The Israel Lobby: All Bark But Little Bite: New Age Islam's Selection, 03 February 2017
New
Age Islam Edit Bureau
03 February 2017
• The Israel Lobby: All Bark But Little Bite
By Hamid Dabashi
• Quebec Mosque Shooting: Beyond The Official Rhetoric
By Kenza Oumlil
• All International Laws Trump's Muslim Ban Is Breaking
By Jamil Dakwar
• Trump Ban Is a Firm and Correct Decision
By Mohammed Al Shaikh
• What Suits the West Does Not Necessarily Ennoble the Rest
By Mohammed Nosseir
• There Is a Dire Need to Expand Interfaith Work in the West
By Muddassar Ahmed
• Is Europe’s Record on Refugees Better Than That of the US?
By Chris Doyle
• Resurgent Russia Filling A Void Left By The US In The Region
By Dilip Hiro
Compiled By New Age Islam Edit Bureau
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The Israel Lobby: All Bark But Little Bite
By Hamid Dabashi
The Al Jazeera Investigations expose of how the Israel lobby seeks to manipulate British politics has had a global reception far beyond the United Kingdom or the Arab world and revealed for the whole world to see the systemic plots by Israeli officials to sway European and of course American politics in directions that secure the interests of the settler colony.
A six-month undercover investigation has revealed how Israel relentlessly penetrates different levels of British government and parliamentary democracy to safeguard its continued theft of Palestine with total impunity.
In four consecutive episodes the world watches with incredulity how pro-Israel groups target the British youth, manipulate the open forums of a Labour Party Conference, and abuse the legitimate fear of anti-Semitism by deliberately conflating it with the equally legitimate critic of Zionism, and indeed plot to "take down" British politicians whom they deem critical of their armed robbery of Palestine.
What does "take down" mean except target for character assassination anyone who dares to question Israel in any shape or form?
A key finding of this important piece of investigative journalism is the Israeli propagandists' deliberate conflation of the critic of Zionism with anti-Semitism in order to paralyse the critical discourse and put on the defensive the slightest defence of the inalienable rights of Palestinians to their lives, liberties, and homeland.
The strategy has hitherto worked for the simple fact that it conceals a very simple truth: Anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism for a very rudimentary reason - not all Jews are Zionists and not all Zionists are Jews.
There are Christian Zionists, and in fact even Muslim and Hindu Zionists. As we know only too well, Zionists not only tolerate but in fact embrace anti-Semitism if it serves their ideological purposes.
There is enduring and sustained anti-Semitism in Europe and now particularly in the United States. That vintage European anti-Semitism, entirely dominant in Donald Trump's campaign, is now coupled with Islamophobia, and Jews and Muslims have united to oppose them both.
Israel has absolutely not an iota of moral authority to carry the mantle of opposing anti-Semitism, while Zionist propaganda machineries are instrumental in promoting Islamophobia.
Zionism is an outdated, flawed and defunct ideology; almost in precisely the same manner that militant Islamism as a political project is equally defunct, as are indeed Christian and Hindu fundamentalism, and now Buddhist nationalism targeting the Rohingya in Myanmar.
Not A New Tactic
For those of us who have been the targets of such Zionist antics, of course there is nothing new in this Al Jazeera piece. We have lived these pernicious facts, endured their consequences, and triumphed in helping to sustain the legitimacy and nobility of the Palestinian cause.
Long before this Al Jazeera piece on The Lobby, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt did a similar expose in their pioneering essay The Israel Lobby (2002), for which they could not find a US publisher and they had to publish it four years later in London Review of Books. An extended version of that essay later appeared as a book in 2007.
Whereas the primary site of Mearsheimer and Walt's investigation and arguments was the US, the Al Jazeera investigation complements it by concentrating on the UK theatre of operation of the selfsame pernicious plotting against the democratic apparatus of a sovereign nation-state.
This Al Jazeera piece points towards a transformative moment in the continued struggles of Palestinians for their national sovereignty that must not be lost.
The significance of this series is not in merely documenting a systematic attempt to subvert a sovereign nation's democratic institutions. If we get to be too incensed and aghast at that preposterous fact, we will miss something far more important.
A settler colony that amasses weapons of mass destruction, aided and abetted by the US and Europe, that engages in periodic incremental genocide of Palestinians - as the prominent historian Ilan Pappe has aptly called the practice - and that engages in a sustained course of state terrors, assassinations and kidnapping, of course will not shy away from a measly interference in British, US, or any other democratic process.
Israeli governments have been "taking down" much more than British political figures for a long time.
The BDS Factor
The lesson in these Al Jazeera revelations is something entirely different. The moral of the story is actually explained in two brief subplots before the actual narrative begins.
Each episode begins with scenes of a series of military attacks on the Palestinian youth, before it cuts to scenes of massive peaceful protests by supporters of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
The rest of each episode is then dedicated to outlining the manner in which the Israeli embassy, through one of its chief operatives, tries to manipulate British politics.
The significance of these episodes lies far more in the scenes showing the brutality of Israeli military occupation followed by scenes of those peaceful protests on behalf of the BDS movement than in the pernicious plots of the Israeli embassy.
It is the peaceful, principled, unwavering, and now globally successful project of BDS that has scared the Hasbara propagandist witless.
The Al Jazeera piece as a result is not an indication of how powerful the Israeli lobby is but, quite to the contrary, how weak, pathetic, wayward, ill-prepared and caught off-guard it is.
The trouble with the Hasbara - a Hebrew word for propaganda - is the trouble with Israel. It is not prepared to deal with a non-violent struggle by ordinary people. It is only prepared to maim, murder, and steal other people's land. A peaceful protest by defenceless people it simply does not know how to face.
Precisely for that reason the future of Palestine is very clear: it belongs to Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and other Palestinians, entirely through and beyond their religious affiliations, gathering in a momentous historic rendezvous with one state apparatus for all its citizens. That beautiful prospect is not too far in our future.
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Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York.
Source: aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/01/israel-lobby-bark-bite-170130091544381.html
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Quebec Mosque Shooting: Beyond the Official Rhetoric
By Kenza Oumlil
The Quebec City mosque shooting took place in the immediate aftermath of US President Donald Trump's executive order to put a 90-day hold on travellers from Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen and a four-month ban on refugees.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was quick to call the attack a terrorist act. His words were an important discursive reversal from the usual tendency to apply the terrorism label only to acts of terror committed by Muslims.
But the transformative potential of Trudeau's calling the attack "a despicable act of terror" was somewhat compromised by him also labelling the act as "senseless".
Trump's spokesperson was quick to pick up on this word choice and also call the shooting "a senseless act of violence", while also using the incident in a bizarre attempt to defend Trump's executive order as a way of being "ahead of threats".
The use of the word "senseless", which suggests an unconscious action lacking purpose, brings to mind an all too familiar inclination of failing to recognise the consequences of racism and prejudice when they become translated into a violent action. That act of violence is thus no longer the product of sustained and systemic racism but of a random and arbitrary impulse.
But the attack on Friday was not an isolated, random or "senseless" event. It was the product of growing Islamophobia in Canada and the rise of hate speech and hate crimes. The existence and persistence of these hateful attitudes has been glossed over by the traditional liberal rhetoric of Canadian politics which presents the authorities as welcoming diversity and "accommodating" it.
The 'Reasonable Accommodation' Debate
Instead of rejecting Arabs and Muslims outright, in Quebec one could hear a "welcoming" rhetoric that at the same time calls for accommodation - that is to say the assimilation into a civilised sophisticated way of life and the abandonment of what is perceived as backward ways of life.
Reasonable accommodation is a term which refers to changes within a "reasonable" scope which institutions can undertake to accommodate minorities. The 2007 reasonable accommodation debate in Quebec revealed that the most problematic cultural practices for the Quebecois were those of Muslims.
In February 2007, Quebec Premier Jean Charest announced the establishment of the Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences to conduct public consultation and formulate policy recommendations to the government regarding "ethnocultural diversity".
The commission was led by two white male academics, Gerard Bouchard and Charles Taylor, who then submitted a report with their recommendations to the government.
It is important to note that the commission completely dismissed First Nations issues, pointing to legislation which posits that indigenous affairs need to be discussed among nations.
Acknowledging them would have undermined the entire idea of the white majority as a host society choosing which new immigrants to welcome, and would certainly have destabilised the foundations of white Quebec nationalism.
These events were immediately preceded by a few highly publicised "accommodation" cases, which served as justifications for holding a public "debate" on the limits of accommodation to immigrants.
The term "crisis" was widely used to describe the uproar and heated (and at times racist) citizen testimonies of the public hearings, which were broadcast on a number of television stations.
This type of liberal welcoming discourse is well entrenched in Canadian political rhetoric. Revealed during the reasonable accommodation debate, it continues to this day through the welcoming words of Premier Philippe Couillard and Prime Minister Trudeau.
They informed Muslims after the mosque attack that "this is your home", once again positioning one type of citizen as de facto entitled to unquestionable citizenship, and another as needing to be reassured about their belonging to the nation.
Beyond Accommodation
Acts of intolerance and vandalism have not been infrequent in Quebec but have never drawn much attention. These have included: moral panic over cabanes a sucre (sugar shacks) removing pork from the traditional dishes for Muslims; anti-Muslim graffiti at a Muslim school in Montreal; and a pig's head perched at the entrance of the Centre Culturel Islamique de Quebec during the holy month of Ramadan last summer.
The question of "not accommodating" veiling has been at the centre of Quebec public attention. The Parti Quebecois Charter of Values proposed as a bill during its mandate in the regional government would have included the restriction of religious symbols for public employees and was largely aimed at the Hijab head-covering, with great discussions of the need to ban face-covering, or Niqab, only worn by a small fraction of Muslim women in Canada.
The fixation on veiling is not unique to Quebec; it has historically appeared in political and media discourse in Europe and in the United States as a major topic of contention. In Quebec, the leader of Coalition Avenir Quebec Francois Legault called for the ban of the burkini at the time of the burkini controversy in France last summer.
Beyond the borders of Quebec, Muslim communities across Canada have been under pressure since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US and the passing of the anti-terror Bill C-51. This law has been criticised for infringing on civil liberties and rights of targeted populations and suspected terrorists in the name of security; unsurprisingly, those targeted by the bill are not white supremacists, but Muslims.
Trudeau might have made it a point to use welcoming refugees as a PR stunt, but the truth is that Canada only ranks 38th in the world in terms of the number of refugees per capita it recognised last year. All of them, of course, go through rigorous vetting before entering Canada. If designated as "irregular arrivals", refugees have been jailed in facilities or maximum security prisons.
At the discursive level, Quebec and Canada have made progress in terms of celebrating diversity, the respect of difference, and the inclusion of the right to religious freedom. Also, the security measures which are taken at the moment to protect mosques, Islamic schools and centres are important to preserve the safety of Muslims in Canada.
But beyond these measures, we must recognise the institutionalisation of racism through the enactment of discriminatory policies. Hate speech and hate crimes must be consistently penalised to avoid providing a covert licence to those who want to carry out acts of terror which reify the dehumanisation of Muslim communities.
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Kenza Oumlil is Assistant Professor in Communication and Gender at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco. She holds a PhD in Communication from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.
Source: aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/02/quebec-mosque-shooting-official-rhetoric-170202130906703.html
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All International Laws Trump's Muslim Ban Is Breaking
By Jamil Dakwar
The day after US President Donald Trump signed his now notorious Muslim ban, he spoke with Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel. Over the phone, she reportedly "explained" to Trump the United States' obligations under international refugee law, which requires the international community to take in war refugees on humanitarian grounds.
It's hardly surprising that President Trump had to learn about the United States' responsibilities towards refugees from a foreign head of state. But it's clear that after only a week in office his administration's lack of familiarity with and respect for refugee and human rights law is already charting a dangerous course for the country and the world.
While the exact scope and meaning of the executive order continues to be deciphered, on its face and as applied to date, Trump's order appears to violate several international treaties ratified by the US, some provisions of which have been incorporated into US law and cited as binding by the US Supreme Court.
In particular, the order seems to fly in the face of the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees which updated the post-World War II Refugee Convention of 1951, and other international human rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, religion, or national origin.
Obligation to Protect Refugees
One of the reasons international law is so valuable is because the international community of nations has developed it as protection against such abuses, both in our country and around the world, often in the name of national security.
International law has learned from the past and made explicit that none of these violations can be excused by an appeal to national security, nor should they be permitted by an appeal to xenophobia.
The United Nations Refugee Convention requires that the US provide protection and safe haven to those facing persecution. By shutting the door to refugee admissions, whether temporarily or indefinitely, Trump's order flagrantly violates that core obligation. This order also breaks with the long US tradition and history (with some abhorrent exceptions that should never be repeated) of opening its doors to refugees.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees and International Migration Organization noted this proud tradition in a joint statement in reaction to the executive order. "The long-standing US policy of welcoming refugees has created a win-win situation: it has saved the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in the world who have in turn enriched and strengthened their new societies," the statement read. "The contribution of refugees and migrants to their new homes worldwide has been overwhelmingly positive."
Article 3 of the Refugee Convention makes clear that all signatory states "apply the provisions… to refugees without discrimination as to race, religion or country of origin." In 1980, Congress enacted the Refugee Act to bring the US into conformity with these obligations after ratifying 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees.
The legislative and negotiating histories of the Refugee Convention further make clear that discrimination by contracting states against different groups of refugees is a direct violation of the treaty.
While governments are responsible for designing their own refugee resettlement programmes, these programmes must conform to international obligations. They must select refugees for resettlement only on the basis of their needs, regardless of nationality, ethnicity, religion, or other related characteristics.
While the Convention allows exclusion of certain persons from refugee protection - for example, if they committed war crimes - this exclusion is determined on a case-by-case basis and certainly does not allow any sort of blanket ban against a group of people or nationality.
By halting admission of refugees from Syria, Trump has carved out an impermissible exception to a key US treaty obligation for a vulnerable community, one based solely on that community's country of origin. This is a clear violation of the Refugee Convention.
The National Security Argument
President Trump has further publicly and falsely stated that his order will protect our national security. But the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, acknowledging states' legitimate interests in maintaining public security and combat terrorism, has warned against the effects of making exceptions, or, in his words, "the erosion of long-standing refugee protection principles."
The most fundamental refugee legal principle incorporated into the Refugee Convention and obligatory even outside Convention ratification, is that of non-refoulement or not returning someone to a place where they are likely to be subjected to persecution.
This principle is widely understood to be an "essential … component of international refugee protection" and is echoed in another core human rights treaty to which the US is a state party, the Convention Against Torture (PDF).
Our core obligations under international law cannot be disposed of in times of real or, in this case, perceived political or national security crises.
To the contrary, it is in times of alarm, when governments are tempted to bow to their fears, that sticking to our core obligations and maintaining strong American leadership on the international stage is most important.
While Trump's order places a moratorium on refugee admissions and an indefinite halt on resettling refugees from Syria, the order leaves an exception for "religious minorities".
And while the order's language is neutral, the president stated in a recent interview with the Christian Broadcasting Company that he wants to provide priority to Christian refugees.
While the order doesn't bar all Muslims from entering the US, baring immigration entry from seven majority-Muslim countries, especially when paired with his national security team's record of Islamophobia, leaves no doubt that Muslims are the target of this order.
Racial Profiling
But President Trump's un-American and unconstitutional action doesn't just violate the Refugee Convention - it flies in the face of other sources of international law that bind us.
The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, or ICERD, to which the US is bound, requires states parties to "guarantee the right of everyone, without distinction as to race, colour, or national or ethnic origin, to equality before the law."
US violations of this treaty precede the Trump administration, and have already been so flagrant and obvious that nearly identical concerns were addressed by the ICERD's committee after 9/11.
The Committee expressed concern at the US government's discriminatory anti-terrorism measures and remarked that "measures taken in the fight against terrorism must not discriminate, in purpose or effect, on the grounds of race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin."
In 2008, the Committee specifically addressed the US government's racial profiling of Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians after the 9/11 attacks and the development of the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System for nationals of 25 countries, all located in the Middle East, South Asia or North Africa.
It observed that "measures taken in the fight against terrorism must not discriminate, in purpose or effect, on the grounds of race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin."
Aside from the institutionalised discrimination of Trump's Muslim ban, there is growing concern that it could be applied by border officials to sanction discriminatory questioning, profiling, and treatment of Muslim, South Asian, and Arab citizens and non-citizens at airports and elsewhere.
Discrimination of the Vulnerable
The executive order also contravenes the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), another treaty to which the US is a state party.
Article 26 of the ICCPR requires equal treatment before the law of all persons, without discrimination on any ground, including race, religion, or national or social origin.
Article 4 of the ICCPR notes that even in a "time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation", states cannot take any action to stray from their obligations that involve discrimination "solely on the ground of race, colour, sex, language, religion or social origin".
Trump's executive order further violates the ICCPR's prohibition against discrimination and equal protection before the law. The order is clearly discriminatory, requiring separate and unfair treatment of entire groups of people based on their national origin, Muslims in particular.
The Trump executive order not only denies individuals an opportunity for individualised review, but it has also resulted in the detention, denial of counsel, and removal of individuals with prior authorisation to enter the US.
Under human rights law, people are guaranteed an opportunity to adequately defend against deportation, especially under the ICCPR and Convention Against Torture.
The UN's Human Rights Committee, charged with monitoring compliance with the ICCPR, has already concluded that "xenophobia against non-nationals, particularly migrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers, constitutes one of the main sources of contemporary racism and that human rights violations against members of such groups occur widely in the context of discriminatory, xenophobic and racist practices."
The international community has seen this before, and it has wisely created mechanisms to stop history from repeating itself.
The highest UN refugee officials have issued statements in the recent years, anticipating and proscribing actions like Trump's. After 9/11, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees stressed that "[a]ny discussion on security safeguards should start from the assumption that refugees are themselves escaping persecution and violence, including terrorist acts, and are not the perpetrators of such acts."
More recently, in response to the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, the High Commissioner expressed concern about states ending refugee resettlement programs or making refugee resettlement harder. "We are deeply disturbed by language that demonises refugees as a group," the High Commissioner's spokeswoman said. "This is dangerous as it will contribute to xenophobia and fear."
Just this week, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi expressed deep concern about the "uncertainty facing thousands of refugees around the world who are in the process of being resettled to the United States."
He estimated that 20,000 refugees in precarious circumstances might have been resettled to the US during the 120 days covered by the suspension.
He noted that the people his agency refers to governments for resettlement are the "most vulnerable - such as people needing urgent medical assistance, survivors of torture, and women and girls at risk" and that "new homes provided by resettlement countries are life-saving for people who have no other options."
Reciprocal Measures
Meanwhile, in mere days since the order was signed, many countries are considering taking reciprocal measures against US citizens. Trump's measure may likely further endanger the religious minorities he purports to defend.
International companies, academic institutions, and even the international air transport association have raised serious concerns regarding the detrimental impact of the order on their staff and ability to conduct business. Even Trump's own employees took a bold and public stance against the ban.
Trump's Muslim ban has enraged world leaders and was condemned by UN officials. The new secretary general of the UN, Antonio Guterres, said that Trump's executive actions "violate our basic principles… [and] are not effective if the objective is to indeed avoid terrorists to enter the United States."
And on Wednesday, several UN human rights experts issued a joint statement blasting Trump's immigration ban as discriminatory and in violation of US human rights obligations.
It shouldn't take the chancellor of another country or the top refugee and human rights officials in the world to tell President Trump that fear and xenophobia are no excuse for discrimination.
But if he won't listen to the UN or Chancellor Merkel or concerned companies, academic institutions, transport associations, human rights organisations, and over a hundred diplomats, maybe he should listen to former US President Ronald Reagan, supposedly a hero of his. In 1980, a year after the Refugee Act was signed into law, the new president, just a few months into his presidency, re-affirmed the US' commitment to welcome the exiled.
"We shall continue America's tradition as a land that welcomes peoples from other countries," he said. "We shall also, with other countries, continue to share in the responsibility of welcoming and resettling those who flee oppression."
For once, Trump should listen, and heed the Gipper's words.
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Jamil Dakwar is the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Human Rights Program and adjunct lecturer at John Jay College at the City University of New York (CUNY).
Source: aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/02/international-laws-trump-muslim-ban-breaking-170202135132664.html
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Trump Ban Is a Firm and Correct Decision
By Mohammed Al Shaikh
2 February 2017
We can’t conclusively claim that President Donald Trump’s decision, to prevent citizens of Iran and six other Arab countries from entering the US, was a verdict directed at Muslims. Had the US president aimed his decision to prevent all Muslims, the first thing would be to prevent Saudis from entering the United States. It is an Islamic state with all its population as Muslims and has the two Holy Mosques.
Moreover, President Trump telephoned the Custodian of the two Holy Mosques and a friendly conversation took place between the two in which they agreed to fight terrorism, and strengthen the historical ties. This clearly indicated definitely that the decision has nothing to do with Islam and Muslims.
His decision is aimed at protecting the United States from countries that are full of terrorists. Five of the six countries in the list suffer from security disruptions and devastating civil wars, which makes them a fertile breeding ground for terrorists. As a precautionary measure, it is natural for the US to shut its doors to prevent citizens of those countries from coming till such time procedural controls are introduced and firm measures are taken to cut down the infiltration of terrorists.
Needless to add, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Somalia are all unstable and it is natural to ban citizens from these countries in order to prevent entry of potential terrorists. As for Sudan, there are other reasons such as security turmoil and unstable environment in the west of the country.
Objective Reasons
All the countries listed in Trump’s executive order are banned temporarily for objective reasons and it has nothing to do with racial and religious discrimination as Iranians and the Muslim Brotherhood claim. When analyzing a situation, it is important to be fair and objective to all the dimensions of the matter. So we can honestly say that the motives and justifications behind the decision was a matter of national security.
There is indeed precedence of some countries banning citizens from conflict zones from entering their territory as a precautionary measure. Let us not fall for the bidding of human rights organizations, which deal with humanitarian issues from an ideological point of view, not based on reality and their manifestations on the ground. A prudent politician, who cares about security of his country, doesn’t pay attention to what should happen but to what is actually happening.
As for the decision to ban Iranian citizens, it is a brave and good one that was awaited since the time of President Barack Obama. However, Obama was too indulgent with Iran and let the country intervene in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Even some masters of al-Qaeda continue to live in Iran.
The question is how do one trust a state that is sponsoring al-Qaeda leadership and issues them travel documents in order to carry out terrorist acts in the US homeland? I would like to make one more point to my colleague, Anwar Achki, who took part in a dialogue on the subject in the Free Hour program of American Al-Hurra channel – God have mercy on those who know when to speak and when to keep silent.
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Mohammed Al Shaikh is a Saudi writer with al-Jazirah newspaper. He tweets @alshaikhmhmd.
Source: english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2017/02/02/Trump-ban-is-a-firm-and-correct-decision.html
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What Suits the West Does Not Necessarily Ennoble the Rest
By Mohammed Nosseir
2 February 2017
“I strongly believe that this is the ultimate solution” is a phrase that politicians often use to frame and mobilize their followers. But when this phrase is stated by a politician attempting to impose a solution on another country, we must challenge his proposition! Western politicians, unfortunately, have become quite conceited about their ideas and policies.
Convinced that if it suits them it must be good enough for others, they often attempt to enforce these ideas on the rest of the world. Their superiority has given them a universal political advantage that is undeniable – but unjustifiable.
Technological advancements and abidance by proper democratic mechanisms certainly constitute a blessing that lends western nations a degree of political and economic authority. However, this superiority does not mean that their respective politicians’ international outlooks are always correct, entitling them to force their ideas on others.
Western political elites whose ideas shape the world are often unaware of the political dynamics of other countries and do not truly care to enhance their knowledge in this regard. This obviously includes newcomers to the political scene, such as US President Trump who, in fact, has no political background.
Applying the western world’s thinking mechanism and tools to other parts of the world has proved to be an abject failure! The political and economic dynamics in each part of the world is often unique; inherited cultures, citizens’ perceptions, and their readiness to digest and adapt new mechanisms vary from one country to another.
Debating Ideas
Western politicians and thinkers often debate ideas that have major implications for other countries. While some of them have had more international exposure than others, it remains true that the entire western society operates within its closed circles and abides by its own thinking tools that are not always suited to the rest of the world.
Decision-making in the western world is quite clearly structured; politicians’ ideologies and goals are patently clear and their political circles of influence are known well in advance. By contrast, in regions such as the Middle East for instance, countless hidden factors often implicitly affect many of the region’s national policies.
Ruling a nation entails clear principles of political accountability, whereas interfering in formulating solutions without being accountable as a ruler is often perceived as a violation of the sovereignty of other countries that is aimed at promoting western political interests.
Western leaders achieve their political status empowered by their citizens’ votes. The fact that they don’t have followers in other countries and, obviously, are unable to micromanage other nations’ challenges is, by default, a shortcoming that should devalue their ideas forthright.
Internal Political Mechanism
At home, within the framework of their democratic process, Western politicians tend to act softly, offering their fellows many promises; with regard to external issues that are often isolated from their internal political mechanism however, their behavior is ignorant and arrogant.
Most of the challenges that we are facing in the Middle East are the direct results of our shortcomings. Nevertheless, westerners’ interferences have complicated many recent regional crises that have led to the current catastrophic conditions in each of Iraq, Libya and Syria; western intervention has contributed substantially to the political and economic deterioration of these countries.
Ironically, western politicians tend to magnify their successful interventions and to attribute the blame for all failures to domestic issues – completely ignoring the part played by their initial and continuing intervention.
Apart from the moral question of whether any given nation is entitled to interfere in the political development of another country; if Western nations insist that they are entitled to engage in other countries’ political development, they should at least openly assume the responsibility for their failures.
I am not anticipating that western politicians will read this piece and refrain from international interference, but I do hope that they will consider broadening their vision to better understand how other cultures operate.
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Mohammed Nosseir is an Egyptian liberal politician who advocates for advancing liberalism, political participation, and economic freedom. Mohammed was member of the higher committee at the Democratic Front Party from 2007 to 2012, and then member of the political bureau of the Free Egyptian Party till mid 2013. Mohammed advocates for his work through providing the Egyptian government with a number of schemes to better reform its government institutes, as well as he is a regular contributor to various Egyptian newspapers. Mohammed also has extensive experience in the private sector, working with a number of international companies assisting them in expanding their businesses in the Middle East. Mohammed graduated from Faculty of Commerce, Ain Shams University, Cairo (1986); he participated at Aspen Seminar on Leadership, Values and Good Society (2011), Eisenhower Fellow, Multi-National Program (2009) and Stanford Fellow for Democracy, Development & Rule of Law (2008).
Source: english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2017/02/02/What-suits-the-West-does-not-necessarily-ennoble-the-rest.html
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There Is A Dire Need To Expand Interfaith Work In The West
By Muddassar Ahmed
2 February 2017
Last week, the newly inaugurated 45th US President Donald Trump initiated a flurry of executive orders. He swiftly attempted to implement much of the policy agenda that he promised to deliver on during his campaign, from building a wall on the border with Mexico, to sacking senior officials at the Homeland Security and State Departments, and revoking visas from seven Muslim-majority countries.
Trump has simultaneously delighted those who voted for him and unleashed a flurry of condemnations and protests by many in the US and abroad who see his actions as undemocratic. Polls show that the US is dangerously divided, which is not good for the world. There is an old saying: “When America sneezes the world catches a cold.”
Far-right movements are on the rise across Europe. This year there are important national elections in Germany, France, the Netherlands and other European countries. Empowered by Trump’s success, far-right parties are openly campaigning on anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, protectionist platforms.
These elections will have significant implications due to Europe’s importance as a destination for millions of people worldwide and as one of the most important trade blocs in the world. With the rise of Trump, Marine Le Pen in France and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, we are entering a new phase of divisive and controversial politics.
Nonetheless, Trump undeniably represents the will of a significant number of Americans, just as Brexit represented the will of a significant number of Britons, and the far right represents a significant portion of Europeans. We all need to find a way to connect with and understand the forces that are driving these extreme views. We need to move beyond the rhetoric of talking about how to fight Islamophobia, to actually doing something to fight it.
While a completely understandable response, protest alone is not a long-term solution. It is an important method of showing dissent, getting media attention and mobilizing one’s base, but it has often failed to change opinions in the long run. While protest might have helped lead to Trump’s victory, the fact that he has the lowest approval ratings of any US president, and has inherited a deeply polarized country, show the limitations of such tactics.
In 2003, record numbers of people worldwide, including myself, protested against the invasion of Iraq. Despite this, international governments did not heed the will of the people, and the fallout is still being felt by Iraqis who feel less safe, and by Western countries that have spent lives and money in a conflict that still binds them. In today’s world of Twitter and Facebook reports, protests without a broader strategy are manipulated to divide people further, and likely to be used to justify more draconian policies.
What we need is sustained long-term trust-building with Western communities. Muslim communities in the West are on the frontline of far-right attacks. In the past year alone, the number of attacks against mosques and Islamic centers has increased significantly. Last week, mosques were set alight in the US and UK, a gunman attacked those in prayer in Canada, and innocent Muslims faced physical assaults throughout the US and Europe.
A proper and thorough strategy is needed to increase trust and understanding between communities. Muslim leaders have been working on this, but it has been sporadic at best. More resources and investment are desperately needed.
Similarly, other religious groups have been facing increased persecution. Jewish and Muslim communities have been coming together on a local level to support one another and allow safe worship. This interfaith work needs to be expanded, highlighted and supported.
Internationally, the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and all Muslim governments desperately need a more sophisticated public diplomacy strategy, to protect their own interests in the West from being consumed by this tsunami of hate, and to help communities in the West from turning on each other.
It is vital that ordinary citizens in the Muslim world also engage in efforts to bridge this increasing divide between the Muslim world and the West. From participating in international forums to engaging in one-to-one conversations, inviting individuals from the West to visit them and engaging positively on social media, many things can be done.
We must not forget that Trump is fundamentally a politician and simply reflecting the views of those who elected him. We need to reach out to the millions of Europeans and Americans who feel there is no place for Islam in the West, before they begin to feel there is no place for Islam in the world.
• Muddassar Ahmed is managing partner at Unitas Communications Ltd., a cross-cultural communications agency based in London. He was an adviser on anti-Muslim hatred to the UK government.
Source: arabnews.com/node/1048336
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Is Europe’s Record on Refugees Better Than That of the US?
By Chris Doyle
2 February 2017
As the world draws a deep breath and comes to terms with Hurricane Trump running roughshod over American governance not least his restrictions on refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim states, it is time to take stock at what long term implications of conflicts and refugees might be not least in the EU. With almost 64 million people displaced globally the crisis is growing and solutions seem few.
But is also time to be honest about the collective international failure. While it is right to protest the actions of the new US administration, few states have a perfect record on refugees and asylum seekers. Most states do not have guilt-edged record on welcoming refugees not least in Europe. Britain only agreed to take in 20,000 Syrian refugees over five years. France only took in a paltry 1000 refugees in 2016.
The climate of hate and fear stirred up by the Trump administration has created an atmosphere that will compel many to look elsewhere. For refugees fleeing conflicts from the sheer desperation of their plight the US may still appear a seductive destination but clearly the opportunities will be limited. Will other states take up the slack or adopt the Trump line?
Although the hate and anger against refugees and Muslims has escalated it is not just in the US. Hate crimes have gone up, the attack on the mosque in Quebec and Texas just the latest. Increasingly many in Europe as well buy into the line that refugees are all potential terrorists. Incidents of anti-Muslim abuse in the UK rose by 326 percent in 2015.
Even those civil society groups and human rights organizations working with refugees and asylum seekers have been attacked. In Italy, planned reception centers for refugees were even burnt down.
Amnesty International published a damning report in 2016 into how Germany had systematically failed to investigate hate crimes against asylum seekers following an 87 percent increase in violent racist crimes between 2013 and 2015. European media coverage of refugees and asylum seekers has frequently been appalling portraying them as hordes threatening our way of life not desperate people fleeing wars, extremists and dictatorships.
How many other states will opportunistically follow Trump’s line with harsher and more discriminatory entry requirements. Yet again most EU states had already tightened their borders even countries like Sweden that historically was so welcoming. Some European leaders have been little better than Trump.
In May 2016, the Slovak Prime Minister, Roberto Fico stated that “Islam has no place in Slovakia.” The EU has also been doing deals to ensure that repressive states like Turkey and Belarus prevent refugees from entering Europe.
Moral High Ground
Even those declining number of states that opt to take the moral high ground and welcome refugees like Canada may feel isolated but also risk a backlash domestically if the burden of refugee hosting is not shared amongst other states. This of course is what happened in Germany when Angela Merkel took in over one million refugees. Her fate in Germany’s elections in September is far from certain.
Moreover, US is far from the first to start building walls to keep immigrants out. In Europe, even inside the borderless Schengen zone, Austria is building a fence with Slovenia to keep refugees out. Hungary under Viktor Orban has built fences with both Serbia and Croatia. Slovenia has a fence with Croatia.
The EU is looking down the barrel of at least three major elections this year that could define the future of the whole project. Will the far right continue its march in the Netherlands, France and Germany? First up will be the Netherlands, where Trump fan, Gert Wilders leads the polls, a man who promises to close down all mosques and ban the Quran.
In France, Marine Le Pen, the National Front leader, looks likely to make the second round in the Presidential elections. Just perhaps the chaotic scenes from the United States, might cause some to steer away from the nuclear option of supporting groups like the National Front.
The challenges are only going to increase. Just consider that one in every 113 people globally is now either an asylum-seeker, internally displaced or a refugee. And in this whole debate on refugees where some commentators seem to think that the US and Europe are swamped, few recognize that 86 percent of the refugees are to be found in low- and middle-income countries. Can there be a more staggering indictment of our failure on refugees that less than 1 percent of the world’s refugees are resettled?
Added to all this is a major funding crisis where UN appeals have ever increasing funding shortfalls. Where will the UN will get the extra $15 billion it needs a year to fund humanitarian programmes?
Finally, and perhaps most worryingly of all, the drivers of refugee flows are exacerbating. Conflicts abound, and few states least of all the Trump administration have any credibly strategy to end them.
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Chris Doyle is the director of CAABU (the London-based Council for Arab-British Understanding). He has worked with the Council since 1993 after graduating with a first class honors degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Exeter University. As the lead spokesperson for Caabu and as an acknowledged expert on the region, Chris is a frequent commentator on TV and Radio and gives numerous talks around the country on issues such as the Arab Spring, Libya, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Islamophobia and the Arabs in Britain. He has had numerous articles published in the British and international media. He has travelled to nearly every country in the Middle East. He has organized and accompanied numerous British Parliamentary delegations to Arab countries.
Source: english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2017/02/02/Is-Europe-s-record-on-refugees-better-than-that-of-the-US-.html
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Resurgent Russia Filling a Void Left by the US in the Region
By Dilip Hiro
February 2, 2017
By taking centre stage at the Astana conference, with a NATO member as its ally, Russia showed that it was a superpower.
Nobody foresaw that a demand for the release of political prisoners by the residents of Deraa, a town in southern Syria, in March 2011 would lead to a major shift in the balance among world powers nearly six years later. But that is what happened with the successful conclusion of the Russian-orchestrated peace talks among the warring parties in Syria's civil war in the Kazakh capital of Astana.
The notable absentee among the foreign participants was the United States, which declined the invitation, sending instead its ambassador to Kazakhstan as an observer. It was an unmistakable sign of the Kremlin upstaging Obama's White House in the strategic Middle East. The conference in Astana saw Turkey, a key member of NATO, abandoning the US and bonding with Russia to end the Syrian conflict - a development with the potential of upgrading Syria's civil war as a landmark in global history.
For now, the Astana event enabled Russian President Vladimir Putin, a proud nationalist, to rebut robustly former US president Barack Obama's disdain for Russia voiced after Moscow's February 2014 annexation of Crimea: "Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbours, not out of strength but out of weakness." By taking centre stage at the Astana conference, with a NATO member as its ally, Russia showed that it was a superpower.
The Kremlin achieved this status in two stages: On September 30, 2015 it intervened militarily to shore up the falling regime of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad. And following the failed military coup against Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan on July 15, 2016, Putin became the first foreign leader to telephone and congratulate the president.
The next month Erdogan travelled to St Petersburg to meet his "dear friend" Putin. Relations had soured after the Turks shot down a Russian warplane over northern Syria the previous November. Referring to the aborted coup in Turkey, Putin declared that "We are always categorically opposed to any attempts at anti-constitutional activity." After three hours of talks, the two leaders agreed to mend their strained economic relations and, in a striking reversal, Erdogan stopped calling on Moscow's ally Assad to step down. This meeting set the scene for an alignment between Russia and Turkey on Syria's civil war where Turkey had been the foremost backer of the anti-Assad Syrian rebels.
A year earlier in August 2015, by all accounts, Assad was on the ropes, the morale of his dwindling army at rock bottom. Even support from Iran with arms and militia, and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, had proved insufficient to reverse his faltering hold on power, as confirmed recently by Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. The Assad regime would have fallen "within two or three weeks," he said, adding, had Moscow not intervened in September.
Responding to Assad's desperate appeal for urgent assistance, the Kremlin's military planners decided to fill the gaping security hole left by Syria's collapsing air force, bolster air defenses, and augment the depleted arsenal of tanks and armored vehicles. For this, they turned one of Russia's last footholds abroad, an airbase near the Mediterranean port of Latakia, into a forward operating base, and shipped warplanes, attack helicopters, tanks, artillery, armored personnel carriers and advanced S-400 surface-to-air missiles.
Russia's intervention changed the calculus on the battleground and diplomatic front. Between October 2015 and July 2016, top officials from four Gulf monarchies travelled to Russia for talks with Putin: Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, followed by His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces; the ruler of Qatar, Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani; and King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain, which hosts the US Navy's Fifth Fleet. As for Turkey, Putin reassured Erdogan that the territorial integrity of Syria will be maintained at all costs. That is, the Syrian Kurdish enclave that nationalist Kurds carved out in northeastern Syria, with the help of Washington for backing the Pentagon's drive against Islamic State in the Syrian territory, will have to go at some point.
Erdogan is obsessed about foiling aspirations of the Kurdish separatists and wants to ensure the semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, the Kurdish majority southeastern Turkey, and the adjacent Kurdish enclave in Syria do not unify to create Greater Kurdistan - a dream of the region's Kurds since the end of World War I. His iron-fisted policy towards Kurds in Turkey has won him strong approval of the Nationalist Action Party. On January 20, it helped Erdogan to garner more than 60 per cent of the vote in Parliament required to change the constitution from parliamentary democracy to executive presidency, his long-term aspiration.
At the end of the Astana meeting, Russia, Turkey and Iran announced plans for a trilateral commission to monitor breaches of the ceasefire that came into effect on December 29. Details of that organisation are expected to be announced before the United Nations conference on Syria in Geneva on February 8.
The Kremlin stressed that the Astana negotiations, attended by the Assad government and 14 Syrian rebel groups, were complementary to the UN process. The presence of the UN's special envoy on Syria, Staffan de Mistura, at the conference and his inclusion in the official photograph along with the representatives of Russia, Turkey, Iran and Kazakhstan underscored Russia's new leading role. The Astana conference materialised because of compromises by all. Initially Moscow scorned Washington's distinction between moderate and extremist rebels, thus agreeing with Assad's assertion that any group raising arms against an internationally recognised government of Syria was to be treated as terrorists. Eventually Russia came around to distinguishing between extremist jihadist factions from non-jihadist ones. The sponsors of the Astana talks excluded not only Daesh and Jabhat Fateh al Sham, formerly known as al Nusra affiliated to al Qaeda but also the Syrian Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which according to Turkey was associated with the Turkish Kurdistan Workers Party, listed as terrorist by Ankara and Washington. The ceasefire includes no moratorium on Syria, Russia and Iran regarding attacks on Daesh and Jabhat.
As for Syria, the government dropped insistence that only political representatives of the rebel groups be allowed to attend the talks and accepted the presence of military commanders of opposition factions.
Facts on the ground had changed dramatically, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek told the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 20: "Turkey can no longer insist on a settlement without Assad." In Astana, the rebels' chief negotiator Muhammad Alloush recognised "The Russians have moved from a stage of being a party in the fighting and are now exerting efforts to become a guarantor [of a truce]." On their part, the Russians unveiled their next move by handing the opposition delegation a position paper setting out a proposed constitution, including a path to new governing system, referendum and elections.
All in all, omens for progress at the UN's February meeting in Geneva look promising. If so, Russia has pulled off a major coup reinserting itself as a peacemaker in the Middle East and re-establishing itself as a global power of consequence while the United States is in retreat.
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Dilip Hiro is the author of A Comprehensive Dictionary of the Middle East. His latest book is The Age of Aspiration: Power, Wealth, and Conflict in Globalizing India.
Source: khaleejtimes.com/region/mena/resurgent-russia-filling-a-void-left-by-the-us-in-the-region
URL: https://newageislam.com/middle-east-press/the-israel-lobby-all-bark/d/109935