Media coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict often represents Arab opinion as religiously fanatical and/or politically implacable. The Arab Center by Marwan Muasher paints a much subtler and more complex picture. Muasher, a veteran Jordanian diplomat and politician, abandons the dominant “Kiss, but don’t tell” ethos among the region’s leaders in order to lay out an insider’s view of the Middle East peace process. His main objectives are to show us that the Arab centre, even in its American spelling, exists, to tell us what it has been doing, and to assure us that Arabs are not inflexible.
The Arab Center – described as “part historical record and part autobiography” – contains a detailed recounting of the various peace initiatives to come from the Arab world since 1994, when Jordan became only the second Arab state (after Egypt in 1979) to sign an official peace treaty with Israel. Perhaps of more general interest, however, are the book’s opening and closing sections, which contain Muasher’s perceptive analysis of the current state of Arab society. He is well qualified to explore the subject; King Abdullah II placed him in charge of the Jordanian national agenda in 2005, a plan to modernise the country politically, economically and socially.
Oil wealth, he believes, has isolated over-comfortable elites across the Middle East, and this has led to a de-politicisation of the Arab public, leaving a dangerous vacuum all too easily filled by Islamist radicals. Independent judicial systems, political transparency, multi-party elections, an end to nepotism – in sum, the stimulation of civil society is, he believes, the only viable remedy.
He gives full credit to other regional powers for their own attempts at reform, such as Morocco’s family law, Saudi Arabia’s municipal elections, and Kuwaiti attempts to improve the status of women. He also calls for a change in state education policy across the Arab world, and says there is a need to promote the benefits of diversity, both cultural and economic. Specifically, he presses for an end to what he calls the culture of allegiance drummed into young Arab students – of loyalty to nationality, party and party leaders – which has done more harm than good. Thus he frames a civic criticism of the Arab world, rather than the standard anti-Muslim critiques of many outsiders, particularly those in the West.
Muasher insists that peace, reform and the fight against terrorism are intimately linked, and should be approached simultaneously, not sequentially. This runs counter to what it has suited many in Washington – and Arab capitals – to believe. The US has generally maintained that reform is necessary to facilitate a solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, whereas the Arabs have wanted to resolve the Palestinian issue before addressing the need for reform. Over the last decade these opposed priorities have combined unhelpfully with the Bush administration’s reluctance to press Israel to compromise, and this has persistently undercut Arab moderates, particularly Mahmoud Abbas, who ended up with nothing to show the Palestinians or all his patience and reasonableness.
This book also shows how an overriding desire to promote stability in the region has led to flagrant contradictions in US policy – such as invading Iraq to end the Saddam dictatorship while leaving friendly autocracies unchallenged, or praising Israel for democratic processes while allowing Israel to strangle Gaza for having the temerity to vote the “wrong” way and elect the “wrong” people. These democratic double standards have not only retarded the course of reform, but also acted as assets to violent radicals.
Lastly, Muasher says that the only way out of the current deadlock is a quick dash for a multilateral agreement, to be approved by plebiscites. This approach relies on polling evidence that consistently shows a majority in Arab countries in favour of a negotiated settlement. This is the Arab centre he wishes to nurture. Whether such a strategy could be successful is not at all clear, but the main thrust of the book is that moderate opinion exists across the Arab world, and that it could and should be tapped.
