Egypt, Lebanon, and Palestinian elections

There has been much discussion at DU about the new revolution taking place in Lebanon, and the up coming general elections there and in Egypt, as well as the past elections by the Palestinian's.

It has been suggested by many DUers that the elections in Iraq had something to do with sparking these events, at least in the case of Lebanon, and to some degree Egypt. It is then suggested, or implied, that some good has come about from the illegal invasion of Iraq. Thus, Bush deserves some credit. In the case of Bush supporters, the credit is given advertly. In the case of DUers, it is seen as an unintentional cause. Both arguments are simply fallicious, with no supporting evidence or scrutiny to substantiate the conclusion.

I will use the words of the Egyptian femminst and activist, Nawal el Saadawi to describe the egocentric and preposterous notion of this claim:

AMY GOODMAN: Nawal El Saadawi, what is your response to those who say now that President Bush is making democracy break out through the Middle East, elections in Iraq, in Palestine, now Mubarak announcing he will hold elections.

NAWAL EL SAADAWI: This is, in fact, a joke, ridiculous, and it makes me furious, because they deprive us of our struggle. First of all, George Bush is not democratic. He is a global dictator. He is even a dictator here in the United States. I have a lot of friends here in the United States who did not elect him and, in fact, democracy even -- democracy in the United States is questioned, because it's not democracy. What do we mean by democracy? Is democracy just to go and vote, or is it that all people from all classes can really govern themselves? So we have to understand what’s democracy. George Bush cannot bring democracy to the United States, so he cannot bring it to other countries. That's number one. Number two, we cannot have democracy and freedom under foreign occupation, and we suffered under the British. I was young at that time. So now we have the American Empire. So these elections in Palestine, in Iraq, in any country is just a joke, ridiculous. It's a big lie. If we come to Egypt, I think what Mubarak said, because of the internal pressure, we did a lot of demonstrations. Last December, I was in the streets with the people in demonstrations, and the demonstrations in the last few months were continuous. And we were collecting signatures to change the Constitution. So we were fighting for years. And then they come and tell us, that’s because Condoleezza Rice made a pressure on Mubarak or George Bush made a pressure on Mubarak. This is -- I call this is a new type of imperialist, because they do not take our resources, our oil, our materials, so they take also our efforts, our struggle for freedom. They take it and rob it of us, and they say that they are bringing us democracy and freedom. This is a big lie.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/03/1524226

Very aptly put, I'd say. I recommend that before placing any criticisms of my posting, one should first become familiar with the stature and struggle of Nawal el Saadawi, especially within Egypt.

Concerning the Palestinian elections, I will supply the words of veteran journalist Dilip Hiro.

So whatever happened in Iraq, I would say 85% credit goes to Ayatollah Sistani. If Sistani had not issued the statement, if there would not have been tens of thousands of posters in which you see his bearded face and his Islamic decree in Arabic, that result would not have happened. Then, of course, we talk about the Palestinian Authority thing happened. Of course, the point about the Palestinian thing is that there was election, first time in – among -- for the Palestinians in January 1996. At that time, the voter turnout was 88%, and Arafat won 87% of the vote. He had opposition. This time, in the wave of democracy that Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair are drumming up, only about 65% of the people went to vote in Palestinian elections, and of that, less than 60% voted for Mr. Abbas. So, overall, Mr. Abbas had about 40% of the total vote. So it is not something which has happened because of what Bush and Blair have done in Iraq, as I explained, these two particular examples, and if you want more specifically, you mentioned my op-ed piece in The New York Times written from Doha in Qatar.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/03/1524211

One can hear the frustraion in these leading and distinguished ME people with the vacous argument vocied by some in the US that it somehow played a role in their elections and progress towards the rights of its people. I would also include the audacity that we have to judge the followers and leaders of Islam. We have been a menace on this planet, and the people of ME are becoming more aware of this each passing day.

Here is another example of the blatant hypcrisy of the US version of an anthropocentric positing. Again, in the words of Dilip Hiro:

I was in Doha in Qatar where, of course, there is Al-Jazeera television. There also is the forward base of the CENTCOM, on the outskirts of Doha. Now, there, the Emir of Qatar, Emir Hamad Al-Thani, he actually abolished censorship in 1998. 1998. So, this has nothing to do with Bush and his invasion of Iraq, and in fact, he abolished the censorship because he abolished the Ministry of Information, and Al-Jazeera had been there since November 1996, and whenever such stalwarts of democracy like Colin Powell, like Donald Rumsfeld, turned to Emir of Qatar and said, ‘Mr. Emir, Mr. Emir, Mr. Hamad Al-Thani, you must curb Al-Jazeera. They're anti-American.’ So the man, this Emir, would turn around and say, ‘Excuse me, sir, I abolished censorship in my country in 1998. Here is the Constitution.’ That Constitution has 148 articles, and one of the articles specifically says -- I have the actual Constitution, which I have quoted in the op-ed in The New York Times on Tuesday -- it says, there’s freedom of the press and expression in Qatar. So he said, ‘Why are you – you are asking me, (in quote) “advising me” that I should curb Al-Jazeera, impose censorship in a country where there is no censorship?’ Now, is anybody going to explain to me that this Emir did all of this in 1998, March 1998, to be specific, just because it’s the way of democracy?

In regards to Lebanon, one should also emphasis and appreciate the struggle of the Lebanon people. To do this, I would suggest aquainting oneself with their history. Juan Cole does an excellent job in the following article:

http://www.juancole.com/2005/03/lebanon-realignment-and-syria-it-is.html

In that article, Cole has a few caveats that might serve to enlighten us. One, that Lebanon was once Syria, until the French invaded Syria in 1920, and "carved out" Lebanon to better implement managable control.

Another rather interesting point that Cole makes is that this is not the first time the US/CIA intruded into the affairs of Syria.

Lebanon had a relatively free parliamentary democracy 1943-1956. In 1957, I have been told by a former US government official, the US CIA intervened covertly in the Lebanese elections to ensure that the Lebanese constitution would be amended to allow far-right Maronite President Camille Chamoun (1952-1958) to have a second term. As the Library of Congress research division ("country studies") notes:

In 1957 the question of the reelection of Shamun was added to these problems of ideological cleavage. In order to be reelected, the president needed to have the Constitution amended to permit a president to succeed himself. A constitutional amendment required a two-thirds vote by the Chamber of Deputies, so Shamun and his followers had to obtain a majority in the May-June 1957 elections. Shamun's followers did obtain a solid majority in the elections, which the opposition considered "rigged," with the result that some non-Christian leaders with pan-Arab sympathies were not elected. Deprived of a legal platform from which to voice their political opinions, they sought to express them by extralegal means.

Now, this time, were supposed to believe that someone with a hidden agenda, such as Bush and gang, will somehow unintentionally bring democracy to the ME, or Lebanon. I dare say, the real intentions of Bush and company will make it difficult. Democracies and elections have to be more than lip service, and a greater effort has to be made than installing someone like Abbas, who is nothing more than a puppet.

Another thing that we don't recognize that even a country like Syria has activists and those struggling for the rights of others.

Here are the words of leading Syrian Human Rights lawyer Haythem al-Maleh:

HAYTHEM AL-MALEH: Alright. I listen -- I listened to President Bush. The problem is in our country, we started in 1945 as democracy regime, but the United States Embassy created a dictatorship in our area, in our country. The first military power was created by your embassy in Damascus. It continued since 1949 ’til now, under several kinds of military dictatorship power. And now, exactly since beginning of 1963, ’til now, more than 42 years, we are under a case of emergency law. Under this emergency law, any law can be stopped. So, we are under heavy pressure of our government, of our regime. But, in next hand, we do not trust the regime of America that they want to help us in the direction of democracy. Because we believe that America as a power, only they believe in force. They do not believe in politics. For that, they came to Iraq out of legal, out of United Nations agreement. How I can believe that the superpower now in the world can be help or is going to help any country for democracy, not for their income or for their interests? We believe here in Syria that America came to Iraq and to Afghanistan not to fight against terrorists, as they said; they want to be in our area to rule the economy. They didn't -- the world of -- economic world, not to create the democracy. We are fighting, not now since a long time, we are fighting against the regime to change our life from dictator to freedom to democracy; but all the time past, the regime was helped from America, from the west. So, how we can believe now America -- that America want to help us for changing our life to democracy? And we see now how Khadafi is a good man, even he’s still continue as military regime, as dictatorship power. We need to change our life. But if really America want to help us in this side, they can stop help the regime, or the dictatorship regime, in our area. This is very important. If they stop so we can thinking about this time.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/03/1524233

And This:
From 'Ending Syria's Occupation of Lebanon: The U.S. Role', a report of a group chaired by Daniel Pipes and Ziad Abdelnour, in which is buried one of the real reasons for the current events in Lebanon and Syria:

"The Middle East faces the looming problem of water shortages because of both the area's hot and arid climate and its huge population growth. Aside from Turkey (which controls the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers) and Iraq (through which those two rivers flow), the only Middle Eastern country blessed with a substantial supply of fresh water is Lebanon. Its high mountain ranges capture and retain impressive amounts of snow and moisture for several months, much of which eventually feeds subterranean aquifers and artesian wells. The landscape is dotted with springs, small streams, rivulets, and several sizable rivers like the Litani. Between 80 and 90 percent of Lebanon's flowing water, though, is lost for that which is not absorbed into underground storage, ends up in the sea. Assuming all of Lebanon's future water needs can be met using half of this wasted amount, harnessing and distributing the remaining half to neighboring countries like Israel, Syria, and Jordan would be a significant step in alleviating the impending regional water shortage."







:kick:

http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2003/05/16_wells_iraq-water-oil.htm

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2000/07/0714_water.html

It appears to be a problem in the entire ME region:

The project, which will take two years to complete at a cost of U.S. $11 million, dramatizes the importance of one of the major keys to peace in the Middle East: water. Experts say that a lack of agreement on how the region’s scarce resources should be divided not only could wreck any peace deal with Israel, but could actually lead to new outbreaks of war among the Arab states.
“People outside of the region tend not to hear about the issue,” says a U.S. State Department official. “It just doesn’t make the news. But there are talks all the time among water specialists. Guaranteeing fair access to water is critical to any peace agreement.”

Palestinian official Fadl Ka-wash declared yesterday on the official government radio station that water “is no less important and serious than any other final status issues on the agenda of the Camp David summit” between the Palestinian National Authority President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

RUNNING ON LOW

In a region with a population of 12 million and about as much rainfall every year as Phoenix, Arizona, water weighs heavily in the concerns of Palestinians, Jordanians, and Israelis over their joint futures together. Forty percent of Israel’s water supply comes from aquifers beneath the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. About 25 percent comes from the Sea of Galilee, which helps explain why Israelis balked when Syria this spring insisted on giving up control of the shoreline as well as the entire Golan Heights—often called the “water tower of the Middle East”—as the price of peace.