Eyad Abu Shakra: Time for the Arabs to Get off the Fence/Mohamed Chebarro: Brussels, the sanctuary for terror suspects, is attacked/Ali Ibrahim: Causes of Anger

Time for the Arabs to Get off the Fence
Eyad Abu Shakra/Asharq Al Awsat/March 23/16

A few hours separated two events last week: the Arab League picked a new secretary general, and its foreign ministers labelled Hezbollah of Lebanon a terrorist organization.
There is nothing untoward about the appointment of Egypt’s Ahmed Aboul-Gheit as new secretary general of the Arab League, as the man is neither a novice diplomat nor an accidental tourist in the political arena, but is rather a veteran diplomat and politician whether as an ambassador or a foreign minister. What is new, in fact, is that Mr Aboul-Gheit will find himself forced to deal with a different Arab scene where there is no more room for niceties, pleading and running away from real solutions. At present we may have reached “the era of getting off the fence” and forgetting about running away from challenges through empty talk.

Since the ‘Arab Spring’, that momentous event that Arabs everywhere continue to disagree on how to define and evaluate, the comfort zone and room for manoeuvres have shrunk drastically. At the moment, the Arabs are frankly facing decision time and clear cut positions. Here we have to confess that we have reached this point not by choice but rather as a result of pressing internal and external issues that are impossible to temporarily adjourn or permanently ignore.

Internally, there are the problematic issues of religious and national identities which have become ever more acute after the ‘Arab Spring’ which brought down regimes that monopolised power for four decades during which new generations emerged against the background of diminishing resources, increased expectations, and unrestricted interaction and communications.
Many Arab entities, within its 2011 borders, were running away from providing convincing answers to questions about their legitimacy, borders, popular representation and social cohesion. In fact, if some claim that the occupation of Iraq in 2003 was the incendiary device that ignited the fire of Sunni – Shi’i conflict, others may point out that the seeds of this conflict were sown in 1979 when Ayatullah Khomeini of Iran decide to “export his Islamic Revolution, and in his own way “guide” the Muslims of the world to what he peddled as the ‘true Islam’!
The policy of “exporting the Islamic Revolution” in its unadulterated sectarian form was bound to encounter a sectarian reaction based on a logical counter argument: self defence. Indeed, the Khomeini onslaught, with its Persian hard-core content, ‘Islamist’ and ‘revolutionary’ coating, and painted by the slogans of ‘Liberation of Palestine’ and ‘Death to America & Israel’ were soon confronted theologically, nationalistically, politically, and of course militarily.

The Iran – Iraq War was a significant and costly round in what we see today as an existential war between an Arab world that has understood Islam in an open and uncomplicated ‘generic’ format and an extreme nationalist and theocratic Iranian regime whose philosophy and discourse have been based on a melange of complexes including haughtiness, vengefulness, and insistence on ‘correcting of the wrongs’ of history and geography using as a weapon the same weapon the Arabs had used before to conquer a non-Muslim Iran , i.e. Islam itself!
From the outset the Khomeini project rejected coexistence and sought hegemony. And if Khomeini considered – in his own words – that he “drank the cup of poison” by agreeing to the ceasefire with Iraq, his project of hegemony has not died. It has not for two main reasons:

Firstly, Arab mistakes. The first and foremost of which was Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.
Secondly, Iran’s success in absorbing the shock of the aborted war, and its re-launch of its penetrative offensive in a smart, silent and more diligent manner instead of brutal direct confrontation.

Actually, one example of how Iran managed to learn from its past mistakes was its refusal to be dragged into the Afghanistan quagmire when Washington was on the side of Taliban who were then viciously fighting the Shi’i Hazara. It also turned a blind eye in 1998 and let pass the murders of a number of Iranian diplomats in Mazar-i-Sharif, in northern Afghanistan.
Since then the post-Khomeini Iran, led by self-proclaimed ‘reformers’ and ‘moderates’, knew how to benefit from the ever increasing Arab frustration, and mushrooming of Sunni extremist ‘Jihadists’ spreading from Indonesia (the Abu Bakar Ba’ashir group accused of the Bali attacks) in the east, to the USA, the target of the September 11th outrage in the west. In such a climate the political attitudes of several ‘liberal’ and ‘progressive’ western politicians matured to bring about the current positions of the ‘Democrat’ Barack Obama, ‘traditional Left-wing Labour’ Jeremy Corbyn and ‘ex-Communist’ Federica Mogherini, all of whom firmly believe that dialogue is possible – indeed, necessary – with ‘political Shi’ism’ but never with ‘Political Sunnism’.
Today this is the heavy tax the Arab world is paying; firstly because it is the closest Muslim neighbour to Christian Europe, secondly because it is the largest Muslim population worldwide, and thirdly because Sunnis make up around 75 % of its population.

The partitioning of the Sudan leading to the birth of the new state of South Sudan in 2011 (the year of the ‘Arab Spring’), and the de facto partitioning of Iraq as the new Kurdish state slowly emerges in its northern regions as preparations gather pace for a referendum whose result is never in doubt, both confirm the fears that the Middle East is approaching new realities that will change the maps and borders of 1920.

The fragility of the ‘national unity’ as laid exposed in many a country living the spasms of the ‘Arab Spring’, combined with the dubious relationship sharing the helm of the international community between a passive and regressive US administration, a neo – Czarist Russian leadership, and an aggressive Iranian regime now emboldened by American goodwill; and then added to all the above is the emergence of ISIS, a sinister organization whose aim is to enrage the world, provoke animosities, and increase the enemies of Islam and Muslims. One would begin to see the serious challenges the Arab has to confront.

We, the Arabs have always talked of ‘brotherly relations’ and ‘one destiny’, but obviously some of us never really meant what we were saying. Well, now we are facing realities drawn on the ground by blood and tears. The issue of self-preservation is neither negotiable nor left to one’s private assessments. The situation in Libya is not natural and does not bode well, more so as its potential dangers are threatening Libya’s neighbours. Syria too, given the apparent agreement between Washington, Moscow and Tehran, may be moving toward ‘partition’ under a diplomatic veil of ‘federalism’ after half of its population has been uprooted and displaced, and around 600,000 people killed.
Sorry, Mr Aboul-Gheit, our new secretary general, I wish I could be more optimistic!
**Eyad Abu Shakra is the managing editor of Asharq Al-Awsat. He has been with the newspaper since 1978.

Brussels, the sanctuary for terror suspects, is attacked!
Mohamed Chebarro/Al Arabiya/March 23/16
The security forces in France and Belgium hardly had the time to rejoice over the arrest of Salah Abdussalam, after a four months manhunt across Europe, until terrorists struck again, this time in Brussels. The attacks did not come as a surprise as many governments have warned, time and again, that attacks are being planned and were imminent. The PM of Belgium clearly stated: “What we feared has happened”, warning of the possibility of more attacks in the future. What is disturbing though is the level of complicity between the Paris attack’s prime suspect Saleh Abdussalam and his accomplices and may be those who staged the Brussels attacks, Belgium and French citizens of North African origin who harbored a criminal or were indirectly complicit in plans to bomb and harm civilians in Paris and later Brussels.

The capture of Abdussalam alive is seen as an important coup and potentially a gold mine of information as the security forces are desperate to get closer to the terror mindset and those behind them who planned the deadly Paris attacks on November 13, 2015. The security forces expected, we are told, a reaction to Abdulsalam arrest. However, they did not factor it to be as bold and daring as the attacks at Brussels Airport and Maelbeek Metro station. Cells linked to Abdussalam did not wait for the police to round them up and instead launched more attacks that clearly were in the planning stages. The debriefing of Abdussalam is yet to yield insight into the terror organization’s operations and its networks across Europe. However, his capture has revealed the surprisingly reliable network of friends and family that could harbor terrorists for a longtime few miles from central Brussels.

Muslims in Europe need to decide whether they wish to continue to offer sanctuary for those who have once been sons, cousins, business partners or neighbors to turn criminals bent on killing innocent commuters. Molenbeeck, Shaerbeek, and Forest in Belgium, Seine St Denis, Courneuve, and others ghettos like suburbs of Paris are hubs for rough elements that melt in housing estates inhabited by people of immigrant background. The racially diverse neighborhoods have gradually become hubs for dissent. On the other hand, due to budgetary cuts and pressure on social services during the past two decades in European cities, alternative networks of social support have grown on the fringe of municipal and state apparatus. Pockets of poverty have grown minutes from city centers and within them alternative networks of social support diverted aid and services for many inhabitants in return for future unspecified services.
Such services were accurately portrayed in a 2012 Hollywood movie, Erased, where the daughter of a CIA operative, compromised by a deal gone wrong and pursued by his employer, finds hideouts and help from his daughter’s contacts among undocumented immigrant in Belgian neighborhoods. The film showed how the daughter and her ex-CIA father found safe houses and transport around the city under the noses of agents of the law who were trying to hunt them down.

Finding sanctuaries
It is in those streets that fugitive Salah Abdulsalam found sanctuary. He was part of the fabric like many of his peers from early age benefiting from the comfort and security of such neighborhoods. Since the Paris attacks of November 2015, experts close to the investigations have gone on to describe him as well known in the Molenbeek area and known in local legitimate and illegitimate circles hanging out in local cafes, sports clubs and even mosque. The story of Abdulsalam is yet to unfold but one thing is sure that the enemy within is not a fallacy in many European cities and that is why the wake up calls will keep coming. Brussels today, Paris yesterday and more such attacks tomorrow. In all, it is the Muslim communities in those cities that must face up to realities. Do they wish to live and flourish in such cities that they adopted as home when life has become unbearable in their native countries, or they wish to be accomplices and potential silent witnesses to onslaught being carried out in the name of a false cause against their host communities.

Muslims in Molenbeek, Schaerbeek, and elsewhere in Europe need to decide, as time is running out, whether they wish to continue to offer sanctuaries for those who have once been sons, cousins, business partners or neighbors turning into criminals bent on killing innocent commuters in a bid to drum up some wide ranging false Jihadi cause in Syria, Iraq or Palestine. Or even allow their sons and loved ones to be used in canny plots to spread chaos in remote societies and countries as a punishment they were told for EU and US policies upholding human rights and calling for the removal of dictators like Assad who continue to kill innocent civilians and destroy cities and villages across Syria and people who have dared to rebel against his rule for the past five years.

The current threat to Europe and the wider western world should be looked at from this prism as statements by Assad and his cronies such as Hezbollah leader in Lebanon did not hide in their vindictive language that the attacks in Brussels today and Paris yesterday are a price Belgium and France are paying for supporting the rights of Syrians long oppressed by Assad to rise.

Causes of Anger
Ali Ibrahim/Asharq AlAwsat/March 23/16
Not a day goes by without news of several terrorist plots and events, mostly associated with the Middle East, Islamic countries or people or people who originate from this area.
Terrorism has become a deep-rooted phenomenon and most of its victims and those affected by it are the peoples and the countries of the region. Over the last two days, a terrorist attack targeting Egyptian soldiers took place in Al-Arish, there was a suicide bombing at a market in Istanbul that led to the cancellation of a football match due to the terrorist threat and an armed battle in Brussels ended in the arrest of the most wanted man in Europe- the main suspect in the bloody Paris attacks that took place a few months ago.

The organisation ISIS in Iraq and Syria has become the trademark of terrorism today after the demise of Al-Qaeda and appears to be Saddam Hussein’s revenge as many reports trace the organisation’s origins back to the remnants of the Iraqi intelligence service. What is more frightening is that the same process is occurring in Libya, which the US president referred to as a “swamp” in his controversial speech on the Middle East in which he criticised his friends Cameron and Hollande.

Terrorism’s motives have become incomprehensible and the causes of anger are also unclear. What is ISIS’ problem with Turkey? In Egypt, there was always an objection to targeting the army and it is not clear what the political goal of the organisation that is working in Sinai is unless it is affiliated with Israel. In Europe, the reasons for the anger felt by the generation that was born and raised on European land are also unknown. Was it the social circumstances in society that transformed Abdeslam from a criminal into a terrorist? Why don’t all violators of the law become terrorists if this is the case?

We need to examine the hidden reasons behind this anger that turns young men and women into human bombs that detonate themselves in the streets and in cafes or carry machine guns and bombs that kill unarmed civilians enjoying themselves in a coffee shop or a sports club. What has created this state of anger that has taken on an unjustified form of madness despite the fact that the world is full of things that cause fury and anger? However, nobody reacts in this way unless they are part of these organisations that have made the region an arena for terrorism.
Many were shocked with Obama’s view of the area and his vision of the issue of terrorism and the region’s relationship with it. However, it seems that this trend will continue. What will we do with Trump if he wins the American presidency? What will we do with his public point of view towards Muslims that he does not hide? Even if he does not win and his role becomes limited to that of a Republican candidate, he will cause many storms.

The phenomenon of terrorism is not new to the world, it is old and exists in many areas and appears to be the desperate response of some groups or parties in developed societies to what it sees as political injustice. Even in America, local groups have carried out alarming actions like those that took place in Oklahoma. The First World War, which claimed tens of millions of lives was also caused by a terrorist assassination. What is new is that terrorist organisations are trying to hijack a religion to justify acts of terrorism, and this is what must be firmly condemned and fought. They should not be allowed to use religion as a justification for their actions in any way.

Terrorist groups such as Al-Jihad and Al-Qaeda emerged around three decades ago and now there is ISIS. We do not know what the future holds, but it is clear that intellectual confrontation must take a path other than what it took previously as this did not bear fruit.
**Ali Ibrahim is Asharq Al-Awsat’s deputy editor-in-chief. He is based in London.