Finally a sensible move

The Norwegian deputy foreign minister was the first European to meet with Hamas officials since the new Palestinian government was approved. Raymond Johansen met with Ismael Haniyeh on Monday. Now, there are signs that Sweden is on the move. Swedish minister Carl Blidt is on his way down to the Middle East, specifically to meet with the new government. Mr Blidt will be the first minister from a EU country to show his support for the coalition. Israel however, is disappointed that Europe seems to be abandoning the boycott.

Norwegian scholar Hilde Henriksen Waage speculates that the Norwegian government has been given an unofficial go-ahead from the US. It is unlikely that foreign minister Jonas Gahr Støre would have risked the relationship to America in order to back Palestine. Henriksen Waage says that Condolezza Rice seems to acknowledge that there will be no peace without diplomacy. As such, US-friendly Norway might function as a broker between the US/Israel and the PA.

Whichever the case, Norway, Sweden and potentially the rest of Europe, might be in a position to further Israel's interests much better than Israel and the US are capable of. The two latter are fronting a totally unrealistic strategy, which predicts that a boycott will get Hamas thrown out of office, and then everything will be so much better. Like any lasting peace agreement or cease-fire could ever happen without Hamas participating. And like isolation and economic crisis have ever mellowed any government, organization or party. Not to mention the extreme arrogance in Israel and the US trying to dictate who the Palestinians should be governed by..

Fatah and Hamas reach agreement

Finally, after months of factional fighting on street level and failure to agree on elite level, Hamas and Fatah have reached an agreement on how to allocate the government posts between them. Not surprisingly, it was the position as minister of interior that posed the greatest challenge to the would-be coalition goverment. The new government will be presented for a parliamentary vote of confidence on Saturday, which is expected to be approved. Ismael Haneya, the acting prime minister from Hamas, says that president Mahmoud Abbas has already accepted the candidates, according to al Jazeera. Meanwhile, Israel does not budge. They will not deal with the Palestinian government unless it agrees to the "three principles" of recognizing Israel, denounce violence and abode by previous peace agreements. Despite this, European countries are making signs to indicate that they will now lift the boycott in order to help restore law and order in the Palestinian territories. If the boycott is lifted, Hamas and Fatah still have to heal the wounds after the violent clashes between their supporters. Also, uniting Hamas' Executive Force with the national security apparatus, which is dominated by Fatah, represents a big challenge facing the incoming government. See also previous post "Placing the right demands" for more or

al Jazeera

Religion med politiske motiver

Spørsmålet er om ikke islam i mange tilfeller brukes til å legitimere udåder som gisseldrap, heller enn å være årsaken til det. Dette er et spesielt viktig punkt når man behandler undertrykkende muslimske regimer. Aktører som undertrykker i islams navn kan ha mange personlige motiver, og de trenger ikke være religiøse, skriver Celine Schiøtt Razavi, student ved Institutt for sammenlignende politikk, Universitetet i Bergen.

DET INTERNASJONALE SAMFUNNS største utfordringer ligger i Midtøsten. Å hjelpe frem stabile samfunn i de krigsherjede landene Irak, Afghanistan og Israel/Palestina, samt å forhindre utvikling av atomvåpen i land som Iran, har både et sikkerhetspolitisk og et humanistisk perspektiv.

Stabilitet i denne regionen har implikasjoner for beboerne i regionen selv, og for resten av verden i form av mindre terrortrussel. Her har Vesten et stort ansvar, ikke minst for å avslutte det som ble påbegynt. Til tross for massiv vestlig motstand mot Irak-krigen kan ikke oppgaven forlates halvgjort, om utgangspunktet var aldri så galt.
Men Irak og de andre landene preges av religiøs motstandskamp, gisseltagning og terrorisme. Forklaringen det blir vist til er islam, med sine påståtte doktriner som avviser demokrati og menneskerettigheter. De vantro amerikanernes tilstedeværelse i hellige byer og på islamsk territorium fungerer som en provokasjon for hellige krigere.

Mer på:

Aftenposten

The war on bloggers

According to the Arabist, the Egyptian Judge Abdel Fattah Morad is planning to file a lawsuit to get 21 Egyptian blogs and websites blocked. This is also the same judge who will hear the appeal of Abdul Kareem Suleiman, the jailed blogger, next week. He was sentenced to four years in jail in February, three for offending Islam, and one for offending Mubarak. If the judge is successful in his demands, it will subsequently make it easy for the regime to get rid of political dissenters airing their views on the internet. Among the alleged offending webpages are Kefaya's website, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Info and Bent Masreyya. Read more on the Arabist, arabist.net

Placing the right demands

Having finally managed to create a coalition government with Fatah, Hamas is still not able to end the boycott. By recognizing and swearing to respect previous agreements the Fatah-governed PA (Palestinian Authority) has consented to, Hamas is implicitly recognizing Israel. This is not good enough for Mr. Bush and Mrs. Rice. They are demanding that Hamas explicitly recognize Israel and formally swears off violence. While (at least some) European politicians seem to realize that this is as good as it gets, the US wants a total renunciation of the Hamas platform. Besides its social networks and charity programs, Hamas' support draws in large part from its continuous effort to liberate Palestine. In reality, it's not the whole of Palestine Hamas wants, but Palestine with the 1948 boarders. At least that's what they say, but there are factors that point to their willingness to accept the 1967 boarders. If Western politicians had paid more attention, they would have known that Hamas has shown an increasing sense of pragmatism in terms of accepting the existence of Israel. Like one Hamas official phrased it: "It is not the existence of Israel that is the problem, but the fact that Palestine does not exist".

Ideological parties like Hamas rely heavily on anti-Israel rhetoric. When negotiating with such actors, one should place demands that are not impossible to comply with. By demanding that Hamas, with martyrs-band in hand and bowed heads, renounce what they see as legitimate resistance to occupation, one is simultaneously demanding that they give up their ideological credibility. The result might be an array of out-of-control splinter groups who answer to no one, and who have no incentives to listen to outside opinions. This is the beauty of political participation: when actors like the PLO and Hamas start running for elections and gathering votes, they become more vulnerable and sensitive to the opinions of the general population. Instead of ideological inflexibility, vote-gatherers are forced to compromise and make concessions in order to stay in the game. One can imagine that disillusioned splinter-groups like, say, ´The Real Hamas´, will be sponsored with money from Iran or some "pocket-jihadi" Saudi prince, and as such be more or less independent of the Palestinian society. Having no need for Palestinian votes or money, they would operate regardless of regular people's wishes, battling for "the higher cause" of annihilating the Zionist occupier. Such isolation often translates into hardcore fanaticm and general lack of critical sense. Israel would most probably demand that Hamas reign in these groups before any negotiations could take place, but Hamas would no longer have the power to do so. Gaza might be governed by an even greater degree of lawlessness than now, and be a great place for terrorist-recruitment. In short, it would be al Qaeda's wet dream.

With regard to al Qaeda, Western policy makers should have noticed the war of words between Hamas and al Qaeda. Hamas was accused of compromising its Islamist identity by participating in "infidel" democratic politics. Muslims cannot win playing "their" (Westerners') game. When the boycott was implemented, al Qaeda said: "told you so". Funny how things play right into bin Laden's hands.

If the goal is a de-militarized and moderate Hamas, one should let them off with this implicit recognition of Israel. They have made a concession that lets them keep their face. Forcing them to lose credibility is in no-one's interest, least of all Israel's. Pressing for a formal recognition will either lead to that, or more likely a total rejection from Hamas' side, consequently bringing them closer to Iran. Hamas will not lay down their guns without any major concessions on Israel's side. It is a demand Hamas cannot accept. A cease-fire would be more realistic, and more likely to succeed. But it seems like neither Bush nor Israel is that concerned with success. They are perhaps more than happy to continue the boycott.

Mubarak and al Azhar strike back

Abdel Kareem Suleiman, an Egyptian blogger, got sentenced to four years in prison. It was the government sponsored Islamic universtity of al Azhar who took the initiative to press charges against him. Apparently, his accusation against al Azhar of suppressing free thought was too much of an insult to ignore. In addition to naming al Azhar "the university of terrorism", Mr Suleiman criticized Hosni Mubarak's dictatorial politics. The result: three years for insulting Islam, and one year for insulting Mr Mubarak. Al Azhar and Mubarak have done a great job clearing their names of any suspicions of suppressing the freedom of expression. Dictator, who me?