Thomas Friedman"New Signs on the Arab Street" NY Times March 13

[Coastie for Truth]

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/opinion/13friedman.html?

New Signs on the Arab Street by Thomas L. Friedman

From Baghdad to Beirut, the Middle East has seen a series of unprecedented popular demonstrations for democracy. There were, however, two street protests in December that got virtually no coverage, but were just as important, if not more. One took place in the Egyptian Nile Delta town of Mahalla and the other in the Suez Canal city of Ismailiya. Both of these raucous Egyptian demonstrations, which involved marches, strikes, denunciations of the government and appeals to Parliament, were triggered by President Hosni Mubarak's decision to sign the first substantial trade agreement with Israel since Camp David. That decision brought Egyptian workers from both areas into the streets. They were furious. They were enraged. Why?

They were not included in the new trade deal with Israel.

Now, that's a new Middle East. On Dec. 14, Egypt, Israel and the U.S. signed an accord setting up three Qualified Industrial Zones (Q.I.Z.'s) in Egypt. The deal stipulated the following: Any Egyptian company operating in one of these Q.I.Z.'s that imports from an Israeli company at least 11.7 percent of the parts, materials or services that go into the Egyptian company's final product can then export that finished product to the U.S. duty free. This is a big deal for Egypt, which, unlike Jordan and Israel, does not have a free-trade treaty with the U.S. As part of the accord, the U.S. named Greater Cairo, Alexandria and Port Said the three Q.I.Z.'s. It had to be limited to only three municipalities so that the U.S. would not be swamped with Egyptian exports - hence the protests from the two big Egyptian manufacturing centers that were left out.

According to Rashid Mohamed Rashid, Egypt's impressive new minister of foreign trade, 397 Egyptian companies have already signed up to participate in the Q.I.Z. program, most of them small and medium-size firms. Many of these Egyptian companies have already gone to Israel to forge deals with Israeli suppliers or started work with Israeli partners to identify export markets in the U.S. Some Israeli companies are setting up shop in the Egyptian Q.I.Z.'s to provide services right on the spot.
<snip><

---------Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/opinion/13friedman.html?

This is no secret in Silicon Valley. This is the investment and the jobs that will also go into Gaza and the West Bank as a Palestinian nation grows. No links for this -- just read the San Jose Mercury - frequently reported on-- just put http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/
in your browser's "Favorites and check it every few days.


Read the "snipped out" out portions of Friedman's op-ed. A viable, free market economy is a sine qua non for a sustainable democratic Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza.

[bemildred]

1. Well, the situation in Egypt is interesting.

Something does seem to be up there. Hosni seems to be rethinking
his hereditary democracy.

But Friedman does not have a very good record of understanding the
"Arab Street", and most of this seems to be the current "Arab
Spring" propaganda line, i.e. drivel.

[Coastie for Truth]

2. A lot of these

deals percolating -- and the talk of "divesting" may inadvertently hurt these trans-national deals between former enemies.

What may be up is that the business community doesn't want to fall further behind India and China. ;)

Also - Palestine (in the present tense - it will be an independent, viable democracy, along side Israel and joined by links of trade and manufacturing) - is an intended beneficiary - I am basing this on the San Jose Mercury News and the San Francisco Chronicle (the voices of Silicon Valley) and not Friedman.

Just follow the business sections on line every day - it's dribbling out.

[bemildred]

3. I don't doubt it. Things aren't going to work out if they are not.

One of the more asinine aspects of Jabba's pervious policies
was the refusal to make things better for the Palestininians that
wanted to co-exist in an effort to get them to "stop the terrorists"
for him.

[newyorican]

4. Not one mention of Palestine...

in the entire article. Talk of "freeing" Egypt and Lebanon, but no mention of "freeing" Palestine.

TF may have stumbled upon something here, but if he did, it was by accident. He is still full of broken clock shit.

[Coastie for Truth]

6. Check the

daily San Jose Mercury and the daily San Francisco Chronicle (business sections).

Friedman may write about the "Arab Street" -- but ther's a lot going on on El Camino Road and Sand Hill Road.

[Colorado Blue]

10. I read yesterday that Mubarek is planning to become

actively involved with the Palestinian people, working within their community and also with Israel and the surrounding Arab states. I believe there is going to be great progress.

Mubarek and Jordan are increasingly active, as they should be: the territories were actually originally Egyptian and Jordanian, and would have been returned to THEM had the peace deals worked out.

Now, it looks like the Palestinians will in fact be independent. I just hope the whole delicate process isn't sabotaged. IMO people want to live normal lives.

[Coastie for Truth]

11. Everybody (well almost everybody)

sees the hand writing on the wall. The various wingnuts don't

Grow up and play like adults and quit the killing - and you might keep the economy from going to India and China.

I have begun to get a very "qui bono" cynicism about every hiccup on the path to peace. And, while I recognize the leftwingnuts and rightwingnuts and the rapturewingnuts and jihadwingnuts and the irredentiawingnuts and realize that they are mix of psychosis and suicidal -- by my "qui bono" calculation -- India and China have the most to gain economically by keep the pot boiling. Follow the money.

[Yosie]

12. This is the real point - the ME business community exists and wants peace

Until fairly recently the ME business community came in four flavors--
1. Oil companies (all foreign - "Locals need not apply")
2. Branch offices (again, all foreign - "Locals need not apply")
3. Construction
4. Mom and pop business

But nothing that created exports in a way that grew the local economy.

As Coastie points out -- the train is leaving the station -- and the emerging entrepreneurial class realizes that this may be their last shot for several generations.

I also think that the "political class" and the "mineral exploitation class" did not want Palestinian-Israeli peace. Conflict suited their needs as a diversion from the real issues.

[Colorado Blue]

13. It's an interesting theory. But I truly believe there is enough

to go around.

It's imperative, I think, to normalize relations so trade can flow and ideas pass back and forth between various Muslim nations and with Israel. The desalinization Israel is working on could be of great benefit to the region. Better educational standards, more liberal religious and political policies - all could help foster creativity, which would lead to better lives, more jobs.

Also, when looking at the region in terms of its ecology, and I think we should include the US in this type of thinking, and Africa as well, one could perhaps start figuring out ways to preserve both the lifestyles of the tribal cultures and the land itself.

In the mideast, parts of Africa and Central Asia, the pastoral nomads have been under pressure for well over a century, but their use of marginal, arid land may well be the best overall - for land, for animals, for the people. Proletarization of the Turkmen, for example, or the Uzbek, or the Khazaks, hasn't really been entirely successful; I'm wondering if it's even desirable. In the US, we wound up practically exterminating the very old cultures, successful at living on the land. In the Mideast, Iran and Afghanistan both have many nomads and semi-nomads, as does Turkey.

Does a post-industrial world need to be monolithic? Or can people fit into the larger scheme yet maintain some semblance of the old intimacy with the land? Is there a place for camel and horse in the world of the 747? I'm thinking, not only YES - but that it's desirable - culturally, ecologically, environmentally. Similarly, the world of the artist, of the philosopher: our overwhelming materialism and expediency has reduced the viability of people who don't contribute in the immediate sense, to the mass culture, the mass cash register. Yet, is this not a great part of what makes us human, the pursuit of art, science, philosophy?

I am concerned that the unbelievable greediness of the material culture, the Coca-Cola culture, has set a certain pattern. On the other hand the old ways could certainly benefit by the use of modern irrigation techniques, and so forth. And freeing women, to be full partners socially, intellectually and economically, could be an enormous boon to us all.

Just thoughts!

[Yosie]

14. Observation of children of the arid-nomadic world

when they are dropped into the post-industrial world--

the first western profession they gravitate to is health care - the first generation born in France, US, wherever seek out medicine, denistry, nursing, pharmacy. I think it is the almost shamanic esteem in which "healers" are held in the arid -rural societies.

(My dentist is a Hmong - and she's street wise NYC all the way -- born in Indo-China in a refugee camp)

[Colorado Blue]

15. That's interesting. I'm sure you're right about the shamanic

connection.

I believe shamans still practice throughout much of Central Asia, yes? Even though Islam is the dominant religion.

[dameocrat]

5. I doubt there will be a deal unless they get out

of the West Bank and Gaza first.

[Coastie for Truth]

7. So - you are

saying that a deal between an Israeli semiconductor company and an Egyptian printed circuit board company to populate printed circuit boards in Egypt - and - (after the establishment of an independent Palestinian state) to assemble the computer in the independent Palestinian state will not be inked - and money will not be spent "unless they get out of the West Bank and Gaza first."

The deals have been inked. There is big civilian, private "risk capital" on the table. This is bigger then Mubarak and Sharon and Abbas together. This is business people of their private economies - and they are on the move.

[dameocrat]

8. I don't understand you quibble?

How can anything be manufactured in a new Palestinian State unless Israel does this?

[Coastie for Truth]

9. Simple

This is a cross-border joint venture. The money is US, Israeli, Egyptian, and Palestinian (individual - not government); facilities are on the West Bank and in Cairo (and a small office in Haifa). The corporate charter is "A corporation of Egypt governed by Egyptian law and having places of business in Egypt, "Palestine", and Israel."

The employees and principals are Egyptians, Palestinians, and Israelis -- including expats in the US.

This is the trend. It's happening. What doesn't happen in the ME goes to India and China.

The Israelis, Egyptians, and Palestinians know that -- don't you?