PREMIUM SEARCH Search by job title, geography and build a list of executive contacts
Hours after Syrian President Hafez Assad's death, the country's legislature met in an unprecedented secret session and amended the nation's constitution to allow someone younger than 35 to assume the presidency. The benefactor of that change: Assad's son, Bashar, who legally couldn't assume the top job because he was only 34 years old. The move -- by unanimous vote -- drew little notice. Syria, after all, isn't a democracy, and its constitution has about as much hallowedness as Bashar's handkerchief.
But the parliamentary acquiescence to the Assad secession shows why no peace treaty has been signed between Israel and Syria, and why the real issues at stake in the Mideast summit this week at Camp David aren't even on the negotiating table. Yasser Arafat, Ehud Barak, and Bill Clinton will be arguing this week over security, territory, refugees, and Jerusalem. While all four issues are immensely important, they're only symbols -- the smoke rising from the Arab-Israeli conflagration. To really quench the flames, one issue that has been so far completely ignored in talks has to be dealt with by both sides: Democracy.
A lasting Middle East peace can work only if real democracy comes to the region. Unlike Latin America, and more recently Asia, the Mideast has resisted democratic reforms. The only countries in the region that can remotely be called democracies are Israel and Turkey, although both are rife with corruption and leave large swaths of their population voiceless, mainly because of their ethnic identity (in Turkey the Kurds, in Israel, the Arabs).
RUBBER STAMPS.
The rest of the area, including the entire Arab world, cannot claim a single democratic government. The recent deaths of monarchs and dictators like King Hassan of Morocco, King Hussein of Jordan, and Hafez Assad of Syria have all been quickly followed by the rise of each ruler's offspring, without open debate, real referendums, or even constitutional legitimacy.
Although most Arab nations have some form of legislative body or consultative council, they all serve to merely rubber-stamp the dictator's or monarch's fiats. Likewise, not a single Arab country's judiciary can boast of being independent from the ruling regime. Only a few, most notably Jordan, have real opposition political parties. Even in Jordan, where parliament has little real power compared to King Abdullah's control over all parts of the government, the opposition does little more than make polite objections to government policy.
Israel will never have a real peace with its neighbors until they're democracies. Of course, the Arab citizenry, filled with decades of anti-Zionist propaganda, aren't exactly begging their governments to sign peace treaties with Israel. But public opinion can change rapidly, and having real democratic institutions can transform the foreign policies of a country.
POLICE STATE.
Asking for sweeping democratic change throughout the entire Middle East is a tall order. But Israeli Prime Minister Barak should put forward on his list of demands that the new Palestinian state should make significant steps toward a democratic system. Currently, the Palestinian Authority runs the West Bank and Gaza as cruelly as an occupying army would. A half-dozen different police forces, militias, and private armies, each ruled by its own warlord, currently maintain a strict order in the Palestinian territories. More than 60,000 men are armed and in uniform, all of whom are part of an elaborate state security apparatus. When statehood comes, that method of civic security can only be given one name: Totalitarianism.
For the moment, Israel is happy to have a police state next door. Israeli security experts mistakenly believe that the militias are the only way to keep Islamic fundamentalists from coming to power.
But in the long run, a democratic Palestine will be Israel's greatest security asset. As long as Palestinians have the chance to vote, feel that they can find justice in their court system, and aren't robbed of the fruits of their labor by a corrupt tax system, they'll be a far friendlier neighbor. Dictatorships need a boogey man to focus the people's restlessness away from overthrowing the regime, and Israel has served that role throughout Arab lands for the last 50 years. With democracy, a free press, and open debate in Palestine, a war against Israel will be much harder to initiate.
STIFLED MINORITIES.
A flourishing democracy isn't good just for the Palestinians. No country can boast of a perfect democratic system. Yet Israel's is more than imperfect. It has fatal flaws built into it that in the long run could represent that country's greatest risk. The sizable Arab minority in Israel, representing almost one-fifth of the country's population of 4 million, must have a real say in the politics of the nation.
Yes, Arabs are allowed to vote and form their own political parties. Yet, thanks to an unwritten and unspoken agreement, those Arab parties are effectively shut out of any position of power within the government. The four Arab parties, which make up one-twelfth of today's Knesset, are not allowed to join the ruling coalition. Arab members of Knesset are kept from joining important Knesset committees (although a few token appointments have been made) for fear of compromising national security.
Mainly as a result of this system of governmental separation, the economy of Israel's Arab sector lags far behind the rest of the country. The main reason is because government jobs and handouts don't go to the politically powerless. Arab farmers till 16% of arable land in Israel, yet receive only 2% of the water that the government doles out to farmers. The state-run electric utility employs 13,000 people, 50 of them Arabs. As a result of this inequity, poverty in the Arab community is rife and educational levels low.
VOICELESS.
This situation has to end for Israelis to fully enjoy the fruits of democracy. Arabs aren't the only group that have been politically ghettoized by the Israeli system of government. Sephardic Jews, those originally from Middle Eastern countries, are notoriously underrepresented in the Knesset. New Russian immigrants have only recently garnered significant political power, although they still have a tiny voice in the nation's affairs in comparison to their numbers. Each of these groups is represented in the Knesset by its own special-interest party, which in turn tends to be corrupt. In the end, a sizable portion of Israel's citizens are left voiceless or are, in the best circumstances, allowed to only whisper their discontent.
In the long run, the only way to ensure a real Mideast peace is to allow everyone's voice to be heard and every vote to matter. The region's citizens suffer most from the constant warfare. Let them be the ones to enjoy the benefits of peace.
Jaffe is a markets writer for Business Week Online who now resides in Philadelphia, after spending many years in Israel
Copyright 2000 , by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
Printer-Friendly Version
