The Economist January 22nd 2022 Middle East & Africa 41ant countries—now welcomes Jews, even
Israelis (if they are travelling on foreign
passports). Hebrew can be heard at fairs
and festivals. An Israeli psychic performed
at a recent royal party. AntiJewish calum
nies have been culled from Saudi text
books. To the consternation of some, an Is
raeli rabbi called Jacob Herzog is a frequent
visitor to Riyadh, the capital. He sits in ca
fés wearing ultraOrthodox garb and dis
tributes prayer books. Sometimes he posts
pictures of himself dancing with mer
chants in the bazaar. “Jews used to be
afraid of saying they were Jews in the king
dom,” says Mr Herzog, who calls himself
the chief rabbi of Saudi Arabia. “Now we’re
getting embedded.”
This goes hand in hand with Muham
mad bin Salman’s push to attract tourists
and investment. The crown prince and de
facto ruler of Saudi Arabia has defied the
clerics by sponsoring archaeological digs
of Jewish sites in the hopes of one day at
tracting Jewish sightseers. In November an
Israeli opened Habitas, a luxury hotel in Al
Ula, an ancient rock city. Prince Muham
mad has located one of his pet projects, a
planned $500bn hightech city called Ne
om, on the kingdom’s northwest coast—
the better to attract Israeli expertise, say
his advisers. “Saudis are becoming closer
to Jews than to Palestinians and Lebanese,”
says Sultan alMousa, the author of a best
selling Saudi novel about a Jewish revolt
against the Roman Empire.
In Egypt the government of AbdelFat
tah alSisi is renovating Jewish cemeteries
and what was once the biggest synagogue
in the Middle East. This may, in part, be an
effort to charm America, which gives Egypt
heaps of aid. Elsewhere, the motives are
clearer. The bloodsoaked regime of Bashar
alAssad in Syria is restoring synagogues
and has reached out to the many Syrian
Jews in New York, hosting a delegation of
them in Damascus. “Syria is engaging with
its Jewish exiles in order to buff up its im
age as a protector of religious minorities
and to connect with communities who
might possibly give it some political lever
age in Washington at a time when it has ve
ry little of it,” says David Lesch of Trinity
University in Texas.
Mizrahi Jews from Israel are also driv
ing change in the region. With roots in the
Middle East, many of them feel marginal
ised in Israel, where schools tend to focus
on European Jewish history. Large num
bers of Mizrahim have gone to Morocco,
some hoping to build a new housing com
plex for Jews in Marrakech. Others pack
dozens of flights each week between Tel
Aviv and Dubai. Those who stay put are
more open about their heritage. In contrast
to their grandparents, who listened to
Umm Kulthum, an Egyptian diva, in secret,
young Mizrahim blast Arabic music in
public. In 2015 three sisters of Yemenite
origin released Israel’s first Arabic chart
topper. “Coldness is turning to curiosity
about the region,” says Liel Maghen, who
runs the Centre for Regional Initiatives, a
thinktank in Jerusalem. “There’s an Arabi
sation of Israeli culture.”
Some take a cynical view of all the bon
homie. “I’ll imprison you [Palestinians] at
checkpoints. And then take a selfie in [Du
bai’s]towers,”croonsNoamShusterElias
si,anIsraelicomedienne,inhersatirical
song“Dubai,Dubai”(whichisinArabic).Others fear Jews could be targeted in the
event of a popular backlash against the re
gion’s despots. But the trajectory of Moroc
co suggests that the improvement in rela
tions could endure. The kingdom began
reaching out decades ago. Jews of Moroc
can origin are able to reclaim their citizen
ship. The country has a Jewish museum
and a new Jewish study centre and has re
storeddozensofoldJewishsites,notes Av
rahamMoyal,a rabbiofMoroccan descent.
“We’vesmashedthetaboo.”nHumanrightsTorturers on trial
I
t was justiceon a microscopic scale. On
January 13th Anwar Raslan, a former Syri
an intelligence officer, was sentenced to
life in prison for crimes against humanity.
The verdict followed more than 100 court
sessions at which witnesses told of beat
ings, electrocutions and rapes in Branch
251, the prison Mr Raslan ran for two years.
At least 27 detainees were killed and 4,000
tortured during his tenure.
Horrific as it was, the testimony co
vered one small corner of a sprawling secu
rity apparatus. Bashar alAssad’s regime is
responsible for numerous atrocitiesin a
war that has killed perhaps 500,000 people
and displaced more than half of Syria’s pre
war population of 22m. Yet Mr Raslan is the
first official convicted for taking part (a
lowranking employee was jailed last
year). The wheels of justice turn slowly.
They only turned at all because Mr Ras
lan was prosecuted in Germany. Courts in
the Middle East tend to offer a mockery ofjustice. Mr Assad will not hold his own tor
turers to account. Nor do international ef
forts give much hope. The tribunal that in
vestigated the assassination of Rafik Hari
ri, a former Lebanese prime minister,
worked for 11 years to secure one middling
conviction. A growing number of high
profile Middle Eastern cases are instead
being heard in foreign courts, a trend that
raises legal and diplomatic questions.
An obvious problem is catching alleged
abusers. Mr Raslan had his day in court be
cause he defected from Syria and was
granted asylum in Germany. On January
19th a court in Frankfurt began hearing a
similar case, that of a Syrian doctor ac
cused of torturing injured detainees. He
moved to Germany in 2015. But Mr Assad
and his circle tend to avoid any jurisdiction
that might hold them to account.
Even trying people in absentia can re
quire cooperation from uncooperative
governments. Take the case of Giulio Rege
ni, a student whose mutilated body was
found in a ditch outside Cairo in 2016. He
had been detained by Egyptian police, who
are accused of subjecting him to days of
torture. The authorities are suspected of
organising a hasty coverup, saying Mr Re
geni was in fact abducted by a gang that
preyed on foreigners. The gangsters were
conveniently killed by police and are thus
unavailable for questioning.
Unlike most victims of Egypt’s dictator
ship, Mr Regeni was an Italian citizen.
Urged on by his family, Italian prosecutors
have charged four Egyptian officials with
his murder. But a judge halted the trial in
October, saying she had no proof the de
fendants were aware of the charges, and
sent it back to preliminary hearings.
Politics are another complication. A
Turkish court is trying 26 Saudis in absen
tia for the murder in 2018 of Jamal KhashD UBAI
Despots won’t prosecute their own henchmen. So victims seek justice abroadFinding justice in Germany