Biodun.BBC: Arab world

Showing posts with label Arab world. Show all posts

Saturday, December 14, 2019

ANALYSIS: Israel eyes Dubai expo as 'portal' to Arab world

Issued on: 15/12/2019 - 04:44Modified: 15/12/2019 - 06:44 GMT/ZULU

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Tel Aviv

by Jenny Feder and Biodun Iginla, France24 News Analysts

With the world's largest trade fair opening in an Arab country for the first time next year, Israel is stepping up preparations, hoping to boost nascent ties with regional neighbours.

The Dubai Expo 2020 trade fair will gather nearly 200 countries vying for the attention of a projected 25 million visitors over nearly six months from October.

Like most Arab countries, the United Arab Emirates has no diplomatic relations with Israel.

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But the Jewish state has been quietly moving closer to Gulf Arab countries on the basis of shared security interests and a common enemy -- Iran.

An Israeli pavilion at an Arab-hosted expo presents a unique opportunity to speed up the "normalisation" of relations and reach out to Arab peoples, officials say.

"To us, the added value is in the Arab and Muslim visitor," said Elazar Cohen, the Israeli foreign ministry's pointman for the expo, which is organised by the Paris-based Bureau International des Expositions (BIE).

So far public overtures between Israel and Arab nations have been cautious, but notable, with Israeli athletes and officials increasingly allowed into Gulf countries.

The expo is "a unique meeting between cultures and languages and people who don't routinely meet", said David Knafo, the Tel Aviv-based architect behind the design of Israel's pavilion.

- 'No walls, no borders' -

Designed to reflect Israel's sense of belonging to the region as well as the openness the Jewish state seeks to broadcast to its Arab neighbours, "the pavilion is therefore an open space -– a living room to host the expo visitors."

Concept videos of the pavilion reveal stairs leading up a representation of a sand dune.

Described as a "pavilion with no walls and no borders," the stairs are arched by large LED screens showing images of different aspects of Israeli society.

The aim, Knafo said, is to symbolise Israel's transformation of its deserts through culture and technology, hinting at the possibility that other desert lands could do the same.

An auditorium below the pavilion will offer visitors an interactive multimedia experience, the foreign ministry's director general Yuval Rotem told us at France24.

It aims to showcase "the Israeli spirit and culture" in innovations and developments from fields such as water, medicine and information technology, he said.

- Portal to Arab world -

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described the Israeli expo pavilion as part of "the continued progress of normalisation with the Arab states".

Past Israeli leaders saw peace with the Palestinians as the gateway to ties with the broader Arab and Muslim world.

But with the peace process frozen for years now, Netanyahu argues instead that building relations with Arab countries will push the Palestinians toward a peace deal with Israel.

The Israeli presence in Dubai "will create a buzz", said Cohen, noting that the lack of a peace agreement, or even process, with the Palestinians is still liable to draw the attention of at least some Arab visitors at the expo.

The pavilion's display won't touch on politics, he added, instead "focusing on what Israel has to offer".

Dore Gold, former director-general of the Israeli foreign ministry, said the "quasi-diplomatic presence" of the pavilion is one of several developments with "a cumulative effect".

He cited sporting competitions and the 2015 opening in Abu Dhabi of an Israeli mission to the International Renewable Energy Agency, which is based there.

"It's not normalisation, but it's an enhanced presence," he said.

While the Gulf Arab states have not lost interest in the Palestinian issue, "these countries are looking after themselves", Dore said, including enhancing security cooperation with Israel against Iran.

Gold, who heads the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs think-tank, said the expo was part of attempts to slowly publicise aspects of relations in the region not pertaining to security.

"The name of the game is how to find joint interests that don't create a big stir," he said.

"In any case, if you did public opinion surveys, you'd find that throughout most of the Gulf there's a kind of understanding that Israel's part of the region."

Diplomat Cohen and architect Knafo both noted the warm welcome they have received in the Gulf state, as work on the pavilion entered advanced stages and their visits to Dubai became more frequent.

"The attitude of the hosts is excellent," Cohen said.

"I didn't expect anything else but when you encounter it, it's heartwarming."

The expo could be "a portal to a world that was blocked to us, and our pavilion is a portal to the Israeli experience at all its levels -- scientific, cultural, human," said Knafo.

Saturday, October 26, 2019

ANALYSIS: WhatsApp in the Arab world: an essential but controversial tool

Issued on: 27/10/2019 - 05:38 GMT/ZULU

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Nicosia

by Leila Mohamed and Biodun Iginla, France24 News Analysts

From organising mass protests in Baghdad and Beirut to coordinating rescue missions amid grinding conflict in Syria, WhatsApp has become an indispensable connector for millions across the Arab world.

In Lebanon, where telecommunications are highly regulated and expensive, citizens have increasingly relied on WhatsApp for free calls.

When the government announced a tax on these calls on October 17, it sparked protests that grew to an unprecedented scale.

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After more than a week of demonstrations, protesters have rejected the term "WhatsApp revolution", saying the phrase diminishes what is a demand for drastic political change.

But they acknowledge the technology is instrumental in mobilising rallies that have attracted hundreds of thousands from a population of about six million.

Yasmine Rifaii, 24, a protest organiser from Tripoli in northern Lebanon who works at a local NGO, said WhatsApp was operating as a virtual "backstage for the revolution".

"We are connected to all of these WhatsApp groups -- Lebanon is a small country, everyone knows someone else from another city. We are reaching out across religions and locations," she told us at France24.

Over the border in Syria, Whatsapp can be the difference between life and death.

Mustafa al-Hajj Younes, who heads a group of first responders in Idlib province, said civilians use group chats to appeal for help from rescue teams.

"We coordinate on these groups whenever there is a need for our services," he said.

WhatsApp is especially useful because of weak telecommunications infrastructure in areas under opposition control. "People can only contact us through WhatsApp or cell phones," he said.

- 'Most dangerous app' -

Across the region, digital authoritarianism is increasing, with some governments regularly blocking popular social media applications including WhatsApp, especially its free calls feature.

Users in Gulf countries such as the United Arab Emirates cannot make internet calls without a proxy server. Messages deemed offensive in court have even landed some users in jail in the UAE.

It is a similar story in Morocco, where the government banned free voice over internet protocol (VoIP) calls in 2016.

A 26-year-old Moroccan journalist who relies on the app to liaise with officials and sources told us at France24 that it was a "national drama" when the decision came into effect, provoking a swift public backlash.

In the wake of small-scale protests in Egypt, police have randomly stopped and frisked people to examine social media content on their phones.

Police arrested many on the spot after inspecting their mobiles, France24 witnessed in September.

That month, the attorney-general's office said prosecutors had orders to "inspect the social media accounts and pages of those detained".

In Iraq, where nearly 200 people have died in protests during October, another battle is being waged online.

When anti-corruption demonstrations broke out in many cities early this month, authorities cut internet services in an attempt to quell unrest -- a tactic they have used in the past.

"We consider Whatsapp to be the most dangerous application at this stage," a well-placed security source who preferred to remain anonymous told us at France24.

"Cutting the connection to WhatsApp was meant to prevent these gatherings from happening", he bluntly admitted.

Yasser al-Joubouri, an Iraqi activist who participated in the protests in Baghdad, said the app was crucial for forming activist groups to disseminate details about protests.

"We created (WhatsApp) groups specifically to share information quickly and distribute it on social networks like Facebook and Twitter," he said.

This sharing of information provokes an "existential fear" for governments that were caught off-guard by the Arab Spring uprisings, said Adel Iskandar, a media studies professor at Simon Fraser University in Canada.

But governments also see that such apps could be beneficial, he added.

"The state sees these platforms not merely as a threat but rather as an opportunity to supplant critical messages with supportive ones," Iskandar toldus at France24.

- 'Making things easier' -

With over 1.5 billion users worldwide, WhatsApp remains the most popular social media programme in terms of usage in the youthful, tech-savvy region, according to a recent survey by Northwestern University in Qatar.

Aside from sharing harrowing content and connecting protesters from turbulent hotspots via in-built encrypted messages, the app is also used for everyday conversations, like elsewhere in the world.

Jordanian officials, as well as other policymakers across the region, regularly communicate with journalists in groups broadcasting statements; they even give sensitive interviews on the freely available instant messaging service.

Jamila Sharaf, a mother-of-two from east Jerusalem, keeps up with activities for her children with the school's administration informing her and other parents in a group.

"The application makes things easier and helps to spread information very quickly," she said.

In Iran, officials banned the more secure app Telegram, saying it was used to fuel unrest during a wave of protests in January 2018.

This has driven many young people to Whatsapp.

"The ban on Telegram has made me use WhatsApp more," said Ramin, a 26-year-old from Tehran.

She described the idea of taxing social media to plug budget shortfalls as "ridiculous".

"I would (be prepared to) help my government in that situation, but not by paying for something which is meant to be free."