Inside the Middle East

Making Sense of the Most Dangerous and Complicated Region on Earth

Avi Melamed

• Publisher: Skyhorse
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781634509763
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Acclaimed Israeli intelligence analyst Avi Melamed has spent more than thirty years interpreting Middle East affairs. His long-awaited Inside the Middle East challenges widely-accepted perceptions and provides a gripping and uniquely enlightening guide to make sense of the events unfolding in the region—to answer how the Arab world got to this point, what is currently happening, what the ramifications will be, how they will affect Israel, and what actions must immediately be undertaken, including how Western leaders need to respond.Melamed considers all the major power players in the Middle East, explains the underlying issues, and creates a three-dimensional picture, an illustration that connects the dots and provides a fascinating roadmap. He elucidates developments such as the Arab Spring, the downfall of the Muslim Brotherhood, the rise of ISIS, the epic Sunni-Shiite animosity, the essence of the war in Syria, the role of the Caliphate and Jihad, and the looming nuclear arms race. He also provides a rare opportunity to journey into the psyche of Arab society. Look through the lens of its leaders and its most ruthless terrorists. See what makes them tick and what they want. Discover how they can be overtaken.This unparalleled volume is a milestone in our understanding of the Middle East. It is the untold story of the struggles that will shape the region, and the world, for decades to come, and a groundbreaking guide that will shake you to the core, force you to reevalute your outlook, and give you tips to navigate the future. From author Avi Melamed: The conflicts in the Middle East grow more confusing and dangerous every day.
In my encounters with thousands of people from across the world - from global leaders to high school students - I know there is deep and intense thirst for knowledge because today understanding the Middle East is not optional – it's mandatory.My new book, Inside the Middle East: Making Sense of the Most Dangerous and Complicated Region on Earth is based on my decades of advisory, counterterrorism, education, and intelligence – positions - as well as my intimate connections throughout the Arab world.The book also provides the building blocks and database to understand the contemporary Middle East, offers a unique insight into the Arab world, and is " a GPS to help you navigate the dramatically changing Middle East."In the book, I also offer an out of the box idea that could lead to a positive breakthrough in the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.

CHAPTER ONE

THE DISTORTED COMPASS

IN 2014, SALMAN MASALHA, AN ISRAELI Druze scholar, wrote that Mohamed Bouazizi, the peddler who lit the fire of the Arab Awakening, was “an agent of the CIA and perhaps even of the Israeli Mossad [one of Israel’s intelligence agencies].” He wrote that “the millions of people who went out to demonstrate and to spread the Arab Awakening throughout the Arab world were actually agents of the CIA and of the West.” These claims were part of an article he wrote titled “The Crazy Person Speaks and the Wise Person Listens.”1

Masalha was not reflecting his own beliefs. He was referring—with despair, frustration, and sorrow—to the fact that many people in the Arab world actually think these things are true. He expressed sadness at the fact that there are many people in the Arab world who believe that the millions of people who took to the streets to demand change and a better future, many of whom did so at the cost of their lives, are believed to have been “acting as emissaries of the CIA or the countries of the West in a plot intended to undermine the resistance axis.”2

Masalha shares these claims to examine the question, “Why are Arabs—more than all other nations—absolutely convinced that all of the problems of the Arab world have their source in local or foreign plots?”3 In his opinion, the answer is that none of the regimes that have risen in the Arab world, nor their consequences, are a result of the free choice of the individual in Arab societies. Masalha wrote that the ongoing war in Syria has “revealed the face of those [in the Arab world] who in the name of the fake slogan of nationalism actually enhanced an Arab fascist and racist ideology, which was disguised with slogans [promoting things] such as ‘the resistance.’”4

To substantiate his point, Masalha highlighted how the regime of Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria, strives—through the use of demagoguery, rhetoric, and meaningless slogans—to not only avoid taking responsibility for the tragedy that it is creating but to go so far as to hold the Syrian people, who are only seeking freedom and a better future, responsible for the devastating results. What is even worse, he adds, is that there are so many people in the Arab world who continue to accept the claims, slogans, and propaganda of the Assad regime without doubt, while their hearts “remain impervious to the tragic murder of thousands of men, women, and children, the hundreds of thousands of wounded, the millions of refugees, and the enormous destruction.”

Masalha concluded his article with a searing statement: “Every Arab should hang his head and be ashamed … every Arab should look in the mirror and ask, ‘How did we reach this miserable state? Everything that happened to us has been the work of our own hands.’”5

Masalha is touching on a raw nerve. Arab academics, intellectuals, journalists, and politicians are pondering a similar question—and it’s not rare for them to use descriptions such as “sick” when describing the unfortunate state of the Arab world.6, 7 To understand this, it helps to establish what these “diseases” are and to be clear on their symptoms.

One disease is the deeply-rooted belief in al-muamira (the conspiracy). This refers to the perception in the Arab world that Muslims, particularly Arab Muslims, are victims of local and foreign plots against them, and that the responsibility for the dismal state of the Arab world does not lie with the Arabs, but with places such as the United States, Europe, and Israel. Arabs who believe in al-muamira believe they are victims of things like imperialism, colonialism, and racism. In an article titled “The Theory of the Plot—The Theory that Will Never Die,” Abdulrahman al-Rashed wrote about this disconcerting belief: “I am not saying that there are no plots at all, but in the overwhelming majority of cases this is an excuse used as a card that is brandished by various factors in the Arab world to justify failures or emergency measures, and we [Arabs] have only ourselves to blame.”8

Other examples of the concept of “conspiracy” embedded in Arab thinking are:

In 2011, when Muammar al-Qaddafi was facing increasing calls to step down from his role as leader of Libya, he tried to coalesce the Libyan people against an enemy he said was outside, saying, “There is a conspiracy to control the Libyan oil and to control the Libyan land, to colonize Libya once again … This is impossible, impossible. We will fight until the last man and last woman … to defend Libya from east to west, north to south.”9

In the spring of 2012, during the first months of the riots in Syria, the Assad regime claimed that Christians from Lebanon were behind the events in Syria; after, the regime blamed the Israeli Mossad; and later, it blamed intelligence agencies of the West.10, 11

In August 2012, a Salafi-Jihadi group attacked an Egyptian border patrol outpost in Sinai. The attack occurred in the evening, when the Egyptian soldiers were eating at the end of a fast day during the month of Ramadan. Sixteen Egyptian soldiers were killed in the attack. The attackers then infiltrated Israeli territory and were killed by the Israeli army. Arab commentators and news reporters, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and some retired senior officers of the Egyptian army claimed that the attack was an Israeli plot.12, 13, 14, 15

In December 2013, then Grand Mufti of Lebanon Mohammed Rashid Qabbani visited a Sunni mosque in Lebanon. While there, he was attacked by worshipers because of his support for Hezbollah16 and had to be rescued by the Lebanese army. Ironically, the next month he proclaimed that the Arabs must “save their countries from the American plots that are meant to sow schisms and hatred between brothers.”17

In an article by Lebanese journalist Basim al-Jisr’ titled “The Conspiracy of the Arabs Against Themselves,” Jisr wrote: “The real plot is that of the Muslim and Arab world against itself because it has not been able put an end to the religious, ethnic, social, and political divisions within it.”18

Another disease of the Arab world is the ocean of demagoguery, fiery speeches, rhetoric, and slogans in which it has drowned itself, spewing phrases such as Arab brotherhood, Arab socialism, Arab solidarity, Arab unity, resistance, the liberation of Palestine, a unification of the lines, and Islam is the solution. These phrases have been propagated by generations of academics, artists, intellectuals, media figures, politicians, and religious leaders.

The narratives and rabble-rousing serve economic and political interests and have granted a perceived legitimization and immunity to dictatorial regimes and brutal rulers in the Arab world. Demagoguery and slogans have been an effective tool for governments and rulers to avoid responsibility and accountability and to distract the public’s attention from the dismal reality of Arab societies—a reality the Arab leaders, dictators, and government officials are responsible for creating and perpetuating.

On August 2, 1990, an Iraqi regime led by Iraq’s then president, Saddam Hussein, invaded Kuwait, triggering the first Gulf War (August 1990–February 1991), in which a coalition of Western powers and Arab states assembled to force Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait. During the war, the Iraqi dictator oversaw an attack against Israel with scud missiles. Hussein hoped to create an Israeli retaliation that would lead to the disintegration of the Arab-Western coalition. He declared that by shooting missiles at Israel he was fighting against American and Israeli aggression. He’s quoted as saying, “By God, we will make the fire eat up half of Israel if it tries to do anything against Iraq.”19 Other lines of his include:

“Fight them with your faith in God, fight them in defense of every free honorable woman and every innocent child, and in defense of the values of manhood and the military honor … Fight them because with their defeat you will be at the last entrance of the conquest of all conquests. The war will end with … dignity, glory, and triumph for your people, army, and nation.”20

“What remains for [George W.] Bush and his accomplices in crime is to understand that they are personally responsible for their crime. The Iraqi people will pursue them for this crime, even if they leave office and disappear into oblivion. There is no doubt they will understand what we mean if they know what revenge means to the Arabs.”21

“We will chase [Americans] to every corner at all times. No high tower of steel will protect them against the fire of truth.”22

Through firing fiery rhetoric at Israel and the West, Hussein was trying to divert attention from the fact that his troops had brutally occupied Kuwait. In August 1990, Saddam declared that the army would leave Kuwait only if Israel withdrew from all Arab lands it occupied in Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon.23 Many Arabs and Palestinians were receptive to Hussein’s spin. Crowds of Palestinians cheered him by chanting the slogan (which rhymes in Arabic), “Hey Saddam / Hey dear friend / Give a beating / to Tel Aviv.”24 Ironically, some of the missiles launched by Hussein landed in areas populated by Palestinians. This, however, did not prevent Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat from expressing open support for Hussein, and later the Palestinians paid dearly for this. Following the war, some four hundred thousand Palestinians who worked in Kuwait were expelled by the Kuwaiti government.25 In 2004, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas formally apologized to Kuwait for the Palestinians’ support of Saddam Hussein.26

More recently, when the riots in Libya that led to the ousting of the Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi began in 2011, Qaddafi tried to incite the masses, hoping to divert their attention and save his government by calling upon his nation to “go forth and liberate Palestine.”27 Like other Arab rulers, Qaddafi hoped that anti-Israel rhetoric would help him divert the growing discontent of his people and save his own skin. It didn’t work.

Saudi writer ‘Abd al-Salam Wa’il referred to the “Israel phenomenon” in a 2013 article titled “Israel, the Everlasting Arab Treasure.” In it he wrote:

Israel is a bounty for Arab dictators who use the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to rule their countries and make a lot of money by issuing hollow threats to Israel. Israel is a card used and manipulated by Arab rulers for their purpose on issues that Israel had nothing to do with. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a card used by Arab rulers to gain legitimacy while delegitimizing their political opponents.28

Lebanese author, journalist, and political analyst Samir Atallah wrote in 2014 that the “Arab regimes that led the Arab nation with slogans and speeches and proclamations and revolutions left the Arab nation poor and despondent, and now those regimes that oppress and exploit their people are sending their subjects to drown in the sea or to drown in the mud or to turn to prostitution in the bitterness of their despair.”29

Another disease of the Arab world is the culture of whitewashing and sweeping controversies and tensions under the rug. Deep conflicts among groups within Arab societies throughout the regions have often been ignored. One of the most common means of covering up the divisions—side by side with hollow slogans and rhetoric—has been to create fancy constitutions lauding the religion and culture of Islam and laden with all the buzzwords like freedom, liberation, and unity. A constitution should express consensus, an agreement on basic principles and values that a majority of the sectors of society share. When four Arab states that are violently disintegrating—Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen—have constitutions, and other Arab states, like Egypt and Lebanon, which also have constitutions, are struggling with serious political violence and instability, it becomes clear that the constitutions in the Arab world do not reflect consensus and are not strong en...