Glowing and Glowering: Two Views on Dubai
On March 17th the Wall Street Journal published a glowing, yet balanced, commentary about Dubai entitled "City of Dreams." (Hat tip to reader Jamie). The article was authored by one Zachary Karabell who, the article says "...is executive vice president of Fred Alger Management and its Spectra Funds and the author of "Peace Be upon You: The Story of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Coexistence." Here are literally and figuratively the article's money paragraphs, paragraphs whose ideas both resonate with and reaffirm my observations from nearly two years of living and teaching business in the UAE:
Christian-Palestinian businessmen do deals with Indian Muslims, who team up to build condos that are then sold to Malaysian millionaires or Kuwaiti sheikhs. Global investment banks facilitate contracts between the royal Maktoum family and the very American Boston Properties (led by Mortimer Zuckerman) to buy and sell prime real estate in Manhattan. And not only does Donald Trump get his name into the action, but the government of Dubai is also a major holder of Kerzner International, one of the world's premier gambling and resort companies that happens to be majority-controlled by a South African Jewish family.That said, however, Dubai is very much an Arab city-state. It prides itself on becoming -- along with neighboring Abu Dhabi -- a Muslim model for tolerance, affluence and global success. That it manages to do so should belie prejudices in the West that the Arab world is incapable of participating in the global system until it unburdens itself of the doctrinal rigidity of some forms of Islam.
Seeing Dubai as an economic model for other parts of the Arab world is admittedly a challenge: Like Singapore, it has the virtues of a small ruling class, a tiny population and not much territory, and that is not something Egypt or Syria could emulate. But as a cultural model, or an attitude, it does offer an alternate vision of the future, one with its own excesses and vices for sure, but still free of the divisiveness and religious conflict that has become the assumed status quo in other parts of the Middle East.
Dubai should not be written off as little more than an Arab Las Vegas. It deeply challenges the assumption that Muslims, Christians and Jews cannot find common ground and work together to construct a shared future. Dubai is proof, not perfect, but real, that they can.
But Dubai does have its detractors. Six days later two of them- former Clinton advisor Dick Morris and his wife Eileen McGann- had their say. Though they didn't mention the WSJ piece directly, its glowering tone clearly intends to counter the Zarabell's glowing. And they wasted no time cutting to the quick. Just in case the title of their piece, How to Sell Anti-Semites: The Legitimization of Dubai (Hat tip to reader Doug)- didn't make their disdain abundantly clear, the first few sentences dispel any further illusions:
The past few years have seen a concerted international PR campaign to promote Dubai as a tolerant new Mecca of Middle East moderation and amazing economic growth. And it's working. Corporate giant Halliburton is moving its headquarters there; the famed Louvre is opening a branch in the emirate. Tourists are flocking to Dubai's luxury hotels. But don't be fooled. Dubai, which is one of the seven princedoms of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is anything but tolerant and progressive.
While it is true that the UAE is not progressive and tolerant like the US and Western Europe, that's not what Morris and McGann mean when they toss that accusation out. They have a single yardstick for making their determination. Unfortunately they pick the wrong one. And having picked the wrong one, the more they go on they more they mismeasure and mislead, though, I suspect, not by design or with ill intent.
To put it bluntly: They don't like Jews. In fact, Dubai, like the rest of the UAE, is blatantly anti-Semitic. It bars all Israeli citizens from ever setting foot in the country. People from other nations whose passport have stamps indicating they've even visited Israel must notify Dubai immigration authorities of the stamp before entering. Dubai is also actively involved in the Arab boycott of Israel: It bans all products made in Israel and even ones with parts made in Israel.
Three terms here need to be separated: Jews, Israel, and (anti) Semite. While I am an expert in nothing that relates to these three matters, I know enough to know they are being conflated here. Simply put, opposing the policies of the Jewish state is not synonymous with not liking, let alone hating, Jews. (The latter is something I presume Anti-Semites do.)
Personally I think the UAE is wrong to participate in the boycott of Israel, but I allow that it is their right to do so. I think they should engage the Jewish state and believe that when the times, and it will, they will be among the very first do so and in a very commercial way. And I suspect Dubai will take the lead among the Emirates. After all, as Karabell points out, UAE-owned, Dubai-based firms are already doing business with Jews from other parts of the world. It is hard to understand why devoted anti-Semites would do and justify such a thing.
More important, however, is the larger question of what kind of friends the US government and business community wants to have in the Middle East in general and the oil-rich Gulf sheikdoms in particular. Morris and McGann greatly lament that the former's former boss, Bill Clinton, as well as a host of Republicans and business interests, are flocking to Dubai. This is wrong-headed. While far from perfect, Dubai is as good as it gets when looking for friends in this part of the world.
There may be people, idealists to be sure, who can afford to let the perfect stand in the way of the good. But there is another way: encouraging the signs of progress and nurturing the move towards freer markets and freer societies wherever they manifest themselves. That might require that people like Morris, in particular, (1) stop viewing everything that Bill and Hillary Clinton touch as inherently suspect and inappropriate and (2) stop viewing everything in the Middle East through the prism of Israel/Jew vs. Arab/Muslim. I know it will be tough, but the stakes are high enough to warrant the effort, the potential rewards high enough to compensate for the (political and economic) risk.
Tags: 
dubai | 
uae | 
united arab emirates | 
middle east |