palestinian myths phyllis chesler nathan bloom debunked · 19/03/2012 · the middle east forum...

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SUMMER 2012 VOLUME 19, NUMBER 3

Reviews byAbrahms, Dann, Güçlü,Himelfarb, Luft, Malik,Michael, Phelps, Rubin

and Schanzer

Palestinian MythsDebunked

Phyllis Cheslerand Nathan Bloom

Hindu vs. Muslim Honor Killings

Ofra BengioIraq and Turkey as

Models for Arab Democracy?

Ilan BermanIran’s Beachhead

in Latin America

Bruce Maddy-WeitzmanThe Arab League’s New Relevance

Hilal KhashanLebanon’s Shiite-Maronite

Alliance

Alex JoffeThe Rhetoric of Nonsense

David BukayUsurping Jewish History

Shaul BartalDenying a Jewish Jerusalem

Havatzelet Yahel,Ruth Kark, and

Seth J. FrantzmanThe Negev BedouinAre Not Indigenous

Board of GovernorsIrwin Hochberg, Executive Committee Chairman

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/ 1

SUMMER 2012 VOLUME 19, NUMBER 3

FABRICATING PALESTINIAN HISTORY

2 3 Havatzelet Yahel, Ruth Kark, and Seth J. Frantzman, Are the Negev Bedouin an Indigenous People? These nomad Arabs are invaders, not natives of the land

15 Alex Joffe, The Rhetoric of Nonsense Outlandish Palestinian historical claims resonate in the West

23 David Bukay, Founding National Myths Palestinians appropriate Israel’s historical narrative

31 Shaul Bartal, The Battle over Silwan An attempt to erase the Jewish historical attachment to Jerusalem

43 Phyllis Chesler and Nathan Bloom, Hindu vs. Muslim Honor Killings Indians abandon the practice in the West. Pakistani Muslims continue it

53 Ofra Bengio, Are Iraq and Turkey Models for Democratization? Neither style has proven attractive to the Arab regimes

63 Ilan Berman, Iran Courts Latin America Tehran’s growing penetration poses dangers to the U.S. homeland

71 Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, The Arab League Comes Alive The league is suddenly more relevant to regional geopolitics

79 DATELINE: Hilal Khashan, Lebanon’s Shiite-Maronite Alliance of Hypocrisy Their collaboration seeks to curb Sunni power

87 Brief Reviews Jihadism in prisons ... Arab Christians ... Energy security ... Israel’s survival

2 / MIDDLE EAST QUARTERLY SUMMER 2012

Board of Editors

EditorEfraim Karsh

Senior EditorsPatrick ClawsonDenis MacEoinMichael Rubin

Managing EditorJudy Goodrobb

Publisher and Review EditorDaniel Pipes

Assistant EditorsAlex JoffeHillel Zaremba

Fouad AjamiJohns Hopkins University

David CookRice University

Martin KramerThe Shalem Center

Timur KuranDuke University

Habib C. MalikFoundation for Human and Humanitarian Rightsin Lebanon

James PhillipsThe Heritage Foundation

Steven PlautUniversity of Haifa

Dennis RossWashington, D.C.

Barry RubinGlobal Research in International Affairs Center

James R. RussellHarvard University

Franck SalamehBoston College

Philip Carl SalzmanMcGill University

Saliba SarsarMonmouth University

Robert B. SatloffThe Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Sabri SayarøSabancø University

Kemal SilayIndiana University

Lee SmithWashington, D.C.

Steven L. SpiegelUniversity of California, Los Angeles

Kenneth W. SteinEmory University

/ 3Yahel, Kark, Frantzman: Negev Bedouin

Fabricating Palestinian HistoryAre the Negev Bedouinan Indigenous People?

by Havatzelet Yahel, Ruth Kark, and Seth J. Frantzman

In the last two decades, there has been widespread application of the term “indigenous”in relation to various groups worldwide. However, the meaning of this term and its uses tend to be inconsistent and variable. The expression derives from the interaction of

different cultures—the meeting between the original inhabitants of a specific region (knownvariously as “first nations,” “natives,” “indigenes,” or “aborigines”) and new, foreign “set-tlers” or “colonizers,” who imposed their alien value systems and way of life on the indig-enous populations.1

In Israel, the indigenousness claim has been raised over the past few years by thecountry’s Bedouin citizens, a formerly nomadic, Arabic-speaking group centered in thesouthern arid part of the country, the Negev. They argue that Israel denies their basicindigenous rights such as maintaining their traditions and owning their own lands.

Does this claim hold water? What are its implications for Israel as well as for othernations?

Havatzelet Yahel is a doctoral candidate at TheHebrew University of Jerusalem and an attorneyin the Israel Ministry of Justice. Ruth Kark is aprofessor at The Hebrew University of Jerusa-lem. Seth J. Frantzman is a post-doctoral re-searcher at The Hebrew University of Jerusalemand a fellow at the Jerusalem Institute of MarketStudies. The views expressed here are solely thoseof the authors.

INDIGENOUS RIGHTSIN THE

INTERNATIONAL ARENA

What is known today as international lawdeveloped in Europe from the seventeenth cen-

tury onward, parallel to the emergence of sover-eign nation states, with the objective of regulat-ing relations between these new entities. Tradi-tionally, international law made no mention ofgroup rights, which were considered a domesticconcern of the state.2

International law was reluctant to furthergroup rights for several reasons, among themconcern for the integrity of the state and fear ofseparatism that would undermine its stability.3

1 S. James Anaya, Indigenous Peoples in International Law, 2ded. (Oxford and London: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 3.2 Natan Lerner, Group Rights and Discrimination in Interna-tional Law, 2d ed. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers andKluwer Law International, 2003), p. 112; Robbie Sabel and HilaAdler, eds., Mishpat Benleumy (Jerusalem: Sacher Institute, 2010),p. 241.


Furthermore, group rights were considered con-tradictory to the concept of a modern state basedon a direct social contract between the citizenand the sovereign.

Over time, however, the idea of group rightsfor indigenous groups began to emerge. Indig-enous societies claimed that their position wasunique in view of the great damage to the inde-pendent political frameworks that they had main-tained from time immemorial, their subjugation to

a regime and lifestyle aliento their culture, and thelimitation of the physicalarea in which they wereforced to live. Their case,therefore, centered on re-voking this perceived in-justice and included de-mands to preserve sacredsites, traditional crafts,and customs as well as tohonor preexisting trea-

ties to the extent that such had been signed.These societies also insisted on their right toself-determination whether in the choice ofgroup members or in the wider sense of sover-eignty. The rights demanded were on behalfof the indigenous group and its common andcollective character.4

As far as the European colonizers wereconcerned, legal rights vis-à-vis both preex-isting populations and other colonizing na-tions were based on the doctrine of “discov-ery.” This maintained that sovereignty overand full ownership of a territory belonged tothe nation that discovered the new land.5

This doctrine was upheld multiple times by theUnited States Supreme Court in the nineteenthcentury, and courts of additional nations fol-lowed suit.6 In Australia, the British Crown usedthe argument of terra nullius (empty land, namelyan unoccupied territory with no sovereignty orrecognized system of rights) to justify its classifi-cation as crown land.7 However, beginning in theeighteenth century, it was conceded in courts ofvarious states that the population that lived in aterritory before the advent of the Europeans didpossess rights. Legal arguments focused on thequestion of whether, prior to the arrival of thecolonizers, a system of land rights already existedin a specific territory that had to be taken intoaccount, and if so, in what manner.8

Early attempts by indigenous peoples tobring their case before international forums be-gan in the 1920s.9 Their first successes, how-ever, came decades later when activity shiftedfrom domestic arenas to regional, and later, in-ternational organizations. On the internationallevel, the issue of indigenousness was advancedin three major frameworks. The first comprisedtwo covenants adopted by the InternationalLabor Organization, an affiliate of the UnitedNations: the Indigenous and Tribal PopulationsConvention of 1957 (No. 107), and later, the In-digenous and Tribal Peoples Convention of 1989(No. 169)10—neither of which was successfullyimplemented.

The second framework consisted of the ef-

The Declarationon the Rightsof IndigenousPeoples refers tothe land rights ofa collective body,not individuals.

3 Lerner, Group Rights and Discrimination, p. 111; Borhan U.Khan and Muhammad M. Rahman, “Protection of Minorities: ASouth Asian Discourse,” The European Academy of Bozen/Bolzano, Italy, 2009; Arif Dirlik, “Globalization, Indigenism,and the Politics of Place,” New Bulgarian University, anthropol-ogy dept., accessed Feb. 23, 2011; Ruth Gavison and Tali Balfur,“Zhuyot Kibutziot shel Miutim,” working paper, submitted tothe Constitutional Committee, Sept. 13, 2005.4 Patrick Thornberry, International Law and the Rights ofMinorities (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), p. 335; Lerner, GroupRights and Discrimination, p. 115; Siegfried Wiessner, “Rightsand Status of Indigenous Peoples: A Global Comparative andInternational Legal Analysis,” Harvard Human Rights Journal,12 (1999): 99.

5 Robert J. Miller, “The Doctrine of Discovery,” in idem, et al.,Discovering Indigenous Lands: The Doctrine of Discovery in theEnglish Colonies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 2.6 Johnson v. M’cintosh, 21 U.S. 543, 5 L.Ed. 681, 8 Wheat. 543(1823); Worcester v. State of Georgia, 31 U.S. 515 (1832); St.Catharine’s Milling and Lumber Company v. the Queen (Canada,1887); Mabo and Others v. Queensland (Aus.), no. 2, AU 1992,175 CLR1.7 Erica-Irene Daes, “Indigenous Peoples and their Relationship toLand,” UNE/CN.4/Sub.2/2001/21, U.N. Commission on HumanRights, Geneva, June 11, 2001, p. 11.8 See, for example, “Western Sahara, Advisory Opinion,” Interna-tional Court of Justice reports, The Hague, Oct. 16, 1975, p. 12.9 State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, Secretariat of theUnited Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, NewYork, p. 2, accessed Mar. 19, 2012.10 Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention of 1989, Interna-tional Labor Organization, Geneva, June 27, 1989; Lerner, GroupRights and Discrimination, p. 112.

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forts of organizations such as the WorldBank, which since the 1990s began tolist indigenous rights as an issue of con-cern in its dealing with countries, espe-cially in the Third World.11

The third framework was informalaction within various forums of the U.N.dealing with human rights. This in-cluded initiating conferences12 and pro-moting study of the topic. Beginningin 1971, the U.N. Economic and SocialCouncil (ECOSOC) conducted an ex-tensive study of the issue of nativepopulations.13 Carried out over a pe-riod of about ten years, the researchwas published in a series of reportssubmitted between 1981 and 1986. In1982, the U.N. Working Group on In-digenous Populations was established,charged with protecting native popu-lations and the development of inter-national standards relating to theirrights.14 A draft Declaration on the Rights of In-digenous Peoples (DRIP)15 was enjoined in 1985,and almost twenty years later in 2006, was finallysubmitted to the U.N. General Assembly andapproved the next year with the support of morethan 140 nations. Four nations that votedagainst it (the United States, Canada, Austra-lia, and New Zealand) eventually withdrew theiropposition. Israel did not participate in the vot-ing.16 During this time, the assembly declared1995-2004 to be the “International Decade ofthe World’s Indigenous Peoples” and estab-lished a permanent forum on this issue within

the framework of the Subcommission on Pre-vention of Discrimination and Protection ofMinorities.17 The assembly declared a seconddecade on December 20, 2004.18

Much of the delay in presenting DRIP cen-tered on differences of opinion related to the con-cept of sovereignty19 as well as the definition ofindigenous.20 Since no consensus was reachedon this crucial definition, the problem was cir-cumvented by deleting it from the draft.21 Numer-ous countries, mainly from Asia and Africa, madequalifying statements regarding their support for

Yahel, Kark, Frantzman: Negev Bedouin

11 “Operational Directive: Indigenous Peoples,” The WorldBank Operational Manual, 4.20, Sept. 1991, pp. 1-6.12 See, for example, Conference on Discrimination against In-digenous Peoples of the Americas, Geneva, 1977; World Councilof Indigenous Peoples, Kiruna, Sweden, 1977; State of the World’sIndigenous Peoples, accessed Mar. 19, 2012.13 “The Problem of Indigenous Population,” ECOSOC Res.1589 (L), 50th Session Supplement, no.1, U.N. Doc. E/5044,May 21, 1971, p. 16.14 Robert A. Williams, Jr., “Frontier of Legal Thoughts III:Encounters on the Frontiers of International Human Rights Law:Redefining the Terms of Indigenous Peoples’ Survival in theWorld,” Duke Law Journal, Sept. 1990, p. 676.15 Lerner, Group Rights and Discrimination, p. 115.16 Ha’aretz (Tel Aviv), Oct. 2, 2007.

17 U.N. General Assembly resolution 48/63, New York, Dec.21, 1993; U.N. General Assembly resolution 49/214, New York,Dec. 23, 1994.18 U.N. General Assembly resolution 59/174, New York, Dec.20, 2004.19 Anaya, Indigenous Peoples, p. 97.20 Sarah Pritchard, “Working Group on Indigenous Population:Mandate, Standard-setting Activities and Future Perspectives,”in Sarah Pritchard, ed., Indigenous Peoples, the United Nationsand Human Rights (London: Zed Books and Leichhardt: Federa-tion Press, 1998), p. 43; Wiessner, “Rights and Status of Indig-enous Peoples,” p. 99; Lerner, Group Rights and Discrimina-tion, p. 112.21 John A. Mills, “Legal Constructions of Cultural Identity inLatin America: An Argument against Defining ‘IndigenousPeoples,’” Texas Hispanic Journal of Law and Policy, Mar.2002, p. 57.

Far from being the indigenous inhabitants, the Bedouinwere relative latecomers to the Negev, preying on thevillages and caravansaries that dotted the sparselypopulated wilderness. Here, a Bedouin family is picturedin the early 1900s.


the declaration. Indonesia for example, with itshodgepodge of ethnicities and languages, arguedthat “the rights in the Declaration accorded exclu-sively to indigenous people and did not apply inthe context of Indonesia.”22 A more restricted view

of indigenousness hadbeen articulated as early as1999 by Miguel AlfonsoMartinez, then specialrapporteur of the U.N.Working Group on Indig-enous Populations. Hisview is consistent with aconcept that indigenous-ness is relevant to coun-tries where there is a “two-stage model” of first in-

habitants and colonizers and is less relevant orcompletely irrelevant in an environment of multi-stage historical development.23

The final version of the Declaration on theRights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted in 2007,also did not include a definition of an indigenouspeople, mainly because the relevant U.N. bodieswere unable to agree on the matter.24 This has con-tributed to the low level of de facto implementationof the declaration among U.N. member states.

WHAT IS ANINDIGENOUS PEOPLE?

Despite the absence of a universally accepteddefinition, DRIP manages to shed some light onthe question of what an indigenous people is: aseparate political entity with unique characteris-tics within the framework of the state. Accordingto its articles, such entity or nation has the sov-ereign right to determine the structure of its in-stitutions, its identity, and its membership.25

Moreover, the declaration differentiates betweenrights accruing to individuals and to the collec-tive body; articles dealing with land rights referonly to the rights of indigenous peoples as acollective body, not as individuals.

Based on this declaration and the existingliterature,26 a list of recurring parameters of indig-enousness can be established:

• Original inhabitants: Indigenes are de-scendants of the people who were first ina particular territory.27

• Time duration: Indigenous people havelived on the land “from time immemo-rial”—thousands, and even tens of thou-sands of years. The Australian aborigi-nes, for example, have lived in their terri-tory for anywhere between 40,000 and60,000 years while Native Americansclaim a history of thousands of years.Another related attribute is that indig-enous people were on the land beforenewcomers arrived.28

• Pre-colonial sovereignty.

• Experience of oppression by a for-eign culture and legal regime. Whilemany groups may sense having beingoppressed, oppression in this contextrefers to “colonialism or something likecolonialism.”29

• Group attachment to land: Indigenouspeoples maintain a unique, common rela-tionship of a spiritual nature with the landon which they live or have lived.30 This

22 U.N. media release, New York, Sept. 13, 2007.23 Miguel Alfonso Martinez, “Human Rights of IndigenousPeople: Study on Treaties, Agreements and Other ConstructiveArrangements between States and Indigenous Populations,” 1999,E/CN.4/Sub.2/1999/20, paras. 78, 91.24 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of IndigenousPeoples, G.A. Res. 61/295, U.N. doc. A/RES/61/295, Sept. 13,2007.25 Ibid., arts. 33, 35.

26 See, for example: José R. Martinez Cobo, “Study of theProblem of Discrimination against Indigenous People,” 1987,UN E/CN.4/Sub.2/1986/7/Add.4, p. 29; Ronald Niezen, TheOrigins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of Identity(Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003), p. 19;Wiessner, “Rights and Status of Indigenous Peoples,” p. 60.27 David Maybury-Lewis, Indigenous Peoples, Ethnic Groups,and the State, 2d ed. (Boston: Allayn and Bacon, 2002), p. 6;U.N. Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro,June 13, 1992, U.N. Doc. A/CONF.151q/26 (vol. 3) at 16 annex2 (1992), chap. 26, quoted in Anaya, Indigenous Peoples, p. 315.28 Anaya, Indigenous Peoples, p. 5.29 Ibid.30 Daes, “Indigenous Peoples,” p. 9.

Jewish attachmentto the land fromthe Negev to theGolan Heightspredates Arabpresence thereby millennia.

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is often reflected in the be-lief that land is a gift to thatpeople from God.31

• Distinct, non-dominant(marginalized) populations.

• Separate customary, cul-tural, economic, social, andpolitical institutions.

• Self-identification andrecognition by others asindigenous.

An important differentiationbetween indigenous peoples andminorities is connected to thoseparameters that relate to the his-torical dimension such as “firstnationhood” or former (i.e., pre-colonial) sovereignty on thesoil.32 While such a distinctionhas recently been challenged (pri-marily by groups in Africa forwhom proving the historical connection is prob-lematic),33 it is important to maintain the differ-ence. In fact, a crucial differentiation betweenminority rights and indigenous rights is that mi-nority rights are formulated as individual rightswhereas indigenous rights are collective.34 Thisdistinction, as well as the articles incorporatedinto DRIP, has a particular relevance to the claimsof the Negev Bedouins.

THE NEGEV’S“FIRST PEOPLE”

In the past few years, the Bedouin of Israel’sNegev have begun claiming the status of an in-digenous people, arguing that Israel like othercolonialist regimes dominated their territory, re-fused to admit their lengthy presence in their na-tive land, and denied their rights.35 This line ofargument is consistent with the position of theArab leadership, voiced as early as the early 1920s,that disparaged the Jewish national revival as analien, colonial intrusion into the pan-Arab patri-mony. These arguments are both erroneous and


31 Andrew Erueti, “The Demarcation of Indigenous Peoples’Traditional Lands: Comparing Domestic Principles of Demarca-tion with Emerging Principles of International Law,” ArizonaJournal of International and Comparative Law, 23 (2006): 544;Ruth Kark, “Land-God-Man: Concepts of Land Ownership inTraditional Cultures and in Eretz Yisrael,” in Alan R.H. Bakerand Gideon Biger, eds., Ideology and Landscape in HistoricalPerspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992),pp. 63-82.32 Lerner, Group Rights and Discrimination, p. 113; Thornberry,International Law and the Rights of Minorities, p. 331.33 Dorothy L. Hodgson, “Becoming Indigenous in Africa,”African Studies Review, 3 (2009): 7.34 Indigenous Peoples in Africa: The Forgotten Peoples? TheAfrican Commission’s Work on Indigenous Peoples in Africa(Banjul, Gambia: African Commission on Human and Peoples’Rights and Copenhagen: International Work Group for Indig-enous Affairs, 2006), p. 13.

35 For general and Bedouin-related arguments, see GeremyForman and Alexandre Kedar, “Colonialism, Colonization, andLand Law in Mandate Palestine: The Zor al-Zarqa and BarratQisarya Land Disputed in Historical Perspective,” TheoreticalInquiries in Law, 4 (2003): 496-534; Aref Abu Rabia, “Displace-ment, Forced Settlement and Conservation,” in Dawn Chatty andMarcus Colchester, eds., Conservation and Mobile IndigenousPeoples: Displacement, Forced Settlement, and Conservation(London: Berghahn, 2002), pp. 202-11; Oren Yiftachel, “LikratHakara Be-kfarey Ha-Beduim Tihnun Metropolin Beer-Sheva mulVaadat Goldberg,” Tichnun, 11 (2009): 56-71.

Bedouins vote in the 1951 elections for the second Knesset.While the Negev Bedouin may be at the lower end of Israel’ssocioeconomic strata, attempts have been made since thebeginnings of the modern state to incorporate and integratethem into Israel’s multiethnic society.


misleading. To begin with, the Bedouin are by nomeans the only people who can lay claim to thenotion of being a “first people” in Palestine: Jew-ish attachment to the land predates Arab pres-ence there by millennia. Indeed, of the countlessgroups that have lived in Palestine since antiq-uity, Jews are the only nation that can claim anuninterrupted presence on the land from biblicaltimes to date—for a significant amount of the timeas its rulers.

About three millennia ago, a kingdom of Is-rael was established inthe landmass from theNegev in the south to theGolan Heights in thenorth. At one stage, itwas split into two king-doms: Israel and Judah.The northern kingdom ofIsrael was conquered byAssyria in the eighth

century B.C.E., and a portion of its populationwas exiled. The southern kingdom of Judah,which exercised sovereignty over the Negev,continued to exist until it fell in the sixth cen-tury B.C.E. to the Babylonians, who exiled aconsiderable segment of the populace. TheBabylonian Empire was soon, thereafter, con-quered by the Persians, who allowed the exiledJews to return to their homeland in 538 B.C.E. Inaddition to the returning Jews, the land waspeopled at this time by Idumeans (Edomites), theremnant of the Philistines, Samaritans (a mixtureof Israelites and Assyrian colonists), and someArab groups, likely the ancestors of those whowould come to be called the Nabateans.

Over the course of approximately four cen-turies, the country was under the control of vari-ous non-Jewish rulers, but from 141-63 B.C.E.,the sovereign Jewish kingdom of the Hasmoneandynasty was established, eventually fallingwithin the sphere of Rome, which ruled it withsome minor hiatus for the next seven centuries.With the Muslim conquest of the seventh cen-tury C.E., there began an increased movement ofArab tribes into the area. Over the next nine cen-turies, various foreign Muslim and non-Muslimoccupiers controlled the land, culminating in theOttoman conquest in 1517.36

Since its advent in the seventh century, Is-lam constituted the organizing principle of thesociopolitical order underpinning the long stringof great Muslim empires.37 Islamic principles be-came the framework that brought Arab tribes to-gether, served as a unifying force for social orga-nization, and invested the empire with politicallegitimacy with the sultan-caliph recognized asthe religious and temporal head of (most of) theworld Muslim community.38 Tribal lifestyle and cus-toms also became an integral part of the systemsof government and law.39 Courts were establishedthroughout the empire that passed judgment ac-cording to Shari‘a (Islamic law), an Ottoman landlaw formalized in 1858, and other civil jurisprudencecodified in 1876 as the Ottoman Mejelle.40

During World War I, Britain took control ofthe land and in 1922 was appointed the manda-tory administrator for Palestine by the League ofNations with the specific goal of facilitating theestablishment of a Jewish national home in Pales-tine as envisaged by the Balfour declaration. TheBritish Mandate in Palestine continued utilizingmost of the existing Ottoman legal system, in-cluding laws related to land.41 With the estab-lishment of Israel, the Provisional State Council(the temporary parliament antecedent to theKnesset) enacted the Law and AdministrationOrdinance of 1948 that maintained the existinglegal system with its roots in Ottoman law.42

Thus, in contrast to colonies in which West-ern powers imposed a foreign legal system, in

36 Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099 (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 23-40.37 Efraim Karsh, Islamic Imperialism: A History (New Haven:Yale University Press, 2006), pp. 9-20.38 Ira M. Lapidus, “Tribes and State Formation in IslamicHistory,” in Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East,Philip S. Khoury and Joseph Kostiner, eds. (London and NewYork: I.B. Tauris, 1991), pp. 42, 44.39 Abraham Sochowolski, Adam—Adama Mishpat—Safa (TelAviv: Hagigim, 2001), p. 74.40 Pliah Albek and Ran Fleisher, Diney Mekarkein Be-Israel(Jerusalem: Albek and Fleisher, 2005), p. 7; Daniel Friedmann,“The Effect of the Foreign Law on the Law of Israel: Remnants ofthe Ottoman Period,” Israel Law Review, 10 (1975): 196.41 Bernard Joseph, “Palestine Legislation under the British,”Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,164 (1932): 39-46.42 Law and Administration Ordinance, Provisional Council ofState, Tel Aviv, May 19, 1948.

For the Jewishpeople, MandatePalestine wasits ancestralhomeland.

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Mandate Palestine, and later Israel, the judicialsystem that developed over the years wasgrounded in the norms of tribal life and the Mus-lim population. More important, neither the Brit-ish nor the Israelis considered the land terra nul-lius to which the old European doctrine of dis-covery applied for the simple reason that it wasneither “empty” nor “discovered.” As far as theJewish people was concerned, Mandate Pales-tine was its ancestral homeland, and it was thegeneral recognition of this fact that underlay theLeague of Nations’ mandate for the establishmentof a Jewish national home there.

THE NEGEV BEDOUIN

Until the twentieth century the Bedouin ofthe Middle East, including those of the Negev,were livestock-raising nomads whose movementswere dictated by a constant search for pastureand water.43 It has long been noted that what char-acterizes the Bedouin is their relationship to thetribe, rather than to a specific place or territory.44

Among the Bedouin tribes living in the Negevtoday, most view themselves as descendants ofnomadic tribes from the Arabian Peninsula.45 Infact, most of them arrived fairly recently, duringthe late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries,from the deserts of Arabia, Transjordan, Sinai,and Egypt.46 Part of this migration occurred inthe wake of Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt andPalestine in 1798-99 and subsequent Egyptian ruleunder Muhammad Ali and his son Ibrahim Pasha(r. 1831-41). During this period, Egyptian forcesmoved through Sinai and into the Negev using

the coastal road that runs through Rafah, accom-panied by numerous camp followers, peasants,and Bedouin. Some of the Egyptian peasants whofollowed in the footsteps of the army establishednew settlements and neighborhoods in Palestine,others joined Bedouin tribes in the Negev.47

Ottoman tax registers demonstrate that thetribes which lived in the Negev in 1596-97 are notthose residing there today.48 According to his-torians Wolf-Dieter Hütteroth and KamalAbdulfattah, the tax registers that reflect mate-rial collected in those years show names of forty-three Bedouin tribes living in what became Man-datory Palestine, including six in the Negev.There is not much information on what becameof those tribes.49 However, the names of thetribes currently living in the Negev do not ap-pear on the tax registers from 1596.50 The Otto-man government did notmaintain reliable recordsfor this area after 1596, sothese registers are thebest indicators of whichtribes existed in the earlyOttoman period. ClintonBailey, a scholar of Be-douin culture, also foundno evidence in the thir-teenth and fourteenthcenturies of the conti-nuity or existence ofBedouin tribes, whichlater lived in the Negev in the eighteenth andnineteenth centuries.51

Bedouin consolidation of their Negev foot-hold was achieved through armed intertribalstruggles as well as raids on established Arab


43 Emanuel Marx, “The Tribe as Subsistence Unit: NomadicPastoralism in the Middle East,” American Anthropologist, June1977, p. 345.44 Clinton Bailey, Ha-Beduim (Sede-Boqer: Midreshet Sede-Boqer, 1969), pp. 1, 6.45 Toviyah Ashkenazi, Ha-Beduim Be-Eretz Yisrael (Jerusalem:Reuben Mass Publishing House, 1957), p. 30; Joseph Ben-David, Ha-Beduim Be-Yisrael—Hebetim Hevratiyim Ve-Karkaiim(Jerusalem: Jerusalem Institute of Israel Studies, 2004), pp. 36,57-9, 424-81; Reuven Aharoni, The Pasha’s Bedouin (Londonand New York: Routledge, 2007), pp. 30-1.46 Moshe Sharon, “Ha-Beduim Be-Eretz Yisrael Bameot Ha-Shmone Esre Ve-Ha-Tsha-Esre,” M.A. thesis, The Hebrew Uni-versity of Jerusalem, 1964, pp. 21-4.

47 Gideon M. Kressel and Reuven Aharoni, “Masaey UhlusimMemitzrayim La-Levant Bameot Ha-19 Ve-Ha 20,” Jama’a, 12(2004): 206-45; telephone interview with Gideon Kressel, Mar.8, 2012.48 Wolf-Dieter Hütteroth and Kamal Abdulfattah, HistoricalGeography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in theLate 16th Century (Erlangen: Palm and Enke, 1977), p. 3.49 Ibid., pp. 51-3.50 Ibid.51 Clinton Bailey, “Dating the Arrival of the Bedouin Tribes inSinai and the Negev,” Journal of the Economic and Social His-tory of the Orient, 28 (1980): 21-4; idem, “The Negev in the19th Century,” Asian and African Studies, 14 (1980): 42, 45.

The Bedouintribes in theNegev today viewthemselves asdescendants ofnomadic tribesfrom the ArabianPeninsula.


settlements that caused the latter’s demise.52

Although the nomads depended upon sedentarypopulations for survival, they looked down uponthem while settled Arabs viewed the Bedouin asopportunists or worse, as cruel robbers.53 Nu-merous authors have documented the Bedouinrole in conquering the Negev as well as the plun-dering and expulsion of settled Arabs from otherparts of Palestine.54 British surveyor and arche-

ologist Claude R. Conder,writing in the 1880s, de-scribed a situation of un-ending war between theBedouin tribes and thesettled villagers.55

Nomadism continuedin Palestine until the begin-ning of the twentieth cen-tury when a transition tosemi-nomadic life and settle-ment took place.56 Concur-rently, there was a gradualshift in the manner in whichthe Bedouin related to theland, from common exploi-tation for grazing by allmembers of the tribe to pri-vate use.57 Simultaneously,there was a gradual transi-tion from animal husbandryto agriculture.58 By 2000,animal husbandry was prac-

ticed by only about 10 percent of the Bedouin,and many of the younger generation have ex-pressed reservations about maintaining their par-ents’ lifestyle.59

Prior to the establishment of Israel therewere about 65,000 Negev Bedouin. During the1948 war and in its immediate aftermath, mostleft for neighboring states, reducing the NegevBedouin population to about 11,000.60 Sincethen, however, numbers have dramatically in-creased to almost 200,000 persons in 2011. Therehas also been significant improvement in edu-

Bedouin tents, Tel Megiddo, Israel, 2005. Until the twentieth century,the Bedouin of the Middle East, including those of the Negev, werelivestock-raising nomads whose movements were dictated by aconstant search for pasture and water. What characterizes theBedouin is their relationship to the tribe, rather than to a specificplace or territory.

52 Sharon, “Ha-Beduim Be-Eretz Yisrael,” p. 49; Joseph Ben-David, “Od Al Ha-Konflict Ha-Karkai bein Beduei Ha-NegevLevain Ha-Medina,” Karka 44 (1998): 64; Emanuel Marx, Ha-Hevra Ha-Beduit Ba-Negev (Tel Aviv: Reshafim, 1974), p. 15;Emanuel Marx, Bedouin of the Negev (Manchester: ManchesterUniversity Press, 1967), p. 7.53 Anatoly M. Khazanov, ed., Nomads and the Outside World,2nd ed. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994), p. 199;Aref al-Aref, Bedouin Love Law and Legend: Dealing Exclusivelywith the Badu of Beersheba (Jerusalem: Cosmos, 1944; repr.1974), p. 202; Ben-David, Ha-Beduim Be-Yisrael, p. 17; Hütterothand Abdulfattah, Historical Geography, p. 11.54 Avraham Granovski, Ha-Mishtar Ha-Karkai Be-Eretz Yisrael(Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1949), p. 32; David H.K. Amiran, “The Patternof Settlement in Palestine,” Israel Exploration Journal, 3 (1953):69; see, also, Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, Historical Geography,p. 62; Muhammad Yusuf Sawaed, “Ha-Beduim Be-Eretz YisraelBein Ha-Shanim 1804 and 1908,” M.A. thesis, Bar-Ilan Univer-sity, Ramat Gan, 1992, p. 147-9; Eliahu Epstein, “Bedouin ofthe Negeb,” Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly, 71 (1939):59-78.

55 Claude R. Conder, Tent Work in Palestine (London: A. PWatt, 1895), p. 271.56 Ashkenazi, Ha-Beduim Be-Eretz Yisrael, p. 23; Marx, “TheTribe as a Unit of Subsistence,” p. 348.57 Avinoam Meir, “Hithavut Ha-Teritorialiyut Be-Kerev BedveyHa-Negev Bama’aver Me-Navadut le-Hityashvut Keva,” MehkarimBe-Geographiya shel Eretz Yisrael, 14 (1984): 76.58 Gideon M. Kressel, Joseph Ben-David, and Khalil Abu-Rabi’a, “Changes in the Land Usage by the Negev Bedouin sincethe Mid-19th Century: The Intra-Tribal Perspective,” NomadicPeople, 28 (1991): 29.59 A. Allan Degen, Roger W. Benjamin, and Jan C. Hoorweg,“Bedouin Households and Sheep Production in the Negev Desert,Israel,” Nomadic People, 1 (2000): 130, 142.60 H. V. Muhsam, “Sedentarization of the Bedouin in Israel,”International Social Science Journal, 4 (1959): 542.

/ 11

cation and in health indices among IsraeliBedouin. However, when compared with othergroups in Israeli society, including urban and ru-ral Arabs, they remain at the lowest socioeco-nomic level.61

In the 1970s, about 3,000 Bedouin filedclaims demanding that Israel recognize their fullprivate ownership of hundreds of thousands ofdunams of land in the Negev (1 dunam=1000m2), including the right to sell. Israeli courts,basing their decision on Ottoman and Britishlaw, have consistently refused to sanction theBedouin claims. The courts have decreed thatthe lands claimed were never allocated for pri-vate use, and that they are of the category ofmewat (defined by the Ottoman land law as thearea of waste land that lies beyond the carry ofthe human voice when uttered from the nearesthabitation). It is public land and cannot be as-signed as privately owned.62 Currently, there areno claims before Israeli courts for collective landrights, and there is no expressed interest in landfor collective grazing or for the maintenance ofnomadic traditions.

ARE THE NEGEVBEDOUIN INDIGENOUS?

While there is no universally agreed-upondefinition of indigenous, do the Bedouin of theNegev fit the previously outlined parameters forwhat constitutes an indigenous people? Usingsuch criteria, the answer is an unequivocal No:

• Original inhabitants. Many groups pre-ceded the Bedouin in Palestine in generaland in the Negev in particular, includingthe Jewish people, which has maintaineduninterrupted presence in the land since

biblical times. Hence, the Bedouin canhardly claim to be the country’s originalinhabitants.

• Time dimension. This requires a lengthypresence in a territory—the so-called “timeimmemorial” parameter. But the NegevBedouin have been there for only two cen-turies. Nor can they claim presence in theland before the arrival of the foreign poweras the imperial Otto-man presence therepredated that of theBedouin by centu-ries. By contrast, theJewish presence inPalestine fully corre-sponds to the “fromtime immemorial”parameter.

• Sovereignty. In the case of the NegevBedouin, they were never sovereign in thearea. When they arrived, the Negev wasalready under Ottoman rule, before com-ing under British, then Israeli sovereignauthority.

• Oppression by a foreign culture andlegal regime. It was, in fact, the Bedouinwho imposed themselves on establishedsettlers in the Negev, displacing them anddestroying their villages. The OttomanMuslim order, which they confrontedupon arrival, was similar to what they hadexperienced in the other parts of the em-pire from which they migrated to Pales-tine. Britain was indeed a foreign power,but it never attempted to colonize Pales-tine as its presence there was transitoryfrom the start in line with the League ofNations mandate. As for the Jews, farfrom being colonial intruders, they weredescendants of the country’s ancient in-habitants, authorized by the internationalcommunity—as represented by theLeague of Nations—to reestablish theirindependence in the ancestral homeland.

• Unique spiritual relationship to the ter-


There is noevidence of long-standing Bedouintraditions relatingto the Negev.

61 Eliezer Goldberg, et al., Din Ve-Heshbon Ha-Vaada Le-Hatzaat Mediniut Le-Hasdarat Hityashvut Ha-Beduim Ba-Negev(Jerusalem: Medinat Israel, 2008), p. 39.62 Hawashla ve-Aherim Neged Medinat Yisrael ve-Aherim,Court of Appeal, 21 8/74, 38(3) P.D. 141; Justice Tute, “TheLaw of State Lands in Palestine,” Journal of Comparative Legis-lation and International Law, 3rd series, 4 (1927): 165-82.


ritory. While nomadic life, by definition,precludes permanent attachment to spe-cific territory, pastoral lands do becomea significant element in Bedouin life giventheir importance for tribal subsistence.Furthermore, even today, control of anarea is a matter of honor among theBedouin, and any challenge to this con-

trol, however legiti-mate or legal, is con-sidered an insult.63

Nonetheless, there isno evidence of long-standing Bedouin tra-ditions relating to theNegev, a logical situa-tion considering theirfairly short presence

there and nomadic lifestyle, and they lookto the Arabian Peninsula as their histori-cal homeland.

Moreover, the Bedouin are not cur-rently asking for collective land rights,rather all their claims are formulated on anindividual basis (overwhelmingly by maleswith almost total exclusion of women), de-manding the right of individuals to sellland and transfer it to a third party.64 Theseprivate demands are not congruent withthe spiritual dimension parameter andeven contradict it, which leads to the con-clusion that the main Bedouin aspirationsare for private gain and have no real col-lective element relevant to a campaign forrecognition as indigenes.

• A minority with an identity differentfrom that of the general population. TheBedouin are, without doubt, a small mi-nority in Israel, not only of the entire popu-lation but even within the country’s Arabcitizens. Indeed, until the middle of theMandate period, the Bedouin were con-

sidered by the Palestinian Arab peasantsas their enemies.65

Recently there have been signs of anabandonment of an independent Bedouinidentity and the gradual adoption of a Pal-estinian Arab identity accompanied by in-creasing involvement in Muslim funda-mentalism.66 A 2003 study concluded thatthe Bedouin should no longer be consid-ered a “society unto themselves” and thattheir identity today is Palestinian Arab,lacking any common tribal element, and isin the process of being shaped anew. Itfurther claimed there was an ulterior mo-tive behind the long-standing categoriza-tion of a separate Bedouin identity: to ne-gate the national Palestinian Arab iden-tity.67 The last conclusion, however, fliesin the face of historical evidence, ignoringthe unambiguous Ottoman view of theBedouin as a separate group, long beforethe advent of confrontation between theArab and Jewish populations of Palestine.

• A group with separate economic, so-cial, cultural, and political institutions.In the past, Bedouin tribes behaved asseparate units with an accepted leader-ship in the person of tribal sheiks. Tribeshad a system of customs that governedall aspects of life, and each of them was anindependent economic and social group;occasionally several tribes would join to-gether politically to form a confederation.Today, the situation has changed dramati-cally. Studies attest to a significant weak-ening of the framework that handled tribalaffairs and of tribes’ ability to come to de-cisions acceptable to all individuals. In-stitutions that formerly made decisionswithin the tribe or in intertribal relationsno longer exist today.68

Customary law and values necessary

63 Aref al-Aref, Toldot Be’er Sheva Ve-Shvateha: Shivtey Ha-Beduim Bemahoz Be’er Sheva (Jerusalem: Ariel, 2000), photo-copy of first edition, Tel-Aviv: Bustenay, 1937, p. 273.64 See the statement of Hussein el-Rifaaya to the committeeheaded by Justice Goldberg, Goldberg et al., Report, session ofFeb. 7, 2008.

65 Conder, Tent Life, p. 71.66 Ben-David, Ha-Beduim Be-Yisrael, pp. 21, 29.67 Musa el-Hujeirat, “Ha-Zehut Ha-Kolektivit Shel Ha-BeduimBe-Eretz Yisrael,” Reshimot Be-Nose Ha-Beduim, 35 (2003): 6.68 Ben-David, Ha-Beduim Be-Yisrael, p. 21.

No other Bedouintribe in the entireMiddle East hasraised a claim toindigenousness.

/ 13Yahel, Kark, Frantzman: Negev Bedouin

when the Bedouin were nomads, such asmutual responsibility, are no longer rel-evant.69 It would seem that today one can-not speak of Bedouin tribes in the Negev,alone or in confederation, as an opera-tional administrative framework. The endof nomadism and the transition to perma-nent settlements during the past centuryhave done away with identification of thetribe as a separate economic entity. To-day, every household has its own occu-pation as part of the general economy, andthere is no universally acceptable authori-tative leadership. Nor are there conse-quential political frameworks whose deci-sions are accepted by all even in areasthat are of primary importance to indig-enous peoples, such as lands. Decisionsrelating to land are taken only by individu-als; any declaration in the name of the tribeor in the name of the Bedouin is, there-fore, not legitimate. There have been nodemands by individual Bedouins to sub-ordinate themselves once again to an in-ternal, independent tribal framework. Theopposite is the case: The tendency todayis to increase individual rights. Authoritythat formerly rested with the sheik vis-à-vis his tribe, including matters relating toland usage, was abrogated after membersof the tribe claimed that such authoritywas superfluous and that the sheiks ex-ploited it to further their own interests atthe expense of ordinary tribesmen. Despitethe disappearance of an authority to man-age and operate tribal matters, and the ab-sence of tribal political frameworks, spe-cific customs and traditions continue to ex-ist as part of Bedouin customary law, butmainly in certain spheres of personal andfamily life such as marriage and inheritancerights.70

• The group identifies itself, and is viewedby others, as an indigenous people in theterritory. As has been demonstrated, theBedouin claim to indigenousness is verynew, having been raised for the first timeonly a few years ago.71 Earlier studies didnot report that the Negev Bedouin considerthemselves as such,nor did the research-ers make the claimthat they were anindigenous people.Since Bedouin tribesin other Middle East-ern countries havenever claimed indig-enousness, the valid-ity of this claim by theNegev Bedouin isdoubtful. Are the Bedouin somehow in-digenous only in relation to the Negevbut not in their homeland—Arabia—orin other Middle Eastern countries inwhich they abound?72 Even parts of thesame tribes as those in the Negev thatlive elsewhere, for example, in the Sinai,do not claim indigenousness in theircountries of residence.

CONCLUSIONS

Although there is no official definition ofindigeneity in international law, Negev Bedouincannot be regarded as an indigenous people inthe commonly accepted sense. If anything, the

69 Ibid., pp. 335-6, 352.70 Khalil Abu Rabia, Shlosha Maagalim Badin: Ha-KonflictBein Ha-Minhag Ha-Bedvi, Hukey Ha-Sharia Ve-Hok MedinatYisrael (Beersheba: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2011),pp. 13-4; Clinton Bailey, Bedouin Law from Sinai and theNegev: Justice without Government (New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 2009), pp. 300-1.

71 Alexandre Kedar, “Land Settlement in the Negev in Interna-tional Law Perspective,” Adalah’s Newsletter, Dec. 2004, pp. 1-7; Elana Boteach, “The Bedouins in the Negev as an IndigenousPopulation: A Report Submitted to the UN Working Group onIndigenous Populations,” The Negev Coexistence Forum News-letter, Beersheba, Sept. 2005, p. 2; Ismael Abu Saad, “TheEducation of Israel’s Negev Bedouin: Background and Pros-pects,” Israel Studies, 2 (1997): 21-39; “Off the Map,” HumanRights Watch, New York, Mar. 30, 2008, pp. 78-80; JamesAnaya, “Report by the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indig-enous peoples,” A/HRC/18/35/Add.1, Aug. 22, 2011.72 See Seth Frantzman, Havatzelet Yahel, and Ruth Kark, “Con-tested Indigeneity: The Development of an Indigenous Discourseon the Bedouin of the Negev, Israel,” Israel Studies, Spring 2012,pp. 78-105.

Bedouininstitutions thatformerly madedecisions withinthe tribe or inintertribal relationsno longer exist.


Bedouin have more in common with the Euro-pean settlers who migrated to other lands, com-ing into contact with existing populations withoften unfortunate results for the latter.

Moreover, rather than suffering an alien im-position on their indigenous way of life, theBedouin migrated mainly from one part of theOttoman Empire to another, governed by thesame system of administration and legislationwith which they were familiar and which the Brit-ish and the Israelis have subsequently largelymaintained.

As clearly demonstrated, the Negev Bedouindo not presently prefer tobe a separate and inde-pendent entity in variousspheres of public life suchas economic and politicalactivities. Their aspira-tions are of an individualnature. They are not in-terested in maintainingnomadic traditions ofcollective ownership oflands for the maintenanceof a collective communitybut rather in an exclu-

sively male proprietorship that would enableBedouin men to sell the land to others at theirown discretion. No studies have shown the exist-ence today of functioning, independent institu-tions in various spheres of daily life that couldpoint to the Bedouin being an indigenous people.

That no other Bedouin tribe in the entireMiddle East has raised a claim to indigenousnessraises questions regarding the motivations andauthenticity of such an argument. Since theBedouin in the Negev in some cases are from thesame tribe as those found in neighboring coun-tries, it is not logical that they can only be indig-

enous when they are on the Israeli side of theborder.

The entire question of indigenousness isparticularly problematic with regard to Israel. Thefear is that instead of providing remedies and es-tablished order, it will create new disputes. TheLand of Israel has a dual history, marked both byconstant waves of immigration and invasion byvarious peoples and uninterrupted Jewish pres-ence in the land from time immemorial. The Jewshave always considered the Land of Israel theirnational homeland, have lived in it as a sovereignnation in historical times, maintained at least atoehold there despite persecution, and returnedto it time and again after being exiled. This spiri-tual relationship is also expressed in both Jewishdaily prayers and Israel’s Declaration of Indepen-dence. If the parameters and preconditions forindigenousness are made more flexible to includearrivistes like the Bedouin, surely Jews can alsoraise a claim to be the indigenous people in Israel,a land which they called home thousands of yearsbefore the Negev Bedouin.73 In such a case, itmay also be expected that other ethnic groups,such as Druze, Christian Arabs, and Samaritans,would claim indigenous status. No doubt, thiswould add to confrontations already existing overcontrol of land and the holy places.

The concept of indigenousness was in-tended to help remedy past injustices by givingnative peoples the means to preserve their sepa-rate identity, common lifestyle, and the customsof their past. The Negev Bedouin may be a poorand marginal sector of Israeli society, yet this doesnot transform them into an indigenous people.

73 Allen Z. Hertz, “Aboriginal Rights of the Jewish People,”American Thinker, Oct. 30, 2011.

The Jewishspiritualrelationship to theland is expressedin daily prayersand in Israel’sDeclaration ofIndependence.

/ 15Joffe: Palestinian Rhetoric

Fabricating Palestinian HistoryThe Rhetoric of Nonsenseby Alex Joffe

F or nearly two decades the Palestinian Authority (PA) has been denying Israel’sright to exist, and a recent “Nakba Day” was no exception. In a Gaza speech onbehalf of Mahmoud Abbas, his personal representative made the following statement:

National reconciliation [between Hamas and Fatah] is required in order to face Israeland Netanyahu. We say to him [Netanyahu], when he claims that they [Jews] have ahistorical right dating back to 3000 years B.C.E.—we say that the nation of Palestineupon the land of Canaan had a 7,000-year history B.C.E. This is the truth, which mustbe understood, and we have to note it, in order to say: “Netanyahu, you are incidentalin history. We are the people of history. We are the owners of history.”1

This remarkable assertion has been almost completely ignored by the Western media.Yet it bears a thorough examination: not only as an indication of unwavering Palestinianrejection of Israel’s right to exist but as an insightful glimpse into the psyche of their willfullyduped Western champions.

Alex Joffe is a New York-based writer on historyand international affairs. His web site iswww.alexanderjoffe.net.

UNPACKINGABBAS’S SPEECH

Archaeologists have only the dimmest no-tion of prevailing ethnic concepts in 7000 B.C.E.There may have been tribes and clans of somesort, and villages may have had names and asense of collective or local identity, but their na-ture is completely unknown. Even with the elabo-rate symbolism of the period, as seen in figurines,and other data such as the styles of stone toolsand house plans, nothing whatsoever is known

regarding the content of the makers’ identities.Writing would not be invented for almost another4,000 years and would only reach the Levant athousand years after that, bringing with it theability to record a society’s own identity concepts.

There were no Jews or Arabs, Canaanites,Israelites, or Egyptians. There were only Neolithicfarmers and herders. In fact, none of the con-cepts that Abbas used developed until vastly later.The Plst—a Mediterranean group known to theEgyptians as one of the “Sea Peoples” and whogave their name to the biblical Philistines—ar-rived around 1200 B.C.E. Arabs are known inMesopotamian texts as residents of the ArabianPeninsula from around 900 B.C.E. The concept ofa “nation” emerged with the kingdoms of Israel

1 Palestinian TV (Fatah), May 14, 2011.


and Judah and their neighbors sometime after 900B.C.E. The Romans renamed the Kingdom of Judea“Palestina” after the biblically attested Philistines,the hated enemy of the Israelites, following thedefeat of the Bar Kochba revolt in 135 C.E. Theethnic identity called “Palestinian,” denoting thelocal Muslim and Christian inhabitants of the re-gion south of Lebanon and West of the Jordan

River, tenuously devel-oped as an elite conceptat the end of the Ottomanera and did not propagateto the grassroots until the1920s and 1930s.2

Is there perhaps ge-netic continuity betweenmodern Palestinians andNeolithic farmers and herd-ers? Perhaps, but that is notwhat Abbas claimed. Is

there cultural continuity, a nation with a name?Hardly.

TYPES OF PALESTINIANRHETORIC

Why then should Abbas make such an in-credible fabrication? And why lie in such a ludi-crous and extravagant fashion? Part of the an-swer is that for Abbas, as it was for PLO leaderYasser Arafat before him, there is a reflex thatsimply and absolutely cannot accept the antiq-uity of Jews. Arafat famously told then-U.S. presi-dent Bill Clinton that there was no Jewish templein Jerusalem, causing the usually unflappableClinton to nearly explode.3 Denials regarding theJewish historical connection to the Land of Israelgenerally and categorical denials that Jews con-stitute a nation are all frequently heard from Pal-estinian leaders, intellectuals, and others.

A useful avenue of investigation is to con-

sider Abbas’s words as a type of rhetoric with aform and underlying philosophy. When viewedin this way, Abbas’s spokesman was not lying assuch but doing something else.

As philosopher Harry Frankfurt put it

The fact about himself that the bullshitter hides… is that the truth-values of his statementsare of no central interest to him; what we arenot to understand is that his intention is nei-ther to report the truth nor to conceal it … Aperson who lies is thereby responding to thetruth, and he is to that extent respectful of it… For the bullshitter, however, all these betsare off: He is neither on the side of the true noron the side of the false. His eye is not on thefacts at all, as the eyes of the honest man andof the liar are, except insofar as they may bepertinent to his interest in getting away withwhat he says. He does not care whether thethings he says describe reality correctly. Hejust picks them out, or makes them up, to suithis purpose.4

As Frankfurt describes it, such nonsensicalrhetoric is constructed impulsively and withoutthought—entirely out of whole cloth. It is un-concerned with truth and so, unlike a lie, has li-cense to be panoramic, unconcerned with con-text. The user is endeavoring to bluff, and thedesire for effect is paramount. Whereas lying isaustere and rigorous because it must triangulateagainst truth, nonsense loses, and loosens, thegrasp on reality. In that sense, its effect is corro-sive, a matter not discussed by Frankfurt.

Stating nonsense to suit one’s purpose isonly one of three obvious Palestinian rhetoricalstrategies. Lying, knowingly distorting the truth,is another. A paradigmatic example of this is“Pallywood,” the staging of scenes for news cam-eras. These have ranged from orchestrated streetscenes and rioting, which sometimes include fakecasualties who leap off of stretchers when out ofsight, to destroyed structures and grieving fami-lies, to manipulated photographs. Above all there

2 Louis H. Feldman, “Some Observations on the Name ofPalestine,” Hebrew Union College Annual, 61 (1990): 1-23.3 “Camp David and After: An Exchange, An Interview with EhudBarak,” The New York Review of Books, June 13, 2001.

There is nocultural ornationalconnectionbetweenPalestinians andNeolithic peoples.

4 Harry Frankfurt, On Bullshit (Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 2005), p. 56.

/ 17

Denials regarding the historical Jewishconnection to the Land of Israel are frequentlyheard from Palestinian leaders, intellectuals, andothers. U.S. president Bill Clinton (right) nearlyexploded in outrage when Yasser Arafat told himthat there was no Jewish temple in Jerusalem.

was the so-called Jenin massacre of 2002 andthe Muhammad al-Dura case in 2000. In theformer, Palestinians accused Israelis of hav-ing killed hundreds or thousands of civiliansand bulldozing their bodies into mass graves,deliberate lies that were then repeated by hu-man rights organizations. In fact, some fifty-two Palestinian gunmen and twenty-threeIsraeli soldiers were killed in brutal house tohouse fighting.5

In the Dura case, a Palestinian stringerfor French television purported to have ob-served a Palestinian father and son caught ina firefight in Gaza, during the course of whichthe boy appeared to have been killed. Theiconic martyrdom and funeral of the boy be-came an international symbol of Israeli bru-tality. But examination of withheld footageshowed other Palestinian “wounded” gettingup and walking around and contained nodeath throes of the Dura boy. In fact, gravedoubts exist whether a boy died at all in theexchange and whether his father was injured.A series of lawsuits have not resolved thesituation, but the impact of what is at least inlarge part a fabrication is clear.6 As Frenchjournalist Catherine Nay wrote with satisfac-tion, Dura’s supposed death “cancels, erases thatof the Jewish child, his hands in the air before theSS in the Warsaw Ghetto.”7 This statement holdsthe key to understanding the reception of Pales-tinian rhetoric in Europe. It is a means to erodehistorical and moral realities regarding the Euro-pean treatment of the Jews, and it is eagerly em-braced in some quarters.

The third Palestinian approach is to propa-gandize through the lens of pure ideology, spe-cifically Islam. Thus, for example, the former

Jerusalem mufti and chairman of the Supreme Is-lamic Council in Jerusalem, Ekrima Sabri, was re-cently quoted as saying “after twenty-five yearsof digging, archaeologists are unanimous that nota single stone has been found related toJerusalem’s alleged Jewish history.” This state-ment is patently false, but the orientation of thereligious lens is obvious, indeed, he goes on tostate clearly: “We do not recognize any changeto the status of Jerusalem, and we reserve ourreligious, historic, geographic, and cultural heri-tage in the city, no matter how long or how manygenerations succeed.”8 Islamic doctrine as it hasevolved today simply cannot accept the realityof the Jewish connection to Jerusalem preciselyon religious grounds. Sabri is, therefore, neitherlying nor fabricating reality to suit his purposesbut rather expressing what he regards as a true

Joffe: Palestinian Rhetoric

5 See the essays in Hersh Goodman and Jonathan Cummings,eds., The Battle of Jenin: A Case Study in Israel’s Communica-tions Strategy (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, Jaffee Center forStrategic Studies, 2003).6 Philippe Karsenty, “We Need to Expose the Muhammad al-Dura Hoax,” Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2008, pp. 57-65; NidraPoller, “The Muhammad al-Dura Hoax and Other Myths Re-vived,” Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2011, pp. 71-8.7 Ivan Rioufol, “Les médias, pouvoir intouchable?” Le Figaro(Paris), June 13, 2008. 8 Ahlul Bayt News Agency (Qom, Iran), June 23, 2011.

Photo will not disp

lay.


religious belief. This works in concert with liesand nonsense.

SWALLOWINGPALESTINIAN RHETORIC

Palestinian efforts to minimize or expunge Jewsfrom history go back several decades but haveintensified in recent years. Palestinian intellectualsmake their own important contributions: HayelSanduqa recently claimed that the expression inPsalm 137:5, “If I forget thee, oh Jerusalem, may myright hand forget its skill” was authored by a Cru-sader king and stolen by “Zionists.”9

Palestinian denial of any Jewish connectionsto Israel and allegations that Israel is “Judaizing”Jerusalem are so routine as to be unheard by Is-raelis, accustomed as they are to Palestinian lead-ers blustering, lying, and simply making thingsup, from trivial allegations regarding Israeli “li-bido-increasing chewing gum” distributed inGaza10 to heinous allegations of all manner of warcrimes. This is unfortunate since such claims of“Judaization,” largely by means of archaeologi-cal excavations and infrastructure modernization,featured for decades in international forums suchas UNESCO,11 are central to the global efforts todelegitimize Israel by elevating the Islamic statusof Jerusalem.12

By and large, the lack of Arab media atten-tion suggests that they also take Palestinian claimswith a heaping teaspoon of salt. In the absenceof open warfare between Israel and the Palestin-ians, Arab media today appear preoccupied withmore important events in Syria, Egypt, Iran, andelsewhere. Even so, why has there been so littleattention to Abbas’s statement?

The Palestinian reception of rhetoric such asAbbas’s is a critical question. Palestinian nation-alist rhetoric since the early 1920s was character-ized by what even Palestinian-American histo-rian Rashid Khalidi has called “overheatedprose.”13 From the beginning, it was also suf-fused with local, pan-Arab and Islamic themesthat were sometimes complementary but often intension with one another. In general, Palestinianrhetoric today takes place in an environment thathas been progressively Islamized over the pasttwo decades by Arafat and the Palestine Libera-tion Organization (PLO), in part through competi-tion with Hamas and other Islamist and jihadist

9 Palestinian TV (Fatah), June 2, 2011, at Palestinian MediaWatch, accessed Mar. 1, 2012.

10 YNet News (Tel Aviv), July 13, 2009.11 See, for example, the summary in Craig Larkin and MichaelDumper, “UNESCO and Jerusalem: Constraints, Challengesand Opportunities,” Jerusalem Quarterly, Autumn 2009, pp. 16-28.12 Yitzhak Reiter, Jerusalem and Its Role in Islamic Solidarity(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 70-149.13 Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction ofModern National Consciousness (New York: Columbia Univer-sity Press, 2009), p. 258, n. 76.

Palestinians will often ignore archeo-logical findings in order to maintaintheir fabrications. The recent auction ofthis Judean shekel coin from 66 C.E.,bearing the Hebrew words “Shekel ofIsrael [Year] 1 [of the Jewish rebellionagainst Rome]” was described in theofficial Palestinian Authority dailyal-Hayat al-Jadida as “an ancientPalestinian coin” and “part of thePalestinian cultural heritage.”

/ 19

movements.14 Islamic themes and imag-ery have helped frame and elaborate po-litical discourse and in turn have intensi-fied the Islamic dimension of Palestiniancollective identity.15

While a full study of language andcognition in Palestinian culture is be-yond the scope of this article, it is usefulto bear in mind the analysis of Arab so-cieties as “high context” cultures. Insuch cultures, the domination of in-groups with similar experiences and ex-pectations requires fewer but more care-fully selected words that convey com-plex messages using inferences suppliedby the listener. By contrast, communica-tions in “low context” cultures are notaimed at in-groups and, therefore, tendto be more explicit.16

Seen in this light, Palestinian politi-cal statements regarding their Neolithicorigins and continuity, which can be re-garded in historical, rhetorical, and philo-sophical terms as completely fictional,might be understood as simply innova-tive shorthand communications to anin-group. On the one hand, it nominallycites Western scientific frameworks,which demonstrates a sort of modernistorientation. But on the other, the emo-tive power and real intention is largelysupplied by the listener, who hears ineffect that Palestinians have existed forever, alongwith the implication that this fact is supportedby history or even science.

Together with lies and ideological speech,fictional nonsense helps shape Palestinian cul-ture, beliefs, and political behavior. To say thatthis is at odds with objective reality as recovered

by science is to miss the point. To some unknow-able but large degree, this is Palestinian reality.What from the outside appears to be disjointedand nonsensical bits in reality are seamless partsof a larger Palestinian whole, beliefs about thehistory, the world, culture, and the self. The ques-tion then becomes the relationship of that realityto others. And here the matter of media as a con-duit and interpreter becomes paramount.

The problem is that in-group statements andthe reality they create are never restricted to thein-group. Western reception of rhetorical non-sense varies widely. Western media have beensilent about the Neolithic Palestinian nation, andthis is most instructive. The simplest explanationwhy Abbas’s comments were not mentioned inWestern press accounts is that literal nonsense

Joffe: Palestinian Rhetoric

Stating nonsense to suit one’s purpose is only onePalestinian rhetorical strategy. Knowingly distortingthe truth is another. An example of this is “Pallywood,”the staging of scenes for news cameras. This photographwas widely distributed with the observers cropped outand promoted as a picture of an Israel Defense Forcessoldier stomping on a Palestinian child. The uniformis not an IDF uniform; the boots are not IDF boots, andthe weapon is not one used by the IDF.

14 Hillel Frisch, “Nationalizing a Universal Text: The Quran inArafat’s Rhetoric,” Middle Eastern Studies, May 2005, pp. 321-36.15 Mahmoud Mi’ari, “Transformation of Collective Identity inPalestine,” Journal of Asian and African Studies, Dec. 2009, pp.579-98.16 Rhonda S. Zaharna, “Understanding Cultural Preferences ofArab Communications Patterns,” Public Relations Review, 21(1995): 241-55.


from Palestinians simply does not register. Al-though it is not acknowledged, to some extentPalestinian nonsense is likely recognized as suchby Western media and filtered out, at least semi-consciously, as “overheated prose.” Ironically,of course, objections to such cultural stereo-typing are characteristic of the Orientalist cri-tique although they are rarely made when suchanalyses come from Arab sources.

WILLING INFIDELS

What Israelis regard as incitement—rheto-ric designed to inflame populations and movethem to hatred and violence—thus seems to reg-ister as mere epiphenomena to other Westernaudiences, who appear to seek a simple, moral-istic tale with materialist underpinnings. By andlarge, Western media in particular, abetted byintellectuals, have created a singular distortionzone around “Israel/Palestine”—turning it intoa clear-cut morality tale of colonial white peoplewith F-16s oppressing indigenous brown peoplewith stones and the odd suicide bomber.

A recent study of how the Arab-Israeli con-flict is treated by the Reuters news agency notedthe pervasive use of appeals to pity and to pov-

erty, innuendo, euphe-misms and loaded words,multiple standards andasymmetrical definitions,card-stacking, symbolicfictions, and atrocity pro-paganda, along with non-sequiturs and red her-rings. The study con-cludes that “Reuters en-gages in systematicallybiased storytelling in fa-

vor of the Arabs/Palestinians and is able to in-fluence audience affective behavior and moti-vate direct action along the same trajectory.”17

For most journalists engaged with the mor-alistic narrative, fantastic stories about Pales-tinians having existed 9,000 years ago do noteven rise to the level of cognitive dissonance; itis, for now, nonsense discourse and anti-real-ism. But another factor for the lack of Westernattention to such statements is found inFrankfurt’s discourse on nonsensical rhetoric;the sincerity of the user cannot be challengedsince to do so would require making fundamen-tal judgments. To preserve the fiction of rationalinterlocutors, sincerity must be accepted as atoken of trustworthiness even as the simplewords of the statement contradict such claims.

Three other factors also play a role: thepostmodern downgrading of objectivity and theidea of a single shared reality; the elevation ofmultiple narratives as being equally valid, andthe valuation of feelings over facts. Challengingrhetorical nonsense, in addition to potentiallycompromising journalistic access, could hurt in-terlocutors’ feelings.

There is more than a little condescension atwork in the Western reception of these strate-gies if not actual contempt. For one thing, Pales-tinians lies and nonsense are rarely challengedby the media or other interpreters besides thosetermed Israel advocates, something that has it-self been transformed into a negative semanticand social category. It is almost as if Palestin-ians are expected simply to make things up asthey go along, which then may or may not beaccepted by the West according to how wellthey fit the Palestinian narrative.

Ideological religious statements are simi-larly ignored but in all likelihood for differentreasons. Non-religious Western observerssimply have no intellectual framework to in-terpret such strong statements outside mate-rialist constructs that regard religion generallyas epiphenomenal or false consciousness. Forthese reasons, the Islamic rather than national-istic basis for the Arab-Israeli conflict has beensystematically downplayed from the 1930s. Eventhe Hamas charter—which is nothing but forth-right regarding its religious basis, theologicalanti-Semitism, and calls for genocide—is largelyexcluded from journalistic and even academicanalyses because it makes no sense within the

Anti-Semitismand ceaselessincitement aregraduallyoverwhelmingfilters againstanti-realism.

17 Henry I. Silverman, “Reuters: Principles of Trust or Propa-ganda?” Journal of Applied Business Research, Nov./Dec. 2011,pp. 93-116.

/ 21Joffe: Palestinian Rhetoric

context of frameworksthat are exclusively na-tionalistic and materialistin nature.

But the eagernesswith which certain lies areaccepted, such as talk ofIsraeli war crimes, and theflimsy nature of Westernjournalistic investiga-tions strongly shows thatat least two additional lev-els of bias are at work. Atone level, the narrative ofthe oppressed underdogis so strong that there islittle inclination to pressfor truths that would un-dermine that narrative, em-barrass the Palestinians,and in doing so, incurtheir wrath and limit themedia access they give totheir territories, sources,and stories. At the deeperlevel, as perfectly illus-trated by the quote fromCatherine Nay above, there is a deep need tofind Israelis guilty in order to relieve Holocaustguilt (and, one might argue cynically, to get backto old-fashioned anti-Semitism) particularlyamong European descendents of its perpetrators.The satisfaction of making this so is palpable.

These factors also illustrate how the Pales-tinian narrative, even with ludicrous bits thrownin and others excluded, is arguably not by oreven about the Palestinians. It is propelled largelyby Western needs to see the world through thepost-colonial lens of noble indigenes and evilWestern colonists. The Palestinians may in facthave lost exclusive control of the narrative de-cades ago, perhaps as far back as the 1920s or1930s, when their cause was taken over by theArab states and the Muslim world. A more com-prehensive view of the Palestinian narrativewould see them as secondary contributors to aprocess propelled by Arab and Muslim statesand refracted through Western media and uni-versities, ultimately minor subjects in a far larger

Part of the reason Western supporters are willing to go alongwith Palestinian historical revisionism is to compensate forEuropean guilt over past behavior toward the Jews. For example,French journalist Catherine Nay wrote regarding the allegedMuhammad al-Dura killing that the boy’s death “cancels, erasesthat of the Jewish child, his hands in the air before the SS in theWarsaw Ghetto.”

discussion between Islam and the West.The problem is that, thanks to mindless

parroting by journalists and human rights orga-nizations of Palestinian lies and nonsense, ha-tred, anti-Semitism, and ceaseless incitement aregradually overwhelming the filters against anti-realism, particularly in Europe where there arepowerful cultural incentives to think ill of Jewsand wish ill for Israelis. The effects of this pro-cess are seen even more clearly throughout theArab and Muslim worlds where, though free ofJews, anti-Semitism is all-pervasive.

CONCLUSION

An example of the erosion of Western criti-cal filters was the unchallenged appearance ofan opinion piece in The Washington Post in De-cember 2011 that effectively repeated some ofAbbas’s absurd statements regarding the antiq-uity of the Palestinians. Maen Rashid Areikat, thePLO representative to the United Nations, stated


that Palestinians had “lived under the rule of aplethora of empires: the Canaanites, Egyptians,Philistines, Israelites, Persians, Greeks, Crusad-ers, Mongols, Ottomans, and finally, the British.”Throwing history out the window, he added

we are Arabs with black,brown, and white skin,dark- and light-coloredeyes, and the wholegamut of hair types.Like Americans, we area hybrid of peoples de-fined by one overarchingidentity. Many in theUnited States forget thatPalestinians are Mus-lims and Christians.

They ignore the fact that Palestinian Chris-tians are the descendants of Jesus and guard-ians of the cradle of Christianity.18

Palestinians can simultaneously be Arabs,who arrived in the Levant in the seventh centuryC.E., and be more ancient than the Canaanites. Atthe same time, the empires they endured and thatinfused them include everyone except Arab ones,notably the Umayyad and Abbasid, whichbrought Arabs and Islam to the region in the firstplace. The fact-checkers of The Washington Posteditorial page fall mute and shared reality is erodedfurther. Unfortunately this sort of rhetorical non-sense resonates deeply, especially with someChristian supersessionists committed to anti-Zi-onism.19 History no longer matters.

It is often stated that peace can only comewhen Israelis and Palestinians recognize oneanother’s narratives. Claims regarding theNeolithic Palestinian nation indicate this unlikelyto occur either in the future or in the past. In themeantime, anti-reality continues to spread.

18 Maen Rashid Areikat, “Palestine, a history rich and deep,”The Washington Post, Dec. 27, 2011.

Palestinianrhetorical nonsenseresonates deeplywith someChristianscommitted toanti-Zionism.

Temptation EyesWomen with attractive eyes may be forced to cover them up under Saudi Arabia’s latestrepressive measure, it was reported yesterday.

The ultra-conservative Islamic state has said it has the right to stop womenrevealing “tempting” eyes in public.

Women in Saudi Arabia already have to wear a long black cloak, called an abaya,cover their hair and, in some regions, conceal their faces while in public.

One report on the Bikya Masr news website suggested the proposal was madeafter a member of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention ofVice was attracted by a woman’s eyes as he walked along a street, provoking a fight.

The woman was walking with her husband who ended up being stabbed twice inthe hand after the altercation.

The Daily Mail, Apr. 17, 2012

19 David Wenkel, “Palestinians, Jebusites, and Evangelicals,”Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2007, pp. 49-56.

/ 23Bukay: Palestinian Myths

Fabricating Palestinian HistoryFounding National Mythsby David Bukay

The vast literature proving the historic Jewish connection to the Land of Israel hasbeen extensively manipulated and distorted as part of the Palestinian politics ofnationalism. Propaganda, indoctrination, and socialization, both domestically and

internationally, are essential parts of the strategy and tactics of asserting Palestinian na-tionhood and statehood. By appropriating to themselves the values, traditions, and his-torical facts that belong to the Jews, Palestinians have managed to fabricate a “legiti-mate” history and political traditions out of nothing while denying those of Israel.

David Bukay is a lecturer at the School of Politi-cal Science at the University of Haifa.

THE PALESTINIAN NATION-BUILDING STRATEGY

Nation-building often involves the inven-tion of foundation myths although these nor-mally require a certain relationship to historicfacts, however tenuous. Palestinian leaders,under the leadership of Yasser Arafat and hissuccessors, adopted a different tack: stealingthe enemy’s heritage, history, and values, anddenying its legitimacy as a people and a state.The Palestinian objectives are to disqualifyIsrael’s historical standing and to inherit its be-longings by delegitimizing and even dehuman-izing its national identity and personality.

Palestinian tactics are simple yet sophisti-cated: preaching and dispersing lies and distor-tions of reality. History proves that the biggerthe lie and the more common its reiteration, themore it is accepted as authentic and genuine.Moreover, most people are unwilling to acceptthe idea that an entire national leadership woulddare to totally distort and fabricate history infull. Part of the Palestinians’ success in doing so

is also due to the fact that most people do notknow the history of the Land of Israel and ofJerusalem.

USURPINGTHE JEWISH, BIBLICAL,AND CHRISTIAN PASTS

Rewriting the history of the Land of Israelby erasing Jewish history and replacing it with afabricated Palestinian history is a central goal ofthe Palestinian Authority (PA) and somethingthat the early generations of Palestinian leaders,including the notorious Hajj Amin Husseini, wholed the Palestinian Arabs to their 1948 defeat,dared not do. This fictitious history, which ig-nores all historical documentation and estab-lished historical methods, is based on system-atic distortions of both ancient and modern his-tory with the aim of denying Israel’s right to exist.

The Palestinian leaders claim lineage fromancient history, describing the Canaanites as theirdirect ancestors.1 In the words of the PA presi-

1 All references from Palestinian Authority media are taken fromPalestinian Media Watch.


dent Mahmoud Abbas: “We said to him[Netanyahu], when he claimed the Jews have ahistorical right dating back to 3000 years B.C.E.,we say that the nation of Palestine upon the landof Canaan had a 7,000-year history. This is thetruth that must be said: Netanyahu, you are inci-dental in history. We are the people of history.We are the owners of history.”2

According to Palestinian Authority histori-ans, the Palestinian people has been living inPalestine for over seven thousand years.3 An-other claim states that Palestinians were in theland since the beginning of creation.4 Accord-ing to Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, chairman of the Su-preme Islamic Council of the Palestinian Author-ity, Palestinians have roots in this land origi-nating from earlier than 7500 B.C.E.5 Arab vil-

lages have allegedly existed sincethe days of the Canaanites.6 The“Arab” Canaanites supposedlyestablished ports on the coast ofCanaan, known today as Pales-tine, and Jaffa is said to have beenone of the cities whose Canaaniteorigins later invaders failed toerase.7 Overall, the Palestinianpeople claim to be rooted in theregion for thousands of years andlong before Israel.8

According to this argument,some 6,000 years ago, the Pales-tinians of Canaan created a greatcivilization that, like the sun, wasproducing light and shining it onhuman beings as the Islamic reli-gious basis of the world.9 Pales-tinian scholars and media havetouted the claim that the Palestin-ian Arab nation has been rooted inits land for thousands of yearssince the human settlement of the“Arab-Palestinian-Canaanite” cityof Jericho—the oldest city in thehistory of human civilization. In

their claim, the history and heritage of Jerichoconfirm the Arab-Palestinian-Canaanite narrativeconcerning the entire Palestinian land, from thesea to the river, and negate the false Zionist nar-rative. Jericho allegedly proves that the Pales-tinian nation is the most ancient and earliest ofall, whose roots are the most deeply dug intohistory.10

Palestinians also declared themselves tohave been the center of historical events andpeoples found in the Bible in the form of theEdomites, Amorites, Midianites, Amalekites,Ibrahim bin Azar (biblical Abraham), and al-Khadir (Prophet Elijah).11 In the view of the

2 Palestinian al-Fath TV, May 14, 2011.3 Al-Ayyam (Ramallah), Sept. 11, 2006.4 Palestinian al-Fath TV, July 25, 2004.5 Al-Hayat al-Jadida (Ramallah), July 3, 2010.

6 Ibid., Dec. 3, 2010.7 Palestinian al-Fath TV, repeatedly from 2005-07.8 Al-Hayat al-Jadida, Mar. 17, 2009, Dec. 11, 2011.9 Palestinian al-Fath TV, Feb. 20, 2011.10 Al-Hayat al-Jadida, Oct. 21, 2010.11 Ibid., July 8, 2011.

The existence of the “Temple of the Israelites” was ac-knowledged by officials of the Islamic religious en-dowment authority in their publicity materials fromthe 1920s and 1950s, as in this 1925 Brief Guide to al-Haram al-Sharif.

/ 25

Palestinian ambassador to India,Adli Sadeq, to ignore the existenceof the Palestinian people and itsrights reflects a logic that mocksintelligence, culture, and the Bibleitself, in which Palestine and itspeople are mentioned more than 250times.12 Of course, the term Pales-tine appears nowhere in the Bible.The assertion that the Palestiniansare descended from the biblicalJebusites, who, according to theBible, were the original inhabitantsof Jerusalem, has also been fre-quently made.13

To claim that Palestinians arethe original inhabitants of the Landof Israel not only goes against secu-lar history and scientific knowledge,but it also flies in the face of Islamicreligious history. Not only do theIslamic scriptures recognize theunique Jewish claims to the Land ofIsrael, but there is no reference whatsoever toany Palestinian people dwelling on any landcalled Filastin during any part of Islamic his-tory until the twentieth century. The term JundFilastin was used to describe a military districtof the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates andhad no ethnic or national significance until thetwentieth century.

The Qur’an declares that the Jews are thechosen people, exalted among the nations of theworld.14 It clearly declares the Jews (Bani Israil)as the only owners of the Land of Israel, whichis al-Ard al-Muqaddasah; al-Ard al-Mubarakah; Ard Bani Israil (the sacred land;the blessed land; the land of the People of Is-rael), and they are not allowed to leave it, forotherwise they will be punished:15 “It is the prom-ise of God, and God does not go back on his

promise.”16 The Qur’an goes on to acknowledgethat the Jewish first and second kingdoms ex-isted but states that they were punished byGod.17 Arab ownership of Palestine is also criti-cally connected to exegesis on the Qur’anic de-scription of Muhammad’s Night Journey fromMecca to the “furthest mosque,” which is juxta-posed with a verse on the destroyed Temple ofthe Israelites.18 The existence of that temple,however, though it had been acknowledged byofficials of the Islamic religious endowment au-thority (waqf ) in their publicity materials fromthe 1920s and 1950s,19 was famously denied byArafat in an exchange with U.S. president BillClinton.20

Bukay: Palestinian Myths

A Palestinian flag emblazoned with “Jesus.” Not evenJesus’s origin as a Jew is safe from the Palestinianfabrication of their history. While Jesus was certainlyviewed for centuries as a Muslim prophet (along withAbraham and Moses), only recently has he become amodel Palestinian shahid, a martyr to their cause.

12 Ibid., Nov. 18, 2005, Dec. 19, 2011.13 David Wenkel, “Palestinians, Jebusites, and Evangelicals,”Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2007, pp. 49-56.14 Qur: al-Baqarah, 2:47; ad-Dukhan, 44:32.15 Qur: al-Maidah, 5:21; al-A’araf, 7:137; Bani Israil, 17:104.

16 Qur: ar-Rum, 30:6.17 Qur: Bani Israil, 17:104-7.18 Ibid., 17: 1, 7.19 Philip Mattar, “The Role of the Mufti of Jerusalem in thePolitical Struggle over the Western Wall, 1928-1929,” MiddleEastern Studies, Jan. 1983, pp. 104-18; Muhammad Amin al-Husseini, Haqa’ik An Qadiyat Filastin (Cairo: n.p., 1957), pp.115-9.20 See Yitzhak Reiter, Jerusalem and Its Role in Islamic Soli-darity (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 1-2.


Another Palestinian tactic is aimed at co-opt-ing Christianity. For the PA leaders, Jesus is de-fined as a Palestinian who preached Islam, thusdenying not only Jewish history and Christianlegitimacy but also strengthening ancient Pales-

tinian history. Accordingto this narrative, Jesuswas a Muslim prophet,21

like all other Jewish-bornfigures,22 who was bornin Bethlehem, lived inNazareth, and moved toJerusalem.23 Therefore,Jesus the messiah is aPalestinian par excel-lence, the son of Mary the

Palestinian.24 The Virgin Mary, the woman of loveand peace, is of the nation of Palestine, whoseroots are grounded in the depths of history.25

Jesus is a shahid, a holy martyr of Islam, the onlyPalestinian prophet, and the first Palestinianshahid who was tortured in this land.26

DENYING THE JEWISHCONNECTION

In the official Palestinian narrative, the Pal-estinian people are authentic and indigenouswhile it is the Israelis who are the foreigners,invented, and sown in a land that is not theirs.27

According to Nabil Alqam, a PA historian, theIsraeli state concerns itself with cultural theftand with stealing, distorting, and erasing the Pal-estinian heritage, which has a historical depthof 4,000 to 5,000 years. The state of Israel at-

tempts to steal Palestinian symbols and to cre-ate a fake Israeli identity.28 In his book, Jerusa-lem, City of Allah, Yunes Amr, president of theal-Quds Open University, claims to disprove allIsraeli connections and the history of the Jew-ish presence in Palestine, both historically andlinguistically, by exposing the falsification offacts and affirming that the Palestinians are ArabCanaanites indigenous to the land.29

Throughout Palestinian media and education,all Israeli cities and areas are featured as Palestin-ian in origin, including Haifa, Acre, Ashkelon, Jaffa,Safed, Tiberias, Tel Aviv, Nazareth, the Sea of Ga-lilee, Kiryat Shmonah, and the Negev. These arethe “Palestinian homeland” or “occupied Pales-tine.”30 Instilling these assertions and psycho-logical worldview as facts among youth and inthe political arena requires a multilevel process ofsocialization and indoctrination, beginning withthe education system. Reinforcement is constantand all-pervasive: Palestine is continually repre-sented as an area of 27,000 sq km, and an over-whelming Palestinian majority believes this is thetruth.31

The Palestinians also portray Israelis of to-day as having no genetic, religious, cultural, orhistorical connections to the Jews of the past,who are supposed to have disappeared longago. Issam Sissalem of the Islamic University inGaza further claims that the biblical Hebrew tribeswere in fact Bedouin. As such they were Arabtribes, and there is no connection between themand today’s Israeli Jews, who are the descen-dents of Eurasian Khazars who converted toJudaism. The original Hebrew tribes were erasedand ceased to exist, leaving no traces.32 Like-wise, Jarir al-Qudwa, once educational advisorto Arafat, holds that the Israelites of the Biblewere not only Arab tribes but were among the

There has neverbeen any historicalPalestinian state,nor any indigenouspolitical systemand institutions.

21 Qur: al-Imran, 3:51-2; an-Nisa, 4:171; al-Maidah, 5:111.22 Qur: al-Baqarah, 2:127-8, 133; al-Imran, 3:84; Yunus,10:71-2, 84.23 Palestinian al-Fath TV, Apr. 21, 2006; al-Hayat al-Jadida,Mar. 9, Oct. 28, 2006.24 Al-Hayat al-Jadida, Nov. 18, 2005; Palestinian al-Fath TV,May 12, 2009.25 Palvoice.com, Mar. 17, 2010.26 Al-Hayat al-Jadida, June 24, Dec. 11, 2000, June 17, 2005,Oct. 28, 2006, Apr. 30, Nov. 18, 2008; Palestinian al-Fath TV,June 9, Dec. 24, 2009.27 Al-Hayat al-Jadida, Dec. 11, 2011.

28 Palestinian al-Fath TV, Oct. 22, 2009.29 Al-Ayyam, Apr. 7, 2009.30 Palestinian al-Fath TV, Apr. 11, June 14, 24, Sept. 2, Nov.1, 2011; al-Hayat al-Jadida, Jan. 31, June 17, 20, 2011.31 Palestinian al-Fath TV, May 16, June 11, 25, July 5, Aug.12, 13, 19, 2010.32 Ibid., July 25, 2004.

/ 27

purest. Fathi Buzia, a PA politi-cal commentator, argues thatEurope, led by Britain, foundedIsrael, creating and implantinga thieving, fabricated entityupon the Palestinian land, inorder to get rid of Jews athome.33

Israelis are described as re-ligious groups of imposters whowere never Jews but part of aZionist plot to occupy Palestin-ian lands and steal the Palestin-ian identity and cultural heri-tage. This is derided as the great-est crime ever committed againsthumanity with the aim of theJudaization of Palestine.34 Eventhe Hebrew language is said tobe stolen from Palestinian Ara-maic.35 The Israeli state creates“false names” for sites to “erasethe Palestinian facts.” It stealseverything it lays its hands on“by means of terror,” including music, food, cloth-ing, and folk traditions, even falafel and humus.36

All the territory held by the state of Israel is oc-cupied, and the Palestinians will not compromiseon it.37

In the light of this, Palestinian commenta-tors demand that Zionists must acknowledgepublicly before the world that Jews have noconnection to Palestinian Arab land. Zionisthistory is nothing more than invention and fal-sification, constituting a crude form of colo-nialism.38 Zionists are trying to create a fakehistory at the expense of a real Palestinian his-tory so as to steal the history and the culture ofthe Palestinians.39

THE PALESTINIAN“NATION’S” MODERN

FOUNDATIONS

The alleged Zionist process of theft andusurpation is, in fact, precisely the official Pal-estinian policy toward Jewish history.

The paradoxical fact is that Palestinian na-tionalism effectively owes its creation to Zion-ism, the Jewish national movement.40 Stimulatedpartially by the disintegration of the OttomanEmpire and the search for Arab national identi-ties, the main lines of Palestinian nationalism de-veloped during the 1920s and 1930s in reactionto and in contrast with Zionism.

Though Palestinians claim descent from


Instilling the official Palestinian narrative as fact among youthand in the political arena requires a multilevel process ofsocialization and indoctrination, beginning with the educationsystem, in which Palestinian children are told repeatedly thatall the land is theirs and that any claim of a Jewish connectionto it is false.

33 Ibid., June 17, 2009.34 Al-Hayat al-Jadida, Apr. 4, May 26, 2011; Palestinian al-Fath TV, May 23, 2011.35 Palestinian al-Fath TV, Dec. 7, 2010, Feb. 8, July 15,2011; al-Hayat al-Jadida, May 15, July 1, 2011.36 Al-Hayat al-Jadida, Dec. 16, 2010, Apr. 4, May 16, July 5,Dec. 8, 2011; Palestinian al-Fath TV, Dec. 23, 2010.37 Al-Hayat al-Jadida, Aug. 18, 2011.38 Ibid., May 27, 2011.

39 Palestinian al-Fath TV, May 23, 2011.40 Daniel Pipes, “Mirror Image: How the PLO Mimics Zion-ism,” National Interest, Fall 1994; idem, “Mirror Image: Pal-estinians Continue to Mimic Zionism,” DanielPipes.org, Jan.10, 2008.

Photo will not disp

lay.


Canaanites, the fact is that there has never beenany historical Palestinian state, nor any indig-enous political system and institutions. The Landof Israel witnessed many conquerors over thecourse of its history, but in the last two thou-sand years since most of the people of Israelwent into exile—albeit not without leaving anuninterrupted presence in the land—it was notthe home of any indigenous political entity. Notonly has there never been a Palestinian state

and a Palestinian people,but there were no otherpolitical entities besidesthose established by in-vading forces, such asthe crusading stateletsor district capitals cre-ated by Umayyad andAbbasid caliphs.

Most of the popula-tion now known as Pal-estinian descended from

migrants originating from the surrounding Arabcountries and from local Bedouins. Many mi-grated in waves from the middle of the nineteenthcentury to the middle of the twentieth century.Others were imported by the Ottoman Empireand by the British for infrastructure and agricul-tural projects, or migrated to the region follow-ing Zionist economic success, which produceda staggering population growth.41 Palestiniansare perhaps the newest of all peoples, compris-ing many scattered groups. In fact, in origin theyare more Egyptian, Syrian, Jordanian, Lebanese,and mainly Bedouin, than Palestinian.

Perhaps the most conspicuous fact regard-ing the novelty of the Palestinian nation is thatwhen it was within their power, the Arab leadersnever seriously sought to create a Palestinianstate during the 1940s, and after the establish-ment of the State of Israel, from 1948 until 1967,

when the West Bank and Gaza were under Egyp-tian and Jordanian direct rule. Moreover, duringthat time all Arab leaders referred to the Palestin-ian issue as a refugee problem. They did not callfor the creation of a Palestinian state for the Pal-estinian nation. Even after the 1967 Six-Day War,United Nations Resolution 242 of November 22,1967, mentions only “refugees,” not even “Arabrefugees”—let alone a Palestinian people and aPalestinian state.42 Calls in earnest for a Palestin-ian state did not begin in the United Nations orelsewhere until the late 1960s or the early 1970s.43

Even today, as all Arab states pay lip ser-vice to the idea of a Palestinian state, and Pales-tinian leaders are treated as equals by their Arabcounterparts, it is far from clear that a Palestinianstate is a real priority. If the Palestinians are apeople today, they are indeed a new invention.However, do they deserve a state? Establishmentof a Palestinian state would rightly open the flood-gates for the creation of numerous states basedon both new and old national identities. The Kurdsand the Berbers, for example, have lived for cen-turies in the Middle East. They are distinct andancient peoples that were not invented in the fulllight of history, but unfortunately, their existencedoes not translate automatically into statehood.If it did, such a process of granting statehood toall peoples would begin to unravel the fabric ofthe modern Arab world. Arab leaders, especiallyunder pressure from the Arab upheavals of 2011show no enthusiasm for this.

WHAT DOPALESTINIANS WANT?

The important question is what Palestiniansreally want. What are the Palestinians’ politicalobjectives, and how do they wish to realizethem? All their leaders’ declarations and poli-cies clearly show that they have never moder-ated their primary objective, which is to eliminate

41 See, for example, Efraim Karsh, Palestine Betrayed (NewHaven: Yale University Press, 2010), pp. 2-16; Fred M. Got-theil, “The Smoking Gun: Arab Immigration into Palestine,1922-1931,” Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2003, pp. 53-64;Arieh L. Avneri, The Claim of Dispossession, Jewish LandSettlement and the Arabs, 1878-1948 (Edison, N.J.: Transac-tion Publishers, 1982), pp. 162-80.

There is noPalestinianlanguage, dialect,or culture distinctfrom those ofsurroundingArabs.

42 U.N .Security Council, “Resolution 242 of November 22,1967.”43 See, for example, “10 Point Program,” Palestine NationalCouncil, Cairo, June 8, 1974.

/ 29

the State of Israel. Fromthe Abadan (“never”)rhetoric of the 1920sthrough 1948 to Arafat’s“phased strategy,”adopted at the June1974 Palestinian Na-tional Congress,44 Pal-estinians still lay claimto a land “from the riverto the sea.” Palestiniansappear unwilling tocompromise, to recog-nize Israel as a Jewishstate, or to accept anIsraeli state on any ter-ritory they call Filastin.

It is also evidentthat Palestinian politi-cal evolution is closelytied to Israel’s territo-rial and political devel-opment in two continu-ous phases. The firstemerged after Israel’sindependence in 1948and differentiated thePalestinians as a social group of Arab refugees,also called “Palestine Arabs,” and lacking ob-vious cultural, social, or political characteris-tics that distinguished them from their Arab kin,who largely reviled them. The second phasedeveloped after the 1967 Six-Day War; Pales-tinians then became a political group seekingto develop a national identity during the pe-riod of global anti-imperial and anti-colonial fer-ment. But even as a Palestinian national iden-tity has been developed and marketed, it is over-whelmingly founded on the negation of its ri-val, namely Jewish and Israeli identity, ratherthan on positive attributes or real history.

Given this, how have Palestinians been sosuccessful in disseminating their message in theinternational arena? What brings them the over-


whelming political and financial support at theexpense of so many nations and other peoples,such as the Kurds and the Berbers, who are de-nied the chance to establish a state?45

Part of the answer is perhaps the Palestin-ians’ sophisticated ploy of telling all playerswhat they want to hear. In the internationalarena, the Palestinians emphasize the ideolo-gies of post-colonialism, post-modernism, andmulticulturalism. They depict themselves as thevictims of colonial Zionism that has stolen theirland and express the wish to establish Pales-tine as a small or even a multicultural state.46 InEurope, where there is a high level of guilt and

44 “Political Program for the Present Stage Drawn up by the12th PNC, Cairo, June 9, 1974,” Journal of Palestine Studies,Summer 1974, pp. 224-5.

45 James Minehan, Nations without States (Westport: Green-wood Press, 1996), index.46 Hanan Ashrawi, Palestinian legislator, al-Hayat al-Jadidah,Dec. 27, 2011; Issa Karake, minister of prisoners’ affairs, al-Hayat al-Jadidah, Nov. 24, 2011; Bassam Eid, “Can a Bi-National State Be a Solution to the Middle East Conflict,”Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, Jerusalem, 2009.

According to Sheikh Ikrima Sabri (center), chairman of the SupremeIslamic Council of the Palestinian Authority, Palestinians have rootsin Palestine originating from earlier than 7500 B.C.E. He has frequentlywarned against “Judaizing” Jerusalem, claiming that there is noevidence of ancient Jewish habitation in the city, in contradiction toearlier acknowledgments by officials of the Islamic religiousendowment authority.


remorse about its own colonialist past, the Pal-estinians depict Israel as the last remnant ofthe bygone European colonialist era and di-rectly blame Europe for the creation of the Jew-ish state.47 Israel is accused of occupying theland that belongs solely to the Palestinianpeople, and worse, Israel is accused of perpetu-ating Nazi methods and committing genocideagainst the Palestinians.48 These Palestinian ac-cusations are supported by European intellec-

tuals and leftists who feelremorse about the colo-nial era and who do notwish to be reminded anyfurther about the Naziatrocities.

In the United States,where many feel guilt andremorse over historic rac-ism, the Palestinians de-pict Israel as a raciststate, which treats themin the same way as Afri-can Americans were

treated.49 For human rights organizations, Israelis a cruel occupier that violates all human rightsand freedoms of the Palestinians.50 In worldpublic opinion, Israel is depicted as an oppres-sive society that perpetuates systematic exter-

47 Fayez A. Sayegh, “Zionist Colonialism in Palestine,”Research Center Palestine Liberation Organization, Beirut, Sept.1965; Gilbert Achcar, “The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives,”Open Democracy, London, Apr. 19, 2010.48 See, for example, Marwan Bishara, Palestine/Israel: Peace orApartheid. Occupation, Terrorism and the Future (London: ZedPress, 2003); Ziyad Abu Ein, Palestinian Authority deputy min-ister of prisoners’ affairs, interview, Palestinian Fatah TV, Oct. 6,2011; al-Hayat al-Jadidah, Apr. 17, July 5, Oct. 3, 2011.49 See, for example, Occupation, Colonialism, Apartheid? Are-assessment of Israel’s practices in the occupied Palestinianterritories under international law (Cape Town: Human Sci-ences Research Council of South Africa, 2009); Jamal Dajani,“Israel: Occupation or Apartheid?” The Huffington Post (NewYork), Feb. 5, 2010; Uri Davis, Israel: An Apartheid State(London: Zed Books, 2002), pp. 55, 61.50 See, for example, “Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territo-ries: The 2011 Report,” Amnesty International, New York,accessed Mar. 12, 2012; “Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territo-ries, Events of 2009,” World Report 2010, Human Rights Watch,New York, accessed Mar. 12, 2012.

mination and ethnic cleansing.51 And to Pales-tinians and other Muslims, the prospect of aPalestinian state is represented as the creationof another proud Arab or pious Muslim state.

The question remains why the interna-tional community accepts the Palestinians’claims regarding their fabricated past and thecorresponding negation of the Jews. Oil, igno-rance, anti-Semitism, and a politically correctunwillingness to offer any challenge to suchfalsehoods, all play a role. Still, it is difficult torecall a time in modern history when one groupof people openly expressed such visceral ani-mosity and hatred and declared its eagernessto eliminate a neighboring state and its peoplewhile the international arena ignored and, infact, enabled and legitimized it.

CONCLUSION

Palestinian Arabs, as opposed to Arabic-speaking residents, have not been in the areawest of the Jordan River from the Islamic occu-pation, from the Ottoman Empire, or even fromBritish rule since 1917. No Palestinian state hasever existed, and so, no Palestinian people hasever been robbed of its land. There is no lan-guage or dialect known as Palestinian; there isno Palestinian culture distinct from that of sur-rounding Arab ones; and there has never been aland known as Palestine governed by Palestin-ians at any time in history. For these reasons,Palestinians have been driven to fabricate a pastby denying and expropriating that of Jews andIsrael.

Only after the Palestinian leadership comesto terms with Israel’s legitimacy and recognizesit as a Jewish state can one begin discussing theemergence of a Palestinian state that lives inpeace beside the State of Israel.

Only after thePalestinianleadership comesto terms withIsrael’s legitimacycan one begindiscussing theemergence of aPalestinian state.

51 See, for example, Ha’aretz (Tel Aviv), Oct. 31, 2009; InterPress Service (Rome), Mar. 23, 2011; Asia News (Bangkok),Mar. 22, 2011.

/ 31Bartal: Silwan

Fabricating Palestinian HistoryThe Battle over Silwan

by Shaul Bartal

On August 26, 2010, a violent clash broke out between Jewish and Arab resi-dents of Silwan, a predominantly Muslim village outside the southern end of thewalled Old City of Jerusalem. The name derives from the biblical “Shiloah”1

and its subsequently Graecized “Siloam.”2

On the face of it, the sparring that erupted over a gate built illegally by Arab resi-dents3 may seem like a miniature version of the ongoing conflict between Israelis andPalestinians over who controls the Holy Land. But reducing the struggle to a mere realestate dispute misses a critical point in understanding the persistence of the larger con-flict. For the battle of Silwan is a microcosm of a larger fight, one in which one side, thePalestinian, seeks to erase the existence of the other—not merely through traditionalarmed conflict but also by rewriting history.

Shaul Bartal is a lecturer on Palestinian affairs atBar Ilan University and author of The FedayeenEmerge, The Palestine-Israel Conflict, 1949-1956(Bloomington: Authorhouse, 2011).

ERASING THE PAST

The tactic of denying a Jewish past to sitesand holy places in the Land of Israel is of rela-tively recent vintage in the Arab-Israeli conflictbut one that has increased dramatically in the pastfew years.

Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, where both theFirst and Second Temples stood for some eighthundred years in total, now holds the Dome of theRock, al-Aqsa Mosque, and the undergroundSolomon’s Stables mosque. Both in 1925 and againin 1950, Palestine’s Supreme Muslim Council un-equivocally recognized the Jewish connection tothe Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary; i.e.,Temple Mount), describing it as a holy site forJews in its self-published A Brief Guide to al-Haram al-Sharif:

Its identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple

is beyond dispute. This, too, is the spot, ac-cording to universal belief, on which “Davidbuilt there an altar unto the Lord.”4

By the mid 1950s, this admission had beenexpunged, and by 2001, the chief Muslim clericof the Palestinian Authority (PA), the Jerusalemmufti Ikrima Sabri, was able to state,

There is not [even] the smallest indication ofthe existence of a Jewish temple on this placein the past. In the whole city, there is noteven a single stone indicating Jewish history.Our [Muslim] right, on the other hand, is veryclear. This place belongs to us for 1,500 years.5

The Western Wall, until recently the only vis-ible remnant of the Temple complex and the placeat which Jews have prayed for millennia, has been

1 Isa 8:6; Neh 3:15.2 John 9:7, 11.3 The Jerusalem Post, Aug. 27, 2010.4 “A Brief Guide to Haram al-Sharif,” Supreme Moslem Coun-cil, Jerusalem, 1925.5 Die Welt (Hamburg), Middle East Media Research Institute(MEMRI), Washington, D.C., trans., Special Dispatch, no.182, Jan. 26, 2001.


similarly transformed. Muslims have renamed it theWall of al-Buraq after the tethering place of thehorse on which the prophet Muhammad is reputedto have taken his night flight to Jerusalem.6 Pales-tinians continue to deny a Jewish connection de-spite the likelihood that the Ottoman sultanSuleiman the Magnificent (r. 1520-66) reaffirmedJewish rights to worship at the wall,7 or that three

centuries later, the Mus-lim ruler Ibrahim Pasha(son of Egypt’s viceroyMuhammad Ali) issued adecree regarding the sitethat allowed Jews “to payvisits to it as of old.”8

Even the Tomb ofRachel in Bethlehem hascome under assault. Forcenturies a pilgrimage site,especially for barren Jew-ish women, it is mentioned

by the twelfth century Arab historian, al-Idrisi, andbecame a site of veneration for Muslims as well,known as “Kubat Rahil.” In 1615, Jews were givenexclusive rights to the tomb by their Muslim ruler,and again, in 1830, the Ottomans recognized thelegal rights of the Jews to the site. Sir MosesMontefiore was permitted to purchase the site in1841, at which time he restored the tomb and addeda small prayer hall for Muslims.9 Since 1996, how-ever, Palestinians have taken to calling it the “BilalBin Rabah Mosque” claiming it as the burial placeof Muhammad’s first servant10 although there arecenturies-old sites in Damascus11 and Jordan that

have long-made that claim. In 2010, the heavilypoliticized organization, UNESCO, joined theMuslim deniers and demanded that Israel removethe grave from its National Heritage List andcede control of it to the Palestinians.12

The ultimate goal of the Palestinians andtheir allies is to advance the idea that Jerusalemin general, and neighborhoods like Silwan inparticular, have no Jewish ties. Archeologicalremnants found in Jerusalem are thus presentedas either Canaanite or Muslim. As argued byNazami Amin al-Ju’beh, chair of Bir ZeitUniversity’s history department,

We do not agree with the biblical version, ac-cording to which there was a tremendous king-dom or the capital of a tremendous kingdom.No castle has been uncovered and no rem-nants have been found of the First Temple,the one that was supposedly built in the pe-riod of Solomon that would testify to thissize … The Hebrews reached Jerusalem inthe first century B.C.E. and their sovereigntyover Jerusalem was only for a short time …Up until today, it is impossible to point toany characteristics in Jerusalem that can beattributed historically to this period. There isno historical characteristic that is related inthis manner to a Hebrew culture.13

Arab spokespersons from across the politi-cal spectrum and from many different fields workenthusiastically to negate every archeologicalclaim that recognizes a link to the Jewish peoplefrom the First or Second Temple periods. Thissentiment is echoed across the Palestinian spec-trum, including popular outlets on television andin newspapers. For example, Yunes Amr, presi-dent of al-Quds Open University, pointed outthe inaccuracy of the widespread view that thePalestinians originated with a group of peoplewho emigrated from the Greek Isles and settledin Palestine, claiming instead that the Palestin-

6 See Daniel Pipes, “If I Forget Thee: Does Jerusalem ReallyMatter to Islam?” The New Republic, Apr. 28, 1997.7 Rivka Gonen, Contested Holiness (Jersey City: KTAV Pub-lishing House, 2003), pp. 135–7.8 Eliel Löfgren, Charles Barde, and J. Van Kempen, “Report ofthe Commission appointed by His Majesty’s Government inthe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, withthe approval of the Council of the League of Nations, to deter-mine the rights and claims of Moslems and Jews in connectionwith the Western or Wailing Wall at Jerusalem,” Dec. 1930,UNISPAL doc A/7057-S/8427, Feb. 23, 1968.9 YNet News (Tel Aviv), Nov. 3, 2010.10 Nadav Shragai, “Rachel’s Tomb, a Jewish Holy Place, WasNever a Mosque,” The Jerusalem Center for Public and StateAffairs, Nov.-Dec. 2010.11 “Tomb of Bilal,” IslamicLandmarks.com, accessed Mar.12, 2012.

The Ottomansultan Suleimanthe Magnificentaffirmed Jewishrights to worshipat the WesternWall in the16th century.

12 “The Two Palestinian Sites of al-Haram al-Ibrahimi/Tombof the Patriarchs in al-Khalil/Hebron and the Bilal Bin RabahMosque/Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem,” 184 EX/37, UnitedNations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, Paris,Mar. 19, 2010.13 Fatah TV, Feb. 27, 2009.

/ 33

ians are Arab Canaanitesindigenous to this land.14

On another occasion,he stated

They dug the WesternWall tunnel ... and at theheart of the tunnel, theyinaugurated a new syna-gogue, the closest—ac-cording to their illusion—to the holy of holies ofthe alleged temple.15

Yasser Arafat arguedat the Camp David nego-tiations in July 2000 thatthe Jewish temple was noton the Temple Mount,claiming that the Qur’anproved that the temple wasnot even in Palestine.16

This method of eras-ing the Jews from Jerusa-lem is very popular in Pal-estinian academia,17 with PA officials,18 and reli-gious leaders19—and has infected an entire gen-eration of Muslims, both inside and outside thestate of Israel.

SILWAN ANDTHE CITY OF DAVID

Despite these strident falsifications, thereis no doubt that the Jewish people were estab-lished in Palestine long before the land bore

that name. In fact, the town of Silwan is, tosome degree, the epicenter of that long history,perhaps explaining the ferocity of the currentuproar.

Many people incorrectly assume that whatis today termed the “Old City” of Jerusalem isidentical to the city taken by King David fromthe Jebusites (a Canaanite tribe) sometime inthe eleventh century B.C.E. and subsequentlyturned into the capital of the united Israelitekingdom. Actually, there is abundant and grow-ing evidence that the “City of David” was out-side the present walls of Jerusalem, built on arocky promontory that is now part of the vil-lage of Silwan. Excavations by European ar-cheologists in the nineteenth century, and ac-celerating since the Israeli recapture of Jerusa-lem in 1967, have revealed ancient and mas-sive structures that were the original Jerusa-lem. Recent finds of seals and bullae (pieces ofclay stamped with seal impressions) with He-brew text, including at least two with the namesof royal officials mentioned in the book ofJeremiah, have led archeologist Eilat Mazar toargue that parts of the site were the palaces of

Bartal: Silwan

Notwithstanding Palestinian denials of the Jewish roots of Silwan,they are much in evidence to the casual observer as can be seenhere where Arab homes are literally built atop ancient Jewishtombs carved into the limestone hillside.

14 Al-Ayyam (Ramallah), Apr. 7, 2009.15 Palestinian Authority TV, May 1, 2009.16 Sari Nusseibeh and Anthony David, Hayo Hayta Aretz (TelAviv: Schocken Publishing House, 2008), p. 312.17 Marwan Abu Khalaf, Archaeological Center of al-Quds Uni-versity, Jerusalem, interview, Palestinian Fatah TV, Feb. 27,2009; Yonas Amar, Open al-Quds University, interview, al-Ayyam, Apr. 7, 2009; Hasan Sana-Allah, Center for ModernResearch, Jerusalem, al-Ayyam, Apr. 28, 2009.18 Mahmoud al-Habash, Palestinian Authority agriculturalminister, Palestinian Fatah TV, Apr. 16, 2009.19 Tayseer Rajab al-Tamimi, chairman, High Council of theShari‘a Court, al-Hayat al-Jadida, Mar. 2, 17, 2009.


the Davidic and Judean kings.20

Both the City of David and the previousJebusite stronghold had been watered by thenearby spring of Gihon, still a reliable source ofwater for the area. Even in ancient times, a chan-nel had been cut to a man-made pool in order tostore water during periods of drought; this wasthe “Shelah (sent) Pool to the King’s Garden”mentioned in Nehemiah, 3, 15. In response tothe threat of siege by the Assyrian kingSennacherib, an older, open-air aqueduct wasplugged and a tunnel carved through the bed-rock from the spring to the pool by KingHezekiah (c. 715-686 B.C.E.).21 A Hebrew inscrip-tion testifying to this ancient engineering mar-vel was discovered in the late nineteenth cen-tury and is now housed in the Istanbul Mu-seum.22 The central area of the modern town ofSilwan appears to have been built atop thenearby necropolis of Judea’s elite as attested toby roughly fifty tombs found in the area.

After the destruction of the First Temple in

586 B.C.E. and the return of the Judeanexiles, the city grew significantly butthe renamed Siloam and its environswere still integrally connected to it.Massive steps leading up to the Sec-ond Temple from the Shiloah (Siloam,Silwan), the powerful spring outsidethe city walls, have been excavated.Josephus, the first-century Jewish his-torian, mentions Siloam frequently,making a connection between the mightof the spring and the destruction ofthe Second Temple. According to him,before the coming of Titus, the watersof the Shiloah and the rest of thesprings close to the city decreased.But, at the time of Titus, the spring pro-

vided enough water to quench the thirst of theenemies of the Jews. The same phenomenonoccurred before the destruction of the FirstTemple by the Babylonians, and Josephus usedit in his attempt to convince the residents ofJerusalem to surrender.23

The story of Jesus and the blind man24

made the Pool of Siloam a pilgrimage site in theByzantine period, and the Gihon spring was atsome point renamed the “Fountain of the Vir-gin.” The Church of Siloam as well as the City ofDavid/Wadi Hilweh section were insideJerusalem’s walls during the Byzantine period.Meanwhile, hermits and monks took over thetombs outside the walls and lived there, addingan additional layer of significance to the site forChristians. Remains of a church dating to thefifth century C.E. were uncovered at the City ofDavid excavations by modern archeologists.25

A map from 1917 still shows a church close tothe pool, a structure that was likely convertedinto the so-called Mosque of the Spring thatwas the subject of the fight mentioned earlier.

20 The New York Times, Aug. 5, 2005.21 II Kgs 20, 20; 2 Chron, 32, 3-4.22 Eyal Davidson, Yerushalaim Mikol Makom (Petach Tikva:Datiyur Publisher, 2003), pp. 30-1; Alon De Groot, “JerusalemWaterfalls in the Days of the First Temple,” Aidan, Jerusalem,15, 1991, pp. 124-34; Roni Reich and Ali Shukrun, “The NewExcavations in the City of David,” in Avraham Faust and EyalBaruch, eds., New Development in Jerusalem Studies, the ThirdCongress (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 2008), pp. 3-8.

23 Yosef ben Matityahu (Josephus Titus Flavius), ToldotMilhemet Ha-Yehudim Im Ha-Romaim (Tel-Aviv: Modan Pub-lishing House, 1996), book 5, p. 298.24 John 9:7, 11.25 “City of David,” Conservation Dept., Israel AuthoritiesAntiquities, Jerusalem, accessed Mar. 12, 2012.

The “Hezekiah inscription” from the Siloam tunneltestifies to the antiquity of Silwan and its Jewishroots. The carving commemorates the joining of twosides of a tunnel that helped bring water to Jerusalemand is mentioned in II Kings and II Chronicles.

/ 35

In 638 C.E., Muslim armies under Umar ibnal-Khattab captured Jerusalem. While no signifi-cant remains dating to the early Islamic periodhave been discovered in the City of David exca-vations, the area appears to have become a Mus-lim township. Though present-day locals spintales of the village having been established as“Khan Silowna” by this conquering caliph,26 theearliest reference by a Muslim author seems tobe from Muhammad al-Muqaddasi’s Ahsan at-Taqasim fi Ma’rifat al-Aqalim (The Best Waysto Know Geographical Places). Muqaddasi (945-1000 C.E.), a Jerusalemite, wrote:

The village of Sulwan is a place on the out-skirts of the city. Below the village is theAin Sulwan [Spring of Siloam], of fairly goodwater, which irrigates the large gardens whichwere given in bequest [waqf] by the caliphOthman ibn Affan for the poor of the city.Lower down than this, again, is Job’s Well[Bir Ayyub]. It is said that on the Night ofArafat the water of the holy well Zamzam,at Makkah [Mecca], comes underground tothe water of the Spring [of Siloam]. Thepeople hold a festival here on that evening.27

Othman (or Uthman) ibn Affan (579-656 C.E.)succeeded Umar as the third of the “rightly-guided caliphs,” a term bestowed by Sunni Mus-lims on the immediate successors to Muham-mad indicating a veneration of their actions andstatements, which has tremendous significanceto the modern-day conflict as does the legendrecorded by Muqaddasi.

Silwan’s fortunes seesawed over time. TheMuslim biographer and geographer, Yaqut al-Hamawi, wrote in 1225 that “in his day there wasa considerable suburb of the city at Sulwan and

gardens,”28 but less than a century later, the au-thor of the Marasid, a geographical dictionarywritten around 1300 C.E., stated that “the gar-dens had all disappeared, that the water ofSulwan was no longer sweet, and that the build-ings were all in ruin.”29

Closer to modern times, Israeli geographerMenashe Harel relatesthat in the mid-1850s, thevillagers of Silwan werepaid £100 annually byJerusalem’s Jews in aneffort to prevent the des-ecration of nearby graveson the Mount of Olives.30

This fraught relationshipbetween the two commu-nities took a new turn latein the century with thearrival of Yemenite Jews into the town. Inspiredby a messianic desire to return to the land of theirforefathers, between 1881 and 1882, a group ofpenniless Yemenite Jews came to Jerusalem. Thelong-time Jewish inhabitants of the city initiallyrejected their coreligionists but eventually builthomes for them in the Silwan area, creating aneighborhood that became known as KfarHashiloah (Shiloah Village) and the “YemeniteVillage.”31

During the pogroms of 1921 and 1929, thesehomes were attacked by Arab neighbors, and in1939, at the end of the three-year Great Revoltagainst the British mandatory authorities, theYemenite Jews of Silwan were evacuated, theirhomes soon occupied without compensation bythe neighboring villagers. Thus, both the areaof the City of David and the neighboring townof Silwan had no Jewish residents until 1967.

Bartal: Silwan

No significantremains dating tothe early Islamicperiod have beendiscovered in theCity of Davidexcavations.

26 Jeffrey Yas, “(Re)designing the City of David: Landscape,Narrative and Archaeology in Silwan,” The Jerusalem Quar-terly, Winter 2000.27 Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Muqaddasi, Ahsan at-Taqasim fiMa’rifat al-Aqalim (Leyden: E. J. Brill, 1967), p. 171; Guy leStrange, Palestine under the Moslems: A Description of Syriaand the Holy Land from A.D. 650 to 1500 (London: AlexanderP. Watt for the Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund,1890), p. 221.

28 Yakut Ibn Abdullah ar-Rumi al-Hamawi, Mu’jam al-Buldan(Leyden: E. J. Brill, 1959), vol. 3, pp. 125, 761; Strange,Palestine under the Moslems, p. 221.29 Safi ad-Din Abd al-Mu’min Abd al-Haqq al-Baghdadi,Marasid al-Ittila ala Asma al-Amkina wa al-Biqa (Beirut: Daral-Ma’rifa, 1954), vol. 2, p. 296; Strange, Palestine under theMoslems, p. 222.30 Menashe Harel, Golden Jerusalem (Jerusalem: Gefen Pub-lishing House Ltd., 2004), p. 244.31 Tamar Wisemon, “Streetwise: Yemenite Steps,” The Jerusa-lem Post Magazine, Feb. 28, 2008.


THE KING’S GARDEN

The City of David and the bulk of the vil-lage of Silwan are built on two opposing slopesof the Judean hills through which runs theKidron Valley, named after the stream or wadithat flows through it to the Dead Sea; the Gihonspring essentially derives its water from the samesource. As a result, this valley has since antiq-uity been more lush and better able to sustainagriculture than the limestone hills of the region.Known as “the King’s Garden” in the Bible,32 itis said to be the source of inspiration for versesin Ecclesiastes (“I made me gardens and parks,and I planted in them trees of all kinds of fruit.”33)and the Song of Songs, both traditionally as-cribed to David’s heir, King Solomon.

Regardless of who originally cultivated thearea (and it is likely that the pre-Israelite Jebusitesalso took advantage of its verdure), under Otto-man, British, Jordanian, and Israeli control, thearea was effectively left green. Since Israel re-united the eastern and western halves of thecity, and as Jerusalem has grown in population,

Muslim residents havemoved illegally into “theKing’s Garden” and prac-tically erased its lushcharacter.

On March 2, 2010,the Jerusalem Develop-ment Authority (JDA), ajoint government-mu-nicipal corporation underthe authority of the Min-ister of Finance, the Min-ister for Jerusalem Af-fairs, and the city’s

mayor, presented a plan to rehabilitate the King’sGarden and provide needed infrastructure andother amenities to central Silwan. According tothe JDA’s promotional brochure,

The neighborhood of Silwan lacks adequateplanning. This led to a situation in which theneighborhood lacks infrastructure on all lev-els: educational facilities, roads, sidewalks,community facilities, open recreationalspaces, electricity, water, parking, and more… Under Ottoman, British, Jordanian, andIsraeli control, the [King’s Garden] area wasalways zoned and preserved as a park. In thepast fifty years, about 700 Muslim residentshave moved into the area illegally. Becausecurrent zoning still defines the area as a park,there is a similar lack of adequate infrastruc-ture in the King’s Garden.34

The pamphlet continues:

up until 1967, the garden contained only fourstructures on its southern side. However, thelaying of sewage pipes triggered the develop-ment of massive, illegal construction in thearea. Currently, there are eighty-eight struc-tures inside the garden area, all of which werebuilt without building permits on an area thathad been preserved as a garden [for] thou-sands of years.

The Silwan project would extend the bound-aries of the City of David National Park,35 andaccording to the project’s plans, twenty-two outof eighty-eight illegally built houses are slatedfor destruction. Compensation would be givento the evicted families plus additional aid to helpthem legally rebuild their homes elsewhere inSilwan.36 The rest of the existing houses in thearea would be approved retroactively and legalproceedings against them dropped.

Thus, a park catering to both residents andtourists would be built, providing an economicstimulus for the entire neighborhood. Addition-ally, according to the planners,

Currently, no public center serves the resi-

32 II Kgs 25:4; Jer. 52:7; Neh 3:15.33 Eccles 2:5.

If a caliphdedicated Silwanas a Muslimwaqf, no Muslimcan change thatfact without beingcharged as anunbeliever.

34 “A Comprehensive Plan for Silwan: Development for Resi-dents, Visitors and Tourists,” Jerusalem Development Author-ity, p. 6, accessed Mar. 12, 2012.35 “Launch of the King’s Garden Plan,” The Jerusalem Devel-opment Authority and the City of Jerusalem, Mar. 2, 2010.36 Ha’aretz (Tel Aviv), June 30, 2010.

/ 37

dents of Silwan or surrounding villages suchas Abu Tor and Ras el-Amood with after-school programs, a library, senior citizen pro-grams, kindergartens, infant care center, or apublic swimming pool. The residents lackaccess to these vital services provided to resi-dents in other parts of the city.

The SCC [Silwan Community Center] willalso focus on providing for the children ofSilwan with a brand new infant care center… a day care center, and seven classroomsfor extracurricular programming. …

For the growing senior citizen population,the SCC will have a special wing devoted tosenior citizen programming ... The roof ofthe SCC will have several public sportscourts and a promenade looking out towardthe Old City and Temple Mount.37

This planned project has stirred upIslamic and Palestinian organizations work-ing in Jerusalem, along with other groupsthat have come out against this move bythe Israeli authorities. The mayor’s officesought to reach compromises with area resi-dents including offering those Arabs whosehouses are to be demolished first crack at oper-ating tourist-related business in the park.38 De-spite this, under pressure from the Obama ad-ministration and at the urging of Prime Minis-ter Netanyahu, Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat soonannounced that he would delay the plan’simplementation.

The complaints against the project, how-ever, include not only legitimate grievancesabout the destruction of (illegally built) homesand the removal of the residents to anotherarea. Coupled with these criticisms are objec-tions against the biblical and historical narra-tive that stands at the foundation of the planas well as a religious imperative with no roomfor compromise.

“MOST IMPORTANTPLACE IN AL-QUDS”

Notwithstanding Mayor Barkat’s temporarysuspension, Palestinian opponents continuedtheir fight against the plan. Al-Quds (Jerusalem)Foundation for Development—a nonprofit or-ganization partnering with leaders from the Is-raeli Arab Islamic Movement such as SheikhRaed Salah and al-Bustan Neighborhood Com-mittee—distributed an alternate community-based plan a month later in which not a singlehome would be evacuated or destroyed.39

While acknowledging that the houses in theKing’s Garden/al-Bustan neighborhood werebuilt illegally, the authors upped the ante byclaiming that the garden’s residents were actu-ally refugees from the 1948 war who had origi-

Bartal: Silwan

When this picture was taken in 1901, Silwan wasa small village on the eastern slopes facingJerusalem. The King’s Garden was still verdantand essentially uninhabited. In the past fifty years,about 700 Muslim residents have moved into thearea illegally.

37 “A Comprehensive Plan for Silwan, p. 20.38 Ha’aretz, Mar. 2, 2010.

39 Silwan … Siraa Bekaa Wawagud, al-Quds Foundation forDevelopment and the al-Bustan Neighborhood Committee,Silwan, Jerusalem, Apr. 2010, pp. 1-3, 7-19.


The City of David and the bulk of the village of Silwan are built on two opposing slopes of the Judeanhills through which runs the Kidron Valley, named after the stream or wadi that flows through it to theDead Sea. As this map shows, the City of David is a considerable distance from al-Aqsa Mosque.

Al-Aqsa MosqueCity of David

/ 39

nally been forced to move to the Ma’aleh Adumimarea, west of Jerusalem. There they lived untilthey were forced to leave in 1967 to make wayfor the building of the city of Ma’aleh Adumim.They then settled in the Silwan area, and overthe years, built their homes in al-Bustan withoutpermission from the authorities. If the King’s Gar-den plan were to move forward, this would be, intheir telling, their third expulsion.

Setting aside questions of historicity of thatclaim, the pamphlet goes on to detail the Pales-tinian narrative of the place in question. Underthe subhead “Silwan Is the Most Important Placein Al-Quds which Was Dedicated by the ThirdCaliph, Uthman ibn Affan, the Righteous,” itmaintains that

In the city is a well-known spring known as“Silwan’s Fountain” which is connected tothe history of the city of Jerusalem. This wa-ter source was already established during theCanaanite period. The water was transportedin sluices that were built by the Jebusites[the original builders of Jerusalem], and to-day there still exist archaeological remainsshowing the existence [of this water system]… The spring waters were the water supplyfor the residents of the city during theCanaanite period. Canaanite Jerusalem wasdependent on the spring waters up until theByzantine period. During Herod’s reign, hebuilt a portion of the spring’s water pool, andthis portion of the spring’s waters was enoughfor him. During the early Islamic period, theMuslims took care of Silwan’s Fountain andthe Third Righteous Caliph, Uthman ibnAffan, expanded the spring and renewed itand dedicated Islamic dervishes to it in thetemple. From this period, Silwan’s Fountainand the land around was defined as belongingto the Islamic waqf.40

With a slight nod to the universally reviledKing Herod (74-3, 4 B.C.E.), the committee ex-punges all other ties Silwan has to Jewish historybut significantly stresses the connection betweenthe village, the waqf, and Caliph Uthman.

The word waqf used above has two inter-

Bartal: Silwan

connected meanings. It is both a Muslim reli-gious endowment and a body that manages andoversees the endowment. The basic regulationsgoverning waqf trusts are interpreted by Shari‘alaw, but in essence, waqf property is absolutelypermanent, and once established, the contractcannot be altered or the property sold. Further-more, by linking the establishment of Silwan aswaqf to Uthman, its existence as an everlastingMuslim inheritance is made all the more invio-lable. Uthman as well as the three other Righ-teous Caliphs were companions of Muhammad,so close to him in Muslim telling that their deedsand words are to be emulated almost as much asMuhammad’s himself. If Caliph Uthman dedi-cated Silwan as a Muslim waqf, no Muslim canchange that fact without being charged as anunbeliever.41

This theme is expanded upon in the pam-phlet when the authors write,

During the second conquest of Jerusalem, [dur-ing the period of Salah ad-Din (Saladin)] Yusufibn Ayyub [i.e., Saladin] came and dedicatedthe village inside of which was the Spring tomadrassa [Islamic religious school] as-Salihiyya, and he re-turned and renewed thevillage and the spring asa whole Islamic waqf.This area was part ofthe Islamic waqf for thethousands of years thatpassed since the con-quering of Salah ad-Din.The spring is still un-der the supervision ofthe waqf and is a sourceof income for the waqf.The listing of the area as waqf was acceptedonly at the beginning of the nineteenth cen-tury. The listing includes all of the incomefrom every part of the land that is found inSilwan including the spring that is found inthe village.42

Al-QudsFoundation hasalleged an Israeliplot to replaceal-Aqsa Mosquewith a thirdtemple.

40 Ibid., p. 5.

41 Ephraim Herrera and Gideon Kressel, Jihad Ben Halachale-Maase (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense Publishing Houseand Kinneret Zmora Bitan, Dvir Publishing House, 2009),pp. 105-7.42 Silwan … Siraa Bekaa Wawagud, p. 5.


44 Robert S. Wistrich, “Muslim Anti-Semitism: A Clear andPresent Danger,” The American Jewish Committee, 2002; al-Jami’a al-Islamiya, al-Mufawadat min Nuzur Islami (n.p.), pp.20-1; Muhammad Musbah Hamdan, al-Isti’mar wa-l-Sahyuniaal-Alamia (Sidon: Dar al-Kutba al-Asriya, 1967), pp. 94-112.45 See Raphael Israeli, “The Islamic Movement in Israel,”Jerusalem Letter, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Oct. 15,1999; L. Barkan, “The Islamic Movement in Israel: SwitchingFocus from Jerusalem to the Palestinian Cause,” Inquiry &Analysis Series, report no. 628, Middle East Media ResearchInstitute, Washington, D.C., July 30, 2010.46 Arutz Sheva (Beit El and Petah Tikva), Feb. 16, 2012.

It is only fitting that the figure of Saladin isbrought forward to justify the belief in eternalIslamic ownership of Silwan, despite there be-ing no evidence in medieval Arab writings toattest to the tale. As the ruler who defeated theCrusaders and returned Jerusalem to Muslimcontrol, who better to return Silwan as waqf tofellow Muslims?

“JUDAIZATION” OFJERUSALEM

Admitting that Silwan’s designation as waqfmay actually be a late episode in the village’s his-tory does not diminish the belief in Silwan’s holi-ness professed by these and others. In fact, it goeshand-in-hand with another more pernicious myth:the supposed Jewish design to “Judaize theblessed city of Jerusalem” with a view to trans-forming it into “a Jewish Talmudic Jerusalem”:

West Jerusalem’s mu-nicipality is trying tolead with its plan toprove the existing real-ity according to thetheories that appear inthe Talmudic literaturedespite the fact that weare talking about Islamicland and Arab holy land.In order to realize thatgoal, the city has cre-

ated and inaugurated a Visitors Center in theCity of David, which is a part of the plan forthe City of David. That is how the hikesthrough the Silwan Fountain tunnel began,hikes which end up at the pool of the SilwanFountain close to Silwan’s Fountain mosque.During the same hike, visitors are accompa-nied by Israeli guides who present the legendof the City of David and the establishment ofthe First and Second Temples and the effortsto build [today] the Third Temple in the placeof the blessed al-Aqsa Mosque.43

Thus alongside the notions that Jews fabri-

cate their history and that Silwan and its envi-rons are a sacred waqf, opponents create a con-spiracy of Talmudic Judaization of the city whosegoal is the eradication of al-Aqsa Mosque to bereplaced by a third temple. The trope of a per-verted Talmudic Judaism is a favored one usedby anti-Semites throughout the ages and mostrecently picked up and amplified by Muslim andArab opponents of the Jewish state.44

In their fixation on the Judaization of Jerusa-lem, the pamphleteers echo a 2006 piece in Sawtal-Haq wa-l-Huiriya (Voice of Truth and Free-dom) the journal of the Islamic Movement cen-tered in Umm al-Fahm and led by Raed Salah,where the plan to Judaize Silwan is discussed ingreat detail. The Islamic Movement, a localbranch of the Muslim Brotherhood, is at the fore-front of organizing Israeli Arabs to identify them-selves strictly as Palestinians with Salah lead-ing the campaign to “defend” Jerusalem and “lib-erate” it from Israeli “occupation.”45

The other image used by al-Quds Founda-tion is the alleged Israeli plot to replace al-AqsaMosque with a third temple—despite the factthat the Israeli authorities have consistently re-stricted the movement of non-Muslims on theTemple Mount to the point where they have beenaccused of discrimination against Jews andChristians.46

A pamphlet from the group Islamic Jihad-Beit al-Makdas uses melodramatic language tofurther illustrate the evil intents of the Jews, ac-cusing Zionists of attacking Jerusalem, Silwan—“the gateway to al-Aqsa Mosque,” and al-AqsaMosque itself, which is “the rock of grace ofJerusalem and the crown of the whole Islamicnation.”

43 Ibid., p. 6.

According to onePalestinian group,Silwan is thedoorway throughwhich the settlersare trying toJudaize Jerusalem.

/ 41

The PalestinianArab assaulton the Jewishconnection toJerusalem isabetted by someIsraeli Jews.

The authors thank those “who protect al-Aqsa and its gates and the residents of the vil-lage of Silwan” and informs them that the way isclear “to the temple, from Silwan, the aristocratic,the symbol of steadfastness at the gates of al-Aqsa Mosque.” The authors ask “Would youlike to be a guard [on watch] at the blessed al-Aqsa and nothing will pass by you?” and warn,“Do not let into your homes the flocks of thesettlers.”47

According to this line of thought, Silwanbecomes the doorway through which the set-tlers are trying to pass to Judaize Jerusalemand at the same time, enter the Temple Mountin order to dismantle al-Aqsa and rebuild thetemple. The steps that are being carried out,according to Islamic spokespersons, will leadto a third intifada.48

CONCLUSION

The Palestinian Arab assault on the Jewishconnection to Jerusalem continues apace aidedand abetted not only by radical Islamists or an-gry Silwanites but by fellow travelers in the me-dia and in academia, including Israeli Jews.

Consider the tours carried out by EmekShaveh, an Israeli nonprofit organization, andPalestinian residents of Silwan with a view torebuffing the “political archaeology of the Jews”and to prove the area’s “true” archaeologicalsignificance.49 Emek Shaveh’s founder Yonathan

Mizrachi, who has voluntarily left his job at Israel’sAntiquity Authority, spares no effort to downplaythe Jewish biblical history of the area. As he put it:“After three hours on [an Israeli-organized] tour,you are convinced thatyou are at a totally Jewishsite where evidence ofCanaanite, Byzantine, andMuslim, and, of course,Palestinian [civilizations]are pushed aside. Jerusa-lem has 4,000 years of his-tory. They only focus onthe marvelous stories ofKing Solomon, David, andHezekiyah, of which, bythe way, they haven’tfound any archaeological evidence that ties themto the place.”50

Mizrachi’s website contains an essay of over5,000 words—“Archaeology in Silwan”—whichtransforms archaeology into a handmaiden ofsocial science pieties and criticizes even the useof the phrase City of David as a manifestation ofsettler objectives. In doing so, he also managesto rewrite history, claiming falsely that “duringthe main periods of prosperity under the king-dom of Judah … the cultural identity of the townand its inhabitants was contested.”51

Sadly, the battle over Silwan (and for thatmatter the wider Palestinian-Israeli conflict) islikely to continue as long as Palestinian Arabsand their brethren refuse to recognize that an-other people, the Jews, have a claim to the Landof Israel.

47 “Al-Hay’a al-Islamiya al-Masihiya lenasra al-Quds wa-al-Maqdassat,” Islamic Jihad-Bait al-Makdas, Dec. 2009, p. 8.48 See “Sarakha Tahdhir min Mukhatat ‘Kedem Yerushalaim’Urshalim Awalan,” al-Aqsa Foundation for Waqf and Heritagead; Ibrahim Abu Jaber, “Mashari Ta’hid Madinat al-Quds wa-Fars Ishti’al Intifada Thalitha,” Modern Learning Center ad,Mar. 4, 2010.49 “About Silwanic,” Wadi Hilweh Information Center, Jerusa-lem, accessed Mar. 29, 2012.

50 Aviv Lavi, “Ha-Politika shel Nikbat Ha-Shiloa’h,” NRG(Maariv news website, Tel Aviv), July 27, 2009; Idan Landu,“Me-Nishul Mufrat le-Militsiot Mufratot,” Haokets website,Nov. 25, 2010.51 Yonathan Mizrachi, “Where Is King David’s Garden?”Emek Shaveh, Jerusalem, accessed Mar. 29, 2012.

Bartal: Silwan


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/ 43 Chesler and Bloom: Honor Killings

Hindu vs. MuslimHonor Killings

by Phyllis Chesler and Nathan Bloom

Although the overwhelming majority of honor killings worldwide occur withinMuslim communities,1 one would not know this by reading the mainstreammedia. Fearful of being labeled “Islamophobic,” the American press has given

only glancing attention to the widespread, honor-related ritual murder of Muslim womenin the Middle East and South Asia while treating periodic honor killings among Muslimimmigrants in the West as ordinary domestic abuse cases.

Over the last few years, however, the media has published a flurry of articles aboutHindu honor killings in India, the only non-Muslim-majority country where these mur-ders are still rampant.2 Apologists for Muslim culture and civilization rushed to herald theupsurge in Hindu (and Sikh) honor killings as evidence that the practice is “a universalproblem, not an Islamic issue.”3

While India is indeed a striking exception to Islam’s near monopoly on contempo-rary honor killings, the following preliminary statistical survey shows Hindu honor kill-ings in India to be different in form and commission from those of Muslims in neighboringPakistan. Though no less gruesome, the Hindu honor killings seem largely confined tothe north of India and are perpetuated by sociocultural factors largely specific to India.The millions of Indian Hindus who have immigrated to the West do not bring the practicealong with them.

The recent spike of honor killings in India is likely the product of a clash betweentraditional and modern values, intensified by high economic growth and increasing social

Phyllis Chesler is emerita professor of psychol-ogy and women’s studies at the Richmond Col-lege of the City University of New York, authorof fourteen books, and cofounder of the Asso-ciation for Women in Psychology and the Na-tional Women’s Health Network. Nathan Bloom,a recent graduate of the University of Chicago,is a former assistant to Phyllis Chesler. The au-thors thank Tchia and Avraham Snapiri of IDEA-Management and Economic Consulting Ltd., forperforming the statistical tests for this study,and Petra Bailey for help in gathering the data.

mobility. The spike may also reflect grow-ing media coverage of this crime. Thedemocratically elected government of In-dia has taken important, if long overdue,steps to combat the practice of honor kill-ing, and some progress has been made.

1 Phyllis Chesler, “Worldwide Trends in Honor Killings,”Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2010, pp. 3-11.2 For example, see The New York Times, July 9, 2010, June 4,2011; The Washington Post, Nov. 22, 2008.3 John L. Esposito, “Honor Killing: Is Violence against Womena Universal Problem, Not an Islamic Issue?” The HuffingtonPost, Sept. 4, 2010.


Not so in Pakistan where officials at all lev-els of government are either unable or unwillingto cope with honor killings. For Pakistan andmany other Muslim countries, which have yetto experience the social stresses of rapid mod-ernization or build the kind of political institu-tions that can eradicate a practice so deeplyrooted in traditional beliefs—especially as Is-lamists now dominate—the worst may be yet tocome.

THE SOCIAL MILIEU

Honor killing is the premeditated murder ofa relative (usually a young woman) who has al-legedly impugned the honor of her family. Ittends to predominate in societies where indi-vidual rights are circumscribed by communal soli-darities, patriarchal authority structures, and in-tolerant religious and tribal beliefs. Under suchconditions, control over marriage and reproduc-tion is critical to the socioeconomic status ofkinship groups and the regulation of female be-

havior is integral to percep-tions of honor, known asmaryada in many Indian lan-guages and as ghairat in Urduand Pashto.

In such an environment,a woman who refuses to enterinto an arranged marriage,seeks a divorce, or fails toavoid suspicion of immoral be-havior will be viewed by herfamily as having dishonoredthem so grievously that hermale relatives will be ostra-cized and her siblings willhave trouble finding suitablespouses. Killing her is theonly way the family can re-store its honor, regardless ofwhether she actually is or canbe proven guilty of the al-leged offense. In sharp con-trast to other forms of domes-tic violence, honor killings arefrequently performed out in the

open, and the perpetrators rarely act alone. UnniWikan, a social anthropologist and professor atthe University of Oslo, observed that an honorkiller typically commits the murder “as a com-mission from the extended family.”4 The leadauthor of this article documented this in 20095

and 20106 for honor killings both in the Westand in Muslim-majority countries.

Though neither Islam nor Hinduism directlysanctions honor killing, both play a role in legiti-mizing the practice in South Asia—if for no otherreason than that such societies have not pros-ecuted this crime, have issued light sentences,or have failed to use their religious authority topunish and abolish it. Hindu society is divided

4 Unni Wikan, “The Honor Culture,” Karl-Olov Arnstberg andPhil Holmes, trans., originally published as En Fraga OmHedre, Cajsa Mitchell, trans. (Stockholm: Ordfront Forlag AB,2005).5 Phyllis Chesler, “Are Honor Killings Simply DomesticViolence?” Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2009, pp. 61-9.6 Chesler, “Worldwide Trends in Honor Killings,” pp. 3-11.

According to Hindu religious law and tradition, marrying orhaving sexual relations with a member of a different caste isstrictly forbidden as is romantic involvement with someonefrom the same sub-caste. Local caste-based councils known askhap panchayats often prescribe punishments or even mandatethe murder of those who violate their laws. The farmer seenhere (right) sought police protection after the local khapvandalized his farmland for refusing to annul his son’s marriageto a “forbidden” woman.

/ 45

into religiously mandated castes, membershipin which is hereditary and effectively permanent.At the lowest rung of the ladder are roughly 150million Indians who are called Dalits (the op-pressed), commonly known in the West as “un-touchables.” Although many Dalits havereached high political office, notably former presi-dent K. R. Narayanan,7 they are still held in lowregard by many other Indians.8

According to Hindu religious law and tradi-tion, marrying or having sexual relations with amember of a different caste is strictly forbidden.So, too, is romantic involvement with someonefrom the same sub-caste (gotra),9 a proscriptionthat contrasts notably with Muslim cultureswhere first cousin marriage is widely accepted.The vast majority of Hindu honor killings targetyoung Indians suspected of violating one ofthese two commandments. In northern India, themurders are often explicitly sanctioned or evenmandated by caste-based councils known askhap panchayats.10 Although the Hindu Mar-riage Act of 1955 made inter-caste and intra-gotra marriages legal, both remain unaccept-able to the large majority of Indian Hindus.According to a 2006 survey, 76 percent of theIndian public oppose inter-caste marriage.11 Insome areas of the country, any marriage notarranged by the family is widely regarded astaboo. “Love marriages are dirty … only whorescan choose their partners,” one council leadertold an Indian reporter.12

Although Islam does not specifically en-dorse killing female family members, some honorkillings involve allegations of adultery or apos-tasy, which are punishable by death underShari‘a (Islamic law). Thus, the belief that womenwho stray from the path can be rightly murdered

is consistent with such Islamic teachings. Therefusal of most Islamic authorities to unambigu-ously denounce the practice (as opposed tomerely denying that Islam sanctions it) only en-courages would-be honor killers.

While the Qur’an preaches the equality ofall Muslims (or at least all Muslim males), andIslamic leaders frequently bemoan the evils ofIndia’s caste system, vestiges of caste identifi-cation are evident among some Pakistani Mus-lims, who are descended from Hindus who wereforcibly converted to Islam in the Middle Agesand were part of India before 1947.13

EMPIRICAL TRENDS

It is difficult to accurately estimate the num-ber of honor killings that take place in Pakistanand India as the vast majority are believed to gounreported. In 2010, there were roughly 900 re-ported honor killings in the northern Indian statesof Haryana, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh alone while100-300 additional honor killings took place in therest of the country.14 Alsoin 2010, according to theHuman Rights Commis-sion of Pakistan, 800women were killed forhonor in Pakistan.15 Bothfigures likely representonly the tip of the iceberg.According to the AuratFoundation, a Pakistanihuman rights organiza-tion: “At least 675 Paki-stani women and girls were murdered during thefirst nine months of the calendar year 2011 forallegedly defaming their family’s honor.” Almost77 percent of such honor cases ended in acquit-tals.16 A similar study, published in 2011 by the

Chesler and Bloom: Honor Killings

7 The New York Times, July 26, 1997.8 “Caste-based Discrimination in South Asia,” European Com-mission (Brussels) and the International Dalit Solidarity Net-work, June 2009; “Broken People: Caste Violence against India’s‘Untouchables,’” Human Rights Watch, Washington, D.C.,Apr. 1, 1999.9 The Australian (Sydney), Apr. 3, 2010.10 Times of India (Mumbai), Mar. 30, 2010.11 The New York Times, July 9, 2010.12 Times of India, Sept. 8, 2009.

Governmentofficials inPakistan areeither unable orunwilling to copewith honorkillings.

13 See Yoginder Sikand, “Islam and Caste Inequality amongIndian Muslims,” Asianists’ Asia, first published in Qalandar(Paris), T. Wignesan, ed., Mar. 2004; Anatol Lieven, Pakistan.A Hard Country (New York: Public Affairs, 2011), pp. 101-2.14 The Hindu (Chennai, Madras), July 11, 2010.15 Dawn (Karachi), Aug. 9, 2011.16 Business Reporter (Karachi), Jan. 5, 2012.


Research and Development for Human Re-sources Women Rights Cell, found that 605women and 115 men in Sindh were honor mur-dered or murdered in domestic disputes thatsame year.17

In order to compare and contrast honor kill-ings in India and Pakistan, a sample was takenof 75 Hindu honor killings in India, including 50cases that were specifically caste-based and 25where the motive was not clearly specific tocaste. The Indian cases were compared to 50Muslim honor killings in Pakistan and 39 Paki-stani Muslim honor killings in the West. Hinduhonor killings in the West have been too rare toallow for valid statistical comparisons.18 Theresearchers relied on English language media

reports for data,19 select-ing the first cases thatmet the criteria of being aHindu or Muslim honorkilling and about whichmost of the followingseven variables wereknown: location/religion;gender of victim; motive;the presence or absenceof torture; age; numberof victims per incident;and whether it was the

woman’s or the man’s family who committed thekilling.

The average age of all of the victims in thisstudy, both male and female, was 22, with nostatistically significant differences among thegroups. Overwhelmingly, it was the women’s

families that committed the honor killings evenin cases in which there were male victims. InIndia, 94 percent of the killings were carried outby the woman’s family of origin. Four percentwere killed jointly by both the man’s and thewoman’s families of origin; in one case it wasthe allegedly shamed husband of a woman whodid the killing; in no cases was it just the man’sfamily of origin. In Pakistan, the woman’s familyof origin was responsible for 78 percent of thekillings while husbands of “adulterous” wivesaccounted for another 16 percent. In 3 cases (6percent) it was the man’s family of origin thatcommitted the murder. The number of husbandswho were killers was highest in Pakistan becausea large percentage of the Pakistani victims (30percent) had been accused of adultery. AmongPakistani Muslims in the West, 97 percent of thekillings were by the woman’s family. This is tobe expected, as it is women who are consideredthe keepers of male and family honor and re-sponsibility to enforce society’s honor code fallson the women’s families.

A number of statistically significant differ-ences are notable.

Gender of Victims. In 40 percent of thecases, Indian Hindus murdered men while Paki-stani Muslims murdered men only 14 percent ofthe time in Pakistan and 15 percent of the timein the West. The higher percentage of male vic-tims in India underscores the fact that Hinduhonor killings are more often about caste pu-rity than sexual purity. While sexual purity istraditionally a female responsibility, the reli-gious mandate to maintain strict boundariesbetween castes is an obligation for all Hindus,both male and female.

Motivation. The reported motivations un-derlying the killings varied significantly acrossthe three groups. The researchers identified fourmajor motives among Indian Hindus: caste-spe-cific motives, “immoral character,” “contamina-tion by association,” and non-caste-specific il-licit relationships, which included interfaith re-lationships, adultery, pregnancy out of wedlock,and illicit relationships that were consideredshameful for unspecified reasons. “Contamina-tion by association” victims were killed not be-cause they had done anything wrong but be-

Among PakistaniMuslims, awoman’s sexualand moralpurity can bechallenged aslong as she lives.

17 Ibid., Jan. 9, 2012.18 Chesler, “Worldwide Trends in Honor Killings,” pp. 3-11.19 For Indian Hindu cases: The Times of India, TheHindustan Times (New Delhi), Press Trust of India NewsService (Delhi), The Independent (London), The WashingtonPost, Reuters, The Hindu, Indian Express (Chennai, Ma-dras), Outlook India (New Delhi), Thaindian News(Bangkok), Indo-Asian News Service (New Delhi), and theBBC. For Pakistani cases: Associated Press, The PakistanDaily Times (Lahore), stophonourkillings.com, The Daily Tele-graph (London), The News International (Karachi, Lahoreand Rawalpindi/Islamabad), The Regional Times of Sindh(Hyderabad and Karachi), Dawn, and Pakistan Today (Lahore).The Indian honor killings took place between 2001 and 2011;those in Pakistan between 1999 and 2011. The Pakistanihonor killings in the West took place between 1998 and 2009.

/ 47

cause of their association withthe guilty party (mostly chil-dren of mothers who had beenaccused of violating sexualnorms).

“Immoral character” vic-tims were considered rebelliousor licentious but were not sus-pected of being romanticallyinvolved with a specific indi-vidual. For example, Pakistani-Canadian Aqsa Parvez waslured to death by her motherand murdered by her father be-cause she did not wear a hijab(head covering).20 A 14-year-old Indian girl, S. Rajinilatha,was murdered by her father notbecause she was involved withany particular man but merelybecause she wrote love po-etry.21 Meena, an 18-year-oldHindu girl, was shot to deathbecause she left her village forthree days, and her family wasnot satisfied with her explanation of where shehad been.22

In the case of Pakistani Muslims, the re-searchers identified three motives: illicit relation-ships, “contamination by association,” and “im-moral character.” Only 4 percent of Muslim vic-tims in Pakistan were killed because they wereromantically involved with someone from a dif-ferent caste, and caste was never a motive amongPakistani Muslims in the West. Consequently,the motive in this small number of cases wasclassified simply as “illicit relationship.”23

The reported motivations of Muslim honorkillers in Pakistan differed from those of Paki-stani Muslims in the West. In Pakistan, 12 per-

cent of the victims were “immoral character”victims. In the West, 65 percent of the victimswere “immoral character” victims. This may bebecause there are so many more opportunitiesfor “immoral” assimilation/independence in theWest, and young Pakistani women living theremay be pushing boundaries more forcefully.

There were also significantly more “con-tamination by association” victims among Pa-kistani Muslims, both in Pakistan and in theWest, than among the Hindus in India. For ex-ample, one Pakistani Muslim case in the Westinvolved the murder of an adult sister-in-law,her young child, and a father-in-law who hap-pened to be in the battered wife’s new home atthe time. Only 4 percent of the Indian Hinduskilled were “contamination by association” vic-tims (n=3), compared to 22 percent of the Paki-stani Muslim victims in Pakistan (n=11) and 19percent of Pakistani Muslim victims in the West(n=7). The overwhelming majority of Hindu kill-ings are caste-related, generally targetingyoung men and women shortly after theyeloped and before they could have children.


In sharp contrast to other forms of domestic violence, honorkillings are frequently performed out in the open; theperpetrators rarely act alone, and the murders are usuallycarried out by the woman’s family of origin. Canadians wereshocked recently at the trial of the Shafia family, Muhammad(right) and Tooba, who with the help of their son Hamed (left),drowned their three daughters along with Muhammad’s firstwife in a canal near Kingston, Ontario.

20 The National Post (Toronto), Dec. 12, 2007.21 “‘Honour’ Killings on the Rise in Tamil Nadu,” StopHonour Killings, London, Sept. 16, 2010.22 Times of India, Feb. 16, 2011; Mid-Day (Mumbai andDelhi), Feb. 15, 2011.23 See Sikand, “Islam and Caste Inequality among IndianMuslims.”

Photo will not disp

lay.


Pakistani Muslim honor killings are more oftenabout obedience in general, especially sexualpurity, and a woman’s sexual and moral puritycan be challenged as long as she lives.

Torture. Some victims were killed in a man-ner clearly intended to maximize pain. For ex-ample, 17-year-old Anup Kumar of Haryanawas electrocuted in 2011 for being in a rela-tionship with a girl from the same sub-caste.24

In Islamabad, 40-year-old Elahi Husain’s broth-ers tied her to a tree and stoned her to death in2007 for being in a relationship of which theydisapproved.25

The torture rate for Hindus in India (39 per-cent) was significantly higher than for Mus-lims in Pakistan (12 percent). Many of the In-dian Hindu victims in this study were burnedalive, electrocuted, or hacked to death. Even incases where there was no torture, the bodies ofthe victims were often desecrated,26 grimly dis-

playing the family’s determi-nation to restore its honor atall costs. It is possible thatthe torture rate in Pakistanis comparable to that in In-dia and that Pakistani policeand media are more circum-spect in revealing gruesomedetails.

Among Pakistani Mus-lim victims in the West, how-ever, a staggering 59 percentwere tortured. Perhaps thisis because the perpetratorsfeel so besieged and humili-ated by the surroundingculture that they must takemore extreme measures to re-claim their honor and be-cause so many Pakistanigirls and women are temptedto assimilate.

24 Times of India, Jan. 28, 2011.25 The Daily Telegraph, Jan. 31, 2007.26 Reuters, May 16, 2008; The Economist, Apr. 15, 2010.

27 The Global Gender Gap Report 2011, The World EconomicForum, Geneva, Nov. 2011.28 “The World’s Most Dangerous Countries for Women,”Thomson Reuters Foundation, New York, June 15, 2011.

PAKISTAN’S ACTIONSON HONOR KILLINGS

In Pakistan, the fusion of Islamic beliefs, apatriarchal social order, and tribal segmentationhave effectively reduced women to the status ofchattel. Pakistan was ranked 133 out of 135 coun-tries in the World Economic Forum’s 2011 Glo-bal Gender Gap report.27 A 2011 survey by theThomson Reuters Foundation ranked Pakistanas the third most dangerous country in the worldfor women (India was fourth).28

According to Homa Arjomand, the Cana-dian lawyer who led the successful fight againstthe imposition of Shari‘a law in Ontario, the livesof most girls and women in Pakistan are rou-tinely terrible. They can expect that their hus-bands will rape and beat them savagely, often

In India, honor murders are frequently sanctioned by caste-based councils known as khap panchayats. Filmmakers in Indiahave sought to highlight the horrors of Hindu honor killings,such as this one portrayed in a film. But theaters in the northernprovince of Haryana refused to screen this film in 2011 andissued threats against those who would show the movie.

/ 49

breaking their bones and knocking out theirteeth; they may face extreme sadism during preg-nancy as well as unhygienic and dangerous con-finement as a permanent way of life; their fami-lies will not help them.29

The summary execution of female relativesfor a wide range of suspected moral infractionsis considered justifiable by many Pakistanis.30

Tribal councils often sanction the practice31

while local police turn a blind eye. Because ofthis impunity, honor killing is sometimes usedas a pretext for other crimes. For example, ac-cording to Muhammad Haroon Bahlkani, an of-ficer in the Community Development Depart-ment in Sindh, Pakistan, a “man can murder an-other man for unrelated reasons, kill one of hisown female relatives, and then credibly blamehis first victim for dishonoring the second. Orhe can simply kill one of his female relatives,accuse someone rich of involvement with her,and extract financial compensation in exchangefor forgoing vengeance.” Bahlkani has a namefor this: the “Honor Killing Industry.”32

In Pakistan, many honor killings are knownas karo-kari killings, which literally means“black male” and “black female” in Urdu andrefers to cases in which adulterers are killed to-gether. However, according to Bahlkani, there isan escape clause, but only for the men who canrun away, hide, or pay restitution. Women areconfined to the home, and few people will shel-ter a female runaway.

Although senior Pakistani officials have fre-quently denounced the practice of honor killing,little of substance has been achieved in combat-ing it. While the penal code was stiffened in 2005to impose a 10-year minimum sentence for honorkilling,33 legislative initiatives to protect womenfrom domestic violence have been repeatedly

watered down or abandoned in the face of Islam-ist opposition. In 2009, Pakistan’s National As-sembly passed the Domestic Violence (Preven-tion and Protection) Bill, which strengthened le-gal protections against domestic violence forwomen and children. However, the Council of Is-lamic Ideology, a constitutional body charged withassessing whether laws are consistent with Is-lamic injunctions, issueda statement saying the bill“would fan unendingfamily feuds and push updivorce rates.” After this,the bill was held up in thePakistani senate and al-lowed to lapse. Accord-ing to Special PublicProsecutor Nghat Dad,“The government’s atti-tude towards pushing forthe cause has been hope-less ever since the Council of Islamic Ideology’sopposition.”34

Under Shari‘a-based provisions of Pakistan’sjudicial system, murderers can buy a pardon bypaying blood money (dyad) to the victim’s family.Since the family of honor killing victims are nearlyalways sympathetic to the honor killer as well ascomplicit to some degree, getting a pardon is usu-ally just a formality.35 Women’s rights organiza-tions in Pakistan have pressed parliament to dis-allow the practice of blood money in honor killingcases, but conservative Islamist groups haveblocked the needed legislation.

Even when such arrangements do not takeplace, honor killers are rarely prosecuted for lackof cooperative witness testimony. For those fewwho happen to be convicted, a light prison sen-tence is far preferable to dishonor. According tothe Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in arecent report: “The legal, preventative, and pro-tective measures needed to provide effectiveprotection to women against violence perpe-


29 Homa Arjomand, “Effect of globalization of political Islamon women,” www.nosharia.com, accessed Mar. 28, 2012.30 See, for example, Asian Human Rights Commission, HongKong, May 12, 2011; The China Post (Taipei), Mar. 10, 2012;BBC Urdu, Aug. 29, 2008.31 Lieven, Pakistan, pp. 101-2.32 Correspondence with Muhammad Haroon Bahlkani, 2010,2011.33 USA Today, Dec. 28, 2005.

34 Iffat Gill, “Can legal reforms protect women in Pakistan?”Worldpulse.com, Portland, Ore., Mar. 29, 2011.35 BBC, Mar. 2, 2005.

The summaryexecution offemale relativesfor suspectedmoral infractionsis consideredjustifiable bymany Pakistanis.


trated in the name of honor remained absent.”36

INDIA’S ACTIONSON HONOR KILLINGS

Indian society at large is no less misogy-nistic than that of Pakistan. Since boys are pre-ferred and girls are seen as a burden, an esti-mated four to twelve million selective abortionsof girls have occurred in India in the past threedecades.37 The 2011 Indian census found 914girls for every 1,000 boys among children six oryounger.38 Dowry burnings, the practice of a

man and his motherdousing his wife withcooking oil and burningher alive so that a newbride and dowry can beobtained, are as big aproblem as honor killingsin India.39

As the Indian mediahave fastidiously docu-mented,40 there has beena marked increase in thenumber of reportedhonor killings in recentyears. In 2010, a govern-

ment-funded study on the prevalence of honorcrimes in India found that they are most com-mon in regions dominated by khap panchayatsand increasingly involve inter-caste, rather thanintra-sub-caste marriages.41 In these regions,local politicians turn a blind eye to the murdersand resist efforts by the central government andparliament to deal with the problem while local

police collude in honor killings42 or help coverthem up, often mischaracterizing the murders assuicides.43 In 2011, theaters in Haryana refusedto screen an Indian film on honor killings be-cause of threats by khap panchayats.44

According to Prem Chowdhry of the DelhiSchool of Economics, honor killings were lessfrequent in the past “because elopements didn’thappen … livelihood was so clearly tied to theland, and the land was so clearly enmeshed inthese relationships.”45 Greater socioeconomicmobility has weakened these bonds. As khappanchayats struggle against modernization, pre-serving their traditional power means retainingcontrol over reproduction, and they have re-sorted to violence to achieve this.

In sharp contrast to their Pakistani counter-parts, Indian government officials have vigor-ously condemned honor killings in their coun-try.46 So, too, have liberal Indian media outlets,47

some of which have done aggressive investiga-tive reporting on the issue. In 2010, an under-cover reporter working for the Indian televisionchannel Headlines Today found two policemenfrom the northern state of Haryana who boastedabout their willingness to hand over a youngwoman to be honor murdered. “Cut her intopieces and then throw her in some river,” onesaid.48 A number of Indian nongovernmentalorganizations are working to defend women fromhonor killings. The Love Commandos, with 2,000volunteers and a 24-hour national hotline, aredevoted to protecting newlyweds who defy theirfamilies.49

In 2010, Prime Minister Manmohan Singhordered a cabinet-level commission to draft na-tional legislation designed to eradicate honor

36 “State of Human Rights in 2010,” Human Rights Commis-sion of Pakistan, Lahore, Apr. 2011, p. 206.37 Prabhat Jha, et al., “Trends in selective abortions of girls inIndia: analysis of nationally representative birth histories from1990 to 2005 and census data from 1991 to 2011,” The Lancet,May 24, 2011, pp. 1921-8.38 The New York Times, May 24, 2011.39 BBC, July 16, 2003.40 The New York Times, July 9, 2010.41 The Tribune (Chandigarh, India), May 14, 2011.

New Delhi hasnot encounteredthe virulent,often violent,opposition towomen’s rightstypical ofPakistaniIslamists.

42 “India: Prosecute Rampant ‘Honor’ Killings: Amend andEnforce Laws to End Barbaric Practice,” Human Rights Watch,New York, July 18, 2010.43 See, for example, Times of India, Mar. 15, 2011.44 Indian Express, July 30, 2011.45 The Australian, Apr. 23, 2010.46 See, for example, Times of India, Aug. 1, 2010.47 “Barbarian Face,” ibid., July 4, 2007.48 India Today (New Delhi), Sept. 17, 2010.49 The Guardian (London), Oct. 10, 2010.

/ 51 Chesler and Bloom: Honor Killings

killing.50 The proposals included an amendmentto the penal code allowing khap panchayats lead-ers to be prosecuted for sanctioning murders aswell as the revocation of the 30-day notice pe-riod required by the Special Marriage Act, whichhas enabled families to track down and preemp-tively kill the couples.51 In 2011, the Law Com-mission of India, under the Ministry of Law andJustice, drafted a new bill—The Endangermentof Life and Liberty (Protection, Prosecution andOther Measures) Act—designed to preventkhap panchayats from denouncing couples whoviolate caste restrictions. According to the bill,

It shall be unlawful for any group of per-sons to gather, assemble or congregate withthe … intention to deliberate, declare on, orcondemn any marriage or relationship suchas marriage between two persons of major-ity age in the locality concerned on the basisthat such conduct or relationship has dis-honored the caste or community or religionof all or some of the persons forming part ofthe assembly or the family or the people ofthe locality concerned.52

The fate of this legislation is uncertain,however, as the khap panchayats’ control overlocal voting blocs has enabled them to bluntlegislative reforms in the past. The governmenthas made more progress on the judicial front. In2010, India’s Supreme Court instructed the gov-ernments in Haryana and six other states to takesteps to protect potential honor killing victims.53

In 2011, it decried honor killing as a “barbaricand shameful” practice that must be “ruthlesslystamped out.”54 The court also declared honorkillings ordered by khap panchayats to be ille-gal and warned that government officials whofail to act against honor crime offenders will beprosecuted.55

Although fear of caste ostracism makes itdifficult to find cooperative witnesses, Indiancourts have begun aggressively prosecutinghonor killers and their accomplices. In 2010, aHaryana court sentenced five men to death forthe honor murder of a young couple who hadmarried despite being members of the same sub-caste while giving a life sentence to the head ofthe khap panchayat that ordered their deaths.56

In November 2011, an Indian court sentencedeight men to death and twenty others to life im-prisonment for involvement in three honor kill-ings.57 Increasingly, local police officials havebeen suspended and even arrested for collusionin honor killings.5850 Times of India, July 9, 2010.

51 “India: Prosecute Rampant ‘Honor’ Killings,” July 18,2010.52 The Hindu, June 8, 2011.53 Times of India, June 21, 2010.54 BBC, Apr. 20, 2011.55 “Crime and Punishment,” Times of India, Apr. 27, 2011.

Not even celebrity status can shieldMuslim women from punishmentsrelated to honor crimes. ActressAfshan Azad (left), seen here withHarry Potter co-star Rupert Grint,was beaten and threatened withdeath in 2010 by her father andbrother for dating a non-Muslim.

56 The Australian, Apr. 3, 2010.57 International Business Times (New York), Nov. 16, 2011.58 The Australian, Apr. 3, 2010.


India still has a long way to go. While theIndian government continues to face resistanceand evasion of responsibility on the part of lo-cal officials, it has not encountered the samekind of virulent, often violent, opposition towomen’s rights typical of Pakistani Islamists.There is little doubt that India is determined towin what promises to be a long battle againsthonor killing. The Western media’s interest inHindu honor killings developed only after Indi-ans themselves began exposing the practice andpressing for change.

CONCLUSION

Although Hindu honor killing is a gruesomeand sordid affair, it differs in many important re-spects from honor killing in neighboring Paki-

stan and other Muslimcountries. Indian Hindusmurder men for honormore often than do Paki-stani Muslims, and theymurder for reasons mainlyrelated to concerns aboutcaste purity.

Perhaps the moststriking characteristic ofHindu honor killings isthe fact that Indians aban-don the horrific practicewhen they migrate to the

West whereas many Pakistani Muslims carry itwith them. Part of the explanation may lie in theirdifferent patterns of acculturation upon immigrat-ing to the West. Young Hindus in the West are no

less prone to violate traditional social codes thanyoung Muslims, and their parents may be noless furious when they do, but Hindu families inthe West do not feel the same degree of publichumiliation and shame as they might experienceback in India. They are eager to preserve theircultural identity but not at the expense of alien-ating their adoptive communities. The absenceof dreaded khap panchayats no doubt mitigatesthe consequences of dishonor.

Due in part to the spread of radical Islamistideology, Muslim immigrants in the West are ei-ther radicalized or socialize predominantly withinMuslim-only communities, and their conceptionof honor reflects this. Even affluent youngwomen of Pakistani descent in the West can facethe credible threat of death or severe bodily harm.Actress Afshan Azad, who played Padma Patilin the Harry Potter film series, was beaten andthreatened with death in 2010 by her Pakistanifather and brother for dating a non-Muslim.59 Ifshe can be victimized, anyone can.

While it is alarming that there are so manyhonor killings in India and Pakistan, there mayyet be cause for hope. Every honor killing be-gins with a rebellion against tribalism and patri-archy—or with a fear that tribal and patriarchalvalues are under attack. Many of the victims inour study were people who believed that theycould push traditional boundaries, that theycould get away with asserting their rights. Theywere wrong, and they paid the ultimate price forthat mistake, but the key is that they tried. Morerebels will follow.

59 The Telegraph, Dec. 20, 2010.

Indians abandonhonor killingwhen theymigrate to theWest whereasmany PakistaniMuslims carryit with them.

/ 53

Are Iraq and Turkey Modelsfor Democratization?

by Ofra Bengio

In the wake of the upheavals that have shaken the Arab world since December2010, activists, politicians, and analysts have all been searching for new democraticmodels of governance that could come into force in these lands. The cases of Iraq

and Turkey are perhaps the most obvious choices to examine based on the notion thatthese are the only examples of functioning democracies within Muslim-majority nationsof the Middle East.

Hoping to turn post-Saddam Iraq into a model to be emulated by the Arab states,the Bush administration set out to create an Athens-on-the-Tigris complete with freeelections and a constitution with separation of powers provisions. Although the Turkishmodel had a completely different genesis and evolution, it is worth exploring as Ankarahas proclaimed itself a model for the post-revolutionary regimes. What lessons can bedrawn from the Iraqi and Turkish experiences, and to what extent do they fit otherMiddle Eastern states?

Ofra Bengio is a senior research fellow at theMoshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern andAfrican Studies at Tel Aviv University. She isauthor of The Turkish-Israeli Relationship:Changing Ties of Middle Eastern Outsiders(Palgrave, 2004) and The Kurds of Iraq: Build-ing a State within a State (Lynne Rienner Pub-lishers, 2012).

THE IRAQI MODEL

In the early decades of the twentieth cen-tury, the Western powers sought to graft ontothe political systems of the newly-born Arabstates the values of democracy, constitutional-ism, and pluralism. As soon as Britain obtainedthe mandate for Iraq in 1920, it set out to build ademocratic system very much resembling the Brit-ish model itself. This included the establishment

of a constitutional monarchy subordinate to aprogressive constitution, the establishment of aparliament with upper and lower houses, andthe launching of a nationwide system of elec-tions. However, this edifice crumbled on the firstday of Abd al-Karim Qassem’s July 1958 putsch,and it would take nearly fifty years, and a largescale foreign invasion of Iraq, before an attemptat its reconstitution would be made. What wentso horribly wrong? And are the new circum-stances more conducive to the success of thenascent Iraqi democracy?

The evident answer to the first question isthat this construction was imposed artificiallyon a society that had different cultural, politi-cal, and social values and did not evolve fromwithin the society itself. Even if Iraqis wished tohave a Western-type constitution, they had nosay in its promulgation. In the words of the Brit-ish president of the Iraqi Court of First Instance,the constitution was a “gift from the West.”1

Bengio: Iraq and Turkey


Similarly, although there was a parliament inplace, it did not function in a healthy or normalfashion: During its entire existence, the legisla-ture never cast a single no-confidence voteagainst the cabinet, rubber-stamping its deci-sions while simultaneously suffering sporadicdissolutions.2 While elections were held, theywere rigged time and time again. In short therewas a façade of democratic institutions but theideas and practices never set down roots in so-ciety. With Qassem’s takeover and the murderof the entire royal family, the democratic projectexpired.

The idea of reviving the democratic projectin Iraq began to gather momentum in 1998, onceagain spurred not by Iraqis themselves but byan outside superpower, the United States. Thus,according to the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, “itshould be the policy of the United States to sup-port efforts to remove the regime headed bySaddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to pro-mote the emergence of a democratic governmentin place of that regime.”3

In time, the moving spirit behind the projectof Iraqi democratization came to be PresidentGeorge W. Bush who was, in a fashion, walkingin the footsteps of his British predecessors. His

declared goal was to helpthe downtrodden peopleof Iraq get rid of theiroppressor and bringprogress and democracyto the state. But in Bush’scase another more ambi-tious target was statedas well, namely turningthe post-Saddam Iraqidemocracy into a modelfor other Arab countries

to follow. Thus, on the eve of the invasion hedeclared: “A free Iraq can be a source of hope

for all the Middle East … instead of threateningits neighbors and harboring terrorists, Iraq canbe an example of progress and prosperity in aregion that needs both.”4 On another occasion,he stated: “The nation of Iraq, with its proudheritage, abundant resources, and skilled andeducated people, is fully capable of moving to-ward democracy and living in freedom.”5

But how has this democracy fared in Iraqitself? Can it serve as a model or “a source ofhope” to other Arab countries?

FLAWS INTHE IRAQI MODEL

Regrettably, the haste with which the frame-work of democracy was put together in post-Saddam Iraq is reminiscent of the earlier Britishexperiment in the same country. This time, how-ever, the constitution generated debates anddisputes between different partners regardingsuch issues as the place of religion in the stateor the role of women.6 Overall, these controver-sies centered on what The Wall Street Journaldescribed as “two very different visions of whatthe new Iraq should be: a nation that gives littlepolitical significance to ethnic and religious di-visions, or one that weaves those divisions intothe political fabric.”7 And although Iraqis didhave an important say in composing it, for manyof them, the constitution and, for that matter, thedemocratic experiment as a whole looked like aU.S. diktat.8

Unlike in the monarchical and Baathist eras,the Iraqi people did participate in three more orless free and democratic elections. However,while the framework of democratic institutions

1 C. A. Hooper, The Constitutional Law of Iraq (Baghdad:Mackenzie and Mackenzie, 1928), p. 15.2 Abd al-Razzaq al-Hasani, Ta’rikh al-‘Iraq as–Siyasi al-Hadith,vol. 3 (Sidon: Matba‘at al-‘Urfan, 1957), p. 235.3 “Iraq Liberation Act of 1998,” 105th U.S. Congress (1997-98), H.R.4655.ENR, Jan. 27, 1998.

For many Iraqis,the constitutionand thedemocraticexperimentlooked like aU.S. diktat.

4 The Washington Post, Feb. 22, 2003.5 George Bush, speech to the American Enterprise Institute,Washington, D.C., in The Guardian (London), Feb. 27, 2003.6 “Iraq Overview: Governance,” World Directory of Minorityand Indigenous Rights, Minority Rights Group International,London, accessed Mar. 7, 2012.7 The Wall Street Journal, Apr. 12, 2004.8 For voices critical of this constitution, see Andrew Arato,Constitution Making under Occupation: The Politics of Im-posed Revolution in Iraq (New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 2009), pp. 205-49.

/ 55

does exist, the spirit and contents are lack-ing. More often than not the parliament isparalyzed. It took an entire year to form acabinet after the March 2010 elections be-cause of incumbent Nouri al-Maliki’s reluc-tance to give up his post. Although the listheaded by Iyad Allawi scored the highestnumber of votes in that election, Maliki’smaneuvering and shrewdness won him theprime ministry in the end.9

Civilian strife that flared up immediatelyafter the U.S.-led invasion also threatenedthe entire Iraqi democratization project. Theunderlying cause for this conflict was thatthe minority Sunni community that had ruledIraq since its creation was unwilling to ac-cept the democratic norms that grantedpower to the erstwhile marginalized Shiitemajority and the Kurds. In addition, the sud-den change from an extremely totalitarianpolitical system to an avowedly democraticone left the majority of Iraqis completely un-prepared for such a transformation. Further,the freedom of expression and organizationincorporated in the post-Saddam Iraq constitu-tion gave rise to new Islamist forces, which be-lieved more in God’s rule than in the rule of man.In the debates that anticipated the drafting ofthe constitution, these groups, headed by GrandAyatollah Ali Sistani, demanded that Shari‘a (Is-lamic law) be the source of legislation. It was notto be, however, because both Washington andthe Kurds were against it.

Two sectors in particular fell victim to theexpanding power of political Islam and the illib-eral society developing in Iraq: women and mi-norities. As part of their efforts to construct anew Iraqi society, Washington and its alliesplaced special emphasis on the status of women,believing it would be impossible to establishdemocracy in a country that lacked equitablerepresentation for women. Initially women didseem to be well represented in the echelons ofpower. However, as time went by, the increasing

influence of Islamic groups further restricted theirparticipation in the government. For example, byMay 2006, only four out of thirty-nine cabinetministers were women, none in important portfo-lios. In daily life, many women are harassed fornot adhering to what is considered a proper Is-lamic dress code. Acts of violence, including kill-ing, kidnapping, rape, and other forms of sexualharassment increased significantly in post-Saddam Iraq, so much so that some contend thatwomen were better off under Saddam.10 Iraqiwomen’s rights activists are, in turn, accused oftrying to impose secularism and foreign values.Thus, women were once again “left outside statesupervision, vulnerable to unfavorable interpre-tations of Islamic and customary laws.”11

The fate of minorities has fared no better. A2007 field study reached the conclusion that

The first modern Iraqi constitution was imposedby the British on the people of Mesopotamia aswas its first modern king, Faisal I (center; T.E.Lawrence is behind him on the right). Neitherreally took, and Iraq’s first experiment withdemocracy ended in bloodshed.

9 “Nuri Kamal al-Maliki,” The New York Times, Dec. 29,2011.

10 See, for example, Judith Colp, “Women in the New Iraq,”MERIA Journal, Sept. 3, 2008.11 Noga Efrat, “Women under the monarchy: A backdrop forpost-Saddam events,” in Amatzia Baram, Achim Rohde, andRonen Zeidel, eds., Iraq between Occupations: Perspectivesfrom 1920 to the Present (New York: Palgrave Macmillan,2010), pp. 121-3.



Iraq’s Christian, Yezidi, and Mandean commu-nities was under threat and that the majority ofChristians had fled their homes with nearly halfliving abroad as refugees. The report empha-sized that Christians and other religious andethnic minorities were targeted for acts of vio-lence and discrimination precisely because theywere non-Muslim or Kurdish.12 It is indeedironic that, under the watchful eyes of the U.S.military, the harassment of indigenous Chris-tians and other religious minorities has reachedits peak.13

For their part, the Kurds, since the estab-lishment of the Kurdistan Regional Government(KRG) in 1992, sought to portray themselves asa model of democracy for Iraq and other coun-tries in the region. They based their claim on the

fact that there was no fratricidal infightingamong them since the late 1990s; that elec-tions in the region and the transformation ofpower from one government to another wentsmoothly; and that there was freedom of ex-pression and organization. Indeed, thoughthis democracy left much to be desired, itwas still stronger than in the rest of Iraq.This was due to both the slower pace of de-velopments in the region and the fact thatthe framework of democratic institutions wasnot imposed from the outside (though non-governmental organizations played an im-portant role in promoting the process). Is-lamist parties were also much weaker inKurdistan than in the center of the country.

The eruption of the Arab upheavals atthe end of 2010 rekindled the debate overthe Iraqi democratization model both in theUnited States and the Arab world. Therewere those who considered these eventsas having been inspired by the Iraqi modeland the promotion of democracy there. Forinstance, Condoleezza Rice, secretary ofstate under Bush, credited the administra-tion for the Arab uprisings: “The demise of

repressive governments in Tunisia, Egypt, andelsewhere … stemmed in part from Bush’s ‘free-dom agenda,’” which “promoted democracyin the Middle East.”14 Former vice presidentDick Cheney stressed that “the fact that webrought democracy … and freedom to Iraq,has had a ripple effect on some of those othercountries.”15

Others were more skeptical. Middle Eastspecialist Fouad Ajami debunked what hetermed the “myth” that the Arab upheavals wereinspired by developments in Iraq, noting thatwhen the protests began in late 2010, “therewas bloodshed in Iraq’s streets; there was sec-tarianism, and few Arabs could consider PrimeMinister Nouri al-Maliki a standard-bearer of anew political culture.” In his view, Saddam’s

12 John Eibner, “The Plight of Christians in Iraq,” field tripreport, Christian Solidarity International, Westlake Village,Calif., Nov. 3-11, 2007.13 Ibid.

14 Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of MyYears in Washington (New York: Crown, 2011); USA Today,Oct. 31, 2011.15 The Washington Post, Aug. 31, 2011.

Iraq’s current experiment in constitutionalgovernment is off to a shaky and uncertain start.Despite Iyad Allawi (left) scoring the highestnumber of votes in the March 2010 elections, thecandidate was compelled to hand the primeminister’s post to his chief rival, Nouri al-Maliki(right).

/ 57

“despotism had been decapitated by Americanpower, so it was not a homegrown liberation.And the new Iraqi order had empowered theShiite majority.” In addition, the Sunni “Arabstreet was not enamored of the political changein Iraq; it had passionately opposed the Ameri-can war and had no use for Baghdad’s newShiite leaders.”16

The late Anthony Shadid of The New YorkTimes was even more negative: “My own sense... is that the Iraq war—the invasion of 2003and the aftermath—delayed the Arab Spring. Ithink you can make the argument that theserevolts and uprisings that have swept the re-gion may have even happened earlier had notthis scar of that occupation not been left on theregion.”17

The Iraqi model of democracy is a poor ex-ample to be emulated by other Arab states dueto the civil strife that accompanied its birth,because it was viewed as an artificial Westerndiktat, and because it seemed to be lacking au-thenticity and staying power. There was, how-ever, something to be learned from the Iraqi ex-perience, namely that the ruler was not invin-cible and that the worst of dictatorships can bedestroyed once the barrier of fear was over-come. In this sense, developments in post-Saddam Iraq did serve as a catalyst for the revo-lutions in the Arab countries even though theytook some eight years to mature.

If Iraq has failed to serve as a democraticmodel, does Turkey offer a better example?

THE TURKISH MODEL

For many years, Turkey was consideredan island of democracy in an otherwise auto-cratic Muslim world. Writing in 1994, BernardLewis attributed Turkey’s position as “theonly Muslim democracy” to various histori-cal, political, and socioeconomic factors: Tur-key had never been occupied by a foreign

power that attempted to impose Western demo-cratic values upon it. Rather, democracy wasnourished slowly and gradually within Turk-ish society itself. From the start, Ankara wasWestern-oriented, hence more adaptive to thedemocratic norms developed there. Thoughlacking oil, Turkey was able to develop a strongeconomy, which in turn enabled it to cultivate acivil society, an importantpillar of democracy. Last,but certainly not least, inTurkey there was a sepa-ration between religionand state. Despite threeinterventions by theTurkish military betweenthe 1960s and early1990s, the generalshanded power back tocivilians after a brief pe-riod, indicating a commitment to democraticnorms.18

Almost two decades later, the picture inTurkey has changed dramatically. Since 2002, theruling Islamist Justice and Development Party(AKP) has managed to marginalize the military inpolitics, and Ankara is no longer chiefly West-ern-oriented, having developed strong ties withthe Muslim Arab Middle East as well. Thesetransformations also meant that Ankara soughtto serve as a model for the democratization ofpost-revolutionary Arab regimes, a role that heldno attraction for it before a decade ago.

The Turkish leaders’ claims to such a roleare based on the fact that Turkey is a Muslim-majority state; hence, they argue, Ankara is thebest proof that Islam and democracy are com-patible. Turkish economist Sinan Ülgen hassuggested that the Turkish model is more ap-propriate for the Arab world “not so much be-cause of what Turkey does but because of whatit is.” He points to the cultural affinity betweenAnkara and the countries of the Middle Eastand North Africa, which “find Turkey’s own ex-


16 Fouad Ajami, “Perspective: Five Myths about the ArabSpring,” St. Augustine (Fla.) Record, Jan. 15, 2012.17 National Public Radio, Dec. 21, 2011.

18 Bernard Lewis, “Why Turkey Is the Only Muslim Democ-racy,” Middle East Quarterly, Mar. 1994, pp. 41-9.

Turkey wasonce consideredan island ofdemocracy inan otherwiseautocraticMuslim world.


perience more meaningful and see it as more rel-evant and transposable than the similar experi-ences of non-Muslim nations.” He maintains thatTurkey’s domestic transformation, broughtabout by the ruling AKP party with roots in po-litical Islam, can only enhance the effectivenessof such cultural affinity.19

Ankara, further-more, asserts that afterdetaching the militaryfrom the domestic politi-cal game in a peacefulmanner, Turkey is an evenstronger candidate foremulation by emergingArab governments whoare struggling with de-cades-long interventionby military-led regimes.20

Similarly, the AKP con-tends that Turkey’s longexperience with home-

grown democracy can assist Arab societies in es-tablishing their own democratic institutions in thisperiod of transition.21 It also has claimed that ithas stood by the Arab revolutionaries in theirdifficult times, a further incentive for Arab statesto follow in its footsteps.22 Taha Özhan of theWashington-based Turkish think-tank SETA wentso far as to suggest that Turkey’s policies andstance on various regional issues had an impacton the eruption of the Arab revolutions. He sug-gested that to “understand the impact of Turkeyin the making of the Arab spring” one shouldconsider that “Turkey … has been a success storyfor those countries suffering from a lack of de-mocratization, economic development, and dis-tribution of income, and despised and oppressedby Israel.”23

Two Turkish scholars, Nuh Yølmaz and KadirÜstün have summed up Turkey’s vision thus:While “Turkey’s transformation from a staunchlysecularist NATO ally under military tutelage to ademocratic model did not occur overnight …Turkish democracy has matured, and Ankara feelsconfident enough to present itself as an inspira-tion to the Middle East.”24 Ersat Hurmuzlu, anadvisor to Turkish president Abdullah Gül, in-sists that “Turkey is not looking for a role butthe role is looking for it.”25

The Turkish government took some practi-cal and energetic moves to promote itself as arole model, inviting members of the oppositionand new would-be political leaders to Istanbulto participate in conferences and seminars onthe democratization project. For example, the Syr-ian opposition movement (including membersof the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood) has heldmeetings in Turkey to prepare for a post-Assadregime in Syria. At the same time, Turkish uni-versities, nongovernmental organizations, andresearch institutions have upgraded their rela-tions with Arab countries while academic gath-erings, common broadcasts, and forums havereached an unprecedented level.26

Seeking to derive the most from the currentrevolutionary momentum, Turkish prime minis-ter Recep Tayyip Erdoðan set out in September2011 on an “Arab Spring tour,” visiting the post-upheaval states of Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia.According to the Christian Science Monitor,the tour “has been a hit” as Erdoðan made hisway across North Africa, “extolling Turkey as ademocratic model for fellow Muslims who havecast off their dictators.”27 In Libya, for example,prayer leader Salim al-Shaykhi told the crowd ofseveral thousand in Tripoli’s Martyrs’ Square:“After we thank God, we thank our friend Mr.Erdoðan, and after him all the Turkish people.”28

19 Sinan Ülgen, “From Aspiration to Inspiration: Turkey in theNew Middle East,” Carnegie Papers, Carnegie Endowment forInternational Peace, Washington, D.C., Dec. 2011, p. 1.20 Taha Özhan, “The Arab Spring and Turkey: The CampDavid Order vs. the New Middle East,” Insight Turkey, no. 4,2011, p. 55.21 Ülgen, “Turkey in the New Middle East,” p. 1.22 Özhan, “The Arab Spring and Turkey,” p. 63; The AsiaTimes (Hong Kong), Sept. 11, 2011.23 Özhan, “The Arab Spring and Turkey,” p. 59.

24 Nuh Yølmaz and Kadir Üstün, “The Erdoðan Effect: Turkey,Egypt and the Future of the Middle East,” The Cairo Review ofGlobal Affairs, Fall 2011.25 Al-Ahram (Cairo), Sept. 14, 2011.26 Özhan, “The Arab Spring and Turkey,” p. 61.27 The Christian Science Monitor, Sept. 16, 2011.28 Ibid.

Erdoðan’spopularity hasmuch to do withthe AKP’sconfrontationalstance on Israeland Turkey’seconomicachievements.

/ 59

Özhan has written that “people whowant to change towards a model basedon Turkey enthusiastically welcomedPrime Minister Erdoðan, openly ask-ing him to fill the political vacuum af-ter the Arab revolutions.”29

Arab commentators have fol-lowed suit. Abd al-Bari Atwan statedthat “the AKP has become a sort ofguide for Islamist parties” whichsought to imitate its economicachievements.30 Others spoke aboutthe admiration that these parties hadfor the Turkish model.31 Syrianscholar Sadik al-Azm argued that bythe time of the Arab upheavals, allthe factions in those countries—left-ists, nationalists, and Islamists, whofor their own reasons had had a nega-tive view of Turkey—came to regard “the Turk-ish model” as the best paradigm to be followed.32

Erdoðan was welcomed as a hero by crowdsin these countries. But this enthusiastic welcomeshould not be interpreted as wholehearted sup-port for the democratic model. For all the asser-tions—from Turkish and non-Turkish sources—there is clear evidence that Erdoðan’s popular-ity had to do with other causes, including hisgovernment’s Islamist tendencies, his confron-tational stance on Israel, and Turkey’s economicachievements under the AKP.

The election of the Islamist AKP in 2002was a watershed in the Arab world’s interest inAnkara and in its new, positive attitude towardTurkey. There seems to be a clear correlationbetween a more positive view about Turkey andchanges in Turkish foreign policy, particularlywith respect to the bilateral relationship with Is-rael and the Palestinian issue.33 The most dra-

matic example came in the aftermath of the 2008-09 Israel-Hamas-Gaza confrontation. As Pales-tinian journalist Sameh Habeeb stated:

Turkish prime minister Erdoðan criticizingIsrael and then leaving the meeting with Is-raeli president Shimon Peres was the turningpoint for Turkey in the Arab street ... In ashort span of time and in the hearts and mindsof those within the Arab street and the globalactivist community, Erdoðan became a keyplayer in the Middle East, especially in theabsence of any real Arab leadership.34

Turkey’s vibrant economy may have alsomade it particularly attractive for reformers.35 Asone Turkish analyst suggested, “In sum, theAKP’s bottom-up connection with Islam, theeconomic dynamics that compelled Turkey toseek an active political and economic role in theregion, and Turkey’s gradual transformation intoa soft power have constituted the main pillars ofthe Turkish model.”36


29 Özhan, “The Arab Spring and Turkey,” p. 59.30 Agence France-Presse, Dec. 2, 2011.31 See, for example, Ibrahim al-Amin, “Islamists in NorthAfrica and the Turkish Model,” Alakhbar (Cairo), Oct. 24,2011.32 Sadik J. al-Azm, “The ‘Turkish Model’: A View fromDamascus,” Turkish Studies, Dec. 2011, pp. 638-40.33 Meliha Benli Altunøþøk, “Turkey: Arab Perspectives,” For-eign Policy Analysis Series, no. 11, p. 12.

34 The Palestine Telegraph (Gaza), Sept. 20, 2011.35 Altunøþøk, “Turkey: Arab Perspectives,” p. 10.36 Alper Y. Dede, “The Arab Uprisings: Debating ‘The Turk-ish Model,’” Insight Turkey, Apr.-June 2011, p. 28.

Turkish president Erdoðan’s mixture of Islamism anddemocracy has been suggested by many as a possiblemodel for the Arab world’s recent revolutions.

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DISTRUST OFTHE TURKISH MODEL

At the same time, skepticism about the Turk-ish model began to surface little by little. SamiZubaida of the University of London took issuewith Turkish democracy as a model for post-revolutionary Arab regimes and raised concernsregarding the fortune of Turkish democracy un-der the AKP, stating that “pluralism is nowthreatened by the repeated electoral successesof the AKP, establishing, in effect, the bases fora majoritarian authoritarianism, at both the insti-tutional and the communal levels.”37 AbdelMoneim Said, chairman of the board of al-AhramWeekly, a government mouthpiece, admitted toadmiring Erdoðan and his achievements but de-clared that Egypt had

no need for the caliphate. … Historically,Egypt had always offered a model of its own,to which testifies the birth of the modernEgyptian state in 1922 … maybe we will sum-mon the courage to return to our own indig-

enous principles of civilgovernment as laid downby the fathers of the Egyp-tian state.38

Said’s critique was ech-oed by Hassan Abou Talebof the al-Ahram Center forPolitical and Strategic Stud-ies who asked rhetorically,“Following the Turkishmodel or forging our own?”Taleb insisted that therewas no resemblance what-soever between the experi-ence of Turkey and Egyptas the former had a long, ifimperfect, tradition of de-mocracy and maintainedthat unlike Egypt’s Salafis,the AKP “has never cast it-self as a religious party that

has sought to transform the state into a form oftheocracy.” He added,

Egypt has its own long heritage of a liberalsecularism that is at peace with religion. Thislegacy should enable Egypt to develop aunique, homegrown model for the applica-tion of democracy and the rule of law, even ifthe Muslim Brotherhood comes to share inpower via the ballot box.39

Nor was the Turkish model more accept-able to the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest partyin Egypt. The initial enthusiastic welcome forErdoðan in Cairo was muted by his statementthat the establishment of a secular state was thebest option for Egypt. Mahmud Ghuzlan, spokes-man for Egypt’s Brotherhood, characterizedthese comments as interference in Egypt’s do-mestic affairs, noting that the experiments ofother countries should not be cloned while dis-paraging Turkey’s Kemalist history as “condi-tions imposed on it to deal with the secular con-

Many Arabs who initially praised the “Turkish model” havebecome disillusioned as they examine the facts on the ground.The government of Recep Erdoðan has jailed dissidents, censoredjournalists, and accused members of the military of taking part inconspiracies. Gen. Isik Koþaner (left), the former Turkish chief ofstaff, here with Turkish president Abdullah Gül, recently resignedin protest over the arrest of more than forty of his fellow generals.

37 The Samosa (U.K.), June 6, 2011.

38 Al-Ahram (Cairo), Sept. 22-28, 2011.39 Hassan Abou Taleb, “Following the Turkish Model orForging Our Own?” al-Ahram, Sept. 19, 2011.

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/ 61

cept.”40 Turkish analyst Shebnem Gumuscucame to the same conclusion, albeit from a dif-ferent perspective, asserting there is no “Turk-ish model for Egypt.” She explained:

The coexistence between Islam and democ-racy has come to pass in Turkey not from theAKP’s development of institutional and po-litical structures that accommodated both Is-lamic and democratic principles, but ratherbecause Islamists themselves came to acceptthe secular-democratic framework of theTurkish state.41

Even more compelling criticism of the Turk-ish model has arisen as analysts within and out-side the Arab world have looked closely at thefacts on the ground. At the Doha debates heldin mid-January 2012 at Boðazici University, somewarned the emerging Arab democracies againstemulating Turkey, which was described as “abad model” because of Ankara’s record on hu-man rights and media freedom. German MarshallFund fellow Hassan Mneimneh cautioned thatthe Turkish model could become “a cover forthe insertion of Islamism into positions of powerwhere the Islamists would be really entrenchedin the Arab world.”42 Egyptian academic Ibra-him Ghanem maintained that many Arabs werenow taking a closer, more skeptical look at theTurkish model: “What is the meaning of ‘Turk-ish model’? Do you mean in dealing with minori-ties like Alevis and Kurds? Do you mean theTurkish model in terms of the vital role of thearmy in the political life?”43

The Turkish model has now begun to lookless attractive to potential audiences with theharshest criticism coming from Turkish journal-ists on Ankara’s abuse of freedoms and driftaway from democracy. The latest wave of ar-rests of Turkish journalists at the end of 2011moved Milliyet columnist Mehmet Tezkan to

write: “In a political structure where the head ofinternal security forces … perceives writers as‘pens for sale,’ not even a halfway democracy,let alone an advanced democracy, is possible.”44

Aslø Aydøntaþbaþ commented that the politicaldynamic was developing in a direction that wastotally opposite to what the AKP had promised“with the object of subduing the 50 percent ofthe population who did not vote for the AKP,instead of satisfying the other 50 percent’s de-mand for democratic change.”45 Mehmet AliBirand cautioned that arresting journalists, think-ers, and political staff because they were sym-pathizers of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK)was “nothing more than forcefully silencing mil-lions of people”46 while Semih Idiz complainedthat the arrests were legal “witch hunts” againstanyone considered disagreeable from an AKPperspective.47 Taha Akyol warned against dam-aging the credibility of the judicial process inTurkey, maintaining that there have been “ex-cessive arrests” whichcast a shadow over therightful nature of thecourt cases and under-mined their credibility.48

It is indeed ironicthat at the very time thatTurkey sought to cast it-self as a model of democ-ratization, its own de-mocracy was totteringwith ninety journalists49

and thousands of Kurdish activists or sup-porters under arrest or in prison.50 Writing inthe Milliyet, journalist Sami Kohen accusedthe West of indifference toward the negativedevelopments in Turkey, maintaining thatwhat was taking place was “casting a shadow


40 Al-Arabiya News Channel (Dubai), Sept. 14, 2011.41 The Daily Star (Beirut), Jan. 17, 2012.42 Gulf Times (Doha), Jan. 17, 2012; The Doha Debates, atBoðazici University, Istanbul, Qatar Foundation for Education,Science and Community Development, Jan. 12, 2012.43 National Public Radio, Jan. 6, 2012.

44 Milliyet (Istanbul), Jan. 12, 2011, in Mideast Mirror, Jan.12, 2012.45 Ibid.46 Hürriyet (Istanbul), Jan. 24, 2012.47 Ibid.48 Ibid., Jan. 12, 2011, in Mideast Mirror, Jan. 12, 2012.49 Mehmet Ali Birand, Posta (Istanbul), Jan. 11, 2012, inMideast Mirror, Jan. 11, 2012.50 Yeni Özgür Politika (Frankfurt), Jan. 8, 2012.

Some Arabanalysts considerTurkey “a badmodel” becauseof its record onhuman rights andmedia freedom.


over the ‘Turkish model’ for the Middle East.”51

For her part, blogger Yesim Erez maintained that

during the last year, Western governments andmass media have urged new, post-revolution-ary Arab governments to follow the “Turk-ish model” as a way of achieving a moderatedemocracy. The problem with this approachis that the Turkish model is not so moderate,democratic, or admirable.52

For all of Ankara’sefforts to extol the vir-tues of and to export itsbrand of democracy, theTurkish model does notseem to have made muchheadway in the MiddleEast. Arab elites remainreserved and suspiciousbecause they fear Turk-ish ambitions in the re-gion; emerging Islamist

parties are wary because Turkey is too secu-lar and too Western despite its AKP govern-ment; liberals are skeptical about Turkish de-mocracy, and Arab states are searching for theirown authentic, homegrown models to take intoaccount the specific characteristics of eachcountry.

CONCLUSIONS

Neither the Iraqi nor Turkish models haveproven attractive to the Arab regimes emergingfrom the most recent unrest. The Iraqi modelseems more frightening than encouraging, in partbecause it is perceived as a foreign impositionand in part because of the civil strife that wasunleashed on its heels. Sunni-majority Arabstates seem disinclined to embrace a model that

empowers new forces such as Shiites or Kurds,especially when they have their own minorities—Copts, Berbers, or Shiites, among others—withwhich to contend.

For all the admiration that it had initiallyaroused, the Turkish model appears as unap-pealing as the Iraqi but for different reasons.Despite the fact that Turkey is a Muslim coun-try, there are lingering fears and suspicions amongthe new regimes regarding Ankara’s real motives.The export of the Turkish model has been per-ceived as another vehicle for expanding Ankara’sneo-Ottoman ambitions in the region. To some,Ankara’s behavior seems arrogant as if it werelecturing the uncultured Arabs who need to beschooled by the “superior” Turks. From this per-spective, there is little difference between aChristian or Muslim outsider.

The overwhelming sense is that each coun-try affected by the unrest is searching for itsown model and is unwilling to emulate anothereven when it has proved successful. A demo-cratic system cannot be instantly copied andinstalled in another place. It needs time, a strongeconomic basis, stability, and most importantly,the willingness of a large segment of the societyto embrace democratic norms. As Daniel Pipeshas written: “Democracy is a learned habit, notinstinct. The infrastructure of a civil society—such as freedom of speech, freedom of move-ment, freedom of assembly, the rule of law, mi-nority rights, and an independent judiciary—needs to be established before holding elections.Deep attitudinal changes must take place as well:a culture of restraint, a commonality of values, arespect for differences of view and a sense ofcivic responsibility.”53

As of now, it seems highly doubtful that ei-ther Iraq or Turkey can help the post-revolution-ary Arab regimes implement these conditions.

51 Milliyet, Jan. 10, 2012, in Mideast Mirror, Jan. 13, 2012.52 Yesim Erez, “The ‘Turkish Model’ of Democracy: NeitherModerate nor Democratic,” PJ Media, Feb. 1, 2012.

Sunni-majorityArab states seemdisinclined toembrace a modelthat empowersnew forces such asShiites or Kurds.

53 Daniel Pipes, “A Strongman for Iraq?” The New York Post,Apr. 28, 2003.

/ 63 Berman: Iran and Latin America

Iran Courts Latin Americaby Ilan Berman

In October 2011, U.S. attorney general Eric Holder and FBI director Robert Muellerrevealed the thwarting of an elaborate plot by elements in Iran’s Revolutionary GuardCorps (IRGC) to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington at a posh D.C.

eatery, utilizing members of the Los Zetas Mexican drug cartel.1The foiled terrorist plot, with its Latin American connections, focused new attention

on what had until then been a largely overlooked political phenomenon: the intrusion ofthe Islamic Republic of Iran into the Western Hemisphere. An examination of Tehran’sbehavioral pattern in the region over the past several years reveals four distinct strategicobjectives: loosening the U.S.-led international noose to prevent it from building nuclearweapons; obtaining vital resources for its nuclear project; creating informal networks forinfluence projection and sanctions evasion; and establishing a terror infrastructure thatcould target the U.S. homeland.

Ilan Berman is vice president of the AmericanForeign Policy Council in Washington, D.C. Thisarticle is adapted from his February 16, 2012 testi-mony before the Senate Foreign RelationsCommittee’s Subcommittee on Western Hemi-sphere, Peace Corps, and Global Narcotics Affairs.

BUILDING WESTERNHEMISPHERE ALLIANCES

Outreach to Latin America is seen by theIranian regime first and foremost as a means tolessen its deepening international isolation. Since2003, when its previously clandestine nuclearprogram became a pressing international issue,Tehran has sought to mitigate the mountingpolitical and economic restrictions levied againstit by the United States and its allies throughintensified diplomatic outreach abroad.

Due to its favorable geopolitical climate—typified by vast ungoverned areas and wide-

spread anti-Americanism—Latin America hasbecome an important focus of this effort. Overthe past decade, the regime has nearly doubledthe number of embassies in the region (from sixin 2005 to ten in 2010) and has devoted consid-erable energy to forging economic bonds withsympathetic regional governments.2

Far and away the most prominent such part-nership has been with Venezuela. Since HugoChavez became president in 1999, alignment withTehran has emerged as a cardinal tenet ofCaracas’s foreign policy. The subsequent elec-tion of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the Iranianpresidency in 2005 kicked cooperation into highgear with dramatic results. Today, the two coun-tries enjoy an extensive and vibrant strategicpartnership. Venezuela has emerged as an impor-

1 The New York Times, Oct. 11, 2011.2 Gen. Douglas M. Fraser, statement before the U.S. House ofRepresentatives Committee on Armed Services, Washington,D.C., Mar. 30, 2011.


tant source of material assistance for Tehran’ssprawling nuclear program as well as a vocal dip-lomatic backer of its right to atomic power.3 TheChavez regime also has become a safe haven andsource of financial support for Hezbollah, Iran’smost powerful terrorist proxy.4 In turn, Tehran’sfeared Revolutionary Guard has become involvedin training Venezuela’s secret services and po-lice.5 Economic contacts between Caracas and

Tehran likewise have ex-ploded—expanding fromvirtually nil in the early2000s to more than $20billion in total trade andcooperation agreementstoday.6

Just as significantly,Venezuela has served asIran’s gateway for furthereconomic and diplomaticexpansion into the re-gion. Aided by its part-nership with Caracas and

bolstered by a shared anti-American outlook,Tehran has succeeded in forging significant stra-tegic, economic, and political links with the re-gime of Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correain Ecuador. Even Iran’s relations with Argentina,where Iranian-supported terrorists carried outmajor bombings in 1992 and 1994, have improvedin recent times, as the government of PresidentCristina Fernandez de Kirchner has hewed a moreconciliatory line toward Tehran.7

It would be a mistake, however, to view thesecontacts as simply pragmatic—or strictly defen-sive. The Iranian regime’s sustained systematicoutreach to regional states suggests that it seesthe Western Hemisphere as a crucial strategictheater for expanding its own influence and re-

ducing that of the United States. Indeed, a 2009dossier prepared by Israel’s Ministry of ForeignAffairs noted that “since Ahmadinejad’s rise topower, Tehran has been promoting an aggres-sive policy aimed at bolstering its ties with LatinAmerican countries with the declared goal of‘bringing America to its knees.’”8 This view isincreasingly shared by the U.S. military: In its2010 report on Iranian military power, the Officeof the Secretary of Defense noted that “Iranseeks to increase its stature by countering U.S.influence and expanding ties with regional ac-tors” in Latin America.9

To this end, Tehran is ramping up its stra-tegic messaging to the region. In late January,on the heels of Ahmadinejad’s very public four-country tour of Latin America, the Iranian re-gime formally launched HispanTV, a Spanish-language analogue to its English-languagePress TV channel.10 The television outlet hasbeen depicted by Ahmadinejad as part of hisgovernment’s efforts to “limit the ground forsupremacy of dominance seekers”—a thinly-veiled reference to U.S. influence in the West-ern Hemisphere.11

As Ahmadinejad’s statement indicates,Tehran is pursuing a strategy that promotes itsown ideology and influence in Latin America atWashington’s expense. In this endeavor, it hasbeen greatly aided by Chavez, who himself hasworked diligently to diminish U.S. political andeconomic presence in the region under the ban-ner of a new “Bolivarian” revolution.

EXPLOITINGRESOURCE WEALTH

Since the start of the international crisisover Iran’s nuclear ambitions nearly nine years

3 China Central TV (Beijing), Jan. 10, 2012.4 The Washington Times, July 7, 2008.5 Agence France-Presse, Dec. 21, 2008.6 See, for example, Steven Heydemann, “Iran’s AlternativeAllies,” in Robin Wright, ed., The Iran Primer: Power, Poli-tics and U.S. Policy (Washington, D.C.: United States Instituteof Peace Press, 2010).7 Reuters, Dec. 5, 2011.

8 YNet News (Tel Aviv), May 25, 2009.9 “Unclassified Report on Military Power of Iran,” U.S. De-partment of Defense, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Washing-ton, D.C., Apr. 2010.10 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (Washington, D.C.), Jan.31, 2012.11 Arab News (Riyadh), Feb. 1, 2012.

Tehran’sRevolutionaryGuard isinvolved intrainingVenezuela’ssecret servicesand police.

/ 65

ago, it has become an accepted belief thatTehran’s atomic program is now largely self-sufficient and that its progress is, therefore,largely inexorable. This, however, is far fromthe truth; in fact, the Iranian regime currentlyruns a considerable, and growing, deficit ofuranium ore, the critical raw material needed tofuel its atomic effort.

According to nonproliferation experts,Tehran’s indigenous uranium ore reserves areknown to be both “limited and mostly of poorquality.”12 When Shah Mohammed RezaPahlavi mapped out an ambitious nationalplan for nuclear power in the 1970s, his gov-ernment was forced to procure significantquantities of the mineral from South Africa.Nearly four decades later, this aging stock-pile has reportedly been mostly depleted.13

As a result, in recent years, Tehran has em-barked on a widening quest to acquire ura-nium ore from abroad. In 2009, for example, itis known to have attempted to purchase morethan 1,000 tons of uranium ore from the Cen-tral Asian republic of Kazakhstan at a cost ofnearly half-a-billion dollars.14 In that particu-lar case, deft diplomacy on the part of Wash-ington and its European allies helped stymieTehran’s efforts—at least for the time being.

The Iranian quest, however, has notabated. In February 2011, an intelligence sum-mary from a member state of the InternationalAtomic Energy Agency reaffirmed the Islamicregime’s continued search for new and stablesources of uranium to fuel its nuclear pro-gram.15 This effort has recently focused on twoprincipal geographic areas. The first is Africawhere Tehran has made concerted efforts toengage a number of uranium producers suchas Zimbabwe, Senegal, Nigeria, and the Demo-cratic People’s Republic of Congo.16 The sec-ond is Latin America where Tehran now is ex-

ploring and developing a series of significantresource partnerships.

The best known of these partnerships iswith Venezuela; cooperation on strategic re-sources has emerged as a defining feature of thealliance between the Islamic Republic and theChavez regime. The Iranian regime is currentlyknown to be mining in the Roraima Basin, adja-cent to Venezuela’s border with Guyana. Signifi-cantly, that geological area is believed to beanalogous to Canada’s Athabasca Basin, theworld’s largest deposit of uranium.17

Bolivia, too, is fast becoming a significantsource of strategic resources for the Iranian re-gime. With the sanction of the Morales govern-ment, Tehran is now believed to be extractinguranium from as many as eleven different sitesin Bolivia’s east, proximate to the country’s in-

Berman: Iran and Latin America

Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad(left) embraces his closest ally in theAmericas, Venezuelan president HugoChavez. Venezuela, located on the northerncoast of South America, has become thefocal point for Iran’s ambitions in theWestern hemisphere.

12 Associated Press, Feb. 24, 2011.13 Time, Apr. 27, 2010.14 Associated Press, Dec. 29, 2009.15 Ibid., Feb. 24, 2011.16 Ibid.

17 Bret Stephens, “The Tehran-Caracas Nuclear Axis,” TheWall Street Journal, Dec. 15, 2009.


dustrial capital of Santa Cruz.18 Not coinciden-tally, it is rumored that the now-infamous Tehran-Caracas air route operated jointly by Conviasa,Venezuela’s national airline, and Iran’s state car-rier, Iran Air, will be extended in the near futureto Santa Cruz.19 Additionally, a series of coop-eration agreements concluded in 2010 betweenLa Paz and Tehran have made Iran a “partner” inthe mining and exploitation of Bolivia’s lithium,a key strategic mineral with applications fornuclear weapons development.20

Iran even appears to be eyeing Ecuador’suranium deposits. A $30 million joint mining dealconcluded between Tehran and Quito back in 2009has positioned the Correa regime to eventuallybecome a supplier for the Islamic Republic.21

Regional experts note thatIran’s mining and extraction effortsin Latin America are still compara-tively modest in nature, constrainedby competition from larger countriessuch as Canada and China and byTehran’s own available resourcesand know-how.22 However, the re-gion is unquestionably viewed as atarget of opportunity in Iran’s wid-ening quest for strategic re-sources—both because of its favor-able political operating environmentand because states there (especiallyBolivia) represent unknown quanti-ties in terms of resource wealth. Thisraises the possibility that LatinAmerica could emerge in the near fu-ture as a significant provider of stra-tegic resources for the Iranian regimeand a key source of sustenance forIran’s expanding nuclear program.

ESTABLISHING ANIRANIAN PRESENCE

Tehran’s formal political and economic con-tacts with regional states are reinforced by abroad web of asymmetric activities throughoutthe Americas. Illicit financial transactions figureprominently in this regard. Over the past severalyears, Tehran’s economic ties with Caracas havehelped it skirt the sanctions being levied by theinternational community as well as to continueto operate in an increasingly inhospitable glo-bal financial system. It has done so through theestablishment of joint companies and financialentities as well as the formation of wholly Ira-nian-owned financial entities in Venezuela andthe entrenchment of Iranian commercial banksthere.23 Experts note that this financial activity

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (left) hosted anIftar (fast breaking) ceremony on Ramadan in Tehran,September 3, 2009, which was attended by Bolivianpresident Evo Morales (right) during a two-day officialvisit. Tehran is now believed to be extracting uranium fromas many as eleven different sites in Bolivia close to thecountry’s industrial capital of Santa Cruz.

18 Author interviews, La Paz, Bolivia, Jan. 23-25, 2012.19 Author interviews, Santiago, Chile, Jan. 20-21, 2012.20 MercoPress (Montevideo, Ury.), Oct. 30, 2010.21 “Memorando De Entiendimento Entre El Ministerio DeMinas Y Petroleos De La Republica Del Ecuador Y El MinisterioDe Industrias Y Mineria De La Republica Islamica De Iran EnEl Sector Geologico Minero,” Dec. 3, 2009.

22 Author interviews, Santiago, Chile, Jan. 20, 2012.23 See, for example, Norman A. Bailey, “Iran’s VenezuelanGateway,” Iran Strategy Brief, no. 5, American Foreign PolicyCouncil, Washington, D.C., Feb. 12, 2012.

/ 67

exploits an existing loopholein the current sanctions regimeagainst Tehran—one that le-verages the freedom of actionof Venezuelan banks to pro-vide the Islamic Republic with“an ancillary avenue throughwhich it can access the inter-national financial system de-spite Western pressure.”24

Tehran is also known tobe active in the region’s ubiq-uitous gray and black marketsas well as its free trade areas—operating both directly and viaits terrorist proxy Hezbollah.25

Most notoriously, these in-clude the so-called “TripleFrontier” at the crossroads ofArgentina, Paraguay, and Bra-zil as well as Venezuela’sMargarita Island.

The Iranians also boastan increasingly robust paramilitary presence inthe region. The Pentagon, in its 2010 report toCongress on Iran’s military power, noted thatthe Qods Force, the Revolutionary Guard’s eliteparamilitary unit, is now deeply involved in theAmericas, stationing “operatives in foreign em-bassies, charities and religious/cultural institu-tions to foster relationships with people, oftenbuilding on existing socioeconomic ties with thewell-established Shia Diaspora” and even car-rying out “paramilitary operations to support ex-tremists and destabilize unfriendly regimes.”26

This presence is most pronounced in Bo-livia. Tehran has been intimately involved in theactivities of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Ameri-cas (ALBA) since the formation of that Cuban-and Venezuelan-led geopolitical bloc—whichalso encompasses Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua,and a number of other nations—in the early

2000s. As part of that relationship, Tehran re-portedly provided at least some of the seedmoney for the establishment of the bloc’s re-gional defense school situated outside SantaCruz. Iranian defense minister Ahmad Vahidi re-portedly presided over the school’s inaugura-tion in May 2011, and Iran—an ALBA observernation—is now said to be playing a role in train-ing and indoctrination at the facility.27 Regionalofficials currently estimate between fifty andthree hundred Iranian trainers to be present inBolivia.28 Notably, however, a personal visit tothe facility by this author in January 2012 foundit to be largely unattended.

A BASE FOR ATTACK?

Conventional wisdom in Washington haslong held that Tehran’s activism in the Americas

Berman: Iran and Latin America

The long arm of Iran’s terror network became apparent inOctober 2011 with the announcement that U.S. authorities hadthwarted an assassination plot by Iran’s Revolutionary Guardagainst the Saudi ambassador to Washington. The attempt wasset to use members of the Los Zetas Mexican drug cartel. Adisplay in Mexico of captured members and their armamentsprovides chilling proof of their lethality.

24 Ibid.25 Rex Hudson, “Terror and Organized Crime Groups in theTri-Border Area (TBA) of South America,” Library of Congress,Federal Research Div., Washington, D.C., Dec. 2010; “Unclas-sified Report on Military Power of Iran,” Apr. 2010.26 “Unclassified Report on Military Power of Iran,” Apr. 2010.

27 Author interviews, Santiago, Chile, and La Paz, Bol., Jan.20-24, 2012.28 Author interviews, Santiago, Chile, Jan. 20, 2012.


In January 2012, the Iranian regime formal-ly launched HispanTV, a Spanish-languagetelevision outlet that will broadcast Iran’s revo-lutionary, Islamic message in the Americas.

is opportunistic—rather than operational. YetIran’s growing asymmetric capabilities through-out the region have the potential to be directedagainst the U.S. homeland. This was hammeredhome by the foiled October 2011 plot, an attackwhich—had it been successful—would poten-tially have killed scores of U.S. citizens in thenation’s capital in the most significant terroristevent since 9/11.

The incident represents a seismic shift inTehran’s strategic calculations. As Director ofNational Intelligence James Clapper observedin his January 2012 testimony before the SenateSelect Committee on Intelligence, in response tomounting international pressure and asymmet-ric activity against Tehran’s nuclear program, itappears that “Iranian officials—probably includ-ing Supreme Leader Ali Khamene’i—havechanged their calculus and are now willing toconduct an attack in the United States.”29

Latin America figures prominently in thisequation. The foiled October 2011 plot suggeststhat Tehran increasingly deems the region an

advantageous operational theater. More-over, as its influence and activities there in-tensify, the Iranian regime will be able to fielda progressively more robust operationalpresence in the Americas. Clapper concludedhis Senate testimony with an ominous warn-ing: “The Iranian regime has formed allianceswith Chavez, Ortega, Castro, and Correa thatmany believe can destabilize the hemi-sphere,” he noted. “These alliances can posean immediate threat by giving Iran—directlythrough the IRGC, the Qods force, or its prox-ies like Hezbollah—a platform in the regionto carry out attacks against the UnitedStates, our interests, and allies.”30

OBSTACLESFACING IRAN

Understanding these motivations is essen-tial to assessing the significance of Latin Americain Tehran’s strategic calculus and to determin-ing whether its efforts there are successful.

For the moment, Iranian regional inroadsrepresent a work in progress. The Islamist re-gime has demonstrated a clear interest in LatinAmerica over the past decade and is now striv-ing to expand its influence there. As of yet, how-ever, it has not succeeded in solidifying thispresence—or in fully operationalizing its re-gional relationships and institutionalizing its in-fluence. As experts have noted, despite Tehran’sgenerous promises of economic engagementwith regional states, precious little of this aidhas actually materialized, save in the case ofVenezuela.31 Moreover, despite increasingly ro-bust cooperation with regional states on min-ing and extraction, there is as yet no indicationthat Latin America by itself can serve as theanswer for Iran’s strategic resource needs.

Furthermore, an expansion of Tehran’s foot-print in the region is not necessarily inevitable.

29 James Clapper, testimony before the Senate Select Commit-tee on Intelligence, Washington, D.C., Jan. 31, 2012.

30 Ibid.31 Bailey, “Iran’s Venezuelan Gateway.”

/ 69 Berman: Iran and Latin America

Over the past year, the health of the IslamicRepublic’s foremost regional ally, Hugo Chavez,has become increasingly critical, and the Ven-ezuelan strongman is now believed to be in theterminal stages of cancer. Significant ambiguityabounds over Venezuela’s future direction and,as a result, about the durability of the partner-ship forged between Caracas and Tehran underChavez.

Tehran’s expanding regional activism, there-fore, can be understood at least in part as con-tingency planning of sorts: an effort to broadencontacts and ensure the continuance of its re-gional influence in a post-Chavez environment.In this context, the regimes of Evo Morales inBolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador are signifi-cant with Correa in particular increasingly con-sidered a potential successor to Chavez as a stan-dard bearer of the new “Bolivarianism”—and aninheritor of cooperation with Iran.32 Tehran’sfuture progress in solidifying and expandingthose partnerships will serve as an importantbarometer of the long-term survival of its

bonds to the region as a whole.For their part, since October 2011,

policymakers in Wash-ington have begun to payserious attention toTehran’s activities in theWestern Hemisphere. Yetthey have done little con-crete to respond to it, atleast so far. Despite heart-ening early steps (includ-ing new legislation nowunder consideration byCongress),33 a compre-hensive strategy to con-test and dilute Iranian in-fluence in the Americas remains absent.

Unless and until such a strategy doesemerge, Tehran’s Latin American efforts—andthe threats posed by them to American interestsand the U.S. homeland—will only continue toexpand.

32 Jose R. Cardenas, “Iran’s Man in Ecuador,” Foreign Policy,Feb. 15, 2011.

33 Countering Iran in the Western Hemisphere Act of 2012,H.R. 3783, 112th U.S. Congress, 2d sess., Washington, D.C.,Jan. 18, 2012.

In the Name of HonorPalestinian police have freed a young woman whose father kept her locked in the bathroom of their housefor about a decade. Spokesman Adnan Damiri said the 20-year-old woman was in a “deplorable”condition when she was found on Saturday.

Baraa Melhem revealed that she spent the decade by listening to the radio that her father had givenher and by eating an apple that she got to eat every day.

Her father locked her up in the bathroom after she ran away from home to escape the torture at theage of 10. The police caught her and brought her back home.

She would be allowed to get out of the bathroom only in the middle of the night so that she could dothe house work. She would be locked inside again around dawn. She did not see any sunlight for about adecade.

Baraa was given only a blanket, radio, and a razor blade by her father and stepmother, and both ofthem encouraged her to kill herself, the daily said. The girl was often physically assaulted, and her fatherwould shave her head and eyebrows to punish her further.

He would often threaten to rape her till she got pregnant so that he could kill her in the name ofhonor killing.

Emirates 24/7 (Dubai), Jan. 24, 2012

A comprehensivestrategy inWashington tocontest anddilute Iranianinfluence in theAmericas isabsent.


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/ 71 Maddy-Weitzman: The Arab League

The Arab LeagueComes Alive

by Bruce Maddy-Weitzman

One unexpected result of the Arab upheavals has been the renewed relevance ofthe 22-member League of Arab States. Long denigrated as a largely toothlessorganization, “a cross between the forces of fiction and futility,”1 the league be-

came an integral part of the diplomatic maneuvering in a number of areas. It providedcrucial legitimacy for the Western intervention that led to the overthrow of Mu‘ammar al-Qaddafi, supported the Gulf Cooperation Council’s ultimately successful effort to forceYemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh to relinquish power, and has been active in trying toresolve the Syrian crisis.

Why the change? On one level, most ruling Arab elites, cognizant of the widespreadsympathy for the protest movements, find it necessary and useful to demonstrate theirattentiveness to the public mood, at least when it comes to supporting protest movementselsewhere. But at base, the league’s actions have been not so much a result of the “Tahrirspirit” as of the hardheaded, geopolitical calculations by the bloc of mostly monarchicalSunni Arab states headed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Its successes, and limitations, pro-vide a window into the current state of inter-Arab and regional dynamics at a time of greatuncertainty.

Bruce Maddy-Weitzman is principal research fel-low at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle East-ern and African Studies, Tel Aviv University.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The league was founded in March 1945 topromote closer political and economic coopera-tion between newly emerging Arabic-speakingstates in the name of an overarching pan-Arabidentity; but the organization has generally failedto achieve anything more than ad hoc collabora-tion between its members, and the bulk of its reso-lutions and decisions have not been implemented.The deep fissures and rivalries among the Arabstates, as well as the limitations on the capabili-

ties of Egypt, the driving force of the new organi-zation, insured that the league would fail to de-velop a strong institutional framework. The in-ability to require recalcitrant members to acceptthe will of the majority generally necessitated thesearch for the lowest common denominator, thusinvariably watering down the league’s resolutionsand often denuding them of meaning entirely. Formuch of its history, the league, headquartered inCairo and perpetually headed by a senior Egyp-tian diplomat, served as an appendage of Egyp-tian foreign policy and a tool to promote Egypt’sself-designated status as the leader of the Arabworld.

Nonetheless, Arab League summit confer-

1 Rami G. Khouri, “The Arab League Awakening,” AgenceGlobal (Greensboro, N.C.), Nov. 16, 2011.


ences—the league’s de facto supreme decision-making body—have occasionally produced sig-nificant outcomes: the 1964 creation of the Pal-estine Liberation Organization and its endorse-ment as the sole legitimate representative of thePalestinian people ten years later; the 1978 sus-pension of Egypt following its peace accords withIsrael; and, perhaps most importantly, the 1990condemnation by a bare majority of Arab states

of Saddam Hussein’s in-vasion of Kuwait andsupport for the U.S.-ledmilitary coalition thatwould ultimately evicthim from the emirate.

Over the past decade,Arab summit conferencesfaded into irrelevance.This was particularly vis-ible at the 2004 summithosted by Tunisia’s auto-cratic president Ben Ali,which proclaimed a com-

mitment to comprehensive reform of political life,including the establishment of genuine democ-racy and freedom of expression, thought and be-lief.2 The Arab regimes’ inability and unwilling-ness even to begin a process of genuine reformprovided an important backdrop to the 2011 up-risings. Meanwhile, the centers of power in theMiddle East were ever more firmly located in non-Arab capitals—Ankara, Tehran, and Jerusalem.

FROM TUNIS TO TRIPOLI

The gathering storm in Tunisia rendered mostArab leaders speechless, apart from Qaddafi, whoexpressed the hope that Ben Ali would succeedin restoring order. Momentarily, the Libyan dicta-tor was on the same side of the fence as the con-servative Arab monarchies led by Saudi Arabiaas well as the Egyptian and Algerian ruling elites.But this would not last.

As the protest movements spread, the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) quicklyemerged as the only cohesive bloc of Arab states.Having banded together in 1981 in the shadow ofthe Iran-Iraq war, this club of pro-Western, oil-rich, tribally-based, geopolitically vulnerablemonarchies has generally been like-minded onmajor strategic issues while not being free of dif-ferences and rivalries, due particularly to the gad-fly role embraced by Qatar. In this regard, theDoha-based al-Jazeera TV’s constant coverageof the protests in Tunis and Cairo was crucial inbuilding their momentum to the extreme displea-sure of Riyadh. For the Saudi leadership, the top-pling of Ben Ali, to whom it quickly gave asylum,was bad enough. The overthrow three weeks laterof Egyptian president Husni Mubarak, the Sau-dis’ prime regional ally for more than twenty years,shook them profoundly, all the more so in light ofwhat they viewed as the Obama administration’sfailure to stand firmly behind him.3 The GCC states’response was multi-pronged, focusing on the nextthree emerging hot spots—Bahrain, Libya, andYemen—while concurrently pumping billions ofdollars into their own societies to neutralize po-tential unrest.

Bahrain, of course, was one of their own, amember of the club. Unlike the others, however,it had a marginalized Shiite majority. Hence, theSaudis viewed the unrest there not through thelens of civic assertion, as it was seen in the West,but rather as a religious-communal struggle withpotential to inflame the Saudis’ own Shiite popu-lation in the kingdom’s Eastern Province.4 More-over, the Bahrain crisis also carried profoundgeopolitical ramifications: Periodic Iranian claimsto Bahrain and Tehran’s vocal support for theBahraini protestors posed a mortal danger inSaudi eyes—the extension of Iranian power andinfluence across the Persian Gulf and onto thepeninsula itself.5

2 “League of Arab States, Tunis Declaration issued at the 16thsession of the Arab Summit,” Tunis, May 22-23, 2004.

3 Fox News, Feb. 10, 2011; The New York Times, Mar. 17,2011.4 Reuters, Feb. 22, 2011; The New York Times, Mar. 17, 2011;The Guardian (London), Mar. 19, 2011.5 Voice of America News (Washington, D.C.), Mar. 17, 2011;The New York Times, Mar. 17, 2011.

The ArabLeague createdthe PLO andendorsed it asthe solelegitimaterepresentative ofthe Palestinians.

/ 73

Hence, for GCC members,the choice was clear. Blatantlyignoring Washington’s adviceto engage with the protestors’demands, Bahrain’s KingHamad welcomed the deploy-ment in March 2011 of approxi-mately a thousand mostly Saudiarmed forces together withsmaller contingents from otherGCC states. Their presence gavehim sufficient backing to crackdown hard on the protests,bringing them to an end.

Whereas the purpose of theGCC’s Bahrain policy was to re-store the status quo, stabilizingYemen—Saudi Arabia’s soft un-derbelly on its southeast bor-der—necessitated delicate me-diation over many months. Theend result, the removal of Salehand his replacement by his vicepresident, was the optimal out-come for the time being.

Libya, however, was another story. As op-posed to intervening to preserve the status quoas in Bahrain, or to brokering a leadership changewhile maintaining the regime as in Yemen, theGCC’s goal in Libya was to demolish Qaddafi’spersonal rule. The Libyan ruler had never madeany bones about his disdain for the gulf monar-chies: His media had branded the late Saudi KingFahd the “pig of the peninsula,” and Qaddafi andSaudi King Abdullah had exchanged personalinvectives on a number of occasions in recentyears at Arab summits, in front of the televisioncameras.6 Sensitive to charges that ruling elites,and especially conservative pro-Western Arabmonarchies, were opposed to the demands forreform from Arab societies, Arab monarchs con-sequently jumped at the chance to support theLibyan uprising.

Of course, the challenge of toppling Qaddafiwas of an entirely different order of business than

in Bahrain or Yemen. At best, the GCC states couldonly play a supporting role, and the heavy liftingcould be done only by Western powers and theLibyan opposition itself. To that end, Saudi Arabiaand Qatar activated the Arab League, a matter ofno small irony, as Qaddafi had hosted the annualArab summit conference in his home town of Sirtejust one year earlier.

Accordingly, on February 22, 2011, the leaguecondemned the Libya government’s violent crack-down of the protesters and suspended it fromparticipation in league meetings.7 This markedthe first occasion when a league member hadbeen barred due to actions taken against its owncitizens within its sovereign territory, and it por-tended further measures. On March 12, as Qaddafithreatened to reconquer the rebellious eastern

Maddy-Weitzman: The Arab League

6 See, for example, The Telegraph (London), Mar. 30, 2009.7 Reuters, Feb. 22, 2011; Bloomberg News Service (NewYork), Feb. 22, 2011.

Saudi Arabian sheikh Yusuf Yassin (center), the actingminister for foreign affairs, signs the League of Arab Statescharter in Cairo, Egypt, March 1945. The Arab League wasinaugurated ostensibly to promote greater inter-Arabcooperation, but in reality, it was created largely inopposition to the Zionist enterprise in Mandate Palestine. Itsinfluence has waxed and waned over the decades; itsaccomplishments have been few and far between.


region of the country and hunt down his oppo-nents “like rats,” Doha and Riyadh spearheadedan Arab League resolution calling on the U.N.Security Council to impose a no-fly zone to pro-tect Libyan civilians from Qaddafi’s promisedretributions.8 Reminiscent of the 1990 Arab

summit’s action againstSaddam Hussein, theleague’s appeal to the Se-curity Council providedvital Arab legitimacy forWestern governments’subsequent actions.One difference betweenthe two episodes wasthat, in 1990, much of theArab “street” was infuri-ated with the move. Thistime, the “street” and theconsiderations of most

governments had converged. Qatar and theUnited Arab Emirates would even provide smallcontingents from their respective air forces toparticipate in the NATO-led attacks on Qaddafi’sforces,9 and the two countries, along with Ku-wait, recognized the rebels’ Transitional Councilas the legitimate Libyan government well beforeQaddafi’s ultimate capture and summary execu-tion on October 20, 2011.

To be sure, one could hardly speak of a large,activist anti-Qaddafi Arab bloc. Only five othercountries besides the six GCC states actually at-tended the league meeting—only half of the totalmember states. Nor was support for the U.N. Se-curity Council resolution unanimous: The Syrianand Algerian foreign ministers,10 and reportedlythe Sudanese and Mauritanian ones as well, ex-pressed their unhappiness about endorsing in-ternational intervention in Libya’s internal affairsand warned of the consequences. Indeed, outgo-ing league secretary-general Amr Moussa back-tracked on the league’s decision just a few days

later11 as it became clear that NATO’s missionwas not just humanitarian but ultimately directedat achieving a regime change. But Moussa’s state-ment had no discernible impact on the course ofevents, confirming anew that it was the GCC blocthat held the decisive weight in the league at thatmoment, and that NATO and the GCC, havingattained what they needed from the league mecha-nism, could proceed apace.

THE STRUGGLEFOR SYRIA REDUX

During its first decades of existence, Syriawas a weak state that suffered from chronic politi-cal instability, internal schisms, and a lack of co-hesion. As such, it was the object of rival regionaland international ambitions which, in turn, fur-ther destabilized domestic political life. This weak-ness stood in contrast to Damascus’s claim toregional leadership as the “beating heart ofArabism,” used by Syrian leaders as a legitimat-ing tool vis-à-vis both domestic and regional ri-vals. The outcome of this explosive cocktail wasthe 1967 Six-Day War with Israel, the final blow tothe dream of radical pan-Arabists.12

Hafez Assad’s ascent to power in 1970 gradu-ally inaugurated a new era. Syria became a brutal,albeit relatively stable mukhabarat (intelligenceand security services) state with its leaders in-dulged and all opposition crushed as in Hama in1982. Systematic repression was accompanied byalliances between the Alawite core of the regime,the Sunni merchant classes, and the Christian re-ligious minorities, who valued the stability pro-vided by the regime. Regionally, Syria became afull-fledged actor, incorporating Lebanon into itssphere of influence and seeking to do the samewith the Palestinians and Jordan while maintain-ing a hard-line position toward Israel. While Dam-ascus continued to declare adherence to the prin-ciples of Arab nationalism, its alliance with non-

8 U.N. press release on resolution 1973, Mar. 17, 2011.9 Christopher M. Blanchard, “Libya: Unrest and U.S. Policy,”Congressional Research Service, Washington, D.C., Mar. 29,2011.10 BBC News, Mar. 12, 2011.

11 France 24 TV, Mar. 22, 2011.12 Curtis Ryan, “The New Arab Cold War and the Struggle forSyria,” Middle East Report, no. 262, Middle East Research andInformation Project (MERIP), Washington, D.C.

During theupheavals, itwas the GulfCooperationCouncil bloc thatheld the decisiveweight in theArab League.

/ 75

Arab revolutionary Islam-ist Iran beginning in 1979placed it in an awkward, mi-nority position among Arabstates, particularly duringthe Iran-Iraq war. But thealliance, often viewed byoutsiders as unholy andunnatural, proved to be ex-tremely durable even asSyria joined the pragmaticpro-Western Arab camp ledby Egypt and Saudi Arabiain helping to reverse the Iraqioccupation of Kuwait in1990-91 and participated inthe Arab-Israeli peace pro-cess during the 1990s.

Under Bashar al-Assad, however, the deli-cate balance that his fatherhad usually maintained be-tween Iran and conserva-tive, pro-Western Arab states was abandoned infavor of deeper ties with Tehran and enhancedsupport for non-state violent Islamist movements(Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad). Even ashe officially subscribed to the Arab League’s 2002peace initiative, Bashar was dismissive of it andof its Arab advocates.13 Syrian relations with otherArab states reached a new low point during the2006 Israel-Hezbollah war when Bashar scornedMubarak and the Saudi and Jordanian kings as“half men” for blaming Hezbollah and Iran for start-ing the conflagration.14 It was largely thanks tothe Syrian-Iranian alliance that Tehran was ableto project power into the eastern Mediterraneanregion—in Lebanon, the Damascus-based Pales-tinian organizations, and the Egyptian Sinai—ina manner unprecedented since ancient times.

Following the uprising in Tunisia and in themidst of the protests in Egypt and Bahrain, Bashargave a memorable interview to The Wall Street

Journal, in which he explained that Syria wasimmune from unrest because, unlike elsewhere,his policies were in tune with the Syrian people’sdesire to promote “resistance.”15 Within a fewshort weeks, however, this gloating proved to beprofoundly misconceived. More than a year and9,000 fatalities later,16 Assad’s regime is fightingfor its life and is estranged to an unprecedenteddegree from nearly all Arab states. In particular,the conservative Arab monarchies, facing theirown restless populations, find it useful to iden-tify with the predominantly Sunni Muslim Syrianopposition. Even more importantly, they recog-nize that the fall of the house of Assad would beof a different order of magnitude than that ofQaddafi. Having failed for three decades to prySyria loose from the Iranian embrace, the pros-pect of regime change, in favor of a Sunni-domi-nated government more attuned to Saudi, Turk-ish, Egyptian, and Western sensibilities and in-terests (not that these are identical, by any means)


13 Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, “Arabs vs. the Abdullah Plan,”Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2010, pp. 3-12.14 Bashar al-Assad, Journalists’ Union speech, Damascus,Aug. 15, 2006.

15 The Wall Street Journal, Jan. 31, 2011.16 The Telegraph, Mar. 18, 2012.

Arab League monitors visit a site in Syria, January 2012. Withmuch of the Arab world in disarray and Middle East power centersapparently shifting to Ankara, Tehran, and Jerusalem, it wouldseem that displays of Arab unity amount to little. Both an ArabLeague mediation effort and the Syrian monitoring mission havebeen exercises in futility.


is extremely enticing. Tehran recognizes what isat stake as well. A visit in January 2012 of an Ira-nian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander toDamascus confirmed that Tehran is providing mili-tary aid to Syria to help suppress the uprising.Hezbollah, Iran’s main client in the region, is un-doubtedly involved in the effort.

THE EVOLVING CRISIS

Many months would pass before the bridgeswould be entirely burned between Assad andthe anti-Iranian, Arab Sunni bloc. Indeed, one ofthe first acts by the new Arab League secretary-

general Nabil al-Arabiupon officially assuminghis post in July 2011, af-ter Moussa steppeddown to run for the Egyp-tian presidency, was tomeet Assad in Damascus.There he denounced“foreign intervention” inSyria, and specifically,U.S. president BarackObama for declaring that

Assad had lost all legitimacy. At that point intime, a reform process that Assad had pledged toimplement appeared to Arabi to be the best hopefor avoiding a conflagration in Syria.17

But the belief in Assad’s commitment to re-form withered away in subsequent months. A fewweeks after condemning Obama, and just one dayafter a GCC condemnation of the Syrian regime’sactions, Arabi issued an official statement express-ing concern over the deteriorating situation inSyria and urged the government to end its vio-lent repression of the opposition. On that sameday, August 7, Riyadh withdrew its ambassadorfrom Damascus and was followed hours later byKuwait and Bahrain. Arabi met with Assad onSeptember 10 and left encouraged that the presi-dent would act to defuse the crisis. Six weekslater, the scene was repeated, this time by a full-

fledged Arab League mediation mission led byQatar’s prime minister, and including the foreignministers of Algeria, Egypt, Oman, and Sudan aswell as Arabi. The “Arab solution” to the crisisnow being proffered put the onus on the Assadregime: It was required to end its violence andkilling, release prisoners, withdraw the army fromcities, allow free access to foreign journalists,open a dialogue with the opposition under leagueauspices, and accept the entry of a multinationalArab League monitoring mission which wouldreport on compliance with its plan.18

Damascus’s slowness in responding and ef-forts to limit the number and purview of the moni-tors, resulted in its suspension from league ac-tivities on November 12, as had been done withLibya.19 Eighteen states voted in favor of the sus-pension, with only Lebanon and Yemen oppos-ing and Iraq abstaining. That same day, Jordan’sKing Abdullah became the first Arab head of stateto suggest that Assad should step down. OnNovember 27, the league announced the imposi-tion of sanctions on Syria, including the banningof senior Syrian officials from traveling to otherArab countries, freezing Syrian assets in Arabcountries and halting financial operations withmajor Syrian banks.20 Further sanctions were an-nounced the following week.

While clearly unhappy with the turn ofevents, the Syrians kept the door opened andeventually agreed to receive an Arab monitoringmission. Its very establishment was a novelty.Syrian forces intervening in Lebanon in 1976 hadreceived the Arab League’s qualified stamp of ap-proval. Now, Syria was on the receiving end ofcollective Arab policies though this was hardly acase of collective Arab will being imposed onSyria. The 165-member mission was led by a re-tired Sudanese general who had been involved inthe genocidal actions in Darfur and was clearlysympathetic to the official Syrian version ofevents. The regime’s efforts to manage the

17 Al-Ahram (Cairo), July 13, 2011.

18 Ha’aretz (Tel Aviv), Nov. 1, 2011; al-Jazeera TV (Doha),Nov. 3, 2011.19 The Guardian, Nov. 12, 2011.20 BBC News, Nov. 27, 2011.

Assad declaredthat Syria, notthe Arab League,had advancedArab interestspolitically andculturally.

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mission’s itinerary apparently in-cluded sending prostitutes to thehotel housing the monitors, secretlyphotographing them in their ownrooms and bathrooms, and postingthe pictures online in order to black-mail them.21 Moreover, a number ofmonitors were attacked and injuredby pro-regime elements. The cha-otic nature of the mission led to thevery vocal resignation of an Alge-rian participant, who called it “afarce.”22 The 50-strong GCC con-tingent was demonstratively with-drawn in opposition to extendingthe mission’s activities into a sec-ond month, followed quickly byJordan’s withdrawal, and the opera-tion was closed down. Most impor-tantly, the mission had failed tostaunch the bloodshed.

Bashar’s response to Arabcondemnations was predictablydismissive. Much more than them,he declared, it was Syria that represented Arabidentity and had advanced Arab interests, politi-cally and culturally. Suspending Syria from theArab League simply meant that the league hadsuspended its Arabness. Syria, he insisted, wasthe victim of an international conspiracy hatchedby regional and global powers who, as in the past,wanted to destabilize the country and advancetheir interests. What passes for the internationalcommunity, he declared, “is a group of big colo-nial countries which view the whole world as anarena full of slaves who serve their interests.”23

In response to the mission’s failure, theleague called for Assad to step down in favor ofhis vice-president and for the establishment of anational unity government.24 The plan, officiallytendered to the Security Council by Morocco,was endorsed by the United States, the European


Union, and Turkey but was vetoed by Russia andChina. The veto emboldened the Assad regime totake the offensive to try to stamp out its oppo-nents, employing an updated version of the“Hama Rules.” Qatar’s emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani suggested that troops from Arab countriesbe dispatched to quell the violence; the leaguecalled for a joint Arab-U.N. peacekeeping force,and Saudi leaders spoke out forcefully in favor ofarming the Syrian opposition. Riyadh’s frustra-tion with the absence of action was evidenced byForeign Minister Sa‘ud al-Faisal’s very publiccomplaint and demonstrative early exit from theFriends of Syria international conclave, held inTunisia on February 24, 2012, for the purpose ofapplying additional pressure on the regime andmobilizing support for the Syrian opposition.25

Failing to achieve a consensual SecurityCouncil resolution, the U.N. secretary-general dis-patched his predecessor, Kofi Annan, to Dam-

U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria Kofi Annan (left) talkswith league chief Nabil al-Arabi during a newsconference at Arab League headquarters in Cairo, Egypt,March 8, 2012. Arabi must walk a fine line betweensupporting the sovereignty of Arab states ruled byautocrats such as Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah andresponding to the “Arab street’s” revulsion with Basharal-Assad’s bloody suppression of the Syrian people.

21 Abdul Rahman al-Rashed, “How can we save Syria?” al-Arabiya News (Dubai), Jan. 31, 2012.22 The Guardian, Jan. 11, 2012.23 Bashar al-Assad, speech, Damascus University, Jan. 2012.24 The Washington Post, Jan. 22, 2012.

25 Los Angeles Times, Feb. 24, 2012.


ascus in early March, as a specially designatedU.N.-Arab League representative, to try to find away out of the impasse but with no discernibleresults. As Syrian forces extended their offensiveand the death toll mounted, league secretary-gen-eral Arabi called for an impartial international in-vestigation into “crimes against humanity” com-

mitted against civilians inSyria and prosecution ofthe perpetrators. TheGCC states, for their part,announced the closureof their embassies andcalled on the internationalcommunity to “take firmand quick measures tostop the killings, torture,and blatant violation ofthe dignity of the Syrianpeople and its legitimaterights.”26

CONCLUSIONS

In the many months since the Tunisian pro-duce vendor Mohamed Bouazizi literally and tragi-cally lit the spark that touched off the first of theArab uprisings, the geopolitical contours in theregion continued to be to the Arab states’ collec-tive and individual disadvantage. Egypt, tradi-tionally the first among equals among Arab states,has seen its regional weight and influence de-cline precipitously in the last two decades. In-deed, one regular refrain of the anti-Mubarak pro-tests was that the president was to blame for thisdeterioration and that a new order in Egypt would

restore Cairo to its rightful place in the region. Sofar, however, Egypt has been consumed with in-ternal problems, and its government’s absencefrom regional issues is even more noticeable.

In its stead, the main Arab leadership roleshave been assumed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, asurprising duo given the frequent friction betweenthem generated by Doha’s purposefully indepen-dent stand and Riyadh’s own preference for con-flict-avoidance and inter-Arab consensus build-ing. But the recent uncertainties, challenges, andopportunities have compelled them to try to maxi-mize their assets. This comes at a time when anuclear-aspiring Iran poses a clear and presentdanger to the existing regional balance of power;when Tehran’s primary regional ally, Damascus,is tottering, and when Washington’s dependabil-ity appears less of a given to Riyadh. It is againstthis backdrop that the Arab League has reemergedas an address for regional diplomacy with, per-haps ironically, Western approval.

The Syrian case demonstrates that, despiteU.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s praise ofthe league’s actions and the hopes of liberal Ar-abs that the organization could help promote anew well-being for Arab citizens throughout theregion,27 the league’s leverage remains limited.Increasingly, it appears that among regional ac-tors, the only one that could tip the balanceagainst the Assad regime would be Turkey. IfAnkara is drawn even more directly into the con-flict, it may well seek some measure of understand-ing with the Arab League. Thus, notwithstand-ing its limitations, the league is more relevant toregional geopolitics than it has been in years.

26 Reuters, Mar. 16, 2012; Day Press News Service (Dam-ascus), Mar. 17, 2012.

If Ankara isdrawn moredirectly into theSyrian conflict, itmay seek someunderstandingwith theArab League.

27 Marwan Muasher, “A League of Their Own,” ForeignPolicy, Jan. 11, 2012; Khouri, “The Arab League Awakening.”

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Lebanon’s Shiite-MaroniteAlliance of Hypocrisy

by Hilal Khashan

On February 6, 2006, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and leader of the Free Patri-otic Movement (FPM) Michel Aoun signed a memorandum of understanding, ostensi-bly to build a consensual Lebanese democracy on the basis of transparency, justice, andequality.1 However, a careful examination of the agreement shows that its real goal wasthe neutralization of Sunni political power, especially after the 2005 assassination of thepowerful Sunni statesman and former prime minister Rafiq Hariri.

The memorandum’s allusion to limiting the influence of money on politics and com-bating business and bureaucratic corruption hinted at the Sunni leadership’s vast finan-cial and entrepreneurial assets. Conversely, its insistence on the right of Lebanese expa-triates to participate in the country’s elections sought to enlist the support of the mostlyChristian immigrants in the Americas. Similarly, its attempt to link Lebanese nationalsecurity to Hezbollah’s arsenal aimed at legitimizing Shiite militarism.

Little of this had to do with Lebanon as a nation-state as much as with the attempt topreserve Shiite and Maronite power against the perceived Sunni threat. The result wasa deeply unequal arrangement that has brought Hezbollah further into Lebanese politicswhile limiting Maronite options.

Hilal Khashan is a professor of political sci-ence at the American University of Beirut.

D AT E L I N E

SHARED LEGACY OFRELIGIOUS PERSECUTION

Neither Lebanon’s Shiites nor Maronitesfelt at home under Ottoman domination, andSunnis relegated both communities to inferiorsocial status. Both communities found relativefreedom in their mountain enclaves althoughthey occasionally suffered from both the ex-

cesses of regional governors who burdenedthem with taxes and their local feudal leaderswho impoverished them and denied them edu-cation, especially in the case of the Shiites. Thestrong Maronite church moderated some of theadverse effects of feudal leadership, mainly be-cause it took it upon itself to contribute to theeducation of the community, building numer-ous schools as early as the eighteenth century,especially the famous La Sagesse school in

1 Memorandum of Joint Understanding between Hezbollahand the Free Patriotic Movement, Feb. 6, 2006, MideastMonitor, trans.

Khashan: Shiite-Maronite Alliance


1875.2 The church alsoplayed a crucial role in main-taining the cohesion of thecommunity and preparing itfor statehood. For example,Patriarch Elias Huwayik was instrumental in pro-moting the creation of Greater Lebanon, and in1919, he travelled to the Versailles Peace Confer-ence to pursue his objective.

The Shiites were less fortunate since theydid not have their own religious establishmentto take care of basic communal needs. The SunniOttoman state did not even recognize a sepa-rate communal status for the Shiites. ManyShiite clerics had modest education, and theygenerally had little impact on the affairs of thecommunity. Shiites had to wait until 1926 tohave their own religious court, thanks to theefforts of the French High Commissioner inLebanon, Auguste Henri Ponsot, who wantedto empower them as a countervailing force tothe Sunni community’s growing pan-Syrian ori-entation. The Shiites only won their separateclerical institution in 1969 when Imam MusaSadr established the Shiite Higher Islamic Coun-cil,3 despite Sunni protests.

SLOW SHIITE ENTRY INTOSECTARIAN POLITICS

Under the French Mandate, Lebanon’sSunnis opposed the country’s creation in 1920and continued to demand reunion with Syriauntil after the Coastal Conference of 1936. Dur-ing this period, the Maronites came to believethat they needed to foster good relations withthe Shiites in order to provide “an ideologicalalternative to the Sunni-pan-Arab conception ofLebanon.”4 But the Shiites, who had languished

under feudalism and Otto-man governors, remainedquiescent.5

The Maronites even-tually reached a settlement

with the Sunnis in what became known as theNational Covenant of 1943.6 Most of the re-sources of the Lebanese political system werethen divided between the Maronites and theSunnis. The Shiites felt excluded andmarginalized, and their sense of dispossessionwas articulated by Sadr upon his arrival in Leba-non in 1959 with the determination to politicizethe Shiite community and to integrate it into theLebanese political system on a par with the oth-ers. His ideas converged with the Maronites’vision for Lebanon, and they saw him as a “ris-ing Muslim leader who readily and uncondition-ally identified with Lebanese nationalism.”7

Among Sadr’s contributions was the cre-ation of the Amal movement in 1974, whoseleader Nabih Berri became the speaker of theLebanese parliament. Amal was the gatewayto Shiite recruitment into the Second Republicafter the signing of the Ta’if accords, a com-promise brokered by Saudi Arabia and en-dorsed by the Syrian government, which endedthe 15-year Lebanese civil war. Sadr disap-peared in Libya in 1978 before he could see thefull fruits of his contributions to LebaneseShiites.

The creation of Hezbollah in 1982 with thehelp of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary GuardCorps8 and the group’s military successesagainst Israel also enhanced the Shiitecommunity’s political standing within Lebanon.During the later phases of the Lebanese civilwar, Hezbollah allied itself with Syria and wasexempted from the general disarmament negoti-

The creation of Hezbollahwith Iran’s help enhanced theShiite community’s politicalstanding within Lebanon.

2 “Un Développement Equilibré,” Université La Sagesse,accessed Apr. 2, 2012.3 Thomas Collelo, ed., “Lebanon’s Geography: IslamicGroups,” Federal Research Division, Library of Congress,Washington, D.C., Dec. 1987.4 Fouad Ajami, The Vanished Imam: Musa al-Sadr and the Shiaof Lebanon (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), p. 91.

5 Ibid., p. 51.6 BBC News, “Lebanon Profile: A Chronology of Key Events,”Jan. 11, 2012.7 Kamal S. Salibi, Crossroads to Civil War: Lebanon 1958-1976 (Delmar, N.Y.: Carvan, 1976), p. 63.8 “Terrorism: Hezbollah,” International Terrorist SymbolsDatabase, Anti-Defamation League, New York, accessed Mar.22, 2012.

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ated under the 1989 Ta’if ac-cords thanks to the Syrianregime’s insistence on label-ing it a resistance movement.For several years, Hezbollahchose not to enter fully intothe Lebanese political sys-tem, but it began to slowlyinvolve itself in local politicsas early as the parliamentaryelections of 1992.

Hezbollah jumped intonational politics in 2005 afterHariri’s assassination and thewithdrawal of the Syrian armyfrom Lebanon in April of thatyear. At that point, Nasrallahearnestly began to search fora major Maronite ally to helphim navigate the turbulenceof the country’s politics.

FROM SECTARIANISMTO PAN-SHIISM

Southern Lebanese Shiites sought to jointhe Lebanese state in 1920, but a nation-statemattered little to the Shiite clans in the barrenhills of the northern Bekaa Valley. Their feudaland clannish leaders regarded the idea of Leba-non as either ephemeral or secondary. This mayhelp explain why Hezbollah—with its deep com-mitment to Iran’s supreme leader—was born inthe Bekaa and not in the south. Nasrallah is theparty’s first secretary-general from the south.Since his ascendancy, Hezbollah’s upper ech-elons have been splintered along the long-standing Bekaa-southern divide despite theappearance of party cohesion. In sharp con-trast to Shiites in the Bekaa, who looked out-side the borders of Lebanon for identification,southern Lebanese Shiites were hardly attractedto Arab nationalism or pan-Syrianism and, in-stead, immersed themselves in local politics.

It was Nasrallah’s personal decision to allyHezbollah with Aoun’s Free Patriotic Move-ment. His two predecessors, Subhi Tufaili and

Abbas Musawi, both from the Bekaa, were lessinvolved with Lebanese politics and workedprimarily with Tehran and its representatives.The coming together of Nasrallah and Aoun didnot signify ideological affinity or a sense ofcommon cause: Their true perceptions of eachother ranged from hostility to lack of interest.Nasrallah once described Aoun as a man “whoonly thinks of himself and his sect, and viewsmembers of other sects from the perspective ofMaronite racism.”9 Less than six months beforesigning their memorandum, Aoun said he hadtwo reservations that prevented him from col-laborating with Nasrallah: “His intolerable pre-conditions for dialogue, and his relations withSyria and Iran.”10 Overcoming these percep-tions to work together was a matter of practicalpolitics against a common enemy. In reality,Hezbollah has given less and gotten more thanthe Free Patriotic Movement.

Maintaining the Shiite-Maronite alliance

Politics makes strange bedfellows as Hezbollah chief HassanNasrallah (left), a Shiite, joins Michel Aoun, a ChristianMaronite and leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, 2006.The two may detest each other personally but find it convenientto ally themselves against the Sunni Arab population ofLebanon.


9 An-Nahar (Beirut), Nov. 6, 1989.10 Al-Balad (Beirut), Aug. 14, 2007.


nominally requires concessions from both sides.For example, Hezbollah’s 1985 manifesto spe-cifically states the goal of building an Islamicstate in Lebanon.11 In view of Hezbollah’sstrong ideological orientation, there is no rea-son to assume that it has shelved the idea. ButHezbollah’s domination of Lebanon was un-thinkable in the 1980s when the movement’smanifesto was written, and its leaders, especiallyNasrallah, have learned the necessity fordeemphasizing ideology in the name of politicsand long-term strategy. For these reasons,Hezbollah tolerates Aoun’s demands for expen-sive infrastructure and development plans, re-form of state finances and the civil service, andthe questionable biographies of some of hisofficials. Since the alliance with Aoun servesHezbollah’s long-term plans for Lebanon, thegroup also tends to downplay the involvementof Lebanese Christians in working with Israel.Thus, Hezbollah refrained from commenting on

the high profile treasonand espionage case ofFayez Karam, a seniorofficial in Aoun’s FPM,and influenced the mili-tary tribunal to give hima lenient sentence.12

Aoun is not oblivi-ous to Hezbollah’s strat-egy but feels his alliancewith it will eventually se-cure the presidency forhim.13 He seems willingto tolerate Hezbollah’smessianic religious ideol-ogy as long as it can helphim maintain his statusas the principal Maronitepolitician. Still, he ap-pears uneasy about hisalliance with Hezbollah;despite leading a bloc

consisting of ten cabinet members and twenty-seven parliamentary deputies, Aoun realizesthat failing to heed Hezbollah’s dictates willcause a falling out with Lebanese Shiites andthe Syrian regime.14

TENSIONS ABOUND

Despite their political alliance, there areclear conflicts of interest between the two part-ners. Hezbollah expects the alliance will even-tually enable it to deconstruct the Lebanesepolitical system and recast it in its theocraticmold, but the FPM needs to give the impres-sion that Hezbollah is part of a national allianceand to make sure that the government does notquestion its military component. Hezbollah’sneed to operate with both Shiite and Sunni fac-

The flag of Hezbollah flying over this missile launcher is a grimreminder of the largely unrestrained military might of the Shiitegroup. The joint memorandum of understanding signed by Nasrallahand Aoun aimed in part to legitimize Shiite militarism.

11 Hezbollah manifesto, Beirut, Feb. 16, 1985, For a BetterLebanon, trans., Feb. 18, 2008.

12 As-Siyasa (Kuwait), Sept. 8, 2011; as-Safir (Beirut), Jan.25, 2012.13 Ali Abdul’al, “Ta’haluf Aoun-Hezbollah,” Az-Zawiya al-Khadra (Beirut), Feb. 9, 2006.14 Al-Akhbar (Beirut), Dec. 13, 2012.

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D AT E L I N E

tions has led to conflictswith the FPM. For example,Hezbollah decided to joinPrime Minister Najib Mikatiin voting against the FPM-backed minimum wage increase which, if passed,would have created major financial burdens onLebanon’s sluggish economy. But to attenuateAoun’s fury at Hezbollah, the movement in-structed its labor union activists and schoolrepresentatives to participate in a one-day gen-eral strike to protest against the vote.15

Aoun did not seem to fully comprehendthe extent of Hezbollah’s commitment to keep-ing Mikati’s government in place.16 In fact,Hezbollah invested heavily in facilitating theformation of Mikati’s cabinet and went so far ascoercing the Amal Movement to give up one ofits cabinet portfolios to Mikati so that he couldappoint another Sunni from Tripoli, his home-town.17 Mikati’s is the first cabinet since the1989 Ta‘if accords that includes more Sunnis(seven) than Shiites (five). This was the pricethat Shiites had to pay in order to form an apo-litical cabinet to maintain the status quo thatfavors Hezbollah. In contrast, the FPM seemspersistently outmaneuvered.

In post-Ta‘if Lebanese politics, the Syriansencouraged the extension of the term in officeof the Lebanese president for three years, inaddition to the regular six-year term, on the ba-sis of a constitutional amendment on a one-timebasis. The reelection of President Elias Hrawi in1995 was uneventful, but renewing the term ofPresident Emile Lahoud in 2004 was met withstiff opposition, and calls for his resignationmounted after the Hariri assassination and theformation of the March 14 coalition. WhileLahoud could understand why Sunnis wouldoppose his reelection, he expressed dismay atChristian leaders in the coalition who demandedhis resignation: “It is regrettable that those

Christians do not appreci-ate the strategic impor-tance of my alliance withHezbollah and the Syrianregime.”18 Lahoud implied

that he was allied with the Alawite leadership ofSyria.

Shiites in Hezbollah and Amal have en-dorsed the Maronite church’s proposal to en-act the draft electoral law for transforming Leba-non into one electoral constituency, whichwould allow each community to elect its ownparliamentary deputies.19 Better known as theBoutros Commission, the draft law would, ineffect, prevent the predominantly Sunni votersin Beirut, Tripoli, and Akkar from deciding whichChristian candidates would win in the elections.This explains why Sunni politicians and civilsociety activists have fiercely denounced thedraft electoral law.

PROBLEMS FORCHRISTIANS AND SHIITES

The present alliance between Nasrallah andAoun coalesces rural Shiites and Maronitesagainst urban Sunnis, bringing together thelegacy of Shiite dispossession and Maroniteincipient sense of political loss. Unlike previ-ous Shiite-Maronite alliances, such as the onebetween feudal Shiite leaders and Maronitepoliticians (1920-58), and Sadr’s rapport with theMaronite political establishment (1959-78),which were based on mutual strategic interests,the present one between the FPM andHezbollah is an alliance of hypocrisy. Less thana year after the two sides signed their memoran-dum of understanding, FPM parliamentarydeputy Ibrahim Kanaan told then-U.S. ambas-sador in Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman that Aoun was“the last person in Lebanon who wants to see

Hezbollah expects thealliance will enable it torecast the political systemin a theocratic mold.


15 Ibid., Dec. 15, 2011.16 Ibid., Dec. 10, 2011.17 Naharnet (Lebanon), June 14, 2011.

18 Al-Mustaqbal (Beirut), Feb. 18, 2006.19 The Daily Star (Beirut), Dec. 21, 2011.


Hezbollah’s militia keep itsarms.”20 But long-termtrends suggest problemsfor both Christians andShiites.

Neither Nasrallah nor Aoun seem to under-stand the extent of Lebanese Sunni frustrationand their amenability to radicalization. SheikhMuhammad Hassan, leader of the little knownFree Shiite Trend, unsuccessfully imploredHezbollah to use reason and dialogue in com-municating with the Sunni mainstream.21 In-stead, the movement chose to invade Beirut inMay 2008 and topple Saad Hariri’s cabinet in2011. Nevertheless, Aoun, who often makes im-prudent statements to describe Sunnis, believesthat “a Shiite-Maronite alliance provides theonly means to confront their threat, especiallyafter the beginning of the Syrian uprising.”22

Similar warnings for Hezbollah are appear-ing from other Lebanese factions. MaverickShiite cleric Hani Fahs warned the movement’sleadership against taking advantage of the weak-ness of the Lebanese state to monopolize po-litical power to the detriment of society at large,and Sunnis in particular. He urged them to“avoid letting the Shiites face the fate of theMaronites.”23 Sunni writer Abdulhamd Ahdaburged Hezbollah to “revamp itself and decide tobecome an integral part of the Lebanese state,instead of scheming to steal it.”24 Later, he pre-dicted that the “Shiite awakening is bound tolead to the rise of a counter Sunni awakeningthat can only lead to the disintegration of thestate.”25 Former Hezbollah secretary-generalSubhi Tufaili disparaged Nasrallah for unnec-essarily antagonizing Lebanese Sunnis. He ar-gued that the latter’s policies risked undermin-ing Shiite achievements of the past three de-cades, predicting that when the Sunnis mobi-

lized politically, “Nasrallahwill find himself compelledto ally himself with Israelagainst the Sunnis.”26

Clashes in Tripoli betweenSunni Lebanese factions supporting the Syrianopposition and Alawites aligned with the Assadregime, and the presence of Sunni Hizb ut-Tahirand other radical caliphate groups, threaten torenew wider sectarian conflict throughout Leba-non. Neither Shiite nor Sunni commentators,however, are expressing much concern for theMaronite community or for Middle EasternChristians.

THE SHIITE-MARONITENEXUS AND

THE ARAB UPRISINGS

Hezbollah’s support for the Arab uprisingshas been perfunctory at best. The uprisings inTunisia and Egypt advanced Sunni Islamistgroups to the center stage of their countries’politics. Morocco did not witness an uprising,yet its general elections clearly demonstratedthe strength of the Islamist movement. The Arabuprisings have revealed the strength of Sunnireligious sentiment, and a Sunni revival is notsomething that Hezbollah welcomes, seeing thisas something bound to stimulate LebaneseSunnis, especially if the Syrian uprising leadsto the ouster of the Assad regime.

By and large, Hezbollah’s comments on theuprisings, including the unrest in Syria, havebeen muted, but in October 2011, Nasrallah madea rare public appearance to express support forthe Assad regime and its “reforms.”27 In March2012, he issued a statement on video warningof civil war in Syria and calling for both sides toseek a political solution. These comments mustbe seen in the context of the alliance betweenHezbollah, Damascus, and Tehran—which has

Maronites view the Arabuprisings as an unfoldingdisaster for Middle EastChristians.

20 Ya Libnan (Beirut), Oct. 3, 2011.21 Al-Mustaqbal, Mar. 7, 2007.22 Now Lebanon (Beirut), May 20, 2011.23 An-Nahar, Nov. 24, 2009.24 Ibid., Jan. 13, 2006.25 Ibid., Mar. 3, 2007.

26 Subhim Tufaili, interview, MTV (Beirut), Jan. 30, 2012.27 The National (Abu Dhabi), Oct. 26, 2011.

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been strained by the Assad regime’s vio-lent repression of the uprising—and inthe context of world and Lebanese opin-ion. At the same time, reports that Dam-ascus continues to transfer weapons toHezbollah and to train its operatives in theuse of advanced weaponry28 suggest thatthe organization’s military needs ultimatelytrump its concerns regarding peacefulpolitics within Lebanon.

Maronite reaction to the uprisings hasbeen similarly unenthusiastic, viewingthem, by and large, as an unfolding disas-ter for Middle East Christians. FormerLebanese president Amin Jemayyil’s re-sponse to the Syrian uprising has beenlukewarm, and he appeared mostly con-cerned about its effects on Syria’s Chris-tian minority. Maronite patriarch Bisharaal-Ra‘i has ridiculed the notion of the“Arab spring,” preferring to name it the“Arab winter.” He considered the Syrianregime “the closest Arab political systemto democracy.”29

For his part, the prominent Lebanese Chris-tian writer Michael Young has lamented theMaronites’ alliance with Hezbollah and their an-tipathy to the Arab uprisings. In the fall of 2011,he wrote:

Maronites have the institutions, talent, andmemory to reverse their community’s steadymediocrization. What they don’t have is theself-assurance required to reinvent them-selves in the shadow of their demographicdecline … [They] have adjusted to this de-cline by accommodating the view that theirminority has a stake in allying itself withother minorities, no matter how repressivethese may be. Such is the path to communalsuicide.30

It is indeed ironic that the LebaneseMaronites who, in the nineteenth century la-bored hard to plant the seeds of liberal Westernvalues in the Arab east, chose in the seconddecade of the twenty-first century to digressand dissociate themselves from the Arab upris-ings, especially in Syria. Columnist Jihad Zeinhas expressed bewilderment, asking “why thoseeducated and suave Christians treat the region’smost modernizing era in many decades with res-ervation, if not outright hostility?”31

The short answer is that LebaneseMaronites are worried about the implications ofthe Arab uprisings for their own fate as a minor-ity group whereas Shiites dread the conse-quences the upheaval might have on their pan-Shiite project. This unease bodes ill for Leba-non as a whole.

Maronite reaction to the Arab uprisings throughoutthe Middle East has been largely unenthusiasticalthough neither Shiite nor Sunni commentatorsseem worried for the Maronite community or forMiddle Eastern Christians. But Maronite patriarchBishara al-Ra‘i (above) has ridiculed the notion ofan “Arab spring,” preferring to call it the “Arabwinter.”


28 The Jerusalem Post, Jan. 23, 2012.29 As-Siyasa, Mar. 14, 2012.30 Michael Young, “Maronites Pray to a Dispiriting Trin-ity,” The Daily Star (Beirut), Sept. 22, 2011. 31 An-Nahar, Sept. 14, 2011.

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Brief ReviewsThe Better Angels of Our Nature: Why ViolenceHas Declined. By Steven Pinker. New York: Vi-king, 2011. 832 pp. $40. Why Civil ResistanceWorks: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Con-flict. By Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan.New York: Columbia Press, 2011. 320 pp. $29.50.

The world these days hardly seems like apeaceful place. But recent scholarship offers roomfor optimism.

First, Pinker offers mountains of historicalevidence that the world is actually less violenttoday than ever before and that this trend showsno signs of reversing. With over a hundred graphsand charts, he documents how violence is at itsnadir globally in terms of rape, infanticide, geno-cide, wife-beating, slavery, torture, war, homiciderates, and even animal cruelty. His data show thatlife in pre-state societies was comparatively Hob-besian—nasty, brutish, and short. For instance,prehistoric graves from hunter-gatherers revealviolent deaths five to ten times that of modernEurope. And from 1300 C.E. to today, the odds ofbeing murdered has plummeted by up to fiftytimes. Violence of all stripes began to declinemarkedly during the Enlightenment and has fallenoff precipitously since World War II.

Pinker does not sugarcoat the horrors of thetwentieth century, especially the ravages of WorldWar II, which killed 55 million people, an unprec-edented figure in absolute terms. He notes, how-ever, that this highly lethal event relative to theworldwide population did not break historicalrecords. In relative terms, World War II ranks asonly the ninth most deadly event over the past1,200 years. In eighth-century C.E. China, the AnLushan civil war killed an estimated thirty-six mil-lion people, equivalent to 429 million deaths inthe mid-twentieth century. The second most le-thal event in relative terms was the thirteenth cen-tury Mongol conquest of Asia, which killed fortymillion people, the equivalent of 278 million aroundthe time of Hitler and Stalin. And the third most

lethal was the Middle East slave trade.Muslim governments summarily execute

criminals, treat adultery as a capital offense, andpermit female genital mutilation; but, like the restof the world, violence in Muslim countries is onthe decline. Pinker attributes the reduction of in-ternational violence to a host of historical factorsthat expand the circle of empathy beyond family,tribe, nation, or even species; these include thedevelopment of agriculture, state structure, inter-national commerce, literacy, and democracy.

Second, Chenoweth and Stephan provide analternative causal mechanism, demonstrating sta-tistically that nonviolent protest outperforms vio-lent resistance. They compare the political out-comes of over 300 campaigns between 1900 and2006 in which non-state actors demanded thatgovernments accommodate their demands. All

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else being equal, the use of violence in thesecampaigns lowered the odds of governmentcompliance. If research, particularly by this au-thor, suggests that terrorist violence impedesgovernment concessions, Chenoweth andStephan broaden the argument by showing howall forms of non-state violence may be politi-cally counterproductive.

If so, then aggrieved groups have a power-ful incentive to avoid violent escalation, whichmay account for its growing scarcity. Indeed, theArab upheavals are as much a repudiation of al-Qaeda’s extreme means as its extreme ends.

Max AbrahmsJohns Hopkins University

Bin Laden’s Legacy: Why We’re Still Losingthe War on Terror. By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross.Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2012.266 pp. $25.95.

On the demise of Osama bin Laden, Secre-tary of Defense Leon Panetta has announced thatvictory over al-Qaeda is now within reach. ButGartenstein-Ross of the Foundation for the De-

fense of Democracies argues that the U.S. gov-ernment is in a far weaker position relative to al-Qaeda now than prior to 9/11 due to its failure tograsp al-Qaeda’s grand strategy.

One of the foundational beliefs of al-Qaedais that the cost of prosecuting the Soviet-Afghanwar contributed to the collapse of the Sovieteconomy. Gartenstein-Ross contends that al-Qaeda’s current strategy toward the United Statesis of a piece with that approach: Escalating theconflict with the United States in as many arenasas possible will drive up the costs of defensemeasures, bleeding the U.S. economy.

Gartenstein-Ross finds that U.S. policymakershave not adapted well to al-Qaeda’s strategy. Du-plication of efforts and the politicization of theissue have both driven up budgets and souredthe citizenry on the task at hand. By broadeningthe focus on the war on terrorism through theinvasion of Iraq, the Bush administration divertedcritical resources from Afghanistan, allowing theTaliban and al-Qaeda to rebuild their organiza-tions, and simultaneously presented Islamists witha stage from which they could mobilize Muslimsaround the world for a “defensive” jihad. WithU.S. attention focused elsewhere, al-Qaeda ex-panded its operations into more theaters, includ-ing Yemen and the Horn of Africa. Nor have theArab upheavals of 2011 been a major setback foral-Qaeda; the author argues that the terroristgroup is well positioned to take advantage of theturmoil. If the new governments cannot fulfill therising expectations of the Arab people, then ex-tremist ideologies offering simple solutions couldflourish.

In order to defeat al-Qaeda and the jihadistthreat, Gartenstein-Ross calls for depoliticizingthe war on terror. To be sustainable over the longhaul, the expense of national security must bereduced, and to that end, he offers a series ofpolicy recommendations and reforms in intelli-gence and similar areas. To help Americans sur-vive terrorist attacks, efforts should be made tobuild community resilience. Finally, he calls forlessening U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

Cogently argued and well-written, Garten-stein-Ross’ study will be of great interest to thosewho want a better understanding of the strategic

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dimensions of the global war on terror as well asthose seeking solid policy recommendations forU.S. national security.

George MichaelU.S. Air Force Counterproliferation Center

The Fertile Soil of Jihad: Terrorism’s PrisonConnection. By Patrick T. Dunleavy. Dulles, Va.:Potomac, 2011. 192 pp. $27.50.

Islamist terror networks have made recruit-ment of disenfranchised individuals such asprison inmates a top priority, former New YorkState corrections official Dunleavy writes in hispowerful new book. A 26-year veteran of the NewYork State Department of Correctional Services,he played a major role in Operation Hades, aninvestigation into radical Islamic recruiting activi-ties involving New York prisons, a process goingon for decades and, in some respects, abetted bygovernment actions.

Dunleavy focuses on the case of AbdelNasser Zaben, a West Bank native and Hamasmember. Zaben illegally entered the United Statesin 1990, moved to Brooklyn and attended the al-Farouq mosque, home to Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, now serving a life sentence for his rolein a 1995 terror plot. Zaben and an Islamist ac-complice robbed people at gunpoint until Zabenwas arrested in 1993 and sentenced to eighteenyears in prison. Throughout his twelve years be-hind bars—he was paroled in 2005, deported tothe West Bank and has subsequently disap-peared—he worked tirelessly to recruit his fellowinmates for jihad. Zaben had a huge pool of po-tential terrorists to work with—some of them al-ready radicalized Muslims.

According to Dunleavy, radical prison net-works were already in place, established by ex-convicts like Warith Deen Umar, who served asdirector of Ministerial Services for the state correc-tions department, and Cyril Rashid, appointed byUmar as imam at a maximum-security prison in up-state New York. Inmates like Zaben became clerksfor prison imams around the state, further cement-ing the radicalization process. Efforts to do back-ground checks on Islamic clergy were hamperedby the fact that the only certifying bodies seem tobe run by Umar and like-minded individuals.

Despite the recent campaign of demonizationlaunched against Rep. Peter King for his hear-ings on domestic radicalization in and outsideprisons, The Fertile Soil of Jihad makes evidentthe clear and present danger.

Joel HimelfarbInvestigative Project on Terrorism

The Green Movement in Iran. By Hamid Dabashi.New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2011. 174pp. $34.95.

On June 12, 2009, Iranians went to the pollsto choose a president from among a handful ofcandidates approved by clerics who are notelected but rather appointed. As voters moved totoss out incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, thegovernment intervened to award the unpopularpresident a second term. The blatant fraud provedtoo much for ordinary Iranians who poured intothe streets in a protest that rocked the IslamicRepublic to its core. From this outrage was bornthe so-called “Green Movement,” an amorphous


group with nearly as many goals as leaders.Dabashi, an Iranian studies and comparative

literature professor at Columbia University, pur-ports to analyze the Green Movement in this shortbook, which, in actuality, is mainly a compilationof op-eds and online essays he wrote as eventsunfolded.

Readers seeking to understand recent Ira-nian politics will be disappointed. Dabashi failsto illuminate the makeup of the Green Move-ment or its goals. Nor does he differentiate be-tween ordinary Iranians who seek a freer Iranand the career politicians who cloak themselvesin the movement but remain loyal to a theocraticsystem.

Rather than seriously analyze events,Dabashi indulges in potshots at authors whosebooks have received greater critical and publicacclaim than his. He calls Azar Nafisi, the best-selling author of Reading Lolita in Tehran, a“charlatan,” and he accuses StanfordUniversity’s Abbas Milani of purveying “Neoconchicanery.”

And if the Islamic Republic, among theworld’s worst violators of human rights, isDabashi’s ostensible topic, Israel is his obses-sion. He decries Israel as “a racist apartheidstate,” and labels Israel’s claim to be the region’sonly democracy a “ludicrous joke.” Dabashi’sobsession leads him down curious byways. Heaccuses Israelis and “American Zionists” of be-ing disappointed by the Green Movement, asimple falsehood. Indeed, while Dabashi was shil-ling for the Islamic Republic, many of those hevents against sought U.S. policies to empowerthe Iranian people at the expense of the regime.

Dabashi is not just best known for his em-brace of former colleague Edward Said and hisown over-the-top condemnations of U.S. policybut he is also a wretched writer, unable to escapethe jargon of academic theory to communicate apoint. He substitutes polemic for research; hisbook is more rant than scholarship.

On many levels, then, The Green Movementin Iran is a terrible book. If it has any silver lining,it spectacularly illustrates why few outside theacademy take Iranian studies professors seriously.

Michael Rubin

Political Islam, Citizenship, and Minorities: TheFuture of Arab Christians in the Islamic MiddleEast. By Andrea Zaki Stephanous. Lanham, Md.:University Press of America, 2010. 243 pp. $37.50,paper.

As the Middle East smolders under the threatof an Islamist resurgence, too little has been writ-ten about the plight of Arab Christians and othernative minorities. Stephanous’s Political Islam,Citizenship, and Minorities would be a welcomeaddition to this meager repertoire—except for itsexcessive and largely irrelevant theorizing.

Stephanous, a Coptic Evangelical Protes-tant based in Cairo, sets out by surveying theregion’s political trends in the twentieth century,including the Arab Christian contribution to theformulation of Arab nationalism. He focusesmainly on the Copts of Egypt and the Maronitesof Lebanon, recognizing clear differences in theirrespective historical experiences. Unfortunately,he fails to articulate these differences as starklyas necessary where the dhimmitude (second-class but protected status) of the Copts con-trasts with the relative freedom of the Maronites.Further, he repeats the hackneyed accusationleveled against the Maronites by their 1970s left-ist Palestine Liberation Organization and Islam-ist opponents that they initiated the 1975 Leba-nese civil war to protect their political privileges.This narrative is false; Maronites defended thelast remaining free Christian community in theMiddle East from vicious attack.

Stephanous strains to find answers to howArab Christians can integrate into a Middle Eastinfluenced by political Islam. After wanderingthrough a maze of conceptual abstractions like“advocacy,” “networking,” “civil society organi-zations,” and “institutionalizations of identity,”he lands on his favorite panacea—”dynamic citi-zenship”—defined ambiguously as “an inclusiveprocess that reaches beyond equality to justiceby relating political rights to economic, social,and cultural realities.” The author seems to be infavor of a deliberate distancing of Arab Chris-tians from the ever-colonial West, in favor of somesort of revival of authentic local affiliations. Some-how, a resurrected secular Arab nationalismcoupled with a new understanding of citizenship

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will alleviate the multiple perils facing the region’sChristians emanating from Salafism, the stiflingstate, and dhimmi marginalization. The recipe isunconvincing, and the presumed end result isincoherent.

The book does offer interesting details onIslamist groups plus useful tabulated statisticsabout issues such as infant mortality, life expect-ancy, arms expenditures, minority populations,and more. The overall treatment, however,misses the many complexities and nuances of aplace like Lebanon while inflating optimism re-garding the prospects for inclusion for the Coptsof Egypt. Sadly, the book represents an essen-tially dhimmi—and therefore highly inad-equate—response to the grave dangers beset-ting Arab Christians.

Habib C. MalikLebanese American University

The Politics of Change in Palestine: State-Build-ing and Non-Violent Resistance. By MichaelBröning. New York and London: Pluto Press, 2011.247 pp. $30, paper.

Regurgitating the Palestinian meme that Is-raeli intransigence has made a two-state solutionincreasingly difficult, Bröning of the GermanFriedrich Ebert Foundation lays down cover forunilateral efforts by the Palestinians to gain state-hood without negotiating final status issues withIsrael. Simply stated, his thesis is that Palestin-ians have experienced a “general shift away fromviolent struggle to strategies of nonviolent resis-tance” while simultaneously building institutionsthat qualify it for statehood.

Bröning erroneously asserts that the violentHamas faction has undertaken this nonviolenttransformation in cooperation with its rival Fatah,stating that we are now witnessing “Hamas 2.0.”He further claims that “Hamas leaders have re-frained from publicly embracing the charter” ofthe organization that openly calls for Israel’s an-nihilation. However, as recently as February 2012,Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader based in Gaza,called again for Israel’s destruction. “The resis-tance will continue until all the Palestinian land,including al-Quds, is liberated and all the refu-gees return,” he said.1

The author correctly observes that Fatah’scorruption brought about its own political demisebut insists that the new party program “demon-strates a fundamental shift away from decades ofarmed struggle” toward nonviolent resistance. Heclaims its terror squad, the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Bri-gades, was “disbanded,” despite its May 2011official proclamation that the death of Osama binLaden was a “catastrophe.”2 More recently, inFebruary 2012, the group fired rockets into Israelfrom the Gaza Strip.3 Indeed, the group appearsto be experiencing a resurgence.

A chapter titled “PNA State-Building: Put-ting Palestine on the Map” is informative but fawn-ing. While describing the process by which Pal-estinian leaders have laid the foundation for their2011 statehood drive, particularly the activities ofSalam Fayyad, Bröning can barely contain his

1 Al-Manar website (Lebanon), Feb. 11, 2012.2 The Jerusalem Post, May 3, 2011.3 Maan News Agency, Feb. 28, 2012.


giddiness. Similarly, in “Beyond Terror: Politiciz-ing Non-Violent Resistance,” the author conve-niently ignores the continuing torrent of rocketsout of Gaza while all but openly endorsing theboycott, divest and sanctions movement againstIsrael.

Despite its many flaws, The Politics ofChange in Palestine offers a glimpse into cur-rent Palestinian attempts to achieve statehoodby undermining Israel’s right to exist. As impor-tantly, the book provides insight into the mindsof European supporters of this effort.

Jonathan SchanzerFoundation for Defense of Democracies

Power and Politics in the Persian Gulf Monar-chies. Edited by Christopher Davidson. London:Hurst and Co., 2012. 203 pp. £17.99, paper.

Recent Middle Eastern upheavals have cen-tered on the Mediterranean littoral, not the Per-sian Gulf—and with them the bulk of attention.Power and Politics in the Persian Gulf Monar-chies remedies that deficit with a concise and in-

formative volume about the six countries thatmake up the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

The gulf states share a number of similartendencies and challenges but operate in differ-ent contexts, thereby producing different results.Saudi Arabia—the powerhouse of the group—must necessarily adopt different approacheswhen accommodating the needs of its nearly thirtymillion subjects than neighboring Bahrain whichhosts a population of under one million.

These differences notwithstanding, certainthemes recur in all six essays: a reliance on hydro-carbon rents and imported labor and a concentra-tion of power in the hands of hereditary monar-chies. The issue of political succession presentsuncertainties; though most states have desig-nated heirs, formal systems scarcely exist to de-termine the procedure by which these succes-sors are decided. While this affords an incum-bent ruler flexibility, it also generates its own prob-lems: in Saudi Arabia, none of the candidates areunder sixty-five.

None of the states are stagnant, however,and all have repeatedly announced reforms totheir systems in recent years. Yet as JaneKinninmont notes in her essay on Bahrain, eventhe reformists present their changes as gifts be-stowed upon subjects rather than rights earnedor due a citizenry.

Bahrain did witness a significant rise in po-litical tensions during 2011. The Sunni monar-chy—with the assistance of other GCC states –crushed a nascent mobilization of the Shiite ma-jority population. However, whereas the upris-ings around the Mediterranean were character-ized by the participation of forces that did notconstitute the countries’ traditional oppositioncurrents, the same cannot not be said in Bahrainwhere the protests were led by the long-standingShiite opposition.

Qatar is another anomaly: The country’snatural gas stocks are abundant and enable theregime to placate its small domestic population,making it an unlikely candidate for domestic un-rest. Yet in light of its adventurous foreign policy,Davidson boldly states that Qatar is the mostlikely to experience a coup or an invasion.

Unlike the republics now experiencing vola-

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tility—where earlier political and social changehad been introduced quickly—the GCC stateshave become increasingly adept at resisting be-ing confronted by instability. This is not to saythat they do not face challenges, but that theyhave a longer time frame to respond to them andto head them off.

Richard PhelpsQuilliam Foundation, London

The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remak-ing of the Modern World. By Daniel Yergin. NewYork: Penguin Press, 2011. 816 pp. $37.95.

No other public policy issue is so critical yetas nuanced and poorly understood as energy.This makes Yergin’s attempt in The Quest to guidenonexpert readers through the energy maze aworthy one.

Yergin examines how global energy demandwill be met in an era which, despite the currentslowdown, promises unprecedented economicgrowth. In a hype-free manner, he covers almostevery form of energy. He describes the funda-mentals of supply and demand, the challengesfacing the oil industry and the electric power sec-tor, and the dilemmas they face in light of thechanging geopolitical landscape and the grow-ing political pressure to reduce greenhouse gasemissions.

Yergin’s outlook on energy echoes the main-stream thinking of the petroleum industry. He isnot worried the world is running out of oil andhas great faith in nonconventional oil and naturalgas, particularly the promising but controversialshale gas. His treatment of potential competitorsto oil in the transportation fuel market (whetherliquid, gaseous, or electric) as well as of renew-able sources of electricity ranges between cau-tious optimism and gentle skepticism.

Oil’s status as a strategic commodity derivesfrom its virtual monopoly as fuel for transporta-tion. Policies that either increase oil supply orcurb demand will not reduce oil’s strategic impor-tance and are easy for the members of the Organi-zation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)to counteract by throttling down their own sup-ply. The fivefold rise in oil prices of the past de-cade is, according to Yergin, mainly a result of

demand shock emanating from developing Asia.At the same time, OPEC, which controls 79 per-cent of the world’s conventional oil reserves, hasbarely increased its production capacity com-pared to what it produced thirty years ago and isoddly exempted from responsibility by Yergin.

But despite this omission, Yergin’s pan-oramic book is one of great importance. The glo-bal energy landscape is evolving rapidly. Veryfew could have predicted a few years ago that thestate of North Dakota would become America’sfourth largest oil producer, that China would be-come the world’s largest energy consumer, or thatthe discovery of vast hydrocarbon resources inthe Eastern Mediterranean would turn energy-poor countries like Israel and Cyprus into impor-tant players in the world’s natural gas market. Allof these unpredictable changes demonstrate theimportance of books such as Yergin’s and thatthe quest for new energy resources will continueto be one of humanity’s prime preoccupations.

Gal LuftInstitute for the Analysis

of Global Security


Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapseof the Ottoman and Russian Empires 1908-1918. By Michael A. Reynolds. New York: Cam-bridge University Press, 2011. 324 pp. $90($31.99, paper).

Shattering Empires traces the course of for-eign relations between the Ottoman and Russianempires from the Young Turk Revolution of 1908to the end of World War I. Reynolds of PrincetonUniversity examines Russia’s policies toward east-ern Anatolia and highlights the way interstatecompetition shaped local identities and politicsthrough the introduction of the concept of thenational state.

Reynolds aims to show how the confronta-tion between the Ottoman and Russian statescontributed to the collapse of both empires andto the birth of a new kind of politics in the region.He recounts the rivalry between the two empiresand their downfall between 1908-18. The book isthematically rather than chronologically arranged;about one-third concerns the prewar years, andthe rest is evenly divided between the period of1914-16 and the remaining war years.

The author argues that “geopolitical compe-

tition and emergence of a new global interstateorder provide the key to understanding the courseof history in the Ottoman-Russian borderlands inthe twentieth century.” He illustrates the influ-ence of nationalism on interstate politics in theMiddle East and Eurasia and explores the ways inwhich states create and impose ethno-nationalistcategories and identities.

However, the study has one significant prob-lem. Although Reynolds does not categorize theArmenian events of 1915 as genocide, he men-tions “the whole destruction of Ottoman Arme-nians during the First World War” and refers to“the effective eradication of the presence inAnatolia of [Armenians].” In fact, 1,295,000 Ar-menians lived in the Ottoman empire in 1914;702,900 of these were subject to relocations in1915-16, and very large numbers of the displacedpersons survived their displacement, accordingto official documents of the Ottoman court.

Still the book remains highly original and in-sightful, and the author manifests not only a com-mand of the subject matter but a profound under-standing of the Ottoman and Russian positions.His objectivity and balanced judgment in mostmatters places this book at the top among workson Ottoman-Russian relations during the first twodecades of the twentieth century.

Yücel GüçlüKavaklødere/Ankara

Undercover Muslim: A Journey into Yemen. ByTheo Padnos. London: Bodley Head, 2011. 293pp. £12.99.

Every year, hundreds of Westerners aban-don life in affluent societies in favor of a sojournin austere piety in Yemen. Undercover Muslimexamines those who journey to the country insearch of a lifestyle deemed as a better way tofulfill Islamic orthodoxy.

Padnos travelled to Yemen to learn Arabic,and after a stint working as a journalist, convertedto Islam. He assumed an Arabic name, pursuedQur’anic study, and immersed himself amongthose who came to do the same. The chronicle ofhis experiences in Undercover Muslim promptsfar more questions than it answers. Did he, as the“undercover” in the title suggests, assume this

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lifestyle with an exposé in mind from the verystart? The author presents his conversion andadopted lifestyle as genuine, yet he repeatedlyappears skeptical of the intellectual tunnel-visionhe witnesses.

Alternatively, is Padnos himself a drifter, likethose about whom he writes? In his telling, trav-elers to Yemen are as much wastrels as pilgrims.Padnos quotes one: “I’ve had a difficult child-hood for sure,” then adds, “He had been thrownout of schools, beaten by his stepfather, and ar-rested by police.” Many he encounters are flee-ing something as much as pursuing something,and the community he lives among is one of sus-picion and anonymity. Enquiries into the men’sbackgrounds are strictly off limits: “‘Why are youso curious?’ he wondered when I asked about his[French] father’s view of his career. ‘Why aren’twe discussing the unity of God?’” Padnos, too,comes under scrutiny: “The good news is thatwe don’t think that you’re working for the CIAany more. … The bad news is that we’ve beenwatching you. In fact, everyone has remarkedabout you, and everyone is wondering whatyou’re really up to.” The latter point is valid.

Undercover Muslim is not a whistle blowingrevelation of extremism or militancy. Instead,Padnos quotes one religious student as sayingthat “it’s just a boring life here” while offeringsnapshots of a lifestyle distant from the book’sreadership. While the work contains some inter-esting moments of reflection, amusement, andtension, it fails to place the experiences in a frame-work that examines or illuminates larger issues.

Richard Phelps

The Unmaking of Israel. By GershomGorenberg. New York: HarperCollins, 2011. 336pp. $25.99 ($14.99, paper). The Anatomy of Israel’sSurvival. By Hirsh Goodman. New York: PublicAffairs, 2011. 288 pp. $26.99.

These two books offer well-written examplesof a deep schism in Israeli thought, especiallyamong its intellectual, academic, and literary elites,who view Israel’s survival as dependent upon aPalestinian state, the “two-state solution,” anddiminishing the power and influence of religiousZionism and the Orthodox, or the “ultra-Ortho-

dox” (haredim). The main threat to Israel, theseauthors believe, is not the Arabs, but Jews, “set-tlers,” and the “ultra-Orthodox.” This perspec-tive reflects a breakdown of the old secular, cul-tural social order that defined the State of Israelduring its first three decades. Following a faultline that divides Israeli society and perhaps muchof recent Jewish history, it is the context for alldebate about the future of Israel.

For Israelis, this change began in the wakeof two watershed events: the peace treaty withEgypt (1979) and the war against the PalestineLiberation Organization (PLO) in Lebanon(1982)—which grew into the first intifada (1987-92)—and the Oslo accords (1993). Under con-stant attack by Arab terrorists, Israeli conscious-ness developed a bi-polarism, an inner turmoilthat was the product of the need for self-defenseand guilt for winning; constantly at war, or underthreat of attack, Israelis craved peace, or anythingthat promised that illusion. Like the authors, manybecame true believers of the hype about “land forpeace.” Although few may remain convinced thatsuch a solution is possible, the struggle over thenature of Israeli society between the secular and


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religious is ongoing and contentious.Highly intelligent and articulate Jews, Israe-

lis, and Zionists, these authors represent a stra-tum of influential media people and public opin-ion and discourse shapers who oppose what theycall “the occupation,” those Jewish communitiesbuilt beyond the 1949 armistice lines, and thegrowing attraction—which translates into socialand political power—of religious Jews, especially.

Gorenberg and Goodman share a sense ofüber-morality based on two principles: (1) thoushalt not rule over the other and (2) the primacyof egalitarianism, secularism, and pluralism. Op-posing the right of Jews to live in Judea andSamaria and ending “the occupation” assumes aform of sanctity. Goodman proposes total with-drawal “unilaterally with all the lessons of thepainful pullout of the Jewish settlements from Gazalearned” or by a peace agreement that would leaveJews “in Palestine as Israeli citizens, voting inIsraeli elections but paying their local taxes to thePalestinian Authority, which would in turn guar-antee [their] safety and security.” Gorenberg cov-ers much the same ground, advocating unilat-eral withdrawal, leaving Jews where they are or“evacuating them immediately [from the territo-ries] without waiting for a signature on a peaceagreement.” Both seem utterly oblivious of therisks and probable consequences.

Gorenberg’s recurring theme is the radical,post-Zionist vision that “the state is merely a state,a political means of achieving practical resultsand not a sacred institution,” adding that the “bestdefinition of a Jewish state [is] the place whereJews can argue with the least inhibition, in themost public way, about what it means to be Jews.”Like New York City? The notion that Israel’s iden-tity as a Jewish state is embedded in a unique

historical and spiritual connection with the Landof Israel, the national homeland of the Jewishpeople, seems to elude him.

Turning to the religious divide, there are cer-tainly deep disagreements in Israel over the roleof the ultra-Orthodox in a modern society. Butthese are by no means the only societal fissures.Both authors neglect even a superficial discus-sion of the economic system in which a few fami-lies control financial and business empires, mo-nopolies, and cartels. Neither do they deal withany of the socioeconomic issues that were thefocus of mass demonstrations throughout thecountry during the summer of 2011.

With an almost exclusive focus on settle-ments, occupation, and haredim, the two au-thors have created a tunnel vision that demon-izes half the population and dumbs-down mostof the rest. Denying reality as well as demon-strable failures—the Oslo accords, the Wyeagreements, the withdrawal and expulsion ofJews from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria—the authors instead offer facile arguments thathave become unrealistic and irrelevant.

Both books make a fundamental error in notunderstanding the purpose and place of Zionismas the rebuilding of a Jewish homeland and thatthe State of Israel is the expression of Jewish sov-ereignty in that homeland. Although both authorsare concerned about the future of the Israel, nei-ther deals with the Jewish nature of the state andits central role in shaping the future of the Jewishpeople and the third Jewish commonwealth.

Moshe DannJerusalem

palestinian myths phyllis chesler nathan bloom debunked · 19/03/2012 · the middle east forum...

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