Month: August 2007

A question to Lebanon watchers

This may be rather naive, and considering the vitriol being thrown around on the issue of Lebanon these days I want to tread carefully: but how come analysts have such detailed knowledge of the voting patterns according to sectarian affiliation in the recent Metn by-election? Are these published in official records? Are they based on exit polls? To see what I mean, see for instance this analysis which takes to task a recent Hassan Fattah article in the NYT (as many March 14 supporters have been doing, which for Hassan must be a change from being attacked by March 8 supporters):

In 2007, Michel Aoun’s candidate won the seat by a razor-thin margin – 418 votes, or 50.2%. Overall, Metn voters were split down the middle in the by-elections. This is a far cry from Aoun’s dominant showing in 2005, where he claimed to have won 70% of the Christian vote in Mount Lebanon. In addition, Gemayel was the clear choice of the Maronite community, winning 58.6% of Maronite votes to the FPM’s 40.7%. Contrary to Mr. Fattah’s assertion that the Metn by-elections showed that the Christians are “increasingly alienated” from the March 14 coalition, the actual breakdown of results shows the exact opposite.

So, again, the question is: how is it that such detailed info on what I had assumed was a secret ballot is available, and how reliable is it?

Update: I left a comment on the NOW Lebanon site linked above asking the same question. The site’s staff pointed me to the chart below, which does offer a breakdown by community. Hover on the bars to get the community information. There is no sourcing or methodology info here, however, so I’d still appreciate it if someone can confirm that these statistics come from officials and that this is routine dissemination in Lebanon.

Daniel Pipes’ racist campaign marks a victory

Daniel Pipes’ fascist-style campaign against an Arabic-language school in Brooklyn and its principal is succeeding:

The Evening Bulletin – Stop The NYC Madrassa:
When Dhabah (“Debbie”) Almontaser resigned on Aug. 10 as principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, her action culminated a remarkable grass-roots campaign in which concerned citizens successfully criticized the New York City establishment. But the fight continues. The next step is to get the academy itself canceled.

Remember, his main objection is that “the more basic problems implicit in an Arabic-language school: the tendency to Islamist and Arabist content and proselytizing.”

Perhaps someone can start a campaign against the Lycée Français in New York, where French-language education will have a tendency to pro-France content and will encourage cheese-eating and surrender-monkeying.

U.S. Weighing Terrorist Label for Iran Guards – New York Times

U.S. Weighing Terrorist Label for Iran Guards – New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 14 — The Bush administration is preparing to declare that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps is a foreign terrorist organization, senior administration officials said Tuesday.

If imposed, the declaration would signal a more confrontational turn in the administration’s approach to Iran and would be the first time that the United States has added the armed forces of any sovereign government to its list of terrorist organizations.

In other words, the government of Iran will be officially designated as a terrorist organization, a decision that has myriad consequences and will probably limit diplomatic solutions to the current crisis.

At the zoo

Charles Levinson unearths this disturbing-but-funny-but-disturbing MEMRI clip from Hamas TV about getting children to behave better with animals. It is truly bizarre, but I wouldn’t draw any wider conclusions from it aside from wondering whether there can be a worse place for animals than Gaza zoo (look at how small the lion’s cage is), which is not surprising considering Gaza itself has been turned into an open-air prison for humans.

Update: PETA is shocked, shocked at how animals are treated in a place where humans receive worse treatment.

LRB: The Middle East Peace Process Scam

LRB | Henry Siegman : The Middle East Peace Process Scam:

Both Bush and Olmert have spoken endlessly of their commitment to a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, but it is their determination to bring down Hamas rather than to build up a Palestinian state that animates their new-found enthusiasm for making Abbas look good. That is why their expectation that Hamas will be defeated is illusory. Palestinian moderates will never prevail over those considered extremists, since what defines moderation for Olmert is Palestinian acquiescence in Israel’s dismemberment of Palestinian territory. In the end, what Olmert and his government are prepared to offer Palestinians will be rejected by Abbas no less than by Hamas, and will only confirm to Palestinians the futility of Abbas’s moderation and justify its rejection by Hamas. Equally illusory are Bush’s expectations of what will be achieved by the conference he recently announced would be held in the autumn (it has now been downgraded to a ‘meeting’). In his view, all previous peace initiatives have failed largely, if not exclusively, because Palestinians were not ready for a state of their own. The meeting will therefore focus narrowly on Palestinian institution-building and reform, under the tutelage of Tony Blair, the Quartet’s newly appointed envoy.

. . .

The Middle East peace process may well be the most spectacular deception in modern diplomatic history. Since the failed Camp David summit of 2000, and actually well before it, Israel’s interest in a peace process – other than for the purpose of obtaining Palestinian and international acceptance of the status quo – has been a fiction that has served primarily to provide cover for its systematic confiscation of Palestinian land and an occupation whose goal, according to the former IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon, is ‘to sear deep into the consciousness of Palestinians that they are a defeated people’. In his reluctant embrace of the Oslo Accords, and his distaste for the settlers, Yitzhak Rabin may have been the exception to this, but even he did not entertain a return of Palestinian territory beyond the so-called Allon Plan, which allowed Israel to retain the Jordan Valley and other parts of the West Bank.

This is the fundamental truth of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: as long as the Israelis are strong and supported by the major powers, they will not concede anything of real value.

Hamas bans protests in Gaza without its okay

Two questions about the story below: 1) While remembering that many governments, even in democratic countries, require demonstrations to be registered for public safety reasons, is this merely an attempt to control the situation in a chaotic area (and where certain clans may be still be bitter about Fatah’s defeat) or is Hamas taking the Mubarak approach to public protests? And 2) is it Hamas who is in charge of Gaza, or Executive Force?

Hamas bans protests in Gaza without its okay:

GAZA CITY (AFP) – Hamas announced on Monday it was banning demonstrations in the Gaza Strip without authorisation from the Islamist movement which has ruled the territory for nearly two months.

“In the interest of the general public, to preserve security and with an eye to the law, all demonstrations are categorically forbidden without the offical authorisation of the Executive Force,” spokesman Saber al-Khalifa told AFP.

He was referring to the paramilitary that has acted as police since Hamas overran forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in Gaza in mid-June.

“This measure aims to preserve security and will guarantee that gunshots will not be fired. Above all, it will permit us to protect these demonstrations with our patrols,” Khalifa said.

The move marked the latest clampdown on dissent by the Islamists since they seized power in the impoverished territory on June 15 after days of bloody gunbattles with the rival Fatah party.

Hamas has closed the pro-Fatah public television, radio station and news agency and today controls all electronic media in Gaza, except for one radio station linked to the small Islamic Jihad group

Introducing Hatshepsut

This is a (very long overdue) announcement that the Arabist family has added another member. Please check out the blog Hatshepsut, which has been up and running for some time now, waiting to be officially unveiled. It contains some gems.

Hatshepsut is dedicated to covering women’s rights and issues, the history of feminism in Egypt, and pretty much anything else that strikes Hatshepsut’s interest. While the (male-dominated) writers on the main Arabist blog have occasionally reported on women’s issues, I have to admit that this hasn’t been a strong suit of the blog and having someone dedicated to these issues (and with a journalistic and academic interest in them) is, in my opinion, a great and hopefully useful step.

Please check out the archives, whether to scan the mini-biographies of notable and injustly forgotten Egyptian women (where you can also find out about the queen that this blog is named after); to read one of the many strange or insightful conversations Hatshepsut has overheard in Cairo; or to hear from Hatshepsut herself about what life for a young woman in Cairo is like.

This is the first step in making some wider changes to Arabist.net. More news soon.