The building blocks of a tolerant Middle East

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Updated 31 January 2021
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The building blocks of a tolerant Middle East

  • Higher education to play a major role in fostering tolerance, say experts
  • The UAE set a precedent by proclaiming 2019 as The Year of Tolerance

DUBAI: Higher education will play a major role in fostering tolerance throughout the world, Arab intellectuals and academics have predicted.

Experts believe the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, which in recent years has been wracked by religious radicalism, violent extremism and sectarian strife, will be one of the major beneficiaries.

Tolerance as a state policy received a big boost in 2019 after the UAE proclaimed it the Year of Tolerance in the country.

The initiative has seen a number of events promoting the UAE as “a global capital for tolerance,” with the emphasis on “legislation and policies aimed at entrenching the values of tolerance, dialogue, coexistence and openness to different cultures, especially among youth, which will reflect positively on society as a whole.”

Prof. Einas Sulaiman Al-Eisa, rector at the Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University (PNU) in Riyadh, said higher education had a crucial role to play, as it was in a good position to promote tolerant societies.

PNU is the largest university for women in the world, with 39,000 students and more than 2,000 faculty members. Speaking at the recently held World Tolerance Summit in Dubai, Al-Eisa noted that encouraging tolerance, among other values, was deeply rooted in the university.

“Most of our efforts were scattered and fragmented up until the launch of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, which placed tolerance, among other things, at its root,” she said. “We took these values to heart and rose to the challenge of promoting tolerance.”

Through different approaches, the university has been spreading the theme. “If you have an inclusive agenda across all faculties in your admission policies, are merit-based in your recruitment, and hire talent irrespective of their backgrounds, then you are heading in the right direction,” she said.

“It’s a journey from admissions to graduation across academia, a prejudice-free curriculum, and programs instilling values and skills.”

Al-Eisa highlighted the role of a global citizen education, in which education empowered learners to become active promoters of sustainable, tolerant, inclusive, safe and secure societies.

By 2020, PNU aims to send every student on campus on one experience abroad, she said.

Recently, a group of students from the university took part in a female scouts program, joining an international community as the first girls from a Gulf nation. “We can never underestimate the role of sports in promoting tolerance,” Al-Eisa added.

“We are now running an ambitious program across the campus using cognitive behavioral theory to promote positive behavior, exhibiting true values. From the beginning, students are tested for certain skills, and there are customized activities for promoting these skills until they graduate.”

The rector described Saudi Arabia’s leadership as supportive, committed and visionary in spreading the value of tolerance.

The UAE, home to more than 200 nationalities and a multi-religious expatriate community that outnumbers the population of Emirati nationals, is viewed as a beacon of tolerance and peaceful coexistence for millions of people in the Middle East.

The year 2019 saw the UAE create a special Ministry of Tolerance, establish the International Institute for Tolerance, introduce an anti-discrimination and hate act, and set up centers against extremism and terrorism.

Speaking at the World Tolerance Summit, Dr. Abdulatif Mohammed Al-Shamsi, president and CEO of the Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) in the UAE, said: “Sheikh Zayed (founding father of the UAE) built the basis of the country on tolerance.

“Back in 1974, he ordered the building of three churches in the UAE, and there are many examples. Being open and welcoming is in the DNA of Emiratis.”




The ghaf was chosen as a symbol of the Year of Tolerance by the UAE because of its great significance as an indigenous tree. (SPA)

Al-Shamsi pointed out the need for such sentiments to be carried on through today’s youth and delivered via the academic system, particularly in the age of social media and fake news.

“The HCT have 23,000 students and 84 different nationalities who teach our students,” he told conference delegates. “We conduct different activities and practices all year round (related to tolerance).”

In recent years, the concept of tolerance has expanded regionally to include women’s issues, with many Arab countries working to ensure that women can find representation in leading positions. But more work in this area still needs to be done.

Al-Eisa said Saudi university campuses were mainly populated by young men and women born after 1980 who were diverse, open-minded and community spirited.

“So, the challenges in universities are even greater. It’s not just promoting values; it’s how you assess the progress of those students with these values so we can design (suitable) policies and activities. Because, without measuring the impact, we cannot move forward.”

The PNU aimed to produce critical and independent thinkers, innovators and creators, she added. “Compassion, empathy and gratitude is what we need to focus on.

“Half of our faculty is millennials, which is a strength because they are the most open-minded. But we can’t marginalize others; we have to be very conscious of our unconscious biases to eliminate them.”

In order to contain radicalism, experts stress the need for a positive vision of commonalities rather than differences, given that the human mindset is instinctively drawn to disparities.

“Don’t repeat German history in your country,” said Dr. Hubertus Hoffmann, president and founder of the Global Tolerance Institute in Germany, speaking at the World Tolerance Summit.

“We have to contain radicalism early. If we let them grow, the major problem is the passive majority. So, we have to stand up for our values.”

Education led efforts, but more investment was needed for the promotion of tolerance, he said.

“To have real peace, you need reconciliation and dialogue,” Hoffman added. “Without this, there is no peace strategy. You need hard and soft factors and we tend to invest in hard factors.

“However, it’s not enough to have peace in this region and elsewhere. If we are passive, we won’t succeed. But I am an optimist.”

Halfway across the world, in Colombia, a country torn apart by a drug war and conflicts with leftist groups, work is underway through Movilizatorio, a laboratory that aims to build movement, engagement and participation in peacebuilding.

“We saw the need for it because we knew that the youth needed to be actively participating in the process we are going through in our region,” said Juliana Uribe Villegas, Movilizatorio’s CEO and founder.

“Technology is such an important tool right now, but it doesn’t have value. We need to give value to it and bring tolerance and peace-building value to technology and that’s what we’re doing.”

The company works with young people building platforms to promote peaceful dialogue.

“Tolerance and peace need to be intentional at this time across the world, but we’re not being invited by social media platforms to learn from others,” Villegas said. “Instead, we are being driven to confirm our own biases.

“So intentionally, we need to build a culture and a way of communication which is open to different cultures, dialogue and participation in different things happening in different regions.”

Technology was described as a double-edged sword by Al-Shamsi, because of its potential for enabling radical groups to disseminate negative values.

“It’s becoming more demanding for us as educators to pay attention to the youth and remind them of the great passion of our ancestors of how tolerance was a practice. Technology spreads a lot of junk, but we have to promote values,” he said.

By creating new norms and living and exhibiting them through student contributions and science, Al-Eisa spoke of a changing world. “This is where we’re heading. I prioritize the role of universities because they lead change in the community.”

Hoffmann said a structure to prevent hate, of the kind afflicting countries as far apart as Yemen and Colombia, was of the essence.

“It’s unfortunately very easy to incite hate. The cost of recovering from this hatred was enormous. We know it in Europe. So, we have to give young people the oxygen of freedom as well.

“They must have the freedom to express criticism or it doesn’t work. The main tool is dialogue. You must listen. It’s the mother tongue of humanity,” he added.


Witnesses in Gaza describe more chaos at food distribution sites

Updated 3 sec ago
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Witnesses in Gaza describe more chaos at food distribution sites

  • Multiple witnesses on Thursday reported a free-for-all of people grabbing aid, and they said Israeli troops opened fire to control crowds.
  • Witnesses said it was Israeli troops who fired the projectiles to clear large crowds of Palestinians after the center ran out of supplies
NUSEIRAT: Chaos erupted again Thursday as tens of thousands of desperate Palestinians in the Gaza Strip tried to collect food from distribution sites run by a new US- and Israeli-backed foundation. Multiple witnesses reported a free-for-all of people grabbing aid, and they said Israeli troops opened fire to control crowds.
In central Gaza, Associated Press video showed smoke bombs arching through the air around a distribution center, and gunfire was audible as an Israeli tank moved nearby. Witnesses said it was Israeli troops who fired the projectiles to clear large crowds of Palestinians after the center ran out of supplies Thursday.
“I came to get a sack of flour … a sardine tin or anything,” said Mahmoud Ismael, a man on crutches from an earlier leg injury who said he walked for miles to get to the center, only to leave empty-handed.
“There is no food in my house, and I can’t get food for my children,” he said.
Turmoil has plagued the aid system launched this week by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which runs three distribution centers in the territory. Israel has slated GHF to take over food distribution in Gaza despite opposition from the United Nations and most humanitarian groups.
Over the past three days, there have been reports of gunfire at GHF centers, and Gaza health officials have said at least one person has been killed and dozens wounded.
The Israeli military said it has facilitated the entry of nearly 1,000 truckloads of supplies into Gaza recently and accused the UN of failing to distribute the goods. It claimed Hamas was responsible for the crisis by stealing aid and refusing to release the remaining hostages.
The military’s spokesman, Brig. Gen. Effei Defrin, said the army will continue “to provide for the humanitarian needs of the civilian population while taking necessary steps to ensure that the aid does not reach the hands of Hamas.”
With media not allowed to access the centers, the circumstances remain unclear. The distribution points are guarded by armed private contractors, and Israeli forces are positioned in the vicinity. On Tuesday, the Israeli military said it fired warning shots to control a crowd outside one center.
Dr. Khaled Elserr, a surgeon at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, told the AP he treated two people wounded at distribution centers on Thursday — a 17-year-old girl and a man in his 20s. Both had gunshot wounds in the chest and stomach, he said, adding that other casualties had come in from the centers but that he did not have an exact number.
In a statement Thursday, GHF said no shots had been fired at any of its distribution centers the past three days and there have been no casualties, saying reports of deaths “originated from Hamas.”
Separately on Thursday, Israeli strikes in Gaza killed at least 34 people, according to local health officials. Israel said it would establish 22 more Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. Most of the international community views settlements as illegal and an obstacle to resolving the decades-old conflict.
Turmoil at aid distribution sites
Hunger and malnutrition have mounted among Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians since Israel barred entry of food, fuel, medicine and other supplies nearly three months ago, allowing a trickle of aid in only the past two weeks.
GHF has opened hubs in three locations – two in the far south around the city of Rafah, and the other in central Gaza near the Netzarim corridor, a strip of territory controlled by Israeli forces. The large crowds have to walk miles to reach the locations.
More than a dozen Palestinians described chaos at all three Thursday.
At one of the Rafah sites near the Morag Corridor, another Israeli-held strip, one man told the AP he and his cousin arrived at 5:30 a.m., and found thousands of people massed outside, waiting to be let in. When it was opened, the crowd flowed into an outdoor area ringed by barbed wire and earth berms, where pallets of food boxes had been left.
Armed contractors stood on the berms watching, and beyond them Israeli troops and tanks were visible, said the 41-year-old man, who spoke on condition he be identified only by his first name, Shehada, for fear of reprisals. The crowd descended on the food boxes, and pushing and shoving got out of control, he said.
Shehada said the contractors pulled back and Israeli troops shot at people’s feet. His cousin was wounded in the left foot, he said. “The gunfire was very intense,” he said. “The sand was jumping all around us.”
At the other Rafah site, several people told AP of a similar scene of pallets of food boxes left on the ground for the crowds to take whatever they could with no control by staff. Mohammad Abu-Elinin, said “gangs” carried off cartloads of flour bags and multiple aid boxes.
Samira Z’urob said by the time she arrived at 6.a.m, “the thieves had stolen people’s aid.” When she begged, one person gave her a bag of pasta and a can of beans. “I said, Thank God, and took it to my children,” she said. “I haven’t had flour for more than a week.”
Another woman, Heba Joda, said people tore down metal fences and took wooden pallets. When the food boxes ran out, staff told people to leave, then fired sound grenades to disperse them, she said.
As people fled through a nearby roundabout outside the center, Israeli troops fired gunshots, causing a panic, she said. Abu-Elinin said he saw one man wounded by shrapnel.
At the center in central Gaza, witnesses told the AP that Israeli troops fired tear gas and smoke grenades to disperse the crowds when aid ran out. AP video showed crowds of people returning from the site, some with carts full of boxes and many with nothing.
Aisha Na’na said all she managed to grab were some sticks to use as firewood. “We had come to get food for our children, but it was all in vain — we returned with nothing,” she said.
Israel says the GHF system will replace the massive aid operation that the UN and other aid groups have carried out throughout the war. It says the new mechanism is necessary, accusing Hamas of siphoning off large amounts of aid. The UN denies that significant diversion takes place.
In its statement Thursday, GHF said it has distributed more than 32,200 boxes of food since Monday. It says each box, which contains basics like sugar, lentils, pasta and rice, can make 58 meals. It said it will scale up to start operations at a fourth center and will build additional hubs in the weeks ahead.
The UN and other aid groups have refused to participate in the mechanism, saying it violates humanitarian principles. They say it allows Israel to use food as a weapon, forcing people to move to the hubs, potentially emptying large swaths of Gaza. They also say it cannot meet the massive needs of the population.
Israel has allowed in some trucks of aid for the UN to distribute, but the UN has struggled to deliver the material amid looting and Israeli military restrictions.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Thursday that Israeli authorities hadn’t given permission for UN trucks to move to the border to retrieve the arriving supplies for the previous three days.

Macron says stance on Israel must ‘harden’ unless Gaza situation improves

Updated 21 min 51 sec ago
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Macron says stance on Israel must ‘harden’ unless Gaza situation improves

  • French leader says in Singapore that action needed “in the next few hours and days”
  • He also asserted recognition of a Palestinian state with conditions was “not only a moral duty, but a political necessity”

SINGAPORE: French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday that European countries should “harden the collective position” against Israel if it does not respond appropriately to the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
With international pressure mounting on Israel over the deepening hunger crisis in Gaza, Macron said action was needed “in the next few hours and days.” He also asserted recognition of a Palestinian state with conditions was “not only a moral duty, but a political necessity.”


Paramilitaries claim capture of key Sudan towns

Updated 40 min 1 sec ago
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Paramilitaries claim capture of key Sudan towns

  • For more than two years Africa’s third-largest country has been engulfed by a war between the army and the paramilitary forces
  • The war has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 13 million and created was described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis

PORT SUDAN, Sudan: Paramilitary forces fighting Sudan’s military have said they captured two strategic towns in the war-ravaged nation, which has been hit by a cholera outbreak that killed 70 people in the capital this week.

For more than two years Africa’s third-largest country has been engulfed by a war between the army, led by the nation’s de facto ruler, General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The surge in cholera infections comes weeks after drone strikes blamed on the RSF knocked out water and electricity supplies across the capital Khartoum, which now faces a mounting health emergency.

The RSF announced Thursday that its forces had retaken the key towns of Dibeibat, in South Kordofan state, and Al-Khoei, in West Kordofan state, which border South Sudan.

“The liberation of Dibeibat, followed by Al-Khoei, not only means a field victory; it also consolidates the complete control of the RSF over most of the Kordofan region,” an RSF spokesman said in a statement.

Al-Khoei, located around 100 kilometers (62 miles) from El-Obeid — a crossroads between Khartoum and the Darfur region — had been briefly recaptured by the army this month.

Residents confirmed to AFP that Dibeibat, which links the states of North and South Kordofan, was now under RSF control.

The conflict has effectively split Sudan in two: the army controls the center, east and north of the country, while paramilitaries hold almost all of Darfur in the west and parts of the south.

The war has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 13 million and created what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Last week, the military-backed government said it had dislodged RSF fighters from their last bases in Khartoum state, two months after retaking the heart of the capital from the paramilitaries.

Khartoum has been a battleground throughout the war and remains devastated, with health and sanitation infrastructure barely functioning.

Up to 90 percent of hospitals in the conflict’s main battlegrounds have been forced out of service by the fighting.

Now the capital is facing a major health crisis.

A cholera outbreak claimed 70 lives on Tuesday and Wednesday, the health ministry for Khartoum state said Thursday.

Health officials also recorded more than 2,100 new infections over the same two days.

But the UN’s humanitarian agency, OCHA, said it is “difficult to assess the true scale of the outbreak” with “significant discrepancies” in official data.

The federal health ministry reported 172 deaths in the week to Tuesday, 90 percent of them in Khartoum state.

Authorities said 89 percent of patients in isolation centers are recovering, but warn that deteriorating environmental conditions are driving a surge in cases.

Cholera vaccinations have begun in Jebel Awila, the hardest-hit district in Khartoum, UN chief Antonio Guterres’s spokesman said Thursday.

Meanwhile the World Health Organization had delivered more than 22 metric tons of cholera and emergency health supplies, spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

Cholera is endemic to Sudan, but outbreaks have become worse and more frequent since the war broke out.

Since August, health authorities have recorded more than 65,000 cases and over 1,700 deaths across 12 of Sudan’s 18 states.

“Sudan is on the brink of a full-scale public health disaster,” said Eatizaz Yousif, the International Rescue Committee’s Sudan director.

“The combination of conflict, displacement, destroyed critical infrastructure and limited access to clean water is fueling the resurgence of cholera and other deadly diseases.”

Aid agencies warn that without urgent action, the spread of disease is likely to worsen with the arrival of the rainy season next month, which severely limits humanitarian access.

Sudan’s government also faces US sanctions over allegations by Washington that the Sudanese military used chemical weapons last year in its war against the RSF.

On Thursday, Sudan’s foreign ministry announced the creation of a national committee to investigate the charge, while expressing its “disbelief in the validity of the US administration’s accusations.”


US proposes 60-day ceasefire for Gaza, plan shows

Updated 30 May 2025
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US proposes 60-day ceasefire for Gaza, plan shows

  • The plan is guaranteed by US President Donald Trump and mediators Egypt and Qatar: document

A US plan for Gaza seen by Reuters on Friday proposes a 60-day ceasefire and the release of 28 Israeli hostages alive and dead in the first week and the release of 125 Palestinian prisoners sentenced to life and the remains of 180 dead Palestinians.
The plan, which says it is guaranteed by US President Donald Trump and mediators Egypt and Qatar, includes sending aid to Gaza as soon as Hamas signs off on the ceasefire agreement.
The plan stipulates that Hamas will release the last 30 hostages once a permanent ceasefire is in place.
The White House said on Thursday that Israel has agreed to the US ceasefire proposal.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas told Reuters it was reviewing the plan and will respond on Friday or Saturday.
Deep differences between Hamas and Israel have stymied previous attempts to restore a ceasefire that broke down in March.
Israel has insisted that Hamas disarm completely and be dismantled as a military and governing force and that all 58 hostages still held in Gaza must be returned before it will agree to end the war.
Hamas has rejected the demand to give up its weapons and says Israel must pull its troops out of Gaza and commit to ending the war.
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza in response to the devastating Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, that killed some 1,200 people and saw 251 Israelis taken hostage into Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
The subsequent Israeli military campaign has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, Gaza health officials say, and left the enclave in ruins.


Dua Lipa, public figures urge UK to end Israel arms sales

Updated 29 May 2025
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Dua Lipa, public figures urge UK to end Israel arms sales

  • Actors, musicians, activists appeal to PM to ‘end Britain’s complicity in horrors in Gaza’

LONDON: Pop star Dua Lipa joined some 300 UK celebrities in signing an open letter on Thursday urging Britain to halt arms sales to Israel, after similar pleas from lawyers and writers.

Actors, musicians, activists, and other public figures wrote the letter calling on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to “end the UK’s complicity in the horrors in Gaza.”

British Albanian pop sensation Dua Lipa has been vocal  about the war in Gaza and last year criticized Israel’s  offensive as a “genocide.”

Other signatories include actors Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton, and Riz Ahmed, as well as musicians Paloma Faith, Annie Lennox, and 
Massive Attack.

“You can’t call it ‘intolerable’ and keep sending arms,” read the letter to Labour leader Starmer, organized by Choose Love, a UK-based humanitarian aid and refugee advocacy charity.

Sports broadcaster Gary Lineker, who stepped down from his role at the BBC after a social media post that contained anti-Semitic imagery, also signed the letter.

Signatories urged the UK to ensure “full humanitarian access across Gaza,” broker an “immediate and permanent ceasefire,” and “immediately suspend” all arms sales to Israel.

“The children of Gaza cannot wait another minute. Prime Minister, what will you choose? Complicity in war 
crimes, or the courage to act?,” the letter continued.

Earlier this month, Starmer slammed Israel’s “egregious” renewed military offensive in Gaza and promised to take “further concrete actions” if it did not stop — without detailing what the actions could be.

Last September, the UK government suspended 30 out of 350 arms export licenses to Israel, saying there was a “clear risk” they could be used to breach humanitarian law.

Global outrage has grown after Israel ended a ceasefire in March and stepped up military operations this month, killing thousands of people in a span of two months, according to figures by the Health Ministry.

The humanitarian situation has also sparked alarm and fears of starvation after a two-month blockade on aid entering the devastated territory.
Over 800 UK lawyers, including Supreme Court justices, and some 380 British and Irish writers warned of Israel committing a “genocide” in Gaza in open letters this week.

Israel’s military offensive launched in response to the October 2023 attack has killed 54,084, mostly civilians, in Gaza according to its health ministry, displaced nearly the entire population and ravaged swaths of the besieged strip.