the international politics of the middle east

1. DR. ILKSOY ASLIM
IR 426
MIDDLE EAST
LECTURE NOTES

2. EGYPT
Dynamics shaping Egyptian political life:
1. 1922 Unilateral independence from British
Protectorate rule
2. 1936 Independence Year
3. 1952 Coup D’etat
4. 1953 Jamal Abdul Nasser came to power
5. 1956 Suez War

3. EGYPT

4. EGYPT
Dynamics shaping Egyptian political life:
1. 1922 Unilateral independence from British
Protectorate rule
2. 1936 Independence Year
3. 1952 Coup D’etat
4. 1953 Jamal Abdul Nasser came to power
5. 1956 Suez War

5. Continue...
6. 1962 Establishment of “ASU”: Arab Socialist
Union (Nasser’s political party)
7. Increase in armed forces
8. Extention of bureaucracy
9. 1967 Arab-Israeli War
10. Anwar Sadat Era (1970 – 1981)
11. 1977 onwards: Sadat’s policy of political
liberalization

6. Nasser Era: 1953 - 1969
 Impact of Nasserism
 Single – party system
 Electoral Law
 Relations with the Ikhwan al- Muslimin; Muslim
Brotherhood Society: “Uneasy Relationship”
 Role of Presidency
 Parliament
 Army

7. Single-Party System in Egypt under Nasser
Presidency:
 Please read:
Roger Owen, “State, Power and Politics in the
Making of the Modern Middle East”; pp: 32 –
54.
Egypt is one of the cases...

8. SADAT Era:
 Towards a multi-party system:
Dissolution of ASU into 3 political parties: Right,
Left & Center
Center is named as National Democrat Party
(NDP) which still the “ruling party” of Egypt
today...
 Economic liberalization policies
 Camp David Accords with Israel

9. Camp David Accords: 1978 -79
 Under the US auspicies (US President Jimmy
Carter) Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin
and Egyptian President Sadat signed the
Camp David Accords.
 Peace-making with Israel: Is the Camp David
Accords led to the normalization of relations
with Israel?
 Assassination of Sadat in 1981

10. DEMOCRATIZATION
Old Politics & New Problem
 Democratization and political liberalization in
the Middle East became the catchworks of the
1990s, reflecting a new crisis of legitimacy for
many regimes and pressure from the masses
for change and progress.

11. The drive for democratization;
 Presupposed the absence of democratic trends in the
region and the incompatibility of Arab and Muslim
ideologies with accompanying notions of freedom,
pluralism and participation.
 As Simon Bromley suggests; “democracies are
STRANGERS to the Middle East...The limited post-
independence experiments with democratic politics did
not survive the rise of nationalist forces searching
modernization and independence...”
 The regimes were affected either by monarchical rules
or oil wealth!

12. 1990s... Democratization in the ME
 During 1990s the path of democratization was
seen as a positive phenomenon.
 The question of cultural authenticity = rejection
of western models of governments among the
locals
 Orientalism (Bernard Lewis)

13. For instance Lewis;
 Argues that the GAP between western and
Arab notions of freedom highlights the
antipathy of the particular culture to
democracy...

14. Examples of democratic openings:
 Many states of the ME have been seen to
engage in some form of political liberalizing
process such as more open elections in
Jordan, Egypt, Algeria, Israel, Kuwait and Iran.
 But there is a distinction between political
liberalization & democratization.

15. Political Liberalization;
 Involves “the expansion of public space
through the recognition and protection of civil
and political liberties”
 Democratization involves; “an expansion of
political participation ... to provide citizens with
a degree of real and meaningful collective
control over public policy”

16. ISRAEL: ASPECTS
SHAPING ISRAELI
POLITICAL
LANDSCAPE
For reference please see: Beverly Milton-
Edwards, Chp: 6 (Section: Case study on
Israel)

17. Political History:
 The modern state of Israel has developed from the
Zionist campaign for a Jewish state in Palestine and the
Balfour Declaration (1917) in which the Jewish
demand for a national home was supported by Britain.
 Under the British mandate (from 1922) in Palestine the
Jewish community increased from 10% of the population
in 1918 to about 30% in 1936.
 Britain abandoned the partition solution and brought the
Palestine problem to the United Nations in 1947. A UN
special commission recommended partition and a
resolution to that effect passed the General Assembly.

18.  The British mandate ended on 14 May 1948 and the independent
Jewish state of Israel in Palestine was established.
 The creation of the state was opposed by the Palestinian Arabs
supported by Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt, but after a violent
conflict Israel survived and considerably enlarged its territory at the
expense of the proposed Arab state.
 A substantial Palestinian refugee was created as many Arabs fled
from Israel-controlled territory.
 Further Arab-Israeli wars took place in 1956 (Suez War), 1967 (Six
Days War), 1973 War and 1982 Lebanese invasion.
 As a result of these wars Israel extended its occupation to include
all the territory of the former British mandate.

19.  Results of 1948 Arab-Israeli War: West Bank
(including East Jerusalem) was annexed by
Jordan and Gaza Strip was controlled by
Egypt.
 Results of 1967 Arab-Israeli War: West Bank &
East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights
(from Syria) invaded by Israel.

20. Dynamics constructing Israeli society:
Dynamics constructing Israeli society

21. There are four main dynamics shaping
Israeli political system
 Impact of Zionism and the idea of “return of
Jewish diaspora to homeland”
 Ethnic and religious differences between Arab
Israelis and Jews
 Impact of the Palestine Question and
unsettlement of the Arab-Israeli dispute + Jews
settlements on the Occupied Territories
 Division among the secular Jews and religious
groupings. The religious groups are broadly
divided into two categories:
 Zionist religious Jews (comprises 8% of Israeli soceity)
 Anti-Zionist religious Jews (called Haredim comprises
4.5% of Israeli population)

22. Political Parties in Israel:
 For convenience the political parties may be divided into four
groups;
 The left is dominated by “Mapai” and transformed in 1968 into the
Israeli Labour Party. They adopted a Socialist Zionist policy. Until
1977 Arab voters voted in fvaour for Mapai and the communists.
 The right is dominated by two main group, “Herut” (freedom) which
was in effect the old Revisionist party and the liberal Zionists who
allied with Herut in 1964 to form Gahal (the forunner of Likud in
1973). The Likud is more successful among the Orientals.
 The religious parties are MafDal and Shas
 The last group is the communists in the country.

23.  From 1949-1977 Israeli governments were
formed by coalitions led by Mapai (the Left).
Until his retirement in 1963 the dominant
political figure was David Ben Gurion who
served as prime minister for the whole of the
period from the Labour Party.
 Cabinets in Israel were dominated by
Ashkenazis (80% of the cabinet ministers were
in this category) and 10% of them were sabras
(that is born in Israel) and 10% were Orientals
(Sephardic Jews).

24.  Labour’s domination of the goverment between 1948-
1977 was reflected in its prominence in two other major
Israeli institutions each of which had its origins in the
mandatory period. One of them is Histadrut and the
other is the army.
 After independence Histadrut retained its position as
the principal economic institution of Israel being at once
trade union, employer, friendly soceity and provider of
social services. In 1983 it has 1.6 million members and
employed more than a quarter of a million people and
ran the largest industrial enterprises in the country.

25. SYRIA & LEBANON
Politics, Power and civil war

26.  Ethnic groups
 Arab 90.3%, Kurds, Armenians, and other 9.7%
 Religions
 Sunni Muslim 74%, other Muslim (includes
Alawite, Druze) 16%, Christian (various
denominations) 10%, Jewish (tiny communities
in Damascus, Al Qamishli, and Aleppo)

27. SYRIA: Al-Asad Rule
 In the aftermath of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War:
 Led to a change in the political power
particularly in Iraq & Syria
 In 1970 – Hafız Al-Asad took the control of the
political power in Syria
 Both Iraq & Syria will then ruled by single party
regimes

28. Impact of the Ba’th Party
(Resurrection/ Reawakening)
 The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party (also spelled
Ba'th or Baath which means "resurrection" or
"renaissance"
 It is a secularist political party with strong
socialist and Arab nationalist interests, opposed
to what it sees as "Western imperialism" and
calling for the "renaissance" or "resurrection" of
the Arab World and its unity in one united state.

29.  Its main ideas are: "Unity, Liberty, Socialism"
(wahda, hurriya, ishtirakiya) — refers to Arab
unity, freedom from non-Arab control and
interference, and Arab socialism rather than to
European socialism, or communism.

30. Origins of Ba’th Party
 The party was founded in Damascus, Syria in 1940 by
the Syrian intellectuals Michel Aflaq, and Salah al-
Bitar, and since its inception has established branches
in different Arab countries, although the only countries it
has ever held power in are Syria and Iraq.
 In Syria it has had a monopoly on political power since
the party's 1963 coup.
 Ba'athists also seized power in Iraq in 1963, but were
deposed some months later. They returned to power in a
1968 coup and remained the sole party of government
until the 2003 Iraq invasion. Since then they have been
banned in Iraq.

31. Syria after 1970
 1970 Hafız al-Asad became the President of
Syrian Republic
 1973 New Constitution was adopted

32. Syrian involvement in Lebanese
Civil War – 1976
 1973 Arab-Israeli War (Egypt & Syria)
 1978 – 79 Camp David Accords!
 Syria was left alone in resisting againts Israel
 Syrian main concern was how to prevent
“Jordan & Lebanon” to recognize Israel

33. 1975 – 1989 Civil War in
Lebanon

34. Demographics in Lebanon
 Ethnic groups
 Arab 95%, Armenian 4%, other 1%
Religions
 Muslim 59.7% (Shia, Sunni, Druze, Isma'ilite, Alawite or
Nusayri),
 Christian 39% (Maronite Catholic, Greek Orthodox,
Armenian Orthodox, Syrian Catholic, Armenian Catholic,
Syrian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Assyrian, Copt,
Protestant),
 other 1.3%
 **17 religious sects recognized

35. French Mandate Rule over
Lebanon (1920 – 1946)
 Lebanon has become an independent country
in 1946 like Syria
 1932 National Census (Nufüs Sayımı)
 1943 National Pact (Ulusal Pakt):
establishment of a confessional political
system based on ethnic & sectarian – religious
– affiliations!!

36. Delicate “Distribution of power”
in Lebanon
 Since 1946 Lebanon has been established on a
confessional system where the political power is
distributed/ allocated on the basis of population size.
 Political Power is vested in the hands of three main
branches:
1. President of the Republic will be elected from the
Maronite community
2. Prime-minister will be elected from Sunni Community;
3. Speaker of the Parliament: will be elected from Shia
community

37. “Seats in the Parliament” will be based on
the ratio 6:5 – Christian – Muslim
Communities
 Origins/ Roots of the Civil War in
Lebanon:
1. Change in the demographic structure
2. 1970 – 71 Civil War in Jordan (Black
September Episode)
3. Camps of the PLO in Southern Lebanon

38. Lebanese Civil War:
1975 – 89
 Two camps were involved in the Civil War: The
Lebanese Front (LF) & Lebanese National
Movement (LNM)
 Syrian intervention in 1976
 Israeli interventon in 1978
 Israeli intervention in 1982 (Sabra & Shatila)

39. The war was ended in 1989
 Ta’if Accords 1989 in Saudi Arabia: An Arab
League meeting – “Paylaşılmış Varlık Paktı” ...
 “Syrian presence” in Lebanon was sustained
with 30,000 troops until the assassination of
Refiq Al-Hariri in 2004.

41. INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS OF THE
MIDDLE EAST:
1. The US & the Middle East
2. Euro-Med Partnership Project

42. In the aftermath of the 1945;
 The US policy towards the region was
centered on;
 “National security strategy”.
 “Superpower Rivalry”
 Establishing special relationships with some
countries; like Iran (until 1979) & Israel
 Survival of Israel: strategic ally & regional
policemen (Milton-Edwards, p. 240)

43. These policies were required
for;
1. Eliminating competitors in the region to
assure US indisputable supremacy
2. Until 1990 to form a massive regional
alliance directed against the Soviet Union
and its local allies
3. Determination to resort to any means,
including military to satify these goals.This
was what we saw in the 1990-91 Gulf War.

44. Some cases from Cold War era
 1953 Overthrown of Muhammed Musaddıq
rule in Iran (through a CIA secret operation)
 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine: It was a part of
the American policy of containing Soviet
influence in the Middle East and securing
American interests in the area. The willingness
to employ American forces at the request of
states in the region in the instance of armed
aggression from other states became
associated by this doctrine.

45. Cases:
 No need to mention role of US during the Suez
Crisis of 1956 – 57.
 Another Cold War in the region:
Egypt, Iraq & Yemen vs Saudi Arabia, Jordan &
Morocco
 1978 – 79 Camp David Accords: Between Israel &
Egypt under the sponsorship of US President
Jimmy Carter

46. The US policies towards the ME
 In the Post-Cold War Era; US policy towards the
Middle East has been centered on the idea of
“hegemonic re-building” in the region with the
pursuit of being as a problem.
 For such precise purpose; the US President
George Bush initiated Middle East Peace
Conference in Madrid in 1991.
 With the joining of PLO-Jordanian joint
delegation, Syria and Israel, the peace talks
began. The outcome was Gaza-Jericho
agreement an DoP – Declaration of Priniples

47. Post - September 11 Attacks
 2002 Bush Doctine which articulates the idea of
failed states and Axis of Evil (Şer Ekseni)
 US Global Strategy would be manifest in three
priorities during this period;
 1. The US would lead the world in defending the
peace against global terror and against
aggressive regimes seeking weapons of mass
detsruction.
 2. A commitment to peace through diplomacy
 3. US would extend “the peace by working to
extend the benefits of liberty ... As broadly as
possible”.

48. Middle East Peace Process;
 Please check the text that I will distribute in the
clasroom!

49. Euro-Mediterranean
Partnership
 The EU launched the Union for the Mediterranean
in July 2008 to forge closer ties with the Middle
East and with its North African neighbours.
 Bringing together the 27 EU members and 16
other countries as diverse as Israel, Turkey and
Syria, the new forum covers nearly 800m people.
 It will undertake joint projects to revitalise the
Mediterranean, such as cleaning up pollution,
renovating ports, improving shipping and
developing solar energy. The Arab League and
the Palestinian Authority will have representation.

50. Barcelona Process (1995)
 The Barcelona Process was launched in
November 1995 by the Ministers of Foreign
Affairs of the then, 15 EU members and 14
Mediterranean partners, as the framework to
manage both bilateral and regional relations.
 Guided by the agreements of the Barcelona
Declaration, it formed the basis of the Euro-
Mediterranean Partnership which has
expanded and evolved into the Union for the
Mediterranean.

51.  It was an innovative alliance based on the
principles of joint ownership, dialogue and co-
operation, seeking to create a Mediterranean
region of peace, security and shared
prosperity.
 The partnership was organised into three main
dimensions, which remain today as the broad
working areas of the partnership:

52.  Political and Security Dialogue, aimed at creating a
common area of peace and stability underpinned by
sustainable development, rule of law, democracy and
human rights.
 Economic and Financial Partnership, including the
gradual establishment of a free-trade area aimed at
promoting shared economic opportunity through
sustainable and balanced socio-economic
development.
 Social, Cultural and Human Partnership, aimed at
promoting understanding and intercultural dialogue
between cultures, religions and people, and
facilitating exchanges between civil society and
ordinary citizens, particularly women and young
people.

53.  Under the umbrella of each sector, Euro-
Mediterranean Ministerial meetings have been
held in order to establish the political
commitments which drive cooperation and
activity across sectors.
 These meetings are punctuated by periodic
meetings of Euro-Mediterranean Ministers of
Foreign Affairs which take stock of the
partnership, its priorities and the progress
made on different initiatives.

54.  With the introduction of the European Neighbourhood
Policy (ENP) in 2004, the Barcelona Process
essentially became the multilateral forum of dialogue
and cooperation between the EU and its
Mediterranean partners while complementary bilateral
relations are managed mainly under the ENP and
through Association Agreements signed with each
partner country.
 The EU works closely with each of its Mediterranean
partners to establish support programmes for
economic transition and reform which take into
account each country’s specific needs and
characteristics. These actions are funded under the
European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument
(ENPI).

55. Countries concerned are;
 Albania, Algeria, Bosnia & Herzegovinia,
Croatia, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya,
Mauritania, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco,
Occupied Palestinian Territories,
Syria,Tunisia,Turkey