September 26, 2011
The Third Intifada Targets Israel-America
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
BOSTON -- It remains to be seen what actually changes on the ground in the months ahead following the Palestinian initiative to ask the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state in the 1967 Israeli-occupied territories as a UN member or observer state. The move could be a substantive gain for the Palestinian people, a symbolic victory only, or a measurable setback if the United States and Israel translate their vindictive rhetoric into hard policies. While we wait for the impact of the UN move to become clearer, we should acknowledge nevertheless that this has been a historic week in several ways.
September 21, 2011
Palestinian Challenge Perplexes Americans and Israelis
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In the past week in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington my discussions on Mideast issues with a wide range of knowledgeable people confirm the view I have held for some time now: Official and other American attitudes to the Middle East, especially on the Arab-Israeli conflict, are characterized by deep perplexity, contradiction and disarray. No wonder the region is in the midst of a historic transition that has radically shifted the center of gravity of political action and diplomatic control away from American-Israeli dominance, towards a greater role for Arab public opinion.
September 19, 2011
The Strengths and Weaknesses of American Democracy
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
PHILADELPHIA -- I had one particularly enlightening and depressing day last week as a student of American democracy and Arab-Israeli diplomacy, and know better now why most Arabs have totally given up on expecting anything positive or fair to emerge from the United States vis-à-vis our region. Democracy is a great and noble venture and a most utilitarian governance system, but it also has a dark and ugly side that is very visible here in the U.S. these days.
September 14, 2011
An American Commemoration
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
GROUND ZERO, NEW YORK CITY -- I am writing this after having spent time at Ground Zero in New York City on September 11, an experience at once moving, enlightening and troubling. It captured for me the many complex and puzzling dimensions of what the 9/11 terror attacks and their aftermath really mean to the American people. It sharpened what I had previously concluded about the meaning of 9/11 in American life: This is an epic tale of intense passion wrapped in perplexity, a drama of powerful moral and human fortitude that remains undiminished alongside the spectacle of political confusion, and an affirmation of intense self-confidence and strength at home in tandem with equally strong doses of ignorance about the rest of the world and how to relate to it.
September 12, 2011
The Arab Awakening
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
When Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in rural Tunisia on December 17, 2010, he set in motion a dynamic that goes far beyond the overthrow of individual dictators. We are witnessing nothing less than the awakening, throughout the Arab world, of several phenomena that are critical for stable statehood: the citizen, the citizenry, legitimacy of authority, a commitment to social justice, genuine politics, national self-determination and, ultimately, true sovereignty. It took hundreds of years for the United States and Western Europe to develop governance and civil society systems that affirmed those principles, even if incompletely or erratically, so we should be realistic in our expectations of how long it will take Arab societies to do so.
[This article appeared in the September 12, 2011 edition of The Nation.]
September 10, 2011
The Double Tragedy
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
BOSTON -- The United States has been remembering and commemorating the tenth anniversary of the trauma and native heroism that marked the events of Sept. 11, 2001 for most Americans. The remembrances have been emotionally powerful, but they are also politically incomplete. Americans rightly emphasize the grave wound and incomprehensible crime that were inflicted on them, and also celebrate American resilience in the face of both. But the tragedy and suffering of the initial criminality have simply been perpetuated by the inability, or unwillingness, of American society to adequately explore why this happened to them -- because Americans for the most part still fail to address the wider context of the world in which dwell both the criminal attacker and the innocent victims.
September 7, 2011
A Bleak Decade Since the 9/11 Attacks
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
BOSTON -- To arrive in the United States, as I did a few days ago, one week before the tenth anniversary commemoration of the 9/11 terror attacks against the United States, is to reach a land that is remarkably little changed from what it was on that shocking September day in 2001 when Al-Qaeda zealots attacked and killed thousands of civilians. This classic act of terror had two dimensions, in two different spheres, all of which remain with us today as we try to understand the meaning of the act then and its consequences today. In the first sphere of the human mind and its perceptions and reactions, the 9/11 attacks were about psychological terror and political assertion. In the second sphere of the dichotomy of people and values, the attacks were about us and them, good and evil, strength and vulnerability, Islam and the world, and America and the world.
September 5, 2011
Why Does the UN Palestine Vote Frighten the United States and Israel?
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
BEIRUT -- Two major Middle East-related events will take place this month with their epicenter in New York City: the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States, and the expected Palestinian bid for the United Nations General Assembly to recognize a Palestinian state in the lands that Israel occupied in 1967. These events will generate intense debate and high emotions -- most of which will be highly exaggerated. I will comment on the 9/11 commemorations in my column from the United States next week, and here will discuss the Palestinian bid for UN recognition of statehood -- or rather, the hysterical American and Israeli reactions to the bid.
August 31, 2011
Assad: Strong but Encircled and Vulnerable
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
BEIRUT -- The signs are not good for the Syrian government and regime headed by President Bashar Assad and his tight knit network of family members, security agencies, Baath Party members and business associates that dominate the country. In the past week, a steady stream of incidents and signals all add up to strengthen the trend that has pertained for several months now: The regime is increasingly isolated at home and abroad, but remains bunkered down and ready to fight to the end. The exact nature of that end scenario is not clear, but seems imminent now, especially in view of just the past week’s events.
August 29, 2011
Dignity, Legitimacy and Efficacy
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
BEIRUT -- Libya these days reminds us that all Arab countries in political transition must answer how they will deal with the men and women who held senior posts in the former regimes that they overthrew. The issue has both practical and political implications. Countries like Tunisia, Egypt and Libya that are working hard to move from their former conditions of political autocracy and socio-economic stagnation and mediocrity to a new era of stability, democracy, growth and social justice need governments that are both efficient at delivering the citizens’ basic needs, while also responding to the powerful demand that those who govern be men and women of integrity, credibility and, above all else, legitimacy. How to strike the critical balance between legitimacy and efficacy is a question that will challenge Arab societies for months to come.
