The EconomistJune 29th 2019 Middle East & Africa 512
I
n most airports, goingthroughsecu-
ritychecksisa streamlinedif soulless
passageintoa hermeticallysealed,san-
itisedzone.NotsoinmuchoftheArab
world.Reachingyourdepartureloungeis
a mentalaswellasphysicalobstacle
coursewhichrevealsmuchaboutthe
regime—orregimes—incharge.
Someairportshavecompetingsecuri-
tyservices.Beirut’smainairportismost-
lycontrolledbyHizbullah,theShia
militiathatdominatessouthernLeba-
non.Butasbefitsthecountry’stortu-
ouslysectariansystemofgovernment,
variousgroupshavea foothold.Security
agenciescontrolledbySunniMuslims
andMaroniteChristianshavetheirown
x-raymachinesandlinesofcontrol.The
ensuingduplicationleadstooneofthe
airport’shallmarks:gridlockedqueues.AtMitiga,thesoleairportstillserving
Tripoli,Libya’scapital,Islamistmili-
tiamenperuseWesternpassportswith
anairofcontempt.Butothercompeting
securityforcesconductchecks,too.In
theirvaryinguniforms,theguardsare
moreconcernedtosecuretheirbitofthe
airportthantoprotectpassengers.
Iraq’sairportsalsoreplicatethepleth-
oraofcheckpointsthatpunctuateits
roads.ToreachBaghdad’smainairport,
youpassthrougha seriesofconcentric
rings,startingmanykilometresbefore
theterminal.Passengersoffloadtheir
luggagenumeroustimes,firstonto
airportbuses,thenontotrolleys.Sniffer
dogs,x-raymachinesandofficials,all
fromdifferentfactions,scrutiniseyour
contentsseveraltimesover—andyou
feelnonethesafer.
HereandthereacrosstheArabworld,
privatevipservices,oftenincahoots
withofficialsecuritychiefs,sellfast-
trackpassagetobypasstherigmarole
facedbyhoipolloi.InCairobaksheeshis
thesimplestwaytocutthroughthe
airport’stangleofredtape.Andthe
equipmentisonlyasgoodasitsoper-
ators,whooftenseemmorefocusedon
theirmobile-phonescreensthantheir
x-raymonitors.Semi-literatepoliceat
Egypt’sairportsletpassengersthrough
onlyif theypresenta validticket—or
somethingthatlookslikeone.Anold
rental-carreservationrecentlysufficed.
AttheairportservingKhartoum,
Sudan’scapital,noticesrecentlysaidthat
noonecouldleavetheterminaloncehe
orshehadpassedthroughsecurity
checks.Noonepaidtheslightestatten-
tion,happilywalkinginandout.Safetylast
ArabairportsBEIRUT
Whenitcomestoairportsecurity,competitionisnotthetraveller’sfriendBefore he took office in 2017 Donald
Trump vowed to broker the “ultimate deal”
between Israelis and Palestinians. To over-
see the effort he chose Mr Kushner, a prop-
erty developer with no experience in diplo-
macy or the Middle East. The result has
been roughly as expected. There is still no
plan for resolving the underlying conflict
and its many thorny issues: borders, refu-
gees, the status of Jerusalem, or the very
notion of Palestinian statehood. Its release
has been repeatedly delayed. Diplomats
hint that it may remain on the shelf until
Mr Trump’s second term, if he wins one.
Instead Mr Kushner organised this two-
day confab in Bahrain. Dubbed the “Peace
to Prosperity” workshop, the centrepiece
was a 96-page plan that pledged $50bn-
worth of investment in Palestine and
neighbouring countries after a peace deal.
The document is impressive in scope. It
suggests projects to boost agriculture and
tourism, fix Palestine’s infrastructure and
improve governance. All of this would be
funded by a mix of grants, concessional
loans and private money.
Missing amid all this detail was any-
thing about the Israeli occupation, in its va-
rious forms, of the West Bank and Gaza, or
about the schism between the Palestinian
leaders in the two territories. The plan pre-
supposes that the Holy Land’s noxious pol-
itics have simply vanished. Mr Kushner
would spend $5bn to connect the West
Bank and Gaza, for example. Israel has
promised to do this for years but never has,
because the link is not simply a matter of
building a monorail: it raises complex po-
litical and security questions. The $2bn
plan to give Palestine 5gwireless infra-
structure would thrill entrepreneurs, but
there was no mention of how to overcome
objections from the Israeli army, which let
the West Bank have 3gonly last year, a de-
cade after the rest of the world.
None of the speakers in Bahrain com-
mented on this dissonance, perhaps be-
cause few were familiar with the conflict,
or even its geography. To estimate the cost
of installing 5gin Palestine, the president
of at&tcompared it with Mexico, which he
said was five to ten times as big (it is in fact
316 times larger).
As it stands, the plan is thoroughly un-
realistic. That is the point, Mr Kushner’s
supporters argue. It is meant to offer the
Palestinians a peace dividend, an incentive
to accept his (perhaps) forthcoming politi-
cal vision. They certainly need the help.
Unemployment in the West Bank is 17%. In
Gaza it is more than 50%. Adjusted for in-
flation, gdp per person is almost un-
changed from 20 years ago.
But to the Palestinians this smells like a
bribe from a hostile president. Mr Trump
cut all American aid to them. He over-
turned decades of precedent to recognise
Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. And aides hintthat the political plan will give the Palestin-
ians far less than the sovereign state along
the pre-1967 borders that they demand.
So they decided to boycott the work-
shop. Their president, Mahmoud Abbas,
refused to send anyone from his govern-
ment. “The deal of shame will go to hell,” he
said in May. The private sector also de-
clined invitations. Arab states were thus re-
luctant to share a stage with Israeli offi-
cials—who were not invited in the end,
though some Israeli businessmen did
come. Reporters from six Israeli outlets
sent fawning dispatches. The country’s
largest newspaper, Israel Hayom, which
backs both Mr Trump and the Israeli prime
minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, dubbed
Bahrain the “island of hope”, an odd appel-lation for a kingdom that crushed a popular
uprising in 2011.
And that, perhaps, points to the real
outcome of the workshop. It was the most
public manifestation of a long and mostly
private rapprochement between Israel and
the Gulf states, one the Trump administra-
tion is keen to promote. The event did
nothing to end the Israeli-Palestinian con-
flict. But it was another sign that the Gulf
states are looking to move past it. Though
they are not quite ready to recognise Israel,
they see it as an ally against a shared threat
from Iran. The Palestinians have far less to
offer. “All we have is our moral power,” says
Mkhaimer Abu Saada, a political analyst in
Gaza. That still counts for something—but
less and less each passing day. 7