Do ‘Syria,’ ‘Iraq’ and ‘Lebanon’ Still Exist?

based on the  original article by Jonathan Spyer that was posted by the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum and that we re-post with a series of changes that are mainly of editorial nature.
The Tower
February 2014

www.meforum.org/3751/syria-iraq-lebanon-nation-states

For almost a century, the Middle East has been defined by the nation-states that emerged following the Allied Europeans – British and French – victory in World War I which was the end of the Ottoman Empire, and followed later by the unraveling of the resulting colonial era. Since then, strategic analyses of the region have concentrated on the relations between these states, created by bureaucratic lines drawn by the interim colonial powers, and diplomatic efforts have generally attempted to maintain their stability and the integrity of these borders. As a result, the current map of the Middle East has remained largely unchanged over more than nine decades.

But these actually never made sense and do so much less now.  The old maps do not reflect the reality on the ground, and the region is now defined not by rivalry between nation-states, but by sectarian divisions that are spilling across the old borders and rendering them irrelevant. Today, there is a single sectarian war underway across the Middle East, one that threatens to engulf the entire region.

This war has a number of fronts, some more intense and active than others, but it is everywhere defined by sectarian conflict – especially the divide between Sunni and Shia Muslims. It is most intense in the area encompassing the current states of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon; but has also spread further afield—to Bahrain, northern Yemen, and to some degree Kuwait and eastern Saudi Arabia.

The core power on the Shia side is the Islamic Republic of Iran, the world’s leading state that accepts terror as a means to implement its plans.  Iran was the founding patron of Hezbollah, which even before 9/11  had killed more Americans than any terror group in the world. The Assad regime in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Maliki government and assorted Shia militias in Iraq, the Houthi rebels in northern Yemen, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, are all allies or proxies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is capable of rendering substantial assistance to its friends through the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) – a powerful military and economic force that possesses substantial expertise and experience in building proxy organizations and engaging in political and paramilitary warfare.

On the Sunni side, the dominant power is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which has been wary of Tehran, but also has struggled since 9/11 – on and off -  against the Islamists of Al Qaeda. Its allies include various groups among the Syrian rebels, the March 14 movement in Lebanon, the military regime in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, and sometimes Turkey. The Saudis, however, are at something of a disadvantage. They possess no parallel to the IRGC, and have problematic relations with the extreme Sunni jihadists of al-Qaeda, who have played a prominent role in the fighting on all three major fronts and who are an outgrowth of the Saudi Wahabbi movement – the kind of Islam on which the Saudi throne is based. (Here we have a clear different approach to the issue then we found in the original article – that seemed to be over friendly to the Saudis – possibly because of the way Washington is siding with the Saudis.)

How did this situation come about? Is there evidence of a clear linkage between the various forces on the respective sides? Why is this conflict so extreme in certain countries—like Syria and Iraq—where it appears to be leading to the breakup of these states? How dangerous are these changes for the West?

Focusing on the areas of most intense conflict—Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon—can help us answer these questions.

This war is a result of the confluence of a number of circumstances. First, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon are all home to a host of different sectarian and ethnic communities. The stark divisions that exist in these societies have never been resolved. In Syria and Iraq, they were suppressed for decades by brutal dictatorial regimes. The Assad regime in Syria and Saddam Hussein’s in Iraq – were family dictatorships based on minority sectarian communities – the Alawis in Syria, and the Arab Sunnis in Iraq – while claiming to rule in the name of pan-Arab nationalism. In service of this ideology, the Syrian and Iraqi regimes ruthlessly put down ethnic and sectarian separatism in all its forms; in particular, Shia Islamism in Iraq, Sunni Islamism in Syria, and the Kurdish national movement in both countries. All were treated without mercy.

Lebanon, by contrast, is a far weaker state, which was ruled by a power-sharing arrangement between ethnic and religious groups that collapsed into civil war in 1975. The issues underlying that war were never resolved; instead, between 1990 and 2005 the Syrian army presence in Lebanon ended all discussion of basic issues of national identity. (Here we must add something the original article has completely left untackled – the fact that in Lebanon the French colonial power has sponsored a Christian – mainly Maronite – minority and allowed for its governing over the Sunni and Shia parts of the population in a  prearranged structure that fell apart with the influx of Sunni Palestinian refugees. These refugees ended up being supported by the Shia backed Hezbollah and eventually got attacked from the outside by the Israelis). Lebanon thus developed a different dynamics that is still tripartite in its Arab make up. Lebanon’s Maronite families with their French backing did not become dictators like in the cases of Iraq and Syria.

Over the last decade, the once ironclad structures of dictatorship and suppression that kept ethnic and sectarian tensions from erupting, have weakened or disappeared.

The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq destroyed the Saddam Hussein regime. A sectarian Shia government, based on the Shia Arab majority and conditionally accepted by the Kurds, took its place. In Syria, a brutal civil war has severely curtailed the power of the Assad regime, which now rules only about 40 percent of the country’s territory. The Sunni Arab majority and the Kurdish minority have carved out autonomous sectarian enclaves in the 60 percent that remains.

Western hopes that a non-sectarian identity would take hold in the areas formerly ruled by Saddam and the Assads are persistent but proven illusory. Remarks about Iraq made by then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice in 2004 sum up these hopes and the tendency to self-delusion that often accompanies them. “What has been impressive to me so far,” Rice said, is that Iraqis—whether Kurds or Shia or Sunni or the many other ethnic groups in Iraq—have demonstrated that they really want to live as one in a unified Iraq…. I think particularly the Kurds have shown a propensity to want to bridge differences that were historic differences in many ways that were fueled by Saddam Hussein and his regime… What I have found interesting and I think important is the degree to which the leaders of the Shia and Kurdish and Sunni communities have continually expressed their desires to live in a unified Iraq.

This faith is expressed also by the Obama Administration, and as a result, it has continued to support the Shia-dominated government in Iraq, led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. It sees Maliki’s opposition to Sunni insurgents in western Anbar province as an elected government’s opposition to extremist rebels. This fails to take into account the sectarian nature of the Maliki government itself, and the discriminatory policies he has pursued against the Sunnis of western Iraq.

The reemergence of sectarian conflict so evident in Iraq has also emerged in Syria and is, in turn, showed up in neighboring Lebanon.

Lebanon was first drawn into the Syrian  conflict as a result of the significant and highly effective intervention in Syria in support of the Assad regime by Iran’s Lebanon-based terrorist army, Hezbollah. This quickly led to retaliation against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon by elements among Syria’s Sunni rebels. Supporters of the Sunni rebels have succeeded in attacking Hezbollah’s Dahiyeh compound in south Beirut five times. The bombing on January 2, 2014,  was carried out by a young Lebanese member of an organization called ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) named Qutaiba Muhammad al-Satem; ISIS are Islamic extremists who have been operating as a branch of al-Qaeda in Iraq and Syria.

A map of Syria showing zones of control by the regime and various militias. (Image Source: WikiMedia Commons)

While Hezbollah’s decision to intervene on behalf of the Assad regime in Syria and the subsequent Sunni reaction is partially the result of the divided nature of Lebanon, and Syria, and their unresolved questions of national identity, larger regional conflicts, also of a sectarian nature, are a driving force behind the violence.

Hezbollah’s participation in the Syrian civil war came not as a result of automatic sentiments of solidarity, but because Hezbollah forms part of a regional alliance headed by Iran, to which the Assad regime also belongs. When Assad found himself in trouble, Hezbollah was mobilized to assist him. On the opposing side, the Syrian rebels have benefited from the support and patronage of Iran’s rival, Saudi Arabia, and other states along the Arabian peninsula, including the United Arab Emirates.

This rivalry is long standing and not just rooted in theological differences. It is about power. Iran is controlled by a revolutionary regime whose goal is to become the hegemonic force in the Middle East. Although the Iranians certainly regard the Saudis as an enemy and as unfit custodians of Islam’s most holy sites, Tehran’s main goal is to assert control over Arabian Gulf energy supplies, replacing the U.S. as guarantor of resources upon which world is dependent. Tehran understands that the real source of power in the region is the Gulf itself, with its enormous reserves of oil and natural gas that are essential to the global economy. To achieve its goals, Iran must tempt or coerce the Gulf monarchies away from U.S. protection and toward an alliance with Tehran, and ironically, American perceived weakness in the face of Tehran’s nuclear pursuit makes that all the more possible.

Riyadh has emerged as the principle opponent to Iran’s regional ambitions, mainly because the former guarantor of the current regional order, the United States, has chosen to leave the field. Until 2011, the Middle East appeared to be locked into a kind of cold war, in which the Iranians, along with their allies and proxies, sought to overturn the U.S.-dominated regional order, which was based on U.S. alliances with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Israel. Events over the last five years, however, have created the impression that the U.S. no longer wishes to play this role: America failed to back its longtime Egyptian ally, Hosni Mubarak, when he faced domestic unrest in early 2011. It failed to support the rebel forces fighting the Iran-backed Assad regime. And it failed to back Bahrain against an Iran-supported uprising in the same year. Now, the U.S. appears to be seeking a general rapprochement with Iran.

As a result of all this, Saudi Arabia has begun to take a far more active role in the region. Riyadh and its Gulf allies have certainly helped to finance and stabilize Egypt after the military removed Muhammad Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood government from power. It began to take a leading role in supporting the Syrian rebels. It has well-documented relations with the anti-Syrian March 14 movement in Lebanon. In December 2013, the Saudis pledged $3 billion to the official Lebanese army. They also support anti-Maliki elements in Iraq. In addition, they are seeking to create an alliance among the other Gulf states in order to oppose Iranian ambitions, with some success.

But all of the above will not work for the Saudis unless they also stretch out a friendly hand to Israel and do a “SADAT” – that is – backing the right of Israel provided it settles with the Palestinians and do this in a pro-active way by showing their readiness to bankroll a solution of the Palestinian conflict. We say this is the cheapest way for the Saudis to wrestle the region from the Iranians – but we found no such conclusion in the original article. This might be too revolutionary for the conventional mindset that believes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is just another Middle East intractable conflict like the one in the article. The trick is to see how an opportunity is created when trying to go about two seemingly intractable problems in tandem!

The original article follows instead by saying -  “increasingly violent rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran, intensified by American withdrawal from the region, has helped turn a conflict that was once cold into an increasingly hot cross-border sectarian war.”

There is considerable evidence of links between Iran and Saudi Arabia, on the one hand, and their respective allies in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, on the other.

On the Iranian side, Tehran no longer makes any serious attempt to deny the enormous assistance they have given the Assad regime in Syria. Indeed, the Iranians have effectively mobilized all their available regional assets in order to preserve it. The commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ elite Qods Force, Qassem Suleimani, went to Syria himself in order to coordinate these efforts. Perhaps most notably, in mid-2012 the Iranians began training a new light infantry force for Assad. Called the National Defense Force, it was necessary because Assad was unable to use much of his own army, which consisted of Sunni conscripts whose loyalty was unreliable. Iran has even sent its own IRGC fighters to fight in Syria; a fact revealed by footage taken by an Iranian cameraman who was later killed by the rebels, the testimony of Syrian defectors, and the capture of a number of IRGC men in August 2012.

In April 2013, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was summoned to Iran and instructed to deploy his own fighters in Syria. Up to 10,000 of them are now on the ground in Syria at any given time, and they played a crucial role in retaking the strategic town of Qusayr in August 2013. Hezbollah fighters are also taking a prominent role in the battle for the Qalamun area near the Lebanese border, as well as the fighting around Damascus.

Iranian financial donations have also been vital in keeping the regime alive. In January 2013, Iran announced a “credit facility” agreement with Syria that extended a $1 billion line of credit to Assad. Later the same year, an additional credit line of $3.6 billion was announced.

Iraq has also played a vital role in supporting Assad, mainly by allowing Iran to use Iraqi territory and airspace to transfer weapons to Syrian forces. At first glance, this appears to be a strange policy. Relations between Iraq and Syria prior to the civil war were not good, with Maliki openly accusing Assad of supporting Sunni insurgents. But this has now changed. Indeed, Maliki has openly supported Assad since the beginning of the Syrian civil war. This reflects his increasing closeness to Iran, which helped ensure Maliki’s emergence as prime minister after the 2010 elections and pressured Assad to support him as well. Relations between Iraq, Iran, and Syria have only improved since.

In addition to government support, Iraqi Shia militias are now fighting in Syria on behalf of Assad. The Abu Fadl al-Abbas Brigades, Ktaeb Hezbollah, and the Ahl al-Haq group all have forces in Syria. They are playing an important role, given that one of Assad’s major weaknesses is his lack of reliably loyal soldiers. The eruption of violence in Iraq’s western Anbar province has further cemented this alliance, since the insurgency is a direct result of advances made by Sunni jihadis in Syria.

As a result of all this, the Iranian-led side of the regional conflict has emerged as a tightly organized alliance, capable of acting in a coordinated way, pooling its resources for a common goal, and fighting effectively from western Iraq all the way to the Mediterranean.

The Sunni side of the conflict is more chaotic and disjointed. Saudi Arabia is its main financier, but it lacks an equivalent to the Qods force and the IRGC, who are world leaders in subversion and irregular warfare.

Only the most extreme jihadi elements appear capable of clear coordination across borders. For example, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, as its name suggests, is active in both countries and controls a contiguous area stretching from the western Anbar province in Iraq to the eastern Raqqa province in Syria. ISIS regards itself as a franchise of al-Qaeda, although it does not take orders directly from the al-Qaeda leadership in Pakistan. Another al-Qaeda group, Jabhat al-Nusra, is active in Syria. In Lebanon, a third branch of al-Qaeda, the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, has played a role in the attacks on Hezbollah. In addition, both the ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra are active in Lebanon.

But there are also less extreme groups opposing the Syrian-Iranian axis. Saudi Arabia has backed the March 14 movement, which is the main Sunni opposition party in Lebanon, as well as providing financial support to the Lebanese army. In Syria, the Saudis have fostered the Islamic Front, an alliance of eight Islamist groups unconnected to al-Qaeda. It includes some of the strongest rebel brigades, such as Ahrar al-Sham, Liwa al-Islam, and Liwa al-Tawhid. It is now emerging as the key bloc among the rebels. The Saudis also dominate the Syrian opposition in exile, with Ahmed Jarba, who has close links to Riyadh, recently reelected chairman of the Syrian National Coalition.

There are no indications that the Saudis are backing Sunni insurgents in Iraq, but the larger Sunni community is certainly looking to Riyadh for help. Relations between Saudi Arabia and the current Iraqi government are very bad. The border between the two countries is closed except during the Hajj pilgrimage, there is no Saudi embassy in Baghdad, and commercial relations are kept at a minimum. Some of the Sunni tribes in western Anbar have close links to the Saudis. While they are hostile to al-Qaeda, they are also opposed to the Maliki government, which they regard as a sectarian Shia regime.

There is a third element to this regional conflict that is something of a wild card: The Kurds. A non-Arab people who have long sought an independent state, the Kurds have succeeded in creating a flourishing autonomous zone in northern Iraq that enjoys most of the elements of de facto sovereignty. Since July 2012, another Kurdish autonomous zone has been established in northeast Syria. These two areas occupy a contiguous land mass, but are not politically united. The Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq is controlled by the Kurdish Democratic Party, led by Massoud Barzani, while the autonomous zone in northeast Syria is controlled by the PYD (Democratic Union Party), which is the Syrian branch of the Turkish-based leftist PKK movement.

These movements are rivals, and each sees itself as the appropriate leader of the Kurds. But while there is tension between them, each appears to be securely in control of its respective areas. The Kurds do not enjoy the support of any state in the region, and both the Iranians and the Saudis regard Kurdish national aspirations with suspicion. Nonetheless, the Kurds have managed to accumulate sufficient organizational and military strength to ensure the survival of their self-governing enclaves.

All these factors indicate that two rival alliances are clashing for hegemony over the region. There are myriad practical links between the various combatants, and their activities have long since spilled across the borders of the various states involved in the fighting; as indicated by the presence of Iranian fighters, ISIS, and Hezbollah in Syria; Syrian rebels in Lebanon; and many other examples. Iran is the leader of one side, Saudi Arabia is the main backer of the other, while the Kurds are concerned with maintaining their areas of control and are trying to stay out of the conflict.

The most significant result of the analysis is that the continued existence of Syria and Iraq as unified states is now in question. Practically speaking, Syria has already split into three areas, each controlled by one of the three elements listed above. Iraq has also effectively split into Kurdish and Arab zones, with Sunni and Shia groups fighting over the latter.

In many ways, Lebanon ceased to function as a unified state some time ago; since Hezbollah essentially functions as a de facto mini-state of its own. The Lebanese Sunnis lack a military tradition and have proved helpless in the face of Iran’s support for Hezbollah. But now, the emergence of the Syrian rebels and the growing popularity of Islamism among the Sunni underclass may be altering this balance. This appears to be borne out by the recent surge in Sunni violence against Hezbollah, which is the result of an attempt by Syrian jihadis and other rebels—in concert with their local allies—to bring the war to Lebanon.

Taken together, this indicates that a massive paradigm shift is underway in much of the Middle East. The eclipse of Arab nationalist dictatorships in Iraq and Syria, the historical failure to develop a unified national identity in these states, their mixed ethnic and sectarian makeup, and the U.S.’s withdrawal from its dominant position in the region—with the resulting emergence of a Saudi-Iranian rivalry—have all combined to produce an extraordinary result: A region-wide sectarian war is now taking place in the areas still officially referred to as Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.

For the West, as in the region itself, this has very serious implications. Dealing with it effectively will required an equally massive paradigm shift in strategic thinking on the Middle East, one that is capable of dispensing with previous illusions and admitting that sovereign borders once regarded as sacrosanct are swiftly becoming meaningless.

There are new borders taking shape, defined by sectarian divisions that the West ignores at its peril. Despite fantasies of withdrawing from the region, the security of global energy supplies and the maintenance of regional stability are still essential to Western interests. The West has as large a stake in the outcome of this sectarian conflict as the regional players involved. If it cannot adapt to the new Middle East that is swiftly taking shape, it will find itself on the losing side.

Jonathan Spyer is a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, and a fellow at the Middle East Forum.

The concluding paragraphs are why we thought highly about the article even we had to make some changes in it – and now again – we do not think the Western powers – the United States and the former Middle East colonial Powers of Britain and France have to try to keep onto the internal borders of the fictional States of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, they helped create years ago, and then helped maintain by helping the dictatorial and monarchic regimes that they helped institute.

It is obvious – if the Iran led Shia forces and allies come out victorious in Syria, there will be immediate follow-ups in Bahrain and the oil regions of Eastern Saudi Arabia itself – regions with clear Shia majorities.

As we said, the self preservation of the Saudi regime, that is if Saudi Arabia wants indeed to be considered as half of the tongues that hold together the Middle East – takes them to Jerusalem/Tel Aviv/Ramallah – and this might not be what the original article intended.

That article wanted the Saudis to travel to Washington instead – but really – President Obama with the US experience in Iraq and Afghanistan is best advised to let the Arabs stew in their own pot, go for alternate energy, help China go for alternate energy as well – so they are not dependent on this imaginary Middle East source of global oil either. After all – the US has already lost the oil of Iraq and the contracts now are with China – who imagines the US thinks they will still manage the Saudi oil? The only ones still ready to hang on to strong positions in the region are the Israelis – and that is where the Saudis could find real brothers. Trying  to differentiate between varieties of Islamic extremists will not help create that devil with talent to know the difference between an Al-Qaeda Sunni who works well with the Iranian Shia and the Iraqi Sunni who still likes Saudi money.

FROM THE AL MONITOR OF FEBRUARY 15, 2014

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Iran deal recasts regional politics .

The “joint plan of action” agreed on by six world powers and Iran on Nov. 24 is in a short time proving to be a catalyst for a regional trend toward diplomacy and realism.

The mood is already shifting in the Gulf, where there had been resistance if not downright opposition at times to the negotiations with Iran. UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan visited Tehran this week for meetings with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, while the Kingdom of Bahrain invited Zarif to participate in the Manama Dialogue Regional Security Summit, organized by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, to be held Dec. 6-8, as reported by Ali Hashem for Al-Monitor.

In perhaps the most substantial shift, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia released a statement on Nov. 25 welcoming the joint plan of action, saying, “Saudi Arabia views the agreement as a primary step toward a comprehensive solution to the Iranian nuclear issue provided it leads to a Middle East and Gulf region free of all weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons.”

In Israel, despite a skeptical public and statements of alarm by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there is also awareness among national security leaders that the deal with Iran may have its advantages, and that Israel is poorly served by putting itself at odds with the international coalition that forced Iran to negotiations.

Akiva Eldar captured the broader context of the Iran deal for Israel, writing, “The agreement with Iran was signed a short time after the agreement between the United States and Russia that brought about the removal of chemical weapons from Syria. Thus a much more concrete and immediate threat than the Iranian one was removed from the borders of Israel. The decision of the powers to wave a stick instead of landing a blow on the Iranian protectorate in Damascus should have signaled to Netanyahu that this would also be the route they chose to take in the talks with Tehran. It stands to reason that Iran will now be invited to contribute to a renewed effort to end the cruel civil war in Syria. We are witness to the beginning of Iran’s emergence from the international solitary confinement it entered following the revolution in 1979.”

Ben Caspit reports from Jerusalem, “There’s no panic at all among Israel’s professional military echelons. Nobody talks about a catastrophe or an imminent second Holocaust. People discuss the merits of the agreement with levelheadedness and discretion. After all, doomsday prophecies are not their thing. For this, we have Netanyahu.”

Dan Meridor, a member of the Likud Party and former deputy prime minister and minister of intelligence and atomic energy under Netanyahu, told Al-Monitor’s Mazal Mualem this week, “It’s a mistake to pick a fight with partners when we’re in the midst of a campaign against Iran, in which the Americans have the main role. Embarking on an offensive of attacks, criticism and scorekeeping harms the common struggle of large parts of the world, the United States, Europe and the Arab countries. The disputes do not help the struggle, but just give the Iranians a reason to gloat. Nothing is achieved by public disputes. The alliance between Israel and the United States is an important component of our powerful image. … Israel needs to be part of the world, to be a partner in this campaign.”

In the United States, there is popular support for the agreement with Iran. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released this week revealed that 44% of Americans support the interim agreement with Iran and only 22% oppose.

In Congress, while there is still skepticism about the deal, there also seems to be a trend toward legislation that emphasizes a congressional role in Iran’s compliance with the terms of the deal, rather than the introduction of new sanctions, during the six-month negotiation period. The Iran Nuclear Compliance Act of 2013, introduced Nov. 21 by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is now pending before the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, which has Senate jurisdiction on sanctions bills.

As reported here last week, the man to watch is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who told NPR’s Diane Rehm that the interim agreement is an “important first step” and that he will look to both Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, and Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, on whether the Senate should hold hearings and consider more sanctions.

The conversations that have begun about Iran’s nuclear program are already having consequences beyond the nuclear file, including the Gulf, Turkey and Syria. While Kadri Gursel writes that the Turkish “reset” from its failed sectarian policies may require even deeper political changes, Ankara’s shift, which is a work in progress, is already good news for a political solution in Syria, especially with the Geneva II conference to be held on Jan. 22. A real peace process in Syria would mean relief for Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq, those countries most affected by the spillover of the war, the spike in terrorism and the flood of refugees.

A stable Syrian government, resulting from a successful Geneva II political process, perhaps following elections, would offer a chance for an Israel-Lebanon-Syria peace process. This would mean the eventual demilitarization of Hezbollah, whose raison d’etre is resistance to Israel’s occupation. The reintegration of Hezbollah forces into the Lebanese army and the normalization of Hezbollah solely as a Lebanese political party, and not an armed resistance force, would be a giant step toward solving Lebanon’s perpetual national crisis.

Any deal on Hezbollah would run through Damascus and Tehran, via Moscow’s good offices, en route to Jerusalem, as this column reported last week. While the United States cannot broker this deal, the future of Hezbollah is directly connected to the nuclear negotiations with Iran. For Iran to get relief from US oil and financial sanctions under the Iran Sanctions Act, the president must certify to Congress that Iran no longer seeks weapons of mass destruction, is no longer a state sponsor of terrorism and no longer represents a significant threat to US national security interests and allies. Hezbollah is considered a terrorist group by the United States. So questions about Iran’s nuclear program and its role in the region, including support for Hezbollah, are the endgame in any discussion of a comprehensive agreement.

The article we looked at is at: www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics…

Then today’s Opinion Column by Roger Cohen: www.nytimes.com/2013/10/29/opinio… that starts:

” DUBAI — Here’s how the Saudis see it: President Obama has sold out the Syrian opposition, reinforced President Bashar al-Assad after having called for his departure, embarked on a dangerous duet with President Hassan Rouhani of Iran, played the wrong cards in Egypt, retreated from initial criticism of Israeli settlements that promised a more balanced American approach to Israel-Palestine, tilted toward the Shiites in the growing regional Sunni-Shiite confrontation, and generally undercut the interests of the kingdom.”

Both columns seem to forget that the real world is not based on heart feelings – not even when at the helm of a country sits a 89 year old monarch.

Nevertheless, Cohen notes “The Saudis, of course, always talk a good line and are happiest when others — read the United States — do the heavy lifting for them.” So now the Saudis will have figure out for themselves what heavy lifting their oil money can do for them. That for a start.

Then he says: “”But it is over Iran that the Saudis are most exercised — and it is not the Iranian nuclear program that has them so upset. Rather, it is the idea that the pre-revolutionary relationship between Iran and the United States could somehow be revived, extending Iranian influence in the region and relegating Saudi Arabia to being, as it once was, the lesser party of America’s “twin pillar” policy in the region.

The Saudis have already watched with concern as the U.S. invasion of Iraq served Iranian interests; they see Iran’s influence and military presence growing in Syria. What they fear above all is an Iranian irredentism aimed at stirring up of the Shiite populations in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.

It was not lost on Saudi Arabia that Rouhani wrote in The Washington Post in September that, “We must join hands to constructively work toward national dialogue, whether in Syria or Bahrain,” just a few days before Obama spoke at the United Nations of working to resolve “sectarian tensions” in Syria and Bahrain.

Nothing can set Saudi alarm bells ringing quite like that: U.S. and Iranian presidents speaking to each other on the telephone, having aired similar sentiments on Bahrain, where the Saudi-backed Sunni monarchy has engaged in fierce repression of an opposition led by members of the Shiite majority, which is pressing for broader rights and political inclusion.

It is hard to say whether Israel or Saudi Arabia is more anxious today over the possibility of an American-Iranian breakthrough. That possibility remains extremely remote. The right deal — one that prevents the Islamic Republic from going nuclear while drawing it back into the community of nations — is in the U.S. interest, but current Saudi fury is one measure of the difficulty and of a U.S. Middle Eastern policy that is falling short.“”

Trying to reach conclusions from above we observe:

(a) The Saudis are yet to announce officially to the UN that they give up their UN Security Council seat – and we ask why should they? Is it not much more forceful to let there an empty seat that they can fill whenever they decide to do so, and in the mean-time force the UN to start reviewing its procedures in order to have a way to handle such an unprecedented situation when a state does not participate for a longer period at the meetings?
The only precedent is a short time the Soviets left their UNSC seat empty and this led to the UN intervention in Korea. Ergo – keep an eye on the UN.

(b) The oil weapon has lost its power somewhat – so there are obvious repercussions when talking about the stand of Golf Community members.
The money weapon nevertheless has increased in value – so the Saudis and others of the Golf can still wield power.

(c) Everybody has a wish list and can tell the Saudis what to do – but after all the Saudis will find out that they know their self interests best.
So we expect that they will wake up to the reality that when it comes to confront Iran, the only strong power of the region they can rely on are the Israelis. The Israelis are the obvious opposing power to Iran and it would not be difficult to build an Israeli-Saudi practical alliance. It will start with the Saudis helping fund a Palestinian economy so the two sides – the Israelis and the Palestinians – can be separated into two well defined States bound together with an Arab backed economy. With this as a start, it will be left to the Iranians to see the advantages of retreating to their own borders and leave the basically Sunni region to evolve without Shia interference.

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UPDATED from an October 29, 2013 posting.

THE UPDATE IS FROM OCTOBER 30, 2013 NEWS:

Editorial

Allies in Revolt

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

Published: October 29, 2013 27 Comments

Today’s Editorials

• Editorial: Putting More Controls on Painkillers  (October 30, 2013)

• Editorial: A Mixed Decision on the Texas Abortion Law (October 30, 2013)

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Here’s a quick summary: Saudi Arabia and Israel are deeply worried about the Obama administration’s decision to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran — their mortal enemy. Saudi Arabia and Turkey are sore at President Obama’s refusal to become militarily involved in ousting President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, in particular his decision not to respond with military strikes to Mr. Assad’s use of chemical weapons. Mr. Obama instead chose a diplomatic deal under which Syria’s chemical weapons would be dismantled.

The Saudis are also unhappy that Mr. Obama withdrew support for Hosni Mubarak, the deposed Egyptian president, and then worked with Mohamed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood member who was elected to replace Mr. Mubarak but was later thrown out.

All three countries have resorted to threats and displays of pique to make their points. Saudi Arabia renounced a United Nations Security Council seat it had worked hard to win because, it said, the United States and the United Nations had failed to achieve a Mideast peace agreement or solve the Syria crisis, as if either objective could be easily delivered by America alone. Although it is hard to see how other countries like China and Russia would be better alternatives, Saudi officials have gone so far as to complain that they regard the United States as unreliable and would look elsewhere for their security.

Meanwhile, Turkey, a NATO member, has said it would buy a long-range missile defense system worth $3.4 billion from China because China’s bid was lower than bids from the United States and Europe. The decision may also, however, have reflected Turkey’s annoyance with Mr. Obama’s Syria policy. (It’s a dumb deal, too, and Turkish officials now seem to be reconsidering it; China’s system will be hard to integrate with NATO equipment, thus undermining alliance defenses and Turkey’s.)

As for Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is doing his best to torpedo any nuclear deal with Iran, including urging Congress to impose more economic sanctions on Iran that could bring the incipient negotiations between Iran’s new government and the major powers to a halt.

Much of this anger at the United States is driven by a case of nerves. The Arab Spring uprisings shook the old order, plunged the region into chaos, created opportunities for Iran to expand its influence in Syria and Iraq and threatened to worsen the Sunni-Shiite divide. Saudi Arabia, a Sunni-majority country, in particular, fears an American rapprochement with Shiite-majority Iran.

But Mr. Obama’s first responsibility is to America’s national interest. And he has been absolutely right in refusing to be goaded into a war in Syria or bullied into squandering a rare, if remote, chance to negotiate an Iranian nuclear deal.

In addressing the United Nations last month, Mr. Obama reinforced his intention to narrow his regional diplomatic focus to the Iranian nuclear deal and an Israeli-Palestinian peace. Some have read this as weakness and retreat, rather than pragmatism. We wish he had put more emphasis on Egypt and Iraq. But his priorities make sense. His task now is to reassure the allies that the United States remains committed to their security.

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Also, the Iraqi leadership comes to Washington to ask to buy arms – this while having done nothing about uniting their country or alternatively letting it sub-divide to its three components – Shiia – Kurds – Sunni. Without this first Iraq will turn into another Syria with the Maliki, a Shiia,  government trying to surpress its Sunni and Kurdish minorities. What should the US President do? He clearly does not want to step back into the Iraqi morass that his predecessor has created.

Wadjda – She is the movie character in the first movie directed by a Saudi Woman and while all she wants is the right to ride a bicycle, today’s Saudi women are already ripe to ask to be allowed to drive their cars by themselves. This while the Saudi Monarchy is ready to forgo sitting on the UN Security Council because the World at large is not ready to allow them to dictate conditions anymore as they used to do when the Oil Barrel was only true king of the World Economy.

Saudi Arabia will come to be sorry that they did not empower their women in time and did not legalize their foreign help either. The Middle East is changing and they refused to see the upcoming change.

  This past Saturday, despite  strong opposition,  some women in Saudi Arabia turned on the ignition in their cars and took a non-chauffeured ride.  In Saudi Arabia this is top of Chutzpah.

These women believed that time is on their side. They point to the huge numbers of Saudis who study and travel abroad and return with new perspectives on their culture. They also suggest that the kingdom’s youthful population and the tremendous rise of social media will over time make the country more open to change. By coincidence, me and my wife went to see a Saudi movie co-production that was directed for the first time by a Saudi female. POWER TO HER with the grace of Allah and the lack of understanding of his wardens.

Some opponents of Women’s minimal right to drive a car pointed out that Oct. 26 was the birthday of Hillary Rodham Clinton, implying a foreign hand in the planning. Last week, hackers broke into the campaign’s Web site, posting insults aimed at a prominent activist and a video in which a man identified as a Zionist calls for women to drive — implying that Saudi’s enemies see this as a way to weaken the kingdom.

The MOVIE we saw was WADJDA – named after  an 11-year-old girl living in a suburb of Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. Although she lives in a conservative world, Wadjda is fun loving, entrepreneurial and always pushing the boundaries of what she can get away with. Wajda is a lovely normal girl in a restraining environment that will be very difficult for her growing up as a normal woman if one thinks in Western democracy terms.

After a fight with her friend Abdullah, a neighborhood boy she shouldn’t be playing with, Wadjda sees a beautiful green bicycle for sale. She wants the bicycle desperately so that she can beat Abdullah in a race. But Wadjda’s mother won’t allow it, fearing repercussions from a society that sees bicycles as dangerous to a girl’s virtue. So Wadjda decides to try and raise the money herself. At first, Wadjda’s mother is too preoccupied with convincing her husband not to take a second wife to realize what’s going on. And soon enough Wadjda’s plans are thwarted when she is caught running various schemes at school. Just as she is losing hope of raising enough money, she hears of a cash prize for a Koran recitation competition at her school. She devotes herself to the memorization and recitation of Koranic verses, and her teachers begin to see Wadjda as a model pious girl. The competition isn’t going to be easy, especially for a troublemaker like Wadjda, but she refuses to give in. She is determined to continue fighting for her dreams – wins the competition, but the money is taken away from her when she declares in her purity and innocence that she intends to buy with it a bicycle. Instead the money is given to the Arab Holly Grail – the needy Palestinians – another Saudi center-figure.

That is just the movie center-line, but its great value is in the environment it depicts. The all-girl Madrassa and the depiction of a world that seems organized to suppress any expression of individuality of these girls or anybody else -even the foreign Muslim driver who lives there without documents and far away from his own family – the daughter that he has not sen in five years and became just a photo attached to the dashboard of the car he is driving.

Wadjda’s mother has a job but is dependent on the driver. The is a hint to her having had a difficult labor when giving birth and as she had a daughter now her husband will take another woman in order to get a son. this is a world-caves-in situation for her and it leads her now to focus all her love on Wadjda. This is a bitter-sweet movie loaded with dinamite – rather more then the suicide bomber that is mentioned in passing. It becomes much more when another sentence in passing just says – “Silly girl, You Want to Race a Boy?”

The Saudi-German co-produced movie,  the Director,  Haifaa al-Mansour, is the eighth (out of twelve) child of the poet Abdul Rahman Mansour, who introduced her to films by video, there being no movie theaters in Saudi Arabia^. With his encouragement, she studied comparative literature at the American University in Cairo.   She later went on to attend film school in Sydney, Australia.

She began her filmmaking career with three shorts, Who?, The Bitter Journey, and The Only Way Out. The Only Way Out won prizes in the United Arab Emirates and in Holland.  She followed these with the documentary Women Without Shadows, which deals with the hidden lives of women of the Persian Gulf.  It was shown at 17 international festivals.  The film received the Golden Dagger for Best Documentary in the Muscat Film Festival and a special jury mention in the fourth Arab Film Festival in Rotterdam.  Haifaa al-Mansour was a guest at the 28th Three Continents Festival in Nantes, France.

Her feature debut Wadjda, which she wrote as well as directed, made its world premiere at the 2012 Venice Film Festival; it is the first full-length feature to be shot entirely in Saudi Arabia and through 2013, the only feature-length film made in Saudi Arabia by a female director.

The film was backed by Rotana, the film production company of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.

Wadjda was selected as the Saudi Arabian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards, which is the first time Saudi Arabia has submitted a film for the Best Foreign Language Oscar.

She did not intend that her film work focus on women’s issues, but found them too important to not address. Both Who? and Women Without Shadows deal with the custom of abaya. She has received hate mail and criticism for being unreligious, which she denies. She does, however, feel that Saudi Arabia needs to take a more critical view of its culture.She also received praise from Saudis for encouraging discussion on topics usually considered taboo.

Haifaa al-Mansour has been living in Bahrain  for some years with her husband, an American diplomat, and their two children.

Her personal story is fascinating in the way she is able to get some backing by Saudi Royals for her low key presentation of what might indeed be the deepest  problem of the Saudi Society. She clearly  has become the best Saudi Arabia has to offer about itself to the world at large. Will it be rewarded by an Oscar? The equivalent of a Nobel in the movie business?

The movie industry says: Wadjda presents a startlingly assured new voice from a corner of the globe where cinema has been all but silenced.

Saudi Women of substance – RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Hackers defaced their Web site. Delegations of clerics appealed to the king to block their movement. And men claiming to be security agents called their cellphones to leave a clear message: “O, women of the kingdom, do not get behind the wheel!”

But they did anyway. On Saturday, a few dozen women insisted on violating one of the most stubborn social codes in staunchly conservative Saudi society, getting into their cars and driving, activists said. Many posted videos of themselves doing so to spread the word.

“We are looking for a normal way of life,” Madiha al-Ajroush, 60, a psychologist, said in an interview in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, “for me to get into my car and do something as small as get myself a cappuccino or something as grand as taking my child to the emergency room.”

Above is from Ben Hubbard as printed by The Sunday New York Times, October 27, 2013 in:

“Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where women are not allowed to drive, despite decades of effort by a few activists.”

We are flabbbergasted seeing the note about the defacing of an internet outlet as we have experienced the same after having posted an article about Saudi Arabia – just see our homepage please and you can see the article as well at:

www.sustainabilitank.info/2013/10/saudi-arabia-bombs-the-un-security-council-by-refusing-to-take-a-seat-and-showing-the-emptiness-of-this-hollowed-institution-will-the-saudis-now-join-israel-and-palestine-and-show-that-oil-money-can/

The goal  of the women that want to be allowed to drive by themselves is profoundly modest compared with the Arab Spring calls for democracy that have toppled some Middle Eastern governments and shaken others. They have gone out of their way to avoid anything that looks like a protest, remain deeply loyal to the 89-year-old King Abdullah, and studiously avoid confrontations with the authorities.

“We don’t want to break any laws,” said Ms. Ajroush (Madiha al-Ajroush, 60 – a psychologist) who has been campaigning for the right to drive since 1990. “This is not a revolution, and it will not be turned into a revolution.”

But one prominent sheik, Nasser al-Omar, led a delegation of more than 100 sheiks to the royal court in Jeddah to appeal to the king against “the conspiracy of women driving,” as he said in a video posted online.

Another cleric, Sheik Mohammed al-Nujaimi, described the campaign as a “great danger,” saying it would lead to ruined marriages, a low birthrate, the spread of adultery, more car accidents and “the spending of excessive amounts on beauty products.”

“The learned have banned women from driving cars because of the political, religious, social and economic problems it entails,” Sheik Nujaimi warned in a statement.

Faisal Al Nasser/Reuters

What is not normal here is only the fact that these women must cover themselves from top to toe not that this lady sits at the steering wheel.
|In fact it is highly possible that she could be capable not just of running a motor-vehicle for her private use but to run the whole country for the public good.

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coincidental trivia about the choice of name Wadjda – which has led to a misspelling  as Wajda -  leads to:

Andrzej Wajda – a Polish film director. Recipient of an honorary Oscar, he is possibly the most prominent member of the unofficial “Polish Film School”. He is known especially for a trilogy of war films: A Generation, Kana and Ashes and Diamonds. 

Born: March 6, 1926 (age 87), Suwaki, Poland

and we are inclined to think this was not just a coincidence. the added “d” could then stand for David which is the bright figure that wins over the blinded bloated Goliath. This like in Malcolm Gladwell’s new “Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants.”

as they say in the region – Insh-Allah!

wajda saudia film venicia.avi – YouTube

? 7:34? 7:34

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_wveAGLdvs?

Sep 1, 2012 – Uploaded by HUSSAM9551

WAJDA LE FILM SAUDIA LAUREAT VINICIA FESTVAL 2012 DAR AL HUSSAMI PRODUCT.

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and the best from “Pop Matters”: 

This Is Definitely a Man’s World: ‘Wadjda’

4:00 pm

Friday, Oct 25, 2013

by Bill Gibron

(W)riter/director Haifaa al-Mansour has more up her sleeve than undermining the ruling regime. (S)he wants us to see Wadjda for what she represents – the possible future of Saudi Arabia

 

Wadjda

Director: Haifaa Al Mansour

Cast: Reem Abdullah, Waad Mohammed, Abdullrahman Al Gohani, Ahd, Sultan Al Assaf, Mohammed Zahir

(Sony Pictures Classics; US theatrical: 13 Sep 2013 (Limited release); UK theatrical: 19 Jul 2013 (General release); 2012)

Trailer

Official Site

This is 2013, right? This is a modern world filled with tireless technological advances, great leaps in scientific understanding, and a growing globalism which allows formerly outside cultures to claim a portion of the global plan, correct? We do try and strive for equal rights, national sovereignty, and a right to self determination? So the social science fiction of something like Wadjda should be seen as nothing short of shocking. It should be viewed as not only a triumph for its filmmaker (the first woman to ever make a movie in the horribly paternalistic theocracy of Saudi Arabia) and film subject, but as a telling window into a world that, supposedly, shouldn’t exist in the 21st century. Sure, religious “freedom” has formed the foundation for such onerous oppression, but by watching our little heroine and the various women around her, we see how Saudi females forge victories out of the diminishing windows of opportunity they are (rarely) given.

All little Wadjda (Waad Mohammed) wants is a bicycle. Her friend Abdullah (Abdullrahman Algohani) teases her, telling her that girls don’t ride bikes and, besides, she doesn’t have the 800 Riyals it costs to buy one. Little does he know that Wadjda works every angle she can at her all girl’s school, avoiding the constant scowl of her Headmistress (Ahd) while selling mixtapes, candy, and other contraband for her equally repressed classmates. Things are equally dicey at home, with her handsome father (Sultan Al Assaf) constantly chiding her mother (Reem Abdullah) that he will look for another wife is she doesn’t straighten up and act the part. Eventually, Wadjda finds the answer to her two wheeled dreams – a Qur’an recitation contest which pays 1000 Riyals to the winner. Studying as hard as her constantly preoccupied pre-adolescent brain can, she hopes to win. Of course, even if she does, that doesn’t guarantee she’ll get what she wants. This is Saudi Arabia, after all.
There are times when you will think Wadjda a twee and artfully cloying coming of age, a movie made up of beats we’ve seen several dozen times before. Then you’ll realize that everything is set in the otherworld dimensions of the man-powered Arabic world, and you jaw starts to drop. It’s almost impossible to believe what the female characters have to put up with here (and one imagines it’s actually much worse in reality). It’s almost unbelievable. Wadjda is reprimanded like every other naughty little girl is, but the adults are completely cut off from what we would consider to be a set of inalienable human rights. Take the mother. She lives under the constant cloud of a husband who trades on his ability to verbally divorce her by using the threat of new wife to keep her in line. Even when she does everything she can for him, she is left in a subservient, slighted role, which just doesn’t seem to fit her veiled (literally) vitality.
Then there are the teachers, acting like agents in a McCarthy-era witch hunt, worried about how the girls wear their hair, hand holding and touching in public, and perhaps the biggest sin of all – being visible to the men as they move from class to class. Though there are times when Wadjda the film wants to make us aware of why these laws are important (this is especially true in the case of our heroine’s home life) they often play like missives from an alien artifact. It’s just stunning to think people believe in such strategies, that they are willing to succumb to such treatment (which can get very brutal at times) to serve a spoiled, entitled, elitist group. You know it’s bad when a lowly driver, slovenly and given to disrespectful outbursts and smacks, can still demand – and readily get – the respect of his opposite sex ‘inferiors.’ If ever there was a testament against Sharia law, this movie is it.
But writer/director Haifaa al-Mansour has more up her sleeve than undermining the ruling regime. Instead, she wants us to see Wadjda for what she represents – the possible future of Saudi Arabia. Under the black robes and face veil is a girl who loves the ways of the West, their sneakers and their snacks, who enjoys mocking her elders knowing full well that, at her age, she will receive little more than a stern retort. Of course, as she grows, she see what could happen to her (a pair of her friends are condemned for doing little more than talking closely) and, by arguing for a bike, she is basically defying her heritage and her faith with a request for…freedom. But the great thing is, Wadjda doesn’t care. Instead, she asks the basic question “Why?” and then scoffs when the answer seems based in religion, not reality.
Unfortunately, the window on an unusual world angle is all al-Mansour’s movie has going for it. The story is routine, the coming of age only complicated by the script dicta of the Qur’an. Wadjda and her mother are the most complete, three dimensional characters while everyone else is painted in the broadest of one note brushstrokes. Granted, people in modern Saudi Arabia may be nothing more than model archetypes, and al-Mansour may be working within the confines of the society she is situated in, but as with all great art, challenge is part of the process. Wadjda the character has much more chutzpah than Wadjada the film, though the reasons for same are obvious. One is a fictional character. The other is a statement that could land its maker in very, very hot water.
Still, this movie should be seen, both as an expression within oppression and a wake-up call to those in the West who wonder why the Middle East is so unsettled. In a world where we strive, daily, to determine the proper personal liberties of everyone involved, where we simultaneously clamor for calm and conformity, where faith is the foundation and formation for both genuine good and unconscionably evil, the situations highlighted here are both unfathomable and all too familiar. Recognizing the undeniable achievement and accomplishment here, Wadjda will still be a maddening movie for a ‘modern’ sensibility. It’s like looking back at our own sketchy history and coming down on the side of wrong, and then basing our entire rule of law on same. There is hope here. There’s also hopelessness.

We post the following because we were present in New York City at the first dinner Rabbi Marc Schneier hosted the Bahraini Ambassador to the UN. That was at the time an extension of Rabbi Schneier’s outreach to Muslims in the US – when he organized joint dinners between Jewish and Muslim communities in various places in the US. Eventually common interests will lead the way to the de-Jure acceptance of Israel as well.

Gulf states ready for peace, says well-connected US rabbi Marc Schneier, who has good ties with Bahraini royal family, urges Netanyahu to take a page out of the Sadat playbook and make the first public overture Rabbi Marc Schneier with King Hamad at the Bahraini Crown Palace, December 2011. (photo Walter Ruby/Foundation for Et hnic Understanding) By Raphael Ahren April 23, 2013 Israel should publicly commend Bahrain for labeling Hezbollah a terrorist organization and it should try to build strategic alliances with all Gulf states based on a common opposition to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, a prominent American rabbi with ties to the Bahraini royal family said. Rabbi Marc Schneier, an American congregational leader who recently met with the Bahraini king and the crown prince, urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to visit an Arab country and seize Israel and Sunni Muslims’ common distrust of Tehran as a path toward warming relations with parts of the Arab world. However, an expert on the politics of the gulf states said that while Bahrain’s move to blacklist Hezbollah did present “an opening,” a real improvement of bilateral ties remains elusive and would likely stay under the radar. “We’re so myopic, we’re so focused on Europe, and here you have a very significant development that took place in Bahrain,” Schneier told The Times of Israel, referring to the tiny Gulf state’s recent decision to declare Hezbollah a terrorist organization. “I am calling for a conversation to take place, a conversation that needs to begin within Israel about looking east, not only looking west.” Schneier bemoaned the fact that the Bahraini parliament’s March 26 decision to outlaw the Lebanese-Shiite group received little press coverage in Israel, and that Jerusalem didn’t comment at all. “No one’s even discussing this,” he lamented. “After Bahrain passed this legislation, I was simply amazed how little attention this was given in Israel. It is a landmark event, particularly because it’s an Arab country that has called on other Arab countries to follow suit.” “Israel needs to remember it lives in the Middle East and not in the Middle West,” Schneier added. “There is an opportunity to begin to create some kind of strategic alliance with the gulf states, which have been very expressive about their concerns about Iran and its satellite organizations like Hezbollah.” The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem declined to comment on Schneier’s remarks, but a diplomatic official told The Times of Israel that “If the Bahrainis had wanted Israel to say something, they could have sent us a message through diplomatic channels. Since they didn’t, we didn’t.” The Bahraini Foreign Ministry did not respond to a Times of Israel query on this matter. Schneier, perhaps best known for being the founder of The Hampton Synagogue, which is frequented by affluent and prominent US Jews, is the co-founder and president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding. In the framework of his interfaith work, he developed a relationship with Bahrain’s ambassador to the US, Houda Nonoo, the first Jew to represent an Arab country in Washington. In December 2011, Schneier was received by King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa at the royal palace in Manama. The king told him that Bahrain and Israel have a common enemy in Iran. He has been in “close contact with the royal family ever since,” Schneier said. Rabbi Marc Schneier with Crown Prince of Bahrain Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, who is also deputy supreme commander and first deputy prime minister (photo credit: courtesy Foundation for Ethnic Understanding) In March, Schneier returned to Manama to meet with the heir apparent, Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, who is also the deputy supreme commander of the Bahraini army and first deputy prime minister. He “validated and reconfirmed” his father’s statements about Israel and Iran, Schneier said. Israel and Bahrain do not maintain diplomatic relations, but in 2005 King Hamad told the US ambassador that his state has contacts with Israel “at the intelligence/security level (i.e., with Mossad),” according to a secret US diplomatic cable published two years ago by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. He also indicated willingness “to move forward in other areas, although it will be difficult for Bahrain to be the first.” The development of “trade contacts,” though, would have to wait for the implementation of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the king told the ambassador. Other WikiLeaks documents show that senior officials from both countries have spoken in recent years, such as a 2007 meeting between then-foreign minister Tzipi Livni and Bahraini foreign minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed Al Khalifa in New York. The Bahraini foreign minister in 2009 also signaled that he was willing to meet Netanyahu to try to advance the peace process, but ultimately decided not to go ahead with the plan. Frederic Wehrey, a senior associate in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, agreed that the gulf states and Israel have a common foe in Iran. “The designation of Hezbollah is certainly an opening; it shows that they’re concerned about this non-state actor that Israel obviously regards as a dire threat as well,” he said.   However, a real rapprochement between Manama and Jerusalem remains unlikely, asserted Wehrey, who focuses on political reform and security issues in the Arab Gulf states and US policy in the Middle East. “On a strategic level, yes, there is a shared threat, but that doesn’t negate the very issue they’re facing from domestic parties and their populations. Many Bahrainis and citizens of other gulf states feel strongly about the Palestinian cause and the governments will therefore have to tread very carefully in how it approaches relations to Israel,” he said. “If there are ties, they would be under the table and hidden from the public view.” According to the website of the kingdom’s foreign ministry, Bahrain supports the creation of a Palestinian state within the pre-1967 lines and the “right of return of Palestinian refugees.” Manama also holds Jerusalem responsible “for the unfortunate, deteriorating, and painful situation in the Palestinian lands as a result of Israel’s aggressive practices including: assassinations; settlement-building; and the erection of the Separation Wall; as well as attacking holy places, and imposing economic blockades,” the site states. It is not even clear why Israel would want to develop overt ties with Bahrain, added Wehrey, noting that the autocratic regime is currently facing enormous criticism for its poor human rights record and the way it suppresses public unrest. A strong affiliation with such a state – which is not a regional powerhouse like, for instance, Saudi Arabia – “might actually damage Israel’s position,” he said. But Schneier, speaking to The Times of Israel from his home in New York, believes that if Jerusalem made a genuine effort to negotiate a peace treaty with the Palestinians, then Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Oman would be willing to recognize Israel and normalize relations. “All gulf states are ready,” he said. “We now have the opportunity, or the tension, to move that thing along because of Iran.” The rabbi called on Netanyahu to make the first step by approaching the Arab states. “I believe the prime minister should take a page out of Sadat’s playbook and either show up at one of the capitals of the gulf states or appear before the Arab League,” he said, referring to Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s 1977 visit to Israel, which laid the foundation for a peace agreement between the two countries signed two years later.   “There is a precedent for it,” Schneier said. “As long as Israel continues to do its share at trying to arrive at a resolution with the Palestinian people, then I believe there is an opportunity here.”