Death of the Two-State Paradigm?

By Lihi Ben Shitrit , Mahmoud Jaraba



Even though the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has experienced long periods of stalemate over the past 20 years, a majority of Palestinians and Israelis never ceased to support its final goals. They disagreed about the contours of negotiations, preconditions, and timing, but they consistently agreed about the most important things: the viability of a two-state solution and the acceptance of mutual recognition of each other's right to self-determination. Israeli and Palestinian opinion polls since the signing of the Oslo Agreement have shown this again and again. However, recent polls indicate that 2013 could be the year when this all changes.

The latest joint Israeli-Palestinian poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) from December 2012 shows that a majority among Israelis (65 percent) and Palestinians (62 percent) now believe the chances for a final agreement are low to non-existent. In Israel, unlike the 2009 election in which the center-left and the right blocs were approximately tied, the election planned for January 2013 is likely to generate an easy victory for the hawkish Netanyahu and Lieberman coalition. The two main players in this coalition -- the Likud and Yisrael Beitenu parties (which have merged into one list) -- are dominated by politicians who adamantly reject the two-state paradigm, some of whom even advocate for an Israeli annexation of the West Bank.

The same is happening among Palestinians. In 2006, 66 percent of Palestinians said they would support recognizing Israel as the national home of the Jewish people in the context of a peace agreement. However, the latest polls by the PCPSR show that support for mutual recognition has dropped to an unprecedented low of 40 percent. A majority of Palestinians (57 percent) now believe that a two-state solution is no longer viable. Moreover, if elections were held any time soon Hamas is expected to win and this time not because of its credentials as a democratic, non-corrupt social services provider. After winning in the 2006 Palestinian national election, Hamas had to undertake rhetorical and ideological summersaults in order to indicate some openness to a potential two-state accommodation. Hamas did not win because of its peace rejectionist stance, with polls showing that about 75 percent of Palestinians wanted Hamas to negotiate a peace deal with Israel. While this was the case in 2006, the years of Hamas rule in Gaza have changed its image. Over 60 percent of Palestinians perceive Hamas controlled institutions in Gaza as corrupt and 61 percent believe they cannot criticize Hamas without fear. This time a Hamas victory will not be for its ability to govern, but for its peace-rejectionist stance. After the Gaza war of November 2012, the majority of Palestinians prefer Hamas's political strategy (60 percent) over Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's and Fatah's (28 percent) to end the Israeli occupation, despite Abbas's success in upgrading the status of Palestine to a non-member state in the United Nations.

What does this mean for 2013? In Israel, Netanyahu's coalition will be stronger and more hawkish after the January election. It is unlikely that Netanyahu would want to or would be able to accept Abbas's condition for a return to negotiation -- the freezing of construction in the settlements. On the Palestinian side there is currently strong support for Fatah-Hamas reconciliation. If that happens, presidential and legislative elections will follow and Hamas is expected to win. In this case, the new governments in Israel and Palestine would have been elected with a mandate to continue to reject advancement toward a two-state resolution.

In the absence of Fatah-Hamas reconciliation, Palestinians will have two options. The first is mobilization for large peaceful demonstrations inspired by the Arab uprisings. Recent findings show a dramatic increase in support for participation in peaceful protests as compared to attitudes before the Arab spring. When Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem were asked in September 2012 if they would participate in non-violent demonstrations blocking army and settler roads and protesting at checkpoints, 59 percent said they would. However, and here we come to the second option, after the recent war in Gaza (which 80 percent of Palestinians believe Hamas won) increasing numbers say that armed resistance is the most effective method to deal with Israel. The last poll from December shows that 41 percent of Palestinians think that a return to armed attacks against the Israeli Defense Forces and settlers in the West Bank is the best strategy for advancing Palestinian objectives (only 30 percent think negotiations is the way to go). The new official Facebook page for the third Palestinian intifada, launched on September 28, 2012, already has over half a million "likes." The language on the page advocates both non-violent and violent action and reflects popular attitudes among Palestinians.

It appears that the last long period of suspension in the peace process has managed to finally convince Israelis and Palestinians that the two-state solution is no longer viable. Eighty-one percent of Palestinians now believe that Israel's goal is to annex the Palestinian territories and 60 percent of Israelis believe that the Palestinian objective is to conquer the whole of Israel. In 2013, Hamas and the Israeli government will likely continue to work on further entrenching these perceptions. Perhaps the only hope that the old two-state vision has is that as much as they do not think a two-state solution is viable, most Israelis and Palestinians are deeply averse to the alternative one-state option.

-This commentary was published in Foreign Policy on 03/01/2013
-Lihi Ben Shitrit is an Assistant Professor at the School of Public and International Affairs, University of Georgia, Athens. Mahmoud Jaraba is the author of "Hamas: Tentative March toward Peace" (Ramallah: Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, 2010). He is a PhD candidate at the Departments of Political Science and the Middle Eastern Studies, the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany.

Flow Of Arms To Syria Through Iraq Persists, To U.S. Dismay

By MICHAEL R. GORDON, ERIC SCHMITT and TIM ARANGO from Washington


An Iranian cargo plane during an inspection at Baghdad’s airport in October. Iraq has been reluctant to do inspections.

The American effort to stem the flow of Iranian arms to Syria has faltered because of Iraq’s reluctance to inspect aircraft carrying the weapons through its airspace, American officials say.
The shipments have persisted at a critical time for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who has come under increasing military pressure from rebel fighters. The air corridor over Iraq has emerged as a main supply route for weapons, including rockets, antitank missiles, rocket-propelled grenade and mortars.

Iran has an enormous stake in Syria, which is its staunchest Arab ally and has also provided a channel for Iran’s support to the Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah.

To the disappointment of the Obama administration, American efforts to persuade the Iraqis to randomly inspect the flights have been largely unsuccessful.

Adding to American concerns, Western intelligence officials say they are picking up new signs of activity at sites in Syria that are used to store chemical weapons. The officials are uncertain whether Syrian forces might be preparing to use the weapons in a last-ditch effort to save the government, or simply sending a warning to the West about the implications of providing more help to the Syrian rebels.

“It’s in some ways similar to what they’ve done before,” a senior American official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters. “But they’re doing some things that suggest they intend to use the weapons. It’s not just moving stuff around. These are different kind of activities.”

The official said, however, that the Syrians had not carried out the most blatant steps toward using the chemical weapons, such as preparing them to be fired by artillery batteries or loaded in bombs to be dropped from warplanes. 

Regarding the arms shipments, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton secured a commitment from Iraq’s foreign minister in September that Iraq would inspect flights from Iran to Syria. But the Iraqis have inspected only two, most recently on Oct. 27. No weapons were found, but one of the two planes that landed in Iraq for inspection was on its way back to Iran after delivering its cargo in Syria.

Adding to the United States’ frustrations, Iran appears to have been tipped off by Iraqi officials as to when inspections would be conducted, American officials say, citing classified reports by American intelligence analysts.

Iran’s continued efforts to aid the Syrian government were described in interviews with a dozen American administration, military and Congressional officials, most of whom requested anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

“The abuse of Iraqi airspace by Iran continues to be a concern,” an American official said. “We urge Iraq to be diligent and consistent in fulfilling its international obligations and commitments, either by continuing to require flights over Iraqi territory en route to Syria from Iran to land for inspection or by denying overflight requests for Iranian aircraft going to Syria.”

Iraqi officials insist that they oppose the ferrying of arms through Iraq’s airspace. They also cite claims by Iran that it is merely delivering humanitarian aid, and they call the American charges unfounded.

“We wouldn’t be able to convince them, even if we searched all the airplanes, because they have prejudged the situation,” Ali al-Musawi, the spokesman for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq, said of the American concerns. “Our policy is that we will not allow the transfer of arms to Syria.”

Mr. Musawi acknowledged that one of the planes was not inspected until it was returning from Damascus, but said it was a simple error, not a deliberate effort to help the Iranians. “Mistakes sometimes occur,” he said.

But one former Iraqi official, who asked not to be identified because he feared retaliation by the Iraqi government, said that some officials in Baghdad had been doing the bare minimum to placate the United States and were in fact sympathetic to the Iranian efforts in Syria.
The Iranian flights present challenges for the Obama administration, which has been reluctant to provide arms to the Syrian rebels or to establish a no-fly zone over Syria for fear of becoming entangled in the conflict. They also illustrate the limits of the administration’s influence with the Maliki government and point to divergent foreign-policy calculations in Washington and in Baghdad.
While Iraq’s actions clearly benefit Iran, a Shiite country with close ties to many Iraqi officials, Mr. Maliki may have his own reasons to tolerate the flights.

Mr. Maliki, American officials say, is worried that if Mr. Assad falls from power it may embolden Sunni and Kurdish forces in the region, including in Iraq, which could present challenges to his Shiite-dominated government.

Iran’s support for Syria is vital to the Assad government, American officials said. In addition to flying arms and ammunition to Syria, Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force is sending trainers and advisers, sometimes disguised as religious pilgrims, tourists and businessmen, the officials say.

Iran’s flights of arms to Syria drew the concern of American officials soon after the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq last December. Iraq lacks an air force and is unable to enforce control of its own airspace, and Iran took advantage by ferrying arms to Syria.

Under American pressure, Iraqi officials persuaded the Iranians to hold off on the flights as Iraq prepared to host the Arab summit in Baghdad in March. Soon after the meeting, President Obama, in an April 3 call to Mr. Maliki, underscored that the flights should not continue.

But after a bombing in Damascus in July that killed ranking members of Mr. Assad’s government, the Iranian flights resumed. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. raised American concerns over the flights in an Aug. 17 phone call with Mr. Maliki. So did Denis McDonough, Mr. Obama’s deputy national security adviser, who met with Mr. Maliki in Baghdad in October.

When Mr. McDonough raised concerns over the inspection of the plane that was on its way back to Iran, Mr. Maliki responded that he was not aware that the inspection had been carried out that way, according to one account of the meeting by an American official. A spokeswoman for the National Security Council declined to comment.

There is evidence of collusion between Iranian and Iraqi officials on the inspections, according to American intelligence assessments. In one instance, according to an American intelligence report, Qassim Suleimani, the leader of Iran’s Quds Force, ordered that a flight to Syria carry only humanitarian goods. An Iraqi inspection occurred soon after, when the plane was asked to land in Iraq on Oct. 27.

Much of the American intelligence community’s concerns about possible collusion has focused on Hadi al-Amiri, Iraq’s minister of transportation, who is believed to be close to the Iranians and was among the Iraqi traveling party when Mr. Maliki visited Washington last year. Mr. Amiri said: “This is untrue. We are an independent country and our stance is clear. We will search whichever plane we want, whenever we want. We will not take orders.”

Nasir Bender, the head of civil aviation in Iraq, said there was no indication that Iraqi officials had tipped off the Iranians. “We have orders to search any plane that we feel is suspicious, but the ones we have searched were only carrying medical supplies and clothing,” he said, adding that the Iraqis had inspected only two Iranian flights because of the cost of fuel. “We can’t search every plane because there are so many heading to Syria,” he said. “It would be a big waste of money. Each plane we take down we must refill with fuel.”

In one instance in late October, however, an Iranian flight ignored an Iraqi request that it land, according to American intelligence assessments, presumably because the Iranians did not want its cargo to be inspected.

Iraq’s attitude toward the Iranian flights has drawn the concern of lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who has been mentioned as a possible secretary of state in Mr. Obama’s second term.

“If so many people have entreated the government to stop and that doesn’t seem to be having an impact,” Mr. Kerry said in September, “that sort of alarms me a little bit and seems to send a signal to me maybe we should make some of our assistance or some of our support contingent on some kind of appropriate response.”

The activity at the Syrian chemical weapons sites, described by American, European and Israeli officials, poses an additional challenge for the West. The senior American official confirmed on Saturday that in the past two or three days, United States and allied intelligence have detected that the Syrian military was carrying out some kind of activities with some of its chemical stockpiles.

Since the crisis began in Syria, the United States and its allies have stepped up electronic eavesdropping and other surveillance activities of the sites.

-This report was published in The New York Times on 02/12/2012
-Michael R. Gordon and Eric Schmitt reported from Washington, and Tim Arango from Baghdad. David E. Sanger contributed reporting from Washington.

Bahrain Burning

The island kingdom is descending into violence, and nobody has a plan to restore order.

BY MICHAEL STEPHENS



Violence is once again rearing its ugly head in Bahrain. The coordinated detonation of five home-made explosive devices in the capital of Manama on Nov. 5, resulting in the death of two people and the maiming of another, was not some crude attempt to celebrate Guy Fawkes night, but an escalation of bloodshed that threatens to tip the island kingdom into chaos.
The attack appears to be an amateurish attempt to cause terror and mayhem, achieving no result other than killing innocent expatriate labourers. The quality of the explosive devices was poor, suggesting that the attacks were the work of unsophisticated actors working with little institutional support.

Four individuals were arrested for the bombing just one day after it occurred, with Bahrain officials warning darkly that the attacks "bear the hallmark" of Hezbollah. The link to the Lebanese militant organization is crude: Poorly constructed pipe bombs are not Hezbollah's style -- one need only look at the July attack on the Bulgarian city of Burgas to see the group's devastating efficiency in killing innocents. So while it is possible that the individuals responsible may hold some affinity for the group, it is highly unlikely a Hezbollah cell is to blame for this act.

Government officials and some of their more hard-line supporters have at times stretched the truth in describing actions by anti-government factions as terrorism, and very rarely has the opposition's strategy of civil disobedience strayed into violence. But let's be clear: the Nov. 5 bombings were acts of terrorism, committed by terrorists. The government would be justified in prosecuting the offenders to the fullest extent of the law.

The important question to ask is why terrorist actions are now increasing to what appears to be a sustained level. The fact is, this latest attack is the result of a political reconciliation process that is going nowhere and is radicalizing the Bahraini population in the process. The Interior Ministry's Oct. 30 decision to ban all protests and the Nov. 7 decision to strip 31 activists of citizenship are just the latest in a series of measures taken in the kingdom that appear oppressive, and serve only to further harden the political battle lines in this deeply divided country.

There is, fortunately, a silver lining amidst this grim news. Some of the reforms proposed by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI), which the monarchy commissioned to investigate the abuses committed during last year's uprising, have been implemented: Security reforms have been comprehensive, and some police units' performance has improved significantly -- instances of police brutality have dropped significantly in recent months. Furthermore police units still acting irresponsibly will have to face an independent ombudsman who will judge their actions without political or ministry interference. Additionally, five Shia mosques that were inexplicably razed to the ground last year are also in the process of being rebuilt, with two more scheduled for reconstruction, though there are still 32 lying in rubble.
However, the key for Bahrain to emerge from its current crisis is to solve its economic problems -- namely, the lack of jobs and sources of social empowerment for Bahraini citizens, many of whom happen to be Shia. Jobs may not solve the island kingdom's political problems overnight, but they would help build conditions whereby many of Bahrain's poorer citizens can gain some respect and dignity.

Many observers see Bahrain exclusively through a sectarian prism: The political outcome, they believe, revolves around how Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia acts. But the truth is that neither of these regional powerhouses wishes to see Bahrain remain in its current state of disorder. The vast majority of Bahrain's issues are local, and their impact is felt on people's everyday lives. The country is more than a pawn on a global chessboard: The grand schemes of Iran's supreme leader or Saudi Arabia's custodian of the two holy mosques are not the decisive factors in this conflict.

This fact makes the need for comprehensive economic reform and the revitalization of the domestic political reconciliation process all the more crucial. The recent attacks could throw a wrench in the process: Those on the pro-government side may see entering negotiations with al-Wefaq, the country's largest opposition body, as a reward for terrorism. Such a reaction, however, would be a mistake. Wefaq does not encourage -- nor is it responsible -- for terrorist acts in Bahrain, and responded to the attacks by signing a declaration that explicitly "condemns violence, in all its forms, sources, and parties." The party, however, has been reluctant to admit that this recent terrorist act came from the Shia community.

It may suit some in the Royal Court to demonize Wefaq and its spiritual leader Sheikh Isa Qassim -- and the party's rather ambiguous condemnation of the most recent attack affords them ammunition to do so. But in the long run, loyalist hard-liners' continued intransigence and efforts to undermine the party are foolish. A weakened Wefaq will exercise even less control over disparate elements in the Shia community. Hard line groups -- such as the al-Haq movement or the leaderless but loosely associated February 14th movement -- already pay little heed to Wefaq's calls for restraint, and the problem does not need to be made any worse.

The real way to solve the country's longstanding issues centers on a comprehensive deal between Wefaq and the government, led by Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad. Both actors have been considered moderate representatives in their respective camps -- and both have made mistakes, with Wefaq's refusal to accept the crown prince's terms in March 2011 being perhaps the greatest mistake of all.

The current direction of events in Bahrain does not suggest a bright future for the country. Also worrying is the absence of any significant international press coverage. Those with a violent political agenda know full well that mayhem will once again return Bahrain to the attention of the outside world -- a fact that usually benefits the opposition, due to the overwhelming perception in Western media that the government bears most of the blame for the country's problems. The holy month of Muharram and the Shia commemoration of Ashura, often flashpoints for political grievances, loom in the near future. It is likely that we will see more terrorism and violence during this period -- and where Bahrain goes after that is anybody's guess.

-This commentary was published in Foreign Policy on 7 November 2012-11-07
-Michael Stephens is a researcher at RUSI Qatar

A Beirut Horror Story

 By David Kenner



From the outside looking in, Beirut sometimes appears to be an endless horror story. A car bomb here, an assassination there, even a Showtime series that depicts it as a war-wracked city where militias runs amok over the trendiest of neighborhoods. This portrayal has always been an exaggeration -- but today, it became a little closer to the truth.

This afternoon, a car bomb ripped through Beirut's Sassine Square, a main commercial center in Ashrafieh, a predominantly Christian neighborhood. Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, the head of the Internal Security Forces' Information Branch, has been reportedly killed in the blast.

In Lebanon, each security branch is a fiefdom of a different political party. Hassan wasn't just a non-partisan official, but widely recognized as the central ally of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri's Future Movement, the country's most important Sunni party. As FP contributor Elias Muhanna writes, Hassan had "long been the target of...ire" from Lebanon's pro-Assad political alliance. Hassan had been riding high: His branch had just arrested Michel Samaha, one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's staunchest allies in Beirut, on charges of plotting attacks against Christian areas on orders of the Syrian regime.

For Hariri and his anti-Assad allies, then, this looks like payback: They struck a blow against one of Assad's men, so the Syrian regime took revenge by killing the man who orchestrated the arrest. The backlash is already brewing: Lebanese press outlets have reported scattered clashes and blocked roads in areas of Beirut and the northern city of Tripoli that are typically flashpoints for violence.

Lebanon has muddled through the Syrian revolt under what Prime Minister Najib Miqati calls "disassociation" -- it would neither offer its support to the Assad regime, or the rebels trying to topple it. "What is happening in Syria is very unfortunate, but at the same time we cannot take the country to something similar," former Interior Minister Ziad Baroud, a supporter of the policy, told me a few weeks ago in Beirut. "We had our share -- for years. And we know what civil war is about."

That carefully constructed façade has always shown a few cracks: Hezbollah fighters are widely suspected to be fighting in Syria on behalf of Assad, while Hariri ally Okab Saqr is reportedly working from Turkey to funnel weapons to the anti-Assad rebels.

But now, the entire effort to keep Lebanon out of Syria's war could come crashing down. And if that happens, Beirut could turn into something all too similar to what you see on the movie screen.

-This report was published in Foreign Policy on 19/10/2012

Egypt’s Return Of The Judiciary

By Tarek Radwan



Long in the making, the embers of a dormant showdown between President Mohamed Morsi and the Egyptian judiciary have started glowing hotter in the past few weeks. Observers smelled traces of smoke when Prosecutor General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud failed to convict 24 prime suspects in the Battle of the Camel, the February 2011 attack on anti-government protesters in Cairo. More recently, members of the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC), the court responsible for the Supreme Council of the Armed Force's (SCAF) legal cover to dissolve the Islamist-dominated parliament, held a press conference rejecting all articles of the draft constitution concerning the powers of the court. Lastly, the administrative court set to rule on the validity of the second constituent assembly, elected by the disbanded parliament, postponed the case yet again before issuing a verdict, which is planned for next week. These events could be taken at face value -- insufficient evidence, an ambiguous constitutional framework, and more time needed to deliberate, respectively -- but the political implications behind each step suggest an institution issuing subtle warnings to restore its clout on the Egyptian stage or suffer the chaotic mess of a renewed constitutional process.

The Battle of the Camel marked a moment during the January revolution when all pretenses were dropped as the Mubarak government pursued any means to quash the popular uprising. Twenty-four defendants, including high profile figures from Hosni Mubarak's National Democratic Party such as former Shura Council Speaker Safwat al-Sherif, former People's Assembly Speaker Fathi Sorour, and ceramics tycoon Mohamed Abul Enein, faced charges for sending armed men on camel and horseback to raid Tahrir Square, killing nearly a dozen protesters in an effort to clear it. The judges found all of the accused not guilty, claiming that the only credible witness in the case had testified to seeing no casualties in the incident, despite overwhelming anecdotal evidence to the contrary. In a case as sensitive as this, no part of it could escape politicization -- particularly in the context of countless acquittals and a near total lack of accountability in other cases investigating the killing of unarmed protesters. Whether their acquittal stemmed from a statist impulse to protect (former) members of the government bureaucracy or to test the resolve of Morsi's government, the verdict had political consequences of which the judges were no doubt aware. If the intent was even partially aimed at drawing Morsi into conflict with the judiciary, the judges clearly succeeded.

The acquittals coincided with Morsi's decree to pardon all political prisoners detained "for all felony convictions and misdemeanor convictions or attempted-crimes committed to support the revolution and the fulfillment of its goals." The decree was supposed to mark a moment of victory for the Egyptian revolution (and President Morsi), fulfilling one of the outstanding demands of protesters. However, the move was overtaken by anger over the news of the acquittals baiting Morsi to forcibly reassign Mahmoud to the post of ambassador to the Vatican. Morsi's reactionary response, however, lacked either the legal or popular authority necessary to do so. (H. A. Hellyer remarks on the lack of revolutionary legitimacy that might have otherwise allowed Morsi to act extraordinarily to remove Mahmoud, among other measures.)

Realizing his mistake too late, the president had two options: either use his legislative authority to grant himself the ability to remove the prosecutor, which would almost certainly spark protest over the misuse of power and interference with judicial independence; or backpedal on his "demand" and "politely ask" the prosecutor to resign, which would only result in temporary embarrassment as well accusations of interference with judicial independence. He chose the lesser of two evils, unwilling to risk further damaging his legitimacy. Nonetheless, personalities such as Judge's Club Ahmed al-Zind (among hundreds of others) defended Mahmoud's refusal to leave the prosecutor's office. Morsi's inability to force his will revealed limitations on his authority: namely legitimacy on one hand, and a resistant judicial bureaucracy on the other.

The judiciary's counter-moves to Morsi appear calculated given its vulnerability a few months ago. During the formation of the first constituent assembly in April, and the debate between Morsi and the SCAF surrounding the reinstatement of the first parliament in June, the courts and their judges revealed themselves as political actors in Egypt's transition. Even if based on legal reasoning, the verdicts put forth served statist -- and secular -- interests in the ambiguity of the transitional period. After Morsi issued his decree ending the SCAF's political role in August, renewed battle in the courts was expected, but this contest of wills never took place. Whether by virtue of an implicit or explicit understanding with the executive that allowed each branch to govern without interference from the other, the judiciary had lost too much political capital without the SCAF's support to challenge the new president.

Since then, the Morsi administration was mostly left to its own business to pursue the president's political appointments, his 100-day plan, and his economic recovery strategy. His justice minister's initial forays into reconciliation, such as allowing judges to assign their own people to the Judicial Review Board, were rebuffed and suggestions at judicial reform (such as eliminating the SCC) were outright rejected. As fears of a majoritarian takeover of government bureaucracies increased and initial leaks of constitutional articles limiting judicial powers filtered through the media, the judiciary must have felt a growing threat to the self-perceived integrity of its institution. This was not the deal they had struck with Morsi, but the judges still have another card to play.

The forty-some cases challenging the validity of the second constituent assembly on the basis of its unbalanced membership have faced one postponement after another, the most recent administrative court hearing delaying a final verdict on the assembly's validity until October 23. The judges could have delayed the case for a month or more as they often have done in the past, but putting it off for only one more week offers Morsi an ultimatum: Either ensure the judiciary's status does not diminish in the new constitution, or suffer the consequences of a dissolved assembly before a final draft is completed. Similar to liberal and secular efforts to disrupt the assembly's progress, this strategy may seem self-defeating given Morsi's self-appointed constitutional power to simply reassign the assembly as he sees fit until one considers the aftermath of that scenario.

As suggested by Morsi's preferred path in dealing with Prosecutor General Mahmoud, he values the tenuous popular legitimacy he retains. A court-ordered dissolution would not only throw the process into renewed chaos with debates over membership, content, and timeline that would undoubtedly resurface, it would also threaten his legitimacy as a president for "all Egyptians." First, the responsibility for its new membership would lie squarely on his shoulders alone in the absence of parliament. Second, if he reassigned an Islamist majority assembly, he would likely lose whatever non-Islamist support he might have and face additional accusations of majoritarian rule with an Islamist bias. But without an Islamist majority, the Muslim Brotherhood's vision for the constitution -- the prize for which it has struggled since the fall of Mubarak -- becomes blurred. The political (not to mention logistical) nightmare the courts could force on Morsi might leave any president awake at night. The leverage might be substantial enough to secure the judiciary's demands guaranteeing independence, but the turf war is far from over.

-This commentary was published in Foreign Policy on 18/10/2012
-Tarek Radwan is the Associate Director for Research at the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center. He previously reported on the Middle East with Human Rights Watch's MENA division and served as a Human Rights Officer for the United Nations/African Union Hybrid Operation in Darfur. Mr. Radwan specializes in Egypt, with a focus on civil society, human rights, the constitution, and judicial issues

Status quo on the Temple Mount?

By Daniel Seidemann, Lara Friedman



Recent developments in Jerusalem pose a threat to the stability of the city and to the region. The world saw a preview over the recent Jewish holidays, when activists challenged the Israeli-imposed ban on Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif. Sensitivities at the site tend to peak during any holiday season; however, these latest challenges cannot be dismissed as routine or benign. The radicalization in the political discourse in Israel and the growing power of an emboldened group of Israeli activists focused on the Temple Mount are today coalescing into concrete initiatives that aspire to alter the status quo at the site for the first time since 1967. With Israeli elections approaching, the temptation of right-wing politicians to pander to Temple Mount activists will grow. In parallel, as the radicalization trend within Israel continues a settler-inspired "price tag" incident at the site becomes increasingly likely.

The site at the center of this brewing crisis is revered in Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. For Jews, it is the Temple Mount, site of the ancient first and second Jewish Temples. For Muslims, since 705 AD the same spot has been home to the third holiest site in Islam, al Aqsa Mosque. For some dispensationalist Christians, restoration of Jewish contol over the site is an essential component in bringing about the "end of days."

Israel captured the Temple Mount/al-Haram al-Sharif on June 7, 1967, at the height of the 1967 War. Arriving on the scene, legendary Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan spotted Israeli flags flying over the Mount and swiftly ordered them removed, reportedly stating: We don't need a holy war.

Dayan's order reflected his visceral understanding of the implications of Israeli control over this sensitive, contested site, as did his decision to leave a large degree of authority -- including control of all but one of the gates to the Mount -- in the hands of Islamic authorities, known as the Waqf. This same understanding led Israeli courts from the outset to interpret Israel's first post-1967 war piece of legislation, the Law for the Protection of Holy Sites, as making the exercise of religious freedoms subordinate to considerations like public safety and security. All Israeli governments, backed by the court, have subsequently prohibited Jewish prayer on the Mount -- a prohibition that is also consistent with the predominant interpretations of Jewish rabbinic law.

A few Jewish activists challenged the Temple Mount/al-Haram al-Sharif status quo from the start. They aspired to turn the esplanade into a site of Jewish worship, often belittling or denying the Muslim attachments to the site, and with some among them speaking openly of their desire to erase the mosques at the site and replace them with the third Jewish temple. They launched perennially unsuccessful appeals to the court demanding the right to pray on the Mount. Over time, they made inroads into mainstream Israeli society by focusing on issues that appear politically innocent -- like protecting Jewish artifacts at the site.

Their cause was aided by the phenomenon in the Arab and Muslims worlds of "Temple Mount denial." Former Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat denied any Jewish connection to the Mount. Others portray Jews as usurpers on the Mount, with no genuine attachments. Muslim extremists regularly claim that Israel is seeking to destroy al-Haram al-Sharif. The result is a vicious cycle, with the discourse ceded to extremes on both sides.

And not to be left out, extreme elements among (mainly) American evangelical Christians have increasingly targeted the Muslim presence on the Mount, as part of a dispensationalist agenda, which includes replacing the mosques there with the Third Temple.

The Temple Mount movement has grown today into a cluster of organizations that boast thousands of supporters, Jews and Christians, in Israel and around the world. As the ideological goalposts in Israel have moved to the right, the Israeli government has contributed to the movement's efforts -- evidenced by the ministry of education's August 2012 announcement that 30,000 Israeli pupils had recently visited the Mount as part of its controversial "National Heritage Project," something that would have been unthinkable a few years ago.

The emboldening of the Temple Mount activists was on stark throughout the summer of 2012, with events peaking during the weeklong Jewish Sukkot Festival. Temple Mount activists, including Knesset members, engaged in almost daily provocations, leading to clashes. Accusations were bandied about equating the ban on Jewish prayer on the Mount to the denial of Jewish religious freedoms in the Soviet Union, comparing those denied the right to pray on the Mount to Jewish martyrs of the Middle Ages, and implying that the government has adopted a Nazi policy by making the Mount "Judenrein."

This emboldened activism comes in tandem with the emergence, for the first time, of a clear and serious political agenda: to force a change in the status quo on the Temple Mount/al-Haram al-Sharif. The agenda has two prongs: legislation that would compel the government to permit Jewish prayer at the site, security concerns notwithstanding, and the promotion of a joint (or split) Jewish-Muslim control of the site, modeled on the Tomb of the Patriarchs, known to Palestinians as the Ibrahimi Mosque, in Hebron.

The legislation in question enjoys support from senior members of Netanyahu's coalition and will likely be a factor in Likud party primaries, the general elections, and in the next Knesset. The campaign for more "equitable" arrangements on the Mount may find broad traction, based on the argument that this is a simple matter of fairness that everyone should support, regardless of religiosity or political views -- as if diminishing Islamic authority over the Mount for the first time since the Crusades is nothing more than a natural course of events, and that doing otherwise is intrinsically anti-Semitic.

There is ample historical evidence to show that the eruption of violence in Jerusalem is sparked by threats, real or imagined, to sacred space. Tinkering with the status quo on the Temple Mount/al-Haram al-Sharif -- a site that is the focus of Muslim fears and longing around the world -- would clearly fall into this category. Modeling arrangements at the site after those in place at the Tomb of the Patriarchs -- the place where Israeli-Palestinians interactions are most toxic -- is virtually guaranteed to turn relations between Israelis and Palestinians in Jerusalem into the kind of violent, zero-sum interactions that characterize Hebron.

Moreover, developments related to the Temple Mount are occurring against the backdrop of intensive settler-related activities that aspire to establish a neo-Biblical zone of exclusionary Jewish hegemony in and around the Old City. Together, these trends threaten to transform a complicated but solvable national-political conflict into an intractable religious war.

Finally, what transpires at the Temple Mount/al-Haram al Sharif will spill over into the region and beyond -- because what happens in Jerusalem doesn't stay in Jerusalem. It could drive emerging forces in the Arab world to positions ever more hostile to Israel and the West, and embolden the extremes. Already, issues surrounding the site have emerged as a fault line within the Arab world. In post-Mubarak Egypt, thousands of demonstrators gathered in Cairo under the banner: "The liberation of Cairo requires the liberation of Jerusalem." In the run-up to Egyptian elections, some Egyptian nationalists accused the Muslim Brotherhood of promoting Al Quds as their capital. A debate is raging within the Arab world over whether Muslims should visit al-Haram al-Sharif while it is under occupation. Jordanian officials, including King Abdullah, have suggested, offering compelling reasons, that Israeli actions related to the site are sowing regional instability.

The potential destabilizing impact of tinkering with the status quo on the Temple Mount/al-Haram al-Sharif, wisely laid down by Moshe Dayan in 1967, cannot be overstated. Accordingly, it is wise to recall the Talmudic aphorism: "Jerusalem was destroyed because it was ruled by [an overly rigorous application of] the rule of Torah."

-This commentary was published first in Foreign Policy on 17/10/2012
-Daniel Seidemann is a Jerusalem-based lawyer and expert on Jerusalem, and the founder of the Israeli NGO Terrestrial Jerusalem. Lara Friedman is director of policy and government relations for Americans for Peace Now.

Syria’s Tribes Will Rise Again: An Exiled Chief Remains Unbowed

The leader of the 1.2 million strong Baggara believes in an eventual resurgence despite the Assad regime’s systematic destruction of the underpinnings of tribal society

By RANIA ABOUZEID / ISTANBUL


A Free Syrian Army fighter stands on a poster of President Bashar Assad in Aleppo, Syria on Oct. 2, 2012

Sheikh Nawaf al-Bashir, leader of the Baggara tribe from Deir Ez Zor, and a former member of parliament representing the province, was one of the first prominent tribal leaders to publicly defect from the regime in January.

Despite having tribal ties to Iraq, Sheikh Nawaf fled to Turkey, on the advice of Al Baggara’s tribal chieftain in Iraq. “He told me Iraq wasn’t safe. His son had been detained, and he wasn’t in a position to help me. The Iraqi regime is close to the Syrian regime,” the sheikh told TIME in a meeting in Istanbul where he is now based. “There is great pressure on our tribal brothers in Iraq, how can we ask them for help when they face real threats?”

Al Baggara has about 1.2 million members, and extends from Syria into Iraq. It is one of the largest tribes in Syria, and like many of the other confederations, its bloodlines transcend national boundaries and extend into the millions of members. Al Egaidat is believed to include some 1.5 million people and has kinship links to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. A small tribe would number anywhere between 10,000 to 50,000. These tribal confederations are massive potential sources of power, mini-states if you like, whose transnational tribal bonds can be tapped into to forge channels of communication and access to foreign powers in the region, especially in theGulf. But it isn’t quite that easy.

Sheikh Nawaf had opposed the Assads for years, and was slapped with a travel ban shortly after the end of his 1988-90 stint in parliament. He’d been interrogated 76 times in the span of two and a half years. His 77th interrogation was to prove the worst, and his last. He was detained in late July/early August 2011, held for 72 days (a month a half of which was spent in solitary confinement, in a space 2 meters by 1.5, in total darkness, then transferred to a slightly bigger cell where the lights were kept on 24hours a day).  He was eventually released, he says, on the condition that he appear on Syrian state television to praise the president and urge his tribesmen to give Assad’s reforms a chance. “I was forced at gunpoint to say these things,” he says.

In Turkey, he formed a body known as the Free Tribes, which in April morphed into the Tribal Council.

Sheikh Nawaf says that the Ba’ath “dismantled the power of the tribes from the inside” by sidelining people like him. “The regime spent decades sidelining the tribal sheikhs and put obstacles between the sheikhs and their people,” he explains. “The sheikhs’ role and position within his own clan changed. His authority and influence was diminished, and that role was taken over by [state] security, by those within the clan that had ties to the intelligence services, and to those who could solve the problems of their clansmen. They took on a bigger role.” In effect, the Ba’ath created new forms of class structure.

Still, Sheikh Nawaf is confident that the old wayswill prevail. “These obstacles the Ba’ath placed between us and our tribesmen are artificial,” he said. “The sons of the tribes, many of them are playing the regime’s game at the moment, but when the time comes, they will be ready todefend their people against this corrupt regime. It is in their blood.”

-This article was first published TIME on 10/10/2012