 and I am served on the board of the World Peace Council for over 10 years now and I've been very much involved in the education program. Before I get started, please let everyone take a moment to make sure that you're silent for cell phones and electronic devices. We do encourage you to treat our class speakers' remarks and of course invite you to like the World Peace Council on Facebook. Before we begin, there are a few events that I'd like to tell you about. First, on Wednesday October 17th, compensations are carried by where recently announced that the media of the Penn State San Francisco Victims Compensation Fund joined us to discuss its experience with a number of other hyperbolic games, including the compensation funds for the 9-11 attacks and the BP Gulf oil spill. Just in time for the 2012 presidential election, joined us on Friday October 26th for an election 2012 discussion with Donna Brazil and Michael Spagolish, followed by our traditional election year party including the Council's famous bellwether mock election which predicted the winner of the last five presidential elections. Vote after sale, so please vote early. Proceeds will be made with the Council's education program. And on Friday November 7th, we will continue our timely discussion about unrest in the Middle East and North Africa with Afghanistan's Ryan Crocker. Most recently, Ambassador Crocker held the top post in Afghanistan. We also served as such in Pakistan, Syria and Lebanon, home of today's guest of honor. This event will be held in Randolph, Pennsylvania. We also have another exciting travel opportunity, so please be sure to pick up our travel brochures in the lobby. Your membership and participation in the Council directly supports our claims to education programs which serves a group of over 2,000 middle and high school students in 80-area schools. These year-long learning programs help us with skills and sensibility students will be in order to thrive and compete in a knowledge-based global community. And having served on the Education Committee at Enbridge for having attended some of the mock sessions at the G30 Summit for the International Court of Justice and it's amazing what these students do to prepare for the event and how they engage themselves. And that's a key part of what we support. We are pleased to present tonight's program in cooperation with the World Affairs Councils of America and through a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. We'd also like to thank Sabina and Raja Mokari Foundation for their support of tonight's program. And now I am delighted to welcome Ravi Kuri to the Council's podium. Mr. Kuri is a widely respected journalist, an internationally syndicated political columnist and a renowned scholar. He's Palestinian, Jordanian, educated in both the Middle East and the U.S. and his work reflects at which it spans the interests of both the Middle East and the West. He joined us tonight to discuss the events of the out-of-primes, offering his analysis of the changes Muslim societies are experiencing and that of a certain insight into the anti-American rage and unfolding in the pockets of the parts of the world. Ravi Kuri is the first director of the Issaan Fairs Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Belarus, as well as the editor-in-march of the Daily Star, the largest English language newspaper in Lebanon and the Middle East. His Daily Star column, a view from the Arab world, explores the various issues from North Africa to Indonesia. Mr. Kuri is a more-so-senior director at Harvard's Kennedy School. This fall, he is teaching at Belanova University and Northeastern University in Boston. I imagine that Mr. Kuri's work, indeed his life, registers the Middle East and the West. I would be remiss if I didn't share an excellent example of such. Ravi Kuri spent many years as chief umpire of the Little League Baseball in Jordan. Please join me in welcoming Mr. Ravi Kuri. I have this opportunity to be with you and exchange views. I'll talk about maybe 20 minutes and we'll have more time for your comments and questions, which are always instructive for me. I almost didn't make it here because when I was walking out of the airport in Philadelphia this morning, there was some guy who looked like he was a football coach or something. He saw me today. He looked pretty big, strong guy. He helped out with the offensive line of the Eagles. And I said I'd like to, but I got caught in the world of first-hand. So, better luck next week. I went out of college. My old friend, Carl Brubin, his wife, Jeff and Suzanne, reached the audience. I've known them for about 40 years and they've taught me much of what I know about American life. I'm very grateful for that. And thanks to the Carnegie Corporation and the other sponsors and supporters of the World First Council for making this possible. In the short time I have, I've given you many extraordinary things that are going on in the Middle East and more recently, tragically in the last 12, 10, 12 days between the Arab world and the Islamic world and the United States, particularly the killing of the four diplomats in Benghazi. There's just an incredible amount of things happening simultaneously. It's very difficult to really make much sense out of it in terms of just a 20-minute talk. So what I think the most useful thing for me to do is to try to use the tools of the journalist and also the historian to identify what is actually new and meaningful from what's going on. We can talk about so many things going on in the Arab world, the uprisings, the new regimes, the wars going on, the Iranian situation, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the tension between the Western countries, the United States and Arab-Islamic countries. But I think if we step back a little bit and take a broad view of what's happening in the region and say, well, what is actually new and significant and meaningful and what is just a passing phase that may not be meaningful when seeing the air or two down the road, I think that helps frame what we're talking about and makes it a little bit easier for me to perhaps give you some thoughts and makes it more efficient for you to perhaps grasp what I'm talking about. As I mentioned, most of you are not Middle East experts. Many of you have probably visited the Middle East. And this way I can try to maybe give you broad themes that will help you understand better what's going on as you follow events taking place in the region. I want to speak primarily about the Arab uprisings, the revolutions, the overthrowing of the regimes and the new governments including the few wars that are still going on inside Syria and there's still tensions in Yemen and Bahrain while in North Africa and Egypt and Tunisia and Libya regimes were overthrown and new governments were slowly being formed. That's the main thing that I want to talk about but I'll touch a little bit on our Israeli issues, Iran and of course the recent tensions with the demonstrations across many countries because of this insulting film about the Prophet Muhammad that was made by a couple of extremist mud cases in the United States. I think the first thing I would say is that it's really important to grasp that what we're experiencing with these uprisings is both historic and historical. In the sense that it's historically that for the first time ever in the history of the Arab world, modern history or ancient history, we're seeing a process of national self-determination by which the citizens of those countries shape their government systems, choose their leaders, define their mechanisms of the exercise of power, systems of accountability, national values, foreign policies. It's the first time ever that all of these critical dimensions of statehood are being determined by the citizens of some of these countries. That's really historic. It's never happened before and it's happening in several countries simultaneously. The second point is that this is historical in the sense that this process will take many, many decades to unfold and to be completed. And in a way you can say these processes are never completed, these state-building processes. Look at your recent presidential, let's say, Republican candidates who were running for president to be the presidential candidate. The incredible debate they had about things like the role of religion in public life or immigration or religious values and some of the same issues that people have been debating in this country for 225 years and you're still debating. So this is a historical process that will go on for many years because, as I will explain later, there isn't just an overthrow of regimes taking place. What you have happening simultaneously compressed into about a year or nine months now are processes of historical change in national development and state-building that in some countries, including yours, took about 200 years to be completed so that you have a war of liberation, a war of independence, a constitutional convention and a constitutional state- and census-building process and a new constitution. You have elements of the Civil War that you had in the 1860s. You have elements of the Civil Rights movement that you had in the 20th century. You have elements of ideological tensions, labor movements, social justice movements. All these things are happening simultaneously whereas in most countries, including yours, they happen sequentially over a period of about one to two centuries. And they're happening within a period of one year or nine months so far. So to understand that incredible compression of historical processes in such a short period of time is one reason why it looks like when you look at Egypt in particular, it looks like things are flip-dropping one day they do this, one day they do that. But I think if you see that this is an historical process that takes many, many decades or centuries in most countries, it helps us understand it a little bit better. Also, there are 22 countries in the Arab world and we've had now uprisings in six. Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen. Three leaders have been overthrown in North Africa. The leader of Yemen was changed but the system hasn't fully changed and Bahrain and Syria are still in tension while in many other countries like Morocco and Jordan, Kuwait and others, you don't have revolutions but you have serious pressure from within society on the leadership to bring about constitutional and political change. In other words, every country is a little bit different. The trajectory of change in every country will be different because the conditions are different. The legitimacy of the ruling regime is different, the economic situation is different and therefore there's a big variety in terms of what is happening in these countries as this process of change takes place. So the best I think that I can do now is simply to go over in the bullet form what is actually new, what are we seeing here when we look back over the last year or nine months and we try to identify what is significant, what is new and what seems to be lasting and I will give you a list of bullet point headlines. The first thing we're seeing is a whole series of new legitimacies. We have legitimate governments, we have legitimate institutions of governance like Parliament, the court system. We have legitimate political actors who are legitimate in the eyes of their own people, political parties, different groups. There's a whole series of new legitimacies including most importantly the legitimacy of the exercise of power. The second thing we have related to that is a whole set of new accountabilities that people who exercise power legitimately, in other words they're chosen, granified, validated by their own people. People who exercise power whether it's a president or a judge or a political party or a prime minister or a government bureau graduate whoever it is is accountable now in a way that they never were before in the modern Arab world. They're accountable to their other branches of government, they're accountable to the media public opinion, they're accountable to pressures from lobby groups, the private sector, special interest group, professional groups. They're accountable to the voters, most importantly. There is a whole set of new accountabilities that provides both a check on the tendency of some institutions or individuals to become absolute leaders in the corrupt and inefficient and the least accountable abilities also generate much greater efficiency because people in power now, if they don't deliver what their voters and citizens expect from them, they will be voted out of office. So accountabilities are incredibly important as the driving force for both legitimacy and efficiency in government systems. The third thing we have that's really new is a whole set of new actors. Actors who are in the public political arena. The interesting thing about this set of new actors is they're all new, but none of them are new. And what I mean by that is the actors are talking about their political parties, civil society organizations. The armed forces, if you take each of those, the armed forces is a political actor now, they give and take when they negotiate. You have football clubs who are playing a role in the process of public debate and engagement in various ways. You have civil society organizations. You have businessmen's associations. You have young revolutionaries, the young kids who are out in the streets who are now still trying to find their role. You have Islamic groups like the mainstream Muslim Brotherhood which is now in power in Egypt and in the coalition. You have the hard-line, socialist groups who are not violent but more fundamentalist, equivalent to say very strict Christian fundamentalists in this country. And you have various other groups. All of these are new political actors in the public arena. And they're all playing the game according to the new rules that are available. None of them are new. They were all in Egypt before. What's new is that they're now all acting in the public sphere and legitimately. And some of them will win and some of them will lose. And there will be governments created and some of them will be out of their minds, some of them will be in government. But having this range of political actors operating in the public sphere is significant. The other thing that's important about that is they keep evolving, they keep changing. One of the misconceptions of the Arab world that is perpetrated, especially by the mainstream media in this country, is that the Arab world is somehow monocolor and static. But Arabs are like this. They're violent. They're religious. They're docile. They're whatever. They're anti-Arabs. They're anti-Israeli. Whatever it is, all Arabs are colored in one brush. And they're all like that. And that's how they were born and that's how they live. The reality is completely different. The reality is that there's a wide range of views in the Arab world which now have come out into the public. They were never allowed to come out of the public because they had these dictatorships. And the second thing is they're constantly evolving. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, when they ran for the parliament last June, a year or so after they overthrew the regime, they won like 50 to 60 percent of the seats of parliament. Then there was a gap of about four or five months until they had presidential elections. In that period, people in Egypt could watch the Muslim Brotherhood in action in parliament and they weren't impressed. The Muslim Brotherhood didn't do a very good job. They were mostly slow in hearing. They didn't really address the issues that the Egyptians cared about, jobs and clean water, lack of corruption, etc. And then when the presidential elections happened four months after the parliamentary election, the Muslim Brotherhood's share of the voters dropped from 160 percent to around 25 percent. That's a sign that these people in power are now accountable. The voters will support people who do what the voters want and they'll get rid of the people that they don't want. And the politicians will change accordingly. They will respond to the will of the voters with their, after all, politicians. No offense to any politician in the world. But politicians do that. They respond to the electorate. That's their job. Their job is to win elections and to govern them. So this is an incredibly important new phase where we have these legitimate and accountable who evolve and evolve in a positive sense that they respond to what the citizen wants. We have new institutions, a parliament dimension, but we have things like political parties that are starting to be born, civil society organizations, media, business groups, business people's groups, all kinds of women's groups, local community groups, new institutions that are all operating in the public sphere that never had much opportunity to really do anything before. Most importantly, we have new rules. New rules of how power is exercised and how the public sphere operates. And new rules essentially are manifested in new constitutions. And constitutions is something you know about in the city. The constitutional process takes a long time. It takes a long time because it is not written by the political victor. It is a process of consensus of an entire citizenry. And this is a process that has never happened before in the Arab world. Never ever have Arab citizens of any country consulted about their constitution. Now they are being consulted. There's a tremendously dynamic debate going on. Tunis and Egypt, the Libya, the three most advanced countries. They're debating the role of women. They're debating the role of Islam, the role of religion and public life. They're debating the power of the press, the role of the private sector, the role of international donors. There's a whole range of issues that are being widely and seriously debated by the people of these countries to come up with these constitutions. There'll be first drafts coming out in the next 34 months and then they'll be looked at at the National Discussion Referenda and then they'll be agreed upon and then there'll be new parliamentary elections. So this is a process that has just started to really hit its stride. But the development of new constitution strikes me as the single most important milestone because it represents the beginning of the rule of law. And just to aside light here, the rule of law in Arabic for most Arabs and most people and Muslims is what sharia is. You've probably learned the word sharia. You think of it as people cutting off hands of a thief probably right here. The word in Arabic for legitimacy and rule of law sharia is the same word. Sharia in sharia. It's the same word. Sharia means the rule of law for Muslims and most Arabs. And it means having a society organized according to rules that are fair, that are accepted by the citizenry and that are impartially and efficiently implemented by a judiciary. So we have the process starting now where the rulebook, the constitutions are being written and the next step is to make sure that they're implemented fairly. And there's extraordinary evolutions and changes taking place where for instance the Muslim brothers, everybody feared the Muslim brothers was they were going to win, they're going to make an Islamic state, they're going to be like Iran. And there is tremendous contestation in Egypt and Tunisia so far about issues like the role of women. The Muslim brothers wanted to say that a woman's role is complementary to the man rather than equal to the man. And there was a massive debate that they have these conservative old-fashioned views which are the same kind of views that pertain in this country when you're independent. A woman didn't have the vote and black people didn't have the vote. And your great democracy was a democracy of white men who are online and slaves and nobody else mattered. They didn't have any rights in the 1770s. And so people go through these processes at the beginning of their constitutional life where there's partial rights and then they evolve. And the Arabs are going through something similar. But it's happening so fast that within the last two months there was huge pushback against the Muslim brothers of Tunisia and Egypt about the role of Islam, for instance. The Muslim brothers wanted to say Islam is the sole source of laws. And most of the people said, no, it's not the sole source of law, because there's people in our society who are Christians and there's a few Jews still in some Arab society, there's not many left. And they said, no, you can't have only Islam being the source of law. So they said Islam is the main source of law but not the only source of law. And in Tunisia there's a big debate about the declaration of constitution which some people wanted to say that Tunisia is an Arab state. And some Tunisians said you can't do that because many Tunisians are not Arab culturally, they're Berber. And many Tunisians are not Muslim. There's some Jews, there's a few Christians and some other religious. And therefore they're not saying that Tunisia is an Islamic Arab state. This will cause the constitutional consensus of the process. And it's debated and they've come to an agreement. So this rules-riding process and it's happening and you hear almost nothing about it in this country. And I think one of the roles of the World First Council of the groups like yours is to let people understand the fine points of the discussions going on. The next thing that's new is a set of new balances. Incredibly important new balances in various arena including the balance between religiosity and secularism. The role of religion and this role of secular institutions. The second balance is the balance between military authority and civilian authority. The third, I can only give you just a little bit of time but we can discuss any of these if you want later. The third balance is the balance between public power, public authority and private authority. Private sector. The fourth one is the balance between the central government which used to hold all power before in the Arab countries between the central authority and the provincial and regional authorities. Now they have decentralized governance or centrally located government. And then the last one is the balance between religious values and international and foreign balance. Then we have the most important process under way. I mentioned that legitimacy is I think the better out of what's going on. The constitution rules writing is the most important mechanism of change. The most important substantive issue that I believe is being debated widely across the region and of which you hear almost nothing in this country, in the media or in the public statements or whatever the process of writing a new social contract that is based on the imperative of social justice. The driving force for these revolutions was not simply to get rid of a dictator. It was to get rid of a dictator and to put in place a mechanism of government that is more fair, more equitable, more accountable, less corrupt, gives more equal opportunity and addresses the fundamental basic needs of the citizenry as equitably as possible. You're not going to treat everybody the same but to have more equitable opportunities in education and healthcare and job opportunities, etc. This quest for a social contract based on social justice is a powerful driving force that is now pushing thousands of civil society institutions all across the Arab world to come up with a mechanism to translate the concept of social justice into new institutions, new rules, new power structures, new accountabilities. And this is something that takes a long time to develop. And ultimately if these new institutions and these new phenomena that I described just in quick headlines here these actually continue to happen and all of these things are happening all of them are new and all of them are significant, they're historic because they take a long time to play themselves out and to reach a point of maturity but if they do continue to happen what they leave us with is a process of self-determination. In other words we see the citizenry of these countries finally defining themselves choosing their governance defining the what's the role of the president what's the role of the parliament what's the role of the judiciary and the process of self-determination includes then ultimately defining policies of foreign policy and domestic policy but the big prize is what people really really want to achieve and this takes some time. And the last point I'm making is to say that this is happening in a context in which people in various dimensions of their lives are paddling in the last anti-colonial battle with overthrowing these regimes it seemed to be overthrowing the last remaining remnant of what the colonial power is left behind and people are fighting for real legitimization and democratization social justice, constitutional development state building civilian military balance all of these issues are mentioned all of them are happening together and ultimately we can summarize it in my last one minute because I'll hit the half hour mark so we leave half an hour for discussion I would give you six r's, letter r that capture I believe the main substantive themes or phenomenon of these Arab prices of course to reach this is a process of revolt it's a citizen revolt against their regimes and their oppression and the various things they complain about it's a process of seeking rights that they want to have their rights as citizens it's a process of seeking respect they want to be respected by their government and they want their country to be respected by other countries and they want the individuals to respect each other in society it's a process of rebirth these are countries being born again at the hands of their own people it's a process of re-configuration restructure the mechanisms of government and the exercise of power and the other dimensions of national life and finally it's a process of re-legitimization to take institutions and in some cases entire countries that were seen to be illegitimate in the eyes of their own people they were not created by their own people they were not shaped they were not defined by their own people most of these countries were created by retreating European powers so there's a sense of humiliation and illegitimacy that pervaded much of the Arab world which is one reason why it was so violent and messy for the last four or five decades so this is an epic journey from humiliation and marginalization to self assertion marginalization it's epic, it's historical it's very moving, it's very powerful it's very complicated it takes a long time it started in many ways in this city 225 years ago and it's something that is going to be continuing in our city hopefully for the next several decades at least thank you very much this is very very thoughtful and for sure we don't hear much of that so thank you for walking us through it I know that we'll have questions about the Arab uprisings but I think we'd be remiss if we didn't talk a little bit about the recent news and if you could help us work through some of the anti-American eruptions that are unfolding and give us a little context I mean we know what the catalyst was but can you help us understand what's happening and how you see this unfolding? Yeah, I'm sorry I didn't have time to because they told me that they were in a couple of years with a friend of mine and an Arab so they aren't really issue in Iran and the recent demonstrations we've been touching on in the Q&A other recent demonstrations I think it's important to recognize a couple of points A, there were some criminal elements who deliberately went out to attack and kid Americans and this is what happened in Benghazi these criminal elements had been working for the last 15 or 20 years attacking American targets so you need to see what happened in Benghazi not as a direct consequence of the reaction to the film it happened at the same time that the people who planned this attack seemed to have done so separately from the film reaction but they took advantage of the demonstrations to them to attack the consulate they might even have known that the ambassador was in the consulate that's one thing the second thing is that there was massive anger across the whole Islamic world because of this film but an infinitesimally small number of Muslims allowed in the street to demonstrate infinitesimally small compared to the Islamic the number of people who were not to demonstrate in the Islamic world were a few hundred in a few cities a couple of thousand in a few places only and a few dozen in some other cities it's not to minimize the criminality of the attack in Benghazi but it's important to put these things in perspective the people who were not in the street to demonstrate that proportionate amount of all Muslims were probably about the same number of Christian fundamentalists to attack the Borsch in this country very very few people in this country attacked the Borsch in this were against or against the Borsch so the question is what is your sentiment and what is your action sentiment is that the majority of Muslims were really angry by this film because religion plays a huge role in their lives in the context of countries where there's no democracy where there's corruption, abuse of power mismanagement of resources, humiliation etc etc etc for 30-40 years religion emerged as the most important force in most people's lives it was the last thing they had to hold on to if they were Muslims and for somebody to come and then make fun of their profit was a shattering a blow to the last straw they had that held it together as human beings so there was genuine anger most demonstrations were not violent they were mostly peaceful they were shattering, they'd burn a flag or something like that which is not particularly problematic as long as you don't go and attack people and a few of them attacked a few and then there was this criminal group that killed the people in the American consulate so we need to separate those things and also to recognize that some of this anger that was manifested against American and British and Israeli targets there was no Israeli targets but it was in the slobbers it was against the U.S. England and Britain gives you a hint about what this is all about this is anger that has accumulated for decades and decades and therefore the antidote and that's what I said about people feeling that they're not really sovereign they're fed up with foreign countries telling them what to do and how to run their societies and I believe that President Obama misread the reality and not most of the commentary in this country, I just wrote my column on this afternoon here and I'll tell you something tomorrow there's a there's a great misconnection going on here between this strong emphasis in the United States on freedom of speech that we support freedom of speech absolutely and people can say whatever they want that's fine but the question is who sets the rules for the world and what people across the world are saying is that you can have freedom of speech but you cannot expect people around the world to play by your rules nobody mandated in the United States to set the rules of conduct for the entire world what about if Muslims came and said dear that well you should be allowed to do things that you should be forced to pay five percent of your income to charity which is a Muslim requirement or you should pray five times a day or you should do this or you should do that or you should press honestly if you're alone Muslims believe that 1.5 billion Muslims in the world can they impose that on you or on me as a Christian no they can't so the question is not about the sacred nature of the freedom of expression or the fact that many Muslims were upset by the film Danish cartoons before the question is in the interaction between different countries and cultures who sets the rules for how people are allowed to behave and what they should put up with and not put up with and I think that I was deeply disappointed by many press commentaries I've read recently in Obama's speech of the day when we were essentially saying look you know most of the time you better get used to it we have freedom of speech and people attack me as a politician and you better get used to it this is how the world works I think that's completely the wrong attitude today in the election people have to say certain things because the public's are angry and you should never make decisions with statements in the heat of anger Americans are deeply upset and angered by the killing of the forward diplomats as they should be and these criminals need to be caught but we shouldn't confuse a short term anger with long term processes of how civilizations and cultures need to interact in a more mutually satisfying way and the last point I'll say quickly is that in these societies if you take Egypt Tunisia or Libya where these events happen mostly you have these open societies now that I just described going through amazing amounts of change and some of the events that took place were the consequences three or four or five different groups trying to go out into the public sphere and climbing the mantle of protecting Islam against these foreign aggressors or predators or insultors and some of that is going on as well where some people were trying to out do the others and defending Islam and trying to get more support for themselves so there is a problem of pent-up anti it's not anti-Americanism because these same people who are criticizing the US want to come here and study and work and send their children to American foreign policy and the Israelis and the British those are the three main targets and I think people need to see this longer cycle of actions and reactions on both sides the Iraq war and other things and then you have the reaction by people like in Canada which is a very very infinitesimal small group of people who criminally attacked the United States so this cycle has to be seen and it has to be really understood Okay we have two mics set up in the front so please come up and ask a question we have about 20 minutes if you can be brief and please let's have questions No speakers? Thank you very much for sharing your insight for sharing your insight would you be willing to share with us some of your recommendations and suggestions for politicians and for the American public on what actions might be taken to help reduce and lessen some of the anti-American sentiment across the population Okay why don't we take two or three questions in a row to see if the themes emerge Okay we visited Tunisia several years ago under the hostess of the World Affairs Council and one thing that struck us or struck me was that the role of women seemed to be very prominent in fact they said that in their constitution women have equal rights in Tunisia with the world with the Muslim Brotherhood coming into power how do you think that will play out? Since you've been so very thoughtful I wanted to kind of promote you if you were the leader of the Israelis out of the Palestinians and dealing with the whole current scenario of the Palestinians we're dealing with the scenarios and trying to rig about the peace that way There's the concern now in the United States and other countries regarding they think the possibility of Iran attacking Israel do you think that Iran would recognize the consequences of their actions if they did attack Israel? The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iran 2 minutes for each I'll take them backwards the possibility of Iran attacking Israel is about as big as me playing for the line of Philadelphia Eagles Iran is not going to attack Israel it will badmouth it, it will make crazy statements it will use the antagonism against Israel in the Arab world to try to rally support in the Arab world but the idea that Iran I went to Iran last year I talked to government people I talked to opposition for many years I went around well the idea that Iran would ever attack Israel was the most hair-brained idea that could ever be conceived because if they ever even thought of doing that they would get wiped out by American and Israeli nuclear attacks within 30 minutes there's just no chance that they're going to do that and that's about time for people in this country to stop swallowing the Israeli propaganda because of the UN today holding up its signs and you'll see this all of the press tomorrow on all of the TV tonight I don't think there's any chance that Iran's going to attack Israel it will keep badmouthing it making statements but most Israeli generals now and security people also feel that Israel should not attack Iran so the Iranians are very aware of the consequences they have a political battle with Israel and that political battle has to be done politically and they have grievances that need to be addressed as much as the Israelis and Americans and Europeans have complaints against the Iranians Israeli-Palestinian policies there's no possibility with the present leaderships in Israel and Palestine of reaching any kind of peace agreement there needs to be a change but I think a peace agreement is still possible but if you think back then the Northern Ireland, South Africa and the subtracted conflicts that were resolved ultimately because two things happened the people got weary the old policies became discredited and then new leaders came along and came to an agreement and I think something like that has to happen when the Arabs really conflict it's a tough conflict to solve because both sides need to make concessions both sides are prepared now to make the concessions that are required there is not an external mediator that is fair and effective and accepted by both sides and there are not strong pressures on either side to make the concessions needed therefore there won't be any major changes now but if there are not any if nothing happens and no progress is made pressure will keep building up and keep building up and we'll have more explosions in the future if people had solved the world of the Arab-Israeli crisis in the 1970s on the Palestine issue there would probably be no Iranian-Israeli antagonism there would probably be no Hamas or Hezbollah all of these were post 1980 phenomenon most of which were based on the consequences of the Arab-Israeli conflict the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has been for 62 years the most destabilizing, radicalizing force in the Middle East and we'll continue to do so unless it is resolved fairly equitably, peacefully with the Israelis and the Palestinians and the other countries in the whole of Syria, Lebanon getting their full rights Israel continuing to live in peace and to be accepted in the Arab world with security guarantees and the Palestinians having the resolution of their refugeehood done in a manner that is acceptable to the Israelis and in compliance with international law the Tunisian women issue there are many concerns about what would happen if Muslim brotherhood groups were to gain power women was one issue tourism, alcohol schooling, education minority rights, Christian rights most of these fears I think have been placated most of them, not all of them there are still real issues that have to be addressed in Tunisia and what we've seen in Egypt is that the government with the Muslim brothers is not the primary force of regression but it is this fundamental Salafi, the more militant non-violent but more fundamental more hard-mined Muslim groups that are called Salafi Salafi means from the forefathers that these are Muslims who feel that society should be run according to the way it was run on the Prophet who was alive in the 7th century but we should go back to our roots and live the simple Islamic life as it was back in the 7th century the vast majority of Muslims reject them but there are small groups as they are Christian fundamentalist groups who have similar views the fears about the women's status and the minority status have largely been relayed because of this constitutional struggle and you've had once the Islam has become incumbent they've become accountable to all of the population not just to their constituency and the pushback has started and the negotiations have started so that these issues of women's status and minority groups and all these things are being negotiated and I believe will be largely will be largely resolved in a manner that is not going to be detrimental to women or minorities in the public realm what happens privately in people's homes is something that we can't predict society becomes more conservative it might but I don't think that's going to happen what to do to reduce the anti-American sentiments again it's very important to turn anti-Americanism as a very inaccurate term it's not anti-Americanism it's anti-American government foreign policies they're not against what America stands for in fact if you go you should look at you should put on your website I can send you some articles about the discussions taking place to create a Tunisian constitution very moving, very impressive and it's a very American-like process of discussing individual rights of collective rights of minorities and this and that of power and accountability of equity and justice so this what people are trying to do in most of these countries that are transforming is to emulate many of the American traditions that you have worked out of the last 225 years but you have very strong criticisms of American foreign policy because of the nature of American foreign policy people don't like the fact that it's the year and when the revolution started in January of 2011 the first instinctive reaction from Hillary Clinton and American leaders was well you know let's take it easy and maybe Mubarak can be reformed and Zen, Adi, and Adi in Tunisia that the initial reaction was really upsetting to many people because we saw the American government saying well let's just keep these guys in place keep these dictators in place but maybe they can reform and so there's real anger against the US for the four or five decades of supporting dictators for being very very pro-Israeli and studying being even handed of the Arab-Israeli conflict and for other the Iraq war and many other things that's what people are expressing it's not just people who are critical of the United States people in the Arab world see the United States as the single biggest threat to their national security and across the whole Arab world a very reputable group that used very scientific methodology called the Arab Center for Research and Analysis and it's available on the website if you have a look at it it's called the Arab Pinning Index and anybody who wants it I can send you a copy of it circulated as the most comprehensive fall of the Arab world done in the last year and it showed that public opinion in the Arab world sees the US and Israel as the two threats to their country three out of four Muslims surveyed about four years ago before the U.S. President by an American political scientist of the University of Maryland three out of four Muslims thought that the United States was a threat to Islam not a threat to their national security to Islam as the religion now you might say these people are crazy but they may be but this is the reality and these policies are extremely negative so the best way to reduce this is to first of all have more dialogue with people find out more about what's going on in these countries on the Iran situation your mass media and your public officials are criminally negligent in giving you both sides of the story the Iranians can be held accountable for many troubling things but they need to be engaged on the basis of discussing the mutual concerns of both sides and this hasn't happened the press needs to look at what people there are saying what Iranians, what the Turks, what the Israelis and just deal with the realities out there more than simply accepting whole climate sinker propaganda and ideological work by lobbying groups and other whether they represent foreign countries or religious groups that includes Christian fundamentalist groups and right-wing groups and the unconscious realities and all kinds of different groups there's a problem in analyzing the Middle East in this country in a factual and objective way and until that is done we are likely to continue to suffer these kinds of problems Yes, your sixth R had to do with real legitimacy in the desire to read a country of the colonial foreign governments and I was wondering what the attitude is of the Arab world in general as well as the people who live in the countries of Afghanistan and Iraq Do they view it in a similar way that they were governments that were kind of formed by the United States or is there real legitimacy to democratically electing officials in the except that I do perceive that the negative perceptions of America will affect the new governments in the Middle East Thank you for speaking with us today I really appreciate your emphasis of sovereignty self-determination and how this takes the process just like it did in the United States but unless sovereignty is the most important value in international affairs what role does the United States play in shaping what will become the country's fund of these processes What role does the United States play in shaping these processes The transformations from the Arab world Yeah, especially if you're right that might just occur Sorry, you mentioned three and this looks like about me I don't have time for that One thing I'd like to address is what influenced the growth of Iraqi democracy there were reports I mean, we know that the Egyptian uprising started with students there was a student uprising where it was sort of hijacked by the Muslim Brotherhood so if you care a comment on that and finally, we haven't talked about Afghanistan Sorry, the second one that you were saying you think that the uprising in Egypt was more of a student uprising No, student, it started student-student and eventually, students and one more thing if you don't mind We really would like to get the last one A comment on Afghanistan Let's get what you want A comment, I'd like it A comment, yes Just a quick question This is about journalism and credibility You alluded to during your presentation about mainstream media's rush-croaking Arabs just a general theme I'm hoping that you can guide us and advise us tonight in what possible media outfits there are out there that share the accurate portrayal of every daily realities out in the Middle East and also perhaps the most objective analysis and if you could exclude the daily star but Okay, we got it Good, okay, you have to leave Your train isn't There is your talk Quick answers to all of these Real legitimization vis-a-vis Iraq and Afghanistan Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan are perceived to the Arab world as being processes of real legitimization They're processes of foreign imposed new government systems that are not working very well Afghanistan and Iraq are the two greatest sources of terrorists Al Qaeda people in the world right now If you're worried about Qaeda-type terrorists including the guys who killed your diplomats in Mekhazi you need to go back and ask why what happened in Iraq when the American version invaded Iraq making it the biggest magnet training ground and ex-quarters of experienced terrorists in the last quarter century Iraq are both huge messes the governments are not very credible they're increasingly become a more autocratic so there's no perception among more and more people at all of those being legitimate processes because they were fundamentally the consequence of foreign wars foreign invasions negative view of the US of the new governments if you get more democratic Arab governments that are democratic and legitimate and reflect more accurately the public opinion in their countries that should be in itself a good thing for everybody you should work for that because that's what your country is based on that the concept that the government matters that all human beings are about by their creator with certain in the animal rights and so you should in principle support democratic transitions in our countries if they then reflect public opinion which is critical of the United States you then have to draw on your second level of great American values which is to fix the problem why are people critical of the United States and understand that the same people who are crazy in the United States are coming here to study and to work and to go to get healthcare etc etc and buy American products over there so it needs to be a deep analysis of the reasons for the foreign policy problems in both directions if you have criticism of the Arabs they need to understand your motivations and your policies just that you need to understand them better but there will be more criticism of the US there will be more independence in governments and there isn't a solving problem through negotiations, through agreements etc the US road and the Arab uprisings the United States should essentially respond to what the people of those countries ask for if they ask for certain assistance, if they need help in training judges, if they need help in setting up the elements of which they don't because they've been run in societies for about the last 5,500 years they would do governance issues but if they ask you for something if the Syrian rebels ask you for arms if the people in the Bahrain ask you for a more balanced policy between the Bahraini government and the Bahraini opposition you should respond to what you think is the way with the majority because that's what you're all about if you cherry pick where you're going to help people and you will get yourself into the mess that you're in now which is you're saying that you support democracy and freedom and equal rights of the rule of law but you don't do that in your policies United Nations Resolutions are implemented in Iraq and Kuwait with warfare you generate armies and go and liberate these countries from occupation which is the right thing to do but you don't do anything about equal magnitude for the same one resolution that are critical to Israel so if you support rule of law and democracy and human rights you need to do it more consistently and this is how I think the U.S. will be the most useful is responding to what people are saying across the board we can't say I'm going to help the uprising in Syria but not help the uprising in Bahrain or San Marcos it's difficult its consistency is difficult but I think it's a critical element the Iraq democracy Iraq is not seen as a real democracy Iraq is seen as a failed experiment in neocon fantasy it's a terrible terrible episode in modern history that resulted in hundreds of thousands being killed 4 million Iraqi refugees 3 trillion dollars is the cost to you over the next 10 years in terms of healthcare and other things that you don't have to keep paying for the most substantial export of trained kind of terrorist militants in the last quarter century coming out of Iraq it was really one of the most stupid criminal acts of American foreign policy has ever done I'm sure you never had a dictator but look what the Iraqi ticket for the dictators much better way to do it is to allow people to liberate themselves and to do it through an army so what's left behind is not a credible democracy in Iraq one day they will solve their problems and they will figure out how to restructure and reconfigure and of course the Iran is now extremely influential in Iraq as well the students of Egypt the revolutions across the Arab world were youth led but were not youth revolutions across the Arab world corruption dictators, lack of charge, etc the same grievances that young youth manifested were reflected on the adults the youth were the first element out there which is what happens with youth because of hormones because of their people's age and their worry that young people get out of Iraq so this shouldn't be seen as a student or youth but it was just youth led and the differences are shared by my own and the media the problem with the media all over the world not just in the United States is that everywhere including here as you know in your country it's become more polarized more commercialized more criminalized it's about entertainment more than about public affairs and views and this is happening all over the world that will give you a fair overview of everything but I think what you have to do is pick out a few news sources to complement what you're already getting here in your mainstream media in the US I would say NPR and PBS do it probably the best I would mainstream media but I would look at the Guardian in England the BBC in England there's a website coming out of the United States which is J-A-D-A-L-Y-Y-A and it's a very very good website that is run by a bunch of Americans who are at universities and all over the US most of them are American and they have wonderful analyses about what's going on in the Arab world so there are alternate sources now that are available and you have to go and find other sources to complement what you're already getting in your media which is a little bit efficient in a lot of these cases if any of you are interested in my analyses and my columns that are right twice a week just go to the website with my name on it ramihori.com and you can read my columns for free and if any of you are a publisher you're welcome to publish them and pay the association's attention thank you very much