February 9, 2011
"Blowin' in the Wind"
The news this morning was that PA president Mahmoud Abbas has secured Jordanian citizenship, as have his entire family and several other major Fatah figures such as Ahmed Qurei, Abbas’s spokesman Nabil Abu Rudaineh and Muhammad Dahlan.
According to Khaled Abu Toameh's report on this in the JPost, application for citizenship was made by PA leaders at a time when they were urging Jordan not to grant Jordanian citizenship to Palestinian Arabs so that they might "consolidate their Palestinian identity."
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In point of fact, in the last few years Jordan has done more than stop issuing Palestinian Arabs Jordanian citizenship: it has revoked the Jordanian citizenship of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Palestinian Arabs living in the country. (Which has raised all sorts of human rights and legal issues.) King Abdullah II, a Hashemite, sits uneasy on his throne, and fears the demographic threat of a growing Palestinian population within his kingdom.
In addition, Abdullah may have sought to disassociate Jordan from the Palestinian Arabs in the face of peace proposals that link PA areas of Judea and Samaria with Jordan. This would be the flip side of the Palestinian Arab leaders' claim that their identity must be "consolidated."
But even in the face of this state of affairs, Jordanian officials felt it would be discourteous to deny the requests of top PA/Fatah members for citizenship in their country.
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This news -- disclosed yesterday by a "top Jordanian official" -- exposes the (not surprising) hypocrisy of the Fatah/PA leaders.
There is the temptation to somehow link this appeal for citizenship to current unrest in the Middle East -- i.e., Fatah heavyweights making sure they would have a place to run to, should there be an uprising inspired in the PA areas. But there was no information provided on when they secured their citizenship, and very likely it all happened well before the current situation.
Even more so, then, does this news highlight the unease of these individuals with regard to what might be coming down the road. I have written several times about Abbas's fear of entering certain areas within the PA -- notably so-called refugee camps. This matter simply shines a light on the tenuous status of the man with whom we are supposed to negotiate peace.
I won't speculate as to the motivation of the Jordanian official who decided to reveal this information right now. But what I can say is that his revelation is likely to make Abbas's position even more shaky than it already was. An editorial in Al Quds Al-Arabi called this situation "shameful": “If they don’t believe in their own [Palestinian] citizenship and are not proud of it, this means that they are not loyal to the Palestinian Authority and don’t deserve to speak on its behalf.”
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Who knows when Abbas may decide it's time to take off.
Yesterday, the Dutch Foreign Minister, Uriel (Uri) Rosenthal, visiting here, made the statement that a unilateral declaration of a state by the PA "does not do any good whatsoever." The recognition of such a state by some Latin American countries "doesn't help at all to bring the Middle East process to a higher level," he said
He stated that he has not heard anything within the EU framework regarding such recognition, observing that "We have to be very prudent and careful about what we are doing."
This is not going the way Abbas and company imagined it would, is it? I have the sense (is it wishful thinking?) that just a tad, the PA has lost some of its appeal.
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The PA has now announced that it will hold municipal elections -- which have been delayed several times -- in July. This decision was prompted by unease, in light of happenings in Tunisia and Egypt, that the populace would protest if there were further delay.
But Hamas immediately declared that until there is reconciliation with Fatah, it will not permit PA elections in Gaza. Hamas intransigence in this matter was one of the reasons that the PA delayed in the first place. Please don't bet on those July elections.
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Meanwhile, things are not exactly going well for King Abdullah in Jordan, either.
For the very first time, Jordanian Bedouin tribes have threatened a popular revolt unless certain political reforms are enacted.
Among their discontents is the role of Queen Rania -- who, it happens, is Palestinian Arab. They charge her with corruption and meddling in the king's affairs. (The Bedouin are not exactly feminists.)
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In a recent post. I joked about the fact that PA PM Fayyad said the Egyptian uprising was in part because of the frustration that there's been no "two-state" solution. How could he say this with a straight face? I asked.
Well, what do we say now about James Jones, former national security advisor to Obama, who this week gave a speech at a major forum here, the Herzliya Conference, where he declared that the fact that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has not been resolved is the "core problem" in the Middle East?
"I'm of the belief that had God appeared in front of President Obama...and said if he could do one thing on the face of the planet, and one thing only, to make the world a better place...it would have something to do with finding the two-state solution..."
With everything that's horrible in this world, this is it? Not preventing Iran from going nuclear, or blocking the power of Islamists wherever they are? This is so obtuse it's beyond incredible.
But I also read this as severely maliced with regard to Israel. Jones was a key Obama advisor -- which is for me the only reason this is worth noting.
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To the best of my knowledge, Mubarak still sits in the presidential palace, protestors are still in the square in Cairo, and negotiations between protestors and Egyptian VP Suleiman are continuing. While the Obama administration is doing flip-flops on its position (with representative now having called changes instituted by Mubarak "monumental)."
I do not want to revisit this issue now in any significant way, but would like to share some pertinent analysis.
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Daniel Greenfield, writing as Sultan Knish, presents some stunning material. His posting called "What if the Problem Really is the People?" is no exception. (And thanks to Adam T. for calling this to my attention.)
"A thousand talking heads and neo-conservative experts on the region assure us that a bright future stretches out before Egypt like a magic carpet. 'Democracy,' 'Freedom', 'Representative Government' are the buzzwords that trickle wetly out of their printers...
"Mubarak is the problem, we are told...The protesters are unified by a desire to push out Mubarak. But what do they actually stand for, besides open elections.
"...A democratic majority of the country supports murdering people in the name of Islam. Mubarak's government does not execute apostates or adulterers. But a democratic Egypt will. Why? Because it's the will of the people. (Emphasis added)
"The cheerleaders shaking their pom poms for Egyptian democracy don't seem to grasp that the outcome could be anything other than positive. It's an article of faith for them that freedom leads to freedom. That open elections give rise to human rights. That the problem can only be the dictator, not the people. Never the people. That is their ideology and they will stick to it.
"Ever since World War II, we have been working off the 'Hitler Paradigm'. The 'Hitler Paradigm' says that there are no bad nations, only bad governments. The people themselves are perfectly fine, but occasionally a tiny minority of extremists size power. This allows the liberally minded to reconcile the need for occasional wars with their faith in mankind. Instead of fighting wars against nations, they fight wars to liberate nations from their despotic regimes. And ever since we have been fighting these 'Wars of Liberation.'
"We fought to free Korea and Vietnam from Communism, but we lacked one basic thing. Ground level support from the people we were fighting to protect. Today South Koreans like Kim Jong Il more than they like us....We fought to liberate Afghanistan, and now we find ourselves allied with some Muslim warlords who abuse women and rape little boys-- against the other Muslim warlords who abuse women and rape little boys.
"Handing out democracy like candy does not fix existing cultural problems. It does not end bigotry, free women or stop murder in the name of Allah. Open elections are only as good as the people participating in them. And the 84 percent of Egyptians who want to murder apostates have issues that democracy will not solve. The problem with Egypt is not Mubarak-- but the Egyptians...."
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2011/02/what-if-problem-really-is-people.html
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For a little-mentioned perspective on what's happening, see, "Christians fear life without Mubarak":
"Coptic Christians...have a lot of reasons to pray amid the nation's turmoil.
"But...many Copts say they now find themselves praying for President Hosni Mubarak's government to last as long as possible.
"It's not that the Copts — who make up about 10 percent of Egypt's population of more than 80 million — see the autocratic three-decade president as a great friend. Far from it, they say...
"But now, many say they're rethinking their opposition to Mubarak's government, fearing its collapse might spur an anti-Christian backlash if the Muslim Brotherhood or other Islamist groups gain a foothold.
"'He's the best of the worst,' said Sameh Joseph, a church worker at the Patriarch of the Orthodox Christians Church in Alexandria. 'Whoever comes after him might want to destroy us.'"
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0211/mubarak_christians.php3
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Frank Gaffney, President of the Center for Security Policy, declining to mince words, calls Obama a "Friend of Shariah," in a piece he wrote two days ago.
"...President Obama’s trusted circle has been, if anything, even more problematic. For example, Mr. Obama has consorted with people who are revolutionaries, communists, liberation theologians and Islamists. Some have even been appointed “czars” in his administration.
"At the moment, though, we must be concerned not only with who Barack Obama considers his friends, but with those who deem him to be one of theirs: The record suggests he must be seen as a “Friend of Shariah.”
"How else can we explain the seeming inconsistency between, on the one hand, the president’s indifference to demonstrations in Iran last year that were vastly larger and more sustained than those to date in Egypt, and, on the other, his insistence after a week’s worth of protests in the latter that there be nothing less than complete 'regime change,' starting immediately?
"The only obvious common denominator is that, in both cases, Mr. Obama is pursuing policies favored by those who adhere to the repressive, supremacist and virulently anti-American Islamic political-military-legal program its adherents call shariah. In Iran, shariah is already the law of the land, ruthlessly enforced by the Shiite theocrats of Tehran. In Egypt, the Mubarak regime’s failure faithfully to enforce shariah is one of the principal impetuses behind the Iranian mullahs’ Sunni wannabe counterparts, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB or, in Arabic, Ikhwan).
http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p18641.xml
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A Wikileak released on Monday indicated that Israel has long had a preference for Omar Suleiman as the successor to Mubarak. The release is unfortunate, however, because it might make things more difficult for Suleiman.
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Last week a gas pipeline in the Sinai exploded. setting off a massive fire. At first the idea that terrorists were responsible was downplayed, but it has now been determined that this was indeed a terrorist act. The line that was hit served Jordan; Israel (as part of the peace treaty with Egypt) also receives gas from Egypt, but Israel's line was not disturbed. I've read various reports that have fingered Hamas and al-Qaeda as the source of the attack.
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Good news, such as it is:
There seems a strong indication that the secession of South Sudan from the North, which has been determined by a referendum, will lead to a situation in which the newly established nation will have ties with Israel. There has to be stability established first, of course.
Sudan has considered itself an enemy of Israel, but while the North -- which controlled the country -- is populated by Muslims (Nubian Arab), the South has a predominantly black African Christian and animist population.
Down the road, there is the thought that it may be possible to return thousands of refugees/ infiltrators who had fled from the South. There would no longer be an issue of endangering them via their return.
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Construction has begun on a 200 km fence that is to be placed along the Israeli border with the Sinai to prevent infiltration. Already -- because of the presence of construction workers and police -- infiltration has dropped from 1,000/month, the monthly average in 2010, to 400 in January.
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Those with a sense of humor might enjoy the satire, "Egyptian Revolution Blues," by singer Sandy Cash;
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© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by Arlene Kushner, functioning as an independent journalist. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.
see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
Technorati Tag: Abbas and Mubarak and Egypt.
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