the human province

This is probably so obvious that it doesn't need to be said, but then again, if it didn't need to be said the media wouldn't keep committing the petty sin of calling regimes in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt "moderate." What about Riyadh makes it more moderate than Teheran? It's just as religious, human rights are just as bad (if not worse) and it's much less democratic. So why does the western media insist on calling regimes like that moderate?

What they seem to mean is allied regimes, not moderate regimes. There's nothing moderate about Saudi Arabia, so let's stop pretending there is and call a spade a spade. Riyadh is an American ally -- and probably not a very good one at that. As any number of the unsavory regimes the US is friendly with should tell us, moderation and good relations are not at all the same thing.

I mentioned yesterday that arming the Middle East wasn't a good idea. Brian Whitaker has an interesting piece in the Guardian's Comment is Free section about how the new arms deal for the region could pour gas on the Sunni/Shi'a divide in the Middle East, serving as a "green light for oppression" for ostensibly Sunni regimes to discriminate against their Shi'a citizens in the name of combating Iranian influence:

If the Bush administration's goal was to inflame Sunni-Shia tensions across the region and to spread the sectarian strife in Iraq to neighbouring countries, it would be hard to imagine a more effective way of going about it.

Although Iran is the worldwide centre of Shia Islam, there's an important distinction to be made between Shia Muslims and the Iranian regime. The question is how many people will actually make it. Marginalised Shia communities in the Gulf states and Egypt will undoubtedly feel more threatened, while others will interpret the American move as a green light to oppress them further.

[...]

Viewed from Washington, bolstering tyrannical Sunni regimes against Iran might seem like pragmatism - a convergence of interests. But it's a dangerous sort of pragmatism because the American and Saudi interests are ultimately different. The Saudi government isn't really worried about Tehran; it's worried about keeping the lid on its Shia population in the oil-rich eastern province - and in the long term that can only rebound negatively on the US.

Just as there is a need to recognise that Jews in general are not responsible for the actions of the Israeli government, nor ordinary Muslims for the actions of al-Qaida, Arab states must be careful not to automatically treat their Shia communities as tools of the Iranian government, or encourage the public to think that they are.

What the region needs most right now is not more arms but a concerted effort to promote religious tolerance, to combat religious discrimination and prejudice, and to draw the Arab Shia communities into the political processes of their home countries before it is too late.

Incidentally, Iran is not alone in condemning the arms deals. Even Siniora has been quick to complain about the increased military aid to Israel:

"Prime Minister Fouad Saniora has learned with great dismay, surprise and astonishment" about the U.S. defense package to the Jewish state, a statement released by his office said.

"Continuing to back Israel in such a manner will escalate crises and increase feelings among the Arabs and Muslims that their just causes are ignored while Israel's interests are protected," it said.

"This will raise the feeling of frustration among the Arabs and Muslims, and will therefore boost extremist movements which were born and are feeding on the feeling of (U.S.) bias in favor of Israel."

[...]

"We were hoping that the American efforts would rather help promote peace," Saniora said in the statement.

"If these funds were allocated to consolidate peace (in the Middle East) and bridge the gap between the peoples of the region, or spent on peaceful projects then the American message would have been different," he said.

"This is a very negative message to the Lebanese and Arabs.

"It will boost Israel's aggressiveness and arrogance ...it will allow the Israelis to continue to think that they can avoid the requirements of a just and comprehensive peace by maintaining military superiority," he said.

If those funds were allocated to consolidate peace, indeed. Wouldn't that be a nice change of pace?

The US is finally realizing that Saudi Arabia is not helping things in Iraq, while Iraqi officials have openly accused Saudi Arabia of arming Sunni insurgents, the same, mind you, who have been attacking American forces in Iraq. So why, then, is it that the US is "set to offer huge arms deal" to the kingdom and its neighbors? 

Saudi Arabia is the ninth biggest spender on arms. Why do the Saudis need so many weapons? According to Ha'aretz, it could be part of a larger cold war in the Middle East, which also explains Russian arms deals to Iran and Syria, arms deals between Iran and Syria, and the 25% increase in American military aid to Israel agreed upon by Bush and Olmert, meaning an increase to $3 billion a year.

While this very well might be true, we can't forget that arms sales help out American armament companies with government contracts while giving Middle Eastern states the tools needed to oppress their peoples and arm their various proxies in the region. (I'm including Israel in this, although their weapons are used to oppress Palestinians in the occupied territories and not Israeli citizens.) Obviously, the same pattern of armament and oppression that we see in American allies holds true for Russian weapons sent to Damascus and Teheran.

A new friend of mine sent me a blog entry on a Washington Post piece attacking Americans and Europeans who want to "Save Africa," and especially those who want to "Save Darfur."

Such campaigns, however well intentioned, promote the stereotype of Africa as a black hole of disease and death. News reports constantly focus on the continent's corrupt leaders, warlords, "tribal" conflicts, child laborers, and women disfigured by abuse and genital mutilation. These descriptions run under headlines like "Can Bono Save Africa?" or "Will Brangelina Save Africa?" The relationship between the West and Africa is no longer based on openly racist beliefs, but such articles are reminiscent of reports from the heyday of European colonialism, when missionaries were sent to Africa to introduce us to education, Jesus Christ and "civilization."

There is no African, myself included, who does not appreciate the help of the wider world, but we do question whether aid is genuine or given in the spirit of affirming one's cultural superiority. My mood is dampened every time I attend a benefit whose host runs through a litany of African disasters before presenting a (usually) wealthy, white person, who often proceeds to list the things he or she has done for the poor, starving Africans. Every time a well-meaning college student speaks of villagers dancing because they were so grateful for her help, I cringe. Every time a Hollywood director shoots a film about Africa that features a Western protagonist, I shake my head -- because Africans, real people though we may be, are used as props in the West's fantasy of itself. And not only do such depictions tend to ignore the West's prominent role in creating many of the unfortunate situations on the continent, they also ignore the incredible work Africans have done and continue to do to fix those problems.

Regardless of whether Africa is "in" or not -- whether it's the cause du jour -- if anyone's to be giving a finger rapping to well-meaning white kids from the ivy league, it certainly ought not to be Uzodinma Iweala, the American-born and -raised son of a cabinet member of the Nigerian thug extraordinaire, Obasanjo. The piece's author went to a D.C. prep school then to Harvard, and is now off to Columbia med school, so I imagine that his time in Africa hasn't been much better than that of those pasty-faced do-gooders who "fly in for internships." (Incidentally, does Iweala take the boat from Washington, I wonder?) Furthermore, I think it's telling that Granta named him in their "Best of Young American Novelists 2." 

Fairly or not, Iweala reminds me of my time in the UN system. The UN works on a quota system for permanent posts, presumably so that the secretariat be filled with people from all over the world. This might be a good thing if it weren't for the fact that the quota for countries like Nigeria are taken up by people like Iweala, not the Africans and Asians who have lived their entire lives in their native countries and had to fight against the odds to get an education while working at a human rights NGO in countries like Cameroon or Bangladesh. I once took coffee breaks with a brilliant European intern who wasn't getting paid and couldn't get a proper job in his section, despite the fact that he'd completed his PhD in a relevant field and was widely published in his field's academic journals. The person who was second-in-charge in his section was a European guy who only had the equivalent of a B.A. in his field, but whose dad happened to be a former diplomat (and UN functionary) from an African country. This guy had lived his whole life in a European capital , but he had a passport from Africa, and the intern's compatriots were over-represented at that UN organization. So that was that.

Another thing that bothers me about the remarks made by Iweala is that he doesn't mention, for example, the role that such a campaign led by Americans (mostly black and religious groups) played in negotiating an end to the civil war between the north and south of Sudan. And guys like him are the same ones who are quick to fault Europe or the US for not having done anything for Rwanda. (I'm also in that camp, but I'd like to think that I'm somewhat more consistent in my criticism.) Furthermore, what about the Congo? If Central Africa had been left to its own devices instead of given the world's largest UN peacekeeping force (from five different continents), I imagine that the death toll would be considerably worse than it already is.

So while there's something to be said about "African solutions for African problems," I'm afraid that entrusting Libya, a country that's responsible for many of the current problems in Darfur and Chad in the first place, isn't necessarily such a hot idea just because Gadaffi isn't white. Likewise, Uganda's and Rwanda's African solution to the Congo and Mbeki's African non-solution to Zimbabwe aren't exactly what I'd call steps in the right direction.

The New Republic has an interesting piece out now about the battle in the US Congress about the Armenian genocide. The fight is over a piece of legislation that officially recognizes the Armenian genocide committed by the Ottomans in 1915.

From my research and the work of my colleagues who are specialists on the Armenian genocide, the historical record is pretty indisputable. Some of the details may not be, but the existence of the genocide itself seems fairly clear cut. This being said, I'm really wary of legislating history, particularly as it is done in Turkey and much of Western Europe. (In Turkey it is against the law to speak of the Armenian genocide, whereas in France, it is illegal to deny the Shoah, and Bernard Lewis has already been taken to court for denying the Armenian genocide.)

These questions should be debated in academic conferences and journals by historians, not in the halls of Capitol Hill by lobbyists. In any case, the Armenian question is very important to the US, given its strategic importance for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan:

Strange as it may be to find a World War I massacre on the 2007 Washington agenda, even more bizarre is the possibility that it may precipitate an international crisis. At one March House subcommittee hearing, Adam Schiff got a rare opportunity to grill Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Angry over the Bush administration's opposition to the Armenian genocide resolution, Schiff pressed Rice: "Is there any doubt in your mind that the murder of a million and a half Armenians between 1915 and 1923 constituted genocide?" Schiff even pointedly appealed to Rice's background in "academia." But the ever-disciplined Rice wouldn't bite. "Congressman, I come out of academia. But I'm secretary of state now. And I think that the best way to have this proceed is for ... the Turks and the Armenians to come to their own terms about this."

What Rice didn't say is that the Turks, should their lobbying firepower fail to stop the genocide bill from moving forward, have an even mightier weapon to brandish: the war in Iraq. As they did in 2000, the Turks are hinting they will shut down Incirlik, a far more dire threat now that Incirlik supplies U.S. forces occupying Iraq. Administration officials also fear Turkey might close the Habur Gate, a border point through which U.S. supplies flow into northern Iraq. In an April letter to congressional leaders, Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates bluntly warned that a House resolution "could harm American troops in the field [and] constrain our ability to supply our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan."

That prospect may even be dragging U.S. troops themselves into the Turkish counteroffensive. Or so says Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat and lead co-sponsor of the genocide resolution. "[The Turks] have had American soldiers call members of Congress and say, Don't vote for this, because I am going to be threatened in Iraq,'" Pallone says. (A Turkish embassy spokesman denied knowledge of this.)

Of course, this is probably just a lot of Turkish bluster. Before France passed its own Armenian legislation, the Turks had threatened that the bill would cause relations between the two countries to be suspended, among other things. In the end though, nothing happened. I suspect that the Turks know what side their bread is buttered on and would find that the smug satisfaction of punishing the US for calling them on their genocide denial would be far outweighed by the consequences of pissing the US off in Iraq. For instance, the US is currently in a delicate balancing act between the Iraqi Kurds and Ankara, and if Turkey were to make the US an enemy, I imagine that Ankara wouldn't appreciate the consequent shift in American policy in Kurdistan.  

This an-Nahar report says that one of the Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah last summer is dead. The headline makes it sound like the dead is recent, but the actual article itself makes it sound like the death isn't a new thing:

Israeli Soldier held by Hizbullah Dies

One of the two Israeli soldiers held by Hizbullah for more than a year has died and the other is still alive the daily newspaper an-Nahar reported Saturday.

An-Nahar quoted unnamed German diplomatic sources as saying officials in Berlin tried to obtain from Free Patriotic Movement leader Michael Aoun "some information" about the two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hizbullah operatives in a cross-border raid on July 12, 2006 which sparked a 34-day devastating war with Israel.

"Aoun refused to get involved in this issue. However, security agencies there understood that one of the two prisoners is still alive and the second had passed away," the report said without further elaboration.

Aoun is allied with Hizbullah, which leads a campaign backed by Syria and Iran against Premier Fouad Saniora's majority government.

The two Israeli soldiers held by Hizbullah are Ehud Goldwaser, 31, and Eldad Regev, 26.

Hizbullah had said it was prepared to swap them for Lebanese and Arab prisoners held by Israel.

According to an-Nahar, Michel Suleiman, commander of the Lebanese Army, has said that if the Lebanese parliament failed to elect a president by November 24 (the date when Lahoud's mandate expires), resulting in the forming of two rival governments, he would resign:

Lebanese army commander Gen. Michel Suleiman warned that he would resign if two competing governments emerged as a result of a presidential vacancy.

Suleiman said he would submit his resignation on Nov. 24, the day the term of President Emile Lahoud expires, if rival legislators failed to elect a new head of state.

The army commander said he would not tolerate a political divide that would threaten Lebanon's unity and the military institution.

"If they create two governments, I will personally hand in my resignation to each of the two governments and I will go home," Suleiman was quoted as telling ambassadors as well as political and spiritual leaders.

It's hard to say if this is a genuine effort to pressure both sides to compromise or a genuine effort to pressure both sides to choose Suleiman as president, but my initial response is that both sides need to know that Lebanon will not tolerate another formation of rival governments. A similar split marked the end of the civil war last time but would probably mark the beginning of a new civil war this time.

The Times reports that a new edition of Arabic text books in Israel give the history of 1948 from both Jewish and Arab points of view:

The Arabic version of a new book for a third-grade course on homeland, society and citizenship, states that “some of the Palestinians fled and some were expelled following the War of Independence” and that “many Arab-owned lands were confiscated,” said an Education Ministry official, Dalia Fenig. It refers to the establishment of Israel as a catastrophe for the Palestinians.

The book also reflects the Jewish version of the establishment of the state, as have previous books for the Arab curriculum, including the fact that the Arab parties rejected the 1947 United Nations partition plan for Palestine while the Jews were willing to accept it. About 700,000 Arabs who lived in what is now Israel left during 1948 and 1949. About 20 percent of the current population of just over seven million are Arabs.

Unfortunately, the Arab point of view is not included in the Hebrew versions of the book. Baby steps, I suppose.

I cannot stress how important it is for a good curriculum that aims at objectivity to be used in schools. This is one of the major problems in Lebanon. There is no official history of the civil war, and each side hears of the war from its own clan, to the extent that young people in Lebanon hear about the civil war at all. In any case, this is a step in the right direction in Israel/Palestine, and the Ministry of Education should be applauded. 

Charles Levinson adds his two cents on the "Israeli hacks" in Lebanon:

I do think it is a legitimate criticism that the safety of those interviewed could have been put in jeopardy. In Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, and elsewhere, the safety of sources is always a factor in your thinking. I think there is a fair argument here that perhaps that was neglected. Of course, the fact that a Lebanese citizen would have to fear for his safety for talking to an Israeli (who they clearly did not know was Israeli) doesn’t exactly reflect well on Hezbollah either.

[...]

As for the content of Rinat’s and Lisa’s reports, it was mostly harmless from what I’ve seen and read. I wasn’t a big fan of headlines like “An Israeli in Dahiya” which make the story seem like it’s all about the fact that an Israeli snuck into Lebanon. It’s sort of like taunting the Lebanese. The other marginally fair criticism I could find, was that Lisa does perhaps downplay the damage Israel caused the Dahiya and Lebanon in general. I was there in the midst of the war and Israeli bombs savaged a good chunk of that neighborhood. Rinat’s articles all in all seemed straight and fair to me.

Charles's points seem fair to me. Of course the fact that those who spoke to the two Israelis were endangered by this exchange doesn't bode well for Hezbollah, but that's obviously not the point. Given the situation on the ground, it is a journalist's responsibility to take these safety issues into consideration (sometimes the safety can be for someone's livelihood rather than his life).

This reminds me of my time in Uzbekistan, perhaps one of the most repressive countries in the world. When I spoke to people, they knew that I was a foreigner and that I was with an international organization, and more importantly, they knew that when I was gone, the secret police would still be there. But they at least had an informed choice in the matter. They knew who I was and where I was from. To misrepresent yourself to local people, knowing fully well that there will be consequences when you're gone, is at best irresponsible and at worst just plain cruel.

Finally, Charles hits on an interesting point with his comment that Rinat's title of "An Israeli in Dahiya" is all about the fact that she's Israeli. The only thing that makes these reports at all interesting is that they were done by Israelis. The actual content is uninteresting, and had these reports been done by someone from anywhere else, they would have passed by unnoticed, like so much second-rate reporting. At the end of the day, it's sensationalism, pure and simple. And say what we will about sensationalist reporting, it's certainly not worth jeopardizing anyone's safety. 

Via the Reading File in the Week in Review of the Times:

David J. Kilcullen, writing in the State Department’s eJournal USA about the challenges for future wars:

At present, the U.S. defense budget accounts for approximately half of total global defense spending, while the U.S. armed forces employ about 1.68 million uniformed members. By comparison, the State Department employs about 6,000 foreign service officers, while the U.S. Agency for International Development has about 2,000. In other words, the Department of Defense is about 210 times larger than USAID and State combined — there are substantially more people employed as musicians in Defense bands than in the entire foreign service.

This is probably so obvious that it doesn't need to be said, but then again, if it didn't need to be said the media wouldn't keep committing the petty sin of calling regimes in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt "moderate." What about Riyadh makes it more moderate than Teheran? It's just as religious, human rights are just as bad (if not worse) and it's much less democratic. So why does the western media insist on calling regimes like that moderate?

What they seem to mean is allied regimes, not moderate regimes. There's nothing moderate about Saudi Arabia, so let's stop pretending there is and call a spade a spade. Riyadh is an American ally -- and probably not a very good one at that. As any number of the unsavory regimes the US is friendly with should tell us, moderation and good relations are not at all the same thing.

I mentioned yesterday that arming the Middle East wasn't a good idea. Brian Whitaker has an interesting piece in the Guardian's Comment is Free section about how the new arms deal for the region could pour gas on the Sunni/Shi'a divide in the Middle East, serving as a "green light for oppression" for ostensibly Sunni regimes to discriminate against their Shi'a citizens in the name of combating Iranian influence:

If the Bush administration's goal was to inflame Sunni-Shia tensions across the region and to spread the sectarian strife in Iraq to neighbouring countries, it would be hard to imagine a more effective way of going about it.

Although Iran is the worldwide centre of Shia Islam, there's an important distinction to be made between Shia Muslims and the Iranian regime. The question is how many people will actually make it. Marginalised Shia communities in the Gulf states and Egypt will undoubtedly feel more threatened, while others will interpret the American move as a green light to oppress them further.

[...]

Viewed from Washington, bolstering tyrannical Sunni regimes against Iran might seem like pragmatism - a convergence of interests. But it's a dangerous sort of pragmatism because the American and Saudi interests are ultimately different. The Saudi government isn't really worried about Tehran; it's worried about keeping the lid on its Shia population in the oil-rich eastern province - and in the long term that can only rebound negatively on the US.

Just as there is a need to recognise that Jews in general are not responsible for the actions of the Israeli government, nor ordinary Muslims for the actions of al-Qaida, Arab states must be careful not to automatically treat their Shia communities as tools of the Iranian government, or encourage the public to think that they are.

What the region needs most right now is not more arms but a concerted effort to promote religious tolerance, to combat religious discrimination and prejudice, and to draw the Arab Shia communities into the political processes of their home countries before it is too late.

Incidentally, Iran is not alone in condemning the arms deals. Even Siniora has been quick to complain about the increased military aid to Israel:

"Prime Minister Fouad Saniora has learned with great dismay, surprise and astonishment" about the U.S. defense package to the Jewish state, a statement released by his office said.

"Continuing to back Israel in such a manner will escalate crises and increase feelings among the Arabs and Muslims that their just causes are ignored while Israel's interests are protected," it said.

"This will raise the feeling of frustration among the Arabs and Muslims, and will therefore boost extremist movements which were born and are feeding on the feeling of (U.S.) bias in favor of Israel."

[...]

"We were hoping that the American efforts would rather help promote peace," Saniora said in the statement.

"If these funds were allocated to consolidate peace (in the Middle East) and bridge the gap between the peoples of the region, or spent on peaceful projects then the American message would have been different," he said.

"This is a very negative message to the Lebanese and Arabs.

"It will boost Israel's aggressiveness and arrogance ...it will allow the Israelis to continue to think that they can avoid the requirements of a just and comprehensive peace by maintaining military superiority," he said.

If those funds were allocated to consolidate peace, indeed. Wouldn't that be a nice change of pace?

The US is finally realizing that Saudi Arabia is not helping things in Iraq, while Iraqi officials have openly accused Saudi Arabia of arming Sunni insurgents, the same, mind you, who have been attacking American forces in Iraq. So why, then, is it that the US is "set to offer huge arms deal" to the kingdom and its neighbors? 

Saudi Arabia is the ninth biggest spender on arms. Why do the Saudis need so many weapons? According to Ha'aretz, it could be part of a larger cold war in the Middle East, which also explains Russian arms deals to Iran and Syria, arms deals between Iran and Syria, and the 25% increase in American military aid to Israel agreed upon by Bush and Olmert, meaning an increase to $3 billion a year.

While this very well might be true, we can't forget that arms sales help out American armament companies with government contracts while giving Middle Eastern states the tools needed to oppress their peoples and arm their various proxies in the region. (I'm including Israel in this, although their weapons are used to oppress Palestinians in the occupied territories and not Israeli citizens.) Obviously, the same pattern of armament and oppression that we see in American allies holds true for Russian weapons sent to Damascus and Teheran.

A new friend of mine sent me a blog entry on a Washington Post piece attacking Americans and Europeans who want to "Save Africa," and especially those who want to "Save Darfur."

Such campaigns, however well intentioned, promote the stereotype of Africa as a black hole of disease and death. News reports constantly focus on the continent's corrupt leaders, warlords, "tribal" conflicts, child laborers, and women disfigured by abuse and genital mutilation. These descriptions run under headlines like "Can Bono Save Africa?" or "Will Brangelina Save Africa?" The relationship between the West and Africa is no longer based on openly racist beliefs, but such articles are reminiscent of reports from the heyday of European colonialism, when missionaries were sent to Africa to introduce us to education, Jesus Christ and "civilization."

There is no African, myself included, who does not appreciate the help of the wider world, but we do question whether aid is genuine or given in the spirit of affirming one's cultural superiority. My mood is dampened every time I attend a benefit whose host runs through a litany of African disasters before presenting a (usually) wealthy, white person, who often proceeds to list the things he or she has done for the poor, starving Africans. Every time a well-meaning college student speaks of villagers dancing because they were so grateful for her help, I cringe. Every time a Hollywood director shoots a film about Africa that features a Western protagonist, I shake my head -- because Africans, real people though we may be, are used as props in the West's fantasy of itself. And not only do such depictions tend to ignore the West's prominent role in creating many of the unfortunate situations on the continent, they also ignore the incredible work Africans have done and continue to do to fix those problems.

Regardless of whether Africa is "in" or not -- whether it's the cause du jour -- if anyone's to be giving a finger rapping to well-meaning white kids from the ivy league, it certainly ought not to be Uzodinma Iweala, the American-born and -raised son of a cabinet member of the Nigerian thug extraordinaire, Obasanjo. The piece's author went to a D.C. prep school then to Harvard, and is now off to Columbia med school, so I imagine that his time in Africa hasn't been much better than that of those pasty-faced do-gooders who "fly in for internships." (Incidentally, does Iweala take the boat from Washington, I wonder?) Furthermore, I think it's telling that Granta named him in their "Best of Young American Novelists 2." 

Fairly or not, Iweala reminds me of my time in the UN system. The UN works on a quota system for permanent posts, presumably so that the secretariat be filled with people from all over the world. This might be a good thing if it weren't for the fact that the quota for countries like Nigeria are taken up by people like Iweala, not the Africans and Asians who have lived their entire lives in their native countries and had to fight against the odds to get an education while working at a human rights NGO in countries like Cameroon or Bangladesh. I once took coffee breaks with a brilliant European intern who wasn't getting paid and couldn't get a proper job in his section, despite the fact that he'd completed his PhD in a relevant field and was widely published in his field's academic journals. The person who was second-in-charge in his section was a European guy who only had the equivalent of a B.A. in his field, but whose dad happened to be a former diplomat (and UN functionary) from an African country. This guy had lived his whole life in a European capital , but he had a passport from Africa, and the intern's compatriots were over-represented at that UN organization. So that was that.

Another thing that bothers me about the remarks made by Iweala is that he doesn't mention, for example, the role that such a campaign led by Americans (mostly black and religious groups) played in negotiating an end to the civil war between the north and south of Sudan. And guys like him are the same ones who are quick to fault Europe or the US for not having done anything for Rwanda. (I'm also in that camp, but I'd like to think that I'm somewhat more consistent in my criticism.) Furthermore, what about the Congo? If Central Africa had been left to its own devices instead of given the world's largest UN peacekeeping force (from five different continents), I imagine that the death toll would be considerably worse than it already is.

So while there's something to be said about "African solutions for African problems," I'm afraid that entrusting Libya, a country that's responsible for many of the current problems in Darfur and Chad in the first place, isn't necessarily such a hot idea just because Gadaffi isn't white. Likewise, Uganda's and Rwanda's African solution to the Congo and Mbeki's African non-solution to Zimbabwe aren't exactly what I'd call steps in the right direction.

The New Republic has an interesting piece out now about the battle in the US Congress about the Armenian genocide. The fight is over a piece of legislation that officially recognizes the Armenian genocide committed by the Ottomans in 1915.

From my research and the work of my colleagues who are specialists on the Armenian genocide, the historical record is pretty indisputable. Some of the details may not be, but the existence of the genocide itself seems fairly clear cut. This being said, I'm really wary of legislating history, particularly as it is done in Turkey and much of Western Europe. (In Turkey it is against the law to speak of the Armenian genocide, whereas in France, it is illegal to deny the Shoah, and Bernard Lewis has already been taken to court for denying the Armenian genocide.)

These questions should be debated in academic conferences and journals by historians, not in the halls of Capitol Hill by lobbyists. In any case, the Armenian question is very important to the US, given its strategic importance for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan:

Strange as it may be to find a World War I massacre on the 2007 Washington agenda, even more bizarre is the possibility that it may precipitate an international crisis. At one March House subcommittee hearing, Adam Schiff got a rare opportunity to grill Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Angry over the Bush administration's opposition to the Armenian genocide resolution, Schiff pressed Rice: "Is there any doubt in your mind that the murder of a million and a half Armenians between 1915 and 1923 constituted genocide?" Schiff even pointedly appealed to Rice's background in "academia." But the ever-disciplined Rice wouldn't bite. "Congressman, I come out of academia. But I'm secretary of state now. And I think that the best way to have this proceed is for ... the Turks and the Armenians to come to their own terms about this."

What Rice didn't say is that the Turks, should their lobbying firepower fail to stop the genocide bill from moving forward, have an even mightier weapon to brandish: the war in Iraq. As they did in 2000, the Turks are hinting they will shut down Incirlik, a far more dire threat now that Incirlik supplies U.S. forces occupying Iraq. Administration officials also fear Turkey might close the Habur Gate, a border point through which U.S. supplies flow into northern Iraq. In an April letter to congressional leaders, Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates bluntly warned that a House resolution "could harm American troops in the field [and] constrain our ability to supply our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan."

That prospect may even be dragging U.S. troops themselves into the Turkish counteroffensive. Or so says Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat and lead co-sponsor of the genocide resolution. "[The Turks] have had American soldiers call members of Congress and say, Don't vote for this, because I am going to be threatened in Iraq,'" Pallone says. (A Turkish embassy spokesman denied knowledge of this.)

Of course, this is probably just a lot of Turkish bluster. Before France passed its own Armenian legislation, the Turks had threatened that the bill would cause relations between the two countries to be suspended, among other things. In the end though, nothing happened. I suspect that the Turks know what side their bread is buttered on and would find that the smug satisfaction of punishing the US for calling them on their genocide denial would be far outweighed by the consequences of pissing the US off in Iraq. For instance, the US is currently in a delicate balancing act between the Iraqi Kurds and Ankara, and if Turkey were to make the US an enemy, I imagine that Ankara wouldn't appreciate the consequent shift in American policy in Kurdistan.  

This an-Nahar report says that one of the Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah last summer is dead. The headline makes it sound like the dead is recent, but the actual article itself makes it sound like the death isn't a new thing:

Israeli Soldier held by Hizbullah Dies

One of the two Israeli soldiers held by Hizbullah for more than a year has died and the other is still alive the daily newspaper an-Nahar reported Saturday.

An-Nahar quoted unnamed German diplomatic sources as saying officials in Berlin tried to obtain from Free Patriotic Movement leader Michael Aoun "some information" about the two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hizbullah operatives in a cross-border raid on July 12, 2006 which sparked a 34-day devastating war with Israel.

"Aoun refused to get involved in this issue. However, security agencies there understood that one of the two prisoners is still alive and the second had passed away," the report said without further elaboration.

Aoun is allied with Hizbullah, which leads a campaign backed by Syria and Iran against Premier Fouad Saniora's majority government.

The two Israeli soldiers held by Hizbullah are Ehud Goldwaser, 31, and Eldad Regev, 26.

Hizbullah had said it was prepared to swap them for Lebanese and Arab prisoners held by Israel.

According to an-Nahar, Michel Suleiman, commander of the Lebanese Army, has said that if the Lebanese parliament failed to elect a president by November 24 (the date when Lahoud's mandate expires), resulting in the forming of two rival governments, he would resign:

Lebanese army commander Gen. Michel Suleiman warned that he would resign if two competing governments emerged as a result of a presidential vacancy.

Suleiman said he would submit his resignation on Nov. 24, the day the term of President Emile Lahoud expires, if rival legislators failed to elect a new head of state.

The army commander said he would not tolerate a political divide that would threaten Lebanon's unity and the military institution.

"If they create two governments, I will personally hand in my resignation to each of the two governments and I will go home," Suleiman was quoted as telling ambassadors as well as political and spiritual leaders.

It's hard to say if this is a genuine effort to pressure both sides to compromise or a genuine effort to pressure both sides to choose Suleiman as president, but my initial response is that both sides need to know that Lebanon will not tolerate another formation of rival governments. A similar split marked the end of the civil war last time but would probably mark the beginning of a new civil war this time.

The Times reports that a new edition of Arabic text books in Israel give the history of 1948 from both Jewish and Arab points of view:

The Arabic version of a new book for a third-grade course on homeland, society and citizenship, states that “some of the Palestinians fled and some were expelled following the War of Independence” and that “many Arab-owned lands were confiscated,” said an Education Ministry official, Dalia Fenig. It refers to the establishment of Israel as a catastrophe for the Palestinians.

The book also reflects the Jewish version of the establishment of the state, as have previous books for the Arab curriculum, including the fact that the Arab parties rejected the 1947 United Nations partition plan for Palestine while the Jews were willing to accept it. About 700,000 Arabs who lived in what is now Israel left during 1948 and 1949. About 20 percent of the current population of just over seven million are Arabs.

Unfortunately, the Arab point of view is not included in the Hebrew versions of the book. Baby steps, I suppose.

I cannot stress how important it is for a good curriculum that aims at objectivity to be used in schools. This is one of the major problems in Lebanon. There is no official history of the civil war, and each side hears of the war from its own clan, to the extent that young people in Lebanon hear about the civil war at all. In any case, this is a step in the right direction in Israel/Palestine, and the Ministry of Education should be applauded. 

Charles Levinson adds his two cents on the "Israeli hacks" in Lebanon:

I do think it is a legitimate criticism that the safety of those interviewed could have been put in jeopardy. In Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, and elsewhere, the safety of sources is always a factor in your thinking. I think there is a fair argument here that perhaps that was neglected. Of course, the fact that a Lebanese citizen would have to fear for his safety for talking to an Israeli (who they clearly did not know was Israeli) doesn’t exactly reflect well on Hezbollah either.

[...]

As for the content of Rinat’s and Lisa’s reports, it was mostly harmless from what I’ve seen and read. I wasn’t a big fan of headlines like “An Israeli in Dahiya” which make the story seem like it’s all about the fact that an Israeli snuck into Lebanon. It’s sort of like taunting the Lebanese. The other marginally fair criticism I could find, was that Lisa does perhaps downplay the damage Israel caused the Dahiya and Lebanon in general. I was there in the midst of the war and Israeli bombs savaged a good chunk of that neighborhood. Rinat’s articles all in all seemed straight and fair to me.

Charles's points seem fair to me. Of course the fact that those who spoke to the two Israelis were endangered by this exchange doesn't bode well for Hezbollah, but that's obviously not the point. Given the situation on the ground, it is a journalist's responsibility to take these safety issues into consideration (sometimes the safety can be for someone's livelihood rather than his life).

This reminds me of my time in Uzbekistan, perhaps one of the most repressive countries in the world. When I spoke to people, they knew that I was a foreigner and that I was with an international organization, and more importantly, they knew that when I was gone, the secret police would still be there. But they at least had an informed choice in the matter. They knew who I was and where I was from. To misrepresent yourself to local people, knowing fully well that there will be consequences when you're gone, is at best irresponsible and at worst just plain cruel.

Finally, Charles hits on an interesting point with his comment that Rinat's title of "An Israeli in Dahiya" is all about the fact that she's Israeli. The only thing that makes these reports at all interesting is that they were done by Israelis. The actual content is uninteresting, and had these reports been done by someone from anywhere else, they would have passed by unnoticed, like so much second-rate reporting. At the end of the day, it's sensationalism, pure and simple. And say what we will about sensationalist reporting, it's certainly not worth jeopardizing anyone's safety. 

Via the Reading File in the Week in Review of the Times:

David J. Kilcullen, writing in the State Department’s eJournal USA about the challenges for future wars:

At present, the U.S. defense budget accounts for approximately half of total global defense spending, while the U.S. armed forces employ about 1.68 million uniformed members. By comparison, the State Department employs about 6,000 foreign service officers, while the U.S. Agency for International Development has about 2,000. In other words, the Department of Defense is about 210 times larger than USAID and State combined — there are substantially more people employed as musicians in Defense bands than in the entire foreign service.

This is probably so obvious that it doesn't need to be said, but then again, if it didn't need to be said the media wouldn't keep committing the petty sin of calling regimes in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt "moderate." What about Riyadh makes it more moderate than Teheran? It's just as religious, human rights are just as bad (if not worse) and it's much less democratic. So why does the western media insist on calling regimes like that moderate?

What they seem to mean is allied regimes, not moderate regimes. There's nothing moderate about Saudi Arabia, so let's stop pretending there is and call a spade a spade. Riyadh is an American ally -- and probably not a very good one at that. As any number of the unsavory regimes the US is friendly with should tell us, moderation and good relations are not at all the same thing.

I mentioned yesterday that arming the Middle East wasn't a good idea. Brian Whitaker has an interesting piece in the Guardian's Comment is Free section about how the new arms deal for the region could pour gas on the Sunni/Shi'a divide in the Middle East, serving as a "green light for oppression" for ostensibly Sunni regimes to discriminate against their Shi'a citizens in the name of combating Iranian influence:

If the Bush administration's goal was to inflame Sunni-Shia tensions across the region and to spread the sectarian strife in Iraq to neighbouring countries, it would be hard to imagine a more effective way of going about it.

Although Iran is the worldwide centre of Shia Islam, there's an important distinction to be made between Shia Muslims and the Iranian regime. The question is how many people will actually make it. Marginalised Shia communities in the Gulf states and Egypt will undoubtedly feel more threatened, while others will interpret the American move as a green light to oppress them further.

[...]

Viewed from Washington, bolstering tyrannical Sunni regimes against Iran might seem like pragmatism - a convergence of interests. But it's a dangerous sort of pragmatism because the American and Saudi interests are ultimately different. The Saudi government isn't really worried about Tehran; it's worried about keeping the lid on its Shia population in the oil-rich eastern province - and in the long term that can only rebound negatively on the US.

Just as there is a need to recognise that Jews in general are not responsible for the actions of the Israeli government, nor ordinary Muslims for the actions of al-Qaida, Arab states must be careful not to automatically treat their Shia communities as tools of the Iranian government, or encourage the public to think that they are.

What the region needs most right now is not more arms but a concerted effort to promote religious tolerance, to combat religious discrimination and prejudice, and to draw the Arab Shia communities into the political processes of their home countries before it is too late.

Incidentally, Iran is not alone in condemning the arms deals. Even Siniora has been quick to complain about the increased military aid to Israel:

"Prime Minister Fouad Saniora has learned with great dismay, surprise and astonishment" about the U.S. defense package to the Jewish state, a statement released by his office said.

"Continuing to back Israel in such a manner will escalate crises and increase feelings among the Arabs and Muslims that their just causes are ignored while Israel's interests are protected," it said.

"This will raise the feeling of frustration among the Arabs and Muslims, and will therefore boost extremist movements which were born and are feeding on the feeling of (U.S.) bias in favor of Israel."

[...]

"We were hoping that the American efforts would rather help promote peace," Saniora said in the statement.

"If these funds were allocated to consolidate peace (in the Middle East) and bridge the gap between the peoples of the region, or spent on peaceful projects then the American message would have been different," he said.

"This is a very negative message to the Lebanese and Arabs.

"It will boost Israel's aggressiveness and arrogance ...it will allow the Israelis to continue to think that they can avoid the requirements of a just and comprehensive peace by maintaining military superiority," he said.

If those funds were allocated to consolidate peace, indeed. Wouldn't that be a nice change of pace?

The US is finally realizing that Saudi Arabia is not helping things in Iraq, while Iraqi officials have openly accused Saudi Arabia of arming Sunni insurgents, the same, mind you, who have been attacking American forces in Iraq. So why, then, is it that the US is "set to offer huge arms deal" to the kingdom and its neighbors? 

Saudi Arabia is the ninth biggest spender on arms. Why do the Saudis need so many weapons? According to Ha'aretz, it could be part of a larger cold war in the Middle East, which also explains Russian arms deals to Iran and Syria, arms deals between Iran and Syria, and the 25% increase in American military aid to Israel agreed upon by Bush and Olmert, meaning an increase to $3 billion a year.

While this very well might be true, we can't forget that arms sales help out American armament companies with government contracts while giving Middle Eastern states the tools needed to oppress their peoples and arm their various proxies in the region. (I'm including Israel in this, although their weapons are used to oppress Palestinians in the occupied territories and not Israeli citizens.) Obviously, the same pattern of armament and oppression that we see in American allies holds true for Russian weapons sent to Damascus and Teheran.

A new friend of mine sent me a blog entry on a Washington Post piece attacking Americans and Europeans who want to "Save Africa," and especially those who want to "Save Darfur."

Such campaigns, however well intentioned, promote the stereotype of Africa as a black hole of disease and death. News reports constantly focus on the continent's corrupt leaders, warlords, "tribal" conflicts, child laborers, and women disfigured by abuse and genital mutilation. These descriptions run under headlines like "Can Bono Save Africa?" or "Will Brangelina Save Africa?" The relationship between the West and Africa is no longer based on openly racist beliefs, but such articles are reminiscent of reports from the heyday of European colonialism, when missionaries were sent to Africa to introduce us to education, Jesus Christ and "civilization."

There is no African, myself included, who does not appreciate the help of the wider world, but we do question whether aid is genuine or given in the spirit of affirming one's cultural superiority. My mood is dampened every time I attend a benefit whose host runs through a litany of African disasters before presenting a (usually) wealthy, white person, who often proceeds to list the things he or she has done for the poor, starving Africans. Every time a well-meaning college student speaks of villagers dancing because they were so grateful for her help, I cringe. Every time a Hollywood director shoots a film about Africa that features a Western protagonist, I shake my head -- because Africans, real people though we may be, are used as props in the West's fantasy of itself. And not only do such depictions tend to ignore the West's prominent role in creating many of the unfortunate situations on the continent, they also ignore the incredible work Africans have done and continue to do to fix those problems.

Regardless of whether Africa is "in" or not -- whether it's the cause du jour -- if anyone's to be giving a finger rapping to well-meaning white kids from the ivy league, it certainly ought not to be Uzodinma Iweala, the American-born and -raised son of a cabinet member of the Nigerian thug extraordinaire, Obasanjo. The piece's author went to a D.C. prep school then to Harvard, and is now off to Columbia med school, so I imagine that his time in Africa hasn't been much better than that of those pasty-faced do-gooders who "fly in for internships." (Incidentally, does Iweala take the boat from Washington, I wonder?) Furthermore, I think it's telling that Granta named him in their "Best of Young American Novelists 2." 

Fairly or not, Iweala reminds me of my time in the UN system. The UN works on a quota system for permanent posts, presumably so that the secretariat be filled with people from all over the world. This might be a good thing if it weren't for the fact that the quota for countries like Nigeria are taken up by people like Iweala, not the Africans and Asians who have lived their entire lives in their native countries and had to fight against the odds to get an education while working at a human rights NGO in countries like Cameroon or Bangladesh. I once took coffee breaks with a brilliant European intern who wasn't getting paid and couldn't get a proper job in his section, despite the fact that he'd completed his PhD in a relevant field and was widely published in his field's academic journals. The person who was second-in-charge in his section was a European guy who only had the equivalent of a B.A. in his field, but whose dad happened to be a former diplomat (and UN functionary) from an African country. This guy had lived his whole life in a European capital , but he had a passport from Africa, and the intern's compatriots were over-represented at that UN organization. So that was that.

Another thing that bothers me about the remarks made by Iweala is that he doesn't mention, for example, the role that such a campaign led by Americans (mostly black and religious groups) played in negotiating an end to the civil war between the north and south of Sudan. And guys like him are the same ones who are quick to fault Europe or the US for not having done anything for Rwanda. (I'm also in that camp, but I'd like to think that I'm somewhat more consistent in my criticism.) Furthermore, what about the Congo? If Central Africa had been left to its own devices instead of given the world's largest UN peacekeeping force (from five different continents), I imagine that the death toll would be considerably worse than it already is.

So while there's something to be said about "African solutions for African problems," I'm afraid that entrusting Libya, a country that's responsible for many of the current problems in Darfur and Chad in the first place, isn't necessarily such a hot idea just because Gadaffi isn't white. Likewise, Uganda's and Rwanda's African solution to the Congo and Mbeki's African non-solution to Zimbabwe aren't exactly what I'd call steps in the right direction.

The New Republic has an interesting piece out now about the battle in the US Congress about the Armenian genocide. The fight is over a piece of legislation that officially recognizes the Armenian genocide committed by the Ottomans in 1915.

From my research and the work of my colleagues who are specialists on the Armenian genocide, the historical record is pretty indisputable. Some of the details may not be, but the existence of the genocide itself seems fairly clear cut. This being said, I'm really wary of legislating history, particularly as it is done in Turkey and much of Western Europe. (In Turkey it is against the law to speak of the Armenian genocide, whereas in France, it is illegal to deny the Shoah, and Bernard Lewis has already been taken to court for denying the Armenian genocide.)

These questions should be debated in academic conferences and journals by historians, not in the halls of Capitol Hill by lobbyists. In any case, the Armenian question is very important to the US, given its strategic importance for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan:

Strange as it may be to find a World War I massacre on the 2007 Washington agenda, even more bizarre is the possibility that it may precipitate an international crisis. At one March House subcommittee hearing, Adam Schiff got a rare opportunity to grill Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Angry over the Bush administration's opposition to the Armenian genocide resolution, Schiff pressed Rice: "Is there any doubt in your mind that the murder of a million and a half Armenians between 1915 and 1923 constituted genocide?" Schiff even pointedly appealed to Rice's background in "academia." But the ever-disciplined Rice wouldn't bite. "Congressman, I come out of academia. But I'm secretary of state now. And I think that the best way to have this proceed is for ... the Turks and the Armenians to come to their own terms about this."

What Rice didn't say is that the Turks, should their lobbying firepower fail to stop the genocide bill from moving forward, have an even mightier weapon to brandish: the war in Iraq. As they did in 2000, the Turks are hinting they will shut down Incirlik, a far more dire threat now that Incirlik supplies U.S. forces occupying Iraq. Administration officials also fear Turkey might close the Habur Gate, a border point through which U.S. supplies flow into northern Iraq. In an April letter to congressional leaders, Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates bluntly warned that a House resolution "could harm American troops in the field [and] constrain our ability to supply our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan."

That prospect may even be dragging U.S. troops themselves into the Turkish counteroffensive. Or so says Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat and lead co-sponsor of the genocide resolution. "[The Turks] have had American soldiers call members of Congress and say, Don't vote for this, because I am going to be threatened in Iraq,'" Pallone says. (A Turkish embassy spokesman denied knowledge of this.)

Of course, this is probably just a lot of Turkish bluster. Before France passed its own Armenian legislation, the Turks had threatened that the bill would cause relations between the two countries to be suspended, among other things. In the end though, nothing happened. I suspect that the Turks know what side their bread is buttered on and would find that the smug satisfaction of punishing the US for calling them on their genocide denial would be far outweighed by the consequences of pissing the US off in Iraq. For instance, the US is currently in a delicate balancing act between the Iraqi Kurds and Ankara, and if Turkey were to make the US an enemy, I imagine that Ankara wouldn't appreciate the consequent shift in American policy in Kurdistan.  

This an-Nahar report says that one of the Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah last summer is dead. The headline makes it sound like the dead is recent, but the actual article itself makes it sound like the death isn't a new thing:

Israeli Soldier held by Hizbullah Dies

One of the two Israeli soldiers held by Hizbullah for more than a year has died and the other is still alive the daily newspaper an-Nahar reported Saturday.

An-Nahar quoted unnamed German diplomatic sources as saying officials in Berlin tried to obtain from Free Patriotic Movement leader Michael Aoun "some information" about the two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hizbullah operatives in a cross-border raid on July 12, 2006 which sparked a 34-day devastating war with Israel.

"Aoun refused to get involved in this issue. However, security agencies there understood that one of the two prisoners is still alive and the second had passed away," the report said without further elaboration.

Aoun is allied with Hizbullah, which leads a campaign backed by Syria and Iran against Premier Fouad Saniora's majority government.

The two Israeli soldiers held by Hizbullah are Ehud Goldwaser, 31, and Eldad Regev, 26.

Hizbullah had said it was prepared to swap them for Lebanese and Arab prisoners held by Israel.

According to an-Nahar, Michel Suleiman, commander of the Lebanese Army, has said that if the Lebanese parliament failed to elect a president by November 24 (the date when Lahoud's mandate expires), resulting in the forming of two rival governments, he would resign:

Lebanese army commander Gen. Michel Suleiman warned that he would resign if two competing governments emerged as a result of a presidential vacancy.

Suleiman said he would submit his resignation on Nov. 24, the day the term of President Emile Lahoud expires, if rival legislators failed to elect a new head of state.

The army commander said he would not tolerate a political divide that would threaten Lebanon's unity and the military institution.

"If they create two governments, I will personally hand in my resignation to each of the two governments and I will go home," Suleiman was quoted as telling ambassadors as well as political and spiritual leaders.

It's hard to say if this is a genuine effort to pressure both sides to compromise or a genuine effort to pressure both sides to choose Suleiman as president, but my initial response is that both sides need to know that Lebanon will not tolerate another formation of rival governments. A similar split marked the end of the civil war last time but would probably mark the beginning of a new civil war this time.

The Times reports that a new edition of Arabic text books in Israel give the history of 1948 from both Jewish and Arab points of view:

The Arabic version of a new book for a third-grade course on homeland, society and citizenship, states that “some of the Palestinians fled and some were expelled following the War of Independence” and that “many Arab-owned lands were confiscated,” said an Education Ministry official, Dalia Fenig. It refers to the establishment of Israel as a catastrophe for the Palestinians.

The book also reflects the Jewish version of the establishment of the state, as have previous books for the Arab curriculum, including the fact that the Arab parties rejected the 1947 United Nations partition plan for Palestine while the Jews were willing to accept it. About 700,000 Arabs who lived in what is now Israel left during 1948 and 1949. About 20 percent of the current population of just over seven million are Arabs.

Unfortunately, the Arab point of view is not included in the Hebrew versions of the book. Baby steps, I suppose.

I cannot stress how important it is for a good curriculum that aims at objectivity to be used in schools. This is one of the major problems in Lebanon. There is no official history of the civil war, and each side hears of the war from its own clan, to the extent that young people in Lebanon hear about the civil war at all. In any case, this is a step in the right direction in Israel/Palestine, and the Ministry of Education should be applauded. 

Charles Levinson adds his two cents on the "Israeli hacks" in Lebanon:

I do think it is a legitimate criticism that the safety of those interviewed could have been put in jeopardy. In Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, and elsewhere, the safety of sources is always a factor in your thinking. I think there is a fair argument here that perhaps that was neglected. Of course, the fact that a Lebanese citizen would have to fear for his safety for talking to an Israeli (who they clearly did not know was Israeli) doesn’t exactly reflect well on Hezbollah either.

[...]

As for the content of Rinat’s and Lisa’s reports, it was mostly harmless from what I’ve seen and read. I wasn’t a big fan of headlines like “An Israeli in Dahiya” which make the story seem like it’s all about the fact that an Israeli snuck into Lebanon. It’s sort of like taunting the Lebanese. The other marginally fair criticism I could find, was that Lisa does perhaps downplay the damage Israel caused the Dahiya and Lebanon in general. I was there in the midst of the war and Israeli bombs savaged a good chunk of that neighborhood. Rinat’s articles all in all seemed straight and fair to me.

Charles's points seem fair to me. Of course the fact that those who spoke to the two Israelis were endangered by this exchange doesn't bode well for Hezbollah, but that's obviously not the point. Given the situation on the ground, it is a journalist's responsibility to take these safety issues into consideration (sometimes the safety can be for someone's livelihood rather than his life).

This reminds me of my time in Uzbekistan, perhaps one of the most repressive countries in the world. When I spoke to people, they knew that I was a foreigner and that I was with an international organization, and more importantly, they knew that when I was gone, the secret police would still be there. But they at least had an informed choice in the matter. They knew who I was and where I was from. To misrepresent yourself to local people, knowing fully well that there will be consequences when you're gone, is at best irresponsible and at worst just plain cruel.

Finally, Charles hits on an interesting point with his comment that Rinat's title of "An Israeli in Dahiya" is all about the fact that she's Israeli. The only thing that makes these reports at all interesting is that they were done by Israelis. The actual content is uninteresting, and had these reports been done by someone from anywhere else, they would have passed by unnoticed, like so much second-rate reporting. At the end of the day, it's sensationalism, pure and simple. And say what we will about sensationalist reporting, it's certainly not worth jeopardizing anyone's safety. 

Via the Reading File in the Week in Review of the Times:

David J. Kilcullen, writing in the State Department’s eJournal USA about the challenges for future wars:

At present, the U.S. defense budget accounts for approximately half of total global defense spending, while the U.S. armed forces employ about 1.68 million uniformed members. By comparison, the State Department employs about 6,000 foreign service officers, while the U.S. Agency for International Development has about 2,000. In other words, the Department of Defense is about 210 times larger than USAID and State combined — there are substantially more people employed as musicians in Defense bands than in the entire foreign service.

This is probably so obvious that it doesn't need to be said, but then again, if it didn't need to be said the media wouldn't keep committing the petty sin of calling regimes in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt "moderate." What about Riyadh makes it more moderate than Teheran? It's just as religious, human rights are just as bad (if not worse) and it's much less democratic. So why does the western media insist on calling regimes like that moderate?

What they seem to mean is allied regimes, not moderate regimes. There's nothing moderate about Saudi Arabia, so let's stop pretending there is and call a spade a spade. Riyadh is an American ally -- and probably not a very good one at that. As any number of the unsavory regimes the US is friendly with should tell us, moderation and good relations are not at all the same thing.

I mentioned yesterday that arming the Middle East wasn't a good idea. Brian Whitaker has an interesting piece in the Guardian's Comment is Free section about how the new arms deal for the region could pour gas on the Sunni/Shi'a divide in the Middle East, serving as a "green light for oppression" for ostensibly Sunni regimes to discriminate against their Shi'a citizens in the name of combating Iranian influence:

If the Bush administration's goal was to inflame Sunni-Shia tensions across the region and to spread the sectarian strife in Iraq to neighbouring countries, it would be hard to imagine a more effective way of going about it.

Although Iran is the worldwide centre of Shia Islam, there's an important distinction to be made between Shia Muslims and the Iranian regime. The question is how many people will actually make it. Marginalised Shia communities in the Gulf states and Egypt will undoubtedly feel more threatened, while others will interpret the American move as a green light to oppress them further.

[...]

Viewed from Washington, bolstering tyrannical Sunni regimes against Iran might seem like pragmatism - a convergence of interests. But it's a dangerous sort of pragmatism because the American and Saudi interests are ultimately different. The Saudi government isn't really worried about Tehran; it's worried about keeping the lid on its Shia population in the oil-rich eastern province - and in the long term that can only rebound negatively on the US.

Just as there is a need to recognise that Jews in general are not responsible for the actions of the Israeli government, nor ordinary Muslims for the actions of al-Qaida, Arab states must be careful not to automatically treat their Shia communities as tools of the Iranian government, or encourage the public to think that they are.

What the region needs most right now is not more arms but a concerted effort to promote religious tolerance, to combat religious discrimination and prejudice, and to draw the Arab Shia communities into the political processes of their home countries before it is too late.

Incidentally, Iran is not alone in condemning the arms deals. Even Siniora has been quick to complain about the increased military aid to Israel:

"Prime Minister Fouad Saniora has learned with great dismay, surprise and astonishment" about the U.S. defense package to the Jewish state, a statement released by his office said.

"Continuing to back Israel in such a manner will escalate crises and increase feelings among the Arabs and Muslims that their just causes are ignored while Israel's interests are protected," it said.

"This will raise the feeling of frustration among the Arabs and Muslims, and will therefore boost extremist movements which were born and are feeding on the feeling of (U.S.) bias in favor of Israel."

[...]

"We were hoping that the American efforts would rather help promote peace," Saniora said in the statement.

"If these funds were allocated to consolidate peace (in the Middle East) and bridge the gap between the peoples of the region, or spent on peaceful projects then the American message would have been different," he said.

"This is a very negative message to the Lebanese and Arabs.

"It will boost Israel's aggressiveness and arrogance ...it will allow the Israelis to continue to think that they can avoid the requirements of a just and comprehensive peace by maintaining military superiority," he said.

If those funds were allocated to consolidate peace, indeed. Wouldn't that be a nice change of pace?

The US is finally realizing that Saudi Arabia is not helping things in Iraq, while Iraqi officials have openly accused Saudi Arabia of arming Sunni insurgents, the same, mind you, who have been attacking American forces in Iraq. So why, then, is it that the US is "set to offer huge arms deal" to the kingdom and its neighbors? 

Saudi Arabia is the ninth biggest spender on arms. Why do the Saudis need so many weapons? According to Ha'aretz, it could be part of a larger cold war in the Middle East, which also explains Russian arms deals to Iran and Syria, arms deals between Iran and Syria, and the 25% increase in American military aid to Israel agreed upon by Bush and Olmert, meaning an increase to $3 billion a year.

While this very well might be true, we can't forget that arms sales help out American armament companies with government contracts while giving Middle Eastern states the tools needed to oppress their peoples and arm their various proxies in the region. (I'm including Israel in this, although their weapons are used to oppress Palestinians in the occupied territories and not Israeli citizens.) Obviously, the same pattern of armament and oppression that we see in American allies holds true for Russian weapons sent to Damascus and Teheran.

A new friend of mine sent me a blog entry on a Washington Post piece attacking Americans and Europeans who want to "Save Africa," and especially those who want to "Save Darfur."

Such campaigns, however well intentioned, promote the stereotype of Africa as a black hole of disease and death. News reports constantly focus on the continent's corrupt leaders, warlords, "tribal" conflicts, child laborers, and women disfigured by abuse and genital mutilation. These descriptions run under headlines like "Can Bono Save Africa?" or "Will Brangelina Save Africa?" The relationship between the West and Africa is no longer based on openly racist beliefs, but such articles are reminiscent of reports from the heyday of European colonialism, when missionaries were sent to Africa to introduce us to education, Jesus Christ and "civilization."

There is no African, myself included, who does not appreciate the help of the wider world, but we do question whether aid is genuine or given in the spirit of affirming one's cultural superiority. My mood is dampened every time I attend a benefit whose host runs through a litany of African disasters before presenting a (usually) wealthy, white person, who often proceeds to list the things he or she has done for the poor, starving Africans. Every time a well-meaning college student speaks of villagers dancing because they were so grateful for her help, I cringe. Every time a Hollywood director shoots a film about Africa that features a Western protagonist, I shake my head -- because Africans, real people though we may be, are used as props in the West's fantasy of itself. And not only do such depictions tend to ignore the West's prominent role in creating many of the unfortunate situations on the continent, they also ignore the incredible work Africans have done and continue to do to fix those problems.

Regardless of whether Africa is "in" or not -- whether it's the cause du jour -- if anyone's to be giving a finger rapping to well-meaning white kids from the ivy league, it certainly ought not to be Uzodinma Iweala, the American-born and -raised son of a cabinet member of the Nigerian thug extraordinaire, Obasanjo. The piece's author went to a D.C. prep school then to Harvard, and is now off to Columbia med school, so I imagine that his time in Africa hasn't been much better than that of those pasty-faced do-gooders who "fly in for internships." (Incidentally, does Iweala take the boat from Washington, I wonder?) Furthermore, I think it's telling that Granta named him in their "Best of Young American Novelists 2." 

Fairly or not, Iweala reminds me of my time in the UN system. The UN works on a quota system for permanent posts, presumably so that the secretariat be filled with people from all over the world. This might be a good thing if it weren't for the fact that the quota for countries like Nigeria are taken up by people like Iweala, not the Africans and Asians who have lived their entire lives in their native countries and had to fight against the odds to get an education while working at a human rights NGO in countries like Cameroon or Bangladesh. I once took coffee breaks with a brilliant European intern who wasn't getting paid and couldn't get a proper job in his section, despite the fact that he'd completed his PhD in a relevant field and was widely published in his field's academic journals. The person who was second-in-charge in his section was a European guy who only had the equivalent of a B.A. in his field, but whose dad happened to be a former diplomat (and UN functionary) from an African country. This guy had lived his whole life in a European capital , but he had a passport from Africa, and the intern's compatriots were over-represented at that UN organization. So that was that.

Another thing that bothers me about the remarks made by Iweala is that he doesn't mention, for example, the role that such a campaign led by Americans (mostly black and religious groups) played in negotiating an end to the civil war between the north and south of Sudan. And guys like him are the same ones who are quick to fault Europe or the US for not having done anything for Rwanda. (I'm also in that camp, but I'd like to think that I'm somewhat more consistent in my criticism.) Furthermore, what about the Congo? If Central Africa had been left to its own devices instead of given the world's largest UN peacekeeping force (from five different continents), I imagine that the death toll would be considerably worse than it already is.

So while there's something to be said about "African solutions for African problems," I'm afraid that entrusting Libya, a country that's responsible for many of the current problems in Darfur and Chad in the first place, isn't necessarily such a hot idea just because Gadaffi isn't white. Likewise, Uganda's and Rwanda's African solution to the Congo and Mbeki's African non-solution to Zimbabwe aren't exactly what I'd call steps in the right direction.

The New Republic has an interesting piece out now about the battle in the US Congress about the Armenian genocide. The fight is over a piece of legislation that officially recognizes the Armenian genocide committed by the Ottomans in 1915.

From my research and the work of my colleagues who are specialists on the Armenian genocide, the historical record is pretty indisputable. Some of the details may not be, but the existence of the genocide itself seems fairly clear cut. This being said, I'm really wary of legislating history, particularly as it is done in Turkey and much of Western Europe. (In Turkey it is against the law to speak of the Armenian genocide, whereas in France, it is illegal to deny the Shoah, and Bernard Lewis has already been taken to court for denying the Armenian genocide.)

These questions should be debated in academic conferences and journals by historians, not in the halls of Capitol Hill by lobbyists. In any case, the Armenian question is very important to the US, given its strategic importance for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan:

Strange as it may be to find a World War I massacre on the 2007 Washington agenda, even more bizarre is the possibility that it may precipitate an international crisis. At one March House subcommittee hearing, Adam Schiff got a rare opportunity to grill Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Angry over the Bush administration's opposition to the Armenian genocide resolution, Schiff pressed Rice: "Is there any doubt in your mind that the murder of a million and a half Armenians between 1915 and 1923 constituted genocide?" Schiff even pointedly appealed to Rice's background in "academia." But the ever-disciplined Rice wouldn't bite. "Congressman, I come out of academia. But I'm secretary of state now. And I think that the best way to have this proceed is for ... the Turks and the Armenians to come to their own terms about this."

What Rice didn't say is that the Turks, should their lobbying firepower fail to stop the genocide bill from moving forward, have an even mightier weapon to brandish: the war in Iraq. As they did in 2000, the Turks are hinting they will shut down Incirlik, a far more dire threat now that Incirlik supplies U.S. forces occupying Iraq. Administration officials also fear Turkey might close the Habur Gate, a border point through which U.S. supplies flow into northern Iraq. In an April letter to congressional leaders, Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates bluntly warned that a House resolution "could harm American troops in the field [and] constrain our ability to supply our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan."

That prospect may even be dragging U.S. troops themselves into the Turkish counteroffensive. Or so says Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat and lead co-sponsor of the genocide resolution. "[The Turks] have had American soldiers call members of Congress and say, Don't vote for this, because I am going to be threatened in Iraq,'" Pallone says. (A Turkish embassy spokesman denied knowledge of this.)

Of course, this is probably just a lot of Turkish bluster. Before France passed its own Armenian legislation, the Turks had threatened that the bill would cause relations between the two countries to be suspended, among other things. In the end though, nothing happened. I suspect that the Turks know what side their bread is buttered on and would find that the smug satisfaction of punishing the US for calling them on their genocide denial would be far outweighed by the consequences of pissing the US off in Iraq. For instance, the US is currently in a delicate balancing act between the Iraqi Kurds and Ankara, and if Turkey were to make the US an enemy, I imagine that Ankara wouldn't appreciate the consequent shift in American policy in Kurdistan.  

This an-Nahar report says that one of the Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah last summer is dead. The headline makes it sound like the dead is recent, but the actual article itself makes it sound like the death isn't a new thing:

Israeli Soldier held by Hizbullah Dies

One of the two Israeli soldiers held by Hizbullah for more than a year has died and the other is still alive the daily newspaper an-Nahar reported Saturday.

An-Nahar quoted unnamed German diplomatic sources as saying officials in Berlin tried to obtain from Free Patriotic Movement leader Michael Aoun "some information" about the two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hizbullah operatives in a cross-border raid on July 12, 2006 which sparked a 34-day devastating war with Israel.

"Aoun refused to get involved in this issue. However, security agencies there understood that one of the two prisoners is still alive and the second had passed away," the report said without further elaboration.

Aoun is allied with Hizbullah, which leads a campaign backed by Syria and Iran against Premier Fouad Saniora's majority government.

The two Israeli soldiers held by Hizbullah are Ehud Goldwaser, 31, and Eldad Regev, 26.

Hizbullah had said it was prepared to swap them for Lebanese and Arab prisoners held by Israel.

According to an-Nahar, Michel Suleiman, commander of the Lebanese Army, has said that if the Lebanese parliament failed to elect a president by November 24 (the date when Lahoud's mandate expires), resulting in the forming of two rival governments, he would resign:

Lebanese army commander Gen. Michel Suleiman warned that he would resign if two competing governments emerged as a result of a presidential vacancy.

Suleiman said he would submit his resignation on Nov. 24, the day the term of President Emile Lahoud expires, if rival legislators failed to elect a new head of state.

The army commander said he would not tolerate a political divide that would threaten Lebanon's unity and the military institution.

"If they create two governments, I will personally hand in my resignation to each of the two governments and I will go home," Suleiman was quoted as telling ambassadors as well as political and spiritual leaders.

It's hard to say if this is a genuine effort to pressure both sides to compromise or a genuine effort to pressure both sides to choose Suleiman as president, but my initial response is that both sides need to know that Lebanon will not tolerate another formation of rival governments. A similar split marked the end of the civil war last time but would probably mark the beginning of a new civil war this time.

The Times reports that a new edition of Arabic text books in Israel give the history of 1948 from both Jewish and Arab points of view:

The Arabic version of a new book for a third-grade course on homeland, society and citizenship, states that “some of the Palestinians fled and some were expelled following the War of Independence” and that “many Arab-owned lands were confiscated,” said an Education Ministry official, Dalia Fenig. It refers to the establishment of Israel as a catastrophe for the Palestinians.

The book also reflects the Jewish version of the establishment of the state, as have previous books for the Arab curriculum, including the fact that the Arab parties rejected the 1947 United Nations partition plan for Palestine while the Jews were willing to accept it. About 700,000 Arabs who lived in what is now Israel left during 1948 and 1949. About 20 percent of the current population of just over seven million are Arabs.

Unfortunately, the Arab point of view is not included in the Hebrew versions of the book. Baby steps, I suppose.

I cannot stress how important it is for a good curriculum that aims at objectivity to be used in schools. This is one of the major problems in Lebanon. There is no official history of the civil war, and each side hears of the war from its own clan, to the extent that young people in Lebanon hear about the civil war at all. In any case, this is a step in the right direction in Israel/Palestine, and the Ministry of Education should be applauded. 

Charles Levinson adds his two cents on the "Israeli hacks" in Lebanon:

I do think it is a legitimate criticism that the safety of those interviewed could have been put in jeopardy. In Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, and elsewhere, the safety of sources is always a factor in your thinking. I think there is a fair argument here that perhaps that was neglected. Of course, the fact that a Lebanese citizen would have to fear for his safety for talking to an Israeli (who they clearly did not know was Israeli) doesn’t exactly reflect well on Hezbollah either.

[...]

As for the content of Rinat’s and Lisa’s reports, it was mostly harmless from what I’ve seen and read. I wasn’t a big fan of headlines like “An Israeli in Dahiya” which make the story seem like it’s all about the fact that an Israeli snuck into Lebanon. It’s sort of like taunting the Lebanese. The other marginally fair criticism I could find, was that Lisa does perhaps downplay the damage Israel caused the Dahiya and Lebanon in general. I was there in the midst of the war and Israeli bombs savaged a good chunk of that neighborhood. Rinat’s articles all in all seemed straight and fair to me.

Charles's points seem fair to me. Of course the fact that those who spoke to the two Israelis were endangered by this exchange doesn't bode well for Hezbollah, but that's obviously not the point. Given the situation on the ground, it is a journalist's responsibility to take these safety issues into consideration (sometimes the safety can be for someone's livelihood rather than his life).

This reminds me of my time in Uzbekistan, perhaps one of the most repressive countries in the world. When I spoke to people, they knew that I was a foreigner and that I was with an international organization, and more importantly, they knew that when I was gone, the secret police would still be there. But they at least had an informed choice in the matter. They knew who I was and where I was from. To misrepresent yourself to local people, knowing fully well that there will be consequences when you're gone, is at best irresponsible and at worst just plain cruel.

Finally, Charles hits on an interesting point with his comment that Rinat's title of "An Israeli in Dahiya" is all about the fact that she's Israeli. The only thing that makes these reports at all interesting is that they were done by Israelis. The actual content is uninteresting, and had these reports been done by someone from anywhere else, they would have passed by unnoticed, like so much second-rate reporting. At the end of the day, it's sensationalism, pure and simple. And say what we will about sensationalist reporting, it's certainly not worth jeopardizing anyone's safety. 

Via the Reading File in the Week in Review of the Times:

David J. Kilcullen, writing in the State Department’s eJournal USA about the challenges for future wars:

At present, the U.S. defense budget accounts for approximately half of total global defense spending, while the U.S. armed forces employ about 1.68 million uniformed members. By comparison, the State Department employs about 6,000 foreign service officers, while the U.S. Agency for International Development has about 2,000. In other words, the Department of Defense is about 210 times larger than USAID and State combined — there are substantially more people employed as musicians in Defense bands than in the entire foreign service.

This is probably so obvious that it doesn't need to be said, but then again, if it didn't need to be said the media wouldn't keep committing the petty sin of calling regimes in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt "moderate." What about Riyadh makes it more moderate than Teheran? It's just as religious, human rights are just as bad (if not worse) and it's much less democratic. So why does the western media insist on calling regimes like that moderate?

What they seem to mean is allied regimes, not moderate regimes. There's nothing moderate about Saudi Arabia, so let's stop pretending there is and call a spade a spade. Riyadh is an American ally -- and probably not a very good one at that. As any number of the unsavory regimes the US is friendly with should tell us, moderation and good relations are not at all the same thing.

I mentioned yesterday that arming the Middle East wasn't a good idea. Brian Whitaker has an interesting piece in the Guardian's Comment is Free section about how the new arms deal for the region could pour gas on the Sunni/Shi'a divide in the Middle East, serving as a "green light for oppression" for ostensibly Sunni regimes to discriminate against their Shi'a citizens in the name of combating Iranian influence:

If the Bush administration's goal was to inflame Sunni-Shia tensions across the region and to spread the sectarian strife in Iraq to neighbouring countries, it would be hard to imagine a more effective way of going about it.

Although Iran is the worldwide centre of Shia Islam, there's an important distinction to be made between Shia Muslims and the Iranian regime. The question is how many people will actually make it. Marginalised Shia communities in the Gulf states and Egypt will undoubtedly feel more threatened, while others will interpret the American move as a green light to oppress them further.

[...]

Viewed from Washington, bolstering tyrannical Sunni regimes against Iran might seem like pragmatism - a convergence of interests. But it's a dangerous sort of pragmatism because the American and Saudi interests are ultimately different. The Saudi government isn't really worried about Tehran; it's worried about keeping the lid on its Shia population in the oil-rich eastern province - and in the long term that can only rebound negatively on the US.

Just as there is a need to recognise that Jews in general are not responsible for the actions of the Israeli government, nor ordinary Muslims for the actions of al-Qaida, Arab states must be careful not to automatically treat their Shia communities as tools of the Iranian government, or encourage the public to think that they are.

What the region needs most right now is not more arms but a concerted effort to promote religious tolerance, to combat religious discrimination and prejudice, and to draw the Arab Shia communities into the political processes of their home countries before it is too late.

Incidentally, Iran is not alone in condemning the arms deals. Even Siniora has been quick to complain about the increased military aid to Israel:

"Prime Minister Fouad Saniora has learned with great dismay, surprise and astonishment" about the U.S. defense package to the Jewish state, a statement released by his office said.

"Continuing to back Israel in such a manner will escalate crises and increase feelings among the Arabs and Muslims that their just causes are ignored while Israel's interests are protected," it said.

"This will raise the feeling of frustration among the Arabs and Muslims, and will therefore boost extremist movements which were born and are feeding on the feeling of (U.S.) bias in favor of Israel."

[...]

"We were hoping that the American efforts would rather help promote peace," Saniora said in the statement.

"If these funds were allocated to consolidate peace (in the Middle East) and bridge the gap between the peoples of the region, or spent on peaceful projects then the American message would have been different," he said.

"This is a very negative message to the Lebanese and Arabs.

"It will boost Israel's aggressiveness and arrogance ...it will allow the Israelis to continue to think that they can avoid the requirements of a just and comprehensive peace by maintaining military superiority," he said.

If those funds were allocated to consolidate peace, indeed. Wouldn't that be a nice change of pace?

The US is finally realizing that Saudi Arabia is not helping things in Iraq, while Iraqi officials have openly accused Saudi Arabia of arming Sunni insurgents, the same, mind you, who have been attacking American forces in Iraq. So why, then, is it that the US is "set to offer huge arms deal" to the kingdom and its neighbors? 

Saudi Arabia is the ninth biggest spender on arms. Why do the Saudis need so many weapons? According to Ha'aretz, it could be part of a larger cold war in the Middle East, which also explains Russian arms deals to Iran and Syria, arms deals between Iran and Syria, and the 25% increase in American military aid to Israel agreed upon by Bush and Olmert, meaning an increase to $3 billion a year.

While this very well might be true, we can't forget that arms sales help out American armament companies with government contracts while giving Middle Eastern states the tools needed to oppress their peoples and arm their various proxies in the region. (I'm including Israel in this, although their weapons are used to oppress Palestinians in the occupied territories and not Israeli citizens.) Obviously, the same pattern of armament and oppression that we see in American allies holds true for Russian weapons sent to Damascus and Teheran.

A new friend of mine sent me a blog entry on a Washington Post piece attacking Americans and Europeans who want to "Save Africa," and especially those who want to "Save Darfur."

Such campaigns, however well intentioned, promote the stereotype of Africa as a black hole of disease and death. News reports constantly focus on the continent's corrupt leaders, warlords, "tribal" conflicts, child laborers, and women disfigured by abuse and genital mutilation. These descriptions run under headlines like "Can Bono Save Africa?" or "Will Brangelina Save Africa?" The relationship between the West and Africa is no longer based on openly racist beliefs, but such articles are reminiscent of reports from the heyday of European colonialism, when missionaries were sent to Africa to introduce us to education, Jesus Christ and "civilization."

There is no African, myself included, who does not appreciate the help of the wider world, but we do question whether aid is genuine or given in the spirit of affirming one's cultural superiority. My mood is dampened every time I attend a benefit whose host runs through a litany of African disasters before presenting a (usually) wealthy, white person, who often proceeds to list the things he or she has done for the poor, starving Africans. Every time a well-meaning college student speaks of villagers dancing because they were so grateful for her help, I cringe. Every time a Hollywood director shoots a film about Africa that features a Western protagonist, I shake my head -- because Africans, real people though we may be, are used as props in the West's fantasy of itself. And not only do such depictions tend to ignore the West's prominent role in creating many of the unfortunate situations on the continent, they also ignore the incredible work Africans have done and continue to do to fix those problems.

Regardless of whether Africa is "in" or not -- whether it's the cause du jour -- if anyone's to be giving a finger rapping to well-meaning white kids from the ivy league, it certainly ought not to be Uzodinma Iweala, the American-born and -raised son of a cabinet member of the Nigerian thug extraordinaire, Obasanjo. The piece's author went to a D.C. prep school then to Harvard, and is now off to Columbia med school, so I imagine that his time in Africa hasn't been much better than that of those pasty-faced do-gooders who "fly in for internships." (Incidentally, does Iweala take the boat from Washington, I wonder?) Furthermore, I think it's telling that Granta named him in their "Best of Young American Novelists 2." 

Fairly or not, Iweala reminds me of my time in the UN system. The UN works on a quota system for permanent posts, presumably so that the secretariat be filled with people from all over the world. This might be a good thing if it weren't for the fact that the quota for countries like Nigeria are taken up by people like Iweala, not the Africans and Asians who have lived their entire lives in their native countries and had to fight against the odds to get an education while working at a human rights NGO in countries like Cameroon or Bangladesh. I once took coffee breaks with a brilliant European intern who wasn't getting paid and couldn't get a proper job in his section, despite the fact that he'd completed his PhD in a relevant field and was widely published in his field's academic journals. The person who was second-in-charge in his section was a European guy who only had the equivalent of a B.A. in his field, but whose dad happened to be a former diplomat (and UN functionary) from an African country. This guy had lived his whole life in a European capital , but he had a passport from Africa, and the intern's compatriots were over-represented at that UN organization. So that was that.

Another thing that bothers me about the remarks made by Iweala is that he doesn't mention, for example, the role that such a campaign led by Americans (mostly black and religious groups) played in negotiating an end to the civil war between the north and south of Sudan. And guys like him are the same ones who are quick to fault Europe or the US for not having done anything for Rwanda. (I'm also in that camp, but I'd like to think that I'm somewhat more consistent in my criticism.) Furthermore, what about the Congo? If Central Africa had been left to its own devices instead of given the world's largest UN peacekeeping force (from five different continents), I imagine that the death toll would be considerably worse than it already is.

So while there's something to be said about "African solutions for African problems," I'm afraid that entrusting Libya, a country that's responsible for many of the current problems in Darfur and Chad in the first place, isn't necessarily such a hot idea just because Gadaffi isn't white. Likewise, Uganda's and Rwanda's African solution to the Congo and Mbeki's African non-solution to Zimbabwe aren't exactly what I'd call steps in the right direction.

The New Republic has an interesting piece out now about the battle in the US Congress about the Armenian genocide. The fight is over a piece of legislation that officially recognizes the Armenian genocide committed by the Ottomans in 1915.

From my research and the work of my colleagues who are specialists on the Armenian genocide, the historical record is pretty indisputable. Some of the details may not be, but the existence of the genocide itself seems fairly clear cut. This being said, I'm really wary of legislating history, particularly as it is done in Turkey and much of Western Europe. (In Turkey it is against the law to speak of the Armenian genocide, whereas in France, it is illegal to deny the Shoah, and Bernard Lewis has already been taken to court for denying the Armenian genocide.)

These questions should be debated in academic conferences and journals by historians, not in the halls of Capitol Hill by lobbyists. In any case, the Armenian question is very important to the US, given its strategic importance for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan:

Strange as it may be to find a World War I massacre on the 2007 Washington agenda, even more bizarre is the possibility that it may precipitate an international crisis. At one March House subcommittee hearing, Adam Schiff got a rare opportunity to grill Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Angry over the Bush administration's opposition to the Armenian genocide resolution, Schiff pressed Rice: "Is there any doubt in your mind that the murder of a million and a half Armenians between 1915 and 1923 constituted genocide?" Schiff even pointedly appealed to Rice's background in "academia." But the ever-disciplined Rice wouldn't bite. "Congressman, I come out of academia. But I'm secretary of state now. And I think that the best way to have this proceed is for ... the Turks and the Armenians to come to their own terms about this."

What Rice didn't say is that the Turks, should their lobbying firepower fail to stop the genocide bill from moving forward, have an even mightier weapon to brandish: the war in Iraq. As they did in 2000, the Turks are hinting they will shut down Incirlik, a far more dire threat now that Incirlik supplies U.S. forces occupying Iraq. Administration officials also fear Turkey might close the Habur Gate, a border point through which U.S. supplies flow into northern Iraq. In an April letter to congressional leaders, Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates bluntly warned that a House resolution "could harm American troops in the field [and] constrain our ability to supply our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan."

That prospect may even be dragging U.S. troops themselves into the Turkish counteroffensive. Or so says Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat and lead co-sponsor of the genocide resolution. "[The Turks] have had American soldiers call members of Congress and say, Don't vote for this, because I am going to be threatened in Iraq,'" Pallone says. (A Turkish embassy spokesman denied knowledge of this.)

Of course, this is probably just a lot of Turkish bluster. Before France passed its own Armenian legislation, the Turks had threatened that the bill would cause relations between the two countries to be suspended, among other things. In the end though, nothing happened. I suspect that the Turks know what side their bread is buttered on and would find that the smug satisfaction of punishing the US for calling them on their genocide denial would be far outweighed by the consequences of pissing the US off in Iraq. For instance, the US is currently in a delicate balancing act between the Iraqi Kurds and Ankara, and if Turkey were to make the US an enemy, I imagine that Ankara wouldn't appreciate the consequent shift in American policy in Kurdistan.  

This an-Nahar report says that one of the Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah last summer is dead. The headline makes it sound like the dead is recent, but the actual article itself makes it sound like the death isn't a new thing:

Israeli Soldier held by Hizbullah Dies

One of the two Israeli soldiers held by Hizbullah for more than a year has died and the other is still alive the daily newspaper an-Nahar reported Saturday.

An-Nahar quoted unnamed German diplomatic sources as saying officials in Berlin tried to obtain from Free Patriotic Movement leader Michael Aoun "some information" about the two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hizbullah operatives in a cross-border raid on July 12, 2006 which sparked a 34-day devastating war with Israel.

"Aoun refused to get involved in this issue. However, security agencies there understood that one of the two prisoners is still alive and the second had passed away," the report said without further elaboration.

Aoun is allied with Hizbullah, which leads a campaign backed by Syria and Iran against Premier Fouad Saniora's majority government.

The two Israeli soldiers held by Hizbullah are Ehud Goldwaser, 31, and Eldad Regev, 26.

Hizbullah had said it was prepared to swap them for Lebanese and Arab prisoners held by Israel.

According to an-Nahar, Michel Suleiman, commander of the Lebanese Army, has said that if the Lebanese parliament failed to elect a president by November 24 (the date when Lahoud's mandate expires), resulting in the forming of two rival governments, he would resign:

Lebanese army commander Gen. Michel Suleiman warned that he would resign if two competing governments emerged as a result of a presidential vacancy.

Suleiman said he would submit his resignation on Nov. 24, the day the term of President Emile Lahoud expires, if rival legislators failed to elect a new head of state.

The army commander said he would not tolerate a political divide that would threaten Lebanon's unity and the military institution.

"If they create two governments, I will personally hand in my resignation to each of the two governments and I will go home," Suleiman was quoted as telling ambassadors as well as political and spiritual leaders.

It's hard to say if this is a genuine effort to pressure both sides to compromise or a genuine effort to pressure both sides to choose Suleiman as president, but my initial response is that both sides need to know that Lebanon will not tolerate another formation of rival governments. A similar split marked the end of the civil war last time but would probably mark the beginning of a new civil war this time.

The Times reports that a new edition of Arabic text books in Israel give the history of 1948 from both Jewish and Arab points of view:

The Arabic version of a new book for a third-grade course on homeland, society and citizenship, states that “some of the Palestinians fled and some were expelled following the War of Independence” and that “many Arab-owned lands were confiscated,” said an Education Ministry official, Dalia Fenig. It refers to the establishment of Israel as a catastrophe for the Palestinians.

The book also reflects the Jewish version of the establishment of the state, as have previous books for the Arab curriculum, including the fact that the Arab parties rejected the 1947 United Nations partition plan for Palestine while the Jews were willing to accept it. About 700,000 Arabs who lived in what is now Israel left during 1948 and 1949. About 20 percent of the current population of just over seven million are Arabs.

Unfortunately, the Arab point of view is not included in the Hebrew versions of the book. Baby steps, I suppose.

I cannot stress how important it is for a good curriculum that aims at objectivity to be used in schools. This is one of the major problems in Lebanon. There is no official history of the civil war, and each side hears of the war from its own clan, to the extent that young people in Lebanon hear about the civil war at all. In any case, this is a step in the right direction in Israel/Palestine, and the Ministry of Education should be applauded. 

Charles Levinson adds his two cents on the "Israeli hacks" in Lebanon:

I do think it is a legitimate criticism that the safety of those interviewed could have been put in jeopardy. In Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, and elsewhere, the safety of sources is always a factor in your thinking. I think there is a fair argument here that perhaps that was neglected. Of course, the fact that a Lebanese citizen would have to fear for his safety for talking to an Israeli (who they clearly did not know was Israeli) doesn’t exactly reflect well on Hezbollah either.

[...]

As for the content of Rinat’s and Lisa’s reports, it was mostly harmless from what I’ve seen and read. I wasn’t a big fan of headlines like “An Israeli in Dahiya” which make the story seem like it’s all about the fact that an Israeli snuck into Lebanon. It’s sort of like taunting the Lebanese. The other marginally fair criticism I could find, was that Lisa does perhaps downplay the damage Israel caused the Dahiya and Lebanon in general. I was there in the midst of the war and Israeli bombs savaged a good chunk of that neighborhood. Rinat’s articles all in all seemed straight and fair to me.

Charles's points seem fair to me. Of course the fact that those who spoke to the two Israelis were endangered by this exchange doesn't bode well for Hezbollah, but that's obviously not the point. Given the situation on the ground, it is a journalist's responsibility to take these safety issues into consideration (sometimes the safety can be for someone's livelihood rather than his life).

This reminds me of my time in Uzbekistan, perhaps one of the most repressive countries in the world. When I spoke to people, they knew that I was a foreigner and that I was with an international organization, and more importantly, they knew that when I was gone, the secret police would still be there. But they at least had an informed choice in the matter. They knew who I was and where I was from. To misrepresent yourself to local people, knowing fully well that there will be consequences when you're gone, is at best irresponsible and at worst just plain cruel.

Finally, Charles hits on an interesting point with his comment that Rinat's title of "An Israeli in Dahiya" is all about the fact that she's Israeli. The only thing that makes these reports at all interesting is that they were done by Israelis. The actual content is uninteresting, and had these reports been done by someone from anywhere else, they would have passed by unnoticed, like so much second-rate reporting. At the end of the day, it's sensationalism, pure and simple. And say what we will about sensationalist reporting, it's certainly not worth jeopardizing anyone's safety. 

Via the Reading File in the Week in Review of the Times:

David J. Kilcullen, writing in the State Department’s eJournal USA about the challenges for future wars:

At present, the U.S. defense budget accounts for approximately half of total global defense spending, while the U.S. armed forces employ about 1.68 million uniformed members. By comparison, the State Department employs about 6,000 foreign service officers, while the U.S. Agency for International Development has about 2,000. In other words, the Department of Defense is about 210 times larger than USAID and State combined — there are substantially more people employed as musicians in Defense bands than in the entire foreign service.

This is probably so obvious that it doesn't need to be said, but then again, if it didn't need to be said the media wouldn't keep committing the petty sin of calling regimes in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt "moderate." What about Riyadh makes it more moderate than Teheran? It's just as religious, human rights are just as bad (if not worse) and it's much less democratic. So why does the western media insist on calling regimes like that moderate?

What they seem to mean is allied regimes, not moderate regimes. There's nothing moderate about Saudi Arabia, so let's stop pretending there is and call a spade a spade. Riyadh is an American ally -- and probably not a very good one at that. As any number of the unsavory regimes the US is friendly with should tell us, moderation and good relations are not at all the same thing.

I mentioned yesterday that arming the Middle East wasn't a good idea. Brian Whitaker has an interesting piece in the Guardian's Comment is Free section about how the new arms deal for the region could pour gas on the Sunni/Shi'a divide in the Middle East, serving as a "green light for oppression" for ostensibly Sunni regimes to discriminate against their Shi'a citizens in the name of combating Iranian influence:

If the Bush administration's goal was to inflame Sunni-Shia tensions across the region and to spread the sectarian strife in Iraq to neighbouring countries, it would be hard to imagine a more effective way of going about it.

Although Iran is the worldwide centre of Shia Islam, there's an important distinction to be made between Shia Muslims and the Iranian regime. The question is how many people will actually make it. Marginalised Shia communities in the Gulf states and Egypt will undoubtedly feel more threatened, while others will interpret the American move as a green light to oppress them further.

[...]

Viewed from Washington, bolstering tyrannical Sunni regimes against Iran might seem like pragmatism - a convergence of interests. But it's a dangerous sort of pragmatism because the American and Saudi interests are ultimately different. The Saudi government isn't really worried about Tehran; it's worried about keeping the lid on its Shia population in the oil-rich eastern province - and in the long term that can only rebound negatively on the US.

Just as there is a need to recognise that Jews in general are not responsible for the actions of the Israeli government, nor ordinary Muslims for the actions of al-Qaida, Arab states must be careful not to automatically treat their Shia communities as tools of the Iranian government, or encourage the public to think that they are.

What the region needs most right now is not more arms but a concerted effort to promote religious tolerance, to combat religious discrimination and prejudice, and to draw the Arab Shia communities into the political processes of their home countries before it is too late.

Incidentally, Iran is not alone in condemning the arms deals. Even Siniora has been quick to complain about the increased military aid to Israel:

"Prime Minister Fouad Saniora has learned with great dismay, surprise and astonishment" about the U.S. defense package to the Jewish state, a statement released by his office said.

"Continuing to back Israel in such a manner will escalate crises and increase feelings among the Arabs and Muslims that their just causes are ignored while Israel's interests are protected," it said.

"This will raise the feeling of frustration among the Arabs and Muslims, and will therefore boost extremist movements which were born and are feeding on the feeling of (U.S.) bias in favor of Israel."

[...]

"We were hoping that the American efforts would rather help promote peace," Saniora said in the statement.

"If these funds were allocated to consolidate peace (in the Middle East) and bridge the gap between the peoples of the region, or spent on peaceful projects then the American message would have been different," he said.

"This is a very negative message to the Lebanese and Arabs.

"It will boost Israel's aggressiveness and arrogance ...it will allow the Israelis to continue to think that they can avoid the requirements of a just and comprehensive peace by maintaining military superiority," he said.

If those funds were allocated to consolidate peace, indeed. Wouldn't that be a nice change of pace?

The US is finally realizing that Saudi Arabia is not helping things in Iraq, while Iraqi officials have openly accused Saudi Arabia of arming Sunni insurgents, the same, mind you, who have been attacking American forces in Iraq. So why, then, is it that the US is "set to offer huge arms deal" to the kingdom and its neighbors? 

Saudi Arabia is the ninth biggest spender on arms. Why do the Saudis need so many weapons? According to Ha'aretz, it could be part of a larger cold war in the Middle East, which also explains Russian arms deals to Iran and Syria, arms deals between Iran and Syria, and the 25% increase in American military aid to Israel agreed upon by Bush and Olmert, meaning an increase to $3 billion a year.

While this very well might be true, we can't forget that arms sales help out American armament companies with government contracts while giving Middle Eastern states the tools needed to oppress their peoples and arm their various proxies in the region. (I'm including Israel in this, although their weapons are used to oppress Palestinians in the occupied territories and not Israeli citizens.) Obviously, the same pattern of armament and oppression that we see in American allies holds true for Russian weapons sent to Damascus and Teheran.

A new friend of mine sent me a blog entry on a Washington Post piece attacking Americans and Europeans who want to "Save Africa," and especially those who want to "Save Darfur."

Such campaigns, however well intentioned, promote the stereotype of Africa as a black hole of disease and death. News reports constantly focus on the continent's corrupt leaders, warlords, "tribal" conflicts, child laborers, and women disfigured by abuse and genital mutilation. These descriptions run under headlines like "Can Bono Save Africa?" or "Will Brangelina Save Africa?" The relationship between the West and Africa is no longer based on openly racist beliefs, but such articles are reminiscent of reports from the heyday of European colonialism, when missionaries were sent to Africa to introduce us to education, Jesus Christ and "civilization."

There is no African, myself included, who does not appreciate the help of the wider world, but we do question whether aid is genuine or given in the spirit of affirming one's cultural superiority. My mood is dampened every time I attend a benefit whose host runs through a litany of African disasters before presenting a (usually) wealthy, white person, who often proceeds to list the things he or she has done for the poor, starving Africans. Every time a well-meaning college student speaks of villagers dancing because they were so grateful for her help, I cringe. Every time a Hollywood director shoots a film about Africa that features a Western protagonist, I shake my head -- because Africans, real people though we may be, are used as props in the West's fantasy of itself. And not only do such depictions tend to ignore the West's prominent role in creating many of the unfortunate situations on the continent, they also ignore the incredible work Africans have done and continue to do to fix those problems.

Regardless of whether Africa is "in" or not -- whether it's the cause du jour -- if anyone's to be giving a finger rapping to well-meaning white kids from the ivy league, it certainly ought not to be Uzodinma Iweala, the American-born and -raised son of a cabinet member of the Nigerian thug extraordinaire, Obasanjo. The piece's author went to a D.C. prep school then to Harvard, and is now off to Columbia med school, so I imagine that his time in Africa hasn't been much better than that of those pasty-faced do-gooders who "fly in for internships." (Incidentally, does Iweala take the boat from Washington, I wonder?) Furthermore, I think it's telling that Granta named him in their "Best of Young American Novelists 2." 

Fairly or not, Iweala reminds me of my time in the UN system. The UN works on a quota system for permanent posts, presumably so that the secretariat be filled with people from all over the world. This might be a good thing if it weren't for the fact that the quota for countries like Nigeria are taken up by people like Iweala, not the Africans and Asians who have lived their entire lives in their native countries and had to fight against the odds to get an education while working at a human rights NGO in countries like Cameroon or Bangladesh. I once took coffee breaks with a brilliant European intern who wasn't getting paid and couldn't get a proper job in his section, despite the fact that he'd completed his PhD in a relevant field and was widely published in his field's academic journals. The person who was second-in-charge in his section was a European guy who only had the equivalent of a B.A. in his field, but whose dad happened to be a former diplomat (and UN functionary) from an African country. This guy had lived his whole life in a European capital , but he had a passport from Africa, and the intern's compatriots were over-represented at that UN organization. So that was that.

Another thing that bothers me about the remarks made by Iweala is that he doesn't mention, for example, the role that such a campaign led by Americans (mostly black and religious groups) played in negotiating an end to the civil war between the north and south of Sudan. And guys like him are the same ones who are quick to fault Europe or the US for not having done anything for Rwanda. (I'm also in that camp, but I'd like to think that I'm somewhat more consistent in my criticism.) Furthermore, what about the Congo? If Central Africa had been left to its own devices instead of given the world's largest UN peacekeeping force (from five different continents), I imagine that the death toll would be considerably worse than it already is.

So while there's something to be said about "African solutions for African problems," I'm afraid that entrusting Libya, a country that's responsible for many of the current problems in Darfur and Chad in the first place, isn't necessarily such a hot idea just because Gadaffi isn't white. Likewise, Uganda's and Rwanda's African solution to the Congo and Mbeki's African non-solution to Zimbabwe aren't exactly what I'd call steps in the right direction.

The New Republic has an interesting piece out now about the battle in the US Congress about the Armenian genocide. The fight is over a piece of legislation that officially recognizes the Armenian genocide committed by the Ottomans in 1915.

From my research and the work of my colleagues who are specialists on the Armenian genocide, the historical record is pretty indisputable. Some of the details may not be, but the existence of the genocide itself seems fairly clear cut. This being said, I'm really wary of legislating history, particularly as it is done in Turkey and much of Western Europe. (In Turkey it is against the law to speak of the Armenian genocide, whereas in France, it is illegal to deny the Shoah, and Bernard Lewis has already been taken to court for denying the Armenian genocide.)

These questions should be debated in academic conferences and journals by historians, not in the halls of Capitol Hill by lobbyists. In any case, the Armenian question is very important to the US, given its strategic importance for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan:

Strange as it may be to find a World War I massacre on the 2007 Washington agenda, even more bizarre is the possibility that it may precipitate an international crisis. At one March House subcommittee hearing, Adam Schiff got a rare opportunity to grill Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Angry over the Bush administration's opposition to the Armenian genocide resolution, Schiff pressed Rice: "Is there any doubt in your mind that the murder of a million and a half Armenians between 1915 and 1923 constituted genocide?" Schiff even pointedly appealed to Rice's background in "academia." But the ever-disciplined Rice wouldn't bite. "Congressman, I come out of academia. But I'm secretary of state now. And I think that the best way to have this proceed is for ... the Turks and the Armenians to come to their own terms about this."

What Rice didn't say is that the Turks, should their lobbying firepower fail to stop the genocide bill from moving forward, have an even mightier weapon to brandish: the war in Iraq. As they did in 2000, the Turks are hinting they will shut down Incirlik, a far more dire threat now that Incirlik supplies U.S. forces occupying Iraq. Administration officials also fear Turkey might close the Habur Gate, a border point through which U.S. supplies flow into northern Iraq. In an April letter to congressional leaders, Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates bluntly warned that a House resolution "could harm American troops in the field [and] constrain our ability to supply our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan."

That prospect may even be dragging U.S. troops themselves into the Turkish counteroffensive. Or so says Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat and lead co-sponsor of the genocide resolution. "[The Turks] have had American soldiers call members of Congress and say, Don't vote for this, because I am going to be threatened in Iraq,'" Pallone says. (A Turkish embassy spokesman denied knowledge of this.)

Of course, this is probably just a lot of Turkish bluster. Before France passed its own Armenian legislation, the Turks had threatened that the bill would cause relations between the two countries to be suspended, among other things. In the end though, nothing happened. I suspect that the Turks know what side their bread is buttered on and would find that the smug satisfaction of punishing the US for calling them on their genocide denial would be far outweighed by the consequences of pissing the US off in Iraq. For instance, the US is currently in a delicate balancing act between the Iraqi Kurds and Ankara, and if Turkey were to make the US an enemy, I imagine that Ankara wouldn't appreciate the consequent shift in American policy in Kurdistan.  

This an-Nahar report says that one of the Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah last summer is dead. The headline makes it sound like the dead is recent, but the actual article itself makes it sound like the death isn't a new thing:

Israeli Soldier held by Hizbullah Dies

One of the two Israeli soldiers held by Hizbullah for more than a year has died and the other is still alive the daily newspaper an-Nahar reported Saturday.

An-Nahar quoted unnamed German diplomatic sources as saying officials in Berlin tried to obtain from Free Patriotic Movement leader Michael Aoun "some information" about the two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hizbullah operatives in a cross-border raid on July 12, 2006 which sparked a 34-day devastating war with Israel.

"Aoun refused to get involved in this issue. However, security agencies there understood that one of the two prisoners is still alive and the second had passed away," the report said without further elaboration.

Aoun is allied with Hizbullah, which leads a campaign backed by Syria and Iran against Premier Fouad Saniora's majority government.

The two Israeli soldiers held by Hizbullah are Ehud Goldwaser, 31, and Eldad Regev, 26.

Hizbullah had said it was prepared to swap them for Lebanese and Arab prisoners held by Israel.

According to an-Nahar, Michel Suleiman, commander of the Lebanese Army, has said that if the Lebanese parliament failed to elect a president by November 24 (the date when Lahoud's mandate expires), resulting in the forming of two rival governments, he would resign:

Lebanese army commander Gen. Michel Suleiman warned that he would resign if two competing governments emerged as a result of a presidential vacancy.

Suleiman said he would submit his resignation on Nov. 24, the day the term of President Emile Lahoud expires, if rival legislators failed to elect a new head of state.

The army commander said he would not tolerate a political divide that would threaten Lebanon's unity and the military institution.

"If they create two governments, I will personally hand in my resignation to each of the two governments and I will go home," Suleiman was quoted as telling ambassadors as well as political and spiritual leaders.

It's hard to say if this is a genuine effort to pressure both sides to compromise or a genuine effort to pressure both sides to choose Suleiman as president, but my initial response is that both sides need to know that Lebanon will not tolerate another formation of rival governments. A similar split marked the end of the civil war last time but would probably mark the beginning of a new civil war this time.

The Times reports that a new edition of Arabic text books in Israel give the history of 1948 from both Jewish and Arab points of view:

The Arabic version of a new book for a third-grade course on homeland, society and citizenship, states that “some of the Palestinians fled and some were expelled following the War of Independence” and that “many Arab-owned lands were confiscated,” said an Education Ministry official, Dalia Fenig. It refers to the establishment of Israel as a catastrophe for the Palestinians.

The book also reflects the Jewish version of the establishment of the state, as have previous books for the Arab curriculum, including the fact that the Arab parties rejected the 1947 United Nations partition plan for Palestine while the Jews were willing to accept it. About 700,000 Arabs who lived in what is now Israel left during 1948 and 1949. About 20 percent of the current population of just over seven million are Arabs.

Unfortunately, the Arab point of view is not included in the Hebrew versions of the book. Baby steps, I suppose.

I cannot stress how important it is for a good curriculum that aims at objectivity to be used in schools. This is one of the major problems in Lebanon. There is no official history of the civil war, and each side hears of the war from its own clan, to the extent that young people in Lebanon hear about the civil war at all. In any case, this is a step in the right direction in Israel/Palestine, and the Ministry of Education should be applauded. 

Charles Levinson adds his two cents on the "Israeli hacks" in Lebanon:

I do think it is a legitimate criticism that the safety of those interviewed could have been put in jeopardy. In Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, and elsewhere, the safety of sources is always a factor in your thinking. I think there is a fair argument here that perhaps that was neglected. Of course, the fact that a Lebanese citizen would have to fear for his safety for talking to an Israeli (who they clearly did not know was Israeli) doesn’t exactly reflect well on Hezbollah either.

[...]

As for the content of Rinat’s and Lisa’s reports, it was mostly harmless from what I’ve seen and read. I wasn’t a big fan of headlines like “An Israeli in Dahiya” which make the story seem like it’s all about the fact that an Israeli snuck into Lebanon. It’s sort of like taunting the Lebanese. The other marginally fair criticism I could find, was that Lisa does perhaps downplay the damage Israel caused the Dahiya and Lebanon in general. I was there in the midst of the war and Israeli bombs savaged a good chunk of that neighborhood. Rinat’s articles all in all seemed straight and fair to me.

Charles's points seem fair to me. Of course the fact that those who spoke to the two Israelis were endangered by this exchange doesn't bode well for Hezbollah, but that's obviously not the point. Given the situation on the ground, it is a journalist's responsibility to take these safety issues into consideration (sometimes the safety can be for someone's livelihood rather than his life).

This reminds me of my time in Uzbekistan, perhaps one of the most repressive countries in the world. When I spoke to people, they knew that I was a foreigner and that I was with an international organization, and more importantly, they knew that when I was gone, the secret police would still be there. But they at least had an informed choice in the matter. They knew who I was and where I was from. To misrepresent yourself to local people, knowing fully well that there will be consequences when you're gone, is at best irresponsible and at worst just plain cruel.

Finally, Charles hits on an interesting point with his comment that Rinat's title of "An Israeli in Dahiya" is all about the fact that she's Israeli. The only thing that makes these reports at all interesting is that they were done by Israelis. The actual content is uninteresting, and had these reports been done by someone from anywhere else, they would have passed by unnoticed, like so much second-rate reporting. At the end of the day, it's sensationalism, pure and simple. And say what we will about sensationalist reporting, it's certainly not worth jeopardizing anyone's safety. 

Via the Reading File in the Week in Review of the Times:

David J. Kilcullen, writing in the State Department’s eJournal USA about the challenges for future wars:

At present, the U.S. defense budget accounts for approximately half of total global defense spending, while the U.S. armed forces employ about 1.68 million uniformed members. By comparison, the State Department employs about 6,000 foreign service officers, while the U.S. Agency for International Development has about 2,000. In other words, the Department of Defense is about 210 times larger than USAID and State combined — there are substantially more people employed as musicians in Defense bands than in the entire foreign service.