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MISUNDERSTANDINGS ABOUT JERUSALEM’S TEMPLE MOUNT
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On Middle East Affairs Volume XXX, No. 6
August 2011
Telling the Truth for 29 Years… 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 8 Saudis Throw Down the Gauntlet—George S. Hishmeh 9 Palestinian Statehood Resolution Sets Off Alarm Bells in Israel and Washington—Rachelle Marshall 10 Are We Nearing the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan?—Rachelle Marshall 12 Palestinian Children Targeted as Israel Crushes Unrest—Mel Frykberg
14 Waiting in Line at the ATM Machine for Overdue Paychecks to Arrive—Mohammed Omer 16 Misunderstandings About Jerusalem’s Temple Mount—George Wesley Buchanan 17 Congress Seems Divided Over How to React to Events in Libya—Shirl McArthur 22 Comings and Goings Around the U.N.—Ian Williams
SPECIAL REPORTS 19 Turkey: The Mideast’s Real Revolution —Eric S. Margolis 20 The United States Is Losing Pakistan—Patrick Seale 24 Israel’s “Iron Wall” Extends to Sudan —Sean F. McMahon
26 After Six-Year Wait, Israel Affirms Rights of Pregnant Migrant Workers—John Gee 34 Painter Helen Zughaib: A Foot in Two Countries And Two Cultures—Barbara Ferguson
ON THE COVER: A U.S. soldier from Viper Company (Bravo), 1-26 Infantry stands on a guard tower at Combat Outpost Sabari in Khost province in eastern Afghanistan, June 23, 2011. In Washington that day, President Barack Obama announced that all 33,000 U.S. surge troops would be home by next summer. TED ALJIBE/AFP/Getty Images
WWW.HZUGHAIB.COM
“Charity and Compassion” from painter Helen Zughaib’s series “Stories My Father Told Me.” See story p. 34.
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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 1-800-368-5788, and press 1. For other options, see page OV-3 in this issue.)
Other Voices
Compiled by Janet McMahon
AIPAC Pushes Hard for War With Iran, Grant F. Smith, www.antiwar.com
OV-1
Neocons Losing Hold Over Republican Foreign Policy, Jim Lobe, www.lobelog.com
OV-8
Failed Favoritism Toward Israel, Turki Al-Faisal, The Washington Post
OV-3
If This Be “Isolationism”…, Justin Raimondo, www.antiwar.com
OV-9
The No-Longer Temporary Occupation, Joseph Dana, The Forward
OV-4
Who’s an Isolationist?, Jack Hunter, www.amconmag.com/blog
OV-11
While Obama’s Talking Borders…, Josef Storm, www.antiwar.com
OV-12
Drones Over Yemen, Thomas Hudson, www.counterpunch.com
OV-13
Repeal the PATRIOT Act Is the Lesson of Bush White House Spying, Juan Cole, www.juancole.com
OV-15
London Is Turning Into Israel’s Laboratory in Preparation for 2012 Summer Olympics, David Cronin, http://mondoweiss.net
OV-5
Top Ten Things Anthony Weiner Has Said That Are Worse Than Sexting, Juan Cole, www.juancole.com
OV-5
The Role of Jews In the Palestinian Solidarity Movement, Henry Herskovitz and Michelle J. Kinnucan, www.counterpunch.com
OV-6
Fear Is Driving Israelis to Obtain Foreign Passports, Gideon Levy, Haaretz
OV-7
The U.S. Government Won’t Be Charged With Perjury Even When It’s Caught in a Lie, Sally Eberhardt, CounterPunch OV-15
DEPARTMENTS 5 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
38 ISRAEL AND JUDAISM: Despite Increased Attempts to
7 PUBLISHERS’ PAGE
Stifle Dissent, Jewish Criticism of Israel’s Policies Grows
27 NEW YORK CITY AND TRISTATE NEWS: Two NYC Panels Discuss the Goldstone Report And Goldstone’s Op-Ed Retreat
—Jane Adas 30 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
—Allan C. Brownfeld 40 ARAB-AMERICAN ACTIVISM: ADC Conference Panelists Discuss Present, Future of Arab World
44 HUMAN RIGHTS:
CHRONICLE: “1001 Inventions”
Iranian Journalist Maziar
Exhibit Showcases Islamic
Bahari’s Book Then They Came
Geniuses From Cordoba, Cairo
For Me
And Beyond—Pat and Samir Twair
32 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
46 MUSIC & ARTS: Third Annual Omani Cultural Day
58 BOOK REVIEW: Speaking Out: A Congressman’s Lifelong Fight Against Bigotry, Famine, and War, by Paul Findley
—Reviewed by Andrew I. Killgore 59 NEW ARRIVALS FROM THE AET BOOK CLUB 60 THE WORLD LOOKS AT THE MIDDLE EAST — CARTOONS 61 OTHER PEOPLE’S MAIL 63 BULLETIN BOARD 65 2011 AET CHOIR OF ANGELS
CHRONICLE: SALAM Masjid And Center for Higher Islamic
23 INDEX TO ADVERTISERS 49 WAGING PEACE:
Learning Opens in Sacramento
First Move Over AIPAC
—Elaine Pasquini
Conference
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ANDREW I. KILLGORE Executive Editor: RICHARD H. CURTISS Managing Editor: JANET McMAHON News Editor: DELINDA C. HANLEY Book Club Director: ANDREW STIMSON Circulation Director: ANNE O’ROURKE Administrative Director: ALEX BEGLEY Art Director: RALPH U. SCHERER
LetterstotheEditor
Publisher:
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (ISSN 8755-4917) is published 9 times a year, monthly except Jan./Feb., May/June and Sept./Oct. 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 53062, Washington, DC 20009-9062. Published by the American Educational Trust (AET), a non-profit 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 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 seven 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, selfdetermination, 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 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: P.O. Box 53062, Washington, DC 20009-9062 Phone: (202) 939-6050 • (800) 368-5788 Fax: (202) 265-4574 E-mail: wrmea@wrmea.com bookclub@wrmea.com circulation@wrmea.com advertising@wrmea.com Web sites: http://www.wrmea.com http://www.middleeastbooks.com Subscriptions, sample copies and donations: P.O. Box 53062, Washington, DC 20009-9062 Printed in the USA
AUGUST 2011
Who Does Congress Represent? Thank you for your June 8 e-mail alert regarding the USS Liberty commemorations. I would like to add that a disgraceful U.S. Congress passed a resolution back in 2010 calling for “the immediate and unconditional release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit held captive by Hamas, and for other purposes.” Gilad Shalit is not, nor was he ever, an American citizen. His family comes from France. He never served in any capacity as a soldier for the United States, yet we have a congressional resolution pertaining to him, while there has never even been a congressional investigation into the attack on the USS Liberty that took the lives of 34 American seamen when it was attacked by Israel, although it has been demanded for years, especially by the survivors. If ever the term “radical,” should be used, it should be applied to the U.S. government for its unconditional support of Israel even in the face of loss of American lives, including Rachel Corrie and Furkan Dogan, and for this government clearly showing that the life of one Israeli soldier is worth more than that of any U.S. citizen. The lives of U.S. citizens only become relevant depending on who killed them. Marlene Newesri, New York, NY As former Rep. Paul Findley (R-IL) has noted (see August 2007 Washington Report, p. 22), Israel’s 1967 attack on the USS Liberty “proved to be a fateful turning point in Israel’s power over U.S. foreign policy. The Liberty experience convinced Israeli officials that they could get by with literally anything—even the murder of U.S. sailors—in their manipulation of the U.S. government.” More than four decades later, Americans continue to pay with their lives. Meanwhile, Chicago has elected as its new mayor Rahm Emanuel, who in 1991 volunteered to help protect not American troops, but Israelis, from Scud missile attacks. And that was before he became a U.S. congressman and President Barack Obama’s chief of staff! More on the USS Liberty I am very interested in the USS Liberty. If you have any commentary, news, video footage that I can put on Facebook, please send it to me. New Zealand is allied to the USA and it horrifies me that the savage attack on the USS Liberty by Israel was covered up by your government. It is imporTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
tant that people learn the truth. Patricia McCarty, New Zealand In addition to our own coverage and action alerts—for which you can sign up at our Web site, <www.wrmea.com>—the Web site for the USS Liberty Veterans Association, <www. usslibertyveterans.org>, as well as <www.gtr5.com> and <www.ussliberty.org/index2.html> are excellent resources.
Ally or Parasite? Please find enclosed my subscription renewal and a gift subscription for my pastor. I want to once again thank the entire
gang at the Washington Report for the wonderful work you do. I am always amused when Israel is referred to as our ally. The relationship of Israel to the United States is not one of ally to ally but one of parasite to host. Keep up the good work! Clyde A. Farris, M.D., Tualatin, OR Even more masochistically, in this case the host is paying the parasite to feed off it!
Open the Al-Bweira Road In addition to my subscription renewal, I’m enclosing information on Upper Hudson Peace Action’s campaign to Open the Al-Bweira Road. The Israeli government’s triple blockade of the Al-Bweira Road has meant hardship and danger for the Palestinian residents of that farming community for more than 10 years. Please take a few moments to review the flyer and to learn more by clicking on “ACTIONS” when you visit our committee’s Web site, <www.Palestinianrightscommit tee.org>. If you share our belief that the Israeli government should lift the triple blockade, will you be able to let readers of the Washington Report know of the campaign? Paul W. Rehm, Greenville, NY Thank you for allowing us to alert readers to your organization and its informative and useful brochure, which describes the block5
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ades separating the agricultural neighborhood of Al-Bweira from the city of Hebron—a large metal gate, a huge boulder further on, and finally an earth mound more than a yard high blocking the road. The colorful map also shows the large amount of Al-Bweira land seized by yet another illegal settlement “outpost.” Finally, the brochure provides the names and addresses of involved Israeli officials who can and should be contacted. We highly recommend it.
An Eye-Opening Video Your magazine is a commendable source of information on the Middle East. I especially appreciated reading of the video “Why 9/11?” (May/June Washington Report, p. 58), viewable on the Internet, which carefully examines what really motivated the Sept. 11 attackers and the impact that has had on America and the world. Everyone from Bush to bin Laden and Mearsheimer to Gandhi is aptly quoted in this eye-opening video. I highly recommend it to your readers! Thomas Gilgut, Jr., Poughkeepsie, NY As your letter demonstrates, Washington Report advertisers not only support this publication, but provide information to its readers as well!
happenings regarding the Israeli-Palestine issue to the best of my ability. I am often angered at the ignorance and apathy held by many. Sometimes when I am lucky I am able to remove some of these stones from their path. To paraphrase Kahlil Gibran, “when we must step over a stone on the path should we not remove it so that those behind us will not stumble?” Once again I would like to thank you and your publication. I want everyone at Washington Report to know that your work has been invaluable to me in making big rocks into little rocks. We all must work together, and even the least of us can help to make our world a better place. James Sehingler, Lewisburg, PA We know the “angel” who donated your subscription will be happy to hear—as are we—that it is so well and thoughtfully used.
An Editorial Conundrum Dr. Jeff Halper urges us not to buy into how Israel “frames” the conflict. The easiest trap to fall into is to adopt the Zionists’ terminology. Though your magazine generally seems to avoid this pitfall, there are exceptions. On p. 9 of your May/June issue, for example, the writer refers to the “Israeli Defense Ministry.” I submit that this entity and its related “Israel Defense Big Rocks Into Little Rocks Forces” have little to do with defense. They I am writing to you because I am a recipi- are, of course, agents of aggression, domient of one of your donated subscriptions, nation, oppression and ethnic cleansing. and I just wanted to say thank you. I am On p. 60 of the same issue, another writer currently incarcerated and being held at refers to “Israel’s independence.” Yet, as we Lewisburg USP’s SMU Program. I try to do know, Israel has been and continues to be my part by spreading information that has- politically, economically and militarily den’t been reflected against the mirrors of the pendent upon the U.S. Israeli Zionist funhouse. By sifting through Of course, avoiding these unreal usages the mainstream media and from shows like presents an editorial conundrum. For prac“Democracy Now!” and your publication I tical reasons, writers cannot refer to the try to stay as informed as possible. Every “Israel Domination Forces” (or Ministry), chance I get I spread the truth about the accurate though the terms may be. But perhaps the term “socalled” could precede such misleading terms, Other Voices is an optional 16-page supplement available or the dubious words only to subscribers of the Washington Report on Middle East could be put in quotaAffairs. For an additional $15 per year tion marks. I for one (see postcard insert for Washington would certainly be Re port subscription rates), submore comfortable with Israeli “Defense” Minscribers will receive Other Voices istry or “Israel’s sobound into each issue of their called Defense MinWashington Report on Middle East istry,” than just parrotAffairs. ing whatever Israel Back issues of both publications gives us. are available. To subscribe teleGregory M. DeSylva, Rhinebeck, NY phone 1 (800) 368-5788 (press 1), fax (202) 265-4574, e-mail Some would argue <circulation@wrmea.com>, or write to P.O. Box 53062, that the same applies to Washington, DC 20009. the U.S. Defense Department (although it can 6
THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
more neutrally be referred to as the Pentagon). Rather than clutter up our pages with quotation marks or [sics], however, we trust our readers to separate official names from actions—and it’s the latter on which we prefer to focus. But we take your point, and thank you for making it.
Ayn Rand and the Pauls I have not yet received the May/June issue and because I’ve been too busy to comment on the April issue, please excuse my tardiness. My issue is with the postcards from that issue. I’ve used the postcards many times and found them to be relevant to events in the Middle East and the USA. I’ve researched Libertarian Ron Paul and listened to the CDs lent by my library. His views were interesting until he got to his promotion of the author Ayn Rand. He was so taken with her racist/Zionist philosophy that he named his son Rand after her. This knowledge was all I needed to STOP my research. So you can imagine how surprised I was to find both he and his son mentioned on the postcards! It is schizophrenic to claim to be against aid to Israel and embrace the philosophy of Ayn Rand. I would like to suggest you make it clear to other readers just who the Pauls (father and son) consider their friends and exactly who their heroes are. It’s as simple as searching for Ayn Rand and watching a Phil Donahue Show wherein she clearly dispenses immense hatred for Arabs and her love for Israel. Maryam Fritsch, via e-mail You’ve got us wondering whether we’re in danger of emulating Bill Clinton’s cynical “triangulation” process! We endorsed the statement, not the politicians. But so few members of Congress are critical of U.S support of Israel—with those who do demonized when they break that taboo—that we believe Americans should know that not all their elected representatives put the interests of a foreign country ahead of those of their constituents. Interestingly, former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan also is an Ayn Rand acolyte. At least the Pauls are not economists! Finally, we note that in 2008 Mohammed Omer, our Gaza correspondent, received the prestigious Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. (This year’s recipient is WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.) Gellhorn, famous as a war correspondent and one of Ernest Hemingway’s wives, has been described as “an uncritical admirer of Zionist Israel and a hater of Arabs.” Nevertheless, those who believe in her journalistic principles confer the award in her name to modern-day upholders of those principles—even those with whom she would disagree. ❑ AUGUST 2011
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American Educational Trust Why Is Israel Such a Scaredy-Cat? It’s not because of Hamas, Hezbollah, secret plans to build Iranian nukes, or any of the usual “terrorism threats” that Tel Aviv trots out to inspire American Israel-firsters to open their wallets or pass embarrassing legislation. What keeps Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu up at night is the fear that Arab Israelis and Palestinians in the territories illegally occupied and blockaded by Israel for nearly 45 years will...
Catch the Freedom Fever. Palestinians have been engaging in nonviolent resistance for years, of course. Remember Palestinian Mubarak Awad, a Gandhian nonviolent activist whom Israel deported in 1988 because his campaign of nonviolent resistance was working? During the first intifada (uprising), Palestinians used non-violent protests, as well as general strikes and boycotts of Israeli goods, to protest the Israeli occupation and control of Palestinian land. Since mid2000, Palestinians have held weekly protests against the construction of Israel’s illegal separation wall.
Israeli Troops Turned Them Violent. But, persevering in the face of numerous deaths and injuries (including of Americans), nonviolent Palestinian and international protesters have recently succeeded in halting construction of the wall and settler-only roads illegally built on Palestinian land. On this year’s anniversary of the Naksa (Israel’s 1967 capture and subsequent occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the Syrian Golan Heights), Palestinian refugees peacefully marched to Israel’s undeclared “borders,” while protesters inside the occupied territories called for an end to Israeli occupation, apartheid and ethnic cleansing. They were met with lethal force from Israeli sharpshooters, who killed 20 peaceful protesters on the Syrian border. Now, however, ordinary Israelis and Americans are…
Finally Taking Notice. As the Gaza freedom flotilla embarked on another potentially deadly voyage to break Israel’s siege of Gaza, Gidon Levy wrote in the June 30 edition of Haaretz: “We have become a society whose language is violence, a country that seeks to resolve nearly everything by force, and only by force.” Even before the flotilla set sail, nucleararmed Israel launched a hasbara (propaganda) AUGUST 2011
Publishers’ Page
campaign to attack the 10 ships of unarmed activists, including Americans aboard the The Audacity of Hope. Israeli newspapers lobbed outlandish charges that the flotilla was carrying chemical weapons and planning violence.
Elaqad pointed out, “Thomas Jefferson did not ask the British for permission to sign…
Resorting to Sabotage…
In his June 23 prime-time speech in which he announced the drawdown of troops in Afghanistan, President Obama noted that “over the last decade, we have spent a trillion dollars on war.” Those wars actually will cost between $3.7 trillion to $4.4 trillion, according to a Brown University study released June 29. Americans can’t afford these wars—and we especially can’t bear the loss of lives and limbs in countries that don’t want us there.
Israeli agents cut the propeller of one ship in a Greek harbor, and the Israeli government was behind a YouTube video featuring a professional actor who cast the flotilla as antigay. The Electronic Intifada was the first to expose the video as a hoax.
UNESCO Sharply Condemns Israel. UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee on June 27 called on Israel to stop immediately all archaeological excavations and works in Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel is feverishly digging inside and around the Old City, hoping to unearth the City of David (see p. 16) and failing to provide information about the sites to the World Heritage Center.
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill… Where senators and representatives tend to be more concerned about Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit than their American constituents, including the crew of the USS Liberty, which Israel attacked in 1967, six members of the House of Representatives have urged U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to “do everything in [her] power” to help “ensure the safety of all American citizens on board The Audacity of Hope.” The signatories are Dennis Kucinich (DOH), William Lacy Clay (D-MO), Sam Farr (D-CA), Bob Filner (D-CA), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) and Barbara Lee (D-CA).
Hats Off to Them! Israel also is increasingly alarmed by an upcoming effort by Palestinians (how dare they!) to apply to the U.N. for recognition and admission as a state. A petition to urge President Barack Obama to support Palestinian statehood is attracting growing numbers of signatories. We are moved by peoples’ comments as they sign the petition—written by Arab-American activist and commentator Dr. Mohamed Khodr, and supported by the Washington Report. Wrote author and poet Naomi Shihab Nye, “The Palestinians have waited long enough for simple respect and the dignity of independence.” In reference to Israeli and American attempts to cast the vote as an effort to “delegitimize Israel,” Hisam THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
The Declaration of Independence.” What’s Another Trillion or Two?
Where’s the Money? Iraqis and Americans are demanding to know what happened to $17 billion in Iraqi money that was part of a U.S.-administered fund for rebuilding the country. Also missing is $9 billion of the many billions of taxpayers dollars spent on reconstructing Iraqi infrastructure destroyed during the 2003 “shock and awe” campaign. Yet Iraqis still suffer from electricity outages, ill-equipped hospitals and too few schools. And in Afghanistan, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) can’t account for nearly $18 billion paid to some 7,000 U.S. and Afghan contractors for development projects. A staggering amount of U.S. tax dollars have simply…
Vanished Down a Black Hole. Meanwhile, Americans are facing cuts to programs for education, housing, food, healthcare, rebuilding crumbling infrastructure and critical assistance to wounded warriors and the elderly. Now more than ever it’s time to…
Keep on Keeping On. Sign the petition, write letters to editors and your representatives, and don’t forget to support Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law and Palestinian rights. We fervently hope you’ll also support the Washington Report, which has worked to document the stories ignored by the mainstream media to the detriment of us all. Please help us continue our work so that together we can.....
Make a Difference Today! 7
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Saudis Throw Down the Gauntlet SpecialReport
PHOTO BY SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES
By George S. Hishmeh
Prince Turki Al-Faisal, at the time Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S., addresses an April 2006 luncheon in Chicago. audi Arabia has apparently dropped
Sthe gauntlet in its loud tiff with the Obama administration’s “misguided policies” toward the Middle East and particularly its stance on the Palestinian debacle, now in its 64th year, where Barack Obama recently reiterated the “unshakeable” U.S. support of Israel. More infuriating, the president’s wideranging but controversial speech on the Middle East, coming as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was flying to Washington in May, failed to indicate there will be any “substantive change” in U.S. policy, considering that in September the Palestinian leadership is hoping to win admission to the United Nations. Although the Saudi outburst was unofficial, it nevertheless came from a prominent member of the Saudi royal family, Prince Turki al-Faisal, the son of the late King Faisal and nephew of the present King Abdullah and a former ambassador to the United States and United Kingdom. For more than 20 years, he served as the
George S. Hishmeh is a Washington-based columnist. He can be contacted at ghishmeh@gulfnews.com. This column was first published in the Gulf News, June 16, 2011. 8
chief of the kingdom’s main foreign intelligence service and is expected to be named a foreign minister once his brother, Prince Saud al-Faisal, retires. In a column published by The Washington Post on June 10 (see this issue’s “Other Voices” supplement), the articulate and sharp Saudi prince underlined that “there will be disastrous consequences for U.S.Saudi relations if the United States vetoes U.N. recognition of a Palestine state.” He continued: “It would mark a nadir in the decadeslong [Saudi-U.S.] relationship as well as irrevocably damage the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and America’s reputation among Arab nations. The ideological distance between the Muslim world and the West in general would widen—and opportunities for friendship and cooperation between the two could vanish.” There was no immediate U.S. official response but a Washington Post columnist, Richard Cohen, described Prince Turki’s remarks two days after publication as “a declaration of war.” He added that “while [Prince Turki’s] vexation over the Palestinian problem is well-known, rarely has it been carried to this extent—and in such a public venue.” THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
The columnist also noted that Saudi Arabia “is sick and tired of American favoritism to Israel—the exuberant congressional reception for Binyamin Netanyahu, for example—and the administration’s decision to oppose any effort in the United Nations to create a Palestinian state. In this matter, America is doing what Israel wants.” He added that Prince Turki’s column, seen as “remarkable and ominous,” shows “a not surprising frustration in the Arab world with American policy tethered for the moment to a quite stubborn and unimaginative Israel policy.” Prince Turki’s firmness was clear-cut and foreboding: “The [U.S.] president must realize that the Arab world will no longer allow Palestinians to be delegitimized by Israeli actions to restrict their movements, choke off their economy and destroy their homes. Saudi Arabia will not stand by while Washington and Israel bicker endlessly about their intentions, fail to advance their plans and then seek to undermine a legitimate Palestinian presence on the international stage.” At the same time, the Netanyahu government, orchestrated by its extreme rightist foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has started “mobilizing” its embassies for the battle against U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state in September, “ordering its diplomats to convey that this would delegitimize Israel and foil any chance for future peace talks,” according to Haaretz. The Israeli daily, basing its reports on classified cables, revealed that Israeli envoys were instructed “to lobby the highest possible officials in their countries of service, muster support from local Jewish communities, ply the media with articles arguing against recognition and even ask for a call or quick visit from a top Israeli official if they think it would help.” It was clear that the Israelis were concentrating on European countries, which were divided into three groups: States that opposed Palestinian membership outright like Germany and Italy, others like former Eastern bloc countries that recognized the Palestinian state in 1988 but still remain unclear about their current position on U.N. membership like the Czech Republic, Continued on page 25 AUGUST 2011
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Palestinian Statehood Resolution Sets Off Alarm Bells in Israel and Washington SpecialReport
By Rachelle Marshall hen the history of the
WArab Spring comes to be
HAZEM BADER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
written, the Palestinians’ current uprising against the Israeli occupation will surely take its place alongside the heroic efforts by Egyptians and Tunisians to oust their own oppressive rulers. Forty years of one-sided U.S. Middle East policy, and President Barack Obama’s total abandonment of their cause, left the Palestinians with no alternative but to take action on their own. They are doing so with what some are calling a third intifada, a nonviolent effort to secure long-delayed justice. The resolution endorsing Palestinian statehood that will be introduced at the U.N. by President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in September may or may not prove successful when it comes up for a vote. Obama has promised that the U.S. will vote A Palestinian man (c) argues with an Israeli border guard as an Israeli army machine destroys a against it, but a favorable vote water reservoir used by Palestinian farmers in Hebron, June 14, 2011. by Britain, France and Germany would indicate once again that Washington might stop at nothing to prevent interna- are well aware that Ross is a devoted supstands alone among the major powers in tional recognition of a Palestinian state. To a porter of Israel, and Fayyad, the Palestinian chorus of nonstop cheering by Democratic official Ross spoke with in Ramallah, is not supporting an illegal occupation. The Palestinians’ decision to go to the and Republican legislators, the Israeli trusted by Hamas, which recently rejected U.N. has already exposed the hoax that Is- leader delivered an absolutist message, de- him as the possible prime minister of a furael is willing to accept a two-state solution. claring there would be no return of Pales- ture unity government. Obama has also joined his predecessor Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad for eight tinian refugees, no negotiations with a years, resigned in early June with a speech Palestinian Authority that included Hamas, George W. Bush in leaving the Palestinians bitterly criticizing Israeli leaders for “fool- no return to Israel’s 1967 borders, and no to the mercy of an intransigent Israeli govishly ignoring” Arab peace proposals that withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Jor- ernment. He proposed that “The parties offered full diplomatic relations in ex- dan Valley. He again insisted that an undi- themselves will negotiate a border that is change for Israel’s return to its 1967 bor- vided Jerusalem remain permanently part different than the one that existed on June ders. Another former Mossad official, Gad of Israel, and that Palestinians recognize Is- 4, 1967, to account for the changes that have taken place over the last 44 years.” But Shimon, suggested Israel might take rash rael as a “Jewish state.” Obama’s response to Netanyahu’s jettison- Obama’s continued refusal to threaten Israel action to prevent a U.N. statehood resolution. “The leadership makes fiery state- ing of the peace process was to reaffirm his with a withdrawal of U.S. support leaves Isments,” he said on Israeli radio, “and we administration’s “unshakable commitment to rael with all of the bargaining chips and Israel’s security.” He promised that the U.S. nothing to lose. American tax dollars will don’t know what will happen.” Netanyahu’s speech to Congress on May would oppose “symbolic actions to isolate continue to flow regardless of what Israel 24 confirmed the warnings by the two for- Israel at the U.N. in September.” Obama in does. As far as the president is concerned, Ismer officials that Israel’s current leadership fact considered it so important to forestall the Palestinian effort that he sent his Middle rael is also free to continue violating interRachelle Marshall is a free-lance editor liv- East adviser Dennis B. Ross to the region in national law. The “changes” that he said ing in Mill Valley, CA. A member of Jewish mid-June to find a way to restart long-sus- must be taken into account are the large setVoice for Peace, she writes frequently on the pended peace talks. The mission had little tlement blocs that now stretch almost to the chance of success, however. The Palestinians Jordan Valley. They are in clear violation of Middle East. AUGUST 2011
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the Geneva Convention of 1949 forbidding settlements in occupied territory, and have been repeatedly condemned by the U.N. as illegal. Obama’s original proposal that the two sides negotiate land swaps to compensate for Israel’s annexation of the settlements is no solution, according to Mustafa Barghouti, the respected Palestinian peace activist and physician. In the June 1 issue of the Atlanta Journal Constitution he pointed out that land swaps would leave Israel with the West Bank’s most arable land and in possession of the West Bank’s major acquifers. Israelis would continue to control 80 percent of West Bank water. Israelis currently are allocated 48 times more water per capita than the Palestinians. Consequently, Dr. Barghouti wrote, the land and water Palestinians desperately need to feed a growing population are now devoted to settler housing, swimming pools and golf courses. If Israel continues to control the Jordan Valley, Palestinians would be left with even less arable land and only 60 percent of West Bank territory. In a May 17 op-ed for The New York Times, Abbas reminded readers that during the 20 years the Palestinians have been negotiating with the Israelis, the Israelis have colonized more and more of the West Bank.“We go to the United Nations now,” he wrote, “to secure the right to live free in
the remaining 22 percent of our historic homeland”—a right, he pointed out, that has been repeatedly recognized by the United Nations, as well as by the International Court of Justice in 2004.” Abbas’ statement made it clear that by giving unconditional support to Israel the U.S. is on the wrong side of the law. Obama’s recent insistence that Arabs “recognize Israel as a Jewish state” passed almost unnoticed, even though it ignores the fact that the Palestinians have repeatedly agreed to recognize the state of Israel but refuse to accept the predominance of one religion over others. Washington’s warnings to Palestinians to refrain from violence sound especially hollow when Israeli troops routinely shoot Gaza farmers and fisherman who come too close to border zones, and fire live bullets at nonviolent demonstrators. Israeli troops killed 12 unarmed Palestinians on May 15 as they tried to re-enter the land their parents and grandparents had been driven from in 1948. On June 5 Israeli snipers killed another 23 Palestinians, and wounded dozens, as they tried to cross from Syria into Israel to commemorate the expulsion of 250,000 Palestinians in 1967. Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev accused the demonstrators of wanting “to destroy the Jewish state,” and State Depart-
ment spokesman Mark Toner declared, “Israel, like any other sovereign state, has a right to defend itself.” Considering that the protestors carried no weapons, and that Israel’s survival was hardly at stake, such statements served only to perpetuate the myth that the Palestinians’ ultimate goal is to destroy Israel. It is a myth that has survived the Palestinian Authority’s long recognition of Israel and Hamas’ repeated offers to recognize Israel once it withdraws to the 1967 borders. Obama justified Israel’s refusal to meet with Hamas by asking, “How can one negotiate with a party that [is] unwilling to recognize your right to exist?” Yet no Israeli government has been willing to recognize the Palestinians’ right to an independent nation. Israel’s Labor governments have expanded West Bank settlements—“facts on the ground”—as rapidly as Likud. They have offered the Palestinians a “state,” but only in portions of the West Bank, and with Israel continuing to control the borders. The ruling Likud party is more candid in its platform, which reads: “The Palestinians can run their lives freely in the framework of self-rule, but not as an independent and sovereign state.” Other provisions assert Israel’s right to all of Jerusalem, and declare that “The Jordan Valley and the territories that dominate it shall be under Israeli sovereignty.”
Are We Nearing the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan? Col. Muammar Qaddafi is a brutal dictator whose own people have turned against him, but he nevertheless asked a valid question in early June as NATO’s day and night bombing raids were obliterating his headquarters in Tripoli. “Why this constant bombing?” Qaddafi asked in a radio talk addressed to NATO. “Did we cross the sea and attack you?” The same question could be asked by the people of Yemen, where the U.S. has escalated its bombing attacks and other operations against militants linked to al-Qaeda. Hundreds of members of the U.S. Special Operations Command and the CIA are now stationed in Sana’a determining the targets to be attacked. Similar attacks on Afghanistan and Pakistan are being directed from locations in the U.S. The common denominator in America’s ongoing wars, which are being waged with a heavy reliance on bombing, is the inevitability of a backlash. No matter what precautions are taken, civilians will be killed, and homes and crops damaged. The result is that more people turn against America and the war. In Yemen, popular resentment against U.S. drone attacks undoubtedly contributed to the 10
effort to oust Ali Abdullah Saleh, the autocratic ruler whom the U.S. considered a staunch ally. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, NATO bombing, along with night raids and arbitrary arrests, have gained recruits for the Taliban and other insurgents. As the date neared for Obama’s announcement of the number of troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan, Pentagon officials tried to make sure that number would be small. Gen. David H. Petraeus warned that too large a reduction would “threaten the gains the American-led coalition has made.” Defense Secretary Robert Gates claimed that anything but a modest troop reduction would leave Afghanistan “unstable.” Taking a position reminiscent of the Pentagon’s long-ago argument for remaining in Vietnam, Gates said, “The prospects for a political settlement do not become real until the Taliban and our other adversaries conclude they cannot win militarily.” Obama used almost similar words when he announced on June 23 that he would withdraw 10,000 troops starting this summer, and 20,000 more by the end of next summer. “We are starting THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
this drawdown from a position of strength,” he said, despite evidence to the contrary. Or as government officials said during Vietnam, “We must negotiate from strength.” Afghan President Hamid Karzai called Obama’s announcement of a troop departure “a moment of happiness for Afghanistan,” but Obama’s modest defiance of his generals and secretary of defense did not appease opponents of the war at home.The fact that 70,000 American troops will remain in Afghanistan until at least 2014 prompted Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) to say, “If we’re going to leave we should leave. Let’s quit prolonging the agony and the inevitable.” Polls in June showed that only 36 percent of Americans now favor the war in Afghanistan, and only 30 percent support the war in Libya. Congress meanwhile was indicating an increasing reluctance to continue funding both wars. Ten members of Congress have filed suit in federal court charging that the continued U.S. bombing of Libya is violating the War Powers Act. The administration’s reply was that air strikes by drones and jet bombers did not constitute “hostilities.” AUGUST 2011
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Likud makes no secret of its claim to all of Palestine. As Henry Siegman writes in the June 13 issue of The Nation, the largest caucus in the Knesset, the 39-member Land of Israel Caucus, has as its official goal to strengthen “Israel’s grasp on the entire Land of Israel.” Thousands of right-wing Israelis, guarded by Israeli troops, celebrated the anniversary of Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem on June 3 with a march through the city chanting “Butcher the Arabs.” On the West Bank, roving mobs of settlers celebrated by setting fire to mosques—an increasingly common act of settler vandalism. Administration officials rarely mention such incidents. More typical was Obama’s expression of sympathy for Israelis who experience “the pain of knowing that other children in the region are taught to hate them.” The truth is that Palestinian children need no special teaching; they have simply to watch Israeli soldiers humiliate their parents at checkpoints, or drag their neighbors off to prison, or come with bulldozers to destroy their homes. More than 1,100 Palestinians, most of them children, were displaced from their homes in the first six months of 2011. The most effective lessons in hatred are delivered to children directly. Those who take part in nonviolent demonstrations, or simply witness them, are tear gassed, beaten, arrested, and even shot along with
adults. Hundreds of Palestinian children are in prison. British Lord Alf Dubs, a Jewish member of the House of Lords, reported after a visit to Israel that he saw 14- and 15year-olds in chains and shackles. A year ago, 16-year old Mohammed Okel was sentenced to 20 months in jail for throwing stones. Soldiers who arrested him clubbed him with their rifles, broke his skull and knocked out several teeth. He has since lost 70 percent of his vision. Children of Palestinian activists often serve as hostages to force confessions from their parents when torture, or what the Israelis call “moderate physical pressure,” fails to produce results. In the West Bank, where villagers hold weekly protests to protest the seizure of their land, child arrests are also a way to intimidate the demonstrators. Such arrests have increased in the Silwan neighborhood of Jerusalem, where protests are taking place against the displacement of the Arab population to make way for Jewish settlers (see story p. 12). On June 1, five children between the ages of 7 and 11 were rounded up as they were playing in a quiet area of Silwan. Another 10-year-old was arrested that evening, and seven more children a week later, including a boy under 6. To those aware of such actions, the demand that Hamas—but not Israel—renounce violence before it can take part in
negotiations is a way to avoid serious peace talks. Fortunately, many Israelis, as well as Jews from around the world, see more clearly than Israel’s self-proclaimed supporters that only a united Palestinian people can negotiate, and guarantee a lasting peace agreement. On June 5 between 10,000 and 20,000 Israelis marched through Tel Aviv to demonstrate their support of an independent Palestinian state. Marchers carried signs saying “Bibi said No—We say Yes to a Palestinian State,” “Borders of 1967—Permanent Borders of Peace,” and even, “Netanyahu, Are You Crazy?” When the international peace flotilla set sail for Gaza in June, a quarter of the passengers in the American boat were Jewish, including a former captain in the Israeli Air Force. One of the passengers was Hedy Epstein, an 86-year-old Holocaust survivor, who said before she sailed, “The American Jewish community and Israel both say they speak for all Jews. They don’t speak for the Jews who are going to be on this boat, and the many others standing behind us.” Members of the flotilla were carrying messages of hope and support to the people of Gaza. Their willingness to stand up to Israeli gunboats with a nonviolent challenge to an oppressive blockade sends a message of hope as well to people throughout the world who are struggling for justice. ❑
An amendment in late May by Reps. James McGovern (D-MA) and Walter Jones (R-NC) to a $119 billion “defense” spending bill that called on the White House to come up with an accelerated plan to withdraw troops from Afghanistan came within 12 votes of passing. In June, 27 senators sent a letter to Obama urging a “sizable and sustained withdrawal from Afghanistan.” The growing impatience of Congress and the public reflects the fact that the presence of 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and the expenditure of $10 billion a month to keep them there, has brought victory no closer. Even the possibility of negotiations is becoming more and more in doubt. NATO assassinations of Taliban military commanders and administrators have led to an increasingly radicalized and diffused insurgency, whose members act on their own and may be reluctant to abide by any agreement that allows foreign troops to remain in their country. According to a report released by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the money pouring in from abroad has led to pervasive corruption and waste but has not reduced poverty or won over the Afghan people. Ef-
forts to train an effective Afghan security force continue to be hindered by the fact that nearly a third of new army recruits quit before their training is complete, and police make up for their low pay by extorting money from villagers. Lawrence Wright, a Middle East expert who has tracked the rise of Islamic militancy and who recently visited Afghanistan, doubts that the doctrine of “winning hearts and minds” is even feasible in that country. He writes in the May 16 New Yorker that “It seems, regrettably, that whatever we can accomplish in Afghanistan will be achieved by force.” He quotes a colonel who recently returned from Afghanistan as saying, “The cultural complexity of the environment is just so huge that it’s hard for us to understand.” Even harder to fathom are the official policies of Pakistan, a vital U.S. ally that serves the U.S. military as a supply route into Afghanistan. The euphoria in America that followed the assassination of Osama bin Laden had hardly died down when news came that the Pakistani security forces had arrested several of the informants who had provided the information that made possible the success of
the operation. Just after CIA chief Leon Panetta visited Pakistan in mid-June to request that the U.S. be allowed to carry out drone strikes over a wider area, the Pakistan army’s 11-member Corps Command released a statement saying the CIA drone attacks “were unacceptable under any circumstances.” The Pakistanis had already blocked the supply of food and water to at least one base used to launch drones. A former Pakistani officer explained that the army has “a feeling they are fighting America’s war against their own people.” In view of such difficulties, and with no clear vision of what is to be accomplished, the war in Afghanistan seems increasingly hopeless as well as counterproductive. As Obama makes his decision on troop withdrawals this summer he should pay attention to what President Hamid Karzai said at the same press conference at which Gates made his case for continuing the war. Karzai again complained of air strikes that caused too many civilian deaths, intrusive night raids, and detentions of innocent people. “We cannot take this any more,” he said. Many Americans would agree. —R.M.
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Palestinian Children Targeted as Israel Crushes Unrest SpecialReport
JAAFAR ASHTIYEH/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
By Mel Frykberg
A Palestinian boy races by an Israeli military vehicle as troops patrol the West Bank village of Madama, south of Nablus, on June 16, following an attack on farmers by settlers from the nearby illegal settlement of Yitzhar who set fields on fire during the harvest season. ILWAN, Palestine—“Father please
Shelp me! Don’t let them take me away,”
screamed 12-year-old Ahmed Siyam as approximately 50 heavily armed Israeli soldiers and police dragged the handcuffed and blindfolded boy away. Last month Ahmed was pulled out of his bed at 4 a.m. by Israeli security forces led by Shin Bet agents from Israel’s domestic intelligence agency. He was taken to the Russian Compound police station in West Jerusalem where he was accused of throwing stones at Israeli soldiers and police during clashes with Palestinian youth in the Copyright © 2011 IPS-Inter Press Service. All rights reserved. 12
volatile neighborhood of Silwan in East Jerusalem. Silwan has become a regular point of friction and violent confrontation between illegal Israeli settlers, the Israeli soldiers and police who protect them, and Palestinian youngsters. Hundreds of Palestinians have been driven out of their homes in East Jerusalem to make way for the Israeli settlers. Many Palestinian homes have been destroyed, and dozens more are under threat, as the Israeli authorities move Israeli settlers in— all this illegal under international law. When the soldiers first arrived Ahmed’s father Daoud at first refused to open the door and demanded that the police proTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
duce a search or arrest warrant. “But they threatened to break the door down if I didn’t open it. They asked me where Ahmed was and I asked them why they wanted him. They told me to shut up and assaulted me,” Daoud told IPS. “They then went to Ahmed’s bedroom and dragged him out and into a police vehicle outside. They would not tell me where they were taking him and physically prevented me from accompanying Ahmed. “The next morning after many frantic telephone inquiries I found out Ahmed was being held at the Russian Compound. When I went there they wouldn’t let me see my son and denied he was even there. Eventually after I called my lawyer I was able to see him several hours later. He looked very traumatized and was crying,” recalls Daoud. “I was scared. I couldn’t see where we were going and my hands were handcuffed very tightly behind my back. At the police station they refused to give me water when I told them I was thirsty and when I asked to go to the toilet they kicked me. They questioned me for hours and accused me of throwing stones, which I denied,” Ahmed told IPS. Two weeks ago Ahmed’s cousin, Ali Siyam, 7, was arrested under similar circumstances and also accused of stone throwing. When his father Muhammad tried to stop the dozens of Israeli security men from dragging his son away, he was beaten with the backs of guns on his head and subsequently required hospital treatment. Ali’s aunt was shot in the leg with a rubber-coated steel bullet when she tried to intervene and she, too, required hospital treatment. Ali’s parents were forbidden from accompanying their son to the police station and when they went to the Russian Compound the police denied that Ali was in their custody. When Ali’s Israeli lawyer, Lea Tzemel, tried to visit her young client in jail the security guards refused to allow her in. When she tried to walk past the guards she was detained. Following an argument Continued on page 25 AUGUST 2011
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Waiting in Line at the ATM Machine for Overdue Paychecks to Arrive Gazaon the Ground
PHOTO M. OMER
By Mohammed Omer
Saedu Al Ewadi is among the many Palestinians waiting to receive their paychecks from an ATM machine in Gaza City. idgeting, leaning into shade as the sun
Fcrests toward noon, several hundred
men and women wait...and wait. On a warm June day, these weary Palestinians stand in line at the Bank of Palestine’s ATM machine on Gaza City’s Omar Al-Mukhtar Street—a sight duplicated throughout Gaza and the West Bank. All are waiting to get their paychecks, which are already two weeks late. Some in the crowd of predominantly civil servants—including doctors, teachers and policemen—repeatedly grab the cash machine, shaking it as if this will release the shekels (NIS) they are owed. Those farther back in line strain to listen for any indication that their wages are about to arrive. Alas, the machine remains eerily silent. With the May 4 signing of the Cairo Agreement, Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza agreed to work together as a unified government. Each party maintains yet shares control over security, though many in Gaza wonder how the new government will manage to modify the bureaucracies and mechanisms put in place over the past five years of division. Award-winning journalist Mohammed Omer reports on the Gaza Strip, and maintains the Web site <www.rafahtoday.org>. He can be reached at <gazanews@yahoo.com>. 14
Some 140,000 civil servants live on salaries provided by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, while an additional 30,000 are compensated by the Hamas government in Gaza. When payments are late, the effect on the economy becomes particularly acute in Gaza—even the owner of the corner falafel stand suffers. And then there is the cost in time and friendships, when money is tight and no one is spending. Thus there is a trickle-down effect throughout the entire society. Among those standing in line this day is 38-year-old Saedu Al Ewadi. He prefers the camaraderie of frustration to the pointed questions he cannot answer from his wife and children at home. In addition to his job as a medical technician at Shifa hospital, he has had to add a second, part-time—and unpaid—one: waiting in line to get the salary he is owed. Al Ewadi, who lives across a narrow street from the Arab Bank in Rimal, has seen thousands of government employees waiting for their salaries. “When the new month begins, some even sleep next to the cash machine,” he said. Even though he understands the crowd’s frustration, Al Ewadi said his life becomes difficult when those in line start banging on the cash machine and the bank THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
door. “This happens when the machine runs out of cash in the middle of the night,” explained the father of four. When his own wages are late, he must put all his plans on hold in order to wait in the ATM line with everyone else. “It’s better than sitting at home when the family needs cannot be met on time,” he said. Al Ewadi earns 2,400 NIS, or just under $700, per month; if his salary for June is two or three weeks late, 1,400 NIS (just over $400) will go to “commitments to debts, to a carpenter and blacksmith.” The $1000 NIS ($290) balance will go to pay for necessities such as “water, electricity, food, pharmacy and telephone.” Like millions of families throughout the world, Al Ewadi lives from paycheck to paycheck. Not only is there no extra money to save, but in order to support his family he must go further in debt. A few years ago when he was single, his only expense was rent, so “when my wage was late I would just complain to myself,” he explained. Now his children’s needs come first, and although waiting in line is frustrating, he does it because he must feed his family. Another man waiting in the crowd with Al Ewadi noted ironically that the cash machine line is “the only place to escape the landlady banging on my door asking for the monthly rent.”
Taxi Trouble Nael Abu Hasirah runs a taxi company, and Israel’s four-year blockade has seriously affected his revenue because of the limited number of tourists and journalists coming into Gaza. Now he stands at the edge of the ATM line in order to track down customers who owe him money. Nearly 70 percent of his regular customers are dependent on their PA salaries; most run a tab and pay him back when they get their salary. If they have to wait, Abu Hasirah does, too. “At the end of the month, all taxis are sitting gathering dust—no one has money to pay, except for a few organizations,” he explained. “Shopping, restaurants, our debts and our whole daily lives, completely depend on this salary.” Like most businessmen, his company can wait for debts to be paid, but his emAUGUST 2011
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ployees cannot. “Drivers and their families can’t wait, as they also have commitments,” he pointed out. Abu Hasirah recalled with regret a customer who owed him 400 NIS ($116) and stopped calling, “fearing that I would remind him of the debt still owed.”
Declining Wages and Growing Unemployment Between the first half of 2006—when sanctions were imposed following Hamas’ victory in free and fair parliamentary elections—and the second half of 2010, real wages in Gaza fell 34.5 percent. UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness described the trend as “disturbing,” noting that “the refugees, who make up two-thirds of Gaza’s 1.5 million population, were the worst hit. “It is hard to understand the logic of a man-made policy which deliberately impoverishes so many and condemns hundreds of thousands of potentially productive people to a life of destitution,” he added. Situated along less than 25 miles of Mediterranean coastline, Gaza is one of the area’s poorest regions, and is being strangled by one of the wealthiest: Israel. Most
business investment in Gaza evaporated with the imposition of the Israeli blockade, leading to a continuing economic collapse. Unemployment stands at 45.2 percent, one of the highest rates in the world, according to UNRWA. The unemployment and lack of opportunity affects everyone. Though employed, Al Ewadi and Abu Hasirah lose money with each late paycheck. For Arafat Al Nims, however, a 39-year-old father of seven, the situation is far worse. For eight years he was employed as a construction worker in Israel, where he made 200 NIS ($70) a day. But in 2002, during the second intifada, Israel closed its Erez crossing with Gaza, the only crossing through which Palestinian laborers could enter Israel for work. Since then, said Al Nims, “if I’m lucky and building materials are allowed, I can just about get 30 shekels ($8.71) a day.” His four sons and three daughters have been waiting many years for their father to come up with something other than his usual response that “it’s not affordable, not possible.” Al Nims feels embarrassed that he often cannot afford something as simple as a notebook for his daughter. Although
he occasionally receives flour and cooking oil from the U.N., it is not enough to meet his family’s daily needs. UNRWA only supports those who earn less than 5.51 NIS ($1.60) a day. “I am healthy, but there are no jobs here in Gaza,” Al Nims said sadly, admitting that he yearns for the days when he used to work in Israel. “A couple of days ago my wife asked me for some okra, but I could not afford it,” he lamented Now he often sleeps in the mosque during the day “to avoid family demands” and escape from the shame he feels at home. “In Gaza,” Al Nims explained, “you feel paralyzed when you can’t deliver food to your children.” According to UNRWA’s Gunness, Gaza’s poorest of the poor are putting increasing pressure on aid agencies: the number of its 1.1 million residents who rely on aid provided by the U.N. has tripled to 300,000 since the Israeli blockade went into force. Al Nims has no regrets about having worked in Israel. Indeed, when asked what he would say to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu if he had the chance, the unemployed father replied, “I would ask him, why do you imprison me in Gaza?” ❑
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AUGUST 2011
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Misunderstandings About Jerusalem’s Temple Mount SpecialReport
By George Wesley Buchanan
hile it has not been widely pub-
Wlished, it assuredly has been known
for more than 40 years that the 45-acre, well-fortified place that has been mistakenly called the “Temple Mount” was really the Roman fortress—the Antonia—that Herod built. The Dome of the Rock and alAqsa Mosque are contained within these walls. The area is called the Haram AlSharif in Arabic. The discovery that this area had once been the great Roman fortress came as a shock to the scholarly community, which had believed for many years that this ancient fortress was the place where the temple had been. This news was preceded by George Wesley Buchanan has been a United Methodist minister since 1944 and a professor at a theological seminary since 1960, emeritus since he retired in 1991. 16
another shock, when the English archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon discovered in 1962 that the entire City of David in the past had been only that little rock ridge on the western bank of the Kidron Valley. Less than 10 years later the historian Benjamin Mazar learned that the Haram had undoubtedly been the Roman fortress. In biblical times the Haram was not a sacred place. Instead it was the place that Orthodox Jews considered defiled and the most despised place in the world. Within these walls were found no remnants of any of the earlier temples but rather an image of Mars, the Roman god of war. The 1st century Jewish Roman historian Titus Flavius Josephus said the Romans always kept a whole legion of soldiers (5,0006,000) there, and that there were stones in its walls that were 30 feet long, 15 feet thick, and 71⁄2 feet high. While excavating THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
the area, Mazar found these very stones there in the Haram—not in the temple. He and the local Muslims also discovered there three inscriptions, honoring the Roman leaders in the war of A.D. 66-72—Vespasian, Titus, and Silva—and Hadrian in the war of A.D. 132-135, for their success in defeating the Jews in the wars. Appropriate inscriptions for a Roman fortress, but impossible for a temple that had been destroyed in A.D. 70—65 years before the inscriptions had been made. Mazar shared these insights freely with other participants in the excavation, such as Herbert Armstrong and Ernest Martin. Mazar also knew at once that the temple instead was stationed 600 feet farther south and 200 feet lower in altitude, on Mount Ophel, where the Spring of Siloam poured tons of water under the threshold of the temple every minute (Ezek 47:1), after which the water was distributed wherever it was needed. This marvelous little City of David was unique in having running water 3,000 years ago. Aristeas, Tacitus and 1 Enoch tell of the inexhaustible spring water system that was indescribably well developed, gushing tons of water into the temple area for sacrifices. Hezekiah’s tunnel directed water under Mount Ophel to the Pool of Siloam. Herod’s fortress, on the other hand, was unequipped for sacrifices, because it had only 37 cisterns to provide water in the Haram. After two violent wars with Rome, the City of David was so completely destroyed that it could not be recognized as a city. The Roman emperor Hadrian decreed that it would be used as an area where the Upper City could dump trash and garbage. Continued on page 64 AUGUST 2011
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Congress Seems Divided Over How to React to Events in Libya CongressWatch
By Shirl McArthur n May and June many members of Congress seemed more concerned about proItecting their prerogatives than with what was happening in Libya. Much of the debate involved the applicability of the War Powers Act (WPA) to U.S. involvement there. As reported in the previous issue, legal and legislative experts are divided, with many saying that the WPA is unworkable and probably unconstitutional. At issue is a provision in the act that says the president must get congressional approval within 60 days of notifying Congress of military action, or begin withdrawing forces. President Barack Obama sent the notification to Congress on March 21, so the 60 days expired on May 20, without any action being taken by either the Congress or the White House, except for a May 20 letter from Obama to congressional leaders reaffirming the ongoing efforts in Libya. Some members of the Senate, especially Sens. Richard Lugar (R-IN), Rand Paul (RKY) and Jim Webb (D-VA), strongly oppose U.S. involvement without congressional authorization. But others, including Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), as well as Sens. John Kerry (D-MA), Carl Levin (D-MI) and John McCain (R-AZ), seem unconcerned over the issue. McCain said he has “never recognized the constitutionality of the War Powers Act.” In the House on May 23, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), with 11 co-sponsors, introduced H.Con.Res. 51, which would direct the president “to remove U.S. Armed Forces from Libya within 15 days.” House leaders agreed to schedule a June 1 vote on the resolution, but pulled it off the calendar when it appeared it might pass. Instead, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) on June 2 introduced the non-binding H.Res. 292, which did not call for a halt in U.S. actions in Libya, but said the U.S. should not deploy forces on the ground in Libya and called for a long report to the House answering 21 questions about the Libya actions. Then Boehner scheduled a vote on both his and Kucinich’s resolutions for June 3. H.Res. 292 passed by a rollcall vote of 268-145, with one voting “present.” H.Con.Res. 51 was defeated by a rollcall vote of 148-265. On May 23 McCain and Kerry, with five co-sponsors, introduced the non-binding S.Res. 194 supporting the use of military Shirl McArthur, a retired U.S. foreign service officer, is a consultant based in the Washington, DC area. AUGUST 2011
force in Libya, but also calling on the president to regularly consult with Congress and “submit to Congress a description of U.S. policy objectives in Libya.” The resolution was scheduled to be considered by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on June 8, but was postponed as McCain and Kerry said they were considering strengthening the measure in light of the House’s action. Then, on June 8 Sens. Webb and Bob Corker (R-TN) introduced S.J.Res. 18, which substantially repeats the provisions of Boehner’s H.Res. 292 but, if passed by both the Senate and the House, would be binding. None of the previously described measures concerning Libya has received additional support. However, four new measures were introduced in the House and four in the Senate. H.Con.Res. 53 was introduced by Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ) with nine cosponsors on May 24, and H.Con.Res. 57, was introduced on June 1 by Rep. Thomas Rooney (R-FL) with 16 co-sponsors. Both say the president has exceeded his authority under the WPA. H.Con.Res. 58, introduced on June 2 by Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH) with 77 co-sponsors, cites the WPA and would specifically disapprove of U.S. intervention in Libya. H.R. 1708 was introduced on May 4 by Rep. Scott Rigell (R-VA). It doesn’t mention the WPA; instead, it would prohibit the use of funds to support U.S. military operations in Libya. The four new Senate resolutions were all introduced by Senator Paul on May 23 and 25, with no co-sponsors. S.J.Res. 14 and S.J.Res. 16 both declare that the president “has exceeded his authority under the WPA.” S.J.Res. 13 and S.J.Res. 15 both would declare “that a state of war exists between the government of Libya and the government and the people of the U.S.”
House Almost Passes “Accelerated” Afghanistan Withdrawal By a vote of 204-215, with 12 not voting, the House on May 26 narrowly defeated an amendment submitted by Reps. Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Walter Jones (R-NC) to the Defense Authorization bill, H.R. 1540, that would have required the president to “transmit to Congress a plan with a timeframe and completion date for the accelerated transition of U.S. military and security operations in Afghanistan to the government of Afghanistan” within 60 days. The Senate passed the full bill on May 26, but it has not been considered by the House. In the wake of the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, a wide range of lawmakers, including Senate Foreign RelaTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
tions Committee chairman Kerry and ranking Republican Lugar, said that it is time for the Obama administration to rethink its Afghanistan strategy. Kerry called the $10 billion per month spent on the Afghanistan war “fundamentally unsustainable.” In the House, six members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, led by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), wrote to Obama on May 4 urging “the swift, safe and responsible withdrawal of U.S. troops and military contractors from Afghanistan.” Legislatively, on May 5 McGovern, with 62 co-sponsors, introduced H.R. 1735, the “Afghanistan Exit and Accountability” bill, which was similar to his amendment to the Defense Authorization bill. Most of the previously described bills urging the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan have made some progress. H.R. 780, introduced by Lee in February, has gained three co-sponsors and now has 63, including Lee; S. 186, introduced in January by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), has gained three cosponsors and now has eight, including Boxer; and H.R. 651, introduced in February by Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), has gained two co-sponsors and now has 69, including Woolsey. It would direct the president to “seek to enter into a bilateral status of forces agreement with the government of Afghanistan.”
AIPAC’s Annual Meeting Generates Predictable Genuflections to Israel AIPAC held its annual “policy conference” May 22-24, resulting in hordes of rightwing Zionists descending on Washington. As part of the conference, AIPAC reported that 500 lobbying meetings were held with members of Congress. The conference came just after Obama’s May 19 speech in which he said, among other things, that “the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.” While this has been the often-stated U.S. position of previous Democratic and Republican administrations, congressional Republicans launched a concentrated campaign to misquote Obama, choosing to ignore the “with mutually agreed swaps” part of his comments. More than 20 Republican members of Congress lined up to profess outrage that Obama was pressuring Israel to return to the ’67 borders. On June 3 Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), with 17 co-sponsors, introduced H.Con.Res. 59 saying, among other things, that “it is contrary to U.S. policy and our national security to have the borders of Israel return to 17
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the armistice lines that existed on June 4, 1967.” The same language was included in S.Con.Res. 23 introduced on June 9 by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) with 30 co-sponsors. And on May 23 Rep. Robert Dold (RIL), with 39 co-sponsors, introduced H.Res. 270, which would reaffirm the “principles regarding the security of Israel and peace in the Middle East” articulated in two resolutions passed in 2004. Among those “principles” was one affirming “that it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.” Two new measures were focal points of AIPAC’s lobbying efforts on the Hill. They dealt with Palestinian efforts to unilaterally declare statehood and the reported inclusion of Hamas in a unity government. Naturally, those two amassed a lot of support. The first, H.Res. 268, was introduced by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) on May 13. It has 140 co-sponsors, including Cantor. The second, S.Res. 185, was introduced by Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD), with 58 co-sponsors, on May 16. Previously, on May 3, Rep. Alcee Hastings (DFL) introduced the similar H.Res. 244. It has nine co-sponsors, including Hastings. On April 28, while on a visit to Israel, a group of nine House members, led by Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), issued a statement condemning the proposed unity government. And on May 6, 27 senators signed a letter, originated by Sen. Robert Menendez (DNJ), to Obama urging him “to evaluate the U.S. relations with the Palestinian Authority and consider taking stronger measures in condemnation of the recently formed Fatah-Hamas unity government.” Regarding the possible unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state, H.R. 1592, introduced in April by Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV), has gained seven co-sponsors, and now has nine, including Berkley, who is running for the Senate seat vacated by the disgraced John Ensign. It says that “no funds made available for assistance to the Palestinian Authority may be obligated or expended” if the PA has unilaterally declared a Palestinian state. On June 3, Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH) introduced H.Res. 297 expressing the “sense of the House” that the U.S. should withhold U.S. contributions to the regular U.N. budget “if the General Assembly adopts a resolution in favor of recognizing a state of Palestine outside of or prior to a final status agreement negotiated between” Israel and the Palestinians.
less the U.S. Embassy in Israel is established in Jerusalem no later than Jan. 1, 2013. It also would remove the presidential waiver authority included in the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995. It so blatantly impinges on the president’s constitutional prerogative to conduct foreign affairs that it would certainly be vetoed if passed. However, it now has 36 co-sponsors, including Burton. (On June 3 Obama exercised the presidential waiver authority.) Also, on June 1, Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) introduced H.Res. 291 “urging the expedient relocation of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.”
Goldstone Report Also Continues to Draw Congressional Over-Reaction The April op-ed piece by Justice Richard Goldstone, lead author of the U.N.’s “Goldstone Report” on Israel’s December ’08January ’09 assault on Gaza, in which he essentially retracted the report’s claim that Israel had intentionally targeted civilians, continued to draw congressional attention. Although Goldstone also said that the rest of the report stands, and he regretted that Israel had refused to cooperate with the commission’s investigation, this has not stopped many members of Congress from using the opportunity to score points with their Zionist supporters. H.R. 1501, introduced in April by Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL), which would “withhold U.S. contributions to the U.N. until the U.N. formally retracts” the report, has gained eight co-sponsors, and now has 41, including Walsh. On May
9 Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), with three cosponsors, introduced the identical S. 923 in the Senate.
More New, Comprehensive Iran Sanctions Bills Two other bills that were a main focus of AIPAC’s lobbying efforts were H.R. 1905, introduced on May 13 by Rep. Ileana RosLehtinen (R-FL) and titled the “Iran Threat Reduction Act of 2011,” and S. 1048, introduced on May 23 by Senator Menendez “to expand sanctions with respect to the Islamic Republic of Iran, North Korea, and Syria.” H.R. 1905 has 114 co-sponsors, including Ros-Lehtinen, and S. 1048 has 26, including Menendez. In a statement after introducing H.R. 1905, Ros-Lehtinen described how farreaching and harsh her bill would be: It “closes loopholes in both energy and financial sanctions and counters the Iranian regime’s efforts to evade them. The bill strengthens sanctions on efforts by the regime to circumvent existing law, adds new sanctions, such as denying visas to individuals who engage in Iran’s energy sector, and increases the number of sanctions the administration is required to impose. It updates and replaces previous Iran sanctions laws to ensure that current law regarding the totality of the Iranian threat to U.S. national security, our interests, our allies, and also to its own people, is comprehensive. It targets capital markets and acContinued on page 21
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Status of Jerusalem Also Draws AIPAC’s Attention Another focus of AIPAC’s lobbying was the previously described, far-reaching H.R. 1006, introduced in March by Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN). It would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and would cut off some State Department funding un18
THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
AUGUST 2011
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Turkey: The Mideast’s Real Revolution SpecialReport
By Eric S. Margolis he revolutions and uprising that have
widely believed to have begun in Tunisia. In fact, the first seeds of revolution were planted in 2002 in Turkey, as its Justice and Development Party began the long, arduous battle against disguised military dictatorship. To understand how important the June 12 Turkish elections were, step back for a moment to 1960, when I was in high school in Switzerland. A Turkish classmate named Turgut told me, tears in his eyes, “The generals hanged my daddy!” His father had been a cabinet minister. The 510,000-man Turkish armed forces, NATO’s second biggest after the U.S., have mounted four military coups since 1950. Turkey’s current constitution was written by the military after its 1980 coup. Ever since the era of national hero turned strongman Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkey has been run by its powerful military behind a thin façade of squabbling politicians. In the process, it suffered widescale political violence, Kurdish secessionism, rigged elections, and endless financial crises. Americans always liked to point to pre2002 as the ideal Muslim state. “Why can’t those Arabs be more like the sensible Turks?” was a refrain often heard in Washington. Its proponents chose to ignore, or simply failed to see, that Turkey was an iron-fisted military dictatorship. Turkey began to change in 2002, when the new Justice and Development Party (AKP) won an electoral victory. The shift from the traditional left and rightist Kemalist parties was due to a major demographic shift. Rural and middle class Turks began moving into the cities, diluting the political and economic power of the minority secular elite: the military, big business, media, academia, and judiciary. Turkey’s tame Muslim religious establishment was kept under tight security control. Under Ataturk and his successors, Islam, the bedrock of Turkish culture and Eric S. Margolis, an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist, is the author of American Raj: America & the Muslim World (available from the AET Book Club). Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2011. AUGUST 2011
ADEM ALTAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Tbeen sweeping across the Mideast are
Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (l) shakes hands with his deputies at a June 28 swearing-in ceremony in the Turkish parliament in Ankara. The ceremony was boycotted by the main opposition and Kurdish deputies protesting lawmakers kept in prison. ethos, was savagely attacked, nearly destroyed and brought under state control— just as the Russian Orthodox Church was during Stalin’s era. What Turks called “the deep government”—hard rightists, security organizations, gangsters, the rich elite, and rabid nationalists—wielded power and crushed dissenters. AKP called for Islamic political principles: welfare for the poor and old, fighting corruption, responsive, ethical political leaders, good relations with neighbors. Turkey’s right and its military allies screamed that their nation was about to fall to Iranian-style Islamists, or be torn apart by Kurdish rebels. In fact, AKP’s decade of rule has given Turkey its longest period of human rights, stunning economic growth, financial stability, and democratic government. Under AKP, Turkey has moved closer to the European Union’s legal norms than, for example, new members Bulgaria and Rumania. But France and Germany’s conservatives insist Turkey will never be accepted in the EU. Europe—particularly its farmers—don’t want 75 million mostly Muslim Turks. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
Largely unseen by outsiders, AKP has relentlessly pushed Turkey’s reactionary military back to its barracks. This long struggle culminated in attempts by the military, known as the Ergenekon affair, to again overthrow the civilian government. The plot was broken: numbers of highranking officers were arrested and put on trial. So were journalists and media figures involved in the plot—probably too many. Investigators are examining questionable arms deals between Turkey’s military and Israel. Ergenekon broke the power of Turkey’s generals, who were closely allied to the U.S. military establishment and Israel’s Likud party. In fact, the Pentagon often had more influence over Turkey than its civilian leaders. Until AKP, the U.S. nurtured bitter Turkish hostility to Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas and, at times, Iraq, and an artificial friendship with Israel. Today, all has changed. Turkey’s popular Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, backed by a majority of voters, has turned Turkey into the Mideast’s role model for successful democracy, and unleashed the Continued on page 64 19
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The United States Is Losing Pakistan SpecialReport
THIR KHAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
By Patrick Seale
Pakistani tribesmen gather for funeral prayers June 16 before the coffins of civilians allegedly killed in a U.S. drone attack the previous day on the North Waziristan village of Tapi. he U.S. and Pakistani governments
Tseem to be heading for a divorce full of
recriminations. So great are the divergent objectives and lack of trust between them that Pakistan seems to be contemplating moving out of America’s orbit altogether and into China’s embrace. America’s decision—without informing Pakistan or seeking its help—to send a hitteam deep inside Pakistani territory to kill Osama bin Laden may have proved to be the last straw. Pakistan’s leaders are furious. Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani declared that any future action “violating the sovereignty of Pakistan” would lead to a complete review of military and intelligence cooperation with the United States. Added to this, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani expressed fulsome praise for China on a visit to Beijing in May. China, he said, was a source of inspiration for the Pakistani people, while Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao declared that “China and Pakistan will remain forever good Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East. His latest book is The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad elSolh and the Makers of the Modern Middle East (Cambridge University Press). Copyright © 2011 Patrick Seale. Distributed by Agence Global. 20
neighbors, good friends, good partners and good brothers.” As well as cooperating in the military, banking, civil nuclear and other fields, Pakistan wants China to build a naval base and maintain a regular naval presence at the port at Gwadar on the Arabian Sea, in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. This has alarmed the United States, India, Malaysia and Indonesia. Worried at Pakistan’s drift away from Washington, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton hurried to Pakistan for a few hours on May 27 in an attempt to patch things up— but apparently with little success. This is because the row over the killing of bin Laden is only the latest chapter in a long narrative of mutual misperceptions. CIA missile attacks by unmanned drones against alleged “terrorist” targets inside Pakistan invariably end up killing civilians, and arousing furious anti-American sentiment. The Pakistan parliament has denounced these strikes as a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and demanded a permanent halt to them. Some parliamentary members warned that Pakistan could cut supply lines to U.S. forces in Afghanistan if drone attacks continued. The extent of hostility toward America was on display following an incident on Jan. 27 when Raymond A. Davis, a covert THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
CIA officer, shot and killed two Pakistanis in a crowded street in Lahore. Pakistani popular opinion wanted him hanged. It was only with great difficulty that the U.S. managed to secure his release. But the idea took root in Pakistan that the United States was deploying a secret army against Islamic militants in the country. The Pakistan army has demanded that the number of American military personnel in the country be reduced. Relations between the CIA and Pakistan‘s Inter-Service Intelligence directorate (ISI), headed by Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, are said to be tense. At the heart of the U.S.-Pakistani estrangement lies a profound disagreement about everything to do with Afghanistan, especially how to deal with radical factions, such as the Taliban. Not content with having eliminated bin Laden, the United States wants to hunt down and destroy any remnants of al-Qaeda and other militant groups, whether in Afghanistan or Pakistan—and even in places further afield like Yemen. Obsessed with the danger of terrorist violence, the U.S. has been unwilling to recognize that Arab and Muslim hostility to the United States springs mainly from its own catastrophic wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan itself, with their heavy toll of civilian casualties, and from its blind support for Israel. Suspecting Pakistan of complicity with Muslim radicals, the U.S. insists that it should join in America’s own anti-terrorist campaigns. It would like Pakistan to break relations with Mullah Omar, the spiritual leader of the Afghan Taliban; with the Jalaluddin Haqqani network (now run by Jalaluddin’s sons, Sirajuddin and Badruddin); and with the Lashkar-e-Taiba—a militant group considered responsible for the devastating Mumbai attack of 2008. But Pakistan sees the matter very differently. Created as a refuge for Indian Muslims after the 1947 partition of the subcontinent, it feels under permanent threat— mainly from India. Many in its government consider that its national interest demands that it maintain close links with the Taliban and other radical Afghan Muslim networks as useful allies once U.S. forces go home—as they will sooner or later. Troop withdrawals are due to start this July. Pakistan is determined to exercise a deAUGUST 2011
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gree of control over Afghanistan for two reasons. First, to prevent the realization of the Pashtun dream of a “Greater Pakhtunistan” astride the Durand Line, since this would mean the loss of Pakistan’s Pashtun-inhabited North-West Frontier Province. The fact that Afghanistan still refuses to recognize the validity of the Durand Line—which divides the Pashtuns— keeps such Pakistani fears alive. Pakistan is still smarting from the loss of Kashmir to India in the 1947-48 war, followed by the loss of East Pakistan—now Bangladesh—in the 1971 war. It dreads further amputations of its territory. Rather than pressing Pakistan to sever its ties with militant groups, the United States would be better advised to quieten Pakistani fears by putting pressure on India to resolve the Kashmir dispute. The second reason why Pakistan is determined to keep Afghanistan within its own orbit is to prevent it falling under India’s influence, as this would result in Pakistan being encircled. Islamabad sees Afghanistan as its “strategic depth.” The U.S.-Pakistani disagreement over Afghanistan serves to reinforce a deepseated Pakistani suspicion that America is not a faithful partner but one which abandons its allies once they cease to be useful. Throughout the 1980s, the United States— with help from Pakistan and funding from Saudi Arabia—recruited, armed and trained tens of thousands of Muslim volunteers to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. But once the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan in 1989, the U.S. lost interest in these mujaheddin. Finance for them was cut off. They were abandoned to their fate. Many were not wanted in their home countries. Osama bin Laden recruited them into al-Qaeda. The paradox is that Pakistan has in recent years been pressured to do America’s bidding in making war on militant Islamic groups—in its own country if not in Afghanistan—and has paid dearly for it. Not only have military operations against these militants been extremely costly for Pakistan in men and treasure, but they have also provoked lethal retaliation from groups such as Tahrik-e-Taliban in the form of suicide bombings and other attacks. Pakistan’s internal security situation is now dire, and its economy gravely damaged. It is wrestling with a soaring budget deficit, frequent power cuts and a growing danger of political and social chaos. On May 22-23, a militant team raided Pakistan’s Mehran Naval Station in the heart of Karachi, the country’s economic AUGUST 2011
capital, killing 12 security officers and destroying two high-tech Lockheed Martin maritime surveillance aircraft. The militants said the raid was to avenge bin Laden’s killing. Minister of Interior Rehman Malik concluded that the country was in “a state of war.” Pakistan thus finds itself under pressure from the United States to fight the militants, and under attack from the militants for waging America’s war for it. The United States gives Pakistan, a country of 180 million people, $3 billion in annual aid, rather less than it gives to Israel, with a population of 7 million. Little wonder that some leading Pakistanis have come to think that their country would be better off without the exorbitant encumbrance of this American connection. ❑
Congress Watch… Continued from page 18
tivities by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.…The bill eliminates some waivers, resulting in a mandate to impose sanctions on those who provide the Iranian regime with the materials, technologies, and other assistance to pursue its nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile programs. The bill also creates a new higher standard for waiver of energy sanctions by requiring the president, before waiving, to notify Congress and certify that failure to waive would pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security interests of the U.S.” The Senate bill, S. 1048, is almost as extreme, but different. In addition to increasing and strengthening sanctions on Iran, it would also expand the sanctions passed by the “Iran, North Korea, and Syria Nonproliferation Act” of 2000 (INSA). It also would include most of the provisions of the “Iran Human Rights and Democracy Promotion Act” introduced on May 4 in the Senate, as S. 879, by Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), with two co-sponsors, and in the House, as H.R. 1714, by Dold, with two co-sponsors. And it would include many provisions of the previously described “Iran Transparency and Accountability” bills, introduced in the Senate and the House in February. S. 366, introduced by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (DNY), now has nine co-sponsors, including Gillibrand, and H.R. 740, introduced by Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), now has 37 cosponsors, including Deutch. As if all that weren’t enough, on June 3 Reps. Ros-Lehtinen and Brad Sherman (DCA) introduced H.R. 2105 to expand sancTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
tions on “foreign persons who transfer to Iran, North Korea, and Syria certain goods, services or technology.” It would repeal INSA, replacing it with new provisions. One provision would prohibit payments to Russia for the International Space Station unless the president certifies that Russia has behaved itself regarding those three countries. Meanwhile, the previously described Iran Sanctions bill, H.R. 1655, introduced by Sherman in April, has gained a couple of co-sponsors and now has eight, including Sherman. On May 23, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), with 44 co-sponsors, introduced H.Res. 271, expressing Israel’s right to defend itself against threats from Iran, “including the use of military force.”
Congress Shows Increasing Concern Over Events in Syria As Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad continued the harsh crackdown on prodemocracy demonstrators, some members of Congress increased their criticism of the Obama administration’s response, although much of the criticism took on a partisan cast. After Obama on April 29 imposed a new round of sanctions on Syria and some Syrian officials, reliable Israel-firsters Senators Kirk and Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Representative Ros-Lehtinen immediately said the sanctions did not go far enough, but Kerry called the sanctions “appropriate.” In a May 5 letter to Obama, Ros-Lehtinen and Engel welcomed his decision to impose new sanctions, but asked him to “build on your recent actions by further strengthening sanctions against the Syrian regime.” Ros-Lehtinen seemed less concerned about the pro-democracy demonstrators than about “serious threats to U.S. security” [read: Israel]. On June 3 she and Engel introduced H.R. 2106 “to strengthen sanctions against the government of Syria, to enhance multilateral commitment to address the government of Syria’s threatening policies, and to establish a program to support a transition to a democratically elected government in Syria.” One goal of the bill is to restrict Obama’s authority to waive sanctions on Syria. Similar resolutions were introduced in the Senate and the House “expressing support for peaceful demonstrations and universal freedoms in Syria and condemning the human rights violations by the Assad regime.” S.Res. 180 was introduced on May 11 by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) with 23 co-sponsors, and H.Res. 296 was introduced on June 3 by Lamborn with 15 cosponsors. ❑ 21
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Comings and Goings Around the U.N. By Ian Williams
U.N. PHOTO/SHAREEF SARHAN
United Nations Report
Some of the quarter-million Gaza children participating in Summer Games 2011, the sixweek summer camps at nearly 300 locations throughout the Gaza Strip organized by UNRWA, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. n most countries, left-wing and liberal leg-
Iislators are reliable friends of the United
Nations and supporters of the U.N. Charter. Not, however, in the U.S., where the issue of Israel distorts the political spectrum like a huge blue hole pulling politicians to the right. The move to stop payment of Washington’s dues to the U.N. began over the issue of the Middle East and stayed as its main cause for many decades, even when it was joined by the isolationist wing of the Republican Party, which continued the opposition it had shown to the League of Nations over to its successor organization. In the last decade or so the conservative wing of the Republican Party has escaped its historic tendency toward anti-Semitism, and now competes with liberal Democrats to see how fervently they can support a foreign country, right or wrong. People might cluck about the lack of bipartisanship on the budget or almost any other issue, but when a pro-Israel resolution hits Congress, members from both sides of the aisle rush to sign it. Ian Williams is a free-lance journalist based at the United Nations and has a blog at <www.deadlinepundit.blogspot.com>. 22
That will only get worse as the Palestinian attempt to have the U.N. declare a state looms on the agenda. Traditionally, that would trigger attacks on the U.N. as well. Never big on consistency, opponents have to explain why the last binding U.N. decision was 181, in the General Assembly, partitoning Palestine to produce a Jewish state, and why it is so important to stop the now non-binding body from declaring a Palestinian state. Even so, some liberal American legislators have managed to combine somewhat oleaginous support for Israel with general support for liberal principles in international affairs— for example, they never joined the late Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) in U.N.-baiting. One such would be the otherwise admirable Rep. Jerrold Nadler (S-NY), who has the excuse of a numerous and vociferous pro-Israel community to explain his otherwise horrifying indifference to Israeli violation of all the humanitarian principles he expresses in other contexts. And then we have ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY), who resigned in June after a series of revelations of exceptionally stupid personal behavior that made former President Bill Clinton look like a showpiece THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
for fidelity and discretion. Weiner’s generally liberal outlook on domestic affairs is polluted by his unthinking support for the most reactionary Israeli politics, which aligns him with Netanyahu more often than not—but on the U.N. sometimes puts him farther right still. Ironically, that does not protect him from attacks from some even more zealous Zionist zealots, one of whom rebuked him online for marrying a Muslim woman! Weiner has called on the U.N. to repudiate the Goldstone Report, to support the Israeli attack on the Gaza Flotilla, and castigated Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and The New York Times as prejudiced against Israel. (See this issue’s “Other Voices” supplement.) But the U.N. has always been in his sights, precisely because he shares the objectionable views of Netanyahu and his coalition colleagues. Weiner’s much-Twittered crotch is not the first time he has embarrassed himself in public. Running a campaign that resonates in some circles, he called for legislation against U.N. diplomats in New York who had not paid parking tickets—only to have it revealed that he owed the District of Columbia more that $2,000 in parking tickets himself. And, of course, he always seemed to single out certain Muslim countries involved, like Yemen or Iran, while ignoring the worst offenders such as Egypt, or Morocco that could then be seen as friends of the U.S. and Israel. In New York politics such attacks are aimed at the U.N. as much as careless diplomatic chauffeurs. Weiner’s predictable response to Israel’s 2006 attack on Lebanon was that “Israel is in a four-front war on terrorism and the United Nations seems to be siding with the terrorists...Today, the U.N. should be convening to support the nation on the receiving end of this barrage, but they are not.” Even earlier he called for the removal of Peter Hansen, one of the more effective UNRWA heads, when the latter honestly admitted that the organization did not discriminate in employment against Hamas supporters. Since Hamas had just won the Palestinian elections, Weiner was effectively calling for overt discrimination against 50 percent of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank from working for the organization that provided their healthcare! He even AUGUST 2011
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called for a U.S. veto of a Security Council resolution approving the “Road Map,” which is doubly ironic since the much-ignored road map was actually drawn up President George W. Bush. Weiner will not be missed on the foreign affairs front. However, his pitchfork already has been taken up by his pro-Israel colleagues. This year the U.N. has come under renewed attack in Congress from someone without a liberal thought in her head, but who shares Weiner’s foreign policy outlook. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), the new chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has robustly right-wing politics aimed at what she sees as an unholy trinity: Castro’s Cuba, the Palestinians, and the United Nations. Strangely enough, she declared that she “will propose a number of cuts to the State Department and Foreign Aid budgets. There is much fat in these budgets, which makes some cuts obvious.” One can bet that one of the most obvious cuts she will not invoke is U.S. aid to Israel, but she has been trying to defund UNRWA for a long time—which actually puts her to the right of Israeli governments of all persuasions. Crucially, marking a step backward to the Helms days, she said on taking office, “I plan on using U.S. contributions to international organizations as leverage to press for real reform of those organizations, such as the United Nations, and will not hesitate to call for withdrawal of U.S. funds to failed entities like the discredited Human Rights Council if improvements are not made.” As in the bad old days, “real reform” means the organizations doing what they are told by (Advertisement)
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AUGUST 2011
the U.S.—which in turn means doing what the more rabid elements of the Israeli lobby here want. Even the occasion of Ban Ki-moon’s nomination for a second term by the Security Council led to a carping sermon. “SecretaryGeneral Ban and I have had several constructive conversations in recent years about the need for reform at the United Nations,” the Florida Republican said. “I look forward to continuing that dialogue, but real reform needs to be implemented now. My concern is that, while Ban acknowledges many of the U.N.’s problems, the sprawling U.N. system can resist most calls for reform because there is no real danger that funding will ever be reduced...That’s why I will soon introduce legislation which will leverage our contributions to the U.N. to produce real reforms.” More crucially, Ros-Lehtinen added, “And my bill will seek to stop the unilateral push for recognition of a Palestinian state by the U.N. by doing what the George H.W. Bush administration threatened to do in 1989— cutting off funding to any U.N. entity that recognizes a Palestinian state or upgrades the status of the Palestinian observer mission. I hope that the administration, Secretary-General Ban, and all who want a U.N. that works, will support this reform legislation.”
A Skillful Diplomat In this context, it is a testament to Ban’s diplomatic skills that neither side of the political spectrum—nor, indeed, of the Middle Eastern equation—seems to know what to make of him. Ros Lehtinen and her colleagues on the right seem to have factored in former U.S. Ambassador John Bolton’s nomination of Ban. That gives Ban and the U.N. highly effective cover from conservative attacks, which in the past have tended to personalize issues with the secretary-general, as both Boutros Boutros Ghali and Kofi Annan discovered. For one thing, secretaries-general tend to be foreign, which makes them automatically suspect to many conservative Americans. Ban, however, was South Korean foreign minister, which gives him impeccable anti-Communist credentials for many Americans who do not necessarily follow politics in Seoul! In fact, as we have pointed out before, even when he was running as Bolton’s nominee Ban declared his total support for the International Criminal Court that Bolton had devoted his time to thwarting, and has often shown similar principles since. Beginning as a novice on the Middle East, he tended to take a standard Washington view—effectively pro-Israel—when he assumed office. But exposure to Israeli politicians and his own direct observation of Gaza seem to have brought him round. His statements on the THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
Middle East are far stronger and more explicit than those of his recent predecessors— unambiguous condemnation of settlements and the blockade on Gaza, for example. He strongly advocates a vigorous role for the United Nations. Yet, perhaps because he was nominated by Bolton, he does not excite condemnation by the pro-Israel and anti-U.N. lobby. Nor, sadly, is his determination on these issues properly appreciated in the Arab world. Since observers already had made up their mind about him, they have mentally shelved him in a sort of simulacrum of self-effacement, in which, no matter what he says, they assume blandness and ineffectiveness. This is almost a fairy tale curse. On the one hand, it allows Ban to be the ultimate diplomat, able to talk to everyone, with, for example, Israeli ministers continually beating a path to his desk, where by all accounts he says the same things as he says publicly. It has undoubtedly helped gain reappointment for a second term. On the other hand, the media and public consciousness does not seem to take notice of what he is saying, let alone give him credit for standing for principle—as when he called on Mubarak to leave before any Western leaders had the temerity to do so. However, with his confirmation for a second term, it might be that he will speak a little more loudly (albeit as always diplomatically!) when the Middle East and other issues come before the United Nations this September and onward. Quietly restating established principles can have a cumulative effect. ❑
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mcmahon_24-25_Canada Calling 6/29/11 4:45 PM Page 24
Israel’s “Iron Wall” Extends to Sudan CanadaCalling
AFP/GETTY IMAGES
By Sean F. McMahon
A picture taken on April 6, 2011 shows the wreckage of a car targeted in an air strike by a plane which Sudanese officials said flew in from the Red Sea then headed back in the same direction, killing two people in the coastal city of Port Sudan. eports vary: the attack may have been
Rexecuted with a missile fired from the
Red Sea, or by aircraft—a plane and/or helicopters—flying in from the Red Sea. Israel’s Foreign Ministry has refused comment, but it is clear that Israel extra-judicially murdered two people by blowing up the vehicle in which they were traveling south of Port Sudan, Sudan on April 5 of this year. The attack is not an isolated incident, nor is it reducible to a specific event in the larger contest for regional hegemony. Rather, it is the most recent demonstration of Zionism’s fundamental doctrine—the violence of the iron wall. In 1923, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the founder of Revisionist Zionism, authored his political classic, “The Iron Wall (We and the Arabs).” In this article, included by author Lenni Brenner as an appendix to his The Iron Wall: Zionist Revisionism from Jabotinsky to Shamir (available on the Internet at <www.marxists.org/history/etol/ Sean F. McMahon is assistant professor of political science at the American University in Cairo. He is the author of The Discourse of Palestinian-Israeli Relations (London: Routledge Press, 2010). 24
document/mideast/ironwall/index.htm>), Jabotinsky candidly acknowledged that the Zionist project had to be violent, that a Jewish state in Palestine could be realized only through force of arms. First, he recognized that “the expulsion of the Arabs from Palestine is absolutely impossible in any form. There will always be two peoples in Palestine.” He then went on to assert that Zionist “colonization can, therefore, continue and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population—an iron wall which the native population cannot break through.” Finally, he argued “that all Zionists believed in the iron wall.” Although “One prefers an iron wall of Jewish bayonets, the other proposes an iron wall of British bayonets, the third proposes an agreement with Baghdad’s bayonets—a strange and somewhat risky taste,” Jabotinsky continued, “we all applaud, day and night, the iron wall.” Debating the merits of various kinds of bayonets does not matter nearly so much as the fact that Jabotinsky knew that Zionism had to have them. As Oxford professor Avi Shlaim explains, Zionism could only realize its political project by building “an THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
iron wall of Jewish military force.” Palestinians would never agree to their ethnic cleansing, the establishment of Israel on Palestinian land gifted to it by a third party, or the expansion of the assigned borders of the state. Zionism would have to do all of this forcibly, through military confrontation. Shlaim makes the important point that as a means of realizing the Zionist project, Jabotinsky’s ideas about the iron wall were not restricted to Revisionist Zionism. “Labor Zionists were reluctant to admit that military force would be necessary if the Zionist movement was to achieve its objectives,” Shlaim wrote. “Jabotinsky faced up to this fact fairly and squarely…It was the Labor Zionists who gradually came around to this point of view without openly admitting it.” Ultimately, the iron wall, with its force and violence, became the dominant idea and practice of Zionism. Israel’s recent record of belligerence is impressive by any standards. In 2006, under the pretext of retaliating against Hezbollah, it bombarded Lebanon for a month, killing more than 1,000 Lebanese civilians. In 2007, Israel violated Syrian sovereignty to bomb an alleged nuclear facility. Early the following year, Israel assassinated Imad Mugniyah in Syria. Later in 2008-09, Israel massacred more than 1,400 Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip over the course of 22 days. Of course, all this was done while Israel maintains its brutally oppressive and exploitative occupation of the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. Toward the end of its Gaza massacre, Israel killed more than 100 people in an attack in Sudan. Now, in early 2011, the Zionist state again violated Sudanese sovereignty and international law to arbitrarily murder two people. A range of explanations are available for the April 5 attack, some involving connections with previous instances of Israeli violence. Sudan’s Foreign Minister Ali Karti’s explanation was straightforward, according to Al Jazeera: “Israel destroyed the vehicle in order to scupper Sudan’s chances of being removed from a U.S. list of state AUGUST 2011
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sponsors of terrorism.” According to Khartoum, Israel attacked Sudan so as to retard its reintegration into the international community and maintain its pariah standing, including the sanctions to which it is subject. The Jerusalem Post’s coverage of the incident afforded an explanation that was more regionally oriented. First, the paper asserted that “Sudan is a known stop on the smuggling route from Iran to Gaza.” It went on to elaborate: “Ships sail from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas…and dock at an Iranian-controlled port in Sudan. There, the weaponry is unloaded onto the back of trucks that travel north into Egypt and through the Sinai Peninsula, eventually unloading their cargo along the border with the Gaza Strip.” This theory moves beyond the narrow state interests articulated by the Sudanese foreign minister, and alludes to one combining Israel’s policy of politicide directed against Palestinians and regional balance of power calculations vis-à-vis Iran. The April attack on Sudan can be understood as another iteration of Israel’s policy of destroying the national existence of the Palestinian people. It was executed so as to perpetuate Israel’s overwhelming military predominance over Palestinians, particularly those to whom it is laying medieval siege in Gaza. Such attacks which deny Palestinians weapons are intended to ensure, inter alia, that Israel can again wantonly massacre Gazan Palestinians, with little fear of effective reprisals, as it did in 2008-09. The Jerusalem Post’s coverage also invoked the contest for hegemony in the Middle East. Iran’s arms distribution network was attacked and an Iranian ally was deprived of materiel. With this reading, the attack can be understood as another instance in which Israel has sought to maintain its regional hegemony, and forestall the further emergence of Iran. Israel wants to continue to dominate the Middle East, but its relative dominance over Iran has decreased. Attacks such as the one on April 5 attempt to arrest or reduce the regional redistribution of power. In this case, Israel’s recent attack on Sudan was intended to serve the same function as its 2006 attack on Lebanon, its bombing of Syria in 2007 and its extra-judicial murder in Damascus in 2008. In each case Israel used its military wherewithal to degrade Iranian capabilities and assets, and those of an Iranian ally. Author and scholar Norman Finkelstein is to the point: “From beginning to end, AUGUST 2011
Zionism was a conquest movement.” Because Zionism has always been an imposition, the realization of its project is only possible under cover of force—the violence of Jabotinsky’s iron wall. While all of the explanations of Israel’s most recent belligerence—perpetuating the isolation of Sudan, carrying the policies of politicide further afield of Palestine, and struggling with Iran for regional hegemony—enjoy a degree of analytical veracity, they ignore the fundamental issue of Israel’s identity. Israel uses violence to weaken an already sanctioned Arab state, destroy the Palestinian nation and degrade the capabilities of a competitor for regional hegemony because its identity as a Zionist state dictates that this is the best—the only—means of serving its interests. So long as Israel remains a Zionist state, the world will continue to see Israeli violations of state sovereignty and international law, extrajudicial killings and massacres of Palestinian and Arab civilians. ❑
Children Targeted… Continued from page 12
she was granted access to the boy. Ali was released several hours later. Meanwhile, Ahmed was initially ordered to a month’s house arrest and forbidden from attending school as the police investigation continued. He is due to appear in court in July on charges of stone throwing. Whether he is guilty or not remains questionable, as does Israel’s interrogation techniques of young Palestinian children. Defense International for Children (DCI)–Palestine Chapter reports that Israeli police opened 1,267 criminal cases against Palestinian children between November 2009 and October 2010 for stone throwing in East Jerusalem. Israeli rights group B’Tselem reports 31 of those children were from Silwan. “Fifty percent of the children were interrogated without their parents or a lawyer present and many were threatened and assaulted,” Gerard Horton, a lawyer from DCI, told IPS. “Many of the children were screamed at, slapped and shoved, sometimes kicked and punched, during questioning and coerced into making statements of disputable accuracy. Some were threatened with further violence,” said Horton. “These kids had been taken from their homes in the middle of the night, many handcuffed and blindfolded,” Horton said. “They were then interrogated hours later THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
and by this time they were traumatized and disoriented, and not able to withstand the pressure.” The situation of Palestinian children in the West Bank is even worse where they are subject to military law. Minors can be held for up to eight days before they are brought before a military judge. “We had one case where three kids were tasered while their hands were tied behind their backs by Israeli police during questioning on one of the settlements. Others were threatened with having their homes blown up, and several threatened with rape,” Horton told IPS. More than 25 Palestinian children have been arrested in Silwan in the few weeks before mid-June. Milad Ayyash, 17, was shot dead in May by an Israeli settler security guard who claimed the boy had been involved in clashes. Last year a video showing an Israeli settler from Silwan deliberately veering toward, and driving into a young Palestinian boy who was allegedly throwing stones caused outrage when an Israeli motor company used the video in an advertisement to promote the car’s endurance. The boy was hospitalized for fractures and subsequently arrested. No charges were brought against the driver. ❑
The Gauntlet… Continued from page 8
Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria—Netanyahu and Lieberman are due to visit these states shortly; and countries that tend to automatically side with the Palestinians including Sweden, Ireland, Belgium and Portugal. Israeli Foreign Ministry officials, however, were said to believe that most Asian, African and South American countries will support the Palestinians at a U.N. General Assembly session and only a few countries, mainly the United States, Canada and a few Europeans, will vote against admission to the world body. No wonder Helene Cooper of The New York Times reported that the whole issue, starting with the Palestinian campaign for U.N. membership and the likelihood of Palestinian street demonstrations in support of their goal “is causing a lot of heartburn among American policy makers.” How this will influence the American president remains to be seen but, should he reconsider his biased position, all can live, as they say, “happily ever after.” ❑ 25
gee_26_Islam and the Near East in the Far East 6/30/11 12:13 PM Page 26
After Six-Year Wait, Israel Affirms Rights of Pregnant Migrant Workers
Islam and the Near East in theFar East
URIEL SINAI/GETTY IMAGES
By John Gee
An immigrant worker walks with her child after picking him up from an improvised kindergarten in Tel Aviv’s industrial zone. he Israeli Supreme Court struck a rare
Tblow for the rights of migrant workers
when it ruled against the government’s procedure for dealing with pregnant migrant workers. Women migrant workers who were lawfully present and gave birth had to choose between losing their documented status and returning to their home countries within three months of giving birth, or sending their babies away and continuing to work in Israel without them. Migrant workers usually pay exorbitant charges to secure their placement abroad. In countries such as the Philippines and Indonesia, it is standard practice for recruiters and agents in the home and destination countries to demand sums equal to eight to ten months of a domestic worker’s salary, despite the existence of legal limits on placement fees. Thus, if women migrant workers are forced to return home in their first year of placement, their families may see little or no benefit from their work. John Gee is a free-lance journalist based in Singapore, and the author of Unequal Conflict: The Palestinians and Israel. 26
More than six years ago, Israeli civil society organizations submitted a petition to the court challenging the constitutionality of the procedure in force. On April 13, Justice Ayala Procaccia delivered the court’s verdict. She said: “The procedure for the handling of a pregnant migrant worker violates the migrant worker’s constitutional right to parenthood, afforded to her according to Israel’s legal system. The procedure, taken simply, while not imposing on the worker to separate from her child after his birth, still forces upon her a choice between two evils: one, to leave Israel with her baby after the birth, and to miss an additional period of work in Israel allowed in her work permit, and by so to suffer severe economic hardship; and the second—to return to Israel to continue working without the child, leaving him to be cared for by others in a country overseas...It should be mentioned that the worker’s arrival to Israel involves a significant financial investment, and her natural financial expectations are that this investment will be returned during the period of work in Israel, and that additionally, THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
she will be able to secure other financial gains and support her family across the sea. Forcing a woman to choose between continued employment while realizing her legitimate financial expectations, and realizing her right to motherhood, cannot be reconciled with the normative and legal-constitutional perceptions of Israeli society. Constructing the alternatives in such a way is, first and foremost, a violation of the migrant worker’s right to parenthood.” Among the organizations that submitted the petition was Kav La’Oved (otherwise known as “Workers’ Hotline”), which began operating during the first intifada, in 1991, in support of Palestinian workers from the West Bank and Gaza Strip who went to work in Israel. The number of Palestinian workers was cut radically and since then most of Kav La’Oved’s activity has been in support of the migrant workers from other parts of the world who were employed in their place. A month and a half after the Supreme Court ruling in its favor, the Knesset passed a law overthrowing an earlier Kav La’oved success, wrote Hanny Ben-Israel on the organization’s Web site (“Knesset passes pro-slavery bill,” May 24, 2011). Some states have regulations for migrant workers that tie their legal presence to employment by a specific employer. This prevents migrants from taking jobs that locals should have, they argue, and makes employers responsible for supervising the activities of the workers, including ensuring that they return home when their work permits expire. Migrant worker advocates counter that this kind of arrangement makes workers completely reliant on the goodwill of their employers, since they are unable to walk out on them without losing their status in the host country. They are thus vulnerable to many abuses, including physical and mental harm, overwork and salary deductions. In the Gulf countries, there’s the “sponsorship” system, and Israel used to regulate migrant workers’ employment in a similarly restrictive way. Kav La’Oved petitioned the Supreme Court on the issue and in 2006 it delivered a judgment that the “binding arrangement” that tied workers to their employers was unconstitutional. Continued on page 36 AUGUST 2011
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Two NYC Panels Discuss the Goldstone Report and Goldstone’s Op-Ed Retreat By Jane Adas
New York City and Tri-StateNews
he response of Israel and the U.S. to
port of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, aka the Goldstone Report, was a concerted effort to make it disappear. They had almost succeeded when the head of the mission, South African jurist Richard Goldstone, published an April Fool’s day op-ed in the Washington Post expressing second thoughts about some of the Report’s conclusions (see May/June 2011 Washington Report, p. 14). Israel declared itself vindicated, but its Operation Cast Lead assault on Gaza was again in the news. Two panel discussions of the issue took place in New York. The Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia University hosted “Israel’s War and the Goldstone Report” on May 2. Dr. Norman Finkelstein, author of This Time We Went Too Far: Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion (available from the AET Book Club), began by reviewing what actually happened before and during Israel’s assault, lest “the assassins of memory” get the last word. Israel flew thousands of combat missions without any damage to a single plane. Israeli soldiers testified that they saw no combatants, encountered no resistance, and that there were no battles. Israel killed some 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza, but suffered only 13 fatalities, four or five of them the result of friendly fire. “There was no war in Gaza,” Finkelstein concluded, “it was a massacre.” Peter Weiss of the Center for Constitutional Rights wryly said he was considering a reverse class action suit against the entire mainstream media for labeling Goldstone’s op-ed a “recantation.” It is important to recognize, he continued, that Israel’s intentionality is the only thing Goldstone recanted. Goldstone reconsidered the case of the AlSamouni family, rounded up in a single house that was then bombed, leaving 29 dead, to be due to a tactical error. He did not retract the other 35 incidents the report cites as possible war crimes, Weiss observed. Jane Adas is a free-lance writer based in the New York City metropolitan area. AUGUST 2011
STAFF PHOTO J. ADAS
Tthe September 2009 release of the Re-
Dr. Norman Finkelstein (l) and Prof. Rashid Khalidi. Prof. Rashid Khalidi accused the U.S. media and politicians of purposely distorting how Gaza is framed in order to obscure realities, such as the fact that most of the 1.675 million residents are not Gazans, but refugees who were driven there, and 44 percent are under 14. Despite the fact that the majority of the residents in Gaza are women and children, Khalidi accused the U.S. and Israel of demonizing the entire population as a terrorist entity. Nothing Hamas has done, he added, justifies what Israel has done to Gaza: blockade, siege, and numerous assaults. The Israeli and U.S. propaganda machines’ claim that Arabs don’t really care about Palestinians is true of the undemocratic rulers, Khalidi acknowledged, but the people assuredly do care. If the Arab uprisings result in more democratic governments, he concluded, Israel will no longer have Arab accomplices. Mondoweiss and the Culture Project sponsored the second panel, “Blueprint for Accountability: Gaza, Goldstone and the Crisis of Impunity,” on May 19. The evening began with Trudie Styler—actress, UNICEF ambassador, and, with her husband, Sting, environmental activist—reading the heartbreaking testiTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
mony of Khaled Abd Rabbo, whose two daughters were killed by Israeli soldiers, who then bulldozed the ambulance that came to rescue the family (Testimony 15 in The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict, available from the AET Book Club). Laura Flanders of Grit TV then posed questions to the panelists. Lizzy Ratner, co-editor with Philip Weiss and Adam Horowitz of the above-mentioned book, said the Report came about because Israel’s disproportionate use of force with the Guernica-like images that al-Jazeera managed to transmit shocked the conscience of the world. Asked why the U.S. is so protective of Israel, Ratner responded with three reasons: Israel is our proxy in the region; the strong Israel lobby; and the direct parallel between what Israel and the U.S. do in fighting terrorists. “What is shock and awe,” she asked, “if not the intentional use of disproportionate force?” And yet there has been no U.N. fact-finding mission of U.S. conduct in Iraq or Afghanistan. Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, discussed Israel’s effort to block the Goldstone Report. By not cooperating 27
with the investigation, she suggested, Israel set up conditions whereby it could accuse the Report of bias.“Israel does not believe it should be evaluated by any international body,” she added. Asked about the Arab Spring, Klein replied that it is scary to see young people across the Arab world embracing democracy and human rights while those in Israel have increasing disdain for both. Col. Desmond Travers was a member of the Goldstone Commission as a senior military officer. After Goldstone’s op-ed, he and the Commission’s two other members wrote a response defending the Report. They did so, he emphasized, not because of what Goldstone wrote, which he had every right to do, but because of Israel’s spin of the op-ed. Travers has since re-read all 300 reports by various human rights organizations and found nothing that would cause him to reconsider. On the contrary, he would make a stronger statement today. Armies in retreat destroy, he explained, but what victorious Israel did on its way out is almost unique in the world. They bulldozed 140,000 olive trees, 136,000 citrus trees, 113 farms, 100,000 chickens, and all agricultural wells. Georgetown University law professor Noura Erakat sees the Fatah/Hamas accord as a major accomplishment, one that signifies that Palestinians are moving beyond U.S. and Israeli dictates about how they should represent themselves. In response to Flanders’ question about the way forward, Erakat responded that “now is a most hopeful moment” because the post-9/11 war on terror paradigm, whereby all forms of non-state resistance are equated with illegitimate terrorism, is giving way to the bottom-up tactics of the Arab Spring. “They are the model for what we should do,” she concluded to huge applause.
In Memoriam: Juliano Mer Khamis Friends and admirers of Juliano Mer Khamis filled the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in Manhattan on May 4 to mourn his death and celebrate his life. In 2006 Mer Khamis, the son of a Palestinian father and a Jewish Israeli mother, founded the Freedom Theatre in the Jenin Refugee Camp. It was there that he was assassinated by a masked gunman April 4. Award-winning actress Kathleen Chalfont hosted the many tributes to Mer Khamis, including Maya Angelou by video and playwright Betty Shamieh 28
STAFF PHOTO J. ADAS
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The late Juliano Mer Khamis during a 2007 visit to New York. in person. There were musical performances by Simon Shaheen on oud and violin and by Liz Magnes on piano, and original poetry by Eve Ensler, Nathalie Handal and Remi Kanazi. Playwright Tony Kushner recited “Blessed are they who sow and do not reap” by Israeli poet Avraham Ben Yitzhak, and attorney Abdeen Jabara read from Palestinian poet Taha Mohammed Ali’s “Thrombosis in the Veins of Petroleum.” Kushner described Mer Khamis’ documentary about his mother’s work in Jenin during the first intifada, “Arna’s Children” (available from the AET Book Club), as the “best film on theater” with its “magnificent refusal to moralize.” Jabara recalled Mer Khamis telling him that his mother had not wanted a religious burial. When she died in 1994, the family could not find a kibbutz that would sell them land for her burial. After three days, when they announced they would bury her in the backyard, Kibbutz Ramot Menashe relented, and that is where Mer Khamis was also buried. When actor and playwright Najla Said met Mer Khamis in 2006, she recalled, he encouraged her to write “Palestine,” a one-person play, which she performed at a benefit for the Jenin Freedom Theatre as well as off-Broadway. Because Mer Khamis influenced her life so profoundly, Said asked the audience to “imagine the effect of his daily presence on the children of Jenin.” Israeli playwright Udi Aloni spent the last year in Jenin making a film on the refugee camp and learning THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
from his best friend “how to become a Palestinian Jew.” He cautioned that “Juliano was not a saint, but a trickster,” and offered as evidence an occasion when the two of them along with three Palestinians were stuck in a car at the Qalandia checkpoint. The situation looked hopeless and Aloni advised turning back. Instead, Mer Khamis roared up to the checkpoint, screeched to a stop and yelled, “Please help us. There are so many Arabs back there.” The Israeli soldiers allowed them to pass. Nabeel al-Ra’ee, director of the Jenin Freedom Theatre’s drama school, gave his tribute by video. He described Mer Khamis as a very nice dictator who fought in a different way, “blowing up their minds with theater.” Al-Ra’ee concluded by saying, “Don’t worry—every one of us is holding a message: to fight for something we believe.” To learn more about Mer Khamis’s work in Jenin, e-mail <friends@thefreedomtheatre.org>.
Dr. Ahmet Dogan at AMP Benefit American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) held a May 28 benefit in northern New Jersey to commemorate 63 years of ongoing Nakba. AMP chairman and Berkeley professor Dr. Hatem Bazian explained why such an organization is needed. After 9/11, he said, Muslims and Arabs in the U.S. were afraid to speak about Palestine for fear of being put on a watch list—to such an extent that at huge gatherings of Arab Americans there would be no mention of Palestine unless it was by “liberal Zionist” guest speakers. AMP was founded in 2006 to show that American Muslims care about Palestine, and that while this may be a minority viewpoint in the U.S., it is the majority position worldwide. AMP’s strategy is to reach young people on college campuses. Evidence that they are succeeding in shifting the consensus, Bazian noted, is that, in a reversal of the usual flow, the Israeli government is sending money to the U.S. to combat what it perceives as the delegitimization of Israel and to silence discussion. Dr. Ahmet Dogan spoke calmly and eloquently about his son Furkan, the American citizen whom Israeli commandos killed aboard the Mavi Marmara one year ago (see April 2011 Washington Report, p. 56). Although he speaks English, Dr. Dogan chose to speak in Turkish with an interpreter, “because the issue is emotional.” Born in Troy, New York in 1991 while his father was earning an AUGUST 2011
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MBA, Furkan was concerned about Palestinians, especially those in Gaza because of Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s blockade. As he was ending his senior year of high school, Furkan saw a billboard about the flotilla. He immediately applied on the Internet to join the flotilla, then asked his parents for permission. They gave it, but thought he would not be accepted because of his age. They were rightâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;but Furkan persisted, and in the end was one of nine from his hometown of Kayseri to join the flotilla. He immediately began buying presents for children in Gaza with his own money. On May 27, 2010, Furkan boarded the Mavi Marmara. His family never saw him alive again. The family followed the progress of the flotilla on the Internet. When the attack occurred on May 31 at 4:30 during morning prayer, Furkanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mother screamed. Still, they did not think Furkan would be hurt because of his youth. They contacted Turkish and U.S. authorities, but could get no information for three days. When they learned that all the passengers were being deported to Istanbul, they prepared clean clothes for Furkan and went to the airport. But their son did not get off any of the planes. Nor was he on the list of wounded and killed. They were then told there were three unidentified bodies, so they went to the morgue. That was where Dr. Dogan identified his sonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s body. The doctor in the morgue told him that the wounds revealed that Furkan was shot three times in the back, and then twice pointblank in the face. Eyewitnesses and the U.N. report also confirmed this. â&#x20AC;&#x153;My son was executed by the Israelis,â&#x20AC;? Dr. Dogan stated. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is a crime against humanity.â&#x20AC;? Dr. Dogan has come to the U.S. to seek accountability for his sonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s assassination. He has spent the last year pursuing all possible legal remedies, but now says it is clear that the U.S. will not investigate the murder of its own citizen. He believes this is because Furkan was a Turk and a Muslim, which shows U.S. hypocrisy on human rights. Yet, the family never says they wish they had not sent Furkan. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The issue of Palestine and of Gaza is our concern too,â&#x20AC;? his father said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;As the family of Furkan and we, the Turks, will always stand by the Palestinians.â&#x20AC;? Noting that Furkanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s older brother, Mustafa, will be on the second flotilla set to depart in late June, Dr. Dogan closed with, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Please do not forget to pray for us.â&#x20AC;? â?&#x2018; AUGUST 2011
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THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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“1001 Inventions” Exhibit Showcases Islamic Genuises From Cordoba, Cairo and Beyond By Pat and Samir Twair
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The first display visitors encounter in the exhibition hall is the remarkable elephant clock invented in 1206 by the engineering genius al-Jazari. The 20-foot-high replica of the fabled time device includes an Indian elephant, wooden robots in Arab attire, Chinese dragons, a Greek water timing mechanism and an Egyptian phoenix. The “1001 Inventions” is an amazing educational exhibition. clock cleverly rehe “1001 Inventions from the Golden flected all the cultural and technological inAge of Muslim Civilization” exhibit on fluences brought together in Muslim civiview at the California Science Center lization from Spain to China. Another display features hydraulic feats through Dec. 31 is an educator’s dream of hands-on, interactive learning. As we achieved by Islamic scientists including a strolled among displays at the May 27 West miniature of the six-story-high waterwheels Coast premiere of the traveling show, we in Hama, Syria. In the 12th century, al-Jazari were bedazzled to encounter actors por- utilized cranks, gears and a double-action suction pump to suck up river water to suptraying major figures in Islamic science. Youngsters crowded around a young, ply a network of canals irrigating crops. Students can view an actress playing Fahandsome Ibn Batuta who answered questions about his journey through 40 coun- tima al-Fihri on a life-size screen as she retries over 29 years in the 14th century. lates how she paid for the construction of Overhead was a life-size replica of Ibn Fir- the al-Qazrawiyin mosque and college complex in Fez, nas tied to his 9th Morocco. The century glider of buildings, lightweight wood, which date to silk and eagle feath859 C.E., are ers which kept him possibly the briefly aloft after world’s earlileaping from the est university. great mosque of Travel and Cordoba. trade is the Upon entering topic of anthe third floor of other display the museum in Los Ibn Firnas and his 9th century glider. which features Angeles’ Exposition Park, viewers are treated to an introductory a 12th century map of the world which the film starring Academy Award-winning Moroccan al-Idrisi made for the king of actor Sir Ben Kingsley, who describes the Sicily. On screen an actor cast in the role of ingenuity of Muslim inventors and their al-Jahiz, an African from Basra, tells how he wrote nearly 200 books on animals. Precreations replicated in the exhibition. dating Charles Darwin by centuries, alPat and Samir Twair are free-lance journal- Jahiz presented his theories on evolution in his zoological manuscripts. ists based in Los Angeles.
Southern California Chronicle
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THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
Replica of al-Jazari’s 13th century elephant clock. A turbaned Maimonides chats with students and discusses his philosophy and 12th century medical experiments. Another kiosk demonstrates how Islamic astronomers measured time and space and charted the heavens. Women inventors are well represented, including the mathematician al-Shifa. Teachers who bring their students to the admission-free Los Angeles exhibition can obtain an instruction pack online at <www.1001inventions.com/media/teacherspack>. Next year the exhibit will travel to the National Geographic Museum in Washington, DC. Just steps outside the science museum is the IMAX Theater, which is screening the West Coast premiere of “Arabia 3D.” Cost of the film is $8.50, but viewers will gain insight into the history, geography and culture of Saudi Arabia.
“I Heart Hamas” in L.A. Next time she lands at Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport on her way to Ramallah, if an Israeli security guard asks Jennifer Jajeh if she’s carrying weapons, the playwright/actress should reply “just myself.” The outspoken first-generation PalestinAUGUST 2011
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Syrians Rally for Democracy
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Appalled by the images and stories of bloodshed since March 15 as the Assad regime violently quashes peaceful demonstrations calling for democracy, Syrian Americans have been staging demonstrations two to three times a week in Orange and Los Angeles Counties. As the death toll soared over 1,100 in early June, two committees, the Syrian Emergency Task Force and Syrian American Council, organized protests at media outlets, the West Los Angeles Federal Building, and in Pomona, Anaheim, Irvine, Glendale, Corona and San Diego. Pro-government agents initially showed up at demonstrations to intimidate participants. However, as thousands of Syrians fled to Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey and evidence of government massacres, torture of children, and a scorched earth policy at
AUGUST 2011
Syrian Americans demonstrate outside CNN’s Los Angeles headquarters on June 3. Jisr Ashoughour appeared in the U.S. media, pro-Assad regime figures disappeared. On June 3, Syrian Americans gathered
Laguna Pageant Unveils Arabian Nights Since 1934, art lovers have traveled to Laguna Beach in the summer to view the seaside resort’s annual Pageant of the Masters, in which live models strike poses that recreate famous paintings, sculptures, ceramics, posters or jewelry. This year’s theme, “Only Make Believe,” will bring to the stage of the Irvine Bowl fairies, dragons, myths, heroes and even tales from the Arabian Nights. The essence of make believe is story telling and the greatest story teller was Scherherazade, who legend says prolonged her life for 1001 nights by weaving adventures to a caliph who had ordered her death. Models will recreate three illustrations made by Virginia Sterrett for a 1928 edition of 1001 Arabian Nights, entitled “Morgiana,” “The Princess” and “Scherherazade.” Curtain time is 8:30 p.m. July 7 through Aug. 31 at 650 Laguna Canyon Rd. More information is available at <www.Pageant Tickets.com>. ❑
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ian American’s creativity is a most effective weapon against Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank. In her tragicomedy, “I Heart Hamas,” she vividly describes the fear and humiliation she experienced from Israeli troops from 2000 to 2001 in Ramallah. Jajeh relates the frustrations of growing up Palestinian in the U.S. and the rejection she encountered in Palestine, where her scant knowledge of Arabic and cultural traditions made her “foreign.” Her one-woman show doesn’t rely on inside remarks to Arabs so much as having a universal appeal to anyone who’s gone through the angst of being a single unmarried woman in her thirties. As the lights dim, a woman warns the audience not to ask Jajeh her age or why she’s not married. As for Jews on hand, the announcer states: “the show isn’t about you, it’s about Jennifer.” In an especially poignant moment, Jajeh shows the actual family trees of her mother and father which document their forebears’ presence in Ramallah since the 1550s. “I’m the link breaking a 450-year chain,” she laments. Jajeh studied acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Conservatory in New York City and American Conservatory Theatre, San Francisco. She has appeared as an actress in 36 film, TV, commercial and theater productions and written two films, “In My Own Skin” and “Fruition.” She began to write ”I Heart Hamas” in January 2008. Over the past three years, the production has appeared in 12 U.S. cities, college shows and theaters. By popular demand, it has been extended through July at the Theater Asylum Lab, 6320 Santa Monica Blvd, Hollywood. For dates and reservations, contact <www.ihearthamas.com>.
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Playwright/actress Jennifer Jajeh.
outside CNN’s Los Angeles headquarters and, standing on four corners of the intersection of Sunset and Cahuenga Boulevards, chanted “Thank you, Thank you CNN for your coverage of Syria” (in reference to reports made by Anderson Cooper on Syria’s violent clamp-down). About a dozen CNN employees came outside to talk to demonstrators and remarked that it’s common to receive complaints, but rare to be praised. As we went to press, demonstrations were called for June 16 at NBC in Burbank, June 18 for the Gaza Strip in Anaheim and June 25 in Westwood. More rallies are planned for July. For additional information, contact <syrianetfLA@gmail.com> or <www.sacouncil.com>.
Models bring to life Virginia Sterrett’s 1928 illustrations from the Arabian Nights at the Laguna Beach Pageant of the Masters. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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SALAM Masjid and Center for Higher Islamic Learning Opens in Sacramento
Northern California Chronicle
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By Elaine Pasquini
ABOVE: The ochre-colored two-story SALAM Masjid and Center for Higher Islamic Learning features Moorish-style arched entrances under a 54-foot-high green dome adorned with a crescent. RIGHT: SALAM volunteer guide Josh Rahbar gives a tour of the Islamic center’s gift store to guests during the opening night reception. fter 23 years of planning, fund-rais-
Aing and building, the SALAM Masjid
Elaine Pasquini is a free-lance journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. 32
SALAM Board Chairman Farrukh Saeed told opening night guests. “The SALAM Center will continue to strive to be the
STAFF PHOTOS PHIL PASQUINI
and Center for Higher Islamic Learning in Sacramento celebrated completion of its final phase of construction with a facility tour and reception on April 29. The 22,000-square-foot building encompasses a prayer area adorned with calligraphy, a functional high-tech auditorium with seating for 300, a work-out room with equipment donated by community members, a gift/book store, an Islamic library open to the public, and a lounge where children play ping-pong on occasion. The prayer hall, which has no partitions separating men and women, accommodates 600 people and features large glass windows into the prayer area to allow for observation by the press or public. “We are beginning a new chapter in spiritual development by providing this facility to the local community where people from all walks of life and religious beliefs can come and learn about Islam on their own,”
leader in interfaith community services and relations and provide true Islamic education. Islam’s message is justice, peace and equality for all human beings on this earth without any discrimination.” Upon its founding in 1987, SALAM (Sacramento Area League of Associated Muslims) initially conducted its activities through a post office box, rented offices and community centers until 1993, when the group purchased the two-and-one-half-acre property on College Oak Drive. The campus was built over the next 23 years as funding became available. During construction of the first phase—the sidewalk, gate, fence and front parking space—SALAM acquired two trailers, one for use as a temporary mosque and the other for the weekend school. In 2002 construction of a community hall, conference room, commercial kitchen, and weekend and elementary school was completed. The final phase—construction of the mosque and Center for Higher Islamic Learning— began in April 2006 and was completed late last year. “This celebration marks the beginning of the even harder task of realizing our long-term vision of creating an intellectually thriving environment which will encourage learning and a lot of interfaith activities,” said project director Javed Iqbal. “It is especially crucial at this time to break down barriers between human beings.” The SALAM Academy presently offers
LEFT: Imam Mohamed Abdul-Azeez, religious leader of the SALAM Masjid. RIGHT: Following an introduction by Javed Iqbal (l), Metwalli Amer presents the Distinguished Volunteer Service Award to Passant Dorgham in recognition of her interior design services for the project. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
AUGUST 2011
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Supreme Court Rejects Torture Case
Charlotte Casey protests the Supreme Court’s refusal to review the Mohamed v. Jeppesen lawsuit on extraordinary rendition. Human rights supporters across the country deplored the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal on May 16 to review the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling dismissing the case of plaintiffs Binyam Mohamed, Abou Elkassim Britel, Ahmed Agiza, Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah and Bisher al-Rawi against Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc. for its role in the Bush administration’s extraordinary rendition program. In their complaint, filed in 2007, the men charged that Jeppesen provided flight planning and logistical support services to the aircraft and crews used by the CIA in the plaintiffs’ forced disappearance and secret transfer to U.S.-run prisons or foreign intelligence agencies overseas for interrogations involvAUGUST 2011
ing torture impermissible under U.S. and international law. (See April 2008 Washington Report, p. 50.) Charlotte Casey, former president of the Peace and Justice Center in San Jose, the city where Jeppesen, the flight-planning company and subsidiary of Boeing Commercial Aviation Services, is based, expressed her feelings about the decision to the Washington Report: “It is not surprising that the Roberts Supreme Court rejected the appeal by the ACLU,” she said, “but the bigger disappointment was the adoption by Obama’s Justice Department of the ‘state secrets’ privilege as a way to dismiss the claims of torture victims like Binyam Mohamed and the other men who were flown to secret prisons and tortured. Torture is illegal under U.S. and international law and we have to hold our government, and the corporations they rely on, responsible for their criminal activities during the socalled war on terror.” Denouncing extraordinary rendition and torture, members of the South Bay Coalition to Stop Torture have protested outside the San Jose Federal Building and Jeppesen’s downtown San Jose headquarters for several years to bring awareness to the lawsuit. Last year the American Civil Liberties Union petitioned the Supreme Court for review, arguing that the government had misused the “state secrets” privilege to deny justice to torture victims. The high court’s decision not to review the case leaves in place the appeals court’s Sept. 8 decision, which held that there was simply no feasible way to try the case without the risk of divulging state secrets and that therefore the suit could not proceed “even assuming plaintiffs could establish their case solely through non-privileged evidence.” According to Ben Wizner, litigation director of the ACLU National Security Project who argued the case before the appeals court, the May 16 decision means that “the Supreme Court has refused once again to give justice to torture victims and to restore our nation’s reputation as a guardian of human rights and the rule of law. To date,” he noted, “every victim of the Bush administration’s torture regime has been denied his day in court. But while the torture architects and their enablers have escaped the judgment of the courts, they will not escape the judgment of history.” On the day of the Supreme Court decision, 20 organizations, including Amnesty International USA and Alliance for Justice, THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
signed a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder stating: “The Court’s refusal to hear this case, along with its refusal to hear similar cases in the past few years, scuttles any hope that the courts will provide either justice for victims of rendition and torture or accountability for the governmental officials who designed and carried out these programs.” To serve the interests of justice, the letter called for an investigation in accordance with the Justice Department’s September 23, 2009 policy “to provide greater accountability and reliability in the invocation of the state secrets privilege.” The letter’s signatories further argued, “Where government wrongdoing is uncovered, providing plaintiffs with appropriate redress could at least grant some small measure of recompense for the denial of these plaintiffs’ day in court.”
Know Your City Leaders
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classes for pre-school through fifth grade. An introduction to Islam class is held the first Saturday of every month for anyone interested in learning about the religion. “We’ve created a center for higher learning as a tool for community members to learn about Islam,” said SALAM founder Metwalli Amer, “to reach out and project Islam in its correct image, to be a moderate voice in the community, to be the home of each and every Muslim, to empower women as partners in building this center, and to be an active part of the Sacramento community at large.” There are currently an estimated 65,000 Muslim-Americans living in the greater Sacramento area. For more information, visit <www.salamcenter.org>.
Arab Cultural and Community Center president Fuad Ateyeh (l) with San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi. As part of the Arab Cultural and Community Center’s “Know Your City Leaders” series, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who is running for mayor, and Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, the first Iranian American elected to public office in San Francisco, who is running for sheriff of the city and county of San Francisco, spoke about their campaigns to members of the Arab-American community on May 18. Many of the attendees were local small business owners and some were members of the Arab-American Grocers Association. An estimated 85,000 Arab Americans live in San Francisco—some 175,00 in the entire Bay Area. Other candidates running for city offices also will be meeting at the ACCC with members of the Arab-American community prior to the upcoming Nov. 8 election. ❑ 33
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Painter Helen Zughaib: A Foot in Two Countries and Two Cultures SpecialReport
By Barbara Ferguson
white blouse and a pair of jeans for our interview. Also present were her two cats, Stubby and Clumpy. “He’s very smart,” Zughaib said of Stubby, an abandoned cat who lost his tail before Zughaib rescued and adopted him. She made this observation as the feline gingerly walked along the edge of the new paintings she was preparing for an upcoming exhibit at the Jerusalem Fund, a DCbased organization that supports Palestinians. Zughaib’s distinctive artistic style is achieved through the medium of gouache, “an opaque water color” also used in the illustrations of the Qur’an, and in Persian and Indian miniatures, which, she said, influenced her.
Helen Zughaib’s “Midnight Prayers.” uring Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-
DMaliki’s visit to the White House last
year, President Barack Obama presented the leader with a gift: a painting by ArabAmerican artist Helen Zughaib. The piece, “Midnight Prayers,” notable for its symbolism and rich use of colors, depicts a scene of Arab life in a hopeful, healing and spiritual way, said Zughaib. In an interview in her Washington, DC studio, she described the painting as “my imagination of the call to prayer. The beauty of the call to prayer, combined with the rich detail of intricate Islamic designs in blues and greens, symbolize the beauty and lushness of the Arab world. The colors—blues and greens—were chosen to further express that idea of tranquility and peace. And at the essence of that painting is my hope for a peaceful Middle East. “I envision the call to prayers as unifying everyone,” she added. “Even though there is a lot going on in that painting, the impression that you get is of calmness and Barbara Ferguson is a Washington, DCbased correspondent for the Arab News. 34
stillness.” President Obama’s gift to Prime Minister Maliki was not the first time Zughaib’s work had been exchanged between political leaders, but it was the most noteworthy. On her recent trip to Morocco, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Zughaib’s interpretation of the Washington monument to King Mohamed V. The piece had been purchased by the State Department’s Office of Protocol, which obtains gifts for the president, first lady, vice president and secretary of state to present to foreign heads of state. Zughaib’s paintings also have been widely exhibited in galleries and museums in the United States, Europe and Lebanon. They are included in many private and public collections as well, including the White House, World Bank, Library of Congress, U.S. Consulate General in Vancouver, Canada, the American Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, and the Arab American National Museum in Detroit, Michigan. In contrast to the flamboyant hues of her paintings, Zughaib was dressed in a simple THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
Also in her studio were 20 six-inchsquare wooden blocks painted with different vibrant patterns. Zughaib said they represent the richly patterned embroidered garments of Palestinian women that varies from Palestinian town to town—many of which are now blocked by Israel’s 40-foothigh “security” wall. Despite her work’s subject matter, Zughaib said she does not consider herself political. “My aim as an artist, especially after 9/11, is to further the dialogue between East and West,” she told the Washington Report. “We must continue to try to bring people together in conversation with the hope of mutual understanding, acceptance and respect.” One of her paintings, “Secrets Under the AUGUST 2011
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Abaya” (2005), was created, she said, in response to the increasingly negative perceptions of Islam and Muslim culture. In it, a silhouetted white figure is isolated in a black background, causing the viewer’s gaze to fixate on the repetition of an Iraqi proverb, written in Arabic, which reads, “There are many secrets hidden under the abaya.”
From Lebanon to America Born in Beirut to a Lebanese father and American mother, Zughaib lived mostly in the Middle East and Europe before coming to the United States to study art. In 1981 she received her bachelor of fine arts from Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts. Her best-known series of paintings is “Stories my Father Told Me,” based on his recollections of his childhood in the Levant. The paintings reflect her family’s profound cultural ties to the Middle East,
She learned that she had been chosen for the exhibition while dining with her parents. “My dad was in the midst of telling a story, as he often does, about family, relatives, and his experiences back in Syria as a “The Walk to the Water Fountain” (Mishwar ‘Al child,” she said. El-’Ayn) from Zughaib’s series “Stories My Father “He was halfway through a story Told Me.” OUTSET: “Birth of a Baby” about my grandmother crossing the Litani River when the Turks were occupying Lebanon and my family was es- thing coalesced, and the gallery owner caping. As my father was speaking, my loved the idea of me painting my father’s mother suddenly says: ‘We have to record childhood remembrances.” Zughaib admitted that her father needed your father some time.’ Then I received this phone call and all of a sudden every- strong persuasion before agreeing to the
“Prayers for Peace” recreated through memories and sensations of her birthplace, that resulted in vivid compositions of delicate figures and detailed narratives. “I started to paint my father’s story after the 9/11 attacks, when things changed so much here,” Zughaib recalled. When approached by a gallery to do a solo exhibition around 2005, she said she needed a theme for the proposed exhibit. “I had recently gone to the Philips collection and seen Jacob Lawrence’s Negro migration series. He did a series of paintings during the WPA program [a U.S. government employment program for artists in the 1930s], and he used the same medium as me, gouache.” AUGUST 2011
“The Hallab” THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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idea. “When I asked my father if I could paint his story, he was emphatic: ‘No!’” So she turned to her mother, who is American of Scotch-Irish descent, explained the problem, and—as daughters have done for centuries when a father says no—asked her mother to speak to him for her. “Fortunately my mother was able to persuade him,” said Zughaib. “And he begrudgingly agreed to write his childhood stories for me, even though he said he considered them to be strictly family and very private.” The result is a hakawati, or series of stories: “Arabs have a tradition of storytelling,” Zughaib explained. “They revolve around their families. They are traditions and parables that teach you a moral lesson.” With some nudging, Zughaib’s father wrote 14 stories for her, and she translated each one into a visual account of his childhood. The result was a huge success. “People went crazy about them, not just Arab Americans, but anyone who had experienced the immigrant tradition could identify with them,” Zughaib said. “These paintings helped me portray Arabs by showing their humanity. I didn’t do it for that reason, but that’s how it turned out.” But her father remained stoic about her success, Zughaib said. When he came to view the exhibition she had painted from his stories, he observed them all, but, “He didn’t say anything.” Once again, Zughaib turned to her mother for counsel. Then, “the next day he came to my studio, entered, but didn’t mention anything about my paintings. He just handed me a manuscript and said: ‘Here’s another story for you.’ Then he turned around and walked out the door. “He’s now given me a total of 22 stories,” Zughaib said, beaming. “His writing is very charming. He is British-educated, so his writing is very proper. “My father is Syrian/Lebanese,” Zughaib continued. He was “born in Damascus, and lived there until the French divided the country.” Her family was evacuated from Lebanon in December of 1975. “I left my father there, and my dad promised that we’d be back home in one week.” But, as with so many refugees in that region, that did not happen. It was her recent solo art exhibit at Beirut’s Agial Gallery that finally brought them back home. “It was the first time I returned to Lebanon since I left 35 years ago,” said 36
Zughaib. “I brought my father’s stories back with me, and I think after all the years of strife that they’ve had there, people would come into the gallery and remember their own experiences from their own villages…and were so happy that the traditions of their childhoods hadn’t been forgotten.” The paintings seamlessly blend emotions that remain close to the heart: identity and nostalgia, with humor and love entwined in the rituals of village life. The success of her exhibition was immediate: “We pretty much sold the show out.” “Stories My Father Told Me” is posted on her Web site, <www.hzughaib.com>. The aim of her artwork is simple, Zughaib explained: “I hope my work inspires open and continued dialogue between the Arab world and the West. I truly believe that both sides share a common bond—and that one really can have a discussion over a painting that may end stereotypes. I really want to achieve mutual understanding and have that dialogue; because I have a foot in both countries, and in both cultures.” ❑
Migrant Workers… Continued from page 26
The Supreme Court ruled that a policy that stipulated that the validity of migrant workers’ stay and work permits was connected to their continued employment by a specific employer led to “a disproportional violation of their basic right to liberty and human dignity.” On May 16, the Knesset reinstated the previous arrangement binding migrant workers to specific employers, but in a harsher and more restrictive form. Now there will be geographical limits in visas, workers in home care will be restricted to employment in narrowly defined sub-categories, and the number of transfers that workers may make between employers will be restricted.
Palestinian Youth in Revolt “When is the Arab youth revolution going to spread to the Palestinians?” asked a local journalist in his column, and it was certainly not the first time that I’d encountered the question. The short answer would be that young Palestinians often have been in the vanguard of their people’s struggle, most notably during the first intifada from 198793. Palestinian students, both inside and outside their homeland, have upheld the THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
national cause since the Nakba in 1948; they organized in universities in Arab states after much of their society was shattered in their home country, and in the 1960s and 1970s thousands of young people living in exile in the Palestinian camps volunteered to join the military wings of the Palestinian nationalist organizations. Inside the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the 1980s, young people brought a creativity and imagination to political life that often was lacking elsewhere, and genuine and far-ranging debates took place. When older people saw the daring of the “Children of the Stones” at the beginning of the first intifada, they were astounded by their courage and their determination to resist. If they have not been so much to the fore recently, it is in large measure due to Israel’s response to the second intifada. After Ariel Sharon insisted on visiting Jerusalem’s Haram Al-Sharif in September 2000—despite repeated warnings about how provocative that would be to Palestinian Muslims in particular—there were demonstrations and protesters threw stones. Given the popular discontent with settlement expansion and the lack of progress toward Palestinian independence, it is likely that the struggle would have escalated, but it might have taken a mainly civilian character, as did its forerunner, had the Israeli army not reacted to those first demonstrations with gunfire and targetting of protest leaders by snipers. That turned the second intifada into a largely militarized confrontation and left limited space for civilian mobilization. It should also be recognized that the price of revolt against Israel is a high one. Many of those killed each year by the Israeli occupation forces are young people, though that doesn’t necessarily indicate that they were activists: most just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time (see <www.rememberthese children.org>). Around 300 of those imprisoned each year are under 18 years of age. During the first intifada, the Palestine Human Rights Information Center documented the deaths of 1,002 people at the hands of Israeli forces between December 1987 and December 1991. In Egypt, Mubarak was overthrown in an uprising in which 846 people lost their lives, while in Tunisia, Zine al Abidine Ben Ali was overthrown at the price of 223 people’s lives. What the Palestinians face in their homeland is an adversary that is more resilient and resorts more easily to violence than these regimes did in their own defense, which is certainly a formidable obstacle to revolution, “youth” or otherwise. ❑ AUGUST 2011
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Despite Increased Attempts to Stifle Dissent, Jewish Criticism of Israel’s Policies Grows Israel andJudaism
By Allan C. Brownfeld o the dismay of the organized Ameri-
Tcan Jewish community, and despite its
increasingly strident efforts to silence dissent, Jewish criticism of Israel’s policies continues to grow. Even the slightest hint of concern about the treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli occupation is met with the harshest assault. In an article in the June 2011 issue of Commentary entitled “Are Young Rabbis Turning Against Israel?” David Gordis asked: “Can Israel and Judaism survive when many of their new leaders no longer believe that their primary responsibility is to protect and defend their own?” What upset the author so much? A message sent to students at Boston’s Hebrew College rabbinical school asked them to prepare themselves for Yom Ha-Zikaron (the day of remembrance in Israel for the Fallen of Israel’s wars) by musing on the following paragraph: “For Yom Ha-Zikaron, our kavanah (intention) is to open up our communal remembrance to include losses on all sides of the conflict in Israel/Palestine. In this spirit, our framing question...is this: On this day, what do you remember and for whom do you grieve?” What concerned Gordis was the refusal of young rabbinical students to see the world in “us” versus “them” terms. He wrote: “The heartbreaking point was this: in the case of these rabbinical students, there is not an instinct that should be innate—the instinct to protect their own people first, or to mourn our losses first. Their instinct, instead, is to ‘engage’...It means setting instinctive dispositions aside. And this is precisely what this emerging generation of American Jewish leaders believes it ought to do.” Most disturbing to Gordis was that, “This new tone in discussion about Israel is so ‘fair,’ so ‘balanced,’ so ‘even-handed’ that entirely gone is the instinct of belonging—the visceral sense on the part of these students that they are part of a people, that the blood and the losses that were required Allan C. Brownfeld is a syndicated columnist and associate editor of the Lincoln Review, a journal published by the Lincoln Institute for Research and Education, and editor of Issues, the quarterly journal of the American Council for Judaism. 38
to erect the state of Israel is their blood and their loss...There is an ‘us’ and ‘them’ in Judaism’s worldview...It actually does mean that Jewish authenticity requires caring about ourselves before we care about others...Today’s universalism leaves no room for the particularism that has long been at the core of Jewish life.”
oday’s universalism “T leaves no room for the particularism long at the core of Jewish life.” For many American Jews—perhaps a silent majority of them—the notion of viewing the world in terms of “us” and “them,” rather than seeking justice, as the Biblical prophets commanded, is in violation of Judaism’s highest principles. Consider the bitter attacks from the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Weisenthal Center upon Julian Schnabel’s film “Miral,” based on an autobiographical novel by his romantic partner, Rule Jebreal, a Palestinian. It tells the story of three generations of Palestinian women from the perspective of a teenage girl who comes of age during the first intifada in the late 1980s. Schnabel says that he traveled to Israel “with a completely open mind” to make the film. Writing in The Jewish Journal (and published as an ad in the March 25, 2011 New York Times), Danielle Barrin asked: “Why is the American Jewish Committee afraid of ‘Miral?’” According to Barrin, “Maybe it’s the simple fact that a high-profile film written by a Palestinian is cause enough for Jewish opprobrium. Maybe it’s because the director of the film, Julian Schnabel, is Jewish, and his commitment to any perspective other than the dominant Jewish paradigm is akin to tribal and national betrayal. Maybe it’s because the distributor of the film, Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, was reared and raised a New York Jew who should know better...Or, maybe a cultural malaise has taken hold that’s made it impossible for Jews to empathize with anyone but each other.” Barrin went on to point out that the Torah, Judaism’s most sacred text, “adTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
monishes again and again ‘love the stranger,’ ‘remember the stranger,’ ‘be kind to the stranger’ because ‘you were slaves in the land of Egypt.’ Have we forgotten? Or have we become so mired in our own neuroses...that we can’t see behind our own noses?...’Miral’ is asking us to pause from our consideration of Palestinians as ‘the other’ and instead to see a people with whom we might partner. It is asking us to consider the millions of Palestinians who are not terrorists, who desire economic opportunity, civil liberties and a chance to swim in the Mediterranean Sea. If, as American Jews, we can’t even watch a movie in peace, I fear what that means for the peace prospects of an entire nation—or, rather, two.” Any Jewish dissent from pro-Israel orthodoxies is met with an often brutal response. In early May, the trustees of the City University of New York (CUNY) voted to shelve an honorary degree by John Jay College to Tony Kushner, the Pulitzer Prizewinning playwright. The vote came after CUNY trustee Jeffrey Weisenfeld accused Kushner of disparaging the State of Israel in past comments. Kushner, who was not present at the board meeting, responded that he was “dismayed by the vicious attack and wholesale distortion of my beliefs.” He added that he was a strong supporter of Israel’s right to exist and had never supported a boycott of the country, and that his views were shared by many Jews. “I’m sickened that this is happening in New York City, shocked really,” Kushner said. The outcry was swift. Ellen Schrecker, a history professor at Yeshiva University who received an honorary degree from CUNY’s John Jay College in 2008, said she planned to return it in solidarity with Kushner. In a May 7, 2011 editorial, The New York Times declared that, “The trustees of CUNY got it exactly backward...They supported the political agenda of an intolerant board member and shunned one of America’s most important playwrights. They should have embraced the artist and tossed out the board member...Mr. Kushner, who is Jewish, described the ousting of Palestinians from their homes in the 1940s as a form of ‘ethnic cleansing.’ He has also said Israel is engaged in the deliberate destruction of PalesAUGUST 2011
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tinian culture...” The editorial’s title: “CUNY Shamed Itself.” In the end, the CUNY trustees reversed themselves and finally approved Kushner’s honorary degree. Even a leading rabbi and strong supporter of Israel—albeit not “Israel, right or wrong”—has been the victim of a bitter campaign to silence his views and remove him from any leadership role. When Rabbi Richard Jacobs was selected as the new head of the Union for Reform Judaism, a debate was set off about the Reform movement’s commitment to Israel. An advertisement carried in the May 6, 2011 issue of The Forward and other Jewish newspapers was headlined, “We Are Reform Jews Who Want the Reform Movement to Stand With Israel.” The ad, signed by a group of Reform Jews calling itself “Jews Against Divisive Leadership,” stated that “The Union for Reform Judaism’s nominee for president, Rabbi Richard Jacobs, does not represent the pro-Israel policies cherished by Reform Jews. He does not represent us.” Among the charges against Rabbi Jacobs were the following: “Rabbi Jacobs serves in J Street’s Rabbinic Cabinet. He told the Jewish Week, ‘I support the goals and vision of J Street.’ J Street opposed Iran sanctions, supported Goldstone and opposed the U.S. veto of the U.N. Security Council condemnation of Israel...Rabbi Jacobs served on the board of the New Israel Fund (NIF)...NIF has supported organizations that were in the forefront of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel...Rabbi Jacobs joined the Sheikh Jarrah demonstrations in Jerusalem. We question his judgment in associating himself with a group that the Jewish Agency condemns for ‘opposing the idea of Israel as a Jewish homeland and promoting an anti-Zionist agenda.’ We call on the Union for Reform Judaism to reconsider their divisive appointment. Do not drive mainstream Zionist Jews out of the Reform movement.” The vitriol has become so great that many voices in the Jewish community are expressing concern. Editorialized The Forward on May 20, 2011: “In the past few weeks, two men have been forced to explain their views on Israel by members of the Jewish community who have assigned themselves the role of the Israeli government’s local defender...deciding that [Israel[ alone is the threshold for acceptance, stifles constructive debate and makes it seem as if that’s all American Jews care about. It’s not, and it never should be. We also care about human rights and democratic thought, about freeAUGUST 2011
dom of expression and freedom from want. Rick Jacobs cares about those values. So does Tony Kushner. Instead of denigrating their Jewishness, we should be proud of it.” An article in the June 6, 2011 Jerusalem Report headlined “A Split Community: U.S. Jewish Leaders Are Alarmed at the Venom Sweeping In” described the American Jewish community as “increasingly intolerant.” In an interview, Rabbi David Ellenson, president of the Hebrew Union College, the Reform movement’s rabbinical college, declared: “I’m struck virtually speechless that of anyone in the world, [Rabbi] Jacobs would be considered antiIsrael. The ad was beyond simplistic and smacked of McCarthyism...The attack is the most despicable thing I’ve ever encountered in my life in the Jewish community. This brings great shame to the Jewish community. I’m just infuriated.”
An Ugly Wind Rabbi Eric Gurvis of Temple Shalom in Newton, Massachusetts (rabbi of one of Jacobs’ critics, Yvonne Baehr-Robertson), said, “The campaign to discredit and delegitimize is part of a bigger ugly wind in the community that distresses me terribly...There are people in the world who want to delegitimize Israel and now we’re trying to delegitimize Jews because they don’t hold the ‘correct’ support of Israel... We are at a precarious point, at a crossroads. And are we going to walk to the crossroads or walk away from each other?” Even Israelis who challenge the policies of their government have come under bitter attack. Commentary, which seems to be assuming a major role in the campaign to silence any dissent, carried an attack in its May 2011 issue on the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem written by Noah Pollak, executive director of the Emergency Committee for Israel. Without challenging any of B’Tselem’s findings with regard to Israel’s violations of Palestinians’ human rights, Pollak declared that “B’Tselem is merely one player, albeit a leading one, in a political movement that had developed over the past decade that seeks to place the very legitimacy of the Jewish state in question...The policies they support would constitute no less than Zionism’s destruction.” In general, however, there is less hesitation of critics in Israel itself to speak out than there is in the U.S. In April, for example, dozens of Israel’s most honored intellectuals and artists signed a declaration endorsing a Palestinian state on the basis of the 1967 borders and asserted that an end THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
to Israel’s occupation “will liberate the two peoples and open the way to a lasting peace.” Yaron Ezrahi, a political theorist at the Hebrew University and one of the signers, said the group chose the week of Passover to issue its declaration because Passover marks the freedom of the Jewish people from slavery. “We don’t want to pass over the Palestinian people,” he said. “This is a holiday of freedom and independence.” In May, when Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu visited Washington, he challenged President Barack Obama’s statement that the 1967 borders—with “land swaps”—should be the basis of negotiations. AIPAC—and the U.S. Congress—gave the foreign leader standing ovations. Yet, according to the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv, a majority of Israelis think Netanyahu should have supported Obama’s approach. A poll commissioned by the newspaper found that 10 percent felt the prime minister should have supported Obama “with no reservations.” An additional 46.8 percent said he should have supported Obama “but with reservations.” And 36.7 percent said he should have done what he did. Washington Post columnist Al Kamen noted: “One thing the poll means is that AIPAC had better open up an office in Tel Aviv immediately to straighten out those folks.” Clearly, the efforts to stifle dissent within the Jewish community—both in the U.S. and Israel—have failed, perhaps the reason the community has become increasingly incendiary. In a May 19, 2011 Washington Jewish Week column entitled, “Is Israel Beginning to Drift out of View?” Douglas Bloomfield wrote: “AIPAC’s real enemy...may be a rising tide of apathy. The deeply committed, particularly those with the deepest pockets, are a minority in a Jewish community that is growing weary of a conflict that seems to drag on endlessly in a leadership vacuum...Most American Jews don’t care about settlements, and they see that Netanyahu prefers settlement expansion to peace with the Palestinians.” Reported Bloomfield: “Activists tell me it is increasingly difficult to excite young people about Israel; they don’t see a mortal danger but a muscular, nuclear-armed Israel that can handle itself. Increasingly, they don’t see ‘the Middle East’s only democracy,’ but a country dominated by extremists, political and religious, that seems intent on abandoning its democratic roots. As one who speaks to Jewish audiences around the country, I have noticed an increasing sense of what one author called the ‘waning Jewish love affair with Israel.’” ❑ 39
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Arab-American Activism
Waves of protests throughout the Middle East have captured the world’s attention, prompting questions about the current situation, what the future holds for the region, and what the international community can do to support the efforts of those involved in the uprisings. Several panelists at the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee’s (ADC) National Conference, held June 10-12 at the Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, DC, discussed the ongoing revolutions in order to help attendees understand the most recent developments.
Popular Uprisings The Arab Spring was first explored during a June 10 panel titled “Popular Uprisings: Roundtable on Recent Developments,” moderated by Jeffery Ghannam, a journalist, lawyer, and media development practitioner who frequently works in the Middle East. Three panelists provided a range of analyses focusing specifically on the situations in Egypt and Libya and on the prospects for eventual economic and political development. When asked how Arab Americans can help further the process of reform in the Middle East, ADC board member Ashley Ansara urged the audience to “come and visit” Egypt to witness the ongoing transformation and progress that the media cannot translate. Ansara, who has visited his native Egypt three times since protests broke out in January, admitted he “never thought the system in Egypt would collapse” during his lifetime, echoing the surprise and hopefulness felt by so many Egyptians upon the fall of President Hosni Mubarak. Khaled Mattawa—originally from Benghazi, Libya, and currently assistant professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor—provided input on his country of origin. He expressed his appreciation for NATO’s involvement in Libya, stating that without military intervention there likely would have been a massacre of civilians. Hady Amr, deputy assistant administrator for the Middle East at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), provided a brief overview of current and planned U.S. economic and political engagement in the region, noting Washington’s strong commitment to progress in the Middle East and USAID’s annual invest40
STAFF PHOTO M. O’SULLIVAN
ADC Conference Panelists Discuss Present, Future of Arab World
(L-r) ADC board member David Khairallah and vice chair Assad Jebara, Ambassador Clovis Maksoud and Prof. Samer Shehata discuss emerging new realities in the Arab world. ment of $1.5 billion in assistance across the Arab world each year. USAID has shifted its involvement in Egypt to become more responsive to the demands of the population, Amr explained, working more directly with citizens rather than going through the government. It will still continue to face significant challenges in Egypt, however, with roughly half of Egyptians opposing any sort of American economic assistance (Gallup 2011). Amr went on to describe how his organization’s efforts venture beyond basic economic growth and aim to assist in statebuilding, for example through programs in democracy and governance currently underway in Tunisia and Yemen. —Mathew O’Sullivan
Emerging New Realities At a June 11 ADC panel on “Emerging New Realities in the Arab World,” Samer Shehata, assistant professor of Arab politics at Georgetown University, expressed his opinion that the 2011 revolts undoubtedly mark a distinct moment in history that will be read about in textbooks years from now. Shehata also conveyed his disappointment with the Obama administration’s relatively weak position on the necessary abdication of power by dictators in the Middle East—a sentiment that was shared by many of the conference’s guests. Specifically, Shehata discussed the White House’s establishment early on in the Egyptian uprising of a moral equivalency between protesters and Mubarak’s regime by calling on both sides to come to a peaceful agreement, rather than calling for President Mubarak’s immediate resignation. Shehata was also concerned that President Barack Obama did not exert sufficient pressure on Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a former ally of the U.S. government. The atrocities committed against peaceful protesters in Egypt, Yemen, Syria and elsewhere cannot be clasTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
sified as minor “disputes,” Shehata argued, but are rather indisputable assaults on basic human rights and must be treated— without hesitancy—as such. Former Arab League Ambassador Clovis Maksoud—currently director of the Center for the Global South at American University—expanded upon the central importance of citizens’ rights and liberties in the grander scheme of the Arab Awakening. Maksoud emphasized that movements in the Arab world must seek to establish a unified and egalitarian citizenship in which all individuals play an equal part, irrespective of race, sex, religion, or other factors. Ambassador Maksoud also commented that movements must seek to eradicate economic stratification and the social division which results, explaining that rich countries with poor people create two nations at odds with each other. This issue of poverty is particularly relevant to the Palestinian struggle, Maksoud said, which remains an important symbol of the collective hardships endured throughout the Middle East. He evoked a lively response from the audience when he declared that, just as freedom must be ensured for the citizens of Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, Syria and elsewhere, freedom must be won for the Palestinian people, who have suffered unimaginable injustices for decades. Israeli settlements, Maksoud asserted, must be dismantled, not frozen. This session and several others were recorded by C-SPAN, and can be viewed at <www.cspanvideo.org/videoLibrary/ event.php?id=194543>. —Mathew O’Sullivan
ADC Town Hall Meeting Examines BDS The Palestinian-Israeli conflict and its relevance to neighboring conflicts throughout the Middle East was examined at length during the ADC Conference’s final event, a AUGUST 2011
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(L-r) Yousef Munayyer, Josh Ruebner and Miko Peled hold a “townhall meeting” on the BDS campaign.
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Social Media not Just for Socializing The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) hosted a panel on “Social Networking in a Changing Media.” Moderated by new media consultant William Youmans, the discussion featured Jillian C. York, director of International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and comedian Dean Obeidallah. Although the panelists briefly discussed the rapid expansion of social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, including their use as tools during the Arab Spring, much of the session was dedicated to discussing a controversy that caused many attendees to boycott the convention. Syrian pianist Malek Jandali, originally invited to play at the convention, reportedly was asked by ADC officials not to play his song about freedom and democracy titled “Watani Ana.” Although ADC officials issued a statement June 9 claiming there had been a misunderstanding and that the pianist had not been disinvited for political reasons, many speakers used their
STAFF PHOTO K. CLOOS
town hall meeting on the theme of “A Struggle for Palestinian Rights.” Panelist Miko Peled, an Israeli peace activist and author of The General’s Son, voiced his concern that while recent peaceful protests in the Middle East have gained significant media attention, Palestinian protests— going on for 60 years—continue to be deprived of international attention. The disempowerment of Palestinians and Israeli Arabs is an ongoing process that dates back to the Nakbah of 1948, Peled pointed out. Josh Ruebner, national advocacy director of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, argued that efforts by the global society to challenge Israel’s policies through boycotting, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) should be central to the pursuit of Palestinian rights and the eventual achievement of a solution to the IsraeliPalestinian conflict. Yousef Munayyer, executive director of the Jerusalem Fund, remarked that Mohamed Bouazizi, the young Tunisian street vendor who set himself on fire; 13-year-old Hamza Al-Khatib, who was brutally mutilated and killed after being detained by Syrian government forces; and 12-year-old Gazan Muhammad al-Durrah, whose shooting death by Israelis was caught on camera, all died in the struggle for freedom. While for many Americans the Arab Spring is simply a stream of media coverage emanating through television sets, the full vivacity of the Arab world’s demands for reform were on display at the ADC Conference. Its focus on the hardships endured by ongoing revolutionary and reform movements in the Arab world, and the participants’ impassioned discussions on the subject, demonstrated the ArabAmerican community’s dedication to upholding the rights and liberties of their brothers and sisters abroad. —Mathew O’Sullivan
panels as platforms to discuss the incident. At their panel, York, Obeidallah and Youmans discussed how Twitter and Facebook were used to spread information about the controversy. A Facebook page was created to encourage ADC members to boycott the convention, and there were more than 700 signatures on an online petition calling for the resignation of Safa Rifka, chair of ADC’s board of directors. Now is the best time for activism and empowerment in light of free and widely accessible social media tools, Obeidallah and York agreed, encouraging the audience to take advantage of this opportunity. Dedicating a Twitter feed to a cause one is passionate about is an easy way to raise awareness about a significant issue, Obeidallah said, assuring the audience it takes little effort to maintain. “It’s the greatest time for empowerment, the most democratized time ever,” he said. Online content should be viewed with discretion, however, York cautioned, reminding the audience that “on the Internet, no one knows you’re a dog.” She mentioned the “Gay Girl in Damascus” blog, ostensibly written by “Amina Arrof,” an American-born lesbian, telling of her struggles in Syria. Shortly before the ADC convention it had been discovered that the blog’s author, who allegedly had been abducted, according to a post from a “cousin,” had stolen more than 100 photos from a woman living in London, and suspicion that she did not exist was on the rise. It has since been confirmed that the blog’s author in fact was Tom MacMaster, a 40-year-old American student studying in Scotland. When reputable news organizations interviewed Arrof, the “Gay Girl,”via e-mail,
(L-r) Jillian York, William Youmans and Dean Obeidallah. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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his new film, “Just Like Us,” and by a live performance of classical Arabic music by virtuoso Bassam Saba. Saturday night festivities wound down after a “Hafleh,” where attendees danced to pop music from across the Arab world. —Delinda C. Hanley STAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY
she was given credibility, York noted. But in today’s society such journalistic methods are irresponsible, and these journalists did not do their jobs, she said. Despite the scandals that the panelists said would have been nonissues before the age of Twitter, there are still valid uses for information shared through such tools. York said she followed the Egyptian Revolution on Twitter, where protesters tweeted thousands of updates throughout the course of the uprising, even more than through mainstream news sources. —Kassondra Cloos
Commemorating the Catastrophe By Celebrating Ethnic Heritage
Thousands of Palestinians in the Chicago area commemorated 63 Ralph Nader and Paul Findley confer before receiving their ADC years of al Nakba (catastrophe) in Bridgeview on May 22 by celawards. ebrating their heritage with an cans will be further demonized. ADC outdoor festival hosted by the Chicago ADC Gala Awards Dinner needs funds and volunteers to help protect chapter of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). The daylong event featured the The Saturday evening Gala Awards Dinner the legal rights of Arab Americans. Former Congressman Paul Findley, who first-ever Palestine parade, authentic Palesopened with a recording of the widely celebrated musical piece by composer Malek noted that he first addressed ADC in 1981, tinian food, bread baked on site in taboon Jandali entitled “Watani Ana.” ADC mem- received the Honorary Arab American (clay) ovens, traditional debka dancing and bers thanked Sara Najjar-Wilson for her Award. Findley urged listeners to help more. Haneen Zoabi, a Palestinian member voluntary service as ADC president in 2010 wipe out negative Muslim stereotypes. of the Knesset; Dr. Ahmet Dogan, father of and 2011, and honored her with the ADC ”False images of Islam aren’t the only prob- Furkan Dogan, the American citizen slain Leadership and Unwavering Public Service lem we face, but they are a dangerous can- by Israeli commandos aboard the Mavi Award for her generosity and dedication. cer in our national life that hurts all of us. Marmara last year; Osama Abu-Irshaid, Her successor as president, Warren David, Let’s eradicate this,” he urged. “You can AMP board member and editor of Al is a third-generation Arab American, a life- make a difference. Never give up.” (Find- Meezan newspaper; and Sheikh Jamal Said, long activist from Michigan, and founder ley’s books, including his new memoir, are director of the Mosque Foundation, were the event’s keynote speakers. and publisher of the interactive Web site available from the AET Book Club.) Dr. Fahim and Nancy Qubain, founders AMP, whose mission is to educate the pubArab Detroit <www.arabdetroit.com>. The keynote speaker for the evening was of the Hope Fund, received the Alex Odeh lic about Palestine, had several goals for the four-time presidential candidate Ralph Memorial Award for their tireless work event, according to Awad Hamdan, AMP naNader, who was also presented with the finding scholarships for Palestinian stu- tional programs director. “We wanted the ADC Lifetime Achievement Award. African dents to study in the United States. A Palestinians in the Chicago area to be able to Americans, Irish, Jews, Italians and Japan- Hope scholarship recipient, Hanan, who take pride in their heritage and history,” he ese have fought for civil rights in America, had graduated the previous week with a said. “The many activities—from fresh PalesNader said. Today it’s Arab Americans’ degree in economics and mathematics, said tinian bread baked right on the site to taking turn in the docket. “If our constitutional she had come to the United States, “be- pictures beside the re-created Dome of the rights are not exercised,” Nader warned, cause the Qubains believed in me and Rock and al Aqsa Mosque—helped people cared about my future.” For the first time here connect to their heritage. “they atrophy.” “But, we also wanted to educate the pubRemarking on the standing ovations in her life, she said, there were no checkPrime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu re- points or soldiers—only opportunities. lic at large that the Nakba is an ongoing ceived during his speech to the Joint Ses- (For more information, visit <www.the- problem,” Hamdan continued. “Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian people and its sion of Congress, Nader asked if the U.S. hopefund.org>.) Claire Nader, sister of the keynote apartheid policies are aimed at forcing PalesCongress will ever reach the level of dissent of Israel’s Knesset. For that matter, Is- speaker, presented the award named for tinians to leave. They’re another form of rael, the recipient of massive U.S. aid, gives their mother, Rose Nader, to Palestinian- genocide, so to speak. We did all this while all its citizens universal healthcare, Nader American art curator Salwa Mikdadi. Mik- our speakers focused on the tragedy of the pointed out. “In our country, 800 die each dadi’s 25-year career has been a driving Nakba. The Zionists want us—especially the younger generations—to forget that week due to the absence of health insur- force in the world of Arab art. Legendary journalist Helen Thomas ar- they depopulated more than 500 Palestinian ance. In four weeks more die than in the rived at the gala after dinner and was wel- villages in 1948. But we will never forget. attacks of 9/11.” Denyse Sabagh received the Hala Mak- comed from the podium, along with thun- Our freedom is linked to our ability to remember.” soud Leadership Award for her efforts to derous applause and a standing ovation. Attendees were entertained by a standThe Nakba began with the United Nadefend the constitutional rights of newcomers to the U.S. She warned that next up comedy routine by renowned comedian tions partition of Palestine and the subseyear, being an election year, Arab Ameri- Ahmed Ahmed, who showed highlights of quent ethnic cleansing perpetrated by 42
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PHOTO COURTESY K. SZREMSKI
also spoke at the banquet. Lawrence Pintak, author of The New Arab Journalist, Mohamed Abdel Dayem, Middle East and North Africa program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, and Washington-based columnist/writer George Hishmeh provided stirring keynote speeches. The conference brought together journalists who work in both ethnic Arab media and the mainstream press, as well as journalists Dressed in traditional Palestinian dresses (l-r) Rama Naj- representing the Arab world jar, 9, Yasmeen Abdallah, 12, and Jinan Chehade, 13, all of media who work in WashBridgeview, IL, sit in a horse-drawn carriage and wait for ington, DC and New York. Nearly 120 students, many the parade to begin. of them future journalists, atZionist militants, who killed 13,000 Pales- tended panel discussions that addressed tinians and forced another 750,000 into the challenges facing the nation’s Ameriexile in 1948. Though the Nakba is an on- can-Arab and Muslim community in the going catastrophe—as is evidenced by Is- decade since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. NAAJA national coordinator Ray Hanarael’s occupation of Palestine; its apartheid wall; restrictions on Palestinians’ freedom nia, an award-winning journalist and of movement; its total siege on Gaza; and its columnist for Creators Syndicate, and Laila random arrests and detentions of Palestini- Alhusinni, the indefatigable conference coans—it is mostly commemorated on May ordinator, are co-hosts of the weekly morn15, the anniversary of the creation of the ing radio show “Radio Baladi.” They carefully selected panel discussions that could state of Israel. The outdoor event was part of AMP’s na- help strengthen the role of journalists tionwide Nakba campaign that featured working to educate the American public. One panel addressed the growing challectures relating the Arab Spring and the wave of democratic protests in the Middle lenges facing American Arabs in journalEast, as well as the Palestinians’ peaceful re- ism, reviewing the assaults on Octavia sistance to the Israeli occupation and their Nasr, the senior CNN editor of Mideast afhope for liberty. Those lectures featured Dr. fairs who was fired after saying she reHatem Bazian, AMP chairman and profes- spected Lebanese cleric Mohammad Hussor of Near Eastern and Ethnic Studies at sein Fadlallah, and White House correthe University of California, Berkeley; Ms. spondent Helen Thomas, who was forced Zoabi, Dr. Dogan, Dr. Mustafa Barghouti to retire after her comments about the Isand Abu-Irshaid. —Kristin Szremski, director of media and communications for the American Muslims for Palestine.
rael/Palestinian conflict. Other panels discussed the controversy surrounding the release of the movie “Miral,” and ways to confront and change anti-Arab bias through journalism advocacy, new media, and old-fashioned, grassroots organization. A lively discussion explored U.S. policy in the Middle East with the State Department’s Near East Affairs director of public diplomacy, Phil Frayne. Audience members criticized the response of the Obama administration to pro-democracy protests. Hishmeh, Mansour Tadro, co-publisher of the Chicago-based newspaper Al Mustqbal (The Future), and this writer discussed how mainstream and ethnic media cover U.S. foreign policy. NAAJA awarded scholarships to three high school winners of a writing contest. First-prize winner Batoul Baidoun wrote a hard-hitting article about Ahmed and Rehab Amer, who lost their two children to the foster care system after being charged with carelessness in the death of their 2-year-old son in a bathtub accident. After Rehab’s brother was denied the chance to be a foster parent, in 1985, the Amer’s other children—including their newborn—were sent to live with a Christian family, who changed their names and raised them with an anti-Muslim bias. There was no media or public outcry. It took 18 painful years for the Amers to be acquitted of the accident that snatched away the life of one child as well as their relationships with their other children. The Amers fought to pass a law that gives relatives primary consideration when the state is placing children in foster care. Speakers and questioners on numerous panels shared stories that never make it into the mainstream press. Panelists urged listeners to flood the blogosphere, radio
The National American Arab Journalists Association (NAAJA), founded in 1999, held its sixth annual national conference in Dearborn, MI, April 29 to May 1, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. Dearborn Mayor Jack O’Reilly spoke forcefully about the racism of Rev. Terry Jones, who tried, and failed, to cause a riot in the city that week, and ridiculous claims by bigots that Dearborn is the center of “Shariah Law.” Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano and Reps. John Conyers Jr. (D-MI) and John Dingell (D-MI) AUGUST 2011
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NAAJA Conference an Inspiration— And Major Networking Opportunity
NAAJA conference organizers are commended for hosting workshops vital to Arab-American journalists. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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and TV stations and every newsroom with seldom-heard but vital Arab-American and Muslim voices. This writer, and the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, which “offers news and facts that are often intentionally excluded” from the mainstream media, received NAAJA’s 2011 excellence in journalism award. In accepting the award, I called for an Arab-American spring in journalism. Judging from the powerful voices I heard at the conference, this media revolution is already under way. —Delinda C. Hanley
Human Rights Iranian Journalist Maziar Bahari’s Book Then They Came for Me Maziar Bahari, co-author with Aimee Molly of Then They Came for Me: A Family’s Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival, discussed his book at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) in Washington, DC on June 13. One reason Bahari, an Iranian-Canadian reporter for Newsweek, wrote the book, was to explain why Iran does what it does. Also, he explained, a story such as his is common to many Iranian families— to thousands or perhaps even millions of people. Nor was Bahari the first in his family to have been arrested and imprisoned without charges and tortured. His father and sister, both communists, also spent time in prison during different Iranian regimes. Thirdly, Bahari cited his mother— who endured having a husband, son and daughter in prison—as a strong factor and force behind his writing the book. While in prison, Bahari underwent numerous beatings, as well as days of solitary confinement. In his book he calls his interrogator “Mr. Rosewater,” due to the scent of cologne he wore. He has thought a lot about “Mr. Rosewater,” Bahari said, adding that he feels no hatred and has tried hard to understand him. He perceived him not as a monster but more as “a flawed person in a bad system.” Having spent a significant amount of time in the West, including completing his education in Canada and living in London, Bahari was more cultured than his interrogator. He also was much more knowledgeable when it came to films, books, or anything that was culturerelated. This is what saved him during periods of solitary confinement, Bahari said, as he was able to recount films and music in his mind during those long periods. It also was an area over which his interroga44
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Maziar Bahari, author of Then They Came for Me. tor had no power, as he could not control what was in the prisoner’s mind. Bahari described “Mr. Rosewater” as being obsessed by sex and Jews, focusing on Bahari’s relationships with Western women and accusations that Bahari was a Mossad spy for Israel. At the same time, his interrogator also expressed admiration of Mossad, and the ways in which Israel managed to track down its “enemies.” In response to an audience member’s question about fraud in Iran’s June 2009 election, Bahari replied that it is crazy to believe the elections were not rigged, for they were a shock to the system and to the people. Bahari added that he considers Ayatollah Ali Khameni to be a continuation of Iran’s monarchy, and that those now trying to distance themselves from him, including Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmedinijad, are doing so because they do not want to be “on a sinking ship.” Iran must stop this cycle of violence in response to nonviolent protesters, Bahari emphasized, adding that Iranian society is more ready to accept female leaders in positions of power than those currently in the government. Bahari’s book is available from the AET Book Club. —Layla Gama
Evaluating International Human Rights Law a Decade After 9/11 On June 3 the newly minted headquarters of the United States Institute of Peace on Constitution Avenue in Washington, DC still rang with the sounds of last-minute construction. Despite this, along with some dust, the striking new building was the perfect venue for “Ten Years after 9/11: Evaluating a Decade of Conflicts on the Rules of War,” an American Red Cross panel. The panel itself was more of a questionand-answer session on international THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
human rights law (IHL) headed by people who’ve been charged with defining, enforcing and teaching IHL for the last 10 years. It was strategically scheduled just a few weeks after the death of Osama bin Laden—the person who is held responsible for the event that would be the catalyst for the surge of IHL in the daily parlance of American society—and just a few months after the Red Cross issued its official “Survey on International Humanitarian Law.” The survey examines American attitudes towards IHL and, although it questioned all age groups, the most telling responses were from the age 12 to 17 group. The participants in this sample were just young children when 9/11 and the resulting wars began to change the way the world looks at modern warfare; they were 7 and 12 respectively when the photos from Abu Ghraib changed the way the world looked at the United States. The survey sheds light on what they think about torture, the rules of war, and the Geneva Conventions, and looks at how they are being taught these subjects. According to the survey, while 55 percent of adults feel they are familiar with the Geneva Conventions, only one in five in the youth group can say this. In areas where the two groups (youths and adults) were asked about acceptable actions in warfare, the gap between the two was not hugely different—save for one category. For example, 10 percent of the youths questioned believe that deliberately attacking religious or historical monuments where there are no enemy combatants present is acceptable, compared to only 6 percent of adults. Nearly 30 percent of young people agree with taking civilian hostages as a bargaining tactic, compared to 20 percent of adults. The biggest differences in opinion can be seen in regard to retaliatory killing. The two groups were asked if “killing enemy prisoners in retaliation if the enemy has been killing the prisoners that it captures” is acceptable; 56 percent of youths questioned agreed that it was, while only 29 percent of adults felt similarly. Two-thirds of the youths questioned also found it acceptable to torture an enemy for information. In response to these numbers, panelist David Meltzer, senior vice president of the American Red Cross, noted that 7 in 10 of the youths questioned know a veteran, and half of them know someone in the military. AUGUST 2011
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(L-r) David Meltzer, Matthew Waxman, Rosa Brooks and William Lietzau. women. As the international community largely ignores these facts, women’s inequality is seen as regrettable but inevitable. Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Wilson Center’s Middle East Program, led the discussion along with Zainab Al-Suwaij, cofounder of the American Islamic Congress (AIC). Joining them via Skype were three Egyptian activists from Cairo. Manar Mohsen is a student activist whose revolution experience started in Tahrir Square on Jan. 25. Amany El-Tunsy is a publisher, author and women’s right’s activist whose book A Girl from Tahrir Square was on Egypt’s bestseller list for months. She is Revolution and Women’s Rights: The also the founder of Banat wi Bas (girls Case of Egypt only) radio. And finally, Dalia Ziada, Five women discussed the role of women founder of AIC’s Egypt office, which runs in present-day Egypt at a June 15 event at educational programs on civil rights and Washington, DC’s Woodrow Wilson Cen- religious freedom. The dramatic events sweeping across ter. The speakers focused on current feminist endeavors, such as forming women’s North Africa and the Middle East have organizations to fight against the inequal- called for women to stand side by side with men, demanding an end to political ity they face in a patriarchal society. Women campaigning for change in tyranny and reform. However, Mohsen Egypt are often met with disdain, abuse or commented, the same civility was not worse, but that does not stop these translated outside of Tahrir Square, where “women were leading chants and were respected very much.” Because the Internet and mobile phones were down, women played the role of reporters, using their landlines to communicate with people around the world. Unfortunately, the unity among men and women did not last, as women protesters were tortured and subjected to forced virginity tests, Mohsen said. When she attended pro-Mubarak ral(L-r) Haleh Esfandiari, Zainab Al-Suwaij and three Egypt- lies, she recalled, she experienced everything that ian activists speaking via Skype. STAFF PHOTO A. SALEH
After this information was presented, Rosa Brooks of the Department of Defense said—and every panel member agreed with her—that 9/11 is when IHL became important to Americans. These numbers prove that there is a serious gap in American education when it comes to how and when the rules of war and international human rights law are taught to young people. “The United States doesn’t disseminate rule of law,” said William Lietzau, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee policy. “The people who don’t see how not following IHL isn’t a huge detriment need to hear this,” he concluded. —Alex Begley
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Egypt is trying to get away from, such as being harassed by men. That was not an issue at opposition rallies, she noted. March 8 marked International Women’s Day, where post-revolution optimism left Egyptian women hoping to reach one million female activists to assemble in Tahrir Square to demonstrate for women’s rights. Regrettably, the Egyptian women were unsuccessful and, according to Ziada, men were telling them, “Go back home, it’s not your time now. When we finish democracy we will get to you.” All of the Egyptian women activists were optimistic that women will play a larger role in Egypt in the future, gain representation in political parties, and have their own revolution. “We are in a new era for women, and there are no more barriers—just old mindsets,” Mohsen concluded. —Awrad Saleh
Libya and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) The crisis in Libya has focused attention on the complex issue of “Responsibility to Protect (R2P),” which was addressed by panelists at a June 16 event at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, cohosted by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Humanity United. The discussion was moderated by Michael Abramowitz, director of the Holocaust Museum’s Committee on Conscience and a former reporter for The Washington Post. Joining him were Manal Omer, director of Iraq and Iran Programs at USIP, Sarah Sewall, founder and faculty director of Mass Atrocity Response Operations (MARO) Project at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA and Ambassador Richard Williamson, former U.S. special envoy to Sudan and a nonresident senior fellow in foreign policy at Brookings. During the 2005 United Nations World Summit, R2P—an international human rights norm to prevent and stop genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity—was adopted. As mass atrocities were committed by the Muammer Qaddafi regime, the international community watched and debated on how nations should respond to the problem of Libyan citizens being defenseless against the severest international crimes. According to Ambassador Williamson, much of the controversy surrounding R2P is based on the misunderstanding that it represents an excuse for humanitarian and military intervention. But in the case of Libya, the Qaddafi government allegedly 45
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Ambassador Richard Williamson and Manar Omer.
munity starts to shift vision away from Libya, Qaddafi might come in and Benghazi might suffer from the atrocities they have avoided,” she warned. Despite these tribulations, Omer described the extreme excitement and optimism of the Libyans. “They feel that the rebels are very capable of taking out the Qaddafi regime; they have the same momentum going from the first day of protests,” she said, adding that she frequently heard, “next week, Qaddafi will fall.” —Awrad Saleh
of the Omani women participants. On view in another section of the building were traditional Omani clothes, jewelry, and artifacts. Wall-mounted displays educated viewers about Oman’s various regions, providing a brief historical and geographical overview of each. According to an SQCC staff member, some of the jewelry on display was unique not only to Oman, but to a specific city or region of the country. In the SQCC’s Islamic garden, several performing artists played traditional instruments and sang songs. Among the instruments were the oud, similar to a guitar but with a wider body and more than six strings, and tabla, an Arabian-styled drum played with both hands. Young girls and boys dressed in traditional costumes ran playfully around the center as the strong, sweet smell of burning frankincense filled the air. For those who missed the festive day’s activities, the new Omani Cultural Exhibit is now open to the public Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., in the carriage house located behind MEI at 1765 N St. NW, Washington, DC 20036. To make an appointment outside those hours, call (202) 261-1690. —Layla Gama
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committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in response to peaceful civilian protests, crimes which fall under the R2P Music & Arts structure. Qaddafi called on his supporters to go out and attack protesters, whom he labeled “cockroaches” and “rats,” and to Third Annual Omani Cultural Day “cleanse Libya house by house,” William- The Middle East Institute’s (MEI) third anson added. nual Omani Cultural Day took place June Sewall emphasized the importance of 11 at the Washington, DC-based institute’s defining R2P as an international commu- Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center (SQCC). The nity for the protection of civilians rather event featured a variety of experiences, than a form of imperialism. “If you think from food to music to traditional Omani H.A. Gallery Opens Exhibit about the way we have gone about execut- arts and crafts. Artists from several Arab countries gathing the Libya operation, it is very similar Food offerings included different types ered June 5 in the H.A. Gallery in Alhamto the way we have executed other opera- of Arabic mezze, such as hummus, kibbe bra, California for an opening reception of tions, whether the initial stages of opera- and tabouleh, as well as many samplings of a group exhibition of their work. Particition Desert Storm or Iraqi Freedom,” she meat and rice dishes. Ripe dates and vari- pating exhibitors are: Talib al-Allaq, Faris pointed out. “There is a Western way of ous sweets appealed to guests with a sweet Alsaffar, Al Nashashibi, Qais al-Sindy, Paul using air power that looks a lot like regime tooth, followed by or sipped with tradi- Batou, Reem Hammad, Hana’a al-Wardi, change, and doesn’t resemble humanitar- tional Arabic coffee served in the small Wafa Daya Terab, Shakir al-Alousi and ian protection.” Arabic coffee cups known as finjans. Hani Khazaela. Omer, who had just arrived from BenVisitors to the arts and crafts section, loMany politically themed works of ghazi, described the sincere appreciation cated in the SQCC’s upper level, not only gallery owner al-Wardi, who was born in the citizens there have for NATO. “There could hear a talk on the traditional art of Iraq, decorate exhibition space. Mixed were strong emotions of excitement and henna, but have beautiful designs skill- media pieces she produced in 1996 have tieuphoria that Benghazi is to a certain ex- fully applied to their own hands by some tles such as “Oil Spills and Greed,” “Emtent free and liberated, unlike bargo” and “Cheap Oil, Passive other cities such as Tripoli,” she Monarchy.” told the audience, “and they acBaghdad-born Talib al-Allaq has knowledge that they could’ve been contributed stunning abstract like Tripoli if it weren’t for NATO work, while a whimsical painting intervention.” entitled “The Princess and the YelAs the fear of rape surpasses the low Hoopoe” garnered the most atfear of death among most Libyans, tention of four print on canvas Omer said that many citizens asked works by al-Sindy. her how far the international comStoneware-glazed ceramics by munity was willing to go with R2P, Hammad featured a plate named because for them there is no line “Divine Symmetry” with an eightthat can be drawn between regime pointed star which the artist fochange and protection of civilians, cuses on while meditating. Private “You can’t keep Qaddafi and expect showings are available by appointthat people will remain safe. The ment by calling (626) 475-3603. moment that the international com- Omani jewelry display at the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center. —Pat McDonnell Twair 46
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Abdullah Hussain Haroon, the final session. presented by Scott Kugle, permanent representative associate professor of South Asian and Isof Pakistan to the United lamic studies at Emory University. After Nations. The third day’s recommending that everyone close their session was devoted to ears and listen with their hearts, he played Sufis and the arts. Julian a few selections. Kugle also provided transRaby, director of the Freer lations of some of the lyrics, including “ala and Sackler Galleries, wel- al-nabi bi-salawat allah, wa salamahu comed the crowd in the alayhi wa alihi: Upon the Prophet be the Meyer Auditorium by ob- blessings of God and God’s peace upon him —Anne O’Rourke serving that this had been and his family.” a groundbreaking experience in bringing together “Breaching the Wall” Sufi practitioners, scholars Dagmar Painter, curator of the Jerusalem and policymakers. He ex- Fund Gallery in Washington, DC, asked pressed his pleasure in the artists from around the U.S. to create a Exhibiting artists at H.A. Gallery (l-r) Hana’a al-Wardi, exchanges between Sufis work of art reflecting their perceptions of Wafa Daya Terab and Reem Hammad. and those who are moved Israel’s separation wall in Palestine. The reby the teachings. sult was a thought-provoking special exhiSufi Muslim Conference in The first speaker was James Wescoat, bition, “Breaching the Wall,” featuring imWashington, DC Aga Khan professor of Is“Piety, Poetry, and Politics: Sufi Muslims in lamic architecture at the South Asia,” a three-day conference from Massachusetts Institute of April 28-30, was sponsored by the Johns Technology. Focusing on Hopkins University School of Advanced “Landscapes of Sufi International Studies (SAIS) and the Smith- Space,” he gave a brief sonian Institution’s Freer and Sackler Gal- slide show demonstrating leries. The interdisciplinary forum pre- how landscapes are often sented new perspectives on Sufi identities, recognizable by nationaltheir social roles in South Asia and world- ity, from the bird’s eye view favored by British wide, and issues confronting Sufis today. Sessions for the first two days were held artists to the ground level at SAIS and the Library of Congress, with perspective more common distinguished speakers including Dr. James in the U.S. and France, to H. Billington, Librarian of Congress; Rep. the cartographic approach “Abu Dis—The Wall at Dusk.” Chris Van Hollen (D-MD); and Ambassador more dominant in Russia and Germany. Sufi landscapes may best be ages from 11 artists and displayed from described as integrative, he suggested, May 20 to June 24. usually combining natural and built enviSome of the artists in the show created ronments as well as human figures. works that emphasized the isolation the Next to speak was Navina Haidar, associ- wall imposes on the Palestinian people. In ate curator of Islamic art at New York’s Met- “Wall, Settlements, Village,” Rajie Cook ropolitan Museum of Art, which will be filled a hollowed-out sycamore trunk with opening its new Islamic galleries in October. small pieces of wood surrounding a robin’s In her presentation on “Royal Albums to nest containing a doll’s face. Photographer Romance Literature,” Haidar referred Michael Keating’s image of a solitary mainly to her study of an 18th century woman waiting at the wall brings to mind manuscript of the Gulshan-i ‘Ishq (Rose Gar- a prison yard. Mary Tuma created a rope den of Love) in the collection of the out of keffiyehs and women’s headscarves Philadelphia Museum of Art. The poem was that could be used to scale the wall. Helen written in 1657-58 by Nusrati, court poet to Zughaib used the patterns of traditional Sultan Ali Adil Shah II of Bijapur. The Palestinian embroidery to fight bleakness verses, in Deccani Urdu, are written in ele- with vibrant color. gant Persian Nastaliq script. The plot was This must-see show should travel across borrowed from a Hindu love story, but rein- the country until we finally see the fall of terpreted to convey mystical Sufi concepts. Israel’s illegal wall built on illegally occuAcknowledging that the work is less well pied Palestinian land. —Delinda C. Hanley known than the Shahnama, Haidar said she was gratified by the growing interest it is at- Janan Collection Raises Funds for Iraqi Women Artists tracting among researchers. “Qawwali: Sufi Music and Poetry in the Three years ago Major Ty Nguyen-Reed, “An Ascetic,” India, Deccan Plateau, 17th Tradition of Amir Khusro” was the topic of one of a handful of Vietnamese-American century, gift of Charles Lang Freer.
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taining. In this way Janan will be able to help the women for a longer time, without hand-outs and temporary projects, while showing American art collectors the beauty present in the people and culture of Iraq. “Iraq is more than oil; there is a lot of talent and a lot of need in Iraq, especially for the women,” Nguyen-Reed said. “Iraqi women, before the war, were extremely educated, An Iraqi woman and her grandchildren in modern-day Iraq. talented, up to most Western standards of educafemale officers serving in the Army, and her tion. Most of us don’t know that. Most prosister Teresa Nguyen launched Janan Col- fessionals in Iraq are women. That’s very diflection, a non-profit organization to pro- ferent from some other Middle Easter counmote and preserve Iraqi artistic tradition tries. I was surprised when I learned that on and to employ and empower Iraqi women. my third tour. It was then that I got to work Janan Collection art was on display April 16 with these women and learn from them.” Janan Collection is currently recruiting at the Deep Ellum Art Walk, a community sponsors for its next collection of paintings art exhibition in Dallas, Texas. The sisters spoke about Janan and de- enabling the stories of these Iraqi women to scribed how it started. During her three travel the seas to reach janans across Amertours in Iraq, Nguyen-Reed developed dis- ica. For more information visit <https://pitrict-wide summer soccer tournaments for casaweb.google.com/JananCollection> or 10,000 youths and established vocational <http://janancollection.com>. —Samreen Hooda training projects for women. One day, in the latter part of her last tour, she recalled, she met Fatimah, who’d lost her husband in the Farzaneh Milani’s Latest Book, war and had two children to support. “She Words, Not Swords approached me because I was the only fe- Iranian author and scholar Farzaneh Milani male in the group,” Nguyen-Reed said. “She spoke at the Woodrow Wilson Center in said, ‘Can you help me support my family? Washington, DC on June 1 in conjunction You guys are going to leave one day and I with the publication of her new book, don’t want to depend on these handouts.’” Words, Not Swords. Dr. Milani discussed Fatimah came back with paintings she the issue of women’s rights, focusing on and her friends had made. “We were like Iranian women writers and freedom of wow, these are good, how can we help them?” explained Nguyen-Reed. “We not only want to sell the art and provide income for them, but we also want to tell their stories. That’s very important to them,” her sister added. “This is the reason we went with the name Janan, which means heart or soul in Arabic. We are doing this from our heart, just as the women are painting these pictures from their heart and their soul. We want people [in the United States] to buy their art not only because it is beautiful, but to buy it from their heart.” The co-founders want to build on the Janan Collection and help the artists provide for more than basic needs for their families. Janan can also provide school uniforms, clothes, health supplies, training and education. Successful Iraqi women can then mentor others to make the program self-sus- Iranian author Farzaneh Milani.
THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
movement for all women. She sought to frame feminist activism in the wider context of current events, specifically with regard to the Iranian Green Movement of 2009 and the 2011 Arab Spring. Emphasizing the “desegregated nature of the demonstrations,” Milani described them as unprecedented “revolutions within revolutions.” While many women in the region have been previously denied such liberties as freedom of movement, higher education, and an equitable role in governance and culture, she noted, their voices are now expressed and supported alongside general calls for democratic principles, signaling the importance of gender equality as a fundamental human right. The feminist movement is not drawing support from isolated groups, she added, but is advocated by both young men and women united in their pursuit of an egalitarian society. Milani cited recent efforts in Saudi Arabia to ensure women’s right to drive cars, which has drawn significant support from both genders there and throughout the Arab world. Calling freedom of movement an essential element of the fight for gender equality, she discussed at length how the immobilization of women is a principal element of gender discrimination around the world. On the issue of the veil in Muslim society, Milani argued that while “the veil can be a sign, a symbol, and a means of segregation…it can also do the opposite.” Iranian women have been writing more in the period since the Islamic Revolution, when the hijab became a much more prevalent accessory, she pointed out. Regarding current discourse on the veil, Milani cautioned that “we have fetishized the veil to the point that it has veiled us.” With these thoughts in mind, Milani explained that her book explores how women have used the written word as a means of escaping demobilizing restraints enforced by society. Commenting on the universal nature of this struggle, she drew parallels between feminist movements and sentiments in the West—including the work of Susan B. Anthony and the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848—and in the East, highlighting the poetry of Simin Behbahani, whose work served as the inspiration for the title of Milani’s new book. Elaborating, Milani explained how the “renaissance of women’s writing in Iran” throughout the post-revolutionary period has given rise to a generation of feminist activists in the country. She expressed optimism that the feminist movement will be strengthened as protests continue throughout the Middle East. —Mathew O’Sullivan AUGUST 2011
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Waging Peace
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First Move Over AIPAC Conference A coalition of more than 100 organizations endorsed and sent speakers as well as attendees to the “Move Over AIPAC: Building a New U.S. Middle East Policy” conference in Washington, DC from May 21-24. Timed to coincide with the annual policy meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), events began with a protest outside the White House as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met with President Barack Obama. Medea Benjamin, co-founder of both CODEPINK and Global Exchange, and Anna Baltzer, national campaign coordinator at the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, welcomed attendees to the full-day summit at Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church on May 21. Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, co-authors of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, published in 2007, and available from the AET Book Club, gave a well-received keynote address. Their book and subsequent talks address the power of the pro-Israel lobby, a subject that was formerly taboo in mainstream media, despite numerous articles published since 1982 in the Washington Report. After attendees enjoyed a lunch catered by Busboys & Poets, and browsed along tables laden with literature (including a popular American Educational Trust booth full of books, DVDs, keffiyehs, Palestinian olive oil, soaps and pottery), people gathered for an “Author’s Salon.” After listening to talks by America’s Misadventure author Chas W. Freeman and Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting, and Everything in Between author Laila El-Haddad (both available from the AET Book Club), their books flew off the racks. The audience also enjoyed hearing the authors discuss Breakthrough: Transforming Fear into Compassion by Rich Forer and Fast Times in Palestine by Pamela Olson. A panel discussion with Noura Erakat, adjunct professor of international human rights law in the Middle East at Georgetown University; Nadia Hijab, co-director of Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network; and Phyllis Bennis, director of the Institute for Policy Studies outlined ideas for a U.S. foreign policy that would respect international law and the human rights of people in the Middle East region. Attendees next had to select two workshops from 12 choices, ranging from designing posters and puppet-making; creating buses, billboards and digital displays;
Authors, (l-r), Pamela Olson, Chas Freeman, Laila El-Haddad and Rich Forer. improving speaker training; and “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: Campaigns That Work!” This attendee opted to sit on the floor of a packed room to learn more about the theme of the Move Over AIPAC conference: “Exposing AIPAC: Delving into the Nitty-Gritty of How the Israel Lobby Works.” Alison Weir, president of the Council for the National Interest, and executive director of If Americans Knew moderated the discussion. Washington Report managing editor Janet McMahon gave a succinct overview of AIPAC’s efforts to orchestrate campaign donations and U.S. foreign policy. While AIPAC doesn’t give money to candidates directly, she emphasized, AIPAC does provide helpful suggestions to pro-Israel PACs, which share characteristics and have a coordinated pattern of giving. She also described the decades-long attempt by former diplomats, including this magazine’s publisher and executive editor, and other Americans, to get the FEC to classify and regulate AIPAC as a political committee rather than a “membership organization.” She closed by offering ways to identify, expose and oppose “Stealth PAC activity” at the state level. The Washington Report can help: the magazine and its Web site, <www.wrmea.com>, list pro-Israel PAC contributions to each member of Congress during election years, as well as the pro-Israel votes those donations have purchased over the years. Journalist and radio programmer Jeffrey Blankfort described the Lobby’s interlocking organizations and how they use local federations and foundations to organize trips to Israel for members of Congress, as well as city and state officials. AIPAC drafts legislation and congressional letters to the THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
White House, Blankfort said, and also pressures candidates to pledge loyalty to Israel. He suggested running a successful outdoor ad campaign to target aid to Israel. Grant Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep), described AIPAC’s parent organization, a charity that was shut down after it was caught laundering tax-exempt overseas funds into U.S. public relations and politics. Using flip-charts and declassified law enforcement files, Smith’s talk exposed AIPAC’s shocking use of espionage and theft of U.S. government property. AIPAC has been caught trafficking classified information and exerting undue political influence to drum up support for U.S. wars with Iraq and now Iran, Smith said. On May 23, he and other Move Over AIPAC participants marched to the Justice Department and delivered new information about why AIPAC should register under the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Panelists agreed to accept invitations and address audiences around the country in hopes that better informed voters and politicians will resist AIPAC’s efforts to help Israel at America’s expense before the next elections. Over the next few days eye-catching protests, pickets and street theater both outside (and some inside!) the DC Convention Center irritated AIPAC conference attendees, including a 30-foot-long “Separation Wall” and a people-powered “Gaza Flotilla.” As Netanyahu received 29 standing ovations, during his May 24 address to a Joint Session of Congress—during the prime minister’s remarks about youth rising up for more democracy—CODEPINK peace activist Rae Abileah unfurled a banner in the House Gallery that said “Occupying 49
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CNI Questions Military Aid to Israel
William J. Fallon Discusses the Future Of U.S.- Iran Relations
Admiral William J. Fallon.
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The Council for the National Interest (CNI) Foundation held a May 23 press briefing at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on the topic “Questioning Military Aid to Israel.” CNI board member Peter Viering introduced the speakers, who discussed the real costs of U.S. military aid to Israel in terms of tax dollars, technical transfers (including by stealth), and diplomatic standing in the Middle East. Karen Kwiatkowski, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel with an MA from Harvard and a Ph.D. from the Catholic University of America, described “complex and incestuous” relations between military communities in Israel and America. Kwiatkowski said she is amazed that by pumping a few million dollars into American political campaigns, Israel can manage to get promises for $30 billion of military aid in the midst of economic meltdown in the United States. CNI president Alison Weir gave a brief rundown of Israel’s efforts to dictate U.S. foreign policy and overrule both military and diplomatic experts who presumed to put American interests first. The U.S. provides Israel, a country of 7 million the size
Ambassador Robert V. Keeley, who retired after a 34-year career in the U.S. Foreign Service, described how massive U.S. support for Israel affects our relations with other countries in the region. He recalled Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal urging the U.S. to work to avert war in the Middle East instead of providing one-sided support for Israel, which he warned could spark an oil embargo. Later even Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said the king’s advice should have been heeded. As the Defense Department’s pot gets smaller, will military funding for Israel decrease?, Keeley asked. Only if Americans wake up, the panelists agreed. —Delinda C. Hanley
of Vermont, with $8.2 million a day. In addition, the U.S. will purchase Israeli aircraft and other military goods—like made-in-Israel cluster bombs that don’t explode— with additional U.S. tax dollars. The indirect cost of Israel is much more. “One very good reason why Israel should not receive billions of dollars in military assistance annually is its espionage against the United States,” Philip Giraldi, CNI’s executive director, said.“The reality of Israeli spying is indisputable,” charged Giraldi, a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer. “Israel always features prominently in the annual FBI report called ‘Foreign Economic Collection and Industrial Espionage.’ “Israel recruits spies, uses electronic methods, and carries out computer intrusion to gain the information,” Giraldi said. The U.S. develops and then donates technology, especially military and advanced computing technology, to Israel, which then “reverse engineers” the product, manufacturing and then exporting the goods. This reduces research and development costs, and gives Israel a huge advantage against foreign or U.S. competitors. FBI counter intelligence officer John Cole has reported that 125 worthwhile investigations into Israeli espionage involving both American citizens and Israelis have been dropped under orders from the Justice Department due to political pressure from above. One example of a case that has not yet been dropped is Stewart David Nozette, a U.S. government scientist who was arrested in October 2009 for allegedly passing classified information to Israeli Aerospace Industries. He also offered to spy for Israel in return for cash and an Israeli passport, and was trying to break into other scientists’ computers and U.S. space agency NASA computers to obtain classified material.
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Land Is Indefensible.” She also shouted, “No more occupation, stop Israel war crimes, equal rights for Palestinians, occupation is indefensible,” before being brutally assaulted and tackled to the ground by AIPAC members of the audience. Police dragged her off, taking her to George Washington University Hospital for treatment, then arrested the young Jewish American of Israeli descent. It may take a few more Move Over AIPAC conferences, and a lot more grassroot efforts across the country, to free Americans from Israel’s and AIPAC’s strong grip. —Delinda C. Hanley
(L-r) Alison Weir, Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, Peter Viering, Philip Giraldi and Ambassador Robert Keeley. 50
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Admiral William J. Fallon, former commander of U.S. Central Command, delivered a keynote address titled “The Changing Middle East and Implications for U.S.Iran Relations” at the American Iranian Council’s (AIC) June 7 conference at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC. Fallon, whom former Defense Secretary Robert Gates called “one of the best strategic thinkers in uniform today,” has a distinguished 40-year military career marked by advocacy for economic and diplomatic engagement. AIC President Hooshang Amirahmadi’s introductory remarks highlighted the organization’s mission of bringing Americans and Iranians together as equal partners to take steps toward mitigating tension and developing constructive alternatives. The AIC advocates for democracy and respect for human rights, while rejecting any sanctions or violence toward Iran. Admiral Fallon noted this country’s lack of understanding of the complex Iranian AUGUST 2011
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political system and described the relationship between the two states since the 1979 Revolution as “testy.” This delicate relationship is compounded by Iran’s alliance with Syria, the unfolding of events in the Shi’i-majority country of Bahrain, and Washington’s ties to Tel Aviv. The conflict is made worse, he argued, by the incessant media hype. Iran is not a priority for the U.S. administration right now, the admiral noted, as Washington deals with domestic economic problems and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He Professor Shireen Hunter (l) and Prof. John Esposito. pointed out that the U.S. maintains a presence in the Middle East for cies. many reasons, most notably stability and Movement away from authoritarianism oil dependence. during the Arab Spring uprisings has inThe Shi’i-Sunni divide is at the heart of duced fear in the hearts of many neighbordynamics in the Middle East, according to ing leaders, Esposito said, and contradicted Fallon, as leaders are nervous about Iran’s previous assumptions about the citizens of history of power in the region and strong these nations. Shi’i identity. On the question of Israel, the “The Arab Spring did undermine longU.S. admiral argued that the state had le- standing beliefs that there was something gitimate fears considering its geographical about Arab and Muslim culture that was reality and Iran’s discourse on eliminating incompatible with democracy,” he obthe Jewish state. served, “or that the culture was so embedRecent changes in the Middle East are ded in the history of authoritarianism and likely to influence the future of U.S.- Iran- the culture of authoritarianism that people ian relations, but there is no clear path to a could not transcend it, or didn’t want to preferred alternative relationship. “It takes transcend it.” two to tango,” the admiral said, adding Despite the intentional disregard for data that progress will be made when both par- that negate such conventional wisdom, Esties decide they want progress. He noted posito said, in recent years polls have that complex issues such as this are best at- shown that the people of Muslim countries tacked from both the top and bottom of so- desire greater freedom and government ciety, voicing support for citizen engage- transparency. ment that can either aid or hinder the leadDuring the afternoon panel, “The ership’s efforts, and calling on the audience United States in a Changing Middle East,” to “not wash its hand of this issue.” speaker Stephen Bronner, a political sciFor more information on the AIC, visit ence professor at Rutgers University, also <www.american-iranian.org>. challenged popular interpretations. De—Alia Lahlou spite common government claims that overseas efforts are issues of human rights AIC Conference: The U.S. and the or national security concerns, Bronner said Future of the Middle East these terms often serve to cover for govThe afternoon portion of American Iranian ernment interests. “If the pursuit of ethical aims is underCouncil’s (AIC) June 7 conference was geared toward a discussion of the U.S. role taken without references to interest, emin the future of the Middle East and North pirical conditions and costs, and above all ethicality, the pursuit of human rights beAfrica region. John Esposito, director of the Alwaleed comes blind,” Bronner said. “It becomes Center for Muslim-Christian Understand- action without purpose.” Determining whether U.S. intervention ing at Georgetown University, gave the luncheon speech, on “The Role and Future is necessary in specific cases comes down of Political Islam in a Changing Middle to interests as well, he added, questioning East,” in which he challenged popular be- the decision to intervene in Libya, but the liefs about the potential for Arab democra- lack of exit strategies reflects poorly upon AUGUST 2011
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the appearance of intentions. “There better be some kind of exit strategy,” Bronner warned, “because if there isn’t, and there isn’t from the outset, in the eyes of the rest of the world and from the standpoint of human rights, whatever the United States is going to do in the name of human rights is going to appear as imperialism.” David Pumphrey, deputy director of the Energy and National Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, followed Bronner’s speech with an explanation of global energy resources and the pertinence of oil in the Middle East and North Africa region, which provides a third of the world’s supply. But energy security is a global issue, he pointed out, and should be treated as such. Col. David Crist, senior adviser to the commander of CENTCOM, concluded the panel with a discussion of miscommunications between the U.S and Iran. He used the words of an unnamed colleague to describe the relationship between the two countries as two ships that continuously pass each other in the night. “There are significant disagreements between our two countries that go beyond just misunderstandings and are due to political ignorance,” Crist said, adding that the lack of diplomatic relations between the two countries contributes to this confusion. As far as the future of U.S.-Iranian relations is concerned, Crist said there is a strong indication that he could give the same speech in 10 years and it would still be relevant. The prediction that Iran will have nuclear arms within three to five years is repeated annually, he noted, which emphasizes a lack of communication that he said he cannot see improving in the immediate future. —Kassondra Cloos
Inside Pakistan’s ISI: Who Knew About Bin Laden? American skepticism and increased scrutiny of the intentions of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) have been hot topics of discussion since the killing of Osama bin Laden in early May. So many people expressed interest in attending a June 13 panel discussion of “Inside Pakistan’s ISI,” hosted by the Middle East Institute, the venue was moved to the Ken51
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what about the whereabouts of bin Laden, it has focused on the leadership of both the military and ISI, occasionally listening in on their conversations. Both Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, Pakistan’s military leader, and ISI chief Lt. Gen. Ahmad Pasha expressed surprise upon hearing not only of the bin Laden operation, but also the location of his Karen DeYoung discusses strains on U.S.-Pakistan relations. compound. The surprise was later determined to ney Auditorium at Johns Hopkins Univer- be genuine, DeYoung said. With a population of 185 million Paksity. Moderated by Walter Andersen, associate director of the South Asia Studies istanis, it is impossible for the ISI to keep Program at Johns Hopkins’ School of Ad- tabs on every civilian, Nawaz said. The vanced International Studies (SAIS), the proximity of bin Laden’s compound to a panelists shared their knowledge about the Pakistani military institution is not necesISI and discussed its motivations and sarily an indication the government protected him. whether it is a rogue agency. The third panelist was Arturo Munoz, Karen DeYoung, a national security correspondent for The Washington Post who who worked for the CIA for 29 years behas recently reported on Pakistan and the fore joining the RAND Corporation as a seISI, opened with the notion that the U.S. nior political scientist. He spoke of the evand Pakistan share intelligence information ident ties between the ISI and the Taliban, on occasion, but frequently do not cooper- but also argued that eliminating al-Qaeda is in Pakistan’s interests, as many of the orate. “We need to acknowledge how much ganization’s objectives are seen as threats to we, in the United States, don’t know,” the country. The question most people are asking DeYoung said, adding that the lack of knowledge about ISI’s workings is partly right now, according to Munoz, is whether because of the way in which the U.S. de- the ISI is cooperating or competing with the United States. He concluded that it is mands information. “If Pakistan wanted information and as- doing both. Although Pakistan has assisted sistance from the U.S., and had sent a level with combating al-Qaeda, Munoz echoed of intelligence operatives and drones and the beliefs of many that someone in the ISI overhead surveillance to this country in must have known about bin Laden’s locaorder to find out what they wanted to tion. What is still unknown, however, is know, and reported back home on the or- whether these agents acted on their own ganization of the CIA,” she said, “how ac- behalf or on orders from superiors. —Kassondra Cloos curate do you think that information would be? How deeply do you believe they would be able to penetrate the intelli- CSIS Panel Discusses Countering Islamic Radicalization in the U.S. gence organization here?” The military and the ISI are part of the At the Center for Strategic and International same entity in Pakistan. The three pan- Studies Global Security Forum on June 9, elists discussed the sharing of human re- several terrorism and intelligence experts sources, with military officers often being discussed “Deradicalization: Oasis or Mipromoted or transferred to the agency rage?” Panelists focused on the potential for without additional intelligence training. Islamic radicalization in the U.S. and the Although the ISI has changed over the necessary strategies to combat “homegrown years because of leadership turnover, both extremism.” The group also addressed deDeYoung and Shuja Nawaz, a Pakistani na- radicalization and counter-radicalization tive and director of the Atlantic Council’s programs that target violent Islamist moveSouth Asia Center, agreed that while there ments in other countries, including Saudi may be rogue agents in the ISI, it is not a Arabia, Indonesia, and the United Kingrogue agency. dom. As the U.S. tries to determine who knew The Hon. Frances F. Townsend, who pre52
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viously served as homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush, argued that the U.S. needs to insert an “alternative narrative” into the global dialogue on Islam in order to combat radical pedagogy. The federal government is not equipped to establish a top-down approach to deradicalization in the U.S., she said, so local communities will be integral to efforts against the spread of Islamic extremism among American citizens and legal residents. This belief was echoed by some of Townsend’s fellow panelists, including former CIA deputy director Stephen R. Kappes and Maj. Gen. Douglas Stone, former commanding general in Iraq. Kappes asserted that a federal program against domestic radicalization does not fit into current structures of intelligence, law enforcement or governance, and that any effort should be guided through Muslim communities. Stone noted that such community groups have already “made real effective impacts” in their localities with regard to combating the influence of extremism. When asked whether radicalization seems to stem from a feeling of alienation among young people or from specific political issues—for example, the question of Palestine or the U.S. military presence in the Middle East—panelists provided differing opinions. According to Townsend, subjects like Palestine are not at the center of extremist beliefs and actions, but instead serve as excuses for violence. Christopher Boucek, associate at the Carnegie Endowment’s Middle East Program, stated that for Muslims coming into the U.S., specific political topics such as Palestine certainly play a role in domestic radicalization. Major General Stone noted that the convergence of the two factors of social isolation and political aggravation seems to be prevalent in Islamic extremism. —Mathew O’Sullivan
UCLA Conference on Tunisia “Mapping and Remapping the Tunisian Revolution” was the title of a May 20 conference sponsored by the UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies. In his opening remarks, Prof. Nouri Cana stated that the aim of the sessions was to reflect on the worldwide resonances of the Tunisian revolution and foster interdisciplinary approaches to the 21st century Arab Spring phenomenon. Speakers at the morning session were: Sabra Weber of Ohio State University; Tarek Kahlaoui, Rutgers University; and Lotfi Ben Rejeb, University of Ottawa. Susan Slyomovics was moderator of the second panel, featuring Lamia Ben Youssef AUGUST 2011
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ranean has taken on a new importance. Former National Security Adviser James L. Jones recalled the long tradition of NATO cooperation in the Mediterranean, but quickly admitted that both “asymmetric threats” and grassroots democratic movements of the 21st century required unconventional responses from NATO and the international community. “No Speakers at UCLA Tunisian Conference (l-r) Tarek Kahlaoui, one could have predicted that spark in Tunisia that Nouri Cana and Lamia Ben Youssef Zayzafoon. caused [the uprisings],” Zayzafoon, University of Alabama at Birm- Jones said, “but now it’s on a roll and it’s ingham; and Douja Mamelouk, George- hard to say where it’s going to stop.” Jones reminded listeners that it was crutown University. Frank Oruc moderated the final panel, cial to stay engaged with the new democwhose speakers were Stephen King of ratic activists to make sure democracy Georgetown University, discussing takes root in their countries, since in this “Regime Transition in Tunisia,” and Duke new environment “nothing is a given.” InUniversity’s Kenneth Surin, whose topic deed, he said, “we can’t afford to take our was “The Arab World’s Great Unrest of eyes off the ball,” since 30 years ago Iran 2011: An Attempt at a Geopolitical Per- was also pushing for a freer society and spective.” In Surin’s opinion, Tunisia looks “30 years later, we are still dealing with that situation.” more like a transition than a revolution. As a result of shared borders and the im—Samir Twair pact of narcotics and human trafficking The New Security Dynamic in the and illegal immigration, Europe has long Mediterranean been focused on the Mediterranean, Jones The Global Security Forum of the Center noted. But these new changes in the region Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) demand even more vigilance and dialogue, in Washington, DC held a panel discussion he said, similar to the 2003 Mediterranean on June 8 that focused on the strategic role Dialogue he hosted which brought toof the Mediterranean. Though often stud- gether seven countries in the region for ied in the context of history and culture, wide-ranging discussions. Jones concluded his presentation by the Mediterranean hasn’t always been considered a crucial strategic area. According urging unconventional thinking for unto the forum’s speakers, however, with the conventional problems. What would hapuprisings in North Africa the Mediter- pen, he asked, if the world’s leading economies supported these movements and fought terrorism not through military assistance but through support for a stronger economy and better governance? “Give people hope economically and better governance,” he urged, “and they can see that their next generation will be better off.” General Jones’ remarks were followed by several provocative points made by CSIS scholars Dr. Stephen Flanagan and Dr. Jon Alterman. Together, they pressed Jones on Libya, Egypt, and using Turkey as a model for national success. On the current Libyan conflict, Jones said he was encouraged that the Arab League and the Former National Security Adviser James L. African Union had become involved, and urged a post-Qaddafi transition that was Jones. AUGUST 2011
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not a “Western European solution set that is somehow dictated from Brussels.” Jones was firm that international cooperation would be the key to success in the region, whether it was the economic development of Egypt, combating terrorism in Yemen and Pakistan, or helping Iraq get back on its feet. “This is a time where proactive engagement has to replace reactive engagement,” he said. “A proactive strategy with the proper leadership by the countries that can make a difference can profoundly affect the outcome of this quest for more freedom...and shape the 21st century in a completely different way if we do it right.” —Alex Begley
Omar al Mashadani Discusses “Iraq And the Arab Spring” Omar Al Mashadani, a former spokesman for the Iraqi parliament, political activist, and a Woodrow Wilson Public Policy scholar, spoke June 8 at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. Among the topics he discussed was Iraq’s current political structure, the role—or absence—of the military, and the long-standing issue of corruption. Right now, Al Mashadani said, post-Saddam Iraq is not a model for democracy. Nor did he anticipate any progress on the issue of cabinet reform, despite Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s promise to complete such reform within 100 days. In addition to the promised reforms, mass protests and demonstrations have also been on the agenda. Al Mashadani cited the Facebook event scheduled for Feb. 25, Iraq’s “Day of Rage.” People have the right to say what they want and demand it until they get it, he stated. In response to an audience member’s question as to whether mass peaceful protests were the only way to achieve change, Al Mashadani replied that it was one of the shortest ways to send a message to the cabinet. It also showed that these protests were related to what was going on in other Arab countries, he pointed out. Even though these protests are peaceful, however, those in power respond to them with violence, including arrests, beatings and torture. Many face certain death, he noted, or already have died. The demonstrations give those in power the opportunities to react in such a way, he said. More recently, Human Rights Watch has reported that there have been more beatings, kidnappings, and arrests in comparison to before. Al Mashadani cited four students who recently had been arrested and who, upon their release, spoke about their 53
experiences to the wider public. Yet one of the points of the protests has been achieved, he said, and it is that the officials did indeed get the message from the people. Another important issue is the fact that at the moment Iraq does not have a real army, but instead a collection of militia members with the feeling that “you’ll be awarded this and that position because you served in the war against Iran, or are a member of this or that party.” There is no real understanding of what it takes to be in the army, Al Mashadani said, or any real concept of physical and mental training or discipline that is a part of the military process. As a result it lacks professionalism. Thus, in Al Mashadani’s opinion, in Iraq one can’t depend on the military for change. Yet the army was one of the main factors in the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions, he pointed out. Another important issue in Iraq is corruption, which exists on a massive scale within the government itself, Al Mashadani said. Even though there has been a multi-billion dollar increase in the Iraqi state budget over the last decade, there still exist many structures and services that have not been achieved or expanded. For example, no new power plants have been built. So the issue is, who is stealing from whom? Moreover, because of the prevalence of bribes, it has become difficult for U.S. and British companies to sign contracts with their Iraqi counterparts. According to Al Mashadani, corruption affects everything. The cost of the many challenges facing Iraq has been borne most heavily by its population, Al Mashadani noted. In response to an audience member’s question about who Iraqi youths blame, Al Mashadani replied that they blame all those above them—Iraqi officials, for the most part. Al Mashadani himself just wants “a normal, safe environment for his kids,” he said. And for himself? A normal type of life. —Layla Gama
At Brookings Institution, Alain Juppé Discusses the Arab Spring French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé delivered a talk entitled “The Arab Spring: Hopes and Challenges” to a capacity-filled room at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC on June 6. Juppé, who has served in various capacities in the French government over the last 30 years, most notably as prime minister from 1995 to ’97, began his remarks by admitting that the West had for a long time 54
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French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé provides a European view of the Arab Spring. been concerned primarily with stability in the Middle East. In the name of the fight on terror, it “turned a blind eye” to abuses carried out by authoritarian regimes that served as “safeguards against chaos.” The so-called Arab Spring now forces the West to reorient its diplomacy in the Middle East. Juppé described the Arab Spring as a struggle that encompasses universal values, the right to choose, and respect for human rights. Referring to the history of revolution and struggle that France and the United States had to undergo in their quests for democracy, he noted that “we shouldn’t forget the cost of democracy.” The foreign minister voiced concern over the risk that these movements could be hijacked by extremist forces, but insisted on an inclusive political reconciliation process in which all actors, including Islamists, were present at the table, provided they accept democracy and not espouse violence. France’s history and geography place it at the center of the long and uncertain process of change that has begun in the Middle East, Juppé said. It must assume its moral and political responsibilities, he added, while also keeping in mind its interests. Citing France’s active support to Egypt and Tunisia earlier this year, and its efforts to get the international community to act on Libya, he urged the world to “assume the responsibility to protect.” International law was the only basis on which action was taken on Libya, Juppé noted, so the use of force was thus “an instrument that ensures the law.” He noted that the NATO’s efforts in Libya are strengthened by the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Col. Muammar Qaddafi and by the resignation of members of his own government. The French official also touched on THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
other states in the region, denouncing the violent Syrian crackdown on demonstrators. In Hama, he added, “history is tragically repeating itself.” Juppé lauded the government of Morocco and King Mohammed VI for opening up and paving the way for change through the drafting of a new constitution there. Juppé, who has met with young activists in Egypt and Tunisia, said he felt the impatience for change in those countries and the need for economic reform. “All the ingredients for economic collapse are present in Egypt,” he warned, referring to a sharp decline in tourism, refugees entering from Libya and lack of foreign investment. He stressed the importance of addressing the prevailing economic and social problems in the Middle East through long-term economic partnership and monetary aid. Europe’s incentive-based neighborhood policy also works toward achieving this goal, he said. The minister argued that it is in the West’s own interest to act against the scenario of extremism in the Middle East. This would depend on the resolution of the two main crises in the region, Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He referred to Iran’s nuclear program as a threat to regional stability and international non-proliferation efforts. Addressing the question of Palestine, Juppé asserted that “the hopes of Palestinians are no less legitimate that those [demonstrating] in the Arab Spring.” He expressed concern that the planned declaration of Palestinian statehood at the U.N. in the fall would only lead to further polarization. While France has not yet taken an official stance on the issue, it believes there is no alternative to a negotiated twostate solution based on the 1967 borders, land swaps, mutual security, and a permanent solution for Jerusalem and refugees. The minister commended the HamasFatah reconciliation, stressing that a peace agreement can only succeed if all Palestinians agree to it. This reconciliation should lead Hamas to reject violence and open negotiations with Israel under Mahmoud Abbas, he noted. Juppé spoke briefly of France’s readiness to host a peace conference in Paris as early as this year, something he had come to Washington to discuss with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton earlier that day. When asked about the West’s hesitation to say that Bashar Al-Assad should leave power, Juppé mentioned that a double standard exists because the circumstances are different. The evolution of events in AUGUST 2011
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scorching temperatures, in order to reduce the impact of rubber bullets, live ammunition and tear gas. Quran’s actions are particularly courageous in light of the hardships endured by the event’s third and final speaker, Munib Masri, who called in from a hospital in Beirut. An American citizen studying at the American University of Beirut, Masri was shot in the back by IDF troops while attending a pro-Palestinian demonstration on the Lebanese-Israeli border. He suffered multi-organ trauma at the peaceful protest and was immediately rushed to an ambulance by his fellow demonstrators. The young student was in critical condition and endured severe pain. At the time of the IMEU conference, Masri still could not feel anything below his waist, but he was nonetheless optimistic about his recovery and was in stable condition. Despite such stories of hardship, Abunimah and Quran remained positive. The two activists draw inspiration from the larger revolutionary movement occurring throughout the Middle East, proclaiming respectively that “history vindicates these young people and their desire to be heard” and that “the arc of history bends toward justice.” —Mathew O’Sullivan
Libya was different from that in Syria, with Qaddafi making clear threats to his own population, while Assad made a “timid promise” for change. He added that Assad is more “fréquentable,” a French term for someone who is respectable or deemed worthy of being associated with. “The West has no lesson to offer, but experience to share,” Juppé stated. “It’s not up to us to decide for people of other countries—nor do they expect us to.” He ended his remarks with a call to action: “Let us unite our efforts to help liberty take root …[and] make the Mediterranean a place of peace, stability and exchange.” For more information, visit <www. brookings.edu/events/2011/0606_arab_spr ing_juppe.aspx> —Alia Lahlou
Activists, American Victim of IDF Attack Discuss Palestinian Protests
AUGUST 2011
Ambassaor Afif Safieh Discusses the Future of Israel and Palestine Palestinian Ambassador Afif Safieh delivered a June 9 talk on “Israel and Palestine: Which Way Forward” to a diverse audience at the World Affairs Council in Washington, DC. The distinguished diplomat, who has served as Palestinian general delegate to Washington, London and Moscow, was in the U.S. promoting his most recent book, The Peace Process: From Breakthrough to Breakdown (available from the AET Book Club).
STAFF PHOTO A. LAHLOU
The Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) hosted a June 3 online conference entitled “The June 5th Protests: The Arab Spring Continues in Palestine.” The discussion focused on the upcoming border rallies planned in Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinian Territories to commemorate the 44th anniversary of the Naksa, or “setback” of the 1967 war, when Israel conquered the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, along with the Gaza Strip and Golan Heights. Participants included Ali Abunimah, author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Palestinian Israeli Impasse (available from the AET Book Club) and founder of The Electronic Intifada, a non-profit online publication promoting comprehensive and balanced education about Palestine and Palestinians. Abunimah argued that it is essential to evaluate recent Palestinian protests in the greater context of the Arab Spring, rather than as an unchanging product of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The regional struggle “is one that always goes against the grain,” he noted, collectively rejecting the status quo. Fadi Quran, who earned his undergraduate degree at Stanford University, continued to pursue his studies at Birzeit University in Ramallah, and is now working on a project to bring renewable energy to Palestine, expanded upon Abunimah’s remarks. Describing the Palestinian rallies as “a continuation of what Martin Luther King did,” he emphasized that he and his peers would continue to organize protests despite the atrocities committed by Israel’s military and the expectation that there will always be “a huge amount of violence from Israeli forces.” Quran described how protesters layer themselves in thick clothing, despite
Palestinian Ambassador Afif Safieh calls for U.S. support for the planned declaration of Palestinian statehood at the U.N. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
Ambassador Safieh’s talk drew links between historical and contemporary situations in Israel and Palestine. “The Nakba is not a frozen moment in the past, it is still going on,” he said. The Israeli policy of gaining more territory while leaving out the Palestinians has been consistent for years, he noted, leading to a land that today looks like gruyère cheese, or “bantustanettes,” Safieh said. This quest for territory is the root of the problem, he argued—not, as is often believed, security, territory or recognition. Safieh called the Arab Peace Plan, which has always accepted the 1967 borders, a “silver platter rejected by Israeli territorial appetite.” He referred to statements written by the late head of Irgun, Prime Minister Menachem Begin, confirming that an Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley would be militarily insignificant, allowing only a 1 second earlier notice of a rocket launch, and in fact burdening the army in the case of a war on the ground. “Security will come from peace, not territorial aggrandizement,” he stated. Safieh, who spoke of his support for President Barack Obama during the 2008 election, his love for the United States and for the American people, argued that the birth of a Palestinian state is in the interest of the United States, which he believes suffers from “self-inflicted impotence” in the Middle East. “The credibility of the peace process has been nullified,” he argued. It is political will and international pressure that are missing, as all possible scenarios have been discussed. Safieh described the conflict as suffering from a “suffocating imbalance of power”: Israel’s military advantages over its neighboring Arab states is compounded by a strong, unwritten alliance with the U.S., the world’s only superpower. This unwritten alliance is “more dangerous” than a formal one, he argued, as the superpower is unaccountable for the protégé’s behavior, and the protégé can misbehave freely. While calling the Israel lobby “crippling” to any U.S. president trying to move forward, Safieh mentioned American Jews who are critical of Israeli behavior as a factor for hope in the Palestinian struggle. In reference to third party mediation, Safieh argued that third parties are indispensible—although the Quartet turned out to be more like a “one-tet,” with the U.S. failing to use its partners abroad more constructively. Calling for increased pressure from the international community, he suggested that the quartet should enlarge to include countries like Turkey, China, 55
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STAFF PHOTO A. SALEH
STAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY
Ambassador’s Safieh’s overall positive Many USS Liberty survivors were lookBrazil or India to become more representative. “We invite you to wage peace on us,” and humorous personality was well appre- ing a lot like proud (but very young) ciated. “Pessimism is politically castrat- grandpas this year. —Delinda C. Hanley he quipped. Ambassador Safieh’s background in in- ing,” he explained. “Only optimists make —Alia Lahlou Egypt From Tahrir to Transition ternational relations was evident in his nu- history.” merous references to political theory and Mohamed Younis, a senior analyst for the history. He drew links between struggles Poignant and Proud USS Liberty newly established Abu Dhabi Gallup Center, throughout history, while warning of the Memorial presented an analysis and set of recommendangers of comparing or measuring suffer- Every year on June 8, USS Liberty sur- dations on the current state of post-revoluing—something that can result in the triv- vivors and friends gather in Arlington tion Egypt. The June 7 presentation was ialization of one’s struggle. The ambas- Cemetery to remember the heroes who held at Washington, DC’s Gallup Center, sador repeated the phrase “history is un- were killed on that day in 1967, those who where annual surveys are conducted to acdecided” on the question of Palestine, have died in the intervening years, and the curately gauge and then publicize the opinadding, “it needs help to make the right survivors who still await justice from the ions and aspirations of citizens around the choice.” government they all served. The annual world. On the subject of the recent Hamas- memorial service is sponsored by the Younis also is the senior analyst for the Fatah reconciliation, Safieh argued that White House Commission on Remem- Gallup Center for Muslim Studies in WashPalestinian disunity was always used as a brance, which provides programs to re- ington, DC, where he evaluates survey data pretext for failed negotiations, but noted member Americans killed in service or by and integrates historical, political and culthat their unity now was also being used acts of terrorism. tural knowledge to provide context to reagainst them. Palestinian evolusearch findings. He is the author tion toward popular nonviolent of Daughters of the Nile: The Evoresistance is widespread and lution of Feminism in Egypt. spans across all political parties, Younis discussed such topics as he stated, adding that Hamas is the revolution, economic chalnot a monolithic movement and lenges, democracy versus theocdoes include a pragmatic, modracy, and Egypt-U.S. relations. ernist wing in ascendance. The Some of the key findings he outIsraeli government has always inlined were positive, such as that cluded “unruly” politicians and Egyptians have a greater sense of positions itself, he pointed out. optimism about the future than Answering a question on the before. The survey also found that much-anticipated declaration of Egyptians have a strong belief in Palestinian statehood at the USS Liberty survivors and friends, including Liberty and her fa- peaceful resistance—greater than United Nations in September, ther Frank Spicher, at far right. any other population in the Safieh remarked on the unwaverworld. “The Egyptian people being support the U.S. offers Israel at the U.N. Forty-four years after Israel’s deadly and lieve that attacks on individuals are never The recent U.S. veto on a resolution con- deliberate attack, many familiar faces at- morally justified, which increased to 79 perdemning the growth of illegal Israeli settle- tended, including Lt. Stephen Toth’s sister cent after the revolution,” Younis noted. ments on Palestinian land is a case in point; Josie, and Patricia Blue-Rousakis, whose Some important challenges the survey the Obama administration has explicitly young husband, Allen Blue, an NSA civil- highlighted were that Egyptians are less satcondemned settlement growth, but still ian, was killed when the Israeli torpedo isfied with underlying issues that caused shields Israel at the U.N. Safieh said he hopes struck the Liberty. the revolution, such as the standard of livthe U.S. will either vote in favor of the PalesSurvivors solemnly read the names of ing or healthcare, and continue to be skeptinian declaration or abstain from voting. the victims in a service that both comforts ticical of the U.S. role in the region and conWhen asked about the role of Arab lead- and inspires mourners. This year Liberty ers in the peace process, Safieh argued that survivors, saddened by the recent death of regardless of the legitimacy of the leaders, John Hrankowsky, celebrated the college they have all been dedicated to the Arab graduation, with a degree in physical therPeace Plan. He called the recent revolu- apy, of Liberty, the granddaughter of PO tions in Tunisia and Egypt “beautiful,” John Spicher, who was killed in the attack. jokingly adding that Washington needs a Liberty’s proud dad, Frank Spicher, said “Spring” of its own when it comes to Mid- he was thankful to meet up with survivors dle East policy. over the years, and that Hrankowsky had The Palestinian diplomat believes that a told him that Spicher’s father, John, had two-state solution, with 78 percent of his- played cards with him the night before the toric Palestine going to Israel and 22 percent attack and said he couldn’t wait to go home to the Palestinians, remains the preferred so- to play with his little boy. “I’ve met guys lution. If the reality on the ground does not who have been able to give me part of my change, however, he acknowledged that a dad that I never would have had otherone-state solution may become the only vi- wise. Best of all, they all agree that he was Mohamed Younis describes Egyptian views able option. after Tahrir. a great guy. What more could I want?”
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Mark Braverman, executive director of the Holy Land Peace Project, delivered the keynote speech at the Methodist FederaAUGUST 2011
Mark Braverman spoke at MFSA Iowa Chapter’s annual banquet and awards night in Des Moines on June 5. tion for Social Action (MFSA) Iowa Chapter’s annual banquet and awards night on June 5 at the Scottish Rite Consistory in Des Moines. Born in 1948, the grandson of a fifthgeneration Palestinian Jew, Braverman was reared in Philadelphia in the Jewish tradition and trained in clinical psychology and crisis management. During a 2006 visit to the Holy Land with the Fellowship of Reconciliation, he was transformed by witnessing Israel’s occupation of Palestine and by his encounters with peace activists and civil society leaders from the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities. “I came back to my community wanting to tell my fellow Jews what I had seen and how much trouble we were in. Let’s not put too fine a point on it...The doors of the synagogue slammed in my face. But a miraculous thing happened. The doors of the church swung open,” said Braverman, author of Fatal Embrace: Christians, Jews, and the Search for Peace in the Holy Land. (available from the AET Book Club). Co-founder and executive director of Friends of the Tent of Nations, North America, Braverman told of his conversation with a Presbyterian pastor who, because he feels personally responsible for the Holocaust, refused to discuss the Israel-Palestine conflict so as not to offend his Jewish friends. “Pastor, I appreciate your sensitivity to my people’s feelings,” Braverman replied, “but you have to do something else with your Christian guilt. “The rabbis who don’t want to talk about Israel are not friends of the Jewish people. We’re in big trouble. If we don’t talk about this, we are in bigger trouble,” Braverman told the pastor. “Israel is headed straight for a cliff, if it hasn’t already gone over it, and the Christians, esTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
Iowa Groups Sponsor Palestine/Israel Conference Representatives of a growing coalition of mostly faith-based Iowa peace and social justice groups met in Ankeny at Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart Church on June 4 to advance their plans for an Oct. 14-15 conference on “Changing U.S. Policy in PalestineIsrael: Engaging Faith Communities in Pursuit of a Just Peace.” Conference planners Kathleen McQuillen, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) Iowa program coordinator, and Joe Aossey of Cedar Rapids said the purpose of the conference is to increase Continued on page 64
STAFF PHOTO M. GILLESPIE
Mark Braverman Delivers Iowa MFSA Keynote Speech
pecially the clergy, who enable—and I use that word on purpose—who enable that behavior are not being friends of the Jewish people.” Church is not a place to go on Sunday, hear a sermon, and go home back to the rest of your life, Braverman said. Churches work for social justice in our neighborhoods and across the globe. So, when Christians hear about what is going on in Palestine—especially American Christians, given our complicity as Americans—they should know what to do. Except, Braverman said, they think, “you don’t criticize Israel. That’s not friendly to the Jewish people. And this is a big stick, isn’t it?” Israel is an apartheid state, “and our job now is to delegitimize that state and to bring Israel back into the community of human kind,” Braverman concluded, as he declared his support for BDS, the worldwide Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign. MFSA-Iowa presented Marian Solomon of Ames and Darrell Mitchell of Marshalltown with the organization’s 2011 Social Action Awards. —Michael Gillespie
STAFF PHOTO M. GILLESPIE
cerned about the void in security. Normally, Younis explained, when a country’s GDP increases, so does the life evaluation, but this is not the case in Egypt. When surveyed on life evaluation in the spring of 2009, the population rated at 5.2 on a scale of 10. In the spring of 2011, however, they rated at 3.9. What the Egyptian people do have, however, is a renewed optimism for their country, Younis said. They believe that in 2015 life evaluation will be 5.7 out of 10. Even though“39 percent of the population does not feel safe walking alone, in contrast to 17 percent pre-revolution,” he noted, “most Egyptians say they are likely to continue living in Egypt, despite declining satisfaction with their standard of living.” With parliamentary elections approaching this September, the Egyptian people are eager to take on the challenges and burdens of democracy. After Mubarak’s resignation on Jan. 25, 2011, 64 percent of the population said the country should have some form of democratic government to resolve issues such as freedom of speech, religion and assembly. According to the Abu Dhabi Gallup Center’s research, 69 percent of Egyptians believe that religious leaders should play an advisory role in the government but should not have the authority to veto and dictate. Egyptians express little interest in recreating their country in the image of Iran, Younis emphasized, countering the fear among some Western observers. “Egyptians are not looking to imitate anyone,” he stated, “they want their own identity.” Many Egyptians expressed a large distrust of U.S. leadership and motivations in the region. Egyptians are apprehensive about possible U.S. intrusion in their political affairs at this critical stage in their history. According to the survey, 52 percent of the Egyptian population is opposed to U.S. aid in general. “U.S. aid in Egypt all together has come to symbolize the loss of Egyptian self-determination, which represents the co-opting of Egyptian foreign and domestic policies to the interest of a separate government,” Younis added. Although 88 percent of Egyptians disagree that the U.S. stands as a model for the prospective Egyptian government, they are not opposed to having the U.S. as a political and economic partner in the future. —Awrad Saleh
Des Moines social worker Samar Sarhan helped lead a June planning meeting at OLIH Church in Ankeny. 57
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Books Speaking Out: A Congressman’s Lifelong Fight Against Bigotry, Famine, and War By Paul Findley, Lawrence Hill Books, 2011, hardcover, 330 pp. List: $29.95; AET: $19. Reviewed by Andrew I. Killgore Twenty-five years ago Congressman Paul Findley wrote the seminal bestseller They Dare to Speak Out, about A me r i c a n s wh o spoke out against the dangers to the United States caused by Israeli actions in the Middle East supported by the Israel Lobby in Washington. (Full disclosure: this reviewer, along with Washington Report executive editor Richard H. Curtiss, are among those mentioned.) His book may have been the hardest blow suffered by Zionists up to that time. Speaking Out, Findley’s latest book, essentially recounts the story of his life as a highly successful politician, but the former Republican House member from Illinois hits with renewed energy at Israel’s militant policies toward the Palestinians, and the subservience of the U.S. toward Israel’s actions and demands. The remarkable thing is that, as these words are written, Findley became 90 years of age. He grew up poor. His father suffered from Parkinson’s disease, but young Paul was a go-getter. He bought a typewriter, mimeographing programs which he sold at local football and basketball games. He also sold sandwiches made by his mother, and earned five cents for each column inch that he wrote for a local newspaper. In 1960 Findley ran for Congress, using Abraham Lincoln as his guide and quoting him in writing and in campaign speeches. He won that first race, and 10 more after that, becoming one of the most respected and highly regarded congressmen from the Midwest. Congressman Findley was, of course, deeply involved in farm affairs, but he had much wider interests. For instance, he led a congressional delegation to France after
French President Charles de Gaulle opted out of NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization). Findley was a great admirer of de Gaulle and thought that the United States was unfairly blaming France. Findley displays his idealistic side by his profound admiration for Clarence K. Streit, whose book Union Now fascinated the young congressman. The promise that Streit’s ideas could prevent war appealed powerfully to Findley. The last third of Speaking Out is taken up with Israel and the Israel Lobby. One of Findley’s constituents, Ed Franklin, was imprisoned in (then) South Yemen. Findley went to Aden via Damascus and succeeded in getting Franklin released. That was the good news. The bad news was, as Findley writes, “I was trapped in the Middle East thickets with no escape possible.” Complaints of American bias for Israel heard in Damascus and Yemen opened Findley’s eyes. As a shocking example of U.S. subservience toward Israel, the congressman lists the Israeli attack on, and attempt to sink, the U.S. Navy intelligence ship the Liberty, which was monitoring the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Findley blames the power of the Israel Lobby for President Lyndon
Johnson’s going along with Israel’s claim that the attack, which killed 34 Americans and wounded 171, was an accident. Not surprisingly, the Israel Lobby targeted Findley for defeat, as it does anyone who criticizes Israel. He lost his 1982 bid for re-election by 1,407 votes, but mainly as a result of redistricting following the 1980 census—his new district contained more Democrats. Still, without AIPAC’s opposition, Findley probably would have been re-elected yet again. Findley denounces Zionism’s strategy of labeling any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism, a lethal charge in the shadow of the Holocaust. The policy leaves a doubt in some American minds if the accusers are not really Israeli nationalists with American citizenship. Paul Findley has enormous credibility in Speaking Out. It matches his many speeches before American audiences. I hope many people will read and reflect on this good book to gain knowledge of a problem which poses a serious danger to the United States, and of one elected official who truly put the interests of his own country before those of a foreign nation. ❑
Andrew I. Killgore is publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. 58
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AET Book Club Catalog Literature
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Summer 2011 The Forgotten Palestinians: A History of the Palestinians in Israel by Ilan Pappé, Yale University Press, 2011, hardcover, 336 pp. List: $30; AET: $19. Historian Ilan Pappé examines how Israeli-Palestinians have fared under Jewish rule and what their lives tell us about both Israel’s attitude toward minorities and Palestinians’ attitudes toward the Jewish state. Drawing upon significant archival and interview material, Pappé analyzes the Israeli state’s policy towards its Palestinian citizens, finding discrimination in matters of housing, education, and civil rights. Rigorously researched yet highly readable, The Forgotten Palestinians brings a new and muchneeded perspective to the Israel-Palestine debate.
Displaced at Home: Ethnicity and Gender Among Palestinians in Israel edited by Rhoda Ann Kanaaneh & Isis Nusair, State University of New York Press, 2010, paperback, 264 pp. List: $24.95; AET: $22. A rich and multidimensional portrait of the realities of Palestinians living within the state of Israel, Displaced at Home gathers a group of Palestinian women scholars who present unflinching critiques of the complexities and challenges inherent in the lives of this understudied but important minority within Israel. The essays engage topics ranging from internal refugees and historical memory to women’s sexuality and the resistant possibilities of hiphop culture among young Palestinians.
Speaking Out: A Congressman's Lifelong Fight Against Bigotry, Famine, and War by Paul Findley, Lawrence Hill Books, 2011, paperback, 344 pp. List: $26.95; AET: $19. Author of the groundbreaking works They Dare to Speak Out, Deliberate Deceptions and Silent No More, and frequent Washington Report contributor, Paul Findley returns with an impassioned memoir from his bucolic childhood to his 22 years in the U.S. Congress and beyond. Findley’s account of his lifetime advocating for a saner U.S. foreign policy stands as an inspiration for those working for positive change.
Rabbi Outcast: Elmer Berger and American Jewish AntiZionism by Jack Ross, Potomac Books, 2011, hardcover, 233 pp. List: $29.95; AET: $19. Author Ross places liberal Jewish antiZionism (as opposed to that of Orthodox or revolutionary socialist Jews) in historical perspective as embodied by Rabbi Berger and his predecessors in the Reform rabbinate. The growing renaissance of liberal Jewish anti-Zionism, combined with the forgotten work of Rabbi Berger and the American Council for Judaism, makes a compelling case for revisiting his work in this full-length, definitive biography.
Ma Baseema: Middle Eastern Cooking with Chaldean Flair by Chaldean American Ladies of Charity, Huron River Press, 2010, hardcover, 272 pp. AET: $35. With hundreds of beautiful color photographs, Ma Baseema offers a wellpackaged taste of one of the world’s oldest cuisines, dating back to ancient Mesopotamia. This collection of recipes ranging from soups, appetizers and salads to main course dishes, breads and desserts, is a perfect addition to any aspiring tabakhin.
Then They Came for Me: A Family’s Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival by Maziar Bahari, Random House, 2011, hardcover, 384 pp. List: $27; AET: $16. This riveting, heart-wrenching memoir offers insight into the past 50 years of regime change in Iran, as well as the future of a country where the democratic impulses of the youth continually clash with a government that becomes more totalitarian with each passing day. An intimate and fascinating account of contemporary Iran, it is also the moving and wonderfully written story of one family’s extraordinary courage in the face of repression.
Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War by Annia Ciezadlo, Free Press, 2011, hardcover, 400 pp. List: $26; AET: $19. In the fall of 2003, Annia Ciezadlo spent her honeymoon in Baghdad. Over the next six years, while living in Baghdad and Beirut, she broke bread with Shi’i and Sunnis, warlords and refugees, matriarchs and mullahs. Day of Honey is a brave and compassionate portrait of civilian life during wartime—a moving testament to the power of love and generosity to transcend the misery of war.
Muslims and Jews in America: Commonalities, Contentions, and Complexities edited by Reza Aslan & Aaron J. Hahn Tapper, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, paperback, 228 pp. List: $30; AET: $22. An exploration of contemporary JewishMuslim relations in the U.S. and the distinct and often creative ways in which these two communities interact with one another in the American context. Each essay discusses a different episode in U.S. history and shows that these communities have more in common with each other than the issues that divide them. Their positive approach to interfaith relations is a model for peace in the Middle East.
Playing with Fire: Pakistan at War with Itself by Pamela Constable, Random House, 2011, hardcover, 352 pp. List: $28; AET: $18. In this richly reported chronicle, Constable takes us on a panoramic tour of contemporary Pakistan, revealing the façade of democracy, the formidable hold of its business, bureaucratic and military elites, and the realities facing a largely powerless population. Both an empathic and alarming look inside one of the world’s most violent and vexing countries, Playing with Fire is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand modern Pakistan and its momentous role on today’s global stage.
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opm_61-62_Other People's Mail 6/29/11 9:17 AM Page 61
Other People’s Mail Compiled by Layla Gama and Delinda C. Hanley Most Dangerous Border To The Economist, June 2, 2011 Your bold analysis of “The world’s most dangerous border” between India and Pakistan (May 21) missed one important factor: population. Pakistan is one-fifth larger in area than Texas, but by 2050 it is likely to have more people than today’s entire United States. For a nation that spends only a little of the government budget on education, this rapid growth will overwhelm the education system and negate any possibility of employing the burgeoning number of young people. As in most of the developing world, women in Pakistan (and in much of India) want fewer children than they are having now, but the international community has allowed attention to drift away from family planning. Letting women have the means to manage their childbearing will help to make the world a more stable place. But it is late and decisive action is needed now. Richard Ottaway, London, UK
Gates Faults NATO Resolve To the Los Angeles Times, June 14, 2011 Could it be that it is the United States that is pushing “toward collective military irrelevance” by continuing to interfere militarily in other nations’ business? If the U.S. is so tired of engaging in expensive combat missions for and with those who “don’t want to share the risks and the costs,” perhaps it should re-examine its priorities. Maybe it is we who are out of step. It is disturbing that outgoing Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates would criticize other countries for their unwillingness to spend blood and treasure joining this country in the military exercises that are bankrupting us. Our leaders should look to the example of Germany, a country that provides education and medical care and refuses to join NATO in its most recent foray into Libya. Good choice. Sharon Fane, Sherman Oaks, CA
War of Words in Libya To The Washington Post, June 22, 2011 Ruth Marcus’ op-ed column, “Obama’s legal hopscotch,” noted that the White House says U.S. actions in Libya are not “hostilities.” Let me see if I have this right: If Libyan warplanes came to this country AUGUST 2011
and enforced a no-fly zone and then supplied allies with hundreds of bombs to drop on the White House and the Pentagon—that, too, would not be “hostilities”? David McAuley, McLean, VA
Boxer’s Views on War To the Los Angeles Times, June 1, 2011 [Senator Barbara] Boxer states that now is the time to reduce our troop presence in Afghanistan and to reduce the burden on taxpayers. The fact is, if we do not leave, we will have helped to fulfill bin Laden’s plan to defeat the United States by bleeding it financially and causing economic ruin to our country. Albert Glick, West Covina, CA
Where Is the 6.6 Billion? To the Los Angeles Times, June 15, 2011 The loss of $6.6 billion for Iraqi “projects” is an outrage. Americans need jobs, social services have been cut, school systems are being whittled away and our infrastructure is in disrepair. U.S. officials “did not have the time or staff to keep financial controls”? That is an insult to every taxpayer in this country. I am a teacher. Might I suggest that next time, the government trust the money to a group of teachers? They would make sure that every dollar went where it was supposed to go, with plenty to spare for “other projects.” Who in the Bush administration will be held accountable? Doreen Bernknopf, Agoura Hills, CA
Obama’s Exit Plan To The International Herald Tribune, June 23, 2011 Your front-page article’s choice of descriptive words speaks volumes: “fragile” gains, “elusive” transfer of responsibility, “unprepared” Afghan troops, “rampant” corruption in Afghan government “sapping” the confidence of locals, “disenchantment” among Americans over “ballooning” national debt, the “whopping” price tag of the Afghan conflict. As President Obama wrestles over the responsible way to make an exit, the language of your article only reinforces the obvious: there is no gentle way to articulate the mess that remains. Robert S. Nussbaum, Fort Lee, NJ THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
Burying News from Abroad To The Washington Post, June 24, 2011 Last week, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI announced major constitutional reforms, which could have serious implications for U.S. foreign policy. Amid the “Arab Spring,” the king’s announcement could have ripple effects for other Arab monarchies. But on the morning after the speech The Post devoted only three Associated Press paragraphs to it on Page A7. Instead, the front page had room for a story about beavers in Argentina and Chile. And on that same day, the editorial “Students of history” focused on American high-school graduates’ low achievement in history and civics. By underreporting on civics stories in the making, The Post is compounding that problem. Pascale C. Siegel, McLean, VA
Listen to Demands for Change To the Gulf News, June 12, 2011 The new wave of revolutions that started in the Arab World is something that cannot be ignored. People around the world have a moral obligation to keep their eyes open and support the people who want freedom in their countries. We have to support the demonstrators in Syria and elsewhere when they cry for freedom. The world has changed and leaders have to change with it. Nobody can stop this. Dictatorial regimes must listen to their people’s demands for change, otherwise the furious wave will wipe them out once and for all. Their time is over. Hashil Saif Hashil, Copenhagen, Denmark
Engaging Iran To the Los Angeles Times, June 13, 2011 I find it interesting that such esteemed authors and former ambassadors to Iran could write an article arguing for the West to “take a fresh look at negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program” without mentioning the nuclear weapons Israel possesses and refuses to have investigated by the IAEA. Why bother to write such an article if it leaves Israel’s nuclear weapons arsenal out of the conversation? Charlene A. Richards, Los Angeles, CA
War of Words on the Mideast To The Washington Post, June 22, 2011 Jackson Diehl argued that President 61
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Obama is pushing Israel too hard to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Missing from the piece was one important reason for the president’s stance: 44 years of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem and 44 years of gross violation of human rights that the Palestinian people have suffered. John P. Salzberg, Sandy Spring, MD
Time to Make “Hard Choices” To The New York Times, May 21, 2011 Once again Israel shows that it really has no interest in seeking peace with the Palestinians or its immediate neighbors. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s insulting rejection of President Obama’s sincere suggestions on a route to peace clearly demonstrates this. So be it if Israel really seems dead set on continuing its suicidal policies. However, isn’t it time that we the American taxpayers stop paying for this policy? We have given Israel about $30 billion in economic and military aid over the last decade. This aid should be stopped immediately. Of course the American Israel Public Affairs Committee will once again crank up its efficient lobbying efforts, but let’s say “enough” until Israel sits down and makes a serious effort to hammer out a peace agreement. Richard L. Huber, New York, NY
Sailing to Gaza To Bozeman Daily Chronicle, June 21, 2011 Later this month I will sail to Gaza on board The Audacity of Hope, the U.S. Boat to Gaza. A multi-nation flotilla will be attempting to break the Israeli siege of Gaza. Leading up to the flotilla, I traveled to Gaza to see the conditions for myself. What I have seen is deeply troubling. Gaza’s airspace, borders (except for Rafah), and sea are controlled by Israel. Drones fly over Gaza on a daily basis. Gaza’s fishermen are subject to live fire from Israeli gunboats if they stray outside three nautical miles from shore. Approaching any Israeli border may get you shot. Tragically, congressional representatives applaud these measures against Gazans. Israeli and American government officials claim there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, but there is definitely a shortage of medicines for emergency and chronic conditions. There is also a shortage of electricity due to insufficient infrastructure, an inability to repair infrastructure damaged after “Operation Cast Lead,” and a shortage of consumer goods. 62
Unemployment is at 45.2 percent. Most people now rely on humanitarian organizations in order to feed themselves. Just because the population here is not starving—childhood malnutrition is, however, a problem—does not make the siege morally acceptable. The American boat will not carry aid but will deliver thousands of letters of solidarity to the people of Gaza. Several of the boats will carry aid to Gaza, but that is not the main purpose of the flotilla. The purpose is to challenge the naval blockade of Gaza. By sailing to Gaza, we hope to bring the Palestinian situation into closer focus and expose the violence of the Israeli occupation. Johnny Barber, Gallatin Gateway, MT
Israel Blocks Path to Peace To The Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2011 Mr. Kozak incorrectly equates the emigration of Jews from Europe to Palestine after World War II with the plight of the Palestinians displaced as a consequence of that emigration. More than 400 Palestinian towns and villages were destroyed and more than 725,000 Palestinians, half the in-
WRITE OR TELEPHONE THOSE WORKING FOR YOU IN WASHINGTON. President Barack Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. Washington, DC 20500 (202) 456-1414 White House Comment Line: (202) 456-1111 Fax: (202) 456-2461 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Department of State Washington, DC 20520 State Department Public Information Line: (202) 647-6575 Any Senator U.S. Senate Washington, DC 20510 (202) 224-3121 Any Representative U.S. House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-3121
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THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
digenous population, were made refugees. The European Jews who emigrated to Palestine represented small minorities of educated urban dwellers in the countries they left. The Palestinians were the indigenous population of Palestine, and were largely farmers whose livelihood was tied to the land they lost. The Jews who left Europe were at least offered the possibility of a better life in Palestine through the financing of international Zionism. Moreover, Germany has made reparation payments, and recoupment for losses by Holocaust survivors and their offspring continues today. Return of Palestinian refugees was made impossible by Israel, and reparations for their displacement has not been offered. Ed Houry, Fairfax, VA
The World Is Weary To The New York Times, May 19, 2011 Danny Danon states explicitly what many have long suspected: that powerful figures in the Israeli government have no intention of ever ceding the West Bank to a Palestinian state. Danon does not appear to grasp the magnitude of international opinion on this subject; he brushes aside worries of sanctions and international disapproval, citing the annexation of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights as proofs of the impotence of such condemnation. But the establishment of a Palestinian state is a matter of an entirely different order. The world is weary of the IsraeliPalestinian conflict, and desires justice for the Palestinian cause. If the United Nations recognizes a Palestinian state in September, the international community will not accept another Israeli land grab. When the United Nations gave Israel its statehood in 1947, Israel became a reality, and was accepted by the world. It is only fair that now the same recognition be granted the Palestinians. Richard Larsen, New York, NY
Hamas Recognition of Israel To The Independent, May 26, 2011 As Israel is determined not to talk to Hamas unless they recognize Israel’s right to exist, perhaps the problem could be resolved if Hamas offers recognition on the same terms that Netanyahu is prepared to recognize Palestine's right to exist. That is as a demilitarized patchwork state with no direct links to the outside world, and with its airspace and water resources under Palestinian control. James Budd, Manningtree, Essex ❑ AUGUST 2011
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Upcoming Events, Announcements & Obituaries —Compiled by Andrew Stimson Upcoming Events: The Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development and The Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University present the Voices of Palestine Film Series, highlighting recent documentaries and feature films from and about Palestine that explore the social, cultural and political complexities of Palestinian life and identity. Films will be screened each Wednesday in July beginning at 6:30 at The Jerusalem Fund, 2425 Virginia Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. 20037. For more information visit <www.thejerusalem fund.org>, e-mail <info@thejerusalem fund.org>, or call (202) 338-1958. Detroit will host the Concert of Colors, a free annual diversity music festival presented by the Arab American National Museum, Detroit Symphony Orchestra and others. The concert will be held July 14-17 and feature music from around the world, including traditional Arabic dance and the poetry of Saladin Ahmed. For more information visit <www.concertof colors.com>. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art presents “Gifts of the Sultan: The Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts,” on view through Sept. 5 at 5905 Wilshire Blvd. The exhibit features more than 200 artifacts spanning from the 8th through 19th centuries and represents a rich variety of media from America, Europe and the Middle East. For information, call (323) 857-6000, or visit <www.lacma.org>.
Announcements: The Republic of France has awarded Reem Abu Jaber, director of the Gaza City Qattan Centre for the Child, its Insignia of Officer of the National Order of Merit, one of the highest distinctions awarded to private individuals. Abu Jaber, who was cited for her achievements and dedication to the children of the Gaza Strip, will receive her decoration from the consul general of France in the occupied territories on the French National Day, July 17, 2011, in Gaza. Arabian Sights Film Festival is accepting submissions for its October 2011 festival in Washington, DC. Deadline for entries is July 31. For more information visit <www.filmfestdc.org/arabian sights>. AUGUST 2011
Los Angeles peace activists Yossi Khen, Estee Chandler and Jeff Warner have started an online petition to call on President Obama and other U.S. government officials to recognize a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with a capital in East Jerusalem, and to support the Palestinians in the U.N. this fall. Americans are invited to view and sign this petition at <www.petitiononline.com/ USfor67/petition.html>.
Obituaries Ezzatollah Sahabi, 81, head of Iran’s reformist Council of Nationalist-Religious Coalition, died May 1 after suffering a stroke the previous day. A former member of the Iranian parliament, he spent many years in and out of prison, both before and after the 1979 Islamic revolution, for his outspoken criticism and democratic activism. His father, Yadollah Sahabi, was an influential figure in the 1979 Iranian revolution, shortly after which the younger Sahabi was appointed a member of the Council of the Islamic Revolution. A year later, he was elected to parliament. In the early 1990s Sahabi became managing editor of the journal Iran-e Farda, which was banned during his tenure. He was sentenced to four years in prison after attending the 2000 “Iran After the Elections” conference held in Berlin. Following the disputed 2009 presidential election, Sahabi was sentenced to two years in prison, presumably for publicly supporting the opposition Green Movement. Mr. Sahabi’s funeral was disrupted by the removal of his body by plain-clothes authorities and the beating and arrest of several mourners. After sustaining injuries during the funeral, his daughter, Haleh Sahabi, allegedly suffered a cardiac arrest and died. Mourners arrested at the funeral include Habibollah Peyman, a member of the Freedom Movement of Iran, political activist Hamid Ahrari, and Hamed Montazeri, grandson of the late dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri. Omar Ahmad, 46, entrepreneur and mayor of San Carlos, California, died May 10 of a heart attack. Well known regionally for his Silicon Valley ventures and career in local politics, Mr. Ahmad was also one of the nation’s few Muslim mayors. Born to Pakistani immigrants living in Ohio and raised in a small cenTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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tral Florida town, he attended the University of Florida, majoring in material science engineering. He spent several years working for the Discovery Channel in Washington, DC, before moving to California, where he began a string of Silicon Valley companies, including Netscape and Napster. Ahmad was also an avid philanthropist, tutoring at National Youth Science Foundation camps, giving TED talks, and serving as director of American Muslims Intent on Learning and Activism. As a politician, Mr. Ahmad won over voters uncomfortable with his faith by focusing on his passion to improve the city. He took his oath of office in the presence of an imam and was fond of saying “there is no Muslim way to fill in a pothole.” Rachel Avnery, 78, schoolteacher, photographer and activist with Gush Shalom, passed away peacefully and painlessly on May 21, two days after falling into a coma. In a touching eulogy, her husband, author and activist Uri Avnery, wrote of her enduring empathy, strong sense of justice, and beauty (his article can be read at <www.middleeastbooks.com/rachel/>). Rachel Avnery found her calling while attending an Israeli army course for teachers during which she was recruited by an elementary school principal. She taught first and second grade children for the next 28 years. After leaving the teaching profession, she became an enthusiastic photographer and co-founded the peace organization Gush Shalom with her husband in 1993. “For her,” wrote Avnery, “the injustice done to the Palestinians was intolerable.” Mrs. Avnery became Gush Shalom’s photographer and later its financial manager. She became a dear friend of Yasser Arafat and served with her husband as a human shield for the besieged Palestinian president. In 2001, she and Mr. Avnery received the Right Livelihood Award “…for their unwavering conviction, in the midst of violence, that peace can only be achieved through justice and reconciliation.” Angela Jurdak Khoury, 95, one of Lebanon’s first female diplomats and George Mason University professor of international relations and politics, died of kidney failure May 29 at a Washington, DC hospital. Representing Lebanon in the 63
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U.S. for 21 years, she was first assigned as a United Nations delegate in the mid1940s and held diplomatic posts in San Francisco, New York and Washington. She joined George Mason University in 1966 and remained a prominent member among Arab diplomats and in the ArabAmerican community in the Washington metropolitan area. Born in Choueir, Lebanon, her father, Mansur Hanna Jurdak, was a renowned mathematician and astronomer. Dr. Khoury began her career as an instructor of sociology and administrator at American University of Beirut in 1938 and was assistant director of the Allied Powers Radio Poll of Syria, Lebanon and Palestine during World War II. In 1959, she was awarded Lebanon’s Order of the Cedar for service to the nation. She received a doctorate in international relations from Washington’s American University in 1968. Walid Gholmieh, 73, president of The Lebanese National Higher Conservatory of Music, died in Beirut June 7 after a long struggle with cancer. Regarded as one of the most prominent Middle Eastern conductors and composers of his generation, Dr. Gholmieh founded the Lebanese National Symphony Orchestra and helped guide it to international fame. He gained popular attention as the head of a panel of judges on the Lebanese television show, “Studio el Fan,” a launch pad for many contemporary Lebanese and Arab artists. Born in Marjeyoun, Lebanon, he studied mathematics at the American University of Beirut but later switched to music. He began composing music in 1963 while directing the Baalbeck International Festivals. Gholmieh composed “Ardul Rurataini Watan,” the Iraqi National Anthem from 1979 to 2003, and co-authored The Theory of Oriental Arabic Music. ❑
Iowa Conference… Continued from page 57
awareness within Iowa faith communities regarding the importance of a just resolution of the conflict between Israel and Palestine. One meeting participant, Hugh Stone, pastor of Osceola United Methodist Church (UMC), teaches a course on the Middle East and Islam at Des Moines Area Community College. “I’ve seen young men and young women who leave my college classes to go off to fight. So, it [U.S. foreign policy] affects me personally in my relations with my students,” said Stone. Getting U.S. Middle East policy right is very, very important, he stated. “The tremendous amount of tax money that goes for these wars is money that can’t be spent to feed hungry children or educate children in this country. Money spent 64
on bombs, missiles and armaments is money that could be spent to fix our roads or give our teachers a decent raise. It’s a question of priorities,” explained Stone. The key to solving America’s problems in the Middle East, he added, is a just peace in the Holy Land. “There are people of all faiths who are interested in a just resolution of the IsraeliPalestinian conflict,” said Ahmed Kamal, chair of the board of CAIR-Iowa and Darul Argum Islamic Center of Ames, who will speak at the conference. Getting the U.S. government to take a fairer stance on the issues is the ultimate goal, he said. Mary Caponi, who has been working on the conference for more than a year, said that being a military wife caused her to pay attention to U.S. policy in a way that some Americans do not, because policy has often had a direct and immediate impact on the lives of military families. Caponi said she finds U.S. policy regarding Palestine and Israel very frustrating. “I’m trying to do something about it,” she explained. For more information contact Kathleen McQuillen/AFSC in Des Moines, (515) 274-4851 ext. 22. ❑ —Michael Gillespie
Turkey… Continued from page 19
latent economic power of this nation of 75 million. Turkey’s capable foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, engineered a “zero problems” policy that vastly improved Turkey’s relations with all its formerly hostile neighbors, excepting Armenia and Greek-Cyprus. Turkey’s foreign policy now reflects Turkish rather than U.S. and Israeli interests. “Zero problems” opened the Mideast’s doors to Turkish business, restoring Turkey to the former dominant regional leadership it held before World War I. Turkey’s popular support for the Palestinians led to a bitter clash with Israel. As a result, Turkey has become the target of fierce attacks by the U.S. Congress and media for no longer favoring Israeli interests. The Wall Street Journal, the North American mouthpiece of Israel’s hard right, has led the attacks against Turkey. Claims by the right that Erdogan is turning Turkey into an Islamic dictatorship are false. The stable, democratic, productive Turkey he is building is a boon for all concerned. Istanbul used to be the Paris of the Muslim world. It’s returning to that role again. Erdogan’s third electoral victory fell short of allowing him to rewrite the obsolete constitution without consensus from other parties, but it means years more democratic and economic progress for this vitally important nation that will play a key role in stabilizing and building a new, modern Mideast. ❑ THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
Temple Mount… Continued from page 16
It continued in that condition for hundreds of years. The Upper City developed, and people forgot what a marvelous little city this had once been. They simply guessed where strategic locations in the City of David must have been in the Upper City. Of course, this was a normal mistake. Now, 50 years after Kenyon’s discovery, scholars like Leen Ritmeyer, Eilat Mazar and Hershel Shanks have recently written books as if no one knew that the Haram was the Roman Fortress and that Solomon’s, Zechariah’s and Herod’s temples all were located near the Spring of Siloam. Tourists are still mistakenly told that the Haram is the Temple Mount, that David’s citadel is near the Jaffa Gate, and that Mount Zion and the place where the Last Supper was held are all in the Upper City. Israel’s antiquities authority has been digging a tunnel from under homes in the Arab East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan to the Western Wall Plaza. According to a recent “60 Minutes” interview, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat wants to create King’s Garden, a Bible-themed tourist park “adjacent to the City of David,” which requires demolishing 22 Arab homes in Silwan. The purpose of archeology is to provide archeological insights, of course, but excavations between the City of David and the old Roman fortress (the Haram) also have an anti-Arab political agenda. It is not likely that a fourth temple will ever be constructed, either in the City of David or in the Haram. Israel already has diverted the water formerly used for sacrifices away from the former temple area and is making the City of David into a park. Orthodox Jews would oppose having a temple in Herod’s hated fortress. Jews had no interest in the Haram until after the Crusades, when they misunderstood that it was the Temple Mount. If the temple were ever built, it would have to be placed somewhere in the Upper City or a suburb of Jerusalem—not in its former site or in the old Roman Fortress. Because innocent Evangelical Christians in America, under the guidance of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and John Hagee, have not been informed of these facts, they have thought there was some biblical or religious reason why it was necessary to destroy Islam’s third most sacred building in the world, together with the al-Aqsa mosque. It is my hope that, once Christians learn of this mistake, they will stop following Mars and Phineas (Num 25; Ps 106:30-31) and work as zealously for peace, following the teachings of Abraham, the 8th century prophets (Mica 6:8), Jesus, and Paul, as they once worked to promote war in the Middle East. This would make a tremendous difference to Jerusalem—and to the world. ❑ AUGUST 2011
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AETâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 2011 Choir of Angels Following are individuals, organizations, companies and foundations whose help between Jan. 1 and June 20, 2011 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. We are deeply honored by their confidence and profoundly grateful for their generosity.
HUMMERS ($100 or more) Americans For a Palestinian State, Oakland, CA Ahsen Abbasi, Leesburg, VA Catherine Abbott, Edina, MN Jeff Abood, Silver Lake, OH Diane Adkin, Camas, WA Dr. M.Y. Ahmed, Waterville, OH Emeel & Elizabeth Ajluni, Farmington Hills, MI Raji Akileh, Tampa, FL H.R. Alalusi, Moraga, CA Haroune Alameddine, Canton, MI Dr. & Mrs. Salah Al-Askari, Leonia, NJ Hamid & Kim Alwan, Milwaukee, WI Louise Anderson, Oakland, CA Dr. Nabih Ammari, Cleveland, OH Sylvia Anderson de Freitas, Paradise Valley, AZ Dr. Abdullah Arar, Amman,Jordan M. Arefi, West Bloomfield, MI David & Kathryn Asfour, Vallejo, CA Dr. Robert Ashmore, Jr., Mequon, WI Fuad Baali, Bowling Green, KY Alma Ball, Venice, FL Dr. Sami Baraka, Wyandotte, MI Rev. Robert Barber, Parrish, FL Jamil Barhoum, San Diego, CA Stanton Barrett, Ipswich, MA William Battistoni, Dickinson, TX Heidi Beck, Cedarville, CA Joseph Benedict, Mystic, CT John Carley, Pointe-Claire, Canada Ouahib Chalbi, Coon Rapids, MN Patricia Christensen, Poulsbo, WA Donald Clarke, Devon, PA Joan & Charles Collins, Willard, MO Dr. Robert Collmer, Waco, TX Mr. & Mrs. Rajie Cook, Washington Crossing, PA William Coughlin, Brookline, MA Walter Cox, Monroe, GA Mr. & Mrs. Andrew Curtiss, Herndon, VA Taher & Sheila Dajani, Alexandria, VA Dr. Hassan Dannawi, Macon, GA Glenn Davenport, Corvallis, OR Hon. John Gunther Dean, Paris, France Lee & Amelia Dinsmore, Elcho, WI Dr. George Doumani, Washington, DC Gloria El-Khouri, Scottsdale, AZ Kassem Elkhalil, Arlington, TX Osamah Elkhatib, Dubuque, IA AUGUST 2011
M.R. Eucalyptus, Kansas City, MO Dr. & Mrs. Hossam Fadel, Augusta, GA Mr. & Mrs. Majed Faruki, Albuquerque, NM Barbara Ferguson & Tim Kennedy, Arlington, VA Paul & Lucille Findley, Jacksonville, IL Elisabeth Fitzhugh, Mitchellville, MD Patrick Flynn, Yorba Linda, CA Robert Gabe, Valatie, NY Ken Galal, San Francisco, CA Joseph & Angela Gauci, Whittier, CA Ahmad & Shirley Gazori, Mill Creek, WA Dr. & Mrs. Frederick Guenther, Newtown, PA Joyce Guinn, Germantown, WI Raymond Haddock, Spotsylvania, VA Dr. Wasif Hafeez, West Bloomfield, MI Dr. Marwan Hajj, Towson, MD Allen Hamood, Dearborn Heights, MI Erin Hankir, Ontario, Canada Shirley Hannah, Argyle, NY Robert & Helen Harold, West Salem, WI Prof. & Mrs. Brice Harris, Los Angeles, CA Masood Hassan, Calabasas, CA Albert Hazbun, El Dorado Hills, CA Alan Heil, Alexandria, VA Dr. Colbert & Mildred Held, Waco, TX Rich Hoban, Cleveland Heights, OH Veronica Hoke, Hillcrest Heights, MD Edmund Hopper, Hilton Head Island, SC Dr. Sami Husseini, Ithaca, NY Said Jibrin, Bethesda, MD Anthony Jones, Alberta, Canada Omar & Nancy Kader, Vienna, VA Akram Karam, Charlotte, NC Mr. & Mrs. Basim Kattan, Washington, DC Martha Katz, Youngstown, OH Ambassador Robert Keeley, Washington, DC Gloria Keller, Santa Rosa, CA Rev. Charles Kennedy, Newbury, NH Susan Kerin, Gaithersburg, MD Dr. Mazen Khalidi, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI Akbar Khan, Princeton, NJ Dr. M. Jamil Khan, Bloomfield Hills, MI Majid Khan, Bloomfield Heights, MI
Dr. & Mrs. Assad Khoury, Potomac, MD N. Khoury, Pasadena, CA Paul Kirk, Baton Rouge, LA Donald Kouri, Quebec, Canada Ronald Kunde, Skokie, IL Kendall Landis, Media, PA William Lawand, Mount Royal, Canada Fran Lilleness, Seattle, WA J. Robert Lunney, Bronxville, NY Anthony Mabarak, Grosse Pointe Park, MI Helen Mabarak, Ann Arbor, MI Robert Mabarak, Grosse Pointe Park, MI A. Kent MacDougall, Berkeley, CA Peter MacHarrie, Silver Spring, MD Farah Mahmood, Forsyth, IL Eric Margolis, Toronto, Canada Joseph Mark, Carmel, CA Trini Marquez, Beach, ND Martha Martin, Paia, HI Tom & Tess McAndrew, Oro Valley, AZ Ben Monk, St. Paul, MN John & Ruth Monson, La Crosse, WI Maury Keith Moore, Seattle, WA Robert Moran, Richmond, VA Ahmed Mousapha, Madinah, Saudi Arabia Liz Mulford, Cupertino, CA John & Gabriella Mulholland, Alpharetta, GA Charles Murphy, Upper Falls, MD Joseph Najemy, Worcester, MA Jacob Nammar, San Antonio, TX Neal & Donna Newby, Mancos, CO Howard & Mary Norton, Austin, TX Michio Oka, El Sobrante, CA Dr. Ibrahim Oweiss, Kensington, MD John Pallone, Rapallo, Italy Edmond & Lorraine Parker, Chicago, IL Jim Plourd, Monterey, CA Patricia & Herbert Pratt, Cambridge, MA Catherine Quigley, Annandale, VA Cheryl Quigley, Toms River, NJ Dr. Amani Ramahi, Lakewood, OH Mr. & Mrs. Duane Rames, Mesa, AZ Nayla Rathle, Belmont, MA Frank & Mary Regier, Strongsville, OH Kyle Reynolds, Cypress, TX Neil Richardson, Randolph, VT
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Sean Roach, Washington, DC Rose Foundation/Wheeler and Makdisi Fund, Oakland, CA Dr. Wendell Rossman, Phoenix,AZ Brynhild Rowberg, Northfield, MN Edward & Alice Saad, Cheshire, CT Gabrielle & Jalal Saad, Oakland, CA Hameed Saba, Diamond Bar, CA Denis Sabourin, Dubai, United Arab Emirates Ma-moun Sakkal, Bothell, WA Dr. Yahya Salah, Amman, Jordan Anis Salib, Huntsville, AL Betty Sams, Washington, DC Elizabeth Schiltz, Kokomo, IN Dr. Abid Shah, Sarasota, FL Mahmud Shaikhaly, Hollywood, CA Theodore Shannon, Middleton, WI Lt. Col. Alfred Shehab, Odenton, MD Kathy Sheridan, Mill Valley, CA Shahida Siddiqui, Trenton, NJ Lucy Skivens-Smith, Dinwiddie, VA James Smart, Keene, NH Glenn Smith, Santa Rosa, CA Edgar Snell Jr., Schenectady, NY David Snider, Airmont, NY John Soderberg, Foley, AL Gregory Stefanatos, Flushing, NY Mae Stephen, Palo Alto, CA Mubadda Suidan, Atlanta, GA Beverly Swartz, Sarasota, FL Thomas & Carol Swepston, Englewood, FL Mr. & Mrs. Ayoub Talhami, Evanston, IL Dr. Yusuf Tamimi, Hilo, HI Joan Tanous, Boulder, CO Cheryl Tatum, Owensboro, KY John Theodosi, Lafayette, CA Charles Thomas, La Conner, WA Charles & Letitia Ufford, South Bristol, ME Paul Wagner, Bridgeville, PA Joseph Walsh, Adamsville, RI Carol Wells & Theodore Hajjar, Venice CA John V. Whitbeck, Paris, France Nabil Yakub, McLean, VA Bernice Youtz, Tacoma, WA Munir Zacharia, La Mirada, CA Dr. Henry Zeiter, Lodi, CA Hugh Ziada, Garden Grove, CA
ACCOMPANISTS ($250 or more) Michael & Jane Adas, Highland Park, NJ 66
Dr. Joseph Bailey, Valley Center, CA Dr. & Mrs. Issa J. Boullata, Montreal, Canada William Carey, Old Lyme, CT William Coughlin, Brookline, MA Mr. & Mrs. John Crawford, Boulder, CO Richard Curtiss, Boynton Beach, FL Mohamed Dabbagh, Mahwah, NJ Dr. Rafeek Farah, New Boston, MI Eugene Fitzpatrick, Wheat Ridge, CO E. Patrick Flynn, Carmel, NY Bill Gartland, Rio, WI Ray Gordon, Venice, FL H. Clark Griswold, Woodbury, CT Fahd Jajeh, Lake Forest, IL Issa & Rose Kamar, Plano, TX Sandra La Framboise, Oakland, CA Matt Labadie, Portland, OR Barbara Leclerq, Overland Park, KS Jack Love, Escondido, CA John Malouf, Lubbock, TX Amb. Clovis Maksoud, Washington, DC Jean Mayer, Bethesda, MD Bill McGrath, Northfield, MN Alice Nashashibi, San Francisco, CA John Parry, Chapel Hill, NC Hertha Poje-Ammoumi, New York, NY Sam Rahman, Lincoln, CA Ruth Ramsey, Blairsville, GA Henry Schubert, Damascus, OR Yusef & Jennifer Sifri, Wilmington, NC Michel & Cathy Sultan, Eau Claire, WI Union of Arab American Journalists, Dearborn, MI John Van Wagoner, McLean, VA James Wall, Elmhurst, IL Nigel Wright, Delmar, NY
TENORS & CONTRALTOS ($500 or more) Mohamed Alwan, Chestnut Ridge, NY Drs. A.J. and M.T. Amirana, Las Vegas, NV Dr. Lois Aroian, Willow Lake, SD Kamel Ayoub, Hillsborough, CA Dr. Joseph Bailey, Valley Center, CA Graf Herman Bender, North Palm Beach, FL Lois Critchfield, Williamsburg, VA Douglas A. Field, Kihei, HI Evan & Leman Fotos, Istanbul, Turkey
THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
Michael Habermann, Hackettstown, NJ Hind Hamdan, Hagerstown, MD Ambassador Holsey G. Handyside, Bedford, OH Salman & Kate Hilmy, Silver Spring, MD Brigitte Jaensch, Carmichael, CA Rachelle Marshall, Mill Valley, CA Paul Meyer, Iowa City, IA Bob Norberg, Lake City, MN William Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Grady, St. Petersburg, FL Gennaro Pasquale, Oyster Bay, NY Phil & Elaine Pasquini, Novato, CA Mr. & Mrs. Donn Trautman, Evanston, IL Ghulam Qadir & Huda Zenati, Dearborn, MI
BARITONES & MEZZO SOPRANOS ($1,000 or more) Asha Anand, Bethesda, MD The Estate of Pascal Biagini, Drexel Hill, PA Aston L. Bloom & Rev. Rosemarie Carnarius, Tucson, AZ Joe Chamy, Colleyville, TX Luella Crow, Eugene, OR Dr. & Mrs. Rod & Carole Driver, West Kingston, RI Linda Emmet, Paris, France Dr. & Mrs. Clyde Farris, West Linn, OR Gary Richard Feulner, Dubai, United Arab Emirates Dr. & Mrs. Hassan Fouda, Berkeley, CA Mary Ann Hrankowski, Rochester, NY** William Lightfoot, Vienna, VA John McLaughlin, Gordonsville, VA Luella Moffett, Virginia Beach, VA Mark Sheridan, Alexandria, VA
CHOIRMASTERS ($5,000 or more) Dick & Donna Curtiss, Kensington, MD* John & Henrietta Goelet, Meru, France Andrew I. Killgore, Washington, DC* *In memory of Grace Perolio **In memory of John Hrankowski AUGUST 2011
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American Educational Trust The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs P.O. Box 53062 Washington, DC 20009
August 2011 Vol. XXX, No. 6
A Syrian refugee brushes his daughterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hair in the Boynuyogun Turkish Red Crescent camp in the Altinozu district of MUSTAFA OZER/AFP/Getty Images Hatay, near the Syrian border, June 18, 2011.