MERIP Media Resource List, November 23, 2005

AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWS on the following topics:
- Israeli Prime Minister Sharon leaves Likud to found a new political party
- Iran, the IAEA and the nuclear question – IAEA meets November 24
- Egyptian parliamentary elections near final round

PERETZ KIDRON
Peretz Kidron is an Israeli writer, journalist and translator in Jerusalem. He commented today: "Even more significant than the dismantlement of the Gaza settlements whose creation he masterminded, Sharon's shift of political allegiance has dismantled the nationalist/clericalist/Sephardi populist coalition he put together in the 1970s -- the dominant political alliance of the past three decades is now in ruins."

FARIDEH FARHI
Farideh Farhi is an independent researcher and an adjunct professor of political science at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa. Her publications include "Iran's Nuclear File: The Uncertain Endgame," Middle East Report Online , October 24, 2005 and States and Urban-Based Revolutions in Iran and Nicaragua (University of Illinois Press, 1990) as well as numerous articles and book chapters on contemporary Iranian politics and foreign policy. She commented today: "Despite the harsh wording of the last resolution adopted by the IAEA Board of Governors in its September 2005 meeting, subsequent events suggest that the time for an all-out confrontation has not yet arrived. The Europeans and Americans understand that while a weak resolution from a fractured IAEA board may be useful for pressuring Iran in negotiations, a referral to the Security Council, without a clear strategy about how to manage the issue once there, will embolden Tehran to renounce every aspect of the deal they have made with Europe and the IAEA so far, including the ongoing voluntary suspension of the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz and adherence to the Additional Protocol."

MONA EL-GHOBASHY
Mona El-Ghobashy teaches political science at Columbia University and is a frequent contributor to Middle East Report . She commented today: "There is little doubt that the Egyptian parliamentary elections taking place from November 9-December 7 will return a majority of president Hosni Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) members. The significance of these elections lies elsewhere, namely in how and not whether the NDP will win. The party faces stiff competition on at least two fronts: renegade members who did not receive the party's official endorsement and candidates of Egypt's most organized and politically astute opposition force, the Muslim Brothers. The Brothers have so far garnered 47 seats (up from a total of 17 in the 2000 elections). Furthermore, the elections come at a time when the ruling regime is weathering grave domestic and international challenges: a vocal pro-democracy movement at home that has tapped into festering economic grievances and intense international pressures for political liberalization. The elections are thus not a test of the regime's ‘commitment to reform,' as is widely reported, but an opportunity to observe how it will maintain its grip on power in the face of an exceptionally trying environment."

Background :  

+ Farideh Farhi, "Iran's Nuclear File: The Uncertain Endgame," Middle East Report Online , October 24, 2005

+ Mona el-Ghobashy, "Egypt Looks Ahead to Portentous Year," Middle East Report Online , February 2, 2005

-------------

Return to archive index

For more information, contact Michelle Woodward, MERIP Media Coordinator, at (202) 223-3677, or merip.media@merip.org.  Media Resource Lists are an initiative of the MERIP Media Outreach Program.

The Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), 1500 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Suite 119, Washington, DC 20005, Tel: (202) 223 3677, Fax: (202) 223 3604, www.merip.org