Economic toll

Unlike Iran, the other Middle Eastern states, especially the six members of the GCC, have strengthened their economic ties with the West. One major example of such economic ties is the one between the EU and the GCC. The 1989 has resulted in over $170 billion in exports and imports between the two sides in 2023.Ģż

Over the past five decades, these countries have also worked hard to attract foreign investors, entrepreneurs, and even wealthy individuals seeking to invest in luxury real estate and opulent lifestyles. To name a few examples of such steps, Dubai a five-year multiple-entry visa for business trips in 2021, and the UAE began five-year residency and renewable 10-year visas to those who own real estate in the UAE valued at $5 million and $10 million, respectively. To attract foreign capital, both and have introduced Golden Residency programs that grant wealthy foreigners, including their families, long-term residencies of ten years or longer.Ģż

States such as the UAE and Qatar have become reliable hubs for travelers reaching their destinations globally. In 2023, an 18.25% share of the UAEā€™s GDP was through aviation. In practice, this means $92 billion in revenue and 992,000 jobs. It is a similar trajectory for Qatar. In 2025, only Qatar Airways Group reported a 28% over the previous year, surpassing $2 billion. Qatarā€™s tourism revenue surpassed , up 25% from 2023.Ģż

Saudi Arabia is another Middle Eastern power with considerable financial clout. Its economic reform for the post-oil Kingdom, known as , aims to sector to become not only self-sufficient but also an exporter and global hub for biotechnology. Within this project, other strategies include the mining sector with a focus on minerals, and even the gaming and Esports to host international tournaments, as well as attracting foreign companies to Saudi Arabia. The program is reliant on the non-hydrocarbon sector, comprising foundational pillars namely construction, tourism and tech, which are integral to Saudi Arabiaā€™s economic growth, as the World Bank states, ā€œthe non-oil economyā€™s share of GDP grew from 60 percent in 2015 to 68 percent by 2024ā€.Ģż

With the risks of collapsed tourism, damaged energy infrastructure and logistics disruptions growing manifold, the Gulf countries face an imminent crisis. Amid the worsening security crisis in the region, all of these countries face a heavy blow, with the looming threat of economic devastation, as they remain heavily dependent on such critical sectors to attract foreign investment and capital while diversifying away from oil exports. Their economic leverage rests on regional stability, which has been put under immense strain due to the volatile situation. 

More alarming is the emerging scenario in which large companies tend to act quickly to secure their assets and withdraw from a conflict zone; however, their return is a slow, cautious process. Consequently, if the war results in the departure of some foreign companies from the region within a few weeks, their return may take months or years, which would be detrimental to the economies of the GCC in the long term.

Ironically, Iran will not face such a risk, as the Islamic Republic has not been a destination for international firms due to sanctions and an inadequate environment that has not been conducive to foreign investment. 

Damaged reputation

Over the past few decades, the Gulf countries have built a reputation as a safe destination. This feature has attracted not only investors and foreign companies but also pensioners and those fleeing high taxation in their home countries. As their reputation is now tarnished by the escalating conflict, it will take a long time to rebuild it and recover from the damage inflicted. During the early stages of the war, Iran hit back hard. Missiles and drones were fired at numerous targets, including , and industrial complexes.Ģż

One small example is the UAE. It to around 240,000 British expats. The USā€“Israelā€“Iran war has distressed the majority of expats living across the region. It has gone as far as being by some Western news outlets, such as tabloid Daily Mail, as ā€œā€˜Dubai Is Finishedā€™: Expats say they will leave and never come back as tax-free dream is shattered by war and officials begin prosecuting people for posting videos of missiles.ā€Ģż

Worthy US alliance?Ģż

Except for Iran and Yemen, the US is in some sort of alliance with all states in the region. The closest allies are Israel, followed by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Jordan and others. Israel, for instance, has $330 billion in aid, both military and civil, from the US since its foundation.Ģż

The alliance between the Gulf states and the US dates back to the 1940s, when, for instance, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with Abdul Aziz Al Saud aboard USS Quincy in 1945. The result was access to Saudi oil for security assurance to the Kingdom. And other Gulf states suit and went into an alliance with the US.Ģż

Fast forward to 2026, although the Gulf countries do not receive US military aid on the same scale as Israel and Egypt, their arms deals with the US are among the largest. Between 1950 and 2024, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE have $182 billion, $40 billion, $35 billion and $34 billion, respectively. These massive purchases have certainly helped these countries defend themselves against Iranian drones and missiles; however, the cost of munitions for them is considerably higher than for Iran, as a Shahed-136 drone costs under $50,000, compared with, say, Patriot interceptor missiles that cost per shot. The ineffectiveness of US military equipment to deter attacks, coupled with USā€™ waning commitment to uphold its alliesā€™ defense under its security umbrella in the region, propels the Gulf countries to recalibrate their security ties with the US.Ģż

After all, it was never their war to begin with, yet they face dire consequences simply for allying with the US (which now appears more to be a grave liability). Since the beginning of the war, Tehran has justified its attacks on Iranā€™s neighbors by claiming that any location in the region hosting a US military presence is a legitimate target. However, most of the missiles and drones thrown at the Gulf states were not precisely aimed at the American bases, either deliberately or due to a lack of precision, as it has been that the Circular Error Probable of Iranian missiles is between 20 and 500 meters. This makes it even harder for states such as the UAE to convince foreigners to stay or even consider returning, once the war is over. Expats, especially those who are attracted by luxury and 0% income tax rate, will hardly be willing to live in a place where even a one percent chance of missile penetration exists, should another round of conflict emerge.Ģż

Post-war scenarios

While efforts were recently made to a peace deal between the US and Iran, with Pakistan acting as a primary mediator, the talks in Islamabad stalled; however, reports are now that the conflicting parties are expected to re-engage in negotiations soon.Ģż

Regardless, for the Gulf countries, there are mainly two outcomes as of now. The first prediction is that the Iranian regime will be toppled and a new Iran will emerge. In this case, the Gulf states can simply claim that the old threat no longer exists. Hence, it will be relatively easier to convince expats and companies that departed in haste to return. And the Gulf states would emerge shaken but ultimately ā€œvictoriousā€, and their alliance with the US would be seen as worthwhile. Their domestic publics would also be less likely to question the rulersā€™ strategies and policies. However, this scenario appears very unlikely, given Iranā€™s position in surviving the war and transitioning to a ceasefire and negotiations, as well as the US stance shifting toward achieving a mere exit strategy.

A second scenario, which is the most likely one to consider, is that the  Iranian regime survives the war, in which case the main losers will be the Gulf countries. Iran, the US and Israel will all claim victory and, to an extent, those claims will be correct. The leaders of these three countries will be able to convince their publics that they have achieved their objectives, at least among those who support their governmentsā€™ policies. The new Supreme Leader, whether it is still Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei or a successor in case he is also killed, will claim that they have defeated the US plan to overthrow the regime, and the IRGC, Basij and regime supporters across all strata will buy it. President Trump will tell his MAGA supporters that he has ā€œobliteratedā€ the threat of a ballistic and nuclear Iran. Prime Minister Netanyahu will tell Israelis, mainly his supporters, that Iranā€™s capability to attack Israel is diminished. 

However, for regional countries such as the UAE, there wonā€™t be a victory narrative to pursue. They will not be able to convince their constituencies by claiming victory, as they have, at best, been defending themselves in a war that was not theirs. The public will be anxious about what the alliance with the US (and in the case of the UAE with Israel) will bring next. The Gulf states will face criticism from their people regarding the alliance with the US and any ties to the state of Israel. History bears witness to this, as public perception in Gulf states has often diverged from government narratives, and state decisions have not sat well with the public. 

The defiance was most noticeable in relation to the alliance between the US and Gulf state leaders, which does not always align with how the Arab public perceives the US and Israel. During the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, a reservations to customers who would like to enjoy their meals while watching Iranian missiles roaring towards Israel. A similar case happened during the Gulf War. On January 18, 1991, Saddam Husseinā€™s Iraq launched missile attacks on Israel. In his book, The Achilles Trap, Steve Coll writes that five Iraqi Scud missiles hit Tel Aviv and Haifa while Saudi officers and American counterparts were in the coordination center, C3IC, observing the attacks. The Americans were shocked when they saw the Saudi officers cheering the Iraqi strike with Allahu Akbar.Ģż

Now, while the times may differ, similar sentiments persist. Gulf states have to tactfully handle public opinion while simultaneously preventing their economies from falling into the doldrums. Henceforth, the path for the Gulf states is certainly fraught with difficulties on multiple fronts. 

In the end, therefore, it is not the US that loses investors and entrepreneurs, nor is it Israel, which is a startup country with the most powerful military in the region. Iran will not suffer from the mistrust of foreign investors either, as the country has few or no foreign investors, especially Western ones, due to sanctions and an unfriendly environment for foreigners. Tehran has little involvement in the international trade community to worry about losing it. What Iran has never had will not be a loss to Tehran in the post-war period. The real costs will be borne by the Gulf states.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

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Josef Olmert, an Israeli academic and political commentator, dives into US President Donald Trumpā€™s latest proposals for Gaza and the wider Middle East. Olmert lays out his sharp critiques and his alternative vision. The conversation ranges from the feasibility of mass resettlement of Gazans, to the imperative of destroying Hamas, to the overriding challenge posed by Iranā€™s nuclear ambitions.

Olmertā€™s initial confusion

Olmert begins by admitting his confusion. For years, Trump positioned himself as an isolationist, pulling America out of international organizations and pushing to withdraw troops from conflict zones. Yet, in this instance, he called for US military involvement in the border region between Israel and Gaza, an area Olmert describes as ā€œone of the most problematic, dangerous and volatile regions of the world.ā€ To him, the contradiction is striking.

Olmert concedes that Trump possesses a certain originality and ā€œout-of-the-boxā€ vision for solving regional problems. Still, he sees fundamental flaws. Trump assumes a single event or plan can provide a sweeping solution to the Middle Eastā€™s problems. Olmert pushes back firmly: ā€œIt doesnā€™t work like that.ā€ Countless grand plans, from peace conferences to international accords, have failed because the Middle East is too diverse, fractured and historically laden with conflict.

Olmert also highlights Trumpā€™s reliance on economic logic. As a businessman, the president tends to see commercial fixes as the path to stability. Olmert acknowledges that raising living standards is desirable, but he stresses that economic growth cannot erase deep-rooted political and ideological struggles. In his words, ā€œThe entire foundation, therefore, of the approach is wrong.ā€

The Gaza population dilemma

Olmert then addresses Trumpā€™s focus on Gazaā€™s demographic challenge. With over two million people packed into a small territory lacking sufficient infrastructure, the humanitarian strain is undeniable. Olmert agrees that the Gaza Strip ā€œcannot cater for a population of over two million people.ā€ Trump suggested emigration as a remedy, with other countries absorbing Gazans.

While Olmert admits some Gazans might want to leave voluntarily, he dismisses the idea. No country can realistically resettle such numbers, certainly not in a short timeframe. Even if partially successful, the region would destabilize in the transition. He draws on history, recalling how the Oslo Accords quickly unraveled under pressure from opponents. Any drawn-out evacuation, he insists, would invite chaos.

Hamas and security imperatives

Despite his skepticism, Olmert identifies actionable points in Trumpā€™s rhetoric. Chief among them is the call to dismantle the Palestinian Sunni militant group Hamas, which governs Gaza. Olmert stresses his long-held conviction that ā€œif you want to achieve peace along the border between Israel and Gaza, Hamas has to be totally destroyed.ā€ He rejects the notion that peace is possible with actors who categorically oppose coexistence.

He also aligns with Trump on freeing Israeli hostages but asks the crucial question: how? Once again, the removal of two million Gazans is not the answer. Instead, the focus must remain squarely on neutralizing Hamas.

Regional players and fragile balances

Turning to neighboring states, Olmert briefly considers the potential roles of Egypt and Jordan. Egypt, he suggests, might absorb a limited number of people. Jordan, however, already has a fragile demographic balance, with up to 70% of its population being of Palestinian origin. Bringing more Gazans would, in his view, risk destabilizing the Hashemite Kingdom.

While critics of Jordan often highlight corruption or weak institutions, Olmert counters that the monarchy has endured for a century ā€” dismantling it could open doors to even greater instability. ā€œThe devil you know sometimes is better than the devils you »å“Ē²Ōā€™t know,ā€ he says.

Olmert also raises cost concerns. Any plan would require massive financial incentives. Ultimately, he argues, the burden would fall on the US taxpayer.

Saudi Arabia enters the conversation as well. Trump publicly claimed that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had expressed opposition to a Palestinian state. Olmert considers this disclosure a blunder. Statements that might be tolerated in private, he warns, become problematic when voiced openly, forcing Saudi leaders to deny them.

Iran as the true challenge

For Olmert, the real strategic focus should remain on the Islamic Republic of Iran. He criticizes Trumpā€™s vague comments about sanctions and his willingness to meet the Iranian president. What disturbed him most was the absence of even the boilerplate statement of ā€œall the options on the table.ā€

He argues that Iranā€™s nuclear ambitions and regional influence are ā€œthe key.ā€ Destroying Iranā€™s nuclear program, he asserts, would have a far greater stabilizing impact than resettling Gazans. Gulf Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia, live under constant fear of Iranā€™s expansionist ambitions. Curtailing the nation, he says, would also shift Palestinian attitudes.

Even so, Olmert does not present this as a cure-all. He admits that removing Iranā€™s nuclear capacity will not solve everything, but it has a higher chance of promoting stability than Trumpā€™s Gaza proposals. Delays in dealing with Tehran, he warns, would allow Iran to accelerate its nuclear program, creating an existential threat for Israel that ā€œIsrael should not accept.ā€

The Israeli domestic reaction

Olmert also examines reactions inside Israel. Right-wing politicians in the ruling Likud party and ultranationalist ministers, such as Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, celebrated Trumpā€™s words. Yet they overlooked one critical statement: Trumpā€™s rejection of new settlements in Gaza. This could signal broader reservations about settlement policy, including in the West Bank.

Trump even promised an announcement regarding sovereignty in the West Bank, which Olmert interprets as an attempt to reconcile annexation of certain areas with a two-state framework. In his assessment, the Israeli right wing ā€œdoesnā€™t understandā€ that Trump operates within international constraints. Aligning too closely with his proposals, Olmert warns, risks global backlash and could isolate Israel.

Re-centering priorities

In closing, Olmert emphasizes what he sees as Israelā€™s true priority. While Trump shifts focus to Gaza, Olmert insists that ā€œthe main thing is still the Iranian problem.ā€ For Israel, he says, the Gaza issue is secondary. Ensuring that the worldā€™s attention remains on Iran ā€” not on Trumpā€™s impractical resettlement ideas ā€” is the strategy Israel must pursue.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

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51³Ō¹Ļ Founder, CEO & Editor-in-Chief Atul Singh and Swiss diplomat Jean-Daniel Ruch, a veteran of the Turkish capital of Ankara and the Middle East, explore Syriaā€™s dramatic upheaval and its regional consequences. The conversation highlights the fall of the Assad dynasty, the ascent of new Sunni leadership and the recalibration of regional power involving Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Strategic shifts in the region

Ruch opens by stressing that Syria is undergoing profound strategic changes. He recalls predicting a decade ago that the old Syrian order would collapse, though he did not foresee such rapid change. He lists key developments: the collapse of Iranā€™s land corridor to the Lebanese Shiite military group Hezbollah, Turkeyā€™s renewed influence, Russian and American hesitation and the re-emergence of energy projects such as a long-discussed Qatari pipeline through Turkey to Europe. These shifts, he argues, will shape not only the Middle East but also West Asia and Europe, especially regarding refugees.

The fall of the Assad regime

Singh summarizes the dramatic recent events: former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow, ending 54 years of Baā€™athist rule. The Alawite minority, dominant since 1970, has lost power, while Sunnis, led by Abu Muhammad al-Julani, the head of the former Islamist military group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), seized Damascus in a lightning ten-day offensive. Turkeyā€™s intelligence chief prayed with Julani in the Umayyad Mosque, underscoring Ankaraā€™s backing. Celebrations erupted across Sunni communities, from Pakistan to Bangladesh, marking the symbolic return of the Umayyad Mosque from Shia to Sunni hands.

Historical burdens and Turkish ambitions

Singh asks about Syriaā€™s troubled past. Ruch traces its modern shape to the Sykesā€“Picot agreement and subsequent French mandate. He notes that outside powers have long dictated order in the region, from the Cold War to the Arab Spring. He emphasizes Turkeyā€™s central role today, with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, intelligence head Ä°brahim Kalın and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan projecting power rooted in Ottoman legacy. Turkeyā€™s ambitions rest on military strength, economic reach and religious conviction. However, Ruch notes Arab mistrust persists, recalling how Egyptian women during the Arab Spring dismissed Turkish claims of returning.

New balances and fragile alliances

Ruch argues that Julaniā€™s victory is significant but unstable. The challenge lies in power-sharing among Sunnis, Arabs, Kurds, Druze and Alawites, with mediation from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Qatar. He cites the risk of fragmentation: Lebanon may split, Druze may seek Israeli protection, Kurds resist HTS and Alawites retreat to Russian-backed enclaves. Regional powers must negotiate a new balance, while outside actors such as Russia seek to preserve bases in Tartus and Latakia. The 2012 Geneva CommuniquĆ©, Ruch believes, still offers a guiding roadmap.

Turkish grooming of HTS and Western involvement

Ruch attributes Julaniā€™s success to Turkish grooming over at least four years, with HTS supplied and trained through Turkey. He estimates HTS commands around 30,000 fighters and speculates that Gulf or even Western funding contributed to the groupā€™s rise. Turkey also relies on the Syrian National Army, effectively an extension of its military, to pressure Kurdish forces.

Ankaraā€™s strategic aim is to establish a 30-kilometer buffer zone free of Kurdish fighters, possibly with US President Donald Trumpā€™s backing. Singh adds reports that Assadā€™s army collapsed partly because soldiers were unpaid, while Julani benefited from foreign funding. Ruch notes Western efforts to rebrand Julani, once hunted with a $10 million US bounty, into a suit-wearing political leader named Ahmed al-Sharaa, raising doubts over whether this transformation is cosmetic or substantive.

The wider geopolitical picture

The conversation turns to broader dynamics. Ruch highlights Christian minoritiesā€™ anxiety, Alawite resentment and the risk of revenge killings. He stresses that justice mechanisms will be essential to avoid cycles of violence. Regionally, he underscores rivalry among Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt for Sunni leadership. Iraq, he suggests, could mediate despite its limitations, recalling its role in the 2023 Iranā€“Saudi rapprochement. Israel, meanwhile, destroyed Syrian air defenses and sought to prevent a hostile Sunni coalition.

While normalization with Gulf states advanced under the Abraham Accords, Ruch doubts lasting peace without a Palestinian state. He warns that, absent such a resolution, hostility will fester and could erupt in future crises as severe as the infamous October 7 attack on Israelis in 2023.

The broken map

Singh and Ruch agree that Syria, as once defined, will not return. The Humpty Dumpty metaphor looms over their discussion: the old order is shattered and cannot be rebuilt. Whether Julani and his Turkish patrons can forge an inclusive and durable framework remains uncertain. Regional rivalries, sectarian divides and unresolved grievances threaten renewed instability. Yet the stakes are immense: the future of Syria will ripple across West Asia, Europe and the balance of global power.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

The post FOĀ° Talks: Examining Syria Through Swiss Eyes appeared first on 51³Ō¹Ļ.

Josef Olmert: Hi, hello to all my watchers and followers and readers. This is episode number two in my series on USā€“Israel relations. And a little correction to what I said in the beginning of the first episode: There will be four episodes, not three. And as you recall, we ended the first episode with reference to a turning point ā€” a historic turning point in the relations between the two countries and in the history of Israel altogether in the Middle East ā€” which is the War of 1967, also known as the June War or the Six-Day War.

Weā€™ll come to that momentarily. But allow me first to kind of repeat, for the sake of those who might have missed part of the first episode, the main points that we made in the first episode about the beginning of Americanā€“Israeli relations. And this related to what happened in the Second World War with President FDR, and then the momentous decisions taken by President Harry Truman of recognizing the State of Israel immediately upon its establishment, and beforehand, the support for the UN resolution about the partition of Palestine, if you will. The first resolution about the two-state solution was rejected by the Arabs. And thatā€™s in reference to what people say today about the two-state solution.

And then we talked about the early years of the relationships, with the bumps, ups and downs. And a very big down was the way Eisenhower treated Israel in 1956 in the Suez War. In the 1950s, the main supporter of Israel in terms of supplying arms and also diplomatic support was France, which is interesting ā€” mostly when it was under the French Socialist Party at that time, as opposed to the French Socialists of today. The French Socialists of the 1950s ā€” Guy Mollet, for example, and others ā€” were very, very pro-Israel for all kinds of reasons, and also supplied Israel lavishly with arms.

All this started to change with the rise of General de Gaulle to power in what is called the Fifth Republic as of May of 1958, and came to an abrupt end in the War of ā€˜67 that we shall refer to soon.

The Cold War heats up in the Middle East

Josef Olmert: But in the case of the US, the beginning of some military relations started with President JFK, who supplied Israel air defense systems, the Hawk missiles, with all kinds of strings attached, you know. But still, it was not until 1967 that things changed in a very dramatic way between the two countries.

Now, the War of 1967 is a huge topic that Iā€™m not going to get into in this particular series, but I have to mention a few points about it which will give the background to what will happen later on between the US and Israel. This was a war that had to do with the Cold War, which raged all over the world at that time. And in the early 1960s, the West won in some areas. The West lost in other areas. The Soviets won in some areas, if you will. Algeria became independent. You can argue a defeat to the Western world, even though General de Gaulle was the one who granted it to the Algerians. The Cuban Revolution and the failure of the Americans to bring down the Castro regime, as we all know. The beginnings of the war in Vietnam, the Vietnam War, this time with American involvement, as opposed to the 1950s when it was French involvement.

The Soviets also lost. They lost, for example, in Indonesia in 1965. Huge country with all that happened there. So, we talk about ups and downs. And there are other examples on both sides.

In the Middle East, we have to deal with changes that took place in Syria and Egypt and the way the Soviet Union treated them. As of the February 23, 1966, Syria is ruled by whatā€™s called the Neo-Baā€™ath, which is basically the more radical, militant Baā€™ath party of mainly the minorities, and especially Alawis, with names like Hafez al-Assad already as defense minister and commander of the air force, and others. And Egypt is ruled by Abdel Nasser, who lost points because of his failed intervention in the Yemeni Civil War as of 1962.

It wasnā€™t a failure because the supporters of Nasser lost in this war. It was a failure because Nasser lost in the Arab world because of the use of chemical weapons by the Egyptian army against other Arabs as opposed to the totally peaceful border between Egypt and Israel. So many people in the Arab world said, ā€œYou kill Arabs, but Israelis are enjoying total peace along your border.ā€

So, Nasser was under pressure. The Syrians were very radical, militant, under domestic pressure and trying to cause troubles along the border with Israel over the issue of the Jordan River waters and border incidents as of late 1966. And thatā€™s the point here. The Soviet Union put pressure on both Egypt and Syria to get closer. They signed a defense pact. And thatā€™s something that as of now, so many years later, hasnā€™t been totally clarified. Even when you look at the Soviet archives that were opened after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there were those in the Kremlin who put pressure on Egypt and Syria to cause troubles with Israel as part of the overall configuration of the Cold War.

May 1967 and Israelā€™s intelligence failure

Josef Olmert: And here it is: the peaceful border between Israel and Egypt. No problems. The problematic border with Syria. And all of a sudden, as of May 15, 1967, the Egyptian army, in violation of the arrangements after the war of 1956, started to cross from Egypt through the Suez Canal to the Sinai Desert and amass on the borders of Israel.

The Israelis were surprised by it. By the way, an interesting point: Israeli intelligence failed in this instance to read in advance what would happen, which was not the first such failure. In 1960, there was another such failure when Egyptian troops all of a sudden started to amass around the border with Israel without Israelis having any sense of it in advance. That was a crisis that dissipated without any problems. Just to be mentioned only in the context of understanding how intelligence works, and in particular, when we talk about Israel, itā€™s referring also to what would happen a few years later in the Yom Kippur War. Weā€™ll come to that in 1973. Itā€™s an important point here.

So, the Egyptian army started to amass along the border with Israel. Nasser started to make threatening speeches, calling specifically for a war against Israel ā€” hysteria all over the Arab world. He specifically says he will forbid the movement of Israeli ships from the Straits of Tiran via the Suez Canal ā€” again, in violation of every international law ā€” which in itself is what they call casus belli, a cause for war.

The Israelis are completely surprised and confused. Prime Minister Levi Eshkol at that time ā€” a very nice man and the successor of Ben-Gurion, lacking any charisma ā€” invited the Soviet ambassador to Israel at that time. His name was Chubakhin, and he says to him, ā€œIā€™ll take you with me right now, without any prior notice, to the Israeli troops on the border with Syria for you to see that there are no Israeli concentrations along the border with Syria. Thereā€™s no need for all that.ā€ And Chubakhin said to him, ā€œI »å“Ē²Ōā€™t care about the facts. We tell you not to provoke troubles with Syria. Period.ā€

So, you see the connection to the overall bigger picture. The Israelis decided to sound out their Western allies ā€” the partners of the war of ā€˜56: France and Britain. And then the US. Foreign Minister Abba Eban ā€” not lacking knowledge of foreign languages; he spoke great English, great French; he understood what was said to him. The French and British basically didnā€™t care. ā€œOkay, do something diplomatic about it.ā€ And then he went to US President LBJ. What exactly he heard from LBJ in this meeting is not so clear. Did he get the specific green light from the Americans to go to war, a preemptive strike against the troops around the borders of Israel? Weā€™ll come to that in a second. Or was it the sense of, ā€œWell, do whatever you have to do. We are out of it, but do whatever you have to do,ā€ ā€” any of this?

At any rate, when he came back to Israel, the sense in Israel was that the US this time would not act like Eisenhower acted in 1956. Call it a mild green light to go to the preemptive strike.

Total victory and strategic realignment

Josef Olmert: In the meantime, King Hussein of Jordan, as we know, joined the Arab coalition under Nasser and put his army under the command of the Egyptians. The Syrian army was along the borders in the north, Jordan in the east, Egypt in the south. It was a violation of international law, the blockade on the Suez Canal and shipping for Israel. The stupid UN Secretary-General at that time, the Burmese U Thant, removed the peace units of the UN from the border because Nasser demanded it from him ā€” again, in total violation of the arrangements of 1956.

Israel had no choice but to go to the war of self-defense under a national unity government with what was, at that time, the Herutā€“Liberal party, together, that would later become Likud under Menachem Begin. And we know what happened in this war: total victory for Israel and no American pressure, as opposed to ā€˜56, to stop the war.

Israel was allowed at the time to finish the job completely. Israeli troops on the other side of the Suez Canal; overlooking the Egyptian army on the Egyptian side of the Suez Canal; taking over the West Bank as a result of defending against Jordanian aggression, including the holy city of Jerusalem; liberating the holy city of Jerusalem for the Jewish people and taking over the Golan Heights in the north from the Syrians.

In the context of world politics, this was taken to be a victory for an American ally against the Soviets. And what it did also was, it was the first time, probably, that you were not just getting from Israel, if you are the US, some precious intelligence stuff. Like, say, the Israeli intelligence is the one that told the Americans about the famous Khrushchev speech in the Communist Party Conference in 1956 about Stalin, or other such changes. Israel proved itself to be a credible, potential, possible ally, being a strong military power.

This is the beginning of the relationship with the US to become, later on, the special alliance between the two countries. At the time when France imposed an embargo on Israel, the British washed their hands off. America became now the number one ally of Israel. And thatā€™s the historic turning point.

Let me make a point to start with: This alliance was very, very helpful to Israel. Weā€™ll come to some examples. It was also very helpful to the US. Iā€™ll also give these examples. It was an alliance in many respects. It was clear who was the big brother ā€” the US ā€” and who was the smaller brother ā€” Israel. It was clear.

However, what I want to emphasize here is another important point, because it will also have implications to what would happen much later on, all the way to the days that we are talking about now. Israel developed a dependence on the US, which was much more than just the money-getting, which was important, and the arms-getting, which was extremely important. Everything was: the UN diplomatic support, indeed, was very important ā€” and other international organizations.

The dependence became part of the collective DNA of policymakers in Israel about what Israel could or couldnā€™t do, should or shouldnā€™t do. It almost became like a psychological burden. And it became an impediment on many occasions to the Israeli freedom of action on issues which were extremely important to Israel.

Dependence on a superpower is a problem. And I know lots of people say that ā€œthe Israelis lobbied the USā€ ā€” and weā€™ll come to all that ā€” ā€œso influential.ā€ ā€œAmerica depended on Israel.ā€ ā€œAmerica was really the one that listened to Israel.ā€ In reality, almost every time ā€” not always, but almost every time ā€” after ā€˜67, when an Israeli government, whether it was still the Labor governments until ā€˜77 or the Likud governments mostly after ā€˜77, when they had to make a big, big decision, they referred it first to the US. ā€œWhat do you think?ā€

I leave it as an open issue here, Iā€™ll just mention it. Some would say it was a great idea. The great Ben-Gurion went to the war of ā€˜56 only after he had this alliance with France and Britain. However, in ā€˜48, he established the state without consulting first with the US or getting their approval.

In 1967 ā€” as I said before, you can argue whether Israel got the green light or not ā€” but Israel went to war with its own independent sovereign decision. Here is an example of what this psychological dependence created. Take the war of ā€˜73, the Yom Kippur War. Itā€™s still an open issue: How could it happen that Israel was so surprised?

You already heard before an example of how Israel was surprised on other occasions. So letā€™s leave this one aside. A lot of it had to do with the fact that the US said to Israel, ā€œThe Arab armies are a mess, but itā€™s not going to be a war.ā€ And the Israeli decision was: ā€œThere is not going to be a war.ā€ Even when, in the last 24 hours ahead of the beginning of the war, it was already clear there was going to be a war, and the Israelis knew that, they still decided not to preempt because they wanted to make sure that there would be American diplomatic support once the war starts. And thatā€™s a controversial decision. A big decision, a crucial, historic decision. And that refers to what I said about the dependence on the US.

The fact of the matter is, the US, under the policy mostly dictated at that time by Kissinger, we know what was already happening domestically in the US: the Watergate scandal and all that, which weakened President Nixon as a president. But Kissinger was the architect, spokesperson and executor of American foreign policy. He was part of those who put pressure on Israel not to finalize the war by totally defeating the Egyptian army, when the Third Egyptian Army was already besieged by the Israelis.

Maybe a great, positive decision, because it could have helped later on President Sadat to come to the idea of making peace with Israel. Because he could argue that the war of ā€˜73 was a partial or full victory for Egypt, not a total defeat as it could have been if the Israelis were allowed to continue the siege over the Egyptian Army ā€” the Third Army, as they called it ā€” and totally destroy it, as was so easy for them to do at the time when the war was stopped.

The costs of dependence

Josef Olmert: But there are other examples on either side of the spectrum here: how the Israelis made big decisions without consulting with the US, how they did it only because of consulting with the US. But altogether, it became almost like a dictum in Israeli foreign policy and security policy: ā€œCan we or can we not do it because of what America will say or do?ā€

And thatā€™s how I leave it here. Thatā€™s a factor. To say it was wrong or it was right is wrong because it depends on so many other examples, and it depends on the specific situation that we talked about.

So, this alliance as of ā€˜67 had so many components. The financial support to Israel was fantastically significant, even though as of 2006 ā€” and many people »å“Ē²Ōā€™t know it ā€” the civilian aid stopped. Itā€™s only military aid. And of the money that Israel gets as military aid, 75% of it goes back to shopping in the US, which means that the net aid to Israel is only 25% of the $3 or $4 billion a year. But still, itā€™s important. And Iā€™m not saying what Iā€™m saying now in order to belittle it; Iā€™m just putting it in context. Absolute support ā€” almost ā€” in international organizations, including the veto power on anti-Israel decisions in the UN Security Council ā€” that was very significant.

Support for Israel in times of domestic issues. For example, the big financial economic crisis of the early 1980s with the hyperinflation in Israel at that time as a result of the economic policies of the Begin government, and his late finance minister, Yoram Aridor. The so-called dollarization plan and all that. These had a lot of American support.

It was clear that America considered Israel to be a great ally even though it still had Arab allies. Saudi Arabia continues to be, as of the Camp David Accords of 1979. Egypt is becoming part of the triangle of the main allies of the US in the Middle East: Egypt on one end, Saudi Arabia and Israel in the middle. There was a lot of support.

I can go on and on and on. And two elements which were very, very significant in this support were the bipartisan support, which most Israeli governments cared very carefully to maintain ā€” the support of both parties. That was very significant. Weā€™ll see more of it in the next episode. And the rise of the American Jewish community as a major block of support to Israel, which was not as strong in the 1940s or even the 1950s, but became much stronger in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with regard to the struggle for Soviet Jewry, and supporting Congress on the level of the different states in the US.

Israel was helpful to the US on various occasions. Take, for example, the crisis in Jordan, 1970 ā€” Black September, when the Syrian army invaded Jordan and Israel forced them out. Something that was in Israeli interest, but significantly in American interest. Israel in that case was doing something that was in the service of the entire Western world. Not for nothing ā€” Joe Biden of all people said on one occasion that Israel is like another aircraft carrier for the US. Thatā€™s an interesting statement that he made before he was president.

We have to remember that Israel helped the US with regard to the situation in Iran before the revolution by providing intelligence that was precious but was ignored by the US. Israel helped the US before the Saddam invasion of Kuwait in 1990. I can tell you something that very few people are aware of: A high-level Israeli delegation, in the middle of July, flew especially urgently to the US to caution them about what could happen. And the US said, ā€œWe »å“Ē²Ōā€™t know.ā€ They should have known. So, they sent the unfortunate ambassador, April Glaspie, in Baghdad, to talk with Saddam Hussein on July 28. And we know what happened there. Saddam Hussein promptly said, ā€œNothing would happen.ā€ That was July 28, 1994. Four days later, on August 2, the invasion started.

Israel agreed not to retaliate to Saddam sending 42 missiles to Israel during the Gulf War of ā€˜91. Itā€™s part of the alliance with the US. Because the US did not want it to be an Arabā€“Israeli war if Israel was to react, as opposed to a war of the US with an Arab coalition ā€” including even Syria ā€” against Saddam Hussein.

And we can go on and on like this. The balance sheet is, in this alliance, Israel benefited enormously. Thereā€™s no question about it. What the alliance did to the overall decision-making process in Israel is also something that we should have mentioned ā€” and I did ā€” and we have to bear it in mind. In a way, it made Israeli policymakers somewhat complacent in making some crucial decisions ā€” realizing, and on some occasions mistakenly, that the alliance with the US would do the job for Israel.

There are two approaches here, in general terms, from an Israeli perspective, about how to handle all this. Should we trust only ourselves, always and absolutely so? Is it even possible? Or should we measurably trust a great ally? And whatā€™s in between these two approaches?

Cracks in the alliance

Josef Olmert: Our next episode will be about the emerging of forces within the alliance, both in the US and in Israel, that ā€” Iā€™ll already say now ā€” were to weaken it in a gradual but systematic way that was not always recognized, definitely not in Israel as such. And that will lead us to the fourth episode, which will be the current situation with Donald Trump.

See you next time.

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March 18ā€™s United Nations Security Council spotlighted that divide. US Interim Ambassador Dorothy Shea was the only representative to accuse Hamas rather than Israel of breaking the ceasefire, reigniting hostilities and worsening an already catastrophic humanitarian disaster in Gaza. Similarly, Israel and the US stand alone at first glance in supporting US President Donald Trumpā€™s vision of Gaza as a high-end beachfront real estate void of much of its indigenous population.

The rest of the international community supports the Arab worldā€™s alternative plan that calls for an end to the war, an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the creation of a Palestinian interim administration of the Gaza Strip and the temporary resettlement of Gazans in safe zones in Gaza. Meanwhile, the war-ravaged territory is reconstructed to the tune of $53 billion.

So far, it all seems straightforward. But dig a little deeper, and the fault lines begin to blur.

UAEā€“Israeli alignment

A series of persistent but unconfirmed reports suggest that the United Arab Emirates may be privately more in sync with Israel than with its Arab brethren regarding Hamas and Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not the only Middle Eastern leader infuriated by a last month between a senior US negotiator and Hamas. It was the first ever face-to-face US engagement with the group, which is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood and a terrorist organization by US designation. So was UAE President Mohammed Bin Zayed, a staunch opponent of Islamist groups.

UAE ambassador to the US, Yousef al-Otaiba, a close associate of Bin Zayed, US President Donald Trumpā€™s administration to reject the Arab plan for Gaza drafted by Egypt and adopted unanimously at a March 4 Arab summit in Cairo. Privately, UAE officials have complained that the plan failed to call for the disarming of Hamas and its removal from Gaza. Bin Zayed did not attend the conference, sending his deputy prime minister instead.

In February, al-Otaiba described Trumpā€™s call for the resettlement of Gazaā€™s 2.3 million Palestinians as ā€œdifficultā€ and ā€œchallenging.ā€ But when asked whether the UAE was working on a plan for Gaza, al-Otaiba responded, despite Egyptā€™s draft of the Arab plan already having been circulated, ā€œNot yet. I »å“Ē²Ōā€™t see an alternative to whatā€™s being proposed. I really .ā€

Meanwhile, Emirates Leaks, a mysterious website critical of the Emirati government, asserted that the UAE had unsuccessfully attempted to persuade South Africa to withdraw or at least weaken the genocide case against Israel it filed in the International Court of Justice. The report could not be independently confirmed.

Lines blur further

In an even greater blurring of the fault lines, the UAE, alongside Saudi Arabia and Qatar, is the largest shareholder in an investment firm headed by Jared Kushner, Trumpā€™s son-in-law, with stakes in Israeli financial services group Phoenix Holding. The Holding is in businesses listed by the United Nations Human Rights Council as operating in West Bank settlements deemed illegal under international law.

In a seemingly bizarre muddying of the lines, Netanyahu has kicked up a political storm with his firing of Ronen Bar, the head of Israelā€™s domestic Shin Bet security service. He did this in part for Barā€™s members of the prime ministerā€™s staff for their dealings with Qatar.

Netanyahuā€™s former spokesperson, Eli Feldstein, allegedly worked for a Doha-based firm that recruited Israeli journalists to write pro-Qatar stories. Two other Netanyahu staffers, Jonatan Urich and Yisrael Einhorn, allegedly helped Qatar bolster its image ahead of the Gulf stateā€™s hosting of the 2022 World Cup.

In late March, Israeli police two suspects in the case accused of bribery, fraud, breach of trust, money laundering and illegal contact with a foreign agent. The suspects were not identified under a gag order placed on investigation details.

The staffersā€™ activities countered Netanyahuā€™s long-standing efforts to tarnish Qatarā€™s reputation and undermine its mediation role. The staffers Qatar to fund the Hamas government in Gaza to weaken the Palestinian polity by perpetuating the rift between the group and the West Bank-based, internationally recognized Palestine Authority.

The blurred lines contribute to Israelā€™s ability to do what it wants with the Trump administrationā€™s backing, even if its actions violate agreements. One such agreement is the Gaza ceasefire, negotiated with the help of the US, Qatar and Egypt, and accepted by Israel. The blur also enhances Israel and the USā€™s ability to blame Hamas for the ceasefireā€™s collapse.

Extending the ceasefire

In the latest iteration of efforts to get the ceasefire back on track, Hamas agreed to an Egyptian to reinstate the Gaza ceasefire. Per the proposal, Hamas must swap up to six Israeli hostages and the remains of an unspecified number killed during the war. In exchange, Israeli officials will release Palestinians incarcerated in Israel, initiate negotiations on ending the war and lift the Israeli blockade. This blockade has prevented humanitarian aid from entering Gaza and cut off the supply of electricity in recent weeks.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Hamas Political Bureau member Bassem Naim said the groupā€™s acceptance of a 50-day extension of the ceasefireā€™s first phase was dependent on the mediators, the US, Qatar and Egypt, guaranteeing that all parties would engage in serious second-phase negotiations that would bring an end to the war and Israelā€™s withdrawal from the Strip.

The problem is that whatever guarantee the mediators may give is unlikely to be worth the paper it would be written on. The US is the only country capable of pressuring Israel to comply.

ā€œThere is no force on the planet prepared to give Hamas assurances that if they give up their only card ā€” the dead and living hostages ā€” Israel would agree to all of its obligations. Hamas understands what Trump and Netanyahu are doing with the phases. Theyā€™re Hamas of the cards it has left,ā€ said veteran Middle East peace negotiator Aaron David Miller, who worked for both Democratic and Republican administrations.

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Gary Grappo: Thank you very much, Atul, and for your flattering introduction. And itā€™s always a pleasure to be with you and to talk about whatā€™s happening in the world as we speak. And in todayā€™s interview, weā€™ll be obviously talking about the Middle East, where the situation remains quite fluid and very dynamic.

Atul Singh: What is this new geopolitical landscape we are talking about? How is it different to the old one? And when does this new era begin?

Gary Grappo: Well, the fundamental problems of the Middle East are unchanged. We have governments that are largely, widely unpopular. We have an extensive amount of oppression, particularly in the Arab countries; we have continuing instability in several of the countries, with militia groups quite active, terrorist organizations quite active; and we still have the ongoing problem, of course, of the Israeliā€“Palestinian conflict, although the tenor of that has changed considerably as well. But what has changed is the dynamic. Over the course of the last several months, of course, we have seen significant diminishing of the capabilities of Hamas in Gaza. We had a ceasefire that lasted almost two months and is now finished, and Israel has relaunched both its ground and air campaign against Hamas in Gaza. We can get into the details of that and what that may portend. Further to the north, we have a largely decimated Hezbollah. Israel, by dint of cleverness and truly impressive technological innovation and then massive air attacks, was able to eliminate at least the top two, if not top three, levels of the Hezbollah organization in southern Lebanon, while at the same time decimating its arsenal of weapons, although not entirely destroying it. And so it presents much less threat to the people of Israel. At the same time, we finally ā€” after waiting almost two years ā€” we have an actual government in place with a president and a prime minister in Lebanon. The Lebanese people, for the first time, will have a government that appears committed to addressing the real challenges that that country is facing, both on the political front and most especially on the economic front. We can get into what to anticipate as that moves forward. Probably one of the most significant developments has been the fall of the Assad regime. Father and son lasted some 53ā€“54 years and ruled with an iron fist, including over the last ten or 12 years during the Syrian civil war. They saw the complete devastation of the Syrian economy, deaths that ran into the hundreds of thousands, and huge numbers of Syrian refugees fleeing to Jordan, Turkey, even to Europe and Lebanon. It was then replaced with a government which initially showed some positive signs of moving forward, despite its jihadist heritage ā€” actually quite steeped in jihadism. But weā€™re now seeing what I refer to as a default position in the Middle East. And that is, you see a change in government, hopes and expectations are high, and then cracks begin to appear. In this particular case, we are seeing an increase in the number of Assadists ā€” that is, remnants of pro-Assad forces ā€” attacking Syrian government forces, and those are leading to some actually quite pitched battles and to the exacting of revenge against the Alawite minority in the western and northwestern parts of Syria, with fairly large numbers of fatalities. There were also reports of some Christians being killed as well ā€” not, at least from my perspective, unanticipated at all. And then finally ā€” and we can get into other elements ā€” but the situation in Iran has dramatically changed as a result of two Israeli attacks: in April of last year and then in October. That has greatly diminished the capability of the Iranian regime to protect itself from future attacks, providing Donald Trump with a potential, perhaps, of maybe reaching some kind of a negotiated solution with respect to Iranā€™s nuclear weapons program. So thatā€™s the lineup. We can talk also, if youā€™d like, about whatā€™s happening in Yemen right now. Thereā€™s certainly been an uptick in the last five days of activity there as well.

Instability in Israel

Atul Singh: So what youā€™re saying is part of the warp and woof of the Middle East. The Middle East has been unstable. You can argue that after , once the Ottoman Empire was replaced by the British and French empires, and after they unraveled and left behind nation-states in largely ethnic and tribal territories, the instability has never ended. Whatā€™s new? Whatā€™s new about this, Gary? How is it different to what transpired earlier?

Gary Grappo: Well, certainly what is new is the character of the conflict between Israel and some of its neighbors. And when I say that, we have to be cautious, because the states that border Israel »å“Ē²Ōā€™t necessarily present a threat to Israel at all. Certainly not Egypt, not Jordan, not Lebanon and not even Syria, to be quite frank, although Israel is keeping its powder dry with respect to the future of Syria. But we still have the security threats to the State of Israel emanating from Hamas in Gaza and still from Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. And then the Iranian regime has not changed at all. There is certainly the realization on the part of the leadership, including that of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, that they do not have the defense mechanisms that they thought they once had, with their so-called Axis of Resistance now as a result of conflicts with Israel. But the fundamental lay of the land, so to speak, in terms of the unpopularity of governments, inability of governments to respond to the needs of their peoples ā€” probably, with the exception, obviously, of the monarchies, which do a much better job in that regard and therefore enjoy a measure of legitimacy that other governments do not have ā€” that all remains the same. And the fear that governments have of their populations, that at any moment streets could erupt over whatever the issue du jour happens to be ā€” whether itā€™s the Israeliā€“Palestinian issue, whether itā€™s the economic situation, whether itā€™s oppressive government security forces, whether itā€™s the inability to hold the governments accountable to their people ā€” all of those things still register quite prominently among the peoples of the Middle East.

Atul Singh: Alright, so Gary, what youā€™re painting is a fundamentally unstable situation. Letā€™s begin with Israelā€“Palestine, since you mentioned that is an issue that animates the Arab street, and thereā€™s a tension between the Arab street and the Arab palace on that issue. And of course, we can talk about whether Israel has been just or unjust, whether in its response to the terrorist attacks of October 7, whether theyā€™ve been proportionate or disproportionate. But for me, our deeper concern is the inherent instability we see in Israel itself now. We are speaking just after Bibi Netanyahu and his cabinet have the head of Shin Bet, the internal intelligence agency of Israel. Now, this sort of politicization of intelligence agencies ā€” and indeed the military ā€” has not happened in Israel. Israel has had a fantastic military, a fantastic intelligence and a really cohesive state until quite recently. And now that internal cohesion in Israel seems to be breaking, and that for me perhaps is even more worrying than the usual fault lines everyone talks about.

Gary Grappo: Thereā€™s no question that Israel is facing some rather difficult internal political challenges. The specific one that you mentioned on the firing of the head of Shin Bet is overlaid with the quite emotional upheaval over the situation of Israeli hostages who remain in Gaza. Of course, there are some 59ā€“60 of those. How many of them are still alive? I guess the Israelis perhaps may know, but there are most definitely some of them who are not alive today. And so thatā€™s a fault line. 

Atul Singh: Sorry to interject, but I think even the Israelis cannot know for sure, because as of now, we know that they have not quite managed to break Hamas completely. Theyā€™ve done a lot of damage, but Hamas has proved more resilient than anyone could have estimated given the disparity in force.

Gary Grappo: Yes. No, Hamas is, despite the devastating losses theyā€™ve suffered in manpower and in weapons and in overall structural cohesiveness of the organization, theyā€™re still standing. And we saw that during the ceasefire, when they made a show of their continued presence in the territory. And Israel knows that, and I think thatā€™s why Israel finally decided that since the ceasefire was obviously not going to move into a phase two ā€” I will just say quite bluntly ā€” there was never any possibility of that happening. It looked good on paper ā€” the phase one, the phase two and the phase three. There was never any chance of moving into phase two. There really wasnā€™t. And so Hamas still exists as an organization. They are attempting to rearm. Itā€™s going to be difficult because their supply lines have suffered rather dramatic deterioration. They canā€™t get the supplies in they previously had received, for example, say, from Hezbollah in southern Lebanon or from Iran. So theyā€™re going to be hard-pressed to replace their stockpile of weapons and other material. But they are recruiting quite strongly, as a matter of fact. And I think we have to acknowledge the fact that itā€™s pretty fertile territory for the recruitment of fighters, given what has transpired since October 7. So their strength is probably back up to at least 20,000 fighters ā€” not nearly with the capabilities that they might have had post-October 7. Theyā€™ve lost those veteran fighters ā€” many, many of them. But theyā€™ll get there. And I think thatā€™s why Israel decided to capitalize while it could, in going after this still-less-than-previously-very-capable Hamas fighting force. But to get back to Israel, the issue over the firing of the Shin Bet chief is overlaid with the dissension in the Israeli public over the state of the hostages and whether the government is doing enough or not to secure their release. And then underpinning all of that, if you recall, before October 7, there was quite a bit of attention devoted to what Bibi was trying to do to undermine the authority of the Israeli judiciary, and that still remains so. So we do see a lot of political cracks within Israel internally. And Iā€™ll make the final point ā€” and I know Bibi Netanyahu is very mindful of this ā€” and that is: Israel must decide on its state budget by the end of this month. If they finish the month without a state budget, it effectively means the collapse of the government. They will have to call for new elections, which would take ā€” in Israel, given its election laws ā€” three months. So all of this internal churn is having an impact. And then, of course, thereā€™s all the back and forth over the person Bibi Netanyahu himself and how Israelis view him, how much or not it can be debated. Netanyahu needs war to maintain his position as prime minister. All of that is being debated today in Israel. So yeah, Israel faces its problems within itself, in addition to the external threats.

Lebanonā€™s prospects

Atul Singh: And so letā€™s move on from Israel to Lebanon. Lebanon, you mentioned, seems to have greater hope now. But Lebanon still has a fractious, multi-ethnic society, which in the past even struggled to collect rubbish, leave aside deliver other elements of governance. Hezbollah ran a parallel state, which was arguably more powerful than the state itself, at least in the areas it dominated. Is there hope for Lebanon as a state, or are we going to see Lebanon limp along as a failed state?

Gary Grappo: I think thereā€™s more hope today in Lebanon than there has been ā€” most certainly in the last 10 years, maybe in the last 25 years. There genuinely is an opportunity here. Now, Lebanon has been put nearly on its back. Its economy, which was considered a middle-income country at one point, has now been reduced to almost . Most of the country is living at or below that today. The infrastructure has suffered considerably, particularly the neighborhoods in Beirut and in southern Lebanon and in the Beqaa Valley, which is on the east near the border with Syria. So a lot of work needs to be done on the Lebanese economy. But the Lebanese people are some of the most industrious ā€” in fact, I would argue the most industrious people in the Middle East after Israel. And there can be a natural affinity between Lebanon and Israel in terms of how they approach innovation, how they approach business, how they approach development, if they can overcome some of these problems. Now, this is where Lebanon is going to need some help. And I would argue, if I were sitting before Donald Trump, that if you really want to do some good not only for the people of Lebanon and for our interest in Lebanon, but also for Israel, we need to invest in Lebanon. We need to invest in their armed forces. We need to work with the armed forces as closely as we can to ensure they are able to disarm Hezbollah, which is not going to willingly lay down all of its arms. Itā€™s obliged to do that going back to a UN Security Council following the 2006 war. And the terms of the latest ceasefire called for the enforcement of that, as well as the of all Lebanese armed forces north of the Litani River, which is around 20 miles north of the Israeli border. And Lebanon is supposed to ā€” the Lebanese armed forces are supposed to have that responsibility and that authority. Itā€™s uncertain how effectively they can carry that out. They are going to need some help ā€” in fact, considerable help. And this is where I think the West, particularly the United States ā€” I would also argue France and other countries ā€” could help Lebanon. One of the good things is they were finally able to name a , and they have a , both of whom are opposed to Hezbollah. They want to see the ceasefire terms fully enforced. They have taken on that responsibility. Itā€™s just the ability to do that is a bit constrained at the moment. And then finally, I will say that Hezbollah is greatly weakened within Lebanon today. They do not have anywhere near the political stature they once had. Even though they still maintain a sizable presence ā€” not a majority, but a sizable presence ā€” in the Lebanese parliament. There are going to be elections for the parliament, I want to say, in two years. And the hope is that if Lebanon can show some genuine progress, that the Hezbollah presence in the parliament can be even further reduced. Just as an indication, weā€™re seeing that the level of popularity of Hezbollah, even among Lebanese Shia, is reduced from what it has historically been. So these are important points to consider and offer a genuine opportunity for hope and progress in Lebanon. And we should take stock of that and try to capitalize on that in the interest of Lebanon and overall stability in the Middle East.

Atul Singh: Donald Trump has, I believe, two daughters ā€” or three, probably two, if I remember correctly ā€” and one of them is married to a Lebanese gentleman, and her father-in-law is apparently now mediating. Heā€™s Maronite, and hopefully, if heā€™s involved, do you think there will be US investment and attention to Lebanon?

Gary Grappo: If he has the ear of Donald Trump, then there is a possibility. Now, I havenā€™t heard much about what heā€™s actually doing at the moment in Lebanon. Heā€™s been given some other responsibilities, too, so I »å“Ē²Ōā€™t know how heā€™s dividing his time and efforts. Nevertheless, yeah, if you have the ear of Donald Trump, obviously youā€™re going to be an influential person, and youā€™re going to be viewed as someone with influence and people will pay attention to you. We havenā€™t yet seen his influence demonstrated clearly in terms of his relationship with the president vis-Ć -vis the presidentā€™s daughter. You would think he would. So that remains to be seen.

Rising pressure in Jordan

Atul Singh: Moving on from Lebanon to Jordan, we know that the monarchy feels the heat. The King of Jordan has not been terribly enthused about Donald Trumpā€™s plan for Gaza, turning it into a . We know that the majority of Jordan is now Palestinian. We know that Palestinians in Jordan are increasingly in solidarity with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. So from a geopolitical point of view, it seems that Jordan seems to be quite unstable. The king is not getting any younger either. So what lies ahead there?

Gary Grappo: There hasnā€™t been much attention given to Jordan, and thatā€™s unfortunate, because Jordan is facing some challenges. There is this very restive Palestinian population within Jordan. Estimates vary ā€” anywhere between 60 and 80% of the population of the country. It seems to be in a perpetual economic crisis. They »å“Ē²Ōā€™t have the natural resource wealth that other countries in the region have, and they are dependent to a great extent on American largesse. The American aid program, if it continues, is quite substantial, and the king needs that, which is why the king ā€” after Donald Trumpā€™s statement about his ambitions for Gaza ā€” was anxious to fly to Washington and meet with the president in order to maybe talk him down from this grandiose plan for Gaza. But he was quite diplomatic about it. It was not confrontational, but also made it clear that this was not something that Jordan would be able to accept. But he knows how to be deferential when he has to be to the United States ā€” and specifically to Donald Trump, who likes that. And so he ended up leaving, having made his point, but not losing Jordanā€™s status in terms of how itā€™s viewed in Washington. But it faces continuing economic challenges, which are quite dire ā€” whether itā€™s unemployment, whether itā€™s the level of business activity, economic growth, development and so forth. The other problem that many folks have not focused on is the security challenges that Jordan faces, coming not only from the West Bank, where you have the appearance now of these small militia groups that are causing a great deal of instability in the West Bank ā€” confronting settlers, confronting the IDF. Thereā€™s some of that also present in Jordan. The Jordanian security forces are quite competent.

Atul Singh: [Are these groups directly tied to Hamas? Or are they more independent, acting on their own?]

Gary Grappo: Both. Some will have some kind of tie to Hamas but »å“Ē²Ōā€™t take guidance from Hamas. Others may take some guidance from Hamas, and some are entirely independent and are operating on their own. In fact, itā€™s uncertain the extent to which some of them actually even coordinate their activities with one another, which is why they havenā€™t been all that effective. And the Israelis have been able to tamp them down as they appear but not eliminate them. The suspicion is that the Iranians may be behind some of this in terms of provoking them, maybe providing them with funds, even weapons that are smuggled in via Syria and Jordan. So itā€™s all kind of opaque at this point, but it presents problems for Jordan. And there are some interesting reports coming out of Iran that the Iranians view Jordan as a particularly weak point, and that if their efforts to re-establish a link between Iran and Hezbollah through Syria ā€” and thatā€™s not working out so well up to this point ā€” that they may attempt to use Jordan. Now, theyā€™ll find very stiff challenge in Jordan. The Jordanian forces are not to be trifled with. Theyā€™re very effective, very capable. They have an excellent intelligence service. They cooperate very closely with both the Americans and the Israelis. So theyā€™ll find the going very tough, butā€” 

Atul Singh: [Did King Abdullah himself serve in the Jordanian Armed Forces or receive military training?]

Gary Grappo: Hm, I want to say he did, but I canā€™t be sure. I know his father did, but I canā€™t be sure about Abdullah. But I think so, be that as itā€”

Atul Singh: [Well, regardless, the king seems to command deep loyalty from the armed forces. Thatā€™s a critical pillar of stability in a region where rulers often take great care to ensure military loyalty.]

Gary Grappo: Absolutely. And the king enjoys their loyalty 100%, which is very important in the Middle East. And they are indeed very loyal to the king and will remain so. And so I have every reason to believe that with the continued cooperation with the Americans and the Israelis, that theyā€™ll be able to thwart any effort on the part of the Iranians. But itā€™s still a challenge that the Jordanians now have to confront. But I am worried about the internal political stability because of the large Palestinian presence there. I »å“Ē²Ōā€™t think itā€™ll turn terribly violent, other than maybe potential pockets in some areas. But nevertheless, itā€™s something Iā€™m sure the king is very much aware of, and the Israeli and American intelligence services are also quite aware of and trying to provide the king with whatever support he may need. So itā€™s worth keeping an eye on developments in Jordan.

Can the country of Syria survive?

Atul Singh: Letā€™s talk about Syria. Youā€™ve already mentioned that it has followed a familiar pattern. And youā€™ve mentioned the killings of Alawites. Youā€™ve also mentioned the former Assad regime soldiers mounting attacks on the new regime. Of course, we know that Turkish intelligence, MIT, did support the current rulers of Syria. So what happens now with the Kurds, who represent one area and one ethnicity of Syria? The Sunnis ā€” also not just Sunnis who are in the plains in that road going all the way from Damascus to Istanbul, formerly Constantinople ā€” but also the Arabs living by the Tigris and Euphrates. They are different. Those peasants are different to the more urban population. And in fact, arguably, a led to their migration to the cities and triggered the Arab uprisings in Syria. And then, of course, we have the issue of the Alawites, who are along the coasts and who were by the Sunnis under none other than Selim I. And of course, when they ruled, they werenā€™t particularly kind and loving and peaceful either. So there is a whole cycle of violence there. Can Syria even survive as a country de jure?

Gary Grappo: That may be the ultimate question, and that question has been posed more than once. Itā€™s not coincidence that the centrifugal sectarian forces of Lebanon mirror those almost, in some cases, identically to those in Syria. You have a multiplicity of sectarian groups ā€” whether religious or ethnic ā€” and it makes it very, very difficult to have a unifying identity for Syria, despite efforts by previous regimes to create one. Assad tried to create one, and it ultimately came down to oppression. If you opposed Assad, you ended up either dead or in jail. And thatā€™s how it was enforced. I think al-Sharaa, who is the interim president ā€” weā€™ll see how long the interim period is ā€” former head of the Hayā€™at Tahrir al-Sham, the jihadist group that emerged victorious after the fall of Assad, he said all the right things, which new Arab leaders often do, with all these wonderful aspirations of Syrian unity and respect for its multi-identities within the country. But the default position is these groups go at one another, and certainly they go after the government. And you mentioned a few of these. But there are Druze down in the south. There are Ismailis who are closer to being Shia, actually, than the Alawites, who were represented in the person of Assad and his father. You had Turkmen up in the very northern part of the country ā€” the remnants of the Turkish population after the fall of the Ottomans. You have the Kurds up in the northeast. And you mentioned a very good point: that the Arabs who typically settle in some of the cities stretching from Damascus in the south to Aleppo in the north have a very different perspective on things than the desert Arabs who live to the east. And also their views on Islam ā€” Sunni Islam. Theyā€™re all Sunni, but how they view it, how strongly they adhere to it, where they tend to be more conservative or not, all of that. There are many complexions. And even in the western areas on that main highway that goes from Damascus to Hama, Homs and Aleppo, from city to city, it changes. And those are four very big cities in Syria. That all changes. You have several Christian groups that inhabit the country. And so all of these are pulling at one another. All of these are vying for influence, power, and wealth in a country which ā€” we have to remember ā€” has been destroyed. 80% of its economy has been effectively destroyed as a result of that 12-year civil war. And then you have another six million or so Syrians residing outside the country, who are forming actually a new identity of themselves and of Syria, whether they reside in Jordan or Turkey or Lebanon, or even in Europe. So all of these are pushing and pulling against one another, presenting enormous challenges to the government and the governmentā€™s ability to actually govern. And the default position ā€” and thatā€™s kind of a situation where you have the sectarian strains pulling at one another ā€” the government brings down the hammer. Thatā€™s what Assad did. And thatā€™s what the predecessors of the Assads did. Although they have had brief experiences with democracy, they didnā€™t last. They didnā€™t last.

Atul Singh: [So even when Syria flirted with democracy, it couldnā€™t overcome those deep sectarian divisions, could it?]

Gary Grappo: Yes, they even tried that! But thatā€™s another point, because letā€™s bear in mind there are external players in all of that mix. This is not just Syria alone. Thereā€™s Lebanon, of course, to the west. Thereā€™s Turkey, which is probably the most significant influence today to the north. Iran has not given up on Syria and will try to re-establish its pipeline of weapons of war material and money into Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. There are folks who were greatly affected by the fall of the Assad regime and the collapse of the huge Captagon industry that was resident in Syria. Basically, thatā€™s how the Syrian regime made money. They sell ā€” which is the Middle Eastern equivalent almost of meth ā€” and were making billions. And thatā€™s how the army earned whatever funds it could to support itself. It wasnā€™t nearly enough, and obviously collapsed very easily. And there are others in the mix. The Iraqis are watching very, very closely what happens. This may present some opportunities for the western Arabs of Iraq to influence Syria as well. And then you have the Americans, the Europeans and the Israelis exerting their influence. The Israelis, by the way, have moved beyond the neutral territory between their borders and have now settled on ā€” Iā€™m talking about military forces ā€” on actual Syrian territory. And theyā€™re going to wait and see how things play out to ensure that whatever result does not present a threat to Israel. And so they have that new buffer zone that they have established.

Atul Singh: Yes, some of the Israelis say that thereā€™s no way they can give it up. And they say that the Druze actually in Syria want Israeli protection. And the Druze are a great buffer zone against a potential fundamentalist Sunni regime in Damascus.

Gary Grappo: Thatā€™s 100% correct. Of course, there is a significant, relatively speaking, Druze population in Israel, which does quite well. They do not experience many of the problems that the Israeli Arabs have in Israel, and theyā€™re quite pleased, for the most part, with their status in Israel. And of course, they have their contacts with their brothers in Syria. And itā€™s a natural affinity that the Druze would have toward Israel. Theyā€™re far more trusting of Israel than this new government. And theyā€™re trying to figure it out. Theyā€™re trying to feel their way through this new government. Theyā€™re not sure exactly how much authority, how much power they will be given. And so itā€™s not surprising that theyā€™re maintaining pretty close ties with Israel and will find a way to cooperate with Israel if they feel that their interests may be threatened by this new government in Damascus.

Atul Singh: Alright, you havenā€™t mentioned the Russians. They have Latakia and they have Tartus still, and Iā€™m sure they are not going to disappear quietly into the sun.

Gary Grappo: Youā€™re right. And they »å“Ē²Ōā€™t have quite the presence they had before the fall of the Assad regime. There are supposedly ongoing negotiations to both their air base at Hmeimim and their naval base at Tartus. The naval base in particular is vitally important for the Russians, and they desperately want to hold on to that. Theyā€™ve lost all other influence in Syria today, not only because of the fall of Assad, but of course having to overextend itself in Ukraine, in that misbegotten war. And so theyā€™re struggling. And itā€™s not clear that the government may necessarily want them, particularly given the close relationship between Russia today and Iran. One thing you can say about the regime in Damascus now is they »å“Ē²Ōā€™t want the Iranians back. They most definitely »å“Ē²Ōā€™t want Hezbollah back. And weā€™re already seeing fighting take place between the government forces of Syria and Hezbollah, which is a very interesting development ā€” and from the purely selfish perspective of the Americans and Israelis ā€” not bad at all. Now, Hezbollah is probably also allying with these pro-Assad factions in the western part of the country, which is something to be watched. And again, Atul, I just come back to all the centrifugal forces at play in Syria, which argue against, unfortunately, the best hopes of the Syrian people after the regime fell.

Egypt: the ticking time bomb

Atul Singh: Alright, letā€™s move on from Syria, and letā€™s talk about Egypt, the other neighbor of Israel. One ex-MI6 officer told me that he believes that Egypt could be the ticking time bomb in the region because of its population, because of the of the Nile Delta, and because of persistent youth unemployment and resentment against the regime. He also said that as of now, Sisi is a pretty effective ruler. The military has managed to clamp down pretty hard on the Muslim Brotherhood. And as of now, there is no immediate risk. But the structural problems persist in the economy, and the political problem exists in society, and there is such democratic deficit and a demographic time bomb that Egypt will ultimately implode. What do you say to that, Gary?

Gary Grappo: Egypt is a perfect illustration of the essential problem of the Middle East that I outlined at the outset. And that is the fact that you have unpopular governments, unaccountable to their people and fearful of their people, and maintaining authority through their security forces ā€” essentially oppression ā€” while at the same time the economic and social needs are not being met adequately. And thereā€™s no recourse. And in the case of Egypt, you have very effective internal security forces. They have almost eradicated the Muslim Brotherhood from Egypt ā€” ruthlessly, too. And they packed up and left while they could. And those who couldnā€™t ended up either dead or in jail. And there are a number of jails that are chock-a-block full of former Muslim Brotherhood members. So for the time being, as you mentioned, the problem is contained. But the challenge remains: how do you reconcile a country ā€” itā€™s the largest population by far in the Middle East ā€” that is unable at the present time to meet the needs of those people? Education, health care, employment and so forth. The government was able to attract money to build this mammoth new capital, which by all accounts is quite impressive, outside of Cairo. Most people cannot afford to live there, only probably the top 10ā€“15%. Even some Egyptians who work there in the government canā€™t afford to live there. And so thatā€™s presenting problems for the people of Cairo especially, which is the largest city by far in Egypt, if not in the entire Middle East. And then the environmental problems that you mentioned are not going away. They are not going away. If you look at coastal Egypt, which extends considerably south up the Nile, one can foresee in 20 years and in 40 years ā€” Iā€™ve looked at these projections ā€” how the salinization effectively takes over the Nile Delta and even flooding, including in the second-largest city of Alexandria. If you look at the population ā€” Alexandria, Cairo, the Nile Delta ā€” that is a significant percentage of the population of Egypt. I want to say at least a third, it could be even more than that. When they lose their ability to live somewhere thatā€™s livable and also earn an income, what happens? Well, you can have internal unrest. You can have massive refugee flows. And we have seen in the example of the Syrian civil war what happens when that occurs. And my guess is many of those refugees would seek to go to either Turkey ā€” maybe Lebanon, although thereā€™s not much space for them there ā€” but more than likely the southern Mediterranean countries of Europe. And so all of that certainly bears watching, and it further underscores the importance of the Sisi regime to find a way to deflate these growing pressures within his society ā€” outside of the use of his security forces. It also argues for greater investment on the part of the Gulf countries in development in Egypt ā€” particularly creating economic opportunity. You create economic opportunity, and then the options begin to open up. And that hasnā€™t materialized yet. So thatā€™s the pressure cooker of Egypt today. The pressure is manageable, as you indicated ā€” for now. What will it be like in 10 years? I canā€™t predict, and I wouldnā€™t even try to.

The Gulf: A regional ray of hope

Atul Singh: Alright, youā€™ve mentioned the Gulf countries. So letā€™s now talk about the Gulf. And the Gulf includes, of course, small countries like Qatar, that punch way above their weight. They have created . Dubai, which is the financial center now of the Middle East, where you now have the in some kind of entente with Israel. You also have countries like Bahrain and Oman, where you were ambassador. And then, of course, the big boys ā€” Saudi Arabia. Now Yemen doesnā€™t quite come. It is an important place, because the Houthis have proved that they can de facto the Suez Canal. The Bab al-Mandab Strait is de facto unusable, and ships are going around the Cape of Good Hope, just like pre-Henry the Navigator times or Henry the Navigator times. So talk about the Gulf, now that youā€™ve mentioned the Gulf ā€” and itā€™s a diverse picture, as listeners can already divine.

Gary Grappo: Yes. Setting aside the case of Yemen, because itā€™s just ā€” yes, it occupies the same Arabian Peninsula, but itā€™s not like any of the other Gulf countries. The Gulf countries, unlike the rest of the region, are actually doing rather well economically and even socially. You have cradle-to-grave healthcare systems. You have respectable education systems. The level of extremism and jihadism is very, very low, if it exists at all. And to the extent that it might exist, the security forces are very effective in tamping them down. And most of them are quite active on the regional and international diplomatic scene. You mentioned the case of Qatar, but I think the two major players are Saudi Arabia and the Emirates.

Atul Singh: [Yes. They really are the powerhouses of the Gulf now, especially when it comes to diplomacy.]

Gary Grappo: Exactly. Both of them are extraordinarily wealthy countries. On a per capita basis, Iā€™d say the Emirates is probably much wealthier and Qatar wealthier than them all, and are doing lots of things on the international scene to raise their profile. I mean, just take the example of these negotiations over Ukraine. Theyā€™re taking place in Saudi Arabia! Who could have imagined such a thing five years ago? 

Atul Singh: Yeah, thatā€™s unbelievable! The Europeans are turning and tossing in complete indignation.

Gary Grappo: Yes. So, back in the day ā€” certainly my day, and up to maybe about five or ten years ago ā€” when you had to do these kinds of negotiations, everyone flocked to Geneva. Now theyā€™re going to Jeddah or to Riyadh, perhaps Doha or even Abu Dhabi. So the Gulf states are doing quite well, and we should all wish that we would find that kind of stability. Obviously, none of them is a democracy, and in all likelihood, theyā€™re not going to be for a very, very long time. But theyā€™re quite stable.

Atul Singh: Including, if I may interject, Saudi Arabia, because some people fear for Saudi Arabia, because Mohammed bin Salman has ruled it with a very strong hand, an iron fist, and there is fear that there might be factions brewing within his own family that might turn against him, lead even to assassination. So there is that fear, as you know, amongst intelligence circles. This is what I hear, both from the Israelis and the British.

Gary Grappo: Yes. And itā€™s varied from king to king. And I will say itā€™s certainly present now. But I think one thing that makes this situation in Saudi Arabia different today is that socially, the country is in a much better position. Saudis do not face the kind of restrictions in social interaction and activity that they used to face. When I was there, you had this very distinct segregation of the sexes and there were very few opportunities for people to engage in social activity outside of the home. That has changed! You have Americaā€™s Cup regional competition. You have had major tennis tournaments, golf tournaments ā€” even, God help them ā€” American professional wrestling. Youā€™ve had rock concerts. Movie theaters are starting to proliferate. 

Atul Singh: They even have Cristiano Ronaldo with his girlfriend and many children from many different women! (laughs)

Gary Grappo: Yeah, yeah. So theyā€™ve opened the floodgates socially, and thatā€™s reduced a lot of the tension. And that was a brilliant move on the part of Mohammed bin Salman. On the economic side, theyā€™ve created new opportunities. Now, Iā€™ve been reading recently that because of the low price of oil that maybe their coffers will not be as enriched this year as in earlier years. Theyā€™re used to that. Theyā€™ve faced those times before, and they know how to deal with that. Theyā€™ll have to ratchet back their ambitions on the NEOM project in western Saudi Arabia, and theyā€™ll manage to do that. Having said all of that, I will say that despite some concerns that I have on his positions on human rights, Mohammed bin Salman has done a good job of managing that country. The only thing now theyā€™re waiting on is what happens to his father, King Salman. I mean, heā€™s probably not long for this world. Well, none of us is, but he in particular. And when he becomes the king ā€” heā€™s effectively behaving like the king now, with some limits ā€” I think we could see even more changes that will be occurring in his country. He seems to have forged respectable relations ā€” sometimes close relations ā€” with other countries, including in the region. He faces this nemesis down in the south, Yemen. Heā€™s managed to extricate his forces from the actual conflict, but the conflict still continues. So heā€™s done, I have to say, a credible job, first and foremost in maintaining stability and mollifying the population of Saudi Arabia, as have all the other Gulf countries. Oman was facing some economic problems because of oil prices and so forth a few years ago. Thatā€™s begun to change. And weā€™re now seeing some impressive growth figures in Oman. The new sultan has now kind of asserted himself, and weā€™re seeing his unique imprint in the governance of the Sultanate. All of the Gulf countries seem to be doing very well, or at least respectably, not facing any of the challenges that the other countries in the region are. In fact, theyā€™re seen as a potential solution, including in the conflict in Gaza, with future investment to redevelop, rebuild Gaza, if and when that conflict ends.

Iraq, Kuwait and the shadow of empires

Atul Singh: Alright, so the Gulf is a ray of hope in the region. Weā€™ve covered a number of countries. Weā€™ve got two big former empires left ā€” correct me if Iā€™m wrong, and please chime in and add if Iā€™m missing any major country. Of course, some may say youā€™ve missed out Kuwait, youā€™ve missed out Iraq. And weā€™ve mentioned Iraq. We can talk about Kuwait and Iraq briefly. Perhaps you begin with them. But the two countries that come to my mind are the descendants of the Ottomans and the Safavids, the two great empires of the region. But over to you. Letā€™s cover Kuwait and Iraq lest we offend anyone. Iraq is very similar to Syria. Both Syria and Iraq were run by Baā€™athists. Both were bloody regimes run by minorities. Syria was run by an Alawite family. And of course, we know that Iraq was run by a Sunni family from Tikrit, the Saddam Hussein . He and his boys were terrors, to say the least. Iraq is also multi-ethnic. And few people know Iraq better than Gary. So we have Kuwait and Iraq. Kuwait presumably is doing all right. Iraq ā€” you can tell us more. And then letā€™s move on. Please move on to Turkey and Iran.

Gary Grappo: Iā€™m not sure Iā€™ll have much to contribute with respect to Turkey. I »å“Ē²Ōā€™t follow Turkey as closely as I do the Arab countries. But with respect to Iraq, I will say, because of the weakened state of affairs in Iran, that it does present some opportunities to Iraq. It is worth noting that the Iraqi leadership has indicated fairly clearly that it wants the very limited American presence in that country to remain. Now, the various Iranian-aligned militia groups in Iraq have indicated that if American forces have not withdrawn by the end of this year, they will resume against that American presence, and perhaps an American presence elsewhere, including in the very eastern part of Syria. They certainly have some ability to do that. Itā€™s going to be limited. And I think they understand that, were they to do that, they would find overwhelming response certainly from the Americans and maybe from the Iraqi government itself. Itā€™s unclear how strongly the Iraqi leadership wants to assert its independence from Iran. The Iranians have had so much influence in that country since the departure of the Americans. But the card deck has been reshuffled, and not all the cards are held by Iran today. The Iraqis have a few more than they have had in the past. And so there is some opportunity. Weā€™re seeing new oil investment, for example, in the country. They have resolved some of the problems that they have had previously with their own Kurds up in the north. And so Iraq has something to look forward to, some potential. But again, they are riven by the sectarian problems that have been there ever since the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Very similar to Shia, Sunni, Kurds and to a lesser extent, Christians and other minority groups. And so that remains a very significant challenge for them, particularly given the fact that the way the Iraqi Council of Representatives is established, where seats are apportioned according to sect, various groups are locked in. And that creates a bit of a road jam in terms of maybe getting things done. And weā€™ve seen in the past demonstrations of younger Iraqis wanting to do away with this system of preferences ā€” to just open it up completely and let Iraqi citizens vote for those they believe best able to serve the interest of the State of Iraq and the Iraqi people. So I would say that Iraq is still a bit of a question mark ā€” potentially in a somewhat better position, but unclear how they might capitalize on that, particularly given some of the internal problems that they have. They are going to need significant foreign investment if theyā€™re truly going to be able to develop their oil potential. We should also mention, given our brief discussion about the problem in Egypt ā€” environmental problems, in the fact that the water flow in the two main rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, has been diminishing over the years. Climate change, one cause. The other is the dams that Turkey has built, and to a lesser extent, Syria. Itā€™s mostly Turkey which has reduced the water flow that reaches Iraq. And itā€™s something to be aware of because agriculture was a major factor in the Iraqi economy and in the Iraqi employment scene. So all of these are challenges that the government is going to have to face. With respect to Iran, this is the real challenge ā€” certainly for Israel, for the United States and for the West in general. The Iranian government has suffered, over the course of the past year, a series of setbacks they could never have anticipated. They overestimated their own power and influence and they grossly underestimated the capabilities of the Israelis, particularly with the support of the United States. The current state of affairs: They are not able to effectively defend themselves against an Israeli air attack. The one that occurred last October ā€” two waves of the most advanced fighters built by the United States, the F-35, the stealth fighters ā€” their radar systems completely failed to detect them. And as a result, the Israelis were able to carry out their attacks without restraint. They delivered all of their ordnance and on the air defenses that Iran had. And theyā€™re not going to be replaced anytime soon. They were Russian-made, and the Russians are not going to be shipping any military equipment outside Russia.

Atul Singh: Very quick question: There is also the matter of the regimeā€™s popularity at home, which seems to be the biggest risk. Add to that an economic crisis which is worsening, and Donald Trump has been no friend to Iran. In fact, he threw out the that Barack Obama negotiated. So the noose around Iran is likely to tighten. Speaking of internal stability, the other imperial power, Turkey, isnā€™t doing that well either. There are as we speak in Turkey because Ekrem Ä°mamoğlu, the secular Republican Peopleā€™s Partyā€™s candidate, was locked up by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğanā€™s regime. Erdoğan has been in power forever, but still, thatā€™s a far more democratic country than a country ruled by mullahs. And in Iran, thereā€™s also the specter of the different minorities resenting Farsi or Fars dominance. The Baluchs »å“Ē²Ōā€™t like it, the Azeris »å“Ē²Ōā€™t like it, the Kurds »å“Ē²Ōā€™t like it and so on and so forth ā€” not to mention the Chinese Sunni minority left. So William Butler Yeatsā€™ ā€” ā€œThings fall apart; the centre cannot holdā€ ā€” certainly seems to be the fear for the Iranian regime.

Gary Grappo: Thatā€™s the major challenge of this current regime. And that is, in addition to the external threat that they face from Israel. By the way, in those attacks that occurred in April, Israel took out one of the main factories for the manufacture of ballistic missiles. So Iranā€™s vaunted ballistic missile capability has been significantly diminished as well. And this was their final defense. This was intended to be the defense that would protect the Islamic Republic. And those defenses have been greatly weakened vis-Ć -vis any potential attack from Israel. But most especially, if the Americans were to join the Israelis, thereā€™s no way to repel it. And they would suffer devastating losses. And you can be sure that in addition to going after whatā€™s left of the missile forces and other defense areas, they would be going after IRGC camps and doing maximumā€” 

Atul Singh: Very quickly, explain IRGC to our viewers and listeners.

Gary Grappo: Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. This is basically a military force apart from the Artesh, which is the standard military force: Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Thatā€™s the Iranian defense forces under the Ministry of Defense. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps reports to the Supreme Leader. And as the name implies, they protect the Islamic Revolution, which is basically the regime. Thatā€™s their job. And they do this in many ways. They probably attract more resources on a per capita basis than does the regular military. And they certainly have the ear of the Supreme Leader the way the military forces do not, and so they are given preeminence. And they are seen as a much greater threat to Israel or even to Iranā€™s neighbors than the Iranian armed forces.

Atul Singh: So think of them like the of the Roman Empire.

Gary Grappo: Thatā€™s a good way to put it, except much larger and very ideologically committed.

Atul Singh: More fanatically. 

Gary Grappo: Yes. And itā€™s not just them. They have militia groups that work for them, and these are the ones who enforce domestic law in Iran, particularly with respect to religious law ā€” and most especially when it comes to ensuring, for example, that women are covered. These are the guys going around on black motorbikes with baseball bats and nailing women who are not properly covered, enforcing Islamic law.

Atul Singh: Isnā€™t the use of baseball bats very American? The irony!

Gary Grappo: Yeah, we pretend not to use baseball bats as weapons, but it can be a very effective one!

Atul Singh: Al Capone used it.

Gary Grappo: Yes, yes. Itā€™s not unknown as a very effective, bloody weapon. So these are some of the external threats that Iran is facing. And then one cannot overestimate the challenge they face internally. There is a lot of dissension there. I read some of these various polls that are taken ā€” you »å“Ē²Ōā€™t know how much to attribute to them ā€” but where popularity now is at or below even 20%. They are almost universally despised ā€” the Iranian leadership in that country ā€” for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the appalling economic situation.

Atul Singh: And no jobs for the youth.

Gary Grappo: No jobs. The Iranian rial continues to fall and explore new depths, and thereā€™s no way that they can shore it up. And add now Donald Trump to the mix. He has now doubled down if not tripled on his maximum pressure campaign and is really exploiting every opportunity in terms of secondary sanctions. And for those who »å“Ē²Ōā€™t quite understand the nature of US economic sanctions: When the US sanctions a particular nation, organization, business, entity or person directly, thatā€™s primary sanctions. A secondary sanction is going after someone who does business with any of those. So for example, Iranian exports: Iran is putting its oil onto ghost ships. They load them onto tankers in a port in Iran. Theyā€™re taken out somewhere not far offshore, out of sight. The transponders are turned off. A ghost tanker shows up ā€” itā€™s not registered in any country ā€” and they transfer the oil to the ghost tanker, sometimes mixing it with oil from a legitimate oil exporter, maybe Saudi Arabia, maybe the Emirates, maybe Oman, Kuwait, whatever. And then it goes to its final destination, where itā€™s offloaded. The United States has begun sanctioning the ghost ships when they find them and sanctioning the ports and the refineries who take on that illicit oil from Iran. This has made everybody involved in the illicit import and export of oil very, very wary. And for the first time, the United States is going after ports and businesses in India and in China who are not particularly excited about getting on the wrong side of the law when it comes to the Americans. They do not want to be sanctioned. Itā€™s a death sentence. You canā€™t do business in dollars. And if you canā€™t do business in dollars ā€” and itā€™ll effectively mean euros, too ā€” what are you left with? So those sanctions are going to be very effective. In fact, Joe Biden started toward the end of his administration ā€” I would say October, November, certainly December ā€” and Donald Trump has screwed it down even more tightly. And weā€™re going to see declining exports of oil from Iran, which is a principal hard currency earner.

Atul Singh: So let me tell you a story. I ran into a former British Special Forces soldier, and he was in the smuggling business. He was earning $20,000 per night for captaining a tanker. And he would take the tanker and he would go to one of these ghost tankers ā€” Iranian tankers ā€” transfer the oil from the ghost tanker into whatever tanker he was captaining, and then sail and offload that oil. And basically, that earned him $20,000 per night for this high-risk operation, shall we say. (laughs) Shall we say, he has a very nice house in England right now!

Gary Grappo: And heā€™s exactly the kind of people that the Americans are looking for now. These are the kind of people they want to go after.

Atul Singh: So maybe heā€™s one of the lucky ones who got away!

Gary Grappo: Well, he got out of the business just at the right time, because I think this administration really wants to screw down the lid as tightly as possible. Now, on the positive side ā€” as we all know, itā€™s been prominently reported in the news ā€” Donald Trump has communicated to the Supreme Leader heā€™s willing to sit down and begin to end Iranā€™s nuclear weapons program. The Iranians would be well advised to accept that. Iā€™m not sure theyā€™re going to, to their detriment. This is going to greatly disappoint the people of Iran, who are only going to become more frustrated and more angry with their government. And itā€™s going to increase the pressure internally on that government. So here you have rising dissent in Iran. You have a growing, acute economic situation in that country which shows no signs of being able to improve itself. And then these external threats that the country faces, without the defenses it previously had expected to rely on. And so the lineup of factors against the current regime in Iran is all very negative. Youā€™d be pretty hard-pressed to find a bright spot. Maybe Yemen. And I tell you, youā€™ve got to be pretty desperate to look at Yemen as a bright spot. So now they have their relationships with Russia and with China. I will say that China is not going to jeopardize its trade relationship ā€” which is already facing difficulties with the United States ā€” for Iran. Theyā€™re not going to do it. They will cut the rope if they have to, when it comes to Iran. Russia, on the other hand, needs Iran, and Iran needs Russia. And so that relationship will probably remain in place and likely even strengthen. But still, the various challenges facing that regime are all bad to abominable, which is why it would be a good idea to negotiate with the Americans and get this out of the way. Remove sanctions. It would change everything. And for what? All they would have to do is cease their nuclear weapons program. I »å“Ē²Ōā€™t know whether the leadership is willing to concede that.

Atul Singh: The Ayatollah is now aging dramatically and may not last very long. So we have no idea what comes next.

Donald Trump has a real opportunity

Atul Singh: So, letā€™s talk about Donald Trump. Youā€™ve mentioned him a few times. What is the new Middle East policy of his administration? And what can we expect in the next three and a half years or four years of his presidency? A little less than four years, of course. Now we are in March.

Gary Grappo: Yeah, yeah. I would say that Donald Trump inherited, with respect to the Middle East, probably the most opportunistic set of circumstances that any American president has ever had coming into office. I mean, weā€™ve covered the various areas of the Middle East, and in almost every respect, itā€™s an opportunity for the United States. I will say, however, that the Middle East is the place where American ambition goes to die. And weā€™ve seen that time after time after time. The last genuinely successful American adventure ā€” Iā€™m not sure thatā€™s the proper word for it ā€” in the Middle East was brokering the peace accord between Egypt and Israel. Just going back to Bill Clinton, the collapse of the Camp David in 2000, weā€™ve seen the efforts on the part of George Bush in Iraq that turned out to be disastrous not only for the region but for the United States. Barack Obama started out nobly, seeking to address the Israeliā€“Palestinian conflict, also fell on very bad times and he eventually just gave up his hands. His new Secretary of State after Hillary Clinton left, John Kerry, wanted to pick up the ball and thought, ā€œNo, he could deliver the goods,ā€ ā€” collapsed, frustrated again both by the Israelis and the Palestinians. And of course, Obama tried to negotiate the , which looked pretty good on paper. It wasnā€™t certainly a perfect agreement. He was succeeded by Donald Trump, who proceeded to tear it up about a year into his first term as president. And the situation progressed to the point where, at the end of his administration, the situation in Iran had worsened, despite his promises that by tearing up the agreement, it would improve. Donā€™t forget, we had maximum pressure back then, too. And it did not work to the extent that he had promised. Joe Biden seemed to be doing okay until October 7. And it just exploded ā€” and this was not his fault, obviously. And thatā€™s the whole problem of the Middle East; you canā€™t control events as President of the United States. And that situation exploded, he cast his lot with Israel, which you had to expect the United States would do. And that only worsened. But on the other hand, it allowed Israel to address other problems, namely Hezbollah. And just lucky with the collapse of the government in Syria and the weakening of Iranā€”

Atul Singh: Maybe it was related, because they couldnā€™t rely on Hezbollah this time around. It has been weakened. It was a great opportunity. And with, of course, Turkish backing ā€” MIT backed ā€” you have this group which is now ruling Damascus. So I think it is related to a great degree.

Gary Grappo: Oh, oh, most definitely, the collapse of Hezbollah presented a real opportunity for HTS to go after Assad. And I think there was also the recognition that the Assad regime was a house of cards, that it was not capable of defending itself. And thatā€™s just apparent from how quickly HTS moved from the northwestern part of the country ā€” up in Idlib ā€” all the way down to Damascus in a matter of what, two and a half weeks? And took control of the government. And its previous backers, Hezbollah, quiet, nothing. Syria or Iran, nothing. Russia, nothing. It was Assad ā€” all of them. And he did not have the forces. It wouldnā€™t have taken much, but he didnā€™t have that. So Donald Trump comes in as president, and all these problems that earlier presidents have had to contend with are either gone or much diminished. So he has a real opportunity here. Iā€™m pleased that he does not want confrontation with Iran and has offered this opportunity to negotiate. But on the other hand, I »å“Ē²Ōā€™t think heā€™s going to shy from a confrontation. Just as in the case of his dealing with Hamas, United States broke protocol, broke precedent, and actually had an official meeting between Americans and Hamas. Never done before, ever! ā€¦That we know of. Maybe on the intelligence side, there may have been some. But this was policy people, and they laid all the cards out for Hamas and gave them an opportunity: ā€œDo this, itā€™s in your interest.ā€ Hamas refused to do it. And now we see Israel going in without constraints and Donald Trump fully behind them, 100%. I »å“Ē²Ōā€™t think itā€™ll reach the intensity that we saw perhaps a year or so ago in Gaza, simply because Hamas is not the threat that it was at that time. But itā€™s going to be long, itā€™s going to be bloody. Weā€™ll see more loss of life, tragically, innocent life in Gaza. But I think Israel is attempting to go in for the real kill this time. I »å“Ē²Ōā€™t think theyā€™re going to be successful, but they will wreak havoc, certainly within Hamas and whatā€™s left of Gaza. So you would hope that the Iranian leadership will learn something from that example. That Donald Trump tried to work with Hamas, tried to show them, thereā€™s a way out of this, ā€œYou just got to take it.ā€ They refused. And now they will pay a very heavy price. If Iran is listening, paying attention and can set aside some of its ideology and fanaticism, they could find a way out of their predicament. Iā€™m not sureā€”

Atul Singh: So you expect the Iranian regime to fall, as a number of people do? A number of people are now predicting the end of the Iranian regime by the end of Donald Trumpā€™s term?

Gary Grappo: Well, that would be a wonderful thing, of course. We would certainly like to see that.

Atul Singh: So youā€™re happy with Donald Trump on at least one thing?

Gary Grappo: No, Iā€¦ but the mechanism for that downfall is unclear yet. If someone is going to make the case that there will be an internal collapse ā€” that the internal dynamic will force the collapse ā€” Iā€™m very suspicious. That I think would take longer than the next four years. It could happen. And the principal argument against it is because of the commitment and dedication and power of the IRGC. They will defend it to the bitter end, and it will be a very bloody, bitter end. Not the kind of end that happened with the Shah, with the Grand Ayatollah taking off in an airplane and going somewhere, although God knows where he could go. Maybe Moscow. That seems to be the new refuge of tyrants. But that, I think, is a bit far-fetched at the time being. However, I think the clock is ticking on an eventual Israeli attack against Iran, if Iran continues to show that itā€™s unwilling to negotiate and moves its nuclear development program further down the road toward possible weaponization. It hasnā€™t done it yet, but itā€™s building all the infrastructure it could possibly need for it. I think the Israelis will want to capitalize before itā€™s too late on the vulnerability of the regime, and they will attack. And the only question that remains is: Will the Americans join them? If the Americans join them, it will be a devastating attack on the complete defense structure of Iran. And that could spell the end of the regime in Iran. So what rules after that? Because weā€™re not sending ground troops. Nor are the Israelis sending ground troops. So the regime collapses. Who takes over? Iā€™ll just throw out one possibility: the IRGC. It becomes a military regime, something like we see in Egypt. They do away with a lot of the religious nonsense that was imposed by the Ayatollahs or the mullahs. They reach some kind of an understanding on their nuclear program, simply because they will have no choice. And you have a military regime, and if they can reach an agreement with the various powers with respect to their nuclear program, maybe the sanctions will be dropped and they can prosper. I think any grand ambitions for a democracy in Iran or anywhere else in the Middle East have to be dismissed, just completely. What do we want most? We want stability. Thatā€™s what we want. We want regimes to clamp down on extremist organizations, with the various militias in Iraq and in Syria and elsewhere. And with that, I think everybody ā€” including in the Middle East ā€” will be very, very happy, even if they »å“Ē²Ōā€™t get to choose who governs them.

Atul Singh: On that note, Gary, weā€™ve spent a lot of time going over so many countries and coming up with various scenarios. Itā€™s been a pleasure, as always, and weā€™ll have you back before too long.

Gary Grappo: I look forward to that, Atul. Weā€™ll have to discuss Yemen at this time. I think itā€™s an interesting case study. Itā€™s a bit of an outlier, but nevertheless is becoming a significant problem area in the Middle East. So perhaps next time we can address the challenge of Yemen.

Atul Singh: Alright, everybody, stay tuned for Yemen next time. Until then, thank you very much, Gary. See you soon.

Gary Grappo: My pleasure, Atul.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

The post FOĀ° Talks: The New Geopolitical Landscape of the Middle East appeared first on 51³Ō¹Ļ.

To address this crisis, Egypt has turned to international lenders and allies, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), European Union (EU) and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. They have secured over $50 billion in financial commitments in 2023 alone.

These interventions have allowed Egypt to implement critical short-term measures, such as devaluing its currency, reducing subsidies and increasing interest rates. Meanwhile, the IMF has offered an $8 billion loan package as part of its 2022 program for Egypt, aiming to mitigate currency overvaluation and fiscal imbalances. Yet analysts like Steven Cook, a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, that Egyptā€™s economic resilience remains uncertain without deeper structural reforms. This is particularly true given the limited progress on divesting military-controlled businesses and liberalizing the private sector.

Egyptā€™s exchange rate has shown significant volatility over the past two decades, with the Egyptian pound (EGP) experiencing sharp depreciations against the United States dollar (USD). In 2024, the EGP/USD rate dropped by 37.03%, driven by shrinking foreign currency reserves, a widening trade deficit and rising demand for USD amidst persistent economic uncertainties. The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) has responded with various stabilization measures, including devaluations, interest rate hikes and capital controls. However, structural economic challenges and market pressures continue to weigh on the EGP, signaling ongoing currency instability for the near term.

Historically, Egyptā€™s crisis reflects a dependence on international financial aid to address chronic fiscal issues. The country has experienced at least eight significant BOP crises since 1952, each leading to IMF programs or financial interventions from international partners to stabilize the economy temporarily. However, these interventions have rarely resulted in lasting reforms, as Egypt often returns to fixed or highly stabilized exchange rates following periods of financial distress. This recurring cycle is largely driven by Egyptā€™s state-centric governance model and persistent cronyism, which have deterred sustainable growth and prevented the formation of a resilient market economy.

While Egyptā€™s strategic importance makes it ā€œtoo big to failā€ for many international partners, questions remain about whether the current assistance will drive meaningful change or merely delay another crisis. According to a report by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and research from the IMF, without comprehensive reform, Egypt risks continued fiscal and economic instability. Experts argue that structural adjustments ā€” including reducing of the economy and allowing a fully flexible exchange rate ā€” are essential for breaking the cycle of economic instability and achieving sustainable growth.

Case comparisons: Argentina and Turkeyā€™s currency crises

The economic trajectories of Argentina and Turkey offer insights into the cyclical nature of currency crises in emerging markets, particularly those burdened with high levels of external debt and recurrent currency depreciation. These cases demonstrate the limitations of short-term financial fixes in the absence of comprehensive structural reforms and robust fiscal management, with implications relevant to Egyptā€™s current economic challenges.

Argentinaā€™s financial history is marked by chronic fiscal mismanagement, high external debt and recurrent reliance on IMF bailouts. Since the early 2000s, Argentina has defaulted on its debt multiple times, eroding investor confidence and creating a volatile investment environment. The countryā€™s approach has typically focused on immediate crisis resolution through IMF assistance, currency devaluation and austerity measures, rather than on deep structural reforms. For instance, Argentinaā€™s 2000ā€“2002 , during which it defaulted on $95 billion in debt, led to a sharp devaluation of the peso and significant social hardship. Despite an IMF bailout and subsequent restructuring, Argentinaā€™s pattern of accumulating debt and renegotiating it without establishing a sustainable fiscal framework has continued. This culminated in additional in 2014 and 2020.

The core of Argentinaā€™s instability lies in its weak fiscal discipline, characterized by chronic budget deficits and a lack of political consensus on sustainable economic policies. This instability has created a self-perpetuating cycle: High debt burdens lead to recurring defaults, eroding trust among foreign investors, which then necessitates further reliance on external support and austerity measures, perpetuating economic fragility. Argentinaā€™s experiences underscore the limitations of debt-driven growth and the dangers of relying on short-term financial infusions without addressing underlying structural issues, such as public spending control and inflation stabilization.

Turkeyā€™s recent economic difficulties stem from a combination of high inflation, excessive reliance on foreign-denominated debt and an unorthodox approach to monetary policy under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Unlike Argentina, Turkeyā€™s crisis has been driven by its refusal to adhere to conventional monetary strategies, particularly concerning interest rate management. Erdoğanā€™s insistence on maintaining low interest rates, despite high inflation, has led to significant currency depreciation; the Turkish lira has lost over of its value against the dollar from 2018 to 2023.

Turkeyā€™s debt dynamics, particularly its dependence on short-term foreign debt, have exacerbated this volatility. Turkish corporations and financial institutions, heavily indebted in foreign currency, face severe financial strain as the lira depreciates, making dollar-denominated debt more expensive to service. This high level of exposure to external financing has heightened Turkeyā€™s vulnerability to global economic conditions, such as interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve. It has increased the cost of borrowing for emerging markets.

Jeffrey Frankel, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, that Turkeyā€™s reliance on foreign capital, paired with its unorthodox policy stance, has deterred investors. It has further devalued the currency and intensified inflation.

Policy shifts and economic reforms

Egyptā€™s rising external debt raises concerns about the governmentā€™s capacity to service it without continuous outside assistance. This debt burden puts downward pressure on the currency, as investors demand higher returns to offset the risks associated with holding Egyptian assets. Moreover, declining foreign exchange reserves have limited the Central Bank of Egyptā€™s (CBE) ability to stabilize the currency, contributing to further depreciation. Countries like Argentina have encountered similar difficulties, with diminishing reserves constraining options for currency defense and increasing on the IMF.

The CBEā€™s recent shift to a more flexible exchange rate is intended to attract foreign investment and fulfill IMF requirements, allowing the EGP to fluctuate more freely. While a floating currency can provide stability over time, Egyptā€™s experience the risks associated with rapid depreciation. This phenomenon is also evident in Turkeyā€™s recent currency challenges.

To counteract inflation, the CBE has raised interest rates, hoping to draw in foreign investment; however, this has not been sufficient to prevent the EGPā€™s decline. This underscores the need for comprehensive economic reforms to secure long-term stability.

Strategic economic reforms for Egypt

Ruchir Agarwal, a Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government (M-RCBG) research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, and Adnan Mazarei, a non-resident senior fellow at Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), that Egyptā€™s recurring economic crises, exacerbated by governance and policy shortcomings, require a fundamental shift in approach. They emphasize that Egypt has to address governance and policy deficiencies, military dominance and cronyism to implement necessary economic reforms and break its cycle of recurring crises, rather than relying on international financial bailouts.

To stabilize and attract foreign investment, Egypt should prioritize macroeconomic stability and regulatory reform using four steps. First, maintaining a flexible exchange rate will help reduce speculative pressure on the EGP, creating a more predictable environment for investors. Second, focusing on inflation control through targeted subsidies and supply chain improvements would further support this stability. Third, by adopting global standards in transparency and corporate governance, Egypt can build investor confidence; streamlining regulatory processes would make foreign investment more accessible. Finally, reducing the militaryā€™s role in the economy, curbing cronyism and enforcing anti-corruption measures could help establish a more equitable environment for private businesses.

The Egyptian conundrum: elite capital flight and economic stability

Egyptā€™s economic journey has frequently involved partnerships with the IMF to address persistent fiscal challenges and stabilize the macroeconomic framework. However, one of the most significant yet underexplored dynamics undermining Egyptā€™s fiscal stability is elite capital flight ā€” the large-scale transfer of domestic wealth by political and economic elites to offshore financial centers. This practice has far-reaching consequences for economic development, governance and societal equity.

Egyptā€™s case exemplifies the challenges of elite capital flight. Over decades, economic and political elites have transferred vast sums of wealth to offshore havens, facilitated by weak anti-money laundering (AML) frameworks and global financial opacity. While exact figures are difficult to ascertain, estimates of the financial assets held abroad by Egyptian elites highlight the magnitude of this issue.

These outflows coincide with structural economic inefficiencies and governance gaps, leaving the state financially constrained. In turn, the government is often forced to implement austerity measures or seek external funding, amplifying socio-economic pressures.

Elite capital flight undermines economic stability and development through several interrelated mechanisms. It exacerbates socio-economic disparities. While elites secure their wealth abroad, the general population faces the consequences of reduced public spending and austerity measures. This creates a dual economic reality where the wealthy remain insulated from domestic economic pressures, while lower-income groups bear the brunt of fiscal challenges.

Elite capital flight is a longstanding feature of Egyptā€™s economic landscape, deeply rooted in governance inefficiencies and weak regulatory frameworks. Economic and political elites often perceive domestic instability, potential expropriation or shifts in policy as triggers for safeguarding wealth abroad. These dynamics are facilitated by global financial systems that accommodate opaque wealth transfers and shield assets from domestic scrutiny.

Egyptā€™s economic elite have historically diversified their financial portfolios, funneling resources into offshore financial centers such as Switzerland, the United Kingdom and other jurisdictions with favorable conditions for wealth concealment. This ā€œinsuranceā€ mechanism not only provides security against domestic uncertainties but deprives the nation of critical resources that could otherwise bolster infrastructure, public services and social programs. As Andreas Kern, a Teaching Professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, , ā€œthe ability to draw on the IMF creates perverse economic incentives so that a countryā€™s elites can privatize economic gains by moving funds into offshore financial destinations before the arrival of the Fund.ā€

Egyptā€™s economic trajectory highlights the interplay between governance failures, elite capture and external financial interventions. Without addressing the systemic drivers of elite capital flight, external assistance risks perpetuating a cycle of dependency rather than fostering sustainable growth. As global scrutiny on financial transparency intensifies, Egyptā€™s experience offers valuable lessons for crafting more equitable and resilient economic policies.

Egyptā€™s next steps

To effectively implement and sustain the policy recommendations made in this piece, in addition to macroeconomics and government reform, Egypt must prioritize the development of expertise in AML and counter-financing of terrorism (CFT). This will require a skilled workforce across financial regulation, law enforcement and compliance to ensure that Egyptā€™s AML/CFT frameworks align with international standards while addressing the countryā€™s unique economic challenges. Building this expertise will involve continuous training, technical assistance and collaboration with global organizations such as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and IMF.

Elite capital flight also represents a significant barrier to Egyptā€™s economic development and stability. By diverting critical resources from the domestic economy, it exacerbates fiscal deficits, perpetuates inequality and undermines trust in governance. Addressing this issue requires a comprehensive approach that combines domestic reforms with international cooperation to foster a more equitable and resilient economic framework. For Egypt, tackling elite capital flight is not only a question of fiscal prudence but also of social and economic justice.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

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At the heart of the conflict is the , a hydroelectric project on the . Ethiopia’s dam construction has angered Egypt, which sees it as a threat to its water supply. The Nile is crucial for Egypt, providing nearly all its water resources. While Ethiopia argues that the dam is solely for electricity generation and won’t significantly impact water flow, Egypt still needs to be convinced. This dispute has deep historical roots, reflecting long-standing power dynamics between the two nations.

The region’s history is marked by conflicts and shifting alliances. In the 1970s, Cold War dynamics played out in the Horn of Africa, with the United States and Soviet Union supporting opposing sides. The between Ethiopia and Somalia in 1977ā€“1978 was a significant event, resulting in a Somali defeat that still resonates today. These historical conflicts have shaped current relationships and tensions between countries in the region.

Countries of the Horn of Africa. Via Zeremariam Fre (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Ethiopia’s Prime Minister has ambitious plans for his country, including rebuilding the capital and reestablishing Ethiopia’s access to the sea. This vision includes developing a port in a move that has angered Somalia. Ethiopia’s potential recognition of Somaliland has further complicated regional dynamics. Meanwhile, Eritrea’s relationship with Ethiopia has cooled.

Involving outside powers adds complexity to the situation. Egypt has begun providing military support to Somalia, potentially countering Ethiopia. The United Arab Emirates plays a significant financial backer in the region, though its exact strategy remains unclear. Other external powers, such as Turkey, India, China and the United States, also have interests in the area, further complicating the geopolitical landscape.

Precarious stability and the global implications of African tensions

The ongoing civil war in Sudan and the instability in South Sudan contribute to the region’s overall volatility. These conflicts have drawn in various international actors, each with their own agendas. The situation in Sudan, in particular, has the potential to impact the broader regional dynamics, especially given its strategic location and historical ties to both Egypt and Ethiopia.

Despite having a significant military presence in Djibouti, the United States is currently preoccupied with other global issues. This relative disengagement from the Horn of Africa’s tensions could allow other actors to fill the power vacuum. A solid mediating force is necessary to avoid escalating regional conflicts.

The situation in the Horn of Africa resembles the complex alliances and tensions that preceded World War I. The interconnected nature of the conflicts, the involvement of multiple regional and global powers and the potential for rapid escalation are concerning parallels. The region’s strategic importance, particularly in maritime trade and geopolitical influence, makes these tensions globally significant.

Looking forward, the stability of the Horn of Africa remains precarious. The combination of historical grievances, current political ambitions and resource disputes creates a volatile mix. The role of external powers, particularly China and the United Arab Emirates, will be crucial in shaping future developments. As global attention remains focused on other crises, the risk of overlooking the simmering tensions in this critical region could have far-reaching consequences for regional and global stability.

[Peter Choi edited this podcast and wrote the first draft of this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/podcast are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

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US President Joe Bidenā€™s Achillesā€™ heel has been his ā€œā€ of Netanyahu, who allied himself with the Israeli equivalent of neo-Nazis and launched a ruinous total war on the people of Gaza. He did this in the wake of the horrific October 7 Hamas terrorist attack Israel suffered in 2023.

Biden also signed on to the Abraham Accords, a project initiated in 2020 by Jared Kushner, the son-in-law and special Middle East envoy of then-President Donald Trump. Through them the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco all agreed to recognize Israelā€™s statehood. In return, Israel granted them investment and trade opportunities, as well as access to American weaponry and a US security umbrella.

Washington, however, failed to incorporate Saudi Arabia into that framework. It has also faced increasing difficulty keeping the accords themselves in place, given the regionā€™s increasing anger and revulsion over the ongoing civilian death toll in Gaza. Typically, just the docking of an Israeli ship at the Moroccan port of Tangier this summer set off popular that spread to dozens of cities in that country. And that was just a taste of what could be coming.

Breathtaking hypocrisy

Washingtonā€™s efforts in the Middle East have been profoundly undermined by its breathtaking hypocrisy. After all, the Biden team has gone blue in the face decrying the Russian occupation of parts of Ukraine and its violations of international humanitarian law in killing so many innocent civilians there. In contrast, the administration let Netanyahuā€™s government completely disregard international law when it comes to its treatment of the Palestinians.

This summer, the International Court of Justice that the entire Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal in international law. In response, the US and Israel both thumbed their noses at the finding. In part as a response to Washingtonā€™s Israeli policy, no country in the Middle East and very few nations in the global South have joined its attempt to ostracize President Vladimir Putinā€™s Russia.

Worse yet for the Biden administration, the most significant divide in the Arab world between secular nationalist governments and those that favor political Islam has begun to heal in the face of the perceived Israeli threat. Turkey and Egypt have long had their daggers over their differing views of the , the fundamentalist movement that briefly came to power in Cairo in 2012ā€“2013. Now they have begun repairing their relationship, specifically citing the menace posed by Israeli expansionism.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been persistently pressing Saudi Arabia, a key US security partner, to recognize Israelā€™s statehood at a moment when the Arab public is boiling over what they see as a genocide campaign in Gaza. This is the closest thing since the Trump administration to pure idiocracy. Washingtonā€™s pressure on Riyadh elicited the pitiful plea from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman that he fears being were he to normalize relations with Tel Aviv now. And consider that ironic given his own past role in the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

In short, the ongoing inside-the-Beltway ambition to secure further Arab recognition of Israel amid the annihilation of Gaza has the USā€™s security partners wondering if Washington is trying to get them killed. This is anything but a promising basis for a long-term alliance.

Global delegitimization

The science-fiction-style nature of US policy in the Middle East is starkly revealed when you consider the position of Jordan, which has a peace treaty with Israel. In early September, its foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, issued a warning: Any attempt by the Israeli military or its squatter-settlers to expel indigenous West Bank Palestinians to Jordan would be an ā€œact of war.ā€ Such anxieties might once have seemed overblown, but the recent stunning (and stunningly destructive) Israeli military campaign on the Palestinian West Bank, bombings of populated areas by fighter jets, has tactically begun to resemble the campaign in Gaza. And keep in mind that, as August ended, Foreign Minister Israel Katz even the Israeli army to compel Palestinians to engage in a ā€œvoluntary evacuationā€ of the northern West Bank.

Not only is the expulsion of Palestinians now the stated policy of cabinet members like Jewish Power extremist Itamar Ben-Gvir; itā€™s the of 65% of Israelis polled. When Israel and Jordan begin talking about war, you know something serious is going on ā€” the last time those two countries actively fought was in the 1973 October War, during the administration of US President Richard Nixon.

In short, Netanyahu and his extremist companions are in the process of undoing all the diplomatic progress their country achieved in the past half-century. Ronen Bar, head of Israelā€™s domestic Shin Bet intelligence agency, in August that the brutal policies the extremists in the government were pursuing are ā€œa stain on Judaismā€ and will lead to ā€œglobal delegitimization, even among our greatest allies.ā€

Turkey, a NATO ally with which the US has mutual defense obligations, has become vociferous in its discontent with Bidenā€™s Middle Eastern policy. Although Turkey recognized Israel in 1949, under Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the pro-Islam Justice and Development Party, interactions had grown rocky even before the Gaza nightmare. Until then, their trade and military ties had survived occasional shouting matches between their politicians. The Gaza genocide, however, has changed all that. Erdogan even Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler and then went further still, that, in the Rafah offensive in southern Gaza in May, ā€œNetanyahu has reached a level with his genocidal methods that would make Hitler jealous.ā€

Worse yet, the Turkish president, referred to by friend and foe as the ā€œā€ because of his vast power, has now gone beyond angry words. Since last October, heā€™s used Turkeyā€™s position in NATO to that organization from cooperating in any way with Israel. This is on the grounds that itā€™s violating the NATO principle that harm to civilians in war must be carefully minimized. The Justice and Development Party leader also imposed an economic on Israel. It has interrupted bilateral trade that previously reached $7 billion a year and sent the price of produce in Israel soaring, while leading to a shortage of automobiles on the Israeli market.

Erdoganā€™s Justice and Development Party represents the countryā€™s small towns, rural areas, Muslim businesses and entrepreneurs, constituencies that care deeply about the fate of Muslim Palestinians in Gaza. And while Erdoganā€™s high dudgeon has undoubtedly been sincere, heā€™s also pleasing his partyā€™s stalwarts in the face of an increasing domestic challenge from the secular Republican Peopleā€™s Party. Additionally, heā€™s long played to a larger Arab public, which is apoplectic over the unending carnage in Gaza.

The alliance of Muslim countries

Although it was undoubtedly mere bluster, Erdogan even threatened a direct on behalf of the beleaguered Palestinians. In early August, he said, ā€œJust as we intervened in Karabakh [disputed territory between Azerbaijan and Armenia], just as we intervened in Libya, we will do the same to them.ā€ In early September, the Turkish president for an Islamic alliance in the region to counter what he characterized as Israeli expansionism:

ā€œYesterday, one of our own children, [Turkish-American human rights ] Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, was vilely slaughtered [on the West Bank]. Israel will not stop in Gaza. After occupying Ramallah [the de facto capital of that territory], they will look around elsewhere. Theyā€™ll fix their eyes on our homeland. They openly proclaim it with a map. We say Hamas is resisting for the Muslims. Standing against Israelā€™s state terror is an issue of importance to the nation and the country. Islamic countries must wake up as soon as possible and increase their cooperation. The only step that can be taken against Israelā€™s genocide is the alliance of Muslim countries.ā€

In fact, the present nightmare in Gaza and the West Bank may indeed be changing political relationships in the region. After all, the Turkish president pointed to his rapprochement with Egypt as a building block in a new security edifice he envisions. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi made his first to Ankara on September 4, following an Erdogan trip to Cairo in February. And those visits represented the end of a more than decade-long cold war in the Sunni Muslim world over al-Sisiā€™s 2013 coup against elected Muslim Brotherhood Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, whom Erdogan had backed.

Despite its apparent embrace of democratic norms in 2012ā€“2013, some Middle Eastern rulers charged the Brotherhood with having covert autocratic ambitions throughout the region and sought to crush it. For the moment, the Muslim Brotherhood and other forms of Sunni political Islam have been roundly defeated in Egypt, Syria, Tunisia and the Persian Gulf region. Erdogan, a pragmatist despite his support for the Brotherhood and its offshoot Hamas, had been in the process of getting his country the best possible deal, given such a regional defeat, even before the Israelis struck Gaza.

Netanyahuā€™s forever war in Gaza

For his part, Egyptā€™s al-Sisi is eager for greater leverage against Netanyahuā€™s apparent plan for a forever war in Gaza. The Gaza campaign has already inflicted substantial on Egyptā€™s economy, since Yemenā€™s Houthis have supported the Gazans with on container ships and oil tankers in the Red Sea. In turn, that has diverted traffic away from it and from the Suez Canal, whose tolls normally earn significant foreign exchange for Egypt. In the first half of 2024, however, it took in only half the canal receipts of the previous year. Although tourism has held up reasonably well, any widening of the war could devastate that industry, too.

Egyptians are also reportedly over Netanyahuā€™s occupation of the south of the city of Rafah in Gaza. They also despise his blithe disregard of Cairoā€™s prerogatives to patrol that corridor, granted under the Camp David agreement. The al-Sisi government, along with Qatarā€™s rulers and the Biden administration, has been heavily involved in hosting (so far fruitless) peace negotiations between Hamas and Israel. The Egyptian government seems to be at the end of its tether, increasingly angered at the way the Israeli prime minister has constantly new conditions onto any agreements being discussed, which have caused the talks to fail.

For months, Cairo has also been seething over Netanyahuā€™s charge that Egypt allowed tunnels to be built under that corridor to supply Hamas with weaponry. Cairo that the Egyptian army had diligently destroyed 1,500 such tunnels over the past decade. Egyptā€™s position was recently supported by Nadav Argaman, a former head of the Israeli Shin Bet intelligence agency, who , ā€œThere is no connection between the weaponry found in Gaza and the Philadelphi Corridor.ā€ Of Netanyahu, he added, ā€œHe knows very well that no smuggling takes place over the Philadelphi Corridor. So, we are now relegated to living with this imaginary figment.ā€

In the Turkish capital of Ankara, al-Sisi that he wanted to work with Erdogan to address ā€œthe humanitarian tragedy that our Palestinian brothers in Gaza are facing in an unprecedented disaster that has been going on for nearly a year.ā€ He underscored that there was no daylight between Egypt and Turkey ā€œregarding the demand for an immediate ceasefire, the rejection of the current Israeli escalation in the West Bank, and the call to start down a path that achieves the aspirations of the Palestinian people to establish their independent state on the borders of June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital.ā€ He also pointed out that such positions are in accord with United Nations Security Council resolutions. Al-Sisi pledged to work with Turkey to ensure that humanitarian aid was delivered to Gaza despite ā€œthe ongoing obstacles imposed by Israel.ā€

To sum up, the ligaments of US influence in the Middle East are now dissolving before our very eyes. Washingtonā€™s closest allies, like the Jordanian and Saudi royal families, are terrified that Bidenā€™s bear hug of Netanyahuā€™s war crimes, coupled with the fury of their own people, could destabilize their rule. Countries that not so long ago had correct, if not warm, relations with Israel like Egypt and Turkey are increasingly denouncing that country and its policies.

The alliance of US partners in the region with Israel against Iran that Washington has long worked for seems to be coming apart at the seams. Countries like Egypt and Turkey are instead exploring the possibility of forming a regional Sunni Muslim alliance against Netanyahuā€™s geopolitics of Jewish power that might, in the end, actually reduce tensions with Tehran.

That things have come to such a pass in the Middle East is distinctly the fault of the Biden administration and its position ā€” or lack thereof ā€” on Israelā€™s nightmare in Gaza (and now the West Bank). Today, sadly, that administration is wearing the same kind of blinkers regarding the war in Gaza that US President Lyndon B. Johnson and his top officials once sported when it came to the Vietnam War.

[ first published this piece.]

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In the early 2000s, the United States’ hegemonic position in the Middle East changed. The 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union eliminated the need to contain communist influence and decreased the urgency of refereeing regional disagreements or addressing the Israeliā€“Palestinian conflict.

However, the Middle East came sharply into focus when the Sunni extremist group al-Qaeda orchestrated the 9/11 terrorist attacks on US soil, killing 2,977. The George W. Bush administration declared a ā€œWar on Terror,ā€ training its guns not only on groups like al-Qaeda but also states like Baathist dictator Saddam Husseinā€™s Iraq. Claiming that Saddam was hiding weapons of mass destruction, the US invaded Iraq in 2003 and toppled his regime.

With the invasion, the generally successful half-century of US foreign policy in the Middle East that had begun with the 1953 Iranian coup d’Ć©tat came to a close. The US found itself mired in a destabilized Iraq, unable to pull out as the newly installed democratic government could not combat Islamist insurgencies on its own.

Disengagement and reengagement

The Barack Obama administration attempt to reduce Middle East involvement and ā€œpivot towards Asia.ā€ The rise of the brutal and initially successful Sunni terrorist group ISIS, the 2011 Arab Spring and the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War prevented the US from disengaging. Obama did make progress by striking a deal with Iran, agreeing to lift financial sanctions in exchange for the cessation of the Islamic republicā€™s nuclear program. However, Obamaā€™s successor Donald Trump later scrapped the deal.

Despite these setbacks, the US succeeded in protecting its interests while attempting to resolve regional wars and the enduring Arabā€“Israeli conflict. The Trump administration brokered the Abraham Accords, in which Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) normalized ties with Israel. Morocco soon followed suit. Saudi Arabia also entered negotiations with Israel, but the prospect of normalization stalled following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli invasion of Gaza. Since the war broke out, the US has seen decreased popularity among Arab populations as they blamed the hegemonic power for backing up what they saw as Zionist aggression in Palestine. However, a bilateral security agreement between the US and Saudi Arabia remains possible.

In recent years, the US reduced its dependency on imported fuels by exploiting its own fossil fuel reserves. The US is rich in oil and natural gas, but they are usually in a form that requires more effort to extract than in the Middle East. Fracking and other technological advancements have helped close this gap. However, Saudi Arabia continues to be the biggest figure in oil production.

The region continues to evolve. Gone is the binary USā€“Soviet dynamic, and gone, too, is unipolar US preponderance. More independent actors like China, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the UAE now shape the region. China, heavily reliant on Middle Eastern oil, is increasing its economic and political presence.

Domestically, American attitudes toward the Middle East are also in flux. Younger Americans are growing more critical of Israel. Having grown up during the Iraq War, this generation is leery of US involvement in the region. For now, though, the US continues to prioritize regional stability, oil price stability and containment of Iranian influence in its Middle East policy.

[ wrote the first draft of this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

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To understand the role the US plays in the Middle East today, we need to look at history. In the aftermath of World War II, America turned to the region mainly due to its strategic interest in the Middle East’s vast energy resources, particularly oil. On February 19, 1945, President Roosevelt met with King Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman al Saud (better known in the West as Ibn Saud) aboard the USS Quincy on the Great Bitter Lake in Egypt. Despite the colorful pageantry, including the slaughtering of goats for a feast, the central focus of the talks was disposition of the hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees following World War II and the future relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia, with a notable absence of direct discussions about oil.

Britainā€™s losing gamble in Iran

Meanwhile, the British, previously dominant in the Middle East, made a critical miscalculation regarding Saudi Arabia’s mineral potential. The British underestimated Saudi oil reserves. The Americans, adopting a more persistent approach, eventually struck oil in the eastern part of the country. This discovery solidified the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States and US oil interests, marking the beginning of an enduring alliance. This partnership involved US oil companies drilling for oil in Saudi Arabia, with an even split in profits.

The British, with a historical interest in preserving its global empire, particularly in India and the Middle East, had a vested interest in maintaining its strong influence in the region, most notably Egypt and Iran. However, their misjudgment of Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves created a strategic setback, contributing to the evolution of the Middle East’s power dynamics.

As a result, the British focused on the oil in Iran; however, they had a different relationship with the Iranians. The British attempted to maintain control in Egypt and Iran but faced setbacks. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company, Ltd., (today known as BP), stood at the center of international tension. Under Prime Minister Mohammed Mosadegh, the Iranians sought to nationalize the oil company, which Britain vigorously opposed. The US encouraged the two parties to look to the USā€“Saudi partnership as a model. Yet both sides stubbornly refused and held on inflexibly. Along with Mossadeghā€™s obstinance, British and later American concerns about the direction of the Mossadegh government in its relationship with the Soviet Union led to the deposition of the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran and the reinstatement of the absolute monarchy. Years later, the CIA admitted to Americaā€™s part in backing the coup to rid Iran of its Prime Minister.

Discontentment with the new regime and anti-Western sentiment eventually led to the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Islamists expelled Western interests from the country and set Iran as the foremost anti-Western power in the region, which it remains to this day.

Washington takes up the banner from London

As the 1950s wore on, US influence on the world stage and participation in Middle East politics continued to grow, taking on the role of peacekeeper. When Israel, France and the UK attempted to invade Egypt in 1956 to gain canal control, the US publicly condemned the plan, leading to the breakdown of the attempted attack. This marked a break between the European colonial powers with the US, which paradoxically found itself on the same side of the dispute as the Soviet Union, which that same year had invaded Hungary..

Yet the stage had been set. 1956 marked a turning point in the global balance of power. No longer would Paris and London dictate the terms of engagement, but two new and formally anti-colonial superpowers ā€” the US and the Soviet Union ā€” would shape the international system. For the succeeding three and a half decades, the Middle East, like the rest of the world, would become a Cold War chessboard.

[ wrote the first draft of this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

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Concerned that the war could mobilize segments of civil society, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, where any form of public protest is banned, have cracked down on expressions of solidarity with Gaza, including the sporting of the keffiyeh, a checkered scarf that symbolizes Palestinian nationalism.

In December, pro-Palestinian activists at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai unprecedented restrictions, including prohibitions on flags and explicitly naming a country in news conferences, and scrutiny of their slogans. In January, the Red Sea Film Festival in Jeddah, the biggest film event in the Middle East and North Africa, welcomed Palestinian cinema but the donning of keffiyehs by attendees.

Egypt is feeling the economic pinch

Like in the second half of the 20th century, protests in the Middle East beyond the Gulf in support of Palestinians and against Israelā€™s assault on Gaza are as much about anger at governmentsā€™ faltering economic performance as they are about the war itself.

Nowhere is the anger more acute than in Egypt, where the countryā€™s currency slipped this week sharply against the US dollar after the central bank raised its main interest rate by 600 basis points to 27.75% and said it would allow the currencyā€™s exchange rate to be set by market forces. It was the Egyptian poundā€™s fifth devaluation in two years. Hard hit by the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, the government the measures to stymie Egyptā€™s 31% inflation rate, attract desperately needed foreign investment, and tackle its staggering shortage of foreign currency.

Egypt has suffered from a loss of tourism, significantly reduced Suez Canal shipping revenues because of Yemeni Houthi attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea, rising wheat prices in the wake of the Ukraine war and economic mismanagement, including investment in megaprojects such as a $58 billion new desert capital, as well as granting military-owned enterprises preferential treatment and an oversized stake in the economy.

The floating of the Egyptian pound an expansion from $3 billion to $8 billion of Egyptā€™s International Monetary Fund bailout loan, making the North African country one of the IMFā€™s highest borrowers.

The IMF agreement cemented a recent deal with the United Arab Emirates to develop a prime stretch of Egyptā€™s Mediterranean coast with a investment over the next two months. Egypt will retain a 35% stake in the development with the Talaat Moustafa Group, a construction conglomerate involved in building the new capital as one of the beneficiaries. While not officially announced, well-placed sources said It was understood that the deal was contingent on Egypt reaching an agreement with the IMF.

Gulf states, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have in recent years backed away from pumping funds into black holes. Instead, they increasingly investments in countries like Egypt and Pakistan to economic reforms and prospects for a return on investment.

The UAE pioneered the approach when it based a government minister in Cairo immediately after general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisiā€™s 2013 UAE-backed coup that toppled Egyptā€™s first and only democratically elected president. The UAE official attempted to nudge Al-Sisi towards economic reform.

In a similar vein, Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan an investment conference last year, ā€œWe work with the International Monetary Fund and according to its rules. The days of unconditional assistance are over.ā€

Egypt walks a political tightrope

Last week, 45-year-old policeman Abdel-Gawad Muhammad al-Sahlamy was alone when he a one-man protest waving a Palestinian flag atop an advertisement billboard in the port city of Alexandria, but many Egyptians were likely to have been with him in spirit. Many are angry that Egyptā€™s Refah border crossing into Gaza remains closed despite the images of thousands of Gazans dying and imminent famine.

In October, the government sought to pre-empt potential protests by pro-Palestinian demonstrations of its own.

Al-Sisi believes that pro-Palestinian activists who were allowed to stage protests under former president Hosni Mubarak shifted their focus in 2011 to his regime and ultimately toppled him during the popular Arab uprisings. The revolts also led to the demise of autocratic rulers in Tunisia, Libya and Yemen and sparked mass anti-government demonstrations elsewhere in the Middle East.

To be sure, Egypt is worried that Israelā€™s destruction of Gaza is an effort to rid the Strip of its population by inducing Gazans to flee to Egypt. Officials in Cairo also fear that Hamas operatives could infiltrate the Sinai Peninsula where the military has been countering a low-level insurgency. Al-Sisiā€™s government is wary of Hamas because of its links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Even so, many Egyptians resent the governmentā€™s close security ties with Israel and its support for a 17-year-long Israeli blockade of Gaza that has been tightened since the war. Egyptian resentment is compounded by that corrupt Egyptian government officials linked to the countryā€™s intelligence service and a well-connected businessman who hails from the Sinai charge up to per person for travel permits from Gaza to Egypt.

Al-Sahlamy shouted ā€œGod is Greatā€ and denounced Al-Sisi as a ā€œtraitor and an agentā€ before being arrested by security forces. The Egyptian Network for Human Rights (ENHR) Al-Sahlamy has not been heard from since.

The network quoted a friend of Al-Sahlamy as saying he was “breaking down” because of the war, which he described as ā€œinjustice.ā€ Al-Sahlamy demanded that “the [Egyptian] borders [with Gaza] should be openedā€ to allow Gazans to escape the carnage, ENHR quoted the policemanā€™s friend as saying.

The IMFā€™s austerity program could push struggling Egyptians to a level of destitution not seen since the bread riots of 1977, despite the governmentā€™s insistence that it will put in place social protection measures to shield the most vulnerable.

The rising cost of basic goods has deepened the hardships faced by lower-class Egyptians. They have suffered from price hikes since the government embarked on an ambitious reform program in 2016 to overhaul the battered economy. Nearly of Egyptians live in poverty, according to official figures.

For now, Egyptians, like others elsewhere in the Arab world, fear that uprisings would only enhance the chaos already gripping their part of the world. In Egyptā€™s case, ā€œthe question of Sisiā€™s future will arise when Egyptian citizens decide that they have nothing more to lose,ā€ Israeli journalist and Middle East analyst Zvi Barā€™el. The same is true for much of the Middle East beyond the Gulf, with widespread public frustration at Arab statesā€™ inability or unwillingness to alleviate Palestinian suffering as the joker in the pack.

The views expressed in this article are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

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As it was for Jews born in America after the massacre in Europe, Andrea’s childhood must have been disturbed by the tales of the maniacal bloodletting. And disturbed further by other occasional malignancies; those signs along certain American beaches in the 1950s come to mind: “No Jews or dogs allowed.” It set their story apart from the rest of us Goys whose nightmares were limited to those offered up by the Brothers Grimm.

I grew up in and around New York. I went to school with girls like Andrea as they emerged after World War II into the American mainstream. I rode the subways of New York with them as a teenager and would spot the tattoos from the death camps on their kin’s forearms and instantaneously connect them to the photos in my mind of the Auschwitz gas chambers. I imagined what must have turned in her young mind; that six million of her type had been exterminated like some pathogen and virtually no one had made a protest.

So there we were: just after Cast Lead had concluded in 2009, the two of us, humanitarian workers now, walking 20 meters behind a Palestinian mother and her two girls as we left Gaza.

You see, one gets dropped off by one’s Palestinian friend about a half-mile before a fortress wall and you trudge toward its gray terrible eminence through the rubble and trash left by Israeli bulldozers as they had assured unencumbered fields of fire. You feel quite helpless making that walk towards the massive wall, finally getting channeled into a tunnel of hydraulic turnstiles and led through it by a network of intercoms issuing remote commands, always impatient commands of “stop, go, no, leave your coat, leave your bag, no, alone, do it again.” With a camera continuously capturing you, each grimace and frustration.

Then, maybe, you go through the last hydraulics and into a hatch at the base of that wall and are now exposed to the floodlights and the pens ā€” plexiglas holding pens with green and red lights indicating if you can proceed from one pen to the next. Sort of like a maze on the floor of this hi-tech cement cavern. Then, far up towards the ceiling you see them for the first time: profiles of the clerks who control the place, who peer down on the movements in the pens, and on the conveyors alongside which like a giant clockworks having now carried away your personal belongings for other unseen searches. And then, finally, from the pens you proceed into the whir of the 360-degree full-body scan, flashed up in all its originality onto screens before those same clerks.

I suspect that it was not this alone which broke Andrea; it was rather the company we kept with that Palestinian mother and her girls throughout the process, their childhood being disturbed forever, just like hers.

What sticks in my mind to this day is that after the process, out in the parking lot while I was getting into the driver’s seat, I had heard Andrea still outside the car off by the fender, as discreetly as she could, retching.

Almost no Westerners go to Gaza. One has to move heaven and earth to acquire the necessary permissions from the Israelis, mostly limited to humanitarian types like myself and selected journalists ā€” meaning the local narratives of what’s going on in this pen are easily ignored or twisted by those who wish.

I had been going to Gaza, on and off, for three decades, and Andrea’s reaction, Jewish or not, was normal. Few can stomach that Jews could construct and manage such a confinement for humans. It is, as one observer recently described, “an open air prison.” No exit. Not by land, sea or air, and with just enough calories and medicines allowed in to prevent famine and disease. And calculated very finely, I should add.

If Israel is more than soil, more than “clear, hold and build” on that soil acquired in 1948, if it is also a homeland in commemoration for all those who have suffered since Christians first proclaimed they had killed Christ, Gaza is a blasphemy and stains the Jewish story. And if not Gaza, then watch the arrogance of a 19-year-old Israeli soldier at a West Bank checkpoint as he strip-searches Grandpa in front his grandchildren. Watch ā€” just above the barrier on the ridge of a West Bank hill ā€” the beautiful arc of a settler’s dive into the crystalline water of a swimming pool as the Palestinian farmers in the valley below grieve for no water in their wells. I believe that this can destroy Israel before missiles from Palestine can.

The Arab duplicity

Also gleaned from those many years of living in the Arab world, I can say unequivocally that most Arab states and citizens don’t give a damn about Palestinians and their “open air prison.” They too pen them up on a regular basis. For any self-serving autocrat, they are trouble. As vanguards, on posters everywhere, they often own the liberation narrative. But in person, they are stigmatized by the dead hand of dictators as far too clarion for their own good. At their core, Palestinians disrupt the status quo.

As Israeli tanks churned into south Lebanon in June 1982, I was on that border and had watched Lebanese Shi’as wave their “Star of David” flags with great excitement as the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) entered Tyre, pleased to no end that the Palestinians seemingly had been erased from their land. Later that year, I was in Tunisia when Habib Bourguiba put on a grand show of welcoming the Palestinian warriors as they disembarked at the port of Bizerte. It was meant to be a victory festival as the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) passed by. School kids were brought out to shout and clap, the PLO marching, head high, right through town and finally to a parking lot secured by Tunisian troops who relieved them of their arms and trucked them far away into the deserts of central Tunisia, effectively neutering them.

Across the Levant, in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Iraq, Palestinians are contained, constricted and often penned. Make no mistake, Arab nations abuse them and use them. They have always been a convenient cause cĆ©lĆØbre “to quell domestic strife with foreign war.” If Israel had not existed, it would have had to be created as a part of the foundation for Arab autocracy, which from Casablanca to Damascus stole their citizens’ freedoms and allowed precious little to put in their stomachs.

“Jew Crusader”

That said, while the autocrats are duplicitous about Palestinians per se, their ā€œstreetā€ ā€” before and after Tahrir ā€” does care about “occupation,” does care about Arabs as “subservient.” Does care that within the Western narrative, beginning with Sykes-Picot when the French and British cartographers divvied up the Middle East without much thought; and then, for their immediate pleasure right up to Pax Americana, sustained and abetted the array of monarchs and emirs who sit majestically on the world’s hydrocarbons and, critically,Ģż are reviled far more by the Arab street than Jews.

Symbols count. American tanks so near to Mecca incite. Britain and the US as steadfast allies of a twentieth-century national implant in Arabia, swallowing swaths of what Arabs hold to be their land and humiliating them each and every time words come to blows, count. Especially for a people desperately trying to find an identity that is not defined equally as “terrorist” or as so backward that the whole region, other than oil, could sink below the surface and the global stock indices would barely budge.

I recall sitting in my office in Diwaniyah in south-central Iraq during the spring of 2004 amidst my national staff, when the Jaysh al-Mahdi burst in, eyes glazed and very agitated and anxious to do some killing. I was sure I was a goner. Particularly because they had declared the oath to my face that precedes killing: “Jew Crusader.” These were street rabble with no inkling of Palestine. But this was the hook that Muqtada al-Sadr had in them; this epitaph that zealots employ across the Arab world just before they pull the trigger.Ģż

Jew Crusader. There it is in a nutshell. Convenient for autocrats but also, unprompted, an incitement that can get the street to its feet, quite indifferent as to whatever the hell Palestinians are suffering. That is what swells the ranks of the Arab warriors, notwithstanding that most of the nations that bore them are fabrications of European cartographers themselves. Israel is Western. It is European- and American-sourced, adapted to its tragic historical circumstances, and it has swallowed up a large share of Arab soil and humiliated the Arab effort to constrain them. “Jew Crusader” was and is the Arab link between Israel and the Crusades, the seizure of property by foreigners along with the expectation that Israel will follow the same trail as the Crusaders.

Tahrir 2010

This was ā€” according to all I heard as I made my way through the great press of the swirling crowds streaming into the square on that warm February day ā€” about an Egyptian, a Tunisian, a Syrian “not being afraid any longer.” Part of that was removing the dead hand of the autocrats, one by one, and acting upon those “rights” issues that these citizens will no longer forsake. The other part was about removing the dominance of those great Anglo-Saxon tribes from the choices before them. And noting that Israel, along with the Gulf states, represents the greatest existing current affront to that resolve.

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi (American-educated at the University of Southern California) was born out of this Tahrir. He presided over a country in shambles, over a street which for any re-found dignity must care far more about a family putting food on the table than what Hamas was doing in Gaza. But it was also now a street that would no longer accept the West as preeminent in its destiny. Morsi was on a tightrope. He was brought to eminence out of the awakening and that was about dignity reclaimed; about dealing with Egypt in despair, tourism defunct and the army unfaithful. He knew that Gaza should not stoke the street. Rather, it will be jobs and opportunities. And the last thing he wanted was for an un-careful militancy in Gaza to wag the Egyptian tail just at the moment he presumed to lead the Arabs out of the wilderness they have suffered since Sykes-Picot. Tahrir’s youth since the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia have shown themselves across the whole Arab landscape willing to die fighting against anything promising less.

Of course, as we all know now, Morsi did not survive the aftermath of his ascension and soon was imprisoned by a version of the “status quo ante.”

Hamas: on the razor’s edge

Back to Gaza. Yes, cover your ears. Hamas is indeed part “American creation” come back to bite us. Back in the mid-1980s, I was part of a team of relief workers which managed huge welfare programs in Gaza, funded by the US State Department. Hamas was clearly the preferred partner for us and the State Department because of their credibility at the community level as opposed to a corrupt and feckless Fatah but also because they challenged the PLO, who were then considered a terrorist organization. Later in 2006, that American investment came full circle. Hamas won a free and fair election, to a large extent because of their community welfare programs.

It was not so much that they won the election; rather, that the redeemed American favorite PLO lost it. Over two years later, when Andrea and I were leaving Gaza in the wake of Cast Lead, Hamas, the once preferred option for American largess and the elected government, was now deemed so untouchable by the US government that an American like me could be shunned for talking to them. This was a conundrum, to say the least, as we sought to store and distribute relief supplies in a sovereign Strip.

In the immediate aftermath of that chapter of hostilities with Israel (Operation Pillar of Defense), Hamas maintained some tenuous bona fides, but remained squeezed nonetheless in a vise between the Salafists who are anxious to pull the trigger for Armageddon and the educated Gazans who would be modern. Hamas remained on this razor’s edge ā€” an organization which often glorified the child martyrs and reviled modernism with one eye looking over its shoulder at Islamic Jihad and the other eye on its need not to sever its ties toĢż “its big brother” Egypt.

Hopefully, as we look over the horizon, Gazans can dilute their militancy but augment its influence with economic investments, some egress through a port and airport and, in general, presenting “a swords to plowshares” alternative; hopefully in tandem with Israel taking what would be a defining risk (with the US at its back) to allow for a viable and independent West Bank-Gaza unity. In times of great tumult, sometimes the heretofore unimaginable can get a foothold, and certainly, since I first arrived on the scene in 1981, this (2023) qualifies as an era of unprecedented tumult.

The diaspora

: 500k strong in Chile, 250k in the United States, 160k in Germany, and so on. Many bemoan the silence of this influential, modern and often wealthy Palestinian diaspora. A colleague of mine from the Lebanese Civil War days recently told me: ā€œIf they gave in time and effort ā€” even only 5% of what the Jewish diaspora gives ā€” then the current dialogue of the deaf might be abated.ā€ But most are cowed. Those in the States want to disappear into the American fabric, fearful of ending up on some homeland securityā€™s list of persons inimical to our national security. Reminiscent, perhaps, of the Hollywood blacklists as a new breed of McCarthyism against Arab Americans rears its ugly head.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

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Despite the addition of South Africa in 2010 and the establishment of the in 2014 and the in 2015, BRICS lay becalmed for years. It has only really been energized by Russiaā€™s invasion of Ukraine. The way in which the war has bolstered relations between the US and its allies in Europe and Asia has spurred Beijing to see BRICS as the best available vehicle to pull some more firmly into its orbit. As Steve Tsang of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, has :

What the Chinese are offering is an alternative world order for which autocrats can feel safe and secure in their own countries. They can find an alternative direction of development without having to accept the conditionalities imposed by the democratic Americans and European powers.

In its summit this August, BRICS invited six states to join the grouping on January 1, 2024. Among these are three Arab states: Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia.

Whatā€™s motivating the Arab states?

By any reasonable definition, all three countries qualify as autocracies. However, beyond this and the shared objective of closer economic ties with China as a counterweight to the US, they exhibit important differences in their motives.

For Egypt, it is a case of ā€œcleft stick.ā€ On the one hand, it has long been a top recipient of US aid. On the other, its on the dollar has exacerbated the dire of Russiaā€™s invasion of Ukraine, thanks to its dependency on imported energy and food. Foreign investors have withdrawn billions of dollars as the currency has , the Gulf countries that provided support in the early days of the Sisi coup have lately imposed tougher conditions and a $3 billion from the IMF comes with stringent reform requirements. BRICS membership would facilitate trading with other members in local currencies and should help to attract more investment from them.

In contrast, although the UAE has benefitted enormously from and has burgeoning trade relations with , and (with which it has just finalized a deal to trade in ), the main driver behind its BRICS application is political. It remains close with the US as far as security guarantees are concerned; but its confidence in US bankability has declined to the point where, as Vivian Nereim in The New York Times last month, ā€œEmirati leaders ā€¦ fear a decline in American interest in the region ā€” and the military defense that comes with it ā€” and argue that Washington has not done enough to deter threats from Iran.ā€ This dates back at least a decade, so joining BRICS would arguably be no more than the latest example of how, as Nereim notes, ā€œa Middle Eastern leader viewed by the US government as an important partner,ā€ Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, ā€œis increasingly striking out on his own path.ā€

Saudi Arabia is, perhaps, the most interesting of the three. As has been well documented, relations between Washington and Riyadh have been rocky during the Biden presidency. Although they would improve significantly were Donald Trump to win the 2024 election, even this would be unlikely to reassure the Saudis over US security guarantees, particularly given Trumpā€™s failure to act on the on Aramco facilities in Saudi Arabiaā€™s Eastern Province. Hence, Riyadhā€™s openness to Beijing-brokered earlier this year which has helped open the BRICS door for both the kingdom and Iran.

Nevertheless, in the margins of the BRICS summit the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, claimed that his country was not committed to joining BRICS before it had had time to consider the terms. As there are no laid-down criteria for membership beyond unanimous agreement among existing members, this is, in itself, sensible. However, it may also mean that Riyadh is using the prospect of BRICS membership as leverage to try to extract more concessions from Washington in their talks over a grand bargain sweeping in the kingdomā€™s civil nuclear aspirations, arms sales and relations with Israel.

Middle East expert Bruce Riedel ( in The Guardian on July 27) is correct that Riyadh is unlikely to want to give Biden an election boost if he could get both the Netanyahu government and the US Senate on board too. However, from a Saudi perspective, there is no downside to testing the waters. Especially since, as Gideon Rachman in Financial Times on September 4 (and Jon Hoffman made the same point even more forcefully in Arab Digestā€™s September 6 ), even if a grand bargain were to be struck, it would likely ā€œturn out to be a grand illusionā€ for Washington.

China is not as available as it seems

All this being said, the biggest illusion of all may be the belief among BRICS candidates that membership would be a major boon to economic ties with China. As I wrote in the Arab Digestā€™s April 20 , Beijing is struggling with its own economic headwinds. Furthermore, its dominant role at the BRICS summit notwithstanding, China has been turning increasingly inwards since Xi Jinping first started his drive for in the overarching quest to sustain in perpetuity the CCPā€™s grip on power. Beijingā€™s principal aim in its promotion of BRICS is therefore to work with other autocracies in promoting its governance model internationally, the better to defend it domestically.

None of this is to say that BRICS is doomed to fail. As opined in a in The Economist, ā€œthe BRICS grouping is here to stay.ā€ Nevertheless:

BRICS expansion ā€¦ would not be a sign of the groupā€™s growing diplomatic clout ā€” quite the opposite, in fact, since finding a common denominator would become more difficult. Expansion would, rather, be a reflection of Chinaā€™s growing influence when defining the future of the bloc.

From the perspective of the three Arab aspirants, it is therefore worth reflecting carefully if membership could all too easily turn out to be a Faustian pact.

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In response, Arab autocrats are scrambling to squash what they fear could evolve into a third wave of protests in little more than a decade. The autocrats have deployed tools ranging from cracking down on street protests to increased repression to engaging in perfunctory dialogue. Theyā€™ve made concessions and economic aid to defuse exploding and potential future powder kegs.

The third wave of protests since the Arab Spring

The latest protests erupted after street agitation across the Middle East bookended the last decade.

In the early 2010s, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and Egypt relied on security force violence, military interventions and support for conservatives and rebel militias to roll back the achievements of the 2011 popular revolts that toppled the long-standing autocratic leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen.

Uprisings erupted again in 2019 and 2020 in Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon and Sudan. A combination of autocratic political maneuvering and the Covid pandemic defanged them, often with devastating consequences.

Analysts, journalists and academics argued that counterrevolutionary measures had replaced the 2011 Arab Spring with a prolonged Arab Winter. The latest protests, however, suggest the winterā€™s snow may be melting.

This month, Iran braces for the September 16 first anniversary of Masha Aminiā€™s death. Amini died under suspicious circumstances in the custody of Iran’s religious police, who detained her for allegedly wearing her headscarf loosely. Aminiā€™s death sparked months of street protests in which killed 530 people and arrested more than 22,000. Since then, popular defiance has turned , cultural , courthouses and into protest and civil disobedience venues. ā€œWrong decisions may have painful consequences for the establishment. People cannot take more pressure. If it continues, we will witness street protests again,ā€ a former government official .

Syria has seen almost two weeks of sustained mass anti-government protests in the Druze-populated southwest province of Suwayda, long a pro-government stronghold. The demands for the fall of President Bashar al-Assad are resonating in the neighboring Sunni region of Daraa and even Assadā€™s Alawite stronghold of Latakia. ā€œInitially, Assad probably thought, ā€˜I have won and we can let this happen; we can let the Druze let off some steam.ā€™ It turned out to be a mistake from the Assad point of view, and Assadā€™s military will have to keep him in power,ā€ Syria expert Joshua Landis.

Authorities in Bahrain have so far failed to end a widening, more than three-week-long by 800 prisoners, or at least 20% of the Gulf state’s prison population, by acceding to some demands for improved incarceration conditions.

Libyan security forces were this week on the streets of the capital, Tripoli, to prevent renewed protests against a meeting between since dismissed Foreign Minister Najla al-Mangoush and her Israeli counterpart, Eli Cohen. The protests heaped pressure on Libyaā€™s internationally recognized interim national unity government to step down and make way for a new administration.

Similarly to Iran, has been rocked by nine months of protests ā€” even if Israeli pro-democracy demonstrations have focused on opposition to Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahuā€™s judicial reforms, with no reference to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.

In Iraq, Arab and Turkmen protesters opposed to a Kurdish political presence in the disputed multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk clashed with Kurds this weekend, suggesting could rejoin the list of Middle Eastern countries experiencing social unrest. Authorities initially imposed a curfew in Kirkuk after four people were killed in the protests.

Could Egypt be next?

Supporters of President Abdul Fatah al-Sisi, including the UAE, worry Egypt could be the next to witness a renewed wave of protests.

ā€œThere’s a feeling people aren’t comfortable with anything right now. There’s a debt crisis, prices of everything and inflation have gone up dramatically. People’s lives and situations go from bad to worse. Their willingness to stay quiet has disappeared. You’re more likely to hear about the discontent openly in the streets,ā€ Egyptian-Canadian journalist Karim Zidan said to me days after he arrived in Cairo for a visit last month.

In an entitled ā€œEgyptā€™s Sisi Rules by Fearā€”and Is Ruled by It,ā€ Egypt expert Steven A. Cook added, ā€œThere is a large, growing, and noticeable divergence between what the government promises Egyptians and how they experience everyday life.ā€

Fear of renewed protests in Egypt, set to become the worldā€™s largest importer of wheat for the fiscal year 2023ā€“2024, was likely one reason why the Abu Dhabi Export Office and UAE-based agribusiness Al Dahra last month to provide Egypt for the next five years with $100 million a year worth of imported milled wheat ā€œat competitive prices.ā€

Fear of unrest drives harsh repression

The fear of protests, even in countries like Saudi Arabia with a low risk of discontent spilling into the streets, may also explain out-of-proportion repressive measures like the kingdom’s recent of Muhammad al-Ghamdi, a 54-year-old teacher and brother of a dissident Islamist scholar, for his activity on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Human Rights Watch said the two X accounts associated with al-Ghamdi and cited in court documents had only ten followers between them. Al-Ghamdi generally retweeted tweets by known critics of the Saudi government.

In a just-published , author Robert D. Kaplan noted that Vladimir Lenin, a founder of the Soviet Union, understood ā€œthat it was necessary to murder and incarcerate the innocent. For how else could a dictator inculcate total fear in the population? To punish only the guilty would provide the innocent, who constitute most of the population, with peace of mind. And that, of course, would undermine the sort of control that Lenin believed was necessary.ā€œ

Kaplanā€™s analysis bears out in Iranā€™s response to protests and Israelā€™s West Bank and Gaza-related policies. Moreover, it doesnā€™t bode well for Syrian protesters. Even so, the analysis provides an explanation for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmanā€™s unnecessarily harsh repression of any sign of dissent.

However, what protests in countries like Iran and Syria and powder kegs such as Egypt suggest, as did the 1989 anti-government demonstrations that sparked the demise of the Leninist empire, is that repression at best buys autocrats and authoritarians time. In the end, it doesnā€™t remove the risk of mounting discontent with social and economic policies spilling onto the streets.

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This first wave of BRICS enlargement was riven with tensions. While China favored the diffusion of its influence through the enlargement of the group, Brazil and India had against enlargement. They were more interested in deepening coordination between the existing members.

Although diplomatic coordination was never easy within BRICS, the groupā€™s founding members used to share the objective of counterbalancing Western dominance. However, this shared objective has been shattered with the recent groupā€™s enlargement.

China in charge

The manner and selection of countries for the enlargement of BRICS made clear Chinaā€™s unchallenged ability to transform the group as an agent of an increasingly Chinese-led emerging global order. The selection of several autocracies as new members is telling of Chinaā€™s view of how the global order should be shaped: an ad-hoc multilateralism that aids its own global ambitions.

With this autocratic turn of BRICS, the groupā€™s previous rhetoric of reformism of global institutions is now replaced by a new narrative. China sees BRICS as a way to promote a global governance model that downplays liberal-democratic values and weakens the global rules-based order. As BRICS turns autocratic, the bloc is likely to start opposing US influence more emphatically, and Brazil and India will be isolated within the group.

Brazil and Indiaā€™s acquiescence to the enlargement of BRICS has been possible with Chinaā€™s support to the permanent membership of both countries in the . Brazil and India were never shy about their dream to permanently sit in the UN Security Council. However, neither country had imagined that Chinaā€™s support for their entry into the UNā€™s selective club would result in their diminished influence in BRICS.

Two democracies in an authoritarian club

Unlike their autocratic fellow members of BRICS (both old and new), Brazil and India have a natural inclination to embrace the principles of equality and liberty both domestically and internationally. These principles, or the lack thereof, determine how democratic or autocratic regimes govern their countries, and, as a result, how they shape their foreign policies.

BRICS until now lacked an ideological or political orientation. What seemed to hold these countries together, apart from being large and prosperous emerging economies, was the shared experience (except for Russia) of colonialism and economic dependence. This experience is no longer enough to keep BRICS united. Brazil and India have made democratic governance part of their development as nation-states. The road towards democratic development has been tortuous, but Brazil and India have both succeeded in embracing democratic methods to guide their domestic governance and their international behavior.

Under democracy, Brazil and India have prospered greatly, achieving of economic development. These countries increased their human capital with more educated populations and reduced poverty and inequality, although slowly, over the past decades. Indeed, democracy has given these countries the opportunity to shine globally.

The World Should Learn From Poverty Alleviation in India

As democratic reformers of the fragile liberal order, Brazil and India will continue their efforts to become more influential in international multilateral institutions. And if these institutions welcome both countries by giving them more relevance, Brazil and Indiaā€™s level of commitment to the now-autocratic BRICS will wane. In the meantime, BRICS will become the dream group of autocrats who want to find political and economic support in an increasingly chaotic international arena.

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Then, the Ministry of Minerals in Zambia that the gold was fake. The ingots were merely gold-plated and contained other metals, mostly copper and zinc. Officials initiated the investigation as one of international fraud. The race to uncover more information about the passengers, plane and cargo then began.

Using open source information, Egyptian independent media outlet Saheeh Masr (ā€œTrue Egyptā€) quickly an investigation which found that plane is managed ā€” according to Eurocontrol, which specializes in databases of civil and military aircraft ā€” by a company called , which has its headquarters in Dubai.

Arab Digest has often in the past on the UAEā€™s role in African gold, a that funds armed conflict, costs producing countries tax revenue and has significant consequences on public health and the environment.

Saleeh Masr also the seized which was in San Marino to an unknown owner, had recently visited Libya and Saudi Arabia at the same time as high level Egyptian security delegations, while other independent media outlets claimed to have also traced the planeā€™s path to Tel Aviv. A photo emerged of the Egyptian Minister of Interior using the plane on an to Tunisia on 28 February. 

Who was detained?

On 17 August, another independent Egyptian fact-checking website, (ā€œDonā€™t Believe Itā€), acquired a copy of a Zambian the identities of five of the six Egyptians who had been detained. They were:

The voices are attributed to military generals, that seemed to take place in the months after the military coup of July 3, 2013. The recordings surfaced and aired on December 4, 2014. The voices were authenticated by JP French Associates, a speech and acoustics laboratory.

Sisiā€™s lawless regime

In early 2014, Mohamed Morsi, Egyptā€™s ousted president, was transferred to Tora Prison where his family and lawyers were denied access to him. The leaked recording revealed that Morsi had previously been detained in a military naval base for a few months with no public knowledge of his location. Before his appearance in Tora, Morsi was supposed to be in a prison run by the Ministry of Interior, under the supervision of the Egyptian prosecution and Egyptian judiciary. But he wasnā€™t, and only some generals knew his whereabouts. When he turned up in Tora, Morsiā€™s lawyers not only demanded visitation rights but also argued that his previous detention was illegal, thus jeopardizing the legality of his arrest and of the trial he was facing. The generals in the recordings seemed to be discussing some solutions to these legal challenges, such as instructing the minister of interior to issue a document to justify Morsiā€™s detention retrospectively or even slapping up a building at the naval base and calling it a jail managed by the ministry of interior.

This story sums up how the military leaders in Egypt were thinking about law and legality in the aftermath of the coup. In the years that have followed, the generalsā€™ contempt for anything related to accountability and the rule of law has been much on display: a new constitution was written and enacted in 2014 and a presidential election was held in the same year. In 2018, the orchestrator of the coup, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, was re-elected, and the following year, a constitutional amendment was adopted allowing him to stay in power beyond two terms and perhaps until 2034. Ten years on, the only rule in Egypt that holds true about law is that there is no rule of law.

The goal of this article is to make sense of this lawlessness. But what is lawlessness? Merriam-Websterā€™s describes lawlessness as ā€œa state in which there is widespread wrongdoing and disregard for rules and authority.ā€ By using the word ā€œlawlessnessā€ I do not suggest that Egypt under the generalsā€™ rule has no laws; what it has is rather a widespread and systemic contempt for the rule of law. The de facto law of the land is counterrevolutionary logic driven by the wishes of a divine leader.

Subversion of the judicial system

Before providing some explanations for this state of lawlessness, allow me to briefly summarize some examples of the transformations that took place in the legal and judicial system in Egypt in the aftermath of the coup.

Not only did the president, in 2019, amend the constitution to expand executive power, but his regime invested in expanding its grip over the judiciary and extending a despotic legal apparatus. As Amr Hamzawy , Sisi has been using ā€œthe law as a tool to restore tyranny.ā€ In April 2017, his regime enacted a new law of Judicial Bodies in Egypt (Law no. 13/2017). The law enables the executive branchā€”represented by the presidentā€”to encircle the judiciary and grants the presidency the power to appoint key judges. It also allows Sisi to appoint top judges, ignoring the historical legal tradition according to which judges are nominated by their courtsā€™ assemblies with the president only then selecting from their top choices. Even before these legal changes, the regime had who had publicly condemned the coup.

Sisi also expanded the security screening before hiring prosecutors; during interviews, candidates are asked directly about their view of the president, the Muslim Brotherhood and the coup regime. These prosecutors are Egyptā€™s future judges. The new steps ensure the hiring of regime loyalists to Egyptā€™s judiciary.

A significant part of restricting the judicial system is expanding the jurisdiction of and granting senior military officers from any crimes committed during the events of the coup and the transitional period in its aftermath. Sisi has also dared to appoint a military general and former military judge to the Egyptian Supreme Court. In addition to these changes, the coup regime dramatically enacted an arsenal of repressive laws to criminalize dissent in the street and in virtual spaces, such as the protest law (Law no. 107/2013) enacted under the interim president and approved by the Sisi regime; amending the penal code; enacting a new anti-terror law; and amending the criminal procedural law. These changes used broad definitions of terrorism to limit freedom of speech and to expand pre-trial detention to almost two years, among other things.

What is the counterrevolution trying to accomplish?

Legal scholars often distinguish between rule of law compared to rule by law. The latter is the case when authorities act above law that is only meant to be applied to citizens and not to those who rule them. As I mentioned earlier, lawlessness does not mean the complete absence of laws but refers to widespread disregard of laws. Lawlessness and rule by law are not opposed to each other in the case of Egyptā€™s military regime.

A brief examination of the multiple and contradictory legal goals of the counterrevolution explains how this combination of lawlessness and rule by law works. I propose that the counter-revolution has four goals in expanding its grip on legal and judicial apparatuses. These are: (1) curtailing dissent by expanding criminalization of protest and of cyber ā€œcrimes,ā€ with some activists detained in the last several years for allegedly spreading false news in social media posts; (2) taking revenge for the January revolution by detaining tens of thousands of Egyptian youth arbitrarily without trial (according to estimates of human rights groups, the number of political prisoners in Egypt has reached no less than 60,000); (3) protecting police and military officers from charges for crimes committed during the events of the revolution and the coup (In more than one incident, Sisi explicitly told security officers that the regime would protect them against any allegations about crimes they committed, especially in the crushing of dissent); and (4) prolonging the state of emergency.

Under the pretext of saving the state and combating terrorism, the Sisi regime has expanded the definition of terrorism to include nearly all forms of dissent. True terrorism has indeed been a serious challenge for Egypt, and many innocent victims have been lost in terrorist attacks. However, because the state has accused tens of thousands of politicians and young activists of terrorism, the charge has lost its credibility. At the same time, state-endorsed have expanded dramatically. As one observer , the regime is benefiting from using terrorism as an excuse to expand its grip and help Sisi stay in power as the savior of Egypt and defender of its security.

Three foundational moments

The current Constitution of Egypt was passed by referendum in January 2014. In more than one instance, President Sisi has expressed his frustration with the constitution. For example, on September 14, 2014, he that the constitution gave the parliament wider powers than the president out of what he called ā€œgood will,ā€ but that countries cannot be built on good intentions. Regardless of the question of intentions, if the constitution is not the higher law of the land in Egypt, what are the real foundations upon which the coup regime is based?

There are three moments that reflect the real logic of governance in Egypt in the aftermath of the coup. These are (1) the military coup itself, (2) the ā€œpublicā€ mandate that was given to Sisi and the military to combat terrorism on July 26, 2013, and (3) the Rabaa Massacre on August 14, 2013.

On the surface, Sisi acted as a leader of a coalition to remove then-President Morsi on the day of the coup. Sisiā€™s de facto power that day was based on his control of the military and of the coercive apparatus. While the so-called June 30th coalition gave Sisi the cover for his coup, the real prerequisite was Sisiā€™s control of the military. In a short span of time, he isolated and betrayed the so-called June 30th coalition that had supported him in the overthrow of a democratically elected president while he retained his grip on the repressive apparatus. Below the surface, a coup was an illegal and flagrant attempt by the military and other government elites to unseat an incumbent leader. A coup is a coup.

Next comes the ā€œpublicā€ mandate of July 23, 2013. Sisi the people to rally to his side and the military to combat violence and terrorism, implying that the supporters of the ousted president would carry out terrorist acts in Egypt. In response to Sisiā€™s request, on July 26, 2013, tens of thousands , once a revolutionary icon, carrying images of Sisi and expressing their trust in the military. This so-called popular mandate was used to justify acts of aggression against Muslim Brotherhood supporters, and the mandate was considered the real basis of the legitimacy of the coup regime. At the time, Egypt had an interim president, but Sisi, the military and the security leaders were presented as the true rulers of Egypt and the guardians of the state. One possible way to look at this mandate is that it was an extralegal authorization where the public simply gave up their sovereignty to Sisi and the military in order to confront an elusive enemy called ā€œterrorismā€ that only Sisi and the military could identify.

Thirdly, on August 14, 2013, the Egyptian police and armed forces under Abdel Fattah el-Sisi raided two camps of protesters in Cairo, mostly supporters of the ousted president. One camp was located near Cairo University in Giza, at al-Nahda Square, and the second was in Rabaa Square, in front of Rabaa Al-Adawiya Mosque, located on the northern edge of Nasr City in eastern Cairo. The police and soldiers removed the encampments by force using live ammunition. Human Rights Watch documented 817 killings in the Rabaa dispersal and 87 in al-Nahda Square. They the events as a probable crime against humanity. Indeed, the Rabaa Massacre was a case par excellence of mass extrajudicial killing.

The common thread in these foundational moments of the Sisi regime in Egypt is the lack of adherence to any form of legality. They entailed providing Sisi and the military with the carte blanche to use force without accountability.

No republic without rule of law!

The bottom line is that in Egyptā€™s military rule, ideas of legality and legitimacy are really meaningless with the military leaders always understanding that, since the 1952 overthrow of King Farouk, they are the anchor of the state, they own the state and the state cannot rule them since the state is their property.

In the context of the ongoing efforts by the counterrevolutionary regime of Sisi to build a new republic in Egypt, embodied by his project of a , it is worth emphasizing here that true republics are not built on coercion or based on the vaunting ambition of a single person. Adherence to the rule of law and a constitutional form of governance is a minimum requirement for the formation of true republics. 10 years after the military coup of July 3, 2013, Egypt is ruled by the logic of the coup, the mandate and the massacre, which can in no way embrace any sense of accountability or legality.

Someday in the near future, Egyptians will establish their own true new republic based on ideas of bread, freedom, human dignity and social justice.

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The reasons cited for the downgrade include pressure on the banking system from the sovereign debt crisis (since Egyptian banks are some of the largest holders of Egyptian sovereign debt), constraints on the availability of hard currency, expected negative impact on capitalization due to expected depreciation of the pound, and the perceived inability of the Egyptian government to shore up the banking system in case of a crisis. This downgrade in the credit rating comes as the net foreign asset deficit of the Egyptian banking sector hit of $24.5 billion as of March, compared to $23 billion in February, showing the increased vulnerability of the sector.

The vulnerability is compounded by the weakness of the national foreign currency reserves, which stood at a meager as of March. These reserves are the main resource that the government can call upon, not only to meet its debt obligations, but to rescue Egyptian banks if they fail to meet their obligations in foreign currency.

Egyptā€™s IMF Loan Now Shows Sure Fire Signs of Failure

The situation is further compounded by another vulnerability, which was stated to be a factor in the downgrade, although Fitch alluded to in the report. This would be the (340 billion Egyptian pounds) worth of treasury bills held by non-residents, what is commonly known as ā€œhot money.ā€ If a mass exodus of these investments took place, similar to the $20 billion (610 billion Egyptian pounds) exodus that took place in March 2022 due to the war in Ukraine, precipitating the current debt crisis, the consequences would be catastrophic. Indeed, an outflow of such a magnitude would push the banking sector to the edge of the abyss, a crisis which the regime would be almost powerless to stop.

The downgrade also comes at a moment when the debt crisis seems to be deepening, with pressure from President Abdel Fattah el-Sisiā€™s allies and no financial aid appearing in sight. For example, the regimeā€™s Gulf allies seem to have agreed on a unified position: before they will provide aid, Sisi is expected to comply with . First is the devaluation of the Egyptian pound, which is a logical ask considering that the Gulf is expected to be the primary buyer of regime-held assets and a devaluation would make these assets cheaper. Second is a change in personnel for those responsible for managing the Egyptian economy. Considering that the management of the economy is highly centralized and militarized, this is a direct attack on the regimeā€™s economic policy and even on the presidency.

Third, and most important, is the demilitarization of the economy, a prospect that seems to be far-fetched at the moment, with no concrete steps taking place since the crisis began. The consequences of the sluggish rate of reform have been all too real. Since the government the sale of 32 state-owned companies, the first in the fire sale privatization program, significant sale has been concluded, with the Gulf demanding a demilitarization of the economy before buying into state-owned assets. The slow pace of the privatization program is a result of the lack of reforms.

The regime, however, seems to be playing a high-stakes game of chicken, hoping that the ā€œtoo big to failā€ logic would prevail in the event of a crisis and that the international community would intervene to stave off a complete collapse. This logic was clearly reflected in the for next year, which assumes that the main source of public revenues will come from loans, at an estimated share of 49.2% of the budget. In comparison, taxes constitute 35.2% of the state budget. This logic presumes the continued availability of external sources of financing, despite the regime’s current difficulties in soliciting international capital inflows. It comes at a time when Egypt has been the country with the third highest risk of default after Ghana and Ukraine, according to Bloomberg. Continued access to international capital inflows is wishful thinking under these conditions.

Who Will Buy Americaā€™s Debt Now?

For this reason, the regime is not only facing a sovereign debt crisis, but a banking crisis as well. The exposure is stemming from obligations in foreign currencies, placing the regime in a uniquely vulnerable position. Indeed, if the major banks are unable to meet their obligations, the state will not be able to step in to shore up the banks. Simply put, the regime does not have enough hard currency reserves in its coffers to do that, and its access to quick liquidity is limited. This could potentially be catastrophic for Egyptian banks, leading to possible collapse of the sector or to its being cut off from international financial marketsā€”which for a peripheral economy like Egypt would be catastrophic and would require immediate international intervention.

Indeed, as long as the sovereign debt crisis remains unresolved, this scenario continues to become more likely, threatening catastrophic consequences for the Egyptian economy and the mass of the citizenry. Barring the very unlikely setup of a with the US Federal Reserve, there is no other avenue other than another rescue package from the International Monetary Fund, with a much larger value, and even more stringent conditions that the regime will most likely attempt to circumvent.

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As of now, Egypt does not seem to have followed the IMFā€™s policy recommendations. In making the recommendations, the IMF demonstrated a systemic misunderstanding of the fundamental dynamics of Egyptā€™s political economy. This misunderstanding is bound to exacerbate Egyptā€™s economic problems and exacerbate the current crisis.

The Military Likes Moolah

For decades, the military has had first claim on Egyptā€™s resources. The IMF recommends that the military give up its privileged economic position. It also calls for leveling the playing field between the public and private sector. Yet signs abound already that the regime is circumventing these recommendations. In fact, it is deepening the economic footprint of the military.

In January, Sisi issued a presidential assigning prized land to the military. The military now has land two kilometers wide on both sides of 31 roads. The military uses this tactic to gain control over commercially viable pieces of land, which it then uses for profit-generating activities. 

Sisiā€™s government has also instituted an of the 1975 Law 30, which regulates the operation of the Suez Canal Authority. This came only a few days after the IMF deal. Prima facie, this amendment carries out the IMFā€™s recommendations. It creates the ā€œSuez Canal Fund,ā€ which will invest surplus revenue from the canalā€™s operations. This fund will also be able ā€œto lease, sell, and purchase assets, establish companies, and invest in financial instruments.ā€

However, the devil lies in the details. A from the president reveals that the new fund will be under the control of a ā€œsovereign entity,ā€ a euphemism for the security services. Furthermore, the amendment provides for no parliamentary supervision for the fund. This means that the military will be able to siphon off hard currency from this fund, which could prove critical for meeting both Egyptā€™s debt obligations and the import needs of the population. 

Finally, the government has no real plan to sell off state-owned assets as part of the effort to meet its debt obligations. Of the 32 companies it is selling off, only two of them are military-owned. Watanya, the petrol station chain, seems to have been subjected to . Most of Watanyaā€™s assets have been moved to ChillOut, another military-owned chain. Deals that have been done are also in trouble. In February, ADNOC half of Totalā€™s fuel stations . There are reports that this Emirati state-owned company is backing out of the deal.

It is clear that, as many predicted, the IMFā€™s recommendations are meeting stiff resistance. Hence, their implementation is extremely unlikely.

Increasing Inflation and Rising Debt Spell Trouble Ahead

Inflation rose from 21.9% in December to 26.5% in January. Food prices are up. Bread, meat and poultry cost a lot more. The IMF recommended ā€œa shift to a flexible exchange rate while taking measures to help shield the Egyptian population from a mounting cost-of-living crisis.ā€ Inherent in this recommendation is an admission. This shift will exacerbate inflation and worsen the cost-of-living crisis.

In January, Al Jazeera that the Egyptian pound had lost half of its value since March. Bloomberg has observed that devaluation has already the Egyptian economy. As of February, the private sector had declined for 26 consecutive months. Scarcities and the private sector is struggling. Business sentiment has sagged to its third lowest level since April 2012. Remember, this was a time when the Muslim Brotherhood was in power. 

Finally, Egyptian debt is showing worrisome trends. Even though external debt has by 0.5% on a quarterly basis, short-term debt has increased from 11.48% in September 2021 to 27.4% in September 2022. This rapid increase is alarming. Sisiā€™s regime faces pressure to repay its debt even as investor confidence remains low. So, the regime is relying on short-term borrowing to solve the problem. This debt comes at a higher price. It is issued with higher interest rates, driving up Egyptā€™s cost of servicing this debt. Unsurprisingly, Moody has Egyptā€™s credit rating from B2 to B3, piling up even more pressure on the Sisi regime.

In essence, the prospects for IMFā€™s policy recommendations are poor. Indeed some of its recommendations will only deepen the crisis and increase poverty. The only possible and durable solution to the crisis is a radical transformation of Egyptā€™s model of crony capitalism. The IMF economic policy recommendations cannot succeed under the countryā€™s current political system, which the institution implicitly supports.Without a comprehensive understanding of Egyptā€™s political economy, the IMF will continue to throw good money after bad and its loans will only enrich elites in Sisiā€™s military regime while inflicting pain on Egyptā€™s long-suffering people.

[ first published this piece.]

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The Story of a Dam

A large recent African success is Ethiopiaā€™s . Built on the Blue Nile about 40 kilometers east of Sudan, Ethiopia completed the of filling the reservoir for this huge dam in August last year. Two out of its 13 turbines are now operational, generating 750 megawatts of electricity. Ultimately, the dam is expected to produce more than 5,000 megawatts, which will more than double Ethiopia’s current output.

The construction of the dam is a triumph for Ethiopia. Neighbors Egypt and Sudan opposed the construction, fearful that the dam would reduce their share of the Nile waters. Their fears may be misplaced. The purpose of the dam is to generate hydroelectric power. It might change the timing of the flow of waters downstream but is unlikely to divert much water from the Blue Nile.

The Grand Renaissance Dam is a great Ethiopian triumph. The project was estimated to cost $5 billion. Given Egyptian hostility, international donors turned shy. Ethiopians dug into their own pockets to build this dam. In 2011, when dam construction began, Ethiopiaā€™s GDP was a mere . To put matters in perspective, the country decided to spend 15.65% of its GDP to build one single dam.

The entire country pitched in for the dam effort. The common women and men of Ethiopia bought bonds to fund the dam. The government persuaded employees to contribute a portion of their incomes to the project. Critics suggest that there was a fair degree of arm-twisting and this is probably true, but it is fair to say that Ethiopians saw this dam as a national project.

Impressively, the majestic wall of the dam was constructed without external funding. It is certainly true that China has pitched in to help construct the dam. In the US, Chinaā€™s role has stirred . Chinese companies have undertaken some of the construction work. In 2013, China provided Ethiopia a ā€œloan of $1.2 billion USD in 2013 to build power transmission lines connecting the dam with nearby towns and cities.ā€

Yet it is important to remember that this impressive dam is fundamentally an Ethiopian achievement. It is a great example of a very African success.

Educating the Poorest

At the other end of the continent, many poor pupils are let down by South Africaā€™s education system.  Amnesty International, on this ā€œbroken and unequalā€ system, reported that it was ā€œcharacterized by crumbling infrastructure, overcrowded classrooms, and relatively poor educational outcomes, is perpetuating inequality and, as a result, failing too many of its children, with the poor hardest hit.ā€

Even in such a system, a rare success has blossomed in an impoverished community. Bulungula College, an independent school in rural Eastern Cape, has become the first school in the district to achieve a . This college was set up by Bulungula Incubator, which was founded in 2006. Then, ā€œonly one parent in the local Xhora Mouth community had passed matric.ā€ In this community, ā€œan average of six people from the community matriculate each year, and 95% of school learners from the area do not pass grade 12.ā€

In 2022, all 36 learners in the class of 2022 passed the matric examinations. Mthandwa Sincuba is the principal of the college. He hit upon the strategy of extra classes. In his words, ā€œFrom the beginning of the year, we started with extra classes from 6am until 9pm. We also had weekend classes.ā€

Under Sincubaā€™s leadership, Bulungula College also takes a progressive approach. It provides students with better services, has a strict policy against corporal punishment, provides support to children from families that struggle to provide adequate nutrition, offers birth control to all girl students and encourages those who become pregnant to stay on in school until and after they give birth.

This extraordinary project was the brainchild of David Martin. He was walking along the coast in 2002 when he came across a beautiful site by a stunning river. Martin fell in love with the area and the people. They were desperately poor but he worked with the community of Nqileni village, establishing Bulungula Lodge at the river mouth.

Once the lodge was open for business, tourists came to stay in one of the most beautiful parts of South Africa. Today, Martin has transferred Bulungula Lodge to the local community, who now run it themselves and improve their living standards. Bulungula College is part of the same project and is a classic example of a small but significant African success story.

Examples in Every Town and Village

Many think that only outside advisers and external funding can transform poor communities. This is untrue. Almost every country in Africa has local successes that emerged from individual and community initiatives.

Three simple examples where Africans have spent their own money to make a material difference to their lives are:

• the bicycle (now, the scooter),
• the sewing machine, and
• the mobile phone.

Each of these goods has increased income, information and security, transforming millions of lives in the process. The success of the bicycle and now the scooter has been well documented. They provide a cheap way of transport in this vast continent. Similarly, the sewing machine is a raging success. It has provided millions of women livelihood.

Mobile phones are now found across the continent. East Africa has been a leader in , thanks to the ubiquity of these phones and African ingenuity. The system is a world leader in mobile banking. It enables customers to transfer cash as well as shop for products and services. They can also withdraw cash by visiting an agent, typically their local corner shop, or transfer it to others from their phones.

Even the much-maligned gunā€”the curse of mankindā€”has helped the continent. African leaders adopted this weapon to resist colonization and Ethiopians beat off Italian invaders in the . On March 1, 1896, African soldiers used guns better than their European counterparts, achieving a historic victory that still fills the continent with pride.

For all the ingenuity in Africa, the question as to who coughs up the cash for the investment the continent needs is tricky. Undoubtedly, funding from the World Bank and the African Development Bank is helpful. Private non-African companies, whether Western, Chinese or Indian, have a role too.

Yet the most important role is perhaps that of the African Diaspora. In 2016, the World Bank estimated remittances crossed that year. Of these, over $440 billion went to developing countries and Africa comprised a small but significant percentage. In November 2022, the World Bank published a report on remittances and estimated that remittances to Africa in 2021 surged by 16.4% to reach . In the same year, aid to Africa was . 

Remittances reach beneficiaries directly. They are often sent to family members, Hence, they are better directed, suffer far less leakage and have a much bigger multiplier effect than aid. In other parts of the world internal savings and remittances have had a much bigger impact than aid. Africaā€™s people are no different from anyone else in the world. Like many other places in the world, including the US and the UK, they are building their own futures despite their politicians. Over time, African solutions to African problems can resolve Africaā€™s problems. The many successes are a living testament to that possibility.[ edited this article.]

The views expressed in this article are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

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In particular, the Muslim Brotherhoodā€™s social and economic policies were similar to fascist ones. Furthermore, al-Banna with both Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Since the 1960s, some scholars have even argued that the Muslim Brotherhood is inspired more by nationalism and socialism, less by Islam. Manfred Halpernā€™s iconic , The Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa, argues that the Muslim Brotherhood embraced totalitarianism and rejected modernism.  

The MB totalitarian vision

The Muslim Brotherhoodā€™s totalitarian vision was inspired by Islam. It saw modernity and individuality threatening. The organization championed tradition and belonging to a community instead. This community was of pious Egyptian Muslims who would live in an egalitarian society. Traditional Islam, not multiparty democracy, was to act as a guide for the future. This future would only be born after a struggle. As in the case of fascists, violence was a legitimate tool in the Muslim Brotherhoodā€™s struggle. Like all totalitarian ideologies, the Muslim Brotherhood pledged allegiance to al-Banna, its sole leader, and treated his vision as absolute.

Egyptā€™s Foreign Policy Under Al-Sisi and Its Relationship with Saudi Arabia

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The Muslim Brotherhoodā€™s conception of gender roles was remarkably similar to the Nazis. They encouraged marriage and large families. Women were meant to be mothers and men to be fathers. In this traditional view, men were breadwinners for the family while women were the nurturers of future generations. For this socially conservative organization, promotion of family values was a key goal. Therefore, the Muslim Brotherhood argued for closing down cabarets and dance halls, and censoring plays, films and novels. The organization also suggested improvements in song lyrics to make them more virtuous.

Antisemitism within the Muslim Brotherhood 

Just like the Nazi Party, the Muslim Brotherhood too shared an intense hatred for Jews. For example, , the ideological father of the Muslim Brotherhood, espoused his antisemitism in many of his major works such as the book, Milestones. The book is still considered to be a foundational text for Islamist groups. According to Qutb, the world is divided between the realm of God (Islam) and the realm of Satan (Jews). In Milestones, he writes: ā€œ[The Jewsā€™] aim is clearly shown by the Protocols [of the Elders of Zion]. The Jews are behind materialism, animal sexuality, the destruction of the family and the dissolution of society.ā€

In 1938, seven years before Israel was established, the Muslim Brotherhood led violent demonstrations against Egyptā€™s Jewish community. That same year, they organized the Parliamentary Conference for the Arab and Muslim Countries in Cairo, where they distributed Arabic translations of Mein Kampf and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

In his , Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World, Jeffrey Herf explores the Nazi Partyā€™s brief but intense efforts to gain support amongst Muslims in the Middle East. He details the prominent role played by Haj Amin al-Husseini, then the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. In 1937, Al-Husseini fled Palestine, evading arrest by the British for instigating the riots that became known as the Arab Revolt. The Grand Mufti had recruited armed militias to attack Jews but his efforts were ultimately unsuccessful.

By 1941, al-Husseini established himself in Nazi Germany and Italy. During the war, he collaborated with the Germans in their efforts to recruit Bosnian Muslims for the Waffen-SS. In 1945, the Grand Mufti was taken into custody by French troops but he escaped and settled in Cairo where he was welcomed with praise. The Muslim Brotherhoodā€™s issued a to Al Misri that is still telling: ā€œOne hair of the Muftiā€™s is worth more than the Jews of the wholeā€¦ should one hair of the Muftiā€™s be touched, every Jew in the world would be killed withoutā€

That the Muslim Brotherhood was, and still to this day, inspired by fascism is a history that needs to be examined in greater detail. The Muslim Brotherhood has been able to establish itself as a moral, social and political force because of the guiding influence of the authoritarian ideologies that emerged in Europe during the interwar period. By studying the Muslim Brotherhoodā€™s conception and development, we may come to better understand how such ideologies transcended the borders of Europe. 

[Naveed Ahsan edited this article.]

The views expressed in this article are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

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In the context of the Arab Spring, where popular uprisings brought down various regimes in the Middle East, the fall of the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was the most spectacular in the region.

Muhammad Mursi, from the Muslim Brotherhood party, was elected as the first civilian president of Egypt in June 2012. Yet his short year in office did not bring about a radical in Egypt’s foreign policy, due to the effort to avoid provoking counterproductive reactions under the new government. Despite this, certain nuances Mursi introduced revealed a moderate commitment to reshaping some features of Egyptian foreign policy. In contrast to the close ties between Hosni Mubarak’s regime and Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey became preferred allies, as they supported the revolution and the subsequent political transition, with Doha providing $8 billion in economic aid.

On the one hand, the new post-revolutionary government was keen to show its to play a responsible role in international affairs, maintaining the peace agreements with Israel, and thus securing its annual $1.5 billion in aid from Washington. In addition to this, Mursi was the first Egyptian president to travel to Tehran after 33 years, to participate in the 16th Non-Aligned Summit in August 2012, signaling a moderate to balance the relationship with Iran. On the other hand, one of his first steps was to open Egypt’s border with Gaza to bring relief to its inhabitants, showing the usefulness of his good communication with Hamas in Gaza, in stark contrast with  the Mubarak regime. It helped the US achieve a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in November 2012.

Al-Sisi’s arrival and the reconfiguration of Egyptian foreign policy

The reforms undertaken by the new government, coupled with various internal disputes concerning the new constitution put forward by the Muslim Brotherhood, led to a coup led by General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Under the new headed by al-Sisi, the link with Saudi Arabia was not only re-established but was intended to create a huge political and economic dependency.

The kingdom of Saudi Arabia, along with the UAE and Kuwait, provided Cairo with $12 billion in economic aid, rising to $42 billion in the following years. Among the reasons why these Petro monarchies were interested in supporting the new al-Sisi government, it is relevant to mention the fact that they shared a common interest in putting an end to Arab Spring governments in the region and opposing the Muslim Brotherhood, declared to be a terrorist movement. In payment for their support, Riyadh demanded unwavering subservience to Saudi leadership and its regional objectives.

Egypt under al-Sisi has shown its to Saudi Arabia by joining the boycott of Qatar initiated in June 2017, as well as by transferring sovereignty over the islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia. Likewise, concerning Libya, which has been without a stable unified government since the fall of Gaddafi in 2011, Egypt is one of the main supporters of General Khalifa Haftar, who has installed a self-proclaimed government in Tobruk against the government in Tripoli, which is supported by Qatar and includes the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood. For Cairo, along with the UAE, the elimination of the Muslim Brotherhood is a priority governing both its domestic and foreign policy.

Egypt’s growing dependence on Riyadh and its impact on its quest for regional leadership

The heavy dependence of Egyptā€™s  current foreign policy on Arab financial help constrains the nationā€™s in the region. Besides, there is a need to maintain unwavering US support for Egypt, which remains strongly dependent on his alliance and cooperation with the two main allies of the US in the Middle East: Israel and Saudi Arabia. This is also coupled with the cooperation between Riyadh and Cairo on the Palestinian dossier, of great value to Israel, as well as the common interest in curbing Iran’s growing influence in Sudan and Eritrea.

Nonetheless, the points of friction are multiplying. Egypt supported maintaining the , who was subjected to an intense wave of protests calling for his ouster in December 2018, whereas Saudi Arabia and the UAE backed the idea of resolving the crisis by seeking a reliable successor to al-Bashir, such as Sudanese intelligence chief Salah Gosh. That solution would allow Riyadh to continue to peacefully deploy its influence in the Horn of Africa.In conclusion, Egypt’s in its vacillating foreign policy lies in its aspiration for leadership and its limited capacity to develop it. Egypt has lost its historical potential for leadership, but it has also lost the capacity to come up with the kind of  initiative that could restore it. This is a source of  frustration widely felt in a nation with a strong nationalist sentiment. The current regime under Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, while trying to maintain an image of leadership in an instrumental sense, with a view to confirming its legitimacy, is too afflicted by its evident weakness and dependence to be able to decisively influence events in the Arabian region.

The views expressed in this article are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

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Netflixā€™s first original film in Arabic, Perfect Strangers, has become more of a controversy than a hit in regions like Egypt and the Middle East. This is due to its featuring a character that comes out as gay to his friends as they dine together. Although the movie doesnā€™t show any explicitly homosexual scenes, it has provoked strong reactions against the streaming giant, as some citizens said the movie homosexuality and immorality.

Released last January in 190 countries, Perfect Strangers, set in Beirut, is directed by Lebanese Wissam Smayra and stars actors such as Egyptā€™s Mona Zaki, Lebanonā€™s Nadine Labaki and Jordanā€™s Eyad Nassar. Itā€™s the story of seven close friends who decide to play a game of ā€œtrue or falseā€ around the dinner table, exposing the intimate secrets that can be found on their cell phones. The friends agree to show every call, text and voice message to one another. The narrative reveals the occasional betrayal among some of the couples, and, at a critical point, one message has the effect of outing one of the friends as gay.

If it wasnā€™t for the Arabic language spoken by the actors and some Arab food served at dinner, ā€˜Perfect Strangersā€™ would look like a Hollywood movie. The plot, with its twists and turns and the dialogue, follows the classic model that the US studios have used for decades. The cinematography and art direction evoke the studio productions shot in L.A. in the 1950s. The characters are all good-looking and embrace modern western ā€œvalues.ā€ The women drink, are sexually nonchalant (one even takes off her underwear under the table) and are not shy about  revealing their infidelity. While the men check for porn on the internet and talk about money and profit.

With all these Hollywood stereotypes, one might think that the film could harness some of the soft power of the American film industry and seduce Arab viewers with a piece of entertainment of the kind that has charmed audiences even in China and Russia, places where homosexuality is also a taboo. The soft power of Hollywood films, playing on its ability to seduce rather than coerce, has opened many doors for the United States in the world. For instance, in the 20^th century, served as a tool convincing neutral countries to support US foreign policy against the Soviet Union. 

In the 21^st century, during a political and diplomatic crisis between Iran and the US, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences chose the then First Lady Michelle Obama to reveal the winner of Best Picture of 2013, Argo, Ben Affleckā€™s movie about six Americans who escape the 1979 Embassy takeover. Because the movie had an enormous appeal to Middle East audiences, theIranian military sought to congratulate Mrs. Obama for revealing the ā€œreal natureā€ of the award, based on political, not artistic criteria. In other words, Iranians realized how the most famous cinema award was used as a soft power tool by the US government.

Perfect Strangers may be less seductive and displays poorer production values than ā€˜Argoā€™. But in Arab countries, itā€™s far more controversial, if only because it evokes cultural taboos that may be too strong to break even by Hollywoodā€™s tried and tested soft power prowess. When I watched the movie, I immediately questioned some gay friends living in countries like Egypt, Turkey, and Lebanon. Some of them have spent years in very secret homosexual relations with other men and women. What Iā€™ve heard from them is that the Netflix production caused more pain than relief, since they had to act as if they were as ashamed and offended as their furious relatives with the availability of the movie in their culture. Itā€™s a well-known fact that homosexuality is so strong a taboo that their families havenā€™t a clue about their sonā€™s and daughterā€™s sexual orientation. This means they feel very comfortable freely attacking it and accusing the Western world of exporting cultural products that ā€œstimulate those behaviors.ā€

For decades, Hollywood productions have been successful in Arab countries, but most of the time, the key to success was their ability to adapt the content and it into languages like Farsi, to insert local jokes and avoid cultural taboos. But Netflixā€™s strategy was risky and clever at the same time. Its first Arab movie was a co-production by Dubai-based Front Row Filmed Entertainment, Egyptā€™s Film Clinic and Lebanonā€™s Empire Entertainment. Shot in Lebanon with Arab actors, it didnā€™t go through local censors and was labeled as a non-family audience film only for the region. 

Thanks to this strategy, it was screened in many countries in the region, unlike Marvelā€™s ā€˜Eternalsā€™ and Steven Spielbergā€™s ā€˜West Side Storyā€™, banned respectively for having the first gay superhero and, the second, for having a transgender character. And despite (or because of) the controversy, Perfect Strangers has ratings for number of views in the Middle East, with a famous Egyptian actress like Elham Shahin going public to defend the movie, saying ā€œthereā€™s absolutely nothing wrong with itā€, while, a member of Egyptā€™s House of Representatives, asserted that Netflix should be banned from Egypt. But the controversy itself might have paid handsome dividends, since the movie sat at the top of the regionā€™s streaming chart for February. Here’s yet another consequence of Netflixā€™s strategy in the region. According to the Egyptian film critic and programmer,, no other entertainment conglomerate has ever shaken upsocial politics and posed such a threat to patriarchy, though it must be said that artistic freedom ā€“ another conquest attributable to Hollywoodā€™s soft power ā€“ is still far from being a reality in the Arab world.

This isnā€™t the first time that cinema has been used in Egypt as a soft power to seduce the public to accept more liberal and modern values. With a more discreet and subtly artistic attempt, award-winning Egyptian director Youssef Chahine has in the past circumvented government censorship with films exploiting the themes of sex, homosexuality, drugs and political criticism. In movies like Return of the Prodigal Son (1978) and (1989), women with masculine traits and men with mortal hatred of their own repressed desires were ways the director found to evoke homosexuality. The filmmaker, who won awards in western festivals such as Cannes and Berlin with his art films designed for smaller audiences, attempted to undermine antigay culture in his country but proved unsuccessful. Perhaps this time, decades later and with a much bigger budget, Netflix can achieve a better result in the quest to make other peopleā€™s sexuality a perfectly acceptable characteristic among imperfect strangers.

The views expressed in this article are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

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Algeria and Morocco: The Conflict on Europeā€™s Doorstep

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The revoking of the emergency law does have some positive consequences, namely the  of the infamous ā€œstate security court,ā€ which offered no avenue for appeal and was notorious for its harsh sentences. However, these positive  are mitigated by a myriad of repressive laws, heavy use of pre-trial detention, extrajudicial killings and the heavy politicization of the judiciary, which make the state of emergency mostly redundant.

Two Laws

The most notable example of the repressive laws issued by the regime is the 2015 Anti-Terrorism Law. This has a few notable features.

First, it provides a very vague definition of what constitutes terrorism to include acts that affect ā€œsocial harmony and national security,ā€ an expansion of which allows the Egyptian regime to crack down on dissent and charge activists with terrorism at will. Second, the law provides immunity to the security forces stating that ā€œmembers of the security forces cannot be prosecuted in case force was used in the line of duty.ā€ Finally, the law gives the president the power to take ā€œnecessary measuresā€ in specific geographic areas in response to a terrorist threat, including isolating specific regions, depopulating them and the imposition of curfews for a period of six months, which can be extended.

In addition, on November 1, after the state of emergency was revoked, parliament approved an amendment to the law that expanded the power of the president, giving him the right to designate the security agency responsible for imposing his directives, a thinly veiled reference to assigning the military as a domestic security force to repress dissent.

The consequences of this law are significant. Besides the use of terror charges against peaceful activists, there has been a sharp rise in extrajudicial executions, reaching  alleged killings in 143 shootouts between 2015 and 2020. In some cases, the families of those killed have attested that their relatives were detained at the time of the alleged shootout. The immunity provided to the security forces by this law has emboldened them to commit killings, with no real investigation or consequence.

Another that is seldom discussed is the Law for Protection of Public and Vital Entities. This law, issued in 2014, stipulates that the military is responsible for providing security to public institutions in cooperation with local police forces. The law says these buildings and institutions belong to the military, hence any acts of protest affecting their functioning fall under the jurisdiction of military courts, notorious for harsh sentencing and lack of due process. The definition of vital entities includes roads, bridges, railways, power lines and public institutions, essentially almost all of the public space.

This law was supposed to be temporary. However, in the same  where the amendments to the terror law were approved, it was made permanent. In effect, this permanently militarizes the public space by extending the jurisdiction of military courts to cover most public spaces and transforming the military into a domestic security agency, responsible for the repression of dissent and protest.

Pre-Trial Detention and the Judiciary

The lawful quashing of dissent is also coupled with the heavy use of  methods of repression, the most prominent of which is the application of pre-trial detention. Egyptian criminal law states that pre-trial detention should be limited to six months for misdemeanors, 18 months for felonies and two years for offenses punishable by death or life imprisonment. In reality, there are a number of cases where detainees  in custody even after they  their pre-trial detention limit. This practice has allowed the regime to arbitrarily detain its opponents for prolonged periods of time on vague charges, with little evidence and in complete disregard of due process.

In addition to this, the regime institutionalized the practice of ā€œ,ā€ where once the pre-trial detention period on one charge lapses, the detainee is charged in a new case, with very similar charges. The most notable example is Abdel Moneim Aboul-Fotouh, the head of the Strong Egypt Party, who was  in February 2018. He has remained in pre-trial detention after new  were brought against him in February 2020.

The noose of repression is complete with the heavy politicization of the judiciary, which has been a feature of the regime since the coup of 2013. This is reflected in a number of mass trials, which have shown little regard for due process. The most notable is the  of 735 defendants in the case of Cairoā€™s Rabaa al-Adawiya Square sit-in, during which hundreds of protesters were killed by security forces. The final verdict, issued in June 2021, saw the confirmation of the death sentence of 12  Muslim Brotherhood leaders; out of 75 death sentences issued by the lower terrorism court, 31 death sentences were commuted to life in prison.

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The cooption of the judiciary was formalized with the constitutional  of 2019, which gave the president the power to appoint the heads of judicial institutions, as well as stipulating the creation of a higher judicial council ā€” headed by the president ā€” which oversees appointments, promotions and secondments within the judiciary.

The Permanent State of Repression

Hence, the suspension of the state of emergency in Egypt does not signal a real easing of repression, rather, under another guise, its permanence is extended. The amendments to the Anti-Terrorism Law and the Law for Protection of Public and Vital Entities made the state of emergency redundant. This, combined with the actual practices of the security forces and judiciary of using pre-trial detention, extrajudicial killings and torture, means that repression has been deeply institutionalized within the state apparatus, in essence turning it into a modus operandi.

One can speculate that the suspension of the state of emergency was a feeble attempt to claim progress aimed at the Biden administration, which  $130 million in aid over human rights concerns. However, the regimeā€™s strategies point to the opposite, namely that brutal repression in Egypt will be a feature of daily life for years to come.

*[This article was originally published by , a partner organization of 51³Ō¹Ļ.]

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During a visit to Egypt on January 28, French President Emmanuel Macron fulfilled his duty as a responsible Western leader by insisting that human rights and the rule of law are the key to stability. Countering this, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi : “Egypt does not advance through bloggers. It advances through the work, effort and perseverance of its sons.”

Here is todayā€™s 3D definition:

Sons:

For a political leader, all the common people under their authority who ideally exist in a state of absolute dependence on the will and wisdom of their fatherly figure

Contextual noteĢż

French leaders are highly skilled in announcing universal truths for the consideration of the rest of humanity. In that sense, the rest of humanity can be called the ā€œsonsā€ of the French Enlightenment. Here is the wisdom Macron imparted during his press conference with President Sisi: ā€œStability and durable peace go together with respect for individual dignity and the rule of law, and the search for stability cannot be dissociated from the question of human rights.”

This sounds very rational and ā€” we are meant to presume ā€” universally valid, but there are plenty of examples in history of stable regimes where human rights were utterly neglected. And this is coming from the man who, during hisĢż in 2017, claimed he would respond to his peopleā€™s need for a ā€œJupiterianā€ president.

Even invoking the rule of law sounds rather dodgy coming from President Macron, who recently used his Jupiterian authority to change the tax law to favor the rich while punishing the poor, and since then has been dealing with a revolt of the common people. But it is now a consecrated ritual of Western leaders of nations capable of exporting weapons to at least mention human rights to their authoritarian partners before engaging in the lucrative business of the arms trade.

At one point, Macron was a bit more explicit in his criticism of Egypt: ā€œMy line is: Stability and respect for sovereignty. But what is happening here threatensā€ Egypt’s stability. In guise of explaining what he meant by ā€œwhat is happening here,ā€ he pointed out that a lot of ordinary people ā€œā€˜who do not threaten the regime’s stabilityā€™ have been jailed.ā€

In a demonstration of his own mastery of universal truths and intercultural wisdom, Sisi countered: “We’re not like Europe, nor the United States, we are a country or a region that has its own characteristics.” In other words, stability has never been a problem in Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates, for example, and no one has made a serious effort to get them to respect human rights. So, even if Egypt has no oil ā€” a resource that is more persuasive than the finest rhetoric, allaying unnecessary criticism ā€” the proud nation should be allowed to conform to the despotic practices of its region.

Historical note

Revolutionary France in 1789 gave Europe its first democracy since ancient Athens, but both before and after that time, authoritarianism has played a role in its culture. During his long reign ending in 1712, Louis XIV had proved to be a very ā€œstableā€ despot, who had no time for human rights, though it all came back to bite his great grandson, Louis XVI, ousted and then beheaded by the Revolution. The immediate response to the anarchy and uncontrollable bloodshed of the ensuing ā€œā€ was the rise of Bonaparte and the Napoleonic empire, a former general who saw the entire population of Europe, right up to Moscow, as potentially his ā€œsons.ā€

After alternating between republics and empires in the 19thcentury, and then more republics in the 20th century punctuated by a Vichy government acting as a puppet for Nazi Germany, France finally settled into the current Fifth Republic in response to the chaos of the Algerian War.

A fundamentally presidential regime, theoretically sharing power with parliament, the Fifth Republic was created in the image of General Charles de Gaulle, a paternal figure, if ever there was one. HeĢżmight have thought of French citizens as the republicā€™s sons and daughters, but as the leader of the anti-Vichy campaign, his legitimacy depended on what he represented ā€” ā€œLa France libreā€ ā€” rather who he was. The French would not allow themselves to be thought of as juveniles even if the sanguinary national anthem begins with the words, ā€œAllons, enfants de la patrieā€ (ā€œCome on, children of the fatherlandā€).

Macron probably took a step too far in referring to Jupiter, the father of the gods. In a context of globalization perceived by the people to be run by and for the international banks, the first president to earn his stripes not in politics, but at the Banque Rothschild belongs to a class that most French people despise ā€” not just for their money and power, but because most people actually understand the relation between the two. That may be one of the chief accomplishments of the French educational system.

The sons of the Fifth Republic are currently rebelling against the fathers, and in the most annoying way possible. The sons of Egypt had a go at rebellion in 2011 before being recast as unruly juveniles, with the help of Saudi Arabia, the US and other powers convinced that fathers know better than sons and that Egypt belongs to ā€œa region that has its own characteristics.”

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, , in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

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Egypt is in mourning. On November 24, worshippers at a mosque in North Sinai during Friday prayers. After detonating explosives inside the building as the sermon was underway, dozens of attackers waited outside the mosque to shoot those who ran for their lives.

At least 305 people were killed and hundreds more injured, yet no group has claimed responsibility. According to Egyptian authorities, there were up to . The attack has been described as the deadliest in Egyptā€™s modern history.

As per the , the Rawda mosque is ā€œused by the local Sawarka tribe, which is known to cooperate with the security services against militants.ā€ It is also frequented by followers of Sufism, a ā€œmystical branch of Islam that is condemned by some jihadist groups.ā€

Over the past few years, the Sinai Peninsula has been a battleground between Egyptian security forces and armed militias. This region, which is located in eastern Egypt, has been in a state of emergency since 2014 when 33 by insurgents allied with the Islamic State (IS). Known as the Sinai Province Group, this terrorist organization has claimed responsibility for past assaults in Sinai and elsewhere, including the bombing of a and attacks on Egyptā€™s Coptic Christians.

For , the BBCā€™s correspondent in Cairo, if IS carried out the attack, as it is believed, ā€œthis could be an attempt to remind supporters around the world that they are still here, still relevant and can still inflict terrible damage on their enemies.ā€

This could be dangerous for Egypt and the Middle East. As the Islamic State is slowly defeated in Syria and Iraq, the group could set its sights on other countries in the region.

*Watch the above video by The New York Times for footage of the mosque attack in Egypt.

The views expressed in this article are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: /

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Feminism has got its work cut out for it when it comes to Arab countries. are still used in Libya, Jordan and , where a member of parliament provoked an outcry in 2016 after calling for girls to be screened before being admitted to university. In , women are not allowed to drive a car, travel or marry without permission from a , or even read an uncensored fashion magazine.

is still widespread , with some 200 million girls and women alive today who have been subjected to the procedure in 30 countries worldwide. In Iraq, less that in Egypt and 44% in Morocco.  has no minimum age for marriage, with nearly 10% of girls married by the age of 15. In Egypt, nearly , usually blamed on the victimā€™s behavior or attire. Many countries have only recently criminalized marital rape and domestic abuse, whereas some still »å“Ē²Ōā€™t consider these a crime.

This is what a 19-year-old Palestinian-Jordanian blogger, Laila Hzaineh, has set out to combat. When she spoke out against sexual harassment on social media, the vitriolic response she receivedā€”including threatsā€”only made her more determined. With every ugly message she got angrier, feeling empowered to speak out for so many women who cannot.

Raised in a liberal Muslim family, Laila realizes that her path is not for everyone, but her aim is to give women the freedom to choose their own way in life without fear or persecution.

The views expressed in this article are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

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When events of May 25, 2005ā€”a day when female protesters against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak were sexually assaulted as the police penned them inā€”threw the evidence of a prevalent practice into the spotlight, it was uncovering a well-established tradition. What became known as marked the beginning of a battle against institutionalized and systematic use of sexual violence to silence women in conservative Egyptā€”a fight made possible by the accessibility to smartphones and social media.

The Egyptian Revolution of 2011 and the mass protests in Tahrir Square further highlighted the ubiquity of sexual violence in the country, with a finding that almost 100% of women have experienced it. A 2014 law finally , now punishable with up to five years in prison and a $5,500 fine. Its implication and enforcement, however, remain a work in progress.

Women have increasingly taken matters into their own hands to challenge public perceptions, eliminate victim blaming and enforce real social and political change. HarassMap was to the sexual harassment epidemic, which at that point was still largely taboo. It has since partnered with leading universities, local supermarkets and services like to help create safe spaces for women across Egypt.

In this edition of The Interview, 51³Ō¹ĻĢżtalks to Alia Soliman of HarassMap about the work its volunteers do online and on the streets to help end sexual violence in Egypt for good.

Anna Pivovarchuk: Sexual harassment in Egypt has been put on the map during the revolutionā€”it sort of exploded. HarassMap started out of personal experience, which was shared by so many. Just how big of a problem are we talking about?

Alia Soliman: The that we did, in 2014, one of the most striking things it showed was that 95.3% of women who participated in the survey were sexually harassed in greater Cairo. So that was a shocking number. UN Women did a study in 2013 which showed that , not just in Cairo.ĢżObviously the numbers are very high and the problem is still there.

Pivovarchuk: What drives this type of harassment? Is it cultural stereotypes, impunity? Do women report it?

Soliman: Why does it happen? All the factors and the context are different, depending on the specific situation and where it happensā€”if it happens on the street, if it happens at a company or workplace, or university, for example. But still, it happens to everyone. Women who wear the veil get harassed, women who wear the burqa or the niqab get sexually harassed, even men get sexually harassedā€”which is one of the things that we also try to talk about in our trainings. Every now and then we try to make people realize that anyone can get sexually harassed, but women are the most affected because of the problem perception of how women are inferior to men.

So many remain silent when they are sexually harassed. Bystanders »å“Ē²Ōā€™t intervene and, accordingly, sexual harassment has become very normalized and socially acceptable, and what we mean by the social acceptabilityā€”even though itā€™s a crime under Egyptian law, no one treats sexual harassment as a crime. We always say that itā€™s good that sexual harassment is now criminalized, that it is a written law, that all types of sexual harassment are a crime, but we still need work from people, for them to realize that the law criminalizes this. That is why we always have awareness campaigns like ā€”a simplified explanation of the article of the law that states that.

Another reason why the problem keeps on happening is the excuses and the blaming. So in addition to having sexual harassment being normalized and socially acceptable in Egypt, there are always these excuses and blaming. For example, if a woman wearing a burqa gets sexually harassed, weā€™ve heard it so many times that she must have been walking in a way that was provocative, even though she is wearing a burqa. We are trying to say to the people in our trainings and on the street that this is not the problem; that the problem of what the woman is wearing does not encourage the harasser to sexually harass her. This happened because he wants to harass this woman, and this is normal behavior. If he knew that he wouldnā€™t get away with his crime, he wouldnā€™t have done this.

One of the things you hear said is, “You know what, he may be poor and he doesnā€™t have money or a chance to get married, buy a house and so on.” But we keep repeating that even a CEO of a company sexually harasses people, being married with children, will still sexually harass women on the street because he knows that he will get away with it. He keeps doing it over and over again, and he knows that the woman is silent and bystanders on the street remain silent about the problem too. So one of our earlier campaigns from 2013, called addressed all these excuses directly.

Pivovarchuk: So if sexual harassment is in principle punishable by law, do these cases ever get to court? Are they actually prosecuted?

Soliman: The law was there but it didnā€™t have the word sexual harassment in it. Now, Article 306(a) and 306(b) includes all types of sexual harassmentā€”via phone, internetā€”not just physical sexual harassment. Even verbal sexual harassment is criminalized. All of this is good, of course. But it all depends on how much we make use of this law.

So, everyone needs to be aware of the problem, women need to report, bystanders need to intervene. From our work, we know that not many women have had a chance to go to the police, because sometimes the parents don’t want have their daughters to defend themselves in court; they feel like all this is very problematic for the daughters. Sometimes we offer assistance of other groups like , who offer free legal and psychological support for survivors.

Pivovarchuk: What was your experience with these campaignsā€”was there a lot of resistance?

Soliman: For the Harasser-Criminal campaign, because we wanted to raise awareness among people who »å“Ē²Ōā€™t have access to technology and people who »å“Ē²Ōā€™t use Facebook and so on, so we actually did an ad on Egyptian national TV. It was about making people realize about how empowered they can be by this law, if used correctly. Itā€™s all about the implementation, as I was saying.

Because we »å“Ē²Ōā€™t directly deal with survivors as the reports we receive are anonymous, we hear from other organizations and friends that it can work if you have a strong legal standing. So we share tips for survivors on our Facebook page, like having a witness testify to make a case stronger.

The fightback usually takes place in the form of people blaming the person who gets harassed and not the criminal, but that can be changed with time.

In general, with some people who are stubborn, we try to reach a middle ground. So, if someone insists that the clothes are part of the problem but he is not convinced, we emphasize that research shows its irrelevant and that women who wear the niqab and who are veiled get sexually harassed. Would you intervene if you saw an incident? If he says yes, we can ask him to just help without commenting on what the victim was wearing. It depends on every situation, but in general reaching a middle ground with people who fight back against our message is where we start to build up a discussion.

Pivovarchuk: Would you say that social media plays a major role in what you do? Would you be able to have an impact you do now without it?

Soliman: The map, it is one of the most important elements of our workā€”we depend on technology for most of our work, and I can see how much people rely on us, asking for assistance. Now, most Egyptian women post their experiences on social media, like sharing photos of the harasser to shame him, which is something that wasnā€™t done before. Having the opportunity to map and report and talk in detail about sexual harassment was very new and fresh, and we did not expect such an overwhelming response. At one time, the map even crashed from the amount of reports submitted.

People who want to volunteer can see all the work that we do on our social media accounts. We are very active on , we have an Instagram account and of course we tweet about all our programs, campaigns and trainingsā€”all these need to be reflected on social media. We rely on social media in everything that we do, and believe that it is a very important tool and it reflects the work that the volunteers have been doing for years on the streets.

We even have campaigns designed specifically for social media. For example, our partnership with Uber was publicized on social media. Or the campaign about the importance of asking about anti-sexual harassment policies in the workplace that was designed specifically for online. We really believe in the power of social media.

Pivovarchuk: How does HarassMap actually work?

Soliman: The map has two main functions: as evidence for volunteers and research. So if a person gets sexually harassed, he or she can go onto the map online or through our , or send a text message to the number 6069 and state how old they areā€”they »å“Ē²Ōā€™t say their names because itā€™s anonymousā€”and they say where and what happened. They also need to tick a box where it asks if anyone intervened.

After the person reports, they get the hotline to Nazra, providing legal and psychological assistance to survivors who report on our map.

Pivovarchuk: So what are the wider repercussions of this epidemic of sexual harassment? How does the limitation of women not being safe outside their own home impact wider society?

Soliman: It is problematic for society as a whole and has so many repercussionsā€”economic, social and even the psychological aspect is very important. There is a domino effect. Women may feel intimidated by a colleague in a workplace, but many »å“Ē²Ōā€™t have the luxury to quit, so they have to deal with that person for a long time.

We know so many women who are sexually harassed at universities, by colleagues or a professor. Itā€™s really happening everywhere, and so if a woman feels that she canā€™t go to university or to work, or even just on the street without being sexually harassed, what is she supposed to do? Women are supposed to be empowered to do anything in society, but if 99% experience sexual harassment, when they »å“Ē²Ōā€™t feel safe most of the time, thatā€™s a huge problem.

I »å“Ē²Ōā€™t want to talk about all the negative stuff, because there are positive things too. Social media has definitely helped survivors express how they feel; our volunteers tell us about the positive responses when they tell people about our campaigns. I am sure you have similar problems in London, the rape cultureā€”it happens everywhere. But we really do believe that society and social media and bystanders really have a role in this.

One of the programs that we have is called Safe Areas, where we partner with supermarkets and shops so that they can create safe areas around the places where they work. So that is an important step, and having a partnership with Uber car service has helped many women take a safe ride. We tried to partner with taxi drivers, microbus driversā€”we just need more support from people on the street.

Sometimes, when we see the effect that this kiosk or this school or universityā€”we have a partnership with Cairo university, which is one of the biggest in Egyptā€”can have in creating a safe area, it shows a positive effect on Egyptian women and a way toward ending this epidemic in Egypt forever. I hope.

The views expressed in this article are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

Photo Credit:Ģż

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It was not uncommon to see news of the Arab Spring accompanied by photos of women on the frontline. Women participated, organized and even led many of the uprisings throughout the region. In some countries, it was women who became the face of the revolution, including Tawakkol Karman in Yemen and Zainab al-Khawaja in Bahrain, to name a few.

Even for the average woman, squares where protests took place became liberating spaces with few social boundaries. Men, realizing the integral role that women would play in the revolutions, welcomed and accepted them into what traditionally was their space. The promise of freer and democratic societies would presumably facilitate greater womenā€™s rights. As it would turn out, women had the most to gainā€”and loseā€”from the Arab Spring.

Aftermath of the Arab Spring

For many of the countries that saw an end to their despotic regimes, the immediate aftermath of the Arab Spring was positive for women. In Yemen, women played a tremendous role in the political transition after the ouster of Ali Abdullah Saleh from his presidential throne in 2012. The international community hailed the National Dialogue Conference (NDC), which lasted around a year from early 2013, for its inclusion of women. Women occupied 30% of seats at the conference, and headed three out of the nine committees within it. The other six committees? They served as deputy presidents.

Women organizations rallied together as the NDC convened its constitution drafting committee, and called for a 30% quota of seats in government to be allocated to women. Their tenacity, months of rigorous lobbying both to members of the committee and their own communities, were rewarded. Not only was a 30% quota of seats in the legislative, judicial and executive branches reserved for women, but the minimum age of marriage was also set to 18. (In some places in the United States, girls can still marryĢż.)

Women saw an increase in political representation even in countries whose political vacuum was filled by Islamist political parties. In Libya, the Justice and Development Party, affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, comprised the second largest number of women of all political parties represented in the General National Congress (GNC) before it was disbanded in 2014. Overall, women occupied 33 out of the 200 seats in the GNC. Similarly in Tunisia, by 2014 women had won 49 out of the 217 seats in the Constituent Assembly. Out of all of the women representatives, 42ā€”a vast majority of themā€”are members of the Islamist Ennahda party.

Egypt, however, is another story. The premature elections held after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak ushered in an Islamist government controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood that saw a reversal of womenā€™s rights, rather than an advancement. Had the Morsi government remained in power before its overthrow in 2013, patriarchy would have been codified by the new constitution.

Not only were provisions guaranteeing equality between men and women left out from the old constitution, but the constitution no longer forbade discrimination on the basis of gender. For many, the new constitution marked the breaking point for their tolerance of the Morsi government, and it provided the green light for a military coup dā€™Ć©tat led by the current president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

In the latest , women won 75 out of the 568 seats in the House of Representatives. Sisi appointed an additional 14 female representatives, which meant that Egyptian women now comprise almost 15% of seatsā€”a record high for Egypt. In 2012, the first election after Mubarakā€™s fall, and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood government, women made up only 2% of the total representatives, which was a drastic drop from 13% in 2010, before the Arab Spring.

There is relative progress in Egypt. However, women continue to be subject to sexual harassment in public and violence in private spaces, not least of which is domestic violence at home, and torture and rape in prison.

Hitting the Ceiling

Egypt may offer some hope for the status of women today, but the future in Yemen and Libya looks grim. The government has all but collapsed in Yemen after the Houthi takeover of the capital, Sanaa, the re-emergence of al-Qaeda and the rise of the Islamic State (IS) to fill the power vacuum, and the war between the Houthi rebels and the Saudi-led coalition that has left destruction, food, water and refugee crises, and an alarmingly high civilian death toll in its wake. Libya continues to suffer from a civil war between different tribal groups vying for control over its land that has rendered its political process all but obsolete, and fragmented at best.

While women continue to be active on the ground in Syria in documenting the crimes of the Assad regime and engaging in hands-on work on the ground as teachers, doctors and other civic positions, they are poorly represented among the opposition leadership. Indeed, the Syrian National Coalition (SNC) has persistently failed to bring any women to peace talks with foreign states. This begs the question of whether or not a political transitionā€”be it after the fall of the Assad regime or the federation of Syriaā€”will continue to be male-dominant, despite the integral role women have played in Syrian civil society.

However, for the states that have avoided collapse and continue to rebuild and pursue a democratic transition after their Arab Spring, what does the future of women look like?

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Historically, agency of women is egregiously reduced in a time of war. Even in stable countries like Tunisia and Egypt, women pursuing the advancement and codification of their political, social and economic rights are hindered by deeply conservative societies and dominant Islamist political parties. Unless these realities change, will women eventually hit a ceiling in their pursuit of equality?

Feminism in the Muslim World

Today, discourse on feminism in the Muslim-world has largely revolved around whether or not womenā€™s rights are compatible with Islam. Can women achieve equal rights under an Islamic government? To what extent can they campaign for womenā€™s rights in a conservative society?

Ģżargues that there are only two trajectories feminist discourse can take: either deny that Islamic practices are oppressive, or claim that oppressive practices are not Islamic.

Both trajectories fail to address the limitations and shortcomings of feminism that operates within an Islamic framework. For one, any form of Islamic governance or jurisprudence is incompatible with pluralism, because the imposition of any religion will inherently restrict individual choice. It is difficult to deny that womenā€™s rights are best progressed in environments that promote pluralism, such as a secular democracy.

However, publicly criticizing Islam or promoting secularism could be more problematic than beneficial for womenā€™s-rights activists. For one, it could delegitimize these campaigns, especially if they are operating in conservative societies. Government authorities themselves could accuse them of being funded by the West, and outright ban them. Inversely, these new governments also realize they cannot belittle womenā€™s-rights movements, especially after the role they played in the Arab Spring.

Islam can not only define the work of some women in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), but can also help enable them to become agents of change in their communities. This is especially helpful for women in conservative societies that require time to open up and undergo an organic process so that rights codified in law also become norms on the ground.

Iranian women are also changing society by dominating professions that most strongly influence civil society and culture overallā€”publishing and the arts. Through cinema, literature and the press, these women are slowly prying society open and exposing it to new ideas.

In Egypt, for example, the hijab (headscarf) can provide women with agency to navigate male-dominated public spaces. As Leila Ahmed writes in her book,ĢżThe Quiet Revolution, the hijab gives religious authority to women who feel confined to their home. In instances like this, the hijab can be liberating.

However, in countries where it is mandatory for women to wear the hijab, it can be oppressive. The pursuit of womenā€™s rights in Iran, which includes re-imagining the hijab as an accessory rather than part of the Islamic dress code, serves as an interesting case study of how women can be agents of change in the Muslim world.

Lipstick Jihad

Although not a part of the Arab Spring or the Arab world, the movement inside Iran to advance womenā€™s rights is multifaceted and can potentially serve as a model to emulate for women in MENA. In Iran, women are at the frontline and behind-the-scenes in the struggle for womenā€™s rights. During the 2009 Green Movement, women adorned green veils and marched beside men to protest the speculated fraudulent election results that brought President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power. It was Neda Agha-Soltan, a young philosophy student, who became the symbol of the movement after she was shot dead during a protestā€”her death caught on camera and seen around the world.

Iranian women continue to play a pivotal role in the reform movement, which advocates for the expansion of womenā€™s rights in addition to a variety of other political and social rights. In the 2016Ģżparliamentary elections, women made where they now hold a record number of seats. Their greater political representation will provide a louder voice for women in Iran, and encourage political parties to appeal to the demands of women now that they have proved that they are a crucial voting bloc.

However, it is not only on the frontline, like in the Green Movement, or in government that women are serving as agents of change. It is alsoā€”and arguably most effectivelyā€”through everyday acts of resistance. Women will wear their mandated hijab far back on their head, allowing their hair to escape in the front, bold make-up and body-hugging overcoats. Journalist Azadeh Moaveni describes this act of resistance, even if it is carried out passively by some, as ā€œ.ā€ Iranian women push the boundaries of the Islamic dress code by re-imagining it into a unique fashion that has influenced the style of Muslim women around the world.

Iranian women are also changing society by dominating professions that most strongly influence civil society and culture overallā€”publishing and the arts. Through cinema, literature and the press, these women are slowly prying society open and exposing it to new ideas. If society can begin to open, which it has been, and undergo gradual cultural reformation, then this will usher pressure for the government to eventually follow suit.

Progress in Iran is slow. However, its diverse and creative approaches to advocate for womenā€™s rights could serve as a model worth emulating for conservative societies and states governed, or influenced, by Islamic law. Lipstick jihad is unique to Iran, and irrelevant for women in countries where the hijab is not imposed. But what can be learned from Iran is that these individual acts of resistance that occur parallel to more organized efforts by womenā€™s rights organizations and reformist political parties that help penetrate every echelon of Iranian society.

What the Future Holds

While Iran experiences slow cultural reformation that quietly resists the Islamic Republic, women in countries that are actually beginning the slow process of democratization have a tremendous opportunity to shape the future of the stateā€”one that is more inclusive of women in its political process and a guarantor of their rightsā€”while simultaneously leading grassroots efforts to carve more public spaces for women in civil society.

The future for Arab states like Syria, Yemen and Libya paints a grimmer picture. Women historically bear the brunt of war and conflict. Rape is commonly used as a weapon of war against women to terrorize societies. Women also typically make up the largest number of civilian casualties. In Libya and Yemen, the hope is that an eventual transition process will incorporate women like it did in the immediate aftermath of the Arab Spring, and that Syria will follow suit. If not, women will continue to challenge patriarchy as they always have in these countries by other means.

There is a long road ahead for the region as a whole to achieve full social, political and economic rights of women. Women will still need to challenge patriarchy, whether it be by electing more female candidates to political office, utilizing the arts and pressā€”cultural conduits to spread their message and transform societyā€”or taking to the streets to protest and demand change. Or, perhaps, all of the above.

The views expressed in this article are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

Photo Credit:Ģż

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If Washington wants to decrease volatility and violence in the Arab region, US foreign policy must advocate for the treatment of conflict-related mental health issues among Arab publics.

In the months after the outbreak of the Arab Spring protests in early 2011, President Barack ObamaĢżĢżthat the United States will continue to pursue core interests and principles, including opposing ā€œthe use of violence and repressionā€ and ā€œsafe-guarding the security of the region.ā€ Since that time, war, civil conflict and political upheaval have spread throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

Rather than arming specific groups or continuing to sell arms to repressive regimes, US foreign policy would be better served by more long-term, holistic approaches to combating violence and promoting security. One such approach would be mental-health advocacy.

Living with Trauma

At home, the USĢżis beginning to understand the importance of mental health: President Obama has several timesĢżĢżto bolster mental health access and treatment in the United Statesā€”notably during his push to end gun violence, and again during his push to curb the opioid abuse epidemic in the country.ĢżCongress is currently consideringĢżĢżdomestic mental health-related pieces of legislation. Although the federal government has found that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) ā€œĢżan increased risk of violence,ā€ no such connection has been made within foreign policy.

PTSD is the most common mental health issue resulting from episodes of combat, social upheaval and violence found throughout many Arab countries. Although life-long PTSD isĢżĢżby the number of traumatic events experienced, traumaĢżĢżviolence, recurring memories, displacement and ubiquitous fear.

Using examples from around the world can be illustrative: During conflict inĢż, war-related psychological distress was found in 44% of individuals studied during conflict and 29% two years after conflict, whereas 57% of Ugandan students exhibited ā€œā€ levels of PTSD four years after the end of war. In East Timor, grief and a sense of injustice ā€œexerted aĢżĢżon PTSD symptomsā€ among those studied. Researchers inĢż, meanwhile, found that community social psychology is important to understanding political and economic community development. Each conflict and cultural context produce different symptoms in victims, which vary in responses to trauma, requiring treatment to be as locally tailored as possible.

These findings suggest that PTSD and other trauma-related mental health issues resulting from widespread conflict are, and will be, a public health crisis in the Arab world. InĢż,ĢżĢżand Lebanon contemporary violence and conflict predate the Arab Spring. In Syria, Yemen and Libya, the tumult of 2011 rages on as civil war. In Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and elsewhere, the aftermath of political repression has been neither fully addressed nor resolved. Large portions of these communities have survived torture, witnessed murder, experienced political or religious oppression or discrimination, or have been displaced, abused or exposed to traumatic violence.

In what is undoubtedly the direst example from the Arab world, 45% ofĢżĢżstudied display symptoms of PTSD, 44% depression, 25% daily psychosomatic pains and 20% daily headaches. Despite these limited studies, aĢżĢżof cases of trauma in the Arab world will go undiagnosed and untreated. Trauma among Arabs will have long-term consequences for both individuals and communities throughout the region for generations.

Breaking Taboos

Prior to the Arab Spring, there was aĢżĢżdearth of mental-health research in the Arab world. This is at least partly cultural: In Arab cultures mental-health problems are often ignored for fear for bringingĢżĢżto both individual and family. This stigma is even greater among Arab men, who are discouraged from seeking help or being perceived as weak or dependent. Due to these cultural challenges, Arabs often express psychological problems inĢż, thus avoiding the mental-health stigma and rejecting the few mental health services that may exist. InĢż, for example, physical manifestations of trauma have been linked to traumatic experiences. Any advocacy must be cognizant of these, and other, cultural sensitivities.

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Trauma therapist and genocide survivorĢżĢżargues that without addressing mental health, ā€œReconstructing a country becomes impossible, because people need to function well, but terrible memories are triggered by any small thing.ā€ Untreated trauma can victimizeĢż, lead to other public health concerns like childhood mortality rates,ĢżĢżthe national economy, and potentially perpetuateĢż. Thus, attempts to foster sustainable growth and security in the region without considering mental health issues would be incomplete and likely unsuccessful.

Effective mental health advocacy by outside actors must empower local officials to tackle the cultural taboos around mental health. Washington cannot dictate program specifics. However, if conversations about trauma are altogether avoided,ĢżĢżwill not begin to heal and future generations will learn nothing from the past. TreatmentĢżĢżboth community-based discourse and individually based treatment that respect local customs and can be used by local practitioners.

One effective method used in Iraq includes ā€œĢżprovided entirely through the Internet,ā€ which can allow for the treatment of a wider variety of individuals in dangerous or sparsely populated areas. Further, this can allow actors to address PTSD before conflicts fully end.

Advocating for, and materially supporting, mental health treatment in conflict-affected Arab countries is a holistic foreign policy option for the United States. Supplementing such efforts, local and regional actors should create other post-conflict mechanisms, such has truth-telling programs and reconciliation efforts. Only by addressing the human element of conflict can the future overcome the past.

*[This article was originally published by .]

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Faced with a drop in popularity, intermittent protests against rising prices and calls for a mass anti-government demonstration, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is seeking to appease the countryā€™s youth, soccer fans and activists with promises of change.

Sisiā€™s efforts have included a one-time lifting of a ban on spectators attending soccer matches; promises to revise Egyptā€™s draconic anti-protest law; reviewing cases of youth detained without trial; and holding monthly meetings with young people to follow up on resolutions of a national youth conference held in early October. However, these moves provoked sharp criticism before they even got off the ground.

An that Sisiā€™s popularity has dropped 14%. Writing inĢż, journalist Omar Hadi rejected Sisiā€™s addressing of youth as his sons and daughters, insisting that Egyptā€™s youth were citizens with duties and rights. As the government-organized conference opened, Twitter lit up with youth organizing their own virtual gathering.

Hadiā€™s rejection and the ā€œcounter-conferenceā€ constituted far more than a rejection of Sisiā€™s brutal repression of dissent and widespread disillusion with the presidentā€™s promise of a bright future of social and economic opportunity.

Father of the Egyptian Nation

Against the backdrop of severe economic deterioration since Sisi came to power in a military coup in 2013, and the prospect of severe austerity as part of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout program, Hadi and the counter-conferenceā€™s rejection of being sons and daughters amounted to a rejection of neopatriarchy, the fundament of Arab autocratic rule.

A phrase coined by American-Palestinian scholar Hisham Sharabi, neopatriarchy Ģżinvolves the projection of the autocratic leader as a father figure. Autocracy in Arab society, according to Sharabi, was built on the dominance of the father, a patriarch around which the nation and nuclear family were organized. Vertical relations between ruler and ruled, as between father and child, are maintained. In both settings, the paternal will is absolute and mediated in society, as well as in the family by a forced consensus based on ritual and coercion. At the top of the pyramid resides the countryā€™s leader as the father of all fathers.

The virtual conference raised the very issues the official conference sought to control, such as ā€œthe relationship between public freedom and political engagement of youthā€ and ā€œcauses of violence in football stadiums and the methods of retaining spectators.ā€ Under the hashtagĢż, it focused on the detention of tens of thousands of political prisoners, the disappearance of scores of others, lack of basic freedoms, and the continued closure of stadiums to a soccer-crazy public. A later hashtag, ā€œ,ā€ leapfrogged to the number one trend on Egyptian social media.

ā€œIf Sisi held the #National_Youth_Conference in Prison, there would have been a larger attendance than Sharm El-Sheikh,ā€ the resort town in the Sinai, quipped tweeterĢż.

ā€œWhere else are they going to be? They are either going to be buried in the ground, or imprisoned above ground or thrown off the grounds completely,ā€ addedĢż.

Sisi told the official conference that ā€œthe government, in coordination with the relevant state parties, will study the suggestions and proposals to amend the protest law ā€¦ and include them in the set of proposed legislation to be presented to parliament during the current session.ā€

Setbacks for Sisi

It was not only youth that President Sisi appeared to having difficulty convincing. Egyptian businessmen warned that raids on sugar factories, and traders accused of hoarding the commodity amid a severe shortage, would undermine confidence of foreign investors at a time when they are crucial in helping Egypt dig itself out of an economic hole. With the Egyptian armed forces opening outlets, and military trucks roaming the country selling cheap groceries to compensate for shortages and rising prices, Sisi has promised to reduce the enormous stake of the army in the economy over the next three years.

Sisi suffered a further setback when Saudi Arabia announced it was stopping oil shipments to Egypt. The president has irritated the kingdom by refusing, despite massive Saudi financial support, to back Riyadhā€™s policy toward Iran, Syria and Yemen.

As part of Sisiā€™s fledgling efforts that also include various failed attempts in the past to either repress or coopt soccer fans, the government has announced that 75,000 spectators would be allowed to attend a 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifier onĢżNovember 13Ģżin Alexandriaā€™s Borg el-Arab Stadium. The announcement followed the admission of 70,000 people to a match between storied Cairo club Al Zamalek SC, whose militant Ultras White Knights (UWK) fans have a long history of anti-government protest, and South Africaā€™s Mamelodi Sundowns FC.

While far smaller numbers have, until now, been granted entry to stadiums where international matches were being played, pitches have been closed to the public for much of the past five years for all domestic premier league games. The closure was designed to prevent stadiums from again emerging as platforms for the venting of pent-up anger and frustration.

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That anger and frustration has been boiling to the surface in recent weeks with a new group, the Ghalaba Movement or Movement of the Marginalized, calling for mass protests onĢżNovember 11Ģżagainst subsidy cuts, rising prices and increasing shortages of basic goods.

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Magdy Abdel Ghaffar has warned that Egyptā€™s widely despised security forces would not permit ā€œa repeat of previous attempts at sabotage and social unrest in Egypt.ā€ In a statement on Facebook, Abdel Ghaffar said that security measures were being tightened to ā€œprotect citizens and establishments.ā€

Growing Discontent in Egypt

Nevertheless, reports in Egyptā€™s tightly controlled media of several incidents of individual protest have prompted speculation that some within the military are sending Sisi a messageā€”that he needs to get a grip on discontent that could spiral out of hand. The incidents include a taxi driver who, in an act like the one that sparked the , set himself alight earlier this month to protest rising prices and deteriorating living conditions. An Egyptian television station also broadcast an outburst by a tuk tuk driver who vented his fury at Egyptā€™s economic plight. The video clip garnered some 10 million hits on the television stationā€™s website before it was taken down.

Large numbers of people in Port Said, where the worst politically-loaded incident in Egyptian sporting history occurred in 2012, took to the streets earlier this month to protest the rising cost of housing.

It remains an open question of whether mushrooming discontent amounts to the makings of renewed mass protests in Egypt. Many Egyptians look at the horrendous state of post-Arab Spring countries wracked by war and violence and do not want to see their country travel that same road.

Nonetheless, economic hardship and repression appear to be reaching a point at which an increasing number of Egyptians are no longer willing to remain silent.

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Earlier this month, the Egyptian stateĢżĢżof both individuals and organizations engaged in human rights advocacy, including the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, the Egyptian Center for the Right to Education, and their organizational leaders. This is merely the latest episode of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisiā€™s suppression of dissent within the largest Arab country. The government has cracked down on theĢż,ĢżĢżand other activist groups, journalists,Ģż, and nearly any organization accused of criticizing the president or the state.

Since 2014 al-Sisi and his allies have enacted problematic legislation onĢż,ĢżĢżandĢż,Ģż. With the help of aĢż, these laws have created a largely rubber stamp parliament and have resulted in an estimatedĢżĢżin Egypt. In 2016 alone,ĢżĢżhave stood trial.

Mixed Response

The US response to these developments in Egypt has been mixed, at best. Following the ouster of the democratically elected, thoughĢż, Mohamed Morsi, the Obama administration suspended Washingtonā€™sĢżĢżof over $1.5 billion to Egypt in October 2013. To regain the financial and military aid, Egypt had to follow a ā€œroadmapā€ to democracy. Less than 18 months later, the US restored the aid despite no real steps toward democratic governance or widened civic participation in Cairo. Washington remainsĢżĢżhow the aid has been spent.

Moreover, during those 18 months, Ģżto substitute more aid to coverĢż, amounting to $4 billion. Beyond some strongly worded statements and diplomatic finger wagging, al-Sisiā€™s government has faced no concrete pushback from major allies for orchestrating the overthrow of a democratic government and establishing a regime intolerant of dissent and abusive of human rights.

As the Obama administration approaches its last winter, the future of US-Egypt relations inevitably hinges on the disposition of the next commander-in-chief. Against the advice of the DC think-tank community, both major party candidatesĢżĢżthis week during the UN General Assembly session in New York. Notably, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trumpā€™s post-meeting release emphasized maintainingĢżĢżwith Cairo but made no mention of human right or democracy.

Mitigating AuthoritarianismĢż

In contrast, Democratic candidateĢżHillary Clinton raised concerns aboutĢżĢżin Egypt, mirroring statementsĢżĢżby Secretary of State John Kerry. But Clinton prefers working within the status quo of Egypt. During the Arab Spring protests, sheĢżĢżnot to support the ouster of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. A Clinton White House is unlikely to depart greatly from the Obama White House Egypt policy.

In general, human rights and good governance in Egypt take a back seat in Washington to counterterrorism, safe passage through the Suez Canal and peace with Israel. The most that can be hoped for in the next administration is the mitigation of the continuing oppressive authoritarianism of President al-Sisi, which will, if unabated, lead to increased violence and religious terrorism in the country and potentially beyond.

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Indeed, research has shown that the quashing of religious liberty tends to breedĢż, and legal and societal marginalizationĢżĢżpopulations toward violence as a means to achieving their political goals. By banning and victimizing the Muslim Brotherhood, attempting toĢżĢżand marginalizing all political dissent within the country, al-Sisi risks turning Egypt into a breeding ground for terrorism and political violence.

This reality will create headaches for countries throughout the Middle East, as well as subsequent US presidents. Ironically, Washingtonā€™s endless pursuit of stability at the expense of human rights will likely result in an Egypt with neither stability nor human rights.

*[This article was originally published byĢż.]

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An Egyptian businessman with close ties to Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the general-turned-president, has submitted a bid for the broadcasting rights of the Confederation of African Football (CAF). The move is widely seen as an effort to polish the image of Egypt, which has been tarnished by the mass abuse of human rights, failing economic policies and a military coup in 2013 that put an end to the countryā€™s first democratic experiment.

The Ģżalso challenges the predominance among Arab satellite broadcasters such as beIN, the Qatar-owned sports network that is part of Al Jazeera and has bought broadcasting rights across the globe.

If successful, the bid could help improve Sisiā€™s domestic standing at a time when the president is struggling economically and being propped up by funding from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Many Egyptians cannot afford beINā€™s subscription rates that range from $7.50 to $54 a month.

Relations between Qatar, a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Egypt have been strained ever since Sisi toppled Mohammed Morsi, a Brotherhood member and Egyptā€™s first and only democratically elected president.

In June, Morsi was sentenced to 25 years in prison for passing state secrets to Qatar, in a case in which several Al Jazeera journalists were convicted in absentia to either death of long prison terms. Al Jazeera was taken off the air in Egypt within hours of the 2013 coup, and three of its journalists were held in prison and sentenced to years in jail before ultimately being released.

Ahmed Abou Hashima

The businessman, Ahmed Abou Hashima, a steel and media magnate with close ties to President Sisi, hasĢżthe close to the Egyptian leaderĢżdespiteĢż that the Muslim Brotherhood supported him in 2012Ģżwhen Morsi was in office. Abou Hashima sought help at the time in his high-profile divorceā€”reportedly involving a $30 million settlementā€”from Haifa Wehbe, one of the Arab worldā€™s most prominent singers and actresses.

Abou Hashimaā€™s effort to improve Egyptā€™s international image by buying African broadcasting rights builds on Egyptā€™s past African soccer glory. Egyptā€™s national team is the African Cup of Nationā€™s most crowned squad, winning the title in the three consecutive tournaments that preceded the 2011 popular revolt which overthrew President Hosni Mubarak.

ā€œWe do our best to project Egypt’s name in all sectors in Africa, especially sport,ā€ Abou Hashima said in aĢżĢżon August 30.

Pro-Sisi deputies have linked Abou Hashimaā€™s bid more directly to the mass anti-Morsi protests in summer 2013 that were supported by the military and security forces and paved the way for Sisiā€™s takeover.

ā€œThe proposal the Egyptian company presented to buy the broadcasting rights of African football honors the Egyptian people after theĢż30 JuneĢżglorious revolution,ā€ Hamdy al-Sisi, a namesake of the president, lawmaker and member of the lower houseā€™s Youth and Sports Committee, toldĢż.

ā€œEgypt is the main key driver of the Middle East and it remains the pulse of the Arab world. The fact that an Egyptian company obtains the broadcasting rights of matches indicates a lot, including Egyptā€™s recovery from its crisis as it has come back to the African arena,ā€ĢżĢżMahmoud al-Sayyed, another lawmaker and committee member.

Proper marketing of the broadcasting rights would project Egyptā€”despite a violent insurgency in the Sinaiā€”as stable, demonstrate public support for Sisi and boost tourism, according to Sayyed.

Abou Hashimaā€™s bid appears also to be part of broader government strategy to harness soccer in its effort to garner domestic popularity. The bid was announced days afterĢżĢżin the Suez Canal city of Port Said, one of Egyptā€™s least populated and most neglected governorates.

Egyptian Ultras

Seventy two members of Ultras Ahlawyā€”a militant soccer support group that played a key role in the overthrow of Mubarak and subsequent resistance to military ruleā€”died in Port Saidā€™s existing stadium in 2012 in a controversial and politically loaded brawl. It was Egyptā€™s worst ever sporting incident. Port Said did not figure in the governmentā€™s investment plan that was presented in 2015 to an economic development conference.

Many in Port Said resent the fact that court proceedings have laid blame for the incident with militant supporters of Al Masri SC, some of whom have been sentenced to death, and two security officials in the city. Seven other security officers were acquitted. The defendants have appealed the verdicts.

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Sisi sought to co-opt Ultras Ahlawy earlier this year on the fourth anniversary of the tragedy by offering group the chance to independently investigate what happened. Ultras Ahlawy turned the offer down, arguing that it could not simultaneously act as accuser and judge.

The Egyptian president made his offer as militant soccer fans formed the backbone of anti-government student protests that were brutally squashed. The protests were not only against the harsh repression of the Sisi regime, but also against its economic and social policies that have failed to create public sector jobs for graduates and more places for students at universities.

Sisiā€™s effort to use sports to his advantage sought to exploit the fact that physical exercise, including jogging and cycling, enjoys unprecedented popularity among Egyptian youth. In one event, the president led military academy cadets in 2014 on a well-publicized bicycle ride around Cairo, the Egyptian capital.

ā€œThe young people canā€™t go out demonstrating, but they can go out to run,ā€ sports coach Ramy A. Saleh toldĢż.Ģżā€œItā€™s connected with the withdrawal from public life by young people,ā€ĢżaddedĢżpolitical scientist Ezzedine C. Fishere.

ā€œEveryone who had participated in 2011 [in the popular revolt] started to move to the private sphere, some took refuge in depression, some in nihilistic activities and many in fitness ā€” not just fitness, but taking care of oneself,ā€ Fishere said.

Sports may, for now, prove to be a way for President Sisi to engage with youth who, in the absence of post-2011 politics, find expression in physical activity. If history is any guide, however, sports could also turn on him as was evident with soccer fans being the foremost group to physically resist the Mubarak regime in the years before the former presidentā€™s downfall.

Sisi appears to recognize this with Egyptian stadiums remaining largely closed to the public since 2011. But that didnā€™t stop Ultras Ahlawy from rioting in July during a match against a Moroccan team.

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On September 3, an Egyptian lawmaker, Elhamy Agina, made an for the continuation of female genital mutilation (FGM), or . He claimed that women should ā€œreduce their sexual desiresā€ because Egyptian men are ā€œsexually weak.ā€

I wasnā€™t shocked by this statement, but I was reminded once again of how too often when it comes to sexuality and violence that women are the ones held responsible.

Remember when on a local news interview in August 2012, discussing the possibility of abortion during instances of rape: ā€œFirst of all, from what I understand from doctors, thatā€™s really rare. If itā€™s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.ā€

Not to go too off on a tangent, but a found that over 32,100 pregnancies resulted from rape each year, and some have found that rape survivors are more likely to become pregnant than women who have consensual sex. So how bogus was that claim?

Letā€™s also ignore that ā€œlegitimate rapeā€ wordage for now, but the idea that a womanā€™s body shuts down the possibility of a pregnancy when she is raped puts the onus on the woman to defend herself and protect society against unwanted pregnancies.

Akinā€™s claim takes away any responsibility that the offender in this situation might have toward the woman who he chose to violate by raping her.

The Egyptian lawmaker, Elhamy Agina, does the same with his claim that and, therefore, women should undergo FGM because it helps ā€œreduce a womanā€™s sexual appetite,ā€ and by undergoing this potentially painful and life-threatening procedure, women will show they are standing by their man.

Iā€™m tired of hearing the onus continually fall on women when it comes to anything relating to sex or violence. Womenā€™s bodies and sexuality should not have to be altered because a man is unable to control himself.

Hearing this kind of rhetoric makes it sound like women are the saviors to menā€™s sexuality, but they are also the devil, the root of the problem. They must fix the problem. It also dismisses the fact that there are many loving and decent men around the world who are faithful to their partners, do not abuse, nor ask their wives to remove a part of their genitalia so they can have less sex.

Iā€™m reminded of all those years that I worked with survivors of domestic violence, and how time and time againā€”whether in person, on the phone, through the media, from a friend, from a relative, from a stranger on the planeā€”people would continually ask, ā€œWhy doesnā€™t the survivor leave the abusive relationship?ā€

It maddens me that, once again, the person who was the victimā€”the one who was facing the emotional, sexual, financial or physical violenceā€”was the one that was being judged with the question.

Stop Blaming the Victim

When I lived in San Francisco, domestic violence charges were brought up against the sheriff, Ross Mirkarimi, who on New Yearā€™s. The media had a field day with the story, particularly because his wife didnā€™t leave him. Negative judgments were made against her character, and little attention was given to the reality that survivors of domestic violence often cannot leave an abusive relationship for a number of reasonsā€”ranging from fear of losing custody of children, to fear of being hurt even more, to, even as unbelievable as it can be for some to understand, love.

The narrative has to change. We need to stop blaming the victim. All of us must be held accountable for our actions in perpetuating the kind of thinking that leads to different forms of gender violence being justified. In the case of FGM, it cannot be said that a harmful traditional practice needs to continue because it helps men, particularly when it comes at the costs of hurting women.

Women have a right to their bodies, to their sexuality, to their health. Men do too. All genders do. And we all have the responsibility to ensure that everyone is treated with respect, consideration and care. No more blaming the victim.

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Politically, the Middle East has been a global hotbed of interstate wars, civil conflicts and authoritarian regimes. Socially, it is home to some of the most restrictive social systems and policies. This has made the region an endless source of controversies.

News surrounding Middle Eastern participants at the Olympic Games has been no exception. Middle Eastern players in Rio have made strong political and social statements that have sparked intense debates in their own nations and the entire world.

So far at the Rio Olympics, there have been two critical Middle Eastern moments that hold significance in understanding the regionā€™s political and social realities.

Official Peace and National Rivalry

In Egypt, a country where the Olympics receive little public attention compared to local football matches, one game was particularly gripping. Days before its actual date, the Judo match between the Egyptian Judoka Islam el-Shehaby and his Israeli opponent, Ori Sasson, started classic debates about ā€œnormalizationā€ in Egypt. Would the Egyptian player compete with an Israeli? Would the two shake hands after the game?

Now, if youā€™re unfamiliar with the classical Arab-Israeli conflict, these questions would seem bizarre to you. So, letā€™s back up to explain the politics behind the game.

In 1978, Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the Camp David Accords that led to the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty of 1979. This was a historical moment for the region as it ended a state of war that began with the foundation of Israel in 1948.

Although the agreement received an international round of applause, it received strong opposition from nationalists in both countries. While the peace treaty was taken for granted over time, the ā€œnormalizationā€ of the relationship between Egypt and Israel did not. Simply put, ā€œnot fightingā€ never meant befriending.

This led to two parallel types of relationships between Egypt and Israel. Officially, the Egyptian and the Israeli governments cooperate on many military, political and economic issues. Visually, this means lots of handshakes between Egyptian and Israeli officials.

Yet ties between both nationsā€™ citizens are almost nonexistent. Egyptians in Israel are suspected terrorists by the ā€œvirtueā€ of being Arab, and Israelis in Egypt are considered potential spies. In popular culture, on both sides of the borders, different works of art from music to sculpture portray the other as the traditional enemy. Thus, the two peoples never shake hands.

Building on that historical glimpse, one can understand the official and public politics behind the game. Before the match, the Egyptian delegation asserted repeatedly that the Egyptian player would participate, refuting some public demands of withdrawal to avoid ā€œnormalization.ā€ On Egyptian social media, there were deep divisions between those who supported the withdrawal of the player and others who pushed for ā€œfighting and winning.ā€

At the end, Shehaby abided by the official rules and participated. Yet he used his own discretion by . This is another instance where the divergence between the official and public stances is clear.

After the controversy sparked by the game, the Egyptian delegation criticized Shehaby for his attitude and distanced itself from his actions. Egyptian public opinion, however, was divided on the playerā€™s actions. While many blamed him for ā€œembarrassingā€ the country, others viewed him as a true representative of the Egyptian people who refuse normalization with Israel.

The bottom line is that the long peace between Egypt and Israel did not bring the two peoples any closer. The Shehaby-Sasson game sums up the reality of the Arab-Israeli conflict today where officials shake hands but the masses do not.

The Oppressed Women of the Orient

Itā€™s safe to say that the veil, or the hijab, is the most debated piece of cloth in our modern times. Laws are enacted in its honor, politicians add it to their electoral toolkit and the media never get bored of discussing it.

Outside the Muslim world and the Middle East, the veil is viewed as a symbol of oppression and hindrance to women. Yet within Muslim communities, it is largely held as a religious practice and a symbol of modesty. In contrast to the dominant Western idea, the majority of Muslim women would not cite the hijab as their main obstacle to empower themselves.

The participation of the ā€œcoveredā€ Egyptian womenā€™s team in beach volleyball at the Olympics came to challenge this belief.

The picture of the facing the Spanish team in bikinis was widely circulated to symbolize a clash of civilizations or a moment of cultural tolerance. Yet regardless of the symbolism behind the photo, it is informative of one important reality about women of the orient: the veil and womenā€™s oppression are barely synonyms.

At the end, regardless of how inclined we are to have politics-free Olympics, itĢżseems like an impossible task. To have a politics-free international event is to have an event with no players or attendees.

Politics shape how we view the world and others. Social interactions define who we are as humans, and sport is one arena where humans interact to reflect their views on their surroundings.

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Since the 1952 coup dā€™Ć©tat by the Free Officers Movement, Egypt has had six presidents. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the incumbent president, is in the same league with at least two seminal names in modern Egyptian and Arab history: Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat.

Although Sisi is still in their shadow, it may not be for too long. The quiet general is fast becoming an important political figure. The Egyptian leader is still not a revolutionary, but he is certainly a man of original approaches to the challenges around himā€”a reformer in the making.

If he becomes a fully-fledged reformer, he may well be the modern-day version of Muhammad Ali Pasha, the man who led reforms in Egypt throughout the early 19^th century.

Most Important Arab Nation

Egypt is not just an Arab and Middle Eastern country. Rather, it is Egypt that is the most important Arab state in the region. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it is not the rich Saudi Arabia that is entitled to be defined as the most important Arab nation.

Egypt is a country of so many ā€œfirstsā€ in the modern history of the Middle East: the first to be occupied by a European power; the first to introduce Western-style reforms; the first to be connected to world commerce through the Suez Canal; the first to experience a popular revolutionary reaction to the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood; the first to turn to the Soviet bloc with Nasser at the helm; and the first to make peace with Israel, which completely changed the strategic landscape of theĢż Arab-Israeli conflict, rendering any Arab military option against Israel virtually impossible and irrelevant.

It is in this context that we must examine what has already been achieved by President Sisi.

He had to deal with the Muslim Brotherhood in power after democratic elections, including a year of internal turmoil characterized by a concerted effort by the BrotherhoodĢżto turn Egypt into a theocratic dictatorship. In one year, Egypt sunk so fast toward the abyss with Syrian- and Iraqi-style chaos behind the door.

Yes, democracy is about elections, but not only that. It is also about the rule of law, respect for minorities and political dialogue rather than coercion from above. The murdered , the burnt churches and even a killing campaign against the dramatic evidence of the so-called Islamic democracy of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Sisi saved Egypt from the inevitable anarchy that was awaiting the country with daily atrocities by the Brotherhood. This was a great contribution not only to Egypt, but to the entire Middle East. Can we even imagine the course of events in the region if the Muslim Brotherhood were allowed to stay in power? An Egypt ruled by the movement could have been the catalyst for a regional Islamic revolutionā€”much like how Nasser was behind a regional eruption of Pan-Arabism in the 1950s and 60s that threatened to turn the entire Middle East upside down.

This is the point where some readers may raise their eyebrows in astonishment with the question: ā€œAnd what is it now if not an Islamic volcanic eruptionā€?

Arab Spring

The surprising answer is no, it isĢżnot. Libya, Iraq and Syria have been going through turmoil for years, even prior to 2011. The conflicts in these countries cannot be considered anymore as a manifestation of popular Sunni movements, as the 2011 uprisings were replaced and taken over by a terrorist movement known as the Islamic State, or ISIS, which may have some support but not enough. In Syria and Iraq, we have a local sectarian struggle being dominated by a regional power struggle.

The popular wave of an Islamic revolution was checked and stopped in Egypt due to the decisive actions of Sisiā€”surely one of his greatest achievements to date, if not the greatest.

President Sisi did not stop there. As a real reformer, he had this to : ā€œDoes this mean that 1.6 billion people [Muslims] should want to kill the rest of the worldā€™s inhabitants ā€¦ Impossible!ā€ Brave and unprecedented words from a devoted Muslim leader to the men of religious rulings at the highest institution of the Muslim world.

The Egyptian president has said a lot more about other contentious issues. He ordered the , conducting a sustained and successful campaign against the groupā€™s terror tunnels in the Gaza Strip. During the Israeli-Hamas confrontation of 2014, Egypt all but supported Israel, denouncing Hamas in the harshest possible terms.

This is not a whimsical policy of revenge against Hamas for its participation in the Muslim Brotherhoodā€™s actions in Egypt. It is part of a careful strategy to give useful and meaningful substanceĢżto the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.

In the midst of a terror campaign against Israel, known as the so-called ā€œKnives Intifada,ā€ Egypt restored its full diplomatic relations with Israel. Sisi even went as far as considering the possibility of giving a portion of the Egyptian-controlled Sinai to the Palestinians as a solution to the harsh living conditions in Gazaā€”clearly a .

More Stable Middle East

Simply put,Ģżwe have a leader who wants to solve problems rather than create and exacerbate them; a leaderĢżwho deals with sacred cows; a leader who puts aside demagogy and incitement in favor of rationalĢżpolitical discourse.
The Egyptian president is not shying away from the chronic economic problems of his country. He knows that the legacy left behind by years of stagnation under former President Hosni Mubarak, a year of destruction under the Muslim Brotherhood, and the continued anti-tourist campaign of terror are his litmus test. Bread and butter to the masses will determine it all in Egypt.

This is where the Saudis and other Arab Gulf states come into the picture. And this is where the United States, the European Union and Israel should also play a role.

Support for the Sisi government should become a project of highest priority to those who want to see a more stable Middle East. We cannot lose time over that. A brave, potentially great leader and 90 million people are waiting to see what will be done.

The views expressed in this article are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: Ģż/Ģż

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The Nile is the longest river in the world, flowing for more than 6,660 kilometers from its origins in the hills of Burundi and Rwanda to the Mediterranean Sea. The river consists of two distinct basins: the White Nile and the Blue Nile. It has a basin area of more than 3 million square kilometers, extending over 11 countries that share the river with very distinct variations, interests, contributions and uses.

The stakes and interests of Egypt, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Sudan are classified as very high; those of Uganda as high; the interests of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania as moderate; and those of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Eritrea as low. Those variations present themselves quite well in the fact that Ethiopia contributes about 86% of the total flow of the Nile waters, but uses only about 1%, while Egypt and Sudan use almost the entire flow of the river, and do not contribute any to its flow.

The Nile River faces a number of acute challenges. Its annual flow is limited to only 84 billion cubic meters as measured at Aswan in Egypt. This amount represents 6% of the annual flow of the Amazon and 25% of the Zambezi. A second major challenge is population growth. Close to 250 million people in these 11 countries live or depend on the Nile, and the number is expected to exceed 300 million by 2025. Climate change and environmental degradation are other challenges facing the river.

Dividing the Resources

The limited amount of , the steady growth in population, and the current paradigm of contribution and uses of the waters of the Nile have heightened the issue of water security in the basin. Egypt and Sudan, the two lower riparians of the Nile, cling strongly to what they have termed as their ā€œexisting uses and rightsā€ and insist that such uses and rights are non-negotiable, and cannot be harmed by other ripariansā€™ uses.

They base these uses and rights on a number of treaties concluded during the first 60 years of the last century. The first of these treaties was concluded in 1902 between Great Britain and Ethiopia, which prevents Ethiopia from carrying out any project on the Nile that would affect Egyptā€™s water interests. Another treaty was concluded in 1929 between Great Britain on behalf of Sudan and its equatorial lakes colonies, and Egypt, which included a provision similar to that of the 1902 treaty.

Ā© Shutterstock

The third treaty is the Nile Waters Agreement 1959 between Egypt and Sudan, under which the two countries allocated the entire Nile waters to themselves, leaving nothing for the upper riparians. Those treaties are totally rejected by the upper riparians, who refer to them as ā€œthe colonial treaties,ā€ although only the 1929 qualifies as such.

On the other hand, the upper riparians are demanding equitable and reasonable utilization of the Nile waters among all the riparians, in accordance with the principles of international water law. They have challenged the validity of the 1902 and 1929 treaties, and have further indicated that they are not parties to the 1959 agreement and have not consented to it, and are, therefore, not bound by it.ĢżConsequently, the competing demands over the limited Nile waters have started escalating, and are becoming increasingly compounded by the steady increase in population, and intertwined in the overall Nile politics.

Nile Basin Initiative

In an attempt to bring the Nile riparians together to discuss and try to resolve these differences, theĢżĢżand some other donors started in 1997 to facilitate the establishment of a formal setting for cooperation among all the Nile riparians, which was called theĢżĢż(NBI).

The NBI was established as an intergovernmental organization, and has been viewed as a transitional arrangement to foster cooperation and sustainable development of the Nile River for the benefit of its inhabitants. It is guided by a shared vision ā€œto achieve sustainable socio-economic development through equitable utilization of, and benefit from, the common Nile Basin water resources.ā€

The main objective of the NBI has been to conclude a cooperative framework agreement that would incorporate the principles, structures and institutions of the NBI, and that would be inclusive of all the Nile riparians. Work on theĢżĢż(CFA) started immediately after the NBI was formally established in 1999, and continued for more than 10 years.

However, the process has run into some major difficulties as a result of the resurfacing and hardening of the respective positions of the riparians over the colonial treaties, as well as Egyptian and Sudanese claims to their existing rights and uses of the Nile waters on the one hand, and the demands for equitable and reasonable utilization of the Nile waters by the upper riparians on the other.

In an attempt to address the controversy over the demands of Egypt and Sudan and the position of the upper riparians, the CFA drafters introduced the concept of water security. Article 14 of the CFA defines water security to mean ā€œthe right of all Nile Basin States to reliable access to, and uses of the Nile River system for health, agriculture, livelihoods, production and the environment.ā€ However, this approach did not satisfy Egyptian and Sudanese claims to what they see as their existing rights and uses.

A second major challenge is population growth. Close to 250 million people in these 11 countries live or depend on the Nile, and the number is expected to exceed 300 million by 2025.

Egypt and Sudan demanded and insisted that Article 14 of the CFA include a specific provision, to be added at the end of the article, which would oblige the basin states ā€œnot to adversely affect the water security and current uses and rights of any other Nile Basin State.ā€ The position of Egypt and Sudan revived the longstanding disputes related to the treaties discussed aboveā€”Egyptā€™s veto power, and Egyptian and Sudanese claims to their existing uses of and rights to the Nile waters under the 1959 Nile Agreement.

This position is tantamount to a demand for an unequivocal recognition of those treaties as well as Egyptā€™s veto power. No wonder, then, that this position was totally rejected by the upper riparian states. They suggested, as a compromise, leaving the issues related to Article 14 to the Nile Basin Commission to be established after the CFA enters into force. This compromise was rejected by Egypt and Sudan.

Thus, rather than assisting in the resolution of controversies over the principles of equitable and reasonable utilization, and the obligation against causing significant harm to existing rights and uses, introduction of the third concept of water security simply widened the gap and exacerbated the differences over the two principles between the Nile lower and upper riparians, and on the CFA as a whole.

The CFA needs ratification by six countries to enter into force. Thus far, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Tanzania have ratified the CFA. Hence, the differences over the CFA persisted and have been exacerbated by the signature and ratification of the CFA.

The CFA lays down some basic principles for the protection, use, conservation and development of the Nile Basin. Those principles include cooperation among the states of the Nile River Basin on the basis of sovereign equality, territorial integrity, mutual benefit and good faith, sustainable development, equitable and reasonable utilization, and prevention of significant harm. It establishes the Nile Basin Commission (NBC) for promoting and facilitating the implementation of the principles, rights and obligations set forth in the CFA, and for serving as an institutional framework for cooperation among the Nile Basin states.

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

Less than a year after the signing of the CFA by five states, and as if the differences over the CFA were not enough, Ethiopia announced in March 2011 that it was embarking on building the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile, about 20 kilometers from the Sudanese border. The GERD is 145 meters high, with a storage capacity of 74 BCM. The installed capacity of the GERD is 6,000 megawatts, with 16 turbinesā€”each expected to generate 375 megawatts. The cost is estimated at close to $5 billion, which Ethiopia announced it would cover from its own resources, with no resort to external funding. The GERD would, upon completion, be the largest dam in Africa, and the 10^th largest in the world. It is worth adding here that the hydropower potential of Ethiopia exceeds 45,000 megawatts, with 30,000 from the Nile alone.

Ā© Shutterstock

Egypt and Sudan opposed the GERD vehemently, contending that the GERD will decrease considerably the amount of Nile waters reaching Sudan and flowing thereafter to Egypt. Egypt further claimed that the GERD will turn a large part of its irrigated lands into desert, and will result in a considerable decrease of the hydropower generated by the Aswan High Dam. Sudan was also concerned about the safety of the GERD, and the tragic consequences it would face if the dam were to break down.

However, meetings between the three countries continued, on and off, at both the technical and political levels for almost four years. During those years the GERD became, gradually and incrementally, aĢżfait accompli, and finally Sudan and Egypt accepted that reality. This acceptance was explicitly reflected in the Agreement on Declaration of Principles on the GERD signed by the heads of state of the three countries in March 2015. In return, Ethiopia agreed that two studies on the effects of the GERD on Sudan and Egypt would be carried out by independent international consultants, and indicated that it would take the recommendations of the studies into account. Ethiopia also promised to give priority in the sale of the GERD power to Sudan and Egypt.

The Way Forward

Acceptance by Sudan and Egypt of the GERD is no doubt a landmark in the history of the Nile, and should be seen as a first and major step in the direction of cooperation. It has also laid to rest the persistent rumors and reports about an imminent armed conflict between Egypt and Ethiopia over the GERD.

The Nile waters are limited, but the Nile itself is a source for substantial benefits that could be collectively harnessed, developed and shared by all the riparians. The Lake Victoriaā€™s wealth of fisheries; the vast irrigable lands of Sudan; the immense livestock fortune and extensive swamps of South Sudan; the huge hydropower potential of Ethiopia; and Egyptā€™s large capabilities in agro-industries are all benefits that can be sustainably harnessed from the Nile River.

However, these tremendous benefits can only be realized through genuine cooperation and planned collective action. Indeed, only through such cooperation can the Nile Basin countries move beyond the narrow definition of the volumetric water security, and expand in the realms of food and power security, all achievable from the Nile River, so as to pull the more than 250 million Nile inhabitants from hunger, poverty and darkness.

This way, the shared vision of the NBI of February 1999 of achieving sustainable socioeconomic development through equitable utilization of, and benefit from, the common Nile Basin water resources can finally be realized.

The views expressed in this article are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

Photo Credit:ĢżĢż/ / /ĢżĢż

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At best, politics in the Middle East is shifty to the point of anarchy, but since theĢżevents of 2011, erroneously called the ā€œ,ā€ the region has become completely chaotic. Whatever the basic causes of this volcanic eruption are somewhat dwarfed by the obvious consequences, chief among them the partial collapse of state systems in the post-independence era.

, Libya, Iraq and are states by name, but in reality, they are failing political entities, engaged in civil wars that are focused on the question of identity and political stability.ĢżOther countries are grappling with the same problems, though not exercising the level of mayhem as the states mentioned. Taken together, it seems that we are now witnessing anĢżupdated version of the late Fouad Ajamiā€™s description of the .

The Middle East Today

There are, at least, two important differences between previous crises in the Middle East and those today. First, the current Arab predicament is becoming an all-out European problem, because of the . Maybe it is too premature to talk about the Middle Easternization of Europe, but the process of it becoming so is well in sight.

However important it may be, this article dwells on the second important difference between the Arab predicament of then and now, which is the changing role of Israel.

Israel, the traditional bogeyman of Arab and Middle East politics, has not suddenly become the favorite, likable neighborā€”it is far from it. However, other things are happening, and they have a basic cause and also carry the potential of important future implications.

Egypt under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi returned its ambassador to Israel after three years of absence. The Egyptians and Israelis did so amid the turmoil in the disputed territories of the West Bank, and at a time when the Palestinian Authority is threatening to sever whatever relationship it still has with Israel. Egypt voted in favor of Israel in the United Nations in November 2015, and while it was not on a significant issue, it was a symbolic gesture. In fact, it was the first time EgyptĢż. Additionally, Egyptian aircraft were allowed to fly over Israel in order to monitor Gaza, among many more examples.

So, what is happening?

Well, in one respect, the implications of the events of 2011 and afterward are such that, even with regard to Israel, the most important Arab state is following the political science textbook, rather than the book of hatred, and is applying the simple, old rule of ā€œthe enemy of my enemy is my friend.ā€ Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and, therefore, an enemy of Sisi.

Abdel Fattah al-Sisi Ā© Shutterstock

Iran sends its long hands to Gaza, again an enemy of Sisi. Turkey, under President , is another foreign power that positioned itself against the Egyptian leader and also against Israel. Erdogan is interested in a rapprochement with the Israelis, but it is worth noting that Egypt asked Israel to prevent Turkey from having any foothold in Gaza. The bogey man of the Middle East is becoming a participant in the regional game. This is not a revolutionary change, but an important one.

Regarding Egypt, relations with Israel are opening, but much less so in the case of . The kingdom is still the most impeccable Sunni Arab adversary state of Israel. Wahhabism rules supreme and the Jews were never the favorites of the House of Saud. That said, the reality of the Middle East post-2011 is also having an effect in this circumstance. Much is happening behind the scenes in Saudi Arabia, but the little we know is important nonetheless.

Saudi Arabia and Israel are engaged in an active political and strategic dialogue, with Iran and the United States in the background. The Iranian nuclear program is now internationally sanctioned, and it is something the Saudis are as vehemently against as the Israelis. For them, the modern-day Sunni-Shia conflict is being exacerbated by Iranā€™s intervention in Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. The US also poses a problem, because both Israel and Saudi Arabia have lost their faith in the Obama administration.

Israelā€™s Caveat

A basic problem is emerging, which is the inevitable byproduct of 2011 and afterward. Arab regimes have lost their self-confidenceā€”they feel threatened by forces that they find hard to control, or even contain. The is one of them, as well as other jihadists and extremists like al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran and Shia Islam, and the changing role of the Obama administration. In a time like this, of extreme concern and high level of unpredictability, old habits may still die hard, but somehow dying they are. Israel is the unpleasant neighbor around, but maybe the one so needed to help weather the storm.

So, where is Israel in all that?

One thing is for sure: The Netanyahu government, and the Israeli public at large, like the idea that there are new political openings for Israeli policy in the Middle East. But in a typical Israeli way, they are divided as to what policy. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the key man because barring a political disaster, he will remain in office throughout 2016.

He is also the key because he does not favor political and diplomatic initiatives that may risk his right-wing coalition. Here is a catch, the prospect, the challenge for Netanyahu: Stop being a politician, be a statesman and go after the newly opening, moderate Sunni option. But for that to happen, he has to disengage from the current coalition and form a new one with Yair Lapidā€™s Yesh Atid Party, and possibly the Labor Party, so that he can do something with regard to the Palestinians.

No progress with Sunni states can happen without a change with regard to the Palestinians. Even in the case of Egypt, the current honeymoon is so fragile, mainly because of the events in the West Bank. Progress with the Palestinians requires the Israelis to go along, because Israel is stronger when it has more cards to play with.

It is the role of the statesman to play first. Will Netanyahu live up to the challenge? This is unlikely, but he can surprise, and he knows that there are some tangible rewards awaiting Israel. No, open relations with Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf states may still be way ahead in time, but the journey should and could start in 2016.

The views expressed in this article are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

Photo Credit:ĢżĢż/ /ĢżĢż

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To millions around the world, football is a religion. Countries bicker and fight to host the World Cup. Organizations like FIFA rise and fall in the face of never-ending corruption scandals. The last thing anyone might associate ā€œthe beautiful gameā€ with is the unpredictable world of politics.

To investigative journalist James M. Dorsey, however, the millions of fans who worship the sport are exceptionally integral to this world. Their loyalty, unity and devotion to football clubs are part of the larger architecture of politics and authoritarian regime resilience in the Middle East.

Having spent the last four decades covering ethnic and religious conflict and major events of the 20^thĢżcentury in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America, Dorseyā€™s recent endeavors have proved to be more academic as a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, and co-director of the Institute of Fan Culture at the Julius Maximilian University of WĆ¼rzburg in Germany.

His chief focus has been his widely acclaimed blog, , and aĢżĢżof the same name, which explores how football has shaped Middle Eastern politics and vice versa.

This link became explicit in the form of the Arab Uprisings in 2011, which Dorsey explains in his blog and book about how Egyptian ultrasā€”hardcore football fans who have had tense relations with the police and the regime since the late-2000sā€”Ģżthe uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak. They protested military ownership of football clubs by mobilizing thousands, using flares, songs, graffiti andĢż. While these acts of organized demonstrations were clearly a show of genuine support of football teams and Egyptā€™s football league, they were still a threat to the regime.

In the years that have followed, ultras in Egypt have been labeled as ā€œterroristsā€Ģżand Ģżby President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and his administration.

If that was not already an indication of how pronounced a political role football seems to have in the Middle East,ĢżĢżand the controversy behind Qatarā€™s World Cup 2022 campaign and labor ā€œreformsā€ should be compelling enough as evidence that football has become an important platform for citizens to voice socioeconomic and political concerns on and off the pitch.

In this edition ofĢżĢż51³Ō¹ĻĢżtalks to James Dorsey about football, politics and the role of ultras in Egypt.

Shu-Wen Chye: You began your career as a journalist, and you have an immensely impressive careerā€”having covered the 1973 Yom Kippur War; the Iranian Revolution; the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; the wars in Bosnia, Kosovo and Serbiaā€”just to name a few events. What made you focus most of your primary research on football and politics?

James Dorsey:ĢżPure opportunism. I would like to tell you that I recognized the value of football as a prism in the 1980s when I accompanied the Mexican national team on its first ever tour of the Middle East. I saw then the importance of football for all the things I have written about since and write about today. I just didnā€™t connect the dots. The penny dropped when a friend of mine, an established writer, phoned me after I wrote a piece in 2010 about the politics of why Middle Eastern and North African nations were not well-represented in the World Cup in South Africa. I was looking, at the time, for a way of looking at fault lines in the region; a way that would not simply be from the point of view of another analyst who differentiates him or herself by the way he or she dots Is and crosses Ts.

Yet even then I would have said there is no way I would be using football as a prism five years later. The viability of the prism, I realized in the course of the last few years, is the fact that football more than in any other part of the world has been a consistent factor in the development of the region for more than a century.

Chye:ĢżYou co-established a research center called theĢżInstitute of Fan CultureĢżat the Julius Maximilian University of WĆ¼rzburg. Tell us more about the institute, and how it has helped to bringĢżthe role of soccer fans in sustaining and toppling autocratic regimes into mainstream academic and media discussions.

Dorsey:ĢżThe institute was initially founded with a focus on soccer fans in Germany but, propelled by events in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as in eastern Europe and Latin America, it has significantly broadened its focus.

While it is the only institute of its kind, given that most research is done by a variety of scholars in a host of different institutions, its existence comes at a time that there is a greater scholarly focus on fans in generalā€”i.e. not just sports fans, but also, for example, music and film fans. Much of the research on fans is haphazard, that is to say it is individual scholars often putting out very good research. The institute, alongside other initiatives like a network of fan researchers in Europe, is an attempt to bundle research and establish synergies.

Chye:ĢżYou have written much about the transformation (or lack thereof) of Egyptian ultras in the last five years. What do you foresee happening under Sisi over the next year or two?

Dorsey:ĢżThe risk in Egypt is that repressive government policiesā€”that leave no public space uncontrolled and have kept stadiums closed to the public for much of the past four and a half yearsā€”[could] further radicalization, particularly of activist youth. Soccer fans have historically been a driver of protest in Egypt, and that is true for student and neighborhood protests in the last two years since the rise of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Flickr

In the debate, how Egyptian soccer can return to ā€œnormalā€ and deal with the ultras [has] so far carried the day. Scores of ultras are in prison or on the run. Legal efforts to ban the ultras as terrorists have, so far, failed. Nonetheless, the regime cannot afford to tolerate the ultras as a force.

Chye: Another topic you have written extensively about is the Qatar World Cup in 2022, the corruption and the high number of deaths of foreign workers. Has the US Justice Departmentā€™s charges against Sepp Blatter and other FIFA officials in May 2015 influenced the status of the campaign against it?

Dorsey:ĢżThe US charges have not, at least not yet. More immediate is the Swiss legal investigation that is specifically focused on the awarding of the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 tournament to Qatar. Depending on how the US investigation develops and whether the Justice Department decides to identify unidentified co-conspirators mentioned in the indictments or actually moves to indict one or more of those co-conspirators, it could.

Chye: Youā€™ve done comparative pieces on the relationship between football fans and authoritarian governments in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Do you think that more research should be done to compare these two regions?

Dorsey:ĢżThere is no doubt a treasure trove of research to be done, particularly with regard to Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Myanmar. It is something I have started to look at.

The views expressed in this article are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: Ģż/ĢżĢż/Ģż

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Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury was born in 1588, the year the British defeated the Spanish Armada. This was the start of the rise of English global supremacy and the inhabitants of this blessed green isle were busy deifying Good Queen Bess. However, civil war broke out in 1642 between Roundheads and Cavaliers, and Hobbes was duly horrified to see the natural order of society so rudely upended. As a loyal royalist, he left England to live in exile in Paris, the land of Louis XIV, Le Roi Soleil (the Sun King).

Horrified by England and inspired by France, Hobbes argued for absolutism. He argued that monarchs need untrammeled absolute power over their subjects to prevent ā€œwar of all against allā€ that is inevitable given human nature. He argued that without absolutism, there would be ā€œno knowledge of the face of the earth, no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.ā€

It seems David Cameron, Britainā€™s Etonian prime minister, is a devotee of Hobbes. On November 4, Cameronā€™s government tabled the draft , which has been derisively termed Snoopersā€™ Charter for good reason. As with most government declarations during our politically correct times, this government has been full of pious homilies. The devil lies in the details though.

The bill authorizes Her Majestyā€™s 007 spies with their flashy suits, fancy cars and flirty seductresses to access records tracking the use of the Internet by everyone in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, ā€œInternet service providers will be required to keep Internet communication records for a maximum period of 12 months.ā€ In ā€œ,ā€ the government would not even need any judicial approval.

In 2013, the British Security Industry Authority estimated that there were up to in the country, including 750,000 in ā€œsensitive locationsā€ such as schools, hospitals and care homes. In Britain, Big Brother is always watching.

The new fashion of increasing surveillance is supposed to make Britain safer. Two questions arise. First, who acts as a safeguard against the intrusion into the daily lives of over 64 million people? Second, are the authorities even capable of handling the information they are collecting? Many intelligence professionals argue that the collected information increasingly acts more as noise than a signal.

The focus on mass surveillance has led to a neglect of traditional methods that have been far more effective in preventing terrorist attacks. For instance, building community relations with vulnerable poor minority communities is generally a better idea than tapping their phones. Similarly, improving sharing of information by a Kafkaesque state is a decent but unglamorous idea. Washington and London crave absolute control, though, and are in thrall to the new cult of technology that is supposedly omniscient.

Even as his government unveiled Snoopersā€™ Charter, Cameron welcomed Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to London. In , Sisi defended Egyptā€™s security laws. He claimed that extremists threatened Egypt and tough laws prevented it from suffering the collapses experienced by its neighbors.

Sisi masterminded the coup against President Mohammed Morsi in 2013 and then claimed power in a rubberstamp election. During his time in power, over 1,000 people have been killed and more than 40,000 have reportedly been locked up in a ferocious crackdown on dissent.

A little over two months ago, three Al Jazeera journalists were for ā€œaiding a terrorist organization.ā€ After spending nearly two years in detention, Sisi was merciful enough to pardon them on the occasion of Eid al-Adha. Yet the entire episode revealed contempt for basic freedoms that has marked Sisiā€™s regime. Sisi argues in the same vein as Hobbes and claims he is providing security to Egyptians. If Sisi did not have absolute power, Egypt would implode and would suffer civil war and anarchy.

Cameron is either staggeringly stupid or callously cynical to buy Sisiā€™s claim. In the words of Jeremy Corbyn, the British opposition leader, the prime ministerā€™s welcome and military support of Sisi ā€œā€ of British ā€œclaims to be promoting peace and justice in the region.ā€ Corbyn is right.

Just over a week ago, a Russian plane crashed in Egyptā€™s Sinai Peninsula killing all 224 people on board. Sinai Province, a local jihadist group that has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, claimed the honors. Even as Cameron was hobnobbing with Sisi, his government was joining others in suspending flights to Sinai. It is clear that despite repression and surveillance, Sisi is unable to provide security and stability to Egyptians or tourists. In fact, Sisiā€™s actions are causing despair and pushing more of his people into extremism.

Like Cameron and Sisi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is promising security to his people too. In June, the Justice and Development Party, which Erdogan hails from, lost an election and the presidentā€™s hold on power seemed tenuous. Now, Erdoganā€™s have succeeded. He declared war on both the Islamic State and the Kurdistan Workersā€™ Party (PKK). He labeled his opponents of supporting terrorism. He has taken a leaf from the Vladimir Putin playbook and curbed press freedoms quite effectively.

Erdogan won because he was able to appeal to the same primal sentiments of identity and security as Putin and Binyamin ā€œBibiā€ Netanyahu. As many tyrants have discovered in the past, fear works. In uncertain and perilous times, Turks voted for stability and strength. The appeal to religious nationalism worked. Erdogan is now the indisputable sultan of Turkey.

*[You can receive ā€œThe World This Weekā€ directly in your inbox by subscribing to our mailing list. Simply visitĢżĢżand enter your email address in the space provided. Meanwhile, please find below five of our finest articles for the week.]

Accusations of Genocide Rock Myanmarā€™s Transition

Ā© Shutterstock

With claims of genocide in Myanmar, the international community has failed to usher the country through its democratic transition.

Al Jazeera English recentlyĢżbroadcast a documentary, which was supported by aĢżYale Law SchoolĢżreport, that accused the Myanmar government of an orchestrated campaign to trigger communal violence, and it claimed there was ā€œstrong evidenceā€Ģżof genocide against the Rohingya, a Muslim minority situated in the countryā€™s Rakhine State.

Much of what the report discusses is nothing new to those who have been following the issue over the last few decades.ĢżTo some extent, the findings justify the fears of many who had warned that Myanmarā€™s journey of ā€œtransitional democracyā€ was at best weak or at worst a superficial attempt at misleading the international community.ĢżWhat the report and documentary do highlight is the embarrassing situation world powers find themselves in having not heeded these warnings.

Led primarily by British Prime Minister David Cameron and US President Barack Obama, the international community has fallen over itself to ā€œreengageā€ with Myanmarā€¦

A Glimmer of Hope for the Syrian Crisisā€¦ But Only

Ā© Shutterstock

The talks in Vienna offer the first faint hope for a solution to the civil war that has wracked Syria. But intractable issues could yet frustrate this hopeful beginning.

At first blush, the auspicious beginning of the latest peace initiative on Syria that concluded in Vienna on October 30 offers much by which to be encouraged.

The 17 participating nations, plus the European Union and the United Nationsā€”the Syrian government did not participateā€”issued aĢżjoint communiquĆ©Ģżthat called for, inter alia: protection of the rights of all Syrian people; the defeat of the Islamic State (IS); and an invitation to the United Nations (UN) to convene representatives of Syriaā€™s government and the Syrian opposition in order to seek a political process leading to credible, inclusive, non-sectarian governance, followed by a UN-supervised process to establish a new constitution and hold free elections. Moreover, the parties committed to maintain Syriaā€™s territorial integrity and state institutions.

A number of factors make this newest peace-brokering initiative different from the two Geneva collectivesā€¦

An American Anxiety

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Anxiety is linked to the insecurity gripping a divided, unequal and conformist United States of America.

I have anxiety. Generalized Anxiety Disorder, officially. It was never really acknowledged or diagnosed until it swelled up into a wave of depression during my second year of college. Looking back now, I can trace the breadcrumbs marking its trail: the odium for sleepaway camp, the times spent fighting off nausea in the locker room before swim meets.

At most times, it flares up unannounced, unwelcomed. It doesnā€™t always make sense. Iā€™m white, in my 20s, grew up in the same house my parents still live in and have graduated college debt-free. Iā€™ve got a good family with four living grandparents, a brother, cousins and good friends.

To the objective observer it would seem Iā€™ve got it all. And I kind of do. Maybe I have a genetic predisposition for anxiety and depression; but maybe itā€™s environmental. But maybe thereā€™s something more going on. Maybe America has something to do with itā€¦

Saudi Fighter Challenges Stereotypes of Women

Ā© Elena Koshevaya

In the Middle East, a female jiu-jitsu fighter works to eliminate bias against women in combat sports.

No historian can say for certain whether theĢżAmazons existed. Some say they lived in a matriarchal society, where little girls were raised as warriors and men took care of the babies. Some say they were a figment of the Athenian imagination, a way to frighten the men into cooperating during times ofĢżā€œpolitical stress.ā€

In 1861, Johann Jakob Bachofenā€™sĢżDas Mutterrecht, orĢżMother Right,Ģżpresented a theoretical ancient world: polyamorous, communistic and with a religion recognizing a matriarchal rather than a patriarchal line. Some interpreted this to mean that the dark ages of humanity ended with the enlightened advent of patriarchal rule and monogamous marriage. More recently, feminists use the theory to hypothesize about a utopiaĢżruled by women.

To be fair, however, the idea of harmonious women living in villages and engaged in peaceful goddess worship is less threatening than the idea of an Amazon who fights ā€œlike a man.ā€ A viciousā€¦

US Warship Doesnā€™t Scare China

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Given the factors involved in US-China relations, territorial disputes in the South China Sea will not lead to open conflict.

On October 26, true to its prior announcement, the Obama administration had aĢżUS Navy warshipĢżenter waters near the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. The move was meant as a provocative signal to show China that Washington does not accept its territorial claims to islands and reefs in the disputed waters, while showingĢżAmerican supportĢżfor Asian allies.

As the step had been announced beforehand byĢżAmerican officials, the ChineseĢżinitiallyĢżcondemnedĢżthe move, but did so in a calm way.

Subsequent reactions, however,ĢżshowedĢżthat Beijing did not take the measure lightly. In a video conference, a high ranking Chinese admiral warned his American counterpart that the United States should tread more carefully, since even a minor incident could spark a war in the Asia Pacific.

Territorial disputes in the regionā€™s seas are nothing new. Current conflicts mostly concern the Spratly and Paracel Islands inā€¦

The views expressed in this article are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

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It wasnā€™tĢżan apology that Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry offered during a joint press conference in Cairo with his Mexican counterpart, Claudia Ruiz Massieu, so much as a mechanical reading of a press statement, punctuated with the notorious ā€œend of textā€ that went viral on social media.ĢżAlthough the Egyptian government expressed its regret to the families of 12 tourists killed by mistake on September 13, significant gestures to translate that regret into tangible and meaningful action was greatly lacking.

In fact, the government went as far as to place a gag order on stories about the tragedyā€”it is questionable whether or not this mistake would have made headlines if it wasnā€™t for the very public reaction of the Mexican governmentā€”further compounding frustration of those involved and affected.

This incident is undoubtedly another major setback for Egyptā€™s tourism sector, which has been brought to its knees followingĢżfour years of widespread political unrest and sporadic acts of violence. In the last five years,Ģżthe number of tourists visiting Egypt annually has dropped from 14.5 million to just over half a million, crushing revenues and leaving most of the countryā€™s workforce employed in the sector without stable income.

Egypt cannot afford to win the battle against terrorism and lose the war for stability and prosperity. While the military needs to push terrorists back outside its borders and combat those who are homegrown, it cannot do so in a way that perpetuates economic slowdown and international criticism.

To kill innocent people who contribute to Egyptā€™s economy and are ambassadors for the countryā€™s reputation abroad is sending a message of fear to all tourists who want to enjoy the treasures it has to offer.

The measures for damage control are within reach. As a first and crucial step, Egypt needs to publicly hold those responsible for the blunder to account. This will show that while an error was made, the government is serious about ensuring it is not repeated. It will also send a message to the world that the military does not have a free hand.

In the long-term, Egypt needs to have measures in place, especially for the military, that ensure discipline, accountability and precision. While the army reserves the right to protect the country, it cannot be in a position to be shooting first and asking questions later.

In the same way that laws were amended overnight following the assassination of Hisham Barakat, the state attorney, to ensure that civilian bodies are aligned with the military and the fight against terrorism, military codes must be adjusted to ensure that soldiers operate within a rigid framework, and that there is a clear protocol to determine who is a target.

What happened may have been a human error, but its impact will resonate among tourists, investors and, most importantly, Egyptā€™s own people for years to come.

If Egypt fails to take serious measures to protect civilians, especially from those who are tasked with protecting them, then it has much more at stake in the long-term than the fight against terrorism.

The views expressed in this article are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: Ģż/Ģż

We bring you perspectives from around the world. Help us to inform and educate. YourĢżĢżis tax-deductible. Join over 400 people to become a donor or you could choose to be aĢż.

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