Wild flowers

Saturday was a fine sunny day, ideal for a drive along the Gilboa scenic route. On clear winter days it's possible to see Mount Hermon at high points along the route. To the east the Gilead mountain range in Jordan is visible even on hazy summer days.

Our first stop was Saul's Shoulder, a vantage point on the north east side of the mountain. Hapless King Saul and his equally misfortunate sons died on the mountain, but gained immortality when an Israeli place names committee named two peaks and a rocky outcrop in their memory. David cursed the mountain, so the committee thought it inappropriate to give him a peak.

The Gilboa scenic route, popular in all seasons was unusually well travelled on Saturday. The vantage points along the route afford breathtaking views of the Jezreel Valley. The balmy weather and the appearance of wild anemones and cyclamens on the slopes near the mountain road attracted Saturday tourists to this and other scenic spots.

While Tunisians and Egyptians are ousting their autocratic rulers and other countries in the region are in a state of political turmoil we are photographing wild flowers.

The purpose of this preamble is to state that Israelis concerned as they certainly are by the upheavals in the Middle East manage to adopt a business as usual attitude and to relax a bit too.

Now that Mubarak has gone everyone is speculating about what will happen next. The military governing body headed by Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi has been received with mixed sentiments.

A number of media networks anxious to provide a personal profile quoted a US diplomatic cable from March 2008 published by Wikileaks.

It described Field Marshal Tantawi as "charming and courtly" but also "aged and change-resistant".

"He and Mubarak are focused on regime stability and maintaining the status quo through the end of their time. They simply do not have the energy, inclination or world view to do anything differently," the cable read.

An up-to-date description didn't improve his image, "Field Marshal Tantawi embodies the reactionary forces still embedded at the heart of a regime that may have shed its figurehead but not its essence”

Another evaluation of Tantawi and the Egyptian armed forces was provided recently by the Middle East Institute in an article written by Dr. Graeme Bannerman.

The author claims that few people outside the Egyptian armed forces truly understand how the military functions.

“The Egyptian army is an institution--largely self-sustained through enterprises such as farms, factories, hospitals and the like-- with the dual purposes of defending the nation against external threats and preserving domestic stability.”
In effect it is a society within the broad Egyptian society. "Members of the military live on cantonments and do not participate in the national political process. They cannot vote in elections.
Egyptians do not know the army. The Defense Minister, the Chief of Staff, and the commanding generals are not nationally known personalities."

Bannerman explains that in Egypt, the Minister of Defense is also the Minister of Military Production. The armed forces produce many of their own essential goods and services. They own large farms and produce most commodities consumed by the army. They have bakeries, water bottling facilities, and clothing manufacturing factories. All of these are in addition to the military production factories. The logic of these operations is that it assures the military of essential supplies and insulates them from corruption in the private sector.

At this juncture let's consider how immune the Egyptian military is to bribery and corruption. Baksheesh is endemic in the Middle East. It has been traditionally identified with Ottoman decadency, its origins can be traced to a Persian word (Middle Iranian) .Baksheesh is a term used to describe tipping, charitable giving, and certain forms of political corruption and bribery in the Middle East and South Asia.

Author Leo Deuel described baksheesh as "lavish remuneration and bribes, rudely demanded but ever so graciously accepted by the natives in return for little or no services rendered."

Ironically the self-contained services and industrial conglomerates established by the military possess an inbuilt graft factor.

To its credit it also has inbuilt merits. The military fields and sponsors several of the country's most popular sports organisations. During recent bread riots, it helped mollify angry crowds by ramping up production from its own bakeries. But despite the military's predominant role, the Egyptian public knows remarkably little about how the military actually operates. That's because writing about the military has long been off-limits to the press. The secrecy begins with the military budget, which Jane's Defence Weekly estimates to be about $5 billion. However, one independent researcher has calculated that actual military expenditures could be four or five times larger. Part of the budget is made up of U.S. military assistance amounting to $1.3 billion annually that provides financing for Egypt's major weapons systems. (The funding must be spent on U.S. goods and services and is therefore effectively a subsidy for U.S. defence. contractors.) Normally, (in other places) defence expenditure is subject to an independent external supervisory body. Journalist Ken Stier reporting for CNN/Time said, "As for the parliamentary committee responsible for overseeing those expenses, it is stuffed with police and military officers; the prospects for meaningful civilian oversight anytime soon are dim."

Stier traced the evolution of the military's business growth, “Military factories first sprang up in the 1820s to produce uniforms and small arms. Their role expanded with the state-led economy from the early 1950s and was consolidated when the military needed to gainfully employ a significant part of the army made redundant after the peace agreement with Israel. (At that point, the active military had numbered about 900,000.) Now, military-run firms hold strong positions in a wide range of key industries, including food (olive oil, milk, bread and water); cement and gasoline; vehicle production (joint ventures with Jeep to produce Cherokees and Wranglers); and construction, in which it benefits being able to deploy conscripts during their last six months of service. Another source of the military's untold wealth is its hold on one of this densely populated country's most precious commodities: public land, which is increasingly being converted into gated communities and resorts. The military has other advantages: it does not pay taxes and does not have to deal with the bureaucratic red tape that strangles the private sector.

Robert Springborg, a professor in the department of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and author of “Mubarak’s Egypt: Fragmentation of the Political Order.”

Predicts that the generals “will try to massage the new order so that it does not seek to impose civilian control on the armed forces,” he said. “It’s not just a question of preserving the institution of the Army. It’s a question of preserving the financial base of its members.”

The Egyptian military is in an awkward predicament. For the present it has a mandate to bring about the return to normalcy and carryout its promise to hold national elections. At the same time it is anxious to preserve its assets.

The military and large sections of the opposition parties fear a takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood has gone to pains to present a moderate image, ostensibly declining to propose a candidate for the presidency and keeping a low profile. An article in the New York Times authored by a member of the party sought to allay fears of a Muslim Brotherhood coup d’état. However, Der Spiegel journalist Alexander Smoltczyk presents a different picture in an article on the Muslim televangelist Youssef al-Qaradawi . Smoltczyk says Qaradawi is the father figure of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and the organisation is sure to play a part in deciding what path Egypt will now take.

“Qaradawi advocates establishing a ‘United Muslim Nations’ as a contemporary form of the caliphate and the only alternative to the hegemony of the West. He hates Israel and would love to take up arms himself. In one of his sermons, he asked God ‘to kill the Jewish Zionists, every last one of them.’

In January 2009, he said: ‘Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by [Adolf] Hitler.’

Will this man encourage his brothers in Cairo to uphold the peace treaty with Israel, should the Muslim Brotherhood become part of a government now that Mubarak has resigned?

The 84-year-old is the president of the International Association of Muslim Scholars and the European Council for Fatwa and Research. He has written more than 120 books and penned countless doctrines, which he distributes internationally via his website IslamOnline.net.”

Some analysts argue that the Egyptian military might aspire to maintain a seemingly unobtrusive presence, similar to the role the Turkish military has played in that country’s politics. Since the military is dependent on U.S. military assistance it is reasonable to suppose that it will be satisfied to remain in the background ready to correct matters if they get out of hand.

Have a good weekend.

Beni 17^th of February, 2011.