Today marks the 40th anniversary of the children’s television show Sesame Street. I grew up with Sesame Street when my family lived in Kuwait, where we watched the Arabic version, called Open Sesame (Iftah ya Simsim).

The Arabic version included all the characters in the American Sesame Street with a few changes. For example, instead of Big Bird, it had a big, lovable character named No’man. The characters had Arabic names; Bert was Bader, Ernie was Anis and Kermit the Frog was Kamel the Frog.

No Arabic children’s program in the Middle East was as influential as Open Sesame.

Open Sesame had a major influence on me as a human being. It provided me with an alternative way of learning that hardly existed in the Arab world at the time. The show was made up of actors from around the Arab world. Thus, it familiarized us with the different accents that existed among Arabs from North Africa to Egypt, passing by Iraq and the Gulf.

Open Sesame encouraged and promoted sharing, friendship, and cooperation. It taught me about numbers, the alphabet, manners and waiting my turn. To this day, I still remember many songs I learned from the show about how to be a good neighbor, wash your hands and count to ten.

The show lacked the special effects that many children’s shows have now, yet its masterful use of puppets and the always-entertaining music revolutionized children’s educational programming and learning in a region that desperately needed it then — and more gravely needs it now.

Cath Turner of Al Jazeera English reports on Sesame Street’s impact in countries from Jordan to South Africa.

- Mohammad al Kassim

A checkpoint in the West Bank.

Ambassador S. Azmat Hassan is a former career diplomat and a former Ambassador of Pakistan to Malaysia, Syria and Morocco and Deputy Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations in New York. He currently serves as an Adjunct Professor at Seton Hall University. He is a contributing blogger for Worldfocus.

In the past decades the United States has taken the lead in initiating a number of diplomatic moves to cut the Gordian knot of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There are two UN Security Council Resolutions agreed to by the protagonists: the Madrid Peace Process and the Road Map to a two-state solution. These initiatives have largely foundered on the twin shoals of Israeli intransigence and Palestinian disunity.

Enter President Obama with his vow to improve U.S. relations with the Muslim world. His speeches in Egypt and Turkey calling for new beginning were warmly welcomed by Muslims and indeed the wider international community. Obama called for a total freeze on Israeli settlements as a necessary first step to starting comprehensive negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians aimed at ending their conflict. No doubt his motives were sincere. However, his efforts have yielded no concrete results so far.

The Israeli government, led by Netanyahu and his hawkish Foreign Minister Lieberman, have spurned Obama’s entreaties to freeze all settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The U.S. then changed course and is now trying to get the two sides to talk while new settlement blocks continue to be built. No Palestinian leadership can be expected to negotiate in this scenario. The impasse has deepened. US credibility is at a low point in the Muslim world.

The opinion in the street is that Obama lacks the clout with Netanyahu to bring him around to halt all settlement activity in the occupied Palestinian territories. Not doing so means that a two state solution will not happen. The ability of the U.S. to act as an honest broker is thus being questioned again. Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas seems to have thrown up his hands in despair. He says he will not be standing for reelection next January.

The U.S. is the main supporter and aid-giver to Israel. U.S. interests in the Middle East apparently dictate that it continues to support Israel — come what may. I disagree with this post-1967 assessment because the Middle East has evolved. Clinging to old shibboleths in foreign policy never helps. But the real question is how long will the Arab countries continue to put up with the abominable status quo of Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands?

Meanwhile, the Palestinian political leadership is split with the extremist Hamas faction ruling in Gaza while an increasing weak and ineffectual Abbas has a tenuous hold in the West Bank, and Palestinians continue to suffer the daily humiliations of an onerous Israeli occupation.

I think the Obama administration needs to get tough with both the Israelis and Palestinians. Both should be told that they have to get their act together. The Israelis should be told in no uncertain terms that they cannot expect to hold on to the West Bank and East Jerusalem indefinitely. The US should not be squeamish. It must treat Israel as any other country in the Middle East and not as a special case. The Fatah and Hamas factions need to be told to bury their differences, form a unity government and engage with the Israelis. Sometimes tough love produces fruitful results compared to continuing meaningless talks to nowhere.

Whether Obama and his team can summon the political resolve, commitment and impartiality in moving the two parties toward a final settlement of this long standing conflict remains to be seen. One can only hope that Obama will succeed where his predecessors have failed. Otherwise we should brace ourselves for another eruption of bloody fighting with incalculable consequences for peace and stability in the Middle East.

The views of contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Martin Savidge hosts Gareth Jenkins, a British analyst and author, and Mustafa Akyol, a Turkish journalist, to discuss whether Turkey is leaning West or moving East. Some highlights from the conversation include:

• The ruling Justice and Development (AK Party) has been accused of being both too Islamist and too pro-Western
• Islamism in Turkey has more to do with values and identity than imposing Sharia law
• While Islam is more prominent in Turkey today, the paradox is that the Islamicization of Turkish society began with secularist military after the 1980 coup
• Turkey’s religious minorities feel more threatened by hard-line (secular) nationalists than the ruling AK Party
• It’s wrong to think that Turkey’s Islamist groups are posing threats to democracy while the secular groups are serving democracy — it’s not simply black and white
• On eroding relations between Israel and Turkey, when Israel bombed Gaza, Turks sympathized for the plight of the Palestinians and the level of anti-Semitic rhetoric rose in Turkey, but before the Gaza war, Turkey was trying to establish peace between Israel and Syria
• The Turkish government has not been critical of other ruling Muslim governments — like Sudan — for human rights abuses
• On Turkey’s increasing resentment toward the European Union, there have been racial and religious prejudices by prominent members France and Germany
• Do Arab countries fear a dominant neo-Ottoman Turkey in the Middle East? Or, is there a growing sympathy in the Arab world for Turkey asserting its Muslim identity?
• A Turkey that has prestige in the Muslim world and keeps its ties with West is good for peace and stability in the region

GUESTS:

Gareth Jenkins is a British analyst and author based in Turkey since 1989. His book Political Islam in Turkey: Running West, Heading East? was published last year, and his history of modern Turkey is forthcoming.

Mustafa Akyol is a Turkish journalist and a regular columnist for the Istanbul-based Hurriyet Daily News. His upcoming book on liberalism and Islam addresses the East-West divide. Having criticized both secularism and Islamic extremism, he has lectured extensively about faith, science and tolerance.

For more on Worldfocus’ coverage of Turkey:

• Watch the Worldfocus signature video: Rising Islamist groups challenge secularism in Turkey
• Read Do Islamist groups pose a threat to democracy in Turkey? by Dr. Ömer Taşpınar, the director of the Turkey Project at the Brookings Institution

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Lisa Biagiotti and Ben Piven

A young Iranian woman. Photo: Flickr user mailo

Iran faces stiffer economic sanctions if it fails to follow through on a tentative plan to move most of its enriched uranium out of the country. This relocation could placate key Western nations by delaying Iran’s ability to make a nuclear bomb. Yet, Iran continues to issue veiled threats that it could back away from talks if unhappy with the results.

Do you think that Iran can be trusted to make good on its promise to take concrete steps aimed at reducing tensions over its nuclear program?

Tell us what you think in the comments section below. Please remember to be respectful and on-point in your comments. Malicious or offensive comments will be deleted and repeat offenders will be banned.

Gates took the extraordinary step of saying something else — that those advising the president should keep their views private. This was an implicit criticism of the top commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, for publicly lobbying for more troops.

Worldfocus spoke with Gabriel Schoenfeld, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, about U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and the implications of troop increases.

Do you agree with Defense Secretary Robert Gates that those advising President Obama on war strategy should keep their opinions private?

Tell us what you think in the comments section below. Please remember to be respectful and on-point in your comments. Malicious or offensive comments will be deleted and repeat offenders will be banned.

Worldfocus producer Mohammad Al-Kassim blogs about Friday’s revelations on Iran.

The news that Iran was building a “semi-industrial enrichment fuel facility” dominated the international headlines today. Here is how the news was covered in some Middle Eastern media outlets.

Iran’s Press TV, a government-funded news channel, broke into its regularly scheduled programming to feature the press conference held by U.S. President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The 24-hour channel, which is based in Tehran and broadcasts in English, targets viewers outside Iran.

As she was talking to a correspondent in Vienna, Press TV anchor Nargess Moballeghi noted British PM Gordon Brown’s comment that “the most urgent challenge in the world we face today is Iran.” Ms. Moballeghi told her colleague that this statement was completely opposite a statement made by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who said that it was “climate change.”

On Alalam Web site, a government-funded 24-hour news channel airing in Arabic from Tehran, the top story was same as its sister channel, Press TV. The news article on Alalam was short, quoting Iran’s top nuclear program official who said there is nothing secret about Iran’s nuclear site and that the IAEA is aware of its existence, adding that Iran has the right to have a peaceful nuclear program.

On Al Arabiya, the all-news channel based in Dubai, the news of Iran’s secret nuclear sites overshadowed the rest of the day’s news. Al Arabiya has been very critical in its coverage of Iran’s presidential election.

In general, the channel — which is funded by Saudi money — is critical of Iran’s influence in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia feels that Iran is treading on its territory as the natural leader in the Muslim world.

Al Jazeera Arabic also joined in the coverage of the breaking news with the press conference from Pittsburg, PA. The headline of the story on its Web site read, “World powers pressure Iran,” and the story reported the views of both sides, adding the position of Russia and China. The news article also quoted the Iranian student’s news agency for Iran’s official statement.

Al Jazeera is funded by the government of Qatar and is generally viewed by the Iranian government as relatively biased against Iran.

People in the West assume that because Iran is a Muslim country, it must be friends with many counties in the region. On the contrary, Iran’s neighbors are equally opposed to it obtaining a nuclear program and weapons as the West is. The so-called moderate Arab states –Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan — are quietly calling to disarm Iran nuclear program. Watching these media outlets, one cannot help but notice that the coverage is a reflection of this position.

- Mohammad Al-Kassim

In his speech, the president said that the United States is committed to working with other countries to solve the world’s major problems. But he challenged them to do more and derided what he called “an almost reflexive anti-Americanism” sweeping the globe.

The president gave no hint of any major changes in U.S. policy toward Afghanistan. The president also seemed to break little new ground in his remarks about the Middle East, calling on the Palestinians to pursue peace with Israel and urging the Israelis to curb settlements in Palestinian territories.

Though he gave no hint of it during his speech, The New York Times reports that the Obama administration is considering major foreign policy changes in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Obama also spoke about another key foreign policy issue — the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea. Several countries, led by the U.S., are considering additional sanctions against Iran and North Korea if they don’t curb their nuclear programs.

James Lindsay, senior vice president and director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, joins Daljit Dhaliwal to discuss policy reversals.

Eight months into the Obama administration, is U.S. foreign policy headed in the right direction or wrong direction?

Tell us what you think in the comments section below. Please remember to be respectful and on-point in your comments. Malicious or offensive comments will be deleted and repeat offenders will be banned.

As Nicole Johnston of Worldfocus partner Al Jazeera English reports, this comes with both benefits and drawbacks.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates spoke of tougher sanctions against Iran as Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak took a tougher approach, making clear that Israel has not ruled out military action.

The U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, traveled to Syria and Egypt.

Daniel Levy, the co-director of the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation, joins Martin Savidge to discuss developments out of the Middle East.

During a visit to Saudi Arabia,U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told some of the country’s business leaders to expect what he called a “gradual recovery with more than the usual ups and downs and temporary reversals.”

Fadel Gheit, a managing director and senior oil and gas analyst at Oppenheimer and Company, joins Martin Savidge to discuss Geithner’s overtures to the Middle East.

Pope Benedict XVI visited the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem.

Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Israel on Monday on a highly politicized visit, and quickly repeated his support for a Palestinian state, saying that he hoped a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would result in “a homeland of their own” for both sides. 

Later, the pope paid tribute to victims of the Holocaust. At Yad Vashem, the national Holcoaust memorial, the German-born pope spoke of the millions of Jews killed by the Nazis, saying the cries of the victims continue to reverberate more than six decades after World War II.

Worldfocus editorial consultant Peter Eisner measures the pope’s words. 

“Del dicho al hecho, un gran trecho.”

Pope Benedict’s current trip to Israel brings to mind that old Spanish refrain, “There’s a big difference between what people say and what they do” — more simply translated, “Words are cheap.”

No question, you could apply the saying to many topics in the news: “We don’t torture;” “Iran possesses nuclear fuel cycle technology, a capability which it is using exclusively for peaceful purposes;” and ”I never took steroids or human growth hormone.”

Sometimes, parsing words too carefully doesn’t lead very far, as in the efforts of analyzing how much and how little the pope said in Israel yesterday.

How carefully should we be analyzing the adverbs and adjectives used by the pontiff when he visited Yad Vashem, the memorial to the Nazi extermination of six million Jews during World War II? Some in Israel are all about scanning every dactyl and iamb.

Pope Benedict condemned the Holocaust in a speech at the memorial yesterday, saying:

“I have come to stand in silence before this monument, erected to honor the memory of the millions of Jews killed in the horrific tragedy of the Shoah. They lost their lives, but they will never lose their names: these are indelibly etched in the hearts of their loved ones, their surviving fellow prisoners, and all those determined never to allow such an atrocity to disgrace mankind again.”

The Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, Yisrael Meir Lau — a Holocaust survivor — praised the speech for being “beautiful and well-scripted and very Biblical.” But he added that the pope could have cited the more precise number of those killed, instead of saying “millions.” Also, he noted the pope used the word “killed” instead of choosing to say “murdered.”

“There’s a dramatic difference between killed and murdered, especially when a speech has gone through so many hands,” Lau said. 

Such analysis might be more forgiving were it not for questions about the pope’s previous pronouncements and actions. 

There was the case of Richard Williamson, a Roman Catholic Bishop, who once said: “I believe that the historical evidence is strongly against, is hugely against six million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler.”

Benedict brought Williamson back into the fold, 20 years after he was excommunicated during the reign of Pope John Paul II.

And there was a lecture Pope Benedict delivered in 2006, in which he quoted a 700-year-old papal text: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman…”

He was roundly criticized for that, although the Vatican said he was quoting, rather than citing his own view.

There is evidence that the pope knows the weight and value of words. In 1985, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he silenced the prominent Brazilian priest Leonardo Boff, who had questioned the authority of the Church hierarchy. Boff was an early advocate of Liberation Theology, whose adherents were criticized for promoting social movements in impoverished parts of the Third World.

Regardless the intent of and reaction to the pope’s statements, his other declared message in the Middle East was to urge an end to violence among Jews and Muslims. It’s not certain how much weight his words or actions will have in that larger context.

- Peter Eisner

Photo courtesy of Flickr user catholicrlf under a Creative Commons license.

In Jordan, the pope voiced what he called “deep respect for the Muslim community.” He also said that his only agenda was to bring hope and prayers for unity and peace.

Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, joins Martin Savidge to discuss the pope’s relationship with Muslims and what role he can play in easing tensions in the conflict between Jews and Arabs.

President Barack Obama greets U.S. troops during a visit to Camp Victory, Iraq.

Wednesday marks Barack Obama’s 100th day in office — a benchmark that has long been used to measure progress made by world leaders.

Juan Cole is a professor of history at the University of Michigan and writes at the “Informed Comment” blog to examine how the president has fared in the Middle East.

Obama’s First Hundred Days in the Greater Middle East

The hundred day benchmark for journalists sizing up a new administration is probably inappropriate on foreign affairs, which are complicated and move slowly. Still, we can assess the changes in approach and tone between the Obama administration and its predecessor this winter and spring, to try to get a sense of where things are going.

Obama has engaged in a number of acts of public diplomacy toward the Muslim world that were intended to change the image of the United States in the region and to marshal for his purposes American soft power, which is among its largest assets in the region. (Contrary to what the American Right used to confidently assert, the Muslim world does not hate “our way of life,” but rather loves the idea of democracy and loves US media. What they say they don’t like is a lot of sleeping around and tolerance of gays; in other words, Muslim public opinion is not so different from that of many Americans in the deep red states).

Obama did an interview with al-Arabiya, the Dubai-based Arabic satellite news station, soon after he got into office. He offered a hand of friendship to Muslims, insisted that you can’t stereotype 1.5 billion people with the actions of a few terrorists, and implied that al-Qaeda seemed to be running scared that it had lost George W. Bush as a recruiting tool.

Obama was making an important point. Radicalism in the Muslim world is very much wrought up with anti-imperialism, with a desire to push back against what local people see as an overbearing and arrogant American dictation to them of how to live their lives.

Obama’s public diplomacy extended to Iran, which he addressed on the occasion of the Persian New Year. He stressed the opportunity for Iran to re-enter the world community through diplomacy with the US.

[...]The big moment for public diplomacy, however, was Obama’s trip to Turkey. In 2000, the last year of the Clinton administration, 56 percent of Turks had a favorable or very favorable view of the United States. By late in the Bush administration eight years later, that percentage stood at 9%. Bush was barely more popular in Turkey than was Bin Laden. But nearly 40 percent of Turks say that they have confidence in President Obama, making him the politician in Turkey with the very highest approval rating!

In an address to the Turkish parliament, Obama declared that the US is not and never will be at war with Islam the religion. (To be fair, Bush had said similar things when in Turkey, but his policies were so unpopular that it was difficult for him to be taken seriously on this point).

The Obama administration has succeeded in changing the tone of US diplomacy with the Greater Middle East. Note that a better job could have been done.

[...]Still, tone is easy, where there is a will. Substance is hard.

To read more, see the original post.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Army.mil under a Creative Commons license.

Mitchell arrived in Tel Aviv on Wednesday after first stopping in North Africa. On the top of his agenda: Discussions about a two-state solution to bring peace between Palestinians and Israelis, something Prime Minister Netanyahu has so far refused to endorse.

Daniel Levy, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington D.C., joins Martin Savidge to discuss Mitchell’s time in North Africa, his support for a two-state solution and his scheduled meeting with Palestinian leaders on Friday.

They discuss the global recession, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s attempts to revive the Middle East peace process and how Mexico’s drug war is impacting the United States.

Link TV’s “Mosaic” program explores the fate of Lebanese workers in Dubai. Below, bloggers in Dubai and elsewhere discuss Dubai’s dilemma.

An architect at the “Seth State” blog blames overzealous business practices during Dubai’s boom for the current situation:

In ways I saw this coming, but not to the extent that my job would cease to exist. [...] Dubai was growing unchecked, but we were getting so many new projects and working towards regular deadlines the end did not seem eminent.  Did I agree with everything we were doing there?  No, but it was a paycheck and we were working on some amazing projects.

[...]Dubai as many of you know had become a fantasy land.  They were building anything and everything.  Recreating locations of the past in the desert.  One project was directly modeled after Bath, England.  Dubai wanted to be everything to everyone.  Bigger, brighter, and more expensive seemed to be the goal. [...] When things were good, many people mortgaged their lives.  The economy is crashing and these ludicrous buildings and islands are going to stand as relics and reminders of what not to do.

My question is who will live here?  Why would you live here?  People are fleeing in alarming numbers, leaving their vehicles at the airport.

Blogger “Mohd Fudzail” describes one such scene, discussing the abandoned cars parked near his workplace:

There is a new big parking space near my office to park unsold cars. The car sales have dropped drastically as well as local police have found at least 3,000 automobiles — sedans, SUVs, regulars — abandoned outside Dubai International Airport in the last four months.

Police say most of the vehicles had keys in the ignition, a clear sign they were left behind by owners in a hurry to take flight. A large number of such owners are from Indian, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and other South Asian countries

Blogger “Anna” writes from the UAE, arguing that media reports of Dubai’s fall are overblown:

Is Dubai’s economy disintegrating before our eyes? Is the former boomtown only a few more failed investments away from bankruptcy? The NY Times seems to think so, although from my perspective here on the ground, I’m not so convinced.

I was in Dubai earlier this week and I saw little evidence that the emirate is in trouble. The “mostly clear” roads described in the Times article were certainly nowhere in evidence as we battled traffic for 45 minutes on our way to dinner at a Sri Lankan restaurant only one neighborhood away from where we’d started. The brand new Dubai Mall filled up with shoppers as soon as the workday ended, and even if this can be attributed in part to the steep discounts (up to 75 percent) currently offered at many retail outlets in honor of the month-long Dubai Shopping Festival, it was still a sign that Dubaians aren’t hoarding their dirhams so closely that they can’t still indulge in frivolous consumerism.

In the end, it may be exactly that enthusiasm to spend, spend, spend that Dubai is famous for that saves them, keeping their economy alive where that of the thrifty Americans failed.

Patricia DeGennaro, a specialist on Afghanistan and South Asia, speaks with Martin Savidge regarding the U.S. supply options and the potential for diplomatic solutions.

Anthony Cordesman, an expert on the Middle East, terrorism and defense policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, speaks with Martin Savidge about the implications of today’s launch and how it might relate to the use of a nuclear weapon.

They discuss the economic forum in Davos, George Mitchell’s mission in the Middle East and the situation in Afghanistan.