The Chronikler

سبيل للخروج من فوضى الشرق الأوسط

يناقش خالد دياب بأن انتشار الأسلحة النووية سوف يستمر طالما استمرّينا في التعامل مع ترسانة إسرائيل النووية

5 May 2010

English version

إنه لتغيير مرحّب به أن يكون الرئيس الأمريكي باراك أوباما ليس فقط ملتزم بوقف انتشار الأسلحة النووية وإنما يدرك كذلك أن عدم انتشارها يبدأ في وطنه. مقارنة مع سابقه جورج دبليو بوش، الذي مزّقت إدارته العديد من المعاهدات التي وقعتها واشنطن حول الموضوع، وأعلنت عام 2003 أن الولايات المتحدة ستبدأ بتطوير جيل جديد من الأسلحة النووية الصغيرة "التكتيكية" والتي يمكن عملياً استخدامها في ساحة المعركة، وقّع أوباما معاهدة أسلحة نووية تاريخية مع روسيا.

تتميز هذه المعاهدة بقوانين غريبة في أعداد الأسلحة، وتبقى الولايات المتحدة وطناً لأكبر ترسانة نووية في العالم، والدولة الوحيدة التي استخدمت فعلياً القنابل الذرية في حروبها. إلا أن التزام واشنطن بترتيب بيتها الداخلي كان وراء النجاح النسبي لقمة الأمن النووي هذا الشهر، والذي حضره قادة من أكثر من 47 دولة.

وقد لوحظ غياب إيران، التي عقدت اجتماعاً بديلاً خاصاً بها حول نزع السلاح. ورغم أن هذا اللقاء أبرز نفاق القوى النووية في عدم رغبتها الالتزام بوضوح بنزع الأسلحة النووية، إلا أن التجمع لم يفعل سوى القليل لإزالة مخاوف واشنطن فيما يتعلق بطموحات إيران النووية. ورغم أن طهران تدّعي أن برنامجها النووي هو للاستخدامات المدنية فقط، إلا أن الطروحات العدائية للنظام الإيراني، وبالذات باتجاه إسرائيل، شجعت مخاوف بعض ذوي العلاقة من أن إيران تنوي سراً صنع قنبلة نووية.

كان غياب رئيس وزراء إسرائيل أمراً ملحوظاً آخر في قمة أوباما. كان بنيامين نتنياهو قد رفض الحضور، مشيراً إلى مخاوف من أن تتعرض بلده لانتقادات الدول العربية والإسلامية، وبالذات تركيا ومصر. إضافة إلى ذلك، قاوم وزير الدفاع إيهود باراك نداءات متجددة لإسرائيل بالانضمام إلى معاهدة منع انتشار الأسلحة النووية. وهي الدولة الوحيدة في الشرق الأوسط التي لم توقع على المعاهدة.

لم تذكر لا مصر ولا تركيا إسرائيل، رغم أن الوفد السعودي وصف الترسانة النووية الإسرائيلية على أنها "عائق أساسي أمام تحقيق الأمن والاستقرار في الشرق الأوسط".

وهو على حق. فرغم أن إسرائيل ما زالت مصرة على تبني سياسة الغموض الرسمية، يقدّر الخبراء أن الدولة حصلت على قدرات نووية بعد حرب عام 1967 بفترة وجيزة، وأنها تملك اليوم حوالي 200 رأس نووي حربي، مما يضعها بين الدول النووية الستة الأولى، بعد المملكة المتحدة.

تشكل ترسانة إسرائيل النووية فيلاً مشعّاً في الغرفة، وتؤخّر جهود تحويل الشرق الأوسط الملتهب إلى منطقة منزوعة السلاح النووي، وتوفر لجيرانها حافزاً للحصول على قدرات خاصة بهم.

لا يحتاج الأمر لذكاء خارق لإدراك أن ترسانة إسرائيل النووية تجعل من الشرق الأوسط مكاناً أكثر خطورة وقابلية للانفجار. ويدرك حتى أصدقاء إسرائيل ذلك. على سبيل المثال توقَّع تقرير لوكالة الاستخبارات الأمريكية عام 1963 بأن إسرائيل نووية سوف تستقطب المنطقة وتزعزع الاستقرار فيها، وتجعل على الأرجح "سياسة إسرائيل مع جيرانها ... أكثر صعوبة".

كذلك تطرّق التقرير لمخاطر حاضرة، مثل سعي عربي محتمل لقوة "ردع" خاصة بهم. ومن الأمثلة على ذلك برنامج ليبيا النووي السري، الذي وافقت طرابلس على تفكيكه في كانون الأول/ديسمبر 2003. وكان الرئيس الليبي معمر القذافي قد أعرب منذ سبعينات القرن الماضي عن رغبته في الحصول على قدرات نووية، جزئياً بهدف مجابهة إسرائيل.

وطالما تتمسك إسرائيل بترسانتها النووية فلن يذهب شبح انتشار الأسلحة النووية بعيداً. تدفع الحكومات العربية ومعها إيران منذ ثلاثين سنة على الأقل باتجاه شرق أوسط خالٍ من الأسلحة النووية. لا يمكن بالطبع تناسي أن بعض الحكومات تحفزها على ذلك عدم القدرة وليس المبادئ، أو قد تجد القضية النووية أداة دبلوماسية مفيدة ضد إسرائيل.

رغم ذلك، إذا كانت إسرائيل قلقة من إيران نووية، أو احتمالات حصول أنظمة أخرى في الشرق الأوسط على القنبلة الذريّة، فإن أفضل طريقة لتجنب ذلك هو إطلاق دائرة فعّالة بأن تعرض التخلي تدريجياً عن ترسانتها النووية وتوقيع معاهدة شرق أوسط خالٍ من أسلحة الدمار الشامل، مثلها مثل بقية الدول في المنطقة، مقابل تأكيدات إيرانية راسخة تحت إشراف دولي.

ولتحقيق ذلك، يمكن إنشاء منبر إقليمي يسبق المعاهدة، برعاية الوكالة الدولية للطاقة النووية والأمم المتحدة، وربما الاتحاد الأوروبي والولايات المتحدة للاتفاق على آلية شفافة ثابتة عادلة لفتح المرافق النووية في المنطقة أمام إشراف دولي محايد. تقوم هذه المبادرة بالتفاوض على برنامج زمني للإلغاء التدريجي للترسانة الإسرائيلية وأي برنامج ثنائي الاستخدام مشكوك فيه، وفي الوقت نفسه توفير دعم دبلوماسي وأمني لإزالة مخاوف الإسرائيليين وغيرهم من اللاعبين الإقليميين.

This article was written for the Common Ground News Service and was published on 29 April 2010.

Tweet This

Related posts

• A way out of the Middle East’s critical mess (42)
• تغيير على مستوى الجذور نستطيع أن نؤمن به (0)
• Disarming the bomb in the basement (0)
• UnPrezidented (0)
• The Middle East on Biden (0)

The bold and the brilliant

An Arab-American Miss USA may have put Muslim beauty on the western map, but let's also recall all those women of courage and talent.

It surprised me that my previous article was the most read on CiF on the day of its publication. But equipped with the wonders of hindsight, I should’ve realised that it had all the ingredients of a ripping yarn: a dastardly conspiracy (theory), beautiful but dangerous undercover (or is that uncovered?) double agents armed with sexy bombshells, and mad neo-cons hatching far-fetched plots.

Quite a number of readers found that Miss USA, Rima Fakih, dependent as she is on her looks, was not the most rousing role model for Muslim female empowerment and asked why no similar attention was accorded all those successful and inspirational Muslim women who have made inroads into what is still largely a man’s world.

So, in tribute to the many remarkable women in the Muslim world (including non-Muslims) throughout the centuries – both remembered and forgotten, loved or ridiculed – here’s a list of 10 mould-breaking women. They appear in chronological order.

1.      Mother of the faithful

Khadijah bint Khuwaylid (555-619), “Ameerat Quraysh” (the Princess of Quraysh), Mecca’s wealthiest and most powerful woman, was Muhammad’s first wife. She has the distinction of being the world’s first convert to Islam.

2.      Battle of the sexes

The battleground is one oft-forgotten theatre of the battle of the sexes. Although women have fought alongside men ever since the earliest days of Islam right down to the modern struggle for Algerian and Palestinian independence, their direct contribution to the defence of the community is regularly overlooked because it does not conform to the subdued image of the woman as wife and mother.

Muhammad’s youngest wife Aisha bint Abu Bakr (died 678) is a controversial figure, particularly in the west, because of the young age at which she appears to have been betrothed to the elderly prophet. Less well known is that she was not only a central figure in spreading Islam after his death, earning the title Mother of the Believers, but that she also led  an army into battle.

But the title of the fiercest Arab woman of all must go to Hind bint ‘Utbah - despite her demonisation and unfounded rumours of her commiting cannibalism on the battlefield - who was as daring in her opposition to Muhammad before her conversion as she was in his defence after it. 

3.      Universal woman

At 12 centuries old, the University of  al-Qarawiyyin in Fes (Morocco) is reportedly the world’s oldest academic degree-granting university in the world. This esteemed establishment was set up by Fatima al-Fihri (died 880) in 859.

But medieval Muslim women were not only patrons of academic establishments, they were also prominent scholars. According to the 12^th-century Sunni scholar Ibn Asakir, girls and women could study and earn ijazahs (academic degrees), and qualify as scholars (ulema) and teachers. He, himself, studied under 80 female teachers. In the 15^th century, the Egyptian scholar al-Sakhawi devotes an entire volume of his 12-volume of his biographical dictionary Daw al-lami – an early Who’s Who – to over a thousand female scholars.

However, things got progressively worse for women until the modern emancipation movement began in the late 19^th century. Today, female enrolment in universities is as high, or even higher, than male enrolment. However, the number of top women scientists is relatively small due to the 'glass ceiling'. Nevertheless, there are award-winning women scientists who are at the top of their field.

4.      Around the throne in 80 days

From modest beginnings as a slave of probable Turkic origin in the royal household, Shajaret al-Durr (died 1257 ), whose name means Tree of Pearls, rose to become the wife of the Ayyubid Sultan as-Salih Ayyub. When her husband died at the most inopportune moment possible – during the landing of the Seventh Crusade in Damietta on the Nile Delta – she decided to conceal his death until the successful completion of the campaign to repel the crusaders. 

Amid the political turbulence that ensued, the former slave girl was chosen by the elite slave warriors known as “Mamluks” as Egypt’s Sultana, the first and only female ruler of Egypt in Islamic times. After only 80 days as queen, she passed the throne to her new husband, but continued to rule by proxy, despite her husband’s better efforts to contain her. After she had him murdered, she was confined to a tower and then brutally murdered herself.

Shajaret al-Durr left a profound legacy on her adoptive land: she not only helped defend it against the crusaders but she also established the prosperous and dynamic Mamluk era of Egyptian history when the country underwent the unique experiment of being ruled by elite slaves.

Another prominent woman ruler and contemporary of Shajaret al-Durr – who also happened to be a former slave of Turkic origin – was Razia Sultana who sat on the throne in Delhi from 1236-1240. 

In modern times, many Muslim-majority countries – including Pakistan (Benazir Bhutto), Indonesia (Megawati Sukarnoputri), Bangladesh (Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina) and Turkey (Tansu Çiller) – have been led by women.

5.      Forgotten feminist pioneer

Hoda Sha’rawi is widely considered to be the founder of the modern feminist movement in Egypt and probably the entire Arab world. Given how she rebelled against the male order and placed women at the forefront of the struggle for Egyptian independence, she certainly deserves her place in the history books.

However, she was by no means the first, and she has plenty of predecessors who have been lost to the mists of time. Thanks to the posthumous efforts of her younger brother, the memory of one of these early 'unknown soldiers' was rescued from, quite literally, the 'no man’s land' of collective oblivion. History, after all, is not only written by the victor, but usually by men.

Malak Hifni Nassef (1886-1918) scored a number of impressive firsts in Egypt: the first woman to get a degree from a government school, the first woman to lecture publicly, and the first to publish poetry in a mainstream journal – and at the age of only 13. We know little about her life, but the list of major figures at her funeral attest to the esteem she was held in during her lifetime. And, in contrast to other early women reformers who tended to be from the upper class, Nassef was from the middle class.

Inspired by events in Egypt and the Egyptian Renaissance, women in the Levant also took up their cause. One prominent figure was May Ziade (1886-1941), a Palestinian-Lebanese Christian poet, essayist and translator. 

 6.      A mighty pen

Despite being a physician and psychiatrist by training, Nawal el-Saadawi (born 1931) describes herself as “a novelist first, a novelist second, a novelist third”. She  has, in more than 50 novels, revolutionised the treatment of Egyptian women in fiction, and wielded her pen as her mightiest weapon in the battle for female emancipation.

Her writings have covered numerous controversial feminist themes, including women’s inferior position in religion and female genital mutilation, and their author has endured imprisonment, death threats and attempts to forcibly divorce her from her husband.

Luckily for Egypt, which is in danger of seeing certain gains scored by women reversed, the fight has not died in Saadawi, despite being almost 80. “I am becoming more radical with age,” she recently told the Guardian.

 7.      Bright and constant star

Known as 'Ambassador to the stars', Fairuz is not only the national pride of Lebanon but is the most famous living singer in the Arab world. She was born with the name Nouhad Haddad into a poor Maronite Christian family in 1935, and Arabs may have been deprived of her beautiful voice had her conservative father not relented and allowed her to attend the Lebanese Conservatory, albeit with her brother as chaperon.

Her breakthrough into the big time came in 1957 and throughout the 1960s she was the “first lady of Lebanese singing”, although she was overshadowed on the Arab stage by the giant Umm Kalthoum. Widely regarded as the enchanting voice of Arab nationalism, her output has been prolific and has included hundreds of songs and musical operettas.

Throughout her long career Fairuz showed enormous courage: she refused to give private concerts to Arab leaders (for which she once got banned) and never left her country during its tumultuous civil war.

 8.      Across enemy lines

Everyone recalls, whether approvingly or critically, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s audacious trip, in 1977, to Jerusalem to talk peace at the Israeli Knesset. But he was actually beaten there by a fellow Egyptian woman, though history has condemned her to oblivion.

More than three years earlier, at a time when the only Arabs and Israelis who met were soldiers or spies, Sana Hasan, a PhD student in her mid-20s, went to Israel as the Arab world’s first, albeit unofficial and ostracised, peace envoy and probably its most unusual. Her six-week trip turned into a three-year sojourn, from 1974 to 1977, in which she seems to have met, well, just about everyone in Israel, in an attempt to understand her people’s enemy and build bridges to peace.

9.      Scholar and state-builder

When it comes to the Palestinian struggle, one should not forget Hanan Ashrawi (born 1946), who played a pivotal role in the First Intifada and subsequent peace process, where she served as the Palestinian delegations spokesperson.

She has also been elected numerous times to the Palestinian Legislative Council and established the Department of English at Birzeit University. She currently runs Miftah, the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy.

10.  The right fight

Across the Arab and Muslim world, courageous women are active as human rights activists. One prominent example is Asma Jahangir (born 1952), the prominent Pakistani lawyer who has built a career defending the rights of women, children and religious minorities. 

During her long career, Jahangir has put herself in the firing line defending Muslims and Christians who have fallen foul of Pakistan’s controversial and intolerant 'Hudood' ordinance and blasphemy laws which were put in place as part of Pakistani dictator General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq’s 'Islamisation programme'.

Jahangir is currently the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief.

This is the extended version of an article which appeared in The Guardian's Comment is Free section on 25 May 2010. Read the related debate.

Tweet This

Related posts

• What’s the difference between Obama and an Arab? (0)
• The freedom of non-expression (1)
• Secularism in a veil (0)
• Religious freedom at stake in Egypt (12)
• Miss USA 2010 and an Islamic cover-up (1)

Stop press

By Khaled Diab

Jordanian journalists believe they do not enjoy enough freedom – a malaise shared with the rest of the Middle East. But why?

12 May 2010

Nidal Mansour at his office in Amman.

A new survey on press freedom conducted by the Amman-based Centre for Defending the Freedom of Journalists (CDFJ) makes for sober reading. Despite Jordan's stated commitment to freedom of expression, only a minuscule minority (2%) of the 500 or so journalists surveyed said that they were entirely satisfied with the state of press freedom in the kingdom.

"Over and over again, speeches on media freedom have not been coupled with practical procedures in spite of all the clear royal messages addressing this issue," said Nidal Mansour, who heads the CDFJ.

A fifth of those surveyed said they had been exposed to attempts to "contain" them, while 57% said they knew of colleagues who had been the victims of such containment. Co-option is also a common practice and one that can be far more effective than intimidation. The vast majority of journalists believed that journalistic favours in return for gifts and bribes were common.

In addition, some 95% of media professionals said that they practised self-censorship. While such crimes of omission are common even in the west, especially in places like the United States, the magnitude of the problem and the number of taboo subjects appear to be far greater in Jordan. Topics that are generally off-limits centre on a kind of "holy trinity": the king and the royal household, religion, and state institutions, including corruption in high places.

A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Mansour in Amman where he told me about the CDFJ's Media Legal Aid Unit (Melad) which seeks to empower journalists and facilitate press freedom by providing media professionals with training on their rights and legal support.

And it is definitely needed. Despite the decriminalisation of press offences on paper in 2007, an estimated 100 clauses in national law allow legal action to be taken against journalists. An example of this occurred in 2003 when three Jordanian journalists were imprisoned for "defaming" the prophet in an article on Muhammad's sex life.

Jordan is ranked 117 out of 175 countries in Reporters Sans Frontières' annual Press Freedom Index (PFI), while neighbouring Egypt occupies the 143rd position in the league table. As a non-Jordanian, I don't know if this is a fair reflection of the situation there. I agree with my wife's assessment that the quality of journalism is high in Jordan, but certain key differences between Jordan and Egypt lead me to the conclusion that its media is actually more vibrant and outspoken.

What warps the picture in Egypt, as I have argued before, is the existence of large, state-owned media conglomerates (whose publications have become less popular than the independents), and the more frequent crackdowns by the state – triggered by a nervous government under immense popular pressure to change and the media's incessant drive to push the limits of freedom further out. In addition, Egypt's media tradition and modernising civil society movements are the oldest in the region.

"In Egypt, it might seem there is more control of the media. But, in fact, there is more independent journalism in Egypt, so more issues are discussed and come to the public eye," was Mansour's own assessment.

In contrast, Jordan's media appears to be a lot less confrontational, and more willing to wait for top-down reform from King Abdullah II. This is partly because of the reverence in which the royal household is held, with its claims of descent from the Prophet, and the fact that the Hashemites are inextricably linked with Jordan's creation and identity.

In Egypt, the awe and fear of the president were shattered a few years ago, at least in the independent media, and Egyptians are generally under no illusions as to the extent of the corruption and violence of the regime.

Moreover, Jordan, unlike Egypt, is, under its modern veneer, very much a tribal society and one in which the indigenous tribes now make up a minority of the population, with an estimated 70% of the population being of Palestinian descent. This makes its hard-won social tranquillity, particularly with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict leaking toxicity next door, a fragile one – and so many Jordanians are willing to compromise on a measure of freedom in return for stability.

But what goes for Jordan and Egypt, both of which have a strong journalistic tradition and are striving for reform, applies in spades to the entire region. 'Stop press' seems to be the byword of governments. With the exception of Lebanon and the Qatar-based al-Jazeera network, which is often said to shy away from criticism of its host, the media across the Arab world suffers, to varying degrees, from repression.

So, why is press freedom so seriously compromised in the Arab world? There are different reasons in different countries, but one common thread is the general lack of legitimacy and accountability of the region's regimes who, therefore, view the free circulation of ideas as a fatally dangerous folly.

Another reason is the volatility of the region and the numerous conflicts that plague it, the ethnic and regional fault lines which increase tensions, not to mention the legacy of Ottoman and western colonialism, as well as foreign meddling.

The Middle East's instability is not just a reason but also an excuse. Governments use the shadow of external threats – both real and imagined – to try to intimidate and silence opposition and resist policies and reforms that run contrary to their vested interests.

This is not just an Arab phenomenon, however, and the Middle East's non-Arab countries also summon the spectre of irresistible and sinister outside forces. Iran, whose regime faces a serious challenge to its legitimacy from a vibrant opposition movement, not only occupies the lowest rank of the Middle Eastern PFI league, it is also scraping the bottom of the global barrel, and is “on the threshold of joining the ‘infernal trio’ (Eritrea, North Korea, Turkmenistan)”, according to RSF. The regime in Tehran evokes frightening demons in the form of the United States and Israel to keep its population in check.

Iran itself, not to mention the Palestinians, Syrians and the generic scary "Arab", are summoned by Israeli politicians as the phantom threat that keeps dissenters in check. Although the freedom and independence of Israel's media puts the rest of the region to shame, even Israel does not fare well by global standards, and comes in at only 93 in the PFI. Its oft heavy-handed military censorship, punishment of journalists with links to Syria, its refusal to allow its journalists into the Palestinian Territories and its abuse of Palestinian journalists constitute serious breaches of media freedom.

Tweet This

Related posts

• Tainted honour (1)
• Egypt’s fearful development (0)
• سبيل للخروج من فوضى الشرق الأوسط (0)
• تغيير على مستوى الجذور نستطيع أن نؤمن به (0)
• The truth about Arab science (0)

A way out of the Middle East’s critical mess

By Khaled Diab

As Barack Obama seeks to tackle the proliferation of nuclear weapons, it is high time for Israel to dismantle its nuclear arsenal.

5 May 2010

Arabic version

It is a welcome change that US President Barack Obama is not only committed to halting the spread of nuclear weapons but realises that non-proliferation begins at home. In contrast with his predecessor, George W Bush – whose administration tore up many of the treaties Washington signed on the subject and announced, in 2003, that the US would start developing a new generation of small ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons which could actually be used during battle – Obama has already signed a landmark nuclear arms treaty with Russia.

This treaty has peculiar counting rules and the United States does remain home to the world’s largest nuclear arsenal and is the only country to have actually used atom bombs in warfare. Yet Washington’s renewed commitment to get its own house in order were behind the relative success of the Nuclear Security Summit earlier this month, which was attended by leaders from more than 47 countries.

Noticeably absent was Iran, which held its own alternative meeting on disarmament. Although this meeting highlighted the hypocrisy of the nuclear powers in their unwillingness to commit clearly to nuclear disarmament, the gathering did little to alleviate Western fears regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Though Tehran claims that its nuclear programme is exclusively for civilian use, the strident rhetoric of the regime, particularly towards Israel, has fuelled fears among some actors that Iran is clandestinely trying to build a bomb.

Israel’s leader was another noticeable absentee from Obama’s summit. The Israeli premier Binyamin Netanyahu had refused to attend citing fears that his country would be singled out for criticism by Arab and Muslim nations, especially Turkey and Egypt. In addition, Defence Minister Ehud Barak resisted renewed calls for Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It is the only country in the Middle East that is not a signatory.

In the event, neither Egypt nor Turkey mentioned Israel, although the Saudi delegate did describe the Israeli nuclear arsenal as “a fundamental obstacle to achieving security and stability in the Middle East”.

And he has a point. Although Israel still maintains an official policy of ambiguity, experts estimate that the country acquired a nuclear capability shortly after its 1967 war and today possesses up to 200 nuclear warheads, putting it among the top six nuclear nations, just behind the UK.

Israel’s nuclear arsenal stands like the radioactive elephant in the room, hindering efforts to transform the potentially explosive Middle East into a nuclear weapons-free region, and provides its neighbours with a motive to acquire their own capabilities.

In fact, it’s not exactly rocket science figuring out that Israel’s nuclear arsenal makes the Middle East a more dangerous and explosive place – even Israel’s friends recognise this. For example, a 1963 CIA report predicted that a nuclear Israel would polarise and destabilise the region and would probably make “Israel’s policy with its neighbours … more, rather than less, tough”.

The report also touched on the attendant dangers, such as a possible Arab quest for their own “deterrent”. An example of this dynamic in action is Libya’s clandestine nuclear programme, which Tripoli agreed to dismantle in December 2003. As early as the 1970s, Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi expressed his desire to obtain a nuclear capability partly in order to counteract Israel’s.

And, as long as Israel holds on to its nuclear arsenal, the shadow of proliferation will not go away. For at least 30 years, Arab governments, as well as Iran, have been pushing for a nuclear weapons-free Middle East. Of course, it cannot be dismissed that some governments are motivated by a lack of ability rather than principle,  or may find the nuclear question a useful diplomatic tool against Israel.

Nevertheless, if Israel is concerned about a nuclear Iran, or the possibility that other regimes in the region will acquire the bomb, the best way it can avert this is to set in motion a virtuous circle by offering to phase out its nuclear arsenal and to sign up, along with all the other countries in the region, to a WMD-free Middle East Treaty, in return for cast-iron Iranian assurances under international supervision.

Towards this end, a pre-treaty regional platform – under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN, and possibly the EU and the US – could be set up to agree a transparent, consistent and fair mechanism for opening up the region’s nuclear facilities to impartial international supervision. This initiative would  negotiate a timetable for the phasing out of the Israeli arsenal and any other suspect dual use programmes, while providing diplomatic and security support to assuage the fears of Israelis and other regional actors.

This article was written for the Common Ground News Service and was published on 29 April 2010.

Tweet This

Related posts

• سبيل للخروج من فوضى الشرق الأوسط (0)
• تغيير على مستوى الجذور نستطيع أن نؤمن به (0)
• Disarming the bomb in the basement (0)
• UnPrezidented (0)
• The Middle East on Biden (0)

A question of upbringing

By Khaled Diab

In multicultural families, deciding on where to raise your child is no easy matter and has profound implications for the future.

7 April 2010

Tweet This

Related posts

• Zero tolerance=zero difference (1)
• Why do men leave? (0)
• The bold and the brilliant (8)
• The audacity to dream (0)
• Tainted honour (1)

Language: the food of understanding

By Andrew Eatwell

Learning Arabic is tough but it can open you up to a whole new world of cultural experiences and opportunities, not to mention build understanding.

Arabic opens up a varied and diverse culture to the learner. ©Image copyright: Khaled Diab

“Why are you interested in learning Arabic?” the teacher probed. It was a question intended to get us talking, to introduce ourselves and explain why we had chosen to give up two hours of our lives twice a week to sit in a drab high school classroom in Palma de Mallorca.

For travel, said some of my classmates; an interest in Arabic culture and music, answered others. A few wanted to learn the mother tongue of a husband or wife. The first two of those reasons were also in part my own. But I also had other motives: “Because of the world we live in,” I said.

As a journalist writing about Spanish and European politics and social issues for the last decade, I have borne witness to the growing importance of what goes on along the Mediterranean’s southern and eastern shores to the politics, economics and social attitudes in the countries north of that sea.

The lands of North Africa and the Middle East have sent millions of immigrants to work in Europe’s cities, factories and fields – breadbasket nations such as Morocco keep European supermarket shelves stocked with peppers, tomatoes and chickens, while Algerian and Libyan gas and oil keep the heat on in European homes and cars on the streets.

And European companies have invested heavily in North Africa, attracted by cheap labour, geographic proximity and an increasingly educated workforce with a seemingly innate aptitude for foreign languages. French IT firms now operate call centres out of Tunisia and Morocco, British ones favour Egypt, while European manufacturers have shifted large swathes of production to the region.

Meanwhile, millions of European tourists visit North African and Middle Eastern beaches, cities and souqs each year. Back in Europe, interest in Arabic culture, music, literature and art has spawned multicultural festivals from Barcelona to Berlin.

Trade, investment, tourism, cultural curiosity and political co-operation in the myriad summits, conferences and forums that have sprung up in recent years are one thing. But, as anyone who has not been living under a rock will recognise, on the ground – both in Europe and in the Middle East and North Africa region – this blending of civilisations has often been far less sanguine.

Islamist terrorism has spilled blood and spawned anger from Casablanca to Baghdad and from Madrid to London. The spread of militant Islam among increasingly politically assertive Muslim communities in European cities has led to scare-mongering about “Eurabia” and the “Islamisation” of Western culture. And economic immigration has sparked its own backlash, particularly among lower income sectors of society where competition between European natives and foreign workers for jobs and social services is fiercest.

It takes two to integrate

With uninspired monotony, many European politicians talk of integration as the key to solving the social tensions that have arisen in European cities. In their view, the friction caused by immigration can be reduced or eliminated by providing (or imposing) language classes for immigrants, telling them to study and abide by local cultural customs and ensuring a carefully managed ethnic blend in public schools. However, such a top-down approach, with the onus on the immigrant to do all the work can only go so far.

An immigrant made to feel unwelcome by the native population is hardly likely to have the desire – or even the chance – to cross cultural barriers, build relationships and integrate into that society. Discrimination in the labour market compounds the problem. Regardless of what EU and national anti-discrimination laws dictate, it is undeniable that in much, if not all of Europe, someone called Mohammed or Hassan usually has a harder time getting a job in the same conditions as someone named John, Manuel or Hans.

It is, therefore, understandable that the North African and Middle Eastern immigrants who come to Europe tend to cluster among themselves.  Many never move out of usually low-income neighbourhoods where they feel comfortable surrounded by their compatriots and co-religionists. Hence the Kreuzberg district of Berlin is known as ‘Little Turkey’, Brussels’ Molenbeek area boasts 21 mosques for a population of less than 80,000 and Lavapiés in Madrid has become synonymous with kebabs, Arab cafes and Halal butchers.

Even smaller cities have given rise to Muslim neighbourhoods. In Palma, about a half hour walk from the language school and far from the brash seaside resorts for which much of the Spanish Mediterranean is known, are a cluster of streets where the atmosphere is more Marrakesh than Magalluf, more Tripoli than Torremolinos, more Beirut than Benidorm.

Few native Mallorcans do more than pass through here. Few linger to hear the call to prayer from the small local mosque, smell the fresh mint and spices in the stores or peruse the meat at a Halal butchers. And while some of them may visit Morocco, Jordan, Tunisia or Egypt on holiday next year, few will take the time to observe, let alone absorb, the enriching cultural diversity that now lies on their doorstep.

As a classmate of mine noted on a recent Friday evening spent strolling around the area: “People are afraid of what they don’t understand.”

As we move inevitably towards a more multicultural society, just a little bit of understanding on the part of native populations, be it a shopping excursion to a North African immigrant neighbourhood for spices, an afternoon in a Moroccan-owned tea room or picking up a few words of the Arabic language, can go a long way toward avoiding misconceptions and bridging cultural divides.

This article is published with the author’s permission. ©Andrew Eatwell. All rights reserved.

Tweet This

Related posts

• The bold and the brilliant (8)
• Seeing the world through new tongues (1)
• Malta’s mash of civilisations (1)
• An ode to Arab love songs (2)
• A question of upbringing (0)

Forecast: dry, becoming drier

By Khaled Diab

There’s more than enough fresh water in the world to sate our thirst. The problem is getting it to where it is desperately needed.

September 2008

With the depressing torrential rain and flooding at the weekend, water shortages are the last thing on our minds here in these wet, northern climes. In fact, perhaps we need a collective ‘sun dance’ to implore the powers that be to deliver us an ‘Indian summer’.

Despite the misery, we are fortunate, as more and more areas in the world are beset by water shortages. Over the past week alone, the water table in the Pakistani capital Islamabad has fallen to dangerous levels (a common problem across the subcontinent), Kyrgyzstan has cut electricity production to save water, and Californian farmers have complained of lower yields due to water rationing.

The Middle East and North Africa, the driest population centre on the planet, is particularly vulnerable to water shortages. According to the International Water Management Institute, every country in the MENA region suffers from physical water scarcity or is approaching it.

Yemen – fabled for the fertile ancient kingdoms of Arabia Felix – is expected to be the first country in the region to deplete its ground water.

The Sea of Galilee in Israel has reached the lowest levels ever recorded, with fears that, if the government continues to pump it at current rates, the country’s main fresh water reservoir could reach the point of no return.

And the situation is likely to deteriorate, if climate change models prove to be accurate. Earlier this year, the UN released a report estimating that a 3-4°C rise in temperatures could lead to a drop of up to 35% in agricultural output. However, more localised analysis by an Australian scientists suggests that some parts of the region, such as Iraq, may see more rainfall.

Nevertheless, the forecast looks dry for the Middle East. In addition, with around 730 million people, including in the EU, expected to rise to 1.8 billion by 2050, in the world living with water shortages, the future looks bleak.

Not, necessarily, says Jonathan Chenoweth of the Centre for Environmental Strategy. “I believe the looming water crisis is primarily a problem of distribution and management rather than supply,” he wrote in a recent New Scientist article.

In addition to water efficiency and desalination technologies, the major pillar of his strategy would be for arid and semi-arid countries to import “virtual water” in the form of food because agriculture consumes some 90% of water supplies. These countries would shift to less water-intensive sectors, such as trade and services.

Although largely unspoken, this is the direction in which the Middle East has been heading for decades. In fact, the term virtual water was probably coined by Tony Allan of SOAS in reference to the region. Without it, the region may have suffered severe famines by now. For instance, Egypt, with some of the most productive land in the world, imports more than half of its food owing to water shortages and population growth.

Soon-to-be-published research carried out by Chenoweth suggests that “by importing virtual water, a country could offer a high quality of life with as little as 135 litres of water per person per day”.

While this theory is promising at certain levels, it seems to overlook some crucial issues. While the more developed Middle Eastern countries with a smaller population, such as Israel, Lebanon and Dubai are successfully shifting their economies towards trade and service, it is difficult to see how many others will be able to reduce their economic dependence on agriculture and manufacturing.

Egypt, for instance, has a large educated population and its economy has a robust and rapidly growing service sector, including IT. Nevertheless, agriculture accounts for 14% of the country’s GDP and employs a quarter of the labour force. In addition, cash crops and cotton textiles and clothes are among Egypt’s main exports. Moreover, other large sectors of the economy, such as steel, manufacturing and chemicals are heavy water users.

If Egypt, a middle income, relatively developed country has such difficulty shifting its economy towards water-light sectors, what of less-developed countries? Sudan, for instance, overall has abundant water supplies, yet it is unable even to meet food shortages within its own border. The situation is even worse in Ethiopia where I personally witnessed UN food aid being distributed only miles away from the source of the Blue Nile, Lake Tana.

What Chenoweth’s analysis also seems to overlook or understate is that water-rich regions may have an abundance of water but they are already sailing pretty close to the wind in terms of food output. While growth in Middle Eastern agriculture is crippled by the absence of water, it is highly unlikely that largely temperate regions, such as the EU, will be able to translate their water abundance into significantly higher agricultural production, since most of their arable land is already in use.

The current food crisis may be an early indication that we are slowly approaching an agricultural ceiling. In addition, the energy crunch suggests that the kind of globalisation of trade required to shift virtual water effectively may be unsustainable.

Then, there’s the issue of food security. How can countries dependent on virtual water ensure a sufficient flow of food to sustain their populations? What if a more severe crisis in the future forces major food exporters to cut off exports? Alternatively, if wealthy and arid countries, such as the Gulf States, buy up large tracts of farm land in poor countries to ensure their food security, this will help these countries to boost their agricultural output and develop their economies. But we could also be looking at future artificial famines rather like the Irish potato famine which, interestingly, prompted the Ottoman sultan and native Americans to send humanitarian aid to Ireland.

If virtual water is to be successful in feeding the world, we need robust and effective international mechanisms to ensure that this redistribution is implemented equitably and that neither suppliers nor recipients go hungry in lean years. In addition, development programmes in poorer arid countries will need to find ways of reducing dependency on sparse local water resources and controlling population growth.

This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 9 September 2008. Read the related discussion.

This is an archive piece that was migrated to this website from Diabolic Digest

Tweet This

Related posts

• Green shoots in the desert (0)
• Tainted honour (1)
• Paradise forsaken (0)
• Pakistan: stifled from birth (0)
• Climate change in Camelot (2)

The truth about Arab science

By Khaled Diab

Can we look forward to a boom in Arab science or will poverty, bureaucracy and religion be insurmountable obstacles?

26 July 2009

Hannah Clark has certainly earned, both literally and figuratively, the title of the "girl with two hearts" bestowed upon her by the media. When she was just two years old, she had the dubious distinction of becoming the first person in Britain to possess a 'piggyback' heart.

For more than a decade, Hannah lived on a potent cocktail of medication designed to stop her body rejecting her second heart. But suppressing her immune system in this way made her susceptible to infections and, by the age of 12, she had developed cancer. During chemotherapy, her body began to reject the donor organ which led doctors to take the dramatic decision to remove it. Through all this, although she lost her second heart, Hannah didn't lose heart. Now, aged 16, she has fully recovered, her doctors said in a recent article in The Lancet.

This is a truly heart-warming testament to the power of modern medicine to turn tragedy into triumph. And I could not help feeling a little rush of pride that the doctor who made all this possible was an Egyptian: Magdi Yacoub, who is actually also a neighbour of sorts, as his Cairo home overlooks my family's.

Dishearteningly, and almost inevitably, Yacoub, the son of a surgeon, did not find his success in Egypt but in Britain, where he built up a career as one of the world's most pioneering heart surgeons and researchers. Dubbed the "King of Hearts" by the Royal Society, this naturalised Brit did not usurp the throne but he did receive a knighthood.

And numerous other examples abound of Arab minds – such as the Nobel prize-winner Ahmed Zewail – deserting the Arab science desert and thriving elsewhere. Why is it that a region that was once the world's scientific powerhouse has now become its outhouse? In an article last year, I explored some of the reasons which included: "The dominant patronage culture in academia, the shortage of research funding, the almost complete absence of private research, the difficulty of registering and protecting intellectual property, as well as the rote-based education system."

Some experts observe that Islam's scientific heritage equips Muslims to look positively upon modern science. In fact, many Muslims believe that modern science confirms the Qur'an. "In those countries where fundamentalism has taken hold among the youth in the universities, it is striking to observe that the fundamentalist students are in a majority in the scientific institutions," says Farida Faouzia Charfi, a science professor at the University of Tunis. "[Islamists] want to govern society with ideas of the past and the technical means of modernity."

But this selective interest in science is a double-edged sword because it encourages people to disregard inconvenient scientific truths if they conflict with or contradict their faith. Attitudes aside, another important factor that is often missing from the equation is the simple question of resources. I think it's no coincidence that the start of Europe and the west's golden age and the Arab and Muslim world's gradual decline occurred at about the time when Muslims ceded their grip on global trade to Europeans who also "discovered" a resource-rich "new world" in the process.

But things are looking up, according to Nadia al-Awady, a freelance science journalist based in Cairo. Writing in Nature, she links the surge in science coverage in the Arab media with a related boom in Arab research and development activities. Since 2006, there has even been an Arab Science Journalists Association (ASJA).

"Although the science staff of media organisations in the United States and Europe face cutbacks, a survey of ASJA members in January 2009 indicated that full-time jobs for Arab science journalists have remained relatively stable over the past five years," reports al-Awady.

However, quantity does not always mean quality, as al-Awady herself freely admits. "As I sit at my desk in Cairo, it is easier for me to know what is happening in American universities halfway across the globe than to know what is happening within the walls of Egypt's National Research Centre just across the street… Another problem for science journalism stems from a more general issue. Many media platforms are government-owned and, as a result, many journalists provide uncritical coverage of government announcements."

In addition, for someone whose role is to be a chronicler of science, al-Awady holds some pretty unscientific views. Writing for Islam Online, she goes against the scientific consensus and describes homosexuality not as a natural sexual orientation but as an individual lifestyle choice or a psychological condition that can be "cured".

More tellingly and even less scientifically, she cautions her readers, in case her scientific arguments have failed to persuade them: "Islam is a way of life. It is a system of beliefs based on divine revelation… As a Muslim, one cannot choose to follow parts of Islam and disregard others."

This illustrates well how scientific truth is sacred until it contradicts the holier truth of the Qur'an. During Islam's scientific boom years, such an attitude could just about survive alongside scientific inquiry – although many of Islam's greatest scientists were sceptics, theists or agnostics.

However, in the modern world, science fact increasingly contradicts religious myth and, for the Arab world to advance, it needs not only to invest more in research, it also has to hold universal truths above religious ones.

This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 24 July 2009. Read the related discussion.

Tweet This

Related posts

• تغيير على مستوى الجذور نستطيع أن نؤمن به (0)
• The Middle East must look to the future (0)
• The love laboratory (0)
• Tainted honour (1)
• Stop press (2)

The audacity to dream

By Khaled Diab

If we suspend scepticism and take up Barack Obama’s invitation to dream of change, what Middle East can the audacity of hope help to forge?

November 2008

Since Barack Obama’s victory, I have been somewhat at odds with myself. The realist and sceptic tells me that, despite the euphoria, it may well be back to business more or less as usual once the president elect actually takes office.

 Still, the dreamer and romantic urges me to savour the symbolism of Obama’s victory, with the way it has energised US voters and inspired people around the world, and allow myself the luxury of dreaming that change really can happen. This leads me to wonder about my native Middle East, one of the world’s most troubled regions, and what kind of change there could I and would I believe in.

 The most immediate dream I have – and one that is probably shared by most of the region – is to dispel the spectre of conflict which has destroyed Iraq and locked Israelis and Palestinians in a spiralling death dance. Although there is much more to the Middle East than the wars and disputes that grab the headlines, the threat of the spread of conflict – to Iran, Syria and Lebanon – or the shadow ongoing conflicts cast on the entire region has a massive destabilising effect.

 Peace will encourage stability, and stability will trigger change and progress. But what change does the Middle East need?

 Well, the region is a diverse and complex place, and there is no general panacea. But to take up Obama’s challenge for people to have the audacity to hope, I will suspend my disbelief and allow myself the luxury to flesh out my own Middle Eastern dream.

 The Middle East I dream of is one of greater equality and empowerment, where the fruits of economic development are shared more equally among citizens, where people have more power to make a difference and where governments better reflect the will of their people.

 I dream of societies that have the self-confidence to look to the future, and take assured strides into the unknown, rather than fixating on the past, whether in terms of glories or grievances. I desire societies that put more trust in innovation, and less in tradition, and where change is something to be striven for and not just emulated. I wish people would realise just how inappropriate, counterproductive and indecorous it is for them to let religion out on to the streets to make a nuisance of itself and intimidate others, when its rightful place should be at home and in the heart, where it can engage in private affairs with the faithful.

 I hope that the failed dream of pan-Arabism can be resurrected in a more inclusive form to build a loose trans-national union between all the peoples of the region: Arabs, Persians, Turks, Israelis, etc. I aspire to a future in which national and ethnic identity become less important and more blurred, so that a non-Muslim can become the leader of a Muslim majority country, or a non-Jew the prime minister of Israel.

 These prospects seem like fantasy at the moment, but, after much blood, sweat and suffering, what was once deemed impossible, sometimes does become possible. Pre-Obama who would’ve thought that America could overcome the legacy of slavery and segregation to elect a president with some African blood? Who would’ve thought apartheid or Soviet communism would end so suddenly and unceremoniously? In the wake of the Second World War, who would have thought that a borderless union in which Germany and France are the strongest allies would have emerged out of the wreckage?

 Since Obama triggered this train of thought and since we shouldn’t get too carried away with dreaming, let’s start with the United States. What can America do to improve the Middle East?

 There are hopes that, under Obama’s tutelage, America will become more positively and benignly engaged in the region. My wishes are rather different. Instead of wanting America to play a more positive role, I merely wish for it to play less of a negative one.

 Given America’s own aversion to foreign meddling in its affairs and the clear evidence that the most enduring change is that which comes from within, why do so many Americans believe that other countries need or welcome American interference?

 The major difference America can truly make is to withdraw from Iraq and offer Iraqis support through international mechanisms to clean up the mess the American invasion has caused. In addition, the best way the United States can serve the cause of political reform and peace in the Middle East is to phase out its support for authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes that oppress their own citizens or other peoples, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel.

 Left to its own devices, the shaky regime of the ageing Hosni Mubarak in Egypt would soon buckle to growing grassroots pressure for reform. Similarly, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would sooner be resolved if Israel did not benefit from such excessive American largesse and almost unconditional support.

 Nevertheless, the outlook of the Pax Americana empire is unlikely to change all that much, and the United States is likely to continue to believe that its narrow imperial interests are served by continued support for forces that are ultimately not in the interests of the Middle East and its people.

 Of course, America, whose citizens possess a strong and admirable sense of idealism, can make a positive contribution to the region and the world by mobilising the US’s significant ‘soft power’ in concert with the international community and through multilateral mechanisms. This can help meet global challenges and create a sense that there is an international order that no one stands above or outside, even a superpower. Luckily, this is something Obama is more likely to do than his predecessors.

This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 30 November 2008. Read the related discussion.

This is an archive piece that was migrated to this website from Diabolic Digest

Tweet This

Related posts

• The Middle East must look to the future (0)
• Should America fear a democratic Egypt? (6)
• Is Obama’s change simply cosmetic? (3)
• Is Mubarak really a force of stability? (6)
• Egypt’s uneasy political truce (0)

Israel’s other Arabs

By Khaled Diab

A new book lifts the veil off Israel’s Arab face and shows how, like the Palestinians, Middle Eastern Jews fell victim to political forces beyond their control.

April 2009

To the outside world, Israel stands, depending on your political perspective, as either a proud outpost of the west or humiliating western implant in the Middle East. Although Zionism was born and developed in Europe, up to 3.5 million Israelis trace their roots back to Arab lands – in fact, until the early 1990s, these Mizrahim and Sephardim, as they are known, made up the majority of Israel’s population.

 Not the enemy by Rachel Shabi, herself an Israeli of Iraqi Jewish ancestry, provides a fascinating account of the personal stories and h

 “The absence of the Mizrahi face from the global snapshot of Israel feeds back into a polarised position, serving those on both sides who favour the dichotomous formula of Arab versus Jew,” writes Shabi, who is also a regular contributor to the Guardian.

 Even though I knew about Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews beforehand, I was, nevertheless, rather taken aback by how Middle Eastern Israel seemed when I was there a couple of years ago. In fact, my first encounter was with a Moroccan Jewish taxi driver who could shame any Cairo cabbie with his colourful use of curses and expletives and his love of Umm Kalthoum, the Arab world's legendary singing diva.

 Subsequently, I met numerous Mizrahi Jews, including a colourful oud player called Murad (Mordechai), nearly all of whom recalled fondly their previous lives before coming to Israel. These encounters sparked a fascination in me to learn more about their history and tragic plight, and Shabi’s book compellingly fleshes out how Middle Eastern Jews were first yanked out of Arab lands and then had the Arab yanked out of them in Israel.

 Shabi documents the ironic descent of Arab Jews from generally well-integrated and successful minorities at the very heart of Arab culture, politics and business to a relatively marginalised and disadvantaged population in Israel. Through a mix of personal narratives and historical research, the book examines how, despite its pseudo-messianic pledge to provide salvation for Jews, Zionism actually hurt Middle Eastern Jews as Arabs eventually committed the monumental crime – and one for which they need to apologise – of equating Judaism with Zionism and started viewing their Jewish populations as “enemies within”.

 In fact, some Mizrahim are very blunt about the link between Zionism and their plight. “If Israel had not been established, nothing would’ve happened to the Iraqi Jews,” opines the Iraqi-Jewish poet Me’ir Basri.

 But the suspicion and distrust did not end there. Their resemblance to Arabs – in fact, you could argue that they are also ‘Israeli Arabs’ – in everything but religion caused them to be viewed with a mixture of condescension, contempt and even fear. This kind of culture shock is, at one level, understandable, as it is a myth to expect the simple fact of belonging to a single faith automatically means that people are the same. “We have here a people whose primitiveness sets a record,” wrote a Ha’aretz reporter in 1948, not of the Palestinians, but of Mizrahi refugees.

 This anti-Mizrahi prejudice among the Ashkenazim (European Jews) elite translated into them being whisked away to live in the remotest parts of Israel and populate what are known as ‘development towns’ which failed to develop into anything beyond a receptacle for broken promises and shattered dreams.

 The Ashkenazi elite also set about ‘civilising’ the Mizrahi Jews and shaping them into modern ‘Israelis’. Of course, up to a certain extent, this happened to all immigrants, but since the Ashkenazi were calling the shots, it was their culture that most influenced the Israeli ideal. “I don’t have a cultural identity,” confesses Sasson, an ex-teacher from Sderot, the development town on the edge of Gaza whose population is almost exclusively Moroccan Jewish. “My heart is in the east and my culture is western… They dressed me up in a culture that wasn’t mine.”

 Things have improved significantly in recent years, and Mizrahi culture is growing in popularity and influence. They and Ashkenazi are increasingly intermarrying and there are plenty of successful Mizrahim around. But much as Israelis would like to bury this ‘ethnic demon’, it keeps coming back to haunt them like a “genie in a bottle”, Shabi observes.

 Mizrahim still make up the bulk of Israel’s poor and undereducated; they are often stereotyped in the media as pimps, hustlers and whores; their culture, despite making major inroads, is still seen as somewhat inferior; and their accent, although it is the more accurate form of Hebrew, is scorned.

 Although the disappeared Jewish presence in Arab lands was not quite a paradise lost, their migration to Israel was not a paradise found either. Despite certain episodes of oppression, such as the persecution instigated by the fanatical Almohads in North Africa and Spain in the 12^th century, Arab Jews were an integral component of the region’s cultural, social and economic fabric.

 This was especially the case in Iraq, which arguably had the world’s oldest continuous Jewish presence. Babylonian Jews – who once made up to one in four of Baghdad’s population – were significant players in every walk of life, including politics, the arts, music and business. As Shabi’s father put it, referring to the famous Rivers of Babylon hymn – spread by the disco prophets Boney M: “They weren’t crying. They were singing and dancing and drinking arak.”

 Could this common cultural heritage and affinity aid the quest for peace with the Arabs – what Shabi calls the “Mizrahi bridge hypothesis”? She once hoped it could, but her research led her to abandon her “crashed pet theory”.

 “This theory is pathologically detached from reality,” she concludes soberly, “a type of falsely cheery wallpaper that refuses to stick to walls wet with blood”.

 Despite all the signs to the contrary, I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the potential role Mizrahi Jews could play in building understanding and empathy. The fact that they are more likely to be ultra-nationalistic, ultra-conservative and ultra-right wing than Ashkenazis is partly due to their sense of betrayal at the hands of the Arab world and Israel alike.

 But as new generations of Mizrahi Jews discover a renewed pride in their heritage, this could lead to further corrosion of the simplistic polarity of the official narratives of the Arab-Israeli conflict. This, in turn, could prompt more dialogue with Arabs, which could eventually build the kind of understanding required to provide a solid foundation for peace.

 Moreover, the Mizrahi experience resembles that of the Palestinians, and this is increasingly leading to joint activism at the grassroots level, such as when Israeli Arabs joined Mizrahi Jews protesting eviction in a village on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, even though it had once been a Palestinian village.

 In addition, a vocal Mizrahi minority have been at the forefront of the peace movement for decades. For instance, it was a Mizrahi organisation, the radical Black Panthers, which was the first Israeli group to recognise the PLO, and a couple of years before the Madrid peace conference, Arab Jewish and Palestinian politicians, writers and academics held their own informal peace conference in the Spanish city of Toledo.

 And even if it is misguided to believe that the chasm can be bridged, those who wish to work for peace and coexistence must continue to stretch as far across it as they can. As Sasson Somekh, the Iraqi-born professor of Arabic literature and long-time friend of the late Egyptian Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz, expressed it: “I am aware that I did not produce any important results, but I’m not going to stop.”

This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 2 April 2009. Read the related discussion.

Tweet This

Related posts

• سبيل للخروج من فوضى الشرق الأوسط (0)
• تغيير على مستوى الجذور نستطيع أن نؤمن به (0)
• Is Obama’s change simply cosmetic? (3)
• Grassroots change we CAN believe in (5)
• A way out of the Middle East’s critical mess (42)