Border Clash Boosts Hezbollah – Whatever Happened to Dubai? – Gay in the Arab World

By Lara Setrakian
@Lara
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ISRAEL-LEBANON BORDER CLASH BOOSTS HEZBOLLAH AT HOME Only in the Middle East does a routine tree-trimming lead to a deadly scuffle that almost sparks a war while reshaping Lebanese power politics. But we know it’s a thin trip-wire that runs along the Israeli-Lebanese frontier – more precisely, the "Blue Line" that marks where both armies are supposed to hang back. It’s the output of last week’s event that is more subtle, a key point of inflection ahead of a next big war. Basically, the border clash was very good for Hezbollah, analysts tell ABC News. At a time when Hezbollah had been somewhat politically isolated – challenged by certain Lebanese Christians and implicated in the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri – the border incident put Hezbollah and the Lebanese firmly on the same team. "This week Hezbollah scored high marks in the public eye" for ostensibly backing the Lebanese Army’s sovereignty in the south, said Dr. Ahmed Mousalli, a political scientist in Beirut. From the Israeli perspective, Hezbollah elements may have kicked off the scuffle for just that reason. Either way, the incident permanently blurred the lines between Hezbollah and the Lebanese Army – an inconvenient distinction during the 2006 summer war. That last week didn’t escalate into all-out war stems from the fact that "neither Israel nor Hezbollah has any interest in a widespread confrontation at the moment," said Ofer Shelah in Maariv. "If there is a war with Hezbollah, sources in the IDF keep on saying, it will be part of a broader confrontation with Iran."  At least in Lebanese domestic politics, Hezbollah has been on the defensive, says Racha Makarem, a journalist who used to translate Sayed Hassan Nasrallah’s speeches into English for Al Manar TV. Nasrallah’s after-action address, marking an anniversary of the 2006 summer war, "was the least aggressive speech I’ve ever heard from him…it was all about Lebanese unity," she said. "There was the standard ‘we will cut off their hands’ etc. But the tone was lenient. It was a way to get the Lebanese to support them." That’s especially important for Hezbollah as its primary backer, Iran, is squeezed by sanctions and neighboring Syria could curb some of its aid. Last week Nasrallah dropped a teaser: on Monday he would reveal new evidence of Israeli involvement in Hariri’s death. As the country tunes in there will be some sceptics in the audience. "The question that everyone is asking is that if you knew who killed Hariri, why didn’t you say so before? It looks like they’re trying to cover up something," said Makarem. "There’s tension in the air everywhere. No one knows what’s going to happen." MORE LINKS: Primers on Hezbollah from the Council on Foreign Relations | BBC News | NowLebanon Daniel Levy for Foreign Policy: Five Comments on the Israel-Lebanon Border Clash WHATEVER HAPPENED TO DUBAI? UNDER DEBT DURESS, THE CITY TAKES NEW SHAPE Remember Dubai World? Its struggle with a $26 billion debt pile was as a nasty surprise to global markets last November. Sources involved in Dubai World’s talks with creditors say a final deal is near, likely signed in the next few months. It would involve rolling over debt deadlines such that Dubai will be paying bills for the next 5-8 years. In that, Dubai could be on its own – one high-level Abu Dhabi official said the oil-rich sister emirate was ‘done’ helping Dubai, beyond the roughly $20 billion pledged to date (a generosity that has shifted the power balance in Abu Dhabi’s favor). From here, whether Dubai can stay on the right side of insolvency depends on whether the real economy – sectors like trade, tourism, and logistics – can generate enough cash for Dubai to pay its debts. Overall, "the mood in Dubai is subdued," said Sean Evers, a former Bloomberg bureau chief now with TheGulfIntelligence.com. "The [Dubai World] announcement last year came in and just knocked every domino over. Dubai has not yet recovered from that." The IMF projects another year of recession, though in a modest decline of 0.5 percent as opposed to Dubai’s drop of 5 percent last year. Could Dubai muster a sunny second act? It’s hard to tell in a city slammed for its lack of transparency (in other words, where bad facts are rarely admitted and often papered over). Commerce is flowing, but real estate is still reeling, while attitudes in finance range from "things are so-so" to "let’s wait and see." Emirates Airlines, seen as a catalyst for Dubai’s revival, dominates a space often scoped as MENASA (Middle East/North Africa/South Asia). Dubai itself is not a ghost town, its malls and hotels are bustling. But the city has a lot of excess capacity, turning a once-overpriced place into a really good bargain (our own travel page found Dubai hotel rooms starting at $36 per night).
From a social standpoint, residents and diplomats have noticed a tightening of morality laws since the downturn; Dubai remains a paradox of a city, where you can get arrested for holding hands in a shopping mall but still hire a hooker in a hotel lobby. That mirrors another Dubai double standard of jailing those in personal debt, while the city itself leaves hundreds of millions of dollars in construction bills unpaid. Young bloggers like Hisham Wyne still see Dubai as a city that trades in inspiration. The essence of the Dubai model – the notion that enough money and political stamina can transform a society – is still popular. Countries dubbed "the next Dubai" in their own realms include Qatar, Syria, Djibouti, Libya, and Kazakhstan. They may not succeed in closing the gap, but they could make this a better region for trying. MORE LINKS: Jones Lang LaSalle’s Dubai Real Estate Market Overview The IMF on the UAE  | Gulf Economis Recover, Dubai Drags Behind Some good websites on MidEast Business from the FT | Bloomberg News | Middle East Economic Survey | Arabian Business  GAY IN THE ARAB WORLD: LIFE AND LOVE UNDER DEADLY SCRUTINY "There’s a group of gay girls in Saudi Arabia looking for gay men to marry. It's the perfect solution," said Samir, telling me about his life in the closet and his mother’s constant urgings to find a bride. Samir lives in the holy city of Mecca. He puts most of his energy toward reconciling his feeling with his faith ("I pray to God to help me be straight, just to avoid hell.") and finding a safe space for self-expression. "I've been invited to private parties for gay men in Jeddah, but I never go because I know what would happen if we were caught by the religious police," said Samir. "Unless it's a VIP house – if the party is at the home of one of the princes or one of the sheikhs, then you're protected." For gays in the Middle East, freedom comes in pockets of tolerance and rare doses of privacy. The Internet helps, with online dating forums and a support network run by HELEM, the first gay advocacy group in the Arab world. But there are also dangers online. In Egypt, members of the Cairo Vice Squad routinely pose as gay men in online chat rooms, set up a first date, then meet their "suspects" with a brutal arrest. The crackdowns intensified after a pivotal incident in 2001, in which Egyptian police raided a floating nightclub called the Queen Boat, a then-popular gay hangout moored on the Nile River. Dozens of gay men were detained, tortured and publicly humiliated. Over the same period, homophobia has grown deadly in Iraq. Human Rights Watch and gay activists say that since the since the U.S. invasion, Islamic hard-liners have created a stricter social atmosphere, with a series of anti-gay fatwas have given way to cruel and fatal crackdowns. In Saudi Arabia, perhaps ironically, the strict separation of the sexes provides some cover for gay men and women. Multiple sources, including college faculty, tell ABC News that lesbian life is thriving at girls’ schools and women’s universities across the kingdom – brushed off by educators and family members as relatively harmless compared to the reputational stain of premarital sex with a man. It underscores how homosexuality is accepted, especially in the Gulf, as a practice rather than an identity. "The phrase 'to be is not to do' is how I explain it," Michael Luongo, author of "Gay Travels in the Muslim World," told ABC News.  Throughout the Arab world, gay life has to fit into whatever space it can find, and the borders are constantly moving. On one hand it’s empowered by new freedoms and the independence of modern life. On the other, it’s squeezed by the competition between the rise of Islam in public life and a secular state trying to compete on moral credentials. "One of the ways [Arab authorities] prove they're bona fide is by cracking down on people that everyone hates," said Scott Long of Human Rights Watch.  "They want to reassert their relevance … to position themselves as defenders of morality is one way to do it." MORE LINKS: ABC News on Gay Life in the Middle East Human Rights Watch LGBT Page, with reports on Egypt | Turkey | Iran | Saudi Arabia Israeli Religious Gay Group Helps Deal with Identity | This year’s Gay Pride Parade in Jerusalem, Also a Memorial   
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