Middle East Church Coalition Celebrates “Arab Spring”

on June 2, 2011

This is the first of two articles on the 2011 Churches for Middle East Peace Advocacy Conference.

A series of revolutions sweeping the Middle East pose little danger to Israel and represent a movement away from violence and radicalism, according to speakers at a recent church conference focused of Middle East peace.

Arab revolutionaries were “less interested in war against Israel and more interested in better lives in their own countries,” said Mary Jane Deeb of the Congressional Research Service, a speaker at the fifth annual Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) Advocacy Conference held May 22-24 in Washington, D.C. Describing a “new paradigm,” Deeb said that younger Arab revolutionaries had sympathy for the demands of Palestinians, but were not interested in creating a crisis in the region.

The conference speakers’ assessments downplayed the influence of Islamists and, while acknowledging increased sectarian tensions, seemed to minimize the concerns of minority groups such as Coptic Christians.

CMEP is an ecumenical advocacy organization composed primarily of Mainline Protestant and Orthodox churches, including some Catholic groups. The Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the United Methodist General Boards of Church and Society (GBCS) and Global Ministries (GBGM) are all members of the coalition.

Unlike previous conferences, which focused almost exclusively on Israelis and Palestinians, the 2011 CMEP advocacy conference speakers devoted a substantial amount of discussion to recent uprisings, with particular attention on Egypt.

“It’s where the Arab Spring will either live or die,” said Michele Dunne of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, explaining that the north African nation was one-quarter of the Arab world’s population.

Saying that the old “pharaonic model” of a monarchical presidency was dead, Dunne said the new question was how to proceed with removing the military from a governing role.

“Egyptians have a better idea of what they don’t want than what they do want,” Dunne said.

Dunne acknowledged sectarian problems in Egypt, especially those caused by salafist Muslims who were “not necessarily the most numerous” compared to the Muslim Brotherhood, but which were a danger. Dunne also pointed out that Egyptian laws have been “very unequal” between Christians and Muslims on building houses of worship. However, both Dunne and Deeb were generally positive in their assessment of the revolutionary movements, which Deeb said had even attracted the support of Coptic Christians.

In the early days of the demonstrations, Coptic Christians were cautiously optimistic and were shown in international media reports as shoulder to shoulder with Muslim protesters. More recent reports after the burning of three church buildings have portrayed bleaker prospects for Egyptian Christians than before the overthrow of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. A May 30 article in the New York Times reported that many Egyptian Christians now fear that Mubarak’s fall has allowed long-simmering tensions to explode, potentially threatening the character of Egypt, and the region.

Dunne seemed less concerned, saying that Egyptian foreign policy would largely stay the same, but be more responsive to public opinion than under Mubarak. There was no Egyptian interest in a re-armed Hamas, and the prospect of armed Palestinians in the Sinai would be a “national security disaster” that no Egyptian government would want.

Dunne encouraged the conference participants to “have Egypt in mind” during their meetings with congressional offices later in the week, suggesting that debt relief and free trade with Egypt would better support a transition to democracy.

Deeb spent most of her presentation providing historical context to the revolutions, in which she presented her view that Islamist groups had been largely discredited.

Islamists, Deeb said, had initially become more active in the Middle East following the collapse of communism and its associated Arab-socialist movements.

“All of society’s problems could be solved through Islam,” Deeb described of the Islamists’ view. According to the congressional researcher, the paradigm in the region then became anti-Israeli. The “Arab Spring”, however, had ultimately discredited Islamists, Deeb said, noting a quiet response to bin Laden’s death in the region, except for Hamas and “a few Salafis in Egypt.”

“Bin Laden died in Egypt before Pakistan,” Deeb said, arguing that the region’s new paradigm was not anti-Israel. A confluence of factors, Deeb said, such as the development of American-partnered universities in Middle East and better communications between educated young people exposed to liberal ideas, had made it harder to suppress crackdowns.

Both the 2005 “Cedar revolution” in Lebanon and the trial of Saddam Hussein had also shown Arabs for the first time that it was possible to hold their leaders accountable before the law, Deeb said.

“A wide cross-section of society has participated in protests against governments, although led by the young,” Deeb said. Protesters’ concerns were rampant corruption and the costs of food and energy.

“Nothing to do with Israel,” Deeb said, listing the revolutionary movement as “primarily nationalist” and asserting that Christian Copts were also taking part.

 

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