The US and Syria: Diving in or Testing the Waters?

I'm going to be cautious in my response to the still somewhat vague commitment by the US to arm the Syrian rebels; the US commitment seems ambiguous at best. The evidence that the Syrian regime has used sarin is the ostensible reason for the change, but clearly the recent successes of the Syrian regime are also part of the calculation. But it's also clear the US is not diving in head first, but perhaps testing the water with a toe.

The Syrian regime's behavior is atrocious, but intervention without a clear understanding of what the US can actually do to change the outcome could be disastrous, especially as there seems to be no great reservoir of popular support for such a move. The Libyan model does not apply, since the factors of Iran, Hizbullah, and Russia were not in play in in Libya. The fact that the US Administration seems unenthusiastic but is responding to political pressure also may weaken any response.

I don't think the Libyan model applies. I worry that the Vietnam model does: a complicated geopolitical configuration that limits one's options and prevents an all-out commitment, combined with a lack of political support at home. Yet I know many people who know Syria far better than I do who are advocating doing more, and I also respect those views.

Graham Fuller on Turkey

 At The New York Times, Graham Fuller offers some balanced thoughts on the meaning of Taksim Square.

Last Call for Punditry on Iran: It's Election Day

Iranian election day is here, and despite all the non-free and non-fair aspects, it has turned into something of a three-way race. Not being all that much of an Iran expert I've been linking to others. Unless this goes o a runoff, these are among the last pundit analyses before the vote.

At Foreign Policy, Karim Sadjadpour notes, in his "Nate Silvering the Iranian Elections":

Mindful of the fact that the graveyard of Middle East analysis is littered with the bones of those who tried to predict Iranian presidential election outcomes, bear with me as I try to Nate Silverzadeh the Iranian electoral field. Rather than attempt to gauge the will of the people, what follows is an attempt to gauge the election from Khamenei's eyes.

And two different pieces by Trita Parsi, in The New Statesman,  "Can the Iranian Regime Survive Yet More Political Cannibalism?," on the prospects of another 2009, and at The Globe and Mail, "Iran's election is neither free nor fair, but its outcome matters," emphasizing the foreign policy implications.

The Nuts and Bolts of Iran's Vote Tomorrow

Iran's Presidential election is tomorrow. There's been a lot of analysis but many of us know little about the actual mechanics of the vote. Yasmin Alem at Al-Monitor helps us out by spelling out "What Will Happen on Election Day in Iran"
.

I'm Jealous: Jadaliyya is the Subject of a Conspiracy Theory and I'm Not

Congratulations to Jadaliyya and co-founder Bassam Haddad on making the conspiracy theory hall of fame: Quoting the Turkish newspaper Radikal about a pro-government paper in Turkey:

Under today’s headline of choice, “The Devil’s Triangle,” [pro-government] Yeni Şafak newspaper accused Jadaliyya, an internet-based news feed published in English and Arabic, of conspiring to alter the Gezi Park demonstrations into one that would topple the Turkish government by “transforming them [the demonstrations] into a Turkish Spring everything being under the sponsorship of George Soros and Georgetown University ..."

As a Georgetown product it makes me proud to know the Jesuit plot is still alive and well and still trying to overthrow Turkey. [ For the humorless among my readers, I'm joking.]  More:

"The dirty alliance, forged on the Beirut-Istanbul-Washington line, with foreign media, finance, and academic circles in participation, is becoming more de-classified and decoded every day. Jadaliyya, which has been fanatically feeding the world news about what was happening first and foremost in Istanbul, but also in other parts of Turkey, in the institutional media wing of the Arab Studies Institute of Georgetown University [sic]. The financier behind Jadaliyya, which claims to be a not-for-profit site, is, however, none other than the famous speculator and founder of the Open Society Institute, George Soros—the same name behind the ‘Orange Revolutions’ that started in Ukraine in 2004, and continued in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan. Published as a monthly [sic], and carrying a 1.5 million sales in numbers, the internet site of the journal is supported by a great number of Middle Eastern and Western academics and activists. Even in its very first news reports on the demonstrations, Jadaliyya not only dubbed them as ‘Turkish Revolution’ and ‘Turkish Spring,’ but also generously featured the ugliest adjectives describing Erdoğan, ones that even the demonstrators against him did not dare to mouth."

As Bassam explains in an interview with the newspaper Radikal, reproduced at Jadaliyya, the Arab Studies Institute, though founded at Georgetown years ago, has been independent since the 1990s, and the Open Society Institute is one of many organizations to have given support with no policy strings. As he tells Radikal, “It is almost comical what was written about Jadaliyya . . . [t]hey have really overestimated us!”

I'm pleased that Jadaliyya, always worth reading, has made the big time in conspiracy theory. "Devil's Triangle," no less. I'm definitely jealous. I'll bet Jadaliyya's web traffic is soaring.

But, :"forged on the Beirut-Istanbul-Washington line"?

The Denshawai "Incident" 107 Years Later: A Symbol of Colonial Arrogance Unforgotten in Egypt

The pigeons of Denshawai have come home to roost.
—Mohamed Hassanein Heikal on the Suez Crisis of 1956, 50 years after Denshawai.

One of the prisoners ascends the scaffold, June 1906

Denshawai (Dinshaway, Dinshwai, etc.: دنشواي) is hardly a household word among Westerners today. The "Denshawai Incident," as it is usually called (though George Bernard Shaw called it "The Denshawai Horror": see below) began 107 years ago today, on June 13, 1906 in a small Egyptian Delta village in Menufiyya Governorate. If it is forgotten elsewhere, it is hardly forgotten in Egypt. Yet in four years of blogging, though I've mentioned it in other contexts, I've never told the story in detail.

Certainly it was not forgotten by Anwar Sadat, who was raised close by:

But the ballad which affected me most deeply was probanly that of Zahran, the hero of Denshway. I recall my mother reciting it to me as I lay stretched out on top of our huge rustic oven, half-asleep while my younger brothers (and our rabbits) had all fallen asleep. It appealed to me afresh every time I listened to it. Denshway was only three miles away and the ballad dealt with a real incident . . . Zahran was the hero of the battle against the British and the first to be hanged.The ballad dwells on Zahran's courage and doggedness in the battle, how he walked with his head held high to the scaffold, feeling proud that he had stood up to the aggressors and killed one of them.

I listened to that ballad night after night, half-awake, half-asleep, which perhaps made the story sink into my subconscious. My imagination roamed free. I often saw Zahran and lived his heroism in dream and reverie — I wished I were Zahran. 
—Anwar el-Sadat, In Search of Identity: An Autobiography I (1977), pp.5-6

(Three miles? Google maps says it's 15 km from Sadat's home village of Mit Abu'l Kom by road to Denshawai, but as the crow flies it's closer I'm sure, maybe four or five miles?)  Nor was it forgotten by a very different type of Egyptian, Ayman al-Zawahiri:

On 16 November 2005 Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, expressed his satisfaction at the 7 July bombings in London. He announced that Britain was one of Islam’s worst enemies; it had been responsible for the deaths of thousands of Muslims across the ages, from Palestine to Afghanistan, Delhi to Denshawai. This reference to a small town in Egypt may have perplexed the western audience, but Denshawai meant more to millions of others. Gamal Abdel Nasser mentioned it on 26 July 1956 in his historic announcement of the nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company.
—Alain Gresh in Le Monde Diplomatique English Edition, October 2007, "Denshawai 1906"

Denshawai was one of many small cruelties of colonialism, but the arrogance of the British response gave a new impetus to Egyptian nationalism. One can trace a direct line from the scaffold at Denshawai to the 1919 revolution, to the nationalization of the Suez canal (see Heikal above) and much of the history of modern Egyptian nationalism.

Pigeon raising in the Delta in the era

Like many villagers in the Delta, the villagers of Denshawai raised pigeons in conical pigeon-cotes, primarily for food. A year before, in 1905, British officers had come to the village shooting pigeons, A local named Hasan Mahfuz had resisted them, and the British Army banned further hunting there. But 107 years ago today a party of five British officers, with an Egyptian policeman and interpreter,  returned to Denshawai. Given the fact that four Egyptians would soon be hanged, there is a particular irony in the name of the ranking officer in the group: Major John Edward Pine-Coffin. (Really.)

Major Pine-Coffin (1866-1919), a Boer War veteran from an old Devon family whose son would later serve in the Normandy invasion, had reportedly hunted at Denshawai before. When Mahfuz and other villagers again resisted, the British shooting party agreed to retreat a few hundred yards from the village. The exact distance they moved back is disputed. As they started shooting birds, a threshing floor in the village caught fire. The villagers, already infuriated by the pigeon shooters, attacked the soldiers with stones and sticks. Somehow in the confusion the wife of the prayer leader of the local mosque was shot. In the fight that ensued one British officer, a Captain Bull, was injured. He and another officer escaped, and Bull, running for help, collapsed and died of apparent heatstroke, combined perhaps with a concussion from the fight or a heart attack.

British troops arriving on the scene found a local peasant who had sought to help Bull, saw that Bull was dead, assumed the peasant had killed him, and beat the fellah to death.

Meanwhile the village elders had calmed things down, and the other officers escaped. The only dead British officer had died of mostly natural causes, but when the British Army arrived in force the next day, they arrested 52 villagers.

The British then proceeded to take a tragic case of poor communication and cultural myopia and turn it into a scandal that echoes more than a century later. Lord Cromer, the de facto if unofficial British viceroy of Egypt, saw it as a sign of fanatical hostility to be put down with force. The natives were restless and had to be shown due respect for their colonial masters.

Boutros Ghali

Under agreements signed between Britain and Egypt, the British set up a joint tribunal of two Egyptians and three British. The President was an Egyptian, a senior Cabinet figure, Boutros Ghali (grandfather of the UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali), but the man who mattered was the British Vice President, Sir Walter Bond. (The other Egyptian was Fathi Zaghloul, brother of Saad Zaghloul, but no one remembers this. Neither Bond, who really ran the show, nor the other British judges understood much Arabic, if any.) Four of the accused, Hasan Mahfuz, Zahran (see Sadat quote above), a man named Darwish accused in the death of Captain Bull, and another man were sentenced to hang. Four more were sentenced to life in prison and more to terms of various years along with flogging; others received only the flogging, 50 lashes.

Painting of the Tribunal, Denshawai Museum

The accused at the tribunal

The British decided that the hangings, and floggings, would take place at Denshawai, on June 27 (only two weeks after the "Incident," no appeal being permitted), with the villagers forced to witness them.

Lord Cromer was en route to London when the verdicts came down. He supposedly told Sir Edward Grey that he was shocked,  but both men agreed it would be a sign of weakness to overrule the verdicts.

Egyptian nationalism, which had been struggling, received a new invigoration. British Anti-imperialists like Wilfred Scawen Blunt were outraged, but the strongest and most endurng outburst came from George Bernard Shaw. In the "Preface to Politicians" that introduces his 1911 John Bull's Other Island (available free online at Google Books), following a lengthy defense of Irish Home Rule, he moves on to what he calls "The Denshawai Horror":

Denshawai is a little Egyptian village in the Nile delta. Besides the dilapidated huts among the reeds by the roadside, and the palm trees, there are towers of unbaked brick, as unaccountable to an English villager as a Kentish oast-house to an Egyptian These towers are pigeon houses; for the villagers keep pigeons just as an English farmer keeps poultry. Try to imagine the feelings of an English village if a party of Chinese officers suddenly appeared and began shooting the ducks, the geese, the hens and the turkeys, and carried them off, asserting that they were wild birds, as everybody in China knew, and that the pretended indignation of the farmers was a cloak for hatred of the Chinese, and perhaps for a plot to overthrow the religion of Confucius and establish the Church of England in its place! Well, that is the British equivalent of what happened at Denshawai ...

Shaw is at his acerbic best in describing the day of the public hangings and floggings:

Ages of the four hanged men respectively, 60, 50, 22 and 20. Hanging, however, is the least sensational form of public execution: it lacks those elements of blood and torture for which the military and bureaucratic imagination lusts. So, as they had room for only one man on the gallows, and had to leave him hanging half an hour to make sure work and give his family plenty of time to watch him swinging ("slowly turning round and round on himself," as the local papers described it), thus having two hours to kill as well as four men, they kept the entertainment going by flogging eight men with fifty lashes each: eleven more than the utmost permitted by the law of Moses in times which our Army of Occupation no doubt considers barbarous. But then Moses conceived his law as being what he called the law of God, and not simply an instrument for the gratification of his own cruelty and terror. It is unspeakably reassuring to learn from the British official reports laid before parliament that "due dignity was observed in carrying out the executions," that "all possible humanity was shown in carrying them out," and that " the arrangements were admirable, and reflect great credit on all concerned." As this last testimonial apparently does not refer to the victims, they are evidently officially considered not to have been concerned in the proceedings at all. Finally, Lord Cromer certifies that the Englishman in charge of the proceedings is "a singularly humane man, and is very popular amongst the natives of Egypt by reason of the great sympathy he has always shown for them." 

Troopers at the Gallows

The anger of Shaw, Blunt, and other anti-Imperialists (to the credit of British popular opinion if not their rulers) eventually brought about the release of those imprisoned. The dead remained dead.

The repercussions of Denshawai continue, as the quotes at the beginning show, to this day. That the Suez crisis came exactly 50 years after Denshawai was evoked by both Nasser and Heikal.

But there was a more immediate repercussion as well. Two years later, in 1908, Boutros Ghali became Prime Minister of Egypt. His role on the Denshawai tribunal was exacerbated by the fact that he was a Copt, and in a predominantly Muslim country many prominent Copts were accused of being instruments of the (Christian) British. The British did little to alter this perception, often favoring Copts and other minorities. On February 20, 1910, less than four years after his role on the Denshawai Tribunal, Prime Minister Ghali was shot while leaving the Foreign Ministry by Ibrahim Nassif al-Wardani, a nationalist. He was neither the first nor, arguably, the last, victim of Denshawai, but was surely the highest-ranking.

The dying Boutros Ghali, 1910

Turkish News on a Lighter Note

With everything that's been taking place in Turkey, it's time for something a little lighter, even  if it is from that paragon of respected journalism, The Daily Mail: "Schoolgirl, 9, passes through Turkish customs with toy passport identifying her as a UNICORN." 

Yes:

A nine-year-old schoolgirl has managed to enter Turkey using a passport that identified her as a pink unicorn.

Officials at Antalya airport even stamped Emily Harris's travel documents before waving her through customs despite the official photograph showing the face of her favourite stuffed toy.

Her mother and father today admitted they were left stunned after they handed their daughter the wrong passport when they landed to start a week's holiday in the country.

There's a photo at the link.  Actually, Prime Minister Erdoğan is probably wishing he had more unicorns about now.

Bouteflika Reappears in Photos, on TV

Bouteflika with PM Sellal (R) and CoS Gaid Salah (L) (APS)

Yesterday the Algerian Press Service released the first photos of President Bouteflika since his stroke, shown meeting with Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal and Deputy Minister for National Defense and the Chief of Staff of People’s National Army Ahmed Gaid at the Invalides Veterans' Hospital in Paris. The meeting lasted two hours, and Algerian television also showed video of Bouteflika talking and drinking coffee.

Official statements are also now using
the term "cerebrovascular accident," rather than "transient ischemic attack," suggesting the stroke was indeed more than the "mini-stroke" originally described. But the photos of the meeting are clearly intended to put to rest the rumors that Bouteflika is in a coma. It remains to be seen, however, whether the ailing 76-year-old President will run for a fourth term next year.

Today's Violence in Taksim: Preliminary Thoughts

In the 12 days or so since the Taksim Square/Gezi Park violence in Istanbul escalated, both sides have held back from truly violent confrontations since the police pulled back after the initial clash. Although Prime Minister Erdoğan had been taking an increasingly hard line in recent days, he had also insisted he was willing to meet with the original environmental demonstrator, and said they would be permitted to remain in Gezi Park.

If I understand the authorities' position correctly, they are saying those points still hold; today's action cleared the demonstrators, barricades, and banners from Taksim Square, but not from the adjacent Gezi Park, though the saturating clouds of teargas surely had an effect there as well.

The violence, though non-lethal (water cannons and teargas), certainly escalated the situation, and it is unclear tonight if  any genuine protesters will meet with Erdoğan tomorrow.

As I, and many other commentators, have said before, the major difference between Turkey and the Arab uprisisngs, between Taksim and Tahrir, is that Erdoğan is democratically elected and enjoys a comfortable electoral majority after 10 years in power. Unquestionably Turkish society is increasingly polarizing along class lines, urban/rural lines, and religious/secular lines, and that is dangerous. But Erdoğan might win another election if held right now; his constituency is a real one. But if he chooses religious dogmatism and class warfare over dialogue with his opponents, the situation could deteriorate into something that could look like — well, Taksim today.

As the former Mayor of Istanbul Erdoğan may still feel a proprietary right to micromanage his city, but the degree to which an urban planning dispute escalated into a deeply divisive symbolic battle suggests it is time for dialogue. But today's violence may have made that less likely, as may Erdoğan's apparent intention of distinguishing which demonstrators he will negotiate with.

CNN Today:
 

Iranian Moderates Uniting Behind Rowhani as the Vote Approaches

There were a couple of developments in Iran's Presidential election campaign today, as the vote on Friday approaches. Candidate Mohammad ‘Aref announced he was withdrawing, at the request of former President Khatami (whom he had served as a Vice President) from the field of eight. He and former nuclear negoitiatoir Hassan Rowhani had been considered the most moderate candidates; the attempt is apparently aimed at uniting the reformist vote behind Rowhani, who also received the endorsement today of former President ‘Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsajani, who had been barred from running. Rowhani has been waging a campaign aimed at winning the moderate vote, as The Guardian spells out:

"We will open all the locks which have been fastened upon people's lives during the past eight years," Rowhani said during a speech on 1 June in the north Tehran neighbourhood of Jamaran. "You, dear students and hero youth, are the ones who have come to restore the national economy and improve the people's living standards. We will bring back our country to the dignity of the past."

Rowhani, who may have already had a progressive bent due to his long-standing relationship with reformist ex-president Mohammad Khatami, has been engaging in such talk in televised interviews and debates all week. The serene-looking cleric has thereby generated at least a faint spark in a reformist camp that has been moribund for some time.

Tuesday night, in a 30-minute documentary more biography than manifesto, he verged on crossing Iran's media "red lines" as he criticised the harassment of Iranian civilians by "plainclothes people" – a clear reference to the Basij militia – and the country's "securitised atmosphere". He also poured scorn on Ahmadinejad's record, though that is by now a million miles from any red line.

Elsewhere in the documentary, Rowhani, who is campaigning on the slogan Government of Proficiency and Hope, talked of "interaction with the world" and gender equality. "In my government, differences between women and men won't be tolerated," he said.

In an interview on state TV on 27 May that received little attention in the west, Rowhani, Iran's lead nuclear negotiator during Khatami's 1997-2005 administration, blamed the nezaam (ruling system) of the Islamic Republic for the failure to engage in direct talks with the US. "[Non-negotiation] was the decision and, thus, the US was set aside," he said. When asked directly if it was the US that had in fact taken the first step towards negotiation, Rowhani simply replied, "Yes." This contradicts the prevailing orthodoxy not only in the west, but the official line in Iran as well.

The mere fact that one candidate is expressing such opinions is news in itself, though after the 2009 Presidential elections, the odds of his actually being certified winner seem remote.

Some other commentaries on the elections:

Barbara Slavin at Al-Monitor: "Iranian Activism Abroad Mirrors Low-Key Election Campaign,"

Farideh Farhi at LobeLog: "Should Iran's Election Really Be Discounted?" A response to Dennis Ross' somewhat deceptively titled piece in Foreign Affairs, "Don't Discount the Iranian Election."

Showdown in Taksim Square

Reuters

Turkish police have moved into Taksim Square with tear gas and water cannons, while Prime Minister Erdoğan is expressing a willingness to meet with environmental protesters but insisting that barricades come down and "other" protesters disperse. Following several days of tough talk, the government has finally moved in.

The clashes are still continuing. I'll post more thoughts on this once the situation clarifies a bit.

Morsi's Brinksmanship on Ethiopia: A Dangerous Game?

Egypt's President Morsi, in an address to a rally of Islamist groups yesterday, called for Egyptians to unite against an external threat, in this case the controversial Ethiopian dam.

Conventional wisdom seems to be that Morsi is using the dam project as an attempt to rally the opposition behind him prior to big anti-Morsi demonstrations scheduled for June 30 and marking one year in power. From Ahram Online:

The president also said that "all options" were on the table to respond to the current situation and insisted that Egypt would not accept infringements on its water security.

"We have said several times that Egyptians with their revolution carry a message of peace...We do not want war, but we do not accept threats to our security."

Morsi also asked opposing political forces to stand united at a time when Egypt faces hard challenges and to put aside all political rivalries. He went on to call for "national reconciliation," adding that he was certain that political figures would respond positively to his appeals.

"The country demands that we stand united," he said, issuing his call for reconciliation only weeks before planned mass demonstrations on 30 June to demand snap presidential elections.

Morsi did say Egypt is committed to dialogue with Ethiopia and praised dialogue over other approaches, but the implied threat was clearly there.

While the outreach to his domestic opponents may be welcome, the apparent escalation of an international dispute in order to rally unity at home can be risky, and is already drawing criticism. International grandstanding and brinksmanship in an escalating situation can spin out of control easily; that should be obvious in the week of the 46th anniversary of the 1967 war, when Egypt paid a huge price for just such brinksmanship. True, Ethiopia and Egypt share no common border, and threats may be seen as empty, but domestic posturing in international disputes can put diplomatic solutions at risk.

Nostalgia to Start the Week: the Old Cairo Canal

I usually put old pictures up as the weekend approaches, but as I've been tied up with other things today here's one for the start of the week for a change.

Port Said Street in Cairo today winds through central Cairo from southwest to northeast. Its older name was Khalig (Canal) Street, and it represents an ancient canal (Khalig Misr or al-Khalig al-Misri) that carried water through Cairo for centuries. Originally used in pharaonic times, it later connected with Trajan's canal,which ran from the Nile to the Red Sea. In Islamic times, as the Red Sea canal silted up, it provided water to Cairo; in time, it was opened only during the flood, and a dam at the Mouth of the Canal (Fom al-Khalig) was cut by the ruler of Egypt at flood time in August. By the mid-19th century it was increasingly disused and a number of lakes connecting with it became increasingly swampy; though Khedive Isma‘il presided over a new Sweetwater Canal to the new Suez Canal, it did not resuscitate the Cairo Canal. Finally in 1897-1898 the British filled in the Canal and built a broad boulevard, the first to run from south to north the middle  of Cairo. By 1900 what had once been a navigable waterway had a tramline. Long called Khalig Street, it is the present Port Said Street.

This photo shows the canal in 1884 (though I've also seen it attributed to 1887), a little over a decade before it was finally filled in.

More Later, But for Now, "The Might of the Pen(guin)"

I'm going to be tied up most of the day, but until I can get back to blogging, take a look at Lisel Hintz at Foreign Policy about "The Might of the Pen(guin) in Turkey's Protests." More later.

This is a Bit Scary, and I Don't Even Read Turkish

There has been much criticism of the caution or timidity of much of the Turkish media during the recent demonstrations, including the now-notorious broadcast of a documentary on penguins, leaving the field to social media and even a courageous game show host. But this captures the print media's yes-man approach graphically. I don't read Turkish and you don't need to either, since it's clear that, except for minor grammatical differences, every headline is almost identical. (Something to do with democracy demanding sacrifice, quoting Erdoğan.) (To be fair, not all the papers are here, and Hürriyet is notably absent.) Still, what are the odds?

A hat tip to Dan Brumberg for the link.

MERIP's New Issue Devoted to Middle Eastern Chrstians

MERIP's latest issue of Middle East Report is devoted to the status of Middle Eastern Christians. Some articles are accessible online; there are abstracts of others.

A June 7 Military History Footnote: Why Did the Generals Enter the Old City From the East?

In my post two days ago for the 46th anniversary of the outbreak of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, I used a photo that has become iconic from June 7, 1967 (left) showing senior Israeli Commanders entering the Old City of Jerusalem. (Left to right: Jerusalem area commander Gen. Uzi Narkiss, then-Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, and then-IDF Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin.) They are entering through the gate known as the Lion's Gate or St. Stephen's Gate. It is the only open gate on the eastern side of the Old City.

Those familiar with the Old City of Jerusalem but unfamiliar with the course of the 1967 war may wonder, if until June 1967 Jerusalem was divided between an Israeli-controlled new city to the west and the Jordanian-controlled east, why did the Israeli generals enter from the east?

The particular course of the Battle for Jerusalem explains the reason.

Armchair General

After a major early morning battle at Ammunition Hill to the north (map), Israeli paratroop units advanced from there and through two other axes across the 1949 ceasefire lines in the Sheikh Jarrah and Wadi al-Joz neighborhoods, modern Arab neighborhoods north of the Old City. After securing the Augusta Victoria Hospital hill north of the Mount of Olives, the Israeli paratroops found themselves to the east of the walls of the Old City.

Another iconic and often reproduced photo from June 7 shows the 55th IDF Paratroop (Reserve) Brigade on the Mount of Olives with the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount and Dome of the Rock in the background. The 55th's commander, then-Colonel Mordechai ("Motta") Gur, is the black-haired man without a helmet seen in profile in front of the Dome of the Rock.

Shortly after the photo was taken, Gur's troops entered the Old City through the Lion's Gate. When soon thereafter he broadcast the famous words "The Temple Mount is in Our Hands!" he became known throughout Israel; by the mid-1970s Gur would be the IDF Chief of Staff.

Alwaleed bin Talal Furious, Sues Because He Wasn't Higher Up Forbes' Richest List

Somebody (F. Scott Fitzgerald maybe?) said there's no such thing as being too rich, but apparently if you're really rich,  just how rich can be a matter of pride. Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who has a big media and Internet empire and a few small bed and breakfasts like the Georges V in Paris and the Savoy in London among his holdings, plus some stakes in little start-ups like Apple, NewsCorp, and Citigroup, is mad as hell at Forbes magazine and isn't going to take it anymore. In their annual list of the world's richest people, they said he was worth $20 billion. (More from Forbes on him here.) That kept him out of the coveted 10 Richest People list; in fact, he's a mere number 26.

The horror. After the report came out he announced he was cutting all ties to Forbes. Now he's gone a step further: he's suing Forbes in a British court for libel..

The prince, who, it should be noted, has made most of his billions from shrewd investments and entrepreneurship, not from oil or inheritance, (though being a Saudi prince no doubt opened doors), has been protesting that he's worth at least $30 billion and says Forbes  under-counted him by $9.6 billion. To be fair, he is not your stereotypical Saudi royal but a very shrewd businessman, a self-made man almost, who started with nothing but the title "Saudi Prince" and a few million dollars. And he is ticked off. Royally, one might say.

I am reminded of the remark by the late Senator Everett Dirksen, in the early 1960s I think, about the US Federal budget: "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money."

I will leave the legal issues to the British courts. I do want to say something to both sides. If Forbes ever chooses to list me among the world's richest people, I will not sue them for gross exaggeration, but try to parlay it into some advantage (free lunches?). And to Prince Alwaleed: I fully believe that you are as rich as you say and not the struggling $20 billion pauper that Forbes claimed. You may even be richer than that, and I would certainly put you in the top 10. I know you were an Internet pioneer; do you need any bloggers? Anyway, you've been wronged. Should you need to contact me about further blogposts about you, my email appears elsewhere on this page and my bank account number can be provided for wire transfer purposes if desired.

Two Graphic Comments on Turkey: No Comment Needed

And Ankara Birds:

Three Years Today Since the Death of Khaled Said

Khaled Said (Khalid Sa‘id, Khaled Saeed) was an ordinary 28 year-old resident of Alexandria, Egypt until his death, three years ago today, on June 6, 2010. Within days, he was transformed into a symbol, an everyman beaten to death by police. A few months later he became the face of a revolution. The Facebook Page "We are all Khaled Said." and its much more widely read Arabic equivalent, كلنا خالد سعيد were among the major organizational tools of the January 25 revolution.

As best I can determine, my first discussion of the incident was on June 14. Because this previously anonymous young man became an icon for millions who had never met him, and his mother has been a heroine for many of the revolutionaries, it's a useful balance to also recall Amro Ali's piece for Jadaliyya, "Saeeds of Revolution: De-Mythologizing Khaled Saeed."

During the revolution, there were even jokes:
Not to mention tributes: unofficial (?) "Street of the Martyr Khaled Said" plaque on his old street in Alexandria:

A Rerun: Rehabilitating Levi Eshkol's Reputation

Following my post yesterday on the 46th anniversary of the outbreak of the 1967 war, I think it might be useful to repeat this post from June 15, 2010, three years ago. It was called "Levi Eshkol in the Six-Day War," and having published on my June 5 post the all-too-familiar picture of Uzi Narkis, Moshe Dayan and Yitzhak Rabin entering the Old City of Jerusalem, it might be worth repeating my earlier reminder of the forgotten man in Israel's victory: the Prime Minister. The post was inspired in part by a Haaretz article cited below and in part by Tom Segev's book 1967: The War, and the Year that Transformed the Middle East, which helped rehabilitate Eshkol's reputation and included interviews with his widow.

Herewith the original post in full:

Levi Eshkol

Following up on my recent posts on the anniversary of the 1967 Six-Day War, here's a useful piece by an IDF vet in Ha'aretz on rehabilitating the reputation of Levi Eshkol in connection with the preparedness of the IDF for the war.

If you saw any presentations on the anniversary of the war, I'll wager you saw pictures of Moshe Dayan, with his rakish eyepatch, striding in combat gear through St. Stephen's Gate (Lion's Gate) into the Old City. Most likely you saw pictures of Yitzhak Rabin here and there too, but Levi Eshkol?

If you're old enough or have read the more detailed studies of the war from the Israeli side (Michael Oren for the political/military, Tom Segev for the social context), you'll certainly be aware that Eshkol was Prime Minister during the war. But he certainly doesn't play a major role in most people's mental imagery of the narrative of the war. Since by now my regular readers will be aware that I need to let the latent history professor loose on the blog now and then, this is one of those times.

The writer in Ha'aretz, Eliyahu Sacharov, wants to rectify that, and he's not alone. Many people thought Eshkol received poor treatment from his countrymen at the time, and since. Segev's book 1967 (2005 in Hebrew, 2007 in English) pays attention to Eshkol, and Segev credits long conversations with Miriam Eshkol, the Prime Minister's widow, among his sources.

Eshkol was Israel's third Prime Minister, but like Moshe Sharett before him, he rose to power in the shadow of David Ben-Gurion, and that was a very large shadow indeed. When Ben-Gurion split with Mapai (the core of Labor) and formed Rafi in 1965, Eshkol led the new Labor Alignment to victory over Rafi in 1965 elections. Eshkol became Prime Minister; Ben-Gurion his critic from the wings.

As was frequently the case at the time, Eshkol held the Defense portfolio as well as that of Prime Minister. Over several years he presided over the development and professionalization of the IDF, helping to create the instrument that would win the Six-Day War.

As tensions with the Arab world built up in early 1967, Eshkol worked hard to secure Israel's position internationally within the context of the post-Suez settlement, also building a relationship with US President Lyndon Johnson. Although Ben-Gurion criticized Eshkol for weakness and indecisiveness, today his efforts are seen as having strengthened Israel's hand internationally.

Under pressure to create a Government of National Unity, with Rafi and many others calling for the naming of Moshe Dayan as Defense Minister, Eshkol fought to keep the portfolio. (Dayan, a Rafi ally of Ben-Gurion, had won fame as Chief of Operations in the 1956 Sinai Campaign.) When King Hussein of Jordan flew to Cairo to sign an alliance with Nasser and put Jordanian troops under an Egyptian general, Eshkol ran out of political capital. Eshkol was confronted with a loss of support within his own Cabinet, within the Army, and in public opinion. On the afternoon of June 1, he named Moshe Dayan Defense Minister.

Note: On the afternoon of June 1. Four and a half days later, at a little after 7:00 am on June 5, Israeli aircraft took off for their first wave of strikes against Arab air forces. (Assuming Arab air forces would patrol at dawn expecting an attack, then land to refuel and breakfast, Israel sought to strike in that window.)

Major military operations are not planned in four and a half days; pilots are not trained in four and a half days. Yet in the wake of the victory, Dayan won the accolades and his eleventh-hour appointment was seen as the salvation of the state, though he had been a politician in opposition during the planning stages of the war.

Eshkol had no choice but to name Dayan, and certainly Dayan performed ably, though Chief of Staff Rabin and the IDF Command had their war plan mostly in place already. Dayan took the honors, and Eshkol's role was largely neglected.

Eshkol remained in office, dying of a heart attack in February 1969, less than two years after the war, and thus never wrote a memoir to defend his position, as everyone else did. Eshkol was not forgotten — a national park and the suburb of Ramat Eshkol, the first built over the Green Line, are named for him; he has appeared on both paper notes and coins. But until fairly recently, only his partisans have sought to give him due credit for the war. That does seem to be changing.

Chris Eccel's Sembase Project

Dr. Arthur Chris Eccel's Sembase Project is a highly ambitious database effort undertaken over some decades now by one of my oldest friends. I haven't mentioned it before because it's unfinished and the material available online is still limited, but the Ancient World Online  website linked to it a few weeks ago, so even if it isn't quite ready for prime time, I thought I would link too. This is about an old friend, so I'm hardly an unbiased observer here.

Chris' Ph.D. is in sociology, and he's a former Professor at AUB, but his education is much more eclectic than that. He has quite a command of ancient and modern Middle Eastern languages. He gives his c.v. here; you'll note that he completed doctoral coursework for a doctorate in Near Eastern Languages at Harvard, specializing in Arabic and Hebrew ("Taught myself Geez and Aramaic during this period," he notes), before going on to a doctorate in sociology at Chicago. (The year in law school at UCLA doesn't count, but the undergraduate majors in Greek and Arabic and minors in Latin and Hebrew and at least two MAs probably do.) Back in the days before the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary was available online, and before it was complete, you could find a set on his shelves. And it would be dog-eared.

After his time at AUB Chris (fluent in several varieties of Arabic) served as Public Affairs Officer at several US embassies in the Arab world (Iraq, Saudi Arabia [Jidda consulate], Bahrain, Yemen, and Algeria among them). His last posting was Damascus.

To say that Chris is an interesting conversationalist is an understatement. People meeting him for the first time tend to either consider him utterly mad or a total genius. Like some madmen and all geniuses, he's a bit of both.

Now retired and living in Hawaii, he continues to pursue a hugely ambitious project he's dabbled with for decades: a database of all the roots for all the Semitic languages, for comparative purposes.

Chris explains the origins of his project:

In Cairo in the seventies and eighties, students, professors and researchers met in each other's apartments without notice, scouted out Egyptian bars prized for the fact that no tourists would ever be found there (including an interesting bouza dive), and broke the crust together at various restaurants, often the old Cafe Riche (the Filfila being then only a few tables in an alleyway). Sipping Stella beer, our conversation ranged from politics to our research, to the gossip of the academic expat community. It was then that I began calling to my friends' attention various Arabic roots that seemed related. The Stella encouraged some creativity in drawing these "relationships." At some point a friend asked if I was recording my observations. I was not. Another objected that with no controls, one can make anything into anything. This stimulus, and a bit more Stella, prompted the ultimate fantasy: what if there were a tool that would quickly search all essential lexical sources of all Semitic languages and display all information that might be relevant to evaluating a proposed relationship?

[Full disclosure: I was usually one of those friends at the table, including the "interesting bouza dive," which was behind the fire station in Midan ‘Ataba.] Also, that may not be everyone's definition of an "ultimate fantasy." He continues:

On a trip to Kharga Oasis, I took with me pages of typing paper cut into fourths and began recording "xliterals" (triliterals, biliterals, etc.) by assigning them to semantic categories. It occurred to me that although not all roots in a category would be related (far from it), the roots that are related should fall within the same semantic category. By recording only roots, and using sufficiently broad categories, I hoped to arrive at groups that would be amenable to human inspection, to facilitate the identification of root pairs or groups that might be related. Eventually, I went through several Arabic dictionaries, and arrived at about 34,000 records. Then I began doing the same for Hebrew. 

 So where is he now? As he notes:

Although the basic structure of the database is in place, it will need some editing. Since its inception, the 340 major semantic categories have been reduced to only around 135, and the subcategories are approaching 2,000. Even the fields for sorting are not final; I will modify the sort orders (alphabetical and phonological) when I have more languages in the table, to profit from what I have learned. At present, it has all of Biblical Hebrew and Geez. It has an aleph-through-ya' data set from several principal Arabic dictionaries, but Arabic will be comprehensively revisited when all other target languages are done. At that time, a protocol will be followed to glean from currently spoken dialects, with an emphasis on those in areas where a Semitic language was spoken at the time of the rise of Islam (the Arab conquests). The modern Semitic languages of Ethiopia will be done only as found useful. Note that the entries summarized below do not just represent the number of roots and words. Any given root or word can be entered into more than one semantic category, depending on its semantic extension.

For the detailed current status, see here. I'm pretty well-informed on languages (or so I tell myself), and while I was familiar with Harari and Mehri (well, I've at least heard of them), I had to look up Gurage. It's an Ethiopian language.

It is, to say the least, an ambitious project. I wish we could tap into his database online, but hopefully that day will come.

Turkish Game Show Host Turns Show into Protest

There have been many complaints and not a few jokes about the Turkish mainstream media's relative silence about the demonstrations (CNN Türk famously ran a documentary about penguins at the height of the protests). Well, a Turkish game show host found a way around the silence. crafting questions whose answers were references to the protests. See Robert Mackey's post, "Civil Disobedience on a Turkish game show", and then read Zeynep Tufekci's detailed blogpost listing all the answers. It wasn't subtle:

31-The thing that is referred to in Article 28th of the Turkish Constitution as “Free and Cannot be Censored”: PRESS
32-The communication medium defined by Nezihe Meriç as “A dragon with a thousand heads”: MEDIA
33-An action that means the same thing as approval: SILENCE
34-Limiting the freedom of press, communication, film or books by government: CENSORSHIP
35-The person who is supposed to learn about an event and write about in various outlets: JOURNALIST
36-The microblog and social network site that has been described as a “curse”: TWITTER
37-The person Mustafa Kemal Ataturk said should “write his/her thoughts freely”: JOURNALIST
38-Person who tries to kiss up to power: BROWN NOSER
39-The state of being able to resist power or injustice but being quiet: COWARDICE
40-The branch that is held on to by people after being abandoned by mainstream media: SOCIAL MEDIA

No, not subtle at all:

64-The person who is trying to actualize his/her ideas, thoughts: ÇAPULCU (LOOTER which is what the Prime Minister called the protesters)
65-A town in Hatay that is famous for its baths: REYHANLI (where a bombing was followed by press censorship)
66-A person that concentrates all political power: DICTATOR
67-A person who serves for money: SERVANT
68-A ruling system in which executive power can act independent of judiciary: PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEM (internal Turkish political transition discussion)
69-To voluntarily give up a position: RESIGN
70-The act that makes a person bigger by asking to be forgiven for wrong actions: APOLOGIZE

June the Fifth, 1967, Plus 46 Years

Uzi Narkis, Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin enter Jerusalem's Old City through Lion's Gate/Saint Stephen's Gate, June 7, 1967

It is another June 5, 46 years since June 5, 1967, when the Middle East as we know it today began to emerge.

I've blogged annually on June 5 since 2009 and on many other occasions have addressed the 1967 war. Rather than repeat myself, I'll link. Of course you'll find a lot under my 1967 War tag, and under my Nasser tagged posts as well, and then there was my post on the death of Zakaria Mohieddin.

Specific earlier posts in earlier Junes may be of interest:

June 5, 2009: June 5, 42 Years On: Some of the 'What Ifs?'" 

June 5, 2010: June 5, After 43 Years

June 9, 2010: The USS Liberty Incident: Still Starting Fights After All These Years

June 10, 2010: And on the Sixth Day ... 

June 15, 2010: Levi Eshkol in the Six-Day War 

June 6, 2011: June 5, 44 Years and a Day Later

June 5, 2012: The Fifth of June: the "Naksa" Plus 45 Years

The Egyptian NGO Draft Law and Court Verdict

The combination of Egyptian President Morsi's recent submission of a new draft law on Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), combined with yesterday's court verdict convicting 43 NGO employees, including 16 Americans (only one of whom is currently in Egypt and likely to serve a term) for illegal activities with NGOs, has drawn world attention to the increasing pressures being brought against NGOs both foreign and domestic in Egypt.

This is not a new issue, but the proposed NGO draft law suggests that the draconian crackdown that led to the convictions yesterday could in fact become routine. Human rights organizations have weighed in against the decision (Human Rights Watch here; Amnesty International here), as has US Secretary of State John Kerry. Also see, at MEI's Arab Transitions Project, Sarah Carr here, Tamara Coffman Wittes of Brookings at Foreign Policy's Middle East channel here; and Zeinobia's blog here.

Note too, for readers in the DC area, that MEI will be hosting Sarah Margon of Human Rights Watch and Nancy Okail of Freedom House for a panel on the Draft NGO Law on Friday at MEI. Registration is via the link. 

But the court itself is defending its actions, and the government as a whole is taking a traditional "blame foreign meddling" approach.

Of course both the NGO decision and the proposed draft law are outrageous, given the long history of NGOs that have worked hard in providing Egypt with expertise and aid. Suppressing them merely stifles free expression and strangles civil society.

Under Husni Mubarak, foreign NGOs were usually exempt from pressure for the most part, though not from criticism, but Egyptian NGOs were harassed. (You could ask Saad Eddin Ibrahim.) After the revolution, foreign NGOs continued as usual though technically, in the absence of new laws, they were in violation. They became targets for the xenophobic and anti-Western elements in Egyptian society, and also for those of a conspiratorial bent for whom foreign agents are everywhere, plotting against Egypt. There has always been a xenophobic strain in Egyptian nationalism, sometimes fully justified by the imperious and imperial behavior of foreign powers in Egyptian history. We're only about 10 days away from the anniversary of the 1906 Denshawai Incident, a turning point in crystallizing opposition to the British occupation. (More on that soon.) This ultranationalist strain is easily manipulated and has a long history in the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, but has been fed by previous leaders as well, particularly by Nasser in the 1950s and Mubarak in his later decades. The more human rights groups and NGOs criticize the policy, the more at least some Egyptians grow even more defensive. This fact does not, however, justify the Draft NGO Law or the convictions.

For the Annals of "Oops! Was This Microphone Live?": Egyptian Threats to Ethiopia Go Out Live on TV

Is this thing working?

I haven't posted yet about the growing dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia (and Sudan as well) over Ethiopia's plan for a big new Blue Nile dam. Egyptian President Morsi was fairly accepting initially but orher Egyptians are unhappy and fear the Ethiopian project threatens Egypt's water supply. So President Morsi called a meeting of Egyptian political and religious leaders to talk about it.

And talk they did:

The meeting, which was broadcast live on Egyptian television, was full of what some Cairo-based African diplomats described as a condescending Egyptian reflection on Africa. Some suggestions heard from participants included sabotaging the dam, interfering in internal political disputes in Ethiopia, or bribing local tribes, with the aim of prohibiting any potential reduction in Egypt’s annual share of the Nile waters.

You did notice the "which was broadcast live on Egyptian television" part, right?  Well, apparently some of the participants are now saying  they weren't told that their helpful, diplomatic suggestions about sabotage and subversion of Ethiopia were being broadcast. And apparently, that was indeed the case:

While Morsi did not respond to any of the controversial statements made at the meeting, his aide for political affairs, Pakinam El-Sharqawy, has since apologised for failing to inform attendees that the 'national dialog' meeting was being broadcast live.

"It was initially planned that the national meeting would be recorded and aired the following day as is usually the case, but due to the importance of the topic it was decided at the last minute to air the meeting live," she said via Facebook late on Monday. "I forgot to inform attendees of the changes."

Oops. Welcome to democracy, folks, where live microphones have been known to cause trouble. I don't think they've ever started a war yet, but this is in the running.

They Used to Call it "French North Africa" because its Rulers were in France. Of Course Today ... Oh, Wait

NOTE: A version of this article was posted this morning but was subsequently inadvertently deleted. I have reconstituted it as best I could.

As this article (in French) notes, three North African leaders (the Presidents of Algeria and Mauritania and the King of Morocco) have been in France for several weeks.

Algerian President Bouteflika, as we knew, has been in Paris since late April, when he suffered a "minor stroke," from which he is rumored to be in a coma officially said to be "improving day to day" despite no photos having been made public.

Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz has been in Paris as well on a "private visit" since attending a meeting in Brussels on May 15. There is speculation about his health as well; you may recall that last October he was wounded when his own Army shot up the Presidential motorcade in a "tragic accident" which was discovered after the President had "accidentally" been shot five times. He received lengthy treatment in France for that as well.

And King Muhammad VI of Morocco is also on a private visit to Paris since May 10. While there have  been recent rumors about the King's health as well (though he's not yet 50), he may be avoiding the political issues at home produced by the Istiqlal Party's intention to withdraw from the ruling coalition.

Of course, they may all just love Paris in the springtime. But who's watching the store at home?

Thoughts on the Turkish Protests and Erdoğan

For those of us who follow Turkey occasionally but not always daily, the Gezi Park demonstrations in Istanbul were barely on the radar until Friday, when the ferocity of the government's crackdown led to protests throughout the country. We've now seen some of the worst violence in some years, and a polarization more reminiscent of Turkey 25 or 30 years ago than in more recent decades.

It's tempting to see the protests as one more manifestation of "Arab spring," this time in a non-Arab context. Social media is being used to organize and report the troubles. and the official media has tended to downplay events; my link this morning dealt with that aspect of events, and also indulged in the temptation to link "Taksim" with "Tahrir."

But there are many differences as well as some obvious parallels. In Tunisia and Egypt (and Libya and Syria), unelected autocratic governments ruled; a wide range of social and economic classes opposed them. The AKP government in Turkey was elected, and enjoys a comfortable majority, as Erdoğan keeps insisting. Erdoğan supported the Arab uprisings, and sees no similarities to what is going on in Turkey. Turkey is much more polarized, more evenly divided, than the Arab cases were, except perhaps Syria.

But just because the AKP was elected does not mean it has not been behaving autocratically. Rather like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (and quite unlike al-Nahda so far in Tunisia), it seems to feel that its electoral margin made it unquestionable. High-handed (and heavy-handed) behavior is being met with resistance. Steven A. Cook and Michael Koplow's piece, "How Democratic is Turkey?" is a reminder that the AKP's formula for "Islamic democracy," much feted in the West (as in Erdoğan's recent, rather triumphant visit to Washington), is still being tested. Lately it has been pushing for rapid change: constitutional revisions, greater restrictions on alcohol, rapid development in a neoliberal economic system. It has more and more directly challenged the secular tradition of Kemalism, and with that, the urban middle classes and elites.

It has blundered on occasion. The third bridge across the Bosphorus, (another of the major development projects, along with a third airport some say isn't needed), dedicated on the 650th anniversary of the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, was named the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, after the Ottoman ruler known in the West as Selim I "the Grim" (Ottoman Sultan 1512-1520). Much of his reign was spent fighting the rising power of Safavid Iran, and in fighting the Shi‘ite movements known to the Ottomans as the Qizilbash ("red heads" after their distinctive headgear; Kızılbaş in modern Turkish); he ordered widespread killings of the Qizilbash after the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514. As a result, Turkey's Alevi Shi‘ite minority, who identify historically with some of the Qizilbash, have protested the naming of the bridge, and Alevis, along with Kurds and other minorities, have joined in the protests.

Yavuz Sultan Selim

Of course to Sunni Islamists the Alevis are seen as heretics or worse, and thus (like some of the other "neo-Ottoman" gestures, the move sharpens sectarian divisions. The head of the consortium building the bridge, apparently trying to avoid the fuss, has said they intend to continue to just refer to it as the "third bridge."

Taksim and Gezi Park (at center) (Google Maps)

The point is not that people are quarreling over something that happened in 1514, or about a park in Taksim for that matter, but that they are struggling over far more profound issues of Turkey's historical identity.

Location in Istanbul

Another issue that is still offstage but that anyone familiar with modern Turkish history cannot ignore is where the Army is in all this. Once seen as the guarantor of Turkish secularism, the Army often has moved against Islamist governments. Conventional wisdom is that Erdoğan has tamed the Army, dismissing key generals and arresting others for an alleged coup plot. But over the weekend there were reports of individual; units refusing to allow police to enter Army zones, individual soldiers confronting policemen or supporting the protestors, or even providing gas masks to the demonstrators to defend against police teargas. This is still anecdotal but may bear watching.

Certainly many of Erdoğan's former admirers in the West may be rethinking their opinion, as the AKP seems to take a more and more authoritarian approach to its critics.

Rami Hamdallah: The New Palestinian PM

Rami Hamdallah is the new Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, replacing Salam Fayyad. Hamdallah has been serving as President of An Najah University in Nablus, and is a professor of applied linguistics. The PA is struggling with an economic crisis and his appointment has been criticized by Hamas, which claims it violates the agreement on trying to find a reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas. Haaretz called him "a good man on a suicide mission" today.

Choosing a respected academic not overly identified with the politics of Fatah is probably wise; whether he will face the same obstacles Fayyad encountered remains to be seen, and Fayyad at least had the advantage of being a favorite of the West and of Israel (which, in the end, turned out to be a disadvantage as well).

Social Media's Role from Tahrir to Taksim

Certainly the most dramatic developments in the region over the weekend involved the deepening and spreading protests in Turkey. I will have some extended comments of my own some time later today, but until that's ready I wanted to refer you to a thoughtful piece elsewhere.

Prime Minister Erdoğan, who during the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions praised the role of social media in resisting unpopular governments, has made clear that he thinks his electoral majority should exempt him from social media attacks; over the weekend he attacked Twitter.

At Zeynep Tufekci's Technosociology blog, devoted to social media among other issues, the Turkish-American Tufekci discusses at some length this question: "Is there a Social-Media Fueled Protest Style? An Analysis From #jan25 to #geziparki": that is, in Twitter hashtag terms, from Cairo's Tahrir to Istanbul's Taksim. The situations are not identical (Turkey is more evenly divided and the issues are quite different); but her analysis of the role of social media is worth your time. More on this from me later today.

"Istanbul Gas Festival"