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Ed Webb

Middle East Policy Council | Netanyahu's Divided Cabinet - 1 views

  • Earlier this month, Defense Minister Ehud Barak appeared to have shifted from being a supporter of Netanyahu on a decision to strike Iran to being a skeptic. If so, that would leave Netanyahu with only two reliable supporters in the inner Cabinet: Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz. The four members of the inner cabinet who have been widely identified as opposed to a strike at this time are: Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Minister without portfolio Benny Begin, Intelligence Minister Dan Meridor, and Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who is head of the Shas political party
Ed Webb

Who was behind the Balfour Declaration? - 0 views

    • Ed Webb
       
      Benjamin Disraeli was Prime Minister (and therefore a cabinet minister) in the second half of the 19th century, so Samuel was not the first.
  • His niece, Blanche Dugdale, who worked in the London office of the Jewish Agency with Chaim Weizmann, indicated that Balfour was a Christian Zionist in her autobiography: “Balfour’s interest in the Jews and their history was lifelong, originating in the Old Testament training of his mother, and his Scottish upbringing.”
  • others argue that Balfour was an anti-Semite and that his interests in the Zionist project were merely for British strategic gains
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  • In his autobiography, Lloyd George reportedly wrote that the Balfour Declaration was offered to Weizmann, who became a British citizen, as a reward for his contribution to the war effort
  • "Should Palestine fall within the British sphere of influence, and should Britain encourage a Jewish settlement there, as a British dependency, we could have in 20 to 30 years a million Jews out there - perhaps more; they would develop the country, bring back civilization to it and form a very effective guard for the Suez Canal."
  • In his memoirs, Lloyd George listed a multitude of reasons as to why he supported Zionism, including a desire to attract Jewish financial resources, Christian Zionist beliefs, the Jewish lobby in Britain, and sympathy with Jews facing anti-semitism.
  • Prior to serving as prime minister, Lloyd George worked closely with Theodore Herzl, the “father of political Zionism,” on the Uganda scheme - a plan to resettle the Jews in Uganda under British auspices.
  • Samuel presented a memorandum titled The Future of Palestine, to the British Cabinet, proposing a Jewish commonwealth, but then Prime Minister HH Asquith did not find his proposal enticing. “He thinks we might plant in this not very promising territory about three or four million European Jews” as a solution to anti-Semitism, Asquith wrote. In a revised memorandum, Samuel said the British government should enable Jewish immigration “so that in the course of time the Jewish inhabitants, grown into a majority and settled in the land, may be conceded such degree of self government”, which he said “would win for England the gratitude of the Jews throughout the world”.
  • , Mark Sykes’ involvement in the Balfour Declaration is often overlooked.
  • Sykes served as a key channel between Chaim Weizmann and his fellow Zionist activists, and the British government
  • convinced that a Jewish settlement in Palestine would ensure British imperial interests and minimise French influence there
  • treaty
    • Ed Webb
       
      Agreement, not a formal treaty.
  • the Cambon Letter. The letter, addressed from Jules Cambon, the secretary-general of the French foreign ministry, to Sokolow, expressed the French government’s sympathy towards “Jewish colonization in Palestine”.
  • said to be the first Jewish Cabinet minister in England in 1909
Ed Webb

Netanyahu's New Coalition May Have Striking Parallels to the One That Decided to Bomb I... - 1 views

  • Almost exactly 40 years ago, Israel’s cabinet, then led by Prime Minister Menachem Begin, decided to destroy Iraq’s nascent nuclear program. After three-and-a-half years of planning, a single Israeli squadron destroyed six years of Iraqi nuclear efforts in just 90 seconds.
  • sabotage, assassination, and diplomacy—had failed
  • Eager hawks and concerned doves have both trotted out this example in discussions of Israel’s options for Iran today
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  • a deeper similarity, and one that may be more telling: the domestic political dynamic in Israel at the time of the strike, which may be playing out again today
  • As widely expected, Netanyahu’s political future really depends on one man: his former chief of staff Naftali Bennett. Bennett’s Yamina party has seven seats, meaning that Bennett could either rescue Netanyahu or complete the anti-Netanyahu bloc. If he sits under Netanyahu, Bennett will likely take the defense ministry, a portfolio he briefly held—one year (or about four governments) ago. The timing could work out for both. Bennett needs security credentials, and the defense ministry has historically been a stepping stone to the top job, to which Bennett aspires. Netanyahu, meanwhile, may well be in his final term as prime minister. Both are looking for a legacy achievement, with Bennett aiming to step forward and Netanyahu to step back. The two have reason to combine forces and provide the missing piece of the Osirak moment: a stable coalition government and a hawkish security cabinet.
  • Like Begin, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has used the media, sabotage, and assassination to delay Iran’s nuclear program over the last decade.
  • Netanyahu’s political position at home is significantly weaker
  • From 1977 to 1981, Israel used assassination, sabotage, and unconventional diplomacy to slow down and degrade the Iraqi program. The Mossad launched a media blitz, leaking intelligence to create political pressure against the program. The head of Iraq’s nuclear program was killed in his Paris hotel, and other Iraqi nuclear scientists in Europe met similar fates. French and Italian companies producing components for the program were bombed.
  • For almost 20 years, Netanyahu has warned the world that an Iranian nuclear weapon is around the corner. For about the same length of time, news outlets, often tipped off by anonymous “senior officials,” have warned that an Israeli strike on Iran is imminent
  • the United States is backpedaling from its Middle East commitments; the 2015 nuclear deal, a diplomatic framework to contain Iran’s nuclear program, has since been built and collapsed; and Israel and its neighbors have never been closer
  • The hands of Iran’s disgraced outgoing president, Hassan Rouhani, who negotiated the agreement, are tied: one by a hard-line legislature, and the other by an increasingly hawkish clerical establishment. The Iranian public will vote for a new president in June. According to a University of Maryland poll, while around 75 percent of Iranians supported the nuclear deal when it was signed, barely half of Iranians now approve of it.
  • Iran continues to drift further out of compliance with the agreement, making irreversible progress with its nuclear research
  • for several political and regional reasons, it would make sense for Israel to strike Iran sooner rather than later. There are the changing calculations of regional governments, but also the changing fortunes of Israel’s other main foe: Hezbollah. The group still has roughly 150,000 rockets and missiles and a commando force of around 20,000 that could respond to an Israeli strike on Iran. But since Hezbollah is also a political party—an increasingly unpopular one given its role in Lebanon’s economic disintegration—it seems less likely than ever that it would be able to respond on Iran’s behalf and survive politically
  • today, Iran has the bandwidth to respond to Israel. Were Israel to launch an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Iran would have no option but to punch back. U.S. Central Command estimates that at least a few hundred Iranian ballistic missiles have Israel within their range, which means that those would be the most likely avenue of response. It is most unlikely that Israel could intercept all of the missiles. Yet a hawk would argue, as did Begin, that a barrage of conventional missiles is better than a single nuclear one.
  • ballistic strikes on Israel would make it politically unfeasible for the Biden administration to resurrect the nuclear deal or withdraw the Trump administration’s sanctions from Iran
  • Netanyahu is not Begin. And Iran today is not Saddam’s Iraq. The two nuclear programs diverge in significant ways. But the Israeli domestic drivers of the Osirak strike nevertheless offer a striking parallel to the present. If Netanyahu returns to power with Bennett as defense minister, Israel is looking at a hawkish cabinet with an additional dose of ego and political ambition
Julianne Greco

Iran's parliament approves last three ministers - washingtonpost.com - 1 views

  • Iran's parliament approved on Sunday the last three ministers in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's 21-member cabinet after rejecting his original choices in September, the semi-official ILNA news agency said.
  • Mahsouli, a former Revolutionary Guards comrade of the president, had been a nominee for oil minister in Ahmadinejad's first term but withdrew after lawmakers criticized his lack of related experience and his wealth.
  • "Such an enormous wealth would not accumulate naturally," Motahari said, ILNA reported.
Ed Webb

Ahead of COP27, Egypt is highly vulnerable to climate change - 0 views

  • Adel Abdullah cultivates a subsistence living off of six acres of peppers, eggplants, cucumbers, tomatoes, wheat, corn, and pomegranates. He is one of millions of smallholder farmers working in the Delta. He walks barefoot in his farm as a show of reverence to the land. The soil is pale and thin, almost as sandy as the beach, and choked by mounting concentrations of salt, left behind by periodic coastal flooding and pushed into underground aquifers by the rising sea.“This is the first place to be affected by climate change,” Abdullah says. “The barriers help a bit with flooding, but the salty soil is still really killing us.”
  • he takes irrigation water from the nearby Kitchener Drain, one of the largest and most polluted canals in Egypt that aggregates wastewater from the farms, businesses, and households of an estimated 11 million people in the Delta. By the time water reaches Abdullah’s farm, it may have been reused half a dozen times since entering Egypt in the Nile, each time accumulating more salts and pollutants and losing beneficial nutrients.
  • Abdullah is forced to douse the farm in fertilizers, pesticides, and salt-suppressing chemicals, all of which further degrade the soil. Those inputs, on top of the rising costs of irrigation systems and machinery, eat up any potential income Abdullah might earn
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  • The Nile Delta—where agriculture employs one-fifth of the country’s workforce and is responsible for 12% of its GDP and much of its food supply—is being hammered by rising sea levels, rising temperatures, and a growing shortage of water.
  • rapid urbanization and population growth
  • Climate adaptation solutions that could keep environmental problems from turning existential—fixing the battered and wasteful irrigation network, expanding affordable access to improved seeds and climate-smart farming technologies, and more effective and equitable regulation of urban development on agricultural land—are being rolled out by the government and research groups, but often slower than the pace of climate impacts. That’s left Egypt’s economy and food security exposed to growing risk.
  • “We’re really squeezed and marginalized here, and the government isn’t helping,” said one farmer down the road from Abdullah, who requested anonymity to speak frankly (with tens of thousands of political prisoners, Egypt’s restrictions on free speech are also gaining prominence ahead of COP27).
  • his children see no future in agriculture
  • Around 1805, an Ottoman general named Muhammad Ali took control of the country, and founded the dynasty of kings that would rule—eventually under British colonial supervision—for 150 years. One of Ali’s most enduring marks on the country was the establishment of the first modern network of dams and irrigation canals in the Delta, which allowed tens of thousands of new acres to come under cultivation.
  • water and land played a crucial role in Nasser’s legacy. 12% of the country’s arable land was owned by the aristocracy; Nasser nationalized this land and distributed it to about 340,000 impoverished rural families. He also further extended Ali’s irrigation network and oversaw construction of the Aswan High Dam, which brought an end to the Nile’s ancient seasonal flooding and fixed the river in its present position, with just two remaining branches forking through the Delta.
  • Egypt’s population has since more than quadrupled, to 104 million. Yet the flow of the Nile, which supplies more than 95% of the country’s water, has remained more or less constant. In the 1990s water availability fell below the international “water poverty” benchmark of 1,000 cubic meters per person per year.
  • Egypt has managed that scarcity by meticulously recycling agricultural water and, in recent years, curtailing the production of water-intensive crops like cotton and rice and importing 40% of its wheat and other food staples.
  • The population is still growing quickly, and could reach 160 million by 2050. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam that is nearing completion upstream could cut the flow of Nile water into Egypt by a quarter during the as-yet-unknown number of years it will take to fill its reservoir. By 2100, climate change-related heat waves upstream could reduce the Nile’s flow by 75%, Abousabaa said.
  • rising temperatures and falling rainfall mean crops—which consume 86% of Egypt’s water supply—will require more irrigation to survive.
  • current annual demand for water is about 35% higher than what the country receives from the Nile, groundwater, and a very small amount of rain—a deficit of about 20 billion cubic meters. To cover it, she said, Egypt will need to use every drop multiple times, aggressively minimize wastage, and boost the supply by investing $2.8 billion in dozens of new desalination plants with the aim to produce 5 billion cubic meters annually by 2050.
  • On the western fringe of the Delta, farms and suburbs are gradually overtaking the desert as the central Delta grows more crowded. Here, water is even scarcer and the impacts of climate change are more pronounced. But in this and a few other desert areas around Egypt, the government is working to link more than 1.5 million acres to groundwater irrigation, and says it is about one-third of the way there. Land reclamation could take some pressure off the Delta, and sandy soils are well-suited for the production of citrus fruits that are one of Egypt’s most lucrative exports.
  • The unpredictability makes it difficult to identify solutions, Salah says: “Climate change is like a big black box.”
  • “For the last two years, with heat wave after heat wave, we lost more than half the crop. It’s really sad.”
  • The farm relies on groundwater brought up from wells on the property, and Nasrallah says the suburbs are draining the aquifer. In the last four years he has had to dig an extra thirty meters to find water—and deeper wells mean higher electricity bills for pumping. Some wells have dried up altogether. Recently, government officials told him he had to stop watering the grass on a soccer field he built for his workers.
  • Urbanization is also spreading in the inner Delta, as many farmers decide that constructing housing is more profitable than growing crops. Since the 1970s, about 14% of the Delta’s arable land has been converted to urban development
  • Individual farms are also becoming smaller with each generation as, in keeping with longstanding Egyptian custom, land is divided among a father’s heirs (with sons traditionally taking a larger share than daughters). Urban development degrades the Delta’s soil and drives more farming into the desert, leaving the entire food system more vulnerable to climate impacts. Land fragmentation leads to the inefficient use of water and other resources and raises the costs of distribution for farmers.
  • in some cases, the government’s own plans are responsible, most recently in August when thousands of people living on a Nile island near Cairo that was primarily used for farming were evicted to make way for a state-sanctioned development project.
  • The network started by Muhammed Ali now includes about 33,000 miles of delivery and drainage canals across the country, enough to wrap around the globe, that range in size from small rivers to something a child could hop over. Delta residents say they used to bathe in these canals, drink from them, and raise fish in them. Now many of them, especially at the ends of the network, are polluted with farming chemicals and sewage, and choked with trash.
  • Between seepage, evaporation, and water wasted by farmers who flood their fields instead of using controlled irrigation hoses, nearly one-third of the country’s water is lost in the irrigation system between the Aswan High Dam and the sea
  • The soil is dark and appears rich, but is crusted with a visible layer of salt, a problem that affects up to 40% of Egypt’s arable soil.
  • Fixing the irrigation network is a priority for the government. Eman Sayed from the Irrigation Ministry said her agency has lined about 3,700 miles of canals with concrete in the last two years and is aiming to finish another 12,400 in the next few years. The ministry is also helping farmers cover the cost of installing drip irrigation systems, which researchers at AUC found can cut farmers’ water consumption 61% per year; today such systems cover only one-sixth of arable land in Egypt.
  • Authorities have also begun to restrict production of water-intensive crops like rice and bananas, although farmers say there is little enforcement of these rules, and both crops are still widely cultivated throughout the Delta.
  • Egypt has made clear that COP27 will focus primarily on wringing climate finance out of the rich countries that are most responsible for climate change.
  • On the horizon, an offshore natural gas platform is visible. Egypt, which seized the disruption of Russian energy supplies to Europe because of the Ukraine war as an opening to boost its own exports of natural gas, is now contributing more to the problem than ever before; an independent review of its new climate strategy ranked it “highly insufficient” for averting disastrous levels of carbon emissions.
  • By 2100, Noureldeen says, sea level rise could inundate nearly 700 square miles of the coastal Delta and displace four million people.
Ed Webb

Turkish president says "worst case" unfolding in Syria - Yahoo! News - 0 views

  • "From now on, every attack on us will be responded to immediately. Every attack that targets our sovereignty, our security of life and property will find its response," Turkish government spokesman Bulent Arinc said after a cabinet meeting.
  • we are more sensitive about our independence and sovereignty than most countries
    • Ed Webb
       
      The shadow of Sevres
  • a large number of F-16 fighter planes landed at the base on Monday afternoon. Local sources confirmed there was heightened activity at the base but said this was related to operations against Kurdish militant bases in northern Iraq, not Syria.
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  • Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said at the weekend that a potential leader in an interim Syrian government could be Vice-President Farouq al-Shara.
Ed Webb

Mysteries of the Emir - By Marc Lynch | Foreign Policy - 0 views

  • Vanishingly few modern Arab leaders have ever voluntarily stepped down, even when terminally ill, incapacitated, or deeply unpopular (none of which apply to the outgoing emir)
  • the emir's decision is as shocking in its own way as were the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings
  • Those crafting the official version of the handover have therefore been exceedingly keen to present it as a historic but normal move, one that might even be emulated by other Arab monarchs -- were they as bold and farsighted as the departing Sheikh Hamad.
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  • Arab monarchs are more likely to quietly cheer the departure of a leader they have viewed as an unpredictable irritant and an undependable member of the GCC club. "What happened … in Qatar will most likely stay in Qatar," remarked the Emirati political scientist Abdulkhaleq Abdulla.
  • Great wealth, international backing, well-honed internal divide-and-rule strategies, and effective cross-national cooperation have helped the regimes resist those pressures. But the intense crackdowns across the Gulf over the last few years on human rights activists, political protests, Shiite citizens, the Muslim Brotherhood, and even online "insults" to the leadership show just how insecure and paranoid these regimes have become
  • Sheikh Hamad's decision to transfer power to an untested young successor -- and during such testing times -- may be a sign of how relatively secure that regime is relative to its Arab counterparts
  • What most non-Qataris really want to know is what this change means for Qatari foreign policy. Allow me to summarize in two words the thousand articles already written on the subject: Nobody knows
  • the departure of the director-general of Al Jazeera, who stepped down to join the new cabinet after less than two undistinguished years. Will his replacement take steps to restore the reputation of the flagship Arabic station, which has lost a great deal of credibility over the last two years due to its coverage of Syria and Egypt? Will the new leadership continue Al Jazeera's dizzying global expansion strategy, including the launch of Al Jazeera America, scheduled for this fall?
  • what happened in Doha most certainly will not stay in Doha. Given Qatar's active role in virtually every one of the region's interlocking problems, from Egypt to Syria to Libya to Yemen to Palestine, the new emir's choices will matter in ways far less predictable then many seem to believe
Ed Webb

New Texts Out Now: Joel Beinin, Workers and Thieves: Labor Movements and Popular Uprisi... - 0 views

  • situate the movements in Egypt and Tunisia in the framework of the imposition of neoliberal economic reform and structural adjustment programs (ERSAPs) on Tunisia, from the mid-1980s, and Egypt, from 1991. The labor movements were the most salient expression of the deteriorating conditions of life under the regime of neoliberal globalization, or “flexible accumulation,” as the regulation school of political economy terms it
  • The recent murder and torture of the Italian PhD student Giulio Regeni, who was researching the independent trade union movement in Egypt, suggests that it will be quite a while before anyone takes up this subject again.
  • class and political economy were far more salient elements of the 2011 uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt (and I might have added Bahrain and Morocco) than most Western (and even local) accounts were willing to acknowledge
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  • the successful installation of a (highly problematic, to be sure) procedural democracy in Tunisia, in contrast to the establishment of an authoritarian praetorian regime far more vicious than that of Mubarak in Egypt, made it necessary to argue that class and political economy alone do not determine outcomes
  • The character and political role of the Tunisian and Egyptian armies is also a factor
  • the economic and social discontent expressed by the desperate demise of Bouazizi and Yahyaoui has only intensified
  • In 2010 the national unemployment rate was under thirteen percent. By 2015 the figure rose to 15.3 percent. Unemployment rates in the center-west and southern regions of the country (including Kasserine and Sidi Bouzid) are typically nearly double the national average. In 2015 the OECD estimated national youth unemployment (ages fifteen to twenty-four) at nearly forty percent.
  • The government understands the problem, but has no solution. On 20 January the cabinet announced that 5,000 unemployed in Kasserine would be hired for new public sector jobs. Another 1,400 were to be hired through an existing employment program. However, on 22 January, Finance Minister Slim Chaker revoked the promise of 5,000 new jobs in Kasserine, claiming that the previous announcement was due to a “communication error.”
  • “There will be another revolution if the social and economic circumstances do not change,” said President Béji Caïd Essebsi on the fifth anniversary of Tarek Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation. Nidaa Tounes, a big-tent coalition of secularists ranging from former communists to former Ben Ali supporters has split. Over two dozen of its deputies have left, and it is no longer the largest party in the parliament. The terrorist attacks have reduced tourism to a catastrophically low level. The economy is not expected to grow at all in 2016. None of its traditional elite political forces—secular or Islamist—imagine an economic program substantially different than the one Tunisia has pursued since the mid-1980s.
  • On 19 January, faced with a UGTT threat to call a general strike, the employers’ association (UTICA) agreed to increase wages for about 1.5 million private sector workers. But for the unemployed, the streets are their only recourse.
Sana Usman

Unrest Lyari claims over 40 lives and hundreds wounded in operation - 0 views

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    KARACHI: Unrest Lyari claims over 40 lives and over hundred wounded in seven days operation, Private TV channel reported on Thursday.
Ed Webb

Press Release | Embassy of the United States - 1 views

  • Secretary Clinton’s visit to Egypt later this month, which will highlight U.S. support for Egypt’s democratic transition and economic revival
  • For all the very real problems that remain, not all nations who rose up alongside you last year have been so fortunate.  Not all nations carry Egypt’s strategic and historic weight.  And not all nations can have such an important impact on the entire region through the success of their democratic transition, and through their continued role as a strong pillar of peace, security, and prosperity
  • We are fully committed to tangible initiatives to help Egypt deal with its economic challenges, including meeting immediate financial concerns, providing debt relief, helping to create jobs and educational opportunities, and encouraging U.S. investment and tourism
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  • It will be critical to see a democratically elected parliament in place, and an inclusive process to draft a new constitution that upholds universal rights.  The challenge remains of building institutions which will ensure that no matter who wins an election in any particular year, the rights of all Egyptians will always be protected.  This challenge belongs not just to Egypt's leaders but to its citizens as well
  • tens of millions of Egyptians will be looking to President Morsy and the Cabinet he forms to take needed steps to advance national unity and build an inclusive government that embraces all of Egypt's faiths and respects the rights of women and secular members of society
anonymous

freedomhouse report on Iran - 0 views

  • assumed political control under a supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Despite massive participation by women in the revolution and a subsequent increase in the
  • assumed political control under a supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Despit
  • Despite massive participation by women in the revolution and a subsequent increase in the levels and forms of women's social presence and educational achievements, the Islam
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  • assumed political control under a supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Desp
  • The women's rights movement is reasonably well-organized and surprisingly effective considering the repressive conditions within which it operates.
  • Continuous pressure from women's groups led to government reforms concerning women's education, employ
  • ment, suffrage, and family law under the Pahlavi dynasty, which ruled from 1925 until 1979.
  • The "era of construction" under President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989–97) ushered in some positive changes to the government's gender policies.
  • a of uneven reform under the presidency of Mohammad Khatami (1997–2005). Women's sociopolitical participation and civic activism increased considerably, while restrictions on personal freedoms and dress were loosened.
  • Iran experienced an er
  • However, attempts by reform-oriented members of the parliament (the Islamic Consultative Assembly, or Majlis) to make progressive changes, including ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Wo
  • men (CEDAW), were blocked by the conservative Guardian Council.
  • The election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005 marked a return to power for hard-liners and negatively affected alm
  • ost all areas of women's social life. Violations of human rights generally an
  • omen's rights in particular have intensified, and censorship has increased. The overall condition of women in Iran has also suffered from revived sociopolitical restrictions on women's dress, freedom of assembly, social advocacy, cultural creativity, and even academic and economic activity.
  • growing globalization
  • ased access to new communications technology, and recent demographic changes have countered some of these negative trends
  • c Republic brought many negative changes to women's rights and personal freedoms.
  • The system explicitly favors men over women
  • Article 19
  • Article 20
  • Article 21
  • Shari'a is the only source of legislation under Article 4 of the constitution. Therefore, any changes or reforms made to women's rights are contingent upon th
  • e political influence of the ulema (Islamic clerics) and their interpretation of Islam.
  • In an effort to protect their members, many women's nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are depriving themselves of the resources available to similar groups in other countries. Even international awards that include monetary prizes have become a source of tension and political divisions among the activists.[25] While most groups avoid accepting any financial help or even symbolic awards from "Western" sources, some see this as yielding to government pressure in a manner that is contrary to their practical needs and interests.
  • Since the women's NGOs cannot simply wait for or rely on the CEDAW ratification, they should both pursue major campaigns like Change for Equality and continue to create smaller movements focused on individual issues, like
  • equality in inheritance and access to justice for victims of domestic violence.
  • Women in Iran have the right to vote and run for public office but are excluded from holding leadership roles in the main organs of power, such as the office of the supreme leader, the Assembly of Experts, the Guardian Council, the Expediency Council, the judicial branch, and the presidency
  • There has been very little female representation in the executive branch or the diplomatic corps. President Khatami appointed the first woman as one of Iran's several vice presidents, and she also served as head of the Environmental Protection Organization. Another woman was appointed as Khatami's presidential adviser on women's affairs and led the Center for Women's Participation Affairs within the President's Office.[62] Ahmadinejad also chose a woman for this post but changed its name to the Center for Women and Family Affairs. Marzieh Vahid-Dastjerdi, who had held a seat in parliament twice before, was appointed as the Minister of Health in September 2009, becoming Iran's first female cabinet minister. At the same time, two other female minister c
  • andidates nominated by Ahmadinejad were rejected by the conservative parliament
  • While most feminists have maintained their independence from state-sanctioned bodies and organizations, they still collaborate and build coalitions with women's groups that wo
  • rk within the reformist Islamic camp or lobby the state organs for legislative changes.
  • In the run-up to the 2001 presidential election, 47 women nominated themselves as candidates, and in 2005 that number grew to 100, though it fell to 40 in 2009.
  • involvement in city councils as a method of influencing community life and policies.
Ed Webb

BBC News - New Israeli funds for West Bank settlements - 0 views

  • The Israeli cabinet has decided to include some West Bank settlements in a national scheme that will entitle them to millions of dollars' worth of funds.
  • The Labour Party leader warned some of the new money might go to extremists. On Friday a mosque in the West Bank was set on fire, and sprayed with Hebrew graffiti. Labour leader Ehud Barak said: "I don't think that we need to award them a prize in the form of including them in the national priority map." His five ministers in the coalition government voted against the plan. The other three right-wing parties in the coalition - Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu and Shas - voted for it.
Sarah Romano

Obama Issues Order for More Troops in Afghanistan - 0 views

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    On Sunday, Obama shared his decision with Cabinet members to send more troops to Afghanistan.
Ed Webb

Israeli forces raid Palestinian television station in Ramallah | Middle East Eye - 0 views

  • Israeli forces raided the West Bank offices of Palestine Today television overnight and arrested its manager over allegations of inciting violence, Israel's Shin Bet internal security agency said on Friday.
  • "The channel served the Islamic Jihad as a central means to incite the West Bank population, calling for terror attacks against Israel and its citizens. Incitement was broadcast on the television station as well as the Internet," it said in a statement.
  • Cameraman Mohammed Amr and technician Shabib Shabib were also arrested, the Palestinian Journalists Union said.
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  • The channel continues to broadcast from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
  • On Thursday, Israel's security cabinet discussed ways to tackle the unrest, including "closing Palestinian broadcasters inciting to terror," the prime minister's office said. 
  • In November, Israel shut down two radio stations in the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron - Al-Hurria and Al-Khalil - accusing them of fanning the violence.
  • A day earlier Israeli forces had arrested Al-Quds radio correspondent Sami al-Saee, 36, at his house in the northern West Bank city of Tulkarm, according to a Palestinian NGO.
Ed Webb

Israeli, Saudi, and Emirati Officials Privately Pushed for Trump to Strike a "Grand Bar... - 0 views

  • While America’s closest allies in Europe viewed with a sense of dread Trump’s interest in partnering with Putin, three countries that enjoyed unparallelled influence with the incoming Administration—Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the U.A.E.—privately embraced the goal. Officials from the three countries have repeatedly encouraged their American counterparts to consider ending the Ukraine-related sanctions in return for Putin’s help in removing Iranian forces from Syria.
  • Putin has neither the interest nor the ability to pressure Iranian forces to leave Syria
  • As an inducement for Putin to partner with Gulf states rather than Iran, the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia started making billions of dollars in investments in Russia and convening high-level meetings in Moscow, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, and the Seychelles.
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  • If Hillary Clinton had won the election, the idea of accepting Russian aggression in Ukraine would have been a nonstarter, current and former U.S. officials told me. But Trump promised a different approach
  • a former U.S. official recalled having a conversation after Trump’s Inauguration with an Israeli Cabinet minister with close ties to Netanyahu in which the minister pitched the American on the idea of “trading Ukraine for Syria.” The former official told me, “You can understand why Russia’s help with Syria is a far higher priority for Israel than pushing back on Russian aggression in Ukraine. But I considered it a major stretch for Israel to try to convince the United States that U.S. interests are well served by looking the other way at Russian aggression in Ukraine. Of course, Trump may disagree for his own reasons.”
Ed Webb

Redrawing the Middle East - Sir Mark Sykes, imperialism and the Sykes-Picot agreement -... - 0 views

  • For Sykes, the Allies’ victory in World War One and Zionist ambitions were interlinked. His intent was to secure a strategic base for Britain in the Middle East in the aftermath of the war, thus revealing yet another debate as to whether Sykes was pro-Zionist or cynically using Zionism to secure British and his own interests. The author leans towards the latter. However, it is clear that whatever philosophy Sykes harboured, the Palestinians were merely a pawn in the game and forced into subjugation for a simple reason. If the British had consulted Palestinians over the colonisation of their land, a revolt would have been a natural result. Berdine describes such a reaction as “an inconvenient fact” for Sykes, had his plans been revealed to the indigenous population
  • Edwin Montagu, British Secretary of State for India and an opponent of the Balfour Declaration. Montagu — the only Jew in the Cabinet when the infamous declaration was written — warned against the British government’s willingness to accommodate more than “liberty of settlement and life on an equality with the inhabitants of that country who profess other religious beliefs.”
Ed Webb

Drought and misuse behind Lebanon's water scarcity | Middle East Eye - 1 views

  • Lebanon should not suffer from water scarcity. Annual precipitation is about 8,600 million cubic metres while normal water demand ranges between 1,473 and 1,530 million cubic metres per year
  • the country’s inability to store water efficiently, water pollution and its misuse both in agriculture and for domestic purposes, have put great pressure on the resource
  • According to Bruno Minjauw, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) representative ad interim in the country as well as Resilience Officer, Lebanon “has always been a very wet country. Therefore, the production system has never looked so much at the problem of water.” Referring to the figures for rainfall, Minjauw says that “what we are seeing is definitely an issue of climate change. Over the years, drought or seasons of scarcity have become more frequent”. In his opinion, the current drought must be taken as a warning: “It is time to manage water in a better way.”
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  • Minjauw believes that there is a real danger “in terms of food insecurity because we have more people [like refugees] coming while production is diminishing.” Nevertheless, he points out that the current crisis has increased the interest of government and farmers in “increase the quantity of land using improved irrigation systems, such as the drip irrigation system, which consume much less water.”
  • Digging wells has long been the main alternative to insufficient public water supplies in Lebanon and, according to the National Water Sector Strategy, there are about 42,000 wells throughout the country, half of which are unlicensed.
  • The drought is also exacerbating tensions between host communities and Syrian refugees. The rural municipality of Barouk, for example, whose springs and river supply water to big areas in Lebanon, today can count on only 30 percent of the usual quantity of water available. However, consumption needs have risen by around 25 percent as a result of the presence of 2,000 refugees and Barouk’s deputy mayor Dr. Marwan Mahmoud explains that this has generated complaints against newcomers.
  • So far, a cabinet in continuous political crisis has promoted few and ineffective measures to alleviate the drought. One of the most recent ideas was to import water from Turkey, with prohibitive costs. “Soon, you will also hear about projects to desalinate sea water,” says Farajalla. “Both ideas are silly because in Lebanon we can improve a lot of things before resorting to these drastic measures.” 
Ed Webb

Separatists announce self-rule in southern Yemen | Yemen News | Al Jazeera - 0 views

  • Yemen's southern separatists have announced plans to establish a self-ruled administration in regions under their control in a move the country's internationally-backed government said would have "catastrophic consequences".
  • The council accused Yemen's Saudi-backed government of corruption and mismanagement. The STC is supported by the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
  • the separatists, who sought self-rule in the south, turned on the government in August last year and seized the interim capital of Aden. The fighting stopped when the two groups reached a deal in November. Under the accord reached in Saudi Arabia's capital, Riyadh, the STC and other regions in the south were supposed to join a new national cabinet and place all forces under the control of the internationally recognised government. Mohammed al-Hadhrami, Yemen's foreign minister, said the STC's latest move amounted to a withdrawal from the Riyadh agreement.
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  • The separatists' move raises concerns that Yemen could slide further into chaos amid the worldwide coronavirus pandemic.
  • The years-long conflict in Yemen has killed more than 100,000 people and pushed the Arab world's poorest country to the brink of famine.
Ed Webb

Sovereignty for cash? The Saudi-Maldives island deal making waves | Middle East Eye - 0 views

  • It’s one of the world’s top tourist destinations, with more than a million scantily clad foreigners enjoying its glistening white beaches and crystal clear waters each year.Later this month, the Indian Ocean state of the Maldives – particularly popular with honeymooners – is scheduled to play host to a very different kind of visitor when King Salman bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia arrives for official talks and a holiday. Top of the agenda in talks with the government in Male, the Maldives small, cramped capital, is likely to be a $10bn Saudi investment project, believed to include the Saudi purchase or long-term lease of a string of 19 of the island state’s coral atolls.
  • “international sea sports, mixed development, residential high-class development, many tourist resorts, many airports and other industries"
  • “The plans would allow a foreign power control of one of the country’s 26 atolls. It amounts to creeping colonialism.”
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  • There are also fears that the development, with its large-scale building work and dredging activities, will threaten irreparable damage to what is one of the world’s most pristine but vulnerable ecological regions.
  • with climate change and rising sea levels, there is a very real possibility that the majority of the island nation’s land area will be underwater by the end of the century
  • Abdulla Yameen, the current president – who has strongly denied allegations about government corruption made recently by the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera network - has stressed the need for economic growth and sees the giant Saudi investment as key to future prosperity.“We do not need cabinet meetings under water,” says the government. “We need development.”
  • The opposition says part of the rational behind the multi-billion dollar Saudi development could be a plan by Riyadh to establish a staging post and special economic zone, complete with port facilities, for oil and gas exports to Asia, particularly to China.
  • Islam in the Maldives has traditionally blended elements of Sufism and other religions; in recent years, a stricter form of Saudi-style "Wahhabism" has predominated. There are concerns that a number of people from the Maldives are believed to have joined the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria and Iraq.
  • The Saudis have pledged to build what they describe as 10 "world class" mosques in the archipelago and have donated $100,000 for scholarships to study in Saudi Arabia. 
  • In early 2016, the government in Male cut diplomat ties with Iran
  • The growing ties between Riyadh and Male have been causing some concern in the region, particularly in India.Last year the Binladin Group, the troubled Saudi construction conglomerate, was awarded – for an undisclosed sum – a contract to build a new international airport in the Maldives. A previous agreement with an Indian company to build the airport was terminated; it is likely the Maldives will have to pay millions of dollars in compensation. 
  • Analysts say the Asia trip is about extending Saudi influence and diversifying the Kingdom’s economy away from oil and gas and investing in the region.
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