Whither Bahrain?

Libya is not the only Arabic revolution where outside forces have intervened; there are also foreign troops on the streets of Bahrain. But unlike Libya, the foreigners in Bahrain have come in on the side of the discredited regime. Occupying forces from Saudi Arabia and the UAE are helping the monarchy put down a rebellion with only a few hypocritical murmurs from the West and no sign of any UN-sponsored intervention in the rebels’ favour. With martial law in place after almost two months of protests, Bahrain has today brushed off a Kuwaiti offer to mediate with the rebels saying it wasn’t necessary. The detested al-Khalifa regime is set on a path of destroying the opposition while hoping the rest of the world is too distracted by events in Libya to do anything about it. (photo:AFP)

The Sunni Al Khalifa tribe has ruled Bahrain for almost 200 years, a rule cemented by British overlords and trade-based wealth in the 1800s. The majority Shia did not share in the general prosperity and remained second class citizens despite the implicit and sometimes explicit support of Iran. The discovery of oil ensured British meddling would continue for much of the 20th century. The struggle for supremacy in Bahraini affairs by both Britain and Iran continued until the country gained full independence in 1971. A 1973 constitution promised free elections (though for men only) but this was thrown out two years later by the then-emir Salman al Khalifa.

In the 1990s opposition forces came together to demand reforms from the ageing emir and a return to the 1973 constitution. For six years the streets were plagued with riots which were met by suppression by the regime The intifada did not end until the death of Salman in March 1999. Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa succeeded his father and immediately promised to carry out political reforms. On 14 February 2001 a referendum to carry out the National Action Charter to return the country to constitutional rule was overwhelming supported by 98.4 percent of the voters. The 2000s saw important progress including the enfranchisement of women and parliamentary elections in 2006 and 2010. But key problems remain including discrimination against the Shia and the all pervasive power of the al Khalifa caste.

Problems of powersharing were thrown firmly into the spotlight after pro-democracy demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt hit the headlines in January. In Bahrain opposition was mobilised to demonstrate on the 10th anniversary of the signing of the National Action Charter on 14 February. Pearl Square in the capital Manama became the epicentre of resistance with protesters calling for political reform and equalisation of the economic benefits of Bahrain’s oil-rich economy. The reaction from the alarmed administration was swift. On 17 February a pre-dawn tank raid on the square killed 5 and injured 230 others. Soldiers placed roadblocks and barbed wire around the centre of town and leaders banned public gatherings.

The effect was to harden resistance. Talk of reform was replaced by talk of overthrow of the al Khalifas. The funerals of the dead turned into shrines of martyrdom with talk of 100,000 on the streets – about one eighth of the country’s population. Unity of opposition forces was marred by sectarian clashes between Sunni and Shia. Meanwhile panicky leadership cadres made some concessions by sacking extremist ministers while still authorising a shoot to kill policy on the streets.

On 14 March, the Emir had enough and called for support from his Sunni allies. Led by Saudi Arabia they answered the call. A thousand Saudi troops and 500 UAE police officers crossed the bridge to Manama. The invaders were part of a deployment by the Gulf Co-operation Council, a six-nation regional grouping of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and UAE. The force immediately set about protecting the oil and gas plants and financial institutions. According to al Khalifa, the troops were there “to look at ways to help them to defuse the tension in Bahrain.” But no one in the country was under any illusion this was anything but an occupation force to crush the revolution.

There was the inevitable bleating from the West but no sign of action to back it up. Hillary Clinton said Bahrain and its GCC allies were "on the wrong track” but mentioned nothing about the 5th fleet that remains in its Bahrain base protecting US oil wealth in the greater region. The Khalifas may not be loved by their subjects but the White House know a Shia government in Manama would not be accommodating to 4,500 US military personnel in the city. The Americans have nailed their colours to the mast. The Fifth Fleet is not there to create disorder but to preserve it. When the regime does fall, as it inevitably will, the Americans can have no complaints when they are kicked out.

Gaza: A History of Neglect

While the recent flotilla attempts to end the economic blockade have turned it into front page news, Gaza has been a forgotten add-on for most of its 62 years of existence. For millennia it was simply a part of Palestine occupied by a succession of foreign rulers. On 14 May 1948 the last of those rulers, the British high commissioner, left Palestine formally ending the colonial mandate. (photo:AP)

The Zionists immediately proclaimed an independent Israel. Within 24 hours armies from Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq launched an attack across the frontier but stopped short at occupying Jewish settlements. The Israelis battle-hardened from fighting Germans and British alike routed the invaders.

When fighting ended in January 1949 Palestine had disappeared from the map. Most went to Israel, the west Bank went to Jordan leaving behind just the tiny strip of Gaza administered by Egypt. The strip was home to thousands of Palestinian refugees who fled across the border or were forced to leave by Jewish settlers.

Egypt’s King Farouk ordered the building of a new palace in Gaza where he could preside over a Palestinian Arab Government. But his grandiose schemes fell apart when Nasser and his Free Officers deposed him in a coup in 1952. Nasser turned his attentions to removing the hated British from the Suez Canal Zone while Gaza reverted to near lawless anarchy and fedayeen raids against Israel.

Four years later the Israelis invaded the strip in the Suez War. It followed a blitz attack on Egyptian forces in Sinai then a diversion south to open up the Gulf of Aqaba. The southern end of the Strip became one of the key battlefields of the war but the Israelis quickly overran the 8,000 Egyptian defenders before taking Gaza City.

After the war Israel told the UN it would keep its troops in Gaza and Sharm el-Sheikh in Sinai. The Americans although sympathetic to Israel, reacted angrily and threatened to cut off aid and end its guarantee of unrestricted oil supplies. With a likely vote on a UN resolution condemning Israel, then Prime Minister Ben Gurion accepted the inevitable and agreed to withdraw from Sinai and Gaza in exchange for access to the Gulf of Aqaba. The war ended the facade there was an independent government in Gaza. Direct control went back to Cairo with a military governor installed in Gaza City.

Gaza changed hands again in 1967 when once again the Strip and Sinai were vital battlefields in the Egyptian flank of the Six Day War. At the end of the war the Israeli Government voted unanimously to return the Sinai to Egypt and the Golan Heights to Syria in return for peace agreements. However Gaza was conspicuously absent from the decision and the arrangement was rejected by Egypt and Syria.

Israeli historian Benny Morris said at least 70,000 Gazans emigrated to Egypt and were forced to sign documents saying they were leaving of their own free will. Israelis moved into the Strip in large numbers taking up one fifth of the land in an already crowded area. Israel finally gave Sinai back to Egypt in 1979 but once again the status of Gaza was not addressed by President Carter’s peace treaty. Egypt did however agree to renounce its territorial claims on the area freeing it to become a part of Palestine, in theory.

Growing Palestinian unrest led to the First Intifada from 1987 to 1993 and a year later to the Oslo Accords which called for the total withdrawal of the IDF from parts of Gaza and the West Bank. It also created the Palestinian Interim Self-Government Authority for these areas for a transitional period of five years. It was also the first time that Israel and the Palestinians agreed to view Gaza and the West Bank as a single territorial unit. The Oslo Accords were a brave move but ultimately foundered on aspects that had been deliberately put into the ‘too hard basket’: Israeli settlements, Palestinian refugees, security and border control, and the status of Jerusalem.

Yet there was impact in Gaza. The IDF left Gaza City and the urban conurbation around it and the Palestinian Authority began to administer and police the region in their place. The PA was racked by corruption and mismanagement and by 2000 most of the Strip’s 400,000 residents were frustrated by the lack of progress and the squalid conditions they lived in. The scene was set for the Second Intifada and the fracturing of the Oslo Accords.

After Israeli soldier were killed by a Palestinian mob in the West bank, the IDF launched retaliatory air strikes against PA targets in the West Bank and Gaza. Attitudes hardened on both sides with Israel turning to the right wing Likud Party while Hamas grew in popularity in Gaza. As matters dragged on for years, an exasperated Ariel Sharon decided in 2004 to unilaterally evict all Israelis from Gaza’s 21 settlements. The IDF withdrew a year later. The disengagement did not address wider issues of occupation. Israel still retained control over Gaza’s borders, airspace, coastline, infrastructure and power grid.

Nevertheless the withdrawal gave fresh hope to a peace settlement, hopes that were soon dashed again. In Palestine parliamentary elections were held in early 2006 for the first time in 10 years. Hamas stunned the ruling Fatah party by easily winning the election. With Hamas refusing to recognise Israel, the US and EU imposed sanctions on Palestine. Israel also imposed a blockade on the Strip which exists to this day. The election result also led to the “fratricidal war” between Hamas and Fatah and the latter used its greater numbers in the West Bank to wrest back power there. Hamas remained entrenched in the Strip.

They also continued their low-level war against Israel with home-made Qassam rockets a constant irritant in border regions. In December 2008, Israel lost patience and launched Operation Cast Lead with a series of air strikes before a ground-based invasion in which over a thousand Palestinians were killed and most of Gaza’s infrastructure was destroyed in a three-week campaign. Today the border remains sealed and the IDF strictly controls travel to and from the area.

The end result may to be harden attitudes within the Strip that its future lies not as part of a united Palestine with the West Bank but as a separate country in its own right. It is this reality that no one in the region has yet confronted.

Israel massacres peace activists in the Mediterranean

The Israel Defence Force has murdered at least 16 people after storming ships on the high sea bound for Gaza. The six ships of the flotilla were carrying 10,000 tonnes of aid and around 600 human right activists from around the world who were determined to break Israel’s three year long blockade of the Palestinian territory. Israel had repeatedly said it would not let them in and IDF forces boarded the boats around 65km off Gaza before beginning their killing spree. Free Gaza Movement, the organisers of the flotilla, said the troops opened fire as soon as they stormed the convoy despite the raising of a white flag.

With the flotilla carrying mainly medical and food supplies, most of the world’s governments have condemned Israel’s provocative actions. Israeli police are on high alert across the country to prevent any civil disturbances. Meanwhile in Gaza, the Hamas government held an emergency meeting chaired by premier Ismail Haneya, following the Israeli Television Channel 10 report that 16 activists on the ships were killed and 30 wounded, including the Israeli-Arab Islamic activist Sheikh Raed Sallah (though the Jerusalem Post said he is injured not dead).

The IDF version of events needs to be treated with extreme caution but they said soldiers were attacked with knives and clubs as they boarded the six vessels. It said the violence turned deadly when an activist grabbed a weapon from one of the commandos. “The weapon discharged,” they said ambiguously not making it clear whether the activist fired it or if it went off accidentally.

The six ships of the flotilla sailed under Turkish and American flags and set off from Cyprus yesterday. Israeli forces said they would not allow them to land and the flotilla deliberated slowed down so that any forced landing would happen in daylight hours to maximize the media exposure. Meanwhile at the port in Gaza City, Hamas prepared a welcoming party with marquees and a buffet to greet the flotilla which was expected mid-afternoon today.

The first contact happened 200 kms off the Gaza shore. The IDF contacted the flotilla by radio and told them the Gaza Strip was a closed military zone. They offered them two options either follow the navy to Ashdod Port in Israel or else be commandeered by commandos. "If you ignore this order and enter the blockaded area, the Israeli navy will be forced to take all the necessary measures in order to enforce this blockade,” the IDF told them. The flotilla radar detected three Israeli ships in the area. After boarding the vessels and going on a shooting spree, the IDF towed the vessels to Ashdod.

The Hamas Government in Gaza said it considered the dead activists "as the martyrs of the Freedom Flotilla, adding that "the world should put an end to the biggest country of pirates.” Meanwhile Gaza premier Ismail Hanaya called the attack an international crime and a political scandal carried out according to an Israeli military order. “I call on the Palestinian Authority to immediately suspend its negotiations with Israel,” he said. He also called for street protects and the Arab states to respond to “end the unfair Israeli siege."

Israel justified its actions saying it already allows 15,000 tonnes of aid into Gaza each week. However the UN said this is just a quarter of what the Gaza Strip needs. Somewhere between 35 and 60 percent of Gaza’s agriculture industry was destroyed by Israel’s three week long invasion in 2008-2009 which left the land contaminated and cratered. This is the ninth time that the Free Gaza movement has tried to ship in humanitarian aid to Gaza since August 2008 but only five have been successful and none since Operation Cast Lead turned Gaza into a wasteland. The latest action confirms Israel is prepared to thumb its nose at international criticism as it lurches further into right-wing extremist nationalism.

Waltz with Bashir: re-examining Israel's 1982 war in Lebanon

(pic by Wolf Gang)

I watched the wonderful animated Israeli film Waltz with Bashir on TV tonight and was reminded of the first time I saw it on a rainy night in a Dublin cinema last year. It was just before Christmas and the film's bright and vivid colours were an antidote to the grey of Irish winter. The subject matter, a genocide in the 1982 Israel-Lebanon war remains shocking despite the passing of the years. My interest in the film was also piqued by a recent visit to the Middle East. I had travelled overland from Turkey to Israel a month earlier. I avoided Lebanon, perhaps a bit afraid but I was also fascinated by the region and its seemingly intractable problems. So I expected the film to say a lot about Israel and Lebanon and I wasn't disappointed. What I did not expect was that the film would also say much about the fragile and treacherous nature of memory.

I also thought of the selectiveness of my own memories of Israel. My overriding impression was of a siege society. Though I never felt particularly unsafe, every public building is a terrorist target and long queues for searches are commonplace. The only people not searched are the young men and women in uniform who carried guns into railway stations with the same insouciance as others carry guitars. They carried them in uniform and in mufti. They carried them on the streets and in the markets and the cinemas and cafes. They nestled up to them on buses and trains in Jerusalem's thriving new city. They also patrolled with them along the ancient chequered streets of the Old City. This epicentre of the Israel’s problems since the 1967 Six Day War is divided by its Jewish, Christian, Armenians and Arab quarters and also by the sensitive and doubly disputed Temple Mount, which is cordoned off behind razor wire.

But perhaps the Israelis are right to feel paranoid. In 61 years of existence, the nation has found it difficult to convince its neighbours it should exist at all. Border travel is only possible to Sinai and to Jordan where a three-hour grilling is likely from suspicious hosts that prefer their visitors to arrive and leave via the front door at Ben Gurion airport. At Allenby Bridge, the Israelis want to know where you have been and where you are going. They want to know where you are staying in Israel. They would particularly like to know if you are going to the West Bank or Gaza.

In asking these questions, Israel is attempting to cover its guilt. Because despite its first world status in a third world Arab region, Israel has never properly dealt with the people it shares Palestine with. Like the Jews, the Palestinian Arabs also have an affinity with their land and they know 1948, the year the Israeli state was founded, as Al Nakbar - “The catastrophe”. Hundreds of thousands were forced off their land and became refugees in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan and southern Lebanon.

The Palestinians weren’t wanted anywhere, but Lebanon was particularly difficult. This small but always vibrant country has long been a strategic melting pot. It was already a patchwork of different religious groups before 100,000 mainly Sunni Islam Palestinian arrived. Most were treated with hostility. There hasn’t been a census in Lebanon since 1932 because the powerful Christian Maronites don’t want confirmation the population is shifting towards Islam. The arrival of the Palestinians was a major factor in the complex civil war that tore the country apart between 1975 and 1990. The Mediterranean metropolis Beirut was destroyed many times over, the US and Israelis were dragged in and in the end Syria established a fragile hegemony over the warring tribes.

The Lebanese Palestinians were disenfranchised and living in squalid camps. These camps were the seeds for the PLO which used the cover of the civil war to wage their own counter-insurgency across the border on Israel. In April 1982, a PLO splinter group shot an Israel diplomat in London. Although the victim survived, this was the excuse Israel needed to invade southern Lebanon. They established a buffer zone with tacit American support.

Waltz with Bashir tells the story of this chaotic invasion. The Bashir of the title is Bachir Gemayel who led the Maronite Phalangists during the Civil War. Gemayel was a hero to his people and his face was a ubiquitous presence on posters and walls across Beirut. His Christian militia supported the Israeli invasion (though not in public) as both forces saw the PLO as the enemy. For two months Israel enforced the 40km buffer zone while they negotiated with Gemayel for him to become Lebanese Prime Minister with their support. But in September 1982 a bomb detonated at his HQ killing him and 26 other senior Phalangists. Though it was a fellow Christian employed by Syria who would later be convicted, the murder gave Israeli PM Menachem Begin to perfect excuse to expand the war against the PLO. Israel invaded Beirut, breaching a guarantee Begin gave the US not to do so.

The name of the film comes from the elaborate dance-like steps taken by one Israeli soldier to avoid sniper fire while running across a Beirut street illuminated by a background of a giant poster of Gemayel. The scene is played out like a waltz but it was far from serene. The Israelis overwhelming firepower allied to the Phalangist support soon secured the city. Once in power Gemayel’s people thirsted for vengeance against their PLO enemies. With IDF permission, 1,500 of their fighters entered the Shabra and Shatila refugee camps where the last PLO militants hid out among the refugees. The Israelis assisted their operation by continually lighting flares to assist their night-time activities.

Over the next two days, they went on a reign of terror. There is no agreed list of casualties but the Red Cross counted 300 deaths and said there were many more. The Israelis went further and admitted 800 civilians died. But various Palestinian bodies, including Red Crescent say the real death toll was several thousand. Whatever it was, Israel did not call off the slaughter until a TV journalist named Ron Ben-Yishai threatened to tell the world about it. A subsequent Israeli inquiry blasted the IDF for doing nothing to stop the genocide.

Waltz with Bashir is a film of laughter and forgetting. It was made by Ari Folman who was a 19 year old infantryman at the time of the war. Folman had lost his memories of the Lebanon campaign and was attempting to piece them back together with the help of people he served with. The film received mixed reviews in Israel with some saying he was too sympathetic to the IDF and others finding the parallels between the Palestinian camps and Nazi camps distasteful. The film is banned in Lebanon but 90 people attended a private screening in Beirut in January. Folman was delighted. "I wanted to show young people what war really looks like without glam and glory, without brotherhood of man and all the stupid things you might see in big American anti-war movies,” he said at the time. “Maybe that will convince them not to attend the next war that our leaders are cooking up for us."

Arab League Summit ends in Gaddafy chaos

The troubled Arab League Summit has ended in disarray after Libyan leader Muamar Gaddafy launched a blistering attack on the Saudi King Abdullah over his links to the US and Britain. Although his mike was eventually switched off by Qatari television, Libyan state television reported that Gaddafy was incensed Abdullah had not visited him in six years. After making his impassioned speech, Gaddafy then got up and walked out of the summit hall while Arab League head Amr Moussa was speaking.

The speech displayed an extraordinary sensitivity to Gaddafy’s role in history. Libyan official JANA news agency was there to publish the full text of his words "I am the leader of the Arab leaders, the dean of Arab rulers, the king of kings of Africa and the imam of the Muslims," proclaimed Gaddafy to Abdullah. "I am ready to visit you and for you to visit me..I tell my brother Abdullah, that you have avoided me for six years and you are afraid to confront me.” But Gaddafy didn’t stop there and criticised Abdullah over his links to the West. "You are a product of Great Britain and protected by the United States," he said. "Out of respect for the (Arab) nation, I consider the personal problem between us over and I am ready to visit you and to welcome you to Libya."

Gaddafy then stormed out of the meeting with aides saying he was off to visit a museum. Host Qatar held a reconciliatory summit between the Libyan leader and King Abdullah. Gaddafy’s personal envoy said the meeting was “friendly and frank” and said there were no differences between Libya and Saudi Arabia. “There was misunderstanding and it’s over now,” claimed the envoy.

These weren’t the only differences at the conference. Major regional power Egypt did not attend because of the League’s perceived drift towards outright anti-American attitudes. However President Mubarak did send a message to the Summit that claimed Egypt was keen to achieve a genuine Arab reconciliation. The message claimed Egypt was keen to achieve the Palestinian unity and to rebuild Gaza. In a possibly very dodgy cooking metaphor, Mubarak claimed Egypt was also interested in “marinating” Sudan's unity and territorial integrity. He said Egypt supports the Sudan in its crisis with the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir.

Beside’s Gaddafy’s strop, this year’s hot issue is the appearance of Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir who has an arrest warrant out for him from the International Criminal Court (ICC). Bashir was treated with respect by Qatar which is not a signatory to the ICC (but is in good company; neither are the US, Russia, China and India). The final communiqué of the meeting rejected the warrant and wanted continuation of talks between the Sudanese government and anti-government groups on Darfur under the mediation of Qatar. "We emphasis our solidarity with Sudan and our dismissal and rejection of the decision handed down by the International Criminal Court,” read the communiqué. “The decision to arrest Bashir was aimed at undermining the unity and stability of Sudan".

The league’s solidarity behind Sudan is testament to its bonds. This is the 21st summit since the Arab League was founded in 1945 and after a slow start has been an annual event since 2000. Egypt’s absence at this year’s summit is particularly poignant as it was their suggestion to decide to form the League and adopt its Charter. There are 22 member states and the Summit is the League's highest organ of power, as well as being the Arab world's top-level forum devoted to the discussion of major regional issues. Where better for a grandstanding Gaddafy to strut his stuff.

Abbas tries to muscle in on Gaza peace talks

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas made a powerplay for Fatah involvement in the Gaza peace talks when met his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak in Cairo on Monday. He criticised Hamas saying they promoted conflict with Israel and says they must respect his authority as leader of the Palestinian state. He also warned he will not talk with any group that fails to recognise the legitimacy of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). Abbas’ party Fatah is the largest faction within the PLO whereas Hamas is not aligned with it.

Abbas’s call comes a week after Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal described the PLO as impotent. Meshaal, who is exiled in Damascus, said the PLO “expresses a state of impotence, abuse and a tool to deepen divisions". Hamas have ruled Gaza alone after defeating Fatah security forces in a five day civil war in 2007. However Gaza's borders have been closed in an 18-month Israeli blockade as revenge for continued Qassam rocket attacks from the Strip. Israel launched a devastating all out attack on Gaza in late December that left 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis dead (a disparity of a hundred casualties to one). The war ended with on 18 January both sides declaring unilateral ceasefires.

Egypt has been mediating between Israel and Hamas in attempt to avoid further bloodshed as well as end the blockade. Mubarak will now walk a delicate tightrope as he holds separate talks with Israeli officials and Palestinians from both Hamas and now Fatah factions. Relations are at an all-time low between the two groups. Fatah accuses Hamas of killing, torturing and beating up Fatah activists in Gaza while Hamas in turn accuses Fatah of helping the Israeli military to strike Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip during the war. While the talks go on, so do the tit-for-tat attacks between Israel and Gaza. Gaza resumed rocket fire on Israeli border towns shortly after the ceasefire and in response warplanes launched air strikes across Gaza late on Sunday. Yesterday, one Palestinian was killed and four others wounded in an Israeli air strike on a vehicle carrying militants in the southern town of Rafah.

Meanwhile Barack Obama’s new Middle East envoy George Mitchell outlined American priorities for the region. Speaking in Israel last week, he said the new administration wanted to consolidate the truce and immediately address Gaza’s humanitarian needs. His appointment was welcomed by Palestinians who remember his last mission to the Middle East in 2000 when he recommended the Israelis lift the restrictions that prevent the Palestinians building up their economy. But Israeli PM Ehud Olmert told him bluntly that Israel would respond to what he called “every Hamas violation of the cease-fire, be they rocket attacks, strikes along the border fence or smuggling through tunnels.”

Olmert also told Mitchell that Gaza border crossings will not open permanently for the passage of goods unless a deal is reached on kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. As The Guardian points out, what Mitchell offers is sustained engagement right from the start of the Obama administration. The British daily says George Mitchell is “someone who will stay with it day after day, as he did in Northern Ireland.” This will be necessary as the history of Gaza’s politics is just as intractable as Northern Ireland’s.

Originally part of the British mandate of Palestine, Gaza came under harsh Egyptian military control after the 1948 war. Its citizens were forbidden from entering Egypt itself but in the 1950s its teeming refugee camps were a breeding ground for the Egyptian-founded Muslim Brotherhood network which brought about an which brought about an awakening of political Islam. Some refugees became Palestinian fighters known as “fidayun” and began conducting raids on isolated Jewish settlements near the border. Yasser Arafat emerged as leader of the “fidayun” calling his group The Movement for the Liberation of Palestine (which spelt “fatah” – victory – in reverse).

After the 1967 Six Day War, Israel occupied the Gaza Strip. The crowded Strip held 850,000 of the 1.5 million Palestinians in the occupied territories. A third of these were children and the unemployment rate was around 35 percent. For the next twenty years Gaza suffered a form of apartheid under a new occupier while continuing to be ignored at Arab summits. The failure of the PLO to provide protection against harassment propelled many people into the arms of Islamist groups. In 1987 the people’s frustration turned into the intifada (“shaking off”). This involved throwing stones at soldiers, preventing workers from getting to Israeli crossing points and liberating villages for a few days before the Israeli army returned. In response, the IDF bombarded villages with tear gas, charge in large numbers and used steel bullets wrapped in rubber.

Initially the 1993 Oslo Accords were viewed positively in Gaza. There would be no more curfews, or nightly break-ins or harassment on the roads. However as the Israelis imposed border closures it quickly became apparent that Oslo had turned Gaza into a huge prison. In the mid 1990s Israel encircled Gaza with a huge wall, electric fences and guard towers which effectively sealed off the Strip. The second intifada in October 2000 saw the beginning of primitive rocket attacks across the border into Israel.

In 2005, Israel enacted its unilateral disengagement plan to evict Israelis from 21 settlements in Gaza despite intense criticism from right-wing factions. But hopes that this would lead to a permanent settlement soon died. The locals were far from grateful and voted Hamas to victory in Palestinian government elections a year later. They would eventually muscle Fatah out of the Strip. Israel was left guarding a very hostile prisoner that does even recognise the existence of its jailor. Mitchell will need all his considerable skills of diplomacy to sort out the mess.

Israel's Supreme Court overturns electoral ban on Arab parties

The Israeli Supreme Court yesterday overruled a parliamentary panel which had barred the Arab parties United Arab List-Ta'al (UAL-Ta’al) and Balad from running for Knesset (parliament). The decision enables the two parties to run in the national elections scheduled for 10 February. The nine Supreme Court justices unanimously accepted the UAL-Ta'al appeal, while the Balad appeal was accepted by eight justices against one.

The two appeals were submitted by the Israeli-Arab rights group Adalah earlier this week. Adalah claimed that the decision to disqualify the parties was a violation of their rights. They also claimed it also ignored the legal opinion of Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz that there was not enough evidence to justify preventing the participation of the parties in the Knesset elections. Jafar Farah, director of the Haifa-based Mossawa: Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens in Israel, called the decision part of a "fascist atmosphere that exists in the media and in political parties that is excluding the Arab community in Israel."

The original decision had been made in the heat of the Gaza conflict. Two ultra right parties Yisrael Beiteinu and National Union-National Religious Party requested the Arab parties be banned by the parliamentary Central Elections Committee (CEC) which comprises of members of all party factions. The CEC met on 12 January and ruled the parties ineligible to fight the elections on the grounds they did not recognise Israel and called for armed conflict against the state. Arab CEC members boycotted the vote and called the vote the actions of a “fascist, racist state”. Members of all three major parties (Kadima, Labour, Likud) voted to expel the parties.

However it was the ultra-right faction which was predictably unhappiest with the court’s overruling. Yisrael Beitenu Chairman Avigdor Lieberman described it as "unfortunate” as it established no boundary to prevent Arab Knesset members from being disloyal to the state. He warned his party would continue the offensive. “[The ruling] gave the Arab parties license to kill the state of Israel as a Jewish democratic state," he said. “In the next Knesset, we will pass a citizenship law that will prevent the disloyalty of some of Israel's Arabs.”

However the left-wing non denominational Hadash party welcomed the judgement. Hadash Member of the Knesset (MK) Mohammad Barakeh said he had expected the decision. He wants to go down the opposite path to Avigdor Lieberman and deny the CEC the right to disqualify parties from running. This is not the first time that the CEC has attempted to ban the Arab parties, or the first time the court has overruled it. "It's a scenario that is renewed during every election, said Barakeh, “due to the hopes of Lieberman and those similar to him to recruit more anti-Arab members to the committee."

Israel is home to 1.4 million Islamic and Christian Arabs who form about 20 percent of the total population. But they are represented by only 8 percent of parliament with just ten 10 Arabs in the 120-seat Knesset. Balad holds three of those seats. It was formed in 1995 in order to create political awareness within the Arab sector in Israel and oppose the 1993 Oslo Accords.


UAL-Ta’al was established around the same time as Balad and now holds four seats. It has similar goals to Balad and calls for an end to the Israeli occupation and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. Both parties now hope that the indignation over their ban and the general conduct of the Gaza war will result in a strong Arab turnout at the ballot box. UAL-Ta’al leader and MK Ahmed Tibi described the ruling as a rallying call for his party. “This battle is not yet complete because racism has now become the mainstream in Israel,” he said. “We will finish this operation in Israel on the day of elections."

Israel proceeds towards its own election

Israel has reacted cautiously to Barack Obama’s victory in the US presidential overnight. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said her country hoped the president-elect would maintain US friendship with Israel and a commitment to peace talks. She called Obama's election win "a mark of merit for American democracy." Israel has also hailed the announcement Obama has appointed Jewish former Clinton aide Rahn Emanuel as chief-of-staff. However with its own parliamentary election due early next year, Israeli politicians are wondering what impact he will have on the Middle East.

Livni is hoping to emulate Obama’s success in that election. In September she was narrowly elected leader of the ruling Kadima party edging past main rival, Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, by one percentage point replacing scandal-ridden Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Livni’s hopes of becoming immediate Prime Minister were dashed by the refusal of coalition parties to work with the new Government, leaving Kadima little choice but to call an election. As a result Olmert continues to lead a transitional government until the election on 10 February. This is because of a law the Knesset must wait 21 days until it officially declares that general elections will be held within 90 days. The ultra-Orthodox Shas party said it would not join a Livni coalition, citing differences over the future of Jerusalem in the peace talks with the Palestinian Authority, and its demand for increased welfare benefits.

Livni labelled her former coalition partners’ demands for continued power-sharing “extortion” and said she would not “pawn Israel’s future for the prime minister’s chair”. Livni told President Shimon Peres she had done everything she could to put together a parliamentary coalition. She said other parties preferred elections. "If everyone agrees that elections are in order," she told Peres, "then we must do it quickly." She is hoping to become Israel’s first female Prime Minister since Golda Meir 30 years ago.

Tzipi Livni was born 50 years ago in Tel Aviv of a Polish father and an Israeli mother. After finishing compulsory military service she worked for Mossad before resigning to finish a law degree. She spent 10 years practicing law specialising in public and commercial law before being elected to the Knesset as a Likud member in 1999. She joined the ministry two years later under Ariel Sharon and worked her way up to Minister of Justice by 2005. When Sharon left Likud to form Kadima, Lipni went too and became second in line to succeed him after Olmert.

The current political impasse is hampering efforts to make progress on the Palestinian settlements. Outgoing US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with top Israeli and Palestinian negotiators this week to discuss the faltering Annapolis peace process. According to Barry Rubin, an international affairs and terrorism specialist at Global Research in International Affairs Centre (Gloria) in Israel, Livni wants to use the talks to demonstrate to voters that they should elect her as the country's next prime minister because she is for peace.

However her bid to become Prime Minister could be thwarted by the return of Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu who is leading in the polls. He was also at yesterday’s meeting with Rice and intends to adopt a new peace model should he be elected prime minister. Netanyahu told Rice his model would combine diplomatic peace with economic peace, coupled with "accelerated development." He stressed the peace model would be premised on improvement on the grassroots level and then move to leadership level. However, Netanyahu’s track record as former Prime Minister is not impressive in peace talks. He is a hawk and would not be trusted by any of the Arab participants. The more moderate Lipni would be a better bet for peace, but will Israeli voters give her the chance?

Indicting Gaddafy: Lebanon raises the stakes on Musa Sadr disappearance

Lebanon has indicted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafy over the disappearance of a prominent Shia cleric 30 years ago. Sheik Musa Sadr disappeared in 1978 when he visited Libya though Tripoli claimed he left the country on a plane bound for Rome - a claim denied by Italy. Lebanon has charged Gaddafy and six other Libyan officials with conspiring to kidnap and false imprisonment which carry a maximum death penalty. However, Gaddafy and the others are highly unlikely to ever face trial in Lebanon.

The person assassinated, Imam Musa Sadr, was a major influence in Lebanon’s 1970s sectarian politics. He was born in Iran and got a law degree from Tehran University. His family was Lebanese and in 1960 he accepted an invitation to be the Shia religious leader in the Southern Lebanese city of Tyre. An intellectual, he spoke several languages and was equally conversant in Western thought as he was in Shia philosophy. Similar to South American liberation theologian priests, Sadr was a charismatic speaker and a tireless worker who gave his downtrodden community a voice and provided them with identity and power in Lebanese politics.

Growing tensions in the south near the Israeli border spurred a mass Shia exodus to the slums of southern Beirut. Sadr was religious head of the Shia community and he organised the fragmented slums of southern Lebanon and the western Beqaa Valley into a new political movement. Sadr called the movement Harakat al-Mahrumin (movement of the deprived) and it quickly became the voice of Lebanese Shia.

When Lebanon’s civil war began in 1975 the Harakat divided into political and military wings. The political party Amal (Hope) became an international organisation and the party of choice for diaspora Shia businessmen as far away as Freetown, Accra, Kinshasa and Detroit. These communities provided the financial muscle for the new party. Sadr used his Amal militia to run social services but his pleas for help in the Shia slums fell on deaf ears in Beirut.

Slowly but surely he began to undermine the pan-Arab unity of Sunni hegemony. Sadr was the figurehead of a growing Shia awakening. In the 1970s Amal camps trained Shia activists from Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries. As the civil war raged, Sadr’s Shia-centric actions and Persian accent brought about great distrust in the Lebanese Sunni community. Many accused him of treason and saw him as a threat to the Palestinian establishment and by extension to the larger Arab world.

His assassination was well-planned and well-known in advance. Before he left for Libya in 1978, the feared head of Syrian security Rifaat al-Assad (younger brother of then President Hafiz al-Assad and uncle of current leader Bashar al-Assad) summoned the Shah’s ambassador to Damascus to warn him of Libya’s plan. Sadr still held an Iranian passport and Assad did not want to damage relations with Tehran. But Sadr and two assistants left as planned to visit Gaddafy and none of them were never heard from again.

To his supporters Sadr became known as the “vanished Imam”. Despite his disappearance Amal remained a major force in Lebanese politics. He welcomed the 1982 Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon as a liberation and flexed his power in the refugee camps after Israel expelled the PLO. They remained the leading Shia group until they were overshadowed by Hezbollah backed by the new theocratic Iranian government. Hezbollah won respect in Sunni communities after it took on the IDF and forced it to retreat from southern Lebanon.

The issue of Sadr’s disappearance dragged on to become the subject of a major dispute between Libya and Lebanon. Gaddafy refused to attend an 2002 Arab summit in Beirut after Shia groups threatened him. Libya closed its Beirut embassy claiming it was insulted by Lebanese pressure to reveal Sadr’s fate. In 2004, Sadr’s son filed a suit against Gaddafy and 17 members of his government. Lebanon claimed to have new information about the disappearance and the country’s chief prosecutor said former Libyan Prime Minister Abdel Salam Jalloud and a former Libyan ambassador to Lebanon should also be summoned.

But the Libyan leader never responded to the summons. Gaddafy has not been back to Lebanon since Sadr disappeared. The arrest warrant against him allows magistrates to take such measures against suspects who fail to respond to an official summons. Lebanon knows its current arrest warrant is highly symbolic, but is unwilling to let the matter lie. Their Shia have emerged as a major political force and remain determined to get to the bottom of the fate of their “vanished imam”.

Seriously Syria: attempting entente cordiale with the US

Israel and Syria continue to warm up to each other this week if a “fourth round of indirect diplomatic talks” can be said to produce heat. Both parties will meet in Turkey next week to discuss items such as the Golan Heights, water rights along the Jordan River, avoid war with each other, and the reestablishment of diplomatic relations. No easy tasks, for sure. But Syrian sources quoted in the Washington Post say that agreement is tantalisingly close in three of those areas: borders, waters and security. The last element, normalisation, is the sticking point, as it means normalisation with the US. This will not occur until there is a new occupant in the White House.

Even with a wait of a few months, this is cause for optimism. US-Syrian relations have long been marred by disagreements. In the Cold War era, Syria was considered a Soviet satellite state though its Ba’athist administration kept an eccentrically independent stance. Syria has seen both sides of political violence. In 1986, Syria was the victim of one of the largest terrorist attacks of the 80s when an explosion in Damascus killed 144 people and injured another 149. Syria blamed the attack on Israeli agents, but could provide no proof.

Syria was an active agent of terror too. That same year Syrians were suspected to be involved in the Berlin La Belle Disco attack. Two US servicemen and a Turkish woman died in the incident, for which Libya was blamed and attacked in supposed retaliation. Shaul Bakhash, writing in the New York Review of Books, said there was “persuasive evidence” two Jordanian brothers carried out the attack as Syrian recruits. However the information was not shared with other US media as the truth did not conveniently fit with the demonisation of Gaddafy’s Libya.

The same scenario applied a year earlier when the air terminals in Rome and Vienna were attacked on the same day. The US carried out retaliatory attacks on Libya, killing 100 people. The New York Times editorialised it was justified to “save the next Natasha Simpson” (an 11 year old US victim of the air terminal bombs) but pointed fail to provide any evidence Libya was the culprit. Meanwhile Italian and Austrian authorities said the perpetrators were trained in a Syrian-controlled area of Lebanon and had arrived in Europe via Damascus. When the Italian Interior Minister reiterated his belief Syria was responsible, the New York Times duly reported it without feeling the need to justify their earlier comment about Libya.

But Syria and the US have been allies too. In 1976, Syria entered Lebanon in 1976 with US approval in an attempt to end the Lebanese civil war. Instead the civil war dragged on another 15 years and Syrian troops stayed on in violation of UN Security Council resolution 520. According to Noam Chomsky, Syria help implement such massacres as occurred in the Palestinian refugee camp of Tel Al-Zaater, where thousands died at the hands of Syrian-backed Christian forces armed with Israeli weapons.

Today, the relationship between US and Syria remains ambiguous. While the State Department officially categorises Syria as a sponsor of terror, the US was happy to receive Syrian help about Islamist radicals suspected of having connections with Al Qaeda. Syria has been a willing participant in the US extraordinary rendition program, most notoriously in the case of Canadian IT programmer Maher Arar.

However relations cooled significantly after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told an American audience that Syria had gained membership of the “axis of evil” club in an update of George W. Bush’s tiresome metaphor of 2002. The US also accused Syria of aiding and abetting Iraqi insurgents while its likely involvement in the assassination of Lebanon PM Rafik Hariri also raised US hackles. The Bush administration have since tried and failed to oust the Assad Government by all means short of invasion.

But an Obama or McCain White House will not have the same level of vindictiveness. Syria and Lebanon are finally coming to terms with each other, with successful peace talks brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifah. The reconciliation between Syria and former colonial power France is also significant in geopolitical terms. According to Professor Hilal Khashan, chair of the political science department at the American University of Beirut, Syria is indirectly approaching the US through its talks with France and Israel. "The Damascus regime will only conclude a peace deal with Israel that is overseen by America," he says.

Lebanon deal brings end to political stalemate

After five days of talks in Qatar, Lebanese factions have agreed on a deal to end the country’s 18 month political stalemate and renewed fighting that claimed at least 67 lives this month. The outcome was greeting by celebratory gunfire in Beirut as Lebanese TV broadcast the Doha ceremony live which brought an end to five days of talks. But weary Government leaders have had to give way on major provisions to avoid the alternative of outright war. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said it was "an exceptional agreement at an exceptional time". Parliamentary secretary Saad Hariri also put the best spin on the outcome saying "I know that the wounds are deep, and my injury is deep, but we only have each other to build Lebanon.”

Other parties in the region were less circumspect. Syrian President Bashar Assad claimed the talks as a victory and called Qatari Emir (and Prime Minister) al-Thani to congratulate him on the agreement. Iranian News Agency ISNA also congratulated the Qataris for their efforts. They quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini who said “The Islamic Republic of Iran hopes that the Doha accord ... will provide a blossoming and brilliant future for the Lebanese.”

Iran and Assad had good reason to be happy – their proxy Hezbollah made major inroads in the talks. They have almost doubled their seats in cabinet from 6 to 11. Crucially, it now has enough seats in cabinet to give it veto power in the new national unity government. It also benefits from a new electoral law that divides Lebanon into smaller districts which will give the country’s sects better representation. Shiites make up between 30 and 40 percent of the Lebanese population, yet are accorded only 18 percent of parliamentary seats. However, one downside is the need to disarm – the deal states that the "use of arms or violence is forbidden to settle political differences".

The deal also paves the way for parliament to elect a new president. Lebanon has been without a president since November 2007. Al-Thani said the deal will be "carried out immediately” and he believes the election of a new president will occur within 24 hours. The post is likely to be filled by Army chief Michel Suleiman. The army is seen as the one institute that stands above the fray. Suleiman is a good compromise candidate and despite being a Maronite Christian is regarded by the country's rival political factions as relatively neutral. More importantly he has kept the army on the sidelines of civil conflict.

Several key issues remain unresolved after Doha. Among them are what will happen to Hezbollah’s large weapons cache, and thorny question of Lebanon’s quixotic relationship with Syria. The Lebanese government blamed Syria for the 2005 assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. But Syria has so far refused to co-operate with a UN investigation into the murder of Hariri and ten other government officials. In October 2005, UN investigator Detlev Mehlis told then Secretary-General Kofi Annan the plot to kill Hariri "could not have been taken without the approval of top-ranked Syrian security officials”.

Nevertheless, one immediate benefit of the outcome of the talks was the end of a 180 day Hezbollah sponsored blockade of the centre of Beirut. The protest began on 1, December 2006 when the opposition set up a sprawling tent city on streets leading to the offices of the Prime Minister Siniora, in a bid to force him to step down. The camp site paralysed the commercial heart of the city and large parts of the centre became a ghost town as dozens of restaurants and businesses were forced to shut down. Today, trucks started clearing the tent city under the orders of Opposition parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri. While protesters headed home, workers returned to the city to pick up the pieces. Fadi Harb, an employee at a nearby cell phone shop, said happily, "This agreement means calm, peace, security, stability and the future."

Saudi Arabia and Wahhabism: a toxic combination

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is in the news for yet another of its barbaric practices. This time it is the story of a woman about to be executed on a charge of witchcraft. The court convicted her on the evidence of a man’s claim she had made him impotent and also that of a divorced woman who reportedly returned to her ex-husband during the month the accused woman predicted. The woman, Fawza Falih, also made a forced confession which she later retracted. She told the court she was illiterate and did not understand the document she was forced to fingerprint.

Human Rights Watch said the charges were absurd and had no basis in Saudi law. Saudi Arabia does not have a written penal code, and “witchcraft” is not a defined crime. HRW have called on King Abdullah to halt the execution. They said judges never investigated whether her confession was voluntary or reliable nor did they investigate her allegations of torture. They also did not enquire whether she could have been responsible for the supernatural occurrences she supposedly did. Instead, the court judges sentenced her to death for the benefit of “public interest” and to “protect the creed, souls and property of this country.”

Of one thing there is no doubt and that is the creed, souls and property of Saudi Arabia need protection; but the danger does not come from witchcraft. The real problem with the oil-rich kingdom is the nefarious alliance between the ruling House of Saud and its venomous court of Wahhabi scholars, the “uluma” that is a key part in Saudi decision making. Not only do the uluma rule on the law, they are also responsible for spreading a toxic brand of intolerant Islam that is spreading across the world. Funded by the world’s largest oil reserves, it is an alliance that has directly led to the rise of Al Qaeda and 9/11 and is responsible for sponsoring an education of hatred in Saudi-funded madrassas in the Third World and beyond.

The story of this alliance and its terrible consequences for the world is brilliantly told in Dore Gold’s “Hatred’s Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia supports the new global terrorism” (2003). Gold is a partisan: He is an Israeli and the president of the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs who served as Israel’s ambassador to the UN between 1997 and 1999. But he is also superbly knowledgeable about Greater Middle East affairs. He was a diplomatic envoy to the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, the Gulf States and the Palestinian Authority. He also has a PhD in International relations and Middle Eastern studies and is a world-renowned expert on Saudi Arabia.

Gold's thesis in Hatred’s Kingdom is America has grossly overlooked Saudi Arabia’s role in the promotion of international terrorism. In fact, says Gold, Saudi is responsible for Middle-Eastern inspired terror. The cause is its dominant religious creed: Wahhabism, which regards all non Wahhabists (not just non-Muslims) as “mushrikun” (polytheists), or idolaters. According to Saudi religious textbooks, mushrikun have no rights to live and it is permissible to “demolish, burn or destroy” the bastions of these infidels. Gold says the Wahhabists who preach this dangerous nonsense are not extremist “Saudi versions of the Ku Klux Klan”, but are instead the product of Saudi mainstream society and culture and are sponsored by the government.

The founder of Wahhabism was Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab who was born around the start of the 18th century in a village in east central Arabia. His father was a qadi (a religious judge) and he instilled a love of learning of Islamic law in his son. Wahhab travelled to Medina where he learned the Hanbali Islamic tradition and later moved to Baghdad and Damascus where he learned the ways of the Shiites and the Sufi. He became an exponent of mystical Sufism but later abandoned it. On his return to his homeland, he announced that Islam had been corrupted by foreign influences. In his Book of Tawhid, he expounded on his view of Islam which was a rejected of all Gods except Allah. He also denounced the veneration of tombs as a Christian influence. In the name of strict monotheism, he launched a jihad against the mushrikun (polytheists).

Wahhab antagonised the local uluma (religious leadership) with his extremist ideas and was expelled from his home town. He sought refuge from the ruler of Riyadh Muhammad ibn Saud. Wahhab married Saud’s daughter and the two men launched an alliance that survives to this day. Saud would provide military protection for Wahhab while the latter would legitimise Saudi rule over local Bedouin tribes subjugated by jihad.

The Wahhabists were brutal to their enemies. If captured, they were offered the choice of conversion to Wahhabism or death. Unlike most Muslims, they gave no respite to the “people of the book” (Jews and Christians). Wahhab himself advocated an anti-Christian and Jewish agenda describing believers as “sorcerers who believed in devil worship”. Wahhabi writings elevated jihad to the “ultimate manifestation of Islam”. When ibn Saud died in 1765, the cause was taken up with relish by his son Abdul Aziz. Wahhab himself died in 1791 but the Saudi empire expanded in his memory. In 1802 an army of Wahhabists attacked the southern Iraqi city of Kerbala. There they massacred 4,000 Shiites and sacked the shrine of the tomb of Hussein, the martyred grandson of the prophet Muhammad.

The Saudis stormed Mecca in 1803 where again they attacked shrines including the chapel on Jebel Nur mountain where Muslim traditions says the angel Gabriel brought the Koran to Muhammad. Controlling the entire Arab peninsula they were now a serious threat to the Ottoman Empire. The empire fought back led by the Albanian born governor of Cairo Muhammad Ali who launched a series of raids across the Red Sea. French trained Egyptian forces retook the cities of Mecca and Medina and captured King Abdullah in 1818 to end the first Saudi reign.

But the Saudi-Wahhabi alliance was to survive this setback. After the Egyptian army was forced to withdraw to bases in the 1840, the Saudis retook Riyadh with Wahhabism firmly seated at the centre of power. This second Saudi state was terminated in the late 1860s by an Ottoman Empire revived by the newly built Suez Canal. But this was a temporary respite for the Sick Man of Europe. Britain was starting to assert its influence on the region. They struck an alliance with a new Saudi leader. Abdul ibn Saud returned to power in Riyadh in 1903 with help from Lord Curzon’s naval flotilla in the Persian Gulf.

Ibn Saud co-opted his old family allies the Wahhabists and provided them with funds and religious instructors. In World War I, Britain took control of all of the old Ottoman Arab territories and established a relationship with Sharif Hussein, the Hashemite ruler of Mecca since 1908. The end of the war meant that the map would need to be redrawn to establish the border between Hussein’s and Saud’s kingdoms. Wahhabi armies terrorised its neighbours but were hemmed in by the airpower of the RAF.

When the new Turkish republic abolished the Ottoman caliphate, King Hussein proclaimed himself caliph. An enraged Saud declared a jihad against the Hashemites. The war was enthusiastically pursued by the Wahhabists who wanted to “purify” the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Hussein abdicated and his son Ali fled to Iraq in 1925. Seeing the changed landscape, Britain transferred the northern cities of Maan and Aqaba to Hashemite Transjordan. Saud returned in triumph to Mecca.

The greater Muslim world was appalled by the Saudi government of the Holy Cities. Indian Muslims called for an internationalisation of the Hijaz area and the Egyptians also voiced their disapproval. Ibn Saud succeeded in calm Muslim fears by declaring they had nothing to fear from Wahhabism. But quietly the movement was building up a new head of steam. In 1928 Muhammad Rida set up a new militant movement in Cairo called the Muslim Brotherhood. Rida espoused Wahhabi doctrines and was now about to export them overseas.

Back in Arabia, ibn Saud was suffering from the world’s Great Depression. With his country on the verge of bankruptcy he signed a deal in 1933 with Standard Oil of California (SOCAL) to grant them a huge oil concession in Eastern Arabia. They struck oil five years later and Saudi royalties grew fast as war demand grew. Saudi royalties went from $3 million in 1938 to $10 million in 1946. By 1952 that had increased to $212 million. The Wahhabi uluma were not happy about the “infidels” in their country but bought ibn Saud’s argument they were helping to extract the material resources “placed by Allah” underneath the land.

In return for their support, ibn Saud allowed the Wahhabis a monopoly over education and religious policies. After ibn Saud died in 1953, his weak second son, Saud became king. Saud terminated the US airbase in Dhahran and plunged his country’s finances into disarray. The uluma deposed him in 1964 in favour of his younger brother Faisal. Faisal’s mother was a direct descendent of the original Muhammad Wahhab and her father was a major Wahhabi scholar.

As a counterweight to the secular Arabism espoused by Egypt’s Nasser, Faisal turned to Islam. Arabia established the Muslim World League dedicated to the spread of the religion. The League became a mouthpiece for Saudi Arabia, run by Saudi government employees and was an effective promoter of Wahhabi Islam. At home, Faisal created new government ministries in 1970 and the Wahhabists won control of justice and education, including universities. The entire generation of Saudis born in the 1960s grew up on Wahhabi doctrines.

Faisal gave renewed powers to the mutawain (religious police). They scrutinised public behaviour, ensured men and women did not mingle, checked for suitable attire, and made sure people attended public prayers. Thanks to Faisal they were given back powers of arrest, which they had lost in the 1930s under ibn Saud. Meanwhile Saudi oil revenue was skyrocketing. They earned $22.6 billion in 1974 and funds were becoming available for the export of Wahhabism.

Riza’s Muslim Brotherhood had suffered under Nasser in Egypt and many members had fled to Saudi Arabia. There they became prominent scholars and were influential in the creation of the Islamic University of Medina. The Brothers had a great deal of affinity with the Wahhabists. The university was directly controlled by Wahhabi clerics and it quickly became a hotbed of Islamic militancy. Later 85 percent of the university’s students would be foreigners, making it a crucial tool for the export of Wahhabi ideas.

The university also imported Muslim brotherhood ideas especially from the hugely influential Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb. Qutb spend some time in the US where he became extremely anti-American. He predicted a clash of civilisations between Islam and the West which Islam would win. Although executed by Nasser, Qutb’s call for a militant jihad was taken to Arabia by his brother Muhammad who taught Islamic studies in Jeddah. In the 1980s Saudi Arabia welcomed another Egyptian radical Ayman al-Zawahiri who had been jailed for a part in Sadat’s assassination. Later he would leave for Afghanistan where he became Al Qaeda’s second-in-command and chief ideologue.

A lesser known but equally important import was the Palestinian scholar Abdullah Azzam. Azzam was also a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and he joined Muhammad Qutb at Jeddah University. There Azzam and Qutb were both teachers of a young Saudi student named Osama Bin Laden. Azzam was instrumental in the resurgence of jihad as a central facet of Islamic fundamentalism and said it was “obligatory on all Muslims”. The Russian invasion of Afghanistan was the trigger Azzam needed to preach jihad. He went to Pakistan where he ran the Muslim World League office as a terrorist front. This office would become a feeder for Bin Laden’s later network. Although successful in removing the Russians, he was killed in 1989 by a car bomb, probably planted by Afghanistan’s pro-Soviet intelligence services.

Azzam’s effective successor was his Saudi student Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden was heavily influenced by his Wahhabi upbringing. He was immersed in officially sanctioned Saudi religious texts that labelled Christians as “polytheists” which effectively removed the protection they were owed as “people of the book”. This teaching also influenced Juhaiman al-Utaibi who attacked Mecca’s grand mosque in 1979 taking hundreds of hostages. He declared himself to be the “mahdi” (guided one). Al-Utaibi held a particularly pure strain of Wahhabism believing Muslims should not have any contact with the kufar (infidels) and called the Saudi regime corrupt. After two weeks, Saudi troops stormed the mosque and killed and executed the kidnappers.

However the rattled government began to take on al-Utaibi’s ideologies. Women were banned from appearing on television. Music disappeared from the media. Stores closed during daily prayers and the religious police were granted further prohibitive powers. Wahhabists were angered by the US build up in the region in response to the Iranian revolution and the Carter Doctrine. The Saudis supported the Iraqi Sunni Saddam Hussein in his war against the hated Shiite Iranian leadership. Meanwhile they poured $4 billion towards the Afghan mujahideen via Azzam’s Peshawar office. After Azzam was killed, Bin Laden evolved the movement into Al Qaeda. Bin Laden was dedicated to the task of spreading Wahhabism in Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia supported the Taliban militia who had similar radical ideas about Islam. The Saudis were one of just three countries (Pakistan and UAE were the others) to recognise the Taliban rule of Afghanistan.

But the biggest impact to the homeland was the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Overnight, Saudi Arabia’s 1980s ally was now its primary enemy. King Fahd (who inherited the throne after Faisal’s assassination by his nephew in 1975) consulted the uluma and reluctantly allowed an American force into the country. After the 1991 Gulf War thousands of US troops roamed the country even setting up their own radio station which could be picked up across the kingdom. Their presence fed a huge sense of anti-Americanism. The uluma began to tell Fahd the real enemy was not Iraq – but the west. In 1994 Fahd denied Bill Clinton’s request to agree to host a US armoured brigade.

Bin Laden meanwhile had moved to Sudan on the invite of local Islamic leader Hassan al-Turabi. There he established contacts with Zawahiri’s Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Hamas and Algeria’s Front Islamique du Salut (FIS). Bin Laden sent forces to oppose the US in Somalia and an affiliated group bombed the World Trade Center in 1993. He also attacked King Fahd as not sufficiently Wahhabi. But he was not in favour of the overthrow of the Saudi monarchy. He supported Crown Prince Abdullah who succeeded Fahd in 1995. Abdullah was noticeably less pro-Western. In 1998 Bin Laden called for a jihad “against Jews and Crusaders” and lambasted the American “occupation” of the lands of Islam’s holiest places. He was supported within Saudi Arabia by mosque sermons which were full of anti-Jewish themes. The Clinton administration put pressure on Sudan to extradite Bin Laden but Saudi Arabia refused to take him. He was expelled to Afghanistan instead in 1996.

In 1998 Al Qaeda struck the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killing 240 people. Two years later they bombed the USS Cole in port in Yemen. Saudi citizens and money were responsible for all three attacks. On 11 September 2001, 15 Saudi citizens and four others hijacked four airplanes attacking the Pentagon and destroying the World Trade Center at the second attempt. Saudi Arabia denied all involvement. Yet within days of the attack, Saudi Sheik Hamud al-Shuaibi issued a fatwa announcing “whoever supports the infidel against Muslims is considered an infidel”.

The Saudis had a deep PR problem and they paid US advertising company Burston-Marsteller $2.7 million to place ads in American media depicting Saudi Arabia as a staunch ally. They paid retainers to Congress insiders and paid Patton Boggs to educate congressmen and their staff on issues of concern to the kingdom. Back home however, a confidential poll of Saudi men found 95 percent approval of Bin Laden’s cause. Meanwhile, the religious police showed their contempt for human values when in 2002 they prevented Saudi firemen from rescuing 15 girls caught in a school fire in Mecca because they were not wearing their headscarves.

Though Abdullah took responsibility for girl’s education away from the Wahhabists in response to the Mecca fire, he cannot afford to unduly rock the boat. The uluma’s power remains strong. Wahhabi hatred remains at the core of Saudi society. Through the Muslim World League and the sponsorship of madrassas and Islamic universities they have taken this peculiarly Arabic version of Islam across the globe. Oil money has spread what Bernard Lewis called “this fanatical, destructive form of Islam” all over the Muslim world and among Muslims in the west. Without oil, they would have remained a lunatic fringe. Instead they are a serious world power dedicated to hatred. And a poor illiterate witch pays the same price for this hatred as the Western mushrikun.

Winograd blames IDF for failed Lebanon war

The Israeli government-appointed Winograd Commission has issued a strong indictment of the military and the political administration over its conduct in the failed 2006 war in Lebanon. The 621 page final report issued by retired judge Eliyahu Winograd yesterday did not have the mandate to place responsibilities with individuals but blamed the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and every Israeli government since 2000 for a series of failures, shortcomings and missed opportunities. Crucially, the Commission noted Israel did not succeed in translating the military conflict into any meaningful political achievements.

The probe was dedicated to the memory of the soldiers and civilians who died in the month-long conflict that Israel calls the “Second Lebanon War”. Winograd found that the Israeli army went into battle unprepared, conducted flawed strategic planning and was unable to adjust to political realities. Among the report’s recommendations was for Israel’s government and the IDF to overhaul their strategies for making decisions during emergency situations and wars. It said there was a “genuine contradiction” between the army’s objectives in Lebanon and the limitations placed on troops due to fear of casualties. The report said “the General Staff failed to communicate to the political echelon that this manner of conduct is unsuitable for war."

The conflict began in July 2006 when Lebanese Hezbollah militants kidnapped two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. Israel began a massive bombing campaign in southern Lebanon, but waited until the final days of the conflict before it launched a major ground offensive that failed to push Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon before a UN-mediated cease-fire went into effect. Before that happened Israel and Lebanon were on the verge of all-out war and several thousand people died on both sides. Much of northern Israel’s population of one million people were instructed to remain in shelters for much of the war's duration. The situation was also dire for the Lebanese as the Israelis kept up an air and naval blockade of the country until September.

After the war ended, public criticism grew as did demands for an independent enquiry into the conduct of the military, especially whether its initial response was proportionate to the kidnapping of two soldiers. The Israeli cabinet approved the establishment of the Winograd Committee in September 2006. The Commission was appointed due to a strong sense of a crisis and deep disappointment with the consequences of the campaign and the way it was conducted. Former judge Winograd chaired the committee and was joined by two professors and two retired army major-generals. The committee was tasked “to look into the preparation and conduct of the political and the security levels concerning all the dimensions of the Northern Campaign which started on July 12th 2006”. The committee began hearing testimony from witnesses from November 2006 onwards.

The committee produced an interim report (pdf) in April 2007. Its main focus was on the decisions leading to the start of the war. It found the key mistakes were the lack of a “detailed, comprehensive and authorised military plan”, a refusal to contemplate a policy of containment and a vague and ambiguous communication of the mission goals. It laid the blame on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the Defence Minister and the army Chief of Staff and said that had these three acted better “the outcome of the war would have been significantly better”.

But the final report did not explicitly criticise Prime Minister Olmert. He would have been relieved by its conclusion which largely absolved the political masters of the war. The report backed the decision to launch a major ground offensive in the war’s last couple of days when it was clear a cease-fire was imminent. The panel called that move "essential," even though the "last-minute ground offensive in Lebanon did not improve Israel's position.” According to Anthony Loewenstein, the very fact that the Israeli government is likely to survive the scandal “reflects the dysfunctionality of the Jewish state”. However with none of Israel’s four ruling coalition partners wanting an early election, Olmert is unlikely to face more heat on the issue.

Kurds Turkey shoot

With Turkey on the brink of attacking Iraqi Kurdistan, one of the potentially great faultlines of the 21st century could be opened. There are 25 to 40 million people that call themselves Kurds. Their misfortune is to be scattered over rugged terrain in some of the most important countries of the Middle East. A Kurdish proverb says 'the Kurds have no friends but the mountains'. This is particularly true today when there is little enthusiasm in the wider world to support the merits of a separate Kurdish nation. The Kurdish nationalist party PKK is declared a terrorist organisation in the US, Europe and Australia.

While Kurds have some autonomy within Iraq, they remain a disadvantaged minority group in Iran, Syria, Armenia and Turkey. Although Iranian troops invaded Iraqi Kurdistan last year, it is the Turks who feel most vulnerable to the Kurdish threat. Turkey does not recognise its Kurdish minority and simply calls them “Mountain Turks”. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is now seeking approval from his parliament to launch an “incursion” into Iraq any time in the next 12 months.

This is no idle threat. In May, Erdogan called for an invasion of Iraq to seek out Kurdish militants and take what the Turkish foreign ministry calls “urgent and resolute measures”. It was in response to a suicide bombing in Ankara which killed six people and injured more than 100. The Turks identified Guven Akkus from Turkish Kurdistan as the culprit and said his methods were similar to those of Kurdish militants. The PKK have copped much of the blame even though there is no link between it and Akkus and it denied responsibility. One Turkish commentator described Akkus as a “Communist”.

While Turkey may be looking for an excuse to punish Kurdish militia, locals have promised a tough reception if they invade. A Kurdish rebel commander told AP on Saturday Turkey would face a long and bloody conflict if it launched an attack. Murat Karayilan, head of the armed wing of the PKK, said an invasion would "make Turkey experience a Vietnam war." "Iraq's Kurds will not support the Turkish army," he said. "If Turkey starts its attack, we will swing the Turkish public opinion by political, civil and military struggle."

The PKK was founded in 1973 and gets its initials from its Kurdish name, Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan (Kurdistan Workers Party). They first launched an armed independence campaign in Turkey’s southeast almost 25 years ago. More than 37,000 people have died in the ongoing violence with deaths spread evenly between the two sides. Turkey launched a major military crackdown in 1999 and captured PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan causing 5,000 fighters to flee to Iraq. The PKK is not entirely welcome in Iraqi Kurdistan. There are already two Kurdish factions in Iraq which exist in an uneasy power-sharing relationship. The PKK operates as a Pan-Kurdish organisation that rejects Iraqi Kurdish efforts to remain within Iraq.

The 25 million Kurds are not necessarily politically united. They are spread across eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, western Iran, and parts of Syria and Armenia. 12 million live in Turkey. The 1920 Treaty of Sevres which fixed Turkey’s border after World War I included the “possibility” of a Kurdish state but Turkish leader Kemal Ataturk rejected it three years later. From the 1980s, the PKK spearheaded a bitter armed resistance in Turkey's Kurdish southeastern provinces.

The PKK gained momentum in the 1990s with the rise of charismatic leader Abdullah Ocalan. But while his supporters call him "Apo" (Kurdish for "uncle"), the Turkish state calls him "child murderer" and "terrorist". Ocalan studied political science at Ankara university where he set up the PKK with fellow students. He left Turkey before the September 1980 military coup and remained in exile until 1999. He was controversially captured in Kenya, with the suspected help of Israel’s intelligence service Mossad. Turkey triumphantly paraded their prisoner in blindfold for the world’s media.

Since 1999, Ocalan has been held in solitary confinement as the only prisoner on Imrali Island in the Sea of Marmara, guarded by a thousand Turkish military personnel. He was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 2001. Ocalan appealed to the European Court of Human Rights. Turkey, mindful of the impact to its possible EU membership, agreed to await the court’s judgment. In 2005 the European Court of Human Rights decided Ocalan’s trial was unfair. However Turkey dismissed a retrial request last year.

While Ocalan festers on Imrali, his homeland is about to take a greater role on the world stage. Turkey has used the US congress stand on the Armenian genocide as an excuse to ignore calls for caution in Kurdistan. Now the price of oil has surged to a new record high of $84 a barrel as the crisis threatens some of the nearby oilfields. Analysts are worried that if Turkey attacks Iraq, the PKK will target the Iraq to Ceyhan oil pipeline and the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline. The “Mountain Turks” will soon find out how many friends they have.