This week's documents shall explore the governance of and the current dynamics in the conflict-ridden Middle East. Share your perspectives here as the documents are posted throughout the week.
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This week's documents shall explore the governance of and the current dynamics in the conflict-ridden Middle East. Share your perspectives here as the documents are posted throughout the week.
I noticed in today's reading over the Charter of the League of Arab States their recognition of Palestine as a sovereign country based on a League of Nations provision from 1919. While the original international body went defunct, its successor (UN) still has not designated Palestine an independent State with "self-determination". Israel was admitted as a member of the UN shortly after its creation as a State, hindering Palestines ability to negotiate internationally as a sovereign nation. I think this dynamic hinders the League's ability to project Palestinian sovereignty past its own member states and organization. Because their basis for Palestinian sovereignty comes from the League of Nations and not the UN, the Arab league will have a hard time convincing modern international organizations to recognize an independent Palestine. China has recognized both Palestine and Israel and maintains formal relations with both, yet supports the creation of an independent Palestinian State based on historic borders drawn between Israel and Palestine in 1967. Mao directly supported Palestinian independence and even after his death, the PRC's official position remains to support third-world independence movements across the globe.
I think that it is interesting how China has been able to keep such good relations with both Israel, Palenstine, and the Middle East at large. In the future it will be interesting if China were to take a more active role in attempting to establish peace in the region?
China's view of Israel-Palestine is an interesting departure from how I have viewed it from an American perspective. Thanks for pointing it out!
@Patrick Borchert
Or at least avoid controversy...by recognizing both Israel and Palestine, they can avoid taking any real, controversial stance on the issue.
I like that article two gives the countries in the area a way to connect and coordinate their policies. It is good to see these countries working towards better cooperation in the region. There are many different categories that they want to work together on to achieve a higher quality of life in the region and that's something that should be applauded. It is also nice that they outline all of the rules and guidelines that are involved in the treaty. It is important for everyone to be on the same page so having a charter like this makes it much easier to put all of the different countries on the same page.
Reading over today's document, what stood out most to me was the recognition of Palestine as a nation-state, something quite controversial in modern international politics, as not even the United Nations has done so in the last three-quarters of a century. However, I wonder how successful it will be in convincing other countries to recognize Palestine.
138 members of the United Nations recognize Palestine as a sovereign state. The issue of Palestinian sovereignty is a more contentious issue among the G7. Now how much these countries actually support Palestine can be up to question, but when Russia and China both support Palestine. The other thing to notice is that Palestine has far more support on the international stage then Taiwan at the moment, especially since most of the countries that recognize Taiwan also recognize Palestine.
The UN also granted Palestine non-member observer State status only 9 years ago. Palestine has even been recognized as the State of Palestine in the UN, rather than the Palestine Nation.
I agree that it's interesting to see them recognize Palestine. There is a lot of controversy around the subject and although many members of the United Nations recognize it, it is still only an observer. I think that it is good for them to want to unite the region.
Today's document is very interesting, especially with the historical significance of it. Looking at Article 2 section A speaks about the strengthening of members economic and financial affairs and when it comes to strengthening economies the most important factor is how much is China involved? Looking at the partner nations of the charter, China is heavily involved in the Middle East and with the BRI has been increasing its naval influence in the region even more. With China becoming more havily involved through infrastructure and navigation areas it will be interesting to see how China will play into the future of the charter. With the either the member countries seeing China as a market threat or as a possible stabilizing influence in the region?
Like many noted before me, the recognition of Palestine is very important. The Arab League was formed in 1945, but this is still an ongoing issue. Article II of the Charter says the League will cooperate on cultural affairs, nationality, and social affairs. Could the Arab League take a more active role in negotiating peace or a two state solution?
Russia has extensive interests in the Middle East and have been asserting themselves in numerous countries internal affairs. Russia is a major weapons supplier to the region. As Russia's relationships with various Western countries deteriorate, they are improving their relationships with many countries as they look to become a major power player once again.
Others before me bring up an interesting point surrounding Palestine and actors such as China. While the recognition of Palestine is debated to a decent extent in the international community, Palestine meets the relevant criteria for statehood as put forward at the 1933 Montevideo Convention. Likewise, the majority of countries outside of Europe and North America have chosen to recognize both Israel and Palestine, none as large of an actor as China, perhaps with the exception of Russia. However, it's hard to imagine any long term peace in the region, regardless of the presence of international powers like China and Russia, until there is order established surrounding Israeli settlements being built on what is internationally considered Palestinian land (and a reduction in the violence seen towards Palestinians living on the land marked for Israeli settlement), and, if somehow possible, a break in the Palestinian backed acts of terror directed at Israeli citizens.
The economic situation facing the Middle East provides, to my untrained eyes, an opportunity for China to expand their Belt and Road Initiative further into the Middle East, offering these countries foreign investment in times of economic uncertainty. However, US interests in the region, particularly in Saudi Arabia, may give China some incentive to hesitate engaging the Middle East on a more aggressive level.
Another thing that might give China pause is the instability of the region. It is true that there are ongoing conflicts in region like Africa, but the level of institutionalized religious hatred in the Middle East (particularly between Sunnis and Shias) keeps the region from ever truly integrating at similar levels as Africa, ASEAN, or Europe. The only factor more responsible for unrest in the Middle East than foreign military intervention is the ongoing cold war between Saudi Arabia and Iran (which is simply the most current embodiment of the Sunni-Shia conflict).
I think you made a great point. The current economic situation is definitely a gateway for China to invest in these countries.
They very well might, but the region is also quite unstable, so it is far from a sure thing.
I agree with @Alex Gintz comments above that a weaker Middle East economically is an invite to more Chinese FDI. I think it would also provide an opportunity for the US as well, so there could be a possible conflict of interest. However, I don’t think the presence of the US would deter Chinese activities in the region.
Yeah, I don't see how one would necessarily deter the other either. Hasn't happened before.
The Arab Gulf states attained their current wealth by being exporters of oil, but this report insists that these states will have to diversity their economies if they are to become more robust. The document also claims that "diversification is also now a key theme in all six GCC countries, particularly Saudi Arabia." This is most intriguing; I am curious about what industries these countries are looking to expand to reduce reliance on oil.
This is an interesting point that you mentioned. Clearly relying on oil productions has been helpful in boosting the economy. However, as you mentioned, there should be other contributors to the expansion of the economy.
It was no surprise to me to see that Saudi Arabi has the highest GDP among the other countries. Up until the pandemic, the Gulf countries economic growth was one of the highest. However, the pandemic caused the regional growth to plummet. Oil productions will be one of the greatest factors to help with the economic recovery.
I feel as though the countries that are the highest GDP are all due to oil. The world is making a move away from fossil fuels slowly so it will be interesting to see how that affects these countries in the next 20 to 30 years.
Historically, the countries in today's document have structured their economies around the export of oil. In a similar vein to what I mentioned regarding Venezuela last week, the Gulf States will, sooner or later, need to diversify their economies away from purely oil exports. Fortunately, the document at least notes that this idea is now a "key theme" in the GCC countries.
Yeah it seems like with all these documents from different regions, sooner or later, states will have to diversify their economies as a mark of being a more developed economy.
In the Charter of the League of Arab States, I've noticed that if you were to compare the electoral systems to how we do it in the US, perhaps large states in the Arab world have less proportional power than small states. Each state gets 1 vote, so the small states have more sway compared to the large states similar to how the US Senate conducts its legislative procedure. Article 5 had noticeably spoke of needing to resolve disputes and throwing the Council's weight behind the attacked state, yet I've never noticed this organization's name pop up when glossing over the Iraq-Iran war or when Iraq had invaded Kuwait. After searching up the member states, it seems Iraq is the only relevant party involved, yet it's curious that the league didn't intervene into Iraq's warmongering ways Annex #2 had spoken of the importance for the Arab world to have a united front in foreign relations. Article 7 seems to be suggesting a sort of supranational entity with the binding power despite the official intergovernmental designation according to the blog. Annex #1 had seemed a little suspicious with how the Council would decide the Arab representative from Palestine rather than their own ability for self-determination. That's just like how the CCP can filter through Hong Kong candidates nowadays for elected offices to ensure that it's run by "patriots".
Overall, my impression is that the Arab League Charter places more weight behind security priorities and sensitivities to sovereignty and independence compared to other founding documents for other regional organizations. I do wish its Annex #1 had explained the reasons for Palestine when stating, "outward manifestations of this independence have remained obscured for reasons beyond her control."
The Gulf Cooperation Council factsheet made it seem like Saudi Arabia's economy would've still been on the decline from 2019 even without COVID. I do wish the graph had supplemental explanations to provide the reasons ascertaining to why the economies of the UAE & Saudi Arabia had went up and down in certain years. Also, usually diversifying is good for overall economic health and survival in case of overly-reliant industries were to fall, but either way, I felt like both its traditional and new industries alike would've suffered from COVID. So saying how efforts to diversify economies had "exacerbated the economic hit" would have still resulted in a similar downtrodden economy from the pandemic even if these states were to continue a sole focus on oil. After all, gas prices became cheaper with no one traveling, and airlines needed subsidies (at least here in the US). Overall, for long-term economic health, they should continue the effort of diversifying their streams of income. In the case of the UAE being one of the largest states in the GCC by both economy and population, we see some success in their tourism/hospitality efforts due to Dubai.
I also wonder about possible bias in this report since Iran isn't in the GCC and is considered Saudi Arabia's rival when they had cited Iranian linked militia groups and other Iranian issues in the geopolitical ongoings. As this information is provided by the First Abu Dhabi Bank, they also aren't quite responsible for updating or revising any future information as well.
Several people have already mentioned Israel and Palestine, and the Tracks for Regional Peace initiative has some additional implications for that relationship.
Although this video is from 2019, this project has newfound credibility thanks to the normalization of relations between Israel and Gulf states such as the UAE and Bahrain in 2020. Part of these states' refusal to recognize Israel previously had to do with the Arab world's collective opposition against Israel over the Palestinian issue. Now that Arab leaders seem to be getting fatigued with this standoff status quo, it opens the door to developmental projects such as these, albeit at the Palestinians' expense.
Palestine is a touchy subject, but I do hope that Israel has to deal with fewer polemics against her existence.
I very much enjoyed the speed and visual aspect of today's video, as opposed to a typed piece for the day. Like @Griffen said, Israeli interests in the region will benefit in the long run from a trend of formal diplomacy with Gulf States, and this trade infrastructure will give Israel some heightened legitimacy in the region. However, how will relations between Palestine and these Gulf States be impacted as the Arab world seems to get more comfortable, for want of a better term, with Israel?
I think it will add more viable players in the region hoping for a peaceful settlement. I also agree with your suggestion that this will heighten Israeli legitimacy by providing regional support to all countries.
I actually agree with you that the video was a very nice change of pace. Sometimes when we have to read a document with legal language it can be hard to get through. Having a video to listen to made it much easier and quicker for me to understand and get through.
It is really interesting to see if Israel is able to gain legitimacy or if this will be seen as another attempt of Israel to secure themselves more control in the middle east?
This video was especially interesting because of the large cargo ship that is currently blocking the Suez Canal. If the ship is not freed soon, there will undoubtedly be adverse effects on trade. The Regional Landbridge would help relieve some of the pressure on the Suez Canal. As the video stated, the initiative would lower the cost and time of trade, as well as boost regional economies. At the same time, Egypt would probably be against the landbridge because the Suez Canal, which brings in billions of dollars, could be bypassed.
That's a good point about Egypt, I wonder if they would have some sort of partnership within the landbridge so they aren't squeezed out of the process. Although I would assume shipping through the canal would still be faster that the landbridge in some cases?
I like to see Israel's initiative with the land bridge to create more regional harmony and prosperity. If successful, it could go a long way for stability in the middle east by providing economic opportunities for many states through an interdependent network. It will be challenging to get something like this off the ground since palestine would surely to be a factor in any regional agreement. As @Alex Gintz mentioned above, this could aide Israel's legitimacy among regional neighbors but also would provide Saudi Arabia with a lot more economic power since the infrastructure is already there. I feel like there would need to be a balance of power mechanism incorporated so Israel/ Saudi Arabia don't end up dominating the land bridge.
I agree that it's nice to see Israel is trying to make more regional harmony. I think this could only be good for the countries involved. There don't seem to be many downsides.
It will be interesting to see how this rolls out but if it is successful it could lead to a more prosperous Middle East.
I think this is a great idea. This land bridge could help Israel make real, solid connections with the bordering nations. The economic boost cannot be denied, and the only thing that could really stop it would be politics. It is nice to see that everyone is able to benefit from the land bridge and it is important that all of the countries involved get to see the benefits. If this bridge does help rebuild the Iraqi economy over time, it could really help Israel be friendlier with the neighboring countries. I don't see many downsides to doing this if everyone comes to an agreement.
After watching the video it was interesting to see Israel taking a more active role in stabilizing influence in the Middle East. It will be very interesting to see how successful this railway is in the future but if it is successful then we it will be a good stabilizer within the Middle East. With Israel taking a larger presence with this railway then it could help with keeping foreign powers, like China, from gaining a prominent place.
I think so too. It will be interesting to see what this will look like in the future, and whether the ties between the countries will strengthen.