Signs of Middle East Spring In Israel

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Slowly the Middle East Spring has penetrated Israel and the Palestinian occupied territories. Palestine’s new membership status in the United Nations is one indication. Significant change is not always dramatic.

The US National Intelligence Council issued a December report which predicted the emergence of a Palestinian state by 2030. The Council saw a Palestine emerging “incrementally”, not through negotiations.  The report anticipated “Arab-Israeli exhaustion” and “unwillingness” of both sides to “engage in endless conflict”.

The region is undergoing change everywhere.

In the uprisings of Egypt and Tunisia regime change was quick, the violence was minimal and the rebels were local. Currently political Islam leads the new regimes. It will take years to develop culturally suitable ways to integrate religion with democracy. It is hard to tell how the Moslem Brotherhood movement will evolve and how long its grip on power will last.

The role of the Middle East religious institution in politics will decline with time. Women will gain in status as people get used to seeking reform through the ballot box. The economy will test the ruler; the youth are desperate for employment and thirsty for education.

In Syria, Yemen and Libya the pace of change is slow and accompanied by intense violence. These uprisings started domestically; subsequently foreign fighters crossed the borders and intervened heavily in the bloody struggle. The quality of reform declines with external intervention.

No state will be immune from the changes that are sweeping the region.

In the Holy Land different dynamics apply. Palestinians are struggling for independence while the Zionist state is under international pressure to withdraw from the occupied territories and deal with growing discrimination against its Arab minority, which constitutes 21 % of Israel’s citizens.

In seeking independence, Palestinians in the West Bank are abandoning the use of force, relying instead on non-violent resistance and on state building. They are developing governance structures and nurturing a free enterprise economy. They are also launching street demonstrations and organizing business boycott initiatives against Israel.  They are exploring unity among their political factions and fostering relations with the European Union and the United Nations.

Significant obsessions and fixations in mindset are hard to change. Hamas is a stubborn and slow learner. Just as the settlers in Israel create an insensitive sub-culture of militancy and greed, Hamas and its Jihadi allies form a militant and authoritarian subculture.

Israeli society has been shifting ideologically to the right, and more recently to the extreme right. The next Israeli cabinet is expected to be ultra-nationalist. Settlements reveal an excessive sense of entitlement to land acquired through war.

Things are not so discouraging elsewhere. There are hopeful and discreet changes taking place within the American Jewish community and the wider US society.

The American Jewish community is becoming increasingly aware of the national aspirations of the Palestinians and the growing sympathy of the international community thereto. The Jewish Diaspora is concerned about Israel becoming a South African apartheid, with one system of justice for Jews and another for Arabs. In the vast ocean of American support for Israel, many groups, especially the young generation, already question the deleterious effect of Israel’s occupation on Israel itself. Absent withdrawal from the West Bank, only more wars could temporarily protect Israeli Jews from becoming a minority within their own outstretched borders.

The growth of the US-based J Street, a pro-Israel pro-peace movement, is significant. This initiative has been effective in challenging Israel’s main lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The emergence of a parallel pro-peace lobby among Palestinian Americans is another sign of changing times.

American Jews reelected President Obama with Israel’s interest in mind: a viable Palestinian state serves the long term security of the Zionist state. The recent nomination of Chuck Hagel to the next Secretary of Defense indicates that Obama remains interested in the peace process. Hagel supports even-handed Mideast policy and represents the sentiments of a large segment of American society.  

Polls among Israelis and Palestinians continue to show readiness for peace. The Middle East Spring may one day reflect the aspirations of the people on both sides of Israeli-Palestinian divide.

 

Political Islam and the Arab Spring

 

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Is political Islam matching the aspirations of the Arab Spring? Egyptians may have a clear answer after living a few years under a Muslim Brotherhood administration. Early signs from Cairo are not encouraging.

President Morsi, representing the Brotherhood, won the post-uprising Egyptian presidential elections for three main factors: support of a relatively well organized grassroots movement, being a leader of a resilient opposition to a series of corrupt regimes and a promise to take a moderate approach to political Islam. It turns out that the Morsi model of governance is a disappointing mixture of hard line religious fundamentalism, pragmatic capitalism and survival politics. Cairo’s current model falls short of the Turkish approach to politics.

Last month Morsi promoted a Sharia-based constitution.  This president, a former US engineering professor, came to power in the wake of an uprising which ousted President Mubarak. Regrettably, the new constitution will slow reform rather than accelerate it. A rushed national referendum approved the legal document.

Morsi’s lust for power is not subtle. Within weeks of assuming power he demanded extraordinary presidential privileges. Street demonstrations made him retract his demands within days. As a president Morsi has to learn to serve all of Egypt’s widely diverse constituencies: Islamist parties- moderate and extreme, four different Arab nationalist parties (Nasserites), social service and human rights groups, a marginalized Coptic (Christian) community and a sophisticated network of business groups.

The excitement of the Arab Spring is gradually abating.  Morsi has in fact replaced a dictatorship with a religiously-based autocracy. Just as President Mubarak was ousted for policies which ignored the poor, Morsi may one day be ousted for policies which are unfriendly to women and religious minorities.

Morsi is not sufficiently attentive to endemic social problems. At the core of Egypt’s predicament lie educational and economic impediments. One of every three adults is illiterate; 40% of women can’t read and write. Unemployment is high. The college educated is many times more likely to be unemployed than the poorly educated. Higher education makes young people politically agitated and economically dependent.

Tourism is significantly important for Egypt’s economy: in 2008 13 million tourists visited; tourism generated 11 billion US dollars and employed 12% of the workforce.  When tourists have to worry about Egypt’s current affairs they lose interest in Egypt’s past – its historic monuments. Tourism is enhanced by a climate of freedom and appreciation of cultural diversity.

The value of the Egyptian pound is rapidly eroding, a sign of a declining economy and faith in the future. External Arab investment is crucial. When Arab investors lose confidence in Egypt’s economy they are not likely to put their money in a stale environment.

In a few months the Morsi regime has lost its charisma, thanks to the steady resistance of thinly connected opposition groups and the support they receive from the international media.

The current Cairo version of political Islam is not reading the sentiments of Egyptians. Despite their deep religiosity the majority of Egyptians do appreciate religious tolerance, freedom of women, secular politics and business with the outside world.

One day Egyptians will launch another well organized campaign of protest against a post-Mubarak regime, which has so far deviated from the goal of the Arab Spring. The Spring was not only about “majority rule” and removal of dictators.

The longevity of the Morsi regime depends partially on the sustainability of the economy. Regrettably, foreign aid of the oil-rich Arab countries continues to protect the economic base of the Egyptian regime from collapse. The International Monitory Fund is currently negotiating with the Egyptian government a massive (4 billion plus US dollars) package of loans. And the US is hooked to a 1.3 billion dollar aid to Egypt to maintain the peace treaty with Israel.

To balance a strategic-interest policy of foreign aid, Washington dedicates three times more to Israel. US foreign assistance is a “tranquilizer” for Egyptian silence (on a flawed Mideast policy) and a “stimulant” for Israeli building of more settlements on Palestinian land.

Egypt benefits from its leadership position in a troubled region. The imminent collapse of Syria, the growing agitation in Iraq, the vulnerability of Lebanon and Jordan, Bahrain’s ignored uprising, the ongoing hostilities in Yemen, makes Egypt look relatively stable.

Egyptians do not have to starve to change their political system. The ideologically diverse opposition groups must unite to confront a political system which will not hesitate to exploit oil-rich Arab countries in order to survive.

Not many had foreseen that the first important political outcome of the Arab Spring is the operational testing of political Islam in state building.