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Not content with confusing past and present, in the name of national unity, the old statesman chose to make Ennahda's leader, Rachid Ghannouchi, the guest of honor at the congress. Yet, Nidaa Tounes was founded precisely in opposition to the Islamist party, and Nidaa Tounes voters have not forgotten the insults heaped upon their rivals during the 2014 election campaign

after co-opting the leaders of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali's Democratic Constitutional Rally (DCR) into his party, Caïd Essebi revived all the methods of the previous regime

after co-opting the leaders of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali's Democratic Constitutional Rally (DCR) into his party, Caïd Essebi revived all the methods of the previous regime

Not content with confusing past and present, in the name of national unity, the old statesman chose to make Ennahda's leader, Rachid Ghannouchi, the guest of honor at the congress. Yet, Nidaa Tounes was founded precisely in opposition to the Islamist party, and Nidaa Tounes voters have not forgotten the insults heaped upon their rivals during the 2014 election campaign.

The politicians who have taken turns governing the country all seem to have forgotten that it was economic demands that sparked the initial uprising

Beji Caïd Essebsi came up with a law meant to promote economic reconciliation. Ostensibly, the idea was to favor investments by restoring confidence. In fact, it was meant to suspend the prosecution of business executives for fraudulent activities under the Ben Ali regime

Politically, the country is witnessing a massive return to conservatism. The two biggest parties--Nidaa Tounes and Ennahda--have commandeered the multi-party system, which was accepted after the revolution. This takeover recreates the pre-revolutionary political landscape, except that Ennahda is no longer underground. And this conservatism goes hand in hand with measures at odds with article 2 of the Constitution, which guarantees individual freedom. New laws against homosexuality and the use of cannabis allow police to humiliate youngsters before jailing them.

eo-authoritarianism, societal conservatism, and a general moralizing mood all seem much to the liking of Ennahda, which is now a full-fledged partner of the party that outstripped it in the 2014 elections

While the president's party has become the main instrument for “recycling” politicians ousted in 2011, the phenomenon has become so banal that the press, and particularly television, is happy to do their share. And a number of high-ranking figures from the old regime are regularly invited to debate on television. In the name of freedom of speech, they give sober accounts of their participation in the governing bodies, speak of Ben Ali's timid personality, and claim that he loved his people so much that he can scarcely be called a dictator

civil society is showing signs of fatigue

Under Kaftancioglu’s guidance, Imamoglu and other mayors took a new tack, dubbed the “Radical Love” strategy, which is the antithesis of Erdogan’s ferocious style of polarization and antagonism. This involved making overtures to marginalized groups, using positive, inclusive language (extremely rare in the vicious world of Turkish politics), and trying to heal the cultural fault lines that Erdogan has taken a jackhammer to. Imamoglu’s positive slogan was “Everything’s going to be OK,” and he recited a prayer at a mosque—a rare move for a CHP politician—as a form of outreach to pious Muslims.

“This is the first time I’ve seen the CHP this organized,” said Nevsin Mengu, a columnist from a CHP background. “Kaftancioglu has played an important role in this.”

She has expressed opinions that are extremely controversial within the party and indeed the country, acknowledging the Armenian genocide, calling the state a “serial killer,” and criticizing a popular Kemalist slogan for its militant language, tweeting “I refuse to say we are the soldiers of Mustafa Kemal, but we are his comrades.”

Within 48 hours of Kaftancioglu being elected the party head for Istanbul in 2018, a prosecutor opened a terrorism investigation into her (she’s now appealing a 10-year jail sentence) and Erdogan himself devoted 10 minutes to slamming her during an AKP meeting the next day, reading each of her tweets that he took issue with.

the government’s wider antagonistic strategy of treating any and all opposition as an existential threat

More recently, a criminal complaint and investigation were opened against Kaftancioglu after the CHP Istanbul municipality lodged a complaint against Erdogan’s powerful Communications Director Fahrettin Altun for allegedly building illegal constructions in Istanbul.

“I’ve been subjected to hundreds of sexist, nationalist, ultrareligious groups’ threats, and it still goes on. I knew that as a woman I was going to face this, but I never thought of taking a step back,”

“If [the government] can’t identify an enemy outsider, they create abstract enemies and pretend to be in a fight with them. Sometimes they call it foreign powers, sometimes terrorism, sometimes secular people.”

“What really makes her a juicy target is her flagrant absence of the ‘yerli ve milli’ [local and national, a favorite phrase of the government], the national spirit. She and the people around her … don’t just exist outside of the national spirit type of thing, they deny that kind of nationalism,” Koru said. “Erdogan can get up and say, ‘Look, this is being disrespectful on purpose. She hates you, she hates what you are, and she wants to change you in the way that Kemalists wanted to change you, in the worst possible way.’”

just as Kaftancioglu’s approach turns many people off, it also caters to others who previously may have felt excluded, such as younger people, leftists, liberals, and religious and ethnic minorities. “A certain segment of the party … didn’t like her iconoclastic approach to politics,” he said. “But it may also be that some other people who previously [felt] alienated from the party are now more interested for the same reason.”

the CHP’s increasingly national ambitions. The party hasn’t won an election since 1977, but its most popular figure, Imamoglu, polls almost as high as Erdogan. It’s far too early for the party to announce a presidential candidate, but two of the main contenders would likely be Imamoglu or Mansur Yavas, the popular mayor of the capital, Ankara. Kaftancioglu will likely continue her behind-the-scenes role.

Some governance experts no longer consider the country a democracy, but rather a competitive authoritarian system, especially after Erdogan was left with few limits on his power when the government was transformed into an “executive presidential” system following a referendum in 2017, which Kaftancioglu describes as “one-party rule transformed into one-man rule.”

“For the first time in a long time people are talking about the CHP like it can realistically win national elections.”

MAM’s deference to expertise and social capital was also evident in its reliance on individuals with prior NDP credentials; that is, people who had the knowledge and connections to run a political machine. While some of the cofounders of MAM fit that bill, All-MAM was in some ways an NDP reunion.

Nothing symbolized Sisi’s embrace of Mubarak’s political machine more than All-MAM’s pick for secretary general, Mohamed Heiba, the former NDP Secretary of Youth. Under the leadership of Gamal Mubarak, Heiba was once at the forefront of the NDP’s youth mobilization efforts

Besides leaning on the seasoned political organizers of the NDP, All-MAM was also relying on the former ruling party’s big business politicians who brought to the table not only experience, but also money. The most emblematic example was mogul and former NDP lawmaker Mohamed Aboul Enein, an icon of the business clique that dominated politics during Mubarak’s final decade. Up until that point, the Sisi regime kept a largely cordial orientation toward the likes of Aboul Enein. Certainly, Sisi may have worked to politically disempower such oligarchs, but he steered clear of expropriating their assets, as Amr Adly notes. Thus, high-profile business NDPers such as Aboul Enein survived, and may have even thrived to some degree, but they were not encouraged to play politics.[4] For Aboul Enein specifically, the tide began to turn in 2018 in the lead-up to the presidential election, as he became a visible figure in the marketing of the Sisi campaign. The regime was not simply tolerating the former NDPer, as was previously the case. It was awarding him a political role, while proudly showcasing his support for the president. On a deeper level, Sisi was essentially indulging the NDP’s deep pockets, hoping they could bankroll the big campaigns the regime was about to embark upon. Sisi may hold a grudge or two against the Mubarakists, but he will always hold a place for those who pay.

the regime’s aggression had surpassed those rejecting the post-2013 political order and that the security apparatus was just as predatory in targeting opposition actors who have accepted the political system and agreed to work from within it

by early 2021, MWP looked much less like the youth-led party of 2014 and much more like MAM, with many of the association’s founders, including Mandhour, holding senior posts inside the party. Likewise, the NDPers made themselves quite comfortable inside MWP, as exemplified by Mohamed Aboul Enein, who became vice president of the party, not to mention deputy speaker of the House of Representatives following his return to parliament after the 2020 election.

their entry into MWP captures Sisi’s post-2018 rapprochement with the interests and clientelistic networks that once occupied the Mubarak regime, as distinct from the cadre of younger politicians Sisi had been trying to cultivate through the NYP

the NYP (or, at least, the “wisdom” behind it) was essential in facilitating Sisi’s accommodation with NDP-tied families. Many such families capitalized on the president’s NYP discourse, prodding their own younger members to enter the political stage under the guise of youth empowerment. It may be hard to believe, but longtime political families managed to gaslight Sisi right back: “You want youth? We’ll give you youth.” This strategy was evident in MWP to the extent that it featured young affiliates of NDP families. But it was more than just MWP. By the time the 2020 elections were over, the phenomenon of relatives of former lawmakers entering parliament became more visible across parties and regions, as Amr Hashem Rabee noted. Outside legislative chambers and Mustaqbal Watan, other parties jumped on the same bandwagon, recruiting and showing off young figures from politically prominent families. In other words, every establishment party is now cutting two carrots with one knife: get on Sisi’s good graces by checking off the youth empowerment box, and, at the same time, solidify alliances with politically distinguished families

Whereas between 2014 and 2018, the regime’s principal aim was keeping civilian politics weak, fragmented, and inconducive to collective action, its approach became more interventionist beginning 2018. This is because the president now had a clearer vision for political outcomes he needed to generate, majorities he wanted to manufacture, and allies he needed to coopt and reward.

MAM proved to be a useful instrument for coopting NDPers and deploying their resources and expertise on behalf of Sisi. Also, it kept these Mubarakists loyal to the president and away from the likes of Shafik and other presidential hopefuls eyeing the Mubarakist networks.

as Sisi began reorganizing his own political apparatus and putting his own ducks in a row, he embarked on an effort to sabotage his competitors and wreak havoc on their organizations and networks at an unusually broad scale

In contrast to 2015 when it sought to engineer a fragmented parliament, this time around, the regime wanted a majority for its own political arm and was adamant to stack the cards in favor of that outcome. Not only that, but the regime was also keen on dictating the candidate rosters of other independent parties participating on its own list, “The National List for the Sake of Egypt.” Indeed, Sisi was that determined not to leave anything to chance.

the 2020 election marked the reintroduction of parliament’s upper chamber. As a body devoid of any meaningful legislative powers, the Senate provided Sisi with a low-cost method of rewarding political allies with “certificates of prestige.” Certainly, this was not unique to Sisi’s reign. This same tradition was prevalent under previous rulers. But that Sisi is now conforming to this same template shows that he has finally succumbed into resurrecting his predecessors’ cooptation and clientelistic practices after years of eschewing them in his dealing with civilian politics. The details might differ, but the overall story is a familiar one: the initially timid officers instinctively avoid getting their hands dirty by civilian politics, until the imperative for survival draws them into the same “swamp” they once swore to drain

Today, MWP controls parliament and serves as a vehicle for advancing Sisi’s political agenda. Yet, the president holds no affiliation with it and neither do most senior members of the government and the state apparatus. There has been no clear effort to encourage officials to affiliate with the party either. In other words, the president has kept MWP in this ambiguous space akin to a political “friendzone.”

Sisi’s refusal to grant MWP (or any party for that matter) the status (and privileges) of a ruling party arguably speaks to the persistence of his populist instincts and his own belief that he is in fact capable of ruling without the mediation of any political class.

for Sisi, turning MWP into an actual ruling party would be ceding power and access to the very political forces he has been trying to contain. If the NDP (along with all its missteps) was the reason for Mubarak’s demise, why give its descendants the chance to grow and gain more influence through MWP? Therein lies the source of the paradox: Sisi needs the NDPers’ expertise and resources, but he is aware their support cannot take for granted. Thus, despite Sisi’s accommodation with the Mubarak regime’s networks and their presence in MWP, the president’s propaganda machine remains discursively hostile to NDP remnants, especially more recently with growing chatter about a Gamal Mubarak presidential bid.

The president may believe that his investment in this project will someday bear fruit, contributing to a new reality actualizing his vision for the ideal civilian politician—that is, the politician who will blindly defer to the men in the uniform, accept their supremacy, and respect their economic privileges (with all the corrupt practices they entail).

The regime’s continued inability to assert its hegemony over the formal political sphere, its dependency on political intermediaries it does not trust, and the shutting out of credible competitors from politics, have all limited Sisi’s political options for managing the ongoing economic crisis

the realm of formal politics has become so discredited that the regime itself is aware that it will not provide its international audiences a sufficiently persuasive façade of democratic politics

Sisi’s long struggle to invent the politics he dreams of through his political grooming projects, while evading the politics he actually faces by gaslighting his allies and critics, alike

Given that so many Egyptians disagree with the liberal position on these matters, it is hard to understand what the demand for a consensual constitution recognizing personal rights could have meant in practical terms.

The argument that the Constituent Assembly unreasonably exaggerated the strength of Islamist parties was plausible, but even granting this point, any democratic process would have placed a significant block of Islamists in the Constituent Assembly. So there was no democratic path for liberals to establish a constitution that secured the personal rights and freedoms they sought.

While one might disagree with Morsi’s methods, it is reasonable to conclude that he acted in accordance with his responsibilities as the only democratically accountable official in the country.

The real issue, however, was the make-up of the Constituent Assembly and the substance of the constitution it would draft. The parties arrived at a deal, including the semi-presidential structure of the state—with executive power shared by a prime minister and popularly elected president—but the role of religion was a sticking point. Because Parliament had selected the members of the Constituent Assembly, and because Islamists had won Parliament, Islamists dominated the Constituent Assembly. Liberals argued, not unreasonably, that those parliamentary elections exaggerated Islamists’ long-term political strength. Liberals also thought that the draft sacrificed or limited too many personal rights and freedoms in the name of religion, morality, and family values. They argued that the constitution would not be legitimate unless it was a consensual document capable of gaining acceptance by all significant social groups in Egypt.

Unlike constitutions of nearby states, such as Morocco, the 2012 constitution did not entrench any provisions, including those on the role of Islam, as supra-constitutional norms impervious to amendment. Nor did it place any substantive, ideological limitations on the formation of secular political parties, provided that they were not organized on a discriminatory basis. It did not impose religious piety or a theological test as condition for public office. This ensured that the constitution would not privilege the Muslim Brotherhood, other Islamist parties, or even the role of Islam itself above other provisions of the Constitution.

Many radical revolutionaries justified their support for Morsi’s removal not on the grounds that his actions represented an imminent threat to the political order, but rather on the grounds that Morsi did not confront the military and the police with sufficient vigor. In their eyes he thus betrayed the revolution. It is not clear, however, that Morsi had the power to transform these instruments of oppression in the year he was in office. The security forces were largely immune to Morsi’s influence. They refused to protect the offices of the Muslim Brotherhood and its political party, the Freedom and Justice Party. Even businesses affiliated, or thought to be affiliated, with the Muslim Brotherhood could not rely on police or military protection. When the presidential palace was attacked during demonstrations in the wake of Morsi’s constitutional decree, the security services were nowhere to be found. For Morsi’s opponents, however, his failure to reform the security services was taken not as a sign of his weakness but as evidence that he and the Muslim Brotherhood were conspiring with the military and police to destroy the liberal and radical opposition.

Even less plausible than fears of a secret alliance between the Muslim Brotherhood and the security services was Egyptian liberals’ belief that, in acting against Morsi, the military would promote democracy rather than restore the security state

Morsi could only be ousted by military intervention, a strategy that discredited political parties as the representatives of the Egyptian people in favor of the military, police, and other state institutions. Thus did Egypt’s most ardent democrats, under the banner of “the Revolution continues,” forego constitutional options in favor of methods that would only advance authoritarianism.

Liberal and radical critics of the Muslim Brotherhood failed to realize that the real choice in Egypt was not between an Islamic state and a civil state, but between a state based on some conception of the public good—religious or non-religious—and one based on pure domination.

Tragically, liberals underestimated the people’s desire for security and their willingness to submit even to arbitrary and predatory power in order to achieve it

Perhaps Barak's political career has simply been a reflection of the inevitable Israeli shift to the right given 40 years of occupation and the ongoing inability to create a liberal narrative for what the marriage of a Jewish and democratic state might look like. Many though would argue that Barak himself, more than Lieberman or Netanyahu or any other politician, has been the harbinger of the deeply illiberal winds blowing through Israeli politics today

The opposition has been strengthened, not only numerically but also by removing the fig leaf of national unity and centrist positioning that Netanyahu's government claimed by virtue of Labor being a partner. While it is true that Ehud Barak and the other four ex-Laborites are still there, the storyline in the media and in the political world will be unequivocal - that this was a cynical and self-indulgent move by Barak and friends, and that anything remaining of the social-democratic or center-left parliamentary camp in Israel now exclusively resides on the opposition benches. It will also now be easier for Livni to paint this government as a narrow rightist religious coalition (although to be fair, the government was doing a rather good job of that on its own).

Netanyahu will now be more dependent than ever on the Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu parties and their respective leaders, Interior Minister Eli Yishai and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

The Labor Party split serves to clarify rather than change the existing political dynamic - one of absolute impasse on the Israeli-Palestinian front. There is no prospect of meaningful change being generated internally by the Israeli side. Netanyahu is now under even less and perhaps no pressure from his coalition to do anything on the peace front. The US has so far decided not to step into this vacuum with a clear effort of its own

Despite the (now somewhat revised) calming assessments of Israel's outgoing Mossad chief regarding Iran's nuclear program, Netanyahu has also been upping the ante on that front, demanding that a credible military threat be on the table. Add to the mix the renewed tensions in Lebanon; the replacement of the current crop of somewhat cautious leadership figures in Israel's security establishment (the heads of the IDF, Mossad, and Shin Bet have either just switched or are about to); Barak-Netanyahu's need to show leadership and purpose and their willingness to work with an equally willing Republican congressional leadership in cornering Obama -- a period of instability and brinkmanship replete with danger may well be on the horizon

Faced with all of this, the US may throw up its hands. In fact, distancing itself from a discredited and demeaning peace process might well be one of the better options that the US has. Were the administration to tell the parties that it is ready to reengage only when they themselves demonstrate real seriousness and purpose or to be more honest and also more risky, to lay the dead cat at Netanyahu's door, then some US credibility might be restored the domestic debate inside Israel could be constructively shaken up.

In effect, Likudniks have been running all of Israel's four largest parties

For the time being, Israel's future will be decided according to how political and ideological arguments play out within the Likud revisionist camp. That is a reality that would have seemed inconceivable to Israel's founders, although they are perhaps partly to blame for never developing a sufficiently progressive and inclusive vision of Israeli democracy, ceding the ideological debate at key moments to a more narrow, nationalist agenda which eventually became the majority and is now utterly hegemonic.

if Israel is to be a functioning liberal democracy long into the future, one that is in any way recognizable to its supporters in the West (who are not religiously-oriented), then a new progressive camp will ultimately have to build itself. That camp will not emerge from the Knesset machinations of factions within factions of a party. It would have to be part of a longer process that thoroughly examines Labor's failings and that creates a new and progressive democratic story of Israel and Israel's future.

The very phenomenon of military generals going straight into politics, the story of Ehud Barak, is a problematic one. The inability to sustain democratically functioning party political structures which citizens are intimately involved in would be devastating for Israel. Many of Israel's parties are religious or strongman fiefdoms, and the traditional parties of the center have either not yet established proper procedures (Kadima), seen those procedures eroded (Likud), or simply collapsed (Labor). Israel's parliamentary democracy cannot survive if representative party political structures fall by the wayside.

Jabotinsky was a territorial maximalist in his time and committed to the role of force and power in achieving the goals of Jewish nationalism.  But he also was in many ways a pragmatic realist and actually a liberal when it came to equality for Arabs. Israel is facing a choice between a fascist mutation of Jabontinskyism and a liberal mutation of Jabotinskyism, and with Labor dead, it is a Likud family affair.

The Amal Movement was founded in 1974 by Lebanese-Iranian cleric Musa Sadr to represent Lebanon’s Shia, who had long been marginalised as one of the country’s poorest sections of society. Though originally notable for its efforts to pull Shia Lebanese out of poverty, during the civil war it became one of the country’s most effective militias and controlled large parts of the south.

Amal is a close ally of fellow Shia party Hezbollah, and their politicians have run on the same list in elections. However, they occasionally diverge in opinion.

Birthed from the resistance movement that followed Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Hezbollah has since become the most powerful political and military force in Lebanon. Iran-backed and Syria-allied, the movement was the only militia to keep its arms at the end of the civil war, as it waged a deadly guerilla war against the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon.

Though Israel was forced out in 2000, Hezbollah’s military capabilities have only increased, and its war against Israel in 2006 and ongoing involvement in the Syrian conflict have divided opinion among the Lebanese. The movement and its allies did well at the ballot box in 2018 and Hezbollah now has two ministers in the cabinet.

Hassan Nasrallah lives in hiding due to the constant fear of Israeli assassination.

Known as “al-Hakim” (the doctor), Geagea is a medically trained warlord-turned-politician. During the 1975-90 civil war, Geagea was one of the most notorious militia leaders, heading the Christian Lebanese Forces. He was a close ally of Bashir Gemayel, who was assassinated days before being sworn into the presidency in 1982 with Israeli support

he was convicted of involvement in a number of assassinations and attempted murders in widely condemned trials. Geagea was kept in a solitary windowless cell for 11 years until his pardon in 2005 following the Syrian pullout

The Lebanese Forces, which is an offshoot of the right-wing Kataeb party, is the second-largest Christian party after the FPM. Its three ministers resigned early in the protest movement, and the party has now attempted to join the demonstrators and help block roads, though many protesters have rejected its overtures.

Feudal lord and socialist, advocate of de-sectarianising Lebanese politics but also a fierce defender of his Druze sect, Jumblatt is a difficult man to pin down. Often described as Lebanon’s kingmaker, his allegiances have swung several times, a trick that may have helped keep him alive.

The Kataeb party has fallen a long way since its civil war heyday. Also known as the Phalangists, the party used to be the dominant Christian party, and was inspired by its founder Pierre Gemayel’s trips to the 1936 Berlin Olympics and Franco’s fascist party in Spain. The Gemayel family has suffered a series of assassinations, most notably president elect Bashir Gemayel in 1982. Bashir’s brother Amin then went on to claim the presidency, and Amin’s son Sami is now heading the party. In recent years however the Kataeb party has struggled to attract votes from its offshoot the Lebanese Forces and the FPM

Liberman, who under the current constellation has the power to decide who will be Israel’s next prime minister, is seeking to exclude the ultra-Orthodox and the Arabs from power. Thus, these two groups, which would seem to have nothing in common save a possible desire to join forces against Liberman’s onslaught of incitement against them, are striking up a surprising “friendship.”

Israel’s Arab and ultra-Orthodox citizens — together constituting at least 30% of the population — are the country’s poorest demographic and the largest beneficiaries of its social welfare services. While Netanyahu and his right-wing allies shower generous budgets on the Jewish West Bank settlements and provide their residents with an array of benefits, members of the Arab Joint List and of the two ultra-Orthodox parties have to work hard to advance legislation that benefits their voters.

The first sign of their alliance appeared in the Knesset following Netanyahu’s harsh Nov. 13 speech accusing the 13 lawmakers for the Joint List of supporting and encouraging terrorism. At the start of the Nov. 19 session of the Knesset Finance Committee, Chair Moshe Gafni of the ultra-Orthodox Yahadut HaTorah, thanked his committee colleague Tibi for his ongoing cooperation. “You know how to leverage [this cooperation] for the benefit of the public you represent. You do so with great skill. We see it in the Arab communities too. There is development, and you have played a large role in this, and I thank you for it,” Gafni said. Gafni’s ultra-Orthodox colleague Yinon Azoulai of Shas seconded his assessment, asserting, “With the [Joint] List and Ahmad there always was cooperation, and it is always possible to do more.”

“The clear and present danger is the anti-Zionist coalition of the Arab and ultra-Orthodox Knesset members,” Liberman said. “This is truly an anti-Zionist coalition active in both blocs [left and right]. The Joint List is a real fifth column; there is no need to whitewash and hide it. Unfortunately, the ultra-Orthodox community and its political parties, too, are becoming increasingly anti-Zionist, and it’s time to stop this nonsense that only their fringes [are opposed to the State of Israel].”

Such cooperation could crush the protective right-wing and ultra-Orthodox bloc of 55 seats that Netanyahu has built and undermine his mantra that the formation of a center-left minority government supported by the Arab parties would be nothing short of a mass national terror attack.

Members of the Joint List are all too familiar with being targets of incitement and delegitimization by Netanyahu and others, but for Shas and Yahadut HaTorah, which have tied their fate to that of Netanyahu, this is a new experience. Thanks to Liberman, they too are now illegitimate, just like their Arab Knesset colleagues.

The last time Liberman tried to “bury” the Arab parties, he sponsored legislation raising the electoral threshold in 2014 so that only parties winning 3.25% of the vote could send representatives to the Knesset. The move, designed to exclude the small Arab parties, backfired, uniting the ideologically disparate parties into a single list. This forced union then overtook Liberman’s faction. As of the September elections, they are the third biggest Knesset faction, with 13 seats, while Liberman’s party has eight.

For the sake of the sacred goal of survival, there is no need for an ideological glue other than shared destiny, as the four Arab parties – Ta’al, Ra’am, Balad and Hadash — realized in uniting against Liberman and forming the Joint List.

ruling parties and tribal figures are settling out [who will adopt] the commanding posts, consequently leading to quarrels and killings. The tribes insist that, for example, the commander of a peshmerga brigade should be from [among] them, and when their demands are met by ruling party officials, they nominate persons who lack any military knowledge and experience

“Both the PUK and the KDP use peshmerga forces under their command for other purposes: to guard orchards and houses of their political bureau members, to safeguard and serve tribal chiefs and even 'artists and dancers.'"

The office of KRG spokesman Jotiar Adil told Al-Monitor that many issues have delayed the unification of the forces. “The process is taking time for a number of reasons," the office stated, "among them new laws that need to be passed on peshmerga retirement and pensions, logistics and finances that need the support of the coalition forces and the Iraqi government

Maj. Gen. Baktyar Muhammed Sadiq, a member of the Ministry of Peshmerga’s reform board, told Al-Monitor that 14 brigades — nearly 40,000 peshmerga forces — are unified under the KRG Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs. “There are plans for unifying all peshmerga forces, including the 70 and 80 forces, but there is no specific timeline yet,” Sadiq said. “There are also plans that the political parties would no longer be involved in recruiting peshmerga forces.”

by early 2023, the regime had decimated the resources it now needed to erect a convincing façade of participatory politics to mitigate the concerns of its international partners and to absorb popular discontent

the July 2013 coup proceeded on the ruins of the “civilian punching bag” model of 2012-13. The latter describes a tacit arrangement in which the military was poised to pursue its interests from behind a civilian interlocutor (or, a “punching bag”), the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party—an arrangement that ended in utter failure. By 2013, therefore, the military’s appetite for working in collaboration with civilian parties had run its course.

the reinvention of Mubarak-style dominant party rule was not an appealing option for Sisi in 2014.

“the New Youth Project” or NYP for short. The NYP describes a host of formal and informal initiatives and programs that, collectively, seek to cultivate a new cadre of youth politicians and public servants socialized around military-centric nationalism

a broader effort the political leadership is undertaking to inject into public institutions a broad-based ideological commitment to the military-dominated political order

a pervading discourse senior officials and pro-regime figures have propagated in the past few years under the banner of “the battle of consciousness” (معركة الوعي). Behind this rather eerie term is a narrative claiming that Egypt’s most pressing national security concern is the spread of misinformation and ideational attacks against society’s so-called core values. The implication of course is that any expression of dissent, criticism of government performance, or questioning of state-provided information is a suspected attempt to foment instability and undermine Egypt’s social peace. The solution, the story goes, is countering such “false consciousness” by promoting public awareness of these threats and by enlisting more patriots in the “battle of consciousness.”

the Sisi regime has been pursuing a broad-scoped project to ideologically militarize civilian spheres and to inculcate all sectors of Egyptian society with ideas rationalizing blind support for the military-sponsored regime

the politicians who have been coached to impress the crowd by their confident demeanor, their captivating TED Talk public speaking style, and their superficial use of catchy phrases that borrow (albeit superficially) from the language of scientific research. Most importantly, they have been socialized to accept the supremacy of the military such that they would never question the men in uniform, as was the case with the contentious youth activists who often denigrated officers in public forums and protests between 2011 and 2013

a consistent strategy Sisi has adopted whenever frustrated with the ineffectiveness or the bureaucratic resistance of state institutions: the creation of parallel structures to bypass these institutions altogether. Thus, today one finds a host of bodies and offices Sisi formed over the years and that seemingly replicate the roles of existing government ministries. Examples include the Supreme Council for Investment, the Supreme Council for Combatting Terrorism, the Supreme Council for the Automotive Industry, and, currently under study, the Supreme Council for Education. Whereas the office of the minister of health still exists officially, a presidential advisor for health affairs (a former minister of health himself), appointed by Sisi in 2020, has taken a visible role in explaining and defending state health policies, just like a minister of health would.

Mustaqbal Watan Party (MWP). MWP was once the embodiment of Sisi’s dream of a new generation of pro-military youth politicians who could lead Egypt’s post-2013 political scene. After several wake-up calls, the regime was forced to restructure the party so that “Sisi’s youth” could step aside to accommodate a larger role for the older and more seasoned networks and affiliates of the Mubarak regime—the same actors the president once sought to sideline. These transformations underscore the inherent limitations of the NYP and the idea that Sisi, despite all the power and resources he possessed, had to forge compromises with the once-dreaded traditional political classes, even if at the expense of his own coveted project.

observers were aware that MWP was among the political parties the intelligence establishment created and funded to promote the Sisi presidency. Nevertheless, Sisi kept an official distance from the party, avoiding any insinuation that Mustaqbal Watan represents the wielders of power in any formal sense. This policy was partly shaped by Sisi’s aforementioned skepticism of political parties and his interest in engineering the political field from a distance

there was more to Sisi’s apprehension toward the Mubarakists than appeasing the January 25thers or deflecting criticism. On a more fundamental level, Sisi was keeping a watchful eye on presidential hopeful Ahmed Shafik, former Air Force general and Mubarak’s last prime minister, who ran for president in 2012 and lost to Morsi in a tight runoff. Even though Shafik opted (rather grudgingly) not to run for president in 2014 after it became clear Sisi was the state’s chosen candidate and trying to challenge him was pointless, his supporters did not relent.

The idea of former Mubarakists banding together outside the state’s purview[3] was (and remains) an alarming prospect for Sisi for multiple reasons. They are proficient in mobilizing supporters in elections and have a long experience in the business of setting up vote-buying machines. More than any other civilian player, they can work collaboratively with security agencies. Most significantly, if organized sufficiently, they have what it takes to offer Sisi’s international allies and domestic constituents the same deal he offers them: a stable authoritarian project accommodating the various geostrategic, political, and economic imperatives the Sisi regime claims to protect

In early 2021, over half of MWP’s Central Secretariat members had ties to the NDP (compared to a quarter in 2016), and so did two thirds of its provincial leaders. This reality stood in stark contrast to the state of affairs inside Mustaqbal Watan during its founding years, when a younger group of political outsiders were running the show. Interestingly, by 2021, only two of Mustaqbal Watan’s 2014 founding signatories enjoyed posts in the party’s Central Secretariat, which now featured a completely different cadre of politicians.

lawmakers voted down by a wide margin the president’s highly coveted civil service bill, among the reforms reportedly “encouraged” by the International Monetary Fund at the time

in the fall of 2019, the president decided to put an end to this disarray, ordering a freeze on parliament’s operations, nearly a year before the next legislative elections were due.

The lead-up to the 2018 vote confirmed in many ways Sisi’s intolerance of any political competition, even to the most limited degree. He went to great lengths to eliminate all presidential contenders by any means possible: imprisonment, intimidation, violence, and dubious legal measures. Left to his own devices, Sisi would have run unchallenged. Pressured by Washington, however, he ultimately agreed to let one of his own political cheerleaders, Moussa Mostafa Moussa, run against him in what proved to be an unconvincing (even if lighthearted) episode of political theater, with Sisi winning 97 percent of the votes.

AK Party is still the most popular party among the electorate, and if elections were held tomorrow, it would still lead the polls

Government claims that external forces, terror groups, provocateurs and social media actually instigated protests were not found to be credible by most respondents. Only 3.2 percent of respondents said unidentified external or internal powers were behind the protests, while 1.8 percent said provocateurs and instigators provoked the protests. Those who believe media or social media were behind the incidents ranked lowest in the survey with 0.6 percent.

a majority of those who said they voted for the ruling AK Party were against the building plans; 41.6 percent of people who voted for the AK Party in the June 2011 elections said they opposed the government plans, while 38.3 of AK Party supporters said they favor the plans

62.1 percent of respondents said the media did not cover events fairly

the public's support for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has come down some 11 percent in June 2013 compared to the same month a year ago, while the popularity of Erdoğan took a blow with a 7 percent drop in his popularity in just a month. Most people see Erdoğan's tone as harsh and confrontational. The government's Syrian policy remains unpopular as well

54.2 percent saying that they oppose the Syrian policy, while only 27.4 percent favor the government position

Half of surveyed individuals (49.9 percent) were against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's staying in power, however, while only 6.2 percent said they favored him staying; 43.9 percent said they did not care about Assad's prospects one way or another

Almost 43 percent said Turkey should not switch to a presidential system, with 30.9 percent declaring their support for a presidential system. In April polling data by MetroPOLL, support for a presidential system was 35.2 percent

41.7 percent said Turkey needs a new political party

72.5 percent of the respondents said they like President Abdullah Gül most among existing political figures. Gül was followed by Erdoğan with 53.5 percent, Kılıçdaroğlu 26.7 percent and Devlet Bahçeli 29.3 percent. Erdoğan lost almost 7 percentage points from the April poll conducted by MetroPOLL

The margin of error for the overall poll is 2 percentage points, and the confidence level is 95 percent

the Syrian refugee problem has proved increasingly costly for the AKP in terms of domestic politics

Across Turkey and in big cities in particular, most of the Syrian refugees live in close proximity to AKP voters, either in the same neighborhoods or adjoining ones. Under the impact of the economic crisis, tensions between locals and refugees have grown, contributing to a gradual disenchantment with the government among AKP voters

While announcing the launch of Operation Peace Spring, Erdogan said the campaign would “lead to the establishment of a safe zone, facilitating the return of Syrian refugees to their homes.” The political motive underlying this pledge rests on the fact that the Syrian refugee problem is becoming unbearable for the government.

Syrians who could be forced to flee Idlib in the near future could perhaps be placed in tent cities in this “security belt” without being let into Turkey at all and instead transferred via Afrin and al-Bab, which are already under Turkish control.

the web editor of the left-leaning BirGun daily, Hakan Demir, and the editor of the Diken news portal, Fatih Gokhan Diler, were detained on the grounds that their coverage of the operation amounted to “inciting hatred and enmity” among the people. The two journalists were released on probation later in the day.

The intensive employment of a nationalist narrative, in which the operation is depicted as a struggle of “national survival” against terrorism and quitting the AKP is equated to treason, would not be a surprise. 

already omens that this state-of-emergency climate, nurtured through the operation, will be used to further suppress the opposition, free speech and media freedoms. 

Ali Babacan, the AKP’s former economy czar who has already quit the party, is expected to create a new party and join the opposition ranks by the end of the year. Ahmet Davutoglu — the former premier and foreign minister who, together with Erdogan, designed and implemented the failed policies that spawned the grave “Syria crisis” that Turkey is experiencing today, both domestically and in its foreign policy — is gearing up to get ahead of Babacan and announce his own party in November. These political dynamics have already triggered a spate of resignations from the AKP, and the formal establishment of the new parties could further accelerate the unraveling

prosecutors launched an investigation into the co-chairs of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Pervin Buldan and Sezai Temelli, on charges that their critical comments about the operation constituted “spreading terrorist propaganda” and “openly insulting” the government. 

Erdogan already lacks any political ground to try to win over the Kurds, but Kurdish voters are likely to develop resentment against the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) as well over its support for the military campaign. This, of course, could be one of the side objectives the government seeks from the operation, given that the backing of HDP voters was instrumental in CHP victories in big cities such as Ankara, Istanbul and Adana in the local polls after the HDP opted to sit out those races.

Trump's threats to “obliterate” the Turkish economy if Ankara goes “off-limits” in the operation offers Erdogan the chance to blame the economy’s domestic woes on external reasons and portray the ongoing fragility of the Turkish lira as an American conspiracy.

Mouldi Fehem, a member of the PDP, one of the parties present at the event, disagreed with the representatives of the coalition, stating that it was normal for parties who share similar views to gather and express their opinions, especially now with the “advent of religious extremism.” “We are all here because we want to protect people’s freedoms and rights,” he said. When asked about attendees who shared close ties with the RCD, he replied, “We should not let our desire for revenge take control over us; we should first see who really was accountable for the crimes committed by the former regime.”

The transitional justice system is not working well, and unless something is done the previous clan will take over again.

According to 92.92% of ballot boxes opened in Istanbul, Europe's largest city and the country's economic engine, Imamoglu had 50.92% support compared with 40.05% for AKP challenger Murat Kurum, a former minister in Erdogan's national government.

Polls had predicted a tight contest in Istanbul and possible CHP losses across the country

The CHP led nationwide by almost 1% of the votes, a first in 35 years

"The economy was the decisive factor," said Hakan Akbas, a senior adviser at the Albright Stonebridge Group. "Turkish people demanded change and Imamoglu is now the default nemesis to President Erdogan."

Rising popular support for the Islamist New Welfare Party, which took an even more hardline stance than Erdogan against Israel over the Gaza conflict, also sapped AKP support. The party took Sanliurfa from an AKP incumbant in the southeast.

The main pro-Kurdish party, which backed Imamoglu in 2019, fielded its own candidate under the DEM banner in Istanbul this time. But many Kurds put aside party loyalty and voted for him again, the results suggest.

n the mainly Kurdish southeast, DEM reaffirmed its strength, winning 10 provinces. Following previous elections, the state has replaced pro-Kurdish mayors with state-appointed "trustees" following previous elections over alleged militant ties.

Despite radically different attitudes and levels of experience, deputies from all factions took their task overwhelmingly seriously and debated in an open and fruitful atmosphere. The time factor was decisive here. Though criticised by some as “lengthy” and “not efficient”, the fact that the NCA took two and a half years (instead of one as planned) contributed to the creation of cross-party trust – which became one of the “secrets” behind NCA’s success. 

With 37% of all votes, Ennahda clearly bypassed the Congress for the Republic Party (CPR) of state president Moncef Marzouki (8,7%) and Ettakatol led by NCA president Mostapha Ben Jafaar (7,03%) and secured more votes (1.5 mio.) than all other parties and independent candidates in parliament together (1.26 mio.)

The blatant failure of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt brought all the opponents in Tunis back to the table.

The enduring contribution of external players constituted a third factor that contributed to the NCA’s success. Particularly the influential UGTT trade union, not least with the inclusion of the Employers’ Association UTICA, the League of Human Rights LTDH, and the Bar Association of Lawyers in the “National Dialogue” roundtable meetings, who pushed for keeping talks about the 149 constitutional articles ongoing.

Ennahda remained the only party that continued to favour parliamentarism, while almost all other parties supported semi-presidentialism. A directly elected president, with the major say in foreign, security and defence policy, should counterbalance the prime minister and his cabinet who gain legitimacy from their parliamentary majority. The first is to be expected a secularist, while the latter most likely will be a political Islamist.

high risk of permanent conflict between the head of state and the head of government

The rise of the Islamic State, which continues to boast a startling number of Tunisians in its ranks, compounded the perception that Ennahda had been too lax about security and further undermined the public reputation of political Islam. These developments confronted party leaders with the realization that, no matter how “moderate” Ennahda appeared, entire swathes of the Tunisian electorate would reject its participation in politics point-blank.

A large segment of Tunisia’s population, especially outside the relatively cosmopolitan capital, still yearns to see a government infused with Islamic values. Ennahda’s followers in the poorer and more conservative interior continue to view it as a political force that represents them, regardless of its careful ideological recalibrations. When Ghannouchi announced the move away from traditional Islamism, he also proclaimed a separation of the party’s political and religious activities

By some accounts, Ennahda is already far more engaged in preparations for the municipal elections set for next spring than any other political party — raising the possibility that it could end up dominating grassroots politics while its competitors remain focused on maneuverings in the capital

Ennahda has kept up with the turbulence of Tunisia’s post-revolutionary era by showing a remarkable capacity for pragmatism

Kahanists are the FBI’s prime suspects in the 1985 assassination of popular Palestinian-American activist Alex Odeh who died in a bombing outside Los Angeles because he called for a two-state solution (which became the official policy of the US government less than a decade later).[2] Odeh’s murder had far-reaching implications, scaring off a generation of Arab-American activists from advocating on behalf of Palestinians.

even many sectors of the Israeli right were embarrassed by Kahane’s shameless racism, and by the end of his first term in 1988 he was banned from running again.

Six years later, in 1994, the Israeli government, then led by the Labor Party, declared his Kach party a terrorist organization. But by that point, the Kahane movement had already been active for over a quarter of a century, leaving a wake of destruction. To date it has produced more than 20 killers and taken the lives of over 60 people, most of them Palestinians.[3] Credible allegations put the death toll at well over double that number, but even the lower confirmed figure yields a higher body count than any other Jewish faction in the modern era.

For decades, Kahanists—as followers of Kahane are called in Israel—have repeatedly attempted to leverage their violence to trigger a wider war and bog Israel down in perpetual armed conflict with its neighbors. And once Israel’s military might is truly unassailable, Kahanists say, Jewish armies must march across the Middle East and beyond, destroying churches and mosques and forcing their Christian and Muslim worshippers to abandon their beliefs or die at the sword.

Just months after the Oslo Accords were signed in Washington, DC on the White House lawn, a former candidate for Knesset in Kahane’s Kach party, Baruch Goldstein, committed the largest mass murder by a single person in Israeli history, shooting dead 29 Palestinians and wounding over 100 more at a mosque in Hebron. During the protests that followed, the Israeli Defense Forces killed perhaps two dozen more Palestinians. Exactly 40 days later, at the end of the traditional Muslim mourning period, Hamas began its retaliatory campaign of suicide bombings. Over the next three years this campaign would claim over 100 Israeli lives and harden many Jewish hearts against the prospect of peace with Palestinians. Today, Kahanists can convincingly claim credit for crippling the fragile peace process while it was still in its infancy.

In Hebron in 1983, on the Jewish holiday of Purim, Kahanist Israel Fuchs sprayed a passing Palestinian car with bullets. In response, Israel’s defense minister ordered Fuchs’s Kahanist settlement razed to the ground. A decade later in 1994, when Goldstein carried out his massacre, also on Purim, Israel’s defense minister put Hebron’s Palestinian residents under curfew and ordered the local Palestinian commercial district locked and bolted. The market has been shuttered ever since. Last year, Israel’s defense minister announced that the market would be refurbished and repopulated—by Jewish residents. On the same day, the state renovated nearby Kahane Park, where Goldstein is entombed, and where Kahanists gather every year to celebrate Purim and the carnage Goldstein wrought.

Many of Kahane’s American acolytes followed him to Israel, including top JDL fundraiser and Yeshiva University provost Emanuel Rackman, who took over as rector, and then chancellor, of Israel’s Bar Ilan University. Under Rackman’s tutelage, Bar Ilan’s Law School became an incubator for the Israeli far-right. The most infamous of these students was Yigal Amir. Inspired by the Goldstein massacre, Amir assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, dealing a death blow to Israel’s liberal Zionist camp. Amir carried out the murder on the five-year anniversary of Kahane’s killing.

Both American-born followers of Kahane, Leitner and Ben Yosef went from armed attacks against Palestinians to court room advocates for their fellow religious extremists. Both enlisted at Bar Ilan Law School after serving short prison sentences. Together with his wife Nitzana Darshan, who he met there, Leitner established the highly profitable Israel-based lawfare group Shurat HaDin or Israel Law Center (ILC). After Ben Yosef earned his law degree at Bar Ilan, his American allies founded the Association Center for Civil Justice (ACCJ), a US-based lawfare group that has earned millions of dollars and has for years funneled significant sums to Fuchs, Ben Yosef and other Kahanists.

After Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995, his Labor-led government was replaced by the secular right-wing Likud party, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, who promptly appointed ex-Kahanists Tzahi HaNegbi and Avigdor Liberman to cabinet positions. But that did not satisfy the appetite of the Kahanists, who resolved to coax the Likud even further to the right. Founded by longtime Kahane supporter Shmuel Sackett, the Likud’s Jewish Leadership faction succeeded in catapulting its candidate Moshe Feiglin into the role of deputy speaker of the Knesset where he called on the government to “concentrate” the civilian population of Gaza into “tent camps” until they could be forcefully relocated.

Today, prior membership in the Kahanist camp no longer carries any stigma within the Likud.

the original Kach core group has rebranded itself to sidestep Israeli law, now calling itself Jewish Power, and are consistently courted by the rest of the Israeli right

Kahanists have had even greater success penetrating the halls of power at the local level where their representatives on Jerusalem city council have been included in the governing coalition since 2013. In 2014, Kahanist Councillor Aryeh King—now deputy mayor—used widely-understood religious references to incite an assembly of religious Jews to kill Palestinians. Later that very night, a group of religious Jews did exactly that, kidnapping and beating Palestinian teen Mohammad Abu Khdeir, forcing gasoline down his throat and torching him to death from the inside out.

After Kahane’s death, top Chabad rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, also an American immigrant to Israel, inherited Kahane’s position as the most unapologetically racist rabbi in the country. In 2010 Ginsburgh helped publish an influential and vicious religious tract authored by one of his leading disciples called The King’s Torah, which sanctions organ harvesting from non-Jews and infanticide (if a Jew suspects that the child will one day constitute a threat).[9] Ginsburgh’s frequent tributes to Kahane’s memory, including repeated proclamations that “Kahane was right” have cemented the loyalty of third-generation Kahanists, including the latter’s namesake grandson, settler youth leader Meir Ettinger.

Thirty years ago, even if Israeli rabbis thought like Kahane and Ginsburgh they would not dare to speak these sentiments out loud, much less publish and promote them. Under Netanyahu’s rule, however, such sentiments are routinely supported financially and politically by the institutions of the Israeli state. In 2019, Israel’s education minister presented Ginsburgh with the Torah Creativity award at an annual event sponsored by his ministry.

The principles that Rabbi Meir Kahane popularized—that liberal democracy is an undesirable alien idea and that non-Jews must be driven down, and preferably out of Greater Israel altogether—have seeped deep into mainstream Israeli society.

In Lebanon, a combination of constitutional documents and unwritten conventions guide the power-sharing arrangement. The confessional model that grants power along sectarian lines was introduced by the National Pact in 1943 and was resurrected again by the Taif Accord in 1989. The Taif Accord brokered the end of the civil war and granted the Muslim community a greater share of political power. In 2008, the Doha Agreement was negotiated to prevent another sectarian war. Power was rebalanced to reflect the growing influence of the Shiite Muslim community in Lebanon, represented politically by the Amal Movement and Hezbollah.

Political parties, with their entrenched positions, are not keen to open the Pandora’s box of an official census any time soon.

Legislative seats are divided equally between Muslim and Christian groups, despite Christians estimated to represent only about a third of the population now. By convention, the office of the prime minister is held by a Sunni Muslim, the office of the president is held by a Christian Maronite, and the office of speaker of the parliament is held by a Shiite Muslim. This is a more rigid allocation of power than in Northern Ireland where, for example, the leader of any party, whether nationalist or unionist, that achieved the highest share of the vote could become the first minister (i.e. the prime minister).

Lebanon is in the midst of one of the worst economic crises seen globally since the 1850s. Three decades of consociationalism power-sharing and yet many communities remain religiously segregated, with town officials seemingly unafraid and unashamed to introduce express bans on renting property to members of other religions.Political dynasties maintain a hold on power and, according to international watchdogs, corruption levels in Lebanon have significantly increased in recent years. The “wasta” system of personal connections continues to pervade the delivery of public services, and there is little accountability and oversight in government. No one in the government has been held responsible for the port blast that killed over 200 people and destroyed the homes and livelihoods of more than 300,000.

Unlike Northern Ireland, Lebanon is — at least technically — a sovereign state; there is no outside power that can formally step in when parties refuse to form a government. Instead, the previous technocratic government led by Hassan Diab has remained in place as a caretaker but lacks the power to enact the reforms required to unlock international aid

The term “power sharing” inaccurately implies an egalitarian arrangement. In reality, what is at play in Lebanon and Northern Ireland is power distribution. The political groups come together to decide how power will be divided under the agreed rules before retreating to rule their respective fiefdoms.

control of the prized ministries of economy, finance and education have almost entirely swung between the DUP and Sinn Féin since the first government was formed under the Good Friday Agreement. It’s no accident that less than 10% of children in Northern Ireland attend integrated schools when control of the Department of Education swings between the two parties who benefit the most from polarized communities.

The way power is distributed in Northern Ireland and Lebanon makes it relatively easy for one political party or group to bring down or stall a government or policy for their own benefit, but it’s nearly impossible for the public to achieve the same.

When al-Hariri resigned as prime minister in 2019, protesters knew that his resignation alone would never be enough to disrupt the system of power while the rest of the political establishment remained in place. “All of them means all of them” was a common refrain at marches.

In Northern Ireland and Lebanon, anyone who thinks change might come when a politician leaves office often finds that a son or a spouse appears in his place instead (and it is almost always his). The names Robinson, Poots and Dodds have frequently appeared on the ballot in Northern Ireland while al-Hariri, Jumblatt and Frangieh similarly repeat in Lebanon. The situation brings to mind Greek mythology’s Hydra, a snakelike monster with nine heads. When one head is cut off, two more emerge.

The fact that voters in Lebanon are registered in their family town rather than where they live entrenches the power of political dynasties

Former militia members also inevitably form part of the political establishment after a conflict. Why else would they give up their arms? But the continued presence of paramilitary groups long after a conflict reinforces distrust and puts peace out of reach.

Conflict-era divisions have become entrenched in the political systems of Northern Ireland and Lebanon and are now protecting political parties more than they’re promoting peace

The democratic trade-off in power-sharing arrangements is always explained by the lives saved from conflicts ending. But lives are lost to poverty, corruption and negligence too, as viscerally seen with the port explosion in Beirut last August

In the years after the Baath party came to power, writes Abdi, the budget for the Department of Antiquities increased by 80% and the number of excavations mushroomed, as did the renovation and reconstruction of historical sites

In Syria, too, Assad’s promotion of archaeology was, as the late journalist Patrick Seale described it, part of his exercise in nation building. Stéphane Valter, a French political scientist who specializes in Arab culture and civilization, studied Assad’s relationship to Syria’s archaeology in his 2002 book, “La construction nationale syrienne” (“The Syrian national construction”). He writes that because of the fragility of a social cohesion in Syria due to its varied ethnic and religious communities, it was important for Assad to establish a territorial and historical identity in which all minorities could find a legitimate place. The archaeological richness of Syria doubtless helped build a national identity based on a culture that was promoted as authentically Syrian.

Iraq was flooded with propaganda posters, murals and sculpted reliefs in the style of ancient artworks, all depicting Saddam superposed with Mesopotamian rulers or symbols

when Gadhafi saw that the museum staff had named some of the rooms “Greek” or “Roman,” his face fell, said Fakroun, “and he made us change the names to ‘Greek colonization’ or ‘Byzantine colonization.’ ”

“We couldn’t talk about our Amazigh heritage. Or objects that were Tuareg, we had to say they were Arab. We wanted to be scientific, but we couldn’t, because the only ethnicity that existed for him was Arab,”

Gadhafi’s view of Libya’s heritage was selective, but like the other dictators, it aligned with the message he wanted to transmit.“Libya links east to west, and north to south, and there are examples of all the cultures that were around us,” said Fakroun.But Gadhafi largely favored Islamic archaeology, in keeping with his Pan-Arab ideological preference at the time (vis-a-vis Pan-Africanism, which he embraced in later years), and after that, prehistory because it was far enough into the past to be relatively uncontested. In contrast, British archaeologist Graeme Barker, who spent many years in Libya, explained that “the country’s fabulous Greek and Roman archaeology represented to him simply the precursor of the hated Italian colonization of the 20th century.”

the Baath regime in Iraq sought to “connect modern-day Iraq with its glorious Mesopotamian past, leaving aside any possible Sunni-Shia division or ethnic divide. Instead, it stressed that Iraq was one nation unified in a shared Mesopotamian-inspired culture.”

Saddam rebuilt the site shoddily, most professionals agree, and built a palace for himself on top of it. He used new materials and inscribed his name on the bricks, as Nebuchadnezzar had done over 2,000 years before him. Moreover, said Almamori, “he dug three or four lakes, which damaged and removed part of the Persian cemetery near the northern lake. Many layers of different civilizations were removed. He constructed artificial mounds and built his palace on one of them. Archaeologists with high positions were afraid to say anything.”

“When Nebuchadnezzar II took over from his father, Nabopolassar, he ruled from the same palace which he rebuilt. The Baath party related to this — we have a long history, a strong civilization, that needs a strong army. Nationalists in other countries think the same way.”

the Umayyad period of history was useful to the party because of its multiethnic nature. The Umayyad Mosque in Damascus was one of the best symbols for the party, writes Valter, because of its specifically Syrian cultural traits — first an Aramean and then a Roman temple, then a church and finally a mosque. The mosque figured on Syria’s most valuable banknote at the time, behind an image of Assad. Banknotes included images of Aleppo’s Citadel, the Roman amphitheater of Bosra and Queen Zenobia of Palmyra, and clearly showed the regime’s wish to conflate ethnocultural Arab references with nationalist pride and a pinch of Islam

one of the most important ancient sites for Assad was Ugarit, near the Mediterranean city of Latakia. With five layers of cultures going back to the Neolithic period, not only is it famous for its clay tablets with an alphabet in cuneiform script, but Ugarit is also just north of Qardaha, where Assad was born and is buried.

Unlike in Saddam’s Iraq or Assad’s Syria, in Gadhafi’s Libya, the Department of Antiquities suffered from constant underfunding. “Our budget was next to nothing,” recalled Fakroun. “Once they forgot about the Department of Antiquities when they were drawing up the country’s budget. We had no salary for six months. We’re talking about a country with tons of money from petrol, and they gave us pennies. And we have five World Heritage sites.

outstanding archaeological sites in all three countries suffered looting, vandalism, neglect, or at the hands of the Islamic State or, in the case of Ancient Babylon, from U.S. and Polish troops building their military base on top of the ruins in 2003

The long-standing “party-lets” nurtured by the regimes of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and now Sissi to provide democratic window dressing, have struggled to define their positions as either out-and-out champions of the new president or mild critics of him

The only “party” large and capable enough to offer a full slate of candidates nationally, “For the Love of Egypt,” is essentially a creation of the military high command, but it is not the official regime party in the same fashion in which its predecessor, the National Democratic Party, was under former president Anwar Sadat and Mubarak. To round out this bleak picture, coteries of retired generals have formed their own parties, one seeking to attract Mubarak loyalists skeptical of Sissi, while another is cheerleading for him and denigrating the Muslim Brotherhood

ruling without a parliament for the longest period in the history of republican Egypt

Sissi’s high-wire act has had all of the expected consequences of erratic, inconsistent and ineffective, president-centered policy-making. They further accentuate the magnitude of policy swings, isolate the president yet more from institutions and political forces, and cause the entire polity to be suffused with a deep cynicism. The Egyptian electorate, in awe of the president in the center ring, has scant interest in the present election sideshow