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Links for January 5th

The Arabist Network - Mon, 05/01/2009 - 1:00pm

Links from my del.icio.us account for January 5th:

US coverage of Gaza War

The Arabist Network - Mon, 05/01/2009 - 12:31pm

pIndustry watchdog emEditor #38; Publisher/em:/p

blockquoteNEW YORK (Commentary) Israel launched its much-anticipated invasion of Gaza on Saturday. For over a week, U.S. media had provided largely one-sided coverage of the conflict, with little editorializing or commentary arguing against broader Israeli actions.

Most notably, after more than eight days of Israeli bombing and Hamas rocket launching in Gaza, The New York Times had produced exactly one editorial, not a single commentary by any of its columnists, and only two op-eds (one already published elsewhere). The editorial, several days ago, did argue against the wisdom of a ground invasion - - but even though that invasion had become ever more likely all week the paper did not return to this subject.

Amazingly, the paper has kept that silence going in Sunday’s paper, with no editorial or columnist comment on the Israeli invasion. The Washington Post did manage to work up an editorial for Sunday which, in the usual contortionist manner, found the invasion “justified” but also highly “risky.”/blockquote

[From a href="http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003926518"citeUPDATED: Media Commentary Muted as Israel Invades/cite/a]

Links January 2nd to January 5th

The Arabist Network - Mon, 05/01/2009 - 12:00pm

Links from my del.icio.us account for January 2nd through January 5th:

GazaSiege.com

The Arabist Network - Sun, 04/01/2009 - 12:08pm

Satellite map of strikes on Gaza

The Arabist Network - Sat, 03/01/2009 - 10:04am

Click on the image below to download a high resolution PDF of this map.

UNOSAT Map of Gaza attacks late December

Links January 1st to January 2nd

The Arabist Network - Fri, 02/01/2009 - 11:00am

Links from my del.icio.us account for January 1st through January 2nd:

Links December 30th to January 1st

The Arabist Network - Thu, 01/01/2009 - 3:00pm

Links from my del.icio.us account for December 30th through January 1st:

Who throws a shoe? Good ole shoe, that’s who.

The Arabist Network - Mon, 15/12/2008 - 10:49pm

Via POMED.

I won’t point to all the shoe stories out there, which mostly point out the obvious: “shoe incident highlights cataclysmic perception of Bush administration,” which doesn’t even begin to do justice to this strange little grinning man who decided he would wreak havoc thousands miles away from where he lives and whose country (or at least its leaders) still believe they have a right to do just that. Yankee, will you just go home?

Personally, as a funny aside on shoegate, I much prefer this clip from the great, prophetic movie Wag The Dog - which let’s remember preceded much of the Clinton and Bush era warmongering.

Watch the rest here.

Links for December 15th

The Arabist Network - Mon, 15/12/2008 - 8:00pm

Links from my del.icio.us account for December 15th:

Shaaban Abdel Rahim’s Obama song

The Arabist Network - Mon, 15/12/2008 - 11:37am

Shaaban Abdel Rahim by Youssef Nabil.

Shaaban’s Obama song

This has been out a while but it’s actually the first time I get hold on a MP3 file. [Thanks, Max]

Selected lyrics:
“Bush goes and Obama comes”
“People think Obama will be Saladin”
“But Palestine is still occupied and Iraq is still at war”
“Let’s hope Obama isn’t like Bush”

The other shoe drops

The Arabist Network - Mon, 15/12/2008 - 7:36am

What a beautiful scene. Makes you want to cry with joy.

Is this Obama’s Middle East strategy?

The Arabist Network - Sun, 14/12/2008 - 4:34pm

I’ve been loathe, aside from the quick links, to comment on Barack Obama - the man, his election, his policies and picks. After all, he’s not even president yet.

Like most people I cannot but be impressed by his charisma and talent, but overall I never really bought in to Obamania and he was not my favorite Democrat in the primaries (I fully recognize I was wrong in my choice of John Edwards, though, since his sex scandal would have lost him the race had he been the Democratic candidate). My basic position on Obama’s Middle East policy during the elections was that he would deliver little different, even if one could hope that he would pick different people to work on it than the ones we’ve had for two decades, and that on the Israel question specifically not only did he fail to distinguish himself (aside perhaps from his speech to Jewish-American in Columbus, OH) but bent over backwards to reassure the lobby, all the while neglecting to highlight its responsibility in the warmongering of the last eight years. (I also found his lack of strong reaction to the economic crisis during the election quite shocking, which is my other major beef with him.)

So basically, I already am skeptical that we will see a fundamentally different US Middle East foreign policy than the Clinton and Bush years, which were not that different apart from Bush’s hyper-militarism (before we had more discreet militarism). I was unhappy about Hillary Clinton being picked as SecState, because I associate the Clintons as one of the worst developments in American politics in the past quarter-century, and did not see the political necessity of appointing his ex-rival rather than a more dour and wonky choice. But I don’t really care that much, think that all of the vapid editorializing about the Arab world expecting change from Obama is complete bullshit driven by a US news framing agenda rather than any Arab reality, and am sadly resigned to yet another administration that will miss the point about the centrality of the Israel-Palestine issue in this region (which every elder American statesman has made for years) and the extremely pernicious impact it has had on the US foreign-policymaking process. I just hope Obama can/will/wants to do good on other issues, such as the environment or healthcare - although I remain fundamentally convinced he’s miss one of the most important issues of our time.

Even so,I was surprised to read this albeit speculative article in Haaretz/a about the Obama-Clinton Middle East strategy:

However, senior government sources in Jerusalem said that the information they have received indicates that the new administration is planning a hierarchy of about five special envoys to various regions, overseen by a kind of “super coordinator,” who would answer directly to the president and the secretary of state.

The sources said that the new policy is part of Obama’s and Clinton’s understanding that all the conflicts in the Middle East and Southeast Asia are to some extent connected to the Iranian nuclear program and withdrawal from Iraq. Therefore, it is important to operate in a number of parallel but coordinated channels to attain achievements on all fronts.

The most prominent name in consideration for the top coordinator post is Dennis Ross, who served as President Bill Clinton’s special envoy to the Middle East. Ross’ name has also come up as a possible senior adviser to Hillary Clinton.

The envoy to the Middle East would oversee the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, negotiations between Syria and Israel and the situation in Lebanon.

Short-listed for this job are Colin Powell, who was President George W. Bush’s secretary of state during his first term; Dan Kurtzer, U.S. ambassador to Israel from 2001 to 2005; and Martin Indyk, who is close to Hillary Clinton and who served as U.S. ambassador to Israel from 1995 to 1997 and from 2000 to 2001.

All conflicts in the Middle East are connected to Iraq and Iran?!!?! If they see it that way, it’s because they’ve decided the priority will be Iraq and Iran, which is to say it’ll be Iran. Fair enough, the Israeli-Palestinian process does appear at a deadlock with inter-Palestinian rivalry and the prospect of a new Netanyahu administration in Tel Aviv. Nonetheless, considering the humanitarian disaster in Gaza, continued ethnic cleansing and settlement expansion in Jerusalem and the West Bank, one would think the US could have other priorities on its mind (indeed, since a good part of the US defense establishment thinks it can live with a nuclear Iran, one wonders whether this isn’t an Israeli priority).

It’s also extremely depressing to see the list of names for top coordinator (Dennis Ross - nuff said) and for Middle East Envoy: Martin Indyk is AIPAC’s man and Colin Powell was a failure as SecState and obviously overwhelmed by his bureaucratic opponents. Even with Dan Kurtzer, the most palatable and professional of these choices, we have the slight problem that his brother is an Israeli settler.

Now one might put this down to the idea that these are the only acceptable names to Israel, which largely calls the shots with regards to US peace process policy, at least since the first Clinton administration. But it also shows a staggering lack of imagination: in all of the talent pool of Washington, DC, these are the only men one can think of for the job? Where’s the change we can believe in, Mr Obama?

Links December 13th to December 14th

The Arabist Network - Sun, 14/12/2008 - 4:00pm

Links from my del.icio.us account for December 13th through December 14th:

The No. 1 Sun Engine

The Arabist Network - Sun, 14/12/2008 - 3:46pm

no1sun.png

The 11th Cairo International Biennale kicks off in a few days, and while I’ll unfortunately miss the opening I will be back in a few weeks to check out this intriguing project I was emailed about. The No. 1 Sun Engine was operational in Maadi, a posh southern suburb of Cairo, in 1913 and was among the first serious experiments in solar power. Its American inventor, Frank Shuman, raised funds to deploy the bizarre contraption (which works by powering a low-pressure steam turbine) in London before visiting sun-drenched Cairo to build it. Its first use in to power a water-pump for irrigation with water from the Nile.
_wp-content_uploads_shuman_portrait_h500.jpg
You can read more about the history of the sun engine at project page, where there’s a timeline that tracks Shuman’s movements alongside with prominent historical events, such as Lord Kitchener’s arrival in Cairo and the start of World War I. The juxtaposition of this early venture into solar power and major geopolitical developments is fascinating, if only because WWI ushered in the era of oil (and the systematic sabotage of alternative energy projects), while Shuman developed his machine because he (as a Pennsylvanian) was worried about reaching the exhaustion of then-recoveroble coal, the Victorian age’s equivalent of peak oil. Of course, coal (control of which was a key objective of WWI and which is now undergoing a revival in China and the US among others) powered the war effort and shaped European societies, notably by making industrialization possible, much as after WWI control of oil (and specifically Middle Eastern oil) would help make possible massive social change and an unprecedented age of plenty in America.

I’ve always found this interconnection of social organization, imperialism and technology fascinating - such as in some of the recent work of Tim Mitchell, who has looked at the differences in social organization of coal and oil-based societies (because of the distribution model for each resource) and their role in making Western democracy possible (and therefore also perhaps impossible in other conditions). In this respect I highly recommend his short article n the subject (to my knowledge the only one available), which is in Word format here: Tim Mitchell’s article on carbon democracy

But I’ll go see this exhibition for the sheer cool steampunk aspect of it.

Links for December 12th

The Arabist Network - Fri, 12/12/2008 - 1:00pm

Links from my del.icio.us account for December 12th:

Links December 11th to December 12th

The Arabist Network - Fri, 12/12/2008 - 11:00am

Links from my del.icio.us account for December 11th through December 12th:

Links December 9th to December 10th

The Arabist Network - Wed, 10/12/2008 - 10:00am

Links from my del.icio.us account for December 9th through December 10th:

Links December 8th to December 9th

The Arabist Network - Tue, 09/12/2008 - 7:00am

Links from my del.icio.us account for December 8th through December 9th:

Palestinian prisoners’ release is delayed - but why?

The Arabist Network - Mon, 08/12/2008 - 4:09pm

Are the Israelis trying to destabilize Mahmoud Abbas with this leak?

JERUSALEM – Israeli officials said Monday they would delay the release of 250 Palestinian prisoners until next week because of a request by Palestinian officials.
They said the Palestinian officials had asked for the delay because President Mahmoud Abbas is out of the country and wants to be back in the West Bank to greet the freed prisoners.

Note that if they were immediately released they could spend eid with their families.

[From Israel to delay Palestinian prisoner release - Yahoo! News]

Links for December 8th

The Arabist Network - Mon, 08/12/2008 - 4:00pm

Links from my del.icio.us account for December 8th:

Links December 3rd to December 8th

The Arabist Network - Mon, 08/12/2008 - 3:00pm

Links from my del.icio.us account for December 3rd through December 8th:

  • ICOS - Struggle For Kabul: The Taliban Advance - ICOS report: "The Taliban now holds a permanent presence in 72% of Afghanistan, up from 54% a year ago. Taliban forces have advanced from their southern heartlands, where they are now the de facto governing power in a number of towns and villages, to Afghanistan’s western and north-western provinces, as well as provinces north of Kabul. Within a year, the Taliban's permanent presence in the country has increased by a startling 18%. Three out of the four main highways into Kabul are now compromised by Taliban activity. The capital city has plummeted to minimum levels of control, with the Taliban and other criminal elements infiltrating the city at will."
  • Dar Al Hayat | The Mystery of Arab Impotence - Patrick Seale: "Egypt — constrained by its peace treaty with Israel, enfeebled by its dependence on American aid, terrified of Muslim Brother activism, overwhelmed by internal problems and obsessed by the question of the succession to President Husni Mubarak's tired regime - seems wholly incapable of action to relieve the misery of Gaza, on its very borders. A generation ago, the troika of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria carried some weight in the world. Today, Egypt is - politically, at least - a shadow of its former self, while Saudi-Syrian relations are strained because of the Damascus-Tehran alliance."
  • Sudan’s Leaders Brace for U.S. Shift - "In the Sudanese capital of Khartoum these days, political elites are bracing for what they expect will be a major shift in U.S. policy toward a government the United States has blamed for orchestrating a violent campaign against civilians in the western Darfur region. "Compared to the Republicans, the Democrats, I think they are hawks," said Ghazi Suleiman, a human rights lawyer and member of the Southern People's Liberation Movement, which has a fragile power-sharing agreement with the ruling party. "I know Obama's appointees. And I know their policy towards Sudan. Everybody here knows it. The policy is very aggressive and very harsh. I think we really will miss the judgments of George W. Bush."
  • Obama team’s warring Middle East views - Ben Smith - Politico.com - Story tries to depics Kurtzer vs. Ross war at State over Israel. As if.
  • ELIZABETH WARNOCK FERNEA, 1927-2008 - Elizabeth Fernea, anthropologist who did ethnography of Iraqi an tribal village, passed away. I met her in Cairo around 2002.
  • Henry A. Kissinger - Barack Obama’s Team of National Security Heavyweights - washingtonpost.com - Kissinger likes Obama's national security team, offers advice.
  • Qatar, an oil-rich gulf state has asked Kenya if it can lease land to grow food | Environment | guardian.co.uk - Another Gulf states plans a mega-farm in sub-Saharan Africa.

Rachid Khalidi interview in Haaretz

The Arabist Network - Mon, 08/12/2008 - 1:40pm

Haaretz’ Akiva Eldar has a long interview with Rachid Khalidi, I believe the first since the storm over his relationship to Barack Obama. Here are a few choice excerpts:

On the situation in Palestine and prospects for peace:

“Both the occupation regime and the settlement enterprise have gotten constantly stronger since the negotiating process began in 1991 - after being weakened by the first intifada. These twin processes went on steroids after the second intifada started in 2000. If these two bulldozer-like endeavors are not rapidly reversed - not halted, reversed - then there is no possibility whatsoever of a two-state solution. These processes - the consecration of the occupation regime and the expansion of settlements - have been ongoing for 41 years. I suspect that because of them, combined with the blindness of Israeli leaders and the weakness of Palestinian leadership, there is little chance for a two-state solution to be implemented. And anyone who wants to implement a real, equitable two-state solution would have to explain in detail how they would uproot all or most of the settlements. Equally difficult will be overcoming the powerful interlocking complex of forces in Israeli society that have extensive material, bureaucratic, political and ideological interests in the Israeli state’s continued control over the lives of 3.5 million Palestinians, a control that is exercised under the pretext of security.”

On what change Obama will bring:

“In any case, much will depend on who is chosen for the key positions relating to the Middle East. If some of the unimaginative, close-minded and biased advocates of conventional thinking who bear a major share of the responsibility for the mess we have been in for over 20 years - from the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations to that of Clinton, even before George W. Bush made things even worse - are appointed to important posts, my expectations will be low. I was involved in the negotiations as an advisor to the Palestinian delegation from Madrid in 1991 until June 1993, before Oslo. Those American officials who helped get the Palestinians and Israelis into the mess they are in via a deeply flawed negotiating process, and a cowardly refusal to confront occupation and settlement head-on when it would have been far easier to do in the 1980s and 1990s, do not deserve another chance to ruin the future of the peoples of this region.”

On the situation in Gaza:

“Although the responsibility of Israel in this matter is paramount, the efforts of Palestinians and of outsiders have been insufficient as well, and we will all be affected by such an outcome, so we all have an urgent responsibility to act. More immediately, targeting a civilian population of 1.5 million people of the Gaza Strip with hunger, deprivation and effective imprisonment, whatever the nature of their leaders, is criminal and is a violation of international law, as are all attacks on civilian populations, Jewish or Arab - something I have said repeatedly in talks here. That people, whether in Tel Aviv, Ramallah, the Arab countries, or the capitals of the world, can remain silent while Gazans are punished on this scale is beyond belief.”

Eldar makes it clear in the introduction of the interview that when Khalidi is talking about “close-minded and biased” appointees, he is talking about Dennis Ross. I am surprised that no decision has yet come out about what, if any, position Ross will have in the Obama administration. There have been rumors that he may become involved in policy towards Iran rather than the peace process, and Dan Kurtzer’s recent appointment would suggest he may be kept away. But I wonder whether there is any debate about bringing Ross in in the Obama camp.

Abou Trika overooked for Ballon d’Or?

The Arabist Network - Tue, 02/12/2008 - 1:00pm

The latest international conspiracy against Egypt:

Scandalously, the France Football editorial team who selected the 30 players for whom their worldwide panel of journalists are allowed to vote overlooked the Al Ahly and Egypt playmaker Mohamed Aboutrika.

Fifa won’t compensate for this offensive anomaly. Their shortlist doesn’t include Aboutrika either. Nor anyone else from Egypt’s recent vintage. Hardly surprising given that Fifa doesn’t even rank Egypt, winners of the last two African Cups of Nations, as the best team in Africa. Not enough Europe-based players, perhaps.

[From Football: Paul Doyle on the nonsense of the Ballon d'Or]

(Thanks, X.)

Links November 30th to December 2nd

The Arabist Network - Tue, 02/12/2008 - 10:00am

Links from my del.icio.us account for November 30th through December 2nd:

Links November 28th to November 30th

The Arabist Network - Sun, 30/11/2008 - 11:00am

Links from my del.icio.us account for November 28th through November 30th:

Links November 26th to November 28th

The Arabist Network - Fri, 28/11/2008 - 10:00am

Links from my del.icio.us account for November 26th through November 28th:

Showdown in Gurna

The Arabist Network - Thu, 27/11/2008 - 12:30pm

_featurestories_qurnac1.jpg

This morning I received an alarming email from my friend Golo, a great French cartoonist who has been living in Egypt since the 1970s. Golo lives in Gurna (Qurna - in Upper Egypt the letter “qaf” is pronounced “gaf”), the small village on the other bank of the Nile from Luxor, where he runs a NGO for local children. Gurna is a famous village because it sits atop a major archeological site, including several tombs. Golo writes that the longstanding government efforts to vacate and demolish Gurna village are coming to a showdown, with electricity to the area being cut off this week:

Mardi 25 novembre à 11 h, les autorités ont coupé, sans préavis, l’alimentation électrique aux habitants des collines de Gurnah et ont fait enlever les cables d’alimentation.
Les familles, hommes, femmes, ENFANTS, qui n’avaient pu arriver à un accord pour leur relogement, sont donc brutalement condamnés à la bougie (on ne trouve pas de pétrole pour alimenter les lampes). Ces villageois payaient pourtant leurs notes d’électricité.
Ne restent fournis en électricité que les archéologues et les sites touristiques.
Les habitants ont le sentiment d’habiter à Gaza et non en Egypte. Ils s’étaient dirigés vers l’hôpital pour entamer une grève de la faim mais les portes du bâtiment leur ont été fermées.

My translation: On Tuesday 25 November at 11am, the authorities, without warning, cut off electricity to the inhabitants of the hills of Gurna and removed supply cables. The families - men, women, CHILDREN - who were unable to come to an agreement for their relocation are therefore forced to use candles for lighting (as petrol for lamps is unavailable), even though these villagers had been paying their electricity bills.
Only archeologists and tourism sites continue to receive electricity.
The inhabitants have the feeling of living in Gaza rather than Egypt. They went to the hospital to begin a hunger strike but were refused entry.

For decades, the Egyptian government has tried to evict Gurna’s long-standing residents to turn the area into a tourism and archeology site, claiming that the village deprives Luxor of potential tourism revenue and that sewage from its houses is seeping into the tombs [note: I find this NYT story rather too reliant on government sources]. Efforts began in the 1940s with famed architect Hassan Fathy’s neo-traditional housing project. But, more recently, it has become part of a larger project to redesign the West Bank of the Nile near Luxor into a luxury residential area, where wealthy Egyptians and foreigners can have holiday homes on prime Nile-side property - with obvious benefits to the high-end tourism industry and property developers.

Repressive treatment of Gurna’s inhabitants is nothing new. As Tim Mitchell wrote in his book Rule of Experts:

Picture 2.png

The villagers are being moved to New Gurna, about 15km away on the edge of the desert. Although there are reports that the new settlement is not awful, it is far from the main source of livelihood of the Gurnawis: tourism. But the point is not whether or not the evacuation of Gurna to New Gurna is a good idea, but rather whether the government could have found alternatives (as have been suggested) to this kind of rough-shod treatment of people who have a historic link to the place.

Although there are far fewer people left in Gurna today, there is still potential for unrest (especially in the current anti-regime environment), even if it will be the last throes the Gurnawis’ long fight to retain their land and homes.

Developments in Mahalla

The Arabist Network - Thu, 27/11/2008 - 11:20am

Hossam has been following the latest repressive measures being taken against labor activists in Mahalla, one of the center of labor protests in Egypt. He says:

There is a ongoing crackdown on labor activists in Mahalla, since they staged a demonstration last October against the management’s corruption:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahcarr/sets/72157608515197459/
http://arabist.net/arabawy/2008/11/26/renewed-crackdown-on-ghazl-el-mahalla-workers/
http://delicious.com/elhamalawy/MahallaOctoberProtest

Following the demo, the management decreed the transfer of four activists from their positions:
1- Blogger Kareem el-Beheiri was moved to the Cairo office
2-Mohamed el-Attar was moved to the Alexandria office
3-Amal Said was moved to the company’s nursery
4-Wedad el-Demerdash was also transferred to the nursery
http://arabist.net/arabawy/2008/11/09/crackdown-on-mahalla-labor-activists-continue/

More alarmingly, the two women (Amal and Wedad) were sexually assaulted by thugs at the behest of the management, when they tried to enter the company compound.
http://arabist.net/arabawy/2008/11/04/mahalla_sex_asaults/

The victimized workers’ colleagues are planning a demo on Saturday in solidarity. However yesterday another activist was victimized (named Wael Habib) as he was distributing leaflets in the company calling for the demo:
http://arabist.net/arabawy/2008/11/26/renewed-crackdown-on-ghazl-el-mahalla-workers/
Wael has been one of the central figures in the December 2006 and September 2007 strikes…

It appears security is trying to block some of the labor activists who’ve done the most to get information out in the last few years from having access to the main factory.

Egypt: Piracy and history

The Arabist Network - Tue, 25/11/2008 - 5:34pm

Jonathan Wright of Reuters has a great story on Egypt’s attitude towards the Somali crisis, which is having an impact on Suez Canal income as ships begin to re-route around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid the area off Yemen and Somalia where most of ships are being attacked. It covers the parallels between the fall of Mamluk Egypt to the Ottoman, when the Sultan al-Ghouriwas unable to face piracy on the Red Sea as he fought Ottoman advances in Syria, and today:

Egypt shows no signs of military response to piracy
Tue 25 Nov 2008, 10:57 GMT

By Jonathan Wright

CAIRO, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Marauding seamen infest the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea, extracting tolls from shipping and disrupting an ancient trade route between Asia and Europe.

Egypt, one of the main direct beneficiaries of the transit trade, takes time to react. The government is in the hands of an aging leader, who looks to outside powers for help.

That was the challenge that Mamluk ruler Qansuh al-Ghouri faced in the early 16th century, when Portuguese ships appeared unexpectedly east of Suez and started to harass Egypt-bound shipping in the Red Sea and its approaches.

After centuries of peaceful trading, Egypt had no Red Sea fleet capable of countering the Portuguese menace. It may have underestimated the danger, despite diplomatic overtures from Venice, Yemen and the princes who ruled the west coast of India.


Egypt’s first response to the threat from Somali pirates this year has also been cautious, given that it is probably the country with most to lose if more shipping companies avoid the Suez Canal and divert their fleets to the Cape of Good Hope.

Egypt, which has some frigates capable of patrolling the Gulf of Aden, has not deployed any warships to the area, where ships from India, Russia, NATO, the United States and the European Union are trying to suppress Somalia-based piracy.

“They (the Egyptians) have been slow to respond … As yet, I’m not aware of them making any formal approaches to take part in the naval forces that are operating in the area,” said Jason Alderwick, defence analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London.

President Hosni Mubarak, 80 years old and in power for 27 years, last week played down the gravity of the problem and gave no indication of imminent action by Egypt.

“The pirate operations threaten the whole international community, not the Suez Canal and Egyptian sovereignty,” he told Egyptian newspaper editors last Thursday.

“This problem could come to an end if merchant ships arm themselves with heavy artillery to deal with the pirates,” he added, quoted in the state newspaper al-Gomhuria.

A senior government official, who asked not to be named, said on Monday that the Somali-based piracy was “not a problem” and Mubarak had not received any proposals from the Ministry of Defence to intervene militarily.

REGIONAL MEETING

A Ministry of Defence official, who also asked not to be named, said that piracy was an international problem and had to be solved in an international framework.

A Defence Ministry spokesman referred questions on Egypt’s response to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which said it had no word of any military preparations.

Egypt and Yemen did organise a meeting of the Arab League states on the Red Sea littoral in Cairo last week but the senior officials also deferred to international initiatives.

The officials — from Djibouti, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen — proposed setting up a regional information centre on piracy and joint training for their coast guard forces.

A military expert familiar with the Egyptian navy said the Arab country could make a significant contribution to the international campaign against the Somali pirates.

“If you look at what they have in the way of assets, then yes, they can. For this mission you need frigates with a helicopter capability, and they have that,” the expert said.

Public information on the Egyptian navy lists 12 frigates, most of which can carry helicopters.

Alderwick of the IISS said: “They certainly have the assets in terms of surface combatants that are able to make a contribution. Smaller navies have already made contributions.”

Although the Egyptian navy has not often ventured out of the Red Sea southwards, its warships could refuel and resupply from ports in Yemen and Oman, or rotate out of Suez, he added.

The naval expert said Egypt’s immediate concern was to keep piracy out of the Red Sea, which lies within what the country traditionally sees as its sphere of influence. The effect of piracy on Suez Canal revenues is not yet clear, he added.

“Looking at Egypt’s behaviour for the last 50 years, is it their habit, and do they have the interoperability, to go and fight further afield? It’s difficult to say. It would be new for them to act against a new threat in that way,” he said.

In the case of the Portuguese in the early 16th century, the Mamluk government of Egypt did eventually react. It drove them out of the Red Sea, where they were threatening the port of Jeddah, and launched a fleet far into the Indian Ocean.

But the economic challenge to trade and Egypt’s growing dependence on the powerful Ottoman Empire for naval supplies and military technology contributed to the Mamluk collapse.

In 1516 Sultan Qansuh al-Ghouri, by that time 75 years old, died in battle against the Ottomans in northern Syria, and the Ottoman Turks ruled Egypt for the following 300 years. (Writing by Jonathan Wright; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Links November 24th to November 25th

The Arabist Network - Tue, 25/11/2008 - 12:00pm

Links from my del.icio.us account for November 24th through November 25th:

  • IkhwanWeb | Missing Blogger Detained by Interior Ministry Decision - A week after his disappearance: "Egyptian Ministry of Interior issued an arrest warrant on Monday against internet blogger Mohamed Adel after his relatives had filed two complaints to the Prosecutor General against the blogger’s disappearance since last Wednesday."
  • General’s story puts focus on stress stemming from combat - USATODAY.com - Four-star general's experience puts spotlight on post-traumatic stress disorder for soldiers in Iraq. Yet another long-lasting gift left to Americans by the Bush administration, and another reason to get out of Iraq now. (Of course, one rarely ever talks about the stress experienced by millions of Iraqis.)
  • Israel watchdog releases video of police headbutting Arabs - Yahoo! News - What is occupation? "JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli human rights watchdog B'Tselem released video footage on Monday of a helmeted Israeli policeman headbutting a Palestinian woman during a house demolition in Arab east Jerusalem."
  • Live Piracy Map - Google mapping of piracy acts across the world.
  • Brian’s Study Breaks - Brian continues to talk about MESA panel, including the one I would have attended if I had made it, about the global policy of Saudi Arabiav (Lynch, Hegghammer, Lacroix and more).
  • Documents obtained by Haaretz reveal rift among Hamas leaders - Haaretz - Israel News - The Gazans, in control of real territory they are unlikely to give up now, want more representation: "Palestinian sources say Hamas in Gaza is demanding that its power in the organization's leadership body, the Shura, be increased from 34 percent to 51 percent. It cites its extensive control over the most important grassroots supporters, and the attempt by leaders abroad and in the West Bank to impose their will on Gaza." So this is what it comes to: acting like warlords to keep a scrap of territory rather than uniting the whole of Palestine.
  • The Denudation Of The Exoneration: Part 4 — jihadica - More Dr. Fadl.

Links November 23rd to November 24th

The Arabist Network - Mon, 24/11/2008 - 10:00am

Links from my del.icio.us account for November 23rd through November 24th:

Links November 20th to November 22nd

The Arabist Network - Sat, 22/11/2008 - 11:00am

Links from my del.icio.us account for November 20th through November 22nd:

  • Middle East Report 249: Imagining the Next Occupation by Jason Brownlee - Brownlee on FM 3-07, the US Army "Stability Operations" manual which advises on how run military operations to stabilize areas under occupation.
  • From Kurdistan to K Street - Related story to article on Schlomi Michaels, Israeli operative/lobbyist.
  • Kurdistan’s Covert Back-Channels - On Israelis in Kurdistan: "I discovered that Michaels and his associates were part of an effort by the Kurds and their allies to lobby the West for greater power in Iraq, and greater clout in Washington, and at the same time, by a group of Israeli ex security officials to rekindle good relations with their historical allies the Kurds through joint infrastructure, economic development, and security projects. It was, in other words, a story about influence-building, buying, and profit, albeit with subplots that were equal parts John le Carre and Keystone Kops, and a cast of characters ranging from ex-Mossad head Yatom to a former German superspy, with Israeli counterterrorism commandos, Kurdish political dynasties, powerful American lobbyists, Turkish business tycoons thrown in—not to mention millions of dollars stashed in Swiss bank accounts."
  • Another Kuwait Crisis - Brian Ulrich on Kuwait's disapointment with having Salafists in parliament. Well they shouldn't have elected them…
  • Defense Min. turns blind eye as Israelis sell arms to enemies - Haaretz - Israel News - Israel is just like any Middle Eastern (or most Western) state - just look at the close ties between its arms dealers and politicians: "Israeli arms dealers have negotiated and sold military equipment to a number of countries defined by Israeli law as enemy states in recent years with the full acknowledgment and approval of the Defense Ministry, Haaretz has learned. The ministry has okayed negotiations and sales between Israeli dealers and several Arab states including Iraq, Libya and Yemen, say the sources."

CT software

The Arabist Network - Fri, 21/11/2008 - 8:17am

Take a look at this demo of software used by counter-terrorism analysts to track down individuals and their relationships - the example they use is with a religious charity and individuals in Maadi. And they pronounce Maadi in a funny way.

Nearly 300 teens arrested on Cairo’s streets for harassment

The Arabist Network - Thu, 20/11/2008 - 10:27pm

Completely surreal:

Egyptian police announced Wedneday they had arrested more than 550 teenagers suspected of sexually harassing girls outside schools in several Cairo districts in a single day. The culprits were awaiting interrogation and trial Thursday.

The police launched an extensive clampdown targeting stores and internet cafes near schools. Security forces raided six internet cafes that did not have permits, and another five that played pornographic videos for truants, according to a statement issued by the Cairo Security Department on the day of the crackdown.

After many families complained about girls being targeted outside schools in several neighborhods the head of the Cairo Investigations Bureau, General Farouk Lashin, launched a campaign against sexual harassment, an interior Ministry source told AlArabiya.net.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added that most of the harassers were between 16 and 18 years old.

According to the source police launched an earlier campaign that resulted in the arrest of almost 300 people for harassment in Cairo streets.

And I’m sure these arrests have nothing to do with the fact that Egypt has become so synonymous with sexual harassment that it’s become a major topic of discussion in newspapers, the topic of travel warnings in foreign newspapers, and of course that it’s reached the ears of a certain First Lady.

The authorities are serious about making sure that boys behave themselves? Great. But this looks like the random arrest of the first youths that came across zealous officers, probably many of them the usual suspects who get arrested every time there’s a crime in their neighborhood, and this will be a one-off action on the part of authorities that won’t ever be followed through with awareness campaigns and a more consistent to preventing and punishing harassment. I hope to be proved wrong on this, but I won’t be holding my breath.

Links for November 20th

The Arabist Network - Thu, 20/11/2008 - 4:00pm

Links from my del.icio.us account for November 20th:

The Life Collection

The Arabist Network - Thu, 20/11/2008 - 10:41am

You may have heard that since yesterday, Google has been hosting images from Life magazine, the classic American newsmagazine that defined modern photojournalism. You can just go to this Google page and search the archives, or just add the words “source:life” in your normal Google Search. Life appeared as a weekly between 1936 and 1972 (and as monthly thereafter until 2000), so it’s a great resource for fantastic pictures from that era.

Here are a few I found this morning, focusing on Middle Eastern leaders and historic events. Captions come from Life, click on the picture to be taken to the page with full info.

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Fidel Castro (L) and Gamal Abdul Nasser at United Nation General Assembly, September 1960.

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King Hassan II sitting on the Royal Throne during the ceremony of his installation (coronation) as King of Morocco, 1961.

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Caliph of Spanish Morocco, Muley el Hassan (C) talking with the Spanish Duchess of Montpensie during the wedding banquet for his marriage to Princess Lal-la Fatima of French Morocco, June 1949.

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Ahmed Mohamed Hassanein (Pasha), First Chamberlain to the King of Egypt, 1940.

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Large group of Axis prisoners taken in the desert fighting in Libya are paraded through the city under armed escort of Scottish troops and mounted Cairo policemen, May 1942.

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Scottish Cameron Highlander and Indian troops marching past pyramids, part of Allied defense preparations against Italian attack during WWII.

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An explosion blasting a path in Jewish-held old city after Arabs carefully crept through gunfire to plant dynamite under walls during attack by Arab Legion, June 1948.

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Egyptian actress Om Kalthoum, singing on Cairo’s “Voice of Arabs” radio show.

Links November 19th to November 20th

The Arabist Network - Thu, 20/11/2008 - 10:00am

Links from my del.icio.us account for November 19th through November 20th:

Kulturkampf

The Arabist Network - Wed, 19/11/2008 - 6:18pm

In our aaahtts and cultcha sub-blog, Ursula reviews the reviews of books reviewed by reviewers themselves reviewed in the works they are reviewing. Read it and become instantly smarter, dazzle your friends, confound your enemies.

Groundwater resources in MENA

The Arabist Network - Wed, 19/11/2008 - 10:09am

whymap_125_pdf.jpg

The map above is a part of a recently released world map that shows, in blue, the presence of the underground water. I’ve cropped the part that shows the Middle East and North Africa. The part that are shaded in red show aquifers that have been infiltrated by seawater, i.e. where the water salinity is high. This may be for different reasons, although generally (and specifically in Egypt’s case) it is because overuse of underground freshwater is drawing in seawater.

Link to full world map.
Link to World-wide Hydrogeological Mapping and Assessment Programme (WHYMAP) site.

Links November 18th to November 19th

The Arabist Network - Wed, 19/11/2008 - 10:00am

Links from my del.icio.us account for November 18th through November 19th:

Links November 17th to November 18th

The Arabist Network - Tue, 18/11/2008 - 12:00pm

Links from my del.icio.us account for November 17th through November 18th:

Links for November 17th

The Arabist Network - Mon, 17/11/2008 - 5:00pm

Links from my del.icio.us account for November 17th:

Links November 14th to November 16th

The Arabist Network - Sun, 16/11/2008 - 6:00pm

Links from my del.icio.us account for November 14th through November 16th:

Let them grope cake

The Arabist Network - Sat, 15/11/2008 - 11:00am

Mama Suzanne says this harassment stuff is all made up:

CAIRO (AFP) – Egyptian first lady Suzanne Mubarak has played down allegations of rampant sexual harassment in her country, accusing the media, and implicitly Islamist militants, of exaggerating the reports.

“Egyptian men always respect Egyptian women,” the pro-government Al-Ahram newspaper on Friday quoted the wife of President Hosni Mubarak as saying in remarks aired on Thursday by Al-Arabiya television.

The Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights (ECWR) released a survey earlier this year showing that 83 percent of Egyptian women and 98 percent of foreign women in Egypt are sexually harassed.

“This gives the impression that the streets in Egypt are not safe. That is not true… The media have exaggerated,” Mubarak said.

“Maybe one, two or even 10 incidents occurred. Egypt is home to 80 million people. We can’t talk of a phenomenon. Maybe a few scatterbrained youths are behind this crime.

“And maybe some people wanted to make it seem as though the streets of Egypt are not safe so girls and women stay at home. This could be their agenda,” she said in a reference to Islamist militants.

Of course, in her own experience, when she goes out on the street in her motorcode surrounded by bodyguards and soldiers, no one EVER gropes her. So it must apply to all other women in Egypt.

The UN, Israel and Gaza

The Arabist Network - Fri, 14/11/2008 - 5:27pm

Watch the ridiculous Israeli official suggest that the UN be dismissed altogether.