Mideast Media Sampler 08/14/2011

From DG:

1) Where are the have-nots?

Ethan Bronner reports in the New York Times, Protests Force Israel to Confront Wealth Gap

The “tycoons,” as they are known even in Hebrew, are suddenly facing enraged scrutiny as middle-class families complain that a country once viewed as an example of intimate equality today has one of the largest gaps between rich and poor in the industrialized world. 

On the other hand the AP reports, Arabs, Orthodox Jews sit out Israel protests:  

While at least one ultra-Orthodox tent has been pitched in Jerusalem, the insular community of the ultra-Orthodox, or haredim, has not joined the movement en masse.

"These protests will become hostile," Rosenblum predicted. "The haredim become the great hole that explains every government shortfall."

Most Arabs in Israel are skeptical of the movement, fearing their concerns will again be sidestepped, said Jafar Farah, director of the Arab advocacy group Mossawa.

This involves a little cherry picking as there's more to each story than the central theme. I don't know that Bronner is correct about the wealth gap. And since when are middle class families poor as that sentence suggests? The  AP reporters is trying to make other points to explain the general absence of Hareidim and Arabs from the protests.

By the way regarding the "tycoons," here's the last paragraph of an editorial in the Shocken family owned paper, Ha'aretz:

Despite the differences between the two countries, the Israeli government should listen to the expanding public protest; the factors that created huge gaps in Israel should be restrained. The government must work rationally to prevent the outbreak of another protest here, fueled by frustration and anger at both wealthy businessmen and the government - something that is liable to risk all society. 

2) Divisions

The AP reports on Saudi Arabia:

Saudi Arabia has tried to snuff out or buy off dissent at home and around the Gulf, most notably sending troops to Bahrain to help its Sunni monarch crush a Shiite protest movement in a deadly crackdown.

“It’s a big move for Saudi Arabia,” said Christopher Davidson, who studies Gulf affairs at Durham University in Britain. “Before, Saudi was seen as the main anti-Arab Spring power and interested mostly in preserving the status quo in the region. Now, you have the Saudis actively and openly against the Syrian regime.”

“The reason, of course, is Iran,” he added.

In a move that's more than a little disturbing, Iraq seems to be moving in the other direction (via memeorandum):

As leaders in the Arab world and other countries condemn President Bashar al-Assad’s violent crackdown on demonstrators in Syria, Prime MinisterNuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq has struck a far friendlier tone, urging the protesters not to “sabotage” the state and hosting an official Syrian delegation.

Barry Rubin has the scorecard here:

Of course, there have always been tensions and conflicts between Sunni and Shia Muslims, notably bloody fighting in Iraq. Islamists often attempt to portray this as a Western conspiracy but most Muslims know it is a historical reality within Islam.
 Iran’s regime tried, with some success, to bridge this gap, becoming patron of Sunni Hamas and majority Sunni Syria. Similarly, the non-Muslim (it pretends otherwise but most Muslims know the truth) Alawite-dominated Syrian regime claims to be Shia and sold itself for a while to Sunnis as a cross-confessional champion of resistance against Israel and the West.

The Sunni-Shia fighting in Iraq did not break this attempt to forge cross-confessional Islamist alliances. But now two other events have done so. The most important is the Syrian revolution. Everyone must take sides. Iran and Hizballah, itself a Shia group, sided with the Syrian regime. Egypt’s increasingly powerful Muslim Brotherhood and the Brotherhood-spawned Hamas are against the Syrian regime, hoping that their fellow Muslim Brotherhood allies will take over in Damascus.

Those who don’t understand this situation think that choosing against the Syrian regime is some proof that the Turkish stealth Islamist government is moderate. No such thing. It is simply taking the Sunni side, also hoping that a congenial Islamist state will emerge as an even closer ally than President Bashar al-Assad has been for them. 

3) Islamists vs. Army

The Muslim Brotherhood is emboldened enough to oppose Egypt's armed forces openly. The military council expressed its intent to limit those who could write the new Egyptian constitution and the Brotherhood warned the council not to interfere in the creation of the new government.

The group’s stand was prompted by comments from a senior government official this week that the military council will soon set out certain principles outlining who is eligible to draft a new constitution. The Brotherhood also fears the military is trying to enshrine a political role for itself in the constitution.

The drawing up of a new constitution is a topic of intense debate in Egypt.
Parliamentary elections are slated for later this year, and the Brotherhood and its fellow Islamists are expected to do well at the polls. That would likely give them a dominant voice in appointing the committee that will draft a new constitution.

And it doesn't sound like the Muslim Brotherhood will have to worry much about the anti-Islamist movements.


4) Conscientious objectors

MEMRI quotes a Syrian opposition website claiming that 22000 soldiers are in jail for refusing to shoot demonstrators. I have no idea if this is true. There have been reports of soldiers shot for refusing to shoot protesters. (After which the regime would claim that the soldiers were shot by rebels justifying further crackdowns.) But if refusal to obey orders is this widespread it can't be good for Assad.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Middle East.