The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs - November/December 2023 - Vol. XLII No. 7 by American Educational Trust

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PALESTINIANS CELEBRATE CULTURE AND RESILIENCE IN PHILADELPHIA

DISPLAY UNTIL 12/25/2023

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TELLING THE TRUTH SINCE 1982

On Middle East Affairs Volume XLII, No. 7

November/December 2023

INTERPRETING THE MIDDLE EAST FOR NORTH AMERICANS ✮ INTERPRETING NORTH AMERICA FOR THE MIDDLE EAST

THE U.S. ROLE IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE ISRAELI OCCUPATION OF PALESTINE

Operation Al-Aqsa Flood Changes Everything —Seven Views —Ramzy Baroud, Gideon Levy, Ali Abunimah, Tareq Hajjaj, Mohammed R. Mhawesh, David Rovics, Dale Sprusansky

Jewish Settlers Stole My House. It’s Not My Fault They’re Jewish—Mohammed El-Kurd

24 27

32 34 41

No Light Between the U.S. and Israel’s Wartime Policies—Julia Pitner U.N. Leaders Speak Out Against Siege—Ian Williams The Oslo Accords Killed Palestinian Dreams For Independence—Three Views —Farah Najjar, Miko Peled, Yara Hawari

Laughing and Crying in Gaza—Alice Rothchild

Hospitals and Patients are Underserved in the Gaza Strip—Asma Abu Amra

SPECIAL REPORTS

21 28 30

“Beautiful Resistance” Creates Opportunities for Children in Aida Refugee Camp—Jenny Jacoby Update on My Hearing in the Settler Attack Case —Cassandra Dixon ADL’s Campaign to Silence Criticism of Israel by Calling it “Anti-Semitism”—Allan C. Brownfeld

36 48 51

Palestine Writes Literature Festival: A Celebration of Culture and Resilience—Ida Audeh How the “City of Poets” Turned into a Mass Grave Uniting Libyans in Grief—Mustafa Fetouri MP Argues Canada Must Do More to Aid Vulnerable Afghans—Candice Bodnaruk

ON THE COVER: Palestinians leave their homes in the al-Karama neighborhood of Gaza City on Oct. 11, 2023,

as Israel intensified its bombardment and declared an air-tight blockade of Gaza. (See pp. 8-17.) PHOTO BY MAHMUD HAMS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

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(A Supplement to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs available by subscription at $15 per year. To subscribe, call toll-free 1-888-881-5861.)

Other Voices Israel’s Netanyahu at U.N. Wipes Palestinians Off the Map, Menaces Iran With “Credible Nuclear Threat,” Juan Cole, www.juancole.com

Compiled by Janet McMahon

Four Tombs Dating Back 2,000 Years Were Discovered at a Roman-Era Cemetery in the Gaza Strip, Maram Humaid, www.aljazeera.com

OV-9

Israeli Weapons Industry’s Bottom Line: Ethnic Cleansing, Editorial, Haaretz

OV-10

“In Derna, Death is Everywhere”: Palestinian Mission to Libya, Ayman Nobani, www.aljazeera.com

OV-11

Do not Forget the People Of the Atlas Mountains, Kadija Bouyzourn, www.aljazeera.com

OV-12

From Rif to Atlas: Youth-led NGO Crosses Morocco to Support Rural Tribes, Bianca Carrera, www.aljazeera.com

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The French Government Wants To “Save” Muslim Women by Controlling Them, Hemh Jamal, www.aljazeera.com

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From Dearborn to the NFL: Robert Saleh’s Meteoric Rise, Stephen Starr, www.aljazeera.com

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Jordan Can’t Afford to Pay for Israel’s Problems, Matthew Petti, www.responsiblestatecraft.org OV-2 “60 Minutes” Says Israeli Pilots Who Kill Palestinian Children Are “Moral” Defenders Of “Democracy,” Philip Weiss, mondoweiss.net OV-3 Palestinian Boy Discovers Undercover Israeli Forces, They Kill Him: DCIP, Al Jazeera Staff, www.aljazeera.com

OV-4

For Israel’s Arabs, the Time for Civil Disobedience Is Now, Sami Abou Shehadeh, Haaretz

OV-5

How Britain Broke International Law to Stop Palestinian Independence 100 Years Ago, Shawan Jabarin and Ralph Wilde, mondoweiss.net

OV-5

10 Years After Obama’s Embarrassing “Red line” Retreat, Daniel Larison, www.responsiblestatecraft.org Ghosts of the Past: For Israel, War on UNESCO is an Existential Battle, Ramzy Baroud, ramzybaroud.net

DEPARTMENTS 5 PUBLISHERS’ PAGE 6 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 54 HUMAN RIGHTS: Facing Palestine’s Silent Killer: The Fight Against Diabetes 55 WAGING PEACE: Debating Normalization With Assad 61 MUSLIM AMERICAN ACTIVISM: Lawsuit Filed to End Terrorism Watchlist 64 MIDDLE EAST BOOKS REVIEW

MIDDLE EAST—CARTOONS 72 OTHER PEOPLE’S MAIL 74 2023 AET CHOIR OF ANGELS 73 INDEX TO ADVERTISERS

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71 THE WORLD LOOKS AT THE

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American Educational Trust

Publishers’ Page

An Unscheduled War

STAFF PHOTO PHIL PASQUINI

the U.S. needs to take a new posture, one that recognizes The Washington Report’s staff the events of this Fall are the plans weddings, funerals and direct result of years of onevacations around a rigid magasided, unequivocal support for zine schedule, coordinated a Israel. Peace is only possible if year in advance with our history, facts and international printer. Hamas did not consult law are neutrally interpreted our production schedule when and enforced. We must contheir armed Gazan fighters tinue to urge our government to poured past the heavily fortified move in this direction. border into Israel to launch “Operation al-Aqsa Flood.” We Shine a Spotlight have quickly put together inforProtesters outside the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco, CA at one of mative views to provide the Chris McGreal, a reporter from context and perspective badly the worldwide “All Out for Palestine” rallies, on Oct. 8, 2023. The Guardian, tweeted that Comissing in North America, belumbia University had barred Greenlighting War Crimes cause as Ian Williams writes on p. 34, “the reporters from pro-Palestinian protests on media and politicians are looking at the campus in order to maintain “safety and Calls for Israeli restraint have been miniwhole thing through blue and white sense of community.” He said, “This is mal. President Joe Biden and Secretary of lenses.” We also postponed articles that pretty astonishing, particularly given that State Antony Blinken spent the first days were ready to roll, including general interColumbia has one of the best-known jourfollowing the violence offering repeated, est stories by We Are Not Numbers renalism schools in the country.” It didn’t take unequivocal support for Israel. Members of porters on the ground in Gaza (see p. 24long for Columbia to change their mind and Congress, including some progressives, 27), who may or may not be alive. say that they will now let the press on did likewise. Washington has sent an aircampus. They specifically mentioned the craft carrier to the region and an emerThe Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza tweet and asked McGreal to update it. gency weapons shipment to Israel. Much Clearly, they were embarrassed by the atmore military aid is likely on the way. LeadThe Hamas-led offensive caught Israel tention. This is an example of what one ers across Europe have also voiced uncritshockingly off-guard, as fighters briefly person can do to make a difference. Write ical support for Israel and some suspended took over many Israeli communities near your local newspapers, contact your lawaid to Palestinian non-profits. France and the Gaza border. More than 1,300 Israelis makers (federal and local), the White Germany announced a ban on protests in have been pronounced dead—a staggerHouse and State Department to urge support of Palestine. Ukrainian President ing total considering how few Israelis typpeace and justice, not more violence (for Volodymyr Zelenskyy has voiced strong ically perish in flare-ups with Hamas. The contact information and excellent examsolidarity with Israel, completely overlookscale of deaths in Israel has predictably ples see pp. 72-73). ing the obvious struggle against occupation prompted the openly racist Israeli governboth Ukrainians and Palestinians share. ment to announce its intention to enact Bookstore Renovation “revenge” against Gaza. Israeli airstrikes Lessons Not Learned? have killed more than 1,500 Palestinians, Demolition is underway as Middle East including more than 320 children. As we Books and More awaits city approval for our Israel has compared the Hamas operation go to press on Oct. 13, Israel has just debookstore expansion and renovation plans to 9/11. Just two years ago, the U.S. finally manded that half of Gaza’s 2.3 million but we encourage both online and in-store withdrew from Afghanistan, 20 years after residents evacuate their homes in the shoppers to show solidarity and visit! A huge the 9/11 attacks. Despite the lives and treanorth. The southern Rafah border with shipment of Palestinian pottery from Hebron sure wasted in Afghanistan, the country reEgypt remains closed after Israeli bombvia Jerusalem made it out before the Holy mains under Taliban rule. Yet, Israel thinks ings. Where are the civilians to go? This Land broke apart. We also need your doit can now “eliminate Hamas.” Worse yet, comes amid a “complete” illegal siege, as nations to hire more staff for the bookstore Washington is supporting this goal, ignorIsrael has cut off electricity, water, fuel, and magazine. The information wars have ing the lesson it should have learned from food and medicine to Gaza. While just escalated in a major way, and it’s more Afghanistan: you cannot use bullets to Gazans have seen many wars over the essential than ever that we share the news defeat an ideology. In this case, the ideolpast decades, there is wide agreement and context missing from mainstream reogy is Palestinian liberation. Bombs and that this is by far the worst—and many porting. With your help, we can… troops cannot rid Gazans of their desire to fear an effort to ethnically cleanse the terbe free. Instead of supporting and funding ritory may be under way. Israel’s 75-year assault on Palestinians, Make a Difference Today! NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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Executive Editor: DELINDA C. HANLEY Managing Editor: DALE SPRUSANSKY Contributing Editors: JULIA PITNER

IDA AUDEH

Other Voices Editor: JANET McMAHON Middle East Books and More Director: NATHANIEL BAILEY Finance & Admin. Dir.: CHARLES R. CARTER Art Director: RALPH UWE SCHERER Founding Publisher: ANDREW I. KILLGORE

(1919-2016)

Founding Exec. Editor: RICHARD H. CURTISS

(1927-2013)

Board of Directors: HENRIETTA FANNER

JANET McMAHON JANE KILLGORE

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (ISSN 87554917) is published 7 times a year, monthly except Jan./Feb., March/April, June/July, Aug./Sept. and Nov./Dec. combined, at 1902 18th St., NW, Washington, DC 20009-1707. Tel. (202) 939-6050. Subscription prices (United States and possessions): one year, $29; two years, $55; three years, $75. For Canadian and Mexican subscriptions, $35 per year; for other foreign subscriptions, $70 per year. Periodicals, postage paid at Washington, DC and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, P.O. Box 292380, Kettering, OH 45429. Published by the American Educational Trust (AET), a nonprofit foundation incorporated in Washington, DC by retired U.S. foreign service officers to provide the American public with balanced and accurate information concerning U.S. relations with Middle Eastern states. AET’s Foreign Policy Committee has included former U.S. ambassadors, government officials, and members of Congress, including the late Democratic Sen. J. William Fulbright and Republican Sen. Charles Percy, both former chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Members of AET’s Board of Directors and advisory committees receive no fees for their services. The new Board of Advisers includes: Anisa Mehdi, John Gareeb, Dr. Najat Khelil Arafat, William Lightfoot, George W. Aldridge and Susan Abulhawa. The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs does not take partisan domestic political positions. As a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli dispute, it endorses U.N. Security Council Resolution 242’s land-for-peace formula, supported by nine successive U.S. presidents. In general, it supports Middle East solutions which it judges to be consistent with the charter of the United Nations and traditional American support for human rights, self-determination, and fair play. Material from the Washington Report may be reprinted without charge with attribution to Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Bylined material must also be attributed to the author. This release does not apply to photographs, cartoons or reprints from other publications. Indexed by ProQuest, Gale, Ebsco Information Services, InfoTrac, LexisNexis, Public Affairs Information Service, Index to Jewish Periodicals, Ethnic News Watch, Periodica Islamica. CONTACT INFORMATION: Washington Report on Middle East Affairs Editorial Office and Bookstore: 1902 18th St. NW, Washington, DC 20009-9062 Phone: (202) 939-6050 • (800) 368-5788 Fax: (202) 265-4574 E-mail: wrmea@wrmea.org • bookstore@wrmea.org circulation@wrmea.org advertising@wrmea.org • donations@wrmea.org Web sites: http://www.wrmea.org http://www.middleeastbooks.com Subscriptions, sample copies and donations: P.O. Box 292380, Kettering, OH 45429 Phone: (800) 607-4410 • Fax: (937)-890-0221 Printed in the USA

LetterstotheEditor ISRAEL’S “NEW” WAR Once again, we watch in horror at the senseless loss of Israeli and Palestinian lives on our TV screens. And once again, the Palestinians are called the “terrorists” and the Israelis are labeled the “victims,” when in actuality these labels should be reversed. The Palestinians have been under a brutal military occupation for years. Palestinian children have been indiscriminately kidnapped out of their homes. Palestinian homes and complete villages have been demolished and Israel has been annexing Palestine’s land for decades. So, should anyone be surprised at the eruption of violence in the Holy Land? Hell no! So, who’s at fault? I’d say the Israeli government is for committing all the previously stated atrocities. They have thumbed their nose at countless U.N. resolutions. They have thumbed their nose at human rights organizations around the world—even inside Israel—that have determined Israel is an apartheid state. They continue to murder Palestinians with impunity. The media in the United States is at fault for their one-sided, pro-Israel biased reporting. The vast majority of the reporters say this is a “surprise attack.” It’s no surprise. Anyone living under these conditions would react in the exact same way. But above all, it’s the U.S. government’s fault for their blank check, both politically and financially, in support of the apartheid government in Israel. Most of our elected officials have traded both Palestinian and Israeli lives for campaign contributions for years. I know many Palestinian people. They don’t want to support terrorists, but they don’t want to be terrorized, which they have been for more than 70 years. Today, Netanyahu says “We are at war,” but the truth is, Israel has been at war against the Palestinian people ever since 1948. Bob Horner, Orlando, FL

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

THE HISTORY OF TERRORISM IN ISRAEL If anything is clear as a result of the horrible terrorist attack upon civilians in Israel by Hamas and the Israeli response, largely against civilians in Gaza, it is the need for a Palestinian state. Israel has occupied the West Bank in violation of international law for more than 50 years and the government of Binyamin Netanyahu now speaks of annexing it and expelling as many Palestinians as possible. Israel calls itself a democracy, yet millions of Palestinians have no right to vote or civil rights. Sadly, Israel is a theocracy with no religious freedom for non-Orthodox Jews. Reform and Conservative rabbis cannot perform weddings, conduct funerals or have their conversions recognized. Beyond this, Zionism itself has a long history of terrorism. At the time of Israel’s creation, massacres of Palestinians were conducted in many Palestinian villages such as Deir Yassin, Lydda and Tantura to cause Palestinians to flee. Privately, Zionist leaders admitted that they were engaging in a form of ethnic cleansing. David Ben-Gurion told Nahum Goldmann, the Zionist leader, “Why would the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader, I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural....There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: We have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?” Jewish moral and ethical values have been rejected by those who wield power in Israel at the present time. Those Jewish voices who warned the world about where Zionism would lead—Judah Magnes, Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt and a host of others—are now seen as prophetic. What is needed now is the creation of a Palestinian state which can live peacefully with the state of Israel. Unfortunately, Hamas and those who support it is a form of terrorism reminiscent of the early Zionists. Its goal is not democracy and religious freedom for all, but someNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

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thing far different, as we can see by viewing developments in Iran, which supports and finances Hamas. Allan C. Brownfeld, Alexandria, VA

HORRIFIC ACCOUNTS OF ISRAELI VIOLENCE The current right-wing extremist government under Binyamin Netanyahu is allowing for thousands of new settlements by Zionist settlers upon land promised to the Palestinians for their sovereign state. The intention is clear—while they have the power, this government intends to complete the effort begun by David BenGurion: a Greater Israel that is free of Palestinians. I have friends who live in, and have also visited, the occupied territories as witnesses for Palestinian villages on the daily attacks, violence and humiliations they suffer. A scientist friend recently told me of deciding to board a bus reserved for Jewish settlers along with young Palestinian students, emulating U.S. Freedom Riders in the 1960s. The bus was stopped at a checkpoint and all of the Palestinians were carried off the bus and beaten by soldiers. They were taken to the headquarters and placed in a barbed-wire pen, without bathroom facilities and without water. As they talked, a 19-year-old soldier pointed his rifle at them, telling them to shut up. My friend engaged the soldier and the soldier agreed to ask his commander if they could use the bathroom facilities inside. The commander said my friend could do so, but not the young students. When my friend refused to have a privilege denied to his students, the commander relented. My other friend lived in a Palestinian village where she suffered physical attacks by Jewish settlers, was shot at with live ammunition by IDF troops and hit with a rubber bullet. She documented midnight raids of homes, the spraying of a noxious substance on village streets and roads, the destruction of crops, the stealing of a house from a villager and the arrest of children. Another friend who is now dead was aboard the USS Liberty when Israeli air force and naval units repeatedly attacked it. A torpedo punctured the hull near him, and despite a permanently crippled leg, he crawled along the ceiling pipes as his NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

KEEP THOSE CARDS AND LETTERS COMING! Send your letters to the editor to the Washington Report, P.O. Box 53062, Washington, DC 20009 or e-mail <letters@wrmea.org>. room filled up with water. For the rest of his life I knew him to be permanently scarred, physically and mentally by what he endured at the hands of Israel. It is time to re-assess our relationship with Israel, as many Americans, including Jewish-Americans, are doing. If we cannot demand equal rights for all Israelis and protection for the Palestinians under their iron fist, how can we criticize any other nation that engages in such criminal behavior? The basic truth is this: if we protect the Palestinians we will save the Israelis from their worst selves, helping them to truly become a democracy, and saving them from a future in which it will be impossible for them to continue being a safe haven as a Jewish state. Dan Callaghan, New Port Richey, FL

REMEMBERING CHEF RAMZI CHOUEIRI I was terribly dismayed to learn in your October issue that Chef Ramzi Choueiri died of a sudden heart attack in mid-June. During my twoyear assignment in Lebanon, he quickly became one of my all-time favorite people. I was in awe of the self-help educational and technical training organization, Al-Kafa’at, that his parents established and set about getting funded so that he and his sister Myriam and their colleagues could create a prosthetics training program. It came into fruition several months after I left Lebanon and retired from the foreign service. Chef Ramzi

was simply a national treasure who devoted much of his life to preparing disadvantaged young adults for careers in the culinary arts and food services. I truly admired his commitment to their empowerment and enjoyed an occasional lunch that they had prepared. It was very thoughtful of you to alert Washington Report readers to his legacy accomplishments as a renowned Middle East gastronomist, chef, author, teacher, television personality and administrator. George Aldridge, Bissen, Luxembourg ■

OTHER VOICES is an optional 16-page supplement available only to subscribers of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. For an additional $15 per year (see postcard insert for Washington Report subscription rates), subscribers will receive Other Voices inside each issue of their Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Back issues of both publications are available. To subscribe, telephone (800) 607-4410, e-mail <circulation@wrmea. org>, or write to P.O. Box 292380, Kettering, OH 45429.

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Seven Views

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Operation Al-Aqsa Flood Changes Everything

Palestinians celebrate their return after crossing the border fence with Israel from Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, 2023. Barrages of rockets were fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip at dawn as militants from the blockaded Palestinian enclave infiltrated Israel.

A Day to Remember: How “Al-Aqsa Flood” Altered the Relationship Between Palestine and Israel Forever By Ramzy Baroud REGARDLESS OF the precise strategy of the Palestinian group Hamas, or any other Palestinian movement for that matter, the

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the editor of The Pales‐ tine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co‐edited with Ilan Pappé, is Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak Out. Baroud is a non‐resident senior research fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is <www.ramzybaroud.net>. 8

daring Palestinian military campaign, deep inside Israel, on Saturday, October 7, was only possible because Palestinians are simply fed up. Seventeen years ago, Israel imposed a hermetic siege on the Gaza Strip. The story of the siege is often presented in two starkly different interpretations. For some, it is an inhumane act of “collective punishment”; for others, it is a necessary evil so that Israel may protect itself from so-called Palestinian terrorism. Largely missing from the story, however, is that 17 years are long enough for a whole generation to grow up under siege, enlist in the resistance and fight for its freedom. According to Save The Children, nearly half of the 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza today are children. This fact is often infused to delineate the suffering of a popula-

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tion that has never stepped outside the tiny, impoverished Strip of 365 square km, approximately 141 square miles. But again, numbers, though may seem precise, are often employed to tell a small part of a complex story. This Gaza generation, which either grew up or was born after the imposition of the siege, experienced at least five major, devastating wars, of which children, like them, along with their mothers, fathers and siblings, were the main targets, victims. “If you surround your enemy completely, give them no chance to escape, offer them no quarter, then they will fight to the last,” wrote Sun Tzu in The Art of War. Yet, year after year, this is precisely what Israel has done. This strategy proved to be a major strategic miscalculation. Even the mere attempt at protesting the injustice of the siege, by gathering in large numbers at the Gaza separation barrier, separating besieged Gaza from Israel, was not permitted. The mass protests, known as the Great March of Return, were answered with Israeli sniper bullets. Scenes of youngsters, carrying other bleeding youth, shouting “God is Great,” became a regular scene at the fence. As the casualty count increased, the media interest in the story simply faded with time. The hundreds of fighters who crossed into Israel through four different entry points at dawn, on Oct. 7, were these same young Palestinians who knew nothing but war, siege and the need to protect one another. They also learned how to survive, despite the lack of everything in Gaza, including clean water and proper medical care. This is where the story of this generation intersects with that of Hamas, or the Islamic Jihad and any other Palestinian group. Yes, Hamas chose the timing and the nature of its military campaign to fit into a very precise strategy. This strategy, however, would have not been possible if Israel did not leave these young Palestinians with no other option but to fight back. Videos circulating on social media showed Palestinian fighters yelling in Arabic, with that distinct, often harsh sounding Gaza accent, “this is for my brother,” “this is for my son.” They shouted these and many other angry statements as they fired, among panic-stricken Israeli settlers and soldiers. The latter, on many occasions, had abandoned their positions and run away. The psychological impact of this war will most certainly exceed that of October 1973, when Arab armies made quick gains against Israel, also following a surprise attack. This time, the devastating impact on the collective Israeli thinking will prove to be a game-changer, since the “war” involves a single Palestinian group, not a whole army, or three. The October 2023 surprise attack, however, is directly linked to the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war. By choosing the 50th anniversary of what Arabs consider a great triumph against Israel, Palestinian resistance wanted to send a clear message: the cause of Palestine remains still the cause of all Arabs. In fact, all statements made by top Hamas military commanders and political leaders were loaded with such symbolism and other references to Arab countries and peoples. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

This pan-Arab discourse was not haphazard and was delineated in statements made by the Commander of Al-Qassam Brigades, Mohammed Deif, founding commander of Al-Qassam, Saleh al-Arouri, Head of Hamas’ Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, and Abu Obeida, the Brigades’ famous masked spokesman. They all urged unity and insisted that Palestine is but a component of a larger Arab, Islamic struggle for justice, dignity and collective honor. The group called its campaign “al-Aqsa Flood,” thus, again, recentering Palestinian, Arab and Muslim unity around al-Quds, Jerusalem and all its holy places. Everyone seemed shocked, including Israel itself, not by the Hamas attack per se, but by the great coordination and daring of the massive, never-seen-before, operation. So, instead of attacking at night, the resistance attacked at dawn. Instead of striking at Israel using the many tunnels under Gaza, they simply drove there, parachuted, arrived by sea, and in many cases, walked across the border. The element of surprise became even more baffling when Palestinian fighters challenged the very fundamentals of guerrilla warfare: Instead of fighting a “war of maneuver,” they, however temporarily, fought a “war of position,” thus holding for many hours on the areas they gained inside Israel. Indeed, for the Gaza groups, the psychological warfare was as critical as the physical fighting. Hundreds of videos and images beamed through every social media channel, as if hoping to redefine the relationship between Palestinians, the usual victim, and Israel, the military occupier. Regardless of how many Palestinians Israel kills, and will kill, in retaliation, although tragic, it will hardly salvage the tattered image of an undisciplined army, a divided society and a political leadership that is solely focused on its own survival. It is too early to reach sweeping conclusions regarding the outcomes of this unprecedented war. But what is crystal clear is that the fundamental relationship between the Israeli occupation and occupied Palestinians after October 7, 2023, is likely to be altered, and permanently so.

Israel Can’t Imprison 2 Million Gazans Without Paying a Cruel Price By Gideon Levy BEHIND ALL THIS lies Israeli arrogance; the idea that we can do whatever we like, that we’ll never pay the price and be punished for it. We’ll carry on undisturbed. We’ll arrest, kill, harass, dispossess and protect the settlers busy with their pogroms. We’ll visit Joseph’s Tomb, Othniel’s Tomb and Joshua’s Altar in the Palestinian territories, and of

Gideon Levy is an Israeli journalist and author. This article was first published in Haaretz, on Oct. 9, 2023. © Haaretz. Reprinted with permission.

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Palestinians evacuate their neighborhood in Gaza City on Oct. 11, 2023, as raging battles between Israel and the Hamas movement continued for the fifth consecutive day. Medical supplies, including oxygen, were running low at Gaza's overwhelmed Al‐Shifa hospital as the death toll from five days of ferocious fighting between Hamas and Israel continued to rise. course the Temple Mount—over 5,000 Jews on Sukkot, on Oct. 3, alone. We’ll fire at innocent people, take out people’s eyes and smash their faces, expel, confiscate, rob, grab people from their beds, carry out ethnic cleansing and of course continue with the unbelievable siege of the Gaza Strip, and everything will be all right. We’ll build a terrifying obstacle around Gaza—the underground wall alone cost 3 billion shekels ($765 million)—and we’ll be safe. We’ll rely on the geniuses of the army’s 8200 cyber-intelligence unit and on the Shin Bet security service agents who know everything. They’ll warn us in time. We’ll transfer half an army from the Gaza border to the Hawara border in the West Bank, only to protect far-right lawmaker Zvi Sukkot and the settlers. And everything will be all right, both in Hawara and at the Erez crossing into Gaza. It turns out that even the world’s most sophisticated and expensive obstacle can be breached with a smoky old bulldozer when the motivation is great. This arrogant barrier can be crossed by bicycle and moped despite the billions poured into it and all the famous experts and fat-cat contractors. The Gaza Palestinians are willing to pay any price for a moment of freedom. Will Israel learn its lesson? No. We thought we’d continue to go down to Gaza, scatter a few crumbs in the form of tens of thousands of Israeli work permits—always contingent on good behavior—and still keep them in prison. We’ll make peace with Saudi Arabia and the United 10

Arab Emirates and the Palestinians will be forgotten until they’re erased, as quite a few Israelis would like. We’ll keep holding thousands of Palestinian prisoners, sometimes without trial, most of them political prisoners. And we won’t agree to discuss their release even after they’ve been in prison for decades. We’ll tell them that only by force will their prisoners see freedom. We thought we would arrogantly keep rejecting any attempt at a diplomatic solution, only because we don’t want to deal with all that, and everything would continue that way forever. Once again it was proved that this isn’t how it is. A few hundred armed Palestinians breached the barrier and invaded Israel in a way no Israeli imagined was possible. A few hundred people proved that it’s impossible to imprison 2 million people forever without paying a cruel price. Just as the smoky old Palestinian bulldozer tore through the world’s smartest barrier Oct. 7, it tore away at Israel’s arrogance and complacency. And that’s also how it tore away at the idea that it’s enough to occasionally attack Gaza with suicide drones—and sell them to half the world—to maintain security. On Oct. 7, Israel saw pictures it has never seen before. Palestinian vehicles patrolling its cities, bike riders entering through the Gaza gates. These pictures tear away at that arrogance. The Gaza Palestinians have decided they’re willing to pay any price for a moment of freedom. Is there any hope in that? No. Will Israel learn its lesson? No.

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Biden’s claim that he had seen photos of Israeli children beheaded by Hamas fighters is false. “l’ve been doing this a long time. I never really thought that I would see, have confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children,” Biden said to leaders of U.S. Jewish organizations at the White House on October 11. The president was echoing lurid claims by the Israeli government that women and children had been beheaded by Hamas fighters who took over an Israeli settlement across the boundary from Gaza in recent days. But the administration quickly backtracked on the president’s seeming confirmation of a story Israel has been using to justify its ongoing mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. “A White House spokesperson later clarified that U.S. officials and the president have not seen pictures or confirmed such reports independently,” The Washington Post reported. “The president based his comments about the alleged atrocities on the claims from Netanyahu’s spokesman and media reports from Israel, according to the White House.”

JOURNALISTS SPREAD UNVERIFIED CLAIMS

Israeli Police spokesperson Dean Elsdunne speaks to journalists in Sderot, Israel on Oct. 11, 2023.The Israeli military and political leadership have been feeding world leaders and media with shocking claims that have not been independently verified. On Oct. 7 they were already talking about wiping out entire neighborhoods in Gaza, about occupying the Strip and punishing Gaza “as it has never been punished before.” But Israel hasn’t stopped punishing Gaza since 1948, not for a moment. After 75 years of abuse, the worse possible scenario awaits it once again. The threats of “flattening Gaza” prove only one thing: We haven’t learned a thing. The arrogance is here to stay, even though Israel is paying a high price once again. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu bears a very great responsibility for what happened, and he must pay the price, but it didn’t start with him and it won’t end after he goes. We now have to cry bitterly for the Israeli victims, but we should also cry for Gaza. Gaza, most of whose residents are refugees created by Israel. Gaza, which has never known a single day of freedom.

As Israel pursues its indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza, it is exploiting unverified claims of atrocities to lay the justification for its campaign of mass destruction and starvation of its 2.3 million people—half of them children—who are cut off from food, water and electricity. In the absence of a full, independent investigation of what took place since Hamas fighters launched their offensive across the boundary on Oct. 7, the Israeli military and political leadership have been feeding world leaders and media with shocking claims that have not been independently verified. The claims that Hamas fighters had beheaded 40 children in the Israeli settlement of Kfar Aza near the Gaza boundary were splashed all over the front pages of British newspapers, Israeli media and circulated widely on social media. It was amplified by a spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister

Palestinian‐American journalist Ali Abunimah is the co‐creator and editor of the Electronic Intifada Web site, which published this article on Oct. 12, 2023. (Advertisement)

Biden Lied About Seeing Photos of Beheaded Israeli Children By Ali Abunimah THE WHITE HOUSE confirmed on the evening of Oct. 11 that President Joe NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Binyamin Netanyahu, who asserted that women, children, toddlers and elderly people were “brutally butchered in an ISIS way of action.” However even the Israeli army—normally not slow to accuse Palestinians of any crime—refused to confirm the report. According to Mondoweiss, the story “can be traced back to an article by Bel Trew,” a reporter for the British newspaper The Independent. Trew went to Kfar Aza on Oct. 10 and published a video with her article in which Israeli army Major David Ben Zion makes the lurid claim that people in the settlement including women and children were beheaded. Trew never says in the video that she saw such sights nor does she challenge Ben Zion’s claim. She says she saw bodies lying around Kfar Aza, but they were those of Palestinian fighters. In her article she quotes Ben Zion asserting that “When Hamas came here they cut the heads of women, they cut the heads of children.” Trew wrote that “The Independent did not see evidence of his claims.” A man carrying his dog as he leaves a bombed area following overnight Israeli airstrikes in Oren Ziv, an Israeli journalist who went Gaza City on Oct. 11, 2023, the fifth day of continuing battles between Israel and the Hamas to Kfar Aza with other reporters, wrote on movement. Twitter that “we didn’t see any evidence” son, the former Middle East director for Human Rights Watch, to back up the claims of beheadings “and the army spokesperwarned, “unless you’ve got some hard facts (not more allegason or commanders also didn’t mention any such incidents.” tions) to support gruesome allegations of decapitated babies Trew herself later tried to backtrack, but by then the damage and mass rape—which [the] Israeli army says it can’t confirm— was done. please take a pause from asserting it has happened.” Other atrocity stories with no evidence behind them have in“Recall the allegations of mass rape in Libya and Syria all cluded claims that Hamas fighters raped several Israeli women. turned out to be false, though that did not stop media from reAt least one publication, the Los Angeles Times, retracted the peating it,” Whitson, who now heads the human rights advocacy assertion. But despite the lack of evidence, as The Intercept group DAWN, added. noted, Biden in remarks on Oct. 10 repeated the claims that women had been “raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies.” It should be recalled that the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, ending and destroying millions of lives, based on lies about “weapons of mass destruction”—lies that then Senator Joe Biden had himself pushed for years. By Tareq Hajjaj In an earlier notorious incident used by the United States government to justify its 1991 war to expel Iraqi occupation forces I PACK SOME of my clothes, identifying documents, belongings, from Kuwait, the American public were fed totally fabricated stoand batteries to charge my phone and stay connected to the situries of Iraqi troops tossing hundreds of Kuwaiti babies out of ination around me. My family and I are evacuating our home in the cubators. al-Shuja’iyya neighborhood east of Gaza. I definitely need a larger Biden himself is a notoriously unreliable source, having regubag to fit my life into it. larly fabricated significant parts of his own life story. During the In the afternoon of the second day of the attack, the Israeli 2020 election campaign, Biden repeatedly claimed that he had army sent a message to my eldest brother—we all live in the been arrested in the 1970s while trying to visit Nelson Mandela, Tareq Hajjaj is the Mondoweiss Gaza correspondent, and a member the resistance leader then imprisoned in apartheid South Africa. of the Palestinian Writers Union. He studied English Literature at Al‐ Biden later acknowledged the story was false. Azhar University.This letter from Gaza City was first published on Mondoweiss on Oct. 10, 2023. Reprinted with permission. As the latest atrocity stories have spread, Sarah Leah Whit-

Palestine Letter: Israel is Imposing a Blackout on Gaza to Hide a Massacre

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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A man carries a propane gas cylinder on his back while walking through debris and destruction littering a street in the Jabalia camp for Palestinian refugees in Gaza City on Oct. 11, 2023, on the fifth day of battles between the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and Israel. same building—telling him that he must evacuate the building and head to the center of Gaza City. I live on the ground floor. My elderly mother, who is blind, lives with me and my wife alongside our 9-month-old boy, who has already witnessed two Israeli wars in his short life. “We need to evacuate right now while we have time,” my brother Hani tells me. “If night falls and we’re still here, we’ll be in danger.” I try to tell him that we should stay—I think no place in Gaza is safe from Israel’s warplanes. But we’re both right. I make dozens of calls to people to find an apartment for my family, but I don’t want to go to another residential tower—I have already reported on how many of them are the first sites to go in an Israeli airstrike. Everyone I call tells me that if I manage to find somewhere safe, I should take them with me too. Everyone’s desperate for somewhere, anywhere safe. I put my suitcase in the car and help my mother into the backseat. We’re going to my father-in-law’s house, which is in the western part of al-Shuja’iyya. As the bombardment of the neighborhood continues, we make our way west. Smoke rises up behind us, filling the air and plunging us into darkness. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

All around us, it looks like another Nakba. People are carrying bags on their backs, fastening furniture on top of cars, and fleeing on foot in every direction. They don’t know if they will even be able to return to find their homes intact. Neither do I. Before I left, I stood in the middle of my home and said goodbye to every corner and every stone. Slowly, the smoke begins to clear, giving way to light. We can tell we’ve moved away from the area from the smell of it. Yet in these circumstances, I’m considered lucky. I’ve been able to find a place for my family. Thousands of people in Gaza do not have this option. They go to UNRWA schools, which are not equipped to house so many people. They don’t even have anywhere to use the bathroom or the shower. My father-in-law, who is a journalist and a retired director in the Information Ministry, knows the circumstances of my work. He prepared an office for me to keep working. I go online and continue to follow the news. But sometimes I wish that I don’t have to. The first thing I see is a video of a woman in al-Shifa’ hospital—the main hospital in Gaza City. She is wearing a white coat, which means she is a doctor or nurse. She is running out of the hospital, raising her two hands in the air, her fingers drawing the “victory” sign as she cries. I later learn that she was a doctor who had gone into a dying patient’s room, only to realize that he was her husband—he died while she had been treating other patients. The shock of it all pushed her to run out of the hospital, crying and screaming in front of dozens of cameras. “My husband was killed, my husband was killed, my husband was killed,” she repeats, V sign still in the air. The next video I watch is so horrific that I can’t look away. A man in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza searches beneath the rubble of his home for his family. He is holding severed body parts—part of a child’s head, some fingers and other bits of flesh mutilated beyond recognition. “This is my family,” the man opens his hand, showing the parts he collects. “This is what remains of my children. I can’t find any more of them.” He is screaming. We’re only at the beginning of one of the most protracted and brutal wars in Gaza’s history. I dread the upcoming days. This might be our time to leave this world, torn apart in a random Israeli airstrike. The next day, electricity, internet and water are all cut off. I start to feel that, step by step, we’re being cut off from the outside world, until it doesn’t exist. Israel wants to intentionally cause a blackout so that we can’t report on the massacres it’s committing in Gaza. They’re preparing for something huge, and without a way of telling the world, no one will know until it’s too late.

Why Bomb Schools? Gaza Families Have No Safe Space By Mohammed R. Mhawesh

JAMAL AL ZINATI is in a state of shock and disbelief. The 33year-old is a perfume dealer, but today, it’s the stench of death and

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humanitarian catastrophe. The blockade means the Gaza Strip is dependent on Israel for supplies of food, fuel, medicines and electricity. Now, Israel has said it will cut even those essential supplies—a decision that under international law could constitute a war crime. Already, basic necessities are in short supply. “We barely have enough food to feed our children,” says Zainab Matar, a mother of four. “Clean drinking water is a luxury, and we can’t keep our children warm at night because we lack proper clothing.” Schools are no longer safe spaces, either. According to UNRWA, at least four schools in Gaza have suffered damage from Israeli bombing. “We thought coming to the school would protect us, but even here, we live in constant fear,” Zainab says. It’s a fear that’s visible and palpable across the Gaza Strip—in the eyes of mothers and fathers, Palestinian rescuers walk amidst the rubble of a UNRWA school in Gaza City, which children and grandparents. A fear that even was destroyed overnight in an Israeli airstrike on Oct. 8, 2023. schools are no longer immune to. Aseel, another displaced resident, is scared, too. “We can’t destruction that’s overpowering—in his neighborhood and all of the understand why schools, where innocent people are seeking Gaza Strip. refuge, are being bombed,” she says. Jamal is sheltering in a classroom of a school run by UNRWA—the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East—after his entire neighborhood was blown up by Israeli missiles. As the war between Israel and Hamas rages for a fourth By David Rovics straight day, once-vibrant neighborhoods in central Gaza City now lie in ruins. Amid the unrelenting explosions, thousands of THE UPRISING BEGAN on the anniversary of another one, which people have been left with no choice but to seek shelter in overhad become a revolution. The occupying power had had informants crowded public spaces and schools, hoping for relative safety. In throughout the ghetto, but despite their extensive networks of suraddition to Israel’s air-tight blockade, the destruction wrought by veillance and control, they were completely blindsided when the the bombing has further shrunk the space available for them to uprising began. Those who did rise up did so primarily with ingelive, to survive, to breathe. nuity and homemade weapons, but they compensated as best they Entire families find themselves homeless, their neighborhoods could for what they lacked in resources with bravery and brilliant flattened. Across the Gaza Strip, plumes of smoke haze the skyline. planning. “When we ran out the door, all we thought was Israel probably They had no resources because they were refugees, living in would just threaten us to leave, to push fear in our hearts,” a walled ghetto. They had come from all around, forced at gunJamal says. “I did not believe they would air strike the whole point to leave their homes in other places, before ending up in area and leave it in black ruins.” the walled ghetto, where the occupying power kept them in a That includes his home, a place he recalls as filled with happy half-starved state, not allowing imports of food, medicine or memories that meant “everything” to his family. “It’s where we basic construction materials. lived happily, celebrated birthdays and built dreams.” When the people rose up, the extent of their organization, im“Now, it’s nothing but rubble,” he whispers, tears welling up in peccable planning, and intention to die fighting became clear, as his eyes. “We fled to a nearby school for safety, but we are they succeeded in surprising and killing dozens of soldiers crammed in here with hundreds of others. There’s no space, among the occupiers. They even at one point broke through the and our children cry themselves to sleep every night.” walls of their ghetto, and brought the ghetto uprising beyond the Yet even in the schools where the people of Gaza are taking ghetto, shocking the occupier with their accomplishments. shelter, their lives are marked with deprivation amid a looming The occupier, who operated under a general principle that one life of an occupation soldier was worth the lives of at least 100 of

The Gaza Ghetto Uprising

Mohammed R. Mhawesh is a Palestinian writer and journalist, based in Gaza City, and a chapter contributor to the book A Land With A People. This article was published by Aljazeera on Oct. 10. Reprinted with permission. 14

David Rovics is a frequently‐touring singer/songwriter and political pundit based out of Portland, Oregon. His website is davidrovics.com. This article was first published in CounterPunch Oct. 9, 2023.

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last time they had a real election in the occupied territories of the the occupied, set about to raze the ghetto by fire. Over the West Bank and Gaza, Hamas won by a landslide. That’s why course of four weeks, they completely destroyed every building they haven’t had another election since then, and that’s why in the ghetto. With nowhere else to go beyond the walls, the vast Hamas is in control of Gaza today. They would have been in majority of the residents of the ghetto died there. power in the West Bank as well, to the extent Palestinians can I am, of course, talking about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in have any power at all under the circumstances, but Fatah anthe spring of 1943, when the Jewish Fighting Organization forced nulled the election results, because they lost. With Israel’s active the German army to take troops away from the front line in the assistance, Fatah tried to overthrow Hamas in Gaza by sending war with the USSR that they were losing, in order to deal with this in their armed loyalists, and this coup attempt failed miserably. group of half-starved civilians and their homemade weapons. 3) Physically fighting back against an occupying army, according Living in the “West,” consuming what passes for mainstream to international law that all the countries in the world have signed media in the West, it would be almost as hard to understand the on to long ago, is justified, and is not “terrorism.” You’d have to be motives and methods of the Jewish Fighting Organization in very lucky to tune in during one of the very brief moments when in1943 by reading Nazi propaganda as it would be to understand ternational law might ever be mentioned in one of these Western Hamas today through the Western media’s distorted lens. news stories about this uprising. International law is only apparWe can start with where they start the narrative. Very preently relevant when it comes to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or dictably, because their narratives always start the same way, it other incidents where it seems convenient to mention. always begins with “Hamas launched an attack.” 4) Gaza is under a brutal occupation. It would seem comIf half-starving people with no clean water or the ability to pletely ridiculous to mention this, as it’s abundantly obvious. But travel outside of their ghetto launch any kind of uprising, the obsomehow or other this is not so much the case in the Western vious context is the fact that they were under siege, living in a media, which tends to give inordinate amounts of time to Israeli walled ghetto, prevented from importing the things they need to politicians and American and British diplomats who love to talk survive and prevented from traveling. This is the obvious reason about how the Israeli settlements in Gaza were evacuated a for any people living in such conditions to rise up against their long time ago. The implication here being that now the people in occupying power. But instead, we are fed a narrative that begins Gaza have nothing to complain about. Just don’t mention the with the ghetto uprising, without any explanation for the basic siege, the lack of ability to travel or import anything, and pretend nature of the situation, that is, that an occupying army is forcing Gaza is some kind of Palestinian “neighborhood,” which is what people to live and starve in a walled ghetto. the Israeli politicians call their illegal, exclusively Jewish settleGiven the completely dishonest state of the Western media ments throughout the ever-shrinking lands of the Palestinians— when it comes to making any sense of anything happening any“neighborhoods.” where in the Middle East (as the British Empire named Western 5) When Ukrainians fight back against their occupying power Asia a long time ago), I thought establishing a few salient facts and launch attacks in parts of Russia, outside of Ukraine, their to help us make sense of what’s going on right now in and around Gaza could be helpful. (Advertisement) 1) Israel is not a democracy. The majority of the people who live under Israeli rule are Palestinian. Of the Palestinians living under Israeli rule, the vast majority of them are in the West Bank or Gaza, and are subject to military “justice,” not civilian courts. Palestinian Medical Relief Society, a grassroots They do not have the right to community-based Palestinian health organization, founded in vote in Israeli elections, although 1979 by Palestinian doctors, needs your support today. every aspect of their lives is controlled by Israel—whether they Visit www.pmrs.ps to see our work in action. live or die, whether their homes are bulldozed or not, whether Visit www.friendsofpmrs.org to support our work and donate. their fields are razed by settlers or they’re allowed to keep farmMail your U.S. Tax-Deductible check to our American Foundation: ing, it’s all up to Israel. When they say Israel is a democracy, Friends of PMRS, Inc they’re lying—blatantly, and daily. PO Box 450554 • Atlanta, GA 31145 2) Hamas is the closest thing to an elected government the For more information call: (404) 441-2702 or e-mail: fabuakel@gmail.com Palestinians have. In fact, the NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

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9) When the Russian military intentionally or accidentally bombs an apartment building, or when Ukrainian air defenses accidentally bomb one of their own apartment complexes, it is immediately called a war crime and a crime against humanity, and denounced by every Western diplomat, wherever they may happen to be at the time. When Israel very intentionally bombs and totally demolishes a high-rise apartment building full of civilians, as they have done on many occasions in the past, we are simply treated to information about the body count on both sides, and whether the dead are civilians, children, combatants, etc., is apparently irrelevant. 10) When the Russian military kills Ukrainian civilians, intentionally or accidentally, we hear about each incident and the dead are often given names, especially if there were any children Pro‐Palestinian and pro‐Israeli protesters rally outside the Israeli consulate in killed. When Israel kills Palestinian children we are informed that they may have been throwing Manhattan, New York City, on Oct. 9, 2023. rocks, or that they were unfortunately living in a high-rise that contained a Hamas office of some kind. And interbravery and ingenuity are openly celebrated in the West, and national law on the subject of the rules of war, and whether it’s they are given massive amounts of military aid. When PalestiniOK to destroy an apartment building full of civilians in order to ans do exactly the same thing under exactly the same kinds of get at one of the so-called terrorists is not discussed. That’s only circumstances, it is their occupier who gets the military aid, not discussed when it comes to Russian attacks on Ukrainians. them—they get called “terrorists” for fighting back. 6) When Netanyahu tells the people within the walled ghetto to “leave now” because he’s going to turn every corner of Gaza into “rubble,” which is what he just said, this is genocide talk. There is nowhere for the people of Gaza to go, other than the closed border with Israel, the closed border with U.S. client dictatorship Egypt, and the Mediterranean Sea. The way he is talkBy Dale Sprusansky ing about Gaza now is remarkably similar to the way Jürgen Stroop talked about turning the Warsaw Ghetto into rubble. MOST AMERICANS KNOW very little about the Middle East. What 7) When Armenians are forced at gunpoint to leave their enlittle they do know mostly comes from their limited and selective clave within Azerbaijan, we hear nothing of the history of Azeri consumption of the news, the mouths of politicians and the serdisplacement, but only of the suffering of the Armenians, which mons of religious leaders. All three of these sources are heavily inis regularly characterized in the Western press as genocide. If fluenced by the efforts of pro-Israel special interest groups. forcibly displacing hundreds of thousands of people from their Operating within this context, activists have made substantial land and making them move into refugee camps is genocide, progress in moving the Palestinian solidarity movement forward then the Palestinians are victims of genocide, and have been in the U.S. over the past decade. Israel is now regularly referred since 1947. You’ll never hear this word seriously used in the to as an apartheid state by mainstream news outlets and human Western press in relation to the suffering of Palestinians, howrights organizations; legislation to protect Palestinians from Isever, unless it’s to accuse Iranian leaders of anti-Semitism for raeli human rights violations has been introduced in Congress; a daring to use the term themselves. “squad” of congresspeople regularly give voice to Palestinian 8) As the United Nations budget for Palestinian refugees to do concerns; the killing of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by Israeli things like eat and have health care and schools for their children soldiers prompted unprecedented official and popular criticisms is continually gutted in order to send more money to Ukraine, Neof Israel; college campuses are filled with intersectional organitanyahu, Biden and others love to complain about Iranian assiszations committed to the Palestinian cause; academic groups tance to Palestinians. Unlike the U.S. or Israel, Iran has not inand churches have adopted resolutions endorsing the Boycott, vaded another country in 2,500 years, but apparently they’re Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement; polls have shown going to start attacking other countries sometime soon, according decreasing support for Israel among Democrats, Independents to Netanyahu and Biden. In the meantime, they’re aiding (democratically-elected and popular) “terrorists” (who are fighting for the Dale Sprusansky is managing editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. freedom of their people to survive) and this is a bad thing!

The Perilous Future of Palestinian Solidarity Activism

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rael, without ever mentioning Palestinians. A Philadelphia and even Christian evangelicals; awareness of the machinations sportswriter was fired for criticizing such a statement issued by of the Israel lobby has spread widely; social media has allowed his city’s 76ers basketball team. The news media has described a new generation to learn directly from Palestinians without the the attack on Israel as being akin to 9/11 and Hamas’ tactics as gatekeeping of the mainstream media; Israel’s current unfiltered mirroring those of ISIS—the implication being that a full-throated government has caused many to finally grasp the anti-Palestin“war on terror” against Gaza is justified. Israel has in turn ian racism that grips far too many Israeli minds; Israelis taking to dropped any pretext that it seeks to warn civilians before an air the street en masse to protest the state of their “democracy” has strike. The bottom line: it’s a downright hostile environment— given rare space to many in the West to openly criticize the Iseven more so than usual—in which to utter a word of sympathy raeli government; The American Israel Public Affairs Committoward Palestinians or nuance regarding Israel. tee’s decision to endorse supporters of Jan. 6 insurrectionists The hard work of activists over the past decade has undoubthas led many to identify pro-Israel advocacy with right-wing exedly reached many Americans and forever changed their pertremism. There was—until early October—a real sense among spective of the “conflict.” However, the news of Hamas’ assault activists and observers that things actually were beginning to has reached far many more people—instantaneously and bruchange on the Western front. tally. “Israel Attacked” is one of the few headlines regarding forTo be clear, the progress has been slow and utterly inadeeign affairs that U.S. newsrooms are willing to devote countless quate for Palestinians suffering the daily barbarity of siege, ochours to (conflicts in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Ethiopia and elsecupation, home demolitions, bombings, night raids, settler where barely register). The media, of course, ignores the conpogroms, land theft, an apartheid wall, checkpoints, indefinite text of the past 75 years to focus solely on the dynamics of the detention, torture, assassination, harassment, second-class citiday: dead, frightened Israelis under siege. Yes, the occasional zenship and exile. The U.S. still sends billions a year to Israel, Palestinian, such as Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, slips onto CNN, but offers it unequivocal international support, has worked tirelessly Jake Tapper, Wolf Blitzer and their Zionist cohorts control the to normalize relations between Israel and Arab capitals and has 24/7 wall-to-wall coverage (although such coverage almost done little to ease—or even acknowledge—the suffering of the never includes reports from Gaza). Even MSNBC’s Ayman MoPalestinian people. Palestinians have every right to be wholly hyeldin, who has witnessed first-hand the indiscriminate viounimpressed with the “progress” made by their Western allies lence Israel inflicts upon Gazans, seemed reluctant to ask tough 75 years into the Nakba. questions to elected U.S. officials or Israeli representatives in That being said, the future for Palestinian advocacy looks the immediate aftermath of the Hamas offensive. Meanwhile, bleak following the latest outbreak of mass violence. One can’t the neoconservative Wall Street Journal led the way in trying to help but wonder if the gains of the past decade have been pin blame for the attack on Iran, priming the U.S. and the world largely lost under the bodies of Hamas and Islamic Jihad’s for all-out war against Tehran. 1,000-plus Israeli victims. In the wake of the attack, politicians, Contemplating the scope of death from even those normally sympathetic to Pales(Advertisement) the river to the sea is enough to make one tinian concerns, have lined up to greenlight nauseous. Observing the mainstream rea full-fledged Israeli assault on Gaza. Even sponse to the ongoing war is enough to the typical pro forma, half-hearted calls for make one weary about the path forward for Israeli restraint have all but disappeared. Palestinian activism. Have the minds and Many European countries have suspended hearts of the public become severely hardaid to humanitarian efforts in the West ened by what they’ve seen (and haven’t Bank and pledged support for Israeli miliseen) on their screens? What is the future tary efforts. New York City Mayor Eric of Palestinian advocacy when our neighAdams insinuated that his constituents who bors, co-workers, leaders, family and support the right of Palestinians to resist Send your story ideas, responses to features and friends have been freshly and overwhelmoccupation and besiegement are terrorists. copy requests (with $5) to: ingly compelled to associate Palestine with There are wide-spread calls for student Capitol Hill Citizen a level of terrorism akin to 9/11? We can groups to be prohibited from hosting Pales1209 National Press Building, only hope that much of the solidarity work tinian solidarity rallies. Civil rights groups Washington, DC 20045 done in recent years endures—and there is have documented a sudden rise in antiEditor: Russell Mokhiber good reason to believe those who have Arab and anti-Muslim bigotry. Disputes rePhone: (202) 656-7660 “seen the light” won’t suddenly turn the garding the right of Palestinians to use vioEmail: switch off on the Palestinian people. But lent resistance have broken out online editor@capitolhillcitizen.com there’s likely a long road ahead. Keeping among activists who typically agree on Find us on the web at: the momentum going will be exponentially Palestinian issues. The White House was www.capitolhillcitizen.com challenging given the tidal wave of unwalit up in Israeli colors on Oct. 9. All major vering support Israel has just received at American sports leagues issued widelythe expense of Palestinians. ■ shared social media posts supporting IsNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

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Jewish Settlers Stole My House. It’s Not My Fault They’re Jewish By Mohammed El-Kurd

Israeli occupation forces stand in front of the Ghawi family home in Sheikh Jarrah which was taken over by Israeli settlers who placed a neon Star of David on top of it in 2009. The photo was taken on June 6, 2021.

WHEN WE WERE GROWING UP in occupied Jerusalem, the people seeking to expel us from our neighborhood were Jewish, and their organizations often had “Jewish” in their name. So were the people who stole our home, scattered our furniture in the

Mohammed El‐Kurd is an internationally acclaimed, award‐ winning poet, writer, journalist and organizer from Jerusalem, occupied Palestine and the cultural editor of Mondoweiss, which published this article on Sept. 26, 2023. This essay was inspired by James Baldwin’s landmark 1967 article, “Negroes Are Anti‐ Semitic Because They’re Anti‐White.” 18

street and burned my baby sister’s crib. The judges banging their gavels in favor of our expulsion were also Jewish, and so were the lawmakers whose laws facilitated and systematized our dispossession. The bureaucrat issuing—and sometimes revoking—our blue ID cards was a Jew, and I especially despised him because a stroke of his pen stood between my father and my father’s greatgreat-grandfather’s city. As for the soldiers who were frisking us to check for those IDs, some of them were Druze, some Muslim, most of them Jewish, and all of them, according to my grand-

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mother, were “godless bastards.” Those who administered the rifles and handcuffs, those who wrote the meticulous and murderous urban plans were—you guessed it. This was no secret. We lived under the rule of the self-proclaimed “Jewish State.” Israeli politicians have exhausted this line, and their international peers nodded along. The army declared itself a Jewish army and marched under what it has called a Jewish flag. Jerusalem city councilmen boasted “tak[ing] house after house” because “the bible says that this country belongs to the Jewish people,” and Knesset members sang similar tunes. These legislators weren’t fringe or farright: the Israeli nation-state law explicitly enshrines “Jewish settlement” as a “national value…to encourage and promote.” Still, though this was no secret, we were instructed to treat it as such, sometimes by our parents, sometimes by wellmeaning solidarity activists. We were instructed to ignore the Star of David on the Israeli flag, and to distinguish Jews from Zionists with surgical precision. It didn’t matter that their boots were on our necks, and that their bullets and batons bruised us. Our statelessness and homelessness were trivial. What mattered was how we spoke about our keepers, not the conditions they kept us under—blockaded, surrounded by colonies and military outposts—or the fact that they kept us at all. Language was more of a minefield than the border between Syria and the occupied Golan Heights, and we, children at the time, were expected to hop around them, hoping we don’t accidentally step on an explosive trope that would discredit us. Using the “wrong words” had the magical ability to make things disappear; the boots, bullets, batons and bruises all become invisible if you say anything in jest or in fury. Even more dangerously, believing in “the wrong things” rendered you deserving of this brutality. Citizenship and the right to movement weren’t the sole privileges robbed from us, simple ignorance was a luxury as well. As Palestinians, we understand from a NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

young age that the semantic violence we practice with our words dwarfs the decades of systemic and material violence enacted against us by the self-proclaimed Jewish State. A drone is one thing, but a trope—a trope is unacceptable. We learn to internalize the muzzle. So, I heeded these calls—what else is a 10-year-old supposed to do?—and I learned about Hitler and the Holocaust, I learned about the nose stereotype, the poisoned wells, the bankers, the vampires, the snakes and the lizards (I just found out about the octopus), and I learned that, when speaking to diplomats visiting our zoo of a neighborhood, the settlers squatting in our home must be the secondary point of my presentation, second to an effusive denunciation of global anti-Semitism. And when my 80something grandmother addressed those foreign visitors, I corrected her mid-sentence whenever she described the Jewish settlers in our house as, well, Jewish. A decade and some years later and not much has changed. The boot remains there; so are the bullets and batons (and I would be remiss not to mention the innovative genius of the AI-powered robot firearms recently added to the Jewish State’s arsenal). The government titles its project in the Galilee as “the Judaization of the Galilee,” and its quasi-institutions do the same. As for the council members that promised to take “house after house,” alongside their success in stealing houses, in Sheikh Jarrah, the Old City, Silwan, and elsewhere, they routinely march in our towns with megaphones and flags, chanting “we want Nakba now.” The judges still bang their gavels to ensure the continuation of this Nakba; still rule in favor of Jewish supremacy. And, despite disagreeing with the Supreme Court on various things, parliamentarians legislate in accordance with that supremacist attitude. Some openly state the fact that Jewish life is simply “more important than [our] freedom” (and sometimes they’re even nice enough to apologize to Arab TV presenters as they deliver them these hard truths).

A decade and some years later, the status quo remains as is. And we—how my heart breaks for us—we continue dancing among the land mines. We continue betting on morality and humanity, as they bet on their guns. A few weeks ago, 16 Israeli police officers turned off their body cameras and branded, as in physically etched, the Star of David into the cheek of 22-yearold Orwa Sheikh Ali, a young man they arrested from the Shufat refugee camp [See p. 18 of the October Washington Report]. Also a few weeks ago, MEMRI, a media watch group co-founded by a former Israeli military intelligence officer, released footage of Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas stating that Europeans “fought [the Jews] because of their social role” and “usury,” and “not because of their religion.” In response, a group of renowned Palestinian intellectuals, many of whom I admire and respect, published an open letter “unequivocally condemn[ing]”— guess what?—Abbas’ “morally and politically reprehensible comments.” One could call their joint statement a “strategic” move to negate the belief that Palestinians are born bigoted. Others may say it represents what having a “consistent moral code” looks like. I’m certain some signatories believe our so-called moral authority makes it incumbent upon us to deplore historical revisionism “vis-avis the Holocaust” and to lead by example in rejecting all forms of racism, no matter how rhetorical. Whatever it is, when I read it, I felt a sense of deja vu. Here we are, caught in a discursive crisis once more, hastily responding to crimes we haven’t committed. The strategy of defending ourselves against the baseless charge of anti-Semitism has historically brought us closer to it. And, more than that, such an impulse inadvertently elevates the history of Jewish suffering, which is certainly studied, if not honored, above our presentday suffering, a suffering that is denied and disputed.

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

While the signatories of the letter, some who’ve criticized the PA since before I was born, did decry the “PA’s increasingly authoritarian and draconian rule,” and while they made note of the “Western and proIsrael forces” supporting Abbas’ expired presidential mandate, neither of those things served as the catalyst for what appears to be the first joint statement condemning Mahmoud Abbas. The letter didn’t spell out his collaboration with the Zionist regime as its headline, nor his brutalization of protesters and political prisoners, let alone the murder of Nizar Banat. The catalyst here was words. Mere words. And it always is. Again, a drone is one thing, but a trope is off-limits. Ironically, both the joint letter and Abbas’ speech sought to distance themselves from anti-Semitism. Toward the end of the clip, Abbas wanted to “clarify” that he said what he said regarding “the Jews of Europe hav[ing] nothing to do with Semitism” because we ought to “know who we should accuse of being our enemy.” What a burdensome impulse. Not only do we live in fear of displacement at the hands of a colonialism that professes itself as Jewish, not only are our people bombarded by an army that marches under what it claims is the Jewish flag, and not only do Israeli politicians over enunciate the Jewishness of their operations, we are told to disregard the Star of David soaring on their flag—the Star of David they carve into our skin. This impulse is decades, if not a century, old. In his handwritten transcript of a speech he gave in Cairo, on October 1948, Palestinian scholar Khalil Sakakini struck through a fragment of a sentence that read “…the fighting between Arabs and Jews,” to replace it with “the fighting between us and the invaders.” Palestinian academics, the Institute for Palestine Studies, and the PLO’s Palestine Research Center (which was looted and bombed repeatedly in 1980s) have dedicated articles, books and volumes for the study of anti-Semitism, its European roots, and its manifestations—European 20

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The author, Mohammed el‐Kurd, reunites with his sister Muna after they were released by authorities who had arrested Muna in a morning home raid and summoned Mohammed for questioning earlier in the day, in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, on June 6, 2021. or otherwise—and its conflation with antiZionism. The Palestinian people have consistently made it crystal clear that our enemy is the colonialist and racist ideology of Zionism, not Jews. Our capacity to produce such distinction is admirable and impressive, considering the heavy-handedness with which Zionism attempts to synonymize itself with Judaism. However, this distinction isn’t our responsibility, and personally, it isn’t my priority. A Palestinian’s perceived resentment doesn’t have the backing of a Knesset to codify it into law. Tropes aren’t drones, nor can one convert conspiracy theories into nuclear weapons. We are past the early 1900s. Things are different, power has shifted. Words are not murder. In the days between the 16 soldiers branding a man’s face with the Star of David and the release of the joint letter, an Israeli soldier killed a disabled teenager near a military checkpoint in Qalqilya; another shot a child in the head in Silwan; a young man previously shot in an Israeli raid of the Balata refugee camp died of his injuries; a sniper shot a Palestinian youth in the head in Beita; a 17year-old was shot and killed south of

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Jenin; one more young man succumbed to his wounds following an invasion of the refugee camp; families of Palestinians whose corpses are held by the occupation authorities marched with empty caskets in Nablus; a soldier killed a man near Hebron; police executed a 14-year-old boy in Sheikh Jarrah to the applause of hundreds of settlers; the police then teargassed his family in Beit Hanina; a Palestinian was killed after ramming Israeli soldiers in Beit Sira, killing one; in the north of Jericho, a Palestinian man was killed and a soldier was injured in a gunfire exchange; a soldier shot a man in the head in Tubas, killing him—and this is only the very tip of the iceberg. Which of these caused a far-reaching debate? None. There was a lot of noise concerning Itamar Ben-Gvir stating that Jewish life is “more important than [Palestinian] freedom” on television, a lot less noise about the carving of the Star of David, and, of course, Mahmoud Abbas received the noisiest reaction of all. (This is true in general, not just in the case of the open letter.) All three of those examples deal with aesthetics. Ben-Gvir’s statements were facContinued on page 47 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

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Special Report

PHOTO COURTESY ALROWWAD COMMUNITY CENTER

“Beautiful Resistance” Creates Opportunities For Children in Aida Refugee Camp By Jenny Jacoby

A young girl practices shooting a photo during a student program held at Alrowwad Community Center. WHAT DO YOU WANT to be when you grow up? Accustomed to hearing children say a doctor, an astronaut or a teacher, Abdelfattah Abusrour knew there was a real problem when some of the children in the West Bank’s Aida refugee camp answered, “to die.” “If a child who is eight years old tells you that, we have failed on every level,” he told the Washington Report. As of Sept. 22 of this year, 47 Palestinian children have been killed, 37 of whom were shot by the Israeli military or settlers, one by a targeted drone strike

Jenny Jacoby was an intern from the 2023 National Council on U.S.‐ Arab Relations' Washington, DC Summer Internship Program. She contributed numerous articles during her 10‐week program as a Washington Report Helen Thomas summer intern. Jacoby is editor‐ in‐chief of The Miami Hurricane and a Singer Scholar at the Univer‐ sity of Miami, FL. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

and six children were killed in the May 2023 Israeli military offensive on the Gaza Strip, according to Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP). Abusrour has spent the past 25 years trying to change this, promoting what he calls “Beautiful Resistance” throughout Palestine. “Beautiful Resistance was a way to celebrate life, to save lives, to inspire hope and to give children and young people possibilities to express themselves in the most beautiful, creative and nonarmed ways,” he said. In response to the “ugliness of occupation,” his life mission is to spread the accessibility of arts to children, and now even adults, in the hopes of presenting them with hope and inspiration for a better future. Beginning in 1998, Abusrour and some of his friends began to promote the idea of Beautiful Resistance with the creation of the

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

PHOTO COURTESY ALROWWAD COMMUNITY CENTER

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Students perform a dance on stage at the Alrowwad theater building. Alrowwad theater group, which was heavily inspired by the impact theater had on Abusrour’s childhood. “I believe theater is one of the most amazing, powerful and civilized ways to express yourself, to shout as loud as you want,” he said. At the time, several groups were dedicated to performing for children, but Abusrour thought the opposite would have more impact. “I wanted the children to lead. I wanted the children to be on stage. I want the children to be the stars and those who are applauded,” he said. Their work went mobile, with pop-up performances throughout the community and a traveling cinema that projects films onto outdoor spaces, including on the illegally built Israeli separation wall. In 2005, as funding and support grew, Alrowwad Community Center came into existence and has been expanding ever since. “Alrowwad changes a lot of things for the children. When it welcomes 6,000 children per year, it’s really wonderful, it’s a space for them,” Motassem Abu-Shaira, a dancer and trainer at Alrowwad Cultural and Arts Society, said in a previously recorded testimony. Originally a theater house to practice and perform the arts, Alrowwad now has multiple locations that house a profes22

sional kitchen, classrooms, a women’s gym, library and a computer center. With its growing presence in the community, Alrowwad employs 22 people and is stepping into new roles. For example, during COVID-19, volunteers and employees printed out worksheets for children to be sent home when school was canceled and cooked and distributed more than 11,500 meals to people throughout the area. “This is not a business. This is not a project. It’s a life mission,” Abusrour said. “And if money comes or doesn’t come, we will continue to work.” Abusrour’s commitment to Beautiful Resistance is inspired, in large part, by his own experiences as a child. Born in Aida Camp as the youngest of 14 children to parents made refugees by the Nakba, Abusrour was always told that violence was not the answer. “My parents were refugees and uprooted from their village, but they taught us even with a just cause, we will lose part of our humanity if we think the only way forward is to carry a gun.” Instead, he found himself in touch with writing, photography and painting. His appreciation for the arts, particularly theater, deepened when he moved to France to attend college. “It was a way to tell people who I am,” he said.

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

After nine years abroad, Abusrour returned to Palestine, led by his faith and hope of making a difference, leaving most practical applications of his biology degree behind. “It’s not acceptable that you see oppression and say ‘I don’t care.’ If your neighbor is hungry and you are well fed, this is not Islam,” he said of his decision to return home. “If you can’t change it by your hand, you will change it by your tongue or by your heart.” His work has since been focused on children and women. Women, he believes, will change the world more than men. Alrowwad has summer camps specifically for women, and on certain activities it partners with the Aida Women’s Center to create an empowering and inclusive space for education and community building. Abusrour’s central focus has always been the children, and his goal is to keep them away from the frontlines of the conflict. On average 500-700 Palestinian children between ages 12 and 17 years are detained and face prosecution in Israel’s courts each year. Sixty percent of arrests occur in night raids, 75 percent experience physical violence and nearly all children are not given a reason for their arrest, nor are they allowed to have a family member present during interrogations. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

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PHOTO COURTESY ALROWWAD COMMUNITY CENTER

Miranda Cleland, an advocacy officer for DCIP, explained these detentions have repercussions long past their sentence length. “We see many children who are detained by the Israeli military, a lot of them end up dropping out of school,” she said. “Being out of school for any amount of time, especially if they were subjected to any physical violence or solitary confinement, has an enormous psychological impact on a child.” The system is also intentionally structured to intimidate children. All trials are conducted in a military court and entirely in Hebrew. “These trials are really not deA group of children play instruments and sing a musical performance under the direction of signed to achieve any semblance of jusAlrowwad employees and volunteers. tice. These are designed to make children feel powerless, like they have (Advertisement) ans in Gaza. It was a day, he no control over their future,” said, he would never forget. “I Cleland said. do not want to die for my counAbusrour believes the arts try, I need to live for my councan help children take control try. My country needs me to back, noting that 95 percent live for it. Because if I am of the students who pass dying, and others are dying, through Alrowwad are not imwho will build it?” prisoned or injured as a result While Abusrour envisions a of the occupation. There, chilworld where everyone is a dren learn to be political in a change-maker and free to exnew way, performing tradipress both their current reality tional dakbe dances or proand their dreams for a future ducing plays about life in with hope, the ongoing atmosPalestine. phere of militarized oppression “The Israeli occupation is puts Alrowwad’s programs at stealing our identity, our culrisk. Maintaining the center ture, our food, our narrative and its programs despite the and denying us our own narraPlaygrounds for Palestine is a project to build playgrounds difficulties is paramount. “We tive,” Abusrour said. By prefor our children. It is a minimal recognition of their right don't have the luxury of deserving and spreading the culto childhood and creative expression. It is an act of love. spair,” Abusrour said. “When ture that Israeli forces have Playgrounds for Palestine (PfP) is a registered 501(c)3 nonpeople say we need a miracle, tried to expunge, his students profit organization, established in 2001. We’re an all-volunmiracles will not happen alone. have found a new way to stand teer organization (no paid staff) that raises money throughWe need to provoke them to up to the occupation. out the year to construct playgrounds and fund programs for children in Palestine. happen.” It has also given many a Abusrour continues to new perspective, including Selling Organic, Fair Trade Palestinspread the message of BeauAbu-Shaira. In addition to his ian olive oil is PfP’s principle source of fundraising. This year, PfP launched tiful Resistance and develop work at Alrowwad, he volunAIDA, a private label olive oil from Alrowwad. Those interested in teers at a local hospital where Palestinian farmers. Please come by and donating or learning more he had to attend to a child shot taste it at our table. about Abusrour’s work can in the shoulder and left in the We hope you’ll love it and make it a staple in your pantry. visit <www.alrowwad.org/en> street for three hours after a For more information or to make a donation visit: and Friends of Alrowwad USA demonstration in Bethlehem to https://playgroundsforpalestine.org • P.O. Box 559 • Yardley, PA 19067 <www.alrowwadusa.org>/. ■ express support for PalestiniNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

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Special Report By Alice Rothchild

PHOTO COURTESY ALICE ROTHCHILD

Laughing and Crying in Gaza

A cluster of older women sit in canvas beach chairs at the edge of the shore, their feet soaking in the water, at the Bianco Resort. Eight weeks later, Gazans were under attack. THE STUNNING ASSAULT by Hamas reminds us of the underlying realities that have made life unbearable and pushed people beyond their ability to endure what has been described as a slow death. Despite its fully literate, highly educated population, skilled working class and strong business sector, the Gaza Strip is a manmade disaster, a predictable outcome of the 16-year aggressive siege and

Alice Rothchild, author, filmmaker and physician, is focused on human rights and social justice. Her most recent book, Finding Melody Sullivan, is a young adult novel. She writes and lectures widely, authored three books on health and human rights in Israel/Palestine, contributed to a number of anthologies and poetry journals, and directed a documentary, “Voices Across the Divide.” She is the mentor liaison for We Are Not Numbers. Her website is <www.alicerothchild.com>. 24

blockade imposed on it by Israel. The population of 2.3 million Palestinians are increasingly dependent on outside aid and abandoned by the Arab world. The poverty and ramshackle housing are striking; donkeys and horses pull carts, vying for space with cars in various states of disrepair. Fuel is in short supply; some cars run on pressurized natural gas because of the petrol shortage. In the eight densely populated refugee camps and severely crowded urban areas, poverty and death touch nearly everyone. Residents must contend with ever-present drones, repeated Israeli assaults, erratic electricity and salinated water. Farmers talk about the impact of climate change (grapes burning on the vine), repeated bombings, the rising costs of agricultural inputs and lack of access to markets for their strawberries, eggplants, peppers and tomatoes. In some areas, crop yields are reduced because the soil is contaminated with salty water and leaking

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

sewage. Restrictions on “dual use” items severely limit imports of needed materials. In the restricted zones along the Israeli separation barrier, farmers cannot reach their crops without the risk of getting shot; Israeli forces poison the soil with pesticides and flood the fields just before harvest. Since 2008, Palestinians have lost at least 35 percent of the agricultural land in the Gaza Strip to the separation barrier, according to a January 2023 Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor report. The same report estimated that the Israeli blockade cost the agricultural sector $1.3 billion between 2006 and February 2022. Fisherfolk are repeatedly attacked at sea by Israeli gunships that destroy or confiscate their boats and shoot the men with live ammunition. Sometimes they are forced to strip and then pushed into the water and “rescued” by their attackers. The approved nautical miles allowed by Israel for fishing constantly change unannounced. Fisherfolk have drowned or been shot dead; others suffer from bullets still embedded in their arms and legs. Materials required to repair their damaged boats are often not allowed to be imported to the Strip. In rural areas, particularly in the south, women tend to marry young, their husbands are often unemployed, sometimes addicted to tramadol (an opioid), and gender-based violence has risen with the tightening blockade, economic humiliation of men unable to provide for their families, and the isolation of the pandemic. Suicide is on the rise, particularly among the young; Middle East Eye reported in June 2022 that 55 percent of children had contemplated suicide and three out of five children had self-harmed. Fewer than 20 psychiatrists serve all of Gaza, and the social stigma against admitting to mental illness or accepting care is still strong. Civil society organizations such as the Palestine Center for Human Rights and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, continue to document and mount legal challenges and advocate for and support farmers, fisherfolk and women. The Gaza Community Mental Health Program proNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

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Some of the writers from We Are Not Numbers enjoying a room in the restored Arab house Samra Hamam in Gaza City. Today Gazan WAAN writers and other civilians are enduring another round of trauma and tragedy. vides desperately needed care and training for therapists and social workers. Six civil society/human rights organizations faced severe challenges in 2021 when Israel criminalized and attacked the groups, impacting their international funding and ability to function. But somehow, without funding, they persist. These were the realities I documented when I visited Gaza in August 2023. I learned that because 16 Israeli undercover special forces had infiltrated Gaza in November 2018, masquerading as a humanitarian aid organization, Hamas views all outside visitors with suspicion. I had to be careful and transparent about my activities and whereabouts. Another heartbreaking new reality was the evidence of hunger I saw: crowds of skinny, hungry children aggressively begging in the streets, following me, pulling at my clothes, sometimes cursing when I did not respond. This level of outright food deprivation and economic desperation is higher than in the past. In December 2022 the Palestinian NGO Network reported that 68 percent of the population of the Gaza Strip was food insecure. Despair and chronic trauma burden the lives of so many Gazans. I often heard comments like “Israel destroyed our citrus industry. Now they are destroying our fishing.” “They want us as a captive market. There is no future here.” “We are dying slowly and no one hears us.”

WE ARE NOT NUMBERS During that visit, I scheduled a meeting with people working with the Palestinian youth-led mentoring program, We Are Not Numbers (WANN), with serious plans to maximize my educational contribution as a mentor, teacher and published author. The organization was founded in 2015 by the American journalist Pam Bailey, working with a young Gazan, Ahmed Alnaouq, to support writers between the ages of 18 to 30 years learning to tell their own stories. [The Washington Report and other publications are publishing WANN articles. See p. 27.] I was acutely aware that every one of these writers had survived multiple Israeli assaults and lived with a level of fear and uncertainty about the future that is difficult for people living in the United States to conceive. Imagine my astonishment when my ride pulled up and it was a big bus filled with boisterous, eager, sincere WANNers who intended to show me the beauty and history of Gaza City. Forget the writing workshop! Loud Arabic music blasted from the radio, folks sang along, and there was an infectious enthusiasm that immediately altered my mood and my understanding. The first stop was breakfast at Abu Zuhair’s restaurant, a beautiful building next to a mosque where pilgrims once sojourned. The next stop was a tour of the Omari Mosque, a famous Islamic site. Be-

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cause it is in Gaza, it does not get the same amount of attention and visitors as mosques in Jerusalem, Mecca or Medina. The writers had never visited our next location, the 1,160-year-old Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius, an ornate building with immense decorative gold artwork, paintings of various saints and lushly drawn walls and ceiling. An elaborate dark wooden case held the forearm bone of Saint Porphyrius, and the church also contained his grave. We walked through the shimmery gold jewelry district, explored a very old bathhouse with a stone sauna and headed to the Samra Hamam, a charming, two-story classic Arab house, preserved in its original state. Then we wandered around an English cemetery with graves from World War I and II. The same family has taken care of the cemetery for generations, and the current caretaker was happy to engage in a deep conversation about British colonialism (as evidenced by the gravesites) and the current siege. The day ended at a seaside restaurant with views of the Mediterranean, plates piled

with shawarma and fries, and a tsunami of selfies and group pictures. All through the day, the writers and I talked about Gaza, about their essays and their lives. I was repeatedly struck that in the midst of all of this enthusiastic joy, music and song, another track was playing. Conversations began with how thrilled writers were to have a visitor who was deeply involved in the program. I was reminded of an earlier comment when a psychiatrist said that in Gaza, they all live in a prison and celebrate and treasure anyone who enters the prison to see and hear them. Writers wanted to share their stories and poetry, but underlying trauma lurked in our exchanges. “My story is about how I faced death three times…” One young man talked about his flashbacks, the horror of an earlier Israeli aggression, his difficulties sleeping. I was struck by this combination of vibrant youthful enthusiasm mixed with an undercurrent of frustration, pain and yearning for a more hopeful future. I left Gaza understanding that the secret to survival in such a difficult, hopeless place is this commitment to joy, celebration and connection.

On my last night on the Strip I was invited to join newly made friends on the beach at the Bianco Resort, a family-friendly private club with gardens of cactus and succulents, a pool, and ice cream and popcorn shops. As the sky darkened, we joined hundreds of families sitting under cream-colored beach umbrellas in the warm, humid air, a light breeze blowing. Kids were running and playing everywhere; adults relaxed, smoked hookah, nibbled on snacks. A cluster of older women sat in canvas beach chairs at the edge of the shore, their feet soaking in the water. Hundreds of children and young men splashed and dove into the waves, even after the sky went black. It was an ordinary evening, families cooling off and enjoying the pleasures of the seashore. It felt almost normal, except for the row of Israeli warships visible at the horizon and the bright search light reflected across the water from an Israeli town just north of the Strip. Eight weeks later the aggressive Israeli bombing began and once again, Gazan WAAN writers and other civilians faced another round of trauma and tragedy. ■

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Voices From Gaza

Hospitals and Patients are Underserved in The Gaza Strip By Asma Abu Amra THE 16-YEAR SIEGE and blockade of

PHOTO BY ASMA ABU AMRA

Gaza and repeated Israeli assaults on the Strip have taken a toll on the population and on all essential medical services. In the five-day assault in May 2023, Israel bombed areas close to hospitals, resulting in heavy damage to the facilities and causing panic among the patients, especially children. [This article was written before October’s bombardment.] By the end of the assault, 33 Gazans had been martyred and 190 injured. Muhammad Jabr, age 14, and his mother, Amal, were in al-Aqsa Hospital, in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, when a nearby building was hit. Muhammad suffers from fibrosis of the lungs, which causes shortness of breath and requires frequent hospital visits so that he can be hooked up to an oxygen tank. His family can’t afford to have one at home. The Washington Report interviewed Muhammad and Amal at al-Aqsa Hospital recently while Muhammad was undergoing treatment. Amal described hearing “a massive explosion” at about 9:15 p.m. on Monday Muhammad Jabr, age 14, visits al‐Aqsa Hospital in Gaza for treatment. (May 8) while she was at the hospital with Muhammad, which turned out to be the bombing of a nearby four-story residential house. Sajida Abu Al-Rous, 29, knows first-hand the damaging effect Not surprisingly, the explosion brought back unpleasant memof Israel’s blockade on the Gaza Strip. In 2019, she began sufories of other attacks, including the one in 2014. fering from flu symptoms. “For some unknown reason, my jaw They both recall that Muhammad went to the window to see moved out of alignment,” Sajida said. what was happening but then fell from the force of another blast. Doctors advised her not to eat, speak, or move her jaw and to Amal noticed that her son was turning blue; he had stopped stay out of the sun. None of this helped. breathing. She tells the Washington Report that she requires surgery to She carried him and started to search frantically for a funcrealign her jaw. Her doctor wants to transfer her to an Israeli hostioning oxygen tank; the first one she came across was empty. pital for the surgery. On two occasions the Israeli authorities The doctors barely managed to save his life. For three days, he denied her permission to travel for treatment. was too traumatized to eat or even talk to his mother. Sajida speaks with difficulty to the Washington Report. “As a result of the delayed treatment, the pain became excruAsma Abu Amra is a freelance journalist and translator based in ciating, and almost the entire right part of my body has become Gaza. Her writings appear in We Are Not Numbers, Electronic Continued on page 47 Intifada and Palestine Chronicle. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

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Special Report

PHOTO COURTESY C. DIXON

Update on My Hearing in the Settler Attack Case By Cassandra Dixon

Residents of the Palestinian village of Tuba after being assaulted by Israeli settlers in March 2023. The attackers sprayed pepper spray directly into the shepherd's eyes and bit his face. I ATTENDED THE SEPT. 6 hearing in the legal case against the Israeli settler who assaulted me in March 2023 in the Palestinian village of Tuba (see June/July 2023 Washington Report pp. 20-21), but the judge did not issue a verdict. The court sched-

Cassandra Dixon lives in Wisconsin Dells, WI, at a Mary House, which provides hospitality to low‐income families visiting inmates at a nearby federal prison. She works as a residential carpenter in Madison, WI and has done accompaniment and solidarity work in Palestine as a volunteer for the past dozen years. 28

uled another hearing for Nov. 2, during which the settler will testify. During the Sept. 6 hearing at the Israeli District Court in Be’er Sheva, both the prosecution and the lawyer for the settler questioned two of the doctors who cared for me after the assault. Lawyers for the settler refused to accept written hospital reports and documentation, and they insisted on questioning the doctors at length in an attempt to claim that the injury was not serious. It was not easy for these doctors to travel to the hearing in Be’er Sheva because many Palestini-

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ans do not have permits to travel to Israel. The doctors were given six-hour permits to enter, and told they would be arrested if they overstayed that time. They had to leave a car at the checkpoint and travel the remainder of the distance by taxi, at considerable expense. I am grateful to them for their wonderful care when I was injured and for their help in insisting on legal consequences for the settler. The lawyer for the settler also argued that the settler should be released from house arrest in the home of his grandparents. To my knowledge, he has not been. The hearing was held completely in Hebrew. Fairly early in the proceeding, the judge forced the human rights lawyer who was accompanying me to leave the room. As a result I know only what the doctors were able to tell me about their testimony and what the prosecutor told me during a few minutes of conversation after the day-long hearing. The U.S. consulate did not attend the hearing. I am

trying to get a court transcript. Meanwhile in the area of Masafer Yatta, where the assault on me occurred last March, Palestinians continue to confront escalating attacks by settlers, backed up by Israeli soldiers. In one village that I visited last spring, Widade, the violence from settlers has been so relentless and terrifying in these past months that the largest of the village’s three extended family groups has been forced to flee, leaving their home and barns and the livelihood they built over generations. Their sheep have been sold now. Settlers have already arrived to destroy everything that remained, and there is now no hope of them returning to their land. The majority of legal complaints made by Palestinians to the Israeli police against settlers are dismissed before they reach the prosecution stage, and legal consequences for settlers involved in assaults on Palestinians are almost unheard of. At this time, in 2023, Palestinians are

facing violent attacks by Israeli settlers at the rate of 2.8 per day in the occupied West Bank. This unrelenting pressure and violence is forcing families to flee and resulting in the depopulation of Palestinian villages. In addition to attacks on people, settlers continue to burn and slash olive trees; steal sheep and donkeys; vandalize homes, cars and personal belongings; and destroy water wells and crops. The Israeli military and police routinely back up the settlers and refuse to intervene to protect civilians. U.S. taxpayers send Israel $10.4 million per day ($3.8 billion per year) in aid, the majority of which is received by the military, so when these attacks occur, we own a piece of the violence. I hope that in response you will consider this chance to sponsor an olive tree, at a cost of $24 per tree, to be planted in the coming planting season . For more information and to donate to the campaign, please visit <https://tiny. one/MadisonOliveGrove>. ■

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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Israel and Judaism

ADL’s Campaign to Silence Criticism of Israel By Allan C. Brownfeld By Calling it “Anti-Semitism” PHOTO BY MICHAEL BROCHSTEIN/SOPA IMAGES/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES

community is served by such hype.” In an important assessment of the role the ADL is now playing in the campaign to silence criticism of Israel, Eric Alterman, CUNY Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn College and author of the book, We are Not One: A History of America’s Fight Over Israel, published an article in the New Republic on Aug. 21, 2023, titled “What Does the ADL Stand for Today?” He points out that “The far right is the source of the vast majority of anti-Semitism in the U.S. today…The ADL should be saying so more insistently… Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti‐Defamation League, speaks at the ADL’s National Leadership Greenblatt had virtually nothing Summit in Washington, DC on June 4, 2019. to say about the rise of white Christian nationalism, together with its undeniably anti-Semitic ‘replacement theory’ that has mesIN RECENT YEARS, there has been an effort to redefine “antimerized so many MAGA supporters and inspired murderous vioSemitism” to include not simply bigotry toward Jews and Judaism, lence against Jews…and other vulnerable members of the populabut also criticism of Israel and Zionism. In May 2022, Jonathan tion. Instead, he focused his ire on what the ADL calls ‘hostile Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), declared anti-Zionist activist groups’ like Students for Justice in Palestine and that, “Anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.” He argued that groups calling Jewish Voice for Peace, which loudly criticize and protest against for equal rights for Palestinians in Israel are “extremists” and equated Israel on America’s college campuses, calling them ‘the photo inliberal critics of Israel with white supremacists. verse of the extreme right.’” This view has been sharply criticized by many Jewish observers. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s Ron Kampeas noted that In his book The Jewish American Paradox, Harvard Law School Greenblatt ignored the anti-Semitic advertisements that have been Professor Robert Mnookin notes that, “Since World War ll, institufeatured in many Republican campaigns and the fact that more and tionalized anti-Semitism [in the U.S.] has virtually disappeared.” more Republican politicians have been turning up at extremist rightMnookin describes “the alarmist approach by the Jewish advocacy wing gatherings. organizations, especially the ADL,” as “often exaggerated.” He While Greenblatt assaulted alleged “anti-Semitism” on the propoints to the ADL’s approach to the 163 bomb threats to synagogues Palestinian left, the ADL’s own “Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents 2022” in 2017: “Although virtually all of them had been attributed to the disfound that the liberal groups he focused on were responsible for just turbed Jewish teenager in Israel (who has since been indicted), the two percent of the “anti-Semitic” actions to which the ADL objected. ADL included them in its ‘harassment’ statistics for 2017 and insisted Lara Friedman, a Middle East policy analyst and frequent critic of they were evidence of anti-Semitism. By including these threats in the ADL, points out that of these incidents cited, 53 out of 70 were its 2017 report, the ADL was able to claim a dramatic 41 percent attributable to a single marginal group in Ann Arbor, MI. spike in harassment cases in just one year…I don’t think the Jewish The ADL’s overall count of anti-Semitic incidents, Alterman points Allan C. Brownfeld is a syndicated columnist and associate editor of out, “does not allow for crucial distinctions to be made among them. the Lincoln Review, a journal published by the Lincoln Institute for A tragic massacre like that in October 2018 at the Tree of Life SynResearch and Education, and editor of Issues, the quarterly journal agogue in Pittsburgh or the Jews held hostage in a Dallas synaof the American Council for Judaism. 30

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gogue for 11 hours by a gunman last year, are accorded the same statistical significance in the ADL’s counting as, say, a report of graffiti written on a stairwell of a college dorm. In the ADL’s statistics, they both count the same.” The motive for promoting the false idea of mounting anti-Semitism is clear. “A major reason for the ADL’s addiction to alarmism,” writes Alterman, “is the same institutional imperative that drives virtually every other issue-oriented nonprofit: Bad news in the world is good news for the organizations committed to fighting it. Climate change catastrophes fill the coffers of environmental groups. Attacks on choice fill the coffers of Planned Parenthood...” Alterman continues, journalists who write about escalating anti-Semitism “are sufficiently intelligent to understand this phenomenon, but they tend to ignore it when reporting their stories and therefore pass along the ADL’s skewed and self-interested version of the problem as the political equivalent of scripture.” Of course, another motive for focusing on anti-Semitism is to deflect attention from the actions of the Israeli government, soldiers and settlers. Journalists and academics who stray from the ADL’s talking points may find their livelihoods threatened. While the ADL and other Jewish organizations promote the idea that there is growing anti-Semitism on American college and university campuses, there is no evidence that this is true. In 2017 four scholars at Brandeis University conducted an in-depth study at four high-profile campuses and found that, “Jewish students are rarely exposed to anti-Semitism on campus. Jewish students do not think their campus is hostile to Jews. The majority of students disagree that there is a hostile environment to Jews on campus.” Scholars associated with the Jewish Studies program at Stanford University found a similar picture at five California campuses. Some Israelis admit that the equating of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism is a tactic to silence criticism of Israel. Shulamit Aloni, a former Minister of Education and winner of the Israel Prize, describes how this works: “It’s a trick. We always use it. When from Europe, somebody criticizes Israel, we bring up the Holocaust. When, in the United NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

States, people are critical of Israel, then they are anti-Semitic.” In an important book, Whatever Happened to Anti-Semitism?, all of this is examined by Antony Lerman, a British specialist on Jewish affairs who has served as director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research. He is now senior fellow at the Bruno Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue in Vienna. At the core of the so-called “new anti-Semitism,” Lerman points out, “is the claim that Israel is the (persecuted) collective Jew among the nations.” This has no basis in reality: “a state cannot have the attributes of a human being. Second, it is a heretical corruption of Judaism because it entails an idolatrous deification and worship of the state. Third, it is an anti-Semitic construct because it treats being Jewish as a singular: ‘all Jews are the same.’”

Equating anti-Zionism

with anti-Semitism is a tactic to silence criticism. As criticism of Israel’s policies toward Palestinians grow on the part of groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which have characterized it as “apartheid,” Israeli historian Neve Gordon notes that, “The Israeli government needs the ‘new anti-Semitism’ to justify its actions and to protect it from international and domestic condemnation. Anti-Semitism is effectively weaponized, not only to stifle free speech…but also to suppress a politics of liberation.” Joshua Leifer, an editor of Dissent, provided this assessment: “The Israeli government long ago adjusted its public relations strategy for the post-two-state reality…so that today, the Israeli hasbara apparatus’ most active front is the attempted redefinition of anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism, with the goal of rendering any opposition to the occupation or Zionism—or even simply Israeli policies themselves—beyond the pale of mainstream sensibility.” Those who are promoting the idea that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism—whether it is the ADL, the Israeli government, the authors of the IHRA declaration or others—

are either ignorant of the long history of Jewish opposition to Zionism or choose to ignore it. Consider the words of Professor Morris Raphael Cohen in his article, “Zionism: Tribalism or Liberalism?” which appeared in The New Republic in 1919, while the Versailles Conference was debating the nationalistic claims of Europe’s ethnic groups, including those of the Zionists. Cohen, a highly regarded professor of philosophy at New York’s City College, rejected Zionist claims that Jewish assimilation was chimerical and that Judaism and Jewishness could prosper only in a Jewish state and that Palestine should be an exclusively Jewish state. Cohen described the Zionist leaders as “zealous enthusiasts” and Zionism as a “mystic and romantic nationalism” which was “profoundly inimical to liberal or humanistic civilization.” The amelioration of the Jewish condition depended not on any Zionist tribalistic fantasy, Cohen concluded, but on the spread of the liberal values of toleration, individual liberty and reason. Zionism, Cohen further claimed, was profoundly opposed to Americanism. He contrasted the American belief in separation of church and state and in individual freedom with the Zionist belief in the union of religion and state in Zion and in the immutability of group loyalties. “The glory of Palestine is as nothing to the possible glory of America,” Cohen concluded. “If history has any lesson at all it is that never have men accomplished anything great by trying to revive a dead past.” Cohen’s views with regard to Zionism were typical of the New York intellectuals. In the article “Judaism and the New York intellectuals,” published in the Summer 1989 issue of Judaism, Edward S. Shapiro writes: “The cosmopolitan New York Jewish intellectuals rejected Zionism as a solution to the Jewish question. Jewish nationalism, they avowed, was simply too parochial and unrealistic.” The current campaign to silence criticism of Israel by calling it “anti-Semitic” ignores the long history of Jewish opposition to Zionism. It is an assault on free speech and tells us more about the nature of the Israeli government, the ADL, AIPAC and others who are engaged in this enterprise than perhaps they really want us to understand. ■

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Congress Watch

No Light Between the U.S. and Israel’s Wartime Policies By Julia Pitner

PHOTO BY ANNA MONEYMAKER/GETTY IMAGES

been proposed and with the House Foreign Relations Committee since the beginning of the year. H.R. 589, the MAHSA Act, which was introduced on Jan. 27, 2023 by Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) with 128 bipartisan cosponsors, would require property and visa-blocking sanctions on certain foreign persons, individuals and entities affiliated with Iran. It passed by a vote of 410-3. H.R. 3152, the Fight CRIME Act, originally introduced on May 9, by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), with 239 bipartisan cosponsors, imposes sanctions related to Iran’s missile program. It passed by a Members of Congress depart after a vigil for Israel on the steps of the U.S. Capitol Building on Oct. 12, vote of 403-8. And H. Res. 2023 in Washington, DC. As we went to press the leaderless House is trying to speed up the selection of a 492, introduced on June 8 by new speaker to be ready to pass Biden’s supplemental funding to Israel. Rep. Janice Schakowsky (DIL) and 58 bipartisan cosponsors, the “Condemning the Government of fighters launched an operation inside Israel IT HAS BEEN a wild legislative couple of Iran’s state-sponsored persecution of the from Gaza by land, sea and air using 2,000 months in the 118th Congress as election Baha’i minority and its continued violation of rockets as cover. Although Hamas had season is underway, full of its posturing and the International Covenants on Human given several warnings to Israel regarding positioning. The Republican House memRights,” passed by a vote of 413-2. its continued harassment of worshipers at bers were headed to the cliff of a governYet, still having a desire to punish Iran and the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem and ment shutdown. The members barely Biden along with it, Reps. Claudia Tenney (Rduring Israel’s war on Jenin in July, both avoided the plunge at the 11th hour with a NY) and Maria Salazar (R-FL) introduced Israel and the U.S. intelligence agencies 45-day continuing resolution with assisH.R. 5417, while Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) with were caught by surprise. tance from the Democratic House memnine Republican cosponsors introduced its Several Republican presidential candibers. But, a handful of Republican memsister legislation on Sept. 12, “Strengthening dates and legislative members blamed bers pushed their leader, House Speaker Entry Visa Enforcement and Restrictions Act” Biden’s prisoner release deal with Iran and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), over the aka, the “SEVER Act.” They were referred to speculated that Iran was behind the Hamas edge, leaving the House unable to legislate the Committee on the Judiciary in both chamoperation. Punishing Iran was fresh on leguntil a new speaker is elected. bers. The purpose of this bill is to block entry islators’ minds. And then, Operation al-Aqsa Flood hapinto the U.S. of Iranian officials, including for In the weeks after the September release pened, on the 50-year anniversary of the U.N.-related purposes (which directly contraof Americans held by Iran and a congresOct. 6 /Yom Kippur war in 1973. Hamas dicts the U.S. explicit obligations under the sional trip to Israel, the House loaded on Headquarters Agreement that governs the new sanctions, many of which had been on Julia Pitner is a contributing editor of the hosting of the U.N. in New York). AIPAC’s wish list. On Sept. 12, the House Washington Report and director of Another similar bill, H.R. 5550, “Blocking voted to suspend the rules and pass three programs and operations at the Museum of the Entry of Malign Actors Act,” was intropieces of sanctions legislation that had the Palestinian People in Washington, DC. 32

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duced by Reps. Andrew Ogles (R-TN) and Warren Davidson (R-OH) that would require the U.S. to violate the U.N. HQ agreement, “To amend the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1990 and 1991 to expand the president’s authority to deny any individual’s admission to the United States as a representative to the United Nations.” It was referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary. And, just to make sure the message was received, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), together with 20 all-Republican cosponsors introduced H. Res. 739, on Sept. 28, “Disapproving of the waiver of sanctions on Iran submitted to Congress on Sept. 11, 2023.” This was referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. While on Oct. 4 Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), with 14 Republican cosponsors, introduced S. 3028, which is “A bill to continue in effect certain executive orders imposing sanctions with respect to Iran, to prevent the waiver of certain sanctions imposed by the United States with respect to Iran until the government of Iran ceases to attempt to assassinate United States officials, other United States citizens, and Iranian nationals residing in the U.S., and for other purposes,” aka the ‘‘Preventing Underhanded and Nefarious Iranian Supported Homicides Act of 2023.’’ This was referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. This legislation would, in effect, cancel all presidential waiver authority for all Iran sanctions, and impose an across-the-board ban on waiving/removing any sanctions until “30 days after the date on which the president submits to Congress the certification described in section 401(a) of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010.” Even JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security of America) chimed in by releasing a white paper on Sept. 14, calling for a joint U.S.-Israel “redline” and backing it up with verbal and material support for Israel’s freedom of action (aka attacking Iran directly) and suggesting that this approach offers the last best chance to prevent Iran from taking the final few, quick steps over the nuclear threshold, before it is too late.

PRIORITIES SHIFT But for the leaderless House, the Senate and the administration, the priorities and apNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

proaches shifted on Oct. 6 as Israel declared war and prepared to respond militarily to Hamas’ attack inside Israel. As Israel plans a likely ground invasion into Gaza, the Biden administration and leading members of Congress are reportedly crafting an American aid package of roughly $2 billion in supplementary funding to support Israel’s efforts against Hamas. In addition to adding to the $3.8 billion sent annually, this funding would go toward replenishing Israel’s stockpile of interceptors for its Iron Dome missile-defense system, artillery shells and other munitions. It may well provide the Republicans with a rationale for ending that system for Ukraine (which was left out of the Continuing Resolution) and diverting the stockpile to Israel. At the end of September, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), the new chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee announced that he would hold back $235 million in U.S. military financing to Egypt. The move came after the committee’s former chair, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), was forced to step down from the leadership position following his indictment in a New York federal court, where he is alleged to have taken bribes in exchange for using his position to help Egypt’s government. With the Egyptian security officials warning Israel days ahead of a looming attack, according to multiple reports, and now the importance of Egypt’s role in trying to broker a hostage release with Hamas, this hold may be lifted. In their perpetual pursuit to punish the U.N. on behalf of Israel, in July, Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID)—the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee— had placed holds on the State Department from providing the funding, which is desig-

nated for food assistance for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza administered by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). In advance of a government shutdown and UNRWA’s financial situation due to increased food costs and needs for shelter repair and reconstruction, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken overrode a Republican-issued hold on $75 million in food assistance for the Palestinian Territories, hours before the money was set to be forcibly redistributed elsewhere. Of course, he did not realize that the food aid to Gaza would be totally blocked by Israel after Oct. 6. Blinken also approved the visa waiver for Israelis on Sept. 30, over objections of 15 Senators made in a letter to Blinken stating that Israel had failed to uphold the requirements that had been laid out regarding the treatment of Palestinian Americans. But then everything changed. The once emboldened voices for conditioning military aid to Israel have gone silent. The U.S. government is simply driven to supply and fund Israel’s war against Gaza, not just Hamas. As we went to press, the House is trying to speed up the selection of a new speaker to be ready to pass Biden’s supplemental funding to Israel and Israel has formed a unity government in order to more freely wage this war. In addition, the once gleeful preparations for efforts to normalize the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Israel have also gone silent as Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman privately and publicly reiterated Saudi support for the Palestinians’ quest for a just and lasting peace with full rights and dignity. And, as of this writing, things are still changing and morphing after the events of Oct. 6, 2023. ■

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ËÅÅ ä éé¸Ä ǐéé¸Ä ƣËÙ¤ S¾ ¤ ƥ ©ääÖÝƥưưư Ö Ùä© ¬ ƴ£Ù ƣËÙ¤ WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

williams_34-35.qxp_United Nations Report 10/13/23 10:58 AM Page 34

United Nations Report

U.N. Leaders Speak Out Against Siege THESE ARE INDEED TIMES sent to try us—and the U.N. The organization makes repeated recomm e n d a t i o n s — a n d then those who consistently ignore its advice condemn it, before frequently trying to use it as the cherry picker to help them down from the tree that they climbed up. As the Israeli onslaught continued, the U.N. had gone beyond feeding and educating Palestinians to housing them in its schools and other depots, although history and the twelve dead staffers so far suggest that this is a highly qualified safety. The U.N. has also fol- Palestinians take shelter at a school operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in lowed most countries in Gaza City as Israeli airstrikes continue on Oct. 12, 2023. More than 175,500 internally displaced people are seeing a close relationship, sheltering in 88 UNRWA schools across the Gaza Strip. indeed an equivalence, beGhetto, but that is no reason for emulating a West Bank settler mob tween Israeli repression and Hamas’ attacks. on a pogrom by massacring the audience. The eruption/mass-breakout/invasion from Gaza seriously supBut the reality of murders and hostage-takings is no excuse for ports Pontius Pilate’s confused query: “What is truth?” But the febrile horror stories of the kind used to incite lynch mobs. The Israeli Roman was not around to ask the very pertinent question. It should allegations of beheading babies and mass rape reminded me of the be no surprise to see media and politicians looking at the whole public relations-inspired campaign against Saddam Hussain claimthing through blue and white lenses, but after recent patterns of being that his troops emptied babies out of incubators in Kuwait. His havior from Israel and the settlers we could have expected a cosarmy had indeed massacred Kurds and Marsh Arabs, and Iraqi solmetic attempt at objectivity.You do not have to be an apologist for diers had indeed invaded Kuwait, but there is nothing like a juicy Hamas—the brutal wannabe theocrats in Gaza—to suggest some atrocity to prepare the way for bombing civilians. cause and effect between Israel’s policies and this eruption. These allegations of beheadings of Israeli babies and rapes of I do not propose to burn incense on the altar of Israeli victimhood. women ricocheted through the Internet and almost certainly proDropping bombs on apartment blocks in Gaza, allowing, indeed favided cover for pro-Israeli politicians in the EU to threaten cutting off cilitating Ku Klux Klan-style pogroms in the West Bank, regularizing aid to Palestine. The source of those inflammatory news items apcivilian executions of Palestinians, not to mention apartheid and peared to be a report from a Netanyahu-linked TV station based on ethnic cleansing, neither can nor should excuse the mayhem Hamas unsupported statements by an IDF reservist, who, it transpired, was inflicted on civilians. Holding a music festival near the Gaza fence a West Bank settler leader who had inspired the settler pogrom on could be likened to opening a circus within earshot of the Warsaw Huwara in the West Bank (which did not rouse a fraction of the indignation of Kfar Aza kibbutz). U.N. correspondent Ian Williams is the author of UNtold: The When a serious journalist from Turkey finally checked and asked, Real Story of the United Nations in Peace and War (available the IDF could not and would not substantiate the reports of beheadfrom Middle East Books and More). 34

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PHOTO BY ASHRAF AMRA/ANADOLU VIA GETTY IMAGES

By Ian Williams

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ings even though, recognizing a good atrocity story when they saw one, they could not bring themselves to actually deny it. If Pontius Pilate were looking for truth, he would not go here! To add flavor, the settler spokesman also referred to rapes, presumably because if you want to incite a lynch mob, rapes and murdering babies are the way to go. Within a day the cycle of unchecked indignation was complete, and even Biden claimed to have seen pictures of decapitated infants, but under more sustained questioning his office later walked that back and said he had seen news reports. As Abraham Lincoln famously said, presidents should not believe everything they read on the Internet. He was not alone. The reality was bad enough, but the created facts had done their work and the tales had permeated the media miasma enough to occlude the sheer horror and illegality of Israel’s threats against the people of Gaza. The EU Commissioner for neighborhood and enlargement, Olivér Várhelyi, reflecting the pro-Israel (and indeed pro-Russian) leanings of his Hungarian government, declared that the EU was immediately suspending “all payments” to the Palestinians. He was hastily overruled as the EU decided he had acted without legal authority or political backing. Several other EU governments said they were suspending their contributions pending an investigation, but once the hysteria dies down the logic of punishing Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza for what un-elected Hamas does is unconvincing. No matter that Hamas in Gaza gets no such aid and is a bitter enemy of the Palestinian Authority, which does. Reflexive mob action is not the time for analysis or calculation, it is the time for virtue signaling and baying with the pack. To be fair, many of the politicians and less assiduous journalists are so steeped in proIsraeli wishful thinking that they write what they hope for rather than from reality. The Guardian headline “Widespread condemnation across globe for Hamas attack on Israel,” is so inaccurate as to be a distortion. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

Outside Europe and the U.S. there is equally widespread condemnation of Israeli repression and agreement that Israel’s illegal occupation is the root of the problem. It is indeed true that Hamas has few actual proponents but equally few support Israel to the hilt, not least since the blade is so firmly embedded in Palestine. For balance one can look to José Ramos-Horta, president of East Timor, which withstood Indonesian occupation for so many years, who said, “Indiscriminate killing of non combatants, civilians, of women and children— perpetrated by whoever, anywhere—is abhorrent and must be unequivocally condemned.” He added that Hamas’ actions, the “indiscriminate attack, kidnapping, execution of captured civilians gravely diminish the just cause of a viable Palestinian State.” But then he adds what is missing from the Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron pieties, “Prime Minister Netanyahu’s policies of brazen expansion of Israeli colonial settlements in violation of international law and U.N. Security Council (SC) resolutions simmers frustration and anger among the Palestinian people leading to this dramatically worsened crisis.” As he told the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA), “The blatant disregard of UNGA and SC resolutions by Israel, reneging the two-state solution [for Israel and Palestine, living side by side], poses a serious credi-

bility challenge to the UNSC and perpetuates a profound injustice.” In the battle of competing quotes Francesca Albanese, U.N. Special Rapporteur for Palestine, invited EU President Ursula von de Leyen to apply her resounding statement from last year to Israel, “Russia’s attacks against civilian infrastructure, especially electricity, are war crimes. Cutting off men, women, children of water, electricity and heating with winter coming—these are acts of pure terror. And we have to call it as such.” She added sardonically, “I look forward to the same declaration by the president on Israel’s cutting off electricity, water and food in Gaza. If not, people could think that European institutions do not value the protection of Palestinian children, women and men as much as that of Ukrainians.” One might put on the honor roll Volker Türk, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, and even Secretary General António Guterres who have both spoken against an indiscriminate siege and assault on Gaza. “Crucial life-saving supplies, including fuel, food and water must be allowed into Gaza,” Guterres said, “We need rapid and any unimpeded humanitarian access now.” Türk pronounced, “The imposition of sieges that endanger the lives of civilians by depriving them of goods essential for their survival is prohibited under international humanitarian law.” ■

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Palestine Writes Literature Festival: A Celebration of Culture and Resilience By Ida Audeh, Photos by Joe Piette fiant victory of resistance THE MUCH-ANTICIto Zionism—much in line PATED Palestine Writes with the historic resisLiterature Festival, a celtance of the people of ebration of Palestinian Palestine against over cultural heritage, offi75 years of occupation.” cially opened on Sept. By the time the festival 22. More than 1,300 ended on Sept. 24, more people registered for the than 100 speakers had weekend extravaganza taken part in more than held at the University of four dozen panels on a Pennsylvania, crossing range of topics—literary the country (and in output in Palestine and some cases, crossing the diaspora as well as oceans) to attend, prewithin Israeli prisons, sent and be uplifted by solidarity and activism, communion with likestorytelling, films, pubminded others. Attendee lishing and so much comments throughout more. Speakers inand after the festival cluded Palestinians from made it clear that the the parts of Palestine event provided muchExecutive director of Palestine Writes and acclaimed novelist Susan Abulhawa said needed nourishment for the festival’s goal was “to create an inclusive space to talk about a storied place of colonized in 1948 and the soul: Lawyer and an ancient people.” She observed, “We have been surrounded by so much hate, but 1967 as well as the diaspora, domestic allies political analyst Diana in here we were full of so much love.” and partners from AusButtu described the festralia and South Africa. Attendees spanned generations. The tival as “truly magnificent,” especially for someone coming from planners put together a parallel program for children that included Palestine, where everything is designed to erase the Palestinian storytelling, songs and writing graphic novels. presence. In Philadelphia that presence was out in full force— The festival opened with music and poetry and an exuberant creative, dynamic, brilliant, multifaceted and joyous. The event dance by the six-member Freedom Dabke Group from Brooklyn. pulsed with energy and affirmation and pride. On the stage stood a huge puppet of Handala, his back to the In the words of the festival’s executive director, Susan Abulaudience, a tribute to and evocation of the assassinated cartoonhawa: ist Naji al-Ali. Throughout the building, photos were displayed of Palestine Writes aims to celebrate this glorious [multi-religious, pre-Nakba Palestinian life in all its diversity—Palestinians working multi-ethnic and multi-racial] heritage that holds our exiled and the fields, celebrating, chilling with family and friends, having oroccupied society together—rich as it is with distinct dialects, dinary days in which nothing much is happening. A wonderful songs, stories, designs, foods, dance, folklore, customs, agricultouch was the inclusion of the hakawati, the traditional storytellers tural traditions, architecture, memories and artistry in all forms. who entertain and instruct through their stories about historical The planners aimed high and they delivered a fantastic profigures and Palestinian feminism (Bassam Abun-Nadi) as well as gram. In the words of the Workers World correspondent who atfolk tales (Fidaa Ataya, Kavalya Atma Kaus and Hanna Salmon). tended, the festival was “an earthshaking, emotional, unified, deTheir performances ran throughout the program. A 10x30-foot map of pre-Nakba Palestine was placed on the floor in one of the Ida Audeh is a contributing editor of the Washington Report on Mid‐ vendor areas, and people could be seen looking up their ancestral dle East Affairs. 36

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villages. Palestinian embroidery was on display everywhere. That the event took place as scheduled and more or less as planned is itself a testimony to the determination and commitment of the organizers. In the weeks before the festival opening, Philadelphia’s pro-Israel foot soldiers (including the AntiDefamation League and the Jewish Federation) put enormous pressure on the university to cancel the event. (Among the arguments used with the university is that the festival would make Jewish students feel unsafe, a tiresome claim akin to the white supremacist argument that slavery should not be taught because it hurts the feelings of white students.) To her credit, the university president M. Elizabeth Magill did not cancel the festival, but her response did not address the core issue: by prefacing her comments with a rejection of anti-Semitism, she implicitly accepted the Zionist conflation of Palestinian culture with anti-Semitism. Because of (Jewish) community pressure, two speakers were unable to attend in person: musician Roger Waters flew in for the festival but was prohibited from setting foot in the campus; and UK author, professor and journalist Gary Younge found that his two-year visa to the U.S. was inexplicably revoked before he boarded the plane. No word-constrained essay can do justice to the weekend or say something about every panel (many ran concurrently); here we offer a sample of discussions that Washington Report staff were able to attend.

The Freedom Dabke Group from Brooklyn provided a festive opening to the weekend. his awareness of Israel’s support for apartheid South Africa in the 1980s; Nguyen was influenced by Edward Said’s Orientalism and noted that the Association for Asian American Studies was an early endorser of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). Waters recounted how he moved a gig he had accepted from Tel Aviv to Wahat al-Salam when Omar Barghouti contacted him and explained the impetus behind the BDS movement. He has been an impassioned and bold advocate for Palestinian rights ever since. “Palestine and the Global South” explored ways of engaging with others. David Palumbo-Liu (Speaking Out of Place) credited the scholars who opened his eyes to the question of Palestine and why it matters. Lorna Munro, an aboriginal spoken word poet from Australia, described projects in historically Black communities that received medical services from mobile units, an approach inspired

by the work of the U.S. Black Panthers. Marc Lamont Hill, who was famously fired by CNN for using the phrase “from the river to the sea,” described a resurgence in solidarity with Palestine in the last 10 years in the U.S. and Global South, a resurgence he dates to Ferguson. He asserted the need to create spaces outside school to educate people—community centers, bookstores—and to encourage them to think, not about nation building but rather about world building.

STORIES EMBROIDERED IN THOBES AND TOLD ON SCREEN Panels on costume, cinema and television, and farming explored nonliterary expressions of culture. Author of Tatreez and Tea Wafa Ghnaim (“The Language of Our Clothing”) talked about the embroidered thobe as an intimate art form telling a story about the woman who made it and the region she comes from. The cre-

SOLIDARITY FOREVER! Considering that Waters and Younge were denied the right to attend because of their record of solidarity with Palestinians, they were ideally positioned to speak on the panel “The Cost, Reward & Urgency of Friendship,” together with Viet Thanh Nguyen (The Committed) and moderator Rachel Holmes (Sylvia Pankhurst). Asked how they became aware of the Palestinian struggle, Younge (Another Day in the Death of America) described NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

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ativity in the pattern arrangements and color selections is worth close attention for the information it yields about class, status and region of the wearer. Palestinian traditional embroidery was added to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List in 2021. Film director Darin Sallam screened her critically acclaimed debut movie (“Farha”) in the lead-up to the festival, which is based on a true story of a young girl’s experience of the ethnic cleansing of her village in 1948.

AGRICULTURAL HERITAGE Two panels dealt broadly with anti-colonial struggles related to food production and cultural appropriation. One of them, “Seed Stories,” featured Trinity GoombiGuido from the Delaware Nation in Oklahoma, who described some of the initiatives she has been leading as part of a matriarchal group representing five tribal communities. Nadine Fattaleh of the Palestinian Social Fund talked about the

Tom Suárez describes the Zionist movement’s deliberate and calculated use of terrorism. agers, gardeners, farmers and cooks that has shaped the culinary heritage.”

MATTERS OF HISTORY AND WAYS OF REDRESS Tom Suárez, author of the extraordinary Palestine Hijacked, discussed the Zionist movement’s deliberate and calculated use of terrorism in plain sight to achieve

a question from the audience about defense against charges of anti-Semitism leveled at Jews, he advised: if accusers claim that Jewish defenders of Palestinian human rights are anti-Semitic, they are maligning Jewish integrity, which in itself is anti-Semitic and must be denounced. Other panels featured historical sociologist Salim Tamari (Mountain Against the Sea and The Great War and the Remaking of Palestine), who discussed the history of photography and cinema in Palestine; and Ibrahim Abuammar, cofounder of the Institute for Palestinian Memory and Heritage, who gave a slide show on the current condition of Palestinian villages depopulated in 1948. Historians Nur Masalha and Salman Abu Sitta and Visualizing Palestine’s executive director

The panel “Independent Presses & Palestine” featured Aisha Hamed (l), cofounder of the lit‐ erary Fikra magazine; Michel Moushabeck, founder and publisher of Interlink Publishing, which has done much to make translations of Arabic literature available to English readers; and Lana Salah Barkawi, executive director of Mizna. many farming cooperative startups in the occupied territories that are working to sustain their local communities; the goal is to achieve food sovereignty and break the dependence on the occupation. Panelist Gavriel Cutipa-Zorn studies histories of agriculture and surveillance in the 20th century. The session was moderated by Fadi Kattan, a restaurateur who has “a passion for sharing the stories of local for38

its aims. The book looks at a movement’s (and later a state’s) ability to perpetrate anti-Semitism and then accuse others of bigotry. Zionism’s “horrific multifaceted crime[s] in progress” are in full view, and he meticulously describes them with controlled outrage. It is not an easy book to read, and Suárez acknowledged to the Washington Report that it was not an easy book to write, either. In response to

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Salman Abu Sitta, historian, academic and founder of the Palestine Land Society, explains how to reverse the war crime of ethnic cleansing. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

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Identifying a hometown on a map that re‐ tains the names of ethnically cleansed Palestinian towns and villages. Aline Batarseh reported on a new dynamic platform that integrates material culture, oral and written histories, maps and archeology. In the panel “The Right of Return,” Abu Sitta described the practical implementation of the right of return, which he shows is eminently doable. Using the camps of Gaza (“the Stalingrad of Palestine”) as an example, he traced the residents of specific camps to their towns and villages of origin; in most cases the homes have been destroyed but the areas are uninhabited. Young Palestinian architectural students have developed detailed reconstruction plans for destroyed Palestinian villages to house refugees returning to their homes. (See <www.plands.org/en/ home>.) Moderator Diana Buttu aptly summarized the importance of this work: “The Zionist movement imagines crimes. We imagine justice. [Abu Sitta’s] plan puts into place justice to undo the crimes.”

The “Reporting Palestine” panel, (l‐r), Majdi Banura, Al Jazeera cameraman; Dena Takruri, Al Jazeera senior producer and presenter and co‐author of the book about Ahed Tamimi, They Called Me a Lioness; Laila Al‐Arian, executive producer of Al Jazeera’s “Fault Lines” and co‐author of Collateral Damage; Shatha Hanaysha, former journalist with Al Jazeera and now working on a master’s degree at American University of Beirut; and moderator Marc Lamont Hill, host of BET News and the podcast Coffee & Books. Ear) and Heba Hayek (Sambac Beneath Unlikely Skies) with Laura Albast, festival organizer and senior digital editor of Journal of Palestine Studies; Sahar Mustafa (The Beauty of Your Face), Hala Alyan (Salt Houses, The Arsonists’ City), Saleem Haddad (Guapa), Isabella Hammad (The Parisian, Enter Ghost) with educator and translator Alexa Firat. Aboriginal writer Karen Wyld (Where the Fruit Falls; Heroes, Rebels and Innovators), Marguerite Dabaie (serialized comic Legends in the Heights; graphic novel The Hookah Girl: And Other True

Stories), Ali Cobby Eckermann (Little Bit Long Time) in conversation with festival organizer and novelist Susan Muaddi Darraj (A Curious Land). Maurice Ebileeni (Being There, Being Here) with Darraj. Panels paid tribute to the monumental contributions to literature of Ghassan Kanafani and Salma Khadra Jayyusi. Palestinian literature is the best expression of Palestinian resistance and determination to return, said Mahmoud Shukair (Praise for the Women of the Family), one of the “Literature from a Collective Wound” panelists. He knows

CONVERSATIONS ABOUT LITERATURE The literary talent assembled at the festival was truly remarkable. Everywhere the novelists and writers were in conversations: Suad Amiry (Mother of Strangers, about the fall of Jaffa) with Andrew Ross (Stone Men: The Palestinians Who Built Israel). Poet Mosab Abu Toha (Things You May Find Hidden in My NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

“Literature from a Collective Wound” panelists, (l‐r), Huda Fakhreddine, associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania, author, festival organizer and panel moderator; Huzama Habayeb, novelist, poet and author of The Man Who Recurs and Velvet; Ibrahim Nasrallah, repeat winner of the Katara Prize and author of 23 novels and 14 poetry collections; and Mah‐ moud Muna, known as the bookseller of Jerusalem. Mahmoud Shukair, novelist (Praise for the Women of the Family) and one of the best known short story writers in the Arab world, joined the panel virtually. WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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tinely for 9 years). And then he discovered that in writing from prison, he wasn’t escaping from his reality, but rather liberating himself from imprisonment. He discussed other prisoners, including Walid Daqqah, who wrote four novels for young adults in prison. Wisam’s book was translated into English upon request; he believes people in other countries with political interest want to learn from the Palestinian experience, and his aim is to reach “Palestinians in the diaspora and those in solidarity with us.”

AFFIRMATION On the final day of the festival, the volunteers who made the magic happen take to the stage with executive director Susan Abulhawa and master of ceremonies Amer Zahr.

struggles to write about violent situations without reproducing the violence and traumatizing readers. She claims that Palestinians are not people in need, but rather people with rights; “we are not victims, we are survivors.”

EXISTENCE IS RESISTANCE Two panels delved into the cultural production of Palestinian prisoners. In the panel “Smuggled Stories: Novels Written in Prison,” former political prisoner Wisam Rafeedie described how he became a writer: He received a request from young people who were interested in his experiences (which included working clandes-

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something about resistance, having been deported by Israel and living 18 years in exile. So does Mahmoud Muna, owner of the Educational Bookshop in Jerusalem, who worried that the books he needed to send to the festival would not arrive in time, so he decided to bring them himself and accompanied them through inspection. When asked about the label “committed literature,” novelist Ibrahim Nasrallah (Prairies of Fever) replied that “commitment to the Palestinian cause is a commitment to humanism and justice” and that the definition has been expanded since the 1970s beyond the heroic freedom fighter to include people who are relatable. Shukair asserted that resistance must be redefined and widened to include global issues. Huzama Habayeb (Velvet) opined that literature by definition is a committed literature and that the study of literature provides a compass for humanity. It was a treat to be able to listen to two dynamic poets, Maya Abu al-Hayat (You Can Be the Last Leaf) and Lena Khalaf Tuffaha (Kaan and Her Sisters) discussing the issues faced by poets and reading Maya’s work in English and Arabic. Maya acknowledged that she has worked to develop her own voice and that she is conscious of not wanting to prove anything to anyone. In her view, she is a better novelist than she is a poet and she

The festival closed with acknowledgment of and gratitude for the dozens of volunteers who put together a brilliant program that spoke to the audience in ways that exceeded everyone’s expectations. Attendee Zeina Azzam (poet laureate of Alexandria, VA) told the Washington Report: “To me, Palestine Writes was not only a beautiful celebration of our literary culture, but also a public affirmation of our Palestinian communal identity and our deeply rooted and thriving presence in Palestine, the United States and the world.” Panelist and Being There, Being Here author Maurice Ebileeni wrote about the festival: “There is now a moment of ‘before and after’ in our cultural history and I’m proud to have been there to witness it.” ■

Attendees visited booths, including Middle East Books and More, and enjoyed food from Manakeesh Cafe Bakery & Grill throughout the weekend. Renata’s Kitchen (above) opened its doors for a delicious “after party” to help speakers, organizers and supporters unwind and connect.

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The Oslo Accords Killed Palestinian Dreams for Independence

Palestinians wave their flags on the wall of Jerusalem’s Old City as they celebrate the signing of mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) on Sept. 13, 1993.

“Olive Branches, Victory Signs”: How the Oslo Accords Failed the Palestinians By Farah Najjar ON SEPT. 13, 1993, Saadeh Ersheid recalled being among dozens of people strolling the streets of Jenin in the occupied West Bank. Many cheered and flashed victory signs while others were left perplexed at the news coming out of the United States.

Farah Najjar is an online news and features writer with Al Jazeera English. She covers war and conflict, politics and development in the Middle East region. She has reported from Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and the Gaza Strip.This article was posted on Sept. 13, 2023 on Al Jazeera. © Al Jazeera. Reprinted with permission. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

Palestinian leaders had just officially recognized Israel’s existence as a legitimate state, hoping that, in turn, they would be able to establish their own. Televisions in the homes of millions of Palestinians showed the moment Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook hands outside the White House, marking the end of months-long negotiations that culminated in the signing of the Oslo accords. “I remember seeing a group of young men rush over to an Israeli army vehicle, grasping and climbing onto it to place olive branches on its hood,” 68-year-old Ersheid, a writer and political analyst, said. “The scene amused Israeli soldiers, who scorned and ridiculed the young men.” The so-called peace deal came after years of a crippling financial crisis within the PLO, and after the brutal Israeli suppression

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of Palestinian resistance. It marked the end of the first intifada, or uprising, in which more than 1,000 Palestinians were killed. Many Palestinians were in a “state of misery,” Ersheid recalled, until the U.S.-brokered accords were announced. “Oslo was presented to them as a victory, or at least, as a helping hand to save them from this bad situation,” he said. The second part of the accords was signed in 1995, with the aim of kick-starting talks with a two-state solution as the objective; specifically an independent Palestinian state through the establishment of an interim Palestinian government—the Palestinian Authority (PA). The accords set the framework for Palestinian elections, and the PA was given a five-year life span. But the provisional government still exists today, plagued by allegations of corruption and police brutality. Despite being granted limited self-rule in parts of the West Bank, Israel has maintained military control over the entire area. Experts have said the accords were designed to ensure Israel’s economic and security dominance over the Palestinians, instead of facilitating a tangible deal.

WHY WERE THE ACCORDS A FAILURE? To Palestinian leaders, the accords were doomed to fail. Major sticking points were left unresolved at the time of the signing of the accords. These included concerns about territory, illegal Jewish settlements, the status of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees and the right of return. Among other things, they also introduced the controversial security coordination between Israel and the PA. But to Israel, the accords were not a failure, Osamah Khalil, professor of U.S. and Middle East history at Syracuse University, said. “Israel had no intention of agreeing to the emergence of a viable, contiguous and independent Palestinian state...Israel was able to pursue its occupation and settlement policies with the political cover of endless negotiations,” he said. Alaa Tartir, director of Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s Middle East and North Africa Program, agreed. He said the accords offered Israel an internationally sponsored framework to “sustain its occupation and solidify its colonial control over Palestine and the Palestinian people” over the past 30 years. They were inherently “designed and structured” so as not to bring the Palestinians closer to freedom and self-determination, Tartir said. The absence of a final deal has largely dictated the way Israel has exerted its control through the present. Reports by leading human rights organizations have argued that Israel has maintained a system of apartheid over Palestinians. All the while, the PA has done little to stop successive Israeli governments from expanding illegal Jewish settlements, restricting Palestinians’ freedom of movement, taking Palestinian resources and arresting Palestinians on a near-daily basis. Before the accords were signed, Israel mainly dealt with the daily life of Palestinians “from a security perspective,” Ersheid said. “They ensured people were not engaged in activities relating to the resistance and pushed them to accept the idea of making peace with the occupation,” he said. 42

According to him, Israel often facilitated work opportunities for Palestinians by issuing permits or by easing other factors involved to “distract” them. “If people worked, it was at the expense of their participation in national movements and in the resistance,” he said. But the realities of Israeli occupation and its “brutality” were still very much apparent, prior to the first intifada, Ersheid added. Random checkpoints were set up, while arrests, home demolitions and the expropriation of lands were very common. The occupation became even harsher after the first intifada. “They continued to occupy us but this time, with an iron fist,” Ersheid said. Rabin, who was Israel’s defense minister at the time, ordered Israeli army commanders to break the bones of Palestinian protesters. This happened to anyone “resisting in the streets,” Ersheid recalled.

UNDERMINING PALESTINIAN UNITY The six-year intifada was characterized by popular mobilization, mass protests, civil disobedience, as well as boycott movements that aimed to fuel the national economy. It was not enough to bring about economic autonomy. Palestinians in the West Bank were banned from working in Israel, and the PLO’s funds had started to rapidly deplete after being pushed out of Lebanon following the country’s civil war. In fact, the PLO had reportedly signaled to the United States and Israel that it was willing to enter into a mutual recognition agreement as early as 1981. By 1993, the regional and international landscapes were “highly unfavorable to the PLO,” Khalil said. According to Khalil, the accords have also been devastating to Palestinian unity. Geographically, Palestinians were divided between the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. There are also Palestinian refugees in exile, in the diaspora and Palestinian citizens of Israel. This fragmentation was “exacerbated by political rifts” over the accords, Khalil said. Tartir also noted that the accords made Palestinians “weaker, more fragmented, and further away from statehood.” The accords also ensured that all aspects of the Palestinian economy, including trade and agriculture, would always be dependent on Israel. Despite this, the PA has done little over the years to improve the economic situation for Palestinians, many of whom have resorted to working in Israel as low-skilled workers. The PA has relied heavily on international donors and foreign aid for survival and has long used the bulk of funds to pay the salaries of civil servants instead of investing in the local infrastructure. There has remained a lack of adequate leadership that can act as a viable alternative to the PA, mainly due to PA policies—in coordination with Israel—adopted to crush dissent. The last presidential elections took place in 2005, during which a major rift emerged between Fatah—the party that heads the PA—and Hamas, the group that has governed Gaza since 2007. Multiple efforts to reach a deal to end their divide have been unsuccessful.

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A group of young people with the Israeli organization Peace Now celebrates the signing of the Israeli‐Palestinian peace agreement on Sept. 9, 1993. According to Khalil, the PA was only intended to “administer the accords.” It was never meant to be the representative of the Palestinian people. But the PA has now entrenched itself along with its limited power. “The leadership of the Palestinian Authority, as well as the United States and Israel, do not want new elections,” Khalil said. “Unless they can ensure that their hand-picked candidates will win.”

Understanding Oslo is Crucial for Moving Forward By Miko Peled THE “OSLO ACCORDS” are a personal matter for me, and here is why. From the moment the 1967 war ended, my father—who was one of the architects and executors of the war—dedicated his life to the two-state solution. The Oslo accords were expected by many to be the first step in the direction of it becoming a reality.

Miko Peled is an Israeli‐American activist, author and speaker who advocates for the creation of one democratic state with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians. He is author of the books The General’s Son: The Journey of an Israeli in Palestine and Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five. This article was posted on Mon‐ doweiss, on Sept. 14, 2023. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

Clearly, those who believed that it would be were sorely mistaken. My father’s enthusiasm—and, by default, my own—peaked when Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook hands with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn. It was done in front of the whole world. I recall my father—then a retired Israeli army general and professor of Arabic literature— who published a column in the Israeli paper Ma’ariv, writing that Rabin had “Crossed the Rubicon.” In other words, the Israeli establishment that had never been willing to recognize the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination had now done so. That was how it seemed at first. As the process was being prolonged and Israel was dragging its feet in implementing the steps that were laid out in the accords, my father changed his tone, as did others. Before my father died in March 1995, he said in an interview, “Rabin does not want peace.” In November of that same year, Rabin was assassinated. As mentioned earlier, for me, this was all personal. My father’s involvement, Rabin (who we knew well in the family, as he was my father’s comrade-in-arms for many years), the prospect of a peace that would finally show the world that Israel and an independent Palestinian state can exist together—these were all personal matters for me. The last article my father ever wrote was titled, “A Requiem to Oslo,” signaling that the expectation that Israel will allow the Palestinians any semblance of independence was already dead.

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U.S. President Bill Clinton (c) stands between PLO leader Yasser Arafat (r) and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (l) as they shake hands for the first time, on Sept. 13, 1993, at the White House in Washington, DC, after signing the historic Israel‐PLO Oslo accords on Palestinian autonomy in the occupied territories. One by one, they all died, and today I, along with many others, realize that the Oslo accords were meant to deepen Israeli control of Palestine and its people while allowing Israel to look good. Those who did not realize it then should know today without a doubt that Rabin was an unrepentant war criminal and that he never intended to allow Palestinians to enjoy the right to self-determination in any meaningful way. The entire concept of the two-state solution was a scam. By the end of the year 2000, after the disingenuous attempts by Bill Clinton to bring the “peace process” to an end, the entire thing had collapsed. I say disingenuous because Clinton was working for Israel, not for a solution. The Palestinians were humiliated, living under a brutal regime of apartheid, pressured to accept unacceptable terms, and when the so-called “peace-summit” fell apart, Clinton blamed Yasser Arafat for not being flexible enough. I vividly remember the moment when Bill Clinton made that statement. I remember thinking that Yasser Arafat—who by then had given up on the dream of a free Palestine and was willing to negotiate with the criminals who stole his country and murdered his people—was being accused of not giving enough! This was because he did not give up on Jerusalem and demanded clear, minimal boundaries for the proposed Palestinian state. There is the myth of the “generous offers” made by Israel, but as it turns out, Israel never presented a single offer. In hindsight, everything looks different. When people talk about the “failure” of the Oslo accords, I have to disagree. 44

These accords accomplished their objectives with great success. Today, Israel has tighter control over Palestine and its people than ever before. At the same time, Israel is seen as a peace-loving country that offered an olive branch and got nothing but “terrorism” in return. All Israel had to do to achieve this was to enrich a few corrupt Palestinians. The Palestinian Authority also comes in as useful when discussions come up about normalizing relations with Israel. Countries that have not yet normalized, like Indonesia, for example, look at the Palestinian Authority representatives as agents for Israel who smooth the way for normalization. The recognition that the Oslo process, like the two-state solution, was a scam is crucial to our ability to move forward. A question that needs to be asked is why is it that whenever the United States decides to intervene in the so-called peace issue, they bring back the old guard that was in charge of the Oslo process. Oslo is a golden key; it allows the conversation to go back to Israel, reaching out for peace and getting rockets in return. Oslo and the two-state solution act as a sort of litmus test for how sincere someone is about the liberation of Palestine. People will often say to me, “I agree with you 95 percent!” That is an interesting comment. What constitutes that final five percent? That is the leap from Oslo and the two-state solution to a full recognition that the Palestinians were wronged—that Jewish people had no business coming to colonize Palestine, and that enough Palestinian blood has been shed. All these decades after Oslo, we should be at a place

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Control of the West Bank under the U.N. partition plan and Oslo accords. where we recognize that there is no solution without the full liberation of Palestine. That means dismantling the Zionist state and transforming Palestine into a democracy with full equal rights, and it means putting in place mechanisms to implement the return of the Palestinian refugees. This might not be an exhaustive list, but it has the elements without which we will be stuck with apartheid and violence for the foreseeable future.

Palestinian Authoritarianism Has Its Roots in the Oslo Accords By Yara Hawari ON SEPT. 13, 1993, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook hands on the White House lawn, flanked by a smug-looking U.S. President Bill Clinton. They had just signed an agreement that would be hailed as a historic peace deal putting an end to the decades-old “conflict” between Palestinians and Israelis. Around the world, people celebrated the deal, which came to be known as the Oslo accords. It was perceived as a great feat of diplomacy. A year later, Arafat and Rabin were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Many Palestinians were also hopeful that they would finally get a sovereign state, even if it were on less than 22 percent of their original homeland. Indeed, that was the promise of the Oslo accords—a phased process toward Palestinian statehood.

Yara Hawari is the senior analyst of Al‐Shabaka: The Palestinian Pol‐ icy Network. She is a frequent political commentator writing for vari‐ ous media outlets including The Guardian, Foreign Policy, and Al Jazeera, which published this article on Sept. 13, 2023. © Al Jazeera. Reprinted with permission. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

Thirty years later, the Palestinians are as far away from statehood as they have ever been. They have lost even more land to illegal Israeli settlements and are forced to live in ever shrinking bantustans across colonized Palestine. By now, it is clear that Oslo was meant only to help Israel consolidate its occupation and colonization of Palestine. Worse still, what the Palestinians did get out of the Oslo accords was a rather pernicious form of Palestinian authoritarianism in the territories occupied in 1967. One of the terms of the agreement was that the exiled leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) would be allowed to return only to the territories Israel occupied in 1967—the West Bank and Gaza— and would be permitted to create an interim government known as the Palestinian Authority (PA) for a period of five years. The PA, which was made up of members of Arafat’s party, Fatah, assumed responsibility for the affairs of the Palestinian people while the Israeli military occupation remained in place. With the backing of the international community and the Israeli regime, Arafat pursued governance based on patronage and corruption that had little tolerance for internal dissent. Arafat’s successor, President Mahmoud Abbas, continued down the same path. Today, at the age of 87, he is not only one of the world’s oldest leaders but is also more than 14 years past his legal mandate despite ever dwindling support for his rule among Palestinians. Since coming to power, Abbas has made numerous disingenuous calls for elections, the last of which was in January 2021. That year, the polls were ultimately cancelled after the PA accused the Israeli regime of refusing to allow Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem to participate. These regular false promises of elections temporarily satisfy the international community’s appetite for what it calls “democratization” of PA institutions. But the reality is that the system is so deeply rigged—in large part thanks to the Oslo accords—that elections would inevitably result in either a continuation of the existing power structures or a new authoritarian leader coming to power. Apart from having a distaste for polls, Abbas has also been working hard to erode any democratic spaces in the West Bank. He has merged all three branches of government—the legislative, executive and judiciary—so that there are no checks on his power. Having absolute control over Palestinian

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affairs, he rules by decree. In recent years, this has resulted in increasingly absurd decision-making. Last year, for example, he dissolved the Doctors’ Syndicate after medical personnel went on strike. He then created the Supreme Council of Judicial Bodies and Authorities and appointed himself the head of it, thus consolidating his power over the courts and the Ministry of Justice. More recently, on Aug. 10, he forced 12 governors into retirement without informing them. Many of those dismissed learned about their forced resignations from the local media. To maintain his grip on power, Abbas also wields an extensive security apparatus. The internationally funded and trained PA security sector employs 50 percent of civil servants and takes 30 percent of the total budget of the PA—more than education, health and agriculture combined. It is responsible for a monumental amount of human rights abuses, including the arrest of activists, the harassment of journalists and the torture of political detainees. In many cases, repression by the PA security apparatus complements those by the Israelis. For example, in 2021, during what became known as the Unity Intifada, many activists were arrested and violently interrogated by PA security forces. This year, after the invasion of the Jenin refugee camp by Israeli regime forces, the PA arrested many of those in the camp who were previously incarcerated by the Israelis in a practice known as the “revolving door.”

Indeed, one of the caveats of the Oslo accords was that the PA had to fully cooperate with the Israeli regime on matters of “security.” To fulfil this provision, the PA’s security apparatus has worked hard to suppress any activity deemed threatening by the Israeli regime. It regularly hands over surveillance information about Palestinians to the Israeli army and does nothing to counter its regular deadly attacks on Palestinian villages, towns and camps. Effectively, the PA security forces work hand in hand with the Israeli regime to quell Palestinian resistance. Indeed, given the provisions of the Oslo accords, the PA could not have turned out any differently. A governing body that is accountable to international donors who bankroll it and the Israeli regime, which maintains ultimate control, was never going to serve the Palestinian people. Remarkably, the notion that the Oslo accords were a wellintentioned but failed peace process still holds strong sway in some circles in the West. The truth is that the architects of Oslo were not interested in Palestinian statehood or liberation but rather wanted to find a way to get the Palestinian leadership to quietly agree to capitulation and suppress any further resistance at the grassroots. They have encouraged and supported Palestinian authoritarianism because it falls in line with these goals. In the end, Oslo did not bring peace to the Palestinians but yet another major obstacle to liberation. ■

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Voices from Gaza Continued from page 27

unable to function properly. My condition affected me psychologically so much that I needed to see a psychiatrist.” Bassam Hamadin, the assistant undersecretary at the Ministry of Health, described the effect of the blockade on the ability of hospitals to function. Currently the hospitals work at half their capacity. About 40 percent of medicines and 30 percent of medical supplies are no longer in stock. He noted the difficulty of maintaining functioning intensive care units, laboratories, dialysis machines and incubators when spare parts cannot be imported. At least 300 medical devices are nonfunctioning, he stated, which translates into long wait times for patients to access the care they need. Some medical devices and many medicines cannot even be brought into the Gaza Strip. Dr. Abdullah Al-Qishawy is head of the Department of Nephrology and Renal Transplantation at Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical complex in the Gaza Strip, and his patients require ongoing care. He spoke to the Washington Report about the ability of renal patients to access the care they need. About 2,200 people in the Gaza Strip have kidney failure; about 30 of them are children. Seven medical centers provide dialysis; they have a total of 197 dialysis

machines. Wait times are long. Should patients need specialized treatment that is not available in the Gaza Strip, they require permits from Israel to travel, which frequently are not given. A lack of medications may put kidney dialysis patients at risk for other diseases. Most of the current patients have other conditions, Dr. Al-Qishawy told Washington Report; many suffer from anemia, fatigue and emaciation, which results in weakness or failure of the heart muscle. Hamadin says that international humanitarian law guarantees access to medical treatment. Judging by the experiences of patients in the Gaza Strip, however, there seems to be a Gaza exception. ■

Settlers Stole My House Continued from page 20

tual and true: Jewish life is worth more than ours under Israeli rule, but it was his explicit oration that triggered outrage rather than the institutionalized policies that have made his racist remarks the material reality on the ground. Even the physical deformation of a Palestinian’s face was only of note because of what the etching symbolized, not the etching itself—had the soldiers cut inconspicuous lines on his cheek, I doubt it would have garnered any attention at all. As for Palestinian death, it is quotidian and negligible. If we’re lucky, our martyrs are communicated in sums on the pages of

end-of-year reports. “Revisionism” on the other hand, warrants a cacophony of condemnation. Here is where I stand. There is a Jew who lives—by force—in half of my home in Jerusalem, and he does so by “divine decree.” Many others reside—by force—in Palestinian houses, while their owners linger in refugee camps. It isn’t my fault that they are Jewish. I have zero interest in memorizing or apologizing for centuries-old tropes created by Europeans, or in giving semantics more heft than they warrant, chiefly when millions of us confront real, tangible oppression, living behind cement walls, or under siege, or in exile, and living with woes too expansive to summarize. I’m tired of the impulse to preemptively distance myself from something of which I am not guilty, and particularly tired of the assumption that I’m inherently bigoted. I’m tired of the pearl-clutching pretense that should such animosity exist, its existence would be inexplicable and rootless. Most of all, I’m tired of the false equivalence between semantic violence and systemic violence. I know this essay is in itself a minefield. That it will be taken out of context and disseminated, but I’ll never be a perfect victim—there’s no escaping being accused of anti-Semitism. It’s a losing battle and, more importantly, a glaring red herring. And it is time we reevaluate this tactic. There are better things to do: we have coffins to carry. We have kin in Israeli mortuary chambers that we must bury. ■

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Special Report

PHOTO BY MAHMUD TURKIA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

How the “City of Poets” Turned into a Mass By Mustafa Fetouri Grave Uniting Libyans in Grief

Rescue teams walk amid the destruction in Libya's eastern city of Derna on Sept. 18, 2023, following the tsunami‐sized flash flood that devastated the coastal city. Torrential rains, on Sept. 10, broke through two upstream dams and swept thousands to their deaths. IN THE SPACE of just 48 hours, two disasters battered North Africa: Morocco was hit by a 6.8 magnitude earthquake (Sept. 8), and a storm hit eastern Libya two days later. The natural disaster in Morocco left about 3,000 dead and another 5,000 injured. In Libya, Storm Daniel, a tropical-like cyclone, caused a disaster of a scale and severity the country has never seen before, killing thousands of people in a blink of an eye. The world might never know the exact number of people washed into the sea when Daniel made its destructive landfall over eastern Libya, collapsing two dams and flooding the city of Derna east of Benghazi. Morocco managed to quickly organize a response to rescue

Mustafa Fetouri is a Libyan academic and freelance journalist. He received the EU’s Freedom of the Press prize. He has written ex‐ tensively for various media outlets on Libyan and MENA issues. He has published three books in Arabic. His email is mustafafetouri@ hotmail.com and Twitter: @MFetouri. 48

people and provided daily updates to the public with precise figures of casualities. A few foreign rescue teams were denied permission to help for political reasons. Morocco’s King Mohammed V was in Paris when the earthquake struck and didn’t release a statement for two days, but his government was soon on top of it. In Derna, days after Daniel struck, authorities gave conflicting figures of the casualties. It took them a full week to appoint one spokesman to talk to the media. Organizing a state attempt to rescue survivors and retrieve the dead littering Derna’s streets took even longer. In the early hours after the storm some 3,000 bodies were buried in mass graves to protect the survivors from a potential epidemic. As we went to press, not a single official in divided Libya has given a reasonably accurate figure for the number of Dernawis killed, displaced or requiring help. On Sept. 14, the United Nations estimated 4,000 dead, 9,000 missing and some 30,000 displaced. However,

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the U.N. lowered the number of deaths at least once. Conflicting numbers coming from different sources confused the U.N. itself. In any case, actual figures are thought to be much higher.

A COUNTRY UNITED IN GRIEF Since 2011, corrupt politicians have been peddling the lie that Libyans are divided along tribal and political lines. The response to the Derna tragedy proves that Libyans are socially intertwined and cannot be divided geographically. Many of Derna’s residents have their tribal and family roots in western and southern Libya. Thousands of Libyans from all over the vast country came forward to provide aid and assistance to Derna. Hundreds of them travelled hundreds of kilometers carrying shovels. People who have never been to Derna before, including medics, rescuers, military personnel and ordinary citizens, rushed to help. Hundreds of donation centers opened across Libya to collect clothes, food, medicine and home appliances for the stricken areas.

EXPLAINING THE INEXPLICABLE Weak, corrupt and broken governments fail to predict disasters and their failure tends to have epic consequences. This is exactly what happened in Libya. Pre-

dicting an earthquake might be impossible, but predicting a flood is straightforward. What made the flood so disastrous is the collapse of Derna’s two protective dams. First the bigger Bu Mansour dam some 15 kilometers from the city gave way, causing the smaller one, closer to the city, to collapse. The reasons behind the dams’ collapse include lack of maintenance and the huge amount of rain received. The wall of water rushing downstream, sometimes estimated to be six floors high, became unstoppable, and it swept everything in its path straight to the sea. Three days before Storm Daniel hit Libya, it passed through Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece. Amazingly enough (or maybe not), fewer than 20 people were killed in those three countries. In eastern Libya, however, the enormity of destruction and death resembles scenes from hell. Cars with their passengers, children with their parents and three generations of some families were swept into the sea. The Al-Hasadi extended family lost three generations when 50 of its members were washed away; the Al-Tashani family might well be on the brink of extinction altogether after an estimated 100 of its members died.

1. Derna, in northeastern Libya, is a picturesque city famously known as “the city of poets.” Almost all famous Libyan poets are Dernawis, including Mustafa al-Trabelsi, who died in the flooding shortly after posting a poem predicting it [See Poem Box on next page]. The city is divided by a deep valley, Wadi Derna, and protected by two dams upstream. 2. Over the years, Derna became the melting pot of Libya. Most of its residents come from all over Libya. 3. At least 40 medical doctors and an unknown number of university professors were killed along with their families. 4. A technical study published late last year warned of the collapse of the two dams. Four days before the flooding poet Mustafa al-Trabelsi wrote about a debate he attended in which the dangers were pinpointed and highlighted by specialists. Ironically few people attended. 5. The Khadija neighborhood on the sea front, with an estimated 300 houses, was completely washed away. 6. An unknown number of foreign workers were killed in Derna; so too was an eight-member Palestinian refugee family. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

The obvious question is this: Why did Libya, once a wealthy and stable country, fail to respond in any proper manner to protect Dernawis from an approaching storm? The short answer is: Libya is a divided country chaotically run by militias that dominate two separate governments— one in Tripoli recognized by the United Nations and an unrecognized parallel one in Benghazi. Both have failed, for years, to provide citizens with any meaningful service and despite the billions of dollars spent so far, life for Libyans is getting worse by the day. To answer the question in more detail, one has to go back to 2011 when the country was visited by the so called “Arab Spring”—something the mainstream Western media avoided discussing in their otherwise excellent coverage of the disaster in Derna. Back in March 2011, while the war raged in Libya between the late Muammar Qaddafi’s government and Westernbacked armed rebels, former President Barack Obama talked about a “transition to the future that the Libyan people deserve.” That’s when he decided to lead the military intervention to help the Libyan rebels (many of whom turned out to be terrorists), topple Qaddafi’s government. The U.S., UK and France, together with NATO,

7. On its website, Turkish ARSEL Insaat Construction Company claimed to have completed maintenance work on the bigger dam in 2012. The post was removed six days after the flood. Dams are supposed to be maintained every 10 years. 8. A few days after the disaster, Libya’s prosecutor general toured Derna promising an investigation. By Sept. 25, some 16 former and current officials have been indicted on charges of mismanagement, negligence, failure to act and corruption. Seven of them whose duties directly related to dams and water management are in pre-trial detention. 9. Derna’s local council was dismissed days after the disaster. Unconfirmed reports say that its chairman, Abdel Moneim AlGhaithi, fled the country after his home was burnt down by angry demonstrators. Al-Ghaithi happened to be the nephew of the speaker of parliament who, many believe, should be questioned too. 10. Fleeing the country is the preferred method adopted by officials accused of crimes. (Not long ago, former Foreign Minister Najla el-Mangoush did just that when reports surfaced that she had met with her Israeli counterpart, which is a crime under Libyan law.)

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the most formidable military alliance in history, bombed Libya for seven months. The destruction of Libya, undertaken in the name of Responsibility to Protect (R2P), was championed by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Special Assistant to the President Samantha Power, and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice. Qaddafi was murdered by unruly rebels in October 2011, and Libya went into free fall. Prior to 2011, Libya had an effective government capable of providing free education, free healthcare, interest-free mortgages and easy access to lending for citizens wishing to buy cars and other luxury goods. It was a functioning state (notwithstanding a certain level of corruption and negligence) that had the readiness and capabilities to handle a deluge of the kind that engulfed Derna—as it did in fact in 1986, when Derna was hit by a major storm but suffered minimal casualties. In that year government agencies went on high alert to prevent loss of life and

The rain exposes the drenched streets, the cheating contractor, and the failed state. It washes everything, bird wings and cats’ fur. Reminds the poor of their fragile roofs and ragged clothes. It awakens the valleys, shakes off their yawning dust and dry crusts. The rain, a sign of goodness, a promise of help, an alarm bell. By one of Derna’s famous poets, Mustafa al-Trabelsi, written shortly before he died in the floods he warned would come. Translated by Khaled Mattawa.

property damage. Long before the storm hit land in 1986, Derna’s two dams were under constant watch with daily reports sent to the relevant authorities. Both dams were dually maintained every decade as is technically required. After 2012, when both dams were due for maintenance, the country had no functioning government that could oversee that process. While casualty figures are lacking, eyewitnesses from Derna say what happened in 1986 is nothing compared to what happened this year. Many I spoke to point out three differences: less rain than this September, functioning government agencies that took the threat seriously and well-maintained dams. Samantha Power is now USAID administrator and was quick to allocate some $12 million to help Derna, a mere fraction of the estimated $1 billion the U.S. spent to destroy Libya 12 years ago. By 2023 Libya became the broken jar no one, not even those who broke it, wants to own. Derna was a disaster waiting to happen. ■

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Canada Calling

PHOTO COURTESY IMMIGRATION, REFUGEES AND CITIZENSHIP CANADA WEBSITE

MP Argues Canada Must Do More to Aid Vulnerable Afghans By Candice Bodnaruk

An Afghan family arrives at Vancouver International Airport on Jan. 19, 2022. ON THE SECOND ANNIVERSARY of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, Canadian opposition parties are calling on Ottawa to restart and expand the Special Immigration Measures for Afghans that it ended last year. That program was set up in August 2021, a few weeks before the fall of Kabul. At the time, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to bring 40,000 Afghans to Canada. The program had prioritized Afghans who were former employees of the Canadian Armed Forces or the Canadian government and their families. Opposition members of parliament are also concerned about the delay in processing applications so that Afghans and their family members who may be targeted by the Taliban can get to Canada swiftly and safely. The New Democratic Party (NDP) argues that Canada’s current approach is cumbersome and mired

Candice Bodnaruk has been involved in Palestinian issues for the past 14 years through organizations such as the Canadian BDS Coalition and Peace Alliance Winnipeg. Her political action started with feminism and continued with the peace movement, first with the No War on Iraq Coalition in 2003 in Winnipeg. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

in red tape and pointed to the fact that only 9,785 Afghans have arrived in Canada since March 2023, while 12,000 applications were approved. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) media spokesperson Rémi Larivière says that Canada’s 2021 commitment to resettle 40,000 Afghans includes 18,000 spaces for the now-terminated Special Immigrations Measures Program for Afghan nationals and their families who helped the Government of Canada in their Afghanistan mission. Meanwhile, Canada has now developed other programs to aid extended family members of former Language and Immigration Cultural Advisers who were key to Canada’s mission through another IRCC program. Larivière noted family reunification is a long-standing pillar in Canada’s immigration system so Canada has set aside 5,000 slots for extended family members of Afghan interpreters who came to Canada under earlier programs. Larivière said the remaining spots are intended to help vulnerable Afghans through another humanitarian program that sup-

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ports multiple priority groups, including women leaders. Last December, the NDP called for immediate action on Afghanistan and urged Canada’s governing Liberals to increase humanitarian assistance in the region. The party also argues Canada has to expand the narrow definition of “eligible family members” in the Special Immigration Measures in order to keep Afghan families together. “Many Afghans who worked for NGOs to advance civic and human rights funded by Canada are left behind,” said NDP MP Jenny Kwan, in an emailed statement to the Washington Report. Kwan is concerned about the welfare of Afghans in third countries who live in fear of deportation back to Afghanistan. “For those who are in a third country...applications in progress need to be processed swiftly, and people in danger should be brought to Canada to wait in safety until processing of their files is complete,” Kwan argued. “Without that, it has meant that some families have been forced to leave behind beloved extended family members and dependents. Often these are unmarried or widowed adult women relatives, whose safety and survival are at risk,” Kwan said. According to Larivière, Canada’s Afghanistan resettlement commitment is one of the largest on a per capita basis in the world and is second only to that of the United States in overall numbers. Larivière said applications are processed as quickly as possible through Canada’s network of visa officers across the globe. In fact, the IRCC has added more employees and resources in its missions abroad, including in Islamabad, to support the processing and movement of vulnerable Afghans. Kwan insists scaling up the Special Immigration Measures program is also essential to assist LGBTQI+ refugees and human rights defenders, and expanding the narrow definition of eligible family members in the special measures is critical. “The fact remains, for all applicants waiting to be processed, they face continued peril and hardship. Whether they are in Afghanistan or in a third country, they live 52

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Picketing the film “Golda.” with targets on their back. I have heard from applicants who have been assaulted and/or forced to pay bribes. Some have even disappeared,” Kwan observed.

“GOLDA”: A FILM THAT CELEBRATES ETHNIC CLEANSING AND APARTHEID People gathered on a beautiful fall evening in late August at a relatively quiet Winnipeg movie theater to hold an information picket at the film “Golda.” The film stars Helen Mirren playing Israeli prime minister Golda Meir, and it focuses on the tense 19 days of the 1973 October War, launched by Egypt and Syria to regain territory occupied by Israel in the 1967 war. Thanks to an American airlift of weapons that began arriving on Oct. 14, the Arabs began to lose their initial advantage. It should come as no surprise that Meir, who once said “there were no such thing as Palestinians,” was quite pleased that some 16,000 Arabs had been killed but appalled by the 2,656 Israeli soldiers killed in action. She resigned in 1974 over her administration’s handling of the war. The biopic was not popular in Winnipeg and played to near-empty theaters there. During the week of the picket, “Golda”

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showtimes had also been moved to late afternoon matinees. Participants in the picket distributed leaflets to passersby that outlined Golda Meir’s involvement in the ethnic cleansing of two Palestinian villages in the 1970s— Al-Nabi Samwil and Al-Aqraba. Demonstrators also held placards that read “Golda: An Israeli Film that Celebrates Ethnic Cleansing” and “Golda: An Israeli Film that Celebrates Apartheid.” One friendly and curious security guard commented that very few moviegoers had been to see “Golda” anyway. The picket was primarily peaceful—with a security vehicle approaching the protesters at the end of their picket to explain they were not allowed to leaflet on private property. Security guards also requested a copy of the leaflet.

ACTIVISTS OPPOSE QUEBEC TRADE OFFICE IN TEL AVIV Supporters of Palestinian human rights were dismayed by a recent Quebec government decision to open a trade office in Israel. Martine Biron, Quebec Minister of International Relations and La Francophonie, announced in August that the office will strengthen government relations as well as institutional ties in research and innovation. Specifically, she referred to the numerous business opportunities that Israel’s “dynamic economy” would offer Quebec. The office will cost half a million dollars a year and will be located within the Canadian Embassy in Tel Aviv. According to Biron, Israel has more than 500,000 French speakers, is a center of research and development for numerous multinationals and represents tangible opportunities for Quebec to become part of the global chain of information technologies and life sciences. But some Quebec politicians are opposed to the move. “Quebec should not open an office in Tel Aviv given the situation with the reform of the justice system strongly contested by the population and the non-respect of human rights in Palestine,” said Ruba Ghazal, member of the National Assembly with the Quebec Solidaire Party, in NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

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has asked the international community to impose boycotts, divestment and sanctions on Israel as a form of non-violent economic pressure. Quebec has formed a number of partnerships with Israel in the past. For example, in 2017, the Ministry of International Affairs put out a call for proposals for joint initiatives between Quebec companies, universities, research institutions and non-profit organizations and their Israeli counterparts. At the time, Quebec International Relations Minister Christine St-Pierre claimed Quebec and Israel have much in common: “Our two societies have been able to put in place economic institutions based on knowledge and innovation, and marked by openness to the world.” Previously Quebec Solidaire criticized the partnership between public utilities HydroQuebec and the Israel Electric Corporation. In 2017, the two companies agreed to share information and ideas on combating an increased threat of cyber attacks. But two years later, Hydro Quebec did not renew the contract. The company maintained then that the decision was not politically motivated, but at the time there was a robust BDS campaign against the company in Quebec as well as across Canada.

DEMONSTRATION AT WINNIPEG’S FOLKLORAMA MARKS 9 YEARS SINCE 51-DAY WAR

“Palestinian Rights Are Human Rights” was the theme of this year’s demonstration at Winnipeg’s annual Folklorama cultural festival on August 8. The festival comprised 45 pavilions, representing Winnipeg’s various ethnic communities, including one outside the Asper Jewish Community Campus, Winnipeg’s main Jewish hub. This year demonstrators also marked the ninth anniversary of Israel’s 2014 assault on the Gaza Strip, protested recent Israeli attacks on the Jenin refugee camp, and celebrated Palestinian resilience. New to the event this year was a Palestinian “culture nook,” featuring books, embroidery, olive wood crafts as well as a culture binder with information on Palestinian food, arts and culture. Pavilion attendees were encouraged to stop at the cultural display to mingle and talk with the organizers about Palestine. To counter messages of Israel’s 75th anniversary, one of the participants held a large banner that read “Palestine Since Forever.” Supporters wore traditional Palestinian thobes and keffiyehs to show solidarity. Members of the Canada Palestine Support Network (CanPalNet), the Communist Party of Manitoba, Independent Jewish Voices, the Mennonite Church Palestine/ Israel Network (MCPIN) and Peace Alliance Winnipeg all took part in this year’s event. Demonstrations have been ongoing at the Israel Pavilion-Folklorama since 2014. ■

STAFF PHOTO C. BODNARUK

a recent statement to the Washington Report. Palestinian-Canadian Ghazal, who was born in Lebanon, is currently running to lead her party. She is also the party’s critic on issues like education, culture, the French language and the status of women. She recently wrote on X: “Opening a Quebec office in Israel, when it is led by an extreme right-wing coalition contested by the population, is immoral.” Ghazal also expressed dismay at Minister Biron’s silence, writing again on X: “And not a word from Biron about the Palestinians. I am shocked! It is not worthy of Quebec.” Tom Woodley, president of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), also expressed concern about the Quebec government’s decision. CJPME started a letter writing campaign to oppose the decision and they have seen a strong response. In an email response to questions from the Washington Report, Woodley observed: “For Quebeckers like myself, it’s extremely disturbing that Quebec is expanding trade with Israel when human rights groups are recommending that international actors pressure Israel to end its apartheid practices. Amnesty International, for example, recommends that the international community ban trade with Israel’s illegal settlements, yet there is no indication that Quebec’s trade office will make any distinction between products from Israel and the settlements.” Woodley added that Quebec has an “erratic history” with the Palestinian liberation struggle. He pointed out that although many Quebec separatists may identify with the Palestinian struggle for self-determination, Quebec’s political elites have often served pro-Israel interests in the province. “If Quebec leaders believe in the right to self-determination for all peoples, they would not deepen ties with an apartheid state which is denying that right to others,” he added. CJPME is urging the Quebec government to reverse its decision. Meanwhile, CJPME notes that Quebec’s decision to expand economic and research partnerships with Israel also contradicts the demands of Palestinian civil society, which

Protesters at Folklorama. WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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HUMAN RIGHTS

During the Jerusalem Fund’s Sept. 21 virtual event to raise awareness about diabetes in Palestine, Dr. Hani Rjoob presented a startling statistic: in 2021, diabetes was responsible for approximately 800,000 deaths in the Middle East. Rjoob is a member of the Palestinian Board of Internal Medicine at Makassed Hospital in Jerusalem and a fellow of endocrinology and metabolism at Western University in Canada. He currently serves as a specialist in internal medicine, diabetes and endocrinology at the Palestine Diabetes Institute (PDI) and is the medical director of PDI’s Hebron branch. Rjoob explained that since the early 2000s, diabetes cases have dramatically increased across the Middle East. “One in six adults have diabetes, and this is considered the highest proportion of all [International Diabetes Federation] regions,” he noted. “The number of people with diabetes is predicted to increase by 86 percent by 2045, and one in three people living with diabetes in the region are undiagnosed.” This problem emphasizes the growing need for specialized care to detect and diagnose this disease during the early stage of its development. Since the late 1970s, the Jerusalem Fund has been dedicated to raising awareness about the diabetes crisis in Palestine, and in 2009 the organization founded PDI, marking a pivotal step in addressing the issue. Dr. Eid Mustafa, the vice-chairman and treasurer of the Jerusalem Fund’s board, explained that during the second intifada, doctors were alarmed by the large number of diabetic patients who couldn’t access treatment. He recounted, “Dialysis patients often couldn’t reach their treatment centers, and many of them lost their lives as a result. This prompted us to take action against diabetes.” The initiative began in Al-Bireh, as it was the most accessible location for people from Tulkarem, Hebron, Jenin, Nablus and other areas. Since its founding, PDI has established two other locations in 54

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Facing Palestine’s Silent Killer: The Fight Against Diabetes

Palestinian university students take part in a World Diabetes Day event in the West Bank city of Nablus on Nov. 14, 2019. Nablus and Hebron to better respond to the growing demands from patients across the West Bank. The organization also hopes to eventually open a location in Gaza. PDI is the first medical center in Palestine to provide comprehensive care to treat diabetes, as well as its complications. “When we talk about the complications of diabetes, we talk about limbs, we talk about having a heart attack, stroke, kidney failure, blindness, as well as diabetic foot ulcers and amputations,” Rjoob said. Additionally, due to the growing number of diabetes patients in Palestine, specialists have seen an increase in obesity cases. PDI works to address this problem by ensuring that a team of nutritionists staff each clinic branch to effectively respond to the dietary needs of patients. PDI especially recognizes the importance of raising awareness and providing education for teachers and students. “[Our children], they are the future builders, so we consider giving them proper instruction and awareness regarding healthy diet and diabetes [to be essential], especially [since] we have noticed the increasing prevalence of obesity among adolescents,” Rjoob said. Despite the measures that PDI has taken to ensure that comprehensive care is available for patients, current political tensions and challenges created by Israel’s occupation generate further difficulty in ad-

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dressing diabetes. Israel’s consistent military presence in communities often discourages people to seek treatment or even get adequate exercise. He stated, “patients—our people—used to walk. Now there are so many people [at] roadblocks [with] guns pointing at you [that] people tend to walk less and then their weight goes up and diabetes goes up. It’s just a simple chain of events.” For more information on PDI and how to support their work, please visit: <www.pdi. org.ps/en>. —Reilly Holder

Little Amal Shares Strife of Refugee Children Given that 43.3 million of the world’s refugees are children, it is fitting that a 12foot-tall partially animatronic puppet portraying a 10-year-old Syrian refugee named “Little Amal” has been on a worldwide tour since 2021, calling attention to the plight of refugee children under the banner, “Don’t forget about us.” The “walks,” as the tours are called, have been viewed by millions both in person and online, making it one of the most successful campaigns yet in bringing attention to the refugees’ plight. The walks also help raise badly needed funds to provide refugees with “academic training and education, as well as supplying people with food, shelter and medical services.” NOVEMBER/DECEMBER JUNE/JULY 2020 2023

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Little Amal shakes the hand of Palestinian refugee Aseel Elborno, in Washington, DC on Sept. 17, 2023. On Sept. 17, the 35-city cross-country tour, “Amal Walks Across America,” arrived in Washington, DC, making two stops. While walking at Black Lives Matter Plaza (near the White House), accompanied by the Eastern High School marching band, Amal made a stop to hear from two speakers. Palestinian American poet Sara Abou Rashed, who emigrated from Syria, read an impassioned poem about her personal experience as a refugee to the large crowd. Palestinian American Aseel Elborno shared her own personal saga of being forced to leave Kuwait in 1990 at the age of seven. Initially, the family was told that only her two-year-old brother could immigrate to the U.S., since he was an American citizen. Her father refused, instead demanding that the entire family be allowed to move together. The American authorities acquiesced to their demand, allowing them all to enter the country. The giant Amal, accompanied by an ever-growing adoring crowd, next walked to nearby McPherson Square where a musical rendition of Ben E. King’s “Stand by Me” was performed by the children’s music group The ADAMS Beat Chorus. The Amal project was created by the Handspring Puppet Company of South Africa, who designed the giant sculpture. Since its inception, the project has traveled over 6,000 miles, visiting 15 counNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

tries. During its present tour around the United States, it will travel an additional 6,000 miles to 35 cites from coast to coast in what has been described by organizers as “one of the largest free public festivals ever created.” “Amal Walks Across America” will conclude in San Diego, CA on Nov. 5. For a list of cities included in the U.S. tour, see: <walkwithamal.org/events>. Anyone wishing to donate can do so by visiting <chooselove.org/theamalfund>. —Phil Pasquini

WAGING PEACE Debating Normalization With Assad The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, DC held an event on Sept. 6 to offer differing views on the decision of major Arab states to reestablish diplomatic ties with the Syrian government. Dareen Khalifa, a senior adviser for dialogue promotion at the Crisis Group, said the decision to reengage with Bashar alAssad’s government should not be perceived as a grand strategic move on the part of Saudi Arabia and its allies. “They’re just ready to try something different” after more than a decade of isolation has done little to alter Damascus’ thinking, she said.

“I haven’t heard any optimism from any Arab capitals that this [détente] is getting any significant results.” Given the large Russian and Iranian investment in Syria, Khalifa does not foresee the Gulf states becoming major players in the country. “The Gulf states know quite well that investing large amounts in Syria, with its devastated infrastructure, predatory regime, dismal security and nominal control over parts of [its territory] would be like pouring money into a bottomless pit,” she said. “Many of these countries wanted to restore diplomatic ties with Damascus to avoid regional headaches—not to add on to their plates.” Mona Yacoubian, vice president of the Middle East and North Africa Center at the United States Institute of Peace, questioned the manner in which Syria was welcomed back into the Arab League. Readmitting Damascus was “an enormous carrot, an enormous benefit that was basically handed to Assad with no concessions on his part, with no follow-through,” she said. “I would argue that the policy of normalization has been utterly without a strategy and has not followed the golden rule of diplomacy, which is to recognize and covet your leverage and insist on the kinds of shifts and changes in behavior that are sustainable and measurable in advance of any concessions being given.” Yacoubian acknowledged that isolation wasn’t working, and said she is not necessarily opposed to diplomatic relations with Syria, but argued that the process of normalization should have been less haphazard. “Only with a concerted, strategic plan should there have been any effort toward normalization,” she maintained. Sam Heller, a fellow at Century International, said Arab countries normalizing relations with Syria was an exercise in realpolitik. “These governments became fairly convinced that isolation and coercion were not working,” he said. “They weren’t on track to dislodge Assad. He and his regime seem like they are there to stay, even if the regime is weaker.” Further, Arab capitals hope this reengagement will in some small way help address issues such as refugees, the drug trade and extremism vis-à-vis

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People protest in the southern Syrian city of Sweida on Sept. 1, 2023. The protests, in the heartland of the country’s Druze minority, began after President Bashar al‐Assad's government cut fuel subsidies during the summer. many things in Lebanon, this is a war of attrition between the people and the political elite, and the political elite just hope everyone gets tired of what is happening and kind of gives up,” she said. Three years since the port explosion “the country’s political elite are still far from being held to account,” she lamented, “not those complicit in the deadly blast, nor those who have stolen billions of dollars from the Lebanese people.”

Syria. “We’ve had an isolated, economically crushed Syria exporting instability regionally,” he noted. Heller discouraged Western countries from trying to undo the new diplomatic opening with Damascus. He does not think Western states should normalize relations with Syria, but does believe that the U.S. and others can leverage Arab diplomacy with Assad’s government. “If the U.S. and others manage to work effectively with our Arab partners, then in theory we could have a conjoined, clear diplomatic effort that can muster an Arab carrot instead of just a Western stick,” he said. —Dale Sprusansky

Gebeily also expressed concern at an increase in attacks on freedom of expression, as evidenced by activists being interrogated, the creation of freedom-restricting amendments to the lawyers’ code of ethics and assaults on journalists. Omar Taleb, a Lebanese human rights lawyer and a nonresident fellow at TIMEP, noted that the economic crisis is impacting Lebanon’s justice system in existential ways. The bureaucracy of the judiciary has seen its salary decrease by 90 percent since 2019, he noted. “So many of them are not coming to work,” making it hard to keep the system running in an efficient and transparent manner. To make matters worse, “judges and lawyers are also concerned if there will be electricity in the courts,” he said. Combined with the deeper issues of political corruption and interference in the judiciary, these practical matters further stymie accountability and justice in Lebanon. Attorney Lama Karamé, a board member of the Beirut-based NGO and research center The Legal Agenda, said that the aftermath of the port explosion really drove home for many citizens that Lebanon’s courts are needed to ensure justice and make sure leaders are held accountable to the rule of law. “Unfortunately, the impunity in the case of the Beirut blast is not exceptional,”

Three years after the Beirut port explosion killed more than 200 people and displaced hundreds of thousands, no one has been held accountable and the country continues its economic and political spiral. To discuss this situation, Washington, DC’s Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP) hosted a webinar on Aug. 24. Moderator Maya Gebeily, the Reuters bureau chief for Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, outlined the sense of impunity displayed by Lebanon’s elite, even amid manifold crises of their own making. “Like 56

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Three Years After Port Blast, No Accountability in Lebanon

Protesters lift a giant Lebanese flag alongside images of Beirut port blast victims during a march near the city’s harbor on Aug. 4, 2023.

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Karamé said, noting the prolonged era of impunity enjoyed by the country’s elite. “It is part of a larger pattern that has characterized the post-war era in Lebanon, starting with the blanket amnesty law [of 1991] that absolved former warlords and allowed them to become state officials.” Corruption in Lebanon is so systemically embedded within the fabric of the society “that it is hard to get out of it,” Assaad Thebian, executive director of the Beirut-based Gherbal Initiative, said. It’s not only the political class or the elites, “there are changemakers and NGOs that are also part of the corruption…and sometimes it’s the person demonstrating next to you.” Thebian also lambasted Lebanon’s sectarian system of government, blaming it for many of the country’s woes. “The issue is with the system itself,” he said. “It’s a sectarian system that was designed in the 1800s that is still being applied in 2023. Wake up people! You cannot run a country in this way.” —Elaine Pasquini

Jordan’s Use of Reforms to Quell Popular Protests On Sept. 7, the Arab Center Washington DC conducted a virtual discussion with Curtis Ryan of Appalachian State University, Tuqa Nusairat of the Atlantic Council, Arwa Shobaki of the Project on Middle East Democracy and Sean Yom of Temple University. The group examined the Jordanian government’s efforts to mitigate political and economic discontent via reform measures. Ryan noted that reforms announced by the Jordanian government in 2021 are the latest in a series of such initiatives going back to the 1980s. The government implemented each round of reforms, he said, in response to street protests and public activism. The 2021 reforms, Ryan explained, are a ten-year package aimed at building a political system featuring a stronger parliament and greater representation for women, youth, people with disabilities and different governorates in the country. To fulfill the reforms, he observed, the government will have to encourage participation in political parties, which it has historically discouraged. Ryan said Jordanians are still waiting to see if the reforms will actually be impleNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

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Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Queen Rania arrive at the Raghadan Royal Palace in Amman to attend an official event celebrating the country’s 77th independence day, on May 25, 2023. mented and “can be forgiven for being a little skeptical, having experienced various rounds of reforms…but not all were implemented, or they were implemented and then there was regression.” Additionally, political reforms are not the foremost concern for Jordanians, he observed: “Most people are more concerned with the unemployment rate and with the cost of living.” Nusairat concentrated on the opposition movement’s focus on socio-economic issues. Along with a weak economy, the country faces high poverty and unemployment rates as well as declining trust in the government’s ability to solve these problems, she said. While the country previously faced largely external challenges, such as the Syrian civil war, “Jordan’s biggest threat today is much less conflict on its borders or terrorism, it’s really internal.” Such frustrations, Nusairat added, are the fuel for protests and strikes. She observed that one way Jordan has responded to recent discontent is by utilizing the state of emergency implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic to place “new restrictions on protests” and “silence opposition movements and public protests.” The other way the government has responded, she continued, is with new economic modernization measures. The most recent plan aims to decrease unemploy-

ment and increase GDP growth, which Nusairat called “very ambitious” and probably beyond Jordan’s ability to implement. “Modernization and reform can’t succeed if the government doesn’t commit real resources toward resolving societal issues hugely affecting youth,” Shobaki cautioned. Of particular concern to young people is Jordan’s new cybercrimes law, which is “even more restrictive than its predecessor,” with overly broad definitions of crimes for online speech. “The chilling effect of this legislation will be great. Selfcensorship is already high in the Kingdom and this will only make it more prevalent,” she warned, adding that “this feels like the last nail in the coffin for free expression in Jordan.” She recommended the Biden administration condition aid to Jordan on it meeting certain reform benchmarks, because despite American investments, “Jordan’s democracy and human rights record is only getting worse.” Yom spoke about the 2021 reform package and how much progress has been made toward achieving its goals. “This was a very ambitious project to democratize Jordan,” he began, but progress has been “incremental and slow.” This delay, in turn, has only amplified Jordanians’ cynicism because “the practice of promising political reforms that

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are never honored is unfortunately a recurring pattern in Jordanian politics.” Amman’s bullish roadmap projects that Jordan would be a constitutional monarchy in ten years, which would be a “radical shift in the nature of power and authority” in the country, Yom noted. Practically, he continued, this would mean that “the state and society must both accept electoral outcomes” they may dislike, and that a representative parliament would have real authority over matters such as war, budgeting and national security, as well as cabinet and prime minister selection. While some may be hesitant to embrace these changes, Yom contended that “the true threat to Jordanian stability…is when alienated populations are discontented so deeply that they rise up in rage and protest and then threaten to tear down their own governments.” —Alex Shanahan

Former Tunisian President Addresses Democratic Decline Moncef Marzouki, who served as president of Tunisia from 2011-2014, provided the opening keynote at the Arab Center Washington DC’s annual conference on Sept. 26 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Currently living in exile in France for fear of persecution at the hands of President Kais Saied’s increasingly repressive government, Marzouki addressed his country’s descent back into authoritarianism. He expressed befuddlement at the West’s persistent lack of support for Tunisian democracy following the country’s 2010 revolution. “We Arabs have to rely on ourselves to promote democracy in the region” rather than counting on Western support, he argued. Marzouki said he learned this lesson when he met with French President Francois Hollande shortly after the 2013 military coup in Egypt and the leader made clear that Paris would not explicitly condemn the usurping of Egyptian democracy. Within the region, Marzouki referred to Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Israel as the region’s stalwart opponents of democracy. Without these countries actively undermining democracy for their own per58

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Then‐President Moncef Marzouki attends a campaign rally in Tunis, Tunisia on Dec. 19, 2014. He lost the election to Beji Caid Essebsi, who later died in office. Current President Kais Saied was subsequently elected in 2019. ceived interests, he believes Tunisian democracy would have survived, despite the country’s many internal political and economic challenges. To this end, he recalled imploring President Barack Obama to curtail corrosive Emirati influence over Tunisia’s media and political parties, but received no response from Washington. He also lamented that after the Arab Spring, the U.S. continued to prioritize spending to repressive regimes in Egypt, Jordan and Israel over assistance to Tunisia’s then-burgeoning democracy. As the U.S. increasingly seeks to counter growing Chinese and Russian influence in the region, Marzouki believes Washington is making a strategic error by foregoing democracy promotion in favor of cooperation with authoritarian states. These countries embrace the Chinese model that personal freedoms should be conceded in favor of economic development, he said. The U.S. is thus—likely inadvertently—“encouraging the Chinese model and not the American model” of promoting both economic growth and human rights, Marzouki argued. Marzouki, who was also previously forced into exile by President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s regime for his human rights work, wondered if Tunisia’s failed at-

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tempt at democracy was in part imperiled by the poor timing of its revolution. “The Arab Spring came two decades too late,” he said, noting that the global “wave of democracy” of the 1980s and ’90s that offered momentum and tangible support to new and aspiring democratic governments had faded by 2010. Studies show that the world is now experiencing democratic decline, Marzouki noted. He believes that any hope for Tunisia reversing its march back to authoritarianism largely rests on a regional and global revival of democracy. While some have become disgruntled with the democratic process, he believes there is no better way forward. “It’s true democracy is a mess, but dictatorship is also a mess,” he said. —Dale Sprusansky

Commemorating the Anniversary Of Mahsa Amini’s Killing The Iranian diaspora in Washington, DC commemorated the first anniversary of the murder of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in midSeptember with two protests. While exiting a Tehran metro station, Amini was arrested by Iran’s infamous “morality police” for wearing her hijab improperly. Her arrest and death while in police custody became the fuel for the NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

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A woman at the Mahsa Amini memorial in Washington, DC’s Lafayette Square utilizes a shackle and chain to emphasize the plight of women in Iran, on Sept. 16, 2023.

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said. “The people in Iran have found a new identity, a new core that has brought them together. What happened with [Mahsa Amini’s] death, that’s [a] historic moment. It gave birth to a new nation.” —Phil Pasquini

Ways Forward for Afghanistan Under Taliban Rule Two years after the Taliban took over governance of Afghanistan, the Quincy Institute in Washington, DC hosted a panel of experts on Aug. 29 to discuss the path for-

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massive nationwide “Women, Life, Freedom” movement. On Sept. 14, a noontime demonstration was held outside the office of the Interests Section of the Islamic Republic of Iran (located inside a downtown office building). While office workers entered and exited the building, one protester read the names of those killed by the Iranian government for protesting, while others picketed the building’s entrance carryings signs and posters with the victims’ portraits, while chanting “Women, Life, Freedom.” At Lafayette Square (near the White House) on Sept. 16, several hundred Iranian Americans and their supporters gathered to express solidarity and contempt for the Iranian government. They also called for the establishment of a democratic government and denounced any efforts by the U.S. government to engage Tehran. At an event at the Atlantic Council on Sept. 15, Roya Boroumand, co-founder of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center For Human Rights In Iran, provided an overview of the repression Iranians have faced over the past year. She has documented 495 protest-related deaths and more than 20,000 arrests stemming from protests. Iranian journalist Khosro Kalbasi Isfahani described the protests as a turning point in Iranian history. “The legacy of four decades of the Islamic Republic has been pain,” he

ward for the crisis-riddled country of 40 million people. Shkula Zadran, a former Afghan youth representative to the United Nations who now works with NGOs focusing on internally displaced persons and immigrants, noted the enduring trauma of the Taliban’s takeover. “August is always a reminder of the republic’s collapse and also the collapse of an entire generation and their aspirations and dreams,” she said. The anniversary is also a reminder of the “failed state-building mission in Afghanistan that can be a lesson for the world in terms of pouring unlimited money into a country,” she said. An additional lesson to be learned is that “democracies cannot be imposed by guns, and states can collapse very easily if the foundation of the state is not strong enough.” Today, Afghans in the diaspora and inside the country want elections. “They want a democratic regime,” Zadran insisted. “They want political inclusivity and for every ethnic group to be a part of the government—and they want women to be part of the government.” Zadran urged U.S. diplomats and policymakers to stay connected with Afghans inside and outside of the country. “Otherwise, I think this situation will continue and we will not see any positive changes,” she stated.

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Tripp Copeland, a former State Department foreign affairs officer who was part of the Trump administration team that met with the Taliban in Doha to negotiate the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, said his main takeaway from the experience was “the importance of understanding your counterpart on a more human level, particularly one that the country had been at war with for decades.” Talking to the Taliban and trying to understand them is the only way to build good strategies and policies, he said. “It’s those more human interactions that I remember despite our different world views. It’s the shared meals and shared stories about families…and even sort of the quiet conversations on the sideline about different policies.” Going forward, Copeland said, U.S. officials need to meet more often with Taliban senior officials and to use that engagement to cooperate on less politically sensitive issues such as curbing narcotics, programing disaster relief and confronting human trafficking. “I think this will help achieve longer term policy objectives,” he said. Washington is currently pushing the Taliban to develop a government that includes the country’s minority religious and ethnic groups, Jonathan Schroden, director of the Countering Threats and Challenges Program at the Center for Naval Analyses, said. Human rights and rights for women and girls are the other two issues the U.S. is working diligently on, he added. With respect to advocating for an inclusive government, Schroden said Washington has to make more than a token effort. “The Taliban did try early on to have a single Tajik, a single Hazari in their government, and the international community was unimpressed,” he noted. “The Taliban quickly abandoned even any pretenses of having token minorities in their government.” —Elaine Pasquini

Erasing Palestine from U.S. School Curricula When they arrive at college, U.S students newly graduated from Jewish day schools often describe being stunned by remarks critical of Israel. Public high school graduates may be somewhat better prepared to 60

hear and discuss different points of view, but they are often similarly surprised to learn, for example, that Israel has been deemed an apartheid state by major human rights organizations such as Amnesty International. “Erasing Palestine from U.S. School Curricula” was the theme of the Sept. 10 online film salon hosted by Voices from the Holy Land. Panelists discussed two documentary films. In the first, “Between the Lines,” the filmmakers traveled across the United States to interview Jewish day school students, college students, teachers, professors, rabbis and Israel advocacy leaders on the topic of “Israel education.” Ali Kriegsman, co-creator of the film, described how, “in the early grades, before you start really learning about the history of Israel, the Jewish day schools bind you to Israel in a very emotional way. You celebrate Israel through parades, you do plays about Israel, you celebrate Israeli and Jewish cuisine.” In middle school, she said, you begin learning some facts of history, and then in senior year, the “Israeli seminar” provides more in-depth study. However, as one student in the documentary relates, writing your senior paper about the Deir Yassin massacre (the 1948 murder of more than 100 Palestinian villagers by Zionist paramilitary groups) can earn you a lower grade for “giving too much weight to the Palestinian narrative.” Kriegsman explained, “There’s this im-

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mediate defensiveness that the American Jewish community brings.” If you state a fact critical of Israeli history or policy, “it really feels like you’re speaking ill of their family, or speaking ill of their mother. To quote the educator in the film, ‘If the goal is to get American Jews to support Israel long term, I think that this type of propagandistic education is… actually hurting rather than helping.’” Ezra Beinart, a current high school student at a Jewish day school in New York City, suggested that while some things have improved since the film was released in 2015, changes in teaching appear to be minimal. “You learn a little bit about the Palestinians in senior year,” he noted. Some of the lessons include “the Palestinian point of view, okay, but [students] will still never hear from a Palestinian.” Beinart decided to address this deficiency by launching an initiative to expose Jewish teenagers to Palestinian perspectives. Featuring Zoom conversations with U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin, writer Yousef Munayyer and others, the initiative attracted Jewish students from across the country and elicited interest from a range of Jewish educators. The curriculum at public schools in the United States can also be biased and incomplete. Faedah M. Totah, moderator of the salon and associate professor in the School of World Studies at Virginia ComNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

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MUSLIM AMERICAN Lawsuit Filed to End Terrorism Watchlist A morning press conference was held at the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) headquarters in Washington, DC on Sept. 18 to announce the filing of a lawsuit, Khairullah v. Garland, demanding a jury trial regarding the legality of the federal terrorism watchlist. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of 12 Muslim plaintiffs against 29 federal agencies. CAIR Legal Defense Fund staff attorney Hannah Mullen made the announcement

around the world,” Mullen noted. “The federal government considers the very fact of being Muslim as suspicious,” she charged. Most frighteningly, she noted, “The government places individuals on the watchlist without investigating, indicting or convicting them of any crime.” Being placed on the list has stigmatized numerous individuals and caused undue harm, Mullen said. No explanation is ever provided as to how or why an individual was placed on the list or how one can be removed from it—or even if they have been delisted. Even removal from the list is no guarantee that the harassment will stop. “Federal

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monwealth University, described the efforts of pro-Israel advocacy groups “not only to erase Palestine from the curriculum,” but also to control “what words can and cannot be used” in textbooks and lessons. “This is a way of sanitizing the discussion…how the conflict is described, as Israel is never the aggressor—the Arabs and Palestinians are always to blame.” Totah’s critique echoed the findings of Jeanne Trabulsi, whose efforts were the focus of the second documentary discussed, “The Fight Against Israeli Propaganda in Virginia Textbooks.” In the film, Trabulsi, a member of the Virginia Coalition for Human Rights (VCHR), describes how one pro-Israel group proudly claims it is “training 6,029 teachers,” hosting training sessions “in 90 U.S. cities” and impacting “11 million students” in all “50 states.” These groups attempt to shape the content of textbooks by, for example, recommending that publishers delete all references to “Palestine” and use sanitized terms—“settlements” become “communities,” “walls” become “security fences,” etc. By advocating vigorously to resist these manipulations, VCHR and others successfully blocked the effort to distort textbooks in the 2022-23 school cycle. How can concerned citizens press for accuracy in public school textbooks and curricula? Susan Douglass, the K-14 education outreach director at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University, encouraged the audience to speak to decision makers—state legislators and members of state boards of education—and be prepared to say, “This does not even reflect the mandate of teaching the skills that you’re supposed to give students. Where’s the evidence [for students to examine for themselves]? Where are the multiple perspectives…the use of any documents, or explanation or historical background?” Douglass encouraged concerned citizens to discover the process in their state for revising standards and choosing instructional materials to learn how they can provide input, and to partner with individuals and organizations that share concerns about accuracy and inclusivity. —Steven Sellers Lapham

Attorney Hannah Mullen argues that ending the federal terrorism watchlist is necessary to protect the constitutional rights of Muslim Americans. on behalf of what she described as 12 “lawabiding Muslim citizens, lawful permanent residents and asylees. They work hard, pay their taxes, pursue their education and care for their families.” She noted that the federal terrorism watchlist was created as an executive order by President George W. Bush in 2003 and has never been approved by Congress. By its very design, the list egregiously violates both the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, Mullen said. In 2019, the list contained 350,000 individual names, a review of which revealed that 98.3 percent were Muslim. Today, it contains “the names of thousands of Americans and one and a half million people

agencies retain records of past watchlist status and use them to deny formerly listed individuals access to government buildings, security clearances, federal employment and other licenses and government benefits,” Mullen said. The 185-page lawsuit features 83 pages documenting the experiences that the 12 defendants have endured since being placed on the list. The incidents all follow a clear pattern of violations of constitutional rights, including one egregious incident when a plaintiff in 2013 was told by a Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officer that his “travel issues would go away as long as he provided them with some information.” When the plaintiff responded that he would

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only speak with his lawyer present, the CBP officer responded that only guilty individuals have lawyers. Those listed suffer further in that “The federal government shares the watchlist with over 18,000 state and local law enforcement agencies, over 500 private entities and dozens of foreign countries, all of which then take actions to harm and stigmatize listed individuals,” Mullen noted. The net result of being on the list is that individuals are “publicly humiliated, surveilled and harassed when they travel; prevented from attending weddings, funerals, graduations and other milestone events; separated from their children; denied jobs, security clearances, U.S. citizenship, visas, gun licenses and other government benefits; and even effectively exiled from the United States.” In closing, Mullen commented, “After 20 years of harassment, surveillance and abuse, it is time for America to recognize the watchlist for what it is: a disgraceful vestige of the Bush administration’s War on Terror that targets our Muslim family members, friends and neighbors while doing nothing to keep us safe.” —Phil Pasquini

CAIR-LA Hosts 27th Annual Gala in Anaheim More than 1,400 Muslims and their allies gathered on Sept. 23 in Anaheim, CA for the Council on American-Islamic RelationsLos Angeles’ (CAIR-LA) 27th annual gala. The theme was “The American Muslim Story: Our History, Our Vision, Our Legacy.” The evening featured keynote speaker Dr. Ilyasah Shabazz, who is an author, activist and Malcolm X’s daughter; comedian and writer Preacher Moss; and Hussam Ayloush, CAIR-LA’s executive director. Two American Muslim leaders, Imam Abdul Karim Hasan, director and resident imam at Masjid Bilal Islamic Center, and the late community leader and author Dr. Ahmad Sakr, were honored. “As we come together to celebrate our achievements, express gratitude for our blessings and prepare for the challenges ahead, I urge you to stand with us in the pursuit of CAIR-LA’s mission,” said Dr. 62

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(L‐r) Dr. Ilyasah Shabazz, Arwa Ayloush and Hussam Ayloush pose at CAIR‐LA’s Sept. 23, 2023 gala at the Anaheim Marriott Hotel in Orange County, CA. Ashraf Ibrahim, the board president of CAIR-LA. “Let us continue to be the standard-bearers of justice, the defenders of rights and the architects of understanding.” According to Ayloush, CAIR-CA handled 600 civil cases last year. “CAIR-LA has a plan to defeat Islamophobia,” Ayloush assured his audience. Defeating hate must go hand in hand with standing up for justice, he added: “We Muslims should live by our values, and must fight for human rights and freedom for the peoples of Palestine, Kashmir, Syria and all the Arab countries. We must fight against apartheid, racism and discrimination everywhere.” Shabazz acknowledged the high price some, including her father, have paid for their relentless activism. She reminded everyone that her mother, Betty, was in her twenties when a firebomb was thrown into the bedroom where her husband and babies were, and two weeks later she watched her husband get assassinated in New York City. “Optimism is not enough, you need courage and wisdom as well,” she said. “The community should build on the legacy of my father and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and keep fighting against corruption in our societies.” —Samir Twair

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Middle East Books Review All books featured in this section are available from Middle East Books and More, the nation’s preeminent bookstore on the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy. www.MiddleEastBooks.com • (202) 939-6050 ext. 1101

Spyfail: Foreign Spies, Moles, Saboteurs and the Collapse of America’s Counterintelligence By James Bamford, Twelve Books, 2023, hardcover, 496 pp. MEB $21.99

Reviewed by Grant F. Smith James Bamford’s Spyfail ruffles all the right feathers. Bamford is best known for his books The Puzzle Palace and The Shadow Factory, both about the National Security Agency. The NSA did not initially know whether to fete or undermine Bamford after he thrust the agency’s secretive activities, such as data mining Americans, into the spotlight. The CIA is not as indecisive about Spyfail. The agency’s book review in Intelligence in Public Media charges Bamford does not make his case that American counterintelligence has failed, speculating this is due to a pro-Indigenous character flaw: “In his extensive accounts of these undertakings, Bamford’s proPalestinian views are striking.” The Cipher Brief, a website with close ties to the CIA, also argues Bamford treats Israel unfairly: “All intelligence activities are not equally dangerous to U.S. national security…the author’s clear antiIsraeli biases—views abundantly evident in the book—detract from his argument.”

Grant F. Smith is the research director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) and most recently the author of How Israel Made AIPAC: The Most Harmful Foreign Influence Operation in America, also available as a free serialized podcast on all major platforms. 64

The discomfort expressed by intelligence agencies and aligned media outlets over Spyfail’s well-sourced evidence appears to be a subtle admission Bamford is right. Exhibit A is the ongoing impunity of Hollywood movie producer and Israeli spy Arnon Milchan, who has long been engaged in espionage and weapons smuggling operations targeting the United States. Bamford chronicles Milchan’s early efforts to bolster Israel’s close ally, apartheid South Africa, via weapons dealing. Milchan also produced now-forgotten theatrical flops depicting exploited Black people as happy with their fate in apartheid South Africa. Milchan also joined Israel’s Bureau of Scientific Relations (Lakam) spy agency to scour the U.S. for export-prohibited nuclear weapons technology. By the time Milchan joined Lakam, it had already stolen enough U.S. weapons-grade uranium to build a dozen atomic bombs from the compromised nuclear fuel processor NUMEC in Pennsylvania. Milchan’s shell company network illegally WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

exported high speed switches from the U.S. to Israel that could provide the precisely timed pulses to trigger a nuclear detonation. To do this, Milchan employed the hapless engineer Richard Kelly Smyth to create a front company called Milco International in Huntington Beach, CA. Milchan courted the failing businessperson by introducing him to stars and rising stars at his Hollywood soirees. Smyth falsified export licenses for the triggers and other prohibited items, claiming they were similar, but not exportprohibited items. Smyth was incompetent and always managed to give away what he was doing to vigilant federal government authorities. Scapegoat Smyth, and not mastermind Milchan, was eventually criminally indicted in the United States. When Smyth desperately sought his help from prison and even dropped Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s name, Milchan ghosted him while working to stay ahead of the law. While Bamford mentions the longstanding Netanyahu-Milchan relationship, he does not delve deeply into Smyth’s stunning revelation that Netanyahu also worked inside the trigger smuggling network at the Israel-based Milchan shell Heli Trading Company. Heli executed the nuclear trigger purchase orders directly from the Israeli Ministry of Defense. The subsequent public fracture of the Milchan-Netanyahu relationship is among the important revelations of extreme current relevance in the book. Milchan pressured Netanyahu to compel U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to reissue him a 10-year resident visa after lower-level State Department officials refused. Kerry eventually acquiesced to Netanyahu and issued the visa. This freed up Milchan, producer of blockbusters such as “12 Years a Slave” and “Pretty Woman,” to continue production of new hits such as “Ad Astra,” starring Brad Pitt and Tommy Lee Jones; “The Lighthouse”; and “Amsterdam.” Milchan, according to Bamford, allegedly dodges taxes in the U.S. Netanyahu began asking Milchan for endless boxes of expensive cigars— NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

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code named “leaves” in corruption case filings against Netanyahu in Israeli court—as well as cases of $400 per bottle champagne, “bubbles” and other expensive gifts for his wife as payback for the visa favor. Bamford depicts this shakedown as relentless. It is these Israeli corruption cases against Netanyahu, among other factors, that led the embattled leader to seek the judicial reforms that would give his coalition the power to shut down corruption cases. Netanyahu’s initiative has torn Israel apart, putting the country on the verge of civil war as protesters have flooded the streets seeking to preserve the court. It is important to recognize Israeli courts rarely produce justice for Palestinians. Counterintelligence officials and other interested Americans who fully digest Spyfail will gain new insights into how the politicization of American counterintelligence produces media frenzies and official enemies that curiously seem to mirror Israel’s own, while inevitably failing to expose or debate Israel’s hugely damaging and longstanding covert intelligence operations against the U.S. Yet another book review, this time in the New Republic, laments, “the Bush 43 administration quashed the FBI’s espionage investigation of Milchan because he was Bibi’s boychik, and [because] the U.S. government in its majesty quails at the wealth and influence of the Israeli lobby, despite the fact that its agents are conducting covert political warfare against Americans. The latter argument would make a good book, albeit a different book.” That is true. To fully appreciate how Israel transcends U.S. counterintelligence efforts, one must understand how Israel seeded the foreign influence operation that now occupies Congress and meddles in U.S. elections on Israel’s behalf. My latest book, How Israel Made AIPAC: The Most Harmful Foreign Influence Operation in America, outlines this important history. Both books make sound contributions regarding the overlapping subjects of Israeli spying and lobbying. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

Tracing Homelands: Israel, Palestine and the Claims of Belonging By Linda Dittmar, Interlink Books, 2023, paperback, 240 pp. MEB $20

Reviewed by Ida Audeh

Tracing Homelands is a beautifully written memoir that traces the author’s gradual coming to terms with the human cost to Palestinians of Israel’s emergence as a state in 1948—or as she puts it, the “slow and painful process of peeling the film off my eyes.” Growing up in Mandate Palestine, Linda Dittmar was raised by Jewish parents who seem to have been dovish in their political inclinations, but still fell in line with the Zionist project. Although they knew about the Deir Yassin massacre and were aware of the depopulation of the village of Summayl, which was practically on their doorstep, these matters were not spoken about. The myth of a God-ordained refuge for much-abused Jews was too soothing to question. Decades later, Dittmar has penned Tracing Homelands as a forensic exploration to reveal the traces of Palestinian communities who lived in modern Israel before 1948. When Zionist militias ethnically cleansed them to create an exclusivist Jewish state, they turned what had been life-sustaining settings into crime scenes. But communities have stubborn ways of leaving unruly traces behind that bear witness to their former presence. In Ida Audeh is a contributing editor of the Washington Report. WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

village after village, the author comes across cactus plants, the symbol of Palestinian resilience, an indicator of prior habitation when all other evidence has been carefully and methodically obliterated. It is interesting to note the ways in which vegetation gives evidence of violence. Early in the book, Dittmar talks about the razing of indigenous trees and replacing them with pine trees from Europe. But pines aren’t native to Palestine, and they tend to burn, leaving yet another layer of evidence of a razed village on whose ruins the trees had been planted in a vain effort to conceal ethnic cleansing. Dittmar’s description of coming upon an Israeli who was in the process of shaping an ancient olive tree into a topiary left me dumbfounded, equally stunned by the cluelessness of the act and angered by the turn of events that would enable an idiot to thoughtlessly distort a perfectly healthy, fruit-bearing tree into some unnatural shape. During four visits to Israel beginning in 2005, Dittmar and her partner, Deborah, a landscape photographer, explore probably two dozen sites they suspect were once populated, guided by the Institute for Palestine Studies’ All That Remains, the authoritative reference about the 418 Palestinian towns and villages ethnically cleansed during the Nakba. (Zochrot, the Israeli NGO formed in 2002 to educate the Israeli public about the Nakba, is another guide.) Writing the book took about 12 years to complete; the process was difficult and involved overcoming a sense that she was betraying her country. Readers from countries with a settler colonial past will appreciate how difficult it can be to acknowledge the sins of the founders that continue to play out in ugly ways, especially if those sins make privilege possible. One has to admire Dittmar’s unflinching honesty: She pulls no punches, acknowledging Israelis’ blindness and comfort in privilege. She notes her own blindness, too: she recalls as a teenager wanting her parents to “get” an Arab house as a second home. “It was not 65

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about an entitled, thoughtless adolescent but about a national fantasy that sought to redefine our sense of belonging, an urge for ownership that rested on a bogus illusion of home and origin,” she writes. Toward the end of the book, she sums up her journey: “My own love of my homeland…engendered a devotion I embraced for years and abandoned only gradually and with great anguish once I began to register the devastating ethical and geopolitical consequences that were born of that history….It is a story whose beginnings are many, with roots and capillaries reaching into the dark recesses of history in relays of causes and effects.” At an event to launch the book at the Palestine Museum in Woodbridge, CT, Dittmar said she wrote Tracing Homelands for American Jews, to try to rid them of their emotional and sentimental attachment to an ideal of Israel that never existed. But one can imagine that other readers whose countries were founded as settler colonial projects, like the United States, will be able to see parallels with their own conditions and see in her an example of the self-education that is a necessary first step to coming to terms with the violence of the past, which reaches into the present.

Refuge and Resistance: Palestinians and the International Refugee System By Anne Irfan, Columbia University Press, 2023, paperback, 315 pp. MEB $45

Reviewed by Steve France PLO leader Salah Salah once summed up Palestinian history by saying, “The Jews got Israel and we got UNRWA,” the United Nations agency established in December 1949 to “prevent conditions of starvation and distress” among refugees of the Nakba. It soon became apparent that UNRWA was a de facto admission that the refugees might never go home, notwithstanding U.N. Resolution 194, which a year earlier had seemSteve France is an activist and writer affiliated with Episcopal Peace Fellowship, Palestine-Israel Network. 66

ingly enshrined their legal right to choose repatriation or compensation. Historian Anne Irfan, a lecturer in interdisciplinary race, gender and postcolonial studies at University College London, documents in Refuge and Resistance that “behind the scenes U.N. officials were increasingly looking to the refugees’ integration into the host countries as an alternative [to repatriation].” The U.S. and Britain “looked unfavorably” on repatriation, much to Israel’s satisfaction. Meanwhile, countries that hosted Palestinians (namely Jordan, Lebanon and Syria) opposed permanently accepting the refugees, fearing that nationalist Palestinians would disturb delicate ethnic and religious balances, provoke Israeli attacks or inspire grassroots resistance to the hosts’ illiberal political regimes. Irfan tells how refugees fought UNRWA’s efforts to rubber stamp the will of the West and ignore Palestinian identity and right of return. They may have gotten neither return nor compensation, but Irfan shows that the refugees’ resistance at times forced UNRWA to bend to their power. For example, most refugees boycotted UNRWA’s early push to encourage resettlement by, among other efforts, operating as a massive “jobs agency” for employment outside the camps. The boycott caused UNRWA to abandon the idea in 1957. So intense was Palestinian determination to go home—and so strong their distrust of their supposed U.N. benefactors—that the refugees successfully disrupted even projects to make the bleak UNRWA refugee camps more pleasant and comfortable, an attitude that WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

lingers to this day, despite 75 years of hardship and frustration. The refugees’ self-sacrificing victory over permanent resettlement was coupled with their greatest success: pressuring UNRWA to give education top priority, something the largely peasant camp residents clamored for as “the only escape route…for the next generation,” crucial to maintaining their Palestinian identity and reclaiming their homeland. Universal, free UNRWA education has been the one great blessing for the refugees, notwithstanding the agency’s continuous suppression of political advocacy in its schools. Aside from providing schools and other services, the refugees have seen UNRWA’s existence as a “sign of international responsibility for their plight,” Irfan notes. In their view, the U.N. was complicit in the Nakba and thus owes Palestinians refuge and support for repatriation. UNRWA, however, has maintained that it needs to remain apolitical and uninvolved in efforts to resolve the Palestinians’ exile and statelessness. Irfan says this political passivity partly reflects UNRWA’s historical dependence on voluntary contributions by member states for

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funding (mainly wealthy and Western ones, as many Arab states have insisted that Western states should pay for having enabled the Nakba). UNRWA’s “temporary” nature, needing to be reauthorized by the U.N. every three to five years, and its lack of ownership of the camps or control over their order and security (depending instead on the grudging cooperation of the fragile host states), also explain the organization’s passivity. Determined to maintain its neutral stance, UNRWA has always refused to allow Palestinians to serve in executive functions, which instead are filled by well-paid international aid professionals, while refugees work in the lower-paying jobs. Irfan also recounts how the 1967 war brought the West Bank and Gaza under Israel’s rule, and how the PLO’s power subsequently expanded thanks to the leadership vacuum caused by the stunning humiliation of the Arab frontline states. Camp residents joined the PLO fida’i (fighters) in droves and launched the Thawra, a revolution in the camps, especially in Lebanon. The guerilla fighters expelled Lebanese police from the camps and took de facto power. PLO influence also grew in the U.N. Sadly, Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon expelled the PLO from the country. The Sabra-Shatila massacre just days after the forced departure of the fida’i marked “the camps’ return to a state of total vulnerability,” Irfan says. Her narrative ends there, but she hints that the refugees could regain prominence, as the mirage of Oslo fades away and its illusory promise of a Palestinian state no longer pushes refugee demands back to ever-delayed “final status talks.” The rise of the new militants of the West Bank camps is a sign that a comprehensive Palestinian unity that includes the refugees may be emerging. In the May 2021 “Unity Intifada,” for example, camp refugees in Jordan and Lebanon marched to the borders of Israel-Palestine in solidarity with Palestinians in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza and the global diaspora—buttressed by burgeoning international support. Israel’s own ongoing descent into disunity can only make more room for Palestinians, including refugees, to find ways forward. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

N E W A R R I VA L S Being There, Being Here: Palestinian Writings in the World by Maurice Ebileeni, Syracuse University Press, 2022, paperback, 240 pp. MEB $29.95 Arabic is unconditionally the national language of Palestinians, but for many it is no longer their mother tongue. More than a century after the early waves of immigration to the Americas, and more than seven decades after the Nakba of 1948, generations of Palestinians have grown up in a variety of different contexts across the world. The Palestinian story thus no longer exists exclusively in Arabic. A new generation of Palestinian and Palestiniandescended writers and artists from both Latin and North America and Europe, as well as Israel-Palestine itself, are bringing stories of their heritage and the Palestinian nation into a variety of languages such as Spanish, Italian, English, Danish and Hebrew. The book poses unsettling questions about this situation and also looks to the future to speculate about how a Palestinian nation might still house the notion of home for an increasingly diverse Palestinian population. We Call to the Eye and to the Night: Love Poems by Writers of Arab Heritage edited by Hala Alyan and Zeina Hashem Beck, Persea Books, 2023, paperback, 240 pp. MEB $22 We Call to the Eye and to the Night features an amalgam of eminent poets—including Hayan Charara, Leila Chatti, Nathalie Handal, Fady Joudah and Naomi Shihab Nye—and those who have just begun to make their mark. These poets are descended from diverse countries and represent a breathtaking intersection of voices, experiences and perspectives. Divided into whimsical sections named for lines from poems they include, the anthology features an evocative array of erotic and romantic selections, as well as ones portraying love of family, friends, heritage and homeland. Exquisitely curated and introduced by acclaimed authors Hala Alyan and Zeina Hashem Beck, We Call to the Eye and to the Night is at once sexy, sensuous, adventurous and nostalgic—a treasury of love emanating from the Arab world and its diaspora. These Olive Trees by Aya Ghanameh, Viking Press, 2023, hardcover, 40 pp. MEB $18.99 Aya Ghanameh’s new children’s book is a story of a Palestinian family’s ties to the land, and how one young girl finds a way to care for her home, even as she says goodbye. It’s 1967 in Nablus, and Oraib loves the olive trees that grow outside the refugee camp where she lives. Each harvest, she and her mama pick the small fruits and she eagerly stomps on them to release their golden oil. Olives have always tied her family to the land, as Oraib learns from mama. But violence has come to their door, forcing them to flee. Even as her family is uprooted, Oraib makes a solemn promise to her beloved olive trees. She will see to it that their legacy lives on for generations to come. Debut author-illustrator Aya Ghanameh boldly paints a tale of bitterness, hope and the power of believing in a free and thriving future. WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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In the Eye of the Storm: Middle Eastern Christians in the Twenty-First Century Edited by Mitri Raheb, Pickwick Publications, 2023, paperback, 202 pp. MEB $33

Reviewed by Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon Mitri Raheb’s edited volume, In the Eye of the Storm: Middle Eastern Christians in the Twenty-First Century, is a mustread for any serious scholar of Christianity in the Middle East. The book provides a broad overview of the status

of Christians in different countries in the Middle East today, including Palestinian Christians living under Israeli rule and Christians in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. In the Eye of the Storm highlights historical context, geopolitical dynamics in the post-colonial era and opportunities and challenges that must be addressed to prevent extinction of the church in the Middle East. One of the strengths of this anthology is the diversity of contributors, most of whom are indigenous to the region. Raheb also provides valuable space to up-and-coming scholars. Miray Philips, a Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon is the executive director of Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) and the author of several books, including A Land Full of God: Christian Perspectives on the Holy Land (Cascade, 2017). 68

Ph.D. candidate, writes about Egypt’s vast transformations through the lens of both the Coptic Orthodox and Protestant churches, and their relationship to the state throughout history, culminating in the Arab Spring. Amir Marshi, a master’s student at the University of Chicago, and Khaled Anabtawi, a Ph.D. student at the Geneva Graduate Institute, co-write a chapter addressing Palestinian Christians living under Israeli rule and their struggle to remain on their land. Paolo Maggiolini, an Italian research fellow and adjunct professor at the Catholic University of Milan, addresses Christians in Jordan moving beyond their sociopolitical and economic contexts to identify the challenges and future prospects of churches, especially as they pertain to addressing ecclesiastical fragmentation and providing better material and spiritual services to communities in need. Alongside these young scholars, the volume is strengthened by contributions from more established researchers, including Prof. Bernard Sabella, Prof. Roula Talhouk and Dr. Antoine Salameh. Salameh and Talhouk write about Christians in Lebanon being caught “in between” societal, political and economic variables. Challenges pertaining to demography and geography, religion and state, societal freedoms and hidden discrimination, as well as ecclesiastical and monastic institutions are also addressed. Talhouk and Salameh conclude that Christians in Lebanon today are in a reality that is “extremely dangerous,” and their condition is “like a ship at sea torn apart by storms from all sides; they are drowning day by day in internal and external crisis.” Ultimately, Christians in Lebanon have a choice to make about how they will respond amid crisis, lest they become extinct. Sabella’s chapter on Christians in Palestine provides a summary of the sociopolitical and economic context of Palestine while providing helpful statistics and analysis of demographic figures on the religious and denominational composition of the Christian community. Sabella also provides a helpful overview of some of the most influential Christian movements during the decades of the late 20th century WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

in Palestine, including the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center; Christ at the Checkpoint, founded by Bethlehem Bible College; Kairos Palestine; and Mitri Raheb’s initiation of the Christian Academic Forum for Citizenship in the Arab World, which brings together scholars, recent graduates and activists in civil society to share research, experience and insights. Raheb’s introduction and conclusion provide a helpful thread that links the various chapters. His introduction looks at how Christianity in the Middle East has been impacted by global events over the past two decades, from the start of the Second Intifada to the chaos imposed by Donald Trump’s presidency. Raheb’s epilogue summarizes some of the most recent public communications from the 13 Heads of Churches of Jerusalem, in parallel with the public advocacy of Kairos Palestine and the Global Kairos for Justice movements. Raheb also details the 2021 gathering in Beirut that resulted in the publication of the “We Choose Abundant Life” document as an invitation to global Christians to stand in solidarity with Middle Eastern Christians. The document concludes by referencing Deuteronomy 30:19b (“I have set before you life and death…choose life”) and offers Christians a way to build toward more durable policies that will support the sustainability of the church in the Middle East. I highly recommend In the Eye of the Storm as a resource to understand better the devastating realities affecting Christians throughout the Arab world. Raheb concludes, “There is no future for the Christians of the Middle East without a society based on equal citizenship, systems of good governance, a fair social contract and sustainable economic development: these are all vital ingredients for peace. There is no future for Christians without a future for all.” In the 21st century, the pluralistic character of the Middle East is at risk as Christianity continues to disappear. This book invites readers to learn about those realities and presents an invitation to respond in ways that can make a difference. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

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The Saga of Survival: Armenian Palestinians, the British Mandate and the Nakba By Varsen Aghabekian, Dar al-Kalima University Press, 2023, paperback, 226 pp. MEB $25

Reviewed by Bedross Der Matossian

The Saga of Survival fills an important gap in the history of the Armenians of Palestine. While there are good studies about the Armenian communities of Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, an analysis of the Armenians of Palestine has been missing. Varsen Aghabekian fills this gap by telling the history of Armenians in Palestine during the inter-war period (1918-1948). What is unique about this study is that Aghabekian is able to intertwine her family history with that of the history of the larger Armenian community of Palestine. The strength of the book does not lie in unearthing new primary sources to reconstruct history, rather it is heavily based on oral history, an extremely valuable source that no other scholar in the area has utilized. The Armenian presence in Palestine dates back to the fourth century CE, when Armenian pilgrims began arriving in Jerusalem after the discovery of the holy

Bedross Der Matossian is a professor of Modern Middle East History at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is the former president of the Society for Armenian Studies. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

N E W A R R I VA L S The Men Who Swallowed the Sun: A Novel by Hamdi Abu Golayyel, translated by Humphrey Davies, Hoopoe Books, 2022, paperback, 216 pp. MEB $18.95 Two Bedouin men from Egypt’s Western Desert seek to escape poverty through different routes. The intellectual, terminally self-doubting and avowedly autobiographical Hamdi gets no further than southern Libya’s fly-blown oasis of Sabha, while his cousin, the dashing, irrepressible Phantom Raider, makes it to the fleshpots of Milan. The backdrop of this darkly comic and unsentimental story of illegal immigration is a brutal Europe and Muammar Qaddafi’s rickety, rhetoric-propped Great State of the Masses, where “the Leader” fantasizes of welding Libyan and Egyptian Bedouin into a new self-serving political force, the Saad-Shin. Compelling and visceral, with a seductive, muscular irony, The Men Who Swallowed the Sun is an unforgettable novel of two men and their fellow migrants and the extreme marginalization that drives them. Tahrir’s Youth: Leaders of a Leaderless Revolution by Rusha Latif, American University in Cairo Press, 2022, hardcover, 356 pp. MEB $35 January 25, 2011 was a watershed moment for Egypt and a transformative experience for the young men and women who changed the course of their nation’s history. Tahrir’s Youth tells the story of the organized young people behind the mass uprising that brought about the spectacular collapse of the Mubarak regime. Drawing on first-hand testimonies, this study offers rich insight into the hopes, successes, failures and disillusionments of the movement’s leaders. Rusha Latif follows the trajectory of the movement from the perspective of the Revolutionary Youth Coalition (RYC), the first revolutionary body to announce itself from Tahrir Square. She argues that the existence of the RYC and the political organizing undertaken by its members before January 25 demonstrates that the uprising was not entirely spontaneous, leaderless or rooted in social media, but led by young activists with a history of engagement before the revolution. Arabiyya: Recipes from the Life of an Arab in Diaspora by Reem Assil, Ten Speed Press, 2022, hardcover, 304 pp. MEB $35 Arabiyya celebrates the alluring aromas and flavors of Arab food and the welcoming spirit with which they are shared. Written from her point of view as an Arab in diaspora, Assil takes readers on a journey through her Palestinian and Syrian roots, showing how her heritage has inspired her recipes for flatbreads, dips, snacks, platters to share and more. Alongside the tempting recipes, Assil shares stories of the power of Arab communities to turn hardship into brilliant, nourishing meals and any occasion into a celebratory feast. She then translates this spirit into her own work in California, creating restaurants that define hospitality at all levels. Yes, there are tender lamb dishes, piles of fresh breads and perfectly cooked rice, but there is also food for thought about what it takes to create a more equitable society, where workers and people often at the margins are brought to the center. With gorgeous photography, original artwork and transporting writing, Assil helps readers better understand the Arab diaspora and its global influence on food and culture. WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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sites of Christianity. The Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem in its present form came into being in the first decade of the 14th century, when the Brotherhood of St. James was established in the Holy City. It was around the Armenian Patriarchate that a small Armenian community sprang that eventually formed the Armenian Quarter, which encompasses one-sixth of the Old City of Jerusalem. Those descending from this early community are known as “the locals” (kaghakatsis), while those who arrived after the Armenian Genocide (19151923) are known as “visitors” (zuwwar). In her book, Aghabekian is able to show the common and interconnected histories of Armenians and Palestinians. What is unique about the Armenians of Palestine is that they suffered multiple catastrophes: the Armenian Genocide, the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 Naksa. Aghabekian concentrates on the first two catastrophes. In the course of five chapters, she discusses the rise of the Armenian community of Jerusalem from the ashes of genocide, the challenges faced by the community and the important role played by Armenians in

the context of Palestinian history. She concludes the book with the Nakba, which became the turning point for the Armenians of Jerusalem, leading to dispossession and the immigration of thousands to surrounding countries, Europe, the United States and Australia. Aghabekian also discusses the struggles surrounding the arrival of Armenian refugees during and after the genocide. The Armenian Patriarchate had a monumental task to feed and take care of the refugees, while local Armenians also assisted the refugees. Despite a brief period of tension between both groups due to cultural and linguistic differences, their relations improved during the British Mandate period. It is this period upon which Aghabekian most concentrates by bringing the voices of the living and the dead to life. Her father, for example, Ohannes Aghabekian, becomes one of the important voices in the book. In describing the difficulties of life during the 1930s, he recalls: “I used to walk over 10km to Battir and bring vegetables on my back to sell in Jerusalem so my family would have food to eat. I was only 12 years

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old.” Unlike other historians, Aghabekian also tells the story of the Armenian Catholic community in Jerusalem, mostly formed by the survivors of the genocide. Aghabekian demonstrates how the local Armenians who were fluent in Arabic were much more integrated in Palestinian society. With their excellent education, acquired mostly from missionary schools, they were able to occupy important positions within the British colonial administration. Armenians also excelled in diverse professions, such as medicine, photography, ceramics, shoemaking, goldsmithing and silversmithing, among others. The Armenians of Jerusalem were not immune to the Palestinian-Zionist conflict. In Aghabekian’s words, “Armenians have suffered politically, socially and economically like Palestinians, including the loss of properties in 1948.” In chapters four and five, Aghabekian tells the story of the Armenians during the 1948 war and its aftermath. She specifically concentrates on Patriarch Guregh Israelian, who played an important role in alleviating the suffering of the Armenians. She expresses Armenians’ fear and anxiety upon becoming refugees for a second time. During the war, thousands of Armenians from throughout Palestine poured into the Armenian Patriarchate looking for a safe haven. Despite this, around 40 Armenians were killed by the Haganah militia’s shelling, including my great cousin Hagop Der Matossian. Similar to the other Palestinian upper-class families, Armenians lost most of their businesses and homes in West Jerusalem. The Saga of Survival is a fantastic book that tells the story of the Armenians of Palestine during a critical phase of the modern period. The book is unique as it tells the story of the period from those who experienced it, and not through the perspective of colonial archives. No other scholar has successfully utilized such a rich trove of oral history to tell this unique story. The book is extremely important to scholars and non-scholars alike who are interested in understanding the complexities of the Armenians of Palestine during the Mandate period, as well as the previously untold details relayed by Armenian witnesses and victims of the Nakba. ■

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

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Other People’s Mail

TELL YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS WHAT YOU THINK PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVE. NW WASHINGTON, DC 20500 COMMENT LINE: (202) 456-1111 WWW.WHITEHOUSE.GOV/CONTACT

Compiled by Dale Sprusansky

HAMAS ATTACK SHOULD NOT COME AS A SURPRISE To The Press Democrat, Oct. 10, 2023 It’s right to decry Hamas’ recent murderous attack on Israel. But why is this a surprise? And when do we decry Israel’s murderous attacks on Palestine that have continued over the last 75 years since the Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe in 1948? In the two years around 1948, 750,000 out of two million Palestinians were driven out of their state. Zionists took 78 percent of historic Palestine, ethnically cleansed and destroyed hundreds of villages and cities, and killed 15,000 Palestinians through mass atrocities including dozens of massacres. Today, Palestinians continue to be a stateless people, with Israel now controlling virtually 100 percent of historic Palestine. I read in the news this morning that Israel has massed tens of thousands of soldiers near Gaza and launched massive air and other attacks. Could the intention be, once again, a deliberate effort to eliminate the Palestinian people? How can we continue to support this murderous oppression? Robert Keller, Newburyport, MA

OPPRESSION IS THE ROOT OF THIS VIOLENCE To The Palm Beach Post, Oct. 10, 2023 As an American Jew living in South Florida, I am devastated to hear the Israeli government promising to commit war 72

ANY MEMBER: U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WASHINGTON, DC 20515 (202) 225-3121

crimes against Palestinians in response to recent violent actions by Hamas. But this is not just a question of Israeli government policy. Our own government sends billions of dollars to Israel every year to support an apartheid regime that violates human rights—as well as Jewish ethics. For 75 years, Palestinians have faced brutal oppression, and every U.S. taxpayer is complicit in this violence and oppression. The root of today’s violence is this history of oppression, which is funded by the U.S. and supported without question by South Florida politicians. As a Jew and as a human being committed to human rights, I must speak out against this complicity, and I hope that others will join me in demanding that the U.S. end military support for Israel. Nicole Morse, West Palm Beach, FL

HUMAN SUFFERING IN GAZA CANNOT BE IGNORED To The Capital Times, Oct. 11, 2023 The horrors of this war between Israel and Gaza bring back memories of Hitler’s terrible cruelties during WWII. However, I differ with those who call the attacks “unprovoked.” For many decades the Gaza Strip has been an overheated pressure cooker, waiting to explode. All this is as understandable, and deplorable, as the desperation that gave rise to the attacks by Hamas in the first place. The Gaza Strip is often called the world’s largest open air prison because of the complete control by Israel of everything and every person that comes in or

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 2201 C ST. NW WASHINGTON, DC 20520 PHONE: (202) 647-6575 VISIT WWW.STATE.GOV TO E-MAIL ANY SENATOR: U.S. SENATE WASHINGTON, DC 20510 (202) 224-3121

out of Gaza. Israel has now added to that the total embargo on everything entering Gaza, population 2.3 million, including food, water, electricity and medicine. These will quickly result in deaths from injuries and illnesses by those who cannot get medical treatment, and slower deaths by thirst and hunger. Israel is now physically destroying buildings, including mosques, in the name of seeking Hamas agents and leaders. Already 140 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli attacks. For decades, many of the world’s best and brightest peacemakers have made every attempt to find a peaceful solution to the problem of fair divisions of Israel, but all have been rejected. Terrorism cannot be condoned. Nor can human suffering. Louise Lund, Madison, WI

OUTBREAK OF VIOLENCE WAS INEVITABLE To The Star-Ledger, Oct. 11, 2023 The explosion of violence between Israel and Gaza was inevitable and foreseeable given Israel’s systematic, cruel policies against the Palestinian people over the past 75 years, which have escalated sharply under the current Israeli government. The Palestinians in Gaza have been indigenous inhabitants of the land since the time of Abraham and Ishmael— the “other Semites.” It is tragic that Jewish children have been abducted and killed, but the Israeli army has been abducting Palestinian chilNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

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dren from their homes in the middle of the night for decades, imprisoning them and sometimes torturing and killing them. I haven’t mentioned the grinding oppression of life in the larger prison that is the Gaza Strip; the daily harassment of inhabitants of the West Bank; and blatant, violent land-grabbing by Jewish settlers who are there illegally. This has rendered Palestinians homeless, often without a means to make a living. Israel’s military has also caused deliberate provocation by incursions into their houses of worship and refugee camps on flimsy grounds. Where was the outrage of the American press throughout this horrible saga? It is disingenuous to paint the Israelis as the innocent victims when their government has been behaving as a colonial power since its inception, with all of the odious consequences. Human beings endure oppression only so long before revolting. Nancy T. Block, Berkeley Heights, NJ

IT’S TIME TO FINALLY ADDRESS PALESTINIAN RIGHTS To The Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 10, 2023 The fighting in Israel and Gaza that has shocked the world requires a clear and principled response from a Christian perspective. Violence and war are never the answer. We need to realize, Palestinians and Israelis alike, that any solution must be based on justice and not the destruction of the other party. This war was the inevitable outcome of Israel’s persistent and systematic violation of the rights of Palestinians. An unjust status quo cannot go on forever. Despite the tremendous power imbalance, Palestinian rights need to be addressed and must be considered. The current round of fighting must lead all parties to think in new terms and not be lulled again into doubling down on policies that have failed time and again. This requires that the demands of justice for the Palestinians be met. Andrew Mills, Lower Gwynedd, PA NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

NO EXTRA TAXPAYER DOLLARS TO ISRAEL To The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, Oct. 11, 2023 The media is now reporting that President Joe Biden has asked the House for an additional appropriation for Israel. As a conservative, while my heart goes out to everyone who has been killed as a result of this savage terrorist attack, we must not let emotions get in the way of fiscal responsibility. The state of Israel is no longer the fledgling nation it was in 1949 when the United States began its financial support. Israel now enjoys a first world GDP with an average salary on par with Italy. Their own domestic defense industry amounted to $12.5 billion in 2022—far in excess of the $3.8 billion appropriation we give them annually for no reason other than we always have. That deal dates to 2016 for a period of ten years and the United States should continue to honor that commitment until it expires. Hopefully in 2026, the White House will have a conservative occupant who realizes that Israel can stand on its own feet without the financial support of the American taxpayer. In the meantime, we should not be allocating even more money on top of the $3.8 billion we already send them every year. I call on our elected leaders here in North Dakota to affirm their support for conservative fiscal policy. Israel is welcome to buy our weaponry, but they need to foot the bill—not the American taxpayer. Andrew Nordin, Fargo, ND

HARVARD STUDENT STATEMENT DRAWS IRE OF ISRAEL LOBBY A joint statement by Harvard University Palestine solidarity groups on the situation in Palestine, Oct. 7, 2023: We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence. Today’s events did not occur in a vacuum. For the last two decades, mil-

lions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to live in an open-air prison. Israeli officials promise to “open the gates of hell,” and the massacres in Gaza have already commenced. Palestinians in Gaza have no shelters for refuge and nowhere to escape. In the coming days, Palestinians will be forced to bear the full brunt of Israel’s violence. The apartheid regime is the only one to blame. Israeli violence has structured every aspect of Palestinian existence for 75 years. From systematized land seizures to routine airstrikes, arbitrary detentions to military checkpoints, and enforced family separations to targeted killings, Palestinians have been forced to live in a state of death, both slow and sudden. Today, the Palestinian ordeal enters into uncharted territory. The coming days will require a firm stand against colonial retaliation. We call on the Harvard community to take action to stop the ongoing annihilation of Palestinians. This statement was co-authored by a coalition of 34 Palestine solidarity groups at Harvard. For student safety, the names of all original signing organizations were removed. This statement received widespread criticism from pro-Israel groups and wealthy Harvard donors. ■

IndextoAdvertisers Al Alusi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA). . . . . . . Inside Front Cover Capitol Hill Citizen . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Kinder USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Land of Canaan Foundation . . . . . 29 Middle East Children’s Alliance . . . 35 Mondoweiss. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. . . . 11 Palestine Hijacked . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Palestinian American Medical Association. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Palestinian Medical Relief Society. . 15 Playgrounds for Palestine. . . . . . . . 23 Unitarian Universalists . . . . . . . . . . 33 United Palestinian Appeal (UPA). . . . . . . . . . Inside Back Cover

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AET’s 2023 Choir of Angels

The following are individuals, organizations, companies and foundations whose help between Jan. 1, 2023 and Oct. 7, 2023 is making possible activities of the tax‐exempt AET Library Endowment (federal ID #52‐1460362) and the American Educational Trust, publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Some Angels will help us co‐sponsor the next IsraelLobbyCon. Others are donating to our “Capital Building Fund,” which will help us expand the Middle East Books and More bookstore. We are deeply honored by your confidence and profoundly grateful for your generosity.

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Maher Abbas, Estero, FL Fahed Abu-Akel, Atlanta, GA Miriam Adams, Albuquerque, NM James Ahlstrom, Stirling, NJ Rashda Albibi, Panama City Beach, FL Robert Barber, Good Shephard Comm. Church, Fort Lauderdale, FL James Bennett, Fayetteville, AR Essa & Najwah Bishara, Greensboro, NC Ann Bragdon, Woodstock, VT Kathleen Brewster, Arlington, VA John Cornwall, Palm Springs, CA David Curtiss, New Orleans, LA Gregory DeSylva, Rhinebeck, NY Raymond Doherty, Houston, TX Nile El Wardani, San Diego, CA Preston Enright, Denver, CO Nancy Fleischer, Sacramento, CA Donald Frisco, Wilmington, DE Sam Gousen, Arlington, VA Doug Greene, Bowling Green, OH Marina Gutierrez, Kensington, CA Dixiane Hallaj, Purcellville, VA Delinda Hanley, Kensington, MD**, **** Marilyn & Harold Jerry, Princeton, NJ Janis Jibrin, Washington, DC Akram & Lubna Karam, Charlotte, NC Mazen Khalidi, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI Akbar Khan, Princeton, NJ Eugene Khorey, Homestead, PA Nabil Khoury, Bloomfield Hills, MI Edward Kuncar, Coral Gables, FL Edward Lesoon, Pittsburgh, PA Marilyn Levin, Ashland, OR Dr. Moosa Lunat, Stockton, CA* Erna Lund, Seattle, WA Mrs. Allen MacDonald, Saratoga Springs, NY Donald Maclay, Media, PA Lucinda Mahmoud, Oceanside, CA Martha Martin, Kahului, HI Gwendolyn McEwen, Bellingham, WA

Bill McGrath, Northfield, MN Sara Najjar-Wilson, Reston, VA Mounzer Nasr, McLean, VA Hasan Newash, Detroit, MI Mary Neznek, Washington, DC W. Eugene Notz, Charleston, SC Edmond Parker, Chicago, IL Barry Preisler, Albany, CA Anis Racy, Canterbury, CT Kenneth Reed, Bishop, CA John Robinson, Somerville, MA Amb. William Rugh, Hingham, MA Rafi Salem, Alamo, CA Ramzy& Janet Salem, Monterey Park, CA Irmgard Scherer, Fairfax, VA Yusuf Tamimi, Hilo, HI Janice Terry & Donald Burke, Marietta, OH Thomas Trueblood, Chapel Hill, NC V. Vitolins, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI Fathi Yousef, Irvine, CA Mashood Yunus, Minneapolis, MN Mohammed Ziaullah, Montclair, CA

ACCOMPANISTS ($250 or more)

George Aldridge, Bissen, Luxembourg Larry Cooper, Plymouth, MI## Edwin Lindgren, Overland Park, KS Darrel Meyers, Burbank, CA Hertha Poje, New York, NY Phil Portlock, Washington, DC John & Peggy Prugh, Tucson, AZ William Stanley, Saluda, NC Raymond Totah, Fallbrook, CA William Walls, Arlington, VA John Whitbeck, Paris, France Lawrence Wilkerson, Falls Church, VA Dr. James Zogby, Washington, DC

TENORS & CONTRALTOS ($500 or more) Michael Ameri, Calabasas, CA Majid Batterjee, McLean, VA Andrew Findlay, Alexandria, VA

Raymond Gordon, Venice, FL Wasif Hafeez, W. Bloomfield, MI Erin Hankir, Nepean, Ontario, Canada Brigitte Jaensch, Sacramento, CA Gloria Keller, Santa Rosa, CA Nidal Mahayni, Richmond, VA John McLees, Chicago, IL Audrey Olson, Saint Paul, MN David Snider, Bolton, MA

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Asha A. Anand, Bethesda, MD Lois Aroian, East Jordan, MI Joseph C. Daruty, Newport Beach, CA Nabila El Taji, Amman, Jordan Ronald & Mary Forthofer, Boulder, CO Judith Howard, Norwood, MA Ghazy Kader, Shoreline, WA Jack Love, Kailua Kona, HI Khaled Saffuri, Vienna, VA Bernice Shaheen, Palm Desert, CA *** Gretel Smith, Garrett, IN Darcy Sreebny, Issaquah, WA** Imad & Joann Tabry, Fort Lauderdale, FL Branscomb Family Foundation, La Jolla, CA

CHOIRMASTERS ($5,000 or more)

Fatimunnisa Begum, Jersey City, NJ Ida Harlene & George Buchanan Trust, Rockville, MD Clyde Farris, West Linn, OR**, # Goelet Foundation, New York, NY**** William Lightfoot, Vienna, VA Mary C. Norton, Austin, TX Benjamin Wade, Saratoga, CA * In Memory of Farhana (Lunat) Rana **In Memory of Dick & Donna Curtiss ***In Memory of Dr. Jack G. Shaheen ****In Memory of John Goelet #In Memory of Andy Killgore ##In Memory of Diane Rose Cooper

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Afghan children sit near their damaged homes after the earthquake in Wardakha village, Zendeh Jan district of Herat Province on Oct. 10, 2023. Rescue workers scrabbled through rubble searching for villagers buried by a series of earthquakes that killed more than 2,000 people in rural western Afghanistan. PHOTO BY MOHSEN KARIMI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES