WAGING PEACE

PHOTO S. TWAIR

Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool (l) and Hussam Ayloush at CAIR’s gala dinner in Anaheim, CA.

ered the keynote address. He highlighted the importance of resilience within the American Muslim community as it works to combat discrimination, Islamophobia and hate. “If one Muslim’s rights are violated, it means all the rights of others are violated,” he said.

Sheikh Ahmed Billoo, the religious director of the Islamic Center of Cypress, helped CAIR raise more than $500,000 during the dinner. —Samir Twair

Despite Gas Deal, Lebanon’s Humanitarian Crisis Continues

The closing panel of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations’ conference in Washington, DC on Nov. 3 featured an update on Lebanon by former U.S. ambassador to Morocco Edward M. Gabriel, who is also the president and CEO of the American Task Force on Lebanon (ATFL).

The maritime border agreement recently negotiated between Israel and Lebanon was “diplomacy at its best,” Gabriel asserted. “Now that the dispute and the threat of instability is gone, it will open up the market for investors to come in there in the oil and gas area.”

The deal reached on Oct. 11 between the two adversaries will bring “some sort of security to south Lebanon and bring some prosperity,” Gabriel said. Although economic benefits will not appear for five to eight years, “it was a great win for the region,” he averred. He believes that money generated by energy exploration off Lebanon’s shores should be put into a sovereign wealth fund to make sure it does not go to “corrupt politicians.”

In the short term, the outlook for Lebanon is still bleak. With a poverty rate at around 80 percent, the country’s humanitarian situation continues unabated, Gabriel noted. Fuel is in short supply and households only have electricity for two hours each day.

The United States’ proposal to bring Egyptian gas into Lebanon through Syria should increase power availability to about ten hours a day, Gabriel related. The arrangement is close to becoming a reality, he noted, and the Lebanese government is working to set up a regulatory commission that would independently regulate electricity. World Bank financing of the Egyptian gas deal is contingent on the creation of the commission.

Among other pressing issues, Gabriel noted that Lebanese universities are facing dire conditions. One private university doesn’t even have pens and paper and holds its classes virtually, he noted. Lebanon, once known for its education system, is losing about 40 percent of university workers and professors.

The country’s healthcare sector is still declining, and to improve medical services for the population the ATFL is attempting to send U.S. doctors to Lebanon. “We think that the healthcare problem is not shortterm,” Gabriel warned.

While parliamentary elections in May resulted in opposition parties acquiring more

MARWAN NAAMANI/PICTURE ALLIANCE VIA GETTY IMAGES A Lebanese woman shouts at policemen outside of a bank in the town of Hazmieh where two depositors broke in demanding access to their trapped U.S. dollar savings, on Nov. 2, 2022. Banks in Lebanon have imposed withdrawal limits on clients due to the country's financial meltdown.

seats than Hezbollah and its traditional allies, “the opposition must come together,” he insisted. A new president has not been elected since former president Michel Aoun’s term ended Oct. 30, but the parties are going through a democratic process “in which they are fighting with each other to elect the right kind of president,” Gabriel said. “The United States hopes the parliament chooses a president that meets the needs of the people of Lebanon and has the competence to lead it out of this disaster.” —Elaine Pasquini U.S. Policy and Yemen’s Path Forward

AHMAD AL-BASHA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES A man sells dried fish in an open‐air market in Taez, Yemen, on Oct. 4, 2022. The country is currently experiencing a food crisis due to the Ukraine war and its own civil war.

“Yemen in Focus” was the first of many panels addressing challenges facing the Arab world at the National Council on U.S.Arab Relations’ 31st Annual Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, DC on Nov. 2-3.

U.S. Special Envoy for Yemen Timothy Lenderking began by addressing ongoing peace efforts.

While the recently expired U.N.-mediated truce—which lasted from April 2 to Oct. 2— provided the Yemeni people with life-saving benefits and dramatically reduced civilian casualties, Lenderking stressed the need for an enduring peace plan originating within Yemen itself. “As the United States has said repeatedly, the future of Yemen lies in the hands of Yemenis,” he commented. “They are the ones who are going to make the key decisions about the disposition of their country.”

The parties to the conflict “can either build on this unprecedented period of calm and transition to a durable cease-fire and an inclusive political process or choose to return to a war that is crippling the country and robbing its people of a future,” Lenderking added.

Christopher Henzel, a former U.S. ambassador to Yemen, shared his view that the United States’ approach to Yemen is partly restrained by Washington’s relationship with other countries in the region, particularly Saudi Arabia and Israel. “What we do in Yemen is contained or limited by these higher priorities,” he commented. “In other words, the U.S. in reality lacks the freedom to simply walk away from Yemen or to even…cut off arms sales to Saudi Arabia. I feel that is very unlikely to happen.”

The best way ahead is for the U.S. to continue encouraging the parties to maintain or renew the cease-fire, Henzel recommended, and to continue to encourage the Saudis in their direct engagement with the Houthis. “After all, in the end, only the Saudis can offer the monetary incentives that will be needed to persuade the Houthis to compromise,” he said.

Sarah Charles of USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance conveyed the United States’ continued humanitarian support for Yemenis.

Despite the relief provided by the truce, Yemenis’ needs continue to grow at an alarming rate and the humanitarian crisis in the country remains one of the worst in the world, she said. Nearly 75 percent of the population requires humanitarian assistance to just meet basic needs. “Nineteen million Yemenis are in need of food assistance and more than two million young children face deadly malnutrition,” she noted.

Highly fortified nutritional products that support the most malnourished children under the age of five are particularly needed, Charles related. “[Humanitarian] interventions can work quite quickly to restore children from really being at death’s door to thriving,” she said. “But if [malnutrition is] not treated, this impacts their brain development, their ability to learn and grow much later in life.”

The threat of renewed conflict will only further strain an already stretched aid operation, and the U.N.’s humanitarian appeal for Yemen is only 48 percent funded. The United States has provided more than $1 billion this year alone, which accounts for more than half of all contributions made by donors. “We are the top donor by far,” she stated. “Every month food provided by the United States reaches 13 million vulnerable people in Yemen.”

David Des Roches, associate professor in the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University, summed up the global food crisis. “If you have a food crisis, you have political instability,” he said. “This hunger situation is real, and it will lead to political instability, and it is much bigger than Yemen, although Yemen is one of the worst cases.” —Elaine Pasquini

HUSSEIN FALEH/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

A woman on a campaign poster in the Iraqi city of Basra, on Oct. 6, 2021.

Women’s Role in Peace and Security Efforts

On Nov. 29, the Gulf International Forum held a panel discussion on its new report, “Women, Peace and Security: Gulf Perspectives on Integration, Inclusiveness and Integrity,” which was organized in partnership with the U.S. Mission to NATO.

The session included the following speakers: Ambassador Rend Al-Rahim, co-founder and president of the Iraq Foundation and former Iraqi ambassador to the U.S.; Dr. Banafsheh Keynoush, president of MidEast Analysts; Maali Al-Asousi, former director of Direct Aid in Yemen; and Dr. Mira Al Hussein, non-resident fellow at the Gulf International Forum and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford.

Low levels of formal representation are one challenge facing women in peace and security. Al-Rahim believes that international scrutiny of the Iraqi parliament led to the creation of documents that mandate key roles for women, including the 25 percent quota for women in parliament set forth in the Iraqi constitution of 2005. By 2021, female representation in Iraq’s parliament reached 29 percent, exceeding the mandated level. However, she explained this has not translated into real influence on issues of national security, nor clear parliamentary effectiveness, and women’s voices remain absent from male-dominated circles that are decisive in setting security policies.

Al Hussein emphasized the same point by focusing on the fact that the appointment of women to leadership positions in the Gulf is aimed at containing international criticism and achieving high rankings on global indices of gender equality. According to Al Hussein, “In the Gulf, women’s inclusion is determined by their acquiescence to the state and its official narrative, and their ability to serve the state’s mission…They’re the soft power of the state, a public-facing image of the state that beautifies the message. It could be a message about ‘let’s purchase these fighter jets and let’s go bomb this country,’ but it’s nicer when it’s said by a woman, it’s less malignant.”

In Iran, women are similarly welcomed into government only if they don’t question official policies and practices, including those biased against women. “Gender sectarianizing, therefore, happens, perpetrated by the state, and its policies of exclusion of women who do not subscribe to state-led security policies or state-dictated forms of nationalism,” Keynoush said.

Furthermore, women are not empowered in diplomatic and academic fields despite their ability to play a broader role in peacemaking. In the words of Al-Rahim, “Now we have many think tanks [in Iraq]. Women are absent from these think tanks, they are not represented, whether by default or choice. Women really need to enter these knowledge-rich and policy-rich environments and platforms because that’s how you get known.”

Civil wars in some countries of the region have caused social gaps that seriously impact the role of women. Al-Asousi pointed to two main gaps in Yemeni society: first, the emigration of activists and influencers abroad, and thus the loss of their initiatives, expertise and abilities to limit conflicts; and second, the closure of most embassies, which has led to the suspension of many community development programs and projects, with local initiatives becoming weaker and lacking the necessary funding and sponsorship. Most international organizations and commissions have begun to focus primarily on humanitarian aid and have neglected the empowerment of individual activists and the building of social capabilities, she noted.

The participants proposed various ideas for dealing with the challenges impeding women’s participation in the fields of security and peace, including international sponsorship of awareness programs about the importance of empowering women in peacebuilding processes; inclusion of expatriate activists in national dialogues on women’s empowerment; the continued imposition of women’s participation in legislatures to break stereotypes about the role of women and facilitate their assumption of leadership positions; and promoting education as a mechanism for achieving women’s financial security and enabling them to assume leadership positions. —Mona Ali

Veterans Question the U.S. Military’s Role in the World

On Nov. 11, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft held a virtual discussion with four veterans of the United States’ post-9/11 wars. Army veterans Jason Dempsey, Joy Damiani and Erik Edstrom, along with Marine Corps veteran Gil Barndollar, reflected on their service and how it impacted their perception of the United States and its foreign wars.

The four veterans first discussed how their military service changed their outlook on citizenship, war and the United States’

A military recruitment center in Brooklyn, NY, pictured on Sept. 4, 2020.

place in the world. “What it taught me about citizenship,” Dempsey began, is to “be engaged, be critical and be questioning.” Citizenship means critically examining the value of one’s service, what the government is doing and how it makes decisions, he said.

Barndollar criticized the U.S. military’s branding as an all-volunteer force, preferring the term “all-recruited force” because few people join for idealistic reasons. He lamented that most citizens do not contribute anything to the U.S. military except by “passively paying the bill,” which leads to apathy about its actions. “We have a system in which the majority of Americans have no skin in the game, despite being, functionally, an empire,” he explained. Barndollar’s service, especially in Afghanistan, reinforced for him “both how overmilitarized our foreign policy is…and at the same time what the limits of military power are.”

Damiani disparaged the military as an institution as well as its role in the U.S. and the world. She believes she was “suckered” into enlisting by a military that knew she had no other opportunities for professional advancement. Her time in the Army, she said, “caused me to question everything I was ever told.” Damiani believes that “the United States military is the largest terrorist organization in the world” and that “the only way forward is to abolish the military and use the money for things that actually help people.” Reflecting on her personal role in the Army as a public affairs officer, she described herself as “mixing the Kool-Aid” to “help create the narratives that keep the other soldiers fighting.”

Edstrom celebrated critical veteran voices, emphasizing that dissent is vital and strengthens the national debate. “If you see something wrong as a citizen, it is your obligation to attempt to right it,” he added. The “war on terror,” he observed, was a “strategically stupid decision” that resulted in countless civilian and U.S. military deaths, and will also burden future generations with debt.

Edstrom questioned why American generals and political leaders continued to devote more and more resources to wars that returned worse and worse outcomes. If the leadership did not see this coming, he continued, either they are “absolute dimwits” or the military institutions themselves are “educationally bereft and barren.” If, however, the leadership did know the wars were lost causes, then they were either lying or did not have the courage to speak out. Either way, he insisted, “this should require an absolute reckoning over how the U.S. operates as a military,” and the military leaders responsible need to be removed from command.

The veterans elaborated on the systemic failings of the all-volunteer force. “Americans have the privilege to not care about what the military is doing,” noted Dempsey, adding that there is just a “spectrum of unquestioning fandom.” Barndollar advocated for a much smaller military that would reduce its role to national defense, as well as a selective conscription system instead of the all-volunteer system. Damiani countered that the system is not actually broken, but rather is functioning as intended: to control, oppress, seize power and perpetuate war. Edstrom envisioned a society that raised the standard of living for the disadvantaged so they could imagine other possibilities for their future besides joining the military. —Alex Shanahan The Work of Churches in the Holy Land

On Nov. 16, the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs at Georgetown University held a memorial lecture to honor the late Rev. Drew Christiansen, S.J., who died on April 6, 2022. As a frequent consultant to the Holy See and a member of the Catholic Peacebuilding Network’s steering committee, Fr. Christiansen worked to raise awareness about the challenges facing Christians living in the Middle East.

The evening’s lecturer, Sami ElYousef, the chief executive officer of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, provided a thorough analysis of the human impact of the various Christian organizations in the Holy Land.

While governing authorities have changed regularly in the Holy Land over the past 100 years, El-Yousef described Christian institutions as an enduring and essential constant for the people of the region. He noted his own immediate family’s unique history of living under Ottoman, British, Jordanian and Israeli rule in Jerusalem. “Four generations born in the same city, and yet each generation has a birth certificate issued by a different governing authority,” he pointed out. “Despite this unstable situation, what has been a constant safety net in people’s lives has been the church.”

DOMINIKA ZARZYCKA/NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES

Palestinian kindergarten students gather outside of Good Shepherd Catholic Church in the West Bank city of Jericho, on April 1, 2019.

El-Yousef noted that churches—spanning from the Orthodox Church to Protestant denominations—provide a large number of critical services in the Holy Land, such as education and healthcare, despite the fact that Christians make up less than one percent of the population of Palestine, and less than two percent of the combined population of Israel and Palestine. He said that an estimated 37 percent of the population in Palestine is in some way reached by a church institution. “It should be stressed that the services provided are in all instances open to all sectors of society, with no discrimination in any way,” he noted.

In Palestine alone, there are 296 various church institutions that play an important role in fostering societal infrastructure, El-Yousef explained. Among those, 93 specialize in education (many of them being Catholic schools), 19 provide health services and 47 are social services such as orphanages and senior citizen care centers. Elsewhere in the Holy Land, he noted that churches provide assistance to migrants in Israel and refugees in Jordan. In many instances, churches are the only institutions offering quality and dignified social services to local populations, he said.

With limited resources, El-Yousef noted that many Christian institutions are under constant financial strain, especially as donors grow weary of maintaining old buildings and aging infrastructure. Given that they serve all of society—Muslims, Jews, Christians and others—he said it’s critical that generous individuals keep the good work of the churches viable.

A perhaps even harder task is keeping Christians in the Holy Land, he acknowledged. Many leave due to political instability, security concerns and financial strains, he noted. As their numbers dwindle, El-Yousef said it’s important for Christians not to move inward, but to be integrated members of the broader society.

Politically, he said the churches often rely on their allies outside of the Holy Land to push for change. Churches are weary of authorities targeting their essential humanitarian work in retaliation for their political activism, he said. “We must be reserved at times with local authorities, to avoid conflicts,” he explained. “That is when the international groups need to be more vocal.” He said fellow Christians must not “simply give up if a conflict like ours has become chronic.” —Reilly Holder

Palestinian Solidarity at Scottish Christmas Walk

Who doesn’t love a parade? For the second year in a row, the Palestinian American Friendship and Cultural Association marched in the Scottish Christmas Walk through downtown Alexandria, VA on Dec. 3. Marchers wearing keffiyahs, tatreez and Santa hats carried a huge banner and led a pickup truck festooned with Palestinian American solidarity signs and flags. The jolly musical street theater brought the voices of too-often silenced Palestinians into the celebration. In spite of a cold damp day, the smiles, applause and solidarity of parade attendees warmed up

PHOTO COURTESY PATRICK EVINGER

manding fundamental change and more representative rights.”

Rezaian reported from Iran for the Washington Post for several years until he was arrested on espionage charges in 2014. He subsequently spent 544 days in Tehran’s infamous Evin prison.

Kirsten Fontenrose, a non-resident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative, enumerated the indicators that political analysts look for as signs that a protest movement is seriously threatening a sitting regime.

The high participation of men in protests is one indicator, and presently men are out on the streets along with women, Fontenrose noted.

How well the sitting government is functioning is another gauge. “We’re looking at whether the security services have been undermined, and they are not,” Fontenrose said. Political elite infighting and elite support of the opposition, both important indicators, presently are not happening at high levels either, she added.

The turndown of the economy, which is presently the case in Iran, is another sign a regime is in trouble.

But Fontenrose said the most important indicators of political change are: an organized resistance, a charismatic opposition leader, an off-ramp for the current government and whether workers in the gas and oil industry go on strike. All of these critical components are presently missing in Iran, she noted, making the imminent fall of the government unlikely.

Rezaian’s wife, Yeganeh Rezaian, a senior researcher at the Committee to Protect Journalists who was also detained by Iran in 2014, explained the difference between the current protests and the large 2009 Green Movement demonstrations. This time, she said, “the protesters are asking for fundamental change, not for small changes. People are not asking for reform within the system; people are asking for the change of the system.”

The younger generation is out in the streets “sacrificing everything they have, including their lives,” she noted. “I call it a women-led revolution because it started as a protest against 40 years of gender apartheid that this regime has imposed on Iranian women.”

Arash Azizi, an adjunct instructor at New York University who focuses on the history of socialist and Islamist revolutionary movements, said the government of President Ebrahim Raisi has lost its legitimacy and fails to represent Iranians on basic levels.

Azizi addressed the lack of formal opposition groups within the country. “Because of repression inside Iran, people have not made effective political organizations,” he explained. “Some regimes, I believe, you can overthrow without organization, but the Islamic Republic is not one of them.”

Azizi reminded the audience that “there is an Iran beyond this regime,” and the world should “legitimize Iranian civil society because we will be part of the future of Iran.”

“There will be a life beyond this regime,” Azizi declared. “The idea that it will always be in power is not true. It is quite clear that the Iranian nation-state…has traditions that go way back before the [1979 Islamic] Revolution and they will be here to stay, but this regime won’t be.”

“Despite all of our differences, what gives me hope is that the national identity of Iranians is strong and has a lot of credence compared to many countries,” he concluded. —Elaine Pasquini On Nov. 21 Jocelyne Cesari, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, along with Kalpana Jain, a journalist and editor at The Conversation US, delivered a discussion on the rise of antiMuslim hate speech and violence in India. Combining scholarly and journalistic perspectives, the two argued that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have constructed hostile attitudes toward Muslims among the country’s Hindu majority.

After Modi came to power in 2014, India experienced a large increase in anti-Muslim religious violence, with many conflicts centered around allegations of Muslims illegally selling and consuming cow meat. Modi and many prominent members of the BJP contributed to the hatred through their inflammatory rhetoric and their unwillingness to address or punish instances of violence against Muslims.

The pandemic exasperated religious tensions in many unprecedented ways. As Cesari pointed out, Muslims were arbitrarily denied basic needs: “Muslims were prevented in some cases from getting into hospitals. Their businesses were shut down.”

WASEEM ANDRABI/HINDUSTAN TIMES VIA GETTY IMAGES Muslim worshipers gather outside the Hazratbal Shrine in Srinagar, India to venerate a relic of the Prophet Muhammad on the occasion of the prophet’s birthday (Eid‐e‐Milad), on Oct. 14, 2022.