The demise of Oslo and Hamas’s political engagement

Abstract

This article explores the consequences of the Oslo Accords on the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas. It shows how the movement positioned itself from the onset in opposition to the treaty and ensuing peace negotiations, rejecting the changes which took place within the Palestinian political establishment; namely, the creation of the interim self-governing Palestinian Authority. It demonstrates how Hamas’s refusal to grant the Oslo Accords any legitimacy was a primary factor in its decision to boycott the first Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections in 1996. With the failure of the peace negotiations and the subsequent eruption of the Second Palestinian Intifada, the framework for the implementation of the Oslo Accords was seen to have effectively collapsed. This article argues that it is this perceived ‘demise’ of the peace process which—to a large extent—underpinned Hamas’s decision to participate in the PLC elections a decade later, in 2006. In mapping this transition, the article explores the factors motivating Hamas’s subsequent entry into the Palestinian political establishment.     

American military presence in Europe

Despite the efforts put into negotiations, they have created a self-perpetuating cycle of disappointment, frustration and empty dialogue. With contradictory Palestinian and Israeli agendas – Palestinians negotiating for an independent state, an end to occupation, etc., and Israel negotiating primarily over security concerns – one must question the reason behind prolonged negotiations. Is US mediation, accused by many of extreme bias towards Israel, to blame? Or are negotiations an Israeli objective to execute a particular political agenda? In spite of the international community's recognition of establishing an independent Palestinian state, the current reality on the ground undermines any creation of one. This reality was allowed only by the strategic prolonging of negotiations. A particular focus on the proceedings following the Oslo Accords explains how Palestinian--Israeli negotiations have been used to pursue a specific objective.     

Jordan and the Abraham Accords

This article argues that Jordan should advocate for transforming the Abraham Accords’ regional integration initiatives into a regional security architecture that brings prosperity and security to all its members—including the Palestinians. Jordan is well positioned to influence the Accords’ strategic planners given its credibility, diplomatic assets, and strategic location; it will continue to be a lynchpin in regional security and future integration plans.     

Dual engagement: France and the Persian Gulf

With the end of the Cold War international relations began anew without the bipolar constraints of two ideologically opposed superpowers. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990 represented the first challenge to the nascent post‐Cold War Persian Gulf security environment. Within the region, France is once again increasingly active in the economic, political and military fields. The re‐evaluation of Washington's ability to remain engaged at its current levels within the Gulf may be attributed in large part to a growing sensitivity in Riyadh and other Arab capitals to the visible US presence coupled with an American foreign policy which is, at times, inconsistent. The net future effect of contemporary trends may be one in which the Gulf Sheikhdoms welcome French ascendancy and US decline. France has experienced its own foreign policy transformation marked by the leadership of President Chirac. Where President Mitterrand sought the role of power broker in regional affairs, President Chirac seeks increased influence and importance.     

中东2019：内外危机加剧与地区格局失衡

2019年中东局势呈现内外危机加剧、地区格局失衡两大特征。从大国看,美国针对伊朗的"极限施压"空前严厉,伊朗设法反制,双方游走冲突边缘。美伊对峙的松与紧影响着波斯湾与西亚的安与危。从地区看,苏丹、阿尔及利亚、伊拉克、黎巴嫩四个阿拉伯国家爆发持续性民众抗议,冲击旧政治体制,上演新版"阿拉伯之春"。四国动荡加剧阿拉伯阵营弱化,引发土耳其、以色列、伊朗三强竞夺,地区格局进一步失衡。美伊关系紧张、阿拉伯世界弱化、地区格局失衡既是老问题,又有新表现,持续搅乱中东局势。     

Israel and the Palestinians in a Changing Neighbourhood

The political and strategic landscape of the Middle East and North African region has changed dramatically since late 2010 and the events now loosely defined as the ‘Arab Spring’. The dust has yet to settle in many Arab capitals and 2013 is set to be another defining year for the greater Middle East as regional actors, particularly new Islamist-led governments, take on more direct roles in influencing political, military and social developments in the Arab world. Israel and the Palestinian factions of Hamas and Fatah are not immune to these developments and while progress towards peace has been all but non-existent, change in the region must not necessarily lead to more tensions and conflict. The EU and US should work to establish greater Arab ownership of the diplomatic process, convince Israel that its security is best served by assuming a proactive approach to its changing neighbourhood and strive to harness the new realities in the region to modify the incentive calculus of the major domestic players in the conflict.     

The Unintended Consequences of the EU’s Rural Development Programme in the Arab Countryside

ABSTRACT

After the Arab revolts, the EU designed a new regional rural development programme to address the various political and economic threats in the Arab Mediterranean countryside. Although the programme is based on a new cognitive framework, it has generated unintended consequences that undermine its effectiveness. These consequences were predictable. They are a product of path dependency and the inability of policymakers to draw lessons from previous EU initiatives with similar aims and to contextualise the relationship between small farmers and political elites in the Arab countryside.     

A Changing Mediterranean: Regional Organisations and North Africa during the Arab Spring

This article discusses the role played by the European Union, African Union and Arab League in the recent revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. It focuses in particular on the use and impact of political and economic conditionality, the decision-making processes within each organisation and the inter-regional forums created to deal with the crisis. The analysis acknowledges the increasingly active and vocal role played by regional organisations in the so-called ‘Arab spring’, but it highlights not just that they had few legal powers to intervene in these crises, but also that they seemed very reluctant to use any form of political or economic conditionality. It also reveals that the main purpose of inter-regional forums was arguably not to generate consensus internationally but rather to manage dissent. As such, the article encourages a reflection on the specific challenges and opportunities that North Africa and the Mediterranean region pose to regional conflict management.     

Self-expression values,loyalty generation,and support for authoritarianism: evidence from the Arab world

This study examines the micro foundations of political support in Arab polities. Most Arab states rank highly in aggregate human development or economic wealth, but they lag behind in democracy defying the predictions of modernization theory. Modernization and human development perspective implies that increased resources and self-expression values will induce critical political outlooks toward the regime. This study questions the applicability of this theory to the Arab region and proposes that colonial state formation history, international patron–client relations, and the domestic patronage networks have more leverage in explaining regime support in the Arab region. A series of multilevel and fixed effects regression estimations utilizing the Arab Democracy Barometer reveal that modernization perspective has some relevance. However, world system theory inspired patron–client perspective and loyalty generation through domestic distributive mechanisms play a greater role in shaping political attitudes. The results provide important insights about micro foundations of Arab authoritarianism and the differential utility of emancipative values formed in the context of hierarchical world order.     

The Middle East: Learning from the Past

The effort to bring peace to the Middle East has been an almost century long process. Legions of soldiers, politicians, and diplomats have attempted the political equivalent of transmuting dross into gold. They have failed; none more comprehensively than President Bill Clinton and his Middle East interlocutors. Despite personal energy, intelligence, and creativity, U.S. efforts failed. After a stretch of benign/malign neglect, Washington again is venturing into the swamp by sponsoring renewed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. There are learnable lessons from what has been (mis)managed in the past. The question remains whether the United States will take counsel from them.     

Choosing Transformation over Crisis in the Levant

A brief window of opportunity for an Israeli-Palestinian peace process has opened up since the Hamas-Fatah confrontation in Gaza in June. Yet the governments of both Israel and Palestine are weak, and if they fall, this could cause further instability and violence. More robust international involvement is required, including closer coordination and consultation between the Quartet and the Arab Quartet. A comprehensive process towards a final-status deal must be undertaken. This would include a new timetable for implementation of existing framework agreements, an international implementation and enforcement mechanism with close monitoring and compliance facilities, and a built-in conflict resolution mechanism to help the parties overcome disagreements in the process. Once serious progress is made on the peace front with the current Palestinian government, a concerted effort will have to be made to promote Fatah-Hamas reconciliation with a view to reintegrating Hamas into the political process.     

Arms transfer and recipient cooperation with supplier policy references: The case of the Middle East

The principal hypothesis of this paper is that the utility of arms transfers as an instrument of supplier influence is highly dependent upon two sets of variables over which the supplier has little control. This is partly because the recipeints’ demand for arms rests largely on forces outside the major power suppliers’ control. The relative impact of arms transfers is evaluated in conjunction with 1) the arms transfers to the recipients's principal local adversary; 2) the intensity of the recipient's conflict involvement; 3) the amount of political support it receives from its major power supplier/patron; and 4) the identity of the supplier country itself. Recipient countries are Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Supplier countries are France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States for the years 1947–1973.

Combat aircraft weighted by their performance characteristics and treated as the dominant weapon system are used as the “arms transfers” variable. Conflict, cooperation and political support variables include both verbal and non‐verbal actions weighted for their relative intensity by a 13 point interval scale.

Multiple regression using standardized (beta) coefficients is used in a time series analysis to determine the relative impact of arms transfers and other salient influences on the intensity of recipient cooperation to its principal major power supplier.

The findings in general support the main hypothesis. They suggest that arms transfers may be one useful instrument for extracting additional increments of cooperation from Egypt and Israel, (particularly in the context of Egyptian‐Israeli peace negotiations) but not for any of the other recipients in the study. However, this inference is valid only so long as those two countries continue to be engaged in an arms race with each other, heavily involved in conflict with their neighbors, and economically dependent upon outside powers. Cooperation of the Arab states with their respective major power suppliers is more strongly affected by the quantity of arms transferred to their respective regional adversaries and the intensity of political support from their suppliers than by their own arms transfers. Given the differential impact that the identity of the supplier had on cooperation intensity one conclusion is that the major power suppliers may not be equally successful in using arms as an instrument of political influence. Another is that the development of a “special relationship” between supplier and recipient in conjunction with supplier support for the recipient is probably a prerequisite for effectively using arms transfers as an instrument of supplier influence or coercion.     

The political economy of the Trans-Pacific Partnership: a US perspective

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), signed in February 2016, is the most ambitious free trade deal of the postwar era. The 12 TPP countries account for nearly 40 percent of the world's economy. Coupled with the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership—which is still being negotiated between the United States and the European Union—the TPP represents an attempt by the Obama Administration to lead in promoting regional trade and investment arrangements despite the failure of the Doha Round to reach a comprehensive global trade deal under the auspices of the World Trade Organization. Although the agreement among the 12 TPP countries has been reached, ratification by their legislatures is pending. Ratification by the US Congress remains uncertain due to complex economic and political factors in the United States, including the presidential election of 2016.     

Why do some Arab citizens see democracy as unsuitable for their country?

Why do some Arab citizens regard democracy favourably but see it as unsuitable for their country? Modernization theory contends that economic development creates modern citizens who demand democracy. Cultural theories see Islam and democracy as incompatible. Government performance theories argue that citizens who perceive the current authoritarian government as acting in a transparent manner will demand greater democracy. I argue that attitudes toward democracy are shaped by beliefs about its political, economic, and religious consequences, including those related to sectarianism. I test this consequence-based theory using Arab Barometer data from six nations. Sixty percent hold favourable views of democracy generally and for their country, while 7% reject democracy. Twenty-seven percent support democracy generally but see it as unsuitable for their country. Beliefs that democracy will have negative consequences and perceptions of poor government performance are the most important predictors of democracy's unsuitability. Modernization theory receives support, but Islamic identity and beliefs do not consistently predict attitudes in the expected direction. These findings offer a more nuanced understanding of Arab public opinion and suggest that concerns about the consequences of free elections affect support for democracy as much as assessments of the political and economic performance of the current authoritarian regime.     

The Rise and Demise of the Two-State Paradigm

The conventional wisdom recommends the establishment of a Palestinian state to bring about an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (the two-state paradigm). This article first reviews the confluence of domestic and international factors that led to the resurgence of the two-state paradigm. Next, it concludes that a peaceful outcome in accordance with this paradigm is unlikely to emerge in the near future: the two national movements, the Palestinian and the Zionist, are not close to a historic compromise, and the Palestinians are not able to build a state. Finally, the article analyzes the policy options available to policymakers. State-building is unlikely to succeed. Similarly, a binational state, where Arabs and Jews live peacefully together is not within reach. A regional approach that advocates a greater role for Arab states in Palestinian affairs has better chances of stabilizing the situation than the previous options. Finally, in the absence of a solution, the most realistic policy appears to be conflict management.     

The (in)tangible Euro challenge to the dollar: insights from the financial elites in Brazil and China

The main purpose of this article is to shift the dollar vs Euro debate away from US–EU centrism to perspectives from emerging markets. Drawing on 40 semistructured financial elite interviews in Brazil and China, the key research question studied here is whether the US dollar is malfunctioning as the leading international currency in these parts of the world, and, if so, whether the Euro can be an alternative to the greenback. The results show that the status of the dollar as the main anchor in the monetary system is seriously questioned among financial elites in China and Brazil. As yet, though, the Euro does not represent an alternative to the dollar because of its fiscal and political fragmentations. However, despite these institutional shortcomings, the European currency is seen as an ideational role model for super-sovereign monetary integration out of dollar unipolarity based on consensual negotiations not only on a regional, but also on a global scale.     

阿拉伯国家政治文化的多维考量

阿拉伯国家的政治文化是阿拉伯民族关于政治生活的心理学。阿拉伯国家的政治文化只是阿拉伯文化流变历史进程中的一个组成部分,具有一定的独立性与特殊性。第二次世界大战后至今,阿拉伯地区政治生态先后经历了民族国家构建、伊斯兰复兴运动以及最近席卷西亚北非的"阿拉伯之春"。在此期间诸多政治思潮、宗教主义与文化观念融入到阿拉伯国家,深入到政治生活的各个层面,构成阿拉伯国家政治文化丰富多彩的内容。由于阿拉伯世界特殊的宗教地域特色,导致其政治文化不可避免地具有阿拉伯民族性与伊斯兰宗教性,二者的此消彼长则是阿拉伯政治文化最鲜明的结构模式。     

Jordan: Between the Arab Spring and the Gulf Cooperation Council

The Arab Spring has fundamentally shifted the strategic balance in the Middle East. As all sides rush to ensure that their interests will be secured, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has emerged as a key battleground between those who would like to see a more democratic region, and those who would like to maintain economic stability. On one side of this debate is the Gulf Cooperation Council, led by Saudi Arabia, that views democratic reform as a threat to economic stability. On the other side are the forces of the Arab Spring, which have called for political reform in states such as Egypt, Syria, and Libya, even if these reforms come at the expense of stability. This article examines the various forces, both domestic and international, that are attempting to influence Jordan, and through it, the balance of power in the Arab World.     

中东剧变与阿拉伯世界的未来

当前中东正经历的历史性剧变,不仅引发阿拉伯世界的集体大动荡,而且严重冲击地区政治、安全和地缘政治关系,也对大国的中东政策构成重大挑战。未来中东局势改革已势在必行;伊斯兰政治力量将增大,阿拉伯世界长期陷入内乱,伊朗、土耳其将谋求发挥更大地区影响力;美国全球战略与中东政策面临多重结构性挑战;欧盟在外交、能源、安全、移民等方面遭遇前所未有的压力;国际原油市场受冲击从而影响全球经济复苏。     

The Arab middle east and the question of democratization: Some critical remarks

While many of the contemporary writings on Middle Eastern political change contend that democratization is under way in the Arab world, this article maintains that much of the recent optimism is due to a lack of terminological clarity. Neither are there any Arab democracies today, nor is there any tangible democratization in this region. Adherents of the democratization hypothesis in the Arab world invoke mainly two arguments: that of a strengthened civil society and that of economic transformation, which are supposed to trigger democratization. Both arguments are discussed with the finding that they do not provide convincing evidence to support such hypotheses. Rather, systemic transitions from non‐democracies to other non‐democratic systems are likely developments in the Arab Middle East. Comparative research should therefore focus not only on the ‘breakdown of democratic regimes’ or ‘democratic transitions’, but develop models better to grasp non‐democratic transitions.