Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September-October 2002, pages 38-41

Issues In The News

Compiled by Nizar Wattad

ARABIAN PENINSULA

Study Warns of Stagnation in Arab Societies

The new Arab Human Development Report 2002—commissioned by the United Nations and written by a group of Arab intellectuals—warns that a lack of political freedom, repression of women and intellectual isolation are major factors contributing to the stagnation of Arab society and culture. While oil income has brought increased wealth to some states in the region, the report notes, per capita income has shrunk dramatically, leading to the conclusion that the Arab world is “richer than it is developed.”

Women are denied opportunities for advancement, and maternal mortality rates are among the worst in the world. “Sadly,” the report says, “the Arab world is largely depriving itself of the creativity and productivity of half its citizens.”

Intellectuals often feel constrained by an increasingly powerful lower middle class whose members are literate but not broadly educated—a situation that forces many Arab thinkers into exile, and decreases intellectual productivity in the region. As an example, the report notes that “the whole Arab world translates about 330 books annually, one-fifth the number that Greece translates.”

This is the first such United Nations development report devoted to a single region, and was prepared by Arab intellectuals representing both genders and a variety of academic, professional, ethnic and religious backgrounds.

Dubai Increases Water Storage

The July 28 Gulf News reports that work has begun on an ambitious project aimed at doubling Dubai’s water storage capacity to 232 million gallons. Water consumption in Dubai currently averages between 140 million and 145 million gallons per day, with a storage capacity of only 112 million gallons. The development is part of the long-term Dubai Network Master Plan (DNMP), the first phase of which was completed in 1995. This new phase will take 21 months to complete, just in time to meet the DNMP’s 2004 deadline.

Australian Pests Welcome at Gulf Tables

There are as many as 500,000 wild camels in Australia—descendants of pack animals brought in from Afghanistan and Pakistan in the 1850s who later were replaced by cars and trucks. The population has been increasing at such an alarming rate that a new industry has emerged—exporting the wild (and hence rare) camels to the Middle East for consumption. At the top of the export list are Saudi Arabia and the UAE, where an estimated 5,000 camels have been shipped this year. According to the June 28 Christian Science Monitor, that number is slated to increase to 30,000 in the near future.

Kuwaiti Parliament Self-Critical on Human Rights

A report compiled by Kuwait’s parliamentary Human Rights Committee criticizes the government on several counts, and warns that Kuwaiti police are committing “serious” human rights abuses against expatriate workers. “The daily practices of some security men and investigation officers, which the local press succeeds in uncovering, are evidence of serious violations of human rights,” the report notes, despite the state legal system’s assurance of minimal justice for expatriates.

According to the July 9 Arab News, the report numbered domestic workers at 336,325 out of 900,000 foreign workers in the country, many of whom have been forced into prostitution and narcotics trafficking. A total of seven premeditated murders of domestic workers were recorded in 2001, with four additional beatings that led to death.

The report also criticized government restrictions on the press, treatment of the country’s 76,591 stateless individuals, and refusal to grant women their constitutional right to vote and hold public office.

Kuwait Reclaims Polluted Soil

Scientists at the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) have succeeded in nurturing a brilliant garden on soil that was contaminated in 1991 when the retreating Iraqi army set fire to over 600 oil wells. Forty percent of the country’s aquifers were contaminated at that time and, according to KISR ecologist Samira Omar, “at this stage, these are deep, deep scars in the environment.” The garden is the result of a technique perfected by KISR for cleaning up soil using naturally occurring microbes. When the microbes break down the oil, they leave behind a fertilizing residue, making the once-polluted soil especially rich.

This success aside, the situation is still bad. Cancer in Kuwait has risen 800 percent per one million people—the result of heavy metals inhaled in the smoke from the oil fires—while hundreds of standing oil lakes remain in the desert, threatening further penetration and pollution of the soil. Says Omar, “It’s going to take years and maybe generations to remove these marks.”

)AE Grants Amnesty to Illegal Immigrants

According to the July 6 Gulf News, the UAE has announced a nationwide amnesty for those expatriates staying in the country illegally. Under the new arrangement, illegal immigrants will be pardoned and allowed to leave the country—after an unspecified grace period—without paying fines or facing punishment. The amnesty was decided upon following reports of an increasing number of people entering and working in the Emirates illegally since 1996, when a similar process of immigrant deportation proved successful.

FERTILE CRESCENT

Environment, Economics Combine In Jordan

According to the July 24 Jordan Times online, Jordan’s Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN), the country’s oldest environmental protection organization, has broken new ground with a U.S.-funded $7 million endowment, used to create the “Jordan Fund for Nature.” “The idea of endowments is something new in Jordan,” Finance Minister Michel Marto noted at the signing ceremony, “and I would like to see it spread to other institutions.”

The $7 million will be invested, and the RSCN will be funded using the interest generated from the initial capital, which will remain untouched. According to RSCN President Leila Sharaf, “The endowment will free the RSCN from its worries about survival,” allowing officials to concentrate on their mission to protect Jordan’s biodiversity, promote eco-tourism, and establish nature-friendly income-generating projects. A successful example of the latter can be seen in the Wadi Dana nature reserve, where local residents craft jewelry and other items inspired by the wildlife. According to U.S. Ambassador Edward Gnehm, who witnessed the ceremony, these initiatives provide an economic link between communities and nearby nature reserves: “The two become interdependent.”

The ceremony was held in honor of the late Anis Muasher, founder of the RSCN, who died in September. The idea of using an endowment to fund the RSCN’s projects originated with Muasher, who fought for nearly a decade to create the new fund.

“She” TV Plans to Push Mideast Buttons

Lebanese filmmaker Nicolas Abou-Samah has launched Heya TV (Arabic for “she” TV), a new satellite station with plans to broadcast “anything and everything to do with women.” According to the June 26 Christian Science Monitor, Heya TV will juxtapose shows about fashion and cooking with at least two forums for serious debate on restrictions faced by many Arab women under traditional culture or Islamic law. “We want to be controversial,” says Abou-Samah.

The station’s flagship will be “Too Daring,” each episode of which will feature a woman who has challenged the region’s code of female conduct and a panel of guests both opposing and supporting her position. The show will be directed by the Lebanese National Broadcasting Network’s executive producer, Leila Bazzi-Jarrouje. “We will broach sensitive subjects,” she says, including HIV/AIDS, domestic violence, divorce, prostitution and ‘honor crimes’—in which a male family member kills a female relative who is perceived to have brought the family to shame.

Says Bazzi-Jarrouje of the station’s possible effect on Arab satellite viewers, about 70 percent of whom are women: “It’s like putting a finger on a wound. But there is a feeling in the region now that things are evolving, and women’s role is shifting. We may not be able to change the mind-set of older generations, but younger viewers can be enlightened about how to open up.”

Broadcasts begin this summer, with a yearly budget of $4 million and an initial staff of 50, including celebrity anchors. “I’m excited,” says Bazzi-Jarrouje. “We are going to push buttons.”

Former Assad Adviser Seeks Top U.N. Human Rights Post

George Jabbour, a 64-year-old retired law professor and adviser for two decades to the late Syrian President Hafez Assad, has announced his candidacy for the post of U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. Current High Commissioner Mary Robinson intends to step down in September, and Jabbour hopes to succeed her, with a particular focus on improving the human rights record of Arab and Muslim countries, thus enhancing their post-9/11 image. If elected, reports the July 10 Lebanese Daily Star, his first task would be to reexamine the “constitutions and basic laws” of countries to determine whether or not they violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Jabbour served as adviser to the late Assad from 1970 to 1989, holds several university degrees, and is running independently.

IRAN/IRAQ

Iranian Youth Harassed by “Depravity” Crackdown

Iranian police have launched a new crackdown on “depravity,” reports the June 30 Saudi Gazette, especially in the nation’s capital of Tehran. Identity and marriage certificate checks are becoming regular occurrences, as police officials have vowed to “fight against loud music in cars, all kinds of harassment, drug users and notably fights between groups of young people,” in the words of top official Mohammad Sadoughi. Tactics include stopping cars and checking for unmarried couples—who can face fines, prison, and flogging—as well as party raids that result in hundreds of youth arrests every weekend. “Our patrols are spread across the city,” Sadoughi said, “to re-establish social order and to fight against all forms of depravity.” Citizens disagree, it seems, as papers run large headlines decrying the “repression of youth by the police.”

Earthquake Shatters Northern Iran

A devastating earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale struck northwest Iran June 22, reported the next day’s Saudi Gazette. An estimated 245 people lost their lives in the quake, which shook eight provinces and left thousands homeless. Condolences came from all quarters, including the least likely: U.S. President George W. Bush, who, despite having previously branded Iran as part of an “axis of evil,” extended his sympathy to “the families of the many victims in the cities and villages affected by this tragic event.” Bush noted that “human suffering knows no political boundaries: we stand ready to assist the people of Iran as needed and as desired.” Iranian officials were cool to the offer, saying they would accept aid from U.S. non-governmental organizations, but stopping short of indicating any cooperation with the Bush administration.

/addam Hussain’s Son Urges Security, Vigilance

Iraqi member of Parliament Uday Hussain, son of the country’s President Saddam Hussain, has issued a warning to the Iraqi government and people, who, he said, “must be prepared on the psychological, military and national levels to oppose any enemy attack.” He also noted that the government should enact “strict security measures and the satisfaction of the basic needs of citizens” in order to prevent citizen uprisings similar to those which occurred in northern and southern Iraq following the 1991 Gulf war. A parliamentary statement issued following the younger Hussain’s address criticized “the aggressive policy of the American administration and Congress, [who are] engaged in a hostile campaign against Iraq to change its national regime and install a government in their own pay.” According to the July 16 Saudi Gazette, the parliamentary session was attended by most of Iraq’s 250 MPs.

ISRAEL/PALESTINE

Israeli Hackers Lead the World

The July 10 Ha’aretz reported that “during the first half of 2002, Israel ranked first in the world in the number of hackers relative to its number of Web users,” ahead of Hong Kong and France. According to a study conducted by the U.S. security firm Riptech, 33 out of every 10,000 Israeli Web users are hackers. The article also noted that “only 1 percent of hacker attacks during the first half of 2002 were generated in the seven countries identified by the Pentagon as those which support terror (Iran, Iraq, Cuba, Sudan, North Korea, Syria and Libya).”

Ethiopian Jews Face Discrimination

Israel’s Ethiopian Jews are becoming increasingly discontented with their lot in life—impoverished neighborhoods, rising unemployment, and a high school drop-out rate of 26 percent—the worst of any Jewish group in Israel. According to Asher Elias, a staff member at the Israel Association for Ethiopian Jews, “in jobs, in education, people feel discriminated against because they are black.” The May 22 Christian Science Monitor recalled an incident in 1996, when it was learned that Israeli hospitals had thrown out all blood donated by Ethiopians. “What do they think?” Elias asked. “That we are not humans?”

Israeli Students Suffer Abuse at School

According to the July 15 Ha’aretz, “the majority of Israeli high school students, Arab and Jewish, are victims of physical and verbal violence at school.” A survey conducted by Hebrew University Professor Rami Benbenishty found that 5.6 percent of Israeli high school students had been threatened by a fellow student with a knife “at least once in the last month.” Around 2 percent of both high school and middle school students had been threatened with a gun at school, while around 15 percent of elementary schoolers have been severely beaten by other kids.

Racist Legislation Abounds in Israel

As the international community criticized a piece of legislation proposed in Israel’s parliament under which certain land would be sold only to Jews, a few other equally racist proposals floated by unnoticed.

The June 16 Arab News reported that Israel has clamped down on Palestinians from the occupied territories who marry Israeli Arabs. Both pending and existing marriages are threatened by the move, fueled by fears of losing the demographic advantage due to increased immigration. A non-Jewish majority in Israel, the article noted, means “the state’s Jewish orientation could be rejected in the future.”

Perhaps to further ensure that orientation, Israel’s parliament allowed the proposal of a piece of legislation that would require all Israeli citizens—Jews and Gentiles—“to state their allegiance to Israel as a Jewish State, the Israeli flag, and the Israeli national anthem,” the Arab American Institute reported July 19. The legislation’s author, MK Michael Kleiner, rejected criticism that the law was racist.

On that note, the July 24 Ha’aretz reported that the Israeli Knesset voted to accept a law preventing Palestinian victims of the first intifada from receiving compensation for loss of life and property. So far 6,500 damage claims have been filed, threatening Israel with billions of shekels in compensation costs.

Rather than pay, parliament has retroactively broadened the definition of “war activity” in order to render these claims invalid. Another stunner from, to quote opposition Meretz Party leader Yossi Sarid, “the most racist in the family of democratic nations.”

Israel Launches Arabic TV

Israel has launched an Arabic-language TV channel targeting millions of Arabs who, Israeli officials fear, have been taught to hate Israel by Arab television. Since a number of the station’s Arabic-speaking Israeli anchors are former members of the Israeli military and security services, Arabs have begun calling the station Israeli Intelligence Television. According to the July 17 Arab News, Egyptian-born station director Yusuf Baneh denied that the station is a vehicle for Israeli propaganda. He says the station will feature the opinions of Palestinian viewers as well as those of leaders and officials—as long as they do not incite people against Israel.

7ettlement Firefighters Help Palestinians Battle Blaze

The July 15 Ha’aretz reported that, in a rare move, Israeli firefighters from two West Bank settlements “rushed to the aid” of their Palestinian counterparts to extinguish an out-of-control fire in the Palestinian town of Qalqilya. “We arrived on the scene,” said settler-firefighter Avner Mutzafi, “[helped] prevent the spread of the fire to additional structures, and helped them with water, since the water pressure in Qalqilya is very low.”

Mutzafi did not mention, perhaps because he does not know, that the reason Qalqilya’s water pressure is so low is that all the water is diverted to Mutzafi’s Ariel settlement. There were no injuries in the fire, although one Palestinian was killed when his building was hit by Israeli stun grenades, which is how the fire started in the first place.

Palestinians Face Hunger Crisis

Reports in the June 21 Arab News and the July 15 Christian Science Monitor highlight the desperate situation Palestinians are facing with regard to food. Many are reduced to eating weeds and wild grasses, others stick to a diet of bread, beans and olives. No one is getting enough to eat. Over one million Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip, some 85 percent of whom live in poverty. Gaza’s main Jabalya refugee camp is twice as densely populated as Manhattan.

The pressure cooker that is Gaza explodes in marches and protests, apolitical demonstrations criticizing both the Israeli occupation—which cuts off at least 120,000 Palestinians from jobs in Israel and cuts off all food deliveries—and Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority for failing to respond to worker’s demands for financial help for the unemployed. Nevertheless, said Gaza director Rasem al-Bayari of the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions, “everybody knows Israel is responsible.”

The numbers are shocking. The Arab American Institute reported on July 22 that, according to a recent USAID study, 30 percent of Palestinian children suffer from chronic malnutrition, while 21 percent suffer acute malnutrition. Also, fully 70 percent of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are now living below the poverty line.

Jenin Report ‘Flawed’

The U.N. report on Israel’s actions in the Jenin refugee camp “is fundamentally flawed,” according to the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW). The U.N. report concludes that there was no evidence to support Palestinian claims that Israeli forces killed over 400 people in the April incursion. The report has been cited extensively by the Israeli government and several pro-Israel pundits in the U.S. as evidence of Palestinian exaggeration, but HRW insists lack of proper access led to a lack of evidence. “The only people who can rejoice about this report,” HRW senior researcher Peter Bouckhaert told the Aug. 3 Arab News, “are those who obstructed the U.N. from the beginning in its investigation—namely, the Israeli authorities.”

NORTH AFRICA

Oldest Intact Sarcophagus Found Near Pyramids

The June 18 Arab News reported that archeologists have found the world’s oldest intact sarcophagus near the pyramids of Giza. The sarcophagus, 6.5 feet long and 3 feet wide, may contain the 4,500-year-old mummy of Neni Sout Wizart, who oversaw work on the great pyramid during ancient Egypt’s fourth dynasty, under the Pharaoh Khufu. If the mummy is still inside the sarcophagus, it will be the first time archeologists have actually discovered the embalmed body of a Pharaonic worker in the area, although over 120 workers’ tombs have been unearthed so far with damaged sarcophagi.

Egyptian Archeologist Hunts for Stolen Artifacts

Top Egyptian archeologist Zahi Hawass has been rather busy lately, retrieving artifacts stolen from Egypt and scattered in museums throughout the United States over the last 150 years. Emory University has agreed to return a mummy believed to be Ramses I, discovered in 1860 and transported via Canada to the United States. The director of Emory’s Michael C. Carlos museum has agreed to return the piece in June 2003, following a scheduled exhibition. Four pieces of stone engraved with hieroglyphics and taken from the tomb of Ramses I’s father also will be returned.

In addition, reported the July 9 Saudi Gazette, Hawass recently arranged the return of a collection of stolen antiquities featured in a New York art theft trial earlier this year. Art dealer Frederick Schultz was sentenced to 33 months in prison in June for stealing, among other things, a 4,400-year-old painted tomb fragment.

Finally, Hawass, who serves as secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, has informed a museum in Richmond, Virginia that an ancient granite relief that has been in the museum for 4 decades is in fact stolen. According to the July 12 Washington Post, Hawass delivered the following message to museum officials: “We strongly request that you act in good faith and return the stolen block to Egypt. Failure to comply will result in legal action,” of which he can certainly cite precedent.

Sudan Deal Makes Peace Possible

Negotiators in Sudan have brokered a peace deal under which the mostly Christian south will be given six years of self-rule, after which it can vote to secede from the Muslim-majority north. The deal, reported in the July 22 Arab News, could bring an end to almost two decades of civil strife that has claimed upward of two million lives. Cease-fire negotiations are still in the works, but the two sides are getting closer to reaching an agreement similar to the provisional cease-fire that has kept the central Nuba region peaceful for the past six months.

Tunisia Votes, Former PM Returns

Former Tunisian Prime Minister Mohamed Mzali has returned home after 15 years in exile. Mzali, 77, was prime minister from 1981 to 1986 under President Habib Bourguiba. After a disagreement with Bourguiba in 1987, Mzali flew to Switzerland. That year a Tunisian court sentenced him in absentia to 15 years in jail for “mismanagement and embezzlement” in 1987. An appeals court recently canceled the verdict against him, paving the way for his return.

Tunisian President Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali has won approval—from 99.52 percent of voters—to rule the country for life. Also approved was a measure granting former presidents life-long judicial immunity.

THE SUBCONTINENT

Bangladesh Closes Oldest State-Owned Enterprise

The June 26 Arab News reported that the Bangladesh government has decided to close the nation’s oldest state-owned enterprise, the Adamjee Jute Mill, located 12 miles east of Dhaka. The mill, set up in 1951, is estimated to have lost more than $200 million since it was nationalized in 1971. In the last three years, threats of closure have inspired violent resistance from the union, leaving at least 100 workers dead. The government has agreed to pay the mill’s 20,000 workers a total of $50 million upon closing the mill. If divided equally among them, each employee would receive around $2,500 compensation.

Academic Pressure Leads Indian Students to Suicide

In a span of three days, three Indian college students attempted suicide after failing their exams, one of whom died—and who, ironically, had actually passed. Jaspreet Kaur and Sweta Mahndi Dutt took drastic action, reported the July 5 Khaleej Times, after instructors at their dental college failed them. Said Kaur, “[they] failed us because we could not pay the bribes.” Both girls survived.

Three days earlier, 22-year-old Faiz Mohammed did not. A university oversight led to Faiz’s name not being published in the list of students who passed their second-year exam. The young man went home and shot himself, after which the university informed his family “that he had in fact passed with first division.” Police have filed a case against the university, citing death due to negligence, reported the July 2 Saudi Gazette.

Four Million in India Have HIV/AIDS

The July 3 Khaleej Times reported that a UNAids report released the previous day puts the number of people in India suffering from HIV/AIDS at around 4 million, the second highest in the world. According to UNAids program adviser David Miller, “These people are unknowingly spreading the infection to others.” Unlike in South Africa, he said, “in India, the epidemic is still largely a silent one…In sheer prevalence terms, India is where South Africa was 10 years ago. But in terms of raw numbers these figures represent the second-most infected country in the world,” though people with HIV/AIDS still account for less than 1 percent of India’s billion-plus population.

Cancer Cows Linked to Nuke Testing

In May 1998, India carried out a series of nuclear tests in the Thar desert, near the border with Pakistan. One of the devices tested was three times more powerful than the bomb used against Hiroshima.

Four years later, reported the June 17 Arab News, government assurances that no radioactivity was released are being met with skepticism by local villagers, who say their cows have given birth to several blind and cancer-sick cows since the tests were conducted. The government is paying little attention, however; according to one shepherd whose herd has produced four blind calves with tumors in as many years, villagers “[have] contacted the authorities a number of times but no one has come to see.”

Tribal Justice Under Fire in Pakistan

In little more than a week, Pakistan’s unofficial tribal justice system added two blemishes to its already spotted record. After a young boy was accused of raping a 30-year-old member of the Mastoi tribe, a tribal decree ordered that his 18-year-old sister be gang raped as punishment. A report in the July 13 Arab News revealed that in fact the young boy, only 11 years old, had in fact himself been raped by three members of the Mastoi tribe. In order to cover up their crime, they fabricated the rape charge against the boy. A local official identified as Muhammad Iqbal apparently was aware of the boy’s dilemma, but “kept the boy in a cell deliberately and unlawfully so that he could not inform anyone” or prevent his sister’s rape.

Meanwhile, the July 10 Saudi Gazette reported the stoning to death of a villager accused of blasphemy by a Muslim cleric. The villager, a mentally ill man known as Zahid, was dragged out of his home and executed before a crowd of at least 250 people after allegedly claiming to be “the last prophet of Islam.” His killing came less that one month after former army major Yousaf Ali was shot for making a similar claim.

These injustices are the cause of widespread debate in Pakistan. According to the July 9 Arab News, one newspaper editorial noted that “a stark similarity between these two incidents is the flagrant disrespect for the law of the land by self-appointed leaders. The law does not give power to anyone to pass judgments and it must be ensured that such fatwas (religious decrees) do not become the norm.”

CENTRAL ASIA

Female Aid Workers Leave Northern Afghanistan

According to the June 26 Arab News, New York based Human Rights Watch catalogued over 150 cases of murder, looting and gang-rape of ethnic Pashtuns in Afghanistan’s northern regions, where they are a minority. Most members of the deposed Taliban regime were Pashtun, and the crimes are believed to be motivated by revenge. The situation is so volatile—especially following the June 8 gang-rape of a French female aid worker near Mazar-i-Sharif—that female foreign aid workers have been withdrawn from field missions in the region. U.N. spokesman Manoel de Silva e Almeida called the move “a temporary measure,” noting that “the situation in the regions…is tense still.”

Escort Service for Low-Scoring Kids

Authorities in eastern Turkey are providing police escorts to schoolchildren who receive poor report cards and are afraid of being punished at home, reported the June 15 Arab News. “If it’s necessary,” said one police officer, “we will talk to the family. It’s also to let the family know we will protect the children.” Police are also patroling neighborhoods where they feel children are at risk.

ISSUES IN BRIEF

The UAE netted $73 million in Internet revenue in 2001, a number expected to double by 2006; Poor conditions at a Dubai labor camp led to an unpaid worker’s death; Kuwait and Iran will begin producing joint films in the spirit of mutual cultural and artistic cooperation; Floods in northeastern India submerged 17,000 villages in early July; India has installed Israeli-made thermal imagers on the border with Pakistan in order to track body heat emissions, at a cost of $42,000 apiece; Some 2,000 extremists have been arrested in Pakistan since January, 500 of whom have been released by court orders “due to lack of evidence”; Turkey and Syria have signed two military cooperation agreements, hailing “a new era” in relations between the two countries, who almost went to war in 1998.