Lebanese, Syrian Brotherhoods unlikely to feel effects of "terror" designation

[Originally posted at NOW]

Saudi’s designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as “terrorist” organization is unlikely to have tangible effects in the Levant.

While much attention has been paid to the deepening rifts between Sunni and Shiite Muslims across the Arab world in recent years, it is the internal battle for the political and ideological soul of Sunni Islam that has seen the fiercest inflammation in the last few days.

In an unprecedented escalation, on 7 March the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia designated as a “terrorist” organization the Muslim Brotherhood, the Qatar-backed movement that advocates an alternative form of Islamic rule to the Wahhabi-Salafist strain established in Riyadh. The move came two days after Saudi, along with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, recalled their ambassadors from Doha; the culmination of months of tensions deriving from Qatar’s continuing support for the Brotherhood.

While the “terrorist” label applies, in theory, to all Brotherhood members worldwide, NOW learned that in practice it is expected to target only those active within Gulf states, and in Egypt, where the new Saudi-backed military government has waged a violent crackdown on the movement since the July 2013 overthrow of Muslim Brotherhood-linked President Muhammad Morsi, going as far as to jail journalists working for Qatar’s Al Jazeera network. Specifically, Brotherhood affiliates in Lebanon and Syria – where they make up a significant minority of the opposition Syrian National Coalition – told NOW they did not anticipate feeling any tangible effects.

“I don’t think there will be any effect on us from the Saudi decision,” said Bassam Hammoud, head for the South region of the Brotherhood-linked al-Jamaa al-Islamiyah party. “It’s clear that this decision started with the bloody coup in Egypt [which Saudi supported] because they were afraid for their chairs and their positions, because the project Muhammad Morsi proposed is one of reformation and change.”

The mood appears to be similar among Brotherhood members in Syria, where questions had initially been raised about the fate of the opposition’s Syrian National Coalition, which is backed by Saudi yet also contains many Brotherhood members who will now be deemed “terrorists” by Riyadh. (As one analyst noted, it’s still unclear whether Brotherhood-affiliated members can even attend the upcoming Coalition general assembly in Cairo, where they are also now legally considered “terrorists”.) Muhammad Sarmini, a Brotherhood partisan and member of the Syrian National Council – which withdrew from the umbrella Coalition in January over disagreements about the Geneva peace talks – told NOW he expected ties with Saudi to remain essentially cordial.

“Even after [the Saudi] decision, there is no change in the relationship between us. The decision doesn’t touch the Syrian Brotherhood directly,” Sarmini told NOW.

One reason for this, according to sources familiar with the Saudi leadership’s thinking, is that Riyadh doesn’t deem the Syrian Brotherhood a security threat in the way it does the Egyptian branch.

“I do not think the decision will adversely affect Saudi allies such as the Coalition because the decision addresses terrorists from the Brotherhood and [especially] Egypt’s Brotherhood,” said Dr. Anwar Eshki, a former Saudi army general and head of the Jeddah-based Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies. The Brotherhood denies accusations of involvement in terrorism.

“The Kingdom deals with the Syrian Brotherhood and respects the Tunisian Brotherhood because they are engaged in political work and have not practiced terrorism […] The Kingdom gives aid to the Syrian Brotherhood for spending on refugees and the needy among the Syrian people,” Eshki told NOW.

Indeed, Sarmini told NOW the Syrian branch of the Brotherhood in particular had long enjoyed warm ties with Riyadh – another factor making an abrupt breach unlikely.

“The relationship between Saudi and the Syrian Brotherhood was a good, positive one, and even a historical one. Saudi embraced members of the Brotherhood in the 1980s and opened the door for them. Even until now […] we appreciate their position and their support toward the Syrian revolution.”

Nevertheless, Sarmini and Hammoud still voiced strong objections to the Saudi decision. “Without a doubt, we consider this position to be one that needs to be reviewed […] We appreciate that Saudi is confronting terrorism, but this is not reconcilable with describing moderate organizations as terrorists,” Sarmini told NOW.

Hammoud was blunter: “This is a reprehensible decision.”

And the move has also faced criticism in certain Arab media, such as the London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, whose editorial Sunday said the decision benefits the Iranian, Syrian, and Iraqi leaderships, and “identifies Saudi, objectively, with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria.” Indeed, NOW asked Dr. Eshki why he thought Saudi had designated the Brotherhood as “terrorists” before doing the same to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant party often considered Riyadh’s preeminent foe in the Levant. He declined to answer directly, telling NOW instead:

“From the womb of the Brotherhood came al-Qaeda, and from the womb of the Brotherhood occurred most of the terrorist acts in the Kingdom.”

Ana Maria Luca and Maya Gebeily contributed reporting.

A SCAF coup in Gaza?

[Originally posted at NOW]

According to a Reuters exclusive published today, the military dictatorship which ousted the former Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi last July and subsequently drove his Muslim Brotherhood support base underground – jailing journalists and extinguishing over a thousand civilian lives in the process – hopes now to engineer a repeat of the experience in the Gaza Strip.

“Gaza is next,” an anonymous senior security official told the news agency. “We cannot get liberated from the terrorism of the Brotherhood in Egypt without ending it in Gaza.”

The plan, according to various officials cited in the report, is to use opponents – both militant and civilian – of the Brotherhood-affiliated Hamas government in Gaza to ignite a “first spark” of protests, modeled on the ‘Tamarrod’ [‘Rebel’] movement that opposed Morsi in Cairo last summer, in order to provoke a violent crackdown that would ultimately lead to Hamas’ downfall. “Surely, the world will not stand still and allow Hamas to kill Palestinians. Someone will interfere,” as one source explained it.

To that end, a protest has been scheduled in Gaza for 21 March. Of course, how many people will actually show up is anyone’s guess – a previous attempt, last November, to stage a Tamarrod-branded demonstration in the Strip flopped entirely. It’s difficult to see how much influence the Egyptian generals can actually exert through Hamas’ domestic opponents, almost all of whom are either in jail or have been tortured and intimidated into silence.

Indeed the entire scheme seems basically ludicrous, and not just logistically. There’s no doubt the Hamas regime is a brutal theocracy; a coupling of the fundamentalism of Saudi Arabia with the iron fist of Saddam Hussein. And yet, the Egyptian experience of the past six months leaves rather a lot of room to doubt whether the putsch envisaged by Sisi’s gangsters offers the liberal and democratic alternative Gazans hope for.

Humbled Qatar may curb Lebanon extremists

[Originally posted at NOW]

As Saudi Arabia elbows aside Qatar’s influence across the region, militant Islamists in Lebanon may feel the squeeze.

The dramatic ouster of Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi last Wednesday has been quickly interpreted by analysts as a significant setback for the foreign policy of Qatar, the Gulf state which had asserted itself as the prime supporter and financier of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated government since the overthrow of former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

Having poured $8bn into the country under Morsi, the argument goes, Qatar had placed its biggest bet yet on the Islamist movement of which it is the key global patron, and with the fall of Morsi this has turned out to be a blunder. The revelation Tuesday that Qatar’s rivals Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have collectively pledged $8bn in aid to the post-Morsi government – exactly matching the sum offered by Qatar previously – appeared to further signify the Gulf state’s loss of influence.

Egypt is not the only country in which Qatar appears to have lost ground to the Saudis. Last month, NOW reported the Kingdom was seeking to monopolize control of the political opposition in Syria, which has long been criticized as too heavily weighted toward the Brotherhood. The subsequent selection of Saudi-backed Ahmad Jarba as head of the Syrian National Coalition, quickly followed by the resignation of Qatar-backed Ghassan Hitto from the post of rebel prime minister, have been seen as the successful fruits of these efforts.

Not all analysts, however, see such developments as straightforward losses for Qatar. “It’s not really that clear,” said Andrew Hammond, recent author of The Islamic Utopia: The Illusion of Reform in Saudi Arabia, currently based in Doha. “The Qataris in recent months have obviously been involved in a process of succession… so I think they’ve been happy to be out of the picture to a certain degree and [to be] acceding to these pressures of the Saudis muscling in on the scene,” he told NOW, referring to the recent replacement of Emir Hamad al-Thani by his son, Sheikh Tamim, as head of state. “I think they’ve bought themselves time by having this shift in who’s in charge officially here. I don’t think it necessarily means they’re not going to come back.”

Nor, argues Hammond, is Qatar likely to drop its historical alliance with the Brotherhood. “The Brotherhood’s representatives in Qatar have been here for a long time. [Prominent pro-Brotherhood cleric Sheikh Yusuf] Al-Qaradawi is just as close to the new emir as he was to the father. So, it would be a lot to imagine that they would suddenly shift in one go when they’ve had a relationship with these people for a long time.” Indeed this relationship, adds Hammond, while partly based on self-interest, is also “more nuanced.… there is a certain sympathy [Qatar] has for [the Brotherhood]. They do genuinely see them as being in the middle of the Arab political spectrum.”

In any case, to the extent that Saudi has gained at Qatar’s expense, the effects could be beneficial for Lebanon, according to former MP Mosbah al-Ahdab of the Democratic Renewal (Tajaddod) Movement. Ahdab told NOW that while Saudi chiefly sponsors the non-Islamist Future Movement, Qatari funds in recent years have been primarily directed at Islamist factions, including the majority of militant groups in his native city of Tripoli.

“It would be very reassuring if the Saudis started taking an interest in Lebanon again, because for some time we have been in the hands of Qataris who have been throwing money left and right, radicalizing the whole situation, and creating fighters who have no coordination and no goal. It’s been very dangerous.”

Future MP Mustafa Alloush agreed, adding to NOW that the unwinding of Qatari influence in Lebanon is already underway, as evidenced by the recent crushing of the armed movement of Sidon-based cleric Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir, often rumored to be a Qatari client.

“Qatar played some dangerous games by financing radical and extremist movements in an attempt to counter the Saudi influence on moderates. What happened [to Assir] and the [limited] reactions proves that these movements are weaker now. So in Lebanon, we will see empowerment of the moderate movements, and weakening of the extremist ones.”

Hammond, however, argues that Lebanon may not necessarily benefit from an ascendant Saudi Arabia.

“My impression is that it won’t necessarily make the situation more peaceable in Lebanon because the Saudis have their people there, and they’re going to push them, and that’s going to lead to more conflict with Hezbollah. From their perspective, they just want to fight Hezbollah, to push their influence back, and whether that in the short term leads to a calmer situation in Lebanon is another question entirely.”

Yara Chehayed contributed reporting.

Don't flatter Jon Stewart - Youssef's satire is truly subversive

[Originally posted at NOW]

Bassem Youssef is a man who has been called many things, but perhaps nothing more objectionable than “Egypt’s Jon Stewart” – a description that, quite apart from its general witlessness, is far too generous to the American presenter.

Granted, Stewart’s show did come first, and Youssef’s al-Bernameg is undoubtedly modeled on it. And true, they are also both quite funny. But here the resemblances end. To speak of Youssef as a mere duplicate of Stewart is to bulldoze the difference between jokes and satire; between riskless gags and real, subversive dissent.

What are some of these differences? Well, for a start, Stewart is unlikely to be summoned for questioning by the security apparatus of an authoritarian theocracy any time soon, as Youssef was on Sunday. That’s a relatively obvious asymmetry in terms of courage expended. Yet Youssef also surpasses Stewart in a second kind of courage that is quite different to mere physical bravery.

In an excellent 2009 essay, ‘Cheap Laughs’, the late Christopher Hitchens noted that Stewart and the rest of America’s pantheon of self-described “satirists” not only pander to “an audience that has a limited range of reference”, thus reaching too easily for “the rubber hammer and the exploding cigar” rather than “the flashing scalpel”. Their “secret asset”, he realized, is their “hard-bitten and hard-line" Democrat partisanship, an irony at their own expense to which they are painfully (and humorlessly) oblivious.

Stewart inadvertently confirmed this very point yesterday, when in asegment defending Youssef (whose name he repeatedly mispronounces “Yoe-sef”) he said, “If insulting the President and Islam were a jailable offence here, Fox News go bye-bye” – an illiterate “joke” swiftly followed by roars of auto-prompted studio applause. A brief later montage of token and entirely harmless pokes at the incumbent president (whose relations with Morsi thus far have, incidentally, been warm) was noticeably more backhanded-compliment than slap-in-the-face.

One man, in other words, makes a fortune flattering the commander-in-chief of the world’s only superpower, while the other risks jail and possibly worse to expose a thuggish religious dictator. Stewart should be so lucky as to be compared to Youssef.

Hands off: Women rally worldwide against Egypt assaults

[Originally posted at NOW]

Though the three men smoking cigarettes on the balcony of the Egyptian embassy probably didn’t realize it, the scene they were witnessing on the street below them Tuesday evening would also be seen by their consular colleagues in 36 cities across the world.

Responding to an online call from the Uprising of Women in the Arab World organization, some 30 activists gathered outside the embassy in Bir Hassan to rally against what they called the “sexual terrorism practiced on Egyptian female protestors.” Carrying placards and a large banner depicting Umm Kulthoum as a protestor, they took on Egyptian accents as they chanted, “Strong women in Tahrir, harassers in prison!,” “Down with the government of the [religious scholar]!,” and “Harassment will lead you nowhere, try again and I will break your hand!”

Similar protests were also held at 6pm outside three dozen Egyptian embassies in the Levant, North Africa, Europe, the USA, and the Far East.

“We are here because we directly relate to the harassment and rape that Egyptian women are being subjected to, because we are subjected to similar violence in our own countries as well,” said Diala Haidar to NOW at the protest. “It’s time for us to stand up in solidarity in all matters related to women’s issues in this region.”

Other demonstrators emphasized the same point. “I came to protest the violation of women’s bodies and minds and privacy in all the Arab countries, not just Egypt, because we have a lot of violations going on in Lebanon that we don’t talk about,” said Ghina Daou. “I’m here to defend those women who don’t have a voice to speak.”

Though sexual harassment has been among women’s grievances in Egypt for years, recent weeks have seen an alarming increase in the brutality of assaults. On January 25th, at a demonstration in Cairo’s Tahrir Square marking the second anniversary of the revolution that overthrew dictator Hosni Mubarak, over 20 women were separately attacked by mobs of hundreds of men, who stripped their clothes, molested them, beat them, and even cut their genitals with knives.

“One of the women on January 25th had to have a hysterectomy. Another ended up in intensive care,” said Bridgette Auger, a journalist who has reported from Egypt since October 2011 and was herself a victim of a group assault last June. Since the revolution, there has been “a shift in the mood [in Tahrir],” she told NOW, as well as in the organization of attacks. “You really feel that something is going on.”

Indeed, premeditated sexual assaults have “become a tactic to use against protestors, to push them away from political life,” according to Farah Barqawi, one of the organizers of Tuesday’s demonstrations. “Terrorizing these female protestors is the easiest way to keep them away from Tahrir,” she told NOW.

Predictably, opinions vary as to who exactly is organizing and funding the mobs. “Some of course are blaming the [Muslim Brotherhood], some accuse Salafists and fundamentalists in general, and some on the [Brotherhood’s] side are accusing fellow revolutionaries,” said Barqawi. At Tuesday’s protest in Cairo, demonstrators invoked [President Muhammad] Morsi’s name in relation to the attacks, chanting “Women ousted Mubarak, women will bring down Morsi.” In doing so, they appeared to point a finger at the Brotherhood.

Activists stress, however, that the phenomenon is not limited to Egypt, highlighting Syria in particular as a worrying case. Areen al-Asmi, organizer of the Damascus chapter of Tuesday’s protest, told NOW that “we Syrian women encounter sexual harassment and even rape by men from both sides [of the military conflict].” Those who have sought refuge outside the country fare little better: “In refugee camps outside Syria, people are buying women’s bodies. Syrian women in Jordan are forced into prostitution and trafficking.” Due to obvious security concerns as well as fears of arrest, Asmi said the Syrian response to Tuesday’s call was to be a strictly electronic one, confined to individuals’ homes.

What, then, should governments do to address these widespread abuses? “Our main request is to establish and enforce a very strict law against sexual harassment, assault and rape, whether in daily life or during protests, and to bring aggressors to court instead of carrying out virginity tests on the victims,” said Barqawi.

“Second is to try as much as possible to stop these attacks. There is no justification whatsoever for police standing and watching what’s happening in Tahrir, while groups of volunteers are doing their work for them. Even if they don’t receive orders, what are the police waiting for? What did they learn about ethics and protection in all their years of training?”

However, with Egypt’s only current legislative authority, the Shura Council, issuing statements Monday explicitly blaming women themselves for sexual assaults, it may be some time yet before such measures are undertaken.

Yara Chehayed contributed reporting.