31st Annual Meeting of the Conference Group on the Middle East: Call for Papers for 2015

The Conference Group on the Middle East (CGME) meets in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association.  The 2015 meeting convenes in San Francisco, September 2-6.

Young people represent a gigantic majority of the Arab population.  While the proportions obviously vary, in places like Iraq, Gaza, Syria and Egypt, upwards of three quarters of the population are young than 30 years.  In one case after another, young people face a future of "adulthood denied" to quote the title of a topical monograph, in the sense that they lack the ability to get a decent job, have their own place to live, marry and reproduce the family.  

Youths played significant, often leading roles in the demonstrations that marked the first stage of the Arab Awakenings that began in late 2010.  The cases of Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen come to mind, but also Morocco, Bahrain, Jordan and certainly Syria, among other instances.  Many of the youthful political activists and mobilizers were later marginalized as better organized, more experienced and more brutal actors displaced them and state elites clawed back power.  Today in repressive Egypt, for example, many of the key youth actors are in jail serving long terms for disobedience, organizing protests or a variety of trumped up charges.  

The CGME will address youth politics after the Arab Awakenings: Is there a "youth politics", are there organized political forces devoted to youth causes, and what has been the enduring impact of formal or informal associational life on the texture and content of politics in the Middle East; has something important changed? The welcomes empirically informed papers that rigorously address single cases, including studies of single associations, parties or interest groups, country studies, or comparative studies. Theoretically oriented papers are welcome as well.

CGME:  three decades ago, little serious attention was paid to the Middle East at the annual meetings of the leading disciplinary associations, including the American Political Science Association (APSA). Professor Louis J. Cantori and a small group of colleagues, including this writer, decided in 1983 to create the Conference Group the Middle East (CGME), which convened for the first time in 1984 and has continued ever since.

Another fielding error by Dennis Ross

Writing in the Boston Globe, Juliette Krayem argues that a "blunder" by Dennis Ross and David Hale helped convince Mahmoud 'Abbas and his advisors to proceed with their UN initiative.  In a letter handed to the PA leader he was urged to take into account the massive increase in Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

"According to Abbas’s advisers, a letter given to the Palestinian leader was the final straw. The letter has not been publicly disclosed by either party, but Arab media and commentators have zeroed in on a single reported sentence. In pushing for direct negotiations with Israel as an alternative to seeking UN recognition, the letter argued that the Palestinians need to consider Israel’s rightful security needs, as well as “demographic changes’’ that have occurred since the war in 1967."

Perhaps Krayem is writing sardonically when she describe the phrasing as a surprising blunder.  After all, one of the Dennis Ross' talents has been to channel the Israeli narrative.  He is aptly described in a Times interview as an "ardent supporter of Israel" and his penchant for coddling Israel is hardly a secret.

"It’s a surprising blunder for a man with Ross’s decades of experience in trying to close the deal on the peace process."

Krayem concludes with a call for "demographic change" in the U.S. diplomatic team.  

"But whatever the outcome of the wrangling at the United Nations, the whole contretemps has served to weaken the United States in the Arab world. That is why Americans deserve to hear from their own envoys, Ross and Hale, about why their meeting with Abbas went so badly awry, so that everyone can judge what happened and make the necessary “demographic’’ changes to produce a new generation of American envoys."

Veto?

The so-called "peace process" had ground to a halt.  The White House was diverted by other issues, for instance the sputtering U.S. economy, Libya, Afghanistan to name a few. The principal US officials still involved processing peace, not least the affable but ineffectual Dennis Ross, were occasionally trying to bunt their way to first base, but they typically struck out.

Now the Palestinian initiative at the UN has jarred the US into action, but what is the Obama White House doing other than corroborating its diplomatic isolation with Israel?  The prospect of the US casting a veto to thwart a step that will likely increase pressure on Israel to negotiate responsibly is a stunning paradox, especially at the time when Israel is led by a government that has demonstrated little, if any commitment to a feasible two-state solution.  The US is using its sharp diplomatic elbows to deter support for the Palestine initiative, but there is no evidence that the US is doing much poking in Israel.

Of course, there is an attempt to deter Mahmoud Abbas with a statement by the Quartet, but that statement, at least as presently drafted, it is deeply flawed and it is unlikely to win Palestinian assent.  

US and Israeli interests are not identical, and it is worrying that that simple reality is contentious in Washington.  Given the wider US interests in the Middle East, especially considering the momentous political upheavals in the Middle East, it will be very damaging for the U.S. to cast a veto, which is why Obama and Co. are trying to kill the issue before it gets to the UNSC. What the US should be working to attain is a context in which the issue of Palestinian membership in the UN is met by a US abstention rather than a veto.  

Turki al-Faisal is one of the most outspoken Saudi royals but his NYT Oped is astounding not just in its blunt tone, but also its patent exasperation with U.S. policy

Another Seymour Hersh scoop--the September 6, 2007 bombing of Syria

Hersh makes his share of mistakes, but this story reflects a lot reporting and spadework and it rings true. At the time of the bombing my suspicion was that the probable target was a site related to missiles rather than a reactor under construction. This report lends credence to that suspicion.

Annals of National Security: A Strike in the Dark: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

A directly related piece.

S. Hersh on CNN.

Powell on Geneva Convention