20 years after US invasion, young Iraqis see signs of hope

1 / 5
Young men chat near Al-Mutanabbi street in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, Feb. 24, 2023. Two decades after a U.S.-led invasion, Iraq’s capital today is full of life and a sense of renewal, its residents enjoying a hopeful, peaceful interlude in a painful modern history. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
2 / 5
Women stand on the "martyrs' bridge" spanning the Tigris River in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, Feb. 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
3 / 5
Mohammed Zuad Khaman, center, prepares kebabs at his family's cafe in one of Baghdad's poorer neighborhoods along King Ghazi Street on Monday, Feb. 27, 2023. Khaman is a talented footballer, but he says he cannot get an opportunity to play in any of Baghdad's amateur clubs because he does not have any "in" with the militia-related gangs that control sports teams in the city. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
4 / 5
Noor Alhuda Saad, 26, a Ph.D. candidate at Mustansiriya University who describes herself as a political activist, sits in a Baghdad cafe on Wednesday, March 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
5 / 5
Two students celebrate their graduation at the upscale Qalaat Baghdad restaurant complex built in a former palace of Saddam Hussein along the Tigris River in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
Short Url
Updated 17 March 2023

20 years after US invasion, young Iraqis see signs of hope

BAGHDAD: On the banks of the Tigris River one recent evening, young Iraqi men and women in jeans and sneakers danced with joyous abandon to a local rap star as a vermillion sun set behind them. It’s a world away from the terror that followed the US invasion 20 years ago.
Iraq ‘s capital today is throbbing with life and a sense of renewal, its residents enjoying a rare, peaceful interlude in a painful modern history. The wooden stalls of the city’s open-air book market are piled skyward with dusty paperbacks and crammed with shoppers of all ages and incomes. In a suburb once a hotbed of Al-Qaeda, affluent young men cruise their muscle cars, while a recreational cycling club hosts weekly biking trips to former war zones. A few glitzy buildings sparkle where bombs once fell.
President George W. Bush called the US-led invasion on March 20, 2003, a mission to free the Iraqi people and root out weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein’s government was toppled in 26 days. Two years later, the CIA’s chief weapons inspector reported no stockpiles of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons were ever found.
The war deposed a dictator whose imprisonment, torture and execution of dissenters kept 20 million people in fear for a quarter of a century. But it also broke what had been a unified state at the heart of the Arab world, opening a power vacuum and leaving oil-rich Iraq a wounded nation in the Middle East, ripe for a power struggle among Iran, Arab Gulf states, the United States, terrorist groups and Iraq’s own rival sects and parties.
For Iraqis, the enduring trauma of the violence that followed is undeniable — an estimated 300,000 Iraqis were killed between 2003 and 2019, according to the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, as were more than 8,000 US military, contractors and civilians. The period was marred by unemployment, dislocation, sectarian violence and terrorism, and years without reliable electricity or other public services.
Today, half of Iraq’s population of 40 million isn’t old enough to remember life under Saddam or much about the US invasion. In dozens of recent interviews from Baghdad to Fallujah, young Iraqis deplored the loss of stability that followed Saddam’s downfall — but they said the war is in the past, and many were hopeful about nascent freedoms and opportunities to pursue their dreams.
In a marbled, chandeliered reception room in the palace where Saddam once lived, seated in an overstuffed damask chair and surrounded by paintings by modern Iraqi artists, President Abdul Latif Rashid, who assumed office in October, spoke glowingly of the country’s prospects. The world’s perception of Iraq as a war-torn country is frozen in time, he told The Associated Press in an interview.
Iraq is rich; peace has returned, he said, and there are opportunities ahead for young people in a country experiencing a population boom. “If they’re a little bit patient, I think life will improve drastically in Iraq.”
Most Iraqis aren’t nearly as bullish. Conversations begin with bitterness that the ouster of Saddam left the country broken and ripe for violence and exploitation by sectarian militias, politicians and criminals bent on self-enrichment or beholden to other nations. Yet, speaking to younger Iraqis, one senses a generation ready to turn a page.
Safaa Rashid, 26, is a ponytailed writer who talks politics with friends at a cozy coffee shop in the Karada district of the capital. With a well-stocked library nook, photos of Iraqi writers and travel posters, the café and its clientele could as easily be found in Brooklyn or London.
Rashid was a child when the Americans arrived, but rues “the loss of a state, a country that had law and establishment” that followed the invasion. The Iraqi state lay broken and vulnerable to international and domestic power struggles, he said. Today is different; he and like-minded peers can sit in a coffee shop and freely talk about solutions. “I think the young people will try to fix this situation.”
Another day, a different café. Noor Alhuda Saad, 26, a Ph.D. candidate at Mustansiriya University who describes herself as a political activist, says her generation has been leading protests decrying corruption, demanding services and seeking more inclusive elections — and won’t stop till they’ve built a better Iraq.
“After 2003, the people who came to power” — old-guard Sunni and Shiite parties and their affiliated militias and gangs — “did not understand about sharing democracy,” she said, tapping her pale green fingernails on the tabletop.
“Young people like me are born into this environment and trying to change the situation,” she added, blaming the government for failing to restore public services and establish a fully democratic state in the aftermath of occupation. “The people in power do not see these as important issues for them to solve. And that is why we are active.”
Signs of the invasion and insurgency have been largely erased from Baghdad. The former Palestine Hotel, Ferdous Square, the Green Zone, the airport road pockmarked by IED and machine-gun attacks have been landscaped or covered in fresh stucco and paint.
The invasion exists only in memory: bright orange flashes and concussions of American “shock-and-awe” bombs raining down in a thunderous cacophony; tanks rolling along the embankment; Iraqi forces battling across the Tigris or wading into water to avoid US troops; civilian casualties and the desperate, failed effort to save a fellow journalist gravely wounded by a US tank strike in the final days of the battle for Baghdad. Pillars of smoke rose over the city as Iraqi civilians began looting ministries and US Marines pulled down the famous Saddam statue.
What appeared to be a swift victory for the US-led forces was illusory: The greatest loss of life came in the months and years that followed. The occupation stoked a stubborn guerrilla resistance, bitter fights for control of the countryside and cities, a protracted civil war, and the rise of the Daesh group that spread terror beyond Iraq and Syria, throughout the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe.
The long, staggeringly costly experience in Iraq exposed the limitations of America’s ability to export democracy and chastened Washington’s approach to foreign engagements, at least temporarily. In Iraq, its democracy is yet to be defined.
Blast walls have given way to billboards, restaurants, cafes and shopping centers — even over-the-top real estate developments. With 7 million inhabitants, Baghdad is the Middle East’s second-largest city after Cairo, and its streets teem with cars and commerce at all hours, testing the skill of traffic guards in shiny reflective caps.
Daily life here looks not so different from any other Arab metropolis. But in the distant deserts of northern and western Iraq, there are occasional clashes with remnants of the Daesh group. The low-boil conflict involves Kurdish peshmerga fighters, Iraqi army troops and some 2,500 US military advisers still in country.
It is but one of the country’s lingering problems. Another is endemic corruption; a 2022 government audit found a network of former officials and businessmen stole $2.5 billion.
Meanwhile, digital natives are testing the boundaries of identity and free speech, especially on TikTok and Instagram. They sometimes look over their shoulders, aware that shadowy militias connected to political parties may be listening, ready to squelch too much liberalism. More than a dozen social media influencers were arrested recently in a crackdown on “immoral” content, and this month authorities said they would enforce a long-dormant law banning alcohol imports.
In 2019-20, fed-up Iraqis, especially young people, protested across the country against corruption and lack of basic services. After more than 600 were killed by government forces and militias, parliament agreed to a series of election law changes designed to allow more minorities and independent groups to share power.
The sun bakes down on Fallujah, the main city in the Anbar region that was once a hotbed for Al-Qaeda of Iraq and, later, the Daesh group. Beneath the iron girders of the city’s bridge across the Euphrates, three 18-year-olds are returning home from school for lunch.
In 2004, this bridge was the site of a gruesome tableau. Four Americans from military contractor Blackwater were ambushed, their bodies dragged through the streets, hacked, burned and hung as trophies by local insurgents, while some residents chanted in celebration. For the 18-year-olds, it’s a story they’ve heard from their families — distant and irrelevant to their lives.
One wants to be a pilot, two aspire to be doctors. Their focus is on getting good grades, they say.
Fallujah today is experiencing a construction renaissance under former Anbar Gov. Mohammed Al-Halbousi, now speaker of Iraq’s parliament. He has helped direct millions of dollars in government funding to rebuild the city, which experienced repeated waves of fighting, including two US military campaigns to rid the city of Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group.
Fallujah gleams with new apartments, hospitals, amusement parks, a promenade and a renewed gate to the city. Its markets and streets are bustling. But officials were wary of letting Western reporters wander the city without an escort. The AP team’s first attempt to enter was foiled at a checkpoint.
The prime minister’s office intervened the next day, and the visit was allowed, but only with police following reporters at a distance, ostensibly for protection. The disagreement over security and press access is a sign of the uncertainty that overhangs life here.
Still, Dr. Houthifa Alissawi, 40, an imam and mosque leader, says such tensions are trifling compared with what his congregation lived through. Iraq has been engulfed in war for half of his life. When the Daesh group overran Fallujah, his mosque was seized, and he was ordered to preach in favor of the “caliphate” or be killed. He told them he’d think about it, he said, and then fled to Baghdad. He counted 16 killings of members of his mosque.
“Iraq has had many wars. We lost a lot — whole families,” he said. These days, he said, he is enjoying the new sense of security he feels in Fallujah. “If it stays like now, it is perfect.” ___
Sadr City, a working-class, conservative and largely Shiite suburb in eastern Baghdad, is home to more than 1.5 million people. In a grid of thickly populated streets, women wear abayas and hijabs and tend to stay inside the house. Fiery populist religious leader Moqtada Al-Sadr, 49, is still the dominant political power, though he rarely travels here from his base in Najaf, 125 miles to the south. His portraits, and those of his ayatollah father, killed by gunmen in Saddam’s time, loom large.
On a clamorous, pollution-choked avenue, two friends have side-by-side shops: Haider Al-Saady, 28, fixes tires for taxis and the three-wheeled motorized “tuk-tuks” that jam potholed streets, while Ali Al-Mummadwi, 22, sells lumber for construction.
Thick skeins of wires hooked up to generators form a canopy over the neighborhood. City power stays on for just two hours at a time; after that, everyone relies on generators.
They say they work 10 hours every day and scoff when told of the Iraqi president’s promises that life will be better for the young generation.
“It is all talk, not serious,” Al-Saady said, shaking his head. Sadr City was a hotbed of anti-Saddam sentiment, but Al-Saady — too young to remember the fallen dictator — nevertheless expressed nostalgia for that era’s stability.
His companion echoes him: “Saddam was a dictator, but the people were living better, peacefully.” Dismissing current officials as pawns of outside powers, Al-Mummadwi added, “We would like a strong leader, an independent leader.”
When news spread recently that a musician born and raised in Baghdad whose songs have gotten millions of views on YouTube would headline a rap party hosted at a fancy new restaurant in western Baghdad, his fans shared their excitement via texts and Instagram.
Khalifa OG raps about the difficulties of finding work and satirizes authority, but his lyrics aren’t blatantly political. A song he performed under strobe lights on a grassy lawn next to the Tigris mocks “sheikhs” who wield power in the new Iraq through wealth or political connections.
Fan Abdullah Rubaie, 24, could barely contain his excitement. “Peace for sure makes it easier” for young people to gather like this, he said. His stepbrother Ahmed Rubaie, 30, agreed.
The Sunni-Shia sectarianism that led to a pitched civil war in Iraq from 2006 to 2007, with bodies of executed victims turning up each morning on neighborhood streets or dumped into the river, is one of the societal wounds that the rappers and their fans want to heal.
“We had a lot of pain ... it had to stop,” Ahmed Rubaie said. “It is not exactly vanished, but it’s not like before.”
Secular young people say that unlike their parents who lived under Saddam, they’re not afraid to make their voices heard. The 2019 demonstrations gave them confidence, even in the face of backlash from pro-religious parties.
“It broke a wall that was there before,” Ahmed Rubaie said.
Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani, took office in October. A former government minister for human rights and governor of Maysan province, southeast of Baghdad, he won support from a coalition of pro-Iranian Shiite parties after a yearlong stalemate. Unlike other Shiite politicians who fled during the Saddam era, he never left Iraq, even when his father and five brothers were executed.
Working in a former Saddam palace that US and British officers and civilian experts once used as headquarters for their frenetic attempts at nation-building, Al-Sudani still grapples with some of the issues that plagued the occupiers, including restoring regional relations and balancing interests among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. He said building trust between the people and government will be his first priority.
“We need to see tangible results — job opportunities, services, social justice,” Al-Sudani said. “These are the priorities of the people.”
One of the Shiite militias that took part in that campaign against the Daesh group is Ketaib Hezbollah, or the Hezbollah Battalions, widely viewed as a proxy for Iran and a cousin to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria. It also is part of the political coalition that established Al-Sudani’s government.
Ketaib Hezbollah’s spokesman, Jafar Al-Hussaini, met AP at an outdoor restaurant in Baghdad’s Dijlas Village, an opulent, 5-month-old complex of gardens, spas and a dancing fountain overlooking a bend in the Tigris, an idyllic Xanadu that looks like a transplant from uber-wealthy Dubai.
Al-Hussaini voiced optimism for the new Iraqi government and scorn for the United States, saying the US sold Iraq a promise of democracy but failed to deliver infrastructure, electricity, housing, schools or security.
“Twenty years after the war, we look toward building a new state,” he said. “Our project is ideological, and we are against America.”
Far from such luxury, 18-year-old Mohammed Zuad Khaman, who toils in his family’s kebab café in one of Baghdad’s poorer neighborhoods, resents the militias’ hold on the country because they are an obstacle to his dreams of a sports career. Khaman is a talented footballer, but says he can’t play in Baghdad’s amateur clubs because he does not have any “in” with the militia-related gangs that control sports teams in the city.
He got an offer to train in Qatar, he said, but a broker was charging $50,000, far beyond his family’s means.
War and poverty caused him to miss several years of school, he said, and he’s trying to get a high school degree. Meanwhile, he takes home about $8-$10 a day wiping tables and serving food and tea. He is among those Iraqis who would like to leave.
“If only I could get to London, I would have a different life.”
In contrast, for Muammel Sharba, 38, who managed to get a good education despite the war, the new Iraq offers promise he did not expect.
A lecturer in mathematics and technical English at the Middle Technical University campus in Baquba, a once violence-torn city in Diyala, northeast of Baghdad, Sharba left in 2017 for Hungary, where he earned a Ph.D. on an Iraqi government scholarship.
He returned last year, planning to fulfil his contractual obligations to his university and then move to Hungary permanently. But he’s found himself impressed by the changes in his homeland and now thinks he will stay.
One reason: He discovered Baghdad’s nascent community of bicyclists who gather weekly for organized rides. They recently rode to Samarra, where one of the worst sectarian attacks of the war happened in 2006, a bombing that damaged the city’s 1,000-year-old grand mosque.
Sharba became a biking enthusiast in Hungary but never imagined pursuing it at home. He noticed other changes, too: better technology and less bureaucracy that allowed him to upload his thesis and get his foreign Ph.D. validated online. He got a driver’s license electronically in one day. With infrastructure improvements, he’s even seen some smoother roads.
Security in Diyala isn’t perfect, he said, but it’s less fraught than before. Not all his colleagues are as optimistic, but he prefers to focus on the glass half-full.
“I don’t think European countries were always as they are now. They went through a long process and lots of barriers, and then they slowly got better,” he said. “I believe that we need to go through these steps, too.”
On a recent evening, a double line of excited cyclists threaded a course through the capital’s busy streets for a night ride, Sharba among them. They raised neon-green-clad arms in a happy salute as they headed out.
As daylight ebbed into a crimson sunset, it wasn’t hard to imagine that Iraq, like them, could be on the way to a better place.
 


UN rights investigator says EU aided and abetted abuse of migrants in Libya

Updated 27 March 2023

UN rights investigator says EU aided and abetted abuse of migrants in Libya

GENEVA: A member of the UN fact-finding mission to Libya investigating rights abuses said on Monday that European Union support for Libyan authorities that stop and detain migrants had “aided and abetted” the commission of rights violations against migrants.
“We’re not saying that the EU and its member states have committed these crimes. The point is that the support given has aided and abetted the commission of the crimes,” Chaloka Beyani said in a news conference while unveiling the mission’s report.


Iraq changes electoral law, sparking opposition anger

Updated 27 March 2023

Iraq changes electoral law, sparking opposition anger

  • The law revives the electoral law of 2018 and sweeps away one of the gains of the mass protest movement which shook Iraq

BAGHDAD: Iraq’s parliament voted Monday to restore electoral laws that were scrapped after 2019 anti-government demonstrations, sparking anger from independent lawmakers who see it benefiting larger parties.
The law, which parliament said in a statement was “adopted” without detailing the votes, revives the electoral law of 2018 and sweeps away one of the gains of the mass protest movement which shook Iraq.
After the protests, a new system favored the emergence of independent candidates, with some 70 independents winning seats in the 329-member parliament in the last legislative elections in 2021.
Parliament is dominated by the Coordination Framework, an alliance of powerful pro-Iran Shiite factions, from whose ranks Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani emerged.
The new law removes 83 electoral districts and creates 18 seats, one for each of Iraq’s provinces.
This “makes it easier for top party politicians to win seats,” analyst Sajad Jiyad said on Twitter.
Conversely, it will make it “harder for candidates in smaller parties and independents to compete” because they will be running at a provincial rather than a local level, he added.
During the debate, which ran from Sunday into the early hours of Monday, several angry independent lawmakers were expelled from the debating chamber, according to videos they filmed themselves.
The law also replaces a first past the post system with proportional representation.
Overall, the changes will benefit the larger parties and make it possible “for their candidates who didn’t get enough votes initially to win seats,” Jiyad added.
“Independent candidates will no longer have any hope of obtaining representation in parliament,” said Alaa Al-Rikabi, an independent lawmaker. “They will be crushed.”
But Coordination Framework lawmaker Bahaa Al-Dine Nouri welcomed the change, arguing that it will “distribute the seats according to the size of the parties.”
Nouri said this will “lead to the formation of a government within the time limits set by the constitution” to avoid the endless standoffs that followed the 2021 election.
The new law will apply to the next legislative elections, the date of which has not yet been set.
It will also apply to provincial elections slated for November 6, to be held in 15 of the 18 Iraqi provinces, excluding the three provinces in the autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq.
In Iraqi Kurdistan, regional elections will take place on November 18 under a separate electoral system.


Saudi, Iranian foreign ministers to meet during Ramadan

Updated 27 March 2023

Saudi, Iranian foreign ministers to meet during Ramadan

  • The diplomats discussed in a phone call a number of issues relating to the trilateral agreement signed in China 
  • The Kingdom and Iran agreed on March 10 to re-establish diplomatic ties and reopen their embassies within two months

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan and his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, have agreed to meet during the month of Ramadan, the Saudi Press Agency reported early Monday. 

The diplomats also discussed in a phone call a number of issues relating to the trilateral agreement signed in China. 

"During the call, a number of common issues were discussed in light of the tripartite agreement that was signed in the People's Republic of China," Saudi state news agency SPA said. 

“The two ministers also agreed to hold a bilateral meeting between them during the ongoing month of Ramadan.” 

Ramadan is likely to end on April 20. 

The Kingdom and Iran agreed on March 10 to re-establish diplomatic relations and reopen their embassies within two months following years of tensions. 


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu makes U-turn in judicial power grab

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a meeting at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem amid protests
Updated 28 March 2023

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu makes U-turn in judicial power grab

  • With Israel in chaos amid mass protests, he said judicial reform plans will be delayed at least until parliament reconvenes on April 30
  • Opponents said protests will continue until the plans are scrapped; meanwhile Palestinians ponder short and long-term effects of the chaos on them

RAMALLAH: Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday delayed controversial judicial reforms that have plunged Israel into chaos and that critics say are a power grab. The prime minister halted the legislation until parliament reconvenes on April 30.

“When there’s an opportunity to avoid civil war through dialogue, I, as prime minister, am taking a timeout for dialogue,” he said. Netanyahu added that he remained determined to enact the judicial reforms but called for “an attempt to achieve broad consensus.”

After the announcement, the head of Israel’s largest trade union called off a general strike that had threatened to bring Israel’s economy to a standstill. Earlier, tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated outside the Knesset in a dramatic escalation of the mass protest movement aimed at halting the reforms.

The chaos shut down much of the country. Departing flights from the main international airport were grounded. Shopping malls and universities closed their doors, diplomats at foreign missions stopped work, and hospital medical staff offered only emergency services.

The growing resistance to Netanyahu’s plans came hours after tens of thousands of people burst onto streets around the country in a spontaneous show of anger at the prime minister’s decision to fire his defense minister, who had called for a pause to the overhaul. Chanting “the country is on fire,” they lit bonfires on Tel Aviv’s main highway, closing the road and many others throughout the country for hours.

Demonstrators gathered again on Monday outside the Knesset, turning the streets surrounding the building and the Supreme Court into a roiling sea of blue-and-white Israeli flags. Large demonstrations in Tel Aviv, Haifa and other cities drew thousands more.

“This is the last chance to stop this move into a dictatorship,” said Matityahu Sperber, 68, who joined a stream of people headed to the protest outside the Knesset. “I’m here for the fight to the end.”

Netanyahu’s U-turn appeared to ease tensions somewhat but organizers of the grassroots anti-government protest movement said a delay would not be enough.

“A temporary freeze does not suffice, and the national protests will continue to intensify until the law is rejected in the Knesset,” organizers said.

Israel’s Arab citizens have largely ignored the protests. They said Israel’s democracy is already tarnished by its military rule over the occupied West Bank and the discrimination they face inside Israel itself.

One senior Palestinian leader told Arab News: “I see our task as Palestinians being to deepen the crisis inside Israel, which means that we do not support the opposition against Netanyahu, but rather weaken both sides because they will compete over who can harm the Palestinians the most.

“The issue of reforming the judiciary is not an internal matter. Rather, its goal is to control the West Bank. They want to reform the High Court because it was a brake on their racist occupation policies against the Palestinians.”

With Israel in turmoil, Palestinians are watching and wondering how the chaos might affect them in the short and long terms. Some say the crisis has reinforced the awareness that democracy and occupation cannot coexist. Others suggest that the Israeli security services are so preoccupied with the demonstrations in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, it could to some degree loosen their iron grip on Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

There is also a belief among some that the protests will weaken Israel, ultimately to the benefit of the Palestinian people. Most believe, however, that any attacks by Palestinian resistance fighters inside Israel at this time would serve only to benefit Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition government partners, led by Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, by distracting from their political predicament.

Taysir Khaled, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee, said the situation in Israel offers a valuable opportunity for Palestinians to adopt a fresh political approach and work to deepen Israel’s isolation, in the region and internationally, by highlighting the fact that Israeli policies of occupation, discrimination, apartheid and ethnic cleansing are incompatible with the basic values of democracy.

Though Palestinians have had limited success when pleading their cases at Israel’s Supreme Court, failing to prevent Israeli authorities from annexing more Palestinian land, should Netanyahu and his government ultimately succeed in effectively seizing control of the court, Palestinians would have no refuge at all, other than the International Court of Justice in the Hague.

Palestinian political analyst Ghassan Al-Khatib told Arab News that if the wave of Israeli protests against the government continues, it will weaken the Israeli right wing, which would serve the interests of the Palestinian people.

In the meantime, however, one of the effects of the protests has been the closure of the Allenby Bridge, the only land crossing connecting the West Bank with Jordan, as the result of a strike by Israeli customs officials. This has paralyzed commercial traffic between Palestine and Jordan and the movement of travelers to and from the West Bank.

Amid fears that Netanyahu’s government might take action in the West Bank or Gaza Strip in an attempt to provoke a Palestinian response that would unite left and right wingers be creating a security threat, analysts and experts told Arab News that they do not believe the leaders of the Israeli security services would comply with any such attempt to launch deliberately provocative attacks at this time.

Retired Col. David Hacham, a former adviser on Arab affairs to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, said that Netanyahu cannot currently launch a military campaign against the West Bank in an attempt to divert attention from his plight. If Hamas was to attack Tel Aviv and security becomes a priority, however, the differences between politicians of the left and right might be set aside, he added.

Dana Ben Shimon, a correspondent for the newspaper Israel Today, agreed with Hacham and said: “(Hezbollah leader) Hassan Nasrallah and (Hamas leader) Yahya Sinwar are looking at the current chaos in Israel and whispering, saying, ‘We will not give Netanyahu and his government the gift of attacking Israel — let them be torn apart and drown on their own.’”

Shawan Jabarin, director of Al-Haq, a human rights organization in Ramallah, told Arab News: “The Palestinians must link the crisis in Israel to the existence of the occupation, as there is no difference between right and left when it comes to the Palestinians.”

Mohammed Darawsheh, strategic director of the Givat Habiba Center and a political analyst who lives in Israel, told Arab News that Arabs in the country have not participated in the protests against the judicial reforms because “we do not trust the Supreme Court and we are not part of the patriotism of Israel to demonstrate under its flag.”

Palestinians in Israel said that the Israeli Supreme Court is relatively liberal on Arab civil issues but is still part of the deep state in terms of legitimizing racism toward Arabs and the occupation.

Darawsheh said that should the judicial reforms eventually be implemented, Arabs in Israel will be much worse off. Arab schools that teach their students about the Nakba, for example, would lose 30 percent of their funding, he said. It is also possible that Arab political parties could be banned from the Israeli parliament, and budgets for services that benefit Arab citizens could be cut and the money redirected to settlers and Orthodox Jews.

Arab leaders should organize their own parallel protests against the planned reforms, Darawsheh said, to increase the pressure on Netanyahu and his government “because giving up our rights without fighting a battle is a huge mistake.”

Related


Lebanon overturns unpopular decision to delay daylight saving time

Updated 28 March 2023

Lebanon overturns unpopular decision to delay daylight saving time

  • The unilateral decision taken by Prime Minister Najib Mikati to postpone daylight saving time for one month sparked controversy and sectarian reactions

BEIRUT: The Lebanese Cabinet decided to officially shift to daylight saving time overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, during an extraordinary session on Monday.

The unilateral decision taken by Prime Minister Najib Mikati late last week, following a discussion with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, to postpone daylight saving time for one month sparked controversy and sectarian reactions, especially by the Maronite community.

Mikati’s decision showed how easily Lebanon could slip into more division, a reflection of the political tension stemming from the five-month presidential vacuum.

“Since former President Michel Aoun’s term ended, I have been tirelessly working with a group of ministers, the army, security forces, and…public administration employees to preserve the structure of the Lebanese state, which, if it collapses, becomes very difficult to reconfigure. I have never been a fan of defiance or encroaching on religious authorities,” Mikati said Monday.

“The decision was aimed at (allowing) those fasting during the month of Ramadan (to rest) for an hour without causing any harm to any other Lebanese component,” he said.

“I never imagined that some would consider this a confessional or sectarian decision…I have been struggling under a mountain of accusations and deceptions.

“I steadfastly endured and suffered in silence, but today I place everyone before their responsibilities.

“The easiest thing for me to do is to refrain from holding Cabinet sessions, and the most difficult thing is to continue to bear the responsibility. Every person has a personal endurance level, and mine is running low.

“The main problem is the vacancy in the presidency, and I do not take responsibility for this vacuum. Those responsible are the political and spiritual leaders, primarily those parliamentary blocs that disrupted the quorum during 11 election sessions, and those that pledged not to secure it in subsequent sessions without agreeing on a candidate.”

Mikati stressed that the Sunni community he represents “has always been patriotic…and preserved throughout history the unity of the country and its institutions and (has) worked, through its elites and leaders, to formulate national, non-sectarian projects since Lebanon’s independence.”

He added the announcement to overturn last week’s decision requires “a 48-hour delay to settle some technical matters,” in reference to rescheduling flight times to and from Beirut and scheduling computer servers in institutions and mobile phone networks.

The Lebanese have been divided over the decision. Some private media institutions and educational institutions have refused to abide by Mikati’s decision. Caretaker Minister of Education Abbas Halabi said in a statement Sunday that “daylight saving time remains approved and applied in the educational sector.”

Those who rejected Mikati’s decision argued that amending the daylight saving time requires a Cabinet decision and that Mikati took it unilaterally, which is why the Cabinet convened Monday to discuss the issue exclusively.

The Lebanese Cabinet will also hold a session to approve increases in public sector salaries and to implement an agreement to raise the minimum wage to 4,500,000 Lebanese pounds ($295), increase the transportation allowance to 125,000 Lebanese pounds, and double schooling and family allowances.

Related