NEW YORK: Bahrain, the little Persian Gulf nation where pluralism has been the exception to the regional hegemonic rule, is learning that the best way for democracy to survive is to replicate it.
Without explicitly saying so, Bahrain is softly encouraging the US-led push for democratization in the Middle East as the means toward stabilization. Its rulers have made their treatment of the tiny Jewish community in Bahrain a showcase of how to achieve peaceful pluralism.
King Hamad bin Issa Al-Khalifa met last week in New York with about 50 Bahraini Jews who had immigrated to the United States, and did something almost unheard of in the Arab world: he invited them home.
The offer extended to younger generations and included specifics, including allocation of land for homes.
In a region where efforts to export ideology have often exploded into conflict, Bahraini officials are careful to say that they are pleased only to serve as an example, not as a beach head.
What we do in Bahrain is for sure for Bahrain, it’s not to be exported, Hamad said in an interview with JTA.
Yet it is clear that the nation, host to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet and a major non-NATO ally of the United States, regards the Bush administration’s efforts in keeping with its own reforms. Bahrain officials subtly hint that the US push for democracy in the region is playing catch-up to a country that launched a transition to constitutional monarchy in 1999.
Our reforms were before Sept. 11, Khalid bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa, the Bahraini foreign minister, said in an interview, referring to the terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001. The American democratic program for the Middle East came after Sept. 11. They thought that extremism is linked to lack of freedom and democracy. Well fine, we agree with that.
Taking the lead in reaching out to Israel and to Jews internationally is part of that equation. Hamad stressed that such outreach was made in the context of the Saudi-led Arab initiative, which posits comprehensive peace in exchange for a return to the borders prior to the 1967 Six-Day War.
It has been declared that we have this Arab initiative which would really normalize the relationship with Israel as soon as this conflict is over, he told JTA. And you know very well Bahrain would have loved to have this conflict gone away from the scene a long time ago, we would love to see that day.
Still, Bahrain is more out front than its neighbors. The nation ended its participation in the Arab League boycott of Israel last year, something Khalifa is still called to defend before the Bahraini parliament.
This boycott office is really contrary to our philosophy.
Al-Khalifa recently proposed a regional grouping that would include Iran and Israel even before agreements are in place as a means to reaching accommodation. Such a grouping would start by dealing with the removal of weapons of mass destruction, sharing diminishing water supplies and cooperating on environmental controls.
Practical considerations underpin Bahrain’s outreach: the kingdom’s oil wealth is expected to dry up within the next two decades, and the nation needs new strategies to thrive in the region. Quitting the Arab boycott was a condition of a free-trade pact with the United States. A peaceful neighborhood would help move development along, Al-Khalifa said.
In Bahrain we are caught between many places and hard places, he said, riffling on the old line about a rock and a hard place. A causeway separates Bahrain from one major theocracy, Saudi Arabia; a gulf separates it from another, Iran. Hamad puts his actions where his words are: he appointed a Jewish woman, Houda Nonoo, as ambassador to the United States, and named another, Rose Sager, as US trade representative.
At the meeting in New York, the affection of his Jewish subjects seemed unforced. Many were eager to hear details of his repealing of a law that had stripped expatriate Bahrainis of their citizenship.
Even the ones whose passports are expired are still Bahrainis, the king said.Rabbi Levi Shemtov, who runs the Chabad office in Washington, helped set up the meeting and blessed the king. The rabbi described the week’s Torah portion, and its tale of smaller kingdoms resisting aggressive, larger neighbors, and the king vigorously nodded.
If someone who can be effective wants to discuss the present need to confront our common dangers within the parameters of proper recognition of the Jewish people, the rabbi said, then even if the context doesn’t yet exist, we have to seek it.
Ron Kampeas is the Washington, DC bureau chief of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA). This abridged article originally appeared in JTA and is distributed with permission by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews). The full text can be found at www.jta.org.
