As you all probably know, Al Gore challenged the United States two days ago to end our dependence on foreign oil within a decade. Whether or not we reach Gore's target, the Middle East's days as the energy breadbasket of the planet are numbered-in two or three decades, the US will probably be getting the majority of its energy from domestic renewable sources such as solar and wind. How this will happen, and its impact on US and western society, has been discussed ad nauseum both here and on other internet forums. What recieves much less attention is the impact this will have on the Middle East itself.
**Disclamer** I'm a second-year college student. Though I'm specializing in Middle Eastern history and hope to eventually be an expert in the subject, I'm not now. The material for this diary comes from what I've gathered through news sources and outside reading.**

For it isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it.
-Eleanor Roosevelt

The inauguration of a new president in January 2009 will provide a singular moment in international relations, a point in time where it is more likely than ever that thoughtful, fair and direct diplomacy can have a dramatic and positive impact throughout the Middle East.  Currently, most of the debate in the presidential election surrounds diplomacy with Iran and withdrawing from Iraq.  While these issues should be top priority, for progress in either area a larger context must inform policy makers' perspective and a plan must be put in place for the future.  

Below I give the central themes of what I think a successful Middle East Peace Plan for the 21st Century would look like.  

The illegal arrest, detention and torture of Ahmed Maher in Egypt by the State Security Investigative Unit for supporting a strike raises questions about who the United States, the proud democracy sharing its values albeit by force with other countries, chooses as its friends.  Egypt is a brutal military dictatorship whom the United States considers a key partner in the Middle East.

While the Bush Administration meretriciously claims that it's primary function in Iraq is to spread democracy, it considers Egypt worthy of its support and military aid.  No hypocricy there.

Unfortunately there are other members of this Klan such as Columbia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.  Turkey is in the process of exterminating its Kurdish population which hardly qualifies it as a appropriate ally of the United States.

Ironically, the U.S. is becoming more similar to the members of this Klan as it resorts to torture, illegal arrest, unwarranted surveillance and the suppression of Habeas Corpus.  At least the United States is becoming less hypocritical in its choice of friends (sarcastic).

http://www.stateofdarkness.com

Political blogging in Egypt has its limits. Government responses apparently don't. At the Christian Science Monitor, Liam Stack wrote on Monday:

^{Politics on Facebook brings trouble for young Egyptian}

When Egypt’s secular opposition groups called for a nationwide strike to support disgruntled factory workers last April, Ahmed Maher wanted to help. So he did what many middle-class 20-somethings here do: He logged onto Facebook.

Two weeks before the strike, he and a friend, Esraa Abdel Fattah, started a group on the popular social-networking site to support the walkout and invited friends to join. But soon they realized they had much more than just a new Facebook group on their hands. ...

By the day of the strike, more than 60,000 Egyptians had joined the group, and Maher went into hiding rather than face the possible wrath of the country’s feared State Security Investigations (SSI) unit. ...

Even though the second nationwide strike never got off the ground, Maher was arrested in early May, just two days after he had returned home, by four carloads of plainclothes police.

In an interview last week, Maher says he was shackled, blindfolded, and stripped. He says the police dragged him across the floor and beat him for almost 12 hours. They demanded to know the password to his Facebook account and asked for information about the 60,000 people in the group, then threatened to rape him if he would not comply, he says.

"Maher’s treatment is part of a pattern of abuse and extralegal intimidation by state officials," says Joe Stork, Middle East deputy director at Human Rights Watch. "Egypt needs to put an end to the lawlessness of its law enforcement officers."

From Agence France Presse June 1:

A blogger released after weeks behind bars over deadly protests at Egypt's biggest textile plant for higher pay and controls on prices, said Monday he and his fellow detainees suffered weeks of "torture".

"We were subjected to electric shocks, to beatings and there was no food and or drink for the first few days," blogger Karim el-Beheiri told AFP a day after his release. "We went through weeks of torture and humiliation."

Beheiri, Tarek Amin and Kamal al-Fayoumy, three worker activists, were arrested on April 6 at the Misr Spinning and Weaving company in the Nile Delta industrial city of Mahalla after riots which left three people dead and hundreds detained.

An interior ministry official confirmed the three had been released but denied they had been mistreated.

"These are false accusations," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity. "Everything took place within a framework of human rights."

Amira al Hussaini at Global Voices wrote on May 16:

Egyptian bloggers, cyberactivists and activists on the ground continue to pay the price for speaking up against the rising cost of living and calling for higher wages and a better life. What started as a call for a strike on April 6, quickly spiralled out of control, with a face off between rioters, protesters and the police. Here's an account of what has happened and is still happening to some of the activists who have used the worldwide web to spread news of what is happening at home.

During the unrest, on April 6 and 7, Egyptian bloggers worked round the clock telling the world about the workers' revolt that shook their country, as thousands rioted at a textile mill in Al Mahalla. They were also among the first casualties of the unrest, which left some killed, scores injured and an undetermined number of activists, organisers and mere spectators behind bars. Their coverage came in the form of blog posts, YouTube videos, Twitter feeds, Flickr shots, Facebook messages and all other online tools they could get their hands on.

The saga seems to continue, as some activists are still detained, six weeks after their arrest, prompting calls from their colleagues for their immediate release. Others, allegedly harassed, physically abused and later released by the police, continue to use online tools to tell the world their story.

The Overnight News Digest has been posted.

An April 10 New York Times article of this year explored the apparently sudden reversal of the trend toward "democratization" in the Middle East.  With fairly recent elections in Iraq, Egypt, and the Palestinian areas, a trend toward democracy was touted.  The king of Jordan and others were also promising reform.

Now a short time later, the trend seems to have played itself out.

Like everything, the key is Iraq.  Iraq is the US model for democracy in the Middle East whether we want it to be or not.  And it's a model everyone is shying away from.

In many countries, the gusher of oil money makes it easier to focus on economic development instead.  Other countries are confronted by the fact that the people may want to vote for radical Muslims with possible terrorist sympathies.

For the past several weeks, the Israeli government has been heavily engaged in indirect negotiations with its two arch enemies in contradiction to the policy of its greatest benefactor, the U.S., and its champion of champions, President George W. Bush.

Both Hamas and Hezbollah are on the U.S. State Department's list of Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs).

This is going to be a very short diary. This afternoon, i am leaving for Egypt where i am going to spend 10 days. I haven't been there since December 2002 (disclaimer: lived in Egypt for more than year in early 1980s and lived in the Middle East/Muslim world for several years). It will be interesting to go back and talk to friends and folks about their opinions and interests and their views on some specific issues. The reason (as if i needed a reason to go to the Middle East really) i am going is that I will be attending a wedding, a traditional Egyptian wedding of my best friend grandson. And also i will be taking the temperature of the region, brushing up on my Arabic, checking up on the Islamist movement(s), and just vacationing although it is going be hot as hell, literally and figuratively. After my 10 days in Egypt, on my way back i will make a short stop in Jordan and probably (if time permits) visit Jerusalem.

A lot to do in 10 days for a 66 years old guy, but it is going to be fun.

PEW Research released a poll on attitudes around the world about various topics of interest, from America's influence to China and the Olympics.  Of note, they polled on which candidate gave them the most confidence.  Unsurprising results below the fold.

While, at home, President Bush is recognized as The Worst President Ever, he squeaked from far shores about "appeasing" Democrats and got the ire of the Democrats directed at him. Obama, swiftly and elegantly, delivered the coup de grace in his presser about the failed President's intentions to link him indirectly to concerns of appeasement and somehow skew the election towards his own doppelganger Senator McCain.

Guess who else is hissing at The Failed President?

I've cross-posted this diary to my blog, where you'll find photos from our visit to the consulate.

Why did Egypt come to Camp David? Because they were starving.

An expanded version of this diary is cross-posted at Very Hot Jews.

This year, as ever, a lot of us will participate in a ritual that celebrates freedom. And as always, we'll be asked to consider the ways in which we're still somehow enslaved – to our obsessions, our emotional baggage, our chemical dependencies and other bad habits.

Like every year, we'll be enjoined to recall our people's past sufferings and – at least at our table – to consider how we are obligated to witness and, if possible, alleviate the sufferings of Jews and non-Jews alike, everywhere in the world.

We'll parse the symbolic importance of the items on our seder plates, and the youngest child (ever more precocious and performance-oriented) will charmingly enunciate the four questions about why this night is different from all others.

But I've got a question of my own (I can't help it – I'm the youngest sibling myself): How will this year be different from all others?

You better get used to this sort of headline. It's going to get a lot tougher for most of us on this planet. You heard about poor Haitians having to eat mudcakes as "food" of the last resort. Let me give you an account of another country on the brink of disaster: Egypt's government is now struggling to contain a political crisis as violent clashes have broken out at long lines for subsidized bread, and the president, worried about unrest, has ordered the army to step in to provide more. The president himself had to intervene. You might say, that's his job. Well, yes, but he is unable to control soaring food prices, none of us can. The Egyptian authorities are fearful that this could be a prelude to a chronic shortage of wheat worldwide and a return to lawlessness.

Nearly 40 percent Egypt's 76 million people live below or near the poverty line of $2 a day and quite a few on less than a dollar a day. The prices of staples such as cooking oil and rice have nearly doubled in recent months forcing them to ban rice export for a period of six months.

Hat Tip To Bink, who does a fine job of reporting the same grim news.

I don't feel the least bit sorry for Jimmy Carter, who, predictably, is being pilloried for his plans to meet the exiled leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshal, in Syria on Friday.

As Pete Seeger once said of the victims of McCarthyism: don't mourn those who fought. Don't mourn the people who saw clearly what the right thing to do was, and did it, fully aware of the hammer that might come down on them for doing so.

Jimmy Carter surely knew that he would be called every bad name. Perhaps he even calculated that, by calling him every bad name, his critics would do him a favor. They would call attention to his meeting, and that would call attention to some basic facts that Jimmy Carter knows, but the world doesn't know, because they have been under-reported in the Western press.

Okay, so no surprise there.

So the Chinese have been eating our lunch in many sectors, and since 2003 or so, they have been drinking ‘our’ oil, too.  Thanks, Bushie!  You know I say ‘our’ only alliteratively, though sadly, we have always acted like it is ‘ours’ literally.  Yeah, yeah, call me one of those ‘hate America, firsters,’ Pat Buchanan.  How ‘bout ‘hate American stupidity, hypocrisy firster’?  That would be more accurate.

My stumbling upon an article today in an Egyptian paper was an interesting contrast to the Charlie Rose interview I watched last night with buffoon, President of Shell Oil, USA, John Hofmeister , I hope you’re reading the following, Mr. Hofmeister.

More on (moron?) Shell Oil, etc. below the fold.

The credit crunch has hit the US economy hard. From Wall Street to Main Street, investors’ confidence has been shaken, prompting unusual interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. The US dollar has fallen against world currencies and oil prices are touching record highs..

Although some Arab economies are booming, proceeds from these skyrocketing oil prices are not filtering down to the  poorer Arab countries.

To travel through the Arab world right now is to experience a mood of disgruntlement and doubt especially amongst those under 30. One of the countries hit the hardest is Egypt where, according to the World Bank, twenty percent of the population of 78 million lives under the poverty line of two dollars a day.

Rising food and oil costs have prompted a wave of discontent across Egypt in recent weeks. Textile workers, teachers, doctors and accountants have all threatened to strike as many foods, such as meat, have become too expensive for ordinary Egyptians.

To make matters worse, there’s bread shortage in the Land of the Nile River.

Watch Video http://www.youtube.com/...

This is why they have formed human shields of the women and children

We desire death like you desire life ...that's quite the pronouncement.

So what can you say? That's the Hamas strategy. But it's never been admitted to so clearly, as in this video.

Hamas commits war crimes by firing thousands of rockets into Israel from Gaza, which finally provokes a forceful response. Hamas then screams about civilians killed - even tho that's their admitted plan -and watches with glee as the worldwide media prints the stories. Quite the trick.

Western TV blasts the stories on newscasts. Images of dead civilians get played round the clock on Arabic satellite television channels as well.

What a sham. What a disaster for the Palestinian people. They're pawns of the Islamists. Brainwashed or forced into sacrificing their lives for a hard core Islamist theology.

Wack

On Friday the office of the Canadian prime minister denied that Hillary Clinton's campaign had given it any assurances about NAFTA. This was on the heels of its earlier denial that Barack Obama's campaign was saying anything in private that it was not saying in public. Does this mean that the story is over and we can all go back to talking about Hillary Clinton's inability to carry a tune and Barack Obama's middle name? Not likely. Soon there will be new charges and the delicate dance of leak, charge, denial, leak, and countercharge will begin again.

If you run for office you have to deny something at one time or another. Denial is more about expediency than truth. To deny something makes your supporters feel better, but it is not the end of the story. If denial was all you had to do, Nixon would have served out the rest of his term, and Bill Clinton would never have been impeached.

Denial is not just "not just a river in Egypt." And I have the Google stats to prove it . . . .