Mideast Media Sampler 06/14/2011

From an email from DG:

1) Turkey Question

Prior to Sunday, Barry Rubin posted an analysis of Turkey's election by an anonymous author:

Concerns over the possibility of voter fraud have emerged, unfortunately, as hundreds of voter records belonging to dead people have recently been discovered. The printing of a total of 69 million ballot forms when there are a maximum of 52 million possible voters including those living abroad is another matter people are questioning. The dirtiness of the election campaign by the AKP and its supporters has rendered cheating a serious probability against which the opposition parties will have to take precautions and the CHP has confirmed its readiness to do so. There have also been cases in which the AKP municipal governments threatened their constituents with fewer services if they vote for any other party.

Afterwards he posted an analysis by Okan Altiparmak

However, the increase in the number of voters between 2007 and 2011 is rather strange because for it to be possible, there would have had to be such a jump in the birth rate between the years of 1989 and 1993. When we check the population of Turkey in those years, we notice an increase of 8.3 million from 56.5 million in 1990 to 62.9 million in 1997, i.e. less than 1 million per year. Nor can we find a jump in the Turkish population at a later point in time, a fact which would make an increase of 7.9 million voters in four years impossible unless a good number of voters did not get a chance to vote in 2007 when the AKP had its first huge break-through, jumping from 34% to nearly 47% in five years.

Taken together these two data points suggest:

There is not enough enough evidence to charge massive fraud but there’s enough evidence to investigate it. Turkish media might be too intimidated to do so.

I think that the government would have won the election any way. But it had a big incentive to try to steal some extra seats in order to have the two-thirds’ majority needed to write a new constitution without anyone else having a say or at least the needed minimum to write a constitution and then submit it to a referendum for which it came very close.

Again this doesn't prove anything, but it's very suggestive. Perhaps greater detail about the vote will yield stronger proof.


2) Turkey opinion

There remains little coverage of Turkey's election in the MSM (or at least in the Washington Post and New York Times). But now the New York Times has weighed in with anunderstated editorial:

Recently, Mr. Erdogan has become more authoritarian and thin-skinned. His party was expected to push for creating a strong new executive presidency designed to let him continue to rule after his term as prime minister runs out. That would concentrate far too much power in a single branch of government. 

Mr. Erdogan’s increasingly confrontational foreign policies may play well at the polls, but they have proved costly for the country’s interests. Once-constructive relations with Israel have yielded to tit-for-tat provocations and, if they continue, could threaten Turkey’s substantial trade with Israel. Its cozy games with Iran only encouraged Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Its ambivalent response to the Arab Spring has left the pioneering Muslim democracy looking like an apologist for kleptocrats and thugs. 

The NYT has featured two editorials condemning Turkey's arrests of journalists, so the "authoritarian" criticism isn't new. But it seriously plays down the threat that Erdogan's "cozy games with Iran" poses.

Without playing down the threat that the AKP's victory presents, Soner Cagaptay presents a possible silver lining:

The question now is where Turkey will go from here. The AKP's recent history shows that majority or near-majority popular support leads Islamist parties and illiberal political movements to re-embrace their authoritarian antecedents. Once in power, Islamist parties regress, for they interpret popular support as the green light to implement their radical agendas. The AKP equates winning elections with democracy. Hence, once it achieved popularity the AKP went after checks and balances, which it sees as an affront to popular support that needs to be eliminated.

Turkish voters, by and large, reject this radical agenda. On Sunday, although the AKP won the elections, for the first time since 2002 the party lost the required 330-seat majority needed to pass legislation in the Turkish parliament. This is the first legislative session since 2002 in which the AKP will have to seek consensus to make new laws. Mr. Erdogan conceded this point, saying his party "will reach out to and respect the lifestyle of all Turkish citizens," which equates to a promise of working with the opposition.

J. E. Dyer takes note of a historical aspect of Erdogan's victory speech:

Erdogan’s allusion to Sarajevo is the exact opposite of a throw-away line.  He knows perfectly well how incendiary the reference is for East Europeans – just as he knows that naming cities in the West Bank one after another, and concluding with “Jerusalem” (which he called Al-Quds), implies a direct Turkish interest in the disposition of these cities that evokes the era when they, too, were under Ottoman rule.

His rhetorical pairing of Ramallah and Jerusalem with Diyarbakir is of particular interest, considering that Diyarbakir is in a majority Kurdish area of Turkey, and regularly exploded in protest in the weeks leading up the 12 June election.  Many in Diyarbakir would disagree that Erdogan’s win was a win for them; his outreach gesture of allowing the Kurdish nationalist party to field candidates in this election resulted in several jailed Kurdish leaders, deemed terrorists by the central government, being elected to parliament.  Their status is unclear, and a number of observers think the electoral gains by the Kurds will only encourage them to press harder for autonomy.  But Erdogan’s going to “name it and claim it” anyway.  The implied signal to the Palestinian Arabs seems dubious, at best.

Perhaps most interesting of all is Erdogan’s list itself.  Sarajevo, Damascus, Beirut, Ramallah, Jerusalem.  In four of these former Ottoman holdings, there is, or has been, an acknowledged modern dispute over sovereignty.  But what about Damascus?  Should the Assads – or Iran – be alarmed that it was on Erdogan’s list?  Does Damascus need the healing hand of Erdogan and the AKP?  Or is Syria – but not Jordan, Egypt, or Iraq – considered by Erdogan to be properly in modern Turkey’s “sphere”?

3) Saudi designs


A month ago, former Saudi diplomat, Nawaf Obaid wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post. Though he paid a little attention to the Saudi "peace plan" his main focus was:

The backdrop for this change are the rise of Iranian meddling in the region and the counterproductive policies that the United States has pursued here since Sept. 11. The most significant blunder may have been the invasion of Iraq, which resulted in enormous loss of life and provided Iran an opening to expand its sphere of influence. For years, Iran’s leadership has aimed to foment discord while furthering its geopolitical ambitions. Tehran has long funded Hamas and Hezbollah; recently, its scope of attempted interference has broadened to include the affairs of Arab states from Yemen to Morocco. This month the chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, Gen. Hasan Firouzabadi, harshly criticized Riyadh over its intervention in Bahrain, claiming this act would spark massive domestic uprisings.

Such remarks are based more on wishful thinking than fact, but Iran’s efforts to destabilize its neighbors are tireless. As Riyadh fights a cold war with Tehran, Washington has shown itself in recent months to be an unwilling and unreliable partner against this threat. The emerging political reality is a Saudi-led Arab world facing off against the aggression of Iran and its non-state proxies.

On Friday, Saudi Prince Turki weighed in with an op-ed, focusing exclusively on Israel (h/t Jackson Diehl):

As the main political and financial supporter of the Palestinian quest for self-determination, Saudi Arabia holds an especially strong position. The kingdom’s wealth, steady growth and stability have made it the bulwark of the Middle East. As the cradle of Islam, it is able to symbolically unite most Muslims worldwide. In September, the kingdom will use its considerable diplomatic might to support the Palestinians in their quest for international recognition. American leaders have long called Israel an “indispensable” ally. They will soon learn that there are other players in the region — not least the Arab street — who are as, if not more, “indispensable.” The game of favoritism toward Israel has not proven wise for Washington, and soon it will be shown to be an even greater folly. 

Commentators have long speculated about the demise of Saudi Arabia as a regional powerhouse. They have been sorely disappointed. Similarly, history will prove wrong those who imagine that the future of Palestine will be determined by the United States and Israel. There will be disastrous consequences for U.S.-Saudi relations if the United States vetoes U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state. It would mark a nadir in the decades-long relationship as well as irrevocably damage the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and America’s reputation among Arab nations. The ideological distance between the Muslim world and the West in general would widen — and opportunities for friendship and cooperation between the two could vanish.

Turki's chutzpah is especially apparent as Saudi Arabia is helping Bahrain put down the anti-regime protests.


I don't know how official either op-ed is. Barry Rubin wrote that the Obaid op-ed was part of a Saudi effort to put together an alliance against Iran.

Richard Cohen writes that the Turki op-ed reads like a "declaration of war." After acknowledging Saudi hypocrisy, Cohen writes:

Turki does not run out of wagging fingers. He says that those who think that the United States and Israel will determine the future of Palestine are dead wrong. “There will be disastrous consequences for U.S.-Saudi relations if the United States vetoes U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state. It would mark a nadir in the decades-long relationship as well as irrevocably damage the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and America’s reputation among Arab nations. The ideological distance between the Muslim world and the West in general would widen — and opportunities for friendship and cooperation between the two could vanish.” This from our ally, not to mention friendly gas station.

The tone of the column is both remarkable and ominous. It comes, as I said, from a man of little charm, but he is nevertheless a skilled diplomat and intelligence chief. While his vexation over the Palestinian problem is well-known, rarely has it been carried to this extent — and in such a public venue.

Is Cohen giving Prince Turki too much credit for being an official voice of the Saudi government? He certainly gives Israel too little and the Palestinians too much.


4) To the UN?

A JINSA report observes Palestinian UN Vote Fraught with Global Implications  (h/t Daled Amos)

There are 37 recognized and recognizable secessionist movements in Africa. There are 65 in Asia, including 13 in Burma, five in China (Uighurs, Tibetans and Mongolians among them). Russia straddles continents and faces five secessionist movements in Asian Russia and 13 more in European Russia, including Chechens. The rest of Europe has more than 50, including 18 in Italy and nine in Spain. France has four irredentist movements, four secessionist movements, five autonomist movements and several movements to change the borders of Departments. There is one each in Poland, the Netherlands, Romania and Switzerland. Parties in Greenland want to secede from Denmark and in Puerto Rico they want to secede from the United States - which also has American Indian, Southern and Texan movements to secede, as well as one in Manhattan and one in New York State. The Miskito Indians want to secede from Nicaragua and Chiapas from Mexico. French and British colonies in the Caribbean and Oceana have separatist movements.

Not all are violent, of course, and certainly not all seek the destruction of the host country. But all want a political arrangement - mainly independence - that acknowledges their distinct nature.

But since all these movements have been ongoing, why suddenly is there concern that allowing Palestine to emerge through the General Assembly - using a not-legal mechanism - will impact upon them? Maybe countries are unwilling to bet their own borders on the United States providing the necessary veto on Israel's behalf in the Security Council.

They may be right.

Is this why Khaled Abu Toameh reports:

Palestinian leaders in Ramallah are beginning to realize that the tree they climbed is high. Now they are waiting for someone to give them a ladder.

They now understand that it is not only the Americans who are opposed to their plan, but also several EU countries.

Palestinian officials have expressed fear that the Americans and Europeans would impose financial sanctions on the Palestinian Authority if it insisted on going ahead with its unilateral statehood bid.

This explains why the tone in Ramallah is now sounding different than before. Palestinian officials are now saying that they may abandon their plan in return for American and European guarantees that Israel would refrain from "creating new facts on the ground" in the coming months – a reference to construction of new homes in West Bank settlements and east Jerusalem neighborhoods.

In other words, the Palestinian Authority is no longer demanding a full cessation of settlement construction, but only that Israel refrain from creating new and irreversible facts on the ground.

Jackson Diehl made a similar observation:

The new Palestinian position drew a mixed response from the assembled scholars and former officials. One noted that Erekat did not cite an Israeli freeze of settlement construction as a precondition for talks, as Palestinian leaders have for the last two years. Erekat appeared to confirm that the demand had been dropped; it also went unmentioned in Obama’s May 19 speech.

5) Saving the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism

Walter Reich writes in today's Washington Post:

This is, at first glance, strange. The quality and output of the Yale institute have been superb and wide-ranging. The institute has attracted scholars from around the world to study anti-Semitism and to present papers; has numerous governance committees, most of them composed of eminent Yale faculty; and has an international academic board of advisers — on which I serve — from other universities. 

So why did Yale kill the institute?

The answer is simple. The institute held a three-day conference last August on “Global Antisemitism: A Crisis of Modernity.” More than a hundred invited scholars, almost all of them from universities and research institutes, delivered papers. Some spoke, inevitably, about the fastest-growing and most virulent manifestation of contemporary anti-Semitism — the anti-Semitism in the Arab/Muslim world, in which the tropes of classic European anti-Semitism (such as the allegations that Jews meet secretly to control the world, murder non-Jewish children to use their blood in Jewish rituals and spread disease to kill non-Jews) have been not only adopted but also embellished. Such eminent scholars as Bassam Tibi — a Syrian emigre, a distinguished professor at the University of Goettingen and a devout Muslim — spoke about anti-Semitism in that part of the world, as did other authorities. To be sure, some presenters expressed alarm and took an activist stance — as do some presenters at academic conferences on genocide, human rights, women’s studies, African American studies, Hispanic studies, gay and lesbian studies, and nuclear proliferation.

In a world where Jews are leaving Turkey (h/t Israel Matzav) and Venezuela; where antisemitism is accepted in parts of Europe; where even in the tolerant United States Jewish interests are subject to hate crimes at a greater rate than any other ethnic group and where the Islamic world excuses its official antisemitism by conflating it with criticism of Israel, you'd think there's be a point to studying this resilient hatred and perhaps exposing and responding to it.

But there's a problem as Alex Joffee recently wrote in Jewish Ideas Daily:

But it would be naïve to suppose that Yale is anything less than super-sensitive to its institutional self-interest in a part of the world whose favor it may wish to court—and the all too palpable consequences of whose wrath it seeks to avoid.It is well known, for instance, that Yale has long been seeking support from wealthy Arab donors. In particular, it has wooed Saudi Prince Alwaleed ibn Talal, who in 2005 gave $20 million apiece to Harvard and Georgetown for Islamic-studies programs. (Yale, which competed vigorously for the prize, made it to the final round.) True to their donors' intent, such academic programs are faithful disseminators of the "narrative" of Muslim victimization. In the same connection, it should likewise be borne in mind that in 2009, alerted to the imminent publication by its own press of a scholarly book on the Danish-cartoons controversy, the Yale administration summarily intervened to yank images of the cartoons from the final product—on the grounds that their appearance might elicit "violence."

That craven decision was made, allegedly, on the advice of experts gathered for the task, a number of them on the Yale faculty. The same or similar experts, one imagines, now constitute the unnamed "critical mass" whose "research and teaching interests" YIISA is condemned for having failed to serve. Among them, no doubt, are Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett, formerly of the State Department and National Security Council and now senior fellows of Yale's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. The Leveretts, strong defenders of the Iranian (and Syrian) regimes, famously charged the George W. Bush administration with ignoring crucial opportunities to negotiate with the mullahs of Tehran, and have criticized the Obama administration on the same grounds. In 2009, Hillary Mann Leverett took her graduate students to New York to meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the United Nations; reportedly, he enlightened them on the absence of proof for the Holocaust.

Technorati Tag: Middle East.