Brief Synopses of New Arabic-Language Publications

Abstract

Fattouh Haikal, Impact of Arab Revolutions on the Arab Regional Order (Beirut: Center for Arab Unity Studies, 2021). 350 pp. ISBN 9789953829340The Arab regional system, since its official establishment in 1945, has been affected by pivotal events that have had repercussions on its potentialities, internal balances, and regional and international relations. Among these prominent events were: the Nakba of 1948; the 23 July Revolution that toppled the monarchy in Egypt in 1952, and the high tide of Arab nationalism led by Abdel Nasser; the 1967 defeat by Israel; the October 1973 war; and the subsequent signing of the Camp David Accords which lead to the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty in 1979 and largely removed Egypt from the cycle of conflict with Israel. More recently, other events have had a great impact, such as: the First Gulf War in 1991; the September 11 attacks in 2001 and the subsequent US invasion of Iraq in 2003; and finally, the wave of Arab revolutions and popular uprisings that began in late 2010 and resumed—albeit with less momentum—in late 2018.This book especially examines the impact of the recent revolutions and popular uprisings that some Arab countries have witnessed since late 2010 on the Arab regional system in terms of the nature of this system and its internal structure, its identity, its institutions, and its key concerns, the balance of power within it, the pattern of its internal and external alliances, and its relationships within regional and international landscapes. It attempts to highlight the transformations that the Arab regional system has undergone in the context of the revolutions and uprisings, and anticipates the future of this system in the light of the developments that have taken place.Some of these revolutions and uprisings have peacefully overthrown the heads of a number of Arab regimes that had been dominant within the Arab political scene for decades. This was the case in Tunisia and Egypt especially, after the army refused to intervene to suppress the demonstrations amid Western and regional support for the revolutions. The uprisings in other Arab countries, such as Libya, Syria, and Yemen, however, turned into civil wars, predominantly due to the military interference of external powers with conflicting geopolitical interests, exacerbating the existing marked internal divisions and violence that prevailed in these countries.One of the most prominent changes that resulted from the Arab revolutions was the removal of traditional Arab centers of power, such as Egypt, Iraq, and Syria, and their influence on the internal balance of power in the Arab regional system. This created suitable conditions, instead, for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, to strengthen their leadership position in the Arab regional system.The Arab uprisings also led to several Arab countries, especially those that declined into civil wars, to divert attention from the Palestinian cause as they became preoccupied with confronting the challenges of escalating threats from terrorist groups. Moreover, the decline of traditional Arab centers of power in the Arab regional system has left a strategic vacuum in the region that has been exploited by non-Arab regional powers, such as Turkey, Iran, and Israel, in addition to international powers, mainly the United States, Europe, Russia, and China, to maintain and strengthen their influence in the region, at the expense of the Arab regional system, which has reached unprecedented levels of decline since its emergence in 1945.The book presents three possible scenarios for the Arab regional system in the foreseeable future. The first predicts continued weakness and stagnation; the second anticipates its disintegration and restructuring; and the third raises hopes of reform and the empowering of the system. For the author, the third scenario remains feasible, assuming that Arab countries have the opportunities and capabilities to work on the reform of the various institutions of the Arab regional system, or activate reform initiatives and plans that they have already forged.At the forefront of reform initiatives and plans was the initiative to amend the charter of the League of Arab States, activating and developing the League’s institutions that are already established, such as the Arab Parliamentary Union, the Arab Court of Justice, the Arab Peace and Security Council, and the Arab Court for Human Rights, and bringing to fruition the proposal to establish a joint Arab military force.The author asserts, however, that the problem does not pertain to lack of reform initiatives, but rather to the absence of a united Arab will and the necessary commitment to implement these initiatives. This requires every Arab country to reconcile its national decisions with those of the League of Arab States for the sake of joint Arab action, which is supposed to be, in the final outcome, in the interest of all Arab countries.■■■■Ali Khalifa Al-Kuwari, Oil, Development and the Need for Reform (Beirut: Center for Arab Unity Studies, 2021). 271 pp. ISBN 9789953829371This book is indicative of the growing interest in oil, development, and reform in Arab countries, particularly in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, which have heavily depended on oil exports since the 1970s till today. It assumes that despite the enormous financial resources that oil exports have provided for the Arab oil-producing countries since the 1970s, this wealth has not been properly managed and put under the scope of national control to meet reform requirements and address the exacerbated chronic imbalances in these countries. Consequently, almost all governments in these countries have failed in their attempts to create diversified productive economic structures that could liberate them from their rentier systems and help initiate a sustainable development process that would localize technology and employment, and ensure a fair redistribution of existing oil revenues to promote social justice, under the rule of constitutional monarchies. This is what the author recommends in the context of comprehensive reform in the GCC countries.The book has three sections. The first describes how oil revenues have not been properly managed and, consequently, a great part have been squandered and wasted. The second section shows how sustainable development has been officially ignored, while the third section asserts the urgent need for reform in the GCC countries.The author argues that almost all governments in Arab oil-producing countries have focused on how to deal with market price fluctuations in order to balance public spending with oil revenues, but they have achieved little by way of monitoring oil revenues and surpluses in boom times, whether in terms of increasing investment expenditures in public budgets or in response to calls for meeting deficits in budgets that would be expected as a result of any sharp drop in oil prices. Hence, it is not surprising that all government services such as education, health, housing, infrastructure maintenance, development projects, and the like have been affected by fluctuations in oil prices. Moreover, as oil policies failed to reconcile oil production and exports with the needs of comprehensive socio-economic development as they were supposed to, chronic imbalances in oil-producing countries have been exacerbated rather than resolved.The author posits that there are four chronic imbalances prevailing in the countries of the GCC that require comprehensive reform. The first is the economic-productive imbalance caused by the absolute dependence on oil revenues, whether in the composition of gross domestic product (GDP) or in the revenues for the public budget. The second refers to the demographic imbalance that reflects the continuous decline in the proportion of native citizens in the total population and their contribution to the labor force. The third is political imbalance, which reflects the unequal relationship between powerful ruling authorities and powerless societies. The fourth constitutes the aggravated security imbalance which is a result of the increasing dependence of the Gulf States on foreign military powers to secure their stability and protection against any outside aggression.■■■■Ali Salah, Economic Populism: The Future of Globalization in the Era of the Second Generation of Trade Wars (Abu Dhabi: Future Center for Advanced Research and Studies, 2021). 245 pp. ISBN 978-9948-8755-4-3This book deals with the manifestations of “economic populism,” mainly in relation to its protectionist tendencies in trade policies that have been adopted in many countries in recent years, and which represent a setback in the global economic system that prevailed during the second half of the twentieth century. The book explores how protectionist policies in trade often lead to economic wars. Moreover, the timing of the book’s publication at a time when the world is going through exceptional circumstances due to the Corona pandemic gives the topic more poignancy. This is because of the economic policies that countries have had to adopt towards each other in relation to lockdown policies in order to stop the spread of the virus.The book asserts that the global economic system has witnessed profound and fundamental changes since the beginning of the second half of the twentieth century. It has become more open than before as a result of government policies that have focused on the removal or reduction of barriers to the free exchange of goods between nations as well as on the movement of people between countries and the transfer of capital and technology. These manifestations of openness and globalization have been conducive to the birth of economic blocs, most notably the European Union, which was able to remove the physical borders between its countries and ensure complete freedom of movement for its populations. Yet this process of globalization has been affected by an opposite wave of populism that has emerged in recent years. In this context, the global financial and economic crisis of 2008–09 emerged, followed by the implementation of austerity measures shortly after the crisis. The rise of populist parties across Europe and the Brexit vote in the UK, in addition to the election of Donald Trump in the United States, are considered manifestations of this wave of populism.In general, the rise of populism can be understood as a reaction against globalization which has raised controversial questions pertaining to the freedom of international trade, open borders, immigration, labor forces and employment, national identity, culture, tradition, and imbalances in international relations. Yet, the unprecedented international trend of “trade protectionism,” as a key manifestation of populism, has proved to be most significant as, in practice, it has led to “economic wars.”The oldest types of economic wars known to mankind took the form of limited conflicts over resources between groups and tribes. These wars, however, became more destructive with technological progress, and when strong powers invaded and colonized weak countries to exploit their resources, such as gold and minerals. Hence, weak or helpless societies would try to stand against any sort of globalization, including economic globalization. Yet, this does not mean that powerful or influential countries in the international system would support globalization at any cost. They could either resort to protectionist measures against other competing countries to help their domestic economies or compromise to reach agreements that would preserve all competing parties’ interests.■■■■Muhammad Mahfouz Jaber, The Zionist Settlements in the Governorate of Jericho and the Jordan Valley (Amman: Dar Fadaat, 2020). 126 pp. ISBN 9789923360897This book deals with the Israeli settlements established in the governorate of Jericho and the Jordan Valley after the Israeli invasion and occupation of the West Bank in 1967. It seeks to highlight the purpose of Israeli settlement projects in the governorate, highlighting its strategic location, its administrative and security status, in accordance with the provisions of the Oslo Accords and in light of its rich economic potential due to its fertile land and vast water resources.The governorate of Jericho and the Jordan Valley is located in the eastern region of the West Bank. It is considered by Israel as a strategic area which it is necessary to control in order to sabotage the establishment of a Palestinian state in the future. Moreover, it is considered to be the “breadbasket” of any future Palestinian state because of its natural resources. Israel also considers it a prime location for new Israeli settlements. Hence, Israel has systematically sought to destroy Palestinian homes, villages, and farmland in the area and to expel Palestinians from the Valley to expropriate land for illegal Israeli settlements.The author of the book argues that Palestinian hardship in the governorate of Jericho and the Jordan Valley has resulted from the Oslo Accords, signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1993. Under the Oslo Accords, the occupied West Bank was divided into three areas of control. Areas under Palestinian administration and security control (Area A), areas under joint Israeli-Palestinian security control (Area B), and areas under Israeli administration and security control (Area C). The author makes clear that although the Oslo Accords designated the Jordan Valley area as part of a future Palestinian state in (1994), 93.4 percent of the land is now under Israeli control, as part of Area C, which constitutes eighty-five percent of the total area of the governorate. Area B, which constitutes four percent of the total area of the governorate, is under joint Israeli-Palestinian control. Only Area A, which constitutes eleven percent of the total area of the governorate, is under the control of the Palestinian Authority.■■■■Zahraa Abbas Hadi, Geopolitics of Energy in the Eastern Basin of the Mediterranean (Beirut: Center for Arab Unity Studies, 2021). 224 pp. ISBN 978-9953-82-938-8This book is concerned with the Eastern Mediterranean region that occupies a position of great strategic importance due to its geographic location at the junction of three continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe) and the role it plays in international trade routes, including in the field of energy supply to Europe, the United States, and elsewhere. Hence, the region has been vulnerable to foreign ambitions and colonial powers that have sought to control its strategic location and exploit its resources, especially with the recent discoveries of energy sources (oil and natural gas) in the basin of the eastern Mediterranean. Accordingly, the book discusses the geopolitical importance of oil and gas discoveries in the region, and the economic effects of these on the countries of in the area and its neighborhood, in addition to regional and international powers’ interventions in the conflicts that have accompanied the discovery of these resources, including the issue of the maritime boundary demarcation between the countries concerned.The book has four chapters. The first deals with the geographic characteristics of the eastern Mediterranean region, while the second deals with the geographic dispersion of oil and natural gas in the area, which is distributed between Egypt, Israel, Cyprus, the Palestinian Authority, Lebanon, and Syria. The third chapter deals with the struggle over energy resources in the territorial waters of the eastern Mediterranean, while the fourth seeks to explore the prospects for cooperation in the region, in light of oil and gas discoveries and potential conflict.The book describes how the energy resources in the eastern Mediterranean are distributed over three main basins: the Levant Basin, the Nile Delta Basin, and the Herodotus Basin. The most important of these, in terms of natural gas reserves, is the Nile Delta Basin, which contains 6,314.6464 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, followed by the Levant Basin, which contains 3.46 trillion cubic meters of natural gas. The Zohr field in the Nile Delta basin on the Egyptian coast is the largest gas field in the region, with reserves of 849.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas, followed by the Leviathan field with 510 billion cubic meters and the Tamar field with 283 billion cubic meters.The author argues that gas and oil discoveries have contributed to the demarcation of the maritime borders between some countries in the eastern Mediterranean, while they are still a source of conflict between Turkey and Cyprus and between Lebanon and Israel. However, he makes clear that though it is expected that negotiations and diplomatic means will ease the conflict over energy resources in the area and develop options for exporting eastern Mediterranean gas to Europe through pipelines or through the establishment of a regional center for trading eastern Mediterranean gas, real cooperation in the region can hardly be anticipated without resolving the Arab–Israeli conflict and restoring the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.