Religiously losing the Palestinian cause

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is unique in world history. While not the only case where population displacement occurred  it is one of a very few where the displaced population refused to lose connection with their native homeland for generations. Everything I wrote so far will immediately conjure in the Western mind images of displaced Jews returning to the promised land. In the Arab mind, it will of course conjure images of Palestinians in refugee camps refusing to lose their identity and teaching their children where their ancestors came from.

But what does the rest of the world think?

The world is not the West. And by the West I mean the cultural West, namely Europe, Canada, the US, and Australia. The world also includes enormous populations in Latin America, Asia, and Africa that do not necessarily conform to Western cultural norms. Historically, these populations were the object of exploitation, their economies were weak, and their contribution to the world had to be traced back centuries. However, these blocks of countries, traditionally defined as non-aligned supported the Palestinian side of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The genesis of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was very similar to that of many national independence movements in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The nature of the PLO was also very similar to these liberation movements: Nominally socialist, somehow non-religious, but obsessed with independence and self determination. Israel was also nominally socialist, somehow secular, and very concerned with independence and a Jewish nature. However, Israel resorted to ethnic cleansing and colonialist techniques to establish the Jewishness of the state. This was definitely a turn-off for countries just getting out of their colonial phase.

Starting in the mid-nineties, with the demise of the Oslo peace process and the steady decline of Yasser Arafat, a shift in the nature of the Palestinian cause took hold. Through elections, violence, or frustration, Hamas took the forefront in the Palestinian territories. Using a one-vote one-time approach, Hamas took total control of the Gaza strip. And they steadily worked starting from the early 2000's into turning the Palestinian cause from a national independence cause into a religious war.

This happened in tandem with the influence and economies of countries like India, China, and Brazil skyrocketing. It also happened in parallel with increased Wahabization of Islam in the Arab World as Saudi Petromoney poured out in all directions, and increased Islamization of Arab societies. The ballot box frenzy following the "Arab Spring" also helped solidify this trend of increased Islamization of the Palestinian conflict, and increasingly losing its moral high ground and possibility of resolution.

As far as Israel is concerned, turning the conflict into a religious war is absolute bliss. For one it helps it establish near universal sway on International public opinion. As far as the West is concerned, if this is a religious war, then they know which side to take. It might give a lot of individuals and groups in the West a lot of pause when they are faced with a cause where one oppressed group of people horribly oppress and displace another group of people. But it certainly doesn't take much time to take a side when someone declares that they are in an eternal war with the Jews because they are prophet-killers.

But more critically adding, turning the conflict into a religious war rather than a war of independence and liberation completely loses the support of all the rising powers in what was formerly known as the "third world." Why would Brazil, a country with a majority of Catholics take the side of Muslims in a Muslim-Jewish religious war? Would India, with its existential conflict with Pakistan take the side of Palestinians? How about China, itself fighting a violent uprising by Uyghurs in its Northwest? Compare this with the near universal support Nasser managed to get in all non-aligned movement summits.

But Israel also benefits from the post-apocalyptic and Messianic nature that the Islamists add to the conflict. The PLO, for all its faults, had one goal in mind: To establish a Palestinian homeland. Whether through a two-state solution, or through a single secular Jewish-Arab homeland, the PLO and secular Arab intelligentsia never considered Armageddon a viable option. Hamas is fighting a religious war. They believe the war will end only with one side totally annihilating the other. To that end, Hamas does not seek to establish any form of Palestinian statehood in the near future. Loss of land is irrelevant, decline in the daily lives of their citizens is unimportant, even the safety and security of their Arab neighbors is of no direct consequence. Hamas believes, religiously, that one day they will fight the Israelis face to face and either side will kill the other to the last person; thus any interim steps to make the situation better are seen as futile. This perfectly mirrors the Messianic view of many Jews in Israel. But more importantly, it gives Israel a free hand to change facts on the ground, and it gives it if not International sympathy, then at least international apathy.

Economic turning point earlier than most believe

The Egyptian economy is in the drain.That much everybody seems to agree on. Nobody can agree on why it's in the drain or how (if at all possible) it can be saved. Most Islamists point, as always, at the Mubarak regime for their current economic woes. Most revolutionaries are torn between blaming the whole thing on Mubarak, which is true to their nature of blaming all the ills of Egypt on Mubarak solely; and between blaming it on the Muslim Brotherhood and their inept clown Mohammed Morsi. Very few apolitical people on the street seem to care either way. What matters is that from shop owners in City Stars to barnyard hands in Delta villages everyone is feeling the economic doom and gloom setting in.

Obviously, Egypt's economic woes are complex, and some of its most shocking facets, e.g. diesel shortages, have faint echoes in pre-revolutionary days. However, there are certain elements that have helped get us where we are, and very little can be said to argue against these points. Arranged in ascending order of gravity they are:-

* Ad-Hoc labor movements. Let's not beat around the bush, Egypt's economic woes are rooted in the deceleration and then the negative growth of foreign investment, leading to a severe currency crisis. Just before the deposition of Mubarak, critical mass in Tahrir Square seemed unachievable. To overcome this, the loose coalition against Mubarak enlisted the help of disenfranchised workers. And here I don't mean skilled or unskilled labor in factories, I mean a huge number of underproductive clerical workers in public and private sectors. A brief visit to Tahrir between February 8th and 11th 2011 would show that except for the very center of the square, Tahrir was filled with people with very specific grievances of wildly different degrees of legitimacy, all having to do with their jobs. And they ALL held Mubarak personally responsible for them getting fired, not getting a raise, not getting a permanent contract, or not having their children employed. Investors definitely sweated this labor movement, not because it represented power to the people, but because it was disorganized. There was no arbitration framework, no rules to govern what is fair and unfair, no way to know where rights start and end. This chaotic framework continued to accelerate throughout the tenure of SCAF, but it was held in check by SCAF being a temporary power. Everyone waited for the elected president to "right the personal wrongs Mubarak wrought against them."  But labor alone isn't enough to get the country to the failed state level it is at right now.

*Instability. Capital doesn't like instability. While Egyptian Internet activists blasted Mubarak's stability as stagnation, capital saw the constant friction, tension, sectarian and labor unrest, and communication paralysis gripping the country as a big turnoff. But most capital still held on. SCAF was again deemed to be an ineffective governing force with suspect legitimacy. Everyone waited for the elected president.

*Unclear rules. The elected president came along, and he decided he didn't need no stinking rules. When Morsi decided to consolidate all power and remove the prosecutor general, capital woes turned to panic. Although by now most capital had already fled, and whatever remained still held on to the hope that Morsi's sweeping power grab would finally bring some stability to the country.

* Lawlessness. Stability did not come. Political divisiveness increased, shortages worsened, the dollar could no longer be maintained at pre-revolutionary levels, inflation increased, unplanned taxes were issued, then rescinded, then reissued. Worst of all, the government resorted to the same tactics of street thugs to cover its gaping budget deficit caused by election promises that they could not possibly cover.The MB dominated government started extracting extra tolls and taxes and fines selectively, trying to desperately provide more resources while at the same time causing whatever capital was left to disintegrate.

*Politicization of the bureaucracy. The state of Egypt since 1804 has essentially been a bureaucracy. It is ruled by a bunch of merciless and unrelenting technocrats. While this has given Egypt its notorious bulky, inflexible, and sometimes corrupt red tape, it also gave it continuity, reliability, and a certain sense of statehood. After Morsi's win, the MB started immediately and chaotically dismantling the technocracy by replacing its members with their own cadres. This has led to a situation where the state has turned into a politicized, sectarian, vengeful, and inefficient beast in a way that would put Nasser's bureaucracy to shame. Abrupt and inexplicable decisions like applying retroactive taxes selectively to Orascom, or the new MB prosecutor general freezing the assets of almost all the major Egyptian and Arab players in the stock exchange have effectively set the country's economy back decades.

Two questions remain, why did the MB do this, and what's the way out.

It is irrelevant why the MB did this. However, there are two major theories. The first is that they have some sort of master plan to bankrupt the country and then take it over completely. I do not personally subscribe to this theory. Not because I put it beyond the MB's scruples, just because I put it beyond their intellect.

I subscribe to a second, more frightening theory. The MB is simply that much of a failure! That's it! They actually believed that Egypt was a resource rich country. They actually believed that the diesel crisis was caused by Ganzoury pouring gas in the desert to embarrass their dear Islamist parliament. They are actually that naive and shallow. Add a dash of vengeful attitude towards Egyptian society at large for letting them be "persecuted" by Nasser and you end up with the dysfunctional, failing, paranoid, and ignorant borg collective that is now ruling Egypt.

What can done now? Not much. The turning point on the economy happened before the election of Morsi. When Fayza Abu El-Naga managed to secure the IMF loan with very favorable terms late in 2011, the MB and the Salafists refused to let her accept the loan through parliament. The stated reason was that they did not trust the Ganzoury government with the loan. The reality is that in their limited thinking they though of the loan as an immediate boon through which they can buy bribes for the people and they wanted to be the ones to get it once they won the presidency so they could secure a honeymoon during which they can "brotherhoodize" state institutions in peace. The IMF loan might have saved the Egyptian economy then. It might have boosted the credit rating, allowed some respite in the stress on the pound, and maybe given a chance for people to live their lives at or near pre-revolutionary levels.

This is no longer possible. Now the loan requires measures that would probably spike a new wave of violent unrest, larger than most seen so far. Not getting the loan will lead to economic breakdown that would also lead to the same violent implosion. Morsi, his kin, and Egypt's strange breed of iPad socialists have broken Egypt. Mubarak may or may not have laid the groundwork for what's coming up, but the Egyptian people certainly pushed the button.

Get ready, it's gonna be a rough ride.