My trip to Lebanon

I just spent the past week in Lebanon interviewing journalists covering Syria and Lebanon. I'll be writing something more formal about my findings shortly. But in the meantime, here are a few quick general observations about my trip, which was book cased by two bombings against Hezbollah targets.

1. There is widespread anxiety and even a sense of inevitability that the Syrian war will spill into Lebanon. There is always sufficient tinder in Lebanon, and sparks are flying all over the place from both local and international actors. Not only has the war in Syria escalated sectarian tensions in Lebanon, but Syrian rebels have a clear interest in provoking a fight in Lebanon to force Hezbollah fighters in Syria to return home to defend against local enemies. I don't want to exaggerate this anxiety. Lebanon has balanced precariously for years now, and they've somehow managed so far. But the anxiety is more pronounced now because the risk is more difficult to manage.
2. As tensions rise, journalists are at a significant risk of beatings and illegal detentions by non-state actors, especially Hezbollah. This has always been a problem in Lebanon, especially as journalists associated with one political camp try to report on events in territories controlled by another camp. But enhanced political tensions and the fear of violence will make it that much worse, especially as security forces grow more paranoid about infiltrators and saboteurs. International journalists will also be at risk of being accused as spies or worse. More on this later.
3. It will also become increasingly dangerous for those who seek independence from Lebanon's rigid political camps. The Lebanese government is both unwilling and unable to protect its citizens. Protection comes through membership in a political camp. But the Lebanese who seek to bridge divides, who seek to upend the sectarian system, who criticize all sides, will do so at their own risk. 
4. Despite the fear of violence, Christian areas of Lebanon remain party happy as ever. It reminds me a lot of 2006, where night clubs remained open as Israeli bombs fell on Hezbollah territory. It'd be a mistake, however, to think Christians can emerge unscathed if tensions between Sunni and Shia escalate to violence. If the Syrian war does spill over, the violence will not be so isolated as 2006 and it will be hard for Christians to stay above the fray. So perhaps they have Isaiah 22:13 in mind.
5. Electricity outages are far more frequent than I remember from my last trip four years ago. My electricity was cut off a dozen times a day, even though I was staying in affluent areas. My friend told me he had power in his apartment for 12 hours a day. This is but one example of how the government is failing to govern. 
6. Finally, one non sequitur from the airport. As a customs official was checking my passport, a man and his wife came behind me in line.The official looked up and started to repeatedly yell at the man, "What do you have?! Drugs?!" He then let loose a smirk and explained to me, "They're Iraqi." After passing through the metal detector, I lingered behind to make sure the couple was okay. After 10 minutes of what seemed like heated discussion and gesticulating, the man reached out and kissed the official on the cheek. The couple then passed through the metal detectors without harassment. 

UPDATE: I forgot to add one more anecdote. I stayed at a largely vacant Ramada in downtown for...$65 a night. Not a good sign for tourism and business. Admittedly, my flight to Beirut was relatively full, but it seemed to be almost entirely Lebanese returning home or visiting family. Sadly, I don't think this Ministry of Tourism video will help improve things.

Bahrain's PR Trap

New York Times journalist Nick Kristof was denied entry into Bahrain today. As he tweeted, “I’m at #Bahrain airport, and the government is denying me entry. Our ally is terrified of human rights reporting.”

His rejection should come as no surprise. He’s been on the government’s bad side ever since reporting from Pearl Roundabout during the February 14^th uprising. While I’ve been told (but was unable to confirm) he has been granted two media visas since then, he has previously been denied entry. And he’s in good company of a long list of journalists, academics, and human rights groups that has been turned away these past two years. Just this week, a member of the European Parliament was also denied entry.

How to Actually Help Syrian Bloggers

A lot of people have expressed their anger/dismay/disappointment over the Amina Arraf hoax. I'll instead focus on the one silver lining. The incident has shown that there's a significant constituency of Americans and Europeans who support freedom of the press - and democracy more generally - in Syria.

Since her faked kidnapping, almost 14,000 people have joined the Free Amina Abdalla Facebook page. Untold others organized and fought for her release in other ways. Even Amina's creator, Tom MacMaster, alleges he had Syria's interests at heart - even if his actions were misguided and reckless. In an interview with The Guardian, he claims he invented Amina to help bring attention to human rights abuses in Syria.

But as a real Syrian LGBT activist, Daniel Nassar explains, "You took away my voice, Mr. MacMaster, and the voices of many people who I know. To bring attention to yourself and blog; you managed to bring the LGBT movement in the Middle East years back. You single-handedly managed to bring unwanted attention from authorities to our cause and you will be responsible for any LGBT activist who might be yet another fallen angel during these critical time."

What Can We Learn from Iran?

There is no doubt that America faces a health care crisis. According to The Times, "the Mississippi Delta has some of the worst health statistics in the country, including infant mortality rates for non-whites at Third World levels." In fact, Mississippi has the country's highest rates of child obesity, hypertension, and teenage pregnancy, with over 20% of the population uninsured. And yet, the state spends the third most per capita on health expenditures in the country.

Clearly, Mississippi needs help - and they can't wait for Washington to stop bickering with itself and finally pass health care reform. So, they have turned elsewhere...to Iran.

As the article explains, after the Islamic Revolution, the Iranian government launched a program that set up "health houses" to serve local communities. Ordinary citizens known as behvarz received health training and would travel around offering advice and basic medical services. The program was wildly successful, reducing child mortality rates by 69% and maternal mortality rates dropped from 300 per 100,000 births to 30. Currently, there are 17,000 health houses throughout Iran, serving 90% of Iran's rural population of 23 million people.

A group representing a rural hospital in Mississippi learned of Iran's success story, formed a partnership with Shiraz University, and sent a delegation to Iran to learn more about the program. In turn, Iranian experts visited Mississippi to help advise the opening of the state's first health house, due to open next month. Better yet, the first American behvarz health assistants will be trained in Iran next spring.

Beyond the obvious fact that we shouldn't have to look to Iran to resolve our health crisis, it is comforting that we can. But it wasn’t easy. As the article explains, the Mississippi group had to request special permission from the Treasury Department to avoid sanctions restrictions, as well as skirt potential political sensitivities. Oddly, even the Mississippi governor hasn't been informed of the program!

Obviously, some people would feel uncomfortable dealing with Iran, our political adversary that sponsors terrorism and likely seeks to develop nuclear weapons. But too often we confuse the government of Iran with its people. As the Green Movement has clearly shown, the actions and rhetoric of a dictatorial government reveals nothing about its people.

That is why labels like the "Axis of Evil" confuse more than they clarify. Though Ahmadinejad and Khamenei may be the true Great Satans, the Iranian people are anything but demons. In fact, they simply seek the same rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that Americans cherish. Just as they take comfort in our moral support for their struggle for freedom, we should take comfort in their ability and willingness to help improve American lives.

More generally, America's obsession with our own exceptionalism might prove a philosophical roadblock to accepting Iranian assistance . We have always believed our country should be a city upon a hill, an exemplar for all other countries to follow. We have also held the inverse to be true as well: America should not be a follower. Such logic is the source for much of the neoconservative critique of President Obama's foreign policy that complains Obama treats America as a partner, and not a hegemon, in the international system.

But such arguments misinterpret why America is an exceptional country. It is not because we are objectively better than the rest of the world. Plenty of indices of wealth, happiness, healthiness, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press prove otherwise. Rather, we are exceptional as the first nation in history to be defined by what we believe in, not who we are or where we are from.

As our Constitution states, we established our government “in order to form a more perfect union.” The implication is our union is not yet perfect, our city upon the hill is not yet finished. For over two centuries, we have tirelessly built upon our city to form a more perfect union, using our ideals as a blueprint and our progress as our brick and mortar.

That is why we are an exceptional nation. That is why the world looks up to us. That is why we should not be scared to confront our shortcomings. And that is why we should not only accept, but actively seek help from others - even from Iran.

As we consider imposing enhanced sanctions on the Iranian regime, we should not only seek to minimize the harm inflicted upon the Iranian people. We must also consider the opportunity cost in lost cultural, educational, and technical exchanges that would benefit Iranians and Americans alike.

Tags and the Israeli Psyche

I read the Israeli newspaper Haaretz every day. Here's the opinion page from 12/16.




Now, take a closer look at the tag cloud on the right.



Tags are keywords used to organize data, in this case the topics of newspaper articles. Tag clouds offer a visual representation of the most-common themes. Words in larger fonts on the top are more common than smaller fonts at the bottom. In this case, "Israel News" is the most frequent topic in Haaretz op eds (obviously), with Netanyahu the least common of the list provided.


Now, notice the higher frequency of the word "Holocaust" compared to the phrase "Peace Process."



So long as we Jews fixate on the horrors of our past and not the prospects for our future, we will not have peace in the Middle East.

PS Obviously using shallow evidence here, but I stand by the conclusion.

PPS I haven't found an English Arab newspaper that uses a tag cloud for comparison, but the conclusion applies to them too.

PPS Happy birthday Dad.

Who Throws a Shoe, Honestly?

Well, apparently a lot of people throw shoes in the Middle East.

Our dear friend Muntazer al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who garnered footwear fame by hurling his shoe at President Bush, was himself forced to dodge a hurtling shoe at a news conference.

The assailant shouted "here's another shoe for you" before mounting his attack. Not quite as catchy as al-Zaidi's "it is the farewell kiss, you dog," but at least he won't get any jail time.

*Still really busy at work. Will hopefully be able to have better posts soon.

Failed Iran Op Ed

I recently wrote this op-ed and submitted it to the Baltimore Sun. It was rejected. So, now it's posted here instead. For those who are interested, the historical background comes from this fascinating article by Muhammad Sahimi at Tehran Bureau

Americans have learned many things about Iran these past few months. We’ve learned of the brutality of the baton-wielding Basij and the courage of the Iranian citizens who bear the brunt of their blows. We’ve learned of the cruelty of Evin Prison’s interrogators and the perseverance of the victims who endure their torture. We’ve learned of the ruthlessness of the hollow regime in Tehran and the strength of the opposition who demand their fundamental rights.

We have also learned about the utter complexity of Iranian politics. Take, for example, Ayatollah Mohammad Mousavi Khoeiniha, who Muhammad Sahimi at the Tehran Bureau calls “the power behind the scene” of the opposition movement.

The regime clearly wants to silence Khoeiniha. Yet given his impeccable revolutionary credentials, the regime cannot do so without revealing how ideologically hollow they have become. Khoeiniha served as one of Ayatollah Khomeini's most trusted advisers. Furthermore, it was Khoeiniha who gave approval to the students of the Office for Consolidation of Unity (OCU) to storm the American embassy on November 4, 1979. To this day, Khoeiniha proudly keeps a filing cabinet in his office that reads "Property of the General Services Administration" of the United States.

Most interestingly, two students on the OCU board opposed the decision to take over the American embassy. Instead, they argued that the students should target the Soviet Embassy (at this time, Communists were still influential throughout Iran). In an ironic twist of history, one of those dissenters was none other than current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

This history lesson should give pause to any American foreign policymaker. Iranian politics are incredibly complex, constantly evolving and frustratingly opaque. Even if we do have experts who understand its subtleties, and that's a big if, any nuanced analysis is likely lost as information is passed up the chain of command.

At a recent event on Capitol Hill, Brookings Institution expert Kenneth Pollack warned the audience that we must not try to meddle in internal Iranian affairs, especially given the difficulty in understanding all of its nuances. We simply don't understand how to intervene successfully. When we have tried in the past, such as supporting the Shah's coup in 1953, we only have laid the foundation for anti-Americanism, extremism and regime paranoia.

But at the same time, we cannot ignore the struggle for Iranian democracy as we negotiate over Iran’s nuclear program. No matter the checkered past of the opposition leaders, the Green Movement presents the best opportunity for a prosperous and stable Iran in the long-term, an Iran that will no longer poses a strategic threat to the United States and its allies.

Moving forward, U.S. policymakers should therefore follow three guidelines:

1. Listen to the Iranian people. None of the information above is news to the Iranian people. They know the history of their leaders and what implications those histories may entail. Where we are ignorant, they are knowledgeable. Where we are cumbersome, they are agile. Quite simply, they know what works and what doesn't. Admittedly, it will be sometimes difficult to determine what the Iranians want - they will often disagree and debate amongst themselves. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn't listen and learn as best we can.

2. Do no harm. Ultimately, this struggle belongs to the Iranians. They must answer the tough questions and take the bold actions. They have done so already and will continue to do so, as shown most recently by the protests on November 4th. We can help when it is clear our assistance is both needed and wanted. We must not rush policy for the appearance of solidarity, but rather we must carefully consider how our actions will impact the interests of the Iranian people. When the result is in doubt, doing less is better than doing harm.

3. Bolster institutions and processes, not personalities. It is exceedingly difficult to determine who in Iran deserves American support. It would be hard to explain why opposition leaders like Ayatollah Khoeiniha deserve our assistance, given his pedigree. Nor is his case special. Many of the opposition leaders, including Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, held high level government positions as the regime executed thousands of political prisoners in the 1980s. But even if we did find leaders deserving of support, it is unclear how the U.S. can substantively help them without risking their reputations as independent politicians free of foreign influence.

Instead, the U.S. should look to support efforts to strengthen the institutions and processes that uphold all healthy democracies - a free press, a thriving civil society, an independent judiciary, electoral safeguards and the rule of law. By bolstering Iranian democracy without elevating specific personalities, the U.S. can avoid most charges of meddling while exposing those who would deny the Iranian people their inalienable right of self-determination.

Thinking About the Temple Mount

Earlier this week, I called out the Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star for mislabeling Israeli soldiers as "Jewish troops." It was a clear example of journalism gone awry.

While writing the post, I almost included another example of sloppy journalism, but I left it out for stylistic reasons. So I'm glad that Evelyn Gordon at Commentary has spotted the same mistake and taken the effort to correct it.

In a recent New York Times article, Isabel Kershner reviews an interesting new book about the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, entitled "Where Heaven and Earth Meet: Jerusalem's Sacred Esplanade." According to Kershner, the book combines Muslim, Christian and Jewish experts to discuss the "history, archaeology, aesthetics and politics of the place that Jews revere as the location of their two ancient temples, and that now houses the Al Aksa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam."

Everything was going great until I reached this sentence: "The lack of archaeological evidence of the ancient temples has led many Palestinians to deny any real Jewish attachment or claim to the plateau."

While there's no question some Palestinians have dubiously questioned the Temple Mount's Jewish roots, Kershner unfortunately phrases the sentence to imply that there is, in fact, a paucity of evidence. Except there is plenty of evidence.

As Gordon points out, the Jewish temple is "well-documented in extant writings from the period" and there are several walls still standing. I have physically touched the evidence, walked around the evidence and ventured beneath it - as have millions of other tourists who visited the Western Wall. It's existence is not in question to anyone who can see.

Gordon goes on to explain why such an important archaeological site has not received the amount of archaeological scrutiny it deserves. Namely, since the 1967 War and the capture of East Jerusalem, Israel has allowed the Temple Mount to remain under Muslim authority, making excavations impossible due to political and religious sensitivities.

And then Gordon makes a mistake, I believe, more damaging than the New York Times article she sets out to correct. She writes, "perhaps Jerusalem needs to rethink its tactics - and start demonstrating the Jewish connection to the Mount in actions rather than words [...] letting Jews pray on a designated section of the Mount devoid of mosques would be an excellent place to begin."

This would undoubtedly start the Third Intifada. As is, tensions are incredibly high throughout the Holy Land. Palestinians and Israelis are already clashing over the Temple Mount, with Muslim leaders calling to "defend the Temple Mount from conquest by Jews" as right-wing Jews flock to the Mount to raise holy hell. Meanwhile, scholar Steven Cook concluded this week that "a third intifada is likely to erupt in the near future" if the political situation continues to deteriorate. Nor should we forget what instigated the Second Intifada: Ariel Sharon's ill-fated visit to the Temple Mount.

In other words, the gasoline has already been poured over the tinder. All we're waiting for is a spark, one that Gordon seems ready to provide.

In the long-run, sure, it seems fair to let Jews pray on the Temple Mount in a cordoned-off section. After all, it's both a Jewish and a Muslim holy site. But until cooler heads prevail, political realities dictate otherwise.

*FYI, I read another bad idea today. From Sarah Palin. She argues for continued expansion of settlements in the West Bank because Israel's population "is going to grow [...] in the days and weeks and months ahead." Blake Hounshell at Foreign Policy does a good job summing up why that's a horrible idea.

When Leads Mislead

According to Reuters, Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian and wounded two more near the Gaza border on Friday. An Israel Defense Forces spokeswoman stated the soldiers opened fire after suspecting the Palestinians were planting explosives near the security barrier. In turn, Hamas claimed that the wounded teenagers were out on a hunting trip.

The Lebanese English-language newspaper The Daily Star also reported on the same shooting. In fact, the paper printed the syndicated version of the Reuters article verbatim. Well, that is, except for the title.

In the original Reuters version, the title reads, "Israel kills Palestinian in Gaza confrontation." But The Daily Star editors opted for, "Jewish troops shoot Palestinian dead in Gaza confrontation."

Calling Israeli soldiers "Jewish troops" is both misleading and damaging.

It misleads because many non-Jews serve in the Israel Defense Forces. Israeli Druze and Circassian men fall under mandatory conscription laws like any Jewish Israeli. Furthermore, many Bedouin voluntarily join the IDF, often as a means of social mobility. Non-Jewish IDF soldiers have risen to highest ranks of the military, disproportionately volunteer for combat positions, and have fought and died for the state of Israel. Therefore, it's no surprise that IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi has praised minorities in the military, specifically calling the Druze "our generation's Maccabees."

It damages because it perpetuates the widespread conflation of Judaism and Zionism. For one, some of Israel's greatest critics are Jewish while some of its strongest supporters are not. But more importantly, it recasts the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a political struggle of competing nationalisms into a religious struggle of irreconcilable faiths. While we can compromise to find a political solution, only God can resolve a dispute between religions.

*Out of curiosity, I also checked Al Jazeera English, which reported "Israeli troops kill Palestinian."