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Unity on Palestine Without Arab Unity? US Policy and the Post-Maksoud Arab World
Abstract
Taking off from Clovis Maksoud's idea about the centrality of the Palestinians to Arab unity, this article traces out the historic struggle between secular nationalism and Islamism throughout and after the Arab Spring-turned-Winter and the complex interactions with American foreign policy. The trajectory of Middle Eastern and North African countries and politicized identity within them are analyzed in relation to that unsettled context. The article concludes with an evaluation of the possibilities for moving beyond the violence and authoritarianism in the Arab world using the lessons imparted by Maksoud.
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Author and article information
Notes
Clovis Maksoud, “From June 1967 to June 1997: Learning from Our Mistakes,” Arab Studies Quarterly , Summer, 1997.
Ghada Hashem Talhami, Palestinian Refugees: Pawns to Political Actors (Hauppauge: Nova Science Publishers, 2003).
Lebanon is an example. See Ibrahim Aoudé, Lebanon: Maintaining Relative Instability in a Confessional Political Space (İstanbul: Turkish Asian Center for Strategic Studies).
Kareem Shaheen and Ian Black, “Arab Nations United in Fury against ISIS but Divided on Strategy,” The Guardian , February 11, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/11/arab-nations-united-in-fury-against-isis-but-divided-on-strategy, accessed March 3, 2017.
Like Maksoud, Rashid Khalidi offers a seminal reading of regional history and the relationship to American foreign policy and politics. Rashid Khalidi, Resurrecting Empire, Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005).
Barack Hussein Obama, “Text: Obama's Speech in Cairo,” The New York Times , June 4, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/us/politics/04obama.text.html, accessed April 2, 2017.
Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015).
Although designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization since the mid-2000s, today's terror group was a handful of thugs that only began taking substantial territory in 2014. US Department of State, “Foreign Terrorist Organizations,” Bureau of Counterterrorism, http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/other/des/123085.htm, accessed September 16, 2016. For an analysis of Obama's comment, see Steve Contorno, “What Obama Said about Islamic State as a ‘JV’ Team,” Politifact , September 7, 2014, http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/sep/07/barack-obama/what-obama-said-about-islamic-state-jv-team/, accessed September 16, 2016.
Jstreet.org, accessed April 3, 2017.
I borrow “new isolationism” from Bill Keller, “Our New Isolationism,” New York Times , September 8, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/opinion/keller-our-new-isolationism.html?_r=0http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/opinion/keller-our-new-isolationism.html?_r=0, accessed October 1, 2016. On “evenhandedness,” see Arab American Institute, “2016 Presidential Candidate Profile: Bernie Sanders,” http://www.aaiusa.org/sanders_2016, accessed March 15, 2017.
The linkages between the media, popular empathy, and the interests of those in power are nicely conveyed in Stephen K. Medvic and David A. Dulio, “The Media and Public Opinion,” Mark J. Rozell and Jeremy D. Mayer, eds, Media Power, Media Politics (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2008), 233–256.
Over a decade prior to the Tunisians Uprising, Maksoud had prophetically warned that dismissing the “Arab street” confines “US relations with the Arab world … to leaders ready to comply with US policies” and “fritters away the chances of healthy interaction” in “US-Arab dialogue.” Clovis Maksoud, “The ‘Arab Street’ Counts,” The Christian Science Monitor , December 30, 1998, http://www.csmonitor.com/1998/1230/123098.opin.column.1.html, accessed April 2, 2017.
Obama, “Text: Obama's Speech in Cairo.”
Zaid Jilani, “Obama ‘Supports the Democratic Aspirations of All People’—How Will He Respond to Egypt Protests,” Think Progress , http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/01/26/140882/obama-democratic-aspirations-egypt/?mobile=nc; Internet, accessed March 22, 2017.
The US State Department places Saudi Arabia “as the world's leading oil producer and exporter.” United States State Department, “Background Note: Saudi Arabia,” December 30, 2011, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3584.htm, accessed March 22, 2017.
There's a much bigger list of countries and global consequences that could only be noted here with a couple of books. See Marc Lynch, The Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolutions of the New Middle East (New York: Public Affairs, 2013) and The Arab Uprisings Explained: New Contentious Politics in the Middle East (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), an edited volume by the same author.
The Hormuz chokepoint has also brought the US and Iran close to all-out war after one side's navy provoked the other's. Associated Press, “US Navy Says Planes Threatened by Iran in Strait of Hormuz,” The Washington Post , September 25, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/us-navy-says-planes-threatened-by-iran-in-strait-of-hormuz/2016/09/13/9c1f49d6-79ea-11e6-8064-c1ddc8a724bb_story.html, accessed September 25, 2016.
Krista Mehr, “Bread Is Life: Food and Protest in Egypt,” Time , January 31, 2011, http://science.time.com/2011/01/31/bread-is-life-food-and-protest-in-egypt/, accessed September 24, 2016; Rami Zurayk, “Use Your Loaf: Why Food Prices Were Crucial in the Arab Spring,” The Guardian , July 16, 2011, accessed October 1, 2016.
Sam Blumenfeld, The Facebook Phenomenon, The New American , February 1, 2011, http://www.thenewamerican.com/reviews/opinion/item/10747-the-facebook-phenomenon, accessed March 27, 2016.
For a glimpse into Mubarak's style of governance and dealing with upheaval as well as his alliance with the US, see Michael Slackman, “A Brittle Leader, Appearing Strong,” New York Times , February 11, 2011.
Harriet Sherwood, “Defeated Mubarak Adjusts to Solitary Life in Sharm el-Sheikh,” The Guardian , http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/13/defeated-mubarak-sharm-el-sheikh, accessed February 13, 2011. Mubarak later faced a dashing display of endless judicial proceedings carrying a possible death sentence by hanging or firing squad at the hands of the once-banned-then-reigning-now-banned-again-its-leaders-jailed-Muslim Brotherhood. On Mubarak's release, see Declan Walsh, “Egypt Roared as Mubarak Fell. It's Mute as He's Freed.” The New York Times , March, 24, 2017, accessed April 3, 2017.
As examined elsewhere in this article.
For instance, Charles Krauthammer, “The Obama Doctrine: Leading from Behind,” April 28, 2011, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-obama-doctrine-leading-from-behind/2011/04/28/AFBCy18E_story.html?utm_term=.1b12239252c6, accessed March 9, 2017.
And thanks to sanction by the Arab League. For a very brief introduction to the revival of the Arab League prior to the uprisings and in relation to peacemaking, see Khalil Marrar, “League of Arab States,” Cheryl Rubenberg, ed., Encyclopedia of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2010).
“And right next door to Egypt,” said a higher up official in the Obama administration on condition of anonymity. Personal conversation, March 11, 2016.
For more on the demographic challenges of the region, see United Nations Development Program, Arab Human Developmental Report: Challenges to Human Security in the Arab Countries (New York: UNDP Regional Bureau for Arab States, 2009).
Anonymous 501 (c) 4 registrant, interview by the author, Washington, DC, March 11, 2016.
There is quite a bit of debate on the killing of individuals that are designated as enemies of the West. See Felicity Arbuthnot, “Killing Gaddafi: The Death of Legal Justice,” New Internationalist Magazine , October 25, 2011, http://www.newint.org/features/web-exclusive/2011/10/25/gaddafi-death-us-libya/, accessed March 23, 2012.
Peter App, “Factbox: Libya's Tribal, Cultural Divisions,” Reuters , August 25, 2011, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/25/us-libya-tribes-idUSTRE77O43R20110825, accessed March 23, 2012.
For a panoramic glimpse into the factors contributing to the Arab Spring, see Kenneth Pollack and Daniel Byman, eds., The Arab Awakening: American and the Transformation of the Middle East (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 2011).
“Russia, Syria, and Arab Winter Featuring Ambassador Robert Jordan and Fred Kagan” Interview with Milt Rosenberg on Regional Security, Terrorism, and Foreign Policy, WCGO 1590 AM , October 1, 2015.
Yaakov Lappin, “‘First Signs of a New Cold War Emerging in Syria,’ Former Senior IDF Commander Warns,” Jerusalem Post , May 23, 2016, http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/First-signs-of-new-cold-war-emerging-in-Syira-former-senior-IDF-commander-warns-454802, accessed March 13, 2017.
Riad Z. Abdelkarim, “Arab and Muslim Americans: Collateral Damage in the Wars on Terrorism, Iraq,” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May 2003, 55–56, http://www.wrmea.org/2003-may/arab-and-muslim-americans-collateral-damage-in-the-wars-on-terrorism-iraq.html, accessed March 1, 2017.
For examples of the discussion on the topic, See Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon House, 1978), Ibn Warraq, Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said's Orientalism (New York: Prometheus Books, 2007), Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), and Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror (New York: Modern Library, 2003).
This was a phenomenon well underway in the decade prior to the Arab Spring. See Marc Lynch, Voices of the New Arab Public: Iraq, Al-Jazeera, and Middle East Politics Today (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006).
Jeremy Diamond, “Trump on Latest Iteration of Muslim Ban: ‘You Could Say It's an Expansion,’” CNN , July 24, 2016; http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/24/politics/donald-trump-muslim-ban-election-2016/, accessed March 24, 2017.
Bruce Stokes, “What Water's Edge?” Foreign Policy , September 13, 2013, http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/09/13/what-waters-edge/, accessed March 28, 2017.
For more on the particulars of this, see my “Allies in Flux: American Policy after the Arab Spring” Air and Space Power Journal, African and Francophonie 6:4 (Winter 2015): 21–35. Although the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration gets the credit for the doctrine, the 84th and 85th Congresses were instrumental to how it played out. See Steven W. Hook, U.S. Foreign Policy: The Paradox of World Power (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2017), 151–154.