Powerless, the Israelis can only watch and wait. They are helpless as an Egyptian regime they thought they could rely on as a regional ally teeters on the brink.
While keeping a low public profile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration has reportedly urged Israel’s US and European allies to curb their criticism of President Mubarak.
“I remind you that the peace between Israel and Egypt has lasted for over three decades,” Netanyahu told his cabinet ministers, in public remarks. “It is our goal to ensure that these relations will continue to exist.”
The reality is that there has been a surge of anxiety in Israel since Egypt’s unrest began. Concerns are reflected in headlines like “A New Middle East”, in one of Israel’s biggest newspapers, Haaretz.
Egypt, the most populous Arab state, was the first to sign a peace treaty with Israel, in 1979, bringing more than 30 years of war between them to an end.
Only Jordan followed suit, in 1994, after the Oslo accords, with no such understanding reached between Israel and its other Arab neighbours.
The momentum of Oslo itself was scuppered by numerous obstacles between Israel and the Palestinians.
Egypt’s mediation efforts between the two were complicated when Hamas took power in Gaza in 2007. Cairo is wary of the Islamist movement because of its links with the Muslim Brotherhood, the bete noire of the Mubarak regime.
Israel is concerned that the unrest could bring the Brotherhood, Egypt’s oldest and biggest Islamist organisation, to power. Hostile to Israel, it wants Egypt run according to Islamic law.
In this context, the nomination of Omar Suleiman as Egypt’s new Vice President has reassured Israel a little. He has good ties with the country which he has visited many times. Should he replace Hosni Mubarak, continuity and stability would be assured.
“The generals of the present regime are committed to peace, are committed to the relations with the United States and the West,” said Eli Shaked, a former Israeli ambassador to Egypt. “The point is, the big question is, what will happen after the elections. Who will come to power?”
Amid political changes in Lebanon which have strengthened pro-Iranian Hezbollah and amid strained relations with Turkey, Israel now fears even greater isolation.
The rules of the game have been simple: Police trumps protesters. Masses trump police. Army trumps masses. If the army stands back, you have a revolution (Iran 1979, Romania 1989, Tunisia 2011), if not, then bloodshed (Hungary 1956, China 1989, Algeria 1992). I don’t recall any popular uprising successful over a fully functioning armed force determined to go all the way. That is why armed forces are always considered as backbones of corrupt dictatorships.
This weekend we shall see if the Egyptian armed forces, which the latest Wikileaks leak as US believes it to be unhappy, at least in the mid-ranking officers, but probably higher, will open fire to stop the masses or the masses will blink, or it will give way to the people. Egyptian army is a conscript army and there is no part of the Egyptian society that may be counted on apart from the westernised elites, whose children do not operate tanks during military service. The news is that the Egyptian army are already mobilised into urban areas and taken control of strategic points.
Egyptians I came to know during a series of visits for international projects were a very kind people, members of a polite and civilised nation, well known among the other Arabs with their humour and taking things lightly. This nation of gentle farmers has been easy to manage by foreign soldiers (the Hyksos, Ptolemeans, the Mamluke, Ali Pasha troops) or domestic warlords, perhaps exact opposite of Chechens or Afghans. They are patient, soft-spoken, happy in the face of any event, and cultured. In short, any megalomaniac tyrant’s dream population.
They have gone through a westernisation process predating Turkey, and a secularisation process of 50 years under socialist dictatorship. Save occasional and sensational terror incidents, there is no history of popular uprising or even any active political formation, except for the elitist Muslim Brotherhood, structured in 30s as a Muslim answer to Freemasonry, who wouldn’t even entertain the idea of going on the streets with sweaty youngsters. Americans and Israelis are all over the country, to the degree that five star Cairo hotels put on Hebrew-language TV channels for their guests from their northeastern neighbours. It has highest number of Internet access in the region with 20 million users and more advanced in some software technologies than, say, Turkey.
Therefore, one wouldn’t expect a popular uprising overthrowing one of the most entrenched dictators of the world. Most well-informed experts, political commentators or social analysts certainly did not expect that the events would have gone out of control to this degree where it is becoming more and more unlikely that Mubarak will survive. When he unplugged the Internet less than a day ago, I recalled another ridiculous caricature, Alan Rickman’s Sheriff of Nottingham cancelling Christmas. He could have blocked social networks and slowed down the e-mail, but that would be too sophisticated to epitomise this wily little people who see it their birth right to enslave tens of millions of human beings. Which explains the situation better than any verbose expertise: it is the tyranny of stupid, primitive, incompetent minds over masses much more sophisticated and much deeper than them.
When one sees all these Middle Eastern or Central Asian rulers and their small social segments whom they depend upon to man their security forces or financial institutions, one cannot help but be only deaf to any economic analysis. Despotism is always a disaster for economy because meritocracy is not allowed and accountability does not exist. The small clique of rulers milks the real productive people and eventually kills their productivity long before they would expire naturally. This leaves society weak and inefficient. If we add to the two factors the global financial system, which get the lion’s share of the bounty and only leaving crumbs to the visible rulers, it is obvious that the dictatorship is not a long term stable solution. Either the nation is annihilated from within or without, or it throws its rider. The last military period in Turkey, 1997-2002, is a good accelerated example to despotic cronyism, when the rampant economy of 1997 was brought to bankruptcy in four winters. Imagine that being practiced 30 years or 50 years.
It is true that the 2011 Domino events stem from people wanting to get rid of the despotic cronyism, with them seeing that it is no more to mind one’s own business anymore as there is no business being left. And this is why analysts keep calling them secular uprisings, emphasizing the difference between Iran, Algeria, Hama or others. But this distinction comes out of their own mental compartmentalisation rather than the field. There is no separation between three elements that are in force here: people’s dignity, economic development and return to Islam. In the middle-east, or any once-have-been Islamic nation, the three are inseparable.
Economic development is impossible without a level playing field and risk taking, bold, free, entrepreneurial players and accountable refereeing. That is impossible without popular social consent and social contract without privileged classes, aristocracies and caste systems. Perhaps in Hindu society, or in Confucian society. But not where Islam had been the source of social order with its egalitarian principles, holistic justice concept and personal freedoms. Once the verses of the Quran are practiced at some point by any society, it can never have another long-term working social system. That is why in any free election in the Middle East at any given time, Muslim-leaning parties have always won without exceptions. Therefore however secular the protests might have been, if there will be political freedom, reversal of de-Islamisation will be part of it.
This is why many in the Middle East look towards the Turkish experiment. Without oil and natural sources, and to confess, with little ingenuity, by simply doing things as they should be done, Turkey turned from the military-dominated status to a richer, functional democracy managed by Muslims.
The Tunisians, Jordanians, Algerians, Yemenis and Egyptians want this, no more. The talk of Turkey without oil is doing well with a free society, with secularised and religious people coexisting under a religious president, with none of the pretentious extravaganza is the greatest fairy tale to Arab ears. A fantastic dream which had been once ruled out as absurd. They just want the same. But when they get it, as they will, another fairy tale that was once ruled as absurd, will inevitably roll on: the cooperation and eventual unity of these independent states.
If the troops on the Tahrir Square open fire, the process will only be delayed. But not stopped.
By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer
(WMR) — WMR’s Middle East sources are pointing to a looming battle that will be waged for control of the life-sustaining waters of the Nile River when southern Sudan, or whatever it’s name will be, achieves independence from Sudan following the ongoing independence referendum.
Independence for southern Sudan has long been a goal of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and her god-daughter, current U.S. ambassador to the UN Susan Rice. The splitting of Sudan has long been in the interests of Israel, which has yearned for a client state in southern Sudan that could put the squeeze on the supply of the Nile’s headwaters to Egypt and northern Sudan. For Rice, a vitriolic hatred for Khartoum and its majority Arab population, has helped the cause of the southern Sudanese. Rice’s views on southern Sudan and Khartoum were partly influenced by two members of the Israeli Lobby who had direct control over U.S. policy toward Sudan as counter-terrorism officials in the Bill Clinton National Security Council: Steven Simon and Daniel Benjamin.
The late southern Sudanese leader, John Garang, was one of Albright’s celebrated ex-Marxist “beacons of hope” for Africa, along with other U.S. client dictators in the region as Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, and Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia. Congo’s Laurent-Desire Kabila and Garang were among Washington’s “red princes” until they got cross-wise with the CIA and U.S. corporate plans for their respective nations and were removed in assassinations plotted by Langley.
Southern Sudan has not even settled on a name for the new nation. However, any of the proposed names raises the specter of ambitions by the Israelis and other external actors vying for influence in central Africa. One name proposed is the Nile Republic but that would immediately send an alarm to Cairo and Khartoum concerning the long-term control of the Nile’s waters by the new pro-U.S. and pro-Israeli government with its capital in Juba in southern Sudan. Another proposal would call the country “Nilotia,” again, problematic, because of the reference to the Nile River.
Another proposed name, Cush, is taken from the Jewish Bible and refers to an ancient kingdom extending from the Horn of Africa to southern Egypt. There is some informed speculation in the region that the Mossad was behind the recent Christmas car bombing outside an Egyptian Coptic church in Alexandria, Egypt in order to stir up tensions between Egypt’s ten percent Coptic minority and its majority Muslim population. Some Middle East commentators pointed out that remotely-controlled car bombs are virtually unknown in Egypt but have been carried out by Mossad in Lebanon, where they are then blamed on Hezbollah.
Mossad is reportedly recruiting agents from the hundreds of southern Sudanese in Israel who have migrated to Israel for employment opportunities. Many of these southern Sudanese refugees, mostly found in Tel Aviv, are expected to return to their new nation.
Southern Egypt, the land that supposedly once included Cush [Cush was the mythical grandson of Noah], is a center for Egypt’s Copts and wider irredentist claims in the region by an independent Cush [or “Kush”] in southern Sudan could further inflame tensions along the entire stretch of the Nile River.
Another proposed names for the new nation in southern Sudan, New Sudan, may stir up tensions on the disputed oil-rich territory on the border of old Sudan and “New Sudan,” the Abyei region. Continued use of “South Sudan” or “Southern Sudan” would give the impression of a divided country like South and North Korea or South and North Yemen. Continued use of Sudan in the name may also create friction as seen in the Balkans between Greece and Macedonia. Greece has insisted that Macedonia be referred to by the United Nations as “FYROM: former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” because of what it believes are irredentist claims by Macedonia on northern Greece.
However, it is the ambitions of Israel that may pose the greater problem for the land of the Nile headwaters. Israel’ expansionist government is fond of using the collection of ancient folk lore and myths known as the “Old Testament” to drive claims to land in the West Bank [which are referred to by the arcane biblical names of Judea and Samaria] but also, increasingly to lands in northern Iraq. On January 28, 2008, WMR reported: “Israeli expansionists, their intentions to take full control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and permanently keep the Golan Heights of Syria and expand into southern Lebanon already well known, also have their eyes on parts of Iraq considered part of a biblical ‘Greater Israel.’ Israel reportedly has plans to re-locate thousands of Kurdish Jews from Israel, including expatriates from Kurdish Iran, to the Iraqi cities of Mosul and Nineveh under the guise of religious pilgrimages to ancient Jewish religious shrines. According to Kurdish sources, the Israelis are secretly working with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to carry out the integration of Kurdish and other Jews into areas of Iraq under control of the KRG. Kurdish, Iraqi Sunni Muslim, and Turkmen have noted that Kurdish Israelis began to buy land in Iraqi Kurdistan after the U.S. invasion in 2003 that is considered historical Jewish ‘property.’ The Israelis are particularly interested in the shrine of the Jewish prophet Nahum in al Qush, the prophet Jonah in Mosul, and the tomb of the prophet Daniel in Kirkuk. Israelis are also trying to claim Jewish ‘properties’ outside of the Kurdish region, including the shrine of Ezekiel in the village of al-Kifl in Babel Province near Najaf and the tomb of Ezra in al-Uzayr in Misan Province, near Basra, both in southern Iraq’s Shi’a-dominated territory. Israeli expansionists consider these shrines and tombs as much a part of “Greater Israel” as Jerusalem and the West Bank, which they call ‘Judea and Samaria.’”
Oil is also a major factor in the independence of southern Sudan. The new country is rich in oil and with Africa’s oil and other resources now highly sought after by competing nations like the United States, China, and Japan, the traditional strictures issued by the Organization of African Unity upon its founding in 1963 against changing Africa’s colonial borders through secession have been overtaken by new realities and a new organization, the African Union, which has now permitted two nations to secede from established nations: Eritrea from Ethiopia in 1993 and now southern Sudan or whatever it will call itself, from Sudan in 2011.
Several nations point to Somaliland, the former British Somaliland that declared itself independent from Somalia in 1991, as the next state in line to achieve recognition. Israeli diplomats have reportedly been in Hargeisa, the Somaliland capital, to talk about Israeli recognition of the state. However, it will be the United States and Britain, both of which favor recognition, that will spur Somaliland’s quest for international recognition and UN membership. After Somaliland, two other parts of Somalia, Puntland and Jubaland, will likely follow suit.
Some Africa policy habitués of the Council on Foreign Relations and other fronts for the global banking elites are already floating the idea that the Sudan solution may be applied to Africa’s other north-south and Islamic-Christian flash points like Nigeria and Ivory Coast. They reason that if majority Christian south Sudan can separate from largely Muslim north Sudan, why not majority Muslim north Ivory Coast from largely Christian south Ivory Coast and Muslim north Nigeria from Christian south Nigeria? And the Democratic Republic of the Congo has long been seen as a prime candidate for “Balkanization” by the Corporate Council on Africa and its affiliates at the Kissingerian Center for Strategic and International Studies.
As for southern Sudan or whatever it will be, after the likes of John Kerry and George Clooney depart from the photo ops in Juba, they will be replaced by non-governmental organization and international aid agency faceless international bureaucrats, the foot soldiers of the global “misery industry” who migrate from killing fields to war zones in search of new tax-free income, walled compounds with servants and Land Rovers, and duty free shopping gigs. Southern Sudan’s “independence” will be in name only, with the aid agencies and NGOs calling the shots as they do in Haiti today.
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report
During Gheit’s talks, bilateral relations as well as regional and international matters that concern both countries will be discussed.
Sunday, 21 November 2010 17:34
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit arrived in Ankara, Turkey on Sunday.
Gheit will attend the third Turkish-Egyptian foreign ministerial meeting which will take place within the scope of “Turkish-Egyptian Strategic Dialogue Framework Memorandum” on Monday.
The memorandum had been signed in Istanbul on November 3, 2007.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit is scheduled to arrive in Turkey on Sunday for a two-day official visit, the Egyptian ministry’s spokesperson, Hossam Zaki, announced on Thursday.
Aboul Gheit is expected to convey a message from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to President Gül and plans to discuss with Erdoğan the launching of an intergovernmental strategic cooperation council between the two countries.
In addition to his counterpart, Ahmet Davutoğlu, Aboul Gheit will also hold talks with President Abdullah Gül and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during the visit.
During the visit, the third round of strategic dialogue sessions between Egypt and Turkey will be held, Zaki said, referring to sessions being held under the Memorandum for a Framework for Turkish-Egyptian Strategic Dialogue, which was signed in the autumn of 2007. The memorandum is considered a show of mutual will of the two countries to upgrade their bilateral relations to the level of a strategic partnership. According to the memorandum, the ministers and senior officials from the two countries will hold regular meetings and establish consultation and cooperation mechanisms.
Zaki said Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, Iraq, the upcoming January referendum in Sudan, developments in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iran’s nuclear program, the Balkans and Euro-Mediterranean cooperation will be on the agenda of Aboul Gheit’s talks in addition to bilateral relations between Ankara and Cairo.
The third Turkish-Egyptian foreign ministerial meeting will take place in Turkey within the scope of “Turkish-Egyptian Strategic Dialogue Framework Memorandum”.
Saturday, 20 November 2010 12:10
The third Turkish-Egyptian foreign ministerial meeting will take place in Turkey within the scope of “Turkish-Egyptian Strategic Dialogue Framework Memorandum”.
The meeting will be held during Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit’s visit to Turkey on November 21 and 22, upon an invitation of Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
The ministerial meeting will take place within the scope of “Turkish-Egyptian Strategic Dialogue Framework Memorandum” which was signed in Istanbul on November 3, 2007.
Bilateral relations as well as regional and international matters which concern both countries will be discussed in the meetings.
Turkey is not wavering in the slightest from its pro-European course. Nevertheless, as a trading nation with a dynamic economy that is the living proof of the fact that Islam, a secular political landscape and a parliamentary democracy are indeed compatible, it has in recent times rediscovered its Arab neighbours. Rainer Hermann reports
One of the success stories of Turkey's new foreign policy is Syria. In 1998, the two neighbours stood on the brink of war. Today, their economic and political ties are close
There was one good thing about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent visit to Lebanon: although it increased tension prior to the publication of the indictment by the special international tribunal into the murder of Rafiq Hariri, it also demonstrated that in the Arab world, Iran can now really only be sure of the support of Shiites. In Beirut and during his trip to South Lebanon, Ahmadinejad was almost exclusively cheered on by Shiites; Sunni Muslims in the Arab world, on the other hand, viewed his visit to Lebanon with considerable disquiet.
There are many reasons why Iran’s influence in the Arab world has passed its zenith. One of them is the circumstances that surrounded Ahmadinejad’s re-election in June 2009 and the bloody crackdown on protests. Another is the growing influence of Turkey.
Last July, Khalil Shikaki’s Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research discovered that 43 percent of all Palestinians consider Turkey to be their most important foreign policy ally, ahead of Egypt at 13 percent and Iran at only 6 percent. Support for Turkey in the West Bank and in Gaza is virtually the same.
In Lebanon, Ahmadinejad did not succeed in reversing this trend. Shortly before his arrival in Beirut, the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was back in Damascus for another meeting with President Bashar al-Assad. In the race for the post of prime minister in Iraq, both these men support the secular Shiite Iyad Allawi, while the powers that be in Iran prefer Nouri Maliki.
In addition to the matter of Iran, Erdogan and Assad spoke about opportunities for reviving the peace process. Assad made it clear that indirect talks with Israel could only be restarted if Turkey were to act as mediator.
Turkey is a “success story” in the Middle East
Up until ten years ago, Turkey was not a player in the Middle East, despite the fact that it shares borders with Syria, Iraq and Iran. It was a quiet neighbour. Today, the state that succeeded the Ottoman Empire is a popular go-between and trading partner. For the states and societies of the Middle East, Turkey – with its dynamic economy and practical evidence that Islam, a secular political landscape and parliamentary democracy are indeed compatible – is a “success story”; it has become a “soft power”.
Up until ten years ago, Turkey was not a player in the Middle East, despite the fact that it shares borders with Syria, Iraq and Iran. Today, the state that succeeded the Ottoman Empire is a popular go-between and trading partner, writes Rainer Hermann
There are heated debates in the West as to whether Turkey is currently just rediscovering the Middle East or whether it is actually returning to it and – if this is indeed the case – whether it is abandoning its foreign policy orientation towards the West. These questions were recently addressed at a conference in Istanbul organised by the Sabanci University, the German Institute for International and Security Affairs and the Robert Bosch Foundation.
One of the conclusions reached at the event was that although Turkey has adopted a new, active foreign policy, it has not abandoned its pro-European, pro-Western course. Nor has it shifted the main lines of its foreign policy. The policy of opening up towards its neighbours in the Middle East is much more a matter of diversifying its diplomacy and increasing prosperity in Turkey by tapping into new sales markets.
Foreign policy in the service of trading interests
Turkey’s former foreign policy was based on security considerations and the priority of territorial integrity. Its new foreign policy, on the other hand, is in the service of Turkey the trading nation and seeks to guarantee security and safeguard borders by increasing prosperity. Sükrü Elekdag, one of the best-known ambassadors in the country’s old diplomatic guard, often liked to say that Turkey always had to be ready for “two-and-a-half wars”, i.e. wars against Greece, Syria and the PKK.
New diplomacy: Turkey's current foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, has formulated a "policy of no problems" towards all neighbours, the aim of which is to maximize cross-border trade
In sharp contrast to this, Turkey’s current foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, has formulated a “policy of no problems” towards all neighbours, the aim of which is to maximize cross-border trade. With the exception of Armenia, this policy has worked so far.
Turkish foreign policy is more than just classic diplomacy, it is trade policy. It is above all Turkey’s new, up-and-coming middle class – the backbone of the ruling AKP – that is benefitting from the new, economy-based foreign policy of Turkey the trading nation.
The industrial cities of Anatolia, which have been dubbed the “Anatolian tigers”, are eyeing as yet unexploited market opportunities in neighbouring countries. While their entrepreneurs are also trading with Europe, they are increasingly focussing their efforts on the Middle East because of Europe’s restrictive Schengen visa policy, which also hits entrepreneurs and investors. This is why they support the visa-free zone which Turkey has established with Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
One of the success stories of Turkey’s new foreign policy is Syria. In 1998, the two neighbours stood on the brink of war. Today, their economic and political ties are close. The Turkish-Syrian rapprochement went hand in hand with a cooling of relations with Israel. This process had already begun under Erdogan’s predecessor, the left-wing nationalist Bülent Ecevit, who accused Israel of “genocide” against the Palestinians. That being said, Erdogan visited Israel as recently as 2005; two years later, Israeli President Shimon Peres addressed the Turkish parliament.
Khalil Shikaki's Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research discovered that 43 percent of all Palestinians consider Turkey to be their most important foreign policy ally, ahead of Egypt at 13 percent and Iran at only 6 percent. Pictured: a Turkish national flag at a Hamas rally
Turkey’s policy towards Israel and the Palestinians is very different to that of the EU. While both advocate a peaceful resolution to the conflict and a two-state solution, they are talking to different players. Turkey accuses European diplomacy of ignoring reality because it is only talking to Fatah and boycotting Hamas. The Turkish reasoning is that there cannot be a peaceful solution without the involvement of Hamas. This is why Turkey is trying to pull Hamas into the political “mainstream”.
The differences of opinion between Turkey and the West are particularly blatant when it comes to Iran. While the West is toughening its sanctions against Iran, Turkey is developing its trade with the Islamic Republic.
Although Turkey has adopted a new, active foreign policy, it has not abandoned its pro-European, pro-Western course – that is the conclusion reached at at a conference in Istanbul organised by the Sabanci University, the German Institute for International and Security Affairs and the Robert Bosch Foundation. Pictured: the Foreign Ministers of Germany and Turkey, Guido Westerwelle and ahmet Davutoglu
Last June, Turkey voted against harsher sanctions in the UN Security Council. Unlike the West, Turkey believes that the only way to normalise Iran is to normalise relations, which involves trade and diplomacy. Turkey is familiar with the kind of bazaar mentality that is needed for negotiations with Iran. For fear of destabilizing the region, neither the Ottoman Empire nor the Turkish Republic has ever supported rebellions in Iran. For centuries, the safeguarding of a regional balance of power has been more important than the pursuance of a foreign policy based on ideology. This is why Turkey’s sympathy with the dissident “green” movement is only modest.
Just like the EU, Turkey only plays a secondary role in the Middle East behind the United States. At the end of the Cold War, however, it correctly identified the shifting of the tectonic plates in world politics and now, as a modern, self-confident, trading nation, wants to grasp the opportunities that are arising. Turkey still has its sights set on Europe. But the door to Europe remains locked and so this newly self-confident nation is pursuing its own interests in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Powerless, the Israelis can only watch and wait. They are helpless as an Egyptian regime they thought they could rely on as a regional ally teeters on the brink.
