2009 has been a seesaw year for the Middle East. The year started in agony with Israel’s bloody attack on Gaza, which, by the time Israel and Hamas announced their officially unconnected cease-fires on Jan. 18, left some 1,300 Palestinians dead.
However, the fact that the world was now fully aware of Israeli oppression of the Palestinians gave rise to hopes in the region that at last it would be forced into accepting a just settlement.
There was hope, too, in the new Obama administration in Washington — fueled when President Barack Obama chose to make his first foreign call after taking office to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and then in sending experienced mediator, special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell, to the region to work on peace discussions.
Hope was further encouraged when in June, at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the US president called for a rapprochement between the US, Arab and Muslim worlds.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s appointment as Israel’s prime minister following the Israeli general election on Feb. 10 was the first major blow to the year’s hopes of a historic breakthrough. By early summer, he insisted he would continue to expand settlements, despite Israel’s agreeing to a total freeze in 2003.
In September, Palestinian hopes of justice again rose with the UN human rights investigation into the Gaza conflict accusing the Israelis, as well as Hamas, of war crimes.
On Nov. 5 President Mahmoud Abbas announced he would not stand for re-election. His decision reflected a growing sense of betrayal by the Obama administration over the settlements issue. The year ended with growing Palestinian and Arab disillusionment with the Obama administration, a conviction that Washington had reverted to its traditional support for Israel. Meanwhile, Gazans were still blockaded and again unable to rebuild their lives.
The other major issue in the Middle East in 2009 has been Iran. The standoff over its nuclear intentions has continued, fueling fears for Gulf peace. To this there has been added concern over Iran’s internal stability following the disputed presidential election in June.
Government crackdowns on the opposition have not been successful. There are fears that if the country becomes less stable in the coming years, authorities may try to externalize their problems — with serious consequences for Gulf security.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, the political picture has been more encouraging. In Iraq, moves toward normality received numerous boosts early in the year with Iraqi troops taking control of security in Baghdad’s Green Zone, Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki’s alliance winning in provincial elections and, in March, President Obama announcing the withdrawal of the majority of US troops by August 2010 and all by the end of 2011.
March also saw British forces starting to withdraw from the country; by June all had left. In the same month, US troops withdrew from Iraqi towns and cities.
There were positive signs of national reconciliation with the formation of a new alliance around Al-Maliki in preparation for the 2010 parliamentary elections. The situation began to look shaky with renewed bombings in Baghdad in October and December, the worst since 2007, plus political deadlock over the number of seats for Sunnis in the new Parliament. However, an 11th-hour compromise allowed a new electoral law to be passed paving the way for elections to be held on March 7.
The year ended with the Iraqi government handing out massive new oil concessions to a number of major oil contractors — a sign of confidence in the country’s economic future.
In Lebanon, political deadlock between pro and anti-Syrian factions following the June 7 parliamentary elections was finally resolved five months later and a government led by Saad Hariri, son of assassinated former Premier Rafik Hariri, installed.
In Sudan, the international arrest warrant issued against President Omar Bashir by the International Criminal Court in The Hague in March for alleged war crimes in Darfur had no effect other than stirring up local resentment. President Bashir traveled without incident to the Arab summit in Doha at the end of the month. By June, the UN said the conflict in Darfur, which left 300,000 dead and displaced 2.7 million, was over.
On an equally positive note, by the end of the year the leaders of north and south, after earlier strains, had agreed on an independence referendum in the south which could result in its splitting from the county in 2011. It showed that politics had replaced force as the means of resolving conflicts in Sudan.
