The Middle East & North Africa
Two thousand eight marks the 70th anniversary of U.S. diplomatic recognition of Israel and 70 years of unending animosity between Israel and Palestinian Arabs. But 2006-2007 saw new complications: a power split between the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, which controls Palestinian areas on the West Bank (formerly Trans-Jordan), and the Hamas-dominated Gaza Strip; the new power balance between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon; and the re-engagement of the U.S. with the mid-November 2007 diplomatic summit at Annapolis, Maryland. This gathering, the first really substantive involvement in the Palestinian-Israeli negotiating process by the Bush administration, brought together nearly 50 mostly-Arab and Muslim countries and organizations in a show of support for renewed efforts by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and PA President Mahmoud Abbas to solve all “core issues” by the end of 2008: borders of the Palestinian state, right of return and the status of East Jerusalem.
Obviously, the disunity within the Palestinian ranks between Hamas and Fatah complicate implementation of any agreements between Abbas and Olmert. Hamas has already said they will not accept any concessions made by Abbas in his talks with the Israelis. And as the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) made clear on Dec. 11, 2007, negotiations with Abbas are a separate track from IDF multiple operations into Gaza to find and destroy Qassam rockets fired from Gaza into Israel.
Although the United States has roundly castigated Syria for not better controlling its border with Iraq, thereby allowing foreign fighters to cross into Iraq, Damascus was invited to Annapolis – and came. Syria would like to regain the Golan Heights, seized by Israel in the 1967 war, reach some accommodation with Tel Aviv as to each country’s sphere of influence, and sign a formal peace treaty.
Syria also is vying for significant influence in Lebanon, whose territory south of the Litani River serves as the principal base for Hezbollah. Lebanon itself barely escaped a constitutional crisis when the speaker of the Lebanese parliament postponed for the fifth time a vote to elect a successor for President Emile Lahoud, whose term of office expired Nov. 23. The compromise finally worked out among the various confessional power-brokers called for amending the Lebanese constitution to allow the highly respected Commander of the Lebanese armed forces, Gen. Michel Suleiman, to become president. Since Suleiman is a Maronite Christian, no change in the division of political leadership positions among the major religious sects was required.
Given Syria’s involvement in Lebanese affairs, it is a bit of a surprise that Damascus has not been vocal on this compromise. It is possible, however that they have “spoken” – as they seem to do so often – through assassinations of opponents. On Dec. 12, a roadside bomb killed Gen. Francois Hajj who had been tipped to succeed Gen. Suleiman as head of the Lebanese military.
Fifteen years after the Algerian army voided the 1992 elections that would have brought Islamic fundamentalists to power, it looked as if the main anti-government militant organization, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) was nearing exhaustion. In 2006, under an amnesty, 2,000 former insurgents were freed. Then in February 2007, the GSPC allied with a group calling itself Maghreb al-Qaeda, and attacks against government forces and personnel accelerated again. One attack in April 2007 killed 33 in Algiers. Available reports list 435 people killed in the renewed violence in the first ten months of 2007. And while only six deaths were attributed to anti-government fighters in November, on Dec. 11 two bombs in Algiers killed at least 41 people and increased the level of fear throughout the capital.
