Scholars discuss ISIS, Middle Eastern turmoil
Turmoil in the Middle East is nothing new. News about Egypt, Israel, Palestine and Syria are daily occurrences, and the media reports one ISIS beheading after another.
In light of the myriad facets of these conflicts, four panelists convened yesterday afternoon to discuss the collective future of the Middle East.
The lecture, “What Is the Future of the Middle East?” was co-sponsored by the Department of Political Science and the Division of Student Affairs.
Eric Davis, vice-chair for Graduate Studies in the Department of Political Science, moderated the event in the Multipurpose Room of the College Avenue Student Center.
Engy Abdelkader, Esq., Hamid-al-Bayati, Muli Peleg and Ghaidaa Hetou were the panelists who spoke about the conditions of Egypt, Iraq, Israel and Syria, respectively.
Abdelkader, a Rutgers alumna, lawyer and co-director of the Immigration Intervention Project, outlined a series of issues currently plaguing Egypt. She spoke exclusively on the rights of women and girls in the country.
She described three areas regarding women’s rights: economic empowerment, domestic violence and gender-based violence.
Although Egypt has laws stating that women must be given equal opportunities for employment, the current situation suggests otherwise. Twenty-eight percent of Egyptian women are unemployed, compared to the 9.1 percent of unemployed Egyptian men.
But the statistic is not entirely representative. The 28 percent does not indicate whether the women included in the statistic desired jobs.
If that was the case, Abdelkader said the law should be applied more stringently to better achieve gender equality in the Egyptian workforce.
She also discussed the severe condition of domestic violence in Egypt. According to one research study, 80 percent of surveyed Egyptian men felt they had the right to “physically discipline” their wives.
If women wanted to report the violence to law enforcement or apply for a restraining order, the probability of either would be slim to none. Abdelkader said domestic violence is seen as a “social affair, not a criminal action.”
The same flippancy toward domestic violence translates to gender-based violence.
According to a United Nations study on women, approximately 99 percent of surveyed Egyptian women reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment.
Abdelkader also said 80 percent of Egyptian females under the age of 18 reported undergoing female genital mutilation, or the cutting of one or more parts of the genitals for non-medical reasons, according to a report from UNICEF.
“But is there hope? What does the future hold?” Abdelkader asked. “I tend to be optimistic.”
The Egyptian legislature passed a series of articles during the summer, four of which Abdelkader mentioned might increase gender parity. Egypt also recently passed a law criminalizing sexual harassment. So far, the law has been effective by fining and prosecuting perpetrators.
Aside from legislation, women have been taking matters into their own hands by utilizing pop culture, art and grassroots organizing. Women have been starting Facebook pages condemning sexual harassment, and their activism has caught attention.
“It’s significant to realize that women and girls have agency,” Abdelkader said. “They can effectuate change.”
Al-Bayati, a permanent representative of Iraq to the United Nations and a former Deputy Foreign Minister to the Republic of Iraq, spoke about the turmoil Iraq has undergone for centuries.
“Iraq is very well known for being the cradle of civilization … [and] now it’s a hot topic in the media,” he said.
Iraq is a mosaic of different racial, cultural and sectarian tiles. Those differences have been the driving force for conflict, most apparent during Saddam Hussein’s reign.
In the 1980s, Iraq invaded Iran, and Hussein successfully pitted Sunnis against Shiites. In the 1990s, Hussein drove a stake between Muslims and “Christian crusaders.” In 2003, Al-Bayati returned to Iraq, where he lost nearly 10 members of his family to the violence.
Despite the chasms among different groups in Iraq, there have also been moments of unity that the media has given little thought.
“The media focuses on the negative side of the picture … [I want them to] say what is good, say what is bad,” Al-Bayati said. “[But they just] want to sell the news.”
This “reactionary” trait of the media is enduring. The media devoted an inordinate amount of time and content to terrorists planted in Yemen.
“But where is Yemen now in the news?” Al-Bayati asked. “Nowhere.”
The hot-button issue now is most prominently ISIS, the terrorist group so extreme that even groups like Al-Qaeda have denounced it.
“I teach my students how to think as leaders,” Al-Bayati said. “If we don’t unite as human [beings] … then there will be another generation of terrorism.”
Peleg, a visiting instructor in the Department of Political Science, talked about his attachment to Israel as a scholar.
“I’m a product of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” he said. “My socialization process revolved around the historical narrative.”
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a new phenomenon. It is durable and deep-rooted, tracing its foundations back at least three centuries. Israelis and Palestinians inextricably have a collective identity.
“[People] say many times Israel has gone to the right,” Peleg said. “I believe that’s true, but I want to point out this transition to the right is more of an emotional transition … [because] of fear.”
The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is a battle between extremists and moderates, Peleg said. The divide has turned Israel into a politically volatile country.
He attributed the volatility to a lack of trust.
“Trust is absent ... there are solutions to all the problems on the agenda between the Palestinians and Israelis,” he said. “All of them ... I know the solutions are there.”
Hetou, a Rutgers alumna, the director of Professional Development and the chief executive officer of I-Strategic, discussed her experiences as a Syrian citizen living inside and outside the Middle East.
Since ISIS has established itself in Syria, a country that has a population of almost 23 million, any disturbance in a country of that size will “naturally ripple out.”
There are 620,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan, Hetou said. There are more than a million in Lebanon, with another million in Turkey.
Within Syria itself, there are 6.4 million internally displaced people lacking basic amenities. Ten and a half million people need humanitarian aid. The only people profiting from the tragedy are warlords, she said.
ISIS is overshadowing the humanitarian crisis by being a security crisis that is simultaneously a regional and international problem.
Hetou asked if there is any glimmer of hope when the current situation is so grim.
There is hope, she said, attributing “frozen zones.” A frozen zone is a proposal to a fighting faction in a neighborhood in a city that would agree to hold fighting to allow aid trucks to help people in need.
There have been 35 instances of frozen zones that were not included in most news coverage. Almost all of the zones have been honored. The few problems have been random skirmishes.
“[The Middle East] to me was a puzzle,” Hetou said. “A puzzle I understood, in a way, but the pieces were shifting in a flux that was always in a need for attention and a need for reassessment.”
