The Bitter Fruits of the Arab Spring

In a new book entitled A Rage for Order, the journalist Robert Worth tells the story of the Arab Spring and its bloody aftermath through a series of vignettes. Adam Kirsch writes in his review:

[I]n Egypt, as in Syria and the other places Worth covers, the initial enthusiasm [of 2011] obscured the fatal deficit of trust among citizens. Divisions between liberals and Islamists, civilians and the military, rebels and supporters of the old regime proved to be too poisonous and deeply rooted to be overcome. When the Muslim Brotherhood managed to elect their candidate, Mohammed Morsi, to the presidency, many former rebels urged the military to step in and oust him. The new military ruler, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, immediately became the subject of a cult of personality, his likeness appearing on “flags, pins, pictures, chocolate, cups, and other forms of Sisi mania,” in the words of a newspaper article quoted by Worth. When Sisi’s forces massacred 800 Islamists in Cairo, liberals applauded.

In Egypt, however, at least the state survived. The same can’t be said of Yemen, where the decades-long dictatorship of Ali Abdullah Saleh had no sooner ended than Saleh was back at the head of a Shiite coalition, doing battle with Saudi-funded Sunni forces. . . .

It is the disintegration of countries like Yemen, Syria, and Libya that, in Worth’s view, explains the rise and the surprising allure of Islamic State. As his title A Rage for Order suggests, Worth sees the Arab peoples as motivated by a longing not for freedom or justice but for something more basic: the rule of law, the basic predictability of life, that only a functioning state can provide. . . . This is a Hobbesian view of government: rather than a state of nature where all war against all, better to have a single ruler with a monopoly on violence, no matter how arbitrary.

Read more at Tablet

More about: Arab Spring, Egypt, General Sisi, Middle East, Politics & Current Affairs, Thomas Hobbes, Yemen

Expand Gaza into Sinai

Feb. 11 2025

Calling the proposal to depopulate Gaza completely (if temporarily) “unworkable,” Peter Berkowitz makes the case for a similar, but more feasible, plan:

The United States along with Saudi Arabia and the UAE should persuade Egypt by means of generous financial inducements to open the sparsely populated ten-to-fifteen miles of Sinai adjacent to Gaza to Palestinians seeking a fresh start and better life. Egypt would not absorb Gazans and make them citizens but rather move Gaza’s border . . . westward into Sinai. Fences would be erected along the new border. The Israel Defense Force would maintain border security on the Gaza-extension side, Egyptian forces on the other. Egypt might lease the land to the Palestinians for 75 years.

The Sinai option does not involve forced transfer of civilian populations, which the international laws of war bar. As the United States, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other partners build temporary dwellings and then apartment buildings and towns, they would provide bus service to the Gaza-extension. Palestinian families that choose to make the short trip would receive a key to a new residence and, say, $10,000.

The Sinai option is flawed. . . . Then again, all conventional options for rehabilitating and governing Gaza are terrible.

Read more at RealClear Politics

More about: Donald Trump, Egypt, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula