Chris DeVito's blog

Another political assassination attempt in Lebanon: Naharnet reports that Greek-Catholic MP Michel Pharaon was targeted for assasination in the east Beirut neighborhood of Ashrafiya this afternoon. The attempt, which occured only hours after the killing of Minister of Industry Pierre Gemayal, threatens to push an already tense situation over the edge. Despite the assurances from Lebanese political leaders that open civil conflict is not an option, events on the ground may dictate otherwise. The logic of sectarian killing can be difficult to counter with pleas for understanding and calm. There seem to be dark days ahead for Lebanon. 

For more context, don't miss FP's recent interview with regional expert David Schenker on Syria's true intentions, whether Hezbollah is rearming, and if the worst days in Lebanon are still ahead.

The BBC reports that Lebanese cabinet minister Pierre Gemayal has been shot and killed on the streets of Beirut. The killing of Gemayal, a Christian with an impressive pedigree (his uncle Bashir was assasinated during the civil war) is bound to stoke tensions. Motivations?  Those bound to ascribe this to Hezbollah or Syria will be quick to point out that his death means that a quorum in the cabinet won't be possible, neccessitating the establishment of a new one, an ongoing Hezbollah demand.

Great Britain isn't the only nation facing controversy over the niqab, the full Islamic veil that reveals nothing but a woman's eyes. Agence France Presse reports that women who wear the niqab have been banned from the residence halls of Egypt's Helwan University. The reason? The dean of Helwan, Abdel- Hay Abaid is worried about "individuals who might worm their way in, disguised under a face veil." If a man made it into the women's halls, he said, "their parents would kill me."

The newest Atlantic has a piece by Daniel Byman and Kenneth Pollack that takes a look at where the estimated 1.2 million refugees from the Iraq war have headed and what the large-scale exodus could portend for the region. If history is any indication, the ramifications could prove catastrophic. Byman and Pollack remind us of the continuing tremors caused by the displacement of Palestinian refugees and caution that the current Iraqi refugee crisis could prove even more destabalizing. They write:

Refugees...can...corrode state power from the inside, fomenting radicalization of domestic populations and encouraging rebellion against host governments.  The burden of caring for hundreds of thousands of refugees is heavy, straining government administrative capacity and possibly eroding public support for regimes shown to be weak, unresponsive, or callous. And the sudden presence of armed fighters with revolutionary aspirations can lead disaffected local clans or co-religionists to ally with the refugees against their own governments, especially when an influx of one ethnic or religious group upsets a delicate demographic balance, as would likely be case in some of Iraq's neighbors. 

With over 700,000 Iraqis in Jordan (a country of 6 million), 450,000 in Syria, significant numbers in Lebanon, Iran, and Kuwait, and no sign of a drop off in sectarian violence in Iraq, the real instability may lay ahead.

In the most recent New York Review of Books, Timothy Garton Ash takes a look at Ian Buruma's new book on the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh. Buruma seems to break new ground in his assesment that the schizophrenia experienced by Europe's Muslim communities may as much literal as it is cultural. Garton Ash writes that...

Buruma meets a psychiatrist specializing in the mental problems of immigrants. Apparently women, and the first generation of immigrant men, tend to suffer from depression; second-generation men, from schizophrenia. According to his research, a second-generation Moroccan male is ten times more likely to be schizophrenic than a native Dutchman from a similar economic background.

Whether this amounts to dubious psychological research or a shocking insight is hard to tell.

Reuters reports today that reformers in the Saudi royal family have pushed forward a new comedic soap opera for Ramadan that ridicules Islamic radicalism. The timing of the show is especially significant because Ramadan soap operas, called musalsalat, draw not only the highest ratings of the year (think sweeps), but because they serve as a cultural touchstone during Islam's holiest month. The new tone is also significant because musalsalat have not always served as platforms from which to assail extremism. During Ramadan in 2002, Egyptian television aired the series A Horseman without a Horse, which was based in part on the notorious anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, stirring protest from both the United States and Israel.  

But this year the protests are coming from Muslim clerics who deem the comedy offensive to Islam (though perhaps it's because the show ridicules militants at a clerical school). The Saudi response? They've pulled the show from state television, but are instead shipping it to the widely-watched (and Saudi-owned) Middle East Broadcasting Corporation in the United Arab Emirates.