Saudi Judicial Reform

This Arab News report summarizes new efforts by Saudi Arabia to modernize its judicial system. Some key points:

The inauguration by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah of the first phase of a major project to upgrade judicial facilities early next year will open a new era for the Kingdom’s judicial system, said Justice Minister Muhammad Al-Eissa on Tuesday.

“The Ministry of Justice is committed to carrying out its responsibilities in the best possible manner and overcoming all difficulties that obstruct the speedy grant of rights and justice,” the minister said while announcing the quick implementation of the project.

He said the project, which was initiated by King Abdullah, aims at mobilizing knowledge, expertise, technology and manpower in the service of Shariah. “The speeding up of the judicial process and ensuring justice are the hallmarks of development,” he added.

Al-Eissa spelled out his ministry’s efforts to develop the Kingdom’s judiciary in line with modern developments, accommodating the best practices of other countries, such as the pleading of cases in courts through lawyers and the publication of court verdicts. He said Saudi judges were highly qualified to do their jobs.

This would appear to be part of King ‘Abdullah's efforts to make the judicial system a bit more transparent and more consistent with international concepts of the rule of law. Probably worth noting.,

Two Bombers, Policeman Killed in Saudi Attack

Late breaking from tomorrow's papers: a shootout at a security checkpoint in Jizan is Saudi Arabia near the border with Yemen: two terrorists wearing explosive vests killed and one Saudi police officer killed in the shootout. That first link is the BBC; for a Saudi account in Arabic see here. Like the August attempt on Muhammad Bin Nayef this is being blamed on Al-Qa‘ida in the Arabian Peninsula and is linked to events in Yemen; Jizan is another of those Saudi border areas (‘Asir, Jizan, Najran) that were among the last incorporated into the Kingdom in the 1930s and that have many links with Yemen. More as this evolves.

Catching Up on Recent MEI Events

While I would urge my readers to check the MEI Website regularly, I've been a bit slow to link to some recent events. Several recent podcasts (when you click on the link it begins to play) and one recent YouTube video:

• Dr. Ibrahim Kalin, Turkish Foreign Policy Between Ideology and Realpolitik (October 9);

• William Maley, Rani Mullen, and Marvin Weinbaum, The Implications of the Final Election Results in Afghanistan for US Strategic Interests (October 8);

• Aamir A. Rehman, Gulf Capital and Islamic Finance:The Rise of New Global Players (October 6);

• Ekmeleddin Ehsanoglu, The Role of Turkey in the Interplay between Islam and Europe (October 2); podcast at the link and video here (will be in five parts):

• Murat Somer and Kemal Kinsci, What Does the Kurdish Opening in Turkey Entail? Comparative and Political Perspectives (October 1).
  

Autumn 2009 Middle East Journal

The Autumn 2009 issue of The Middle East Journal is now available electronically. Hard-copy subscribers will be receiving their issues soon. If you are a subscriber and have not used the electronic version before, this link explains how to activate the electronic subscription for individuals or institutions. (Non-subscribers may purchase individual articles for download.) The main page for the Autumn issue may be found here at Ingenta, which hosts the electronic version, while the link on activating your subscription noted above also has a link to the issue. And here is a guide to what's in it:

• The Editor's Note. My brief introduction to the issue.

• "'Let Sleeping Dogs Lie:' On Ghajar and Other Anomalies in the Syria-Lebanon-Israel Tri-Border Region," by Asher Kaufman.

• "The Syrian Muslim Brothers and the Syrian-Iranian Relationship," by Yvette Talhamy.

• "A Paradigmatic Shift for the Turkish Generals and an End to the Coup Era in Turkey," by Ersel Aydinli.

• "'Prospective-Turks' or 'Pseudo-Citizens': Kurds in Turkey," by Mesut Yegen.

• "Identity Across Generations: A Turkish American Case Study," by Ilhan Kaya.

• Our regular feature, the Chronology of the quarter.

• Our usual lengthy Book Review section, led by a review article by W. Andrew Terrill on recent books dealing with Iraq.
  

Uri Avnery on Gilad Shalit

An interesting historical footnote in this op-ed over the long (US) weekend in Haaretz: Uri Avnery on Gilad Shalit. He's saying Shalit is a prisoner of war, not a "kidnapped soldier," but the point is it's the latest sign that Avnery is still willing to argue with Israel's establishment.

For the youngsters, Uri Avnery is the grand old man of Israeli left-peacenik politics, now aged 86 if Wikipedia has his birthdate right. Once a member of the Irgun (though he left it in 1942, before it was fighting other Zionists), he became the first Israeli who met with Yasir ‘Arafat during the siege of Beirut in 1982. He's always been a maverick. Until 1993 he published the tabloid-style Ha-Olam Hazeh (This World), which was his vehicle for his political views. A staunch secularist, he's long opposed the religious/settler/Orthodox right (and pretty much every other portion of the Israeli right).

It's a short op-ed, but it's nice to see he's still writing at 86, and doesn't seem to have mellowed much.

Armenia/Turkey: Now, Soccer?

Back from the three day weekend: a couple of quick observations, then I've got Journal work ahead of me, but more perhaps by afternoon.

The Armenian President is due to travel to Turkey for a soccer game tomorrow if all goes well (which, given the fact that the signing of the protocols between Turkey and Armenia went rather less well than expected — a delay in which Secretary of State Clinton had to return to her hotel, tyhen no signing statements or joint communique — suggests we should not hold our breath. Still, the two countries are actually being almost civil to each other.

My E-mail inbox is full of Armenian-American groups explaining how Turkey has bullied poor little Armenia into this deal, and how Armenian Americans reject it . . .

And if I've learned anything in a career in this field, it's that you can express yourself pretty freely on Israeli-Palestinian issues, and still enjoy some respect from both sides, but you can't touch Turkish/Armenian issues without being promptly blown to shreds by both sides, so I merely note the events that have occurred.

More later.

The Big Bailout

Before my final signoff for the three-day weekend, let me call your attention to this post by Abu Muqawama on the withdrawal from Joint Base Balad in Iraq, which in turn links to this New York Times article. Key phrase: "It is the largest movement of soldiers and matériel in more than four decades, the military said." Forty years would make it the biggest movement since the buildup in Vietnam.

As for Andrew Exum's title "Amateurs and Professionals, Tactics and Logistics," I'm sure he's referencing the old saw that "Amateurs talk about strategy [sometimes, "tactics"]; professionals talk about logistics."

Three-Day Weekend

We're entering the three-day Columbus Day weekend in the US, so unless something major drives me to comment, I'll probably be idle till Tuesday. If I have something important I'll post, but plan to be mostly doing family things.

Banning Niqab at Al-Azhar

I've been staying away from one Egyptian story because I initially thought the reports were a bit exaggerated. The background: A week or so ago, the Sheikh al-Azhar, Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid al-Tantawi, asked a female student wearing the full niqab (in which the face is fully covered) why she did so, since it was not a part of Islam and was merely a traditional practice. Al-Masry al-Youm played this story up, but I suspected that it was actually exaggerating a bit since it wasn't clear if Tantawi's remark was merely off-the-cuff or indicated a plan to discourage the niqab.

Then the BBC picked the story up, indicating that Tantawi planned to ban the full niqab altogether, and then a Constituional Court Ruling held that institutions had the right to ban the niqab. Now Tantawi and the Ministry of Education have officially banned the niqab from classrooms and dormitories. For those who don't read Arabic, there's an English report here.

Tantawi's ban only applies to al-Azhar and related institutions, so the Ministry of Education also acted. The Education Ministry clarified that women could still wear niqab to classes, provided they show their face to male security guards, but that the niqab would be banned in dormitories.

While Tantawi and other Egyptian clerics have emphasized that niqab is not a requirement of Islam, the comments by the Education Ministry seem to emphasize security issues; certainly the security establishment is uncomfortable with any custom which completely conceals identity and, at the same time, tends to be adopted by the most radical Islamists. (This only applies to the niqab, which fully covers the face, not the hijab, the very widespread head-scarf covering the hair.)

Great Games and Small, India and Afghanistan: The Often Neglected Player

Yesterday's major suicide bombing attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul was a reminder of a fact that is generally clear enough in the strategic vision of the regional country players but is often forgotten in Washington: India is still, as it has been for centuries, a player in Afghanistan. In our Western tendency to divide the world, while we consider Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India all part of South Asia in some sense, we tend to shrug India off as separate from the Muslim World and thus not really a player in the "Great Game" in its modern incarnation. The locals don't make that mistake. Pakistan sees India as its primary strategic enemy, and India accordingly sees a strategic value in counterbalancing Pakistan's interest by supporting, first the pro-Soviet, and now the pro-Western, regime in Afghanistan. That makes the pro-Taliban elements hostile to India, though they and al-Qa‘ida were already so over the Kashmir issue, which actually is a major one for some of their ideologues. Kashmir moves many Pakistanis deeply, but also the radicals of al-Qa‘ida.

Nothing I've said here is news to the regional specialists, but oddly it's possible to read serious pieces about the "AfPak" theater, as it's now called, that barely mention India (or China). The fact that the world's two most populous countries, both of them with fast growing economies and both of them with nuclear weapons, border Afghanistan and Pakistan is not, actually, a peripheral geopolitical consideration. Obviously, whoever bombed the Indian Embassy in Kabul was aware of that.

Eldar on US Congressional Anger; Oren's New Republic Piece

Okay, this is quoting a story that is clearly classic Washington-style spin with lots of anonymous sources, but Haaretz' Akiva Eldar is a fine reporter (and no great friend of the Netanyhahu Government), and for what it's worth, it's at least worth noting: read the whole thing, but here's the gist:

The U.S. administration is furious over Israeli incitement against President Barack Obama, Democratic congressmen close to Obama told an Israeli source who returned from a visit to Washington this week.

The congressmen even hinted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been personally involved.

The source, who met in Washington with administration officials and members of Congress, told Haaretz he was stunned by the level of anger there over attempts to portray Obama to the American public as an enemy of Israel because of his efforts to restart peace talks and freeze settlement construction. "There are people here who are playing with fire by damaging our relationship with the U.S.," the source said.

I know, it's a classic Washington no-named-source background leak/spin, but it also suggests that some folks "close to" the Administration are sending a message via "an Israeli source" (governmental? political? journalistic? academic?) that they don't appreciate some of what's been coming out of the Israeli governement lately. One exhibit for the prosecution: this piece by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren in The New Republic that manages to link the Goldstone Report with Ahmadinejad and Holocaust denial.

As blogger Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic noted on the Oren piece:

I thought ambassadors were supposed to smoothe over rifts, not inflame them. And I thought they were supposed to speak to the broadest number of citizens in the countries to which they have been appointed, not provide inflammatory rants to the already-persuaded. But this Michael Oren piece in TNR abandons any pretense of diplomatic balance.

The premise of Oren's piece is that Israel faces a new Nazism represented by Ahmadinejad and Holocaust deniers but, to an even greater extent, by the South African liberal, Richard Goldstone, and the United Nations. Oren seems to be arguing that Gaza was a war of survival for the Jewish state and that Israel had no choice but to launch a war that killed, by one conservative Israeli count, 320 children, destroyed 4,000 homes, and up to 80 government buildings. Even if one is sympathetic to the horrific barrage of Hamas rockets that Israeli citizens endured (and what decent human being wouldn't be?) - every single rocket being a war crime - it helps no one to use language this extreme or to distort history in this manner.

I'm not sure that this is the specific piece Akiva Eldar's story is aimed at: but it's a good example of the tone of some pretty official sounding Israeli criticism (e.g. by the Ambassador to Washington) that if not aimed directly at the US Administration, is at least rather inflammatory. I know Oren was an IDF spokesman during the Gaza war, doing reserve duty, but he isn't that anymore, he's the Ambassador to the United States. I've admired his historical works (the one on the US and the Middle East and the one on the 1967 war), but this is flat out propaganda. It reminds one of the old Victorian quip (Charles M. Doughty quotes it in the opening of Travels in Arabia Deserta) that "a diplomat is sent to lie abroad for his country," but come on.

Women in Algerian Politics

The Moor Next Door — the best English-language blog on Algeria and the Maghreb, I think — has linked to some interesting data on women in Algerian politics: data tables on women in Parliament and spreadsheet data on the same.

Useful info I think, and valuable data.

Bjorklund on "Exile"

Per Bjorklund, the Swedish journalist/blogger recently deported by Egypt when he tried to re-enter the country where he had been living, has some thoughts on exile and narrative of his own situation.

On the Goldstone Report

Except for remarks in passing about the Palestinian Authority's and Israel's wrangles over the Goldstone Report, I haven't expressed any opinions about the Goldstone Report. Why not?

Many of you are probably aware of the acronym RTFM in computer jargon, which stands for "Read the [censored] Manual!". Well, you see, the Goldsone Report is 452 pages long, and I have both a job and a blog, and I don't want to judge it based on somebody else's precis. And my leisure reading tends to be on non-Middle Eastern subjects. So I thought it might be useful, for those who want to argue the merits, pro or con, of the Goldstone Report: here it is. Have fun. I doubt if I'll have time to get to it soon, but I'm not going to denounce it or canonize it, either one, unread, or just based on the summaries.

Lebanon: Back to a National Unity Government?

King ‘Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Bashar al-Asad of Syria have called for the Lebanese to create a National Unity Government. Of course Sa‘d al-Hariri spent most of the summer trying to do just that, only to give up and threaten to form a more narrow government; but as I noted in my link last night called "The Modern History of Lebanon in One Headline", the Lebanese political parties were all eagerly awaiting finding out what their opinion is from the meeting between the Saudi King and Syrian President. As David Mack noted in a comment to that post, the Lebanese players have always been quick to seek outside patrons for their parties, then blame outside interference when things go wrong. Now we see the spectacle of Hariri (whose patron is King ‘Abdullah) and the Lebanese opposition (whose patron is Asad) waiting for their marching orders from the summit of their patrons. If I sound cynical, it's because I've seen it all too many times. I think most Lebanese citizens deserve better leadership than they have inherited.

A Claim Mubarak Plans to Stay On: From a Dubious Source

For those who read Arabic, here's a story that has appeared in the independent Egyptian daily Al-Fagr by its Editor, ‘Adel Hammouda. It claims that during a Ramadan meeting with senior party officials, Husni Mubarak announced that he would remain in office "until his last breath" and went on to insist that the region's situation requires rule by the military. None of that would seem to be good news for Gamal Mubarak's prospects, obviously.

But let me caution readers to treat this source with a lot of skepticism. ‘Adel Hammouda has been around a long time — he's been writing since the Nasser era at least — and has spent a lot of that time writing tabloid-style scandal stories, political gossip, and the like. He has edited mainstream magazines like Roz al-Youssef in the past, but Al-Fagr seems to be more in the category of a tabloid scandal-sheet. He has periodically infuriated al-Azhar on religious issues and the government has charged him in the past with disrespect for the Presidency.

I would say this story does not seem to mesh very well with everything else we have been seeing and hearing from official Egyptian sources in recent years. I might venture to suggest it could be a plant, perhaps by someone in the millitary or security services, aimed at undermining Gamal. (There have been rumors that Hammouda had ties to the intelligence apparatus in the Nasser era, when many journalists certainly did, and he's written a lot about Islamists.) I call the story to your attention not because I believe it to be true but because its appearance probably relates to actual debates going on behind the scenes. Or it may be complete fabrication.

Defector from Iranian Nuclear Program?

This story has been popping up for a couple of days in various Middle Eastern media and now I see the BBC has picked it up: supposedly an Iranian working for the nuclear program disappeared while on hajj this year in Saudi Arabia. The Iranians are claiming the US had something to do with it; one version I saw earlier said there were two Iranians missing. The BBC report names one. This has popped up in Al-Sharq al-Awsat and in Israeli papers as well.

I often don't comment on these sorts of things because if it's a defection I'm sure he's safely ensconced in a safe house somewhere and we won't get the full story for a good long time; if it's something other than a defection, we're even less likely to get reliable information. But given the interest in the Iranian nuclear program at the moment, it's always worth noting when these kinds of stories pop up.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up: Haim Saban Wants to Buy Half of Al-Jazeera?

Okay: strangest story so far today (but it's early): Haim Saban wants to buy half of Al-Jazeera?

Now Haim Saban is a media mogul, born into the Jewish community in Alexandria, Egypt; he owns pretty much whatever he fancies. (And is the benefactor of the Saban Center at Brookings.) But for all his financial clout, he's a strong supporter of Israel and lives there part of the time: can he really persuade the Amir of Qatar to let him buy half of Al-Jazeera? Especially now that the report is public?

Ah — but let's read the story a bit more. Key words: The Egyptian newspaper Al-Mesryoon Reported This Week.

Aha! Al-Misriyyun is an Egyptian independent newspaper; a bit sensational at times (at the moment they're headlining the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood doesn't accept Muhammad al-Baradei as a candidate for President of Egypt, which would only be interesting if he had a chance) and here's the original Haim Saban/Al-Jazeera story for those who read Arabic. It would not be outrageous for this to be a piece of disinformation aimed at discrediting a) Al-Jazeera, b) Qatar (neither of which are very popular with Egypt right now), or c) both.

Oh, I don't doubt that Haim Saban, a strong supporter of Israel, would like to own half of Al-Jazeera (wouldn't you?) But can anybody really picture this happening, at least in the present Arab-Israeli environment? Since the Qatari Royal Family would be involved?

I think this is a case of an Egyptian paper rabble-rousing against Al-Jazeera, even though there may be a nugget of truth deep down in there somewhere. I'm a little surprised that Ha'aretz played the story so straight.

Reading that story it strikes me as the sort of sensational story that turns up too often in the Egyptian press raising specters of Israeli takeovers of all sorts of Arab institutions. It's pretty much unsourced (Egyptian sources working in Qatar) and may represent some echo of a feeler put out by Saban — if that. I don't see Al-Jazeera being half-controlled by Haim Saban anytime soon.

The odd part, I still think, is not that Al-Misriyyun ran this, but that Ha'aretz did.

The Modern History of Lebanon in One Headline

From tomorrow morning's Beirut Daily Star: Local Politicians Await Outcome of Saudi-Syrian Summit.

Waiting to find out what Lebanon's next government will look like. Waiting on the neighbors to decide. The Modern History of Lebanon in one headline.

Saudi Scholar's Removal Over KAUST Remarks

I haven't yet posted anything about the recent removal of a senior Saudi religious scholar over his criticism of the new King ‘Abdullah School of Science and Technology (KAUST) and its coeducational programs; the story has been simmering along since late last week (Arabic article with photo here). As the earlier link notes, Sheikh Dr. Sa‘d bin Nasir al-Shathry (or al-Shithry) was removed from the Council of Senior ‘Ulama', the senior religious scholars' body.

The Gulf News article cited above portrays this as a conflict between liberals and traditionalists in the Kingdom; it is doubtless that, in part, but more to the point the Sheikh may have been perceived as being critical of a pet project of the King's. It's the King ‘Abdullah University of Science and Technology, after all. As I noted in my post on the inauguration of KAUST, the coeducational aspect is actually being emphasized as an innovation, even though only 15% of the students are female.

King ‘Abdullah's approach to reform is typical of the Saudis generally: slow and cautious, but nevertheless, there is movement. Shathry's remarks obviously did not sit well with the authorities.

New Edition of Arab Reform Bulletin

The Carnegie Endowment has the October issue of the Arab Reform Bulletin up. As usual, it covers quite a bit of ground: Egypt and the Swine Flu, Tunisia's elections, and much more. And the Arabic version is here.

King ‘Abdullah Arrives in Damascus

King ‘Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has arrived in Damascus, for his first visit to the Syrian capital since he ascended the throne (and since the assassination of Rafiq Hariri). I posted on the general background on Monday, so for now I'll simply refer you to my remarks then with the additional information that he's actually arrived. (Saudi Press Agency photo.)

Afghan Election Shenanigans

Juan Cole has a guest post by my old friend Nasrine Gross, who's just returned from Afghanistan where she worked for Dr. ‘Abdullah's campaign. As the Afghan debate proceeds, the whole question of legitimacy and credibility becomes critical. Read her report.

Jerusalem Powder Keg

There's a fine line between the daily tensions between Israelis and Palestinians in Jerusalem and the actions that set the tinderbox alight. Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in September 2000 rather obviously began the second intifada, though that is easier to perceive in retrospect than it may have been at the time. Things are growing more and more tense in Jerusalem in the past couple of days, following the events of last Friday, and there are warnings of a possible third intifada.

Yesterday, Israel arrested Sheikh Ra'id Salah, the leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel's Northern Branch. A court soon released him, but banned him from Jerusalem for 30 days.

A little background is in order. The Islamic Movement of Israel is an Islamist movement among Israeli Arabs, and its northern branch is by far the most important because most of Israel's Arab citizen population live in Galilee, particularly in Nazareth and Umm al-Fahm. Ra'id Salah is a former mayor of Umm al-Fahm.

He's not exactly a poster child for coexistence: Israel has accused him of links to Hamas, and he's said some outrageous things about the Western Wall having no links to Judaism, etc. But the point is, he's an Israeli citizen, a former elected official within Israel within the Green Line, and thus he's not usually treated like a resident of the occupied territories. That makes him a lightning rod for not just Palestinians in the territories and East Jerusalem, but for Israeli Arabs as well.

Now, he was rather clearly rabble-rousing in the current tensions over the Haram al-Sharif/Har ha-Bayit. But as a lightning rod, the arrest (though subsequently downgraded to a ban on visiting Jerusalem for 30 days), escalates an already tense situation.

I'm not sure whether the Netanyahu government is actually seeking to ignite a flashpoint here, or simply blundering into one, but this could indeed be the flashpoint for a third intifada, and also a deepening of tensions within pre-1967 Israel itself, even if Salah is way more radical than most Israeli Arabs. More to the point, it escalates tensions within Green Line Israel, between the Jewish and Arab Israeli citizenry, and it must always be remembered that Israeli Arabs constitute about a fifth of the population within then pre-1967 borders, and vote.

Wafd Youth Wing Wants El Baradei to Run for President

Here's an AFP story on how the youth wing of the Wafd Party (you can make your own wisecracks) wants Muhammad El Baradei, the IAEA chief, to run for President of Egypt in 2011. I've seen other suggestions that he might be a possible candidate, but while it would grab headlines, realistically the nominee of the National Democratic Party is going to win unless they run an Israeli. His only chance would be if the NDP chose him, and realistically they're likely to nominate a Mubarak, Husni if he decides to run, or Gamal if he doesn't. ‘Omar Suleiman as an outside chance if the Army doesn't want Gamal, but don't bet on it. Still, Baradei is one of the best known Egyptians internationally, and when he steps down from the IAEA he could have a future of some sort as a diplomat or politician.

What I Said, Only Better

Walter Pincus in The Washington Post today says what I was trying to say about McChrystal yesterday, but says it better.

Egypt's Two October 6 Anniversaries

October 6 is Egyptian Military Day, the day Egypt commemorates "the crossing" (al-‘ubur) — the surprise attack across the Suez Canal on October 6, 1973 that began the 1973 war and was seen by Egyptians and other Arabs as the redemption for the humiliating losses of 1967.

But it is also another anniversary, for it was at the Military Parade on October 6, 1981 that President Anwar Sadat was assassinated. So on the one hand, October 6 marks what most Egyptians consider a victory (though outsiders may disagree), and on the other, the assassination of a President, though attitudes towards Sadat have long been somewhat mixed in Egypt. So it's a double anniversary. (I also met my wife at an Egyptian Military Day reception in Washington, but that's a whole other story.)

It is true of course that in the 1973 war, Israel was able to recover from the initial blow and strike westward across the canal, creating the Deversoir Salient, cutting off one of Egypt's two Field Armies from Cairo. (There's an Egyptian saying: Bonjour, al-‘ubur; bonsoir, Deversoir). But the psychological impact of the surprise of October 6 remains one of the great moments for many Egyptians of a certain age; and in fact it brought Henry Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy into play, leading ultimately to the reopening of the Suez Canal and the first Israeli withdrawals. It also made Sadat's 1977 opening to Israel possible.

For a while in the 1980s the coincidence of the two anniversaries was a bit awkward, since Egyptian embassies abroad were throwing parties for Military Day on the anniversary of Sadat's then-still-recent assassination. But as fewer people remember what parade it was Sadat was attending when he was killed, the awkwardness has faded.

Lebanon Still in Limbo

This report sounds like Aoun has cut a deal. This report, however, plays the story a different way entirely. Lebanon appears to be waiting for King ‘Abdullah's visit to Syria. Odd when putting your electoral results into effect seems to depend on the visit of another country's absolute monarch to a third country's hereditary dictator, but hard to describe it any other way. Hariri is still waiting for the Prime Ministership. When were those elections again? Oh, yes, early June.

And yet, oddly enough, Lebanon ultimately has more democracy than most of its neighbors. It's just very. very. slow. democracy. with. asterisks.

Khalil Anani on Gamal Mubarak

A solid and straightforward analysis by Khali Anani on the likelihood of Gamal Mubarak's succession. Worth your time.

Rising Tensions May Close Haram/Mount Again

Jordan, which still has authority over the Waqf on the Haram al-Sharif/Har ha-Bayit (Noble Sanctuary/Temple Mount) in Jerusalem is reportedly urging that Jews and perhaps all non-Muslims again be barred from access to the platform on which the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock stand, after the violent confrontations of the past two Fridays. As I've already noted, this is the most explosive flashpoint of all, and it's not wise to let it fester. I'm still not clear on the exact course of events, but it does appear that some Jewish extremists have sought to enter the Al-Aqsa mosque, a provocative act — though it's normally open to visitors — and we may be moving back into a period when (as was the case during the secone intifada), non-Muslims will be unable to visit the holy places on the mount.

This is how the second intifada started. It is not a minor issue. It's the flashpoint at the heart of the dispute. This one needs caution in the extreme. Unfortunately, I'm not totally confident that Netanyahu will show the necessary wisdom and restraint, and given the Palestinian Authority's current credibility problem, this is worrisome.