Palestine: A problem among equals

Hussain Abdul-Hussain

NOW Lebanon

It used to be Palestine only, conveniently giving Arab autocrats the excuse to make everyone shut up and accept tyranny. But the Arab Spring has changed it all. Now every Arab country has its issues, its dead, its arrested, its dictators to topple and its future to think of. Finally Arabs have come to realize that their different problems are equally important. Claiming that Palestine trumps all other Arab causes does not cut it anymore.

This new Arab thinking was not born overnight. In the lead-up to the US war in Iraq, the Arabs were still thinking in terms of Arab countries versus imperialism. Only those Iraqis who had tasted the wrath of Saddam Hussein found themselves in a bind. The only force willing to rid them of their tyrant was the same power that they were raised to hate: The United States of America.

But America's liberation of Iraq did not buy it goodwill with the Arabs, who still measured Washington's benevolence with the yardstick of Palestine. As long as Washington granted Israel an unfair advantage over Palestinians and their territories, the Arabs were unwilling to see the good behind America freeing a whole people from one of history's most brutal dictators.

Contrary to almost everyone I knew in Beirut at the time, I was among those publically supportive of the US war in Iraq, believing that if given a chance, Iraqis might create the first Arab democracy.

The year 2005 partially vindicated my stance. After the murder of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, an uprising broke out in Beirut with many "anti-imperialists" in Lebanon and Syria seeing that the problem was not with America, but with their own rulers and so-called resistance movements who hide their crimes behind the "Liberation of Palestine."

Samir Kassir, a Lebanese journalist, wrote that Palestine was a sick limb of the Arab body that had to be severed. A long-time supporter of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and its leader Yasser Arafat, Kassir advocated on behalf of the not-very-popular two-state solution, which he believed would give the Arabs the chance to put the Palestinian problem behind them and focus on building democracies in their 21 other countries.

Kassir dubbed Lebanon's 2005 uprising against the Syrian regime the Beirut Spring, borrowing the name from the brief Damascus Spring of 2000. Against all predictions, Kassir wrote that the Syrians would rise and end the decades of tyranny by the Assad family. (Kassir’s forecast proved correct, even though his timing was wrong.) He was assassinated in June 2005 and a year later, Hezbollah provoked Israel into a devastating war that eroded the party's popularity in Lebanon, but boosted it across the Arab world, including in Syria.

In Washington last week, I had the privilege of meeting one of Syria's leading revolutionaries, Eiad Sharbaji, who had escaped the death squads of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad only weeks earlier. Sharbaji’s cousin Yehia was trapped by Assad's thugs and, along with activist Ghayyath Matter, died by torture and became one of the revolution's icons.

Sharbaji told me horror stories about how the regime’s thugs employ unimaginable brutality against their fellow citizens. Most importantly, he told me that until the outbreak of the revolution last March, he used to be a staunch supporter of Hezbollah and its Syrian and Iranian sponsors. "I believed all the foreign conspiracies that they told us about," he said.

Until recently, Sharbaji thought people like Kassir and me – who advocated an end to all kinds of tyranny and who supported democracy, freedom and human rights – were mostly "CIA and Mossad agents" and puppets on the payroll of Western and Arab Gulf governments. Now Sharbaji sees the world differently.

"When you see Assad’s brutality against his own people, and Hezbollah supporting it, you start wondering how such murderers can also be liberators of Palestine," he said.

Further undermining the centrality of the Palestinian problem is that the number of Palestinian deaths at the hands of Israel pales next to of that of Arabs killed by their own dictators.

Consider, for instance, the total number of Palestinians killed by Israel since 1987 throughout two uprisings and several Israeli military campaigns: around 9,000. Assad has killed almost an equal number of his own only since the outbreak of the Syrian uprising less than a year ago.

Over the past year, Egyptians have been consumed by their revolution, the Syrians by their war of liberation, the Libyans by their government-building and the Yemenis by their post-dictator period. Meanwhile, the Lebanese have been hoping that the Arab Spring makes a show in their country. From time to time, these different Arabs show mutual solidarity with each other's causes. Palestine has lost its place at center stage.

The past decade has been a transformative one for many Arabs. While Palestine remains a problem, ending tyranny is the true liberation the Arabs are seeking.

Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief of the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai

Powerful Reporting from PBS: In Syrian City, 'There Aren't Enough Coffins'

PBS Air Date - Feb, 22, 2011: As Syria's government intensified its assault on the city of Homs Wednesday, activists said more than 70 people had been killed -- including an American reporter working for the British Sunday Times and a French photojournalist. Tim Ewart and Jonathan Miller of Independent Television News report.

Thousands rally for Assad ouster in Syria

Thousands of protesters flooded the streets of Syrian cities and towns on Friday, calling for the downfall of President Bashar al-Assad's regime, a monitoring group said.

The protesters emerged from mosques after the main weekly Muslim prayers, in line with a call by Internet-based activists for a rally for a "new phase of popular resistance."

In the capital, five civilians were wounded, one critically, when they were fired on at a demonstration in Mezzeh neighborhood, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

In Damascus province, villagers protested despite a massive security presence, the Britain-based monitoring group said.

The capital has been relatively spared the violence of the 11-month protest movement that triggered a brutal crackdown in which more than 6,000 people have been killed across Syria, according to rights groups.

At least 10,000 people demonstrated in the southern town of Dael, in the province of Daraa, cradle of the revolt inspired by the Arab Spring uprisings, said the Observatory.

Other rallies were staged in the towns of Jassm, Enkhel, and Nemr al-Hara, where security forces wounded some demonstrators when they opened fire on them.

A protest was also held in Maarat an-Naaman, a town in the northwestern province of Edleb, it added.

Activists are calling on Syrians to protest for a "new phase of popular resistance" to confront the regime's assault on besieged protest cities such as Hama, Homs and Daraa.

Since they erupted in mid-March last year, the protests have been largest on Fridays.

-AFP/NOW Lebanon

Alhurra and the Arab Spring

Hussain Abdul-Hussain
The Huffington Post

There is one thing in common between Congress-funded Arabic TV, Alhurra, and countries of the Arab Spring. Both have unaccountable leaders, who have been in place since forever, and who look like they are staying indefinitely.

Alhurra and its sister Radio Sawa are operated by the Middle East Broadcasting Network (MBN), a presumably independent organization and grant recipient from Congress through the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), an eight-member bi-partisan president-appointed Congress-approved board headed by the Secretary of State.

In early 2002, a 9/11 scarred America was set on conquering the world using both hard power, its formidable military, and its soft one, such as Voice of America (VOA) that was created in the 1940s to broadcast to regions like Eastern Europe and counter Soviet propaganda.

VOA Arabic had a respected Arabic Service, but the Bush administration decided to replace the federally-run Arabic radio and its serious tone with a more "hip" Radio Sawa, whose popular songs on FM, more than its news bulletins, won it considerable following among young Arab listeners. A year later, the same Radio Sawa team was tasked with launching an Arabic satellite TV: Alhurra went on the air in February 2004.

Since then, the leaders of Alhurra and Sawa, none of them a journalist, have remained in place and have outlasted administrations and Congresses.

Brian Conniff, the current President of MBN, previously worked at the General Accountability Office, then Inspector General, then acting director at one of the BBG boards, and in 2002 became the Executive Director of the BBG. For some reason, the only missing date from the resume of this non-Arabic speaking bureaucrat, who supervises America'a Arabic broadcast to 22 countries, is that of when he became MBN's president.

Since I worked at Alhurra between 2004 and 2007, I know that Conniff succeeded MBN's first president, Bert Kleinman, in June 2006. According to Kleinman's LinkedIn resume, he remains on the payroll of the "Broadcasting Board of Governors/Middle East Broadcasting" as consultant. It is hard to tell whether this means that despite stepping down, Kleinman is still with MBN or not.

Conniff has been MBN's president for six years. His number two, Vice President for Network NewsDaniel Nassif, has been in his position for 11 years, an exceptionally long tenure by any standard. Like Conniff, Nassif never worked as a journalist prior to joining MBN.

Past criticism of Alhurra and Sawa have focused on the content of their broadcast, whether they are U.S. propaganda tools or not, and the worthiness of spending 110 million tax dollars every year on two media outlets that do not seem to have caused any dent in Arab public opinion in favor of the United States, despite pats on the back that the BBG and MBN often give themselves by citing their "always growing" number of viewers and listeners.

Such numbers are based on opinion polls that MBN engineers and attributes to AC Nielsen, even though the survey giant only executes polling as designed by Intermedia, a contractor with the BBG. Intermedia recently lost the BBG contract to Gallup, and it remains to be seen whether numbers of Alhurra viewers and Radio Sawa listeners will stay the same.

Apart from content or the number of viewers and listeners, questions should be asked about the ambiguous structure of the BBG affiliates like the MBN. These questions include: Who is in charge of recruitment at the BBG (or MBN?) to have hired the two non-journalists Conniff and Nassif to head Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa for all this time? Who appraises Conniff's and Nassif's work and renews their contracts? Who decides their salaries and bonuses? Are they federal employees and follow federal government pay scales or not? Does the BBG overlook MBN and decide on the previous questions? If yes, how can MBN claim that it is independent from the federal government?

The BBG is a transparent federal agency. Out of personal experience, I know that they respect the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). They have even posted minutes of some of the board's meetings on their website.

But MBN is a different story. What is it? Who is it accountable for?

MBN is not federal and at the same time lives off tax dollars. It does not have a website or a mission statement. Who owns MBN's assets, such as its studios in Springfield, Virginia, and around the world? Who owns its equipment? Who decides the editorial line of MBN's TV and radio and who is accountable for their operation?

Dozens of administrative questions come to mind about the shadowy MBN with little answers, even though its president was once a federal bureaucrat. This same ambiguous status has allowed MBN's leadership to serve tenures as long as those of Arab dictators. The tenures are long especially when compared to the two-year terms of those who serve on the BBG.
President Obama appointed Walter Isaacson, one of Washington's inspiring personalities and the biographer of the late Steve Jobs, as BBG chair. BBG minutes show Isaacson rooting for the idea of pooling of resources of all BBG-funded organizations, including MBN, for efficiency.
Yet at the same time, Isaacson wanted to push whichever of these organizations remaining under the federal umbrella to become "independent" like MBN, which means scrapping federal quality controls that in the past governed VOA Arabic, its recruitment, goals, policies, salaries and performance.

Whatever Isaacson had in mind while BBG Chairman, his tenure ended last month. Conniff and Nassif, however, remain in place waiting for yet another new BBG chairman. At Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa, change has yet to come.

The eclipse of the Shia crescent

Days of Yore: (Left to right) Nasrallah, Hezbollah military leader Imad Mughniyah and Nsarallah's predecessor Abbas Al-Mussawi circa 1980 at the Baalbek Roman ruins.

Hussain Abdul-Hussain
NOW Lebanon

The power of the once-mighty Shia Crescent is on the decline, and its leaders in Iran, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq have only themselves to blame. Instead of using their influence to correct injustice—as per the Shia ideology—and build better states, the Shia underdogs have become the oppressive tyrants they once vowed to topple.

The ever-defiant Iran, which has been commanding—and more importantly funding—this regional Shia enterprise, is now watching hyperinflation hit its national currency, which has lost more than half of its value since the United States and Europe slammed sanctions on vital financial facilities, such as the Iranian Central Bank.

An economically limping Iran has also quietly abandoned the big talk about its “right” to uranium enrichment; it has invited the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect its nuclear facilities and announced its willingness to come back to the negotiation table. Needless to say, Iran is stalling on all counts. It turned down—among other IAEA demands—requests to interview scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, believed to be the engineer of Tehran’s nuclear weapons program.

Yes, Iran is in trouble. For the first time in years, Tehran is so nervous that it almost invited the United States into a war by threatening to close the Straits of Hormuz, tailing a couple of US navy ships, and warning the Gulf states not to raise their oil production to compensate for the Iranian shortfall.

A few years back, it was the United States—under the Bush administration—that was practically begging Iran to negotiate. At the time Washington felt nervous and threatened to strike Iran, while the world refused to agree to sanctions.

Then President Barack Obama got the idea of engaging Iran from former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel (who made a fortune after America opened up to China). Hagel reasoned that if Ronald Reagan’s America could put aside differences with Communist China for the sake of trade interests, why not Obama’s America with a much-less-important Iran. Obama duly dispatched envoys to meet with Iranian leader Ali Khaminei, but an arrogant Tehran turned down Washington’s offer.

Like Iran, Lebanon’s once seemingly invincible Hezbollah is now on the back foot. The party brags about its 40,000 missiles that are good for nothing. Hezbollah realizes that starting a war with Israel, like in 2006, would undermine its standing with Lebanon’s Shia. Then the party bounced back by channeling Shia rage against rival communities, mainly the Sunnis, who proved no match for Hezbollah, as we saw in the civil unrest of May 2008.

In 2010, Hezbollah beat its Sunni rivals politically, too, and took full control of the country. But it now owns the state’s failure, which has caused its popularity to dip. Hezbollah’s problems are further complicated with the drying up of Iranian petro-dollars and America’s tight monitoring of Shia donors among the Lebanese diaspora.

Hezbollah lost what was left of its fig leaf when it openly sided with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose regime has brutally killed 6,000 Syrians in a bid to quell a year-old uprising. Having bet on the Syrian dictator, Hezbollah will find itself in trouble with any post-Assad Syrian government.

Looking back, Hezbollah might remember that in February 2005, it was George Bush who said that Washington was willing to talk to the Party of God should it abandon its arms and renounce violence. That overture was also domestically presented to the party, when MP and Druze chief Walid Jumblatt and former Prime Minister Saad Hariri made an alliance with Hezbollah in 2005, and again entered into a national unity government with it in 2009.

Hezbollah squandered many chances of compromise when it was in its zenith. Now, with all indicators showing decline in Syria, Iran and inside Lebanon, the party will not get other similar overtures.

And like Hezbollah and Iran, Assad has had numerous chances, both from the United States and Saudi Arabia, as well as from his own people who patiently expressed hope in the Damascus Spring in 2001, and again in 2005. Whenever weak, Assad makes promises to his opponents and the world, but when he is back to full strength he reneges, hunts down his enemies, and tortures and imprisons them.

Finally, Iraq’s Nouri al-Maliki is also a Shia Crescent leader who will regret his choices soon. Having won America’s trust and defeated his rivals in the 2010 elections, Maliki never offered compromise from a position of strength. Instead, he went after his opponents. He instructed the judiciary to persecute Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, while breaking his promises to the Kurds by not holding a referendum over Kirkuk and failing to agree to terms on a hydrocarbon law.

When the allies of the Shia Crescent look back, they will remember the days when Washington came begging for Tehran’s friendship, and the world urged Hezbollah to end its wars on a high and endorse peace. Assad will remember how the Syrians were willing to settle for little compromise, while Maliki will soon find out that America has more pressing business than helping him emerge as Iraq’s new dictator.

When the Shia look back, they will regret not making good on their promises of fixing the world and ending tyranny. Their rivals might beat them back, and they might find themselves again as the downtrodden, a cycle that looks vicious in this region.

Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief of the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai

Hezbollah's Nicholas Noe threatens Syrians and the world with doom, on behalf of Assad

In this article in the New York Times, Hezbollah's Nicholas Noe put out the blueprint for what Hassan Nasrallah and Bashar Assad believe is the only way out of the Syrian crisis: Talk to Assad and entertain him, or face the wrath of the "axis of resistance" composed of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah. Nothing original or genuine, Noe only makes sure that his bosses' point makes it in print for US audience. 

Below are the parts that highlight Hezbollah, Assad and Noe's threat to Syrians and the world.

...Washington should adopt a realistic, albeit distasteful, strategy that seeks to steadily defuse the conflict rather than watch it explode in everyone’s face. And that means dealing with Mr. Assad.

MR. ASSAD is a brutally repressive and dangerous leader who is responsible for most of the death and destruction that has plagued Syria in recent months, but the consequences of pushing Iran, Syria and Hezbollah beyond their red lines will most likely be far worse.

...But the realization that die-hard elements in Damascus, Beirut and Tehran could unleash great regional destruction should prompt a long overdue discussion about putting forward a credible and comprehensive bargain.

Negotiations now, rather than war later, could lead to a far better outcome for all parties — even if that means Syrians’ aspirations for freedom might be met much later than anyone would like.

New Kuwaiti Parliament, Same Old Politics

Hussain Abdul-Hussain

The National

To the untrained eye, most candidates in last week's Kuwaiti elections walked the same, talked the same and offered little variation on identical platforms that promised economic development, governmental transparency and a better future.

And while some have argued that it was the Arab Spring that rushed the country into early elections, the fourth in six years, the evidence is to the contrary. True, the dissolution of the 2009 National Assembly, two years into its four-year term, came after a November protest that saw Kuwaitis storm parliament, an event that resembled protests elsewhere. But the collapse of the cabinet was because of a long-simmering political crisis inside parliament, rather than outside factors.

Change in Kuwait is political instead of fundamental, which in turn made last week's poll a repeat of other elections: a mix of politicking, electioneering and jockeying for power with little or no connection to the winds of change sweeping other countries in the region.

But political change did come to some degree. Only 22 incumbents in the 50-member National Assembly were re-elected, with the four female lawmakers losing the seats they had won in 2009.

Many suggest that the 28 new legislators will give an advantage to the anti-government, mainly Islamist bloc, which now controls more than half the seats. According to the Kuwaiti constitution, however, a 16-member cabinet will be appointed (at least one minister must be an elected MP). The other 15 members can also vote in parliament, giving the cabinet a decisive edge.

Also, beyond the Islamist versus non-Islamist dichotomy, the various campaigns suggested that there are many other layers of different divisions inside parliament and across Kuwait.

For a start, at least one of the new lawmakers is known for fiery rhetoric and distinguishing between "sedentary Kuwaitis" and Bedouins. The argument goes that parliament must restore urban values, as opposed to those held by rural groups (even if Bedouins have been residing in cities for generations).

Meanwhile, the Shia bloc, at times singled out on suspicion of harbouring non-Kuwaiti loyalties, has clearly shrunk in the Assembly. Talk about a "fifth column" that endorses a foreign agenda should recede.

Finally, as the number of opposition MPs - Islamist, Shia and liberal - increases, the new opposition will have to redefine itself after the departure of many old politicians, such as the former prime minister Sheikh Nasser Al Sabah, who has formed several cabinets over the past decade. The position of speaker is also up for grabs with the retirement of Jasem Al Kharafi.

With 28 new MPs, more Islamists, fewer Shiites, no women and a new speaker, the shape of the new government is anybody's guess, with most analysts predicting incumbent Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al Sabah to form the new cabinet.

Since Sheikh Jaber formed his first cabinet in December, political tension has noticeably receded. His cabinet has pushed economic growth by expanding the federal budget from $71 billion to $79 billion (Dh290 billion).

The cabinet also did an impressive job organising the elections. Foreign observers reported a free and fair electoral process, and the televised count of votes showed that it was transparent.

Whether that means Sheikh Jaber will win favour with the new parliament remains to be seen. And even if he does gain the approval of the opposition, there are few indications that Kuwait's political scene will shift away from the bickering it has witnessed over the past decade.

Troublemaking in parliament remains the trend. Even if cabinets demonstrate solid performance coupled with transparency and respect for the rule of law, we can still expect some lawmakers to show their tempers.

With Kuwait's GDP per capita among the highest in the world, and with a free press and stability, there seem to be few complaints for the opposition to fight for. Stability and prosperity will always narrow political differences, even if not eliminate them altogether.

"In Kuwait, we've been having the Arab Spring for many years now," a Kuwaiti friend told me. "Only it is not violent or brutal because when you can say what you want, there is no reason why we should stand in the streets and shout."

Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington bureau chief of the Kuwaiti newspaper Alrai