Von der Leyen and Lagarde’s Uphill Battle

Iran Goads West into Tightening Containment

A Weekly Political News Magazine

Turkey’s Increasingly Overt Role in Libya’s Civil War

Issue 1755- july - 05/07/2019

A Weekly Political News Magazine

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The Custody Battle Over King Tut www.majalla.com

Von der Leyen and Lagarde’s Uphill Battle www.majalla.com

Editorial The European Union is currently facing a crisis that might very well render it to a shadow of its former self. The rise of populism across the continent has allowed for Eurosceptic groups and parties to enter into the European parliament. Furthermore, the Eurozone crisis has made some governments consider pulling out of the monetary union.

As it stands, pro-EU forces within the organization are doing all it can to keep the organization afloat, one of such actions include the nomination of Ursula von der Leyen to be the new European Commission president and Christine Lagarde as the new president of the European Central Bank. This week’s cover story by Ali El Shamy focuses on the nomination of these two women and the challenges they will face both before and during (provided they get confirmation) their tenures.

Yasmine El-Geressi writes on the ongoing civil war in Libya which is fought between Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) and Fayaz al-Sarraj’s Government of National Accord (GNA). The writer focuses on the Turkish government’s involvement in the conflict, as it has been supporting the GNA forces. Throughout the war, Libyan customs authorities have seized weapons and artillery sent from Turkey meant to reach the GNA. Furthermore, Turkey has also been conducted drone attacks against the LNA. The writer also notes that the reason behind Turkey’s involvement is an economic one as it wants preferential access to Libya’s natural gas reserves and an ideological one since the Libyan branch of the Muslim Brotherhood is based in the western part of the country.

Joseph Braude writes on Iran’s recent decision to enrich uranium to 4.5 percent, a violation of the JCPOA. This escalation led to a joint statement issued by the foreign ministers of the UK, France, and Germany expressing concerns over Iran’s activities. US Senators Cruz, Cotton and Rubio also sent a joint letter to the White House requesting more intense sanctions against the regime.

Ali El Shamy commemorates what would have been late Majalla writer Tayeb Salih’s 90th birthday by analyzing two of his literary works, The Doum Tree of Wad Hamid and The Wedding of Zein.

The writer attempts to examine how Salih portrayed rural life in the early years of postcolonial Sudan, and how those in pastoral villages either resisted or embraced the changes of modernity. The writer also takes a look at how Salih showcased individual deviance within these small societies.

We invite you to read these articles and more on our website eng. majalla.com. As always, we welcome and value our reader’s feedback and we invite you to take the opportunity to leave your comments on our website.

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Editor-in-Chief

Ghassan Charbel Editorial secretary Mostafa El-Dessouki HH Saudi Research and Marketing (UK) Ltd 10th Floor Building 7 Chiswick Business Park 566 Chiswick High Road London W4 5YG Tel : +44 207 831 8181 Fax: +44 207 831 2310

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A Weekly Political News Magazine

36 The Women of the Space Race

Issue 1756- july - 12/07/2019

Turkey Turned Its Back on the United 20 Why States and Embraced Russia

24 How to Win Friends and Wage Jihad

Why Religious Tolerance Won in

32 Indonesia but Lost in India

28 What to Expect From Israel s Election Re-Run

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More Evidence that Exercise Can Boost Mood 3

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42 Tayeb Salih’s Sudan:

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Palestinian children play on a swing at the al-Shati refugee camp. (Getty)

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Chinese Communist party members arrange themselves to form the shape of the party’s flag, with cardboard banners reading ‘remain true to our original aspiration and keep our mission firmly in mind’ during an event celebrating the 98th anniversary of the founding of the party. (Reuters)

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eekly news the past week to nudge stocks of fissile material just beyond limits in the pact that Washington abandoned last year. It would reverse the major achievements of the agreement, intended to block Iran from making a nuclear weapon, and raise serious questions about whether the accord is still viable.

British Ambassador to Washington Quits After Spat Over Leaked Memos Britain Says it Fended off Iranian Attempt to Block its Oil Tanker Three Iranian vessels tried to block a Britishowned tanker passing through the strait that controls the flow of Middle East oil to the world, but backed off when confronted by a Royal Navy warship, Britain said on Thursday. A week after Britain seized an Iranian tanker accused of violating sanctions on Syria, London said the British Heritage, operated by oil company BP, had been approached in the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and the Arabian peninsula.

HMS Montrose was forced to position herself between the Iranian vessels and British Heritage and issue verbal warnings to the Iranian vessels, which then turned away,” a British government spokesman said in a statement. It urged Iran to “de-escalate the situation in the region”.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif dismissed as “worthless” the allegation that Iran sought to block the ship.

Iran Makes New Nuclear Threats to Restart Deactivated Centrifuges and Ramp Up Enrichment Tehran has threatened to ramp up uranium enrichment to 20 per cent purity, with the UN's nuclear watchdog confirming it has already passed a limit agreed in a 2015 nuclear deal. The international atomic energy agency confirmed on Monday Iran had broken the 3.67 per cent threshold, passing 4.5 per cent, but the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards insisted the world knew Tehran was not pursuing nuclear arms.

The new threatened enrichment increase would go far beyond the small steps Iran has taken in

Britain’s ambassador to Washington quit on Wednesday after days of stinging criticism from Donald Trump, leading to accusations that Boris Johnson, the favorite to be the next British prime minister, had “thrown him under the bus”. Memos from Kim Darroch in which he described the Trump administration as inept were leaked to a British Sunday newspaper, infuriating the U.S. president, who launched a Twitter attack on both the envoy and outgoing British Prime Minister Theresa May, who had given Darroch her full support.

As the spat between the two close allies intensified, Trump said he would no longer deal with the “very stupid” Darroch and called May “foolish”. Darroch said his position had become untenable, but supporters blamed Johnson, the former London mayor who could take over from May later this month, for refusing to back him.

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Egypt Opens New International Airport for Trial Period Egypt has opened a new international airport on a one-month trial basis to service the city which will become the country’s new capital from mid2020-. The Capital International Airport is located some 70 km (44 miles) to the east of Cairo and is intended to relieve pressure on Cairo International Airport. A third airport, near the Giza Pyramids west of Cairo, the Sphinx International Airport, also opened in January. “The importance of the Capital Airport is that it partially eases the pressure on Cairo International Airport and Sphinx Airport,” Aviation Minister Younis Al-Masry told reporters at a ceremony on Tuesday, after a flight left Cairo and landed at the new airport, which is about 48 km (30 miles) from the city.

“It will be a new outlet for Cairo specifically,” he said, adding that the airport would serve areas east of the capital including cities along the Suez Canal.

Body Count Hits 68 Since Migrant Boat Sinking off Tunisia The Red Crescent said 38 more bodies were recovered Thursday from the sea off Tunisia, raising to 68 the number found since an Italybound boat filled with migrants sank last

week, the worst migrant boat disasters to date.

Thirty-six of the apparent victims were found close to Zarzis in southeast Tunisia and two off the nearby island of Djerba, the Tunisian Red Crescent’s Mongi Slim said. A Malian survivor, one of only three to have escaped with their lives, has told the UN’s International Organization for Migration that 86 people had been on board the dinghy which capsized on July 1. “Only today, the Coast Guard recovered 38 bodies off the coast of Zarzis, bringing the death toll to 58,” said Mongi Slim, an official of the Tunisian Red Crescent.

it calls Turkey’s “illegal” drilling for gas and oil off Cyprus and stands ready to ramp up sanctions further, a draft statement seen by Reuters shows. In trying to take Ankara to task over what the EU sees as Turkish interference with Cyprus’ exclusive economic zone, the bloc is walking a thin line, careful not to antagonise an important partner. “Despite our best intentions to keep good neighbourly relations with Turkey, its continued escalation and challenge to the sovereignty of our Member State Cyprus will inevitably lead the EU to respond in full solidarity,” Donald Tusk, president of the European Council of ministers, said on Wednesday.

Mali Crisis Worsens as Hundreds of Thousands Flee Militia Attacks EU Threatens Turkey with Sanctions Over Cyprus Drilling The European Union is set to curb contacts and funding for Ankara in retaliation for what

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Hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing their homes in Mali, where deadly attacks on villages are destabilising an already critical situation in the country’s centre. More than 200,000 people have fled since the start of the year, almost six times the number that were displaced in the same period last year, according to the Rapid Response Mechanism, a tracking and alert system that helps humanitarian organisations respond to vulnerable people. Nearly 600 civilians were killed in the first half of 2019, most of them in the central region of Mopti, where villagers including many women and children have borne the brunt of gruesome attacks attributed to ethnic militia. Herdsmen from the nomadic Fulani ethnic group and hunters from the more settled Dogon have been blamed for these attacks, though neither side has claimed them.

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Von der Leyen and Lagarde’s Uphill Battle

Why Both Women’s Nominations Have Been Contentious

by Ali El Shamy Last May’s European parliamentary election was a reflection of the divisions threatening the stability of the

European Union. The populist group Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) managed to gain six seats in European Parliament, making its total share 54 seats.

Furthermore, Europe of Nations and Freedom, another

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel (L) and Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen attend the weekly government cabinet meeting on May 2018 ,2 in Berlin, Germany. (Getty)

right wing Eurosceptic group, managed to win 58 seats in parliament. If you’re not counting the more centrist, European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), then the total number of Eurosceptic MEPs comes to 112.

However with the inclusion of the ECR then 176 out of 751 MEPs can be described as Eurosceptic or the very least anti-federalist. The European People’s Party (EPP), which has been the parliament’s largest party since 1999, has witnessed major setbacks during the election, but it still managed to maintain its majority having won 179 seats in parliament. As the winning party, the EPP will have a nominee within their ranks for the presidency of the European Commission. While European heads of state and government are technically the ones who make the nomination, they have to take into account the results of the parliamentary elections and the party that won the majority seats. Ursula von der Leyen, the current German Defense Minister and longtime ally of Angela Merkel, has been nominated to replace Jean-Claude Junker as the new European Commission president. Meanwhile, current International Monetary Fund Managing Director, Christine Lagarde, has been nominated to become the next head of the European Central Bank. Both candidates will need the approval of the European Parliament before proceeding to their new posts, but should they succeed they will become the first women to become European Commission president and European Central Bank president, respectively. Both candidates will face the challenge of gaining approval of the European parliament where MEPs from the Eurosceptic camps, Greens and leftists will likely vote down candidates endorsed by the EPP. Furthermore, if both women secure their posts then each will have an uphill battle of her own; von der Leyen is a staunch federalist who has openly called for a “united states of Europe”, as a result Eurosceptic elements within the EU will be sure to make her job as difficult as possible.

Lagarde, on the other hand, has never held a central bank post before and as a result many of the skills required in the job description will be new to her. She will also need to find ways of keeping the Eurozone united as countries such as Greece and Italy have repeatedly shown hinted at abandoning the monetary union.

URSULA VON DER LEYEN: MERKEL’S MOST TRUSTED ALLY Ursula von der Leyen is a long-time ally of German Chancellor Angela Markel as she is the only person to serve in all her cabinets. Before becoming Defense Minister, Von der Leyen, served as Minister of Labor and Social Affairs and Minister of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth and Health Minister, respectively.

While she has been a longtime member of the center right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), many of her stances

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In a 2011 interview for German publication, Der Spiegel, von der Leyen said that her “aim is the United States of Europe – modelled on federal states like Switzerland, Germany and the U.S.” and leanings have been leftist. For instance, as Minister of Family Affairs she introduced a parental assistance program («Elterngeld») which expanded government spending on childcare and she also implemented parental leave for fathers. These progressive policies were opposed by traditional conservative elements within her party and the latter decision was even mocked by a Bavarian politician who said men did not need a “diaper-changing traineeship.” Von der Leyen is also a critic of the gender pay gap, and has advocated for equal pay between women and men who do the same job.

As Defense minister, she has made Germany more involved in conflict zones, for example she expanded the presence of the Bundeswehr (Germany’s armed forces) in Northern Iraq, where 150 German troops have been training Kurdish forces fighting against IS. After a meeting with Iraq’s Prime Minister in 2018, she said that Germany needs to be more involved to “meet the needs of Iraq”.

Furthermore, she also provided Saudi Arabia with arms, an uncommon practice in German foreign policy which has largely avoided providing weaponry to conflict zones.

Von der Leyen is also pro-migration and has supported Merkel’s decision to welcome refugees into Germany.

She has also gone as far as hosting a young Syrian refugee in her home and helped him to find an apprenticeship.

Additionally, back in she criticized Hungary for using tear gas against asylum seekers.

On the European sphere, she is a European federalist who has called for further European integration. In a 2011 interview for German publication, Der Spiegel, she said that her “aim is the United States of Europe – modelled on federal states like Switzerland, Germany and the U.S.” Perhaps even more controversial is her advocacy for a unified European army, it should be noted however that she is not in favor of a centralized “EU army”, but rather an “army of Europeans” composed of soldiers who are still loyal to their respective countries, something more akin to NATO. She also stated that this proposed idea would not

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be a replacement to NATO. She thinks the EU must be more involved in foreign policy matters and as such called for an end to the requirement of unanimity between all EU member states before making a decision. Like most of her political partners, she is not thrilled with Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, but has not called for a second referendum stating that the British people voted for a Brexit. Like Juncker, she said that the EU would not reopen negotiations with the UK favoring the deal that Theresa May tried to get through her own parliament, but she also said that she wouldn’t be opposed to extending the Brexit deadline beyond October 2019 ,31.

She hasn’t spoken much on environmental issues as a German minister, but since her nomination she promised that she would seek an increase to the EU’s 2030 cut emissions target from 40 percent to 50 percent. She also said that she would support a zero emissions target by 2050.

It is no surprise that her European integration stances have made her unpopular among Eurosceptic, who view the EU as a penetrative force infringing on national sovereignty. While the lack of support from populists was expected, liberal and green MEPs have also expressed their disapproval of von der Leyen. The nominee recently met with Green MEPs to secure their support, but her efforts seem to be fruitless as many of them later said they would not vote for her. Ska Keller, co-president of the European Greens told Politico: “We did not hear any concrete proposal, be it on rule of law or on climate, we have been elected on a mandate for change and we don›t see how change will be possible with this candidate.”

The European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) also had gripes with von der Leyen, one of their MEPs, Martin Schirdewan also spoke to Politico expressing concerns that she will allow further neoliberal policies, which in his view caused the European economic crisis.

He was also not thrilled with her support for a unified army

Lagarde also does not have any experience running a central bank; as such there is reason to think that she might not be the best person for the job.

and her previous support for military intervention. In short, it seems that von der Leyen’s confirmation will not be a clear cut process.

CHRISTINE LAGARDE: AN APOLITICAL NOMINATION? While Lagarde’s nomination is not nearly as controversial as von der Leyen’s, there are still many questions raised over her candidacy. The position of head of the ECB has always been held by a technocrat rather than a politician, while Lagarde’s current position is Managing Director of the IMF, she has previously held ministerial positions in France. Furthermore, the nominated vice president of the ECB is former Spanish finance minister Luis de Guindos.

It is feared that the nominations of two former politicians would weaken the apolitical characteristic of the ECB. Lagarde also does not have any experience running a central bank; as such there is reason to think that she might not be the best person for the job.

Her speeches to the IMF indicate that she favors dovish economic policies, meaning that she would try to keep interest rates low, but as interest rates are already at record lows, it is unclear how she might pursue her policies. As she is likely to continue the policies set by current ECB president, Mario Draghi, she probably can’t count in leftists to support her.

As head of the ECB she would also need to prevent the Eurozone from falling apart, and a recent article in the Guardian stated that she could use her political connections

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German Defense Minister and nominee for President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen attends as a speaker to political parties› group meetings at European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium on July ,10 2019. (Getty)

While the lack of support from populists was expected, liberal and green MEPs have also expressed their disapproval of von der Leyen. to convince governments to implement tax and spending policies that would stimulate the Eurozone economy.

She will also face challenges from growing Eurosceptic movements, as some, such as those in Italy and Greece, have called for leaving the Eurozone.

If both candidates are successfully confirmed, they would be breaking a glass ceiling; however such an accomplishment would only be the easiest part of their jobs. During their tenure, both women will have to battle against the forces of Eurosceptism, populism and last but not least growing dissatisfaction from the citizens living within the European Union.

IMF General Manager Christine Lagarde arrives for the family photo at the G20 Osaka Summit in Osaka on June 2019 ,28. (Getty)

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Iran Goads West into Tightening Containment

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by Joseph Braude Iran broke new ground this week by breaching the JCPOA’s limits on enriching uranium. In so doing, it inspired a backlash from the White House, Senate Republicans, and EU foreign ministers. Each moved in different ways to counter Tehran’s altering of the nuclear status quo: the White House with rhetoric, Senate Republicans with an intensification of sanctions, and the EU with diplomatic threats.

IRAN TESTS LIMITS ON ENRICHMENT, THREATENS MORE TO COME On Monday, Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization announced that the country had begun enriching uranium to 4.5 percent, breaching the limits imposed by the 2015 nuclear deal. The statement came barely a few days of the group’s earlier announcement of having exceeded the 300 kg limit on its low-enriched uranium stockpile.

While Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei tweeted on July 7 that the increase was “purely rooted in economic priorities,” other officials struck a more ominous tone. Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for Iran’s nuclear agency, hinted in a state TV interview broadcast Monday that Iran might consider going to 20 percent enrichment or higher. For his part, Iranian Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri took a more aggressive tack: “If the remaining countries in the deal, especially the Europeans, do not fulfill their commitments seriously, and not do anything more than talk, Iran’s third step will be harder, more steadfast, and somehow stunning,” The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, inspecting uranium enrichment centrifuges in April.

(EPA)

The change moves Iran’s nuclear capabilities closer to the level of uranium enrichment necessary to produce nuclear weapons. Although enrichment of 90 percent is necessary for weapons-grade plutonium, experts have noted that “industry data shows that more than half of the effort needed to enrich uranium to 90 percent is spent getting from %0.7 to %4.”

ENRICHMENT BREACH INSTIGATES BACKLASH FROM LEFT, RIGHT, AND CENTER Iran’s moves to break the enrichment limits set by the JCPOA prompted an immediate response from the U.S. administration. On July 3, President Trump responded to Rouhani’s threat to enrich uranium

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Iran’s enrichment moves also added new force to a growing number of American voices calling for an intensification of the sanctions campaign. “in any amount that we want”: “Be careful with the threats, Iran. They can come back to bite you like nobody has been bitten before!” Trump added later in the week before a gathering of reporters that «Iran›s doing a lot of bad things» in the Middle East and had «better be careful.» On July 8, Vice President Mike Pence echoed the President’s sentiments, telling an evangelical Christian group, «Let me be clear: Iran should not confuse American restraint with a lack of American resolve,” and said President Trump would «never allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon.»

The European Union, which has attempted to play a mediating role between Washington and Tehran, took rare occasion to reprimand Iran. On July 9, the foreign ministers of Great Britain, France, and Germany issued a joint statement to Iran expressing their “deep concern that Iran is pursuing activities inconsistent with its commitments” under the 2015 JCPOA, and insisted that Iran “must act accordingly by reversing these activities and returning to full JCPOA compliance without delay.”

Iran’s enrichment moves also added new force to a growing number of American voices calling for an intensification of the sanctions campaign. Building on their earlier calls for the Trump administration to end a series of waivers which enable primarily European entities to continue joint ventures at Iranian nuclear sites, Senators Cruz, Rubio, and Cotton took the unusual step of writing a joint letter to the White House, declaring, “The Iranians have now changed the nuclear status quo and are trying to create a new normal of minor violations that will enable their creep toward a nuclear weapon. We urge you to end these waivers.” The letter also called for invoking snapback sanctions “against Iranian uranium enrichment, plutonium-related heavy water work, and ballistic missile development.”

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Turkey’s Increasingly Overt Role in Libya’s Civil War Ankara’s Involvement in the War-Torn Country is Part of its Broader Competition for Regional Influence

by Yasmine El-Geressi It has been nearly a decade since Libya’s leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was deposed as a result of a popular uprising

sparked by similar demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt. After an initial burst of optimism from Libyans and the international community, the political situation in Libya has gone from bad to worse. The power vacuum left behind triggered power struggles

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While LNA and Ankara have always been at odds, the fierce upturn in rhetoric happened after the GNA captured the strategic town of Gharyan in late June, breaking the military stalemate that has prevailed since Haftar moved to capture Tripoli on 4 April. political stability in the country.

TENSIONS REACH A NEW HIGH

A fighter loyal to the Libyan internationallyrecognised Government of National Accord (GNA) fires a heavy machine gun as a press photographer take pictures of the scene during clashes against forces loyal to Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar.

(AFP)

between multiple factions in Libya and no authority has had full control and the country is extremely unstable. Making matters worse, the country’s descent into chaos and lack of governance also made it the de facto “gateway” into Europe during the continent’s migration crisis a few years ago.

Over the last few years, the country has been divided between two rival factions — the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) led by Fayez Serraj based in the capital, Tripoli, and the Tobruk-based Libyan National Army (LNA) led by Commander Khalifa Haftar who has commanded influence in Libya’s east. There are other smaller groups, including some Islamist groups, that too wield influence in Libya’s major cities and in the country’s south. On April 4, Field Marshal Haftar and the LNA launched a large-scale offensive to capture the GNA controlled Tripoli. The attack marked the collapse of negotiations to form an interim government between Haftar and key leaders in western Libya and triggered Libya’s third civil war since 2011. With the war still raging, the fight for the capital is escalating and a number of countries are involved in the conflict, among them Turkey, who is supporting the GNA, supplying drones, weapons and trucks, further impinging the

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While LNA and Ankara have always been at odds, the fierce upturn in rhetoric happened after the GNA captured the strategic town of Gharyan in late June, breaking the military stalemate that has prevailed since Haftar moved to capture Tripoli on 4 April. Since then, the crisis between Ankara and Hafter came to the brink of armed clashes.

On June 30, Turkey slammed Haftar›s militia for detaining six Turkish nationals, describing it as «an act of thuggery and piracy.» Ankara reacted strongly by warning the Haftar forces would pay a “very heavy” cost for this action. Turkish Foreign Ministry said Haftar›s forces would «become legitimate targets» if the Turks were not released. The six hostages were released a day later and returned to their ships.

Later on June 30, Haftar’s forces destroyed a Turkish drone flying over Tripoli’s Mitiga air base and declared a “general mobilisation” as tensions mounted. Haftar’s spokesman Ahmed al-Mismari also announced a ban on commercial flights from Libya to Turkey and ordered his forces to attack Turkish ships and interests in Libya. Haftar’s air force commander, Mohamed Manfour, stepped up warnings by telling Tripoli residents to stay away from any site that may be hit by airstrikes. Turkey said it would «retaliate in the most effective and strong way» to any threats from General Haftar›s army.

Last week Haftar announced that its fighter jets brought down a second Turkish drone after raiding its forces in Tripoli. LNA Commander of the western operations Major General Abdul Salam al-Hassi said that the downing of two Turkish drones since the beginning of the battle to liberate Tripoli means that “Turkey is fighting the national army by sending aircraft and armoured vehicles to the illegitimate government. This also shows the whole world Turkey’s complicity and support for the armed and terrorist militias,” added Hassi, who has been leading

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LNA forces on the outskirts of Tripoli. Commander of the LNA Air Force›s Operations Room Major General Mohamed alManfour told local media that 30 Turkish military experts are working for militias allied with the GNA.

TURKISH WEAPONS IN LIBYA Several incidents in recent years indicate that Turkey is supplying arms to Islamist elements in Libya in clear violation of the United Nations Security Council embargo on weapons shipments into the war-torn country. In December 2018, customs authorities seized three thousand Turkishmade pistols in Khoms, a Libyan port about forty miles east of Tripoli. Soon after, Libyan port authorities seized upwards of four million bullets onboard a Turkish freighter.

The Libyan National Army blamed the Turkish weapons shipments on an upsurge of attacks and assassination in Tripoli. In January 2018, Greece captured a ship bound for Libya from Turkey carrying explosive material. Last January, officials in Misrata, a town near Tripoli, announced that they had intercepted another Turkish weapons shipment, this time in a container marked as transporting household goods and children’s toys.

Haftar has consistently accused Turkey of aggressively violating Libyan sovereignty and bolstering groups, including extremists, who the LNA says run Tripoli, propping up the UN-backed government. In May, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for the first time, admitted his country was supplying arms to the militias of western Libya who are fighting the LNA for Tripoli. The Erdogan government has allegedly provided armoured vehicles and weapons, with even the

But Ankara didn’t just strengthen its relationship with groups in western Libya because that is where its key economic interests lay - there is also an ideological aspect to Turkish interference linked the Libyan branch of the Muslim Brotherhood

Turkish president conceding it had provided drones. Serraj’s government has also boasted of the backing it has received from Ankara, releasing images of Turkish-made armoured cars, several weeks after disclosing that the Turks would be arming its forces. In early May, video footage published on social media showed the vehicles passing through the streets of Tripoli to the cheers of locals. Unverified videos have also been shared online to show Turkish-Speaking advisers showing Libyan fighters how to operate the arms.

The first recorded use of Turkish-made drones in Libya was the attack on Haftar’s airbase in Jufra on 16 May, which involved Bayraktar armed drones launched from Misrata. Since then, such drones have played a prominent role near the front lines in Tripoli; there are persistent rumours that Turkish personnel are operating the vehicles while training Libyans to use them.

Another intense source of ire is Turkey’s harbouring of figures the LNA regard as terrorists. Turkey supports militia commander Salah Badi who was sanctioned by the US Treasury last year for undermining Libyan security by attacking groups aligned with the UN-backed government in Tripoli. Badi has bragged about the lethal power of Turkish armoured vehicles.

Libyan media said Badi returned from a long stay in Turkey to join the fight of Islamist militias against the LNA. Turkey has also become a sanctuary for Abdul-Hakim Belhaj, the former

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Turkish Kirpi armoured vehicles in the port of Tripoli, Libya (Facebook)

In May, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for the first time, admitted his country was supplying arms to the militias of western Libya who are fighting the LNA for Tripoli.

Libyan Islamic Fighting Group leader - an Islamist faction linked to the Muslim Brotherhood that sought to overthrow long-time ruler Muammar Gaddafi. Belhaj, who was placed on sanctions lists by UAE, Saudi, Bahrain, Egypt in 2017, operates openly from an office block in Istanbul and runs a pro-Islamist TV channel.

WHY IS TURKEY IN LIBYA? Turkey has played a growing role in Libya as its interests there have developed. Initially, Turkey was almost wholly motivated by the desire to fulfil the contracts it had in Libya in 2011, which were worth roughly 18$ billion. Among other things, Turkish companies were involved in numerous lucrative construction projects in Libya. Even after the fall of Ghaddafi, the Turkish government remained in close contact with the unity government in Tripoli, and Turkish firms continued to receive contracts — like the one to extend the coastal road in Tripoli.

Turkey is also competing with Cyprus for control of potential offshore energy finds and wants to become the main conduit to Europe for natural gas supplies from the eastern Mediterranean as Libya has Africa’s largest proven oil reserves, is a player in

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the natural gas market and borders important Mediterranean trade routes. Turkey is increasingly pressing Cyprus, Greece, Israel and Egypt for access to natural gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean, and it believes having Libya united under a Turkey-backed government could increase its leverage in these negotiations.

Thus, Turkey is trying to reach a deal with Libya about coastal sharing to curtail Greece’s naval sovereignty claims over the region. This could allow Ankara to increase its influence in the region.

But Ankara didn’t just strengthen its relationship with groups in western Libya because that is where its key economic interests lay - there is also an ideological aspect to Turkish interference linked to the Libyan branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and it comes within a context of a regional and international battle for influence.

“Following the creation and initial success of the Justice and Construction Party – the Libyan branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, fashioned in the likeness of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party – Turkey began to see Libya as important to its attempt to boost its influence in the region by cultivating the political Islamist groups that emerged across the region during the Arab uprisings,” a recent report by the European Council on Foreign Relations said.

“After the onset of Libya’s civil war in 2014, Turkey became a haven for Libyan exiles – including political Islamists – as one of the rare countries Libyans could travel to, and conduct business in, without encountering significant red tape.It took advantage of this connection – as well as its embassy in Tripoli and its consulate in Misrata, at a time when most diplomatic missions to the Libyan authorities were located in Tunis – to pursue its political and economic interests in Libya.”

Erdogan also sees President Abdulfattah el-Sisi in Egypt as an affront, both because Sisi’s rise removed Muslim Brotherhood control from Egypt - a group that Cairo along with Saudi Arabia and the UAE have designated as a terrorist organisation - and because Erdogan lost contacts and influence inside Egypt.

Turmoil in Libya has been specifically harmful to Cairo because of the long border between Egypt and Libya. The concern in Cairo is that Turkey’s moves are designed to besiege Egypt and undermine its security through the support of the banned Muslim Brotherhood movement.

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Why Turkey Turned Its Back on the United States and Embraced Russia A Rift That Began in Iraq and Syria Now Threatens to Divide NATO

by Aaron Stein Turkey’s fraught relationship with the United States has been in a downward spiral for years. Divided over an ever-lengthening list of issues, from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s authoritarian turn to the United

States’ refusal to extradite a Pennsylvania-based cleric accused of trying to overthrow the Turkish government, the putative allies are increasingly at odds. Yet there is still a widespread belief among U.S. policymakers and national security professionals that despite the superficial hostility, the Turkish national security elite continues to

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Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. and Turkey have struggled to define shared interests. This divergence accelerated after the U.S. invasion of Iraq and got worse when war broke out in Syria.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan shake hands during a news conference following their talks in Sochi, Russia September ,17 2018. (Reuters)

view the United States as an indispensable ally. Ankara cannot secure its national interests without working with the U.S.government, or so the thinking goes.

But since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which paved the way for a more assertive Kurdish regional government, Turkey has viewed the United States as a destabilizing force in the Middle East. U.S.support for Kurdish militias in Syria has cemented that view in Ankara, driving Turkey into Russia’s arms and raising questions about the country’s commitment to NATO. For proof of how little faith Turkey places in Washington these days, look no further than its plan to acquire Russia’s advanced S400- missile defense system.

Last month, the Pentagon warned that purchasing the Russian system would cost Turkey its place in the U.S.-led F35- fighter jet program. As a member of the international consortium that funded the F35-’s development, Turkey is slated to receive 100 of the jets, and it had planned the future of its air force around them. But the S400- is designed to defeat U.S. stealth technology, and the United States worries that it could be used to collect valuable

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intelligence on the fifth-generation fighter jet—intelligence that could end up in Moscow’s hands when Russian technicians inevitably maintain parts of the system. The United States has already grounded Turkish pilots training on the F35- at bases in the United States, and once the S400- arrives in Turkey, the country will be removed from the F35- consortium and barred from receiving the aircraft it helped to finance.

But Erdogan has refused to submit to U.S. demands, making clear that the agreement with Russia will be honored. In so doing, he has made a political choice, signaling to all who will listen that Turkey is willing to forgo cordial relations with Washington in favor of functional relations with Moscow. There is a clear logic to this approach. By adopting a more neutrally aligned foreign policy, Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) seek to advance a narrower conception of Turkey’s national interest, one they believe is served by closer cooperation with Russia on key economic and security issues. While that is unlikely to mean a wholesale embrace of Moscow at Washington’s expense, it does mean that Turkey no longer views the United States as an indispensable ally.

GROWING APART The Turkish-U.S. alliance was originally forged out of shared concerns about Soviet expansionism after the end of World War II. Turkey’s proximity to the Soviet Union made it an ideal partner for American efforts to monitor its Cold War adversary and, in the event of war, to tie up Soviet divisions in Bulgaria and Armenia. In return, Turkey received a security guarantee from the United States, which based nuclear weapons throughout the country to stave off a Soviet attack. But in the three decades since the end of the Cold War, the United States and Turkey have struggled to define shared interests. This gradual divergence accelerated after the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 and toppled Saddam Hussein, creating a power vacuum that was partly filled by the regional government in Iraqi Kurdistan. Kurdish officials, with U.S. support, codified the independence of their governing institutions,

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unnerving Turkish national security elites who view Kurdish nationalism as an existential threat. Ankara has battled Kurdish separatists for decades, and it worries that Turkey could splinter along ethnic lines if its significant Kurdish minority is emboldened.

Things only got worse with the outbreak of war in Syria.

Ankara sought to marginalize the Syrian Kurds, who in early 2012 took control of the border regions where they are a majority. Initially, Turkey tried to co-opt the dominant Kurdish rebel group, the Democratic Union Party(PYD), and subordinate it to the broader, Turkishbacked insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad. The PYD and its associated militia are the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a separatist insurgent group in southeast Turkey that both the United States and Turkey regard as a terrorist organization. By bringing the Syrian Kurdish fighters into a larger anti-Assad effort over which it held considerable sway, Ankara hoped to prevent the emergence of a Kurdish-administered proto-state under the sway of the PKK and ensure that Syria retained a strong central government.

For a time, these efforts didn’t put Ankara in direct conflict with Washington. In fact, Turkey tried to persuade the United States to use military force to topple Assad or, at the very least, to deny his regime access to the northern part of the country. Turkey was aggressively cultivating what it hoped was a Syrian government in waiting, and it was happy to enlist the United States to install that government in power. Ultimately, Turkey failed to manipulate U.S. firepower to its benefit, and its policy of turning a blind eye to jihadist rebel factions in northern Syria ultimately put it on a collision course with Washington.

Ever since 11/9, the United States has sought to deny safe haven to jihadist groups. But the American public has grown weary of extended, resource-intensive operations

Turkey’s purchase of a Russian missile defense system is unlikely to mean a wholesale embrace of Moscow at Washington’s expense, but it does mean that Turkey no longer views the United States as an indispensable ally.

such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Washington has come under mounting political pressure to work through local proxies instead of directly committing U.S. forces. With the emergence of jihadist-allied rebel groups in areas along the border, the United States chose to advance its limited counterterrorism goals with a different partner: Syrian Kurdish militias, the choice of which sent a clear signal to Ankara that the United States would place its own national security interests ahead of Turkey’s.

Ankara returned the favor, invading northern Syria on two different occasions, in 2016 and 2018, with the aim of pressuring the United States to cut ties with Syrian Kurdish militias and preventing the formation of an autonomous Kurdish entity along the border.

As U.S. and Turkish interests in Syria diverged, Ankara began to reevaluate its traditional deference to Washington on other national security issues as well. For more than a decade, the ruling AKP had sought to reduce Turkish dependence on the United States and to establish the country as an independent, global power. Turkish policymakers, led by former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, promoted the idea of a post-U.S. Middle East in which the region would look to Turkeyfor leadership. Ankara was, in essence, making the case to the Turkish public that “decoupling” from the United States was in the country’s best interest.

At first, this idea received considerable pushback from within the Turkish defense bureaucracy, but after nearly 17 years of AKP rule, during which time the United States antagonized Turkey by partnering with the Syrian Kurds,

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Russia servicemen drive S400- missal air defence systems through Red Square in Moscow during the Victory Day parade on May 2018 .9.

(Reuters)

a large and growing share of the national security elite has turned against Washington. As a result, Ankara has been able to explore partnerships with other regional and global actors.

AN UNLIKELY ALLIANCE Ankara’s pivot toward Moscow wasn’t a foregone conclusion. Russia has a long history of meddling in Turkish affairs, using propaganda to interfere in the country’s elections, reportedly conducting cyberattacks on its infrastructure, and orchestrating the assassination of Turkey-based Russian dissidents. For much of the Syrian civil war, the two countries backed opposite sides.

And yet, as Ankara detached from Washington, a closer partnership with Moscow became possible. The TurkishRussian relationship is not a formal alliance, and at this point it is still weaker than Ankara’s relationship with Washington. Still, dynamics in Syria explain why Turkey is able to paper over its differences with Russia, while ties with the United States are in a far more tenuous state.

Ironically, Turkey’s cooperation with Russia came about only because Moscow successfully routed Ankara-backed proxies on the Syrian battlefield. After Turkey downed a Russian Su24- bomber in November 2015, Russia focused its bombing efforts on the overland route Turkey used to supply proxies in northern Syria. Then, through the heavy bombardment of Turkish supply lines to Aleppo in late 2015 and early 2016, Russia cut off Ankara’s access

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to that city, which had been a focus of Turkish efforts to pressure Assad since the beginning of the war. The outcome effectively knocked Turkey out of the conflict, necessitating a downsizing of Turkish ambitions in Syria to a narrow focus on refugees and the Kurds. Ankara realized that it would have to work with Moscow to manage the flow of refugees from conflict-affected areas. It has done so by keeping the border closed and building camps inside Syria to house displaced people. But fighting in the border regions makes this harder to manage, so Turkey has leveraged its relationship with Russia to pressure Assad to limit the scope of combat operations in these areas.

At the same time, Russia has emerged as Turkey’s most reliable military partner in Syria, enabling Ankara to resume limited combat operations in the border regions that keep pressure on the Kurds without threatening Assad’s rule. Russia benefits from these operations because they heighten U.S.-Turkish tensions, which in turn heightens global tensions, since both countries are NATO members. Russia is also Turkey’s best avenue through which to influence an eventual peace settlement, and potentially even a new Syrian constitution, both of which would give Ankara an opportunity to frustrate Kurdish ambitions for self-rule in the northeast. Turkey, meanwhile, will likely have to oversee the surrender of opposition militias it has backed as part of any peace deal. This reality has given rise to a symbiotic RussianTurkish relationship in which each side needs the other to settle the conflict.

All of this helps to explain Turkey’s embrace of the S400-.

The terms of the deal for the missile system betray the political nature of the arrangement. Historically, Turkish defense procurement has prioritized technology transfer and localized production by Turkish subcontractors. Russia has refused to allow the transfer of any meaningful technology to Turkey, since Turkey remains a NATOmember and could therefore choose to share sensitive Russian technology with the alliance if relations with Russia sour.

In this instance, Turkey has chosen to forgo its traditional procurement priorities while also risking the future of its air force in order to deepen its relationship with Moscow.

The loss of the F35- won’t be the only immediate cost of Ankara’s new, more independent foreign policy.

Washington has also threatened to impose economic sanctions on Turkey over the S400- system and indicated that it will remain in Syria, where it will continue to work closely with the Syrian Kurds. But in the long run, Erdogan and the ruling AKP are betting that a neutrally aligned foreign policy will better serve their interests, both in Syria and with the Kurdish insurgency at home. Simply put, they don’t think their relationship with Washington is nearly as valuable as Washington seems to think it is.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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How to Win Friends and Wage Jihad Understanding al Qaeda’s Pragmatism

by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Varsha Koduvayur In its 2018 National Defense Strategy, the Trump administration announced that “inter-state strategic

competition, not terrorism,” is the United States’ main national security challenge. The world’s oldest global jihadist group, al Qaeda, seems to have similar priorities. Although the group has not produced a strategic document on the matter, the activities of its

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Despite the significant differences between the region’s only Shiite theocracy and an international Sunni jihadist group, Iran has maintained on-again, off-again support for al Qaeda.

These rivalries have roiled politics throughout the Middle East, fueling proxy wars from Libya to Syria to Yemen that al Qaeda has been able to exploit.

But the group’s renewed focus on interstate conflict reflects more than opportunism. For years, al Qaeda has cultivated strategic alliances with a range of state actors, some of them ideologically hostile to it. For a time, it looked as though this strategy might backfire, with the rise of the more ideologically strident Islamic State (ISIS). Yet al Qaeda has defied predictions that ISIS would break up its transnational network or steal away its major affiliates. Now, with its wealth of experience and web of historical relationships with regional powers, al Qaeda looks poised to capitalize on the chaos engulfing the Middle East.

FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES

Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and members of their families arrive in a rebel-held area of the Al-Eis crossing in Syria›s northern Aleppo province after they were evacuated from the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmuk in southern Damascus on May 2018 ,1. (Getty)

affiliates suggest that it sees state-to-state conflict as critical to its near-term success.

Al Qaeda’s focus is partly the product of circumstance.

Interstate competition is increasing across the Middle East. The U.S.-Iranian conflict has heated up under U.S. President Donald Trump, as has the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia, with both countries courting client states, engaging in proxy wars, and routinely threatening escalation. The competition between Iran and Israel perpetually risks blowing up, both figuratively and literally.

And Iran is not the only focus of regional interstate conflict. In June 2017, Saudi Arabia, along with Bahrain, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), severed relations with Qatar and placed it under a land, sea, and air blockade. The spat appears to be a product of long-simmering tensions between Qatar and the Saudi-led bloc over Doha’s sponsorship of Islamist political parties and rebel groups during and after the Arab Spring.

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From its inception, al Qaeda has been keenly aware of its ability to exploit interstate conflict. Founded in the dying days of the Afghan-Soviet war, the group never received direct state backing. Indirectly, however, al Qaeda benefited from U.S. and Pakistani support for the anti-Soviet mujahideen: it was able to grow, recruit, and find sponsors by identifying with the heroic antiSoviet cause. Since the 1990s, al Qaeda has also cultivated a relationship with Iran. This relationship has often been tense, involving not only state support and sanctuary but occasional arrests and kidnappings, some of which have been resolved through prisoner exchanges. Despite the significant differences between the region’s only Shiite theocracy and an international Sunni jihadist group, Iran has maintained on-again, off-again support for al Qaeda.

In an early example of such support, Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group, helped train the al Qaeda operatives who carried out the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, which together killed 223 people. Since 11/9, dozens of major al Qaedaoperatives, including

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Osama bin Laden’s sons Hamza and Saad, have found themselves in the Islamic Republic, where they have alternatively been offered safe haven and placed under house arrest. Saif al-Adl, an Egyptian explosives expert who has long been considered a potential future leader of al Qaeda, has also spent considerable time in Iran as both a refugee and a prisoner, producing major strategic writings while in the country.

Following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Iranian regime supported a variety of Iraqi militant groups in order to sabotage Washington’s war effort.

Tehran’s most natural allies were Shiite militants, but it also aided al Qaeda’s local affiliate, al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). This relationship backfired in important ways: in 2004, AQI’s leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, declared “total war” on Iraqi Shiites, and the group and its successor, ISIS, perpetrated gruesome antiShiite atrocities.

But despite these provocations, Tehran continued to support al Qaeda over the years. The U.S. State Department noted late last year that Iran has let al Qaeda “operate a core facilitation pipeline through Iran since at least 2009.” And according to the U.S. Treasury Department, Iran and al Qaeda have a “secret deal” allowing the group to use Iranian territory to “funnel funds and operatives” back and forth between the Middle East and South Asia. One jihadist reportedly involved in that pipeline, known as Yasin al-Suri, has operated from Iran since 2005.

In preserving its relationship with Iran, al Qaeda has demonstrated both a willingness and an ability to work with states with which it has serious ideological, theological, and strategic differences.

As early as March 2003 U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld noted that Syria was allowing military supplies to cross its border into Iraq.

Syria was also an important transit point for foreign fighters and a safe haven for key AQI operatives.

Al Qaeda’s history with Syria is also instructive. At the height of the Iraq war, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government sought to support militant groups that would tie U.S. troops down in Iraq and prevent Washington from training its sights on Damascus. Although Syria preferred aligning itself with ex-Baathist insurgents, it was willing to provide assistance to jihadist groups such as AQI as well. As early as March 2003, for instance, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld noted that Syria was allowing military supplies to cross its border into Iraq.

Syria was also an important transit point for foreign fighters and a safe haven for key AQI operatives.

As The Washington Post reported in 2005, from the outset of the war insurgents had been entering Iraq through Syria via buses that “Syrian border guards waved through open gates.” And in 2008, the U.S. Treasury Department designated an AQI leader known as Abu al-Ghadiyah for sanctions under an executive order targeting terrorists and their financial or material backers. According to the Treasury, Ghadiyah, along with a small circle of AQI operatives, ran a facilitation network controlling “the flow of money, weapons, terrorists, and other resources through Syria into Iraq.”

Like Tehran, Damascus propped up insurgents in order to undermine the U.S. war effort—in 2003, Syria’s then Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa declared that his country had a “national interest in the expulsion of the invaders from Iraq.” Yet Syria’s support for

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Picture taken 26 April 2003 shows T55 Russian-made tanks being driven by soldiers from the People›s Mujahedeen, as they roll through the desert 26 April 2003 in the Seyed Narine region, some 100kms northeast of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, and some 20 kms from the Iranian border.

(Getty)

(AQAP), in 2009, and the group has made considerable gains over the past half decade, as Yemen has descended into civil war. In March 2015, Saudi Arabia and its allies (principally the UAE) launched a military campaign in Yemen to oust the Houthis, an Iranian-backed rebel group, from the country. The war has since turned into a quagmire, with al Qaeda as a chief beneficiary. The AP found that coalition-backed militias had recruited hundreds of AQAP fighters. If the coalition wins in the end (an increasingly unlikely prospect), recent history suggests that these fighters are unlikely to simply put their arms down—or abandon their old cause.

these insurgents would ultimately come back to harm it after 2011, when these groups began fighting the Assad regime in the Syrian civil war. As the U.S. State Department’s 2017 Country Reports on Terrorism would later note, “The Syrian government had an important role in the growth of terrorist networks in Syriathrough the permissive attitude the Assad regime took towards [al Qaeda’s] foreign fighter facilitation efforts during the Iraq conflict.”

THE PRAGMATIC JIHAD Al Qaeda’s willingness to collaborate with states stands in marked contrast to the confrontational approach pursued by ISIS since the two groups split in 2014. Unlike al Qaeda, ISIS has tended to attack any state it comes into contact with. In Afghanistan, for example, ISIS’ Wilayat Khorasan affiliate tried to distinguish itself from the Taliban by beheading a Pakistani soldier in January 2015, a grisly way of demonstrating that it was not beholden to Pakistan.

ISIS subsequently boasted about the execution in its English-language magazine, Dabiq. But although ISIS was able to achieve rapid growth in 2014 and 2015—and is far from dead today—the advantages of al Qaeda’s more pragmatic strategy are becoming increasingly apparent.

Take the case of Yemen. Al Qaeda established its Yemeni affiliate, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula

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The benefits of al Qaeda’s strategy can also be seen in Syria. Whereas ISIS fought nearly every actor in the Syrian civil war—the Arab states, the Assad regime, Iran, Russia, and the United States—al Qaeda’s local affiliate, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), sought to exploit the interstate rivalries behind the conflict. Al Qaeda–linked Syrian groups have received support from Qatar and Turkey both of which have backed Sunni rebel groups against the Assad regime and its international patrons. In recent years, a rift has developed between HTS and al Qaeda’s senior leadership, calling into question the latter’s ability to exploit the Syria war in the future. Even so, the war exemplifies some of the critical benefits of al Qaeda’s pragmatic strategy.

AL QAEDA›S BRIGHT FUTURE The drums of war seem to be sounding once more across the Middle East. Although the Syrian civil war is winding down, the war in Yemen is now entering its fifth year, and tensions between the United States and Iran are now at their highest point in years, with Iran taking aggressive steps to reshape the regional order.

We should expect jihadist militants to attempt to coopt this worsening rivalry, as well as other growing regional tensions, for their benefit.

Recent history suggests that this renewal of interstate conflict will play to al Qaeda’s strengths. ISIS’ uncompromising ideological stance, by contrast, may limit its ability to cultivate and benefit from state support. But even the most hardened militant groups evolve over time. ISIS may double down on its current strategy, casting itself as the only jihadist group willing to reject help from what it sees as compromised and illegitimate states. Or it may seek to emulate the success of its erstwhile parent, softening its stance in order to rebuild its strength.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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What to Expect From Israel' s Election Re-Run

Can Netanyahu Unite the Right?

by Dahlia Scheindlin At the end of May, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shocked Israel by calling for new national elections after he failed to form a

governing coalition. Commentators dubbed the unprecedented new poll “Mo’ed B,” literally, a second scheduled date. The term also implies a second chance at success.

Despite failing to win a majority in the April

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elections, Israeli opposition parties of the center and the left didn’t seem to want a re-run; most of their lawmakers voted against the new elections.

Ironically, it was the right-wing parties, who won a comfortable 65 seats (out of a total of 120), that voted themselves out of office. They clearly think they can do better. They may be right.

For over a decade, polling has repeatedly shown that center and left-wing voters make up less than half of the Israeli electorate. In a survey conducted just before the April elections, 41 percent of all voters identified as centrist or left wing, while 50 percent identified as right wing. This includes Palestinian-Arab citizens of Israel, who make up about 20 percent of the population and vote mostly for Arab or left-wing Jewish parties, but who turn out at significantly lower rates than Jews.

Election results therefore generally reflect the more right-wing tilt of Jewish Israeli voters.

In short, there are not enough centrists and left-wingers to replace Netanyahu’s governing coalition. Even a small wave of activity among the opposition camp—the recent return to politics of former Labor Prime Minister Ehud Barak, primary elections that brought new leaders to both the Labor party and the left-wing Meretz, and the reunification of two Arab parties—will mean little if voters just shift within the left and center. What happens in the next election will depend primarily on right-wing voters.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a press conference on May ,30 2019 in Jerusalem, Israel. (Getty)

But predicting what they’ll do is tricky. Israeli elections routinely prompt parties to emerge, merge, split, and collapse, generating too many uncertainties to forecast anything reliably before the August 2 deadline for finalizing party lists. The best place to start instead is to map the dilemmas of right wing voters and parties.

THE RIGHT MOVES The right’s first dilemma is strategic. A sprawling 59 percent of Jewish adults identify as right wing.

High demand spurred high supply in April, when eight different right-wing parties competed in the elections. Four of them were explicitly religious: there were two ultra-orthodox (Haredi) parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, and two parties

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Moderates in Israel are more likely to identify as secular and are somewhat more committed to liberal democratic values, such as the separation of religion and state, although not to the same extent as the center and the left. representing the non-Haredi religious voters, the United Right, which included factions inspired by the late extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane, and the New Right. The latter was established by two popular erstwhile ministers from Netanyahu’s government, Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked, who broke from one of the factions within the United Right. (Netanyahu fired both of them from his interim government shortly after calling new elections.) Less religious right-wingers had three options: Netanyahu’s Likud; Kulanu, established by former Minister of Finance Moshe Kachlon in 2015 (Kulanu also attracted centrists); and former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s Israeli Beitenu (“Israel is Our Home”), a secular rightwing party that depends on a shrinking base of older Soviet immigrants. The eighth party, Zehut, was established by the eccentric Moshe Feiglin, who supported marijuana legalization, libertarian social policies, and an ultra-religious-nationalist plan to move the government to the Temple Mount, the most contested religious site in the region.

The presence of all these choices failed to increase the size of the total right-wing bloc in April, when it lost two seats from the previous election. A clear plurality of right-wing voters supported Likud, which won 35 seats, five more than in 2015.

Zehut and the New Right both failed to meet the 3.25 percent electoral threshold for entering the Knesset, each wasting well over 100,000 votes, or seven to eight seats combined. Had other rightwing parties won them instead, Netanyahu would have had a much easier path to forming a coalition.

Right-wing Israelis of many stripes now bemoan

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that fragmentation and many expect the smaller parties to unite by August 2. Whether that will happen is unclear; the only change so far is further fragmentation, as one faction of three-party United Right list has pulled out of the group (for now). Putting aside personal ambition for the sake of a more intelligent overall strategy is not most politicians’ forte.

ISSUES MATTER But elections also reflect issues, or at least they ought to. What do right-wing voters want for Israel, and how do they expect their politicians to lead?

Here, the right-wing is far from homogenous.

In polls, the camp breaks down almost evenly between self-identified firm and moderate right.

Moderates are more likely to identify as secular and are somewhat more committed to liberal democratic values, such as the separation of religion and state, although not to the same extent as the center and the left. The firm and moderate right are more aligned on security and the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: broad majorities of right-wingers reject a two-state solution and support settlements.

Lieberman

brought

down

the

coalition

There’s little question that Netanyahu is more vulnerable than ever before, following his spectacular failure to form a government and the looming indictments. Yet he remains the man to beat.

negotiations by insisting on a law that would have drafted the ultra-orthodox into the army, after they have enjoyed essentially a blanket exemption for decades. The issue has come to symbolize many Israelis’ desire to break the grip of the Haredim, and Jewish religious institutions, on public life. Lieberman is counting on the issue to win him votes from secular right-wingers, beyond his dwindling core of aging Russian-speakers.

Lieberman’s problem is that few believe he made his stand out of true ideological commitment, assuming instead some inscrutable political calculation. Netanyahu has fought back with his own nod to secular right-wingers by appointing an openly gay interim Justice Minister. That marked a first in Israel and was a snub for a prominent leader of the United Right, Betzalel Smotrich, who had coveted the position. (Had he been appointed, Smotrich, who once described himself as “a proud homophobe,” would have represented a blow to the LGBT community, an issue that represents

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Former Defense minister of Israel and ‹Yisrael Beiteino› party leader Avigdor Lieberman after speaking at a press conference on May ,30 2019 in Tel Aviv, Israel.

(Getty)

that the (putatively) left-wing media and judiciary are persecuting Netanyahu and the right-wing government since they cannot win at the ballot box. Judicial activism is under fire; a majority of right-wing voters support abolishing the courts’ power of judicial review, for example, a move that the center and the left consider disastrous.

Still, the issue does divide the right’s firm and moderate camps. The latter are more committed to checks and balances, and a survey I conducted for the human rights organization Btselem found that they are about twice as favorable to the Court as the firm right. The left and the center, hoping to peel off moderate right-wingers, would be wise to make a strong stand in support of Israel’s legal institutions.

another emerging divide within the right.)

Right-wingers—like all Israelis—care about the economy and the cost of living. Despite sharp inequalities, Netanyahu’s voters, even those who are struggling personally, take pride in the country’s strong economic indicators. In the new campaign, Likud has re-incorporated Kulanu, its main competitor from the right wing bloc on economic themes. Now Netanyahu can hammer home both economic achievements and his unrivaled foreign policy reputation, to rally rightwing voters yet again.

Netanyahu’s imminent indictment on corruption charges might be expected to overshadow everything. But for right-wing voters, the point is largely moot. According to the 2018 Israeli Democracy Index, right-wing supporters are less concerned about corruption than all other voters.

Opinion leaders on the right argue relentlessly

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That leaves the perennial issue of the IsraeliPalestinian conflict. There, the right wing is having a completely different conversation than centrist and left-wing Israelis (and the rest of the world). The two-state solution is a nonstarter; annexation is their vision for conflict resolution. Days before the April elections, Netanyahu declared his intention to annex all settlements—appealing to the voters of far right parties that have legitimized Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank for years. As the struggle deepens between the national religious parties— all of them closely associated with the settler movement—Netanyahu’s desperation to scrape votes from all corners will likely accelerate the rhetorical race towards annexation.

There’s little question that Netanyahu is more vulnerable than ever before, following his spectacular failure to form a government and the looming indictments. Yet he remains the man to beat. Given the flurry of recent activity on the center and left, opposition parties could yet shake up the political structure and re-align voters in their favor, but the odds start out against them. Netanyahu, the master of Israeli politics, could still eke out one more victory.

But even then, his legal woes--or further coalition bargaining surprises--might ensure that it is short-lived.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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Why Religious Tolerance Won in Indonesia but Lost in India It Turns Out Pluralistic Nationalism Isn’t Enough

By Dan Slater, Maya Tudor Asia’s two largest and most diverse democracies held national elections in recent weeks, and

religious tolerance was on the ballot in both.

Voters, however, delivered diametrically opposed verdicts.

In Indonesia, the government of incumbent

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Indonesian President Joko Widodo before a meeting at Hyderabad House on December 2016 ,12 in New Delhi, India. (Getty)

President Joko Widodo (widely known as Jokowi) won by broadcasting a message of pluralism. Jokowi preached an inclusive nationalism that transcended Islam, Indonesia’s dominant religion, and won re-election by a decisive margin.

In India, victory also went to the incumbent, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but on very different terms. Modi, who heads the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), won in large measure by invoking his party’s vision of an India of and for the Hindus.

Like all elections, of course, these were not simply referenda on a single issue. Jokowi and Modi owe their victories as much to their charisma, common touch, and pro-development reputations as to their stances on questions of piety and religious discrimination. No less consequential was that India’s main opposition, the Congress party, traditionally a voice for religious inclusion, chose as its candidate the charisma-free scion of a powerful political dynasty, whereas Jokowi’s party in Indonesia wisely desisted from running its own deeply unpopular dynastic leader into nearcertain defeat. Banal as it may sound, tolerance wins only when its champions can manage to put forward strong candidates. The implication is that victories for religious tolerance, such as in Indonesia, tend to be fragile, contested, and therefore potentially short-lived.

Still, a weightier factor can tip the scales: historical conceptions of nations, going back decades or centuries, help decide whether a message of tolerance will resonate or fall on deaf ears. From the moment of their nearly simultaneous founding as independent nation-states in the late 1940s, Indonesia and India both inherited pluralistic nationalisms from the leaders and movements that fought for independence. Crucially, neither country’s constitution favored the demographically dominant religion—Hinduism in India, Islam in Indonesia—over other faiths.

On the whole, such a pluralistic understanding of the nation has been a critical democratic resource in both countries. It helps explain the resilience of Indian democracy since the late 1940s and the surprising democratic opening that followed military rule in Indonesia in the late 1990s.

Inclusive nationalism is of enduring value for tolerant democrats, both in times of democratic

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Because Indonesia’s national identity accommodates but does not prioritize Islam, politics is not fundamentally divided between Muslims and nonMuslim minorities. Instead, nationalist Muslims allied with non-Muslims on the one side compete with more intolerant Muslims on the other side. transition and when confronted in elections by those with more exclusionary and discriminatory visions of the nation. And while formal inclusivity does not prevent politicians from appealing to the dominant religious community, Indian secularism and the Indonesian national philosophy of Pancasila, which mandates belief in a single but not necessarily Muslim god, regularly help legitimate the countries’ leading pluralist political parties and their inclusive messages.

But if what unites the two countries is their inclusive brand of nationalism, why did tolerance just win in Indonesia but lose in India? Putting aside the campaign-related and candidate-specific factors, one might think that pluralist voices would have an easier time flourishing in formally secular India than in Indonesia, whose founding national creed makes non-belief literally illegal.

Because Indonesia has more closely identified its national identity with religion and always provided pious Muslims a central position in the national community, it might seem that the country is more vulnerable than India to religious intolerance infecting its electoral politics.

In practice, however, the religious quality of Indonesian nationalism can act as much as a vaccine for intolerance as a virus that spreads it. Because Indonesia’s national identity accommodates but does not prioritize Islam, politics is not fundamentally divided between Muslims and non-Muslim minorities. Instead, nationalist Muslims allied with non-Muslims on the one side compete with more intolerant Muslims on the other side. Consequently, one

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can easily be botha pious Muslim and a pluralist nationalist in Indonesia.

The 2019 elections conformed to this pattern.

Indonesian nationalism’s historical embrace of religion made it easier for Jokowi’s pluralist party to form an alliance with the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) the country’s largest Muslim organization. To be sure, Jokowi picked an especially conservative leader of the NU as his running mate, raising hackles among Jokowi’s more liberal supporters.

But his vice-presidential pick helped him secure an overwhelming landslide in the heavily populous regions of Central and East Java, where NU has its deepest roots. Remarkably, Jokowi won the national vote by around 17 million votes, but took those two vital provinces by close to 20 million votes. The alliance of Jokowi’s party and NU, and their shared commitment to a nationalism that is at once Islamic and pluralist, carried the day for Jokowi more than anything else.

Not so in India. Hindu nationalism has long had an influential voice in Indian politics, but the country’s post-independence constitution emphasizes equal rights for all minority groups.

Reinforced under the towering leadership of India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, this constitutional structure led to the creation of separate legal codes for religions and a politics of caste recognition that defined Indian politics for decades.

Over time, however, the bright line between the

The next time elections roll around in India and Indonesia, we could very well be telling the opposite story. What is certain is that the fight to defend pluralism against its challengers in Asia’s largest and most diverse democracies will continue.

religion of the majority and the character of the state has led the forces of religious nationalism to consolidate on one side of the political divide— within the socially conservative BJP. The shift was gradual. Political scientists Pradeep Chhibber and Rahul Verma found that fifteen years ago, virulent Hindu nationalists, who favored a statist embrace of jingoist nationalism and majoritarian policies at the expense of minorities, particularly Muslims, voted for the BJP by large margins whereas those who simply favored protecting Hindu culture voted equally for the BJP and the Congress party.

But the BJP managed to popularize the idea that the Indian state should actively prioritize Hindu culture and that secularism was effectively a policy of minority appeasement. By 2014, pious

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Catholic nuns pose for a selfie in front of the Sam Poo Kong temple in Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia on February 2018 ,16. (Getty)

Hindus had defected in large numbers to the BJP. Unlike in Indonesia, strongly identifying with Hinduism and embracing pluralist nationalism in today’s India is difficult. Modi’s ability to win the support of both aspirational young voters attracted to his dynamism and pious Hindu voters who support cultural majoritarianism delivered him the election.

India and Indonesia both have the foundations in place for pluralism to defeat intolerance. But it is up to pluralist parties and politicians to make the most of them. Despite Indonesia’s inclusive national heritage, an intolerant and authoritarian brand of political Islam is growing more popular.

There is no guarantee that the country’s pluralist

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inheritance will not be upended in the near future.

In India, Hindu nationalism may have won the day this time, but pluralism can prevail if opposition parties cast aside dynasts and promote more appealing politicians capable of exploiting ideological contradictions within the incumbent party’s support base.

The next time elections roll around in India and Indonesia, we could very well be telling the opposite story. What is certain is that the fight to defend pluralism against its challengers in Asia’s largest and most diverse democracies will continue.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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The Women of the Space Race Despite Having Played Crucial Roles, We Don’t Know Much About Them

by Megan Burbank Edith Gustan’s name appears in the fourth paragraph of a Seattle Times article from 1970, a skinny strip of text above a nearly full-page ad for Sears’ Mother’s Day sale that advertises, among other things, “incontestably female … cardigans!”

Gustan was a biologist and longtime Boeing employee who conducted research on subjects at the nexus of biology and space travel. But while many

stories from NASA’s Apollo program are common knowledge, hers is nearly nonexistent. Do some digging and you’ll find a 1985 Associated Press article describing her research on the viability of a space-station greenhouse under the headline “And Now, Vegetables in Space.” You might read her name in aerospace and engineering industry journals, on papers examining subjects like closed ecological life-support systems. Addresses place her in Shelton and East Wenatchee. But a Google search turns up

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In the Firing Room at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on July ,16 1969, members of the launch team listen to congratulatory remarks

by Vice President Spiro Agnew after the successful liftoff of Apollo 11. In the center of the photograph is JoAnn Morgan, the only woman engineer among scores of male counterparts. (NASA)

only a two-sentence obituary from 2017. We know she worked on collaborations between Boeing and NASA, but we don’t know much about her.

This is an all too common outcome for many of the women who played crucial roles in the success of the Apollo 11 mission and, more broadly, the American manned spaceflight program. They wrote code, made complex calculations, and — in Gustan’s case — envisioned a future where astronauts might even grow their own food during space travel. But in many cases, we’re only uncovering their contributions now, half a century after humans first walked on the moon.

It’s a pattern of “fits and starts” throughout the history of women in America, and it’s one Margaret Weitekamp knows well. She’s the author of “Right Stuff, Wrong Sex: America’s First Women in Space Program,” which explores the rise and disappearance of an early program that envisioned sending women to space. She also curates the National Air and Space Museum’s social and cultural dimensions of spaceflight collection in Washington, D.C. “When we look at the history,” she says, “what we find is that many of what we would now call STEM fields — science, technology, engineering and math — were overwhelmingly male, but they were not exclusively male and much of that perception has been shaped in the years since.”

Undoing that perception takes work and careful research into the women who were, as Weitekamp puts it, “in some of these rooms.” “Famously, we now have paid more attention to the women computers who had for years been working for NASA,” she says. This group included Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Dorothy Vaughan, mathematicians who worked at NASA during the space race, who faced the dual barriers of racism and sexism, and whose story was told in Margot Lee Shetterly’s 2016 book “Hidden Figures,” and the film of the same name.

In contrast to today’s male-dominated world of computer programming, some technical roles at NASA were considered women’s work. Human computers such as Jackson, Johnson and Vaughn had “a job that was a woman’s job the way being a secretary was a woman’s job,” says Weitekamp. They did the calculations that made spaceflight possible. Women who held these positions at NASA were among the nation’s earliest computer programmers. Though it’s difficult to find exact figures on how many women worked as human computers, thousands of women

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In contrast to today’s maledominated world of computer programming, some technical roles at NASA were considered women’s work. were involved in the Apollo program, and given that human computers were primarily women, it’s likely they made up a large part of that workforce.

One of the best-known women to work on the Apollo 11 mission was also a programmer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer scientist Margaret Hamilton, who in 2016 was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama for her work on Apollo. Hamilton led the team behind the code that took the spacecraft to the moon, and even if you don’t know who she is, it’s possible you’ve seen an iconic photograph of her taken from her time with the Apollo program. She stands smiling next to the piled volumes of her code; the stack is as tall as she is. (You may even have seen this image on Twitter last April, when many users paired it with the image of Katie Bouman, also an MIT computer scientist, posing with hard drives containing data that made it possible to photograph a black hole.)

There were also women like one of NASA’s first women engineers, JoAnn Morgan, who worked in launch control for Apollo 11, and appears in a famous image from that time. She’s the only woman in a sea of men in white dress shirts and ties, and one of the only people in the shot still sitting at a console while the others stand up to watch the launch.

But one place in the Apollo program where women were conspicuously absent was in the spacecraft themselves. That wasn’t because women didn’t aspire to be astronauts. (It’s an impulse so relatable it made it into a well-trod campaign anecdote for Hillary Clinton in 2016.) It also wasn’t because no one had thought about sending women to space.

Well before Apollo, William Randolph Lovelace II, the New Mexico physician who oversaw psychological and physical testing for the first corps of would-be astronauts, suspected that women might be good candidates for space travel. But Lovelace’s interest in sending women to space wasn’t rooted

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in lofty ideas of equity or feminism before its time, but in traditional notions of male and female labor.

When Lovelace imagined human societies on space stations, he did it in accordance with the strict gender striations of the ‘50s and ‘60s: He thought that space stations would need workers like “telephone operators and laboratory assistants and nurses and things that were traditionally pink-collar jobs,” says Weitekamp. And that would mean sending women to space. “He is in some ways incredibly visionary and in some ways very much a product of his time,” she says.

Thirteen women pilots did undergo Lovelace’s testing for potential astronauts, including Jerrie

One of the best-known women to work on the Apollo 11 mission was also a programmer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer scientist Margaret Hamilton,

Cobb, an accomplished pilot who held world records for flying and who would go on to testify before Congress, arguing that women should be allowed into the astronaut corps.

She never got her wish. In 1961, when President John F. Kennedy announced an ambitious timeline for getting a man onto the moon, NASA’s resources were funneled to that goal. The quick turn precluded any slower, more deliberate focus on human spaceflight that might have included women, says Weitekamp. Women were nowhere near the astronaut corps in 1961, and the speed required to reach the moon would mean NASA had to work with the pilots they had — all of them men. “Women didn’t get to participate in large part because NASA by the end of May 1961 is already focused on ‘what do we need to do to get to the moon and back?’ “ Weitekamp says.

A lot has changed since then. From the 1970s onward, desegregation and laws like Title IX brought women into medicine, engineering, law and other fields that had been historically male-dominated. “It’s a result of any number of lawsuits to allow women into these professional roles, to get them into the schools that then give them the credentials that allow you to have a story like a Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who’s one of

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NASA's first class of female astronauts in January 1978, from left to right: Shannon W. Lucid, Margaret Rhea Seddon, Kathryn D. Sullivan, Judith A. Resnik, Anna L. Fisher and Sally K. Ride. (NASA)

Mary Jackson is one of NASA's Hidden Figures. She was the first black female engineer at NASA. (Robert Nye/NASA)

the first women in her law class and who was told repeatedly that she’s taking some man’s spot,” says Weitekamp.

This new openness extended to the astronaut corps as well. In 1983, Sally Ride became the first American woman in space, emerging from a class of astronauts who were living proof that NASA had recognized the need for a corps that more closely mirrored the nation. The -35member group included three African American men, an Asian American man and six women. Ride was followed by other women, including Bonnie Dunbar, of Sunnyside, Yakima County, and Mae Jemison, who in 1992 became the first African American woman to go to space. To date, 45 women have entered the American astronaut corps.

“Those women are not necessarily women like the Lovelace women who identified first as pilots and who are interested in flying the spacecraft,” says Weitekamp. “These are people who have Ph. Ds in physics or oceanography or other kinds of research subjects who are going to be doing experiments in the payload bay of the space shuttle.”

But the Lovelace women might’ve seen more of themselves in Eileen Collins, who in 1995 became the first woman space-shuttle pilot, decades after the

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It’s an omission that reflects the circuitous churn of documenting women’s history: one step forward, two steps back.

Lovelace tests, or Spokane’s Lt. Col. Anne McClain, a military test pilot who returned to Earth on June 25 after more than six months in space.

It’s unlikely that NASA would have made this connection. “Part of what’s frustrating is when they were greeting the women in the 1970s they did not look back at any of this data from the 1950s and 1960s. They just kind of started over,” says Weitekamp.

It’s an omission that reflects the circuitous churn of documenting women’s history: one step forward, two steps back. Even though we know more about women’s contributions to space travel than perhaps ever before, we still must reckon with blind spots, and the stories of lives and scientific achievements — like those of Edith Gustan — that we have yet to fully understand.

A Weekly Political News Magazine

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Issue 1756- july - 12/07/2019

The Custody Battle Over King Tut www.majalla.com

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Tayeb Salih’s Sudan: How the Writer Portrayed Postcolonial Village Life

by Ali El Shamy If there’s one thing that fascinated Tayeb Salih, it’s the impact of colonialism has had on Sudan and Sudanese society. Unlike many of his contemporaries who focused on postcolonial struggles of educating the populace, establishing an assimilated civil society united under statehood or even forming an effective government, Salih brilliantly placed his lens on the identity crisis that emerged after various European powers left their colonies and mandates to govern for themselves. It was during that time that new ideas such as Arab Nationalism started taking place and governments sought new “third” ways of conducting affairs. More critically, this postcolonial transition had an even greater impression on the general populace of these states, as they too were faced with their own identity struggles. For one, many still struggled with the idea

of statehood and a hegemonic state power; this was especially true for countries that had a history of tribal affiliations. Additionally, pastoral societies would soon face pressures to modernize, but while central Sudanese government policies did bring needed development to rural areas, much of the regions outside the north have been largely neglected (a fact that remains to this day).

Both of Salih’s works, The Doum Tree of Wad Hamid and The Wedding of Zein, are set in the fictional Sudanese village of Wad Hamid, which finds itself amidst a number of major changes and developmeways. Interestingly the village is resistant to these developments in the former while it is much more accepting of them in the latter. While most of this analytical piece will concentrate on the longer The Wedding of Zein, The Doum Tree of Wad Hamid will still be used sparingly throughout in order to further delve into Salih’s portrayal of postcolonial modernism vs

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Sudanese bride, a -23year-old dentist, and a-27year-old IT engineer, both working in Saudi Arabia, hold their wedding ceremony in Khartoum, Sudan, on June 2019 ,16. (Getty)

traditionalism. The piece will further focus on ways in which his characters both try to resist and conform to Wad Hamid’s ideals.

WAD HAMID: THE PASTORAL PARADISE Throughout The Doum Tree of Wad Hamid, Salih makes it clear that the village is primitive and lacks many resources necessary for survival; as a matter of fact right on the second page of the short story, the narrator expresses his yearning for basic modern infrastructure: “Oh, I wish, my son, I wish-the asphalted roads of the towns-the modern means of transport-the fine comfortable buses. We have none of all this-we are people who live on what God sees fit to give us.”

Despite this lack of luxuries, the narrator soon changes his tone and states that the people of the village actually like their lifestyle filled with struggles and hardships, as it is what made them thickskinned. Furthermore, while the village (like many rural areas in the Middle East) isn’t the most developed, it has still witnessed inexplicable fortunes that its residents attribute to blessings coming from certain objects and individuals. In the shorter of the two pieces, the narrator speaks to a visitor to Wad Hamid and recounts stories of miracles that the doum tree bestowed upon the villagers. Because the villagers live too far from the nearest hospital, which is stated to be in the next town over, most of them rely on bed rest to cure their ailments, but if their illnesses become too severe they opt to pray to and bring offerings to the tree. Miraculously, they find themselves up and running again afterwards and many villagers recount seeing an old man with a white beard and prayer beads comforting them during their time at the tree. The tree eventually becomes a point of contention, as government officials start coming to village with modernization plans that would require the tree to be torn down. The villagers resist the government’s plans and some even land into jail time for their civil disobedience. Wad Hamid’s residents eventually get their way after the government almost miraculously gets replaced with another one, which in turn starts the development projects while respecting the sanctity of the tree.

The reverence the villagers have for the tree almost goes as far as deification: “Do you not see that it is stony and appreciably higher than the river bank, like the pedestal of a statue, while the river twists and turns below it like a sacred snake, one of the ancient gods of the Egyptians?” The narrator then proceeds to state that no one planted the tree, almost verging on comparison to a deity that has no creator. While Wad Hamid is displayed as sort of a paradise, there is a dark element to the village namely the fate of strangers who do not embrace the traditions and customs of its inhabitants. One day the government sent a religious preacher to the village who was subsequently stung by horseflies and eventually contracted malaria and dysentery. The narrator recounts begging him to come see the tree, but the bedridden preacher angrily refused and went on his way back to where he came from. Salih’s relationship with religion is a complex one, and many of his fictional writings seem to imply that he might have been critical of organized religion, but not necessarily the spiritual aspect of religious practices. In anyway, professional preachers and imams were never portrayed in a positive light and

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In a way, there is a strange juxtaposition that can be seen in Ni’ma’s rebellion, as she defied conventional norms (going to elementary school) just so she can attain traditional practices (prayer and proper Quran recitation). this can be clearly seen in the characterization of the Imam in The Wedding of Zein, a symbol of organized religion who is forced to compete with the spiritual Sufi Haneen and the non-religious influence of Mahjoub’s gang.

ON TRADITIONAL ORGANIZED RELIGION The Imam in The Wedding of Zein is a fascinating character; having spent ten years of his life studying in the prestigious Islamic university of Al-Azhar in Egypt you’d think that he would garner much respect from Wad Hamid’s residents. But as the Imam of the mosque, he finds it difficult to fit in with the villagers, who tend to associate him with negative emotions rather than reverence. For one thing, as Imam he is always involved with the funeral proceedings in the village, so his face always reminds the villagers of the loss of their loved ones.

They also associate him with his harsh Friday prayer sermons that paint bleak pictures of sinners’ torturous fates in hellfire.

Perhaps unfairly, he also reminds them of the times when they wake up for dawn prayers during the winters and they are forced to perform ablution with freezing water. The Imam is also seen as an outsider who is unconcerned with the day-to-day affairs of the village, such as crop cultivation, and is more interested in other world affairs such as the Cold War between the US and Russia.

He is also resented since the villagers don’t feel that he does any arduous work (with the exception of giving religious lessons to children for a fee that parents do not enjoy paying), but is still paid a salary for his services to the mosque. In any way, it seems that there is nothing the Imam can do to get on the villagers’ good side. Like the preacher in The Doum Tree, the Imam seems almost unwelcome in the village; however he is not cursed with dysentery or malaria, he is instead inflicted with isolation and friendlessness ailments that the doum tree cannot cure.

By contrast, Mahjoub and his gang are a group of men who are in their 30s and 40s and more importantly they run the daily affairs of the village. Because each one of them owns more land than anyone else, they by default have the most economic power in Wad Hamid. By the latter half of the novella, Salih gives us more details on all the work they do for the village, for instance during Nile flood seasons, they take the initiative to dig channels and voyage around the village checking for any damage that may have taken place. They also take care of the village’s security

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and policing as they are seen punishing women who openly flirt with men and kicking out intruders coming into Wad Hamid.

They also have a great influence over the village’s mayor since they are shown to negotiate lower the tax rates he is charging on Wad Hamid’s inhabitants. When the government starts sending delegations to start on development projects, it is the gang that meets up with them and negotiates the plans on behalf of the village and no project is ever started without the group’s consent.

Another noteworthy aspect regarding Mahjoub’s gang is that they are irreligious in a village teeming with religious individuals. In one passage of the novella, the writer says that Mahjoub was actually known for his distaste for religious people, especially ascetics. Additionally, none of the gang members pray and only one of them goes to the mosque on a monthly basis, not for religious practices but rather to pay the Imam his salary and check on any repairs the mosque might need. Like the titular character, Zein, they do not like the Imam and only tolerate him because of his role in the village. Here Salih presents an interesting form of secularism versus religion and both elements in the village coexist in a pseudo-symbiotic relationship. The Imam relies on the gang to pay his salary, oversee the mosque’s conditions and even organize funerals and weddings; meanwhile the gang needs the Imam to fulfill the religious needs of the village members. However, there is a reason why I dubbed this relationship a “pseudo-symbiotic” one mainly because the Imam is much more reliant on the gang, than vice-versa. It should also be noted that Salih shows some form of separation of church and state as Mahjoub’s gang does not meddle into the Imam’s affairs and the Imam is not capable of getting involved with the gang’s operations.

Then there is the dervish Haneen, a man who is deemed mysterious by the village as he speaks to no one and his only companion is Zein, the village idiot. As a matter of fact, he has never dined at anyone’s home, except for that of Zein. He also disappears from the village for six months out of the year and

While it is difficult to interpret what Salih is trying to say on traditional organized religion, it could be said that he thought that it could not equally coexist with secular authority as one will surely overpower the other, and in this case secular authority won.

comes back for the other six months. In spite of his aloofness, the village still has reverence for the dervish. The respect they have for Haneen only grows after he seemingly brought about many miracles for the Wad Hamid. After Haneen is able to stop an altercation between Zein and Saif ad-Din (who struck him in the head with an ax during an earlier passage), great fortunes start to befall the village. For instance, during Haneen’s year, as the villagers call it, cotton’s prices saw an unprecedented rise and the government even allowed its cultivation, thus cotton growers got to make a good profit for the year. The government also decided to build a new hospital, secondary school and agricultural school in the village. Haneen, like the doum tree, is a symbol of hope for the largely spiritual and superstitious villagers of Wad Hamid and the question of whether or not the miracles happened because of Haneen is irrelevant since the villagers perceive him as the source of their bounty. While both the more mystical form of religion (Haneen) and the secular power (Mahjoub’s gang) both contribute something tangible to the village, the more traditional religious element (the Imam) is left in the background as an afterthought. While it is difficult to interpret what Salih is trying to say on traditional organized religion, it could be said that he thought that it could not equally coexist with secular authority as one will surely overpower the other, and in this case secular authority won. It seems however, that secular authority has a much harder time of overpowering the more spiritual element of religion. At the same time, Salih seems to be telling the audience that spiritual religion can have an easier time coexisting with secular government, but the same cannot be said for organized religion.

This marriage between spirituality and secularism is symbolized in Zein’s wedding, which happened after Haneen prophesized that Zein would soon “be marrying the best girl in the village” and at the same time the gang pressured the imam to marry him to Ni’ma, organised the wedding itself and gave Zein the clothing he wore during the ceremony.

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A taxi drive in a Sudanese village.

(Wikimedia Commons)

NI’MA AND ZEIN: A MARRIAGE OF REBELS? While Ni’ma ends up becoming Zein’s bride, not much is written about her in the novella. However, her few appearances are part of what makes her an interesting character study. Ni’ma is shown to be a headstrong girl, who makes unconventional decisions. When she was younger, she forced her father to enrol her into elementary school to learn the Quran and she was the only girl in a class full of boys. She was shown to be gifted as she quickly learned to write and memorized parts of the Muslim holy book. Her escape from the norm seems to have an endpoint, however. When her older brother beseeched her to continue her education to become a doctor or a lawyer, she refused stating that: “Education at school is a whole lot of nonsense. It’s quite enough to read and write and to know the Koran and the rituals of prayer.”

In a way, there is a strange juxtaposition that can be seen in Ni’ma’s rebellion, as she defied conventional norms (going to elementary school) just so she can attain traditional practices (prayer and proper Quran recitation).

Ni’ima is shown to be a quite religious, and one of her favorite chapters (suras) from the Quran is the Chapter of the Merciful (Surat Ar-Rahman). She has a fascination with the religious concept of mercy and considered it to have a feminine characteristic. She herself personified “mercy” as a woman of great beauty who is dedicated to the service of her husband; she also wished her parents had named her “Rahma” (Arabic for mercy) instead of Ni’ima, which roughly translates to blessing.

However, her notion of mercy shows that she still holds on to her society’s conventions that perceive a wife’s role of being subservient to her spouse, again showing us that there are some lines that she is not willing to cross.

Salih does eventually manage to describe the girl’s “tepid” rebellion. In one of the passages, a successful and well-respected teacher at an Intermediate School goes to Ni’ma’s parents and asks for her hand in marriage, which she immediately refuses.

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Her father gets angry and almost slaps his daughter, but suddenly stops before he strikes his blow not knowing exactly why he did so: “Perhaps it was the expression of her eyes, perhaps the calm resolution on her face. It was as though the man sensed that this girl was neither disobedient nor refectory, but she was propelled by an inner counsel to embark upon something from which no one could deflect her.”

She does have one critical moment of dissent, consisting of her decision to marry Zein, the village idiot. While her parents and brothers apparently rejected her decision at first, the youngest brother said: “Ni’ma was always headstrong and now she has chosen a husband for herself, let her have her way.”

Zein, on the other hand, has rebelled against most forms of the village’s conventions. Right from the moment of his birth, he had displayed abnormal behavior as his mother noted that he came out her womb laughing rather than crying. He grew up to have quite an anomalous appearance with him becoming awkwardly tall and lanky, had prominent bones to his cheek and his jaws, had small bloodshot eyes and had no hair on his head and face, not even eyebrows or eyelashes. To top it all off, his top and bottom front teeth were missing. During weddings, he wouldn’t sit with the male guests and would opt to joke around with the women in the kitchen, hoping they would give him scraps of food to fill his insatiable appetite.

Zein is also shown to be irreligious, during weddings that lasted well into the night, he wouldn’t accompany people to pray the Fajr (dawn) prayer in the mosque and would instead go back home so that he could wake his mother to make him tea.

As Zein got older, he would grow into the habit of “falling inlove” with a girl in the village and loudly declaring his love to everyone in town. While this behavior is initially seen as annoying and humiliating (especially to the families of the girls), mothers would eventually take advantage of his frequent infatuations, and use it to attract more eligible bachelors to their daughters: “In a conservative society where girls are hidden away from young men, Zein became an emissary for Love, transporting its sweet fragrance from place to place. Love, first of all, would strike at his heart, then would he quickly transferred to the heart of another-just as though Zein were a broker, a salesman, or a postman.”

While the girls he fell in love with would eventually be married off to someone else, he never let that bother him as he would quickly move on to another one.

Now the writer never mentions why N’ima chose to marry someone like Zein, as a matter of fact, both characters hardly interacted with each other, but it is heavily implied that it might have something to do with her ideas on mercy and sacrifice. Salih would also mention that she saw Zein as an “orphan” in need of being cared for.

While we might never know the secret behind Ni’ma’s decision, one thing is for certain, Salih was a master at writing subtle societal and individual resistances against both traditionalism and contemporariness.

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The Custody Battle Over King Tut Auction Houses and Museums are Increasingly Facing Scrutiny over the Provenance of the Antiquities

by Yasmine El-Geressi

former Minister of Antiquities, said the piece appeared to be looted from the Karnak complex just north of Luxor.

Egypt has asked Interpol to help track down a 3,000 sculpture of the famed boy In an extremely rare intervention, Egypt’s Pharaoh Tutankhamun after it was sold National Committee for Antiquities in Christie’s in London for almost 5£ Repatriation (NCAR) asked Christies, million to an anonymous buyer in one of the UK Foreign Office, the UK cultural the most controversial auctions in years, body and UNESCO to intervene and despite Egypt warning it was probably halt the sale. Right up until the day of the auction, the Egyptian ambassador to stolen in the 1970s.

Britain, Tarek Adel, called for the sale to Tutankhamen is the most famous of all be delayed so that its provenance could Egypt’s pharaohs, despite the fact he be further investigated. When Christie’s only ruled for nine years and died before went ahead with the auction, the bitter his 20th birthday. Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s row escalated between the two countries.

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Egypt’s campaign to recover lost art gained momentum after numerous works went missing during the looting that accompanied former president Hosni Mubarak›s fall from power in 2011.

Tutankhamen who is portrayed wearing the domed crown of his namesake, the god Amen.

The repatriation committee expressed its deep indignation at «the unprofessional way in which the Egyptian artefacts were sold without the provision of the ownership documents, and proof that that the artefacts left Egypt in a legitimate manner, till this date.” NCAR also expressed «deep bewilderment that the British authorities failed to provide the support expected from it in this regard.”

Speaking to the BBC, Egyptian antiquities minister Khaled al-Enany vowed to repatriate the artefact. “They left us with no other option but to go to court to restore our smuggled antiquities,” he said. “We will leave no stone unturned until we repatriate the Tutankhamun bust and the other 32 pieces sold by Christie›s.

This is human heritage that should be on public display in its country of origin.”

The Egyptian head of the god Amun with features of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen. (Photo source: Christie’s)

The NCRA held an urgent meeting on Monday night and said in a statement that it hired a British law firm to file a lawsuit against the auction house, saying Christie’s did not provide documents proving ownership of the 11 inches high and carved from brown quartzite

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The BBC reported that a number of Egyptian businessmen and civil society groups have pledged to fund the lawsuit.

The UK has also been asked to prevent the export of Egyptian artefacts before Egyptian authorities have checked ownership documents, Egyptian sources say.

However, Christie’s has strongly denied any wrongdoing, insisting that all necessary checks were made over

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the bust›s provenance, and that its sale was legal and valid. “While ancient objects by their nature cannot be traced over millennia, Christie’s has clearly carried out extensive due diligence verifying the provenance and legal title of this object,” the auction house said in a statement. It stated that Germany›s Prince Wilhelm von Thurn und Taxis reputedly had it in his collection by the 1960s, and that it was acquired by an Austrian dealer in 4-1973. That, however, was called into question when Viktor von Thurn und Taxis, the son of the minor German royal, told website Live Science that he did not recall his father ever owning the bust. He was “not a very art-interested person”, Wilhelm’s niece, Daria, added.

THE WIDER ROW Over the past five years, Egypt has recovered 1,500 illegally trafficked objects from abroad. The country’s campaign to recover lost art gained momentum after numerous works went missing during the looting that accompanied former president Hosni Mubarak›s fall from power in 2011.

That, however, was called into question when Viktor von Thurn und Taxis, the son of the minor German royal, told website Live Science that he did not recall his father ever owning the bust.

The Arab uprisings and the political unrest it sparked opened a gap for smugglers to operate mostly unnoticed in the country. Since 2011, the USbased Antiquities Coalition estimates 3$ billion worth of Egyptian antiquities have been smuggled out of the country.

However, those caught breaking the 1983 Protection of Antiquities Law face severe consequences including mandatory prison time and huge fines.

Cairo has managed to regain hundreds of looted and stolen artefacts by working with both auction houses and international cultural groups. For example, In January of this year, an Egyptian stole tablet of King Amenhotep that had been smuggled out of Luxor, Egypt, was rescued from a London auction house after the Egyptian antiquities ministry scored auction websites across the world. The sale was halted and the artefact was returned to the Egyptian embassy in London in September.

Auction houses and museums are increasingly facing scrutiny over the provenance of the antiquities on display and for sale. In April this year the Ethiopian government rejected an offer from the Victoria and Albert Museum to loan back artefacts allegedly plundered by British forces in 1868. Ethiopian government minister Hirut Woldemariam told news agencies at the time that “we have asked (for) the restitution of our heritage, our Maqdala heritage, looted from Maqdala 150 years ago.” While Ephrem Amare, Ethiopian National Museum director, said: “It is clearly known where these treasures came from and whom they belong to. Our main demand has never been to borrow them. Ethiopia’s demand

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An Assyrian gypsum relief of a Winged Genius. Reign of Ashurnasirpal II, circa 859-883 BC. (Photo source: Christie’s)

Since 2011, the US-based Antiquities Coalition estimates 3$ billion worth of Egyptian antiquities have been smuggled out of the country. relief when it was sold at Christie’s in New York for 31$m. The Foreign Ministry had demanded the return of the rare sculpture just hours before the auction house sale, claiming it belonged to the country and is a looted piece of its heritage.

Christie’s was embroiled in another contentious sale last month when it sold Indian and Mughal-era jewels, daggers and royal portraits for 109$ million, the highest total for any auction of Indian art and Mughal objects, and the second highest for a private jewelry collection.

Aditi Natasha Kini wrote in the New York Times that it is not enough to have legal ownership and that the “auctioning of stolen heritage to highest bidder is widely unethical. These objects must be given back.”

has always been the restoration of those illegally looted treasures. Not to borrow them.”

Last October, Iraq objected to the sale of a -3,000year-old Assyrian stone

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The Financial Times wrote that sales of antiquities are “increasingly sparking disputes over provenance by authorities in countries of origin such as Egypt, Greece and Turkey. They argue that, despite restrictions imposed by international conventions and increased scrutiny by museums and auction houses, illegally acquired pieces still find their way to the art market.” That doesn’t surprise Peter Watson, who said in The Times that auction houses are too careless about looted antiquities and play a cynical game: “Sail as close to the wind as you dare, and when you are found out, do whatever you can to avoid admitting the unattractive truth”.

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More Evidence that Exercise Can Boost Mood

How Getting off the Couch Can Counter Depression

by Harvard Women›s Health Running for 15 minutes a day or walking for an hour reduces the risk of major depression, according to a recent study.

It may be possible to outrun depression, according to a study published online January 23 by JAMA Psychiatry.

“We saw a %26 decrease in odds for becoming depressed for each major increase in objectively measured physical activity,” says study author Karmel Choi, a clinical and research fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “This increase in physical activity is what you might see on your activity tracker if you replaced 15 minutes of sitting with 15 minutes of running, or one hour

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of sitting with one hour of moderate activity like brisk walking.”

CAUSE OR EFFECT This isn’t the first study to show that exercise may benefit mood. But until now it’s largely been something of a chicken-and-egg discussion — which came first?

“We hear a lot that exercise and mood are connected.

What we don’t know for sure is whether being physically active can improve emotional well-being, or if we simply move less when we feel sad or depressed,” says Choi.

This study aimed to find out. “We wanted to see if there might be a causal connection, in either direction, between physical activity and depression,” says Choi. “Does physical activity protect against depression? Or does depression simply reduce physical activity? Our study allowed us to untangle those questions in a powerful new way using genetic data.”

STUDY TECHNIQUE To do this, the study applied a technique known as Mendelian randomization, using data from two large genetic databases that included hundreds of thousands of people. Having access to genetic data allowed researchers to use genetic variations between people as a kind of natural experiment to better see how exercise affects depression, and vice versa, says Choi. What they found is that exercise was able to independently reduce the risk for depression.

Young woman jogging outside at park. (Getty)

People who moved more, they found, had a significantly lower risk for major depressive disorder — but only when the exercise was measured objectively using a tracking device, not when people self-reported how much exercise they performed.

IDENTIFYING TYPES OF MOVEMENTS People are not always accurate when it comes to assessing or keeping track of how much they’re truly moving. “We see in the research literature that objective and selfreported measures of physical activity don’t always line up,” says Choi. “Objective measures offer unique perks because they don’t rely on people’s memory and are not affected by people wanting to present themselves in a certain way.”

In addition, the tracking device was better at assessing overall movement. It didn’t just give people credit for formal exercise. It also measured how much they moved throughout the day during ordinary activities.

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Ideally, to prevent depression you should do at least 15 minutes a day of higherintensity exercise, such as running, or at least an hour of lower-intensity exercise, such as walking or housework.

“This can include taking the stairs or walking to the store or putting away laundry, things that people may not recognize as being active but may add up,” says Choi.

This is good news, because it means you don’t need to be huffing and puffing on a stair machine to reduce your risk of depression.

LITTLE MOVEMENTS ADD UP “What our study would say is that any kind of movement can add up to keep depression at bay. I think that’s why our study findings were especially appealing. It didn’t say you have to run a marathon, do hours of aerobics, or be a CrossFit master just to see benefits on depression,” says Choi.

So, the message is this: If you do love a good, hearty gym workout, keep going. But if you don’t, just getting off the couch and moving for a little while can help. Ideally, to prevent depression you should do at least 15 minutes a day of higher-intensity exercise, such as running, or at least an hour of lowerintensity exercise, such as walking or housework.

“Intentionally moving your body in more gentle ways throughout the day — like walking, stretching, taking the stairs, doing the dishes — can still add up in good ways for your mood. I think that’s an encouraging message,” says Choi.

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In Memoriam: Global Economist and Spiritual Guide Jennie Ilene Litvack Majalla Last week in Washington, thousands came together to mourn the loss of Jennie Ilene Litvack — a major contributor to the struggle against global poverty, a pillar of her more immediate community, and a loving wife and mother of three.

Morocco, and country economist for Vietnam. Additionally, in work across the African continent, she and her colleagues drew inspiration and new practices from Litvack’s doctoral research on pharmaceutical pricing in rural health centers in northern Cameroon.

Her innovations have been credited with saving millions of lives.

Born in Montreal, Canada, Litvack earned her MA and PhD from the prestigious Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. An economist devoted to the welfare of the world’s marginalized and disenfranchised, she served the World Bank for two decades in its mission to raise the living standards, health, and wellbeing of millions. She held the positions of lead economist of human development for Latin America, lead economist for

In 2010, Litvack took the rare and bold decision to depart an outstanding career for an altogether different realm of work. She devoted herself to the cause of Jewish religious pluralism and the deepening of Jewish spiritual life. Her efforts yielded, inter alia, the establishment of the award-winning Jewish Mindfulness Center in Washington, and the development of Or Halev (“Light of the Heart”), a center for Jewish spirituality and meditation

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in Israel. At Congregation Adas Israel in Washington, Litvack also achieved renown as a preeminent blower of the Shofar — a ram’s horn used to herald the advent of the new year in Jewish congregational worship. Performing on the Shofar was also a kind of lateral move for Litvack, a Jazz trumpeter to boot, whom late Jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie befriended and designated as his goddaughter.

Among her extended loving family, Litvack is survived by three sons and her husband, Robert Satloff, the longserving executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

May the living God grant comfort and solace to Litvack’s family, and may lovers of peace and progress draw inspiration from her living memory.