kurds as an important part of the problem, and--unlike O'Leary--has always regarded the Transitional Administrative Law as a big mistake. In an earlier version of his piece that I happened to see, Arato remarked that he has "nothing but admiration for the Kurds"--but, admiration aside, it doesn't seem to me that he gives their bottom-line concerns very much consideration. Also, Arato quite properly emphasizes the need for political forces representing the Shia Arabs and Kurds to make significant compromises with the Sunni Arabs, but seems a good deal less troubled by obstructionism and unwillingess to compromise on the part of political forces representing the Sunni Arabs--not to mention their need to come to terms with the fact that they can no longer present themselves as the natural rulers of Iraq. Arato's valuable and intellectually serious analyses of these issues, which I have followed with some care over the past several years, need to be taken seriously, and they offer a refreshing contrast to the usual journalistic simplifications and mindless sloganeering ... but, in the end, I have not found them entirely convincing. However, that's a subject for a longer discussion, another time ....)

=> Of course, the emergence of a stable, workable, and relatively decent political solution in Iraq is by no means inevitable, to put it mildly. Achieving it would have been a difficult challenge under any circumstances, and it has been made even more difficult by the avoidable fiascos of the post-Saddam occupation of Iraq, among other things. However--and here I very much agree with O'Leary [and Juan Cole, among others]--it would also be quite wrong to conclude at this point that failure is inevitable (accompanied by all-out civil war, interventions by other regional powers, and general catastrophe) ... and it is definitely important to avoid pursuing policies [such as simply abandoning Iraq] that will help MAKE political failure and catastrophe inevitable.
Yours for reality-based, politically intelligent, and morally serious discourse,
Jeff Weintraub

(P.S. For yet another perspective on the unfolding politics of constitution-making in Baghdad, see this item by Juan Cole today on his "Informed Comment" weblog. It offers some detailed factual information, including Cole's English translations of some key articles of the current draft constitution ... along with an interpretation of the whole situation that differs fairly sharply from O'Leary's.)

==================
From the weblog of Norman Geras ("Normblog")
August 25, 2005
Brendan O'Leary on the Iraqi constitution

See this report in the Washington Post:
Baghdad, Aug. 22 - Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority and its Kurdish allies moved Monday toward fundamentally reshaping their nation, submitting a proposed constitution that would create a loose federation with strongly Islamic national laws.

The draft constitution, sent to parliament just five minutes before a midnight deadline, outraged negotiators for Iraq's Sunni Arab minority, and Sunni constitutional delegates warned that civil unrest could erupt if the charter becomes law over their objections.
.....
But the coalition of Shiites and Kurds, which holds a heavy majority in parliament and could easily approve the constitution on its own, agreed late Monday to postpone a vote for three days in hopes of appeasing Sunni negotiators.
Commenting on it in an email, Brendan O'Leary writes:
This story is mostly accurate, and better than most other accounts published today, including that in the New York Times. Five comments:

(i) Kurdistan has achieved its 'red lines' in the negotiations. The KRG [Kurdistan Regional Government] retains its full domestic legal autonomy; the legal competences of the federal government are narrowly circumscribed, and less than those in the Transitional Administrative Law; and in a clash between regional and federal law in an arena of regional competence, regional law is supreme. The Peshmerga will be the internal security/regional guard of Kurdistan; and the KRG will be able to block the deployment of the Iraqi army within Kurdistan. Natural resources that are currently exploited are a joint competence with joint revenues; unexploited/new natural resources belong to the regions. Art. 58 of the TAL (reversing Saddam's 'Arabization') will be implemented, and there will be a referendum on Kirkuk and the disputed territories by 2007. The future constitutional amendment process requires the consent of the Kurdistan National Assembly if a change affects its powers.

(ii) Kurdistan's delegation had no plans completely to exclude the Sunni delegation, as suggested by the quotation from the US ambassador. The Sunni delegates' utterly negative 'negotiating' strategy sidelined them from the federal bargain. Crudely, they misread 'consensus' as meaning 'unanimity' and thought they had a veto over the draft, which they sought to have fail before fresh elections. Their elites must learn that their days of barking orders towards the others are over.

(iii) Women's rights are secure in Kurdistan; indeed, given the limited range of competences of the federal government, the ambit of Islamist jurisprudence (at federal level) over those regions that don't want it is frankly unimportant. Those who want Allah's law in their regions are free to apply it, but subject to the charter of rights and democratic principles. Women, by the way, retain the right to a minimum of a quarter of the places on electoral lists.

(iv) Despite what you may read, the Sunni Arabs are most unlikely to have a blocking majority of two-thirds in three governorates. They would likely have Anbar and Salahaddin, if their voters turn out, but this would not enable them to block ratification. Provided minorities are protected in Ninevah and Diyala a Sunni 'no' vote cannot get two-thirds. There may be a paradox: al-Sadr may want to organize a 'no' vote, but he would then expose his voters to attacks by al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia and others.

(v) The key player was Masoud Barzani - through whom deals were made, both with the UIA leadership and the US ambassador. It is difficult to imagine the deal having been done without Barzani's style and integrity. The US ambassador was immeasurably better than Bremer, and walked away from Washington's script, both from conviction and necessity.
See also a much longer piece by Brendan on the constitutional reconstruction of Iraq, begun here, and in its entirety here and here [both pdf]. An excerpt:
The palpable reality of deep sectarian division among Arabs is simply ignored by those who casually talk of a nationalist "Iraqi resistance". The B'athist and Islamist insurgents at war with US troops, and their multi-national allies, are mostly Sunni Arabs. But they are also at war with the Shi'a dominated and properly elected Iraqi government. The jihadists among them are trying to provoke the Shi'a Arabs into a sectarian war - believing it will hasten America's departure. The methods they use - suicide bombings in market-places and outside mosques - are terrorist by almost anyone's definition. The exception is that repulsive branch of Islamist thought which decrees that Allah will decide the guilt or innocence of murdered civilians and children - and thereby licenses the complete abandonment of the moral control placed on guerrilla warfare by the notion of minimizing "collateral damage" to non-combatants.

What is their agenda? It is not mad; but it is not democratic, federal or pluralist. The jihadist insurgents and the B'athists want the Americans to leave, and then to restore the supremacy of Sunni Arabs. They will leave their internal disputes, perhaps, until later. The Shi'a Arabs, by contrast, want the Americans to go when they can control Arab Iraq, what I hereafter refer to as Mesopotamia. "Please go, but for Allah's sake stay a little longer" is their considered refrain to Washington. For now, it is the Shi'a Arabs who matter, because the Sunni Arab insurgents cannot win, unless Washington decides on an undignified exit. In response to the jihadists' provocations, and perhaps not just in response, the Shi'a militia, notably the Badr Brigades, are killing B'athists, past and present.

If Shi'a Arabs had a free hand they would re-shape all of Iraq in their image, but they don't agree what that is. They are, presently, more disunited than Kurds. Some want an Iraq that looks like Iran, a theocracy, replete with the shari'a, outlawing alcohol, and the repression of women. They may get their way in provinces where they are strong, and in some places Islamic vigilantes are engaged in Koranic enforcement. But not all Shi'a Arabs conform to this stereotype. Some lived in exile in Iran, astringent therapy for those who want an Islamic state. Some insist that they are as Arab as they are Shi'a, and are wary of imitating Iran, or of becoming Tehran's clients. Others are secular. They vary, in short, between those who want to govern all of Iraq (including Kurdistan), those who confine their ambitions to Arab Iraq (Mesopotamia), and those who confine their ambitions to self-government in Shi'a dominated Arab Iraq (Baghdad and the South). This internal division among them may scuttle an agreement. Those who want to govern beyond Shi'astan want to make a deal with Sunni Arabs; those who want to govern primarily in Shi'astan are willing to make a deal with Kurdistan.
.....
Insurgent Sunni Arabs are at war with Shi'a Arabs and in their dreams would re-conquer Kurdistan. The fallacy that they constitute an "Iraqi" nationalist resistance should be laid to rest: it is an illusion beloved by both Sunni Arabs and critics of America's decision to depose Saddam. The resistance is that of a formerly dominant minority, and it is either fascistic or religiously fanatical, or both, in thought and deed; it is not a program of self-government [-] to the extent that it is a program it is one that demands to govern others against their will. Their international jihadist supporters in the Sunni world, notably al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, regard the Shi'a Arabs as heretics and treat Iraq as a site for a holy war of redemption. They don't want to be, and cannot be part of the new constitution. The success of the constitution must be measured by their eventual defeat. They cannot be "included", directly, or indirectly. To treat with others as their supposed interlocutors, as the Bush administration has undoubtedly contemplated, only serves to undermine the legitimacy of the transitional Iraqi government.
Read the whole thing.

[Brendan O'Leary is Lauder Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, co-editor of The Future of Kurdistan in Iraq (2005), and a constitutional advisor to the Kurdistan Government.]

Posted by Norm at 02:56 PM |

Monday, August 22, 2005

Juan Cole opposes US abandonment of Iraq

Juan Cole, the scholar of Islam who has also become a deservedly well-known analyst of Middle Eastern politics, just posted this important and usefully thought-provoking discussion. Cole isn't the only person who has made the kinds of arguments presented here, but they should command special attention coming from him (whether or not one ultimately agrees), since he's unusually thoughtful and knowledgeable about these issues ... he genuinely cares about the well-being of Iraqis (among others) ... and it's impossible to view him as an apologist for the Bush administration (which he loathes), a foreign-policy neo-conservative (ditto), or someone who indulges in wishful thinking in order to evade the very real and difficult dilemmas posed by Iraq.

As is often the case, I agree with Cole on most of the broad issues here, though not on all the details. (This goes back to our positions on the Iraq war in the first place. I was and remain convinced that the war was necessary and justified, given the realistically available alternatives. Cole explicitly "declined" to oppose the war, though he couldn't quite bring himself to support it either ... and he has argued on several occasions that military action to overthrow the Iraqi Ba'ath regime would have been absolutely and unambiguously justified if it had been carried out with UN authorization ... which I agree would have been preferable, along with Tony Blair and others, but which has never struck me as THE overriding moral or political consideration.) Some specific points in this discussion are more convincing than others, and there are a few passing remarks that I think are quite wrong (even, in a few cases, rubbish). But, overall, I think what he has to say here is right and important..

I may try to send out a message later today that spells all this out more fully. But in the meantime, let me just mention that Cole zeroes in on what I think is the crucial point:
Personally, I think "US out now" as a simple mantra neglects to consider the full range of possible disasters that could ensue.
For example:
People often allege that the US military isn't doing any good in Iraq and there is already a civil war. These people have never actually seen a civil war and do not appreciate the lid the US military is keeping on what could be a volcano. [....]

I mean, we are always complaining, and rightly so, about the genocide in Darfur and the inattention to genocides in Rwanda and the Congo earlier. Can we really live with ourselves if we cast Iraqis into such a maelstrom deliberately?

And as I have argued before, an Iraq civil war will likely become a regional war, drawing in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey.
Cole also has some useful advice for people who mindlessly repeat the mantra "no blood for oil" as a substitute for serious thinking about the real issues at stake:
If a regional guerrilla war breaks out among Kurds, Turks, Shiites and Sunni Arabs, the guerrillas could well apply the technique of oil pipeline sabotage to Iran and Saudi Arabia, just as they do now to the Kirkuk pipeline in Iraq. If 20% of the world's petroleum production were taken off-line by such sabotage, the poor of the world would be badly hurt, and the whole world would risk another Great Depression.

People on the left often don't like it when I bring this scenario up, because they dislike oil; they read it as a variant of the "war for oil" thesis and reject it. But working people, whom we on the left are supposed to be supporting, get to work on buses, and buses burn gasoline. If the bus ticket doubles or triples, people who make $10,000 a year feel it. Moreover, if there is a depression, the janitors and other workers will be the first to be fired. As for the poor of the global South, this scenario would mean they are stuck in dire poverty for an extra generation. Do you know how expensive everything would be for Jamaicans, who import much of what they use and therefore are sensitive to the price of shipping fuel? It would be highly irresponsible to walk away from Iraq and let it fall into a genocidal civil war that left the Oil Gulf in flames.
=> With regard to Cole's practical suggestions ... some strike me as definitely on target, others as more problematic, but all are worth careful consideration. As another blogger whose name I won't mention likes to say, read the whole thing.

Yours for reality-based, politically serious, and morally responsible discourse,
Jeff Weintraub

P.S. Since I am recommending and mostly endorsing this piece (with some qualifications I haven't yet laid out), I feel I ought to comment in passing on one of Cole's more ill-chosen remarks in this discussion. As Cole properly points out:
If there is a civil war now that kills a million people, with ethnic cleansing and millions of displaced persons, it will be our fault,
This is quite right, particularly if "we" now decide to declare failure prematurely and simply bail out ... and if this "we" includes all the other governments and publics that have refused and continue to refuse to do anything constructive to help Iraq reconstruct itself ... and especially those who actually endorse and support the so-called "insurgency" in Iraq.

But Cole then goes on to add:
or at least the fault of the 75% of Americans who supported the war.
This is unwarranted, factually and morally one-sided, and even a bit offensive. Aside from being quite wrong, pinning the blame exclusively on Americans who supported the Iraq war is also pernicious and counter-productive in terms of Cole's own concerns, if only because it lets everyone else--in the US and elsewhere--off the hook completely. I presume Cole wants to drive home the valid point that, in some respects, Americans now have a special responsibility not to abandon the Iraqis to catastrophe. (Though they are far from the only ones with this responsibility ... and in some ways governments that colluded with Saddam Hussein & his regime in the decade after the 1991 Gulf War, and that undermined any serious efforts to address the problems posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq up to the very end, also have their own special responsibilities to help address the long-term consequences of their actions.) But if Cole wanted to say this, he could have found a much better and less misleading way to do so.

============================
Juan Cole ("Informed Comment")
Monday, August 22, 2005
Ten Things Congress Could Demand from Bush on Iraq

The Washington Post notes that the Democratic Party is deeply divided between those who want US troops out now and those who fear the consequences and think it best to stay the course. The article might as well have noted that the Republicans are also divided on Iraq policy.

So the issue isn't a partisan one. It is an American one.

Personally, I think "US out now" as a simple mantra neglects to consider the full range of possible disasters that could ensue. For one thing, there would be an Iraq civil war. Iraq wasn't having a civil war in 2002. And although you could argue that what is going on now is a subterranean, unconventional civil war, it is not characterized by set piece battles and hundreds of people killed in a single battle, as was true in Lebanon in 1975-76, e.g. People often allege that the US military isn't doing any good in Iraq and there is already a civil war. These people have never actually seen a civil war and do not appreciate the lid the US military is keeping on what could be a volcano.

All it would take would be for Sunni Arab guerrillas to assassinate Grand Ayatollah Sistani. And, boom. If there is a civil war now that kills a million people, with ethnic cleansing and millions of displaced persons, it will be our fault, or at least the fault of the 75% of Americans who supported the war. (Such a scenario is entirely plausible. Look at Afghanistan. It was a similar-sized country with similar ethnic and ideological divisions. One million died 1979-1992, and five million were displaced. Moreover, all this helped get New York and the Pentagon blown up.)

I mean, we are always complaining, and rightly so, about the genocide in Darfur and the inattention to genocides in Rwanda and the Congo earlier. Can we really live with ourselves if we cast Iraqis into such a maelstrom deliberately?

And as I have argued before, an Iraq civil war will likely become a regional war, drawing in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey. If a regional guerrilla war breaks out among Kurds, Turks, Shiites and Sunni Arabs, the guerrillas could well apply the technique of oil pipeline sabotage to Iran and Saudi Arabia, just as they do now to the Kirkuk pipeline in Iraq. If 20% of the world's petroleum production were taken off-line by such sabotage, the poor of the world would be badly hurt, and the whole world would risk another Great Depression.

People on the left often don't like it when I bring this scenario up, because they dislike oil; they read it as a variant of the "war for oil" thesis and reject it. But working people, whom we on the left are supposed to be supporting, get to work on buses, and buses burn gasoline. If the bus ticket doubles or triples, people who make $10,000 a year feel it. Moreover, if there is a depression, the janitors and other workers will be the first to be fired. As for the poor of the global South, this scenario would mean they are stuck in dire poverty for an extra generation. Do you know how expensive everything would be for Jamaicans, who import much of what they use and therefore are sensitive to the price of shipping fuel? It would be highly irresponsible to walk away from Iraq and let it fall into a genocidal civil war that left the Oil Gulf in flames.

On the other hand, the gradual radicalization of the entire Sunni Arab heartland of Iraq stands as testimony to the miserable failure of US military counter-insurgency tactics. It seems to me indisputable that US tactics have progressively made things worse in that part of Iraq, contributing to the destabilization of the country.

So those who want the troops out also do have a point.

So here is what I would suggest as a responsible stance toward Iraq. Others, including Iraqi politicians, have already suggested most of these things, but I think the below hang together and could avert a tragedy while allowing us to get out.

1) US ground troops should be withdrawn ASAP from urban areas as a first step. Iraqi police will just have to do the policing. We are no good at it. If local militias take over, that is the Iraqi government's problem. The prime minister will have to either compromise with the militia leaders or send in other Iraqi militias to take them on. Who runs Iraqi cities can no longer be a primary concern of the US military. Our troops are warriors, not traffic cops.

2) In the second phase of withdrawal, most US ground troops would steadily be brought out of Iraq.

3) For as long as the elected Iraqi government wanted it, the US would offer the new Iraqi military and security forces close air support in any firefight they have with guerrilla or other rebellious forces. (I.e. we would replicate our tactics in Afghanistan of providing the air force for the Northern Alliance infantry and cavalry.) I concede that this tactic will get some US Blackhawks shot down from time to time, and won't be painless. But it could prevent the outbreak of fullscale war. This way of proceeding, which was opened up by the Afghanistan War of 2001-2002, and which depends on smart weapons and having allies on the ground, is the major difference between today and the Vietnam era, when dumb bombs (and even carpet bombing) couldn't have been deployed effectively to ensure the enemy did not take or hold substantial territory.

4) With the agreement of the elected Iraqi government, the US would prevent any guerrilla force from fielding any large number of fighters for set piece battles. Such large units of militiamen attempting to march from Anbar on Baghdad, e.g., would be destroyed by AC-130s and other US air weaponry suitable to this purpose. This tactic cannot prevent the current campaign of car bombings, but it can stop a full-scale Lebanon or Afghanistan-style civil war from erupting.

6) In addition to the service of its air forces, the US would offer targeted military aid to ensure the stability of the Iraqi government. It would help protect key political figures from assassination; it would give the Iraqi government help in preventing pipeline sabotage so as to increase Iraqi petroleum revenues and strengthen the new government; and it would help rapidly build an Iraqi armor corps. The new Iraqi military's lack of tanks is almost certainly because the US is afraid they might be turned on US troops in a crisis. Once US ground troops are out, there is no reason not to let the Iraqi military just import a lot of tanks and train the new Iraqi army in using them.

7) The US should demand as a quid pro quo for further help that elections in Iraq henceforward be held on a district basis so as to ensure proper representation in parliament for the Sunni Arab provinces. This step is necessary if there is to be any hope of drawing the Sunni Arab political elites into the new government.

8) The US should demand as a quid pro quo for further help that the Iraqi government announce an amnesty for all former Baath Party members who cannot be proven to have committed serious crimes, including crimes against humanity. Former Baathists who have been fired from the schools and civil bureaucracy must be reinstated, and no further firings are to take place. (This step is key in convincing the old Sunni Arab elites that they won't be screwed over in the new Iraq.)

9) Congress must rewrite the laws governing US reconstruction aid to Iraq so as to take out provisions that Iraqis must where possible use US companies or materiel. All of the reconstruction money should go directly to Iraqi firms, so as to help jump-start the economy.

10) The US should join the regular meetings of the foreign ministers of Iraq's neighbors, with Condi Rice in attendance, along with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, employing a 6 + 2 diplomatic track to help put Iraq back on its feet through diplomacy and multilateral aid. This step will require that the Bush administration cease threatening regularly to bomb Tehran or to overthrow the governments of Syria and Iran. For the sake of getting out of Iraq without a world-class economic disaster, the US will just have to deal with the real world, which contains Iran and Syria. The US is now a Middle Eastern Power, not just a New World one, and as such it needs to use Iraq's neighbors to calm their clients within Iraq. This goal cannot be achieved through simple intimidation, more especially since, with half of all fighting units bogged down in Iraq, the US is in no position to follow through on its threats and everyone knows it.

I can't guarantee that these steps will resolve the crisis in the short or even medium term. But I do think that, if taken together, they would allow us to get the ground troops out without risking a big civil war or a destabilization of the Middle East. Once Iraq can stand on its own feet, I am quite sure that the Grand Ayatollah in Najaf will just give a fatwa for complete US withdrawal, and the US will have to acquiesce, as it did in similar circumstances in the Philippines.

posted by Juan @ 8/22/2005 06:37:00 AM

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Albert Memmi - Who is an Arab Jew? (JIMENA)

A very interesting and illuminating piece by Albert Memmi (the Tunisian-born author of that classic work of anti-colonial phenomenological sociology that we all read back in the 1960s, The Colonizer and the Colonized). It's a compelling mixture of historical analysis and autobiographical reflection.

I've read other things that Memmi has written on this subject--the experience of Jews in Arab societies, which was his own experience as a child and a young man--but few of them had the compact intensity of this piece.

Cheers,
Jeff Weintraub

Albert Memmi, écrivain-philosophe né à Tunis en 1920, a publié en avril dernier "Portrait du décolonisé arabo-musulman et de quelques autres", en écho à l'un de ses ouvrages devenu un classique, "Portrait du colonisé, (précédé de) portrait du colonisateur", paru en 1957 et précédé d'un texte de Jean-Paul Sartre. (Le Nouvel Observateur 11/22/2004)

=================================

jimena Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa

The Forgotten Middle East Refugees

________________________________________________

WHO IS AN ARAB JEW? *

By: ALBERT MEMMI

February, 1975

* The term "Arab Jews" is obviously not a good one. I have adopted it for convenience. I simply wish to underline that as natives of those countries called Arab and indigenous to those lands well before the arrival of the Arabs, we shared with them, to a great extent, languages, traditions and cultures. If one were to base oneself on this legitimacy, and not on force and numbers, then we have the same rights to our share in these lands - neither more nor less - than the Arab Moslems. But one should remember, at the same time, that the term "Arab" is not a happy one when applied to such diverse populations, including even those who call and believe themselves to be Arabs.


The head of an Arab state (Muammar Ghadaffi) recently made us a generous and novel offer. "Return," he told us, "return to the land of your birth!" It seems that this impressed many people who, carried away by their emotions, believed that the problem was solved. So much so that they did not understand what was the price to be paid in exchange: once reinstalled in our former countries, Israel will no longer have any reason to exist. The other Jews, those "terrible European usurpers", will also be sent back "home" - to clear up the remains of the crematoria, to rebuild their ruined quarters, I suppose. And if they do not choose to go with good grace, in spite of everything, then a final war will be waged against them. On this point, the Head of State was very frank. It also seems that one of his remarks deeply impressed those present: "Are you not Arabs like us - Arab Jews?"

What lovely words! We draw a secret nostalgia from them: yes, indeed, we were Arab Jews- in our habits, our culture, our music, our menu. I have written enough about it. But must one remain an Arab Jew if, in return, one has to tremble for one's life and the future of one's children and always be denied a normal existence? There are, it is true, the Arab Christians. What is not sufficiently known is the shamefully exorbitant price that they must pay for the right merely to survive. We would have liked to be Arab Jews. If we abandoned the idea, it is because over the centuries the Moslem Arabs systematically prevented its realization by their contempt and cruelty. It is now too late for us to become Arab Jews. Not only were the homes of Jews in Germany and Poland torn down, scattered to the four winds, demolished, but our homes as well. Objectively speaking, there are no longer any Jewish communities in any Arab country, and you will not find a single Arab Jew who will agree to return to his native land.

I must be clearer: the much vaunted idyllic life of the Jews in Arab lands is a myth! The truth, since I am obliged to return to it, is that from the outset we were a minority in a hostile environment; as such, we underwent all the fears, the agonies, and the constant sense of frailty of the underdog. As far back as my childhood memories go - in the tales of my father, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles - coexistence with the Arabs was not just uncomfortable, it was marked by threats periodically carried out. We must, nonetheless, remember a most significant fact: the situation of the Jews during the colonial period was more secure, because it was more legalized. This explains the prudence, the hesitation between political options of the majority of Jews in Arab lands. I have not always agreed with these choices, but one cannot reproach the responsible leaders of the communities for this ambivalence - they were only reflecting the inborn fear of their co-religionists.

As to the pre-colonial period, the collective memory of Tunisian Jewry leaves no doubt. It is enough to cite a few narratives and tales relating to that period: it was a gloomy one. The Jewish communities lived in the shadow of history, under arbitrary rule and the fear of all-powerful monarchs whose decisions could not be rescinded or even questioned. It can be said that everybody was governed by these absolute rulers: the sultans, beys and deys. But the Jews were at the mercy not only of the monarch but also of the man in the street. My grandfather still wore the obligatory and discriminatory Jewish garb, and in his time every Jew might expect to be hit on the head by any Moslem whom he happened to pass. This pleasant ritual even had a name - the chtaka; and with it went a sacramental formula which I have forgotten. A French orientalist once replied to me at a meeting: "In Islamic lands the Christians were no better off!" This is true - so what? This is a double-edged argument: it signifies, in effect, that no member of a minority lived in peace and dignity in countries with an Arab majority! Yet there was a marked difference all the same: the Christians were, as a rule, foreigners and as such protected by their mother-countries. If a Barbary pirate or an emir wanted to enslave a missionary, he had to take into account the government of the missionary's land of origin - perhaps even the Vatican or the Order of the Knights of Malta. But no one came to the rescue of the Jews, because the Jews were natives and therefore victims of the will of "their" rulers. Never, I repeat, never - with the possible exception of two or three very specific intervals such as the Andalusian, and not even then - did the Jews in Arab lands live in other than a humiliated state, vulnerable and periodically mistreated and murdered, so that they should clearly remember their place.

During the colonial period, the life of Jews took on a certain measure of security, even among the poorest classes, whereas traditionally only the rich Jews, those from the European part of town, were able to live reasonably well. In these quarters the population was mixed, and the French and Italian Jews were, in general, less in contact with the Arab population. Even they remained second-class citizens, a prey from time to time to outbursts of popular anger, which the colonial power - French, English or Italian - did not always repress in time, either out of indifference or for tactical reasons.

I have lived through the alarms of the ghetto: the rapidly barred doors and windows, my father running home after hastily shutting his shop, because of rumours of an impending pogrom. My parents stocked food in expectation of a siege, which did not always materialize, but this gives the measure of our anguish, our permanent insecurity. We felt abandoned then by the whole world, including, alas, the French protectorate officials. Whether these officials knowingly exploited these happenings for internal political reasons, as a diversion of an eventual rising against the colonial regime, I have no proof. But certainly this was the feeling of us Jews of the poor quarters. My own father was convinced that when the Tunisian riflemen left for the front during the war, the Jewish population had been delivered into their hands. At the least, we thought that the French and Tunisian authorities had shut their eyes to the depredations of the soldiery or the malcontents who streamed into the ghetto. Like the carabinieri in the song, the police never came, or if they did it was only hours after it was all over.

Shortly before the end of the colonial period, we endured an ordeal in common with Europe: the German occupation.

I have described in Pillar of Salt how the French authorities coldly left us to the Germans. But I must add that we were also submerged in a hostile Arab population, which is why so few of us could cross the lines and join the Allies. Some got through in spite of everything, but in most cases they were denounced and caught.

Nevertheless, we were inclined to forget that dreadful period after Tunisia attained independence. It must be acknowledged that not many Jews took an active part in the struggle for independence, but neither did the mass of Tunisian non-Jews. On the other hand our intellectuals, including the communists, who were very numerous, took an active role in the fight for independence; some of them fought in the ranks of the "Destour". I was myself a member of the small group which founded the newspaper Jeune Afrique in 1956, shortly before independence, for which I had to pay dearly later on.

At all events, after independence the Jewish bourgeoisie, which was an appreciable part of the Jewish population, believed that they could collaborate with the new regime, that it was possible to coexist with the Tunisian population. We were Tunisian citizens and decided in all sincerity to "play the game". But what did the Tunisians do? Just like the Moroccans and Algerians, they liquidated their Jewish communities cunningly and intelligently. They did not indulge in open brutalities as in other Arab lands - that would anyhow have been difficult after the services which had been rendered, the help given by a large number of our intellectuals, because of world public opinion, which was following events in our region closely; and also because of American aid which they needed urgently. Nonetheless they strangled the Jewish population economically. This was easy with the merchants: it was enough not to renew their licences, to decline to grant them import permits and, at the same time, to give preference to their Moslem competitors. In the civil service it was hardly more complicated: Jews were not taken on, or veteran Jewish officials were confronted with insurmountable language difficulties, which were rarely imposed upon Moslems. Periodically, a Jewish engineer or a senior official would be put in jail on mysterious, Kafkaesque charges which panicked everyone else.

And this does not take into account the impact of the relative proximity of the Arab-Israel conflict. At each crisis, with every incident of the slightest importance, the mob would go wild, setting fire to Jewish shops. This even happened during the Yom Kippur War. Tunisia's President, Habib Bourguiba, has in all probability never been hostile to the Jews, but there was always that notorious "delay", which meant that the police arrived on the scene only after the shops had been pillaged and burnt. Is it any wonder that the exodus to France and Israel continued and even increased?

I myself left Tunisia for professional reasons, admittedly, because I wanted to get back into a literary circle, but also because I could not have lived much longer in that atmosphere of masked, and often open, discrimination.

It is not a question of regretting the position of historical justice we adopted in favour of the Arab peoples. I regret nothing, neither having written The Colonizer and the Colonized nor my applause for the independence of the peoples of the Maghreb. I continued to defend the Arabs even in Europe, in countless activities, communications, signatures, manifestos. But it must be stated unequivocally, once and for all: we defended the Arabs because they were oppressed. But now there are independent Arab states, with foreign policies, social classes, with rich and poor. And if they are no longer oppressed, if they are in their turn becoming oppressors, or possess unjust political regimes, I do not see why they should not be called upon to render accounts. Besides, unlike most people, I was never willing to believe (as the liberals naively, and the communists artfully, repeat) that after independence there would be no more problems, that our countries would become secular states where Europeans, Jews and Moslems would happily coexist.

I even knew that there would not be much of a place for us in the country after independence. Young nations are very exclusive; and anyhow, Arab constitutions are incompatible with a secular ideology. And this, by the way, has been recently underlined most appositely by Colonel Qadhafi. He only said aloud what others think to themselves. I was equally aware of the problem of the "small" Europeans, the poor Whites; but I thought that all this was the inevitable end of a state of affairs condemned by history. I thought, in spite of everything, that the effort was worth making. After all, we had never occupied a major place; it would have been enough had they allowed us to live in peace. This was a drama, but a historical drama - not a tragedy; modest solutions did exist for us. But even that was not possible. We were all obliged to go, each in his turn.

Thus I arrived in France, and found myself up against the legend which was current in left-wing Parisian salons: the Jews had always lived in perfect harmony with the Arabs. I was almost congratulated for having been born in such a land where racial discrimination and xenophobia were unknown. It made me laugh. I heard so much nonsense about North Africa, and from people of the best intentions that, honestly, I did not react to it at all. The chattering only began to worry me when it became a political argument that is, after 1967. The Arabs then made up their minds to use this travesty of the truth, which fell on willing ears once the reaction against Israel had set in after her victory. It is now time to denounce this absurdity.

If I had to explain the success of the myth, I would list five converging factors. The first is the product of Arab propaganda: "The Arabs never did the Jews any harm, so why do the Jews come to despoil them of their lands, when the responsibility for Jewish misfortune is altogether European? The whole responsibility for the Middle East conflict rests on the Jews of Europe. The Arab Jews never wanted to create a separate country and they are full of trust and friendship towards the Moslem Arabs." This is a double lie: the Arab Jews are much more distrustful of the Moslems than are the European Jews, and they dreamed of the Land of Israel long before the Russian and Polish Jews did.

The second argument stems from the cogitations of a part of the European Left: the Arabs were oppressed, therefore they could not be anti-Semites. This is ridiculously manichaeistic - as though one could not be oppressed and also be a racist! As if workers have not been xenophobic! Actually the argument is not convincing: the real purpose is to be able with a clear conscience to fight Zionism and thus serve the Soviet Union.

The third argument is the doing of contemporary historians, among whom, curiously enough, are certain Western Jews. Having undergone the dreadful Nazi slaughter, they could not imagine a similar thing happening elsewhere. However, if we except the massacres of the twentieth century (the pogroms in Russia after Kishinev and later by Stalin, as well as the Nazi crematoria), the total number of Jewish victims from Christian pogroms over the centuries probably does not exceed the total of the victims of the smaller and larger periodic pogroms perpetrated in Arab lands under Islam over the past millennium. Jewish history has so far been written by Western Jews; there has been no great Oriental Jewish historian. This is why only the "Western" aspects of Jewish suffering are widely known. One is reminded of the absurd distinction drawn by Jules Isaac, usually better inspired, between "true" and "false" anti-Semitism, "true" anti-Semitism being the result of Christianity. The truth is that it is not only Christianity that creates anti-Semitism, but the fact that the Jew is a member of a minority - in Christendom or in Islam. In making of anti-Semitism a Christian creation, Isaac, I regret to say, has minimized the tragedy of the Jews from Arab lands and helped to confuse people.

The fourth factor is that many Israelis, perturbed by the issue of coexistence with their Arab neighbours, wish to believe that this existed in the past; otherwise the whole undertaking would have to be discarded in despair! But in order to survive, it would be far wiser to take a clear view of the actual environment.

The fifth and last factor is our own complicity, the more or less unwitting complacency of us Jews from Arab countries - the uprooted who tend to embellish the past, who in our longing for our native Orient minimize, or completely efface, the memory of persecutions. In our recollections, in our imagination, it was a wholly marvelous life, even though our own newspapers from that period attest the contrary.

How I wish that all this had been true - that we had enjoyed a singular existence in comparison with the usual Jewish condition! Unfortunately, it is all a huge lie: Jews lived most lamentably in Arab lands. The State of Israel is not the outcome only of the sufferings of European Jewry. It is certainly possible, contrary to the thinking - if there is any thinking at all - of a part of the European Left, to free oneself from oppression and in turn to become an oppressor towards, for example, one's own minorities. Indeed, this happens very often with many new nations.

And now?

Now it is no longer a question of our returning to any Arab land, as we are so disingenuously invited to do. Such an idea would seem grotesque to all the Jews who fled their homes - from the gallows of Iraq, the rapes, the sodomy of the Egyptian prisons, from the political and cultural alienation and economic suffocation of the more moderate countries. The attitude of the Arabs towards us seems to me to be hardly different from what it has always been. The Arabs in the past merely tolerated the existence of Jewish minorities, no more. They have not yet recovered from the shock of seeing their former underlings raise up their heads, attempting even to gain their national independence! They know of only one rejoinder: off with their heads! The Arabs want to destroy Israel. They pinned great hopes on the summit meeting in Algiers. Now what did this meeting demand? Two points recur as a leitmotiv: the return of all the territories occupied by Israel, and the restoration of the legitimate national rights of the Palestinians. The first contention can still create an illusion, but not the second. What does it mean? Settling the Palestinians as rulers in Haifa or Jaffa? In other words, the end of Israel. And if not that, if it is only a matter of partition, why do they not say so? On the contrary, the Palestinians have never ceased to claim the whole of the region, and their succeeding "summits" change nothing. The summit meeting in Algiers is linked to that of Khartoum (1967), there is no basic difference. Even today the official position of the Arabs, implicit or avowed, brutal or tactical, is nothing but a perpetuation of that anti-Semitism which we have experienced. Today, as yesterday, our life is at stake. But there will come a day when the Moslem Arabs will have to admit that we, the "Arab Jews" as well - if that is how they wish to call us - have the right to existence and to dignity.

Source: Israel Academic Committee on the Middle East, February, 1975

Friday, August 19, 2005

Condemnations of terrorism -- real and bogus

Sam Fleischacker recently called attention to a formal ruling by the Fiqh Council of North America that condemns "all acts of terrorism targeting civilians." When one examines such pronouncements closely, it usually turns out that there's less to them than meets the eye. But I am increasingly convinced that this one, exceptionally, is for real--and it ought to be highlighted and commended. To quote from my message message posted below:
As I have noted in the past, there is a distressingly common tendency for individuals and groups to make pious declarations that pretend to be unequivocal condemnations of all terrorist attacks that target "innocent civilians" ... but then, when one examines the fine print, it turns out that there is an exception allowing or excusing attacks against Israeli and/or Jewish civilians.
(The recent declaration by allegedly "moderate" Muslim religious leaders in Britain, which allegedly condemned all terrorism against civilians, is an an excellent example.
[....]
=> One rare and admirable exception is worth highlighting. This is a recent fatwa (i.e., a formal Islamic legal ruling) by a group of Islamic scholars in the US & Canada, the Fiqh Council of North America, that condemns "all acts of terrorism targeting civilians"--and really means it. On several occasions including an NPR interview Muzammil Siddiqi, head of the Fiqh Council of North America, has gone out of his way to indicate explicitly and unambiguously that this prohibition includes attacks against Israeli civilians. (I recommend listening to the NPR interview, for which I haven't come across a free transcript.)
So it would be incorrect and unfair to say that there have been no rulings by Muslim religious leaders that genuinely condemn the indiscriminate murder of Israeli civilians.
=> For the longer discussion from which these passages are lifted, see below.

Shalom,
Jeff Weintraub

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-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Hizb ut Tahrir - Dishonesty about terrorism, contd. (Harry's Place)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 09:34:53 -0400
From: Jeff Weintraub
To: undisclosed-recipients:;

As I have noted in the past, there is a distressingly common tendency for individuals and groups to make pious declarations that pretend to be unequivocal condemnations of all terrorist attacks that target "innocent civilians" ... but then, when one examines the fine print, it turns out that there is an exception allowing or excusing attacks against Israeli and/or Jewish civilians.

(The recent declaration by allegedly "moderate" Muslim religious leaders in Britain, which allegedly condemned all terrorism against civilians, is an an excellent example.)

Let me emphasize that this kind of selective and dishonest pseudo-rejection of terrorism against civilians is NOT restricted to Muslims and Muslim organizations. However, since the September 11 attacks in 2001, it has increasingly become standard practice for radical Islamist organizations and their foreign apologists, who realize that an honest and straightforward endorsement of terrorist attacks against ordinary civilians--even Israelis and/or Jews--is no longer so respectable when addressing western audiences. The item below offers one more illuminating example.

=> As the old saying goes, hypocrisy is sometimes the homage that vice pays to virtue--so this could be taken as an encouraging sign that many people are uneasy with the idea that the deliberate and indiscriminate murder of ordinary civilians is a legitimate strategy for political conflicts. But it is important not to swallow this kind of stuff uncritically and let its practitioners get away with it. To reiterate what I said in a previous message:
Unfortunately, all this is typical, not exceptional. Whenever one reads news reports about Muslim clerics "unequivocally" condemning terrorism and the murder of civilians as un-Islamic, always check to see whether they added explicitly that this condemnation includes attacks on Jewish and Israeli civilians. If not, then the claim that they have "unequivocally" rejected terrorist attacks on civilians should be viewed with skepticism [which is a polite way of saying it is almost certainly bullshit].
=> One rare and admirable exception is worth highlighting. This is a recent fatwa (i.e., a formal Islamic legal ruling) by a group of Islamic scholars in the US & Canada, the Fiqh Council of North America, that condemns "all acts of terrorism targeting civilians"--and really means it. On several occasions including an NPR interview Muzammil Siddiqi, head of the Fiqh Council of North America, has gone out of his way to indicate explicitly and unambiguously that this prohibition includes attacks against Israeli civilians. (I recommend listening to the NPR interview, for which I haven't come across a free transcript.)

So it would be incorrect and unfair to say that there have been no rulings by Muslim religious leaders that genuinely condemn the indiscriminate murder of Israeli civilians.

--Jeff Weintraub
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David T on the mostly-British democratic-left weblog "Harry's Place"
August 19, 2005

Hizb ut Tahrir: The Islamic Rule on Hijacking Aeroplanes

Hizb ut Tahrir professes to be a non violent organisation and is seeking to avoid a ban on the basis that they do not incite their members to violence and specifically do not permit violence against civilians.

On their page, "FAQ About Hizb ut-Tahrir", the party states:

The rules of Islam forbid any aggression against civilian non-combatants. They forbid the killing of children, the elderly and non-combatant women even in the battlefield. They forbid the hijacking of civilian aeroplanes carrying innocent civilians and forbid the destruction of homes and offices that contain innocent civilians. All of these actions are types of aggression that Islam forbids.

That is, literally, a true statement. It is however deliberately misleading. It is clear that Hizb ut Tahrir are using the word "innocent" in its technical legal sense only.

If you click on this link, you can read Hizb ut Tahrir's learned and authoritative statement on the position. The ruling in question dates from 1988. It is Hizb ut Tahrir's present policy. It has not been rescinded, and it has not been superseded.

It provides that

- Aeroplanes from an "Islamic country" is "Muslim property" and cannot be hijacked.

- Aeroplanes from a "Kafir state with whom there is no direct war with Muslims" may not be hijacked.

- Aeroplanes from a "country which is at war with the Muslims, like Israel, it is allowed to hijack it , for there is no sanctity for Israel nor for the Jews in it and their property and we should treat them as being at war with us". In that case it is permitted to hijack and destroy the aeroplane and terrorize and kill the passengers.

As you know, Hizb ut Tahrir is a racist theocratic totalitarian political party which has been trying to make itself look itself look respectable, particularly since it now faces banning. Just as the BNP has tried to play down its racism, Hizb ut Tahrir has also been airbrushing away as much racist material as it can find from its website, in order to give the false impression that it is not a racist party.

When I pointed out what Hizb ut Tahrir was up to in my Open Democracy article, Abdul Wahid claimed that "the decision to remove some of our overseas literature from our British website was a considered response to the legitimate proposition that people who read it out of its context might see it as offensive".

That is simply untrue.

They removed the racist literature because it showed, too clearly, the true face of Hizb ut Tahrir.

And now they have been caught out again.

Hizb ut Tahrir is a party whose existing policy sanctions the hijacking of aeroplanes, and the killing of their passengers.

Posted by david t at August 19, 2005 11:04 AM | TrackBack

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Darfur - "Arabian Shame" (Sudan Tribune)

The incapacity and unwillingness to do anything serious to stop the ongoing atrocity in Darfur has been a massive failure for the entire "international community" (including the US). But the utter failure of the Arab world, many of whose governments are actually supporting the Khartoum regime, has been especially dumfounding--though, unfortunately, not entirely surprising. As far back as June 2004 the Beirut Daily Star, offering "A Word of Advice on Darfur for the Arab Body Politic", called for a serious and constructive Arab response:
International neglect led to near-genocide a decade ago in Rwanda, while NATO went to war in Kosovo in 1999 for the sake of a few hundred thousand refugees. While the United States is considering formally labeling the Darfur crisis as a genocide in progress, the world - the world beyond the Arab world that is - is justified in asking the following question: "What are the Arabs doing about this atrocity in their own back yard?"

The answer, of course - as usual - is nothing.
The answer is still nothing--or worse. That leaves the responsibility to the rest of us.

--Jeff Weintraub

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Sudan Tribune
Thursday 18 August 2005

Arabian Shame

Washington Post Editorial - Page A18

Aug 12, 2005 (Washington) — Some remain skeptical of President Bush’s concern for Africa, and there’s no doubt that the United States could and should do more. But the latest report on Sudan from the United Nations offers a snapshot of an issue on which Mr. Bush has been a leader. So far this year the United States has given $468 million in foreign assistance to Sudan, mostly for humanitarian relief in the western region of Darfur. The U.S. contribution comes to 53 percent of all outside donations — a proportion about twice the size of the nation’s weight in the global economy.

A few other countries have been even more generous relative to the size of their economies, notably Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Britain. But the contribution from many others has been embarrassing. How can France, which prides itself on its leadership in Africa, give only $2 million to this year’s U.N. appeal for Sudan — an amount that, when rounded, comes to zero percent of total contributions to the country? Even if one generously ascribed, say, a fifth of the European Union’s donation of $90 million to French taxpayers, France’s share of the total contribution to Sudan comes to a paltry 2 percent.

There are plenty of other culprits. Japan accounts for just 2 percent of total contributions despite the size of its economy; China has made no contribution to the U.N. effort, even though it has extensive investments in Sudan’s oil sector. But perhaps the most striking absentees are the oil-rich Arab countries, which have more money than ideas on how to spend it, thanks to oil prices above $60 a barrel. Saudi Arabia has contributed a grand total of $3 million, according to the U.N. data; the United Arab Emirates and Qatar have given less than $1 million between them. No other Arab country even makes the list.

This Arab indifference is shameful. The victims of Sudan’s worst crisis, in Darfur, are Muslim, and aid to non-Muslim southern Sudan is essential to shoring up the fragile north-south peace deal that would help Muslims as well. Sudan borders Libya and Egypt; only the narrow Red Sea separates it from Saudi Arabia. Arabs have every reason to care about Sudan, and yet they have done far less than remote non-Muslim countries such as Norway, which has an economy roughly the same size as Saudi Arabia’s.

Writing on the opposite page last month, Joseph Britt ("Arab Genocide, Arab Silence") noted, "We’ve heard a lot since Sept. 11, 2001, about how Arabs feel humiliated, ashamed, resentful at being regarded by the West as inferior in some way." Mr. Britt continued: "Perhaps it is time to say plainly that the way to earn respect is through deeds worthy of respect."

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Washington Post
Wednesday, July 13, 2005; Page A21

Arab Genocide, Arab Silence
By Joseph Britt

What responsibility do Arabs have to stop genocide being committed by Arabs?

Genocide in the Darfur region of western Sudan, inflicted on mostly Muslim African tribespeople by the nomadic Arab militias called janjaweed with the enthusiastic assistance of the Arab-dominated Sudanese government, has been going on for over two years now. In response, nations from western and central Africa have sent peacekeeping troops; various Western countries, including the United States, have pledged many millions of dollars in aid. Western diplomats led by Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick have worked feverishly to stop the massacres, rapes and forced relocations that the Sudanese government has employed as its weapons of choice.

Absent from the picture have been the other Arab states. This is exceedingly strange, and not just because most of Darfur's victims are Muslims. Darfur is thousands of miles away from any of the Western countries trying to stop the genocide there; even the African nations sending peacekeepers are remote. Meanwhile, Egypt, with a huge army, a modern air force and more contacts within Sudan than every Western country combined, has looked on while as many as 400,000 people have been slaughtered just beyond its southern border and has, in effect, done nothing.

It's true that Egypt has put on a show of hosting peace conferences. Perhaps because Egypt is determined to take no action to which Sudan might object, these have produced no results (a separate conference sponsored by Nigeria has made some limited progress). Other Arab countries have not done even this much. Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states could pay for more aid out of petty cash than Darfur could use, but Canada, by itself, has pledged more aid than all the Arab countries combined. The number of Saudi, Kuwaiti or Syrian relief workers in Darfur is, as best one can tell, precisely zero. Arab press references to Darfur consist mostly of reprints from Western news services about official government statements, many of them from the Sudanese government itself.

One might think this would be a subject worthy of comment or at least curiosity by the U.S. government and the Western media. One would be wrong. Virtually without exception, the Western reaction to Arab silence about genocide being committed by Arabs has been -- silence. The American government has said nothing about it; Western newspapers can write months of news stories and editorials about Darfur without mentioning Egypt or other Arab countries except in passing.

It is as if Egypt and Sudan occupied different planets instead of sharing a common border. The Egyptian government acting alone could have, at any time during the past two years, forced Sudan to ground its air force and cease all other support to the janjaweed. While it was not doing this, and was not thinking of doing this, Western governments have made diplomatic efforts, plowing through one forum after another; have conducted aid campaigns; and have even talked earnestly about whether the United States and Canada should send troops. And no one appears to think there is anything odd about this discrepancy. It is a great mystery.

Do we really expect indifference, or worse, from Arabs in the face of mass murder? Surely the contradictions between that indifference and President Bush's promotion of democracy and human rights in the Arab world speak for themselves. More important than what we think, though, is what Arabs think.

We've heard a lot since Sept. 11, 2001, about how Arabs feel humiliated, ashamed, resentful at being regarded by the West as inferior in some way. Sometimes we ignore these feelings; sometimes we try to appease them. Perhaps it is time to say plainly that the way to earn respect is through deeds worthy of respect.

The shameful course of indifference to the slaughter of the African Muslims of Darfur out of solidarity with their murderers is not the only one open to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the other Arab states. In spite of their support for Sudan's government, diplomacy led by Nigeria and an aid effort led by the United States have reduced the level of violence and starvation in Darfur. Building on this real but exceedingly fragile achievement, and preventing genocide by Arabs in Darfur from resuming, is a task for the civilized world, one in which the Arab countries need to join.

Joseph Britt is a writer in Kennesaw, Ga.