Inside the Middle East; Entering a new era.

Finished the book, “Inside the Middle East”. While the book is about more than just Iran, it was the author’s main focus. The author really sees Iran, as an expansionist threat. He discusses at length the Iran corridor; Iran to Iraq to Syria to Lebanon, which allows Iran to threaten the Eastern Mediterranean. Also, the Shite crescent: Iran to Yemen, which allows Iran to threaten both the Strait of Hormuz and the Bad el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. I think there are a couple of things we can know. One is that sanctions aren’t going to ever so cripple the Iranian regime that they come begging for relief. The second, sanctions aren’t going to cause the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow the regime. Least not any more than would want too otherwise. One of the favorite arguments of neo-cons is to make an analogy to the rise of fascism, particularly Nazi Germany. That we could have stopped Hitler early on. But not every two-bit dictator we don’t like is an Adolf Hitler and not every country that opposes us is another Nazi Germany. Germany was a major world power. An economic and manufacturing power. World War One showed their strength. While the author doesn’t make the analogy, a sufficient number of neo-cons do. And to a certain extent Iran’s expansionist policies are reason for caution. But the Iranian corridor didn’t come about because Iranian troops invaded Iraq and toppled the government of Saddam Hussein. The US did that, and in their monumental incompetence of the neo-cons it didn’t occur to them that Iran might fill the vacuum. Ditto Iranian influence and expansion into Syria. This didn’t happen because Iranian troops marched like a Nazi Germany over running western European countries. Syria’s civil war created Iran’s opportunity, together with the rise of ISIS. Lebanon came unglued with their civil war starting in the early 70’s. Iranian troops weren’t involved. In Yemen, Iran has shown itself incapable of driving a victory. Iran is not Nazi Germany. Even before the Iranian revolution, at the height of its economic power the Shah couldn’t create even the semblance of a modern state. Towards the end of the book the author makes a comment: “at a minimum, the West must require Hezbollah to eliminate its missile stockpile.” How exactly, would the West do that? Israel tried with disastrous results in 2006. All that happened was it became obvious that Israel couldn’t eliminate Hezbollah’s missile stockpile. Wars just don’t work out the way the neo-cons sell them. But I am extremely conflicted in my opinions on this. I went back and reread some of the articles that came out shortly after the Iran Nuclear deal was concluded to remind myself of the thinking at the time. One article, in the New Yorker by Steve Coll reported Obama didn’t like the deal, but saw the only alternative as war. And indeed, there was a time, if memory serves 2012, when it did look like an attack and possibly war with Iran was eminent. When Trump exited the nuclear deal, I’m sure he was under the influence of Bolton and Pompeo who told him that a childishly sounding sanctions regime of “maximum pressure” would cause Iran to crumble. Iran didn’t crumble and, in the ensuing, escalating military attacks I think Trump saw his advisors were leading him into a Middle Eastern war. Which was something he always consistently said were disasters. Trump, in what was probably the only good thing he did, deescalated the military actions. Absent a new nuclear deal which will provide Iran sanctions relief and probably prevent the regime from failing, what do we think the future would hold? Speaking for myself, another failed or failing state in the Middle East is not necessarily preferable to an underdeveloped state that hates the US. Iran keeps saying it doesn’t want nuclear weapons, but keeps moving closer, I assume in hopes of a deal that will end the sanctions. But Iran can’t continue to get closer to a nuclear weapon, before they actually have a nuclear weapon. I can be wrong, maybe war with an expansionist Iran is inevitable. Perhaps sooner or later the war has to take place to stop Iranian expansion. But let’s this time be honest. What is it realistically going to take to achieve what goals? Obviously, so many US soldiers were killed in the cakewalk that was supposed to be Iraq, that we aren’t about to repeat that mistake and put boots on the ground in Iran. No, this war, will only involve raining death and destruction on Iran from the sky. How many Iranians will have to die? One hundred thousand? Half a million might be a conservative estimate. And what will that achieve? I think we can all know we aren’t going to get a democratic Iran that will be a beacon of peace in the Middle East. What if we require “unconditional surrender”, as in WWII, which is the righteous war hawks always want to emulate? Unfortunately, again without an occupying force we can’t control anything. Like I said, I’m very conflicted, except for this, war is very unlikely to offer a good solution. Or even perhaps the least bad. Just a final note. Not all of the book focuses on an expansionist Iran. A good deal of it also focuses on an expansionist Turkey.

The failure of Oslo

I am one of those people who held out great hope that Oslo would bring peace to the Middle East. Its failure is difficult to accept. Not just by me, but by many others which is why several attempts have been made to restart or duplicate the process. Following the last round of fighting in Gaza President Biden committed to helping rebuild. I have to admit I was cautiously optimistic. It was however doomed to failure as Biden stated that the US would be working with Fatah, the recognized government on the West Bank, not Gaza. Fatah then murdered a dissident fueling several days of violent demonstrations throughout the West Bank, further plummeting the popularity of Fatah. However, in that initial stage of cautious optimism I decided to read a bit more on Oslo and try to get a better understanding of why it failed. And more importantly, is there a way to fix the failures and arrive at some peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. To that end I set about reading some of the lesser known books on Oslo written by those who were there but did not occupy the highest diplomatic levels such as Dennis Ross. There have been many critics of Dennis Ross’ book, “The Missing Peace.” With the main criticism being it is way too US and Israel friendly, dismissing Palestinian offers and concerns above Israel’s. While that criticism could to a certain extent be considered valid when reading the book, one should remember that Dennis Ross did represent US interests. Even if the US is playing the role of balanced or impartial broker, the US has interests in the process, and the region, and cannot be a truly uncommitted bystander. The other point in favor of The Missing Peace, is there is nothing missing from the book. Regardless of what other books one reads, the facts, i.e., the events and meetings are the same. The interpretation of how much weight those events should have is opinion and should be understood by the reader. Nowhere does Ross say something happened that didn’t happen. Or fail to report something that did happen. Actually, that’s not true, but it’s something on the other side. A demand by Arafat that Dennis Ross fails to mention that as I will point out later would have caused Oslo to fail even if all other parts had succeeded. For what it’s worth, here is my interpretation of why Oslo failed. The two main reasons Oslo failed: a faulty premise of land for peace, a decision that all the issues, (settlements, Jerusalem, refugees, termination of the “armed struggle) had to be resolved together, the parts couldn’t be resolved separately. In the end however, Oslo failed as Arafat was not willing to make an agreement. Many people may think that he should not have accepted any agreement, and they may be right, but the Oslo agreement and process was predicated on finding an agreement. The faulty premise of Oslo’s was the concept of land for peace. After the six-day war Israel adopted a policy of land for peace. Israel would return the areas it occupied in return for peace. (Because Israel is a democracy and doesn’t speak with a single voice it’s not hard to find sentiments that the land should not be returned.) For the first several years Israel had no takers. Actually, rejection in the form of the Arab League’s three no’s: no peace, no negotiation, no recognition. And a subsequent war in 1973 served only to convince many in Israel that peace was not to be had. That changed in 1977 when Egypt’s Anwar Sadat went to Israel to extend a message of peace. And while it wasn’t easy, Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty returning all of the Sinai for full peace and recognition including an exchange of Ambassadors. That treaty worked because of land for peace. Of the four issues at Oslo, the settlements are probably the most visible in the news. In this it is important to remember the history and scope of the settlement. Obviously, there were none prior to 1967, but after 1967 and up to Sadat’s peace overture, there were virtually no settlements. Settlements expanded only after 1977 with the election of Menahem Begin and the Likud. But even, in 1994 at the time of the signing of Oslo, there weren’t that many settlements. Removal of all the settlements would have been feasible in 1977, had Jordan stepped forward for the Palestinians, or if the Palestinians had someone other than the PLO to represent them. By 1994, removal of all the settlements was already not realistic. Some plan of a land swap, 3% to 5% might have worked. (The Olmert agreement in 2008, called for a 6.3% land swap.) Again, perhaps there shouldn’t be a land swap, that they should all be dismantled. That would however mean that the Palestinians have three non-negotiable demands. Palestinians refuse any limits on the right of return – even Palestinians born in say the US with US citizenship must have the right of return. And on Jerusalem, that demand of Arafat’s that I mentioned above, regarding Jerusalem. Arafat was holding to a position that Jerusalem belonged to all Muslims and must be negotiated will all the world’s Muslims, or at a minimum, the entire 22 nation Arab League. Like the right of return, this is an outrageous demand that really can’t realistically be met. Many people can disagree with me when I say Arafat didn’t want an agreement, but it’s hard to argue that with these two absolute demands, the right of return and Jerusalem, that Arafat was willing to come to an agreement. However, when I think Arafat was to a large extent the reason for Oslo’s failure, we really should also be fair. Clinton blamed Arafat, and I think he was wrong to do so. Arafat didn’t want to go to Camp David. He specifically told Clinton that he didn’t want to attend as Arafat feared he would get the blame for failure. Clinton more or less forced Arafat to attend, so then blaming him for its failure was not correct. The person who wanted Camp David was Israel’s Ehud Barak. Barak was facing an election that he knew he would almost certainly lose. Knowing he was probably going to lose the election allowed Barak to make concessions that he knew would be almost impossible, if not downright impossible to get Knesset approval. Afterwards, Barak claimed that when Arafat rejected those concessions, it gave Israel the high road. But those Israeli concessions were tied with Palestinian ones, which were unacceptable to Arafat. Had Arafat accepted them, he feared they would have been the floor for future negotiations. When I said I sought out alternate views of Oslo, I feel I really did make an honest attempt. But there is one glaring hole, missing from all I’ve read are Palestinians voices. Does that matter? When you deal with a democracy there are lots of competing voices. Leaders are pulled one way, then the other by political forces. When dealing with an authoritarian, such as Arafat, there really is only one voice. And while Arafat may have forces outside his control pushing a different way, such as Hamas, those factors play less a role than a leader who needs to worry about the next election. There are two more sources of Oslo’s failure. The first is to a certain extent tied to land for peace. After Yitzhak Rabin was elected Prime Minister but before Oslo, then Secretary of State James Baker met with Syria’s Assad who told him he would be willing to sign a peace treaty with Israel in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal from the Golan. Baker flew to Israel where Rabin indicated a readiness to withdraw for peace. For ten years until Assad’s death backroom negotiations between Israel and Syria would repeated displace Oslo. They remained backroom negotiations as Assad never agreed to meet face to face with Israelis leaving Israel to always doubt the extent to which Assad was actually willing to go. Assad for his part, wanted to always back away from full peace. A second problem was democracy. Arafat didn’t have to worry about elections, but both Israel and the US did. After Rabin’s assignation Shimon Peres became Prime Minister of Israel but he never enjoyed popular support. I never really understood why but Peres understood only too well that the next election was going to be very difficult. And of course, he lost. Benjamin Netanyahu was elected and Oslo came to a complete halt. Netanyahu was not interested. Netanyahu was in office from June 1996 to July 1999, and when he left office, a new election was starting in the US. While Clinton couldn’t be reelected, Al Gore and the continuity of the Democratic Party is severely challenged. Clinton who first knew Rabin and came to believe, as have most other observers, that Rabin was really willing to make peace and offer up a Palestinian state. Clinton wants it with every bone in his body, a willing Ehud Barak and a willing Arafat it might just work. But of course, it didn’t. And in the middle of the US election the Second Intifada starts, dooming the reelection of Ehud Barak. A final postscript regarding land for peace. Sadat get all of the Sinai back. In those negotiations between Syria and Israel, Arafat was only too aware that all the Golan was on the table to be returned. But all the West Bank was not on the table. Later Ehud Barak withdraws from all of Lebanon, even has the UN certify the return of 100%. Then Ariel Sharon withdraws from all of Gaze, even pulling up the settlements. But Arafat can’t get all of the West Bank. Whether or not Arafat understood, the West Bank is not the Sinai, the Golan, southern Lebanon, or even Gaza, the West Bank is too central, to integral to Israel’s security to ever give up. For people who recognize Israel’s security needs it is hard to envision any assurances of a termination of the “armed struggle” that Israel could rely on and withdraw from the West Bank. It’s just not possible. It would have been possible in 1977, and many of us waited with baited breath at the time for Jordan’s Hussein to step forward. But he didn’t, and now it’s probably too late. The best of the books on Oslo was probably the last one I read, “The Two State Delusion”, by Padraig O’Malley. However, if you read this book be prepared to be depressed, the author sees no hope for a solution and musters all the evidence to support that argument. Another good source is “Shattered Dreams: The failure of the peace process in the Middle East, 1995 to 2002”, by Charles Enderlin a French journalist who closely followed the negotiations. But for a first source, one should read Dennis Ross’ Missing Peace. Regardless of how one thinks of his evenhandedness or lack of, all correspondence and negotiations went through him. Added note: I’m currently reading a biography of Jimmy Carter by Kai Bird. The author states that when Carter interviewed Cyrus Vance for the position of Secretary of State, Carter told him he wanted “bold, comprehensive initiatives – not the incremental diplomacy practiced by Kissinger.” I can’t help but wonder if that isn’t exactly why Sadat chose such a bold initiative as traveling to Israel and speaking directly to the Israeli Knesset. And it was the engineer in Carter that decided to essentially lock Sadat and Begin up in Camp David until they ironed out the differences and come to an agreement. It worked that time. And this same tactic worked when used by Clinton with the parties in the Kosovo war at Dayton. It didn’t work with Israel and the Palestinians. A new book just out that will be waiting for me when I return from Germany is Martin Indyk’s, “Master of the Game: Henry Kissinger and the art of Middle East Diplomacy.” Generally lost to memory is that Kissinger fostered three separation agreements; two between Egypt and Israel and one with Syria. The one with Syria still stands. If a Palestinian state isn’t in the foreseeable future, perhaps a return to an “incrementalist” approach can at least help improve the lives of Palestinians.

Democracy Fix

Finished my book “Democracy Fix.” It was more than just a bit disappointing. It was long on describing the problem, and spent a disproportionate amount of time on the judicial branch, but very short on the fix part. This is what bothers me a lot about liberals, Democrats, or the left in general, there is no real effort being made to propose solutions to the problems in our democracy. Despite the preamble to the constitution starting with the words “We the people” our constitution was decidedly not designed to be a democracy of we the people. The constitution, was designed to be an oligarchy. Voting was intended to be limited to those who were perceived to be “stakeholders”, i.e. wealthy white males who owned property. From there the problem starts. Many people have a list of what they perceive to be the major problems. The top five on my list; vote suppression, the cap on the size of the House, gerrymandering, the Electoral College, the imbalance in the Senate which gives two Senate seats to each state regardless of population. What intersection exists between my list and the author’s I would have liked to see a plan for the “fix” part. No such real fixes were included. While the Electoral College was on the author’s list, be a worthless book if it wasn’t, there is no proposed wording for a constitutional amendment to replace it. Few, if any, country uses straight majority vote; they either have a runoff election or some other type of ranked choice voting. What are the recommendations by others more knowledgeable on this subject. Gerrymandering is another failure of our democracy. Until recently the left seemed to put all its hope that the Supreme Court would save the day. Now that we know they won’t, what would be a solution? Which would be better; independent commissions to draw district lines, or each state be a multi-party district? Or some other solution? I don’t fault the author for not discussing the cap on the size of the house, that is a problem on very few people’s list. The arguments for increasing the size are the population imbalance between districts. Another argument is seven states currently have just one representative, which could leave as much as 49% of that state’s population without representation in the House. The biggest failure is the lack of solutions to voter suppression, or increasing voter participation. When Obama was elected in 2008 and the memory of election 2000 was still fresh in everyone’s mind a fix would have been easy. Should it be federal law mandating the ratio of voting centers and voters? Should federal law mandate how long polls should be open? Early voting? Unfortunately, the left sees the problems, but just doesn’t have mechanisms for recommending solutions.

Twilight of Democracy

One of the most valuable lessons I ever learned was back in the early 70’s. I wanted to understand why Russia was so undemocratic despite their constitution having a democratic framework. The answer it turns out was simple; everyone just agreed to corrupt the system. As it was explained to me, if someone brought in a petition to get on a ballot and wasn’t a member of the Communist Party, they would just toss the petition in the garbage. And so, it is that I learned the fragile nature of democracy. It isn’t the constitution, the institutions, or the laws, that maintains a democracy, it requires a constant vigilance by we the people to keep it a democracy. This was around the same time as Watergate and I have always faulted Ford for pardoning Nixon so we couldn’t learn how he had attempted to corrupt democracy through his personal use of the FBI and his attempts to subvert the IRS to spy on his political enemies. And because this never came to light it was easy for people to accept that Obama had tried to subvert the IRS regarding Tea Party groups. They also didn’t understand why it was so unacceptable for W. Bush to fire 8 AGs for what appeared to be political reason. These aren’t things that are supposed to happen in a democracy. Twilight of Democracy, by Anne Applebaum is an extension of a shorter magazine article on the subject. Perhaps because there just wasn’t enough new material to fill a book, even one of just 189 pages, I found the book very disappointing. The author spends a chapter each on Poland’s and Hungary’s slide away from democracy. But neither Poland or Hungary had a long history democracy. Perhaps it just wasn’t that hard for them to lose it. The US however has a long history of democracy. And even if we haven’t actually lived up to those ideals, the vast majority of people pay lip service to them. So, how is the US doing? It is unfortunately, this chapter on the US that is most disappointing. She offers up nothing that one doesn’t get from a cursory reading of the news. Trump is a disaster. She throws in a few recent examples. But she does not begin to mine the wealth of examples out there. Perhaps, and I don’t feel good about pointing this out, but perhaps it is because Anne Applebaum does not want to see them. Anne Applebaum admits to being a Republican but left the Party in 2008 following the nomination of the proto-Trump Sarah Palin. She doesn’t say what she saw in the Party in the W. Bush years. Certainly, it was those years that more than any other saw the Republican Party slip towards authoritarianism. The lies leading to the invasion of Iraq. The outing of a political opponent’s wife as a spy. The AG scandal, torture, the “with up or against us” slogan, the Patriot Act. And while I can’t fault Chief Justice Robert’s credentials, he certainly is no crony. We can find a lot to fault in the failed nomination of Harriet Miers, and the successful nomination of Alito. If my mind was a bit more agile how many more examples could I come up with off the top of my head. There are to be sure, there are several books on the subject. As a matter of fact, John Dean, of Watergate fame, wrote a book Conservatives without Conscience, detailing some the authoritarian tendencies of the Republican Party. Somehow, Anne Applebaum doesn’t see these things. Authoritarianism and anti-democratic tendencies didn’t start with Trump. Final note: I couldn’t remember the name of John Dean’s book so I went to Amazon and lo and behold on August 25th John Dean together with Robert Altemeyer (a psychologist who spent his life studying authoritarians) have a new book coming out: “Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and his followers”. Now that is a book I will really be looking forward to.

Democracy in Chains

Recently I made a statement saying I wasn’t sure what the ultimate goals were of the Republican Party, or how many Republicans even supported which ideas. A Facebook friend suggested the book, Democracy in Chains. The book is an investigative look at the far right Libertarian Party. Largely supported by Charles Koch, the movement can actually trace its roots back to the 50’s. Specifically, the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling that segregation was unconstitutional. It would be easy to just call them “racists” and be done. But that would be missing the story this book tells. The ruling was important not because it would fuel a racist backlash against public education, but because this movement saw that it could co-opt that racist backlash to further its goal of abolishing public education, segregated or not. The author shows how this movement slowly adopted talking points that without ever making reference to racism or integration, could convert people over to their side. Today, many of us are familiar with those talking points: school choice, vouchers, and the catch-all “freedom.” I don’t know how many non-conservatives recognize the stealth approach of vouchers to abolish public schools. Certainly, over the years I have had several conversations with liberals who wanted to see vouchers. I remember mentioning it once that this was just an attempt to abolish public education. This person rather contemptuously and openly told me I believed in conspiracy theories. Among the other goals of this movement: eliminate unions and any worker’s powers or protections, privatize Social Security and Medicare, privatize as much of the government as possible with the exceptions of the military, police and fire. But even there, they want to privatize those parts that can be privatized. And to anyone who follows the news, this privatization is well on its way. And of course, a flat tax to replace the current graduated tax. Their guiding philosophy is that governments being majority ruled will always take from those who have more. This taking, above what those with more would be willing to give voluntarily is the same as theft. Ronald Reagan, our 40th President, said it clearly, “government is the problem.” To what extent Ronald Reagan bought into this philosophy is hard to know. Quoting from the book, “The budget director, [David Stockman], it turned out had failed to make clear to the president and his political advisors - much less to the American people – that the colossal Kemp-Roth tax cut, as it came to be known, would necessitate tearing apart the social contract on a scale never attempted in a democracy.” An essential element of this Libertarian movement was secrecy regarding its goals, or even its existence. That has begun to change now as I think the Libertarian philosophy has become more widespread and popular among conservatives. Essential in this is never really saying just how extreme are their views, for example, elimination of all public education is never openly discussed. It’s still the buzz word of “choice.” Will the Libertarian philosophy succeed? It has some things going for it. First, by making it stealth, it can be different things to different people. Second, it’s well funded, and relentless, and compromise forbidden. It’s a movement, 70 years in the making; they are used to taking long view. And they have seen real success. They are aided and abetted by our mainstream news media, which has a hard time walking and chewing gum at the same time, and thanks to budget, cuts only has the resources to focus on the issue of the day. Indeed, the stealth funding of the Tea Party by Charles Koch, was not recognized in real time. Rather it was continually reported as a “grass roots” movement. Nothing was further from the truth. It isn’t just the anti-democratic nature of the conservatives in this movement, but the acceptance of these anti-democratic methods to suit their own goals. When I recently reviewed the book “Twilight of Democracy” I pointed out how the author, a Republican didn’t complain about the anti-democratic abuse of power by Republicans in either the Whitewater investigations or Benghazi. No, what the author complained about was the abuse of power by Republicans in their dismissive acquittal of Trump’s impeachment. While I sound like a broken record here, I don’t know that the US can survive. The only thing that prevents me from being more pessimistic, is an inability of seeing how it can end. There isn’t going to be fighting in the streets, so what other options are there for a nation to self-destruct?

The War of Return

With the recent news that a fourth nation in the Arab League has committed to “normalizing” ties with Israel, this book comes at an opportune time. The War of Return, details how the Palestinian refugees from Israel’s 1948 war of Independence have been used as pawns by the Arab countries as a political weapon against Israel. The book’s subtitle tells it all; “How western indulgence of the Palestinian dream has obstructed the path to peace.” The history is well known; as a result of Israel’s war of Independence, around 750,000 Palestinians fled their homes. This book isn’t about how that happened, other than the authors point out, they fled because of the war; if Arab countries hadn’t invaded Israel no Palestinians would have fled, and there wouldn’t be Palestinian refugees. But there was a war, and there was a refugee problem from that war. What ultimately created the insurmountable problem that the “right of return” is today, is the focus of this book. As the authors explain, in previous conflicts refugees were not resettled back into the countries they fled or were expelled from. World War Two and the immediate aftermath saw millions of refugees who fled or were expelled from one country to the next. The authors detail some of these: “no fewer than twelve million Germans fled or were expelled from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Ukraine, Romania, Yugoslavia, and the Baltic States”; “three hundred thousand Italians were forced out of Yugoslavia”; and “14 million Muslims fled India for Pakistan while Hindus and Sikhs made the opposite journey.” None of these today live in refugee camps. As another example, the authors point to 3.1 million North Korean refugees who fled for South Korea in the Korean war. A UN organization, UNKRA was set up to settle these refugees. So successful was this resettlement, that in 1958, UNKRA was disbanded as no longer needed. And of course, today, South Korea is an economic powerhouse, one of the Asian tigers. Wars have always produced refugees, what is different about the Palestinians was and is a desire to maintain them as refugees. The refugees from WWII were handled by the United Nations organization for refugees, UNHCR. But because the UNHCR goal was resettlement of refugees in the nations where they fled, the Arab nations, wanted a different organization for the Palestinian refugees. UNRWA was created for just for the Palestinians and maintains them as refugees. At the same time the UN passed resolution 194 which called for peaceful resolution of all disputes between Israel and the Arabs. Paragraph 11 in that resolution states, “the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practical date.” This has been pointed to by Palestinians as the justification for the “right of return.” As the authors explain at length, there never was or is any right of return for refugees from any conflict. And a UN resolution does not have the ability to confer any such right. In 1965 UNRWA decided to extend eligibility to the children of persons who were themselves born after May 14, 1948. That is, the children and grandchildren of the original refugees. In 1982, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution further extending eligibility to all descendants of the original Palestinian refugees. The authors point out how unique this is. All other refugees ceased to be refugees when they gained citizenship in another nation. Not so the Palestinians. Over two million Palestinians refugees living in Jordan have Jordanian citizenship yet maintain their status as Palestinian refugees. Whatever governments we want to consider as existing in Gaza or the West Bank, Palestinians in these areas, have passports and the right to work in these areas. They cannot truly be considered refugees, yet some 2.2 million are considered refugees by UNRWA. Today the only truly stateless Palestinians are those living in Lebanon, which refuses to grant them a path to citizenship. Of the approximately 5.5 million Palestinian refugees how many meet the original operational definition of “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948 and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict” UNRWA refuses to say. Yet Palestinians refuse to relinquish the right of return. To most westerners the idea that 5.5 million, mainly descendants should have some right to return is difficult to fathom. This has led many westerners refuse to believe that this isn’t a core Palestinian demand. Rather they believe that it’s a bargaining chip, that the Palestinians would exchange for an independent state. The Oslo accords broke down when Arafat claimed he could not give up the right of return. It wasn’t the right of return that was the bargaining chip, it was the independent state that was given away to keep the right of return. With the news that the UAE is normalizing ties with Israel, it is very likely that a few more will follow suit. Bahrain and Qatar and possibly Morocco are on the short list. To make the right of return work the Arab Nations needed a united front. That front might now be crumbling. The end result might be an independent Palestinian state, without a right of return.

Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East Just read a great book, Black Wave, about the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Thinking about the book beforehand I thought I could understand the regional rivalry, but that was completely wrong. Before the discovery of oil in 1938, Saudi Arabia was a desert populated mainly by nomadic tribes. There could have been no rivalry with Iran, the ancient nation of Persia, with its rich history. The conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran is entirely a very recent occurrence. The author Kim Ghattas, who was born and raised in Lebanon tries to answer the question, “what happened to us?” She points out “the question may also surprise those in the West who assume that the extremism and the bloodletting of today were always the norm.” Back when I lived in Israel, 1975 to 1985, Israeli TV used to show an Arabic movie on Friday afternoon. These movies were usually made in Egypt (which as the author points out had the third largest movie industry in the world at that time). These movies were very similar to the teen movies of Anette Funicello and Bollywood today. But what would strike one today if they were to see one, is the secularism of Egyptian society. Women wore entirely western clothes, the sexes mixed freely, they went to discotheques. Other than they are set in Egypt, they could have been teen movies from the 50s and early 60s here in the states. There have been no shortage of books tracing Islamic fundamentalism and the rise of al-qaeda, ISIS, Hezbollah, or Hamas. What there haven’t been is a book on how Islamic fundamentalism took over the governments of the middle east with what the author calls “the dictatorship of religion.” Starting her history in 1974, she points to three seminal events that occurred in 1979; the Iranian revolution, the siege of the Holy Mosque in Mecca by Saudi zealots, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Other events that shook the middle east in that same period: civil war in Lebanon; Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982; Sadat’s peace treaty with Israel, and Sadat’s assassination a few years later; Assad coming to power in Syria; Saddam Hussein coming to power in Iraq; the Iraq Iran war. And that’s just a partial list. Reading the book, one is reminded of these events, great and small. At the time of the Iranian revolution in 1979, the Islamic nations of the middle east praised the revolution. That praise did not last. In 1987, Pakistan’s President, Zia ul-Haq sent Sunni militants to attack Shia villages. In fighting that lasted two weeks “52 Shias and 120 Sunnis were killed”. The author points out “here then was the epicenter of modern-day sectarian bloodletting, the first of its kind on modern times. Sectarianism had been weaponized”. The author’s full story of “what happened to us” cannot be put into a short review such as this. And it’s one of the few books about the middle east where Israel isn’t the main actor on the stage about which all events are related. Anyone who wants to understand the modern middle east and how it arrived to its “what happened to us” moment, will find this book very informative. I read a lot of books on the middle east; this is one of the best I’ve read in a while.