Safwat al-Sharif, the Minister of Culture in Egypt, insists that a television serial that depends on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion for plot elements will be shown during the fasting month of Ramadan despite Israeli protests. The "Protocols" are a forgery cooked up by the tsarist police in the early 20th century and depict Jews as engaged in a powerful conspiracy to control the world. The television serial applies this scenario to the Middle East.



Al-Sharif says the serial is not anti-semitic, but what he appears to mean to say is that it is not anti-Judaic. That is, it casts no slurs on the Jewish religion. Blasphemy against any of the "heavenly" religions is forbidden in Egypt. From all accounts the serial is in fact antisemitic, and there is a danger of it spreading European-style hatred of Jews to the Arab masses.



Muslim culture did not have the same sort of racially based antisemitism as arose in Europe. Indeed, on the whole and by and large Muslims treated Jews much better than Europeans did in the medieval period (there were unfortunate lapses of course, but Islam recognized Judaism as a legitimate religion in a way that Christendom did not). Before the 19th century the blood libel was unknown in the Middle East, and even then it mainly was introduced among Middle Eastern Christians and on a small scale.



To any extent that contemporary Muslims have a problem with Jews, it is largely driven by what they see as injustices done by Zionists to the Palestinians. Most Muslims when pressed would insist that there is a difference between criticizing Zionism and criticizing Jews per se.



But this television serial, in ascribing unsavory conspiracies aimed a regional domination to the Jewish people partakes of a new sort of antisemitism in the Arab world, which self-consciously draws on the European traditions.



Egypt is better than this, and it is a sad thing to see the government license the fostering of hatred toward a people on whom the Koran bestows much praise, whose religion is recognized in Islam as "heavenly." The demonization of any people is always wrong. Beyond the ethics of it, the Middle East is such a powder keg that it is just plain dangerous to give a mass audience the idea that Jews want to take over their governments and rule them. Someday some terrorist is going to do something truly horrible out of such motivations, and Safwat al-Sharif will bear part of the blame.



On the other hand, the increasing respectability within Israel of talking about the "transfer" (i.e. ethnic cleansing) of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza is an even more alarming development on the other side. There can be no "voluntary" Palestinian exodus, only one attended with great bloodshed and violence. Israelis who contemplate such a thing, and Ariel Sharon may be among them, appear not to realize that such an action would throw the Middle East into turmoil and endanger Israeli security. Egypt's peace treaty with Israel, and the fairly good relations with Jordan, are not written in stone. Arabs are already angry about the lack of progress toward a Palestinian state. Ethnic cleansing would produce massive protests and change the face of the region permanently, and not in a way that would enhance Israeli security in the long run.

Iranian President Khatami attacked the idea of a US war against Iraq forcefully while in Spain this week.



Officially, Iran has all along loudly denounced the idea of a US invasion of Iraq. . The ruling ayatollahs are afraid, I think of having the US in place on both major borders--in Afghanistan and in Iraq. They would be surrounded! And, Bush after all named them as part of an axis of evil and they have reason to be afraid that they are next on his hit list.



On the other hand, the expatriate Iraqi group, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, headed by the Hakim family, is hosted by Tehran and has been in close contact with the Pentagon about cooperating with an American attack. SCIRI has 10,000 troops in its al-Badr Brigade, which could come across from Iran into Iraq to support a US invasion. Although SCIRI has been criticized for these contacts by some ayatollahs, to my knowledge it has not been stopped from exploring them.



The idea of a Shi`ite-dominated Iraq, which is what would develop if Iraq had a parliamentary democracy (they are 60-65% of the population) must be appealing to Tehran.



So, I think they are of two minds about it.

The Jordanian officials are conducting interrogations of Muslim fundamentalists in Jordan concering the assassination of Laurence Foley, the head of US AID in Amman. An al-Qaeda link is suspected, but it is also admitted that in the current atmosphere it could have been the act of a local group. A group called Honest People of Jordan has taken responsibility, according to UPI. The group's statement on a web site indicated they had acted because of US support for Israeli actions in the West Bank. They appear to be radical Islamists.



This brutal murder will set back, not aid their cause. Foley, 60, had devoted his life to development efforts, and was trying to help Jordanians, who, God knows, need economic development aid. It is to weep.



In the meantime, two mansions belonging to a major tribal leader in Yemen were blown up, and an al-Qaeda connection is suspected there, too. This tribal leader had cooperated with Yemeni government attempts to curb al-Qaeda activities in that country.

Feuding in Northern Afghanistan



US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and US Ambassador to Afghanistan Robert Finn met with warlords in Mazar-i Sharif Monday. The factional fighting between soldiers loyal to Uzbek leader Abdul Rashid Dostum and Tajik commander Muhammad Atta has roiled the hinterlands of Mazar in the past few months. The fighting is local, and often appears to break out with no order from the commander. But it is interfering in the development of the north and the return of security.



Northern Afghanistan has the mineral wealth and the infrastructure to help lead the rest of the country back to economic health if its leaders can get their act together. It is not clear, however, that just having high-level meetings with the warlords will resolve the problems. They are warlords. This is what they do--fight for territory and perks. Until the US can train a national army and can demobilize or incorporate these militias, they will likely go on fighting with one another. I suppose they can be kept partially in check by the threat of the US use of air forces against them if they get out of hand. But actually attacking Afghans now is politically difficult and could create a backlash, especially in the Pushtun south where a lot of people do not like the Americans to begin with.



The other possibility is to withhold international aid disbursements as a way of influencing the warlords. This seems to be being tried. I am not sure it can succeed.



Down the road there may be a showdown. President Karzai is already talking of sacking regional governors who can't keep the peace. This is mainly bravado, since Dostum and his forces, and Atta and his, could at the moment wipe the mat with Karzai and his tiny armed force in Kabul.



The brilliant strategy the US employed to overthrow the Taliban, of enlisting the old Mujahidin warlords in the effort, has now come back to haunt us. With Afghanistanis again in danger of starving in large numbers this winter and in desperate need of development aid, the feuds of the warlords are too costly to be borne. But there are few good options for stopping them.



Khalilzad expressed himself sanguine about the recent elections in Pakistan, which put the fundamentalist parties in charge of the Northwest Frontier, where al-Qaeda and Taliban elements are still hiding out. The parties say they want to expel US armed forces and FBI agents tracking down the terrorists. Khalilzad says that security is a Federal responsibility and that fundamentalist control of the provinces is irrelevant. This point is probably true, since the army will decide these things. But the problem is that there are many sympathizers in the army with the fundamentalists. And, moreover, the fundamentalists may well be a swing vote or a coalition partner in the Federal parliament, so they aren't just a problem in the provinces.

Iraq War would bring increase in Terrorism: Oxford Report



Jane Merrick of the Press Association reported that the Oxford Research Group believes and Iraq war will increase terrorism by al-Qaeda against the United States. It believes that 10,000 civilians will die in an American attack on Iraq. Paul Rogers, a professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University, said that Saddam would likely use chemical and biological weapons in the war. He foresaw an increase in support for al-Qaeda as a backlash against the war in the region.



Rogers thinks Saddam will try to draw the war out and make it as costly as possible for the Americans. "Almost certainly, the dominant strand of thinking within the Saddam Hussein regime is the imperative for survival. This must not be underestimated - it transcends every other objective."



Meanwhile, evidence mounts of Serbian-Bosnian involvement in supplying military materiel to Iraq.



And, at the United Nations, France is now calling for a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Security Council states, to hammer out a compromise resolution on weapons inspections in Iraq. The US has been pressing for a resolution that would be broad enough to authorize military action without the necessity of coming back to the council. Russia and France are strongly resisting such language.

Fate of Iraqi Political Prisoners Unknown



Iraqi organizations and notables in London have called on the Iraqi government to account for what they claim are tens of thousands of political prisoners. These were supposed to have been released in the general amnesty bestowed during the past week, but they were not. (Reported by Asharq al-Awsat).



Thousands of university professors, Shi`ite clerics, Kurds, Iraqis of Iranian extraction, and dissidents have disappeared in Iraq since 1980, especially during the uprisings of March, 1991, in the wake of the Gulf War.



The call for a full accounting of the 'disappeared' and imprisoned was launched by Muhammad Bahr al-`Ulum and `Alam al-Din in London. Iraqi expatriates also addressed appeals to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to ensure that Security Council Resolution 688 requiring the Iraqi regime to ensure human rights for its citizens be implemented.



The odiousness of the Saddam Hussein regime and the fact that it has killed or imprisoned so many are among the things that make it hard for me to take a strong stand against the idea of regime change.



In other Iraq news, President Bush said in Mexico City that he is willing to go to war with Iraq without a mandate from the UN Security Council.



Earth to George: This would be a Very Bad Idea.

Abu Qatadah Arrested-- Key Figure in al-Qaeda



The Palestinian cleric Umar Muhammad Abu Umar ("Abu Qatada"), 40, was

arrested in a Wednesday raid on a council house in Bermondsey, south

London. Suspected by many European authorities of being a key figure in

al-Qaeda, he and his family had been missing since last December.



British authorities tracked him down after he published on the internet a treatise

called, "The Legal Vision for the September 11 Events," which attempted to

provide justification for those monstrous attacks.



He had links with Usama Bin Laden, and videos of his sermons were found

in the Hamburg apartment of hijacker Muhammad Atta. The British inability

to find him had provoked strains with France in recent months, and the French

even speculated that MI5 had him in a safe house somewhere.



Jordan also wants to extradite him, for funding terrorism, and he has been

sentenced to death in absentia there (he has Jordanian citizenship).



British courts have ruled that foreigners may be indefinitely held in prison under

the provisions of the new anti-terrorism law. Some 10 Muslim radicals are being

held at the moment, including Abu Qatada.



He has links to the Tawhid organization in Germany, and was implicated in the

funding of a Spanish terrorist cell that has now been broken up. He has given

vicious rulings or fatwas justifying the killing of the wives and children of any

Algerians who oppose the fundamentalists there.



In other words, this is a very dangerous character who appears to have fingers

in several terrorist operations and who has provided material support to them.

I'm glad he's finally in jail.