Month: May 2007

The Lebanese Cabinet seems to be giving the Lebanese Army carte blanche to get rid of the Islamic extremists. As someone whose government has been on the receiving end of these pronouncements, I suggest that Lebanese generals move cautiously.

Sure, the Fatah al-Islam folks are causing a problem for the Lebanese. But don’t expect that if the Lebanese army takes American ammo that they’ll do the cleanup the Americans expect. The relationship between the Palestinians in exile and “native” Lebanese is complex and frangible (to say nothing of malleable). The US helping Lebanon may bring as much excoriation as if the US was helping the Palestinian (Al Queda) forces. Or the corrupt Lebanese against the innocent Palestinians (despite Abbas’ stance).

The cancer of the “Pan Islamic Republic” has burst from the theoretical shell of the Wahhabi extremism to the blunt reality of the here and now. Pointing irrelevant fingers as Palestinian gripes about 60+ year old expulsions is as important in 2007 as the American Idol winner. A good photo opp, but functionally irrelevant.

The Knesset voted today to divert NIS 250 million (about $100M) of funds it doesnt have to help fund ‘private’ schools. That means Haredi ones. All the slippery politicians voted for it. It marks a victory for the morally bankrupt Shas party, whose hero has been indicted multiple times for diverting funds, and whose party has bargained for years for this agreement. You can bet that the private Druze schools up on the Golan Heights aren’t going to see an agora of that money. Nor any Muslim schools in Northern Israel.

Israel has many serious problems, each worthy of discussion, votes and funding. Spending time on propping up religious private schools — schools that it does not regulate, supervise or have any control over whatsoever — is a clear violation of the social contract the government is supposed to have with all its residents.

The American push for vouchers pales in its impropriety in the face of this egregious theft of public funds. Israel, a land that used to pride itself on high academic standards, has been steadily slipping. Funding these navel-gazing, self-interested schools does not further any of Israel’s national interests. For shame!

After Marshal Tito’s death, Yugoslavia ceased to exist, and the horrors involving Serbs, Croats, and Albanians befell the area. Geography (and a lack of extensive natural resources) conspired to eventually constrain the conflict, and today an uneasy, but existing, peace rules the region. Residents know they have much to lose, and little to gain, in continuing their ‘ethnic cleansing’ and mutual discriminations. They see, from up close, how their neighbors just a few hundred kilometers away can live, and prosper.

Iraq’s Tito was removed, and the tensions extant in that community, instead of merely unravelling, exploded like a firestorm. Unlike the Balkans, there is great wealth to be had by the ruling power, and consequently it’s not just about ethnic cleansing and clan independence, but instead about domination of the country. The virulence of the response has been infectious, and areas with the lowest immunity have been reacting in magnified ways as proof of an insurgency’s “success” continues.

This week has witnessed how potentially volatile the rest of the region is: Gaza squabbles have descended into clan/religious/party infightng with AK-47s firing level, instead of up in the air. Lebanon suffers from an almost identical mix of religious, political and clan conflicts, and they’ve flared up in Tripoli (once a PLO stronghold until Israel’s invasion, and their leaders’ exodus, in 1982). In both these cases there is an army (three, counting the IDF, in Gaza); in both these cases the army is not the solution.

In the past I’ve recommended partition for Iraq. That recommendation stands even more strongly now. The only caveat will be in how oil revenues are shared among the member states. And what each faction stands to gain by cutting its own nose off to spite its face. I suspect, from today’s point of view, that the “Arab street” is much more focused on the art of revenge than the labor of learning to live together.