Palestinian Territories

The Sandmonkey takes a step back from the Egyptian political scene and looks at the country’s real problems and some possible ways to start fixing them. Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou says Libya should learn lessons by looking at Iraq, or else it risks going down the same path. The Institute for Middle East Understanding features an interview with the first Palestinian woman elected to the Knesset from an Arab party’s list, Haneen Zoabi, discussing the annual Palestinian Land Day protests.

Ahmed Nagi says Egypt’s new government lacks a vision for resolving the Palestinian question. Sami Moubayed takes a look at Yemen’s new president. Michael Young discusses the role of religious minorities in countries like Syria, and others experiencing unrest.

While the “Friends of Syria” were meeting in Tunis last week, Hamas was separately taking its own steps to disavow the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. In a significant move, Hamas officials announced last Friday—in Egypt as well as in Gaza—its break with the Assad regime. Hamas’ strategic realignment affects the Middle East chessboard, both regionally and within Palestinian politics. Hamas’ abandonment of its long-time Alawite backers further deepens the Middle East fault line between the Sunni and Shiite worlds. Hamas has now aligned itself with its Sunni brethren already united against the Assad regime. Syria’s Middle East backers are now down to Shiite Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and Iran. Iranian officials are upset with Hamas, and it is not clear if Tehran will continue to supply Hamas with money and weapons. Iran’s leaders could not have helped notice that worshipers in Egypt, where the break was announced, responded by chanting, “No Hezbollah and no Iran. The Syrian revolution is an Arab revolution.” Indeed, the symbolism and locale of Hamas’ leader Ismail Haniyeh’s announcement of the break—before a crowd of thousands at Cairo’s al-Azhar Mosque—is noteworthy. Hamas, originally an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, has now even closer aligned itself with these ideological soulmates, who now hold the largest number of seats in the parliament in Cairo. Indeed, one byproduct of the Egyptian revolution and the subsequent elections has been to swing greater Egyptian support over the Palestine question toward Hamas and away from Mahmoud Abbas and his PLO, which had enjoyed strong support and patronage from former president Hosni Mubarak. Hamas has now aligned itself fully with the sentiments of the region’s Arab uprisings. Here, Haniyeh’s comments were revealing: “I salute all the nations of the Arab Spring and I salute the heroic people of Syria who are striving for freedom, democracy, and reform.” In contrast, PLO and PA leader Mahmoud Abbas has largely been silent about the Arab uprisings in general, and the situation in Syria in particular. The loss of Mubarak—Abbas’s patron in negotiations with Israel—was a blow for the Palestinian leader, as Egypt no longer exerts the kind of heavy pressure on Hamas as it did under Mubarak to accede to Abbas and his Fatah party. The small Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) remains the only Sunni organization still supportive of Syria, with the possible exception of a few largely ossified Palestinian splinter groups. Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Shalah has pledged to retain PIJ headquarters in Damascus. One side effect of this will be the exacerbation of tensions in Gaza between the ruling Hamas and the even more militant PIJ, which has used violence against Israel as a way to challenge Hamas’ primacy. Israel regularly retaliates militarily against Hamas facilities for Islamic Jihad rocket and mortar strikes into Israel, arguing that Hamas claims to rule the Gaza strip and is therefore responsible. This generally helps incentivize Hamas to take steps to keep PIJ quiet. Hamas also faces other challenges. Having lost its external base in Syria, it has yet to find a new one. Only Qatar, so far, has been willing to offer itself up as a potential home for Hamas’ headquarters. Moreover, the past year’s regional changes have exacerbated internal rifts within Hamas over doctrinal as well as tactical issues. This has been most apparent in the differing attitudes adopted within Hamas towards the unity deal signed last month between Hamas external leader Khaled Meshal and Mahmoud Abbas in Doha. Hamas’ break with Syria has not been accompanied by a fundamental ideological shift. While some within Hamas hint at a move towards “popular struggle,” that tactical shift has not been universally accepted and remains highly contentious. For now at least, the organization remains committed to Israel’s destruction by means of armed resistance. Moreover, and at a deeper level, Hamas believes that long regional trends are breaking their way. Islamist parties have gained power in Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco. Many believe Hamas’ ideological soulmates, the Muslim Brotherhood, will emerge strengthened if not empowered, in Syria. Many in Hamas will argue that they need not change, since it is the Middle East that is changing more to their liking. In the immediate period ahead at least, they well may be right.

Significant Middle East Developments Hamas. Hamas officials announced today a break with long-time ally Syrian president Assad. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh told a crowd of thousands at Cairo’s al-Azhar Mosque: “I salute all the nations of the Arab Spring and I salute the heroic people of Syria who are striving for freedom, democracy, and reform.” The announcement indicates a dramatic shift in alignment for the organization that until recently had been headquartered in Damascus. Worshipers responded to Haniyeh’s remarks by chanting, “No Hizballah and no Iran. The Syrian revolution is an Arab revolution.” Hamas’ policy shift was simultaneously announced at a rally in the Gaza Strip and further isolates Assad in the region, leaving Iran and Hizballah as the Syrian leader’s only Middle East allies. Syria. The “Friends of Syria” group  met today in Tunis at the end of yet another violent week in Syria that witnessed the continued siege of Homs and the killing of hundreds, including two Western journalists (my pre-meeting analysis available here). More than sixty Western and Arab countries sent high level envoys to the meeting. Russia, China, and Lebanon all declined to attend. The group demanded that President Assad end government violence and open humanitarian corridors within 48 hours. Al Arabiya TV reported that the Saudi delegation walked out of the meeting as an act of protest, saying that giving humanitarian aid is not enough. Saudi foreign minister Saud al-Faisal bin Abdel Aziz called for arming the Syrian opposition and said: “Humanitarian aid is not enough and the only solution is a consensual or forced transition of power.” Today’s meeting follows the appointment yesterday of former UN secretary general Kofi Annan to serve as the joint UN and Arab League special envoy to Syria. Annan has been tasked to find an “inclusive political solution” to the deadly crisis in Syria. My broader take on how the United States should handle Syria is available here. Yemen. For the first time in thirty-three years, Yemenis went to polling booths and did not find Ali Abdullah Saleh’s name on the ballot. Instead they found only one name--Abed Rabu Mansour Hadi--Saleh’s long-time vice president who will assume the presidency as part of a GCC-brokered deal to usher Saleh out of power. After Hadi is sworn in as president, ruling and opposition parties will begin to draw up a new constitution. Saleh’s exit does not mean the end of Yemen’s unrest, however; Houthi rebels in the north and separatists in the south continue to present serious challenges to government authority. Noteworthy U.S. Foreign Policy Developments The Obama administration stepped up its Syria rhetoric this week in the lead-up to the first meeting of the “Friends of Syria” on Friday. On Tuesday, both White House and State Department spokespeople hinted at possible support for lethal force, noted publicly that the United States could not rule out “additional measures” if the violence did not abate without specifying what those steps might be. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton moved closer to recognition of the Syrian opposition on Thursday saying that there is an international consensus that the Syrian National Council is a credible representative and an alternative to Bashar al-Assad. Quotes of the Week "Our strategy now is that if we feel our enemies want to endanger Iran’s national interests, and want to decide to do that, we will act without waiting for their actions." – Mohammad Hejazi, the deputy head of Iran’s armed forced, to the Fars news agency on Tuesday “What Qaddafi left for us in Libya after forty years is a very, very heavy heritage… It is very heavy and will be hard to get over it in one or two years or even five years.” – Mustafa Abdul Jalil, chairman of the National Trasition Council in an interview with the Associated Press on Tuesday "The attempt to topple the Syrian government will not become reality and the front line of confrontation with the Zionist regime [Israel] will not disappear.” – Ali Akbar Velayati, the top foreign policy adviser to Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,  on Thursday While We Were Looking Elsewhere Libya. A Libyan military court that was about to try some fifty Qaddafi loyalists announced on Wednesday that most of the defendents should instead be tried in a civilian court; "We feel this court is under pressure and... does not have the necessary judicial independence," said Saleh Omran, a defense lawyer for seventeen of the accused. Human rights activists have been worried that the lack of central authority in Libya may prevent former loyalists from receiving a fair trial. Some of these Qaddafi supporters have reportedly received abusive and sometimes lethal treatment at the hands of former rebels. Bahrain. Over twenty thousand Sunni Bahrainis rallied in Manama on Tuesday night to warn the government against opening a dialogue with the Shiite opposition. A representative of a Sunni youth group read a statement that asked “How can there be a dialogue at this time? The majority of citizens ask, is this the time for dialogue and a political solution? Security is the priority!" The previous day, Bahraini security forces had used water cannons and tear gas to break up an anti-government march following the funeral of a protester. Saudi Arabia. Riyadh named its first ambassador to Iraq since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990. Saudi Arabia does not intend to reopen its embassy in Baghdad, however.  Instead, it plans to appoint Fahd al-Zaid, the Saudi ambassador to Jordan, to serve as the new “nonresident” ambassador to Iraq. An announcement that a delegation of senior Iraqi officials had visited Saudi Arabia followed, pointing toward signs of warming ties between the two states. Meanwhile, tensions continued in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province. On Monday, Saudi’s interior ministry defended its tactics against unrest and vowed to crack down further with an “iron fist.” A statement released on Wednesday and signed by forty-one Shiite dignitaries in the province denounced Saudi Arabia’s use of violence and called for a “serious investigation.” Palestinians. Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshal met again in Cairo to finalize the line-up of a new unity Palestinian government as agreed to in Doha  earlier this month. Instead, the two leaders failed to reach agreement and announced that their talks have been postponed. No new date for further Fatah-Hamas talks has been announced. This Week in History Tuesday marked the fifty-fourth anniversary of the founding of the United Arab Republic. On February 21, 1958, simultaneous referendums in Syria and Egypt overwhelmingly approved the formation of  the United Arab Republic--a political union between Syria and Egypt. The union was largely catalyzed by a strong sense of Arab nationalism and the desire to overcome the “artificial” borders created by the European colonial powers. The union collapsed after a mere three years, however, due to the widely-held view in Syria that it was being used as a tool to further Egyptian hegemony under President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Statistic of the Week  Russian officials announced on Tuesday that two-way trade between Syria and Russia jumped 58 percent last year—bringing the total up to $1.97 billion, with the balance heavily in favor of Moscow.

Significant Middle East Developments Syria. Russia and China vetoed an Arab and Western-backed resolution at the UN Security Council last Saturday following a flurry of negotiations. Russia succeeded in watering down the text of the resolution, only to then vote against it. (I offer a proposal for engaging the Russians in a ’grand bargain’ as the international community considers more robust means to halt the bloodshed in Syria, which is available here.) Syria’s army unleashed a torrent of violence against the city of Homs that continues until now. The regime’s violent escalation has provoked international outrage, with the normally taciturn United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-Moon linking the escalation to events at the UN, saying that the veto “has encouraged the Syrian government to step up its war on its own people.” Meanwhile, the United States closed its embassy. France, Italy, and other countries, including the GCC states, recalled their envoys. Ankara announced its intentions to host an international conference on Syria, and the United States announced the formation of a “friends of Syria” group to organize humanitarian assistance for the Syrian opposition. Other steps are no doubt in the works. Violence intensified further today with twenty-five killed in twin bombings in the northern city of Aleppo. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay repeated the call for Syrian officials to be referred to the International Criminal Court. The UN has ceased issuing a death toll for Syria given the impossibility of cross-checking records in the besieged country. Palestinians. Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal met in Doha on Monday and announced their intention to form a unity government and hold new Palestinian elections (see my analysis of this development here). The two agreed that PA president Abbas would also serve as prime minister of an interim government, with its composition to be announced in a follow-up meeting on February 18 in Cairo. The announcement provoked mixed Palestinian reactions, with many Fatah and Hamas members noting that the Palestinian Basic Law prevents Abbas from serving as prime minister in addition to president. The move, if implemented, would consolidate executive power in a way unseen since Yasser Arafat. Abbas is scheduled to meet in Cairo this Saturday for talks with Egyptian and Arab League officials to discuss recent Palestinian developments. Noteworthy U.S. Foreign Policy Developments Egypt. Egyptian judicial sources announced on Sunday that forty-three NGO workers, nineteen of them Americans, will be sent to trial for illegally using foreign funding. The announcement followed U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s warning the previous day that if the dispute is not resolved, the United States will “have to closely review these matters as it comes time for us to certify whether or not any of these funds from our government can be made available under these circumstances.” The NGO staffers who are currently in Egypt are being prevented from leaving the country. On Wednesday, Egyptian prime minister Kamal al-Ganzouri declared that the courts would follow the law and will not back down because of aid. General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, traveled to Cairo this week to meet with the top Egyptian military leaders. He reportedly conveyed a message of Congressional resolve to suspend U.S. assistance to Egypt should the Egyptians continue to prosecute the NGOs. Iran. President Obama signed an executive order imposing further sanctions on Iran’s central bank on Monday saying: "I have determined that additional sanctions are warranted, particularly in light of the deceptive practices of the Central Bank of Iran and other Iranian banks to conceal transactions of sanctioned parties." Quotes of the Week "We consider Russia, China, and Iran as direct accomplices to the horrible massacre being carried out against our people.” – the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood said in a statement issued from London on Monday "Some of the voices heard in the West with evaluations of the results of the vote in the UN Security Council on the Syria resolution sound, I would say, improper, somewhere on the verge of hysteria.” – Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov speaking on Monday "I say to [Abbas], you cannot grasp the stick at both ends. It is either peace with Hamas or peace with Israel, you cannot have both." – Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday in response to the Doha agreement "It is hugely important and worth mentioning that ’mistakes’ have been done in the beginning of the crises because we did not have a well-organized ’police force.’ American psyche can be easily manipulated when they hear that there are ’mistakes’ done and now we are ’fixing it.’” – Sheherazad Jaafari, a press attache at the Syrian mission to the United Nations, wrote in a recently leaked email to aides of Assad’s media adviser in preparation for the Syrian president’s interview with Barbara Walters back in December "Iran is in a very good position to deliver retaliatory strikes on America around the world... An attack on Iran would be suicidal for them." – Iranian ambassador to Russia Seyyed Mahmoud-Reza Sajjadi said on Wednesday While We Were Looking Elsewhere Yemen. Yemen’s outgoing president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, declared on Tuesday his intention to return to Yemen this month to vote in the presidential election scheduled for February 21. Saleh finally left the country last month after accepting the terms of the GCC-brokered plan in November to transfer power to his deputy in return for full immunity. Saleh’s deputy, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, is set to be rubber-stamped as the impoverished Arabian peninsula nation’s new leader in the February elections. Under a U.S.-backed plan brokered by Yemen’s powerful neighbors, Hadi is to be the only candidate. However, the election’s legitimacy has already been threatened by southern separatists and northern rebels who have announced boycotts. Human Rights Watch called on the United States and the EU to reject the Yemeni parliament’s decision to grant Saleh immunity, claiming that "no one responsible for grave international crimes should get a free pass." Saudi Arabia. In unusually blunt terms, Saudi king Abdullah slammed the Russian and Chinese veto of a UN resolution on Syria as an “unfavorable” move in a broadcast on Saudi state TV on Friday. He went on to say: "There is no doubt that the confidence of the world in the United Nations has been shaken." Bahrain. Bahraini authorities rejected a visa request from AFP reporters in the lead-up to the one year anniversary of the protests on February 14. Unrest has escalated in the last few months with at least ten deaths reported. A loose coalition of youth activists, called the February 14 Youth Coalition, issued a charter this week that declared “the aim of this revolution has become to bring down the regime and decide our own fate after it became clear that trying to live with it and reform it has become impossible." Activists plan to march to Manama Square next Tuesday. Jordan and Libya. Libyan prime minister Abdel Rahim al-Kib told Jordanian prime minister Awn Khasawneh that Libya is counting on Jordanian help in fighting pro-Qaddafi elements in Jordan on Tuesday. Ties between Libya and Jordan have grown closer since Qaddafi’s ouster. Jordan has agreed to train ten thousand former rebels to help them integrate into Libya’s Interior Ministry, and is also treating twenty thousand injured Libyans in Jordanian hospitals. This Week in History Wednesday marked the thirteenth anniversary of Jordanian king Hussein’s death. The Jordanian monarch died of cancer at the age of sixty-three after reigning for forty years. At the time of his death, he had served as the Middle East’s longest-reigning ruler, despite Western predictions over the years of his reign’s imminent collapse. King Hussein’s legacies are many, most notably his peace treaty with Israel and establishment of Jordan as a permanent and mediating presence in the region. Hussein survived a number of assassination attempts and a violent Palestinian insurrection in 1970 that came to be known as "Black September." King Hussein maintained close ties with Israel and the United States until his death and was an indefatigable advocate of peace in the Middle East, a role his son, current Jordanian king Abdullah, has adopted. Statistic of the Week  Seven in ten Egyptians oppose U.S. economic aid, a new poll by Gallup conducted in December 2011 reveals. A similar percentage opposes U.S. aid to civil society organizations.

Once upon a time, progress toward Israeli-Palestinian peace was thought to require reform of Palestinian political institutions. Creation of the post of Palestinian Authority (PA) prime minister, separate from that of PA president, was viewed as a milestone. On March 14, 2003, President Bush marked creation of the prime minister post in a press conference: the Palestinian Authority has created the new position of Prime Minister. Israeli and Palestinian leaders and other governments in the region now have a chance to move forward with determination and with good faith. To be a credible and responsible partner, the new Palestinian Prime Minister must hold a position of real authority. We expect that such a Palestinian Prime Minister will be confirmed soon. Immediately upon confirmation, the road map for peace will be given to the Palestinians and the Israelis… This week Hamas and Fatah negotiated some sort of "unity" or "reconciliation" agreement, and the PA/Fatah negotiator was none other than the prime minister of whom Bush was speaking nine years ago: Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas became president of the PA after the death of Arafat, and is now in the seventh year of his four year term. Times have changed, as my CFR colleague Rob Danin has noted: In an innovation that apparently violates the Palestinian Basic Law, the two sides agreed that Mahmoud Abbas would serve as both president and prime minister of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Recall, the PA’s prime minister position was established in 2003 and Abbas was appointed to that post to reduce the absolute powers of the presidency, then in Yassir Arafat’s hands. Ironically, it is now Abbas as president who is seeking to claim back what he once tried to take away. Nicely put. And Rob is right: Article 45 of the Basic Law says “The President of the National Authority shall appoint the Prime Minister and authorize the latter to constitute his government.  The President shall have the right to dismiss the Prime Minister or to accept his resignation and to request him to convene the Council of Ministers.” But of course, Abbas will not hold absolute power in his hands, for when it comes to Gaza he will have no power at all. It is rumored that under the deal there will be a deputy prime minister for the West Bank and one for Gaza, so in essence Hamas will still rule Gaza while Fatah rules the West Bank. Why then go through the contortions of this “reconciliation” agreement? For one thing the Amir of Qatar brought Abbas and the Hamas leader Khaled Meshal to Doha, and the Amir has many means of persuasion, particularly for folks whose bank accounts are thin. For another, no Palestinian leader likes to be cast as “against reconciliation,” so it is usually easier to go along. And anyway, just as the previous “reconciliation” efforts failed, this one can be allowed to fail as well if it becomes troublesome for the participants. But there is a price to pay for these theatrics, for no one can seriously expect Israel to negotiate peace with a combined Fatah-Hamas team when Hamas is dedicated to Israel’s destruction. It is not the PA but the PLO that formally negotiates with Israel, and one of the most damaging aspects of the “reconciliation” agreement is that Hamas is supposed to join the PLO. Once it does, all but the most ardent peace-processors will have to admit the negotiations track is truly frozen. Yes, perhaps Hamas will magically take that occasion to abandon its previous hatred of Jews and Israel, abandon terrorism, and declare itself ready for peace with Israel. If so, let’s all go back to Camp David or Annapolis for another round. If not, if Hamas is admitted into the PA government and the PLO as the terrorist group it is today, let’s acknowledge that the Palestinian leadership has turned away from any genuine effort to negotiate peace.    

Today’s Fatah-Hamas unity agreement announced in Doha marks the latest in a series of unimplemented accords between the two Palestinian adversaries. The two sides announced—again—their intention to unify their efforts and form an independent caretaker government to shepherd the Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza to new elections. In an innovation that apparently violates the Palestinian Basic Law, the two sides agreed that Mahmoud Abbas would serve as both president and prime minister of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Recall, the PA’s prime minister position was established in 2003 and Abbas was appointed to that post to reduce the absolute powers of the presidency, then in Yassir Arafat’s hands. Ironically, it is now Abbas as president who is seeking to claim back what he once tried to take away. Today’s announcement is more of a statement of intent than it is a full-fledged accord. When it comes to Palestinian unity agreements--and there have been a few--the announcement is the easy part. Recall the February 2007 Mecca Accords and last April’s unity agreement--each either collapsed rather quickly or were never even implemented. In the case of last April’s unity agreement, many of the key details were left to be resolved. Such is the case today. Will finances be shared under the unity agreement? Will Hamas agree to disband, let alone agree to recognize previous PLO agreements (including recognition of Israel)? Another key question is: just how independent would such a transitional government be? The approach adopted last April, while calling for a technocratic government, also called for an outside steering committee comprised of Hamas and Fatah that would provide direction to the government. Such directional control would have been enough for such a government to be considered untouchable by the United States, and probably the other members of the Quartet. These kinds of critical details will need to be addressed before the two sides reconvene in Cairo on February 18 as they have agreed to do. Perhaps the more interesting question is why, after just last week when Fatah officials criticized Hamas for failing to consult in earnest, did the two sides come together with today’s shotgun announcement? Two sets of shifting, interrelated regional dynamics are at play here. First, both Fatah and Hamas have effectively lost their respective patrons—Mubarak in the former case, and Assad in the latter. This has created something of a vacuum that has led to a second phenomenon: other regional players stepping in to try to help encourage Palestinian developments along. Over the past month, Jordan has shepherded talks with Israel in an effort to guide the two parties back to final status negotiations. Amidst intensive Jordanian diplomatic efforts, the Qataris called Abbas and Khaled Meshal to Doha, and apparently made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. It remains to be seen if Abbas said yes as a polite guest, or if he is serious about moving forward. In all likelihood, Abbas probably said yes in order to create options for himself and create two parallel tracks—a potential negotiating track brokered by the Jordanians and the Quartet, and a reconciliation track brokered by Qatar. Such an approach will not be welcomed by many in the region—Israel has already registered its strong opposition—and others such as Jordan and the United States will also likely tell Abbas that he can only have one approach: negotiations with Israel that do not include Hamas. Yet, Abbas will want to keep his options open. It is possible that this time is different, and that the region’s uprisings have so altered Palestinian politics that real reconciliation will now ensue, leading to new elections later this year. The fundamentals still argue against it: Fatah enjoys exclusive control of the West Bank and is fighting Hamas on the ground to keep it that way; similarly, Hamas is resisting any Fatah encroachment on their supremacy in Gaza, and it is inconceivable that the militant Islamist organization will relinquish control there should it lose elections. Hence, PLO chairman and PA president Mahmoud Abbas must make some difficult choices now: reconcile with Hamas thereby establishing greater Palestinian unity but incurring greater international (and possibly regional) isolation and risk losing his Fatah party’s remaining control in a region quickly giving rise to Islamist parties. Or partner with the initiative launched by neighboring Jordan and endeavor to negotiate with Israel has he has long professed as his preference.

Significant Middle East Developments Syria. Diplomatic activity shifted to New York with foreign ministers, including Secretary of State Clinton, convening on Tuesday at the UN Security Council in attempts to forge a consensus over next steps to address the Syrian crisis. Russia declared its intent to veto any resolution that explicitly calls for regime change, sanctions, or an arms embargo. On Thursday, a revised draft endorsing the Arab League peace plan was circulated. However, it no longer called for an arms embargo, sanctions, or for Assad to delegate his presidential authority to the vice president. Meanwhile, violence intensified further this week. Syrian troops and armed rebels fought on the outskirts of Damascus with over one hundred killed on Monday alone. Colonel Riyadh al-Assad, the head of the Free Syrian Army, claimed on Tuesday that “fifty percent of Syrian territory is no longer under the control of the regime.” Egypt. Hundreds of protesters marching toward the People’s Assembly on Tuesday were prevented from gathering in front of the building by a human shield made up of Muslim Brotherhood members. The protesters demanded moving up the date for presidential elections. The Muslim Brotherhood’s obstructive role led many protesters to equate them with the SCAF and minor clashes broke out, resulting in at least forty-three people being injured. Violence then broke out in Port Said after a soccer match Wednesday evening, killing at least seventy-four and injuring two hundred. The violence shocked the country with many Egyptians blaming the security forces for not doing enough to protect the crowd. On Thursday, Egypt’s parliament promised to investigate, which is sure to examine the role of the security forces and Egypt’s controversial emergency law. Gaza. Hamas “prime minister" Ismail Haniyeh left Gaza on Monday on his second international tour in as many months destined for Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Iran. With the Damascus government struggling to survive, Hamas appears to be looking for a new patron. Haniyeh previously visited Egypt, Sudan, Turkey, and Tunisia. Ankara reportedly promised Haniyeh $300 million to make up for the shortfall resulting from Iran’s suspension of payments in August. Turkey’s foreign ministry denied these reports on Sunday, but confirmed that Turkey was engaged in humanitarian assistance to Gaza. Iran. As reported in CFR’s Daily News Brief this morning: "Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran would retaliate (Reuters) over Western-backed sanctions targeting its oil exports and threats of an attack on its nuclear facilities. The United States and the EU, which is in the process of imposing an oil embargo on Iran, contend that the country’s nuclear program is intended for manufacturing weapons. Khamenei’s speech followed reports suggesting that U.S. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta believes Israel could launch an attack on Iran as early as this spring." Noteworthy U.S. Foreign Policy Developments Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled to New York to participate in the UN Security Council debate on Syria. Following the meeting, Clinton said that the UNSC faced a historic choice between supporting the Syrian people or the “dictatorial regime” of Bashar al-Assad. She said that “every member of the council has to make a decision: Whose side are you on? Are you on the side of the Syrian people? Are you on the side of the Arab League? Are you on the side of the people of the Middle East and North Africa who have during this past year spoken out courageously and often for their rights? Or are you on the side of a brutal, dictatorial regime?" Clinton went on to say that it is “absolutely imperative that we all be on the right side of history.” Quotes of the Week “The consensus is that, if they decided to do it, it would probably take them about a year to be able to produce a bomb and then possibly another one to two years in order to put it on a deliverable vehicle of some sort in order to deliver that weapon.” – U.S. secretary of defense Leon Panetta on Sunday in an interview on “60 Minutes”  “They have no popularity... Is it valid that they receive funds to create chaos to bring down the parliament? This is chaos. It is not about democracy." -- Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Mahmoud Ghozlan in Egypt on Wednesday, criticizing the protesters "I hope the UN Security Council meeting will bear quick fruit so that the council can meet the expectations of the international community," – UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon speaking about the situation in Syria on Tuesday at a news conference with Jordan’s foreign minister Nasser Judeh in Amman While We Were Looking Elsewhere Algeria. Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia announced on Thursday that parliamentary elections will occur in the first half of May. The elections are Algeria’s first since 2007. Algeria’s Interior Ministry has approved at least ten new parties, including three Islamist parties, in what some suspect is an attempt to fragment the Islamist vote. Algeria has largely escaped the region’s uprisings though clashes erupted on Tuesday in Tiaret following the funeral of a man who died after setting himself on fire. At least thirty people were injured and the clashes that spread to the nearby towns of Sougueur and Rahaouiya on Wednesday. Sheikh Abdallah Djaballah, the leader of the most popular Islamist parties, warned this week that “if fraud is committed during the upcoming elections, it will be the biggest factor that will push the people toward an explosion.” Kuwait. Kuwaitis voted on Thursday for their fourth parliament in six years. Kuwait’s parliament is entirely popularly elected and has full legislative power. However, there are no political parties so individual members of parliament have to negotiate to form blocs. Initial election results indicate that Islamist and Salafist oppositionists fared well; more than thirty of the fifty parliament seats were won by the opposition movement. This Week in History Wednesday marked the thirty-third anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini’s return to Iran in 1979, following fifteen years of exile. Up to five million people lined Tehran’s streets to greet the man who served as the spiritual inspiration throughout the Iranian Revolution. Ayatollah Khomeini was seventy-eight at the time. He’d been imprisoned in 1963 by the Shah for his opposition to reforms. Khomeini was expelled the following year to Iraq. The last few months of his exile were spent in Paris helping to coordinate revolutionary activities that successfully forced the Shah from power and into hiding. Statistic of the Week  As a part of its “Perceptions about Turkey in the Middle East” survey, the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation found that 52 percent of participants believed that the changes brought about by the Arab uprisings have had positive effects on their respective countries. Twenty-two percent said the consequences were likely to be negative for their country. The countries that Middle Easterners believed would benefit most from the Arab uprisings were Libya (92 percent), Tunisia (89 percent), and Egypt (75 percent). Sixty percent said they believed the uprisings would benefit the entire region.

Over the course of the Obama administration, Washington’s objectives for Israeli-Palestinian peace have shifted dramatically. President Obama took office seeking to resolve the conflict within two years. Deeming it a “national security objective” and one of his highest priorities, he immediately appointed Senator George Mitchell his special Middle East envoy. Three years later, Mitchell is no longer in the position, and the president is no longer seeking to resolve the conflict. In May of last year, the president lowered his sights, calling for Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate on just two of the core final status peace issues—borders and security arrangements—while deferring talks on some other thorny issues, such as the final disposition of Jerusalem or the fate of the Palestinian refugees. Curiously, after articulating the basis for a borders-for-security deal rather than dispatch his envoy to the Middle East, the president effectively shelved the issue. Frustrated with both Israeli prime minister Netanyahu and Palestinian president Abbas and consumed with other regional issues like Egypt, Libya, and the Arab uprisings, the Obama administration has downgraded the priority of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. Indeed, the administration has shifted from conflict resolution to conflict management. Once the president is sworn in on January 20, 2013, he will no doubt have to confront the question of how to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is probably safe to say that the century-old dispute will not have been resolved by then. Whether he wants to or not, come next January, the president will be forced to make some decisions about how best to approach the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Will the president, regardless of who he is, renew Obama’s original pledge and try to resolve the conflict? Or will he instead seek simply to manage it? The context in which he tackles this question will no doubt be dramatically different given. I address these questions as part of CFR’s Campaign 2012, a series of video briefings on the top foreign policy issues debated in the run-up to the 2012 U.S. elections. Check out the video below (also available on YouTube here), and please post a response suggesting what you think are the challenges the president is likely to face. http://youtu.be/XSahUPpljNc

Significant Middle East Developments Syria. President Bashar al-Assad gave a rare and defiant speech on Tuesday in which he once again blamed foreign conspirators, lashed out against other Arab states, and vowed to keep fighting ‘terrorists.’ I analyze his speech in a previous blog post available here. The Syrian National Council responded by pledging to continue the revolution and called for the Arab League to refer their plan to the United Nations Security Council. The Arab League continued to vacillate, deciding in an emergency meeting last Saturday to send more observers to Syria, only to then put off the decision on Wednesday after regime supporters attacked some observers. Two monitors quit this week, one citing gross humanitarian violations by the Syrian government. However, the Arab League itself remains divided. Algeria’s foreign minister said on Wednesday that the Syrian regime has taken measures to defuse the crisis and that it is the arming of the opposition that threatens further violence. Meanwhile, a French journalist, Gilles Jacquier, was killed when a shell exploded among a group of reporters on a government sponsored tour in Homs. He is the first Western reporter to die in Syria during the uprising. France immediately demanded an inquiry into the incident. Iran. A nuclear scientist, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, was killed on Tuesday when a magnetic bomb attached to his car exploded, making him the fourth Iranian nuclear expert to be targeted and the third to be killed in the past two years. Iran immediately blamed Israel and the United States and asked the UN on Wednesday for the killings to be condemned “in the strongest terms” as “inhumane terrorist acts.” The Obama administration strongly condemned the assassination and emphatically denied any U.S. involvement. The Iranian newspaper Kayhan, supervised by the Office of the Supreme Leader, called for retaliation against Israel. Jordan. King Abdullah is scheduled to meet President Obama at the White House on Tuesday, January 17. Meanwhile, Islamists continue to gain some of their former influence under the new government of Prime Minister Awn Khasawneh, the jurist who was appointed to improve the government’s relations with the opposition. This week, control of the charity Islamic Center was ceded back to the Muslim Brotherhood after being taken away in 2006. The center provides assistance to thousands of needy families has been central to the Muslim Brotherhood’s efforts to build support and image. Also this week in Jordan, a second protester publicly immolated himself to protest financial woes. Noteworthy U.S. Foreign Policy Developments The United States continues attempts to drum up international support for more robust sanctions targeting Iran’s oil exports. While Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was rebuffed in Beijing, he seems to have met with greater success in Japan, which announced on Thursday that it will scale back its imports of Iranian oil. The EU, a significant importer of Iranian oil, is also likely to pass sanctions on Iran’s oil, with Denmark predicting sanctions by the end of January. The new law that Obama signed on December 31 will punish foreign financial institutions that conduct business with Iran. The United States held its highest-level talks yet with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt on Wednesday, when visiting deputy secretary of state William Burns met with leaders of the Freedom and Justice Party. The meeting represents Washington’s shift in policy toward accommodation of the reality that Islamists are coming to power across the region. Quotes of the Week "We have had contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood over the decades through our embassy in Cairo. " – U.S. deputy secretary of state William Burns in an interview on Wednesday with CBC TV “It incites violence and confrontation between the parties. It’s a sort of denial of reality.” – French foreign minister Alain Juppe said Tuesday on Bashar al-Assad’s recent speech “I don’t know who settled the score with the Iranian scientist, but I certainly am not shedding a tear.”- Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai, the chief military spokesman for the IDF, in a Facebook statement. “I withdrew because I found myself serving the (Syrian) regime… I was giving the regime a greater chance to continue its killing and I could not prevent that… I spent more than fifteen days in Homs… I saw scenes of horror, burnt bodies… I cannot leave behind my humanity in this sort of situation.” – Anwar Malek, an Algerian member of the Arab League observer mission on why he chose to quit the mission on Tuesday While We Were Looking Elsewhere Yemen. On Sunday, Yemen’s cabinet approved a draft law granting former president Ali Abdullah Saleh and anyone who worked under him immunity from prosecution for crimes committed during his rule. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch all called on the Yemeni parliament to reject the law as it allows for the evasion of justice. Thousands of Yemenis protested on Thursday against granting Saleh immunity, however the U.S. State Department defended the law saying it had to be passed as it was a crucial part of the GCC-brokered power transfer agreement. Libya. The Libyan interim government requested and was granted an extension by the ICC until January 23 to clarify the legal status of Seif al-Islam, Muammar Qaddafi’s notorious son. Libya and the ICC are wrestling over whether Qaddafi will be tried in Libya or at The Hague. The question of how to deal with former leaders of oppressive regimes will continue to be a major issue in the Middle East as Hosni Mubarak’s trial drags on in Egypt, Ali Abdullah Saleh remains evasive about his plans to leave Yemen, and of course Bashar al-Assad clings to power as his troops kill forty Syrians a day. Gaza. Hamas “prime minister” Ismail Haniyeha returned on Tuesday from his first international trip since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007. He visited Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, and Turkey, and held meeting with senior officials. He is slated to take a second trip later this month to Iran, Qatar, and other Muslim countries. This Week in History January 11 marked the tenth anniversary of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp’s opening. The Bush administration established the facility in 2002 to hold what it dubbed “unlawful enemy combatants” from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and later Iraq. Upon its establishment, then secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld said: “unlawful combatants do not have rights under the Geneva Convention.” From the 1970s until the mid-1990s, Guantanamo Bay was used exclusively as a naval base to house Cuban and Haitian refugees intercepted on the high seas. On January 22, 2009, President Obama announced that the detention facility would be closed within the year. However, in January of 2011, Obama signed the 2011 Defense Authorization Bill which effectively stopped the closure of the detention facility. British prime minister David Cameron announced on Tuesday that Britain was working “very hard” with the United States to help close Guantanamo Bay, though its actual closure is not within sight. Statistic of the Week More than a third (37 percent) of the Palestinian public report that their support for Hamas has increased since the landmark prisoner swap deal last October in which more than one thousand Palestinian prisoners were exchanged for Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit. Only 10 percent of the Palestinian public report that their support for Hamas has fallen. These statistics are taken from a quarterly survey carried out by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research released on Tuesday.