February 6, 2013
"Dreaming in Washington, D.C."
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
We will find out in coming months whether the second term of the Obama administration will herald any significant changes in United States policies in the Middle East. Four main issues should be monitored for any signs of change: the Palestine-Israel and wider Arab-Israeli conflicts; tensions with Iran; the Arab uprisings, revolutions, and constitutional transformations; and socio-economic conditions across the region.
February 1, 2013
"The Gangland Policies of Certain ‘Exceptional’ Nations"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
For anyone who wonders why so many people around the world criticize American and Israeli foreign policy and militarism, this has been a valuable learning week. I refer to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be the next U.S. Secretary of Defense, and the twin Israeli attacks against military targets in Syria.
January 29, 2013
"Iraq and Egypt: Learning Democratic Republicanism"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
The events in Iraq and Egypt these days are particularly important to follow and understand as best we can, because of what they tell us about how some Arab citizens and leaders behave at stages of the process in which they have the opportunity to shape their own political governance systems.
January 25, 2013
"Consolidating Its Center or Its Criminality?"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
All that can be said with certainty now about the Israeli election results is that the deck of political cards in parliament has been dramatically reshuffled: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition with Avigdor Lieberman won 31 seats (much less than expected, and down from the 41 seats it held before) and remains the single biggest group, the extreme right Bayit Yehudi party of Naftali Bennett took 11 seats, and Yair Lapid’s new Yesh Atid party made the biggest splash with its 19 seats (more than the predicted 12 seats), making it the second biggest party in parliament.
January 23, 2013
Israel’s Election Will Have Sharp Consequences
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
For the past generation and a half, since the late 1970s, Israeli society has been moving steadily to the right in three main trajectories: greater reliance on military force as a primary foreign policy tool, more social and policy-making influence by religious Jews, and a growing super-nationalist commitment to a greater Israel concept that includes building new settlements and preventing the birth of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.
November 28, 2011
"Arab Exceptionalism: Ending in Different Ways"
Op-Ed
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
It has been eleven months since the Arab citizen revolts started in Tunisia last December and rolled through the Arab world in a wave that has manifested itself in different ways across the region. The two most striking things about the past eleven months are also slightly contradictory. On the one hand, in virtually every Arab country, street demonstrators -- or less kinetic political protests in the form of petitions to the rulers -- have persisted, with several common issues defining citizen demands in all countries: real constitutional reforms that define citizenship rights and the limits of government powers, and a focus on social justice in a new social contract between rulers and ruled. On the other hand, this contrasts with the very different regime responses and the trajectories of the political reform process across the Arab region.
November 16, 2011
"The Arab League Awakening"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
Here in Doha, Qatar, it does not seem to be the new political vanguard and locomotive of the Arab world as reported by the international press. These reports followed the prominent role of Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani in the Arab League’s decision last weekend to suspend Syria and pressure it to stop using military force against its civilian protesters. The idea that Qatar is making its move now to assert a leadership role in the Arab world strikes me as exaggerated.
November 14, 2011
"American Perplexity about Middle East Trends"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
After an extended stay in the United States that allowed me to speak with Middle East specialists and interested citizens in many cities, I sense a new theme that broadly defines American attitudes about developments in the Middle East: perplexity. Of course, there is neither a single view among the diversity that comprises the United States, nor is there a single focus to the Middle East, which includes among its main issues the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iran, oil, terrorism and the ongoing Arab uprisings and citizen revolts for dignity and democracy.
November 9, 2011
"Iraq Reminds Us Why Accountability Matters"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
Just as I was leaving the United States last week after two months of traveling around the country and encountering the best of the people and culture, I read a newspaper story that reminded me of the dark and ugly side of the country. It was a New York Times report from Baghdad quoting senior U.S. and Iraqi officials who expressed, “growing concern that Al-Qaeda’s offshoot here, which just a few years ago waged a debilitating insurgency that plunged the country into a civil war, is poised for a deadly resurgence…U.S. and Iraqi analysts said Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia was shifting its tactics and strategies -- like attacking Iraqi security forces in small squads -- to exploit gaps left by the departing U.S. troops and to try to reignite sectarian violence.”
November 7, 2011
"The Arab World’s Work Has Just Begun"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
I’ve had the moving and educational experience of spending a few days in Birmingham and Montgomery, Alabama, studying the narratives and lessons of the civil rights movement in the United States. Simultaneously, I have kept an eye on the Arab world that is trying to make its own transition from a condition of autocracy and mass citizen rights denials to one of greater equality and human dignity. I will write in my next column on the many parallels I see between the American civil rights struggle and the two relevant struggles throughout our region: the citizen revolts in several Arab countries and the continuing Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation, colonization and subjugation.
