Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

Gideon Levy, Longing for Deri, Haaretz, December 2, 2007

In a tailored suit, his beard well groomed, and no longer bespectacled, Deputy Prime Minister Eli Yishai shuttled from interview to interview: “Nothing will emerge from Annapolis.” This minister of nothing now constitutes the government’s right-wing benchmark, competing with Avigdor Lieberman over who is more extreme and who will be first to quit the government.

These two ministers represent ethnicity, and both paint their ethnic focus in strong nationalist colors. But while Lieberman represents a party that was founded on racism, Yishai received a relatively moderate party and took it to the extreme right. Seeing him makes one long for the party’s founder, Aryeh Deri. Deri’s Shas was not a left-wing party, but it expressed relatively moderate political positions and even refrained from undermining the first Oslo agreement (although it opposed Oslo II).

The new Shas, on the other hand, acts and talks as if it is seeking war, and is doing its utmost to undermine the prime minister’s efforts - which seem sincere - to end the conflict. This is not just a matter of ideological oscillation. The problem is that Yishai is leading a broad public - some of whom are moderate - to racism, extreme nationalism and hatred of Arabs. He has restored the old status quo to its glory: Mizrahim, versus the Arabs and peace. His views, therefore, are disastrous.

Completely lacking the charisma and personal charm of his predecessor, Yishai has benighted views: He recently spoke about “medication” for homosexuality. He has said he finds the sale of pork, civil marriages and workshops for Jewish and Arab teenagers equally disgusting, which brings him in line with his uncivil spiritual mentor, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

Munson: The Iraqi parliament has been an impotent debating club. So the withdrawal of the Sunni members of the Agreement Front is not going to have any practical effect on the government’s functioning–or lack thereof. But it does serve as a graphic reminder that efforts to bridge the gap between Sunni and Shiite visions of post-Saddam Iraq have been fruitless thus far. This article also discusses the Turkish raid on a PKK outpost, the Sunni attack on a Shiite village that left, according to al-Hayat, 14 dead, and a letter from the head of the [Sunni] Association of Religious Scholars to Iraqi tribal leaders warning them not to be duped by American attempts to “divide tribe, sect, and family after having brought about sectarianism and the fragmentation of the country.”

الحياة - عملية عسكرية تركية محدودة في شمال العراق … نواب «جبهة التوافق» ينسحبون من البرلمان إحتجاجاً على وضع الدليمي قيد «الإقامة الجبرية», al-Hayat, December 2, 2007

وكانت قضية اقتحام منزل زعيم «جبهة التوافق»، ومحاصرة القوات العراقية منزله ومنعه من الخروج، تفاعلت في الاوساط السياسية، ووصل السجال الى داخل البرلمان، حيث انسحب رئيسه محمود المشهداني (التوافق) واعضاء الجبهة من الجلسة أمس احتجاجاً على وضع زعيمها فيما وصفوه بـ»الاقامة الجبرية»، الأمر الذي نفته الحكومة، ودعا نواب «الائتلاف العراقي الموحد» الى «عدم التساهل في القضية وعدم تسييس الحادث».

ونقلت وكالة «رويترز» عن المتحدث باسم الحكومة علي الدباغ انه «لا توجد أوامر لوضع الدليمي رهن الاقامة الجبرية. فهو يتمتع بحصانة برلمانية والحكومة تحترم الحصانة».

وقال المشهداني مستنكراً «كيف يحق لضابط ميداني ان يحتجز نائباً (…) من دون ان يصدر امر من رئيس الوزراء» الذي أبلغه «بعدم صدور اي اوامر بفرض الاقامة الجبرية على الدليمي».

لكن رئيس لجنة الامن والدفاع في المجلس (الائتلاف) هادي العامري قال ان قائد خطة فرض القانون في بغداد الفريق عبود قنبر اكد له ان «هذه القوات لحماية الدليمي بسبب وجود تشنج بين افراد الصحوة الذي اتهم احد افراد حماية الدليمي بقتل احدهم. ونخشى ان يكون هناك سوء استغلال وتعرض لحياة النائب» الدليمي.

وكان الدليمي أبلغ «الحياة» انه «قيد الاقامة الجبرية من جانب القوات العراقية» التي تحاصر منزله منذ الخميس الماضي.

Michael Kamber for The New York Times

A Baghdad carwash uses water stolen from broken city pipes, the sort of rule-bending that is increasingly common in Iraq.

Damien Cave, Nonstop Theft and Bribery Are Staggering Iraq - New York Times, NYT, December 2, 2007

BAGHDAD, Dec. 1 — Jobless men pay $500 bribes to join the police. Families build houses illegally on government land, carwashes steal water from public pipes, and nearly everything the government buys or sells can now be found on the black market.

Painkillers for cancer (from the Ministry of Health) cost $80 for a few capsules; electricity meters (from the Ministry of Electricity) go for $200 each, and even third-grade textbooks (stolen from the Ministry of Education) must be bought at bookstores for three times what schools once charged.

“Everyone is stealing from the state,” said Adel Adel al-Subihawi, a prominent Shiite tribal leader in Sadr City, throwing up his hands in disgust. “It’s a very large meal, and everyone wants to eat.”

Corruption and theft are not new to Iraq, and government officials have promised to address the problem. But as Iraqis and American officials assess the effects of this year’s American troop increase, there is a growing sense that, even as security has improved, Iraq has slipped to new depths of lawlessness.

One recent independent analysis ranked Iraq the third most corrupt country in the world. Of 180 countries surveyed, only Somalia and Myanmar were worse, according to Transparency International, a Berlin-based group that publishes the index annually.