The War Against Palestine

The ongoing tragedy of Gaza ignites a mixture of feelings of deep sadness and anguish. Israel’s daily demonstration of brutality and military ferocity fills our screens with images of the sufferings of innocent, helpless people. Civilian casualties are facts of war; however, the ratio of civilian deaths and injuries caused by Israel’s highly trained and well-equipped military is mind numbingly high. While the Israeli Government is indeed entitled to launch war to protect its citizens, it seems conveniently to forget that it also has the ultimate responsibility for protecting the citizens of the occupied territories. Israel, with the support of the USA and the international community, has refused to accept an independent Palestinian State without a comprehensive peace agreement and, accordingly, Israel, is responsible for protecting the civilians of Palestine. Hamas, a terrorist organization, actually has no legal standing and no responsibility towards the people of Gaza, Israel does! What ratio of inadvertent civilian deaths does the Government of Israel consider acceptable? And if, Hamas is indeed using innocent civilians as human shield, the question remains the same, what ratio of civilian deaths does Israel consider acceptable, remembering, that Israel, not Hamas, who holds the responsibility for protecting the lives of the non combatants in the occupied territories.

Naturally, when a defenseless population is being so ruthlessly attacked, any force fighting back is seen as righteous and courageous resistance. While the resurgent anti Islamist wave has caused many in the Arab World to turn a blind eye towards the suffering in Gaza and blame Hamas for it, indeed a small loud minority has actually been voicing support for Israel. Yet, the majority of Arab and Muslim people have again been seduced by the daring of Hamas, they are seen as the only force in the Arab World actually standing up to Israeli aggression and defending the defenseless. Once again, Hamas have become heroes and are now being labeled the Resistance. Alas, it is not the State of Israel that Hamas and the so-called Palestinian and Islamic Resistance are resisting, indeed it is Palestine, the State of Palestine is resisted by an unholy alliance of both Hamas and the Israeli right wing Government of Benjamin Netanyahu.

The days of armed resistance against Israel were the days when Israel said there was no such thing as Palestine, when Israeli spin was all about Jordan being the Palestinian state, when Golda Meir told the world, it was she, who was indeed a true Palestinian, but just didn’t like the name Palestine.  All of this came to an end with the Oslo Accords; Israel recognized the Palestinians as people and the road towards the Two State Solution commenced. The Israeli right wing never liked the Two State Solution and neither did Hamas, both rejected it, both for their own distinct reasons. The Israeli hawks fundamentally believe that any sacrifices made by Israel would endanger it needlessly and they believe that time is ultimately, on their side, much like it has been since the Arab rejection of the 1947 UN Partition Plan.  Benjamin Netanyahu articulated his positions over the years, from the days of his youth, when he went by Ben Nitay, to his years in the opposition as a Likud leader; his acceptance of peace in Government has been nothing but mere lip service, his actions speak of his strict adherence to his earlier beliefs.

Moreover, Hamas, unwittingly but with full diligence, does aid the Likud in achieving their objective of thwarting the establishment of a Palestinian state. It is indeed such a sad irony that the military wing of Hamas, named after Izza’din Al- Qassam, a man whose violent anti Jewish hate in the twenties and thirties contributed to the ascent of Jabotinsky and his more exclusive brand of Zionism; Hamas follows in his very same disastrous footsteps. It is hard not to wonder what the shape of Palestine would be today had it not been for the massacre of Jews in Hebron and Safed. For it was only following these tragedies that Nationalist Zionism dominated the Jewish agenda in Palestine. Likud co-opts Hamas’s words and actions again and again to achieve its racist exclusionary goals.

Hamas leadership is keenly aware of the impossibility of eradicating a state that enjoys vast military and technological superiority and has wide backing from world powers. So, what drives Hamas to continue in a winless fight?  Ultimately it is hate! Hate both for the injustice and for those who it sees as responsible for that injustice and hate for Jews.  Hamas leadership has redefined short-term victory to mean the ability to fight submission to the will of Israel; sadly at the expense of the defenseless people of Gaza. Moreover, under Hamas’sdoctrine, no peace is possible without eradicating Israel, so with the current power disparity, the struggle must continue for hundreds of years if need be. Neither side must know or live in peace and normalcy the conflict must remain open-ended. Today, Hamas’s immediate struggle is against the Two State Solution. Such a strange set of goals for a war and, Hamas’s long-term resistance to Israel translates into immediate resistance for the establishment of a Palestinian State!

Many Arabs and Muslims dream of the re-establishment of Palestine in its full historic boundaries and remain invested in the idea of reversing the gross injustice that befell the people of Palestine. Yet, the sons and grandsons of the those Israelis who massacred the Palestinians in 1948 and burnt their villages following their flight are hardly responsible for the crimes of their fathers and grandfathers. Fact is absolute justice is, not only not attainable, but it is also impossible to define and achieve without new major new injustices.

Despite of their difficult lives as refugees, in the 1970’s the Palestinians used to pride themselves for being the most educated amongst Arab people and boasted about having higher percentages of advanced academic degrees than most Arabs. These days are long gone; the refugee camps are over filled and today Palestinians face crises in education, in employment and in healthcare. Today, the Palestinians suffer a great deal for basic human dignity and are becoming poorer every year.  For Palestine from the River to the Sea is a luxury dream, only the ordinary people of Palestine pay for. It is time for the Arab and Muslim intellectuals to speak up for the people of Palestine, whose lives today are ultimately more important than the land and the historic justice.

Rather than counting the number of rockets from Hamas, Israel should be looking at the ratio of explosive power and destruction and ask itself for how long it can escape international justice and accusations of war crimes and genocide, how long can it work to evade the establishment of a Palestine. Hamas cruelty towards the people of Palestine today, resisting the establishment of an independent Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza to keep the conflict going, hoping that future generations can eradicate Israel, is a crime against the people of Palestine who deserve the best they can have now, today!

Ayman S. Ashour

August 3, 2014

In Search of Balance: Al Jazeera Verdict In Egypt Today

A strange mix of feelings of sadness, dismay and anger arise in me as I read seemingly endless attempts from many Egyptians to justify and defend the court ruling against the Al Jazeera journalists in Egypt, here are some of my reflections and thoughts on this:

1. I don't view Al Jazeera Arabic as normal media or press, I view it as enemy state propaganda outlet, it reminds me so much of the Soviet Radio during the years of the cold war, it is pathetic, cheap, non relenting propaganda.

2. Al Jazeera English has many top notch reporters and professionals who have been trying to do a credible job and seem to have more professional more balanced overall editorial management, but they have been used by their Arabic Language sister company mentioned above.

3. I don't believe Al Jazeera English correspondents and other professionals working in Egypt are affiliated with Muslim Brothers, work for them or conspire with them and I don't believe that the evidence against them, I read about in the press, has shown them to be enemies of Egypt.

4. I believe that Egypt is right to arrest, deport and fine those who break its laws.

5. I acknowledge that there are thousands of Egyptian and foreign reporters reporting and writing at times negative and / or highly critical news and analysis of Egypt, yet appear to have not been interfered with, which is good and is indeed a legitimate argument to defend Egypt's position, being focused on Al Jazeera. Yet, the Dutch Journalist, who was being tried in absentia with Al Jazeera staff, appear to have no affiliation with Al Jazeera.

6. It is also very clear that the space for dissent in Egypt is narrowing and we see many Egyptians voices silenced from Bassem Youssif to Belal Fadel and many others. It is hard to deny this as a fact.

7. I have a great deal of sympathy with the view that Egypt is facing a very serious war with a very difficult enemy and that combating the threat of violent terrorism is a TOP priority for Egypt. I do believe that this would naturally have an impact on freedoms. Years in the security industry have taught me the difficulty of balancing issues of security with privacy, convenience and freedoms in general; true in Egypt as it is in USA or Australia.

8. I have a great deal of sympathy with the view that Egypt has always had authoritarian and totalitarian tendencies and desire to curb dissent and the government has had a history of using the worst means to silence liberal non Islamist opposition to protect the ruling regimes, often at the expense of the country itself and its future.  Accordingly, using terrorism as an excuse to suppress freedoms should not be just allowed to happen with no opposition.

9. I do believe it is critical for Egypt, as a state to avoid the collapse that can be witnessed in so many failed states in the Middle East, the examples of Libya, Yemen, Syria and Iraq are chilling and frightening and I have sympathy with the tens of millions of ordinary Egyptians, who are willing to turn blind eye to suppression of freedoms to preserve the State from collapsing.

10. Sadly, I believe that insensitivity by some of the liberal forces in Egypt to the grave Islamist threat that Egypt is facing, is causing them to challenge the State authority. With tens of millions of tired and frightened ordinary Egyptians wanting the State to reestablish its authority, the ill timed courage is resulting in deeper suppression of freedom, with popular consent, this is most distressing of all. My hope is that the vigilance against the excesses of the State would be confronted through means other than the hated and futile street protests.

AA
June 24, 2014

Egypt .. Need three of four to win!

My simple thesis on Egypt ... There are basically four primary forces in the country and these forces represent collectively a minority within Egypt as a whole, with the remainder being the very poor, the apathetic or leave me alone majority. 

1. The Army, all powerful, has basically two main goals, preserve the peace with Israel and preserve its economic privileges, it Doesn't really want more than this.

2. The Mubarak regime supporters. Basically people who supported and / or benefited from Mubarak economic policies and support an authoritarian state focused on economic growth. 

3. The Islamists. People who ultimately wish for a Caliphate but are willing to settle for lesser options, essentially desire an eventual integration between the  state and Islam on all facets.

4. The Revolutionaries. Many differing varieties united in opposing torture, being pro freedom of expression and democracy. Few believe in total equality between ALL citizens and almost all are anti corruption, 

My simple thesis is that whenever three of these forces cooperated stability was possible and progress was made. Anytime only two of the four dominated the scene extreme volitality ensued. This has been the case since the end of the first phase of Egypt's January 25, 2011 Revolution.  

Three years on, Egypt and the world need to learn this!

AA

January 25, 2014

The Plight of Copts Goes on and on!

From Tumblr

The silence is deafening on what’s happening to the Copts in Egypt …even many of my Coptic friends have grown so discouraged and dispirited, they just remain silent, no one hears them and no one cares and no one can do a damn thing to stop the atrocities from El Arish beheadings and kidnappings of young Copts to the on-going brutality in Delga and elsewhere.

The Egyptian Muslims who would normally care are tired and weary and have so many battles to fight, the west is looking at the violence in Egypt against Copts as, low grade tolerable, in an otherwise messed up region. The Egyptian Government sees the violence against Copts as helpful for enhancing the terrorist image of Islamists so it generally tolerates a level of violence before it becomes embarrassing.

The average Egyptian, sadly, maybe looking on with a level of glee and hatred at the suffering of the Copts. Sectarian hate in Egypt is a fact, regardless of Islamists and it is a two way street, but obviously the minority suffers a lot more than the majority.

I wrote an essay ten years ago about massacre of Copts and the two way sectarian hate. and frankly I can add nothing more except that the current failure of  the #Jan25 Revolution, in my view, stems from a critical missing objective: equality ..of men and women, of Muslim and Copt .. true equality ..this is what enabled Islamists to hijack a revolution that failed to demand true equality. I contrast Jan25 slogans of Bread, Freedom and Social Justice with the French Revolution’s cry of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity and see what’s missing and what went wrong: equality!

http://idindeed.blogspot.com/2003/11/reciprocal-silence-egypts-christians.html

The Muddle East

Everything is the Middle East is the fault of USA and Israel .. and if you dig deeply you will also find British hands too, this is the accepted conventional wisdom in this wonderful region. So let’s now move on to get some clarity on what has been going on in this great neighborhood. 

The Muslim Brotherhood was formed in Egypt in late 1920’s as Islamist resistance against the  British… Between the 1920’s and the 1950’s the Brotherhood cooperated alternately with Nazi Germany, the British and the Egyptian King …lots of interesting history, lots of accusations and smoking guns, sometimes a bit more!

The British used the Muslim Brotherhood against Nasser and Egyptian army in the 1950's ... but the Muslim Brotherhood were fierce fighters against the British before 1952!

Starting from the 1960's Saudi Arabia and the USA became the main backers of the Muslim Brotherhood, seeing them as counterbalance to Nasser and Egypt which was then in alliance with the Soviets pushing socialist Arab nationalism, dangerous stuff!

Egypt and Israel went into wars in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973, but have signed a peace treaty in1979 and have since then been at peace…

Egypt’s Nasser helped Start the PLO and Fateh to combat Israel in the 1960's ... 

Israel countered by supporting the establishment of Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine to be known as Hamas as counter balance to the PLO ... later Hamas turned on Israel..

Everyone is scared of Iran ...

Iraq and Iran had a ten year war then Iraq invaded Kuwait ..everyone then invaded Iraq ..Iraq fired rockets on Israel ..

Qatar, a country with immense wealth and very few people, was worried that Saudi might just take it, so it became buddies with Iran and started Al Jazeera Satellite TV

Iran hates the USA ...

Qatar invited the USA to have massive military base, the largest US airbase in region, is now in Qatar, the most friendly Gulf Arab State to Iran ...

Qatar helps Hamas, but has minimal animosity towards Israel, indeed some commercial ties ...

Iran hates Egypt, USA and Saudi so it is siding with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt ...

USA is neutral on Egypt, gets blamed by both liberals and Islamists for supporting the other side ...

In Syria, Iran and Russia fight the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qada and other non Islamist Sunni forces ...

AlQada is off shot of Muslim Brotherhood who thought it too moderate, they occasionally ally again. One has a green flag, the other a black flag .. Both flags could be seen in Pro Muslim Brotherhood and pro Morsi marches in Egypt … 

Saudi Arabia supports Egypt against Muslim Brotherhood, Qatar supports Muslim Brotherhood against Egypt ....

Israel is, largely, minding its business, building more settlements and facts on the ground ...  The Palestinians are divided .. Hamas like the Muslim Brothers in Egypt and Syria and the PLO like Egypt and Saudi, later is supporting Syria Muslim Brotherhood.....

Anything that goes wrong is blamed on Israel and the USA so don't tire your brain if you are from the muddle east, it's easy!

And if you are American, the mission in Syria is very clear, as you can see from this tidy picture of the Muddle East, so let's bomb Syria!

AA

August 31, 2013

The Muslim Brotherhood Democracy of Disenfranchisement

The term gerrymandering was coined out of the undemocratic actions of a governor of my home state; Governor Gerry of Massachusetts. Governor Gerry redrew the electoral district boundaries in a manner that helped his party win the largest possible number of seats. The resulting map of the districts was so absurd, resembling the imaginary salamander and hence the term was invented. Over the years, gerrymandering has continued in many American states, where the party dominating the state legislators could redraw maps to serve their own purposes. Gerrymandering is a fundamentally undemocratic concept; one can look at it as disenfranchisement of those voters, who are being removed from a district where their votes would make a difference to another where their votes are unlikely to affect the outcome of a race. A good example is the carving out of a majority African American area out of a district, where the democratic leaning African Americans are likely to tip the balance of a close race, and adding it to a geographically illogical district that has a large and safe majority of republicans. So instead of the African American votes helping the democratic candidate win, they are wasted. This is dirty politics, no one defends as democratic and some states in the US have made it illegal.

Yet gerrymandering is a relatively benign compared to Ikhwanmandering. This method of disenfranchisement was used in Egypt’s so called parliamentary elections in late 2011 and the early part of 2012. Before we get into what happened in Egypt, let’s just remember what many would know about different election systems; I offer this as not as a political science specialist, but merely as an interested observer.

First Past The Post, Run-offs and Proportional Representation:

Nations have addressed methods of achieving representative democracy in different ways in their constitutions and laws. In the UK and the USA, the First Past The Post is the norm for electing legislators; so whichever candidate gets the most votes in any particular district gets elected; an imperfect system in many ways, but very simple and clear. The French attempted to improve this by creating a system of run-offs or second rounds; whereas the top two vote getters, would have a run off, and whoever gets the most votes is elected. Other nations such as Germany, Italy and Israel adopt a system of Proportional Representation or PR. Different varieties of PR exist, some where voters would vote for a single list, others where voters would rank first, second and third choice off of party lists or candidates. The basic concept of PR is to allow smaller parties to attain representation. We see countries with First Past The Post essentially limited in their choice between Republican and Democrats or Labour and Conservatives whereas with PR, we see far more fragmentation, as in Germany with Social Democrats, Greens, Left, Christian Democrats and Liberals and similar examples of fragmentation in Italy, Israel and other countries.

In Egypt, there is a good argument for PR, where Coptic Christians, who virtually never actually get elected, may be able to have members of parliament, elected by the people and not appointed by a president. Similarly the many different strands, emerging in Egyptian political life could be represented. There is also an argument for the Run-Off system to allow strong parties to emerge. Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood or Ikhwan worked with then governing Junta SCAF to concoct an amazingly complex system for the parliamentary elections. Their cooperation was possible through, what many assume, an implicit pact designed to marginalize and limit the influence of the original proponents of the January 25 Revolution of 2011. While many legal experts opined that some elements of this system would prove to be unconstitutional, the Ikhwan insisted on this system and were able to intimidate SCAF sufficiently into accepting it. Let’s now review the absurdly complex system that was used in Egypt:

Combo system: The Ikhwanmandering system combines all three systems discussed above together; so we have the PR system and a direct candidate system as well as a run-off. This basically results in enlarging the electoral districts sufficiently to make it harder for those candidates without sufficient organization to compete. The run-offs makes the campaigns more expensive and difficult and afford the better established forces a second chance to bring their national organization power into a district. Sadly, the PR districts while larger than the individual districts, they are not national and therefore still fail to offer representation for minority currents, be it Copts, socialists or other voices. Egypt has no local or regionally elected provincial, regional or locally elected bodies, so it was truly absurd to have PR on a district level, not the country as a whole. 

The Quote System: Another tactics of Ikhwanmandering is to further enlarge the districts by introducing a system of dedicated quota for laborers and peasants. With the definition being loosened enough to allow for wealthy self employed people to run for laborer and peasant seats. So an individual in any big Egyptian City casted votes for an individual candidate, a laborer candidate and a list in his or her own large districts. The quota system served to make it more difficult for emerging political forces to compete against the established Ikhwan or NDP or Mubarak's disbanded party. Oftentimes people simply voted against the NDP in the second round, much as has occurred in the presidential elections. Again, absurdly, while the so called laborer and peasant quota was preserved, the quota for women was dropped.

The Six Week National Ballots: The parliamentary elections of 2011 were carried out over six weeks, with the country divided into three regions, first region had its elections over two days and two weeks later the run offs. The results were announced and then two weeks later, the next region's elections and run offs and results and finally the last region. This clearly was designed to allow for nationally organized forces to be able to support each region in order. While many also argue that it allowed for fraud, for the purpose of discussing Ikhwanmandering, I will not address this topic. The choice of which region goes first needs further research, but it was by no means random. We have seen Ikhwan typically gather their support or protest demonstrations in one or two areas, similarly with elections, it was the use of concentrated national resources to help defeat local candidates who were already spread thin over large districts and financially exhausted with runoffs. 

Shura Council Too: As if six weeks of elections were not enough, SCAF and Ikhwan agreed that there would be a vote for an upper house which would then require six further weeks. The upper house or Shura had virtually no assigned duties and the vote for it was held before any constitution was written and it was unclear if it would actually exist at all under a new constitution. Naturally less than 7% of those eligible to vote bothered to go to the Shura polls.

Many in the west would argue that there are democratic means to overcome gerrymandering; this is indeed true. But let’s not forget that all of these elections were not really for normal legislative bodies, they turned out to be, much to our surprise, the electorate, for the power to form a committeeto write the Constitution. The Supreme Court never had the chance to rule over the legitimacy of this, as the supporters of Ikhwan laid siege to the court for several weeks, before President Morsi declared himself above the Supreme Court and issued a Constitutional Declaration that the Constituent Assembly chosen by the Ikhwanmandered process would be immune from dissolution.  The Ikhwan and their Salafi allies proceeded at breakneck speed to force a Constitution that was mainly focused on the limitations of freedom, limiting religious freedoms to approved religions and limiting equality and citizenship rights to the whim of religious interpretations.

Some Muslim Brotherhood apologists would argue in defense of various aspects of Ikhwanmandering such as the staging of the elections in regions being required to comply with judicial oversight of the elections and no enough judges are available to supervise all the polling stations, yet most judges refused to oversee the referendum over the Ikhwan Constitution and that did not prevent the very same Ikhwan apologists from declaring that defective vote democratic.

The Muslim Brotherhood feared democracy and sought to immunize themselves against it. Their efforts were ultimately about disenfranchisement of their opponents and counter democratic. They had choices and at every juncture they opted disenfranchisement.

AA
July 27, 2013