 our Carnegie Stanford workshop on security, prosperity, and governance in the Middle East and North Africa. My name is Amra Hamzawi. I'm a senior fellow at the Center for Democracy, Development, and Rural Flow at Stanford and a non-resident fellow at Carnegie. And I'm happy to be with you and happy to moderate our second panel. We had a first panel which tackled primarily economic issues as they relate to governance and human security. And in the second panel, we're devoting our attention to security. I wouldn't say security proper, but we will tackle security challenges, human security challenges, as well as other security challenges in three key countries in the Middle East and North Africa. In the order beside me, Egypt, Morocco, and Yemen. And we have three excellent panelists who will enlighten us and share their remarks and then engage with you in hopefully what's going to be a vibrant Q&A session. We have Nancy Aukail to my right. Nancy is executive director of the Tahrir Institute based in Washington, D.C. Samia Arzukhi, she is a PhD candidate at U.S. Davis in history department. And she worked for a few years as Reuters correspondent in Morocco. And Farah Al-Musallami, who is a fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut and co-founder of the Sana'a Center for Strategic Studies. Let me welcome all of you. We're very happy that you could all make it. And let's start right away by asking you, Nancy, to reflect on, and I'm going to ask Samia and Farah to do exactly the same. If you can Nancy, reflect on the current security situation in Egypt in 2017, if you could share with us what you consider to be the main security challenges, main improvements with regard to human security or lack thereof since the last major political shift in Egypt took place, which was in 2013. Thank you, Amran. Thanks for inviting me. It's really great to be panel with Samia and Farah. It's got great experience in this. Should I raise my voice more? Is that better? Yep. Okay. So, well, the short answer to your question, the security situation is going down. I mean, it's not improving. And it's a huge disappointment for a lot of people who basically supported President Sisi in 2013, mainly on the nexus of the idea of security and economic improvement. And we see, I mean, in 2017 today, both indicators of both areas are not looking good at all. The economy is going down. And also the security situation is deteriorating, particularly in Sinai. Since 2013, more vigilant and more established terror organizations are forming and finding place in a home in Egypt. The level of terror attacks that we have been tracking at the Tahir Institute shows that an upward trend. Even, for example, when sometimes the number of terror attacks if we're talking quantitatively first before we go into the analysis. So, for example, the last, the first quarter of 2017, so a bit of a decline of the number of attacks in Egypt. Going around 136 attacks during that time. However, the number of fatalities of these attacks have increased. So it's, if in economic terms, that looks like the terror groups are being more efficient, doing less and achieving more. So looking at these numbers qualitatively in the number of attacks, the number of fatalities, the targeted attacks, it's going up. So that's not looking good. But also symbolically, how these organizations or terror groups are being established, feeling comfortable and they are innovating their ways of communicating and improving their media propaganda. They know exactly what are the issues that they play on when they are, for example, trying to recruit. So they know exactly what are the most contentious issues particularly political issues that they play on when they send on the propaganda video inviting people to join the groups. Now, a lot of people, and this is a simple correlation between, it's not really that simple, that it's not every country that has an economic decline suffers terrorism. And at the same time, not every person with a fundamentalist view acts upon it with violence. It's a combination, a formula that exists right now in Egypt that is taking the country into this very worrying and concerning situation. So just to speak about Sinai, and you're gonna find some comparable situations in Yemen and Morocco. So in Sinai, the idea of isolation is not just an economic isolation. It's about, first of all, communications. Communications going in and out. So for example, the Northern Sinai have had the communications completely cut, just actually came back today that the communications started to come back to it. Electricity has been cut for two months. It only came back on the 30th of August. Today, there was a statement that was distributed by the company of Walter Utility saying that they're gonna evacuate everything and all the services. So this is a situation that from one side is putting the populations there at distress. But this combination works particularly well for the terror groups, because the terror groups are not good at governance. I mean, they are good at inflicting harm, but they're not able or good at building societies. So it's a situation for them that they don't have to, I mean, there are no civic services that are there that they have to keep, that they have to serve. They are dealing with a situation of basically, for them, warriors, and it's normal to be in that situation. So it's a combination from the side of the government unable to serve the population there, and it works very well for the people there. So it further leads to deterioration of the situation, and also it's an opportunity for the terror groups to recruit. Okay. Now, the other thing that works then, when you have nothing to offer, I mean, you actually, you're not offering anything. And I'm talking, this situation is ironically very comparable between the government and between the terror groups. And then the biggest terror group in Sinai that formerly known as Ansar-Bitul-Muqdis, and now it's Sinai, that is affiliated to ISIS. And despite of the defeat in ISIS everywhere, it still symbolically gives them a prestige to pose themselves this way. And although, as I said, when you don't have something to offer, you work very hard on the narrative, on the media narrative. So from the side of the government, there is an intense effort to control the media. From one side, there are 425 websites in Egypt that's been cut, and on the other side, the government is investing very heavily on controlling the media and creating new channel. Eligence itself has created its own TV channel to control the message. On the other hand, when you have this information gap because there is no communication, particularly I'm talking now about Sinai, this gives an opportunity for the terror groups to dominate the net because they're very clever at doing this. They're not really that powerful. Their numbers, like why the highest estimate does not increase one-sounding, you know? But because they are very good at working on social media over Twitter and Facebook, and there's no counter-narrative, they are able to exaggerate their presence. For example, would set up a checkpoint for 15 minutes, take videos of it, and show that they are in control and appearance of governance, rather than actual governance. They also, in April, they launched this propaganda video showing how systemic writers, the snipers, showing, for example, in a course of the video of 17 minutes, 35 military people showing that their capabilities. Where, at the same time, in the same video, showing those from the side of the Egyptian military, looking very informal, not even wearing the formal attire, army, just being shot randomly. So this is a certain message showing, basically, the bottom line, we are in control. So that's really problematic. Maybe later, when we're talking about Yemen, and I don't want to take much time, but also the way of the tribal relations, like Arabs, like Tarabin, and they're in fighting with ISIS, outside of the control of, also makes the situation. Thank you very much, Nancy. Samia, headlines coming out of Morocco in recent days have been related to two issues. One, the long period of negotiation between different political actors, represented in parliament to form a government, which is finally in place. And the second piece of news was related to a wave of protests, which has unfolded primarily in the reef region. So you get a different picture when compared to Egypt, when compared to many countries in the region, Morocco seems to be a country where we do have a degree of formalized politics and political dynamics being carried out in democratic religious institutions. Parliament was elected recently. And on the other side, it seems that Morocco faces a great deal of governance deficits that have eroded human security and have led to that wave of protests, which unfolded in the reef region. If you could reflect on the current security situation, different challenges and how they relate to governance and the role of politics and political actors, government and other political actors, I think. Yeah, for sure. So it's fine that you bring these two major developments in Morocco because they actually coincided with one another. The protests in the reef region started in late October after a fish vendor, Mohsin Fikri, was caught selling fish, swordfish specifically, which was illegal to fish during that time of the year. His stock was confiscated by police, thrown into a garbage truck where he was subsequently crushed to death. The incident was documented on a video and it went viral overnight and automatically immediately triggering protests. At the same time that this happened in October, Morocco just had legislative elections that yielded results where the outgoing government was led by the party of justice and development with Prime Minister Ben Kiren, not only winning elections but actually gaining seats, which despite the unpopularity of his policies, a lot of people were sort of raising questions about what future that would entail for the fact that Ben Kiren would have been the first Prime Minister in Moroccan history to serve two consecutive terms as a result of relatively free and transparent elections. To sort of put the protests into context first of all and then the government negotiations, blockage issue, when the protests started happening in the reef, the rallying cry was hugra and hugra is essentially this concept of the deprivation of dignity. And as a result, a group of locals from Agus Seima decided to form a small little movement which would be now referred to as Heraka Shabi or the popular movement. And they drew lessons from the failures of past protest movements in Morocco, namely the February 20th movement. They did this by actually spending three months knocking door to door in the city of Hossein Ma and the neighboring towns and villages asking people what their grievances were. And the results of this was a manifesto with very succinct demands that included having a cancer facility because the reef region has the highest rate of cancer. This is actually attributed to the use of chemical weapons during the war with Spain in 1920s. And a university in addition to improved infrastructure, namely the construction of a highway that would have connected Hossein Ma to the rest of the country, which has still been on hold despite it's supposed to be, it was supposed to be completed last year. And jobs essentially. So the Heraka also distinguished itself from the February 20th movement because it actually had a leader. His name was Nasir Zebzefi and he was very public and at the forefront. And as a result, he was subsequently arrested in May. And following his arrest, over 300 people have now been arrested since May. Protests happening, if not on a daily basis, almost on a weekly basis. And the most sort of violence and extensive use of violence on behalf of the security forces in Morocco in the reef region. Deployment of a disproportionate amount of riot police, gendarmes and other forms of security use of tear gas, truncheons that eventually led to the death of one protester and dozens that were subsequently injured. The reason why the reef region protests are sort of unique and this touches on the issue of isolation that Nancy is bringing up. The reef is actually geographically isolated with the reef mountains, that's one aspect. It's also sort of historically isolated from the general narrative of Moroccan history. And what we see is that the past three monarchs in Morocco have had to deal with social and political unrest in the reef at one point in their reins. And each time that has come up, it hasn't effectively been resolved in address. The socioeconomic and political marginalization issues have never fully been addressed. You have Mohammed V in the 1920s with the brief establishment of the Reef Republic that was essentially squashed by the Spanish army, led by Colonel Franco, who actually used the reef war as a platform for climbing to the ranks and eventually becoming dictator. And essentially the Sultan, Mohammed V at the time, just sort of tacitly sat aside and did not intervene in any way, shape, or form. That is still very vivid in the minds and the memories of people in the reef. And then you have Hesse II in the 1980s in response to bread riots that were a result of increase in food prices, prompted by structural adjustment measures, addressed the protesters in the reef. Now mind you, there were protests happening all over the country during the 1980s because of these structural adjustment measures. And in a speech, he notoriously singled out the reef, calling them scum and basically saying that they live off of theft and trafficking, here referring to the Hesse trafficking that the reef is notorious for. And that itself has also remained very vivid in the memories and the minds of the people in the reef. And this sort of terminology used against the protesters by Hesse II has been revived currently by newspapers that have strong ties to various parties and the state. And now we have Mohammed VI, who is essentially going through a similar situation of political and social unrest in the reef. And his response has been a sort of a combination of public ambivalence. He mentioned Hesse I once in speech in thrown day at the Spass July. And basically he mentioned Hesse I once in the context of praising the quote unquote restraint of security forces and contrarially actually two days or yesterday at the Human Rights Watch published a report saying that the king is essentially condoning these violent security tactics. So all three monarchs have failed to address what's going on the reef. And so I think that this is just yet another critical juncture in a regime that is very path dependent and has missed a lot of opportunities for forging sort of a more like sense and system of governance that does prioritize accountability. And now going into the issue with the government we had the 2016 elections and to prevent this rise of Bin Kiran I mean sort of just to put this sort of to bring up an anecdote. I was speaking to a government official earlier this year asking his opinion on what's happening with the king forcing Bin Kiran to step aside and instead choosing Al Osmani who was perceived as a more docile figure in the party he told me listen there can't be two sons in Morocco and I think this sort of characterizes the dual executive nature of the Moroccan state you have the king and you have the prime minister and you know the power that is shared between them is not equal. The government does respond and is sort of held to account by the by the monarchy and this is one of the issues of governance. And so when the Hirag protests started happening accountability was tossed around like a hot potato you had the king the monarchy the palace that was sort of stepping aside saying this is not an issue the government needs to deal with it the government run and led by the PJD is saying well no we don't hold the majority of the seats in the leaf they actually are held by the opposition party the party of authenticity and modernity which was a party founded by a close friend of the king and current royal advisor. So I think this is emblematic of how the dual executive nature of the Moroccan state functions. And so I think that in some unless genuine political economic and social policies of inclusion are put into place the reprocessed may subside in the short term but I think that they will likely recur and other protests similar to that will happen in the country. Very much so. To you Ferra. I believe Yemen is one of the Arab countries which is suffering from all possible challenges. Human security issues are a grave condition from human security and I'm referring to recent news. We don't get to hear much about Yemen being in the US or in fact in the Arab world and that is very much related to the fact that politics and political interest has moved away from Yemen apart from regional actors involved in a war of aggression on Yemen itself but there were recent reports by international organizations on the health conditions of Yemeni children Yemeni women on levels of color endemic spread of color and other security human security challenges. Yemen has been facing a war of aggression from neighboring countries Saudi-led coalition but the civil war in Yemen as well. Yemeni has Yemeni state has never been a strong state has never delivered basic services but whatever delivery existed before the last two years is probably gone. So if you can reflect on the security situation in Yemen and feel free to bring in domestic and regional dynamics because the international dynamics of Yemen cannot be dealt with away from regional actors and what they do. Sure. Yemen one way to explain the low silence of the media is we say we are Mexico of the Gulf. The same way the Gulf thinks of Yemen similar to how some Americans think of Mexico. But that's one of the reasons I think why it's a very not an unknown story but it's a country of untold stories and issues. With security specifically there is two themes. One is probably a principle and one is a technical problem that I think has led the country into this level of insecurity. The principle was a principle that thrift in 2011 via the GCC deal and via many other things that were happening which was this trading of justice for the sake of security. When someone does a problem or an institution violates human rights or whatever, it's a trade for the sake of security. What did that do? Ultimately we ended up losing both security and justice. And this is the principle that we have violated in conflict resolutions post 2011 has been one of the main problems of security in the Arab world. In the past it was the counter-terrorism security. If a regime or a Mubarak or if Saleh allows a drone strikes or have a good relationship with the US he's fine to do whatever he wants local. The problem is this formula doesn't work or it's not anymore efficient. Even from a pragmatic point of view let alone a moral point of view. And that has I think if we zoom out of 2011 look and this trading of justice was for example in Yemen's case very obvious via the unconditional immunity that was given to President Saleh. That was very dangerous because it set the legacy of accountability and ultimately the legacy of insecurity I think that led out of it. So that's the principle we violated and that's what we ended up with. From a technical point of view I think the biggest threat to security exists in Yemen and in the region overall is this increasing phenomena of public committees. It's a phenomena that is getting very popular all the way from Iraq, the Hashid al-Shaabi for example the ones fighting ISIS into all the way to Yemen which is also Lijana al-Shaabi or the public committees from both sides fighting. Ultimately these are parallel armies that reports to no one that respects no rule and that basically ultimately end up creating a huge level of insecurity. Almost nationalization of security until 2011 security was a family business thing. So the president has his two sons in charge of the top security agencies, his third son in charge of intelligence and then his nephew in charge of the counter terrorism unit that was funded by the US. And the National Security Bureau obviously one of the most famous intelligence and torture bureaus in Yemen. So this was a pure family business all of security and all of army. We got rid of that and we completely nationalized it into public committees. It's no more in the hand of few people from the family but basically everyone has their own security and that's a dangerous trend in Yemen for example in the case of Sana'a the Houses have their own they call it the public committees. They report to no one, they have no rules and no one can ever say anything to them. In Aden we had what they call the resistance. In Taiz the Salafis of Al-Abbas very famous militias. So this is a larger problem that's destroying security and that's leading to a larger further insecurities in the upcoming days. And this is one reason why also armies have not been able to be built because own or sectarian or different armies have been built on the expense of creating any national army. And that's one of the biggest issues we are facing right now. Let alone when we add to that is the regional arming. So we have a war clearly in Yemen, a combination of a civil war and regional war. A combination of wars, the US is involved in, the Gulf is involved in, Iran somehow more or less is involved in and everyone has been supplying arms to everyone and this is another big issue. In Yemen the UAE created its own military forces in Hadramur in Shabua. Saudi's funded different military forces that's not part of the military at all. And that's what happens I mean when a war starts and then continues even though no one really knows why it started or why or what is what is ultimate so what go out of this. So yeah I mean that's a from a security point of view is things are problematic. Now I don't also, I think there is a lot of blaming too much against the state and how weak the state. Is there a state in Yemen? Is there a stronger state now? Is there a state that is able to have resources? No, but there is a state. There is a state that has been there for 3,000 years since the Queen of Sheba, which is the Bible of the Quran speaks of. Is it the state we imagine? No, is it the state that responds to the UN indicators of functioning? No, but it is a state there. And I measure that in the fact that if a country like the US goes through 10% of the violence Yemen is going through, I think it would have already disappeared from the map. But there is a state in Yemen that's deeper than institutions you can measure and you can understand. And this state is what keeps more or less the societies together in the collapse of institutions like we have right now. There is another thing is there isn't at the moment a single institution in Yemen that combines all of these security agencies together. And that's the most dangerous thing. Yemen is right now fractured into more or less three centers of powers. One in Sana'a under the control of the Houthi Salih. One in Marib under the control of the National Army, some Islamists and some of the President's Alliance. And one in Aden that's not under anyone's control. Basically a combination of loose alliances between the Haraq, the Southern Movement and some of the gold forces there. Until nine months ago these three Yemen's were talking to each other via the central bank. We had a central bank that was able to collect revenue from Aden even during the war and base the salaries back to the fighters in Aden from both sides. This was a gentleman's agreement that we're not gonna destroy this state institution. And that was what killed that place or that Yemen into one. Since its removal to Aden, a very unthoughtful decision and an unpractical decision by the President of Yemen. Basically the last thing that was uniting Yemen together is actually collapsed since then. And now even the militaries for example in Aden that are being established or are being established on a sectarian basis. There is no way you can really at one point mingle or combine these armies together to create a one army together in Yemen. Very much fair. Nancy let me come back to you with a question which goes beyond Sinai. So beyond Sinai Egyptians have been facing very tough times economically. Many segments of the population have been facing tough times politically. I'm referring to human rights abuses, human rights violations which have been going up in a massive manner since 2013. In fact one can even argue they never stopped since 2011 in spite of the democratic uprising. So how does the situation beyond Sinai look like from a security perspective and how do current security challenges relate to governance failures, economic failures in the sense of creating jobs, of distributing income in a more balanced manner. Egypt is a place where we have close to 40% of the population living below or around the poverty line. Yes, before the inflation so we probably it went even higher. And so be it economic deficits or political deficits when you close off formal politics, when you cancel or attempt to extinct civil society, independent civil society, what happens, what kind of security challenges have been emerging in Egypt away from Sinai? Well I mean it's not any better in all the mainland just actually there are more groups that are targeting heuristic areas or other like very sensitive targets and the number of attacks are also on the rise and more groups are actually forming. Actually recently we always heard about attacks from ISIS in Egypt without referring to a particular group forming there. So we were under the assumptions that they are separate cells that are there. However last spring in one of the ISIS magazine but just there had an interview with the Emir of the ISIS group in Egypt that's different than what I had signed on. So that's an indication of more I mean involvement of a particular formation of the group even if this is not really translate into an actual material, optics of it that a group of sporadic I mean terror attackers are now having some form of coherence and actually a more form of coherence in terms of what messages and on the messaging and the target though they also had a shift and they know how to play on the weaknesses of the government and I explained this shortly. So when they started the attack started after 2013 was that they are targeting a government that is illegitimate. Unable to deliver in terms of the needs of society they know exactly how to play on the main political was inherently political which has also a shift from the terror attacks that we have seen. They were targeting government people not because they're not politically lacking legitimacy but because they are infidels because they are not applying shari'ado but the discourse has changed after 2013 on can using even terms and discourse at heart. All the failures of the Egyptian government where as the rest of the society is sort of is a fertile ground actually with sort of the sectarian sense that the Christians or Egyptian cops as an easy target and played very well because it had first it has a currency and second it's an easy target between 2013 until today we've seen 500 sectarian attacks. I mean a president who came actually presenting himself as someone who is trying to fight Islamism and to protect Christian minorities. So for fatalities just in 2015 it's just like all, sorry in 2017. So you see on these fronts the terror groups are finding so many ways and a fertile ground and opportunities that they play very well on in order to first of all define their target and recruit people who are ready and fed up. The problem is that with the situation of lack of governance that the terror groups are not finding a competing enemy for them. So they're not, when you lose everything on providing a proper I mean civics served to people and also in terms of security and all other forms of governance actually give an opportunity to these groups as you don't have much to lose as the situation. Now we're not talking about Sinai but everything down from Lower Egypt from Cairo into the South things also get more isolation in Minyan and other governance where they feel that they actually don't have the same attention that I mean like Central Cairo. Now the Egyptian government instead of actually addressing these issues filling to anything significant economy or the security or and also when they talk when they talk about investments and the work that they do I mean in terms of loans and more road to help the economy it also goes to irrelevant mega project just to make things look as if there is some sort of delivery on something. So having the new capital city or the new Cairo as they have building some mega construction something I mean along the lines of the Pentagon having the octagon or the hexagon or something like that it's like ridiculously expensive and unnecessary and raises questions of how the government is spending its money. At a time there is a dire need of providing subsidy creating projects that actually create employment for the Egyptian people that you said I mean like your poverty that was before the divided reaching around 18 to the dollar or a little bit less than that and that's affecting how people are living their lives and able to barely survive. Now in addition to that this creates a dynamic that is very contentious. I mean you're having a huge number of the population that are suffering their needs are not met and at the same time there's dynamic where you've closed all the peaceful political channels of communication with the government the parliament is basically just not really functioning as a parliament should be as an oversight of the government just basically signing up on any of the decrease or the decisions made by the government and at the same time you have a very dangerous dynamics. The state institutions are remaining as they have been the same of the powerful ones have been. Yet they feel that they are more vulnerable so they act on a dynamic of self-preservation. So the interior or the security sector feels that they have to protect themselves. The same thing with the judiciary. Of their own as an institute internally they need to preserve this institution. In order to do that they have a dynamic that sends a message all the time to the rest of the state institutes. Their survival depends on them. So the more actually there are protests the more there are signs of discomfort or dismay or anger in the streets actually creates more aggression from the side of the ministry of or the security sector because it sends a message to the presidency and the rest of the institution that we are protecting you from this. So one, we are gonna continue to do it. And two, you are not to prosecute any of our people because of cases of torture or anything that have been surfacing that we've seen either through social media or through the remaining few organizations that are trying to document torture or forced disappearances and all the other human rights violations. And because of that it goes in a mutual dynamic between judiciary. Haven't seen any real incriminations or an actual verdict and I think any of the officers that have been involved in torture. I mean like with clear cases, with proofs. So this dynamics, I mean like it goes like a vicious circle in a way that is very dangerous because it would only take a small trigger that things would go up. So if Egypt has lost its political dynamics, its political channels in which government and oppositional plurality of political actors engage be it in parliament or outside of parliament the same cannot be said about Morocco. So Morocco has a democratically elected parliament. Morocco has a plurality of actors, parties represented in parliament. Morocco has, as you were saying, for the second term, we have a democratically digitimated government coming out of parliament and out of relatively fair and transparent elections. However, looking at the protests in the reef, I found it very striking that first of all, the discourse coming from the monarchy as well as from the government, from the leading, from the party for justice and development was a discourse dismissive of people's needs, economic needs of people's complaints with regard to their entitlements as citizens with regard to lacking equal citizenship rights. I found it surprising that not only is a monarchy or the democratically elected government responded to what seemed to me like legitimate concerns of citizens in a highly authoritarian manner. Not very different, not as violent, not as aggressive as you would get elsewhere in neighboring Algeria maybe, in not that close Egypt or elsewhere, but in essence, quite as authoritarian, as dismissive of citizens claims. So where does it come from? Morocco is a place with stable politics, with if not vibrant but a stable civil society sphere that has not been shrinking in recent years unlike Egypt, unlike places like Yemen where civil society is basically in collapse due to the civil war, in a way in collapse, in a way reviving, I'll get back to that on that. So how can we explain that? I think it goes back to this history with the reef region. One of the first, actually the first official government statement that was released in response to the protests was to dismiss them and characterize them as separatists. And this was due to the fact that in a number of protests they would actually wave the reef republic flag, which is a very distinct flag from, you know, the brief tenure of the reef republic in the 1920s. And then when you talk to people in the reef and you tell them, you know, what are your responses to the government and pro-government voices accusing you of separatism and why are you raising the reef flag instead of the Moroccan flag? And they tell you this is part of our history and identity just as much as, you know, FESS or Marrakesh Unique History is part of theirs. So us waving this flag does not mean that we are being separatists. And I think that what sort of worried and scared the government in a way was that the Herak and the leadership of the Herak categorically refused any association or alliance with any political movement or party, from as far left to the far right. And I'm talking about, you know, Najd Demokrati, which is a well-known leftist party that boycotts elections to as far right as the Islamist Adhuri Hassan movement, which itself also boycotts elections, both which have fairly critical views towards the monarchy. But, you know, the leader of the Herak movement, Nasir Zafi, who's currently in prison, notoriously said and described them as decakin siyasiya or political shops to sort of characterize, you know, the transactions, the money that flows through these groups and these parties. And they didn't want to have anything to do with that. So I think that forced the government to realize, okay, we need to change the way that we deal with these protests and specifically with the refrotests. But history has proven itself that the response tends to be, you know, the quick fix of exclusionary measures that include widespread arrests and violent repression instead of the more difficult, you know, strategy of inclusionary politics. And Nasir Zafi, the leader, as well as the other leaders of the Herak, demanded that we don't want to negotiate with representatives of the government because we recognize and know that the government doesn't actually wield significant power. If you want us to negotiate, bring us representatives of the palace, which the palace didn't and probably will not. And so I think that this is sort of like a textbook case of how, you know, we have these notions of like the transition paradigm and how elections and having a parliament and having a constitution are so important on paper. But in reality, the monarchy is trying to place itself above politics. In the last Throne Day speech, the king spent a significant portion of the speech slamming the government, slamming the public sector, slamming public administration, party officials. Basically, I mean, it was almost a reiteration of what people on the streets are saying. And he basically threatened that if you don't take responsibility for your actions and actually do the jobs that you're supposed to do, then I'm going to intervene. And here, you know, people interpreted it as him dissolving the government, which, you know, it didn't happen, but it's still a looming possibility. And so I think that in some, this stable democratic system in Morocco and for true governance to happen in Morocco that is centered around accountability will have to come at the expense of diverting power away from the monarchy in the palace. And you have even the government that exists now, yes, it was elected, right? And, but when the king decided to force Ben-Kiran out, replace him with Saed-le-Din Uttemani. And the main reason for the blockage was because of the question of who was going to join the coalition government. And one of the parties that was really imposing itself in the coalition government was the USFP, which won less than 5% of the parliamentary seats. Now, a coalition government, you kind of wonder, you won less than 5% of the seats, what puts you in a position to rule as part of the government. Yet, they had their way, and now you actually have a government that does not actually reflect the electoral outcome of the 2016 elections. All of the strategic ministerial portfolios are out of the hands of the party of just development. You have the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Ministry of Justice, all either managed by members of the National Rally of Independence, which was a party founded by an extended member of the royal family, or by technocrats. So, I think that sort of represents and demonstrates how this sort of doesn't stand yet. Thank you, Samia Fadda. Let me come to you before opening up and starting our Q&A session. So, Samia was just saying, well, you can have the best constitution on paper, have a parliament endowed with legislative and oversight competencies, but the reality of politics sometimes take you somewhere else. So, now in Yemen, before the war, before the current situation started to unfold, Yemen was a place with a plurality of political parties. In fact, a plurality of political parties representing various shades ideologically, Islamists and non-Islamists left this right wing party somewhere tribal-based, somewhere less tribal-based, a bit of tribal-based exists everywhere. But this was a place with plurality of, with some pluralism in politics and political sphere. This was a place with a very vibrant civil society prior to 2011. So, the untold story of Yemen since the unification of the two Yemens in the 1990s has been the rise of independent, autonomous civil society actors. So, on the extent we in Egypt were quite envious of what was happening in Yemen as we were envious of places like Baghdad, Jordan, and Baghdad, Morocco in the 1990s. So, what is happening to civil society in Yemen? How are civil society actors managing the current situation? And where are political parties? I mean, we hardly hear about anyone apart from the Housis, apart from the former president, Pahri Abdullah Saleh and his people. And of course, the Saudi supported, promoted, funded coalition ruling out of Yemen. So, if we can move beyond them, beyond key actors in the current war on Yemen, where is civil society and where are political actors? Yeah, we had the first parliamentary election in the Arabian Peninsula in 1993, actually, you're right. Before that, the South of Yemen was so socialist to the point, at one point, the head of the state was fired because he married a second wife. And that was that much of a strike. And we had quite a tremendous experience of political parties of pluralism throughout the last 50 years. Yemen is a very dynamic country and that's why I think we get exhausted right now following the news about it, but it's a dynamic country. For the last 50 years, we have seen monarchy, we have seen Marxism in the South. Republic, we have seen the wave of parliament who joined the wave of the Arab Spring. It is an exhausting country from a historical point of view, in a good way. It moves very quickly. It responds to the international development around the world. Despite the relatively stable neighborhood around it, which doesn't respond into any steps in wars. So that's something, it is a unique, but it has to do with the fact that there is a political culture. There is an experience for thousands of years, for hundreds of years. And there is a difference between the political and the historical Yemen. The political Yemen can change overnight and it goes all the way right left, but the historical Yemen is a stable and that there is a country there, there is a place called Yemen. And it's a very dynamic and it's a terrible maker in the positive meaning of the world or politics. The problem for the last two years and this is why this war is like, is not like anything we have ever seen in Yemen. We have had conflicts, we have always had violence, but not never in this massive. Never this, you have 12 countries at least right now. And you have almost everyone in the ground fighting everyone. And too many countries are from outside. That, but what did that do? And I think that's mostly because of two, two, one, six UN Security Council Resolution which basically brought a lot of legal justification to this war is it banned politics. There is no politics basically for the last three years. There is no politics. There is a fight. There is a war. At any side, you speak to the Houthis, the ones who use the very little ones who used to think among the stem are sidelined right now. The other side also only those in the military or only those who are fighters are taking the lead into it. And that's what war does anyway. Now I wouldn't call it depending on which, which side you take. If you are on the Saudi side, you will say the war started in September 21st, 2014 when the Houthis took over. If you are in the Houthis side, you will say the war started actually in March 25th, 2015. But if you are someone with a centimeter of a brain, I think you will go back to 2011. You will go back to the consequence, faulty political process that ultimately led to this war. It didn't happen without the context. The Houthis then suddenly marched to Sana'a and took it over. They were taking battle since 2011. There was a process because it was a fraud process, because it was a deceptive of process and because it was a process that had to look okay, that doesn't have to be okay. It had to look okay. And it looked okay actually. And ultimately that led into the absence of the destruction of politics basically and taking the country into a war from an external and from an internal point of view. Very marginalized right now, the civil society, because I mean for example, if you're a civil society right now in Sana'a, you cannot do anything or even an event until you get the permission from the Houthis section 10 days ago from the Houthi police. 10 days ago, you have to report where you are doing, who you are bringing, who gave you this money and even hand them out the agenda. 10 days ago, there is no, there is no, they don't joke about that. There is no space for civil society. There is, I was in Sana'a last month and there is zero newspaper that was, that's not the Houthi newspaper. Zero, we had more than 22 at one point, newspapers around the country. We had, this is why I say Yemen is dynamic. We had, we have 50% almost of illiteracy in Yemen, but we had four English newspapers a weekly, more than Lebanon had actually. But all of this is basically shut off right now, whether from this side or that side. And I think that's, out of everything this war is doing, the most, that's the most dangerous thing. It's illegalizing politics. In a country that was run by politics, even when there was some sort of authoritarian, some sort of corruption, there was politics. That was something that Yemenis were used to and practiced contrary to Libyans, contrary to Syria, contrary to many other regional. There was a political experience in a country like Yemen. Very much fair. Thank you all. We're coming now to you. We have half an hour for what's hopefully going to be a vibrant Q and A session. I'm afraid the narrative to use Nancy's terminology, the panel shared with us is not a pleasant one, but it's an interesting narrative in spite of its gloomy nature because it has a great deal of details and differences and similarities between three quite distinct countries, each one in itself, but yet some interesting reflections which came out of the panel with regard to how vibrant formal politics and formal political dynamics can be, what are their impacts when they are not as vibrant, what happens when you extinct civil society and close off, shut off spaces for freedom of expression and their impacts on security and governance in these three countries. So let's open it up and I'm taking it to sir. We'll collect questions to give you more time to share your ideas. So we start with sir. We'll take rounds of three questions each. Thank you guys. My question is specific to Samia, but I'd love to hear others thoughts on this. Samia, you bring up a really important point which is the question of accountability which goes not only to the heart of governance but it also goes to power dynamic in Morocco between the different players. So you have the palace which controls politics completely but somehow manages to stay above it but in terms of governance it controls that as well but devolves just enough responsibility to the government so that they can blame them should anything go wrong. And in my mind I can only think of two examples where the monarchy has been held accountable in one way or another. The reef protests that you bring up and I can't remember if it was 2013 or 2014 when the Spanish pedophile was pardoned. Do you see this as sort of a bigger shift where there is more willingness to really hold the real power brokers responsible? Or do you see these as just sort of momentary things that happen that may not amount to much? Thanks. Thank you and to sir, Mervat. I'll be moving between left and right, front rows and back rows. So bear with me, Mervat. Thank you, Mervat Hatem, Howard University. I'm kind of struck by the two cases, Egypt and Yemen. Our cases of course where the Arab appraisings took place and were somewhat successful. They certainly forced those who had been in power for a very long time to step down and yet obviously they have not been as successful in negotiating a transition to a system that would take the demands of bread, liberty, social justice and dignity into effect. And it seems like what happened was as a result is basically the use of security. I'm sorry, that's me. So I was just going to say. Okay. So security seems to have a very place politics and this is perhaps the marker of this particular, of the outcome, the political outcome that occurred in both Egypt and in Yemen. If that is the case, what kind of a political bargain is behind this? If it replaced politics, if security has replaced politics, then there must be a political bargain that has been struck by those who are in power and some groups in those societies. And so, I mean, we need to be thinking about that in trying to figure out who are the people who are the losers in this. Okay, so I'm seeing Perry. Hi, Perry Kamak with Carnegie. Thanks for three good presentations. My question is for Farah. You kind of talked about this interesting juxtaposition of a country which has kind of a lot of fragility in its politics and political institutions kind of superimposed on this continuity of social and cultural institutions. And I'm kind of struck that the tragedy really of the Yemeni Civil War now is that the international intervention has kind of blocked these deeper cultural social institutions from their normal kind of conflict resolution mode. And I'm just wondering if this is a kind of transient moment. If there were a way to kind of deescalate both from the Arabian Peninsula, from Iran, kind of make this a local conflict rather than an international one, can these indigenous conflict resolutions be kind of resuscitated or is it damaged permanent? And really the related question is what then does it take, would it take to kind of end sustainably the conflict there? Thanks. Okay, let's take one more question before coming back to our panel. Please go ahead. So here in the front. Thank you, Mike Kurtzik. Nancy, I see in your title Tahrir Institute. Tahrir is a very special place, Tahrir Square. What happened to that? What happened to the people who were there? What are they saying? What are they doing? Is there a difference now between Mubarak and Sisi? Because we read in the headline, Sisi is as bad if not worse than Mubarak. What's going on there? And could you tell us a little bit of the impact of the fact that the United States is withholding aid at the moment? And what does the military say about that? Thank you. Thank you very much. Let's come back. Would you mind saying your name again? So let's come back to the panel. I'd like to have at least two more rounds of questions. I saw many hands. So let's try to be brief and let's go in a reversed order to Farah followed by Simeon followed by Nancy. And if each one of you can maybe take two to three minutes? Yeah, I'll take less because I don't know the answers. Much less than that. Yes, I think it's a very... Your time is up. But no, you have to kind of... The tribal way, so... Go ahead. No, I think, yes, I think it's very important to dig out who's behind this and who's benefiting from what. And I really think that's something we lack as a scholar so as people who are looking for ideas. This is especially important because public opinion we have in our part of the world is built on rumors, not on information. And there are some interests that remain there that are benefiting from the war and that will benefit. And we are unable to see who's behind them. Very specific example of behind the security order, for example, in 2013, we had a very famous research, Sharon House, that showed that we had 10 families in Yemen that controlled 86% of the imports, exports, banking, communication, and basically the top 10 source of wealth in the country by 10 families. These families, for example, are still players even today in Yemen. And nothing had changed with them after 2011. They were players and they remain players. And this is something now one is really digging who's behind them and I share your concern. When it comes to the, can there be a local process? Yes, if this was left to Yemenis, we can solve this war. We have an excellent historical experience in dealing with conflicts and with conflict resolution. It is, but the problem is this is, yes, it is a war about Yemen or it started about Yemen, but it's no more in the hand of Yemen. And it no more has to do with Yemen. Very specific example I was referring to last night is in Yemen. We had the tribes at one point, for example, last year, they had a gathering for two hours and they freed 800 prisoners. The UN envoy went to Yemen and he had a chapter seven behind him and he freed four prisoners. So that's these local domestic conflict resolution models are highly under looked and highly can be brought. Right now they're being used for war reasons. You get the tribes to fight, you get them to do this, but no one has used that from a conflict resolution point of view. And I think can be very, very important if we explore them in the government. Very much, Samia. Yeah, and the question of accountability. I mean, what's so interesting is, and this is a trend for years, for example, you go to a protest in a remote village, for example, and people are protesting because their land is being stolen or very local reason and they're carrying pictures of the king, appealing to the king. So I think there's sort of it, there has always been that appealing to the power of the monarchy because people know that that's where the power lies. In terms of accountability, I still don't even think we're there yet because if we do start considering the accountability that the palace should be held for, then that would open up a huge Pandora's box. I mean, just look at the role of the king in the private sector, for example. I mean, essentially every single sector, the royal holding firm has a portion of control over, including monopolies on sugar, for example, which is something that is subsidies that are controlled by the government. So in terms of accountability, I don't think that we're there yet, but I think it's sort of relevant to point out in this context how the regionalization plan was intended to divert power and the centralization of robot away to these 12 regions in Morocco, right? But the way it unfolded was kind of counterproductive and in fact just further bolstered the inefficiency and the bloated nature of the public administration public sector because you have 12 regions that are governed by 12 different wellies or governors that are appointed by the king and then 12 different presidents that are elected from local elections. So you have a wellie and a president and who is held responsible for what? And not to mention that this trickles down to the basic public administrative task. I mean, just to get a residency certificate or a marriage license. I mean, what processes you have to go through that sort of all go back to this dual executive nature and the fact that, yeah, just to reiterate, I don't think that we're at a point of accountability for the palace just yet, but I think people have not shied away from being very explicit and openly acknowledging that they know that the palace is the one that wields power in the country and not the government. And Tisar Mervet and Michael in 15 seconds. No, it wasn't successful. I wouldn't consider Egypt as a success story. CC is worse than the park. But just to elaborate on this, things are not that simplistic, but when you see, I mean, when people took to the streets, as Mervet was saying, they were hoping for freedom in bread and justice and none of this has been achieved. And in terms of accountability, it goes across board on all levels of people in the government and official. No one was held accountable for anything. Starting by Mubarak himself or just yesterday, pictures of him, I mean, having his summer vacation in the northern coast with his granddaughter and his son, it was just very provocative. And actually, as things are even worse right now, instead of people just frowning upon things like that, people reminiscing of the good old days of Mubarak when people are not like, forcibly disappeared or tortured to death by that level of numbers. Was he good? No, it just, what we're seeing right now is a continuation of a corrupt system with lack of accountability. There are no structural changes that happen in the country. Going back to the question that, or the statement that Mervet made was like, was there a bargain there for security? Again, there is a very critical issue when we talk about security and how the West view it and how people inside these countries are viewing it. Security, well, first of all, the quest for freedom and democracy transformed over time just lowering the bar just to have some stability and have some, I mean, sort of decreasing the amount of terror attacks. So it turned from democracy to security to terrorism. But even when we talk about terrorism, and that's the biggest problem of the West, and that talks a little bit about the point of cutting aid and what the West views. When we talk about terrorism, everyone is, instead of looking at security, is looking at containment. That violence is tolerated as long as it's contained within the border. If it spills out outside of this region, it becomes a bigger problem and people pay attention. But as long as it is contained, the even terrorism is tolerated. And that's hugely problematic because this is not a sustainable situation and sooner or later they spill out and get out of hand. But what the West is dealing with the region, whether we're talking about Syria, whether we're talking about Yemen, and particularly when we're talking about Egypt because they see it as a better example in the rest of the country, with the exception of Tunisia, that things are contained, then it's fine. But they're not because actually going back to the comparison between Mubarak and Sisi, it's the same structural challenges that we have been seeing in the failure of the Institute. The only difference between, I would say, and there are a few differences, of course, the level of repression is unprecedented. We haven't seen that level of torture. Of course, there's appearances. To ask, where are the people who are in Tahir, case in point, they are in exile, or they are in jail, or there are ones who are not in jail and are not exiled, but they are banned from traveling, their assets are freezed. So basically, instead of the government have learned even from their mistake of becoming more strategic, they're not putting people in jail and they're not closing down organization, but they're freezing their assets. So they cannot travel, they cannot do their work, and they're just living there just like in climate, basically. So they're completely killing and crippling this. And at the same time, there are no, I mean, first of all, the documentation, first of all, a pre-step for accountability that Nisar is asking about is to document before you go into accountability. And the government is ahead of the game of business, by crippling any attempts or anything. And you cannot take this to the next level of, I mean, the judicial front, or anything. So bottom line, there's no accountability and the West is only concerned with this. This morning, we've seen the Senate House, the Appropriation Committee, and I mean, seeing that aid to be cut for one billion to one billion and raising the human rights condition to 25%. This is good, okay? But the problem with the US policy towards Egypt, first of all, it has an inflated sense of control, I mean, of what's going on inside the country. And second, there is a complete lack of coherence. So they would make just one gesture like that, but there is no follow-up, and there is like patting on the back on the other issues that are going on within the country. So basically, I mean, the government feels they have like a carte blanche to do whatever they want to do and we look, there are no consequences for what's happening. So Nancy, so let's open up for your questions again. I'm going to start with the last four rows, then the middle four rows and the first two rows. I mean, just to get more of a representative sample. Any questions in the last four rows? Yes, please go ahead. And would you mind introducing yourself to everyone? Badr el-Bindari from Maxwell School. So my question is to Nancy, I want to go back to the terrorist groups in Egypt, actually, especially, we cannot say it, they're only in Saini, they're all over Egypt. So have you mentioned there are like, Willayt Sina, there is like, Lewa Saurah, there's Hassan, and there's also, you mentioned that interview about the Islamic State to present it there. So do you think this diversity of those movements or those groups, it does it indicate to that propaganda that they want to make that there are a lot and they want to increase their position against and increasing the sense of instability or it's a matter of there's a real division among them. They are all sharing the same ideology, the Islamic ideology, but is it really different from all of them? Does this indicate to a real difference between the ideology and does that mean, does that indicate to a complete chaotic scene in case of a complete failure of the state? Thank you. Thank you very much. Please go ahead. Three quick sort of questions that are all the same idea, one for each of you. What did the people who were creating the security problem in Egypt want? Do they, what do they want? And the same question for Morocco, which is, okay, all the people in Al-Hassima are making all this fuss. What do they want? Can they point to a region and say treat us like that region? I don't know. And finally, for Yemen, I'm gonna challenge you on the notion of a Yemen. And what is it they're looking for? What's the Yemen that these traditional forces could coalesce to create? What is that Yemen? Because right now they've coalesced to create a series of smaller Yemen's that seem to respond to what they want. So what's the geographic, political entity that they could and should coalesce to create? Because there's a lot of options historically. And then the final overall question is how much of this is driven by bored young men? Any of the countries? Okay, thank you. Bored young men. So right here, we'll take, if you agree, we'll take two or three more questions. This is the last round and then come back to you. Please. Thank you. Fawad Shah with the National Center for State Courts. Two questions. First one, Egypt and the Yemen. Yeah, Egypt, a couple years back under the CC regime, they passed anti-terrorism legislation focusing on behalf of state security. These laws had been broadly translated to the point where if you look, people across society have been arrested, detained. People are in pretrial for months, if not years, without seeing a judge. Once in court, their case, it goes through within minutes, if you know, half an hour if they're lucky. And this happening time and time again. People are being targeted, students, youth, elderly. Someone says something the wrong place in a metro stop. They're being arrested. The son says something on Facebook. He's being detained by state security. And again, these cases are being tracked. And the question is, does the government not see what they're doing is creating breeding grounds just as what happened in Iraq when all these populations were being arrested through blanket arrest, blanket policies? For Yemen. Yemeni-born Arab-American. And seeing all that's been happening, you listed a long list of crises in Yemen. The civil war, the grievances of decades, collar outbreak, refugee, humanitarian situation. The list goes on and on. How do we step back? How do we say where are we going with this? Yemeni people are resilient, they're able to conduct very good understanding of any conflict, as you said historically, but it's, I think the Pandora box has been opened and we are having a hard time closing it back. And we don't know where to start or where to end it. And it just seems like a black hole right now. If anyone, to your right, please. Mine's quick, to Samia. In addition to what the demands of the protesters are, I'd like to just sort of widen that question a little bit. This panel was about security and governance, so you didn't go that much into the economics of it all, but this was an informal sector actor. There are a number of economic responses by the government, perhaps better than the political ones. They're all these, you know, the mega projects. You touched on all of this, but I was wondering if you could sort of widen the lens a little bit, talk about the reef economy in that context, what the correct solution is if it isn't mega projects, you know. Okay, any more questions? Last question. Yep, so just a background. I mean, a bit of anecdotal evidence here, but I spent two years in Egypt. And I remember kind of prior to the Arab Spring, everyone being really, really surprised when Egypt fell because they thought that Mubarak's hold was so strong and when Egypt fell, everyone just thought, oh, well, this is our chance. If Egypt can happen in Egypt, it can happen anywhere. But talking to people and my friends in Egypt that were in Tahir Square, they've almost fell into this kind of crippling apathy that they're like, well, it's not gonna happen again. We did it once, we couldn't get the change. We might as well accept the status quo. There's always going to be kind of the security apparatus. People are always going to disappear. And I'm wondering if that is true everywhere, if to a certain extent Egypt's lost its political will, that it's gonna be almost impossible to mobilize this population again outside of the people at the opposite ends, the people like you there in exile or that ran for parliament or the people that are inside and are extremists. I'm wondering if that middle part is ever going to be mobilized again if there's an opportunity for that. Thank you all very, very much. Now coming back to you. So we're running out of time. So each one we'll get, I would say, one minute. And we will then have a short break, 15 minutes and come back to our next session. So thank you all very much once again. Let's start with you, Nancy. Starting by a bad question about the diversity of the terror groups. I don't think that they are competing against each other. I think it's just they're taking opportunity of a gap that is there and a reason for people to join them for their target. They changed it. All groups that you've mentioned like Hassan and Ulaidzai and I, as I mentioned at the beginning, they forced and messaging very quickly and very adaptively. And that's one of their biggest strengths because, I mean, like this is all what they can do because they have nothing. They are not the as powerful as they seem. They have the ability to inflict that harm that they, I mean, promise, but at the same time they're still, I mean, if there's the right strategy in place, there is an ability to control. Going to the question of what do these people want? And if they are just bored young men, I don't think they are bored at all. They are struggling all the time and they are dealing with a lot of sufferings economically and in terms of their basic rights and freedoms and basically in some areas in Egypt just survival. I mean, just meeting their basic needs. So they're not bored men and they're not just men and what do they need is just basic rights like anyone would want. But question about if the government is not seeing how this is a fertile ground for radicalization and whether or not also combining that with the question of if there's apathy out there right now in Egypt. I think the government sees that there are huge problems facing the country but I think the response instead of trying to address those is just like putting the stopper back on those problems and silencing everyone. They have some conditions that are working well for the government. They're not sustainable. Some of these conditions is the relative stable positions of the position of Egypt or state of the rest of the region, particularly when we compare. They're using sort of an extortionist argument when they talk to the United States is that we are actually, you don't want to see the country refugee crisis that erupted in Syria coming from Egypt with a country of over 90 million people. So that's also working well for them as a sort of being getting international support to the current regime. And the third thing is like just what we see as a lack of alternative or a lack of obvious alternative right now which works well with and they play on this narrative with the people who are seeing it as well and the Egyptian people what's happening there. Is there apathy? I don't think so and I wouldn't call it apathy. I call it like struggling more despite all the unprecedented levels of repression that we're seeing in the country in terms of imprisonment and forced disappearance and travel bans, you name it, people are still trying to find ways to work. So society organizations that had their assets freed are working from home. Websites for example like Maddamas whose website would been banned from Egypt are posting on Facebook and other channels. I mean they're still this perseverance to continue on doing work, following up on what's happening and continuing the advocacy work that they are doing. So apathy is not a word that I would use to describe the current situation. Yeah, quickly. So I think I mentioned earlier that the HEDOC actually published very succinct demands during the protest, the manifesto which they demanded a cancer hospital, a university improved infrastructure namely highway and jobs. So for that question. And thank you for the economic question because that was actually a point that I really wanted to get to which is that one of the factors that plays into this whole thing was earlier this year Morocco was supposed to implement its first stage of floating the currency and the day before, literally the day before actually hours, the central bank sent out an email to all the journalists saying it's been indefinitely postponed with no given reason. And I think we all can kind of discern that the fear was that there may possibly be an Egyptian scenario with just the increasing inflation rate. But also there was, I think that, yeah, exactly. So 4.4 billion dollars of the foreign reserves were depleted in the last four months. And that was largely attributed to speculation of the devaluation of the currency. So that's just sort of like general economic context for relief specifically. The latest figures as per the High Commissioner planning say that unemployment rate in relief is at 16%, which is way above the national average of around 9%. And they have the lowest rate of public and private investment. And many interpret that as sort of like a punishment that has in the second kind of, you know, put against them because of the protests. And this has in turn prompted a huge exodus of migrants to Europe, primarily Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain. And they are essentially the economic lifeline to the relief through reminces, so. Thank you, Sam. Vera? Yes, so I mean, just on the point on ISIS, Gaida, and how different and similar these are. It's a very important point because I think there, we're still, even the counter-terrorism, all the security policy are responding to one type of a group, one type of terrorist that only exists anymore in their mind. In the ground, there have been so many of them. There is ISIS, there is Gaida, there is Ansara Sharia, and these are all the very different groups, some full-time terrorists, part-time terrorists, some, you know, it's a very different dynamic and it's important to identify them and it's important to see how they function. In Al-Baita, for example, in Middle-Yemen, I just like one, I love the marginalized as you know. Sure, sure. No. Like the usual, okay. So on that. You're shading a panel with marginalized intellectuals. No, but it's important to understand that the type of these groups and how they function because they're not one coherent group. In Middle-Yemen, for example, people who were fighting with Adhab who was killed by a drone strike refused to break. They say, we didn't sign up for this. We signed up to fight with you, not to break. That's not our job. It's a very, from a political science point of view, I think there should be an investment in trying to understand this. Second, I don't think this is as much about bored young man, as much as the problem is we have states that are run by boring old men. And that's their main difference between them and the militias. The militias have young, they're quick and they move and they're efficient. You look to Tunisia, you look to Yemen, you look to the Gulf, you look to Egypt. These are countries where there are people running them older between 70s and 80s. And they have the highest demographics of young people around the world. That's really a tremendous problem no one focuses on and no one looks into. Finally, where to start in Yemen? I think it's very important to go back to two, two, one, six resolution inside the UN Security Council. That is a resolution that commits to war and we need a resolution that commits to peace in Yemen. And that is the only, or that's the beginning to start with it. Is Yemen has a chance? You know, I agree. I think there is a problem with it. There is a lot of problems, but I bet you the differences between, you know, Hashid and Bakil tribes in Yemen are so much less than those right now or those divisions between the Republicans and Democrats have. It's a place that can't function ultimately. It can't run this. What is the way it look like? Probably federal Yemen. You know, it has to be changed. It has to be not done the way it was done, which is a hush, rush, not thought of a process, but that can be something. And that's a formula I think that we can manage and should end up managing working if there is enough regional international commitment toward it. Right now there is none. Thank you. Please join me in thanking our panelists. We'll have a 10 minute break and come back to the next session.