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قصة أويس القرني
لفضيلة الدكتور محمد راتب النابلسي بتاريخ: 2005-07-22
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
هذه القصة التي تجسد موضوع السكينة، فقدْ أخرج مسلم في صحيحه في كتاب فضائل الصحابة باب من فضائل أويس القرني رضي الله عنه:
((أَنَّ أَهْلَ الْكُوفَةِ وَفَدُوا إِلَى عُمَرَ
وَفِيهِمْ رَجُلٌ مِمَّنْ كَانَ يَسْخَرُ بِأُوَيْسٍ، فَقَالَ عُمَرُ: هَلْ
هَاهُنَا أَحَدٌ مِنْ الْقَرَنِيِّينَ ؟ فَجَاءَ ذَلِكَ الرَّجُلُ فَقَالَ
عُمَرُ: إِنَّ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ قَدْ
قَالَ: إِنَّ رَجُلاً يَأْتِيكُمْ مِنْ الْيَمَنِ يُقَالُ لَهُ أُوَيْسٌ
لَا يَدَعُ بِالْيَمَنِ غَيْرَ أُمٍّ لَهُ قَدْ كَانَ بِهِ بَيَاضٌ فَدَعَا
اللَّهَ فَأَذْهَبَهُ عَنْهُ إِلَّا مَوْضِعَ الدِّينَارِ أَوْ
الدِّرْهَمِ فَمَنْ لَقِيَهُ مِنْكُمْ فَلْيَسْتَغْفِرْ لَكُمْ ))
(( إِنَّ خَيْرَ التَّابِعِينَ رَجُلٌ يُقَالُ لَهُ
أُوَيْسٌ وَلَهُ وَالِدَةٌ وَكَانَ بِهِ بَيَاضٌ فَمُرُوهُ
فَلْيَسْتَغْفِرْ لَكُمْ))
وقد ورد في كتب السيرة أنَّ رسول الله صلى الله
عليه وسلم قال لعمرَ بن الخطاب وعليِّ بن أبي طالب: إذا لقيتما أويساً
القرني فاسألاه أن يستغفر لكما فإنه مجاب الدعوة. فترصدا موسم الحج عشر
سنين يدعوان أهل الموسم من اليمن على طعام فما ظفرا بضالّتهما، ثم جاء
العام الذي يليه فقال عمر لرئيس وفد اليمن: أبقي أحد لم يحضر وليمتنا، قال:
لا، إلا فتىً خامل الذكر يرعى إبلاً لنا، فقال له سيدنا عمر: أهو آدم أشهل
ذو صهوبة ؟ فقال: كأنك تعرفه يا أمير المؤمنين، فذهب عمر وعلي إليه، فلما
أتياه قالا: من الرجل ؟ قال: راعي إبل وأجير قوم، قالا: لسنا نسألك عن ذلك
ما اسمك ؟ قال: عبد الله، قال له علي رضي الله عنه: قد علمنا أن كل من في
السماوات والأرض عبيد لله، ما اسمك الذي سمتك به أمك ؟ قال: يا هذان من
أنتما وما تريدان مني ؟ فقال عمر: أنا عمر بن الخطاب، وهذا علي بن أبي
طالب، فانتفض واقفاً، وقال: جزاكما الله عن الإسلام خيراً يا أمير
المؤمنين، ويا صهر رسول الله، أما أنتما فقد كان لكما شرف الصحبة، وأما أنا
فقد حرمت هذا الشرف، فقال له سيدنا عمر: كيف تتصور النبي يا أويس ؟ قال:
أتصوره نوراً يملأ الأفق، فبكى عمر شوقاً إلى النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم،
قال عمر: يا أويس إن النبي أمرنا أن تستغفر لنا، وأن تدعو لنا، قال: ما أخص
بالدعاء أحداً، ولكن أعمم ! قال عمر: يا أويس عظني، قال: يا أمير
المؤمنين، اطلب رحمة الله عند طاعته، واحذر نقمته عند معصيته، ولا تقطع
رجاءك منه، قال سيدنا عمر: أفلا نأمر لك بصلة ؟ قال: يا أمير المؤمنين أخذت
على عملي أربعة دراهم، ولي على القوم ذمة، متى تراني أنفقها ؟ وعليّ رداء
وإزار، متى تراني أخرقهما ؟ يا أمير المؤمنين إن بين يدي ويديك عقبة كؤود
لا يقطعها إلا كل مخفّ مهزول، فبكى عمر، وقال: ليت أم عمر لم تلد عمر، قال:
يا أويس ألا تقيم عندنا ؟ قال: أريد الكوفة، قال: أفلا أكتب لك إلى عاملها
؟ قال: أحب أن أكون في دهماء الناس، ومضى إلى سبيله، ومات في غمار خيمة من
خيام المسلمين خاملاً في الأرض علماً في السماء.
إنها السكينة التي يسعد بها الإنسان ولو فقد كل شيء، ويشقى بفقدها ولو ملك كل شيء.
إنها السكينة التي يسعد بها الإنسان ولو فقد كل شيء، ويشقى بفقدها ولو ملك كل شيء.
نحن في أمس الحاجة في هذه المرحلة إلى الصلح مع الله والإنابة إليه والإقبال عليه:
هذا عن الماضي المزدهر، الذي عاشته أمتنا، أو ما ينبغي أن يكون عليه
المؤمنون، فماذا عن الحاضر الذي نعيشه، أو ما هم عليه المؤمنون ؟
ليس هناك من مرحلة في تاريخ أمتنا نحن في أمس الحاجة فيها إلى الصلح مع الله، والإنابة إليه، والإقبال عليه، وقد غرق العالم بالشهوات والشبهات والفتن والضلالات، كهذه المرحلة التي تعيشها أمتنا العربية والإسلامية. وليس هناك من مرحلة في تاريخ أمتنا نحن في أمس الحاجة فيها إلى التعاون والتكاتف والتناصر والتضامن كهذه المرحلة الدقيقة التي نمر بها، ولاسيما في ظل النظام العالمي الجديد، وفي ظل غياب التوازن الدولي، وتحكم القطب الواحد، وازدواجية المعايير، وسيطرة الاحتكارات الكبرى والتطورات الهائلة في وسائل الاتصالات والمعلوماتية، وازدياد الهوة بين الدول الغنية المتقدمة والدول النامية، وانفجارات الحروب الإقليمية والمحلية والصراعات القبلية، والدينية، والعرقية في مناطق متعددة من العالم، إضافة إلى نهج العولمة الثقافية والاقتصادية، إن عالم اليوم يكاد يتحول إلى غابة تتحكم فيها قواعد القوة، وتغيب عنها ضوابط المبادئ والقيم، ومع ذلك فإن قوى الهيمنة تتحدث عن حقوق الإنسان في الوقت الذي يجري فيه انتهاك لحقوق الإنسان كما قال السيد الرئيس في خطابه الأخير في مجلس الشعب: العالمُ الإسلاميُ اليومَ يواجه تحدياتٍ كبيرةً تستهدفُ الإسلامَ وما يمثِّلُه من قيمٍ نبيلةٍ، وما يدعو إليه من أخوةٍ وعدالةٍ ومساواةٍ وحرية، وإذا كان من واجبنا أن ندافعَ عن ديننِا فإن لنا فيه يَنبوعَ قوةٍ ومصدر إلهام في مواجهةِ كلِّ ما يقابلُنا من أخطارٍ وتحدياتْ.
يقول السيد الرئيس: لا يمكن لإنسان عاقل أن يعتقد أن الله جل جلاله قال لمجموعة من الناس، لشعب، لأي شعب، سأعطيكم أراض من هنا إلى هناك، وسأطرد أمامكم هذه الشعوب، نحن نتصور أن الله قوة عدل مطلقة تسير هذا الوجود، الله لنا جميعاً ونحن له جميعاً، ويتابع حديثه قائلاً: نحن نعتز بالإسلام اعتزازاً لا حدود له، ونقاوم الذين يشوهون هذا الإسلام، ونحن سندافع عن الإسلام سندافع عنه كما جاء إسلام الصحابة، إسلام عمر وعلي، إسلام العدل، إسلام المساواة، إسلام المحبة.
أيها الأخوة المؤمنون، حاسبوا أنفسكم قبل أن تحاسبوا، وزنوا أعمالكم قبل أن توزن عليكم، واعلموا أن ملك الموت قد تخطانا إلى غيرنا، وسيتخطى غيرنا إلينا فلنتخذ حذرنا، الكيس من دان نفسه وعمل لما بعد الموت، والعاجز من أتبع نفسه هواها وتمنى على الله الأماني.
ليس هناك من مرحلة في تاريخ أمتنا نحن في أمس الحاجة فيها إلى الصلح مع الله، والإنابة إليه، والإقبال عليه، وقد غرق العالم بالشهوات والشبهات والفتن والضلالات، كهذه المرحلة التي تعيشها أمتنا العربية والإسلامية. وليس هناك من مرحلة في تاريخ أمتنا نحن في أمس الحاجة فيها إلى التعاون والتكاتف والتناصر والتضامن كهذه المرحلة الدقيقة التي نمر بها، ولاسيما في ظل النظام العالمي الجديد، وفي ظل غياب التوازن الدولي، وتحكم القطب الواحد، وازدواجية المعايير، وسيطرة الاحتكارات الكبرى والتطورات الهائلة في وسائل الاتصالات والمعلوماتية، وازدياد الهوة بين الدول الغنية المتقدمة والدول النامية، وانفجارات الحروب الإقليمية والمحلية والصراعات القبلية، والدينية، والعرقية في مناطق متعددة من العالم، إضافة إلى نهج العولمة الثقافية والاقتصادية، إن عالم اليوم يكاد يتحول إلى غابة تتحكم فيها قواعد القوة، وتغيب عنها ضوابط المبادئ والقيم، ومع ذلك فإن قوى الهيمنة تتحدث عن حقوق الإنسان في الوقت الذي يجري فيه انتهاك لحقوق الإنسان كما قال السيد الرئيس في خطابه الأخير في مجلس الشعب: العالمُ الإسلاميُ اليومَ يواجه تحدياتٍ كبيرةً تستهدفُ الإسلامَ وما يمثِّلُه من قيمٍ نبيلةٍ، وما يدعو إليه من أخوةٍ وعدالةٍ ومساواةٍ وحرية، وإذا كان من واجبنا أن ندافعَ عن ديننِا فإن لنا فيه يَنبوعَ قوةٍ ومصدر إلهام في مواجهةِ كلِّ ما يقابلُنا من أخطارٍ وتحدياتْ.
يقول السيد الرئيس: لا يمكن لإنسان عاقل أن يعتقد أن الله جل جلاله قال لمجموعة من الناس، لشعب، لأي شعب، سأعطيكم أراض من هنا إلى هناك، وسأطرد أمامكم هذه الشعوب، نحن نتصور أن الله قوة عدل مطلقة تسير هذا الوجود، الله لنا جميعاً ونحن له جميعاً، ويتابع حديثه قائلاً: نحن نعتز بالإسلام اعتزازاً لا حدود له، ونقاوم الذين يشوهون هذا الإسلام، ونحن سندافع عن الإسلام سندافع عنه كما جاء إسلام الصحابة، إسلام عمر وعلي، إسلام العدل، إسلام المساواة، إسلام المحبة.
أيها الأخوة المؤمنون، حاسبوا أنفسكم قبل أن تحاسبوا، وزنوا أعمالكم قبل أن توزن عليكم، واعلموا أن ملك الموت قد تخطانا إلى غيرنا، وسيتخطى غيرنا إلينا فلنتخذ حذرنا، الكيس من دان نفسه وعمل لما بعد الموت، والعاجز من أتبع نفسه هواها وتمنى على الله الأماني.
والحمد لله رب العالمين
الحمد لله والصلاة والسلام على رسول الله وعلى آله وصحبه، أما بعـد:
فلعل
السائل يسأل عن أويس القرني التابعي الجليل واسمه ونسبه كما في الطبقات
لابن سعد: أويس بن عامر بن جزء بن مالك بن عمرو بن سعد بن عصوان بن قرن بن
ردمان بن ناجية بن مراد وهو يحابر بن مالك بن أدد من مذحج وهو الذي أثنى
عليه رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم كما في حديث مسلم عن عمر رضي الله عنه
قال: إني سمعت رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم يقول: إن خير التابعين رجل
يقال له أويس وله والدة وكان به بياض فمروه فليستغفر لكم.
وفي
رواية لمسلم عن أسير بن عمرو قال: كان عمر بن الخطاب رضي الله عنه إذا أتى
عليه أمداد أهل اليمن سألهم: أفيكم أويس بن عامر حتى أتى على أويس رضي
الله عنه، فقال له: أنت أويس بن عامر؟ قال: نعم. قال: من مراد ثم من قرن؟
قال: نعم. قال: فكان بك برص فبرأت منه إلا موضع درهم؟ قال: نعم. قال: لك
والدة؟ قال: نعم.قال: سمعت رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم يقول: يأتي عليكم
أويس بن عامر مع أمداد أهل اليمن من مراد ثم من قرن كان به برص فبرأ منه
إلا موضع درهم له والدة هو بها بر لو أقسم على الله لأبره، فإن استطعت أن
يستغفر لك فافعل، فاستغفر لي، فاستغفر له، فقال له عمر: أين تريد؟ قال:
الكوفة. قال: ألا أكتب لك إلى عاملها؟ قال: أكون في غبراء الناس أحب إلي،
فلما كان من العام المقبل حج رجل من أشرافهم فوافق عمر فسأله عن أويس،
فقال: تركته رث البيت قليل المتاع. قال: سمعت رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم
يقول: يأتي عليكم أويس بن عامر مع أمداد من أهل اليمن من مراد ثم من قرن
كان به برص فبرأ منه إلا موضع درهم له والدة هو بها بر لو أقسم على الله
لأبره، فإن استطعت أن يستغفر لك فافعل، فأتى أويسا فقال: استغفر لي. قال:
أنت أحدث عهداً بسفر صالح فاستغفر لي قال لي: لقيت عمر؟ قال: نعم، فاستغفر
له، ففطن له الناس فانطلق على وجهه. رواه مسلم.
وقد ذكر الذهبي في السير أنه غزا أذربيجان، فمات بها.
والله أعلم.
Friday, December 22, 2017
Thursday, December 21, 2017
Wednesday, December 20, 2017
Tuesday, December 19, 2017
Did Saudi Arabia Just Try To Give the West Bank to Israel?
The crown prince could be working to engineer a two-state solution that favors Israel.
Senior White House Adviser Jared Kushner, and his
wife, Assistant to the President Ivanka Trump,at the Murabba Palace with
Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, May 20, 2017, in Riyadh, Saudi
Arabia. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
The Trump declaration
recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocating the U.S.
embassy there is as historically significant to Israel’s control of
Jerusalem as the Balfour Declaration was to recognizing the rights of
the Jewish people in Palestine.
But according to new revelations, the announcement could be part of a grander plan to help Israel wrest control of Jerusalem, as well as the West Bank, from the Palestinians for good, leaving the Arabs with their own state of Gaza only.
Anyone looking to the State Department for guidance about any of this is bound to be disappointed. Foggy Bottom’s first public defense of the president’s blockbuster announcement would have been laughable if it weren’t so depressing. Indeed, Thursday’s State Department briefing, starring good soldier David Satterfield, could have been pilfered from the popular British comedy “Yes, Prime Minister.”
Satterfield, a highly regarded professional who has labored for 40 years in the barren vineyards of Middle East diplomacy, channeled the show’s star dissembler, Sir Humphrey Appleby. The acting assistant secretary did Sir Humphrey proud—he talked and talked and said nothing at all.
Thankfully, far more instructive insights about the linkage between the announcement and Trump’s broader plans for the region were provided to TAC by a senior Palestinian official last week. This official was briefed on the details of the surprise meeting last month between Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority (and head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the PLO), and Crown Prince Mohammed Ben Salman (MBS), Saudi Arabia’s heir to the throne.
The 82-year-old Abbas was summoned to Riyadh on November 6 by the 32-year-old MBS as part of the latter’s high-powered effort to engineer a joint Arab-U.S. offensive against Iran and its allies. He was not the first Arab leader to be invited. Days before his arrival, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri was strong-armed by MBS into a sudden, though short-lived, resignation as part of the anti-Iran offensive.
MBS was in high dudgeon, according to the source, as he is playing a high-stakes gamble to cement both his leadership and his corollary offensive. On this score, MBS announced that the Arab Peace Initiative (API)—a Saudi-sponsored grand bargain promising Arab recognition of and peace with Israel in return for the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with east Jerusalem as its capital—is effectively dead.
It’s time for Plan B, declared the crown prince: a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, fattened by undetermined Egyptian transfers of land in the Sinai Peninsula. When the startled Palestinian leader asked about the place of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in this scheme, MBS replied, “We can continue to negotiate about this.”
“What about Jerusalem, the settlements, [West Bank] Areas B and C?” Abbas pressed.
“These will be issues for negotiation, but between two states, and we will help you.”
According to the source, MBS offered the Palestinian leader $10 billion to sweeten the bitter pill he had just prescribed. “Abbas can’t say no [to the Saudis],” the source explained, “but he can’t say yes.”
The New York Times, reporting its own version of the meeting on December 3, confirmed through Palestinian, Arab, and European sources privy to Abbas’s side of the conversation that MBS offered “vastly increased financial support for the Palestinians, and even dangled the possibility of a direct payment to Mr. Abbas, which they said he refused.” In that Times piece, sources said the offer Abbas could only refuse involved a Palestinian state with “noncontiguous parts of the West Bank and only limited sovereignty over their own territory (Gaza).” The vast majority of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which are considered illegal by most of the world, would remain.
So who put the “Gaza-Plus” idea into MBS’s head? The genealogy is not hard to decipher, and it can be traced to one place only: Israel.
The creation of a Palestinian state in Gaza has long been viewed by key Israeli officials as a way of compelling Arab acquiescence to Israel’s annexation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Various iterations of the idea have been bouncing around Israel’s right wing for almost two decades.
All share a desire for an agreement by Israel’s Arab neighbors to cede territories in order to enable Israel to gobble up the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Former Netanyahu aide and NSC head Uzi Arad and his successor Giora Eiland—along with other Israelis who served with Netanyahu—have mooted this solution. For their patrons, Palestinian sovereignty in the West Bank and Jerusalem is an absolute non-starter.
How then to communicate this Israeli idea to Riyadh at the very moment when Trump and Netanyahu were finalizing understandings related to the Trump declaration on Jerusalem?
Only days before the MBS-Abbas meeting, U.S. envoys Jared Kushner (the president’s son-in-law and majordomo) and Jason Greenblatt (the Trump Organization’s former lawyer and current Mideast peace envoy) traveled to Riyadh for late-night deliberations with the crown prince.
Kushner, as we know, is a longstanding friend of Netanyahu’s—he even led his parents’ foundation to funnel money to the West Bank settlements. He travels in circles where Jerusalem as “the eternal, undivided capital of the Jewish People” and the “Gaza Plus” idea are common currency. Gaining Kushner’s support for the proposals as the basis for a new American strategy that places an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Jerusalem in the deep freeze is like pushing on an open door.
Kushner, who is said to have bonded with his fellow thirty-something royal, is MBS’s best source for all things Israeli. Assuming that Kushner and MBS are on the same page regarding the Gaza scheme, and the MBS-Abbas meetings suggest they are, their agreement adds a new and troubling dimension to Trump’s Jerusalem declaration.
Such a U.S.-Saudi understanding is consistent with the Saudis’ effective abandonment of their own Arab Peace Initiative. The Saudi leader himself undermined a key element of that proposal when, in April 2016, Saudi Arabia agreed to join the Israel-Egypt strategic partnership established by their peace treaty without Israeli concessions on a Palestinian state, as the price for reestablishing Saudi control over the strategic Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir.
The source noted that MBS himself wrote a formal letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outlining the unprecedented Saudi pledge to participate—along with Egypt, Israel, and the United States—in upholding the security terms of the historic peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.
That decision, and the letter, could be understood in Israel as a practical demonstration that Saudi Arabia was indeed prepared to engage with Israel without any quid pro quo requiring a Palestinian state, in Gaza, Jerusalem, or indeed anywhere.
A call by TAC to the Saudi embassy went unreturned on Monday. The White House denied the plan to the New York Times, as did the Saudi government, and an Abbas spokesman called the reported Saudi offer “fake news” that “does not exist.”
Nevertheless, the details of the meeting were confirmed by several people to TAC and the Times, and they provide some badly needed context to the Jerusalem declaration. Confident of Saudi support for the Gaza option and its historic agreement to strategic collaboration with Washington, Egypt, and Israel independent of progress on Palestine, Trump can be forgiven for assuming a Saudi carte blanche in his effort to remake the Middle East, with recognition of Israel’s sovereignty in Jerusalem at its center.
Geoffrey Aronson is chairman and co-founder of The Mortons Group and a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute.
But according to new revelations, the announcement could be part of a grander plan to help Israel wrest control of Jerusalem, as well as the West Bank, from the Palestinians for good, leaving the Arabs with their own state of Gaza only.
Anyone looking to the State Department for guidance about any of this is bound to be disappointed. Foggy Bottom’s first public defense of the president’s blockbuster announcement would have been laughable if it weren’t so depressing. Indeed, Thursday’s State Department briefing, starring good soldier David Satterfield, could have been pilfered from the popular British comedy “Yes, Prime Minister.”
Satterfield, a highly regarded professional who has labored for 40 years in the barren vineyards of Middle East diplomacy, channeled the show’s star dissembler, Sir Humphrey Appleby. The acting assistant secretary did Sir Humphrey proud—he talked and talked and said nothing at all.
Thankfully, far more instructive insights about the linkage between the announcement and Trump’s broader plans for the region were provided to TAC by a senior Palestinian official last week. This official was briefed on the details of the surprise meeting last month between Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority (and head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the PLO), and Crown Prince Mohammed Ben Salman (MBS), Saudi Arabia’s heir to the throne.
The 82-year-old Abbas was summoned to Riyadh on November 6 by the 32-year-old MBS as part of the latter’s high-powered effort to engineer a joint Arab-U.S. offensive against Iran and its allies. He was not the first Arab leader to be invited. Days before his arrival, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri was strong-armed by MBS into a sudden, though short-lived, resignation as part of the anti-Iran offensive.
MBS was in high dudgeon, according to the source, as he is playing a high-stakes gamble to cement both his leadership and his corollary offensive. On this score, MBS announced that the Arab Peace Initiative (API)—a Saudi-sponsored grand bargain promising Arab recognition of and peace with Israel in return for the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with east Jerusalem as its capital—is effectively dead.
It’s time for Plan B, declared the crown prince: a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, fattened by undetermined Egyptian transfers of land in the Sinai Peninsula. When the startled Palestinian leader asked about the place of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in this scheme, MBS replied, “We can continue to negotiate about this.”
“What about Jerusalem, the settlements, [West Bank] Areas B and C?” Abbas pressed.
“These will be issues for negotiation, but between two states, and we will help you.”
According to the source, MBS offered the Palestinian leader $10 billion to sweeten the bitter pill he had just prescribed. “Abbas can’t say no [to the Saudis],” the source explained, “but he can’t say yes.”
The New York Times, reporting its own version of the meeting on December 3, confirmed through Palestinian, Arab, and European sources privy to Abbas’s side of the conversation that MBS offered “vastly increased financial support for the Palestinians, and even dangled the possibility of a direct payment to Mr. Abbas, which they said he refused.” In that Times piece, sources said the offer Abbas could only refuse involved a Palestinian state with “noncontiguous parts of the West Bank and only limited sovereignty over their own territory (Gaza).” The vast majority of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which are considered illegal by most of the world, would remain.
So who put the “Gaza-Plus” idea into MBS’s head? The genealogy is not hard to decipher, and it can be traced to one place only: Israel.
The creation of a Palestinian state in Gaza has long been viewed by key Israeli officials as a way of compelling Arab acquiescence to Israel’s annexation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Various iterations of the idea have been bouncing around Israel’s right wing for almost two decades.
All share a desire for an agreement by Israel’s Arab neighbors to cede territories in order to enable Israel to gobble up the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Former Netanyahu aide and NSC head Uzi Arad and his successor Giora Eiland—along with other Israelis who served with Netanyahu—have mooted this solution. For their patrons, Palestinian sovereignty in the West Bank and Jerusalem is an absolute non-starter.
How then to communicate this Israeli idea to Riyadh at the very moment when Trump and Netanyahu were finalizing understandings related to the Trump declaration on Jerusalem?
Only days before the MBS-Abbas meeting, U.S. envoys Jared Kushner (the president’s son-in-law and majordomo) and Jason Greenblatt (the Trump Organization’s former lawyer and current Mideast peace envoy) traveled to Riyadh for late-night deliberations with the crown prince.
Kushner, as we know, is a longstanding friend of Netanyahu’s—he even led his parents’ foundation to funnel money to the West Bank settlements. He travels in circles where Jerusalem as “the eternal, undivided capital of the Jewish People” and the “Gaza Plus” idea are common currency. Gaining Kushner’s support for the proposals as the basis for a new American strategy that places an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Jerusalem in the deep freeze is like pushing on an open door.
Kushner, who is said to have bonded with his fellow thirty-something royal, is MBS’s best source for all things Israeli. Assuming that Kushner and MBS are on the same page regarding the Gaza scheme, and the MBS-Abbas meetings suggest they are, their agreement adds a new and troubling dimension to Trump’s Jerusalem declaration.
Such a U.S.-Saudi understanding is consistent with the Saudis’ effective abandonment of their own Arab Peace Initiative. The Saudi leader himself undermined a key element of that proposal when, in April 2016, Saudi Arabia agreed to join the Israel-Egypt strategic partnership established by their peace treaty without Israeli concessions on a Palestinian state, as the price for reestablishing Saudi control over the strategic Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir.
The source noted that MBS himself wrote a formal letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outlining the unprecedented Saudi pledge to participate—along with Egypt, Israel, and the United States—in upholding the security terms of the historic peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.
That decision, and the letter, could be understood in Israel as a practical demonstration that Saudi Arabia was indeed prepared to engage with Israel without any quid pro quo requiring a Palestinian state, in Gaza, Jerusalem, or indeed anywhere.
A call by TAC to the Saudi embassy went unreturned on Monday. The White House denied the plan to the New York Times, as did the Saudi government, and an Abbas spokesman called the reported Saudi offer “fake news” that “does not exist.”
Nevertheless, the details of the meeting were confirmed by several people to TAC and the Times, and they provide some badly needed context to the Jerusalem declaration. Confident of Saudi support for the Gaza option and its historic agreement to strategic collaboration with Washington, Egypt, and Israel independent of progress on Palestine, Trump can be forgiven for assuming a Saudi carte blanche in his effort to remake the Middle East, with recognition of Israel’s sovereignty in Jerusalem at its center.
Geoffrey Aronson is chairman and co-founder of The Mortons Group and a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute.
Monday, December 18, 2017
A chance for ICC to fix sex crimes injustice
THE STAR
Twenty years ago, the hope was that the Rome Statute's reparations system would have a transformational effect - dismantling the structures that created violence and conflict in the first place. This reparative framework was envisaged to include attention to the rights for women and victims of sexual and gender based violence. But how far has it gone in achieving this goal?
The Court is close to handing down its reparations decision in the war crimes case of Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, former vice-president of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In March 2016, Bemba was found guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including rape, was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment. The ICC found that events that took place in 2002/3 in the Central African Republic, were as a result of Bemba's failure to exercise control properly over the militia he commanded.
This is a significant case, because it’s the first to include charges and a conviction for crimes of sexual violence against women and men.
Victims and a strong civil society movement supporting them are hoping that the reparations decision in the Bemba case will set the ICC on a new path toward reparative justice. The decision is expected to be handed down imminently.
Under the Rome Statute, Court ordered reparations are available to victims recognised by the court after the accused is found guilty. In the Bemba case, this involves over 5,000 victims.
Such a shift is needed given the Court's poor reparations record to date.
Not a brilliant track record
The Court's first reparations case involved the lengthy trial of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, from the Democratic Republic of Congo. In March 2012, Lubanga, a leader of the Force patriotique pour la libération du Congo became the first person to be tried and convicted by the ICC. The Court found him responsible for crimes of enlisting, conscripting and using child soldiers and sentenced him to a period of 14 years imprisonment.As the first case to be finalised, the Lubanga case was the first opportunity to see how the Court’s reparations regime would work in practice, and how it might respond to sexual and gender based violence. Lubanga was not convicted of any sexual or gender based crimes per se. But, evidence emerged during the trial of sexual and gender based violence against girl soldiers.
But, the prosecution failed from the beginning to fully investigate, gather evidence and include charges for crimes against women. This made it difficult for the judges to find against Lubanga for these acts.
The Trial Chamber did attempt to incorporate victims of sexual and gender based violence in the reparations phase. But, in a long drawn out process, after the initial decision and order was handed down in August 2012, it was appealed by the defence and victims’ lawyers. They argued that reparations for victims of these acts could not be ordered because Lubanga had not been charged or convicted of sexual and gender based crimes.
Nearly three years later, in March 2015, the Appeals Chamber finally confirmed that although there would be reparations available for the former child soldiers, there would be no specific reparations for sexual and gender based crimes. It was a devastating blow to women who had been child soldiers in Lubanga’s group, who were allegedly raped by their commanders.
Today, the victims are still waiting for the independent Trust Fund for Victims to implement reparations – the long wait only serving to compound the injustice.
What went wrong
At the start of his case Lubanga was only charged with a narrow range of child soldier war crimes, not sexual violence violations.(it) strongly deprecates the attitude of the former Prosecutor in relation to the issue of sexual violence.The cascade of injustice then extended to the reparations phase. Because the ICC’s reparations framework links the conviction to the measures of repair, and there were no charges or convictions for sexual and gender based crimes, these fell outside the reach of reparations.
Almost three years after an appeals process began, on March 3 2015, the Appeals Chamber upheld the decision not to award individual reparations. But it left open the possibility of general assistance for victims in future cases where the crimes had been charged appropriately.
On 21 October 2016, the Chamber in the Lubanga case approved the Trust Fund’s plan for symbolic collective reparations for the child soldiers. The symbolic measures aim to promote healing for former child soldiers, for example, in establishing commemoration centres.
Room for improvement
The Trial Chamber may have overreached in its language when it suggested the ICC could provide “transformational” justice to Lubanga’s victims. In making such a claim, the Court seemed to be suggesting that it could tackle the conditions that provoked the violence in the first place - something that is impossible given the resources and jurisdiction available to the ICC. A more realistic approach would protect victims from serious disappointment.The Lubanga case demonstrates the Court can do a great deal to improve the gender-just outcomes of its reparations processes.
ICC supporters expect the upcoming Bemba reparations decision will reflect lessons from the Lubanga case. But it is not only the Court that needs to make an effort. As the Director of the Trust Fund for Victims, Motoo Noguchi, noted at the ICC’s assembly at UN headquarters:
Reparative justice is not free of charge.It will require further financial support to help fund the court’s reparations efforts, including earmarking funding for victims of sexual and gender based crimes.
A longer version
of this article appeared in a special issue on transformational
reparations for victims of conflict-related sexual violence in the
International Journal for Human Rights.Louise Chappell, Director of the Australian Human Rights Institute, Professor Law, UNSW
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Sunday, December 17, 2017
Saudi crown prince Mideast Man of Year for failures: UK daily
Press TV
Patrick Cockburn wrote in an article for British online newspaper The Independent on Saturday that bin Salman has "embarked on ventures abroad that achieve the exact opposite of what he intended."
The young prince was appointed the first in line to the Saudi throne by his father, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, in June. Since then, he has engaged in a string of radical economic and social projects in a bid to portray himself as “reformist." But those projects have been widely seen to be more about consolidating his personal power and less about bringing about real change to Saudi Arabia.
Prince Mohammed has been involved in an aggressive push to purge royals and businessmen critical of his policies under the banner of an “anti-corruption campaign.”
MbS "is the undoubted Middle East man of the year, but his great impact stems more from his failures than his successes," the article read.
"He is accused of being Machiavellian in clearing his way to the throne by the elimination of opponents inside and outside the royal family. But, when it comes to Saudi Arabia’s position in the world, his miscalculations remind one less of the cunning maneuvers of Machiavelli and more of the pratfalls of Inspector Clouseau," it added.
It noted that bin Salman's support for the militancy in Syria and the protracted war on Yemen has had adverse effects, leading to the victory of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and bringing at least seven million Yemenis close to starvation.
Meanwhile, the Saudi crown prince's "aggressive opposition" to Iran has increased the Islamic Republic's influence and the kingdom's feud with Qatar has driven the Persian Gulf country further into the "Iranian embrace," it added.
As for Lebanon, the kingdom's "ill-considered" pressure on Prime Minister Saad Hariri to resign was apparently meant to weaken the Hezbollah resistance movement and Iran in Lebanon, but has in practice empowered both of them, the article read.
"What all these Saudi actions have in common is that they are based on a naïve presumption that 'a best-case scenario' will inevitably be achieved. There is no 'Plan B' and not much of a 'Plan A': Saudi Arabia is simply plugging into conflicts and confrontations it has no idea how to bring to an end," according to the article.
"It is Saudi Arabia – and not its rivals – that is becoming isolated. The political balance of power in the region changed to its disadvantage over the last two years."
The article further said MbS and his advisers may imagine US President Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner are firmly by their side, but "Saudi Arabia is learning that support from the White House these days brings fewer advantages than in the past."
"The attention span of Donald Trump is notoriously short, and his preoccupation is with domestic US politics," it said.
It also touched on the new Saudi rulers' adventurist policies and the fact that "Saudi relations with other countries used to be cautious, conservative and aimed at preserving the status quo."
"But today its behavior is zany, unpredictable and often counterproductive," it said, adding "other states in the Middle East are coming to recognize that there are winners and losers, and have no wish to be on the losing side."
Independent's article 'important'
Iranian Ambassador to the UK Hamid Baeidinejad hailed the article as "important".
- Hamid Baeidinejad @baeidinejad 24 hours ago"Independent" in an important article has recognized MbS of Saudi Arabia as the man of 2017 year but not because of his successes but due to his failed policies in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Qatar, Lebanon and Iran, which has weakened global and regional Saudi position.
While @nikkihaley was staging its fake exhibition,Saudis with the US weapons attacked Yemen resulting to large killings. US which is exporting hundreds of billions of dollars of arms to the Saudis to kill the innocents lacks the legitimacy to investigate such issue.(3)
Bin Salman's lavish purchase
Separately on Saturday, an investigation by The New York Times named Salman as the owner of the Chateau Louis XIV, a mansion outside of Paris named after the 17th century French king that is widely touted as the world’s most expensive house.
The property was sold for more than $300 million back in 2015.
In recent months, the Saudi crown prince was identified as the buyer of the record-breaking da Vinci painting, which sold for $450 million, and a yacht for $500 million.
The lavish purchases come at a time that bin Salman claims to be taking on graft.
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