Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Between 2002 and 2006 the Palestinian government made numerous strides towards democratic reform, yet the outcome of the 2006 elections revealed a flawed foundation behind the movement. International backers, such as the United States and EU, viewed democratization as a means to weaken Arafat and promote a peace settlement with Israel, yet unexpected results led these actors to harshly turn against the Palestinian reform movement. What can this combination of successful reform initiatives and disillusioned failure mean for future democratic reform, not only in Palestine, but in the Middle East? What lessons can be learned for future reform movements?
In this Carnegie Policy Outlook, What Islamists Need to be Clear About: The Case of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Hamzawy, Ottaway, and Brown respond to the reactions and critiques by Islamists and seek to explain the issues on which Islamist movements need to achieve greater clarity in order to gain credibility in the West.
Five months after the end of the war, Lebanon, Israel and the region are still feeling its aftereffects. In Lebanon, the claims of victory were mixed with a sober assessment of the massive socioeconomic losses, and the popular unity during the war was followed by deep division and rising tensions.
In a region dominated by single-party authoritarian regimes, some experts concluded that the opposition's success in the Yemeni 2006 presidential election marked major democratic reform. But did the election truly indicate a shift toward substantial political reform, or was the regime simply allowing minor electoral freedoms while seeking to maintain the status quo?
The International Quartet Committee's proposed roadmap to Israeli-Palestinian peace lacks enforcement mechanisms and wrongly focuses on security issues as preconditions for political progress, argues Sufyan Alissa. Organising internal Palestinian affairs is useless if Israeli policies of building settlements, the separation wall, of controlling natural resources and imposing closures, continue.
The political arm of the Kuwaiti Muslim Brotherhood may soon have more political influence than most of its sister movements, yet must strike a balance between building a broad political coalition and pursuing its goal of Islamization – a vision challenged by some political actors. How will this affect future democratic reforms, as well as the Brotherhood’s goal of a more Islamic society?
Last Thursday's confrontation on the campus of the Arab University in Beirut appeared to confirm that the ghosts of the civil war are back with a vengeance. Lebanese leaders had little to offer their constituencies sectarian abuse, while Washington's rhetoric on the political crisis in Lebanon is further complicating an already tense situation.
After the war of last summer, Lebanon had settled back into a pretense of normality, shattered periodically by massive demonstrations in the streets of the capital, as Hizbollah mustered its supporters in an attempt to force the government to call for early elections. The government refused to give in. Hizbollah is now trying to break the impasse.