Countering Terrorism and the Rule of Law in Yemen: The American Approach to Fighting Al-Qaida

My latest article criticizes the conception that matters of security--in particular counterterrorism operations--are separate from rule of law initiates, focusing on Yemen as its primary case study. It was published by Muftah.

"In a recent speech at West Point, U.S. President Barack Obama called for the establishment of a new $5 billion Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund as a part of a “shift” in U.S. security strategy. The purpose of the fund is to finance training and equipment for countries currently engaged in counter-terror operations to “maintain order in their own neighborhoods,” thereby alleviating the United States of the burden presumably.

"While Obama affirmed the United States’ desire to support the rule of law—which the State Department has recognized to be in line with battling extremism— the president stopped short of linking this support to his counterterrorism fund. Obama also failed to acknowledge that the erosion and bastardization of the rule of law in parts of the Middle East is largely happening under the auspices of the fight against terrorism. Although described by the president as a country that has successfully “gone on the offensive” against terrorists, Yemen clearly demonstrates the failure of this narrow obsession with counterterrorism."

Read the full article here.

The Mosul Crisis: Origins and Prospects

After a five-day campaign, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has seized most of Mosul, the provincial capital of Nineveh in northwestern Iraq. The Iraqi security forces largely abandoned their posts, effectively ceding the city to the transnational jihadists of ISIS. The time to act is now. Though Iraq is not at risk of outright collapse, it is on the verge of a major cataclysm. Political progress, particularly with the Sunni communities victimized by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's thuggish form of governance of the past few years, could have a transformative effect on the wider region.

Background to the current crisis

ISIS is the successor to the United States' old enemy al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), but due to a falling out with al-Qaeda's core leadership, the group has since begun a campaign of savagery wholly independent of other al-Qaeda affiliates, becoming the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). During 2012, the capacity of Iraq's government began to swell. But as the Syrian uprising snowballed into the civil war it is today, ISI saw an opportunity to capitalize on Syria's desperate Sunni population. In 2013 ISIS expanded its operations to Syria where government power was on the wane.  Thus ISI became ISIS, and it began courting new constituencies outside the borders of Iraq. Though operations in Iraq where never entirely dormant, ISIS's attention became focused on territory seized in eastern Syria.

Though much of the credit for the end or Iraq's bloody civil war is attributed by Western military analysts to the surge that began in 2007, a critical component of the civil wars end was the so-called Sahwa (Awakening) that occurred within Iraq's Sunni population. Iraq's post-civil war order was far from perfect, but there at least seemed to be the promise of rapprochement between political blocs that largely aligned themselves according to ethnic or sectarian backgrounds. Unfortunately, despite some positive signs, Sunnis in Iraq continue to be disenfranchised and lingering grievances continue to serve as open wounds, exacerbating relations with Baghdad and eroding broader faith in the national project.

ISIS continued to covertly expand its contacts in Western Iraq as it continued to acquire battle experience and better equipment and funding from its efforts in Syria. Unlike other rebel groups in Syria, ISIS's goal is not simply the end of the Assad regime, but the construction of a fascist state with pretense of extremist pan-Islamic trappings. Funded by extortion rackets and black market oil sales, feeding off disenfranchised and desperate constituencies in both Syria and Iraq, and now armed better than ever before, ISIS can safely be said to be stronger today than it during any of its previous incarnations.

2013 in particular was a devastating year for the potential for a new political order in Iraq--a boon for ISIS' opportunistic recruiters. The year began with a crackdown on a protest sit-in in Hawija, where the government admits twenty-seven people were killed; the protesters claim almost twice as much lost their lives, with 120 wounded and many more in prison. Another protest in December 2013 was dispersed with similar brutality in Ramadi. The protesters demands are not uncommon; they are indeed echoed elsewhere in the region calling for an end to disenfranchisement, discrimination, and access to economic opportunity. Following the incident in Ramadi, an uprising began in earnest and ISIS clearly realized the time was right to begin making moves, and has since seized Fallujah and parts of Ramadi. They've staged numerous attacks around the country beyond the bounds of Anbar province, threatening to re-mobilize Shia militias and plunge the country back to the bloodiest days of the 2007-2008 civil war.

Prospects for the Future: Three Scenarios

1: ISIS keeps Mosul and continues to capture other Iraqi cities? Incredibly doubtful. The idea that ISIS can keep Mosul would be completely laughable if not for the corruption and ineptitude of Iraq's security forces. However, ISIS's expansion in Iraq comes with obvious limitations. Even with the current alliances gained with some Sunni tribes in the West, further gains would require new constituencies that ISIS is simply unable to cultivate. More to the point, most of Iraq's population--the Sunnis included--are completely opposed to ISIS. The semi-autonomous Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) is the most serious threat to the jihadists at the moment. ISIS's advance to Mosul, far too close to the KRG, will prove to be very similar to Icarus flying too close to the sun. The Peshmerga, the KRG's own security forces, are currently poised near Mosul, at the very least to contain the crisis from spilling over into their own environs, but no doubt willing to assist in efforts to purge the city of ISIS marauders. Despite the likelihood that ISIS will fail here, they have already succeeded in capturing heavy weapons used by the Iraqi military. Already there are reports of US humvees captured in Mosul being seen in Syria.

2: ISIS loses Mosul and the conflict returns to what it was before June 10? The most likely outcome. With ISIS defeat in Mosul seemingly certain, the most likely scenario is that the conflict reverts back to its previous incarnation. With Anbar in chaos as ISIS and other groups use it as a base for attacks around Iraq, slowly but surely increasing tensions. Rather than actually retaining Mosul, this is the scenario that actors should be most concerned about as--aside from being very likely--it is also the formative threat to the viability of Iraq. ISIS does not have the capacity to conquer town by town the entire country. It's simply unfeasible. But, operating from the safety of Anbar as the Iraq government continues its bumbling response, it threatens to exacerbate tensions and plunge the country back into civil war.

3: A turning point toward a new Iraq? Difficult, but certainly worth the effort. The current impasse in Iraq has the potential to mobilize Iraqis on a national level. This is an existential threat that will require a genuine initiative of confidence-building and conflict resolution. The fact that every party in Iraq has a stake in this fight means that Iraq could be on the verge of a unity heretofore unheard in the country. It's important that this potential be realized both within Iraq and by outside observers, and all parties act to realize such a possibility. Iraq needs a new political order, and it must commit now to security sector reform. That's no easy task in the middle of such a conflict, but those same security forces are largely responsible for said conflict. The fact that Mosul was taken so quickly is a testament to the cowardice and clientelism of these security forces and has further eroded the government's credibility. Admitting that their performance has been until now wholly unacceptable will not shock anyone--likely not even the security forces. The government should commit to effective security forces that are curtailed by the rule of law and whose purpose are to serve and protect the people of Iraq.

Recommendations

• Press the central government to make concessions. This, really, should be the axis around which other international action be taken. The government has to appease its citizens--not ISIS. The political violence in western Iraq is largely the result of an anti-government uprising that ISIS is capitalizing on to make its gains. If the government can win back its citizens in the western provinces, ISIS will be defeated. It's by no means a simple task, but if such a complex endeavor could be realized it would indeed  function as a silver bullet. 
• Maliki must go. The first order of business should be for Iraq's political landscape to maneuver to oust Maliki. This part should be easy enough. Though he won the most votes during the April 30 elections, he did not win a majority and can still be beaten by a coalition. Moreover, if his own State of Law Coalition can be convinced to choose a new candidate that is not Maliki, this could signal to Iraqis that change is indeed on the way and that the personalized, clientelistic rule of Maliki is soon coming to an end.
• Pay the Peshmerga. The KRG has largely been on the verge of secession. Paying its security forces could be the first step to rebuilding the Kurdish buy-in into the Iraqi political process. They will be essential in defeating ISIS, who currently seems to have eyes on Kirkuk and Baghdad, not Erbil. ISIS likely rightly assesses KRG coherency and capacity as a dead end. It's important nonetheless to secure Kurdish support for the government's coming offensive against ISIS.
• Address Sunni grievances in the West. To deprive ISIS of its safe-havens in western Iraq, the government must make an effort to recapture the buy-in of aggrieved tribesmen and others that have joined ISIS. These types of alliances--be they in Iraq or Yemen or Syria--are often temporary and based on localized material and political demands rather than some grand ideology like those touted by transnational jihadist groups like ISIS. By meeting with Sunni leaders, releasing political prisoners, and outright repealing "debaathifaction" laws the Iraq government restore some confidence that will allow it to pursue broader reforms and further erode support for ISIS.
• National Dialogue. Iraq would do well to pursue a serious national dialogue, learning from other experiences in the region. There are precedents from Yemen and Tunisia that have important lessons to teach the region and can help heal the deep wounds in society. Maliki recently announced such an effort, but the problem now is that no one has any faith in his ability to execute such a program with any degree of sincerity. 
• Engage Iraq's neighbors. Getting support for Maliki's ouster and for the reforms needed to put the pieces of Iraq back together into something coherent and stable will require a multilateral effort. It would likely require, simultaneously Gulf states, Iran, and the United States to agree on policy toward Iraq. (*Gulp*) Again, as insurmountable as that idea might seem, all of these actors oppose ISIS with vigor and understand that the group represents a threat to their interests. All of these actors have a vested interest in avoiding a civil war in Iraq. There are numerous issues that may stand in the way, be it the Syrian conflict or Iran's nuclear program or whatever the latest squabble is, but there is room for consensus among Iraq's most influential interlopers. For better or worse, these states all wield considerable influence on Iraq's domestic politics and they will have to be confronted if a coherent, effective policy is to succeed.
• Beware of military support. The Iraq government needs military support, but such efforts should be mindful of the military's past performance and abuses. There are numerous reason to be weary. The Iraqi army has used its military to crush political opponents, and empowering the government may only erode conflict resolution efforts and discredit international support if the military continues with previous abuses. Furthermore the gains made by ISIS have resulted in heavy weapons--much of which supplied by the US--falling into ISIS hands which only escalates the severity of the conflict. All international actors giving assistance to the government Iraq should make it clear that such aid is conditional on fighting transnational jihadists and not turning them on disgruntled domestic political factions. Already, Maliki has announced his intention to pay anyone willing to fight ISIS, which only threatens to reform militias not accountable to the government.
• Aid for IDPs. Internally displaced persons (IDP) have been flooding into neighboring provinces from western provinces for months, and now Mosul can be included in said cataclysm. It's important that these people in need not be left in dire straits for too long lest the become vulnerable to the temptation of political violence themselves in some form or another. 

Thoughts on a Palestinian Unity Government

The announcement of a Palestinian unity government, ending the disastrous seven-year long schism, has been greeted by most of the world as a positive step. The United Nations, the European Union, the United States, and many others have voiced their conditional support for the new Hamas-inclusive government--the condition being that the new government maintain peaceful relations with Israel. Despite the unexpected support for the new unity arrangement by the United States, Israel--now continuing a forty-seven year occupation--has rejected it. It will be important for supporters of the unity deal to put together cogent strategies of engagement, hopefully with some level of coordination and with clear goals in mind.

First, it will take a sober assessment of the limits of the agreement. There are still aspects of the agreement that remain to be negotiated and more still that remain to be implemented. The positive news thus far is that both of the primary parties--Fatah and Hamas--remain committed to the difficult tasks ahead. The most challenging issues appear to be negotiating the new security arrangements and effective reimbursement of public sector employee salaries. That being said, the new status quo is still fragile, and there are sure to be numerous attempts at spoiling the process, be they provocations from Israel or armed Palestinian groups. Those international allies currently supporting the unity effort would do well to prepare response to such attempts with conflict resolution-oriented efforts that emphasizes patience and consensus. If unity is the first step toward a transition from occupation to independence--and I do believe this is very much possible however far away--then it is time to focus on Palestinian institutions now rather than wait for the ever elusive silver-bullet style agreement.

In terms of vision, Palestinian factions are calling for parliamentary and presidential elections, despite details about said processes still up for negotiation. It is imperative to support these elections to give Palestinian unity a legitimacy that relies on popular representation rather than elite bargaining. Furthermore, the international community should reflect on their reaction to the 2006 elections that brought Hamas to power. At the time, the results of the 2006 elections were driven by disillusionment with Fatah (which came to be defined by endemic corruption and political impotence) and Hamas' popularity (which stemmed from social services and the perception of purity due to their previous political aloofness).

Much has changed since 2006. While Hamas' governance in Gaza is likely widely-recognized as a failure, the asterisk of international isolation and Israel's blockade hangs over it. Fatah on the other hand, though little has been done to confront the perception of corruption, seems to have reclaimed some legitimacy in its pursuit of statehood. Prior to 2006 (and for some time after) Fatah and the PLO were viewed as impotent and out of touch when it came to achieving Palestinian national goals. Today, I think it's safe to say they have regained more credibility due to their unilateral moves at the UN.

Regardless of the victor, the international community should be prepared to accept the outcome rather than boycott and defund as they did in 2006. Though their relationship with the Palestinian Authority should no doubt be reconsidered during political upheavals they should attempt to do so in ways that do not further contribute result in the type of social upheaval seen in 2007. The frailty of the Palestinian Authority seems more widely acknowledged these days, so such a path is fortunately much less likely.

The real place for international actors however should be as far removed from matters of legitimacy as possible. Specifically, pro-democracy, pro-peace actors like the United States, European Union, and the United Nations can get back to much needed development projects emphasizing the rule of law and economic development. The Palestinian Authority's legitimacy under Fatah was largely eroded as their autocratic tendencies began to be viewed--rightly or wrongly--as part of a collaborative effort to appease Israeli concerns. Facilitating good governance in the Palestinian Authority through reform of corrupt, opaque, and abuse-prone institutions will serve to empower a moderate, politically-engaged civil society that would further the cause of peace far more than the typically and eternally failing negotiation efforts that international actors have heretofore shown myopic loyalty.

Why Egypt Needs a National Dialogue and Why it Won't Get One

Egypt's presidential election was decided long ago. Though Egyptians--at the time of this writing--have yet to vote, Abdul Fattah El-Sisi is sure to win due to a political environment defined intimidation, exclusion, and state-sponsored propaganda. However, given that the election is already decided, there is no reason to wait when considering what the country needs next. Given the divisive state of Egyptian society right now, it is critical that the country find away to reunite, and the best way to complete this process is by way of a national dialogue.

Recent polling has discovered that 38% of Egyptians maintain a favorable view of the Muslim Brotherhood. After the abysmal performance and subsequent military-expulsion of Muhammad Morsi, this comes as a surprise to many--including veteran observers. But this new information further confirms that the rift is widening as well as calcifying, especially since the government chose to ban the group as a terrorist organization. Moreover political violence has become an unfortunate daily occurrence, the likes of which was until very recently completely foreign to Egypt.

Yemen's recent experience with its National Dialogue Conference (NDC) provides the most invaluable lessons. Though the government has since staggered when it comes to implementation--due to a carefully orchestrated political deadlock--the process itself was productive and inclusive. By holding smaller sessions throughout the country, Yemen's NDC was able to cultivate national conversations while airing grievances between otherwise intractable political and social foes. The mechanisms of the NDC led to a long, detailed list of recommendations meant to guide the Constitution Drafting Committee as it prepares Yemen's first post-revolutionary legal code. Egypt, which has yet to pursue a trans-social dialogue processes, has fumbled through three different constitutions since 2011--the latest draft of which was ratified by the public in a dismal referendum with only 38% support.

Egypt's nizam will no doubt remain antithetical to Egyptian solidarity, and it is doubtful that Sisi would have the courage or will to spend political capital in defying the military interests in such away. Indeed, if the government now were to organize such a process it would no doubt resemble the Bahraini model--with loyalists talking among themselves while the opposition boycotted or was excluded altogether. Nonetheless, this should not preclude activists and civil society professionals from mimicking the mechanisms of national dialogue. Dialogue from the bottom up could serve as an important mode of repairing the fractures within Egyptian society and alleviating the currently toxic level of polarization.

Towards an End of Impunity in the Middle East and North Africa

The issue of impunity forms the axis around which all abuses in the Middle East and North Africa continue to revolve. Even where there are legal means to ban abuses or to ensure personal rights, repression continues largely because institutions are too weak or too unwilling to hold violators accountable and to uphold the rule of law. The emphasis of reform efforts--by both activists and international actors--should be oriented toward projects that focus on (1) cultivating cultures of transparency and accountability to ensure professional, impartial execution of the rule of law, (2) empowering the state structures with the capacity to control security forces, and (3) creating an apolitical judicial environment that is able to prosecute members of the state without fear of interference or professional and personal reprisals.

Confronting impunity should begin by opening up what are now very opaque, at times disorganized judiciaries and law enforcement agencies. This is best demonstrated by the lack of transparency in Yemen. Conditions in the country are largely eroded by corruption; money is either required to compel security forces to enforce the law or is a persistent option to convince them to ignore it. Perhaps one of the weakest states in the region, the lack of effective record keeping only serves to complicate basic rule of law procedures. Very little information or access is available to citizens or observers to assess how long certain detainees have been held, whether they've been charged, etc, in part because of government dysfunction and opacity.

Aside from external review, security forces act with impunity first when they elude internal oversight and accountability. This is particularly true in Egypt where security forces operate unmoored from state control, demonstrating an internal cohesion despite a continuous lack of loyalty to a given government--the police forces have been given autonomy for decades and they are intent to maintain it. The Morsi government had virtually no control over security forces, and though the interim government demonstrated a better relationship with police forces, this had no effect on repressive practices. Abdel Fattah El-Sisi will be the next president of Egypt, and his political ascension has been accompanied by improved relations between the police and the state. In other circumstances this may open the door for reform, however this would require a government that was truly interested in reform and had the will to engage its political capital on such a difficult and contested issue as security sector reform; Sisi, to say the least, does not seem predisposed to such a government.

In a similar vein, many of Libya’s human rights abuses stem a lack of government control over the parts of security forces comprised of post-revolutionary militias that have yet to demobilize or completely declare allegiances to the state. It is difficult to say whether various abuses occur more or less today than they did under Qaddafi, but what is demonstrably true is that many armed factions are now far removed from any political or judicial hierarchy in the absence of the Qaddafi regime’s monopolization of violence. Torture, wrongful imprisonment, religious persecution, sexual assault, and other abuses have all occurred at the hands of these militias, yet the government continues to utilize such forces in various parts of the country to compliment its own security apparatus. As yet, the government has not demonstrated an ability or will to investigate and punish abuses. The development of a strong constitution is the first step, but ultimately the fate of the country will rest upon whether these quasi (or wholly) independent groups can be convinced to declare loyalty to said document and then be contained by its legal parameters. The way forward for Libya thus lies not only in reform and institution building, but these difficult processes are further complicated by the thorny process of conflict resolution and negotiation.

The Egyptian judiciary’s role in selectively prosecuting and convicting people for transgressions is important to consider. Torture, arbitrary arrest, and extrajudicial killings are more commonplace today than they were in 2010, and there have been few attempts to investigate abuses, fewer attempts to press charges, and fewer still successful convictions. Though few members of the security forces--much less the former regime--have been successfully convicted for the deaths of protesters during 2011 uprising or its subsequent violence, numerous citizens and activists and have been condemned. The recent disturbing mass convictions of Muslim Brotherhood supporters and affiliates has rightly brought down international condemnation and concern upon Egypt, but what failed to garner as much outrage was the quiet acquittal of police officers implicated in extrajudicial killings. Though the Egyptian judiciary has independent fragments, cases and courts are still managed in a highly politicized fashion to ensure that the state, particularly the military and the police, can ensure their desired outcomes when they wish.

In Yemen, the wider project of protecting the perpetrators of past abuses is more formalized. The uprising was effectively ended by a power-sharing scheme agreed upon by the Joint Meeting Parties and the General People’s Congress--the former ruling party. The most contentious aspect of the agreement was the immunity law that still serves as an obstacle to pursuing the perpetrators of terrible crimes committed during the uprising, including former President Ali Abdullah Saleh himself, who remains free to manipulate Yemeni politics to this day. This power sharing scheme, which so far has done little more than paralyze the government and exclude popular opinion from the transition process, is a microcosm of larger mechanisms at play that impede accountability. Offending members of the security forces and government officials are often treated lightly--if sanctioned all--for abuses, often for political expedience due to various social sensitivities, like tribal connections.

The region, regrettably, does not lack authoritarian regimes where impunity is commonplace, but it should be understood that impunity is not just an aspect of repressive regimes: it is a central component without which the entire game begins to unravel. The first step is addressing transparency within the system; citizens must be able to see and understand the process. Then all institutions and groups acting in the name of the state--security forces, the judiciary, etc.--should be made to conform to a coherent hierarchy that citizens can trust. Finally, a free and independent judiciary should be molded to ensure that members of the state are held to the same standards as the citizens they are charged with ruling over. If more effort was focused on building the capacity of rule of law institutions, these institutions would largely act on their own accord to purge the system of its remaining poisons.

A Crash Course in Iraq’s Electoral Politics

My article breaking down the political players and major issues in the upcoming Iraqi elections was published on The Atlantic Council's MENASource blog.

"On April 30, Iraq will hold parliamentary elections featuring a total of 9,040 candidates from 142 parties, including forty-one blocs and coalitions, all competing for just 328 parliamentary seats. The result of the 2010 parliamentary elections carried Iyad Allawi’s Iraqiya bloc to a narrow electoral victory, but was eventually defeated by a coalition of majority-Shia parties to ensure a second term for Nuri al-Maliki. As Maliki seeks another four years as Iraq’s prime minister, the political scene has changed dramatically and issues, both new and old, take center stage as voters weigh their options. 

"Security remains at the forefront of Iraqi politics. The civil war in Syria and the transnational jihadist organizations’ activities on Iraq’s western border have exploited and exacerbated long running grievances between the local Sunni population and the central government. The lingering "de-baathification” legacy has been used by Maliki, some say, to discriminate against critics, particularly Sunnis. Following the December 2013 crackdown on the protest camp in Anbar province’s capital of Ramadi and the arrest of prominent Sunni leaders, clashes erupted throughout the province. Currently, organizations like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other militant groups have come to temporary agreements with local anti-government militias and tribal groups. The loss of control in Anbar has threatened the rest of the country as well, with militants seizing control of the Fallujah Dam and closing off the Euphrates river. Its closure has caused flooding in some areas and extreme water scarcity in others. Elsewhere, ISIS forces and other militant groups have staged attacks in Shia neighborhoods, threatening to reignite sectarian tensions and mobilize independent militias. This recent escalation in violence has already claimed 2,650 lives since the beginning of the year."

Read the full article here.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Human Rights in the Transitioning Countries

My article contrasting the state of human rights in before and after the Arab Spring was published on The Atlantic Council's MENASource blog. This article was subsequently recommended by Foreign Policy Magazine's Democracy Lab.

"More than three years have passed since tide of the Arab Spring swept through the region, carrying away in its undertow three Presidents-for-life as well as one Brother-Leader. At the heart of the movements that coalesced in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen was a desire for democratic reform and a final sunset on the decades-old systems of repression and human rights abuses. However, a comparative view of the current state of human rights today versus that of 2010 reveals the emerging patterns defining the people's relationship with the state in the post-Arab Spring era. The US Department of State’s annual review of human rights provides an opportunity to assess what progress has been made as well as how very far the transitioning countries have left to go."

Read the full article here.

Reform or Insurgency in Bahrain

My article on the need for reform in Bahrain was published on The Atlantic Council's MENASource blog.

"The use of more violent means of confrontation in Bahrain is becoming more prevalent—at least on the part of a minority of anti-regime groups—as state security forces continue to use repressive measures against dissidents, employing beatings, tear gas, and birdshot on otherwise peaceful demonstrators. The deterioration in security has also created space for extremism to rear its head. On February 14, amidst protests marking the third anniversary of Bahrain’s uprising, the militant group al-Ashtar Brigades bombed a minibus carrying police officers in Dih west of Manama, wounding several; another bombing targeted police near the country’s airport, killing one. On Monday, another bombing occurred during confrontations with protesters.

"The situation in Bahrain—coupled with an obstinate lack of movement from Bahrain’s international partners—is wholly unsustainable. Unlike other Gulf States, Bahrain’s monarchy has a much narrower scope of loyal elites with which to collude and far more modest coffers with which to offset popular grievances."

Read the full article here.

To Confront Yemen’s Security Dilemmas, Start With Security Forces

My article on the desperate need for security sector reform in Yemen was published on The Atlantic Council's MENASource blog.

"Despite the conclusion of Yemen’s National Dialogue, violence continues to plague the country, most notably with clashes between tribesman and separatists pressing for greater autonomy and government forces that have lost their confidence. The recent incidents in al-Dali’ province illustrate this acutely, where tribesmen and the Thirty-Third Armored Brigade erupted in conflict after local militants associated with Southern separatists fired at a water convoy en route to the brigade’s base; the incident escalated into a conflict defined by an all too typical, indiscriminate military shelling of civilian infrastructure. The fighting in al-Dali’ centers on a specific military outfit: the Thirty-Third Armored Brigade is infamous among locals, especially after its December shelling of a funeral killed more than twenty people—some of them children. The subsequent investigation of the incident has been kept confidential and no prosecutions were made in its wake.

"Echoing wider calls in the country for local autonomy and reflecting the National Dialogue Conference’s (NDC) call for decentralization, the local tribes have demanded the Brigade be removed from al-Dali’—and the province’s security manager agrees, saying, “Its existence in the governorate is provoking further Southern calls for secession.” The central government informed the Brigade in late January that its leading officer was to be dismissed, the bare minimum one would expect after an incident like the December shelling. The brigade refused the order, choosing instead to fortify their compound and surround it with tanks."

Read the full article here.

Dictatorships: Just Do It

Essentially, the concept of nation branding functions as a (normally privatized) form of propaganda. Because suppressing dissent, torturing protest organizers and using excessive force on unarmed demonstrators generally requires all hands on deck, autocratic regimes are occasionally forced outsource the management of their foreign propaganda to smaller public relations firms abroad.

In September, just a month after the biggest massacre of civilians in Egypt’s history, it was announced that the country's military bosses overseeing the mass killing were looking to hire professional apologists and advocates in Washington. I know what you’re thinking, “You mean that just one month after nearly 600 civilians were killed and nearly 4,000 people were injured in a pretty one-sided battle between state security forces and supporters of a democratically-elected president who those security forces had forced out, the state began shopping around the contract to advocate on its behalf in Washington? Why, golly, who want such a contract?”

Dear reader, let me tell you: The Glover Park Group! And think for a second. How much money would it take for you to sell your soul and go to the hill every day to convince legislators that a bunch murderous oligarchs are in fact worthy of taxpayer-funded military aid? How’s $250,000 a month sound? Some people would have serious problems with this arrangement. These are what I like to call “decent, reasonable human beings.” On the other hand there are people who would jump at the chance. In the immortal words of Willard Romney, “Corporations are people, my friend.” Unfortunately, as far as people go, corporations are sociopaths.

Take Bell Pottinger for instance. They have a reputation as being the definitive global advocates of the earth’s most powerful scum. From Belarus to Bahrain, Bell Pottinger seems to have no qualms about defending the most terrible opponents of human freedom and dignity around the world. In 2011, undercover reporters from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism went in to Bell Pottinger’s office posing as representatives of the Government of Uzbekistan and of said country’s cotton industry. Topic of the day: how best can Uzbekistan polish its awful record on the use of child labor in its cotton fields. During the interview Bell Pottinger representatives bragged to undercover journalist about their influence with the UK’s government and their ability to use “dark arts” to scrub their reputation on the internet. It was an embarrassing scandal for the firm, but fear not, corporations don’t have feels, and Bell Pottinger’s dark arts continue to be practiced. The firm is currently in the hunt for Bahrain’s new public relations contract.

“Nation branding.” The phrase itself should make you feel dirty. Really dirty. Like a Hosni-Mubarak-giving-you-a-foot-massage kind of dirty. The reason being: I work full-time at unpaid internship that pushes the US government and international actors to put more pressure on the government of Bahrain. It can be difficult working for no pay, sure, but I really love the work I do and the projects I get to work on, like drafting letters to congressmen, documenting human rights abuses, etc.

What really screws me up though, is that somewhere out there is a ‘Mirror, Mirror’ version of me interning at some soulless PR firm drafting press releases selling Bahrain as a great place for an international sporting event—if you consider driving a car really, really fast a sport. Don’t let political prisoners wasting away due to lack of treatment bum you out; never mind persistent allegations of torture; ignore the largely foreign police force imported from abroad to bludgeon the locals: This spring break it’s “Destination Bahrain: A nation on a Journey!”

Somewhere there are people as passionate about subverting natural inclinations of human solidarity (aka “dark arts”) as I am about undermining the efforts of despots. 

On Striking Syria

The use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war has triggered a new wave of international outcry, this time perhaps leading to an American intervention of some kind. However, there is not—as there has never been—any clear achievable objectives within the grasp of the American military in Syria.

President Obama’s foreign policy has consistently been marked by caution rather than boldness. He began his first term with little foreign policy vision beyond extricating America from Iraq and Afghanistan and returning American foreign policy to the pre-9/11 status quo. The President’s efforts have consistently been more devoted to domestic and economic agendas, perhaps understandably so. However, when the advent of the Arab Spring impressed a historic opportunity for transformation, Obama preferred a wait-and-see approach.

The time for caution in Syria however has apparently come to an end. Lebanon, never known as a paragon of stability, is becoming more and more drawn into the Syrian tragedy as refugees continue pouring in. Jordan is facing similar strains with refugees, while King Abdullah fends off his own domestic demands for reform. It’s clear that with the conflict in Syria threatening to pull its neighbors into the storm, that there are American interests at stake here, but the question remains: Can an American-led intervention stymie the carnage in Syria?

It is patently obvious that after the blunders in Iraq and Afghanistan, that there is little will for a full-scale invasion and long-term mission of nation building and regime change seen in during the previous decade. After the chemical attack US officials indicated that there would be an immediate strike, most assumed this would mean guided missiles. While the attacks have since been delayed as Obama seeks congressional approval, such a strike would do little to abate the conflict.

Assuming that such a campaign could completely eradicate Syria’s cache of chemical weapons—a dubious assumption at best—it has been made abundantly clear by the 100,000 dead that the Assad regime excels at slaughter by more conventional means. So should the mission entail strikes on all Syrian military installations? Such a campaign would no doubt have the capacity to topple Bashar Assad and allow the rebels to takeover, but the aftermath is wholly unknown. The rebels remain a fractious bunch; while there are elements of a moderate opposition, there are Qatari and Saudi proxies that likely want only to see Assad’s regime replaced with a more amenable Sunni autocracy and al-Qaeda affiliates like Jabhat al-Nusra that prefer a more religious brand of the same oppression.

Moreover the consequences of an American strike are similarly unknown. It’s unlikely that Assad and his allies would not launch their own assault on American targets or on America’s allies. It may end in yet another conflagration between Hezbollah and Israel or retaliatory attacks on American targets elsewhere in the region. While Assad’s response is unknown, it is clear that the refugee crisis would only be exacerbated. Even the mere threat of an American strike has increased the traffic of refugees fleeing Syria, adding to the existing strains in Lebanon and Jordan. In any event, the scenario only suggests escalation, not resolution.

That is not to say that America is powerless, but rather that its military might represents the wrong type of power. Diplomatic channels are still available to the White House.

•  Restore relations with Russia. There has been too much distance placed between Moscow and Washington over little more than the Edward Snowden embarrassment. Meanwhile lives are at stake in Syria, where American-Russian cooperation is still possible.
  
• Work with Assad’s allies. To isolate Assad, America must reach out to all who are supporting him including Russia, China, and even Iran. If America is truly motivated by humanitarian concerns it will be humble enough to work with allies, competitors and enemies alike to find a solution.
  
• Work with the America’s allies. The United States wields considerable influence with the countries in the Gulf like Qatar and Saudi Arabia who are the primary patrons of Syria’s rebel groups, some of which function as proxies on behalf of their financiers rather than the Syrian people. Condemn such actions and support those that facilitate a ceasefire rather than escalation.
  
• Assist with neighboring countries with aid and relief efforts. The key to containing the chaos will be assisting the host countries with coping with the added strain of refugees. This is particularly important in Lebanon and Jordan, where political instability is already an issue.
  
• If possible, work with Assad too. If Assad will talk, then talk to him. The idea has been floated that perhaps Assad is working to carve out a smaller enclave for his Alawite minority, allowing for a separate state to be formed elsewhere. It’s a highly problematic and morally bankrupt proposal, but if it ends the immediate bloodshed, giving the idea consideration may assist an effort toward a ceasefire. Allowing for Assad’s truncated political survival may provide a short term solution to the conflict, while allowing Russia, China and Iran to maintain one of their favored strategic partners. It’s not an idea that has a pleasant taste, nor is does it please foreign policy realists or idealists, but it may be one way of saving lives and stabilizing the situation so as create potential for further progress.

America has many advanced missiles but none of them nor all of them function as a magic bullet. A military effort will neither end the suffering of the Syrian population nor realize any aspirations for democratic change.

Democracy in Egypt: There is no military solution

Muhammad Morsi is a bad president. Let us allow a brief re-cap for the uninitiated: Morsi has failed to protect Egypt’s minorities, including Shiites and Christians; under his administration, the economy has continued to crumble with inflation rates ever out of control; crime is a persistent problem as police and the interior ministry remain unsolvable Gordian knots beyond the reach of reform; Morsi oversaw the ham-fisted imposition of a grossly inadequate constitution; and who could forget in late 2012 when he infamously, albeit temporarily, made himself pharaoh, placing himself beyond the reach of judicial oversight. The tamarod (rebel) campaign, a grassroots initiative circulating a petition of no confidence in Morsi and his administration, had collected over 22 million signatures before mass protests erupted on June 30.  This is devastating for his Freedom and Justice Party (the Muslim Brotherhood's political party) considering that Morsi was only elected with about 13 million votes.

On July 1 the Egyptian military issued an ultimatum to Morsi in a televised statement, General Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt's Defense Minister, threatening that if Morsi fails to solve the crisis the military will “be obliged by its patriotic and historic responsibilities and by its respect for the demands of the great Egyptian people to announce a roadmap for the future and the steps for overseeing its implementation, with participation of all patriotic and sincere parties and movements.” The announcement was met by raucous excitement, and military helicopters trailing Egyptian flags flying over Tahrir square were met cheers.   Many activists have greeted the military’s threat with approval, including Mahmoud Badr, a spokesman associated with the tamarod campaign, saying that the ultimatum “crowns our movement.”

But if the year of Egypt’s rule under the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) should have taught Egyptians anything it is this: Beware of Egyptian generals bearing gifts.

Now making a comeback, the popular slogan “the people and the army are one hand” was wildly popular after Hosni Mubarak’s departure on February 11, 2011. Indeed it was the military’s refusal to participate in Mubarak’s oppression that led to his eventual ouster. But it is tragically short-sighted to view the army as purely expressing solidarity. The military has been the ultimate power in Egypt since the 1952 officer’s rebellion, and after sixty years of rule they have gotten use to their position of power, notoriously associated with corruption funded in large part by US foreign aid.

Activists in Egypt need to understand that the ultimate political power in Egypt is and has always been the military. Mubarak was the face of this power and the military supported him until continued support became impossible. A year of SCAF rule made it clear that the military powers did not have much interest in governing so much as they did in finding ways of maintaining their power and privilege.

Under SCAF's leadership, Egypt’s activists witnessed numerous violent encounters with the state, including the Battle of Muhammad Mahmoud Street, and the Maspero massacre, to name but a few. Moreover, Morsi’s economic perils, though they certainly accelerated during his administration, were nevertheless crises continued from the period of SCAF rule. Moreover, while Morsi and the military bosses did not see eye to eye on many issues, it is apparent that they had a modus vivendi not the least of which included special provisions in Morsi’s constitution that safeguarded that privileged status, including military trials for civilians.

It is obvious that Egyptians have had enough of Morsi, and it would be mad to demand Egyptians to put up with his ineptitude for another three years. However, arguing that Morsi must step down and that civilian rule must, even temporarily, be swept away by the military and for the military is no solution at all. The premise that the military is a sufficient institution for the transition to democracy is evidentially false. The SCAF model readily demonstrated this absurdity. The military is not the answer to the problem; the military is the underlying, ultimate problem, the key obstacle to be overcome if Egypt is to ever find stability and its citizens find the freedom and dignity that they currently demand.

The solution in the short term is obviously Morsi’s resignation followed by elections, but the long term goal for Egyptians must be the reigning in of military privilege and power that has gone too long unchecked.

The Limits of Ethnocracy: Racism, Zionism, and the Future of Israel

My piece on the effects of prescribing a racial character upon the state of Israel was published in Muftah.

"Last week, Yariv Levin, a Likud Party lawmaker, proposed a new Israeli Basic Law to the Knesset that would make “the right to realize national self-definition in the State of Israel… unique to the Jewish people.” Previous incarnations of the basic law imbued the state with a Jewish identity, but never before had this been wielded explicitly to affirm the exceptionalism of Jews.

"The apparent uniqueness of this right to “self-definition” for Jewish citizens—and therefore its denial for non-Jews—has led critics to accuse Levin and the Likud of attempting to prioritize Israel’s “Jewish character” over its democratic commitments."

Read the full article.

An atheist's (I guess) response to Rizvi

What follows is a response to Ali A. Rizvi's article published in the Huffington Post May 3rd, 2013.

I’m an atheist, and while I don’t consider it an integral part of my identity, I do get a little irritated by the people that speak for us unaffiliated types. Ali A. Rizvi’s article regarding the “root causes” of Islamic extremism was well-received by noted veterans of the so-called “new atheist” movement. That’s to be expected, because he dutifully reproduced their most treasured errors.

Rizvi begins by linking the Barbary pirates and privateers of over two centuries ago to contemporary extremists in that the ultimate motivation of both peoples is their religious faith, Islam. Later in the article Rizvi is much more explicit: “To us [the new atheists], the "root causes" of jihadist terrorism are the same today as they were” in 1786. It’s a pretty stunning admission of ignorance. Such a monolithic approach to both Islam and sectarian violence can only be described as such.

Same as the old new atheists, Rizvi overemphasizes the religious heritage of his cast of characters rather than their broader circumstances. With the Barbary pirates, the motivations are clear for Rizvi: Islam did it.

The new atheists are always decrying the label of “Islamophobia,” but they’re conflated with Pamela Gellar and Daniel Pipes because they too view the actions of Muslims with a completely different standard than they view the actions of others. The Muslim-ness of an individual is the essential feature for understanding their actions.

When anyone speaks about the pirates that marauded around the Caribbean during that same time period there’s no discussion about their religious background because it’s absolutely irrelevant. It’s obvious that pirates are motivated by greed, but when the participants are Muslims they’re automatons of their faith, completely different from other life forms.

When people look back at the Spanish conquest of the “new world” it’s possible to blame the whole mess—the rapes, the pillage, the exterminations of numerous peoples and cultures—on Christianity. After all, the Spanish empire was incestuously linked to the Catholic Church. Christopher Columbus said of the enslaved Arawak people, “Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.” So is the Holy Trinity the “root cause” here? Nonsense! Columbus and the conquistadors were motivated by gold, silver, and slaves. The presence of Christianity is purely coincidental.

Rizvi ridicules those who would probe past his simplistic answer seeking a “root cause.” It’s a bizarre question for Rizvi for whom the answer is so obvious, so uncomplicated. Of course Rizvi doesn’t immediately address why the majority of Muslims are not mujahideen or pirates. Though Rizvi makes the qualification that “most Muslims are good, peaceful people,” the conclusion is unavoidable: If Islam is the “root cause” of Islamic extremism, then it must follow that every Muslim has a shard of Osama bin-Laden within them, and that is simply a bridge too far.

So what are the root causes? They’re not the caricature of “American imperialism…, U.S. foreign policy, globalization, AIPAC [and] Islamophobia” that Rizvi suggests. Pakistan is a good example if we’re searching for root causes, but we must to go beyond religious identity: only 52% of the population completes grade five; 62% of the adult population is literate; 60% of the country is below the poverty line. The Pakistani state is a grossly illiberal, unfree state, not to mention a tumultuous conflict zone. The situation may seem unimaginable, but on top of all this we must add the daily terror experienced by people in North Waziristan and elsewhere who live under threat of American drone strikes. Naturally, most Pakistanis focus on survival, improving their own immediate conditions, and are perfectly rational, hospitable people, but it hardly needs pointing out that these are not conditions that produce a culture of progressive, liberal-minded progressives.

It’s a terrible mixture: abysmal education standards, widespread poverty, a scarcity of human freedom, and an obvious cord of fear to tie them all together. Now imagine that tomorrow Islam is completely removed from Pakistan. Does the state turn into an inclusionary, liberal democracy? Are economic hardships ameliorated, the people educated? To my fellow atheists: I’m sorry, but religion isn’t the problem and its eradication is no silver bullet.

Rizvi calls into question the religiosity of the “good, peaceful” Muslims by saying that they cherry-pick their religion. The question of cherry-picking is an important one, but again the new atheists enter the debate having already found their villain and thus avoid investigating further. From the majority of Muslims and Christians that lead peaceful lives to the Barbary pirates and Spanish conquistadors, all people compose their religious beliefs a la carte to suit their pre-existing aesthetics. Though these are formed by one’s environment and religion is a component, it’s not a “chicken or the egg” debate.

As atheists, we ought to be able to start out with the principle that religions were created by humans, and hence humans are responsible, but it has become a required characteristic of atheists that we also take up the mantle of “anti-theist.” It is not enough to simply remove oneself from religious practice.  The orthodoxy propagated by atheism’s celebrities suggests that we must also be polemicists. Religion is made into Satan, the boogeyman, the root of all evil that we must condemn as the unmistakable source of misery and cruelty. Religion is seemingly the first cause of “patriarchy, misogyny, slavery, tribalism, xenophobia, totalitarianism and homophobia” in spite of the fact that most of these terrible things were a part of human society long before the invention of religion.

No religion today is the same as it was two-hundred years ago. Religion is practiced by people, and as people vary and change so does religious practice. I’m perfectly comfortable with criticizing religion and debunking superstition, but let’s be serious: religions don’t kill or enslave or maim people; people do. Human society is a deeply complex organism and it has many tangible problems far more malignant—and more assailable—than religion.

The Pro-Israel Lobby: Narratives, Not Money

My article on the Pro-Israel lobby was published in The Daily Beast.

"The nature of the pro-Israel lobby’s influence on the American political system has been raised again this year by senatorial confirmation hearings, policy conferences, sequestration, and White House initiatives. This influence is typically attributed to campaign contributions, but this view is unsophisticated. The power of the pro-Israel lobby is, in fact, defined by the dominance of various pro-Israel narratives in American culture.

"The standard line that pro-Israel sentiment is defined by dollar signs is easily refuted. The two largest pro-Israel contributors—the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and J-Street—together approximated $3.25 million in lobbying in 2012. While this sounds substantial, it’s a meager .09 percent of the total $3.28 billion spent on overall political lobbying that year."

Read the full article.

Interest > Values Part 2: WHY America’s Foreign Policy Continues to Fail its People and its Victims

See Part 1 here

The following was written on April 18, 2013. Some of the details discussed below may be incorrect as news is still unfolding.

On April 15, 2013 there was a wave of bombings in Iraq—20 carbombs and a handful of roadside explosives—that claimed that lives of 31 people and injured more than 200. On the other side of the world that same day two small IEDs (improvised explosive devices) exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon; three people were killed and over 100 were injured.

Innately, the survivors of these tragedies are more concerned with their own victims than they are of the other’s. This is the inevitable shortcoming of a state’s foreign policy: the often insular and arbitrary nature of tribalism that exists in human societies today is the primary obstacle to what we might hope to call a just foreign policy. Most often this tribalism realized by competing forms of nationalism, but other such tribes are recognized as sectarian, ethnic, and economic groups.

How does a tribe formulate a policy of interaction with another based on mutual respect and interest? Why would any tribe be interested in the just treatment and wellbeing of another? The ethical consistently yields to the advantageous. A tribe of any kind is an inherently exclusive outfit prone to the binary classification of humanity into “us” and “them.” In modernity tribes are empowered to abhorrent extremes with bomber aircrafts, tank squadrons, and weapons of mass destruction. It is long past time that these tribal affiliations be recalculated if not entirely obliterated.

Most models of societal organization require some sort of arbitrary underpinning of identity and often entail the mediation and marshalling of intra-societal relations, often for the purpose of resource management. This is directly contrasted with the monopoly on the inter-societal relations that the political elite tend to wield. In some societies this power may be diffused over a group; in others it may boil down to a single individual. However—especially in state structures—foreign relations are typically not the concern of the people, that is, until it is a matter of security.

State structures, in fact, have a vested interest in keeping their constituents focused inward, unable to see over the walls of localism. This empowers the political elite with the ability to easily manipulate the public into war, more often than not packaged within a framework of threats to security. In order to determine the truth value of claims of communist influence in Vietnam, weapons of destruction in Iraq, or Israel’s utility as a strategic asset, Americans often do not have a frame of reference beyond immediate events reported by the media and state or corporate propaganda. This vacuum of knowledge—combined with the existential imperative of production imposed by capitalism—assists the state in conducting a foreign policy unimpeded by such notions as “values” championed by naïve masses or radical fringe opposition. It takes only a glance at polls of voter priorities to see that even at the height of the Bush administration’s “War on Terror,” only 40% of the electorate prioritized foreign policy when calculating their choice of representative in 2007; in 2012—a more typical year—this number had shrunk to 9%.

It is a natural phenomenon that people are drawn to concern themselves only with their immediate surroundings, and it is difficult indeed to contemplate the importance of an earthquake a million miles away, particularly when you are told that the victims of said calamity are your enemies. But is ambivalence toward suffering so different from the exploitation thereof? America’s tawdry relationship with Saudi Arabia—perhaps the most odious regime of our time, save North Korea—is evidence enough that we are perfectly comfortable enjoining our so-called national interest to alliances that compromise our most basic values of liberty, justice, and equality.

However, I do not think this is a choice, and if it is, it is certainly not one made consciously. Americans who go to their local gas stations do not think of the geopolitical maneuvering, underhanded politics, and economic exploitation that go into delivering their fuel. Even if they did, in most cases it would be difficult to make an alternative choice. The one million Americans that are employed in the American defense sector cannot be assumed to support every terrible regime that utilizes their products or every military operation the United States executes. So long as the majority of Americans remain disinterested in these events, the power of influence will remain in the hands of those few whose profit margins are built on structures of human despair. It is the political and economic elite that created this system and continue to desperately maintain it. An informed populace legitimizes the failures of American foreign policy by reproducing popular conceptions of American moral superiority and purity of arms that still manage to survive in spite of the catastrophic war in Iraq, the inexcusable support for the crushing of popular, nonviolent resistance in Bahrain, and the steadfast championing of conquest and occupation in Palestine.

The enormity of American power is too vast to be trusted to the elite few, while the many remain concerned with their local world to serve as a democratic check on how that power is used. It is this shortcoming that prevents America from attaining a foreign policy prioritizing the best of American values over the hungry cannibalism of imperial power and economic greed.

An Uncomfortable Stone

On March 7^th, 1965 around 600 people began to march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery. A few weeks before during a separate nonviolent demonstration about voting rights Jimmy Lee Jackson, a young black man, was shot by a state trooper while defending his mother and subsequently died. At Jackson’s funeral Martin Luther King, Jr. declared him “a martyred hero of a holy crusade for freedom and human dignity.” The march from Selma to Montgomery, in-part organized by King, was as much about remembering Jackson’s sacrifice, his martyrdom, as it was about continuing his crusade.

Called “Bloody Sunday,” the march was blocked at the Edmund Pettus Bridge that leads out of Selma by Alabama’s State Troopers. The procession of marchers, unarmed, was assaulted by state security forces. Their throats filled with tear gas, their bones broken with batons and nightsticks, the marchers were literally beaten back into Selma.

It would be two weeks later before 3,200 protesters began the successful march from Selma, walking approximately twelve miles a day and sleeping in fields before they successfully reached Montgomery. When they arrived on March 25, their numbers had swelled to 25,000.

In Montgomery, Alabama, that same day King spoke:

Yes, we are on the move and no wave of racism can stop us. We are on the move now. The burning of our churches will not deter us. The bombing of our homes will not dissuade us. We are on the move now. The beating and killing of our clergymen and young people will not divert us. We are on the move now… Like an idea whose time has come, not even the marching of mighty armies can halt us. We are moving to the land of freedom.
 

Let us therefore continue our triumphant march to the realization of the American dream. Let us march on segregated housing until every ghetto or social and economic depression dissolves, and Negroes and whites live side by side in decent, safe, and sanitary housing. Let us march on segregated schools until every vestige of segregated and inferior education becomes a thing of the past, and Negroes and whites study side-by-side in the socially-healing context of the classroom.

…I know you are asking today, "How long will it take?" Somebody’s asking, "How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?"…How long will justice be crucified, and truth bear it?"

I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because "truth crushed to earth will rise again."

How long? Not long, because "no lie can live forever."

How long? Not long, because "you shall reap what you sow."

…How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

In August of the same year, President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Over twenty years later, on the opposite side of the earth, there was yet another uprising taking place. Called the first intifada, in December1987 the Palestinian people rose up to resist Israel’s military occupation. The resistance of the first intifada, as opposed to the second, was characterized almost exclusively by acts of nonviolence and civil disobedience.

Israel’s Defense Minister at the time was Yitzhak Rabin, he famously told commanders of the military regime in the West Bank to crush the uprising, to “break their bones” in order to “re-instill fear” into the protesters. Rabin denied that he meant the words literally, though one wonders how bones might be broken figuratively. Israel’s Attorney General, Yosef Harish, ordered Rabin to instruct troops to use more restraint in the wake of “numerous complaints of cruel treatment to the inhabitants” of the occupied territories. By March of 1988, four months after the intifada began and twenty three years after the march from Selma to Montgomery was concluded, 111 Palestinians were dead.

By 1993, the intifada had been called off by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), now in negotiations with Israel about the creation of what they believed would be a proto-Palestinian state. Rabin, the bone-breaker, was now Israel’s Prime Minister and thus a primary character in the negotiating drama. The Oslo Accords, as the results of negotiations were called, ostensibly represented an interim period of Palestinian autonomy. For the Palestinians, this implicitly meant that statehood and self-determination, so long out of reach, was finally at hand.

For Rabin, this meant something else entirely. For Rabin, the Oslo accords and the creation of Palestinian autonomy structures represented the further consolidation—not the retreat—of Israeli power. “The Palestinians will be better at [“enforcing order”] than we were,” explained Rabin,

because they will allow no appeals to the Supreme Court and will prevent the [Israeli] Association for Civil Rights from criticizing conditions there by denying it access to the area. They will rule by their own methods, freeing, and this is most important, the Israeli army from having to do what they will do.[1]

Beyond the duties of the indigenous police service, was the structure of the Oslo itself. Rabin championed the concept of the separation of Israeli and Palestinian peoples. First, the West Bank was trifurcated into three different areas. Area A was under full Palestinian control (3% of the West Bank’s surface area); Area B was to under Palestinian administrative authority and Israel controlling security (25%); Area C was under the strict purview of Israel (72%). For Palestinians the divisions were concrete, though Israeli forces would stage numerous incursions in to Area A. Israel instituted a rigorous permit regime over these divisions; Israeli citizens with Israeli permits were (and still are) given numerous privileges (access to roads, to subsidized housing in illegal settlements, immunity from prosecution in Palestinian courts), while permits for Palestinians served to arbitrarily grant and deprive them of access to employment, education, healthcare and freedom of movement.

Palestinians and Israelis are expected to at all times be readily distinguishable. Israeli fuel tanks were meant to be one color, Palestinian fuel tanks another. Roads were constructed specially for Israelis while Palestinians were forced to use roads that wound around Israel’s illegal settlements; journeys of just a few miles could take hours navigating through checkpoints and around roadblocks and closures—if of course a Palestinian had the appropriate permission. Meanwhile, new Israeli settlements were constructed and old settlements were expanded at a previously unheard of pace. Rabin’s plan for peace through all of this was boiled down to an easily packaged slogan: “Them over there; us over here.” Those familiar with South Africa’s history will readily recognize the similarity with the system of apartheid; those familiar with the history of America’s south will immediately recognize similarities as well.

On March 21 2013—forty-eight years to the day after King’s historic march from Selma to Montgomery—President Barack Obama laid from a stone from King’s memorial on Rabin’s grave.

One can only guess at what Obama may have meant by such a gesture. What could it possibly mean to bring the memory of a man who struggled against the forces of segregation and racism, who was imprisoned by and bled under the scourge of state power, to Israel and rest it on the final resting place of Yitzhak Rabin, a champion of “separation” that fought with truncheon and tear gas to crush a nonviolent uprising, that oversaw the defense of military occupation, killing hundreds and imprisoning thousands? There is no rational answer to be gleamed. The only thing the two men had in common was that they were both gunned down by assassins before their visions could be realized.

Whatever analogy that Obama hoped to make between the two men must logically end there. The visions that they strived for were intrinsically, irreconcilably different.

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[1] Massad, Joseph. The Persistence of the Palestinian Question. 2006. Pg. 98.