MUSLIM AMERICAN ACTIVISM

AMP Event Calls for a Rejuvenated Palestinian Movement

The New Jersey chapter of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) held a conference titled “Liberating Palestine: The Time is Now” at Rutgers University’s Newark, NJ campus on Jan. 28. The event, which featured a bazaar, Palestinian art and entertainment and several panel discussions, was both a celebration of Palestinian culture and a call to double down on efforts to advance the liberation of the Palestinian people.

Harsh critiques of movements to normalize relations with Israel were frequent throughout the day. Sayel Kayed, a member of AMP-NJ, noted that interfaith movements can be used as mechanisms to whitewash Israeli human rights violations. Such initiatives, increasingly organized by pro-Israel groups, often send delegations of Christians or Muslims to Israel and give them a sterilized view of the “conflict.” In addition to winning support for Israel among participants, the trip organizers and the Israeli hasbara network use the delegations as propaganda to show that Israel welcomes all people, not just Jews.

Kayed said it’s important to boycott these disingenuous initiatives, and to instead engage with organizations genuinely committed to Palestinian rights. While most pro-Israel organizations classify boycotts of Zionist groups and goods as anti-Semitism, he noted that Zionists come from all backgrounds, including Jews, Christians and Muslims (as evidenced by the Abraham Accords). Thus, he said, there is a clear distinction between intolerable anti-Semitism and justifiable anti-Zionism.

Beyond being careful not to legitimize Israel, Kayed encouraged attendees to become more active with engaging their members of Congress, even if they have a pro-Israel orientation. “We’re not making enough calls, emails or meetings” with elected officials, he said, noting that the pro-

Israel lobby is constantly in the halls and offices of Congress. He also encouraged proPalestine groups not to let members of Congress use the community for photo ops, like visiting a mosque on a religious holiday, even though they refuse to engage the community on Palestine.

Nerdeen Kiswani, an activist and recent graduate from CUNY Law, discussed the depths pro-Israel groups go to attack and among her peers. “I was overwhelmed with the support I was getting” from fellow students, she said, noting that she became more popular on campus with each attack. She said she took each affront as an opportunity to personalize the Palestine issue and teach others about how Israel and its supporters treat Palestinians from Jerusalem to New York. defame Palestine activists on college campuses. “Zionist organizations make it their mission to make you feel afraid,” she noted. Due to her outspoken advocacy on campus, Kiswani was relentlessly targeted by the Israel lobby: the Act.IL app organized a campaign that resulted in 19,000 emails being sent to her school demanding that she be expelled; and in 2020, the group Stopantisemitism.org named Kiswani anti-Semite of the year. “They made it their mission to take me down,” she said. “It was unrelenting attack after attack for three straight years.”

Kiswani said her ordeal taught her the importance of “being proactive, not just reactive.” While this is hard due to the constant, well-funded attacks, she said staying focused on her goals helped her not become distracted or discouraged. Ultimately, her focus paid off, as the CUNY Law faculty passed a pro-BDS resolution one day before Kiswani’s graduation—and she was chosen by her peers to deliver a commencement address.

Despite their best efforts, Kiswani said the Zionist groups failed to delegitimize her activists should be encouraging the U.S. government to block visas to illegal Israeli settlers and sanction Israeli groups that facilitate human rights violations. She also advised activists to demand that the IRS investigate U.S. non-profit organizations that help fund violations of human rights and international law in Palestine.

Mohamad Habehh, AMP’s director of development, said it’s important for campus (and all) advocates to be careful about what they say and who they work with, because pro-Israel groups are constantly looking for ways to entrap and smear Palestinian activists. “All they need is one thing, and they’ll never leave you alone,” he noted. Nonetheless, he said organizers play a critical role in the movement, as they inform others about what is happening in Palestine. Citing an article from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, he pointed out that the more people know about Israel, the less they like the country. Meanwhile, the more people know about Palestine, the more they support Palestinians.

On this note, Lamis Deek, a human rights attorney, stressed the power of the average person to make a difference—and the even greater power and potential of people working en masse for Palestine. Both the facts and the law do not comport with the Zionist narrative, she said, meaning that convincing individuals, companies and governments to support the Palestinian cause is an entirely achievable (yet challenging) prospect.

In order to form effective movements, Shamas said activists will have to grapple with forming “broad based and uncomfortable” coalitions with groups who are not natural allies. She also encouraged activists to engage and teach those who are not familiar with the Palestinian struggle. “We need to do a lot of thinking about how we’re going to make compelling arguments to those folks,” she said.

Dale Sprusansky

Waging Peace

Activist Miko Peled introduced Amro and began by inviting him to describe Hebron. It is clear that he loves the city (“the most beautiful Palestinian city”) and its residents. In the old city of Hebron (a UNESCO World Heritage site), residents must place nets over their doorways to catch the garbage that settlers on upper floors throw down on them regularly. The physical and psychological terrorism are unrelenting.

The perpetrator of the 1994 massacre of 29 Palestinians in Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque, American-Israeli doctor Baruch Goldstein, is considered a hero by the new Knesset members. About two years after the massacre, the Hebron Redeployment Agreement was signed, which split Hebron into two sections: H-1, to be under the control of the Palestinian Authority, and H-2 (the old city of Hebron), under the control of Israel. About 20,000 Palestinians and a few hundred Israeli settlers live in H-2.

get essential services. Since an ambulance requires a permit to reach Palestinians in the old city, you can only hope that you never have a medical emergency. Many Palestinians have been unable to live under these conditions, and they’ve moved away.

“The settlers don’t physically throw you out of your house, but they make it impossible for you to stay,” Amro noted. But that could change: since the recent Israeli elections, emboldened settlers run through Hebron chanting, “burn Hebron.” Throughout Palestine, in fact, settlers go to Palestinian neighborhoods with specific messages of doom: “We will bring a second Nakba” and “we will do to you more than what they did to you in 1948, we will finish the job.”

Issa Amro:

“This Government Is the Real Face of Israel”

During the last weekend in January, Palestinian human rights defender Issa Amro spoke to audiences at Busboys and Poets and Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington, DC. Amro, a 42-year-old engineer and activist in Hebron, is a cofounder of the Youth Against Settlements organization, which works with Hebron’s residents to resist the violence of the Israeli settlers living in their midst. Hebron’s Jewish settlements spawned two of the more openly fascist members of the new Israeli government. Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionist party, is finance minister and oversees the Civil Administration, which approves settlement building and controls Palestinian lives; Itamar Ben-Gvir, an Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party leader who was once convicted of racism, is now national security minister, with responsibility for the police and an enormous budget at his disposal. Amro, who is committed to nonviolent resistance and has been arrested too many times to count, has had interactions with both. “These are dark days in Palestine and especially in Hebron,” he told the Busboys and Poets audience on Jan. 27.

Living under such conditions is clearly exhausting, not to mention scary. “You don’t feel safe in your own home, and you certainly don’t feel that your family members are safe,” Amro said. Israel established 22 checkpoints in an area less than one square kilometer, as well as 100 movement barriers. They also make it impossible to

Amro explained that the settlers are working to remove the Palestinian identity of Hebron through such things as pressuring residents to leave and changing place names to Hebrew names and putting street signs in blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag. Shuhada Street, the main commercial thoroughfare, is closed to Palestinians.

Amro said the acknowledgment that Israel is an apartheid state by human rights organizations was late in coming, consid- ering that the evidence has been in plain sight for a long time: “We live under Israeli military law, and the Israelis living next to us live under Israeli civilian law,” he noted. “This is the precise definition of apartheid: two sets of laws in the same area for different people.”

The situation in Hebron is what is in store for all Palestinians in the future, Amro tells us. He sees Hebron as a microcosm of the Israeli occupation. “We are trying to counter the settler strategy to evacuate the Palestinians. We are trying to create an infrastructure for the Palestinians to remain.”

He expressed gratitude to the audience for their activism and insisted that visits from internationals break the sense of isolation that Hebron residents sometimes experience, while also giving them hope.

Although Amro was reluctant to tell the audience what to do, he rattled off a list of creative options that people could consider to express their solidarity. He urged the audience to “make fighting the occupation part of your daily routine. Every day, think about what you can do to fight the occupation and make it costly.” Media campaigns are helpful; letters to newspaper editors and elected officials are helpful. Educate taxpayers that they are giving $3.8 billion a year to fascists like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. “And we want you to protect the human rights defenders back home. We need that from you. And we need you not to lose hope. We are all in the same fight.”

The entire inspiring talk, which includes an account of how a group of determined activists snatched a Palestinian home in Tel Rumaida out of the grip of settlers who had long been eyeing it, can be viewed at: <https://bit.ly/40cuVfQ>.—Ida Audeh

Ken Roth on Harvard Hiring Controversy Regarding Israel

On its Jan. 11 live show, Palestine Deep Dive (PDD), in collaboration with the Foreign Press Association of New York, hosted human rights grandee Ken Roth. The former long-time executive director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) reacted to Harvard University’s decision to pull its offer to make him a fellow at the institution’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy due to his criticisms of Israel. A week after the interview—and following much public outrage— Harvard reversed its decision and extended an offer to Roth.

According to Roth, the department contacted him soon after he announced his retirement from HRW last year, asking if “in principle” he would be interested in a senior fellowship position. Agreeing, Roth said he was told, “look, the only formality is to get the dean’s approval.”

Two weeks following a “perfectly pleasant” conversation with the Kennedy School of Government’s dean, Douglas Elmendorf, “the Carr Center called me up and they were incredibly embarrassed,” Roth recalled. “They said, ‘the dean vetoed you because of your criticism of Israel.’”

Observing Elmendorf does not have a public position on Israel-Palestine, Roth told Palestine Deep Dive that he assumes Harvard’s backtracking was due to donor pressure. “I don’t think it was personal animus, personal prejudice,” he said. “I don’t think that was the factor. The only thing that anybody has been able to think of that’s a plausible explanation is donor influence.”

Still, questions remain. “What we don’t know is how that influence was exerted,” Roth noted. “Did Elmendorf call up certain donors and ask them their view? Did he just anticipate what their views were?”

In a Jan. 19 statement, Elmendorf insisted the initial decision to deny Roth a po- sition was not based on donor pressure or Roth’s criticisms of Israel. “My decision was not influenced by donors,” he said. “Donors do not affect our consideration of academic matters. My decision also was not made to limit debate at the Kennedy School about human rights in any country. As a community we are steadfastly committed to free inquiry and including a wide range of views on public policy.” He added that he “made an error” by denying Roth a position.

In 2021, HRW released a damning 213page report describing in-depth the nature of Israel’s systematic oppression of the Palestinian people, with the conclusion that, beyond any doubt, Israel is practicing the crime of apartheid. “I think it’s fair to say that the recognition that the Israeli government is committing the crime of apartheid has become the mainstream understanding within the human rights community,” Roth noted. “I actually don’t know any serious human rights activist who’s involved in this issue who doesn’t believe that.”

Roth acknowledges he was “not the primary victim” of this scandal, since his clout offers him ample opportunities beyond Harvard. Rather, his concern lies with the broader issue of intimidation and academic freedom when it comes to criticizing Israel. “My concern is that younger academics are going to take a message from this episode and say, ‘oh my goodness, if I criticize Israel, that could be a career-killing move.

I could face retaliation.’ That's a horrible message to send.”

With an endowment of over $50 billion, Harvard is considered the world’s richest university. According to the Harvard Crimson, the university invests almost $200 million in companies the U.N. lists as being tied to illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine.

Roth noted the irony over Harvard’s decision: “There’s much more attention to not only the issue of academic freedom, but also Israeli human rights violations than there would be if they had just let me show up and work on my book.”

Roth told a local Boston public radio station, WGBH, that he intends to accept the reintroduced fellowship but remains uneasy about how the school responded to the controversy. “I’m still hoping that there will be a broader statement of principle coming from Harvard or the Kennedy School or both that makes clear that criticism of Israel is never a justified reason for penalizing scholars or students,” he is quoted as saying. “That’s what we really need now to make something positive out of this sorry episode.”—Palestine Deep Dive Staff

AIPAC Holds Under-the-Radar Gathering

As our readers know, our annual Israel lobby conference (IsraelLobbyCon) at the National Press Club, cohosted by the Washington Report and Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep), has traditionally preceded the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) Policy Conference. This conference’s timing provided added reason for many activists to travel to Washington, DC to protest AIPAC at the Washington Convention Center.

AIPAC’s 2020 conference was one of the first COVID-19 superspreaders, and in 2021 and 2022, the self-described “largest annual gathering of America’s pro-Israel movement,” boasting 15-20,000 attendees and scores of politicians from both sides of the aisle, quietly canceled their meetings. We went ahead and held ours at the National Press Club in March 2022, asking our speakers to address “Transcending the Israel Lobby at Home and Abroad,” and even added a special gala dinner the night before. But large, establishment media such as the Washington Post and New York Times, generally avoid covering only experts critical of Israel and the lobby unless they can cover “both sides.” Unlike previous years, they did not send reporters. Even C-SPAN, which for years provided reliable coverage, ghosted IsraelLobbyCon.

As other organizations also restarted their in-person conferences last year, the Jewish Federations of North America quietly took down their announcement about an upcoming March 2023 AIPAC policy conference. The Federations’ own 2022 meeting was not open to the press and was closed to non-members.

On Jan. 9, 2023, the sounds of sirens split the air up the street from our office, coming from the Washington Hilton hotel. There were also 30 idling DC police cars surrounding the Hilton. That only happens twice a year—during the National Prayer Breakfast and when AIPAC attendees are shuttled from the hotel to the DC Convention Center for their conference downtown.

Of course, we tried to cover the Hilton event, announced only the prior week, but after going through metal detectors and showing my press credentials I was denied entry. So I missed hearing AIPAC leaders plan their 2024 congressional election strat- egy, or U.S. lawmakers and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin addressing the gathering. I also missed learning how AIPAC will support Israel’s right-wing extremist parties that make up their current government. What are their plans to inspire American lawmakers to rubber stamp planned changes to Israel’s judiciary and the annexation of the West Bank?

“Have no fear,” leaders at the confab may have crowed. It will be easier now that AIPAC has its own PAC and Super PAC. AIPAC raised more than $17 million in the last election cycle to support the 365 Democratic and Republican candidates that it endorsed. AIPAC’s United Democracy Project Super PAC spent $28 million to defeat candidates, including many progressive Democrats, and promote candidates, including 2020 election-deniers.

—Delinda C. Hanley

Exploring Palestinian Views on Anti-Semitism

Israel’s supporters often suggest that antiSemitism is deeply rooted within the Palestinian ethos. High-profile but unrepresentative incidents of Palestinian antiSemitism—such as Haj Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, meeting with Adolf Hitler in 1941—typically form the backbone of these accusations. To inject more nuance into this conversation, the Foundation for Middle East Peace’s “Occupied Thoughts” podcast recorded an episode titled “Palestinian Views on AntiSemitism from the 19th Century to the Present Day” on Dec. 22, 2022.

Jehad Abusalim, the education and policy coordinator of the American Friends Service Committee’s Palestine Activism Program, rejected the idea that anti-Semitism is prevalent in Palestine.

Placing the conversation within the history of the broader Arab world, Abusalim highlighted the uproar that took place in Beirut in 1869 when a booklet pushing antiSemitic claims of Jewish blood libel began to circulate. Leading Arab intellectuals “waged a powerful campaign asking Ottoman authorities to confiscate this book and to search for the author, and to basically end the existence of this piece of literature that they found disgusting and ridiculous,” he said.

When Nazism swept Europe during World War II, many Palestinians and other Arabs again condemned anti-Semitism. During the war, the Palestine Broadcasting Service regularly disseminated pro-Allied information, Abusalim noted. In one widely circulated interview, Egyptian poet and intellectual Ibrahim Abd al-Qadir al-Mazini condemned Nazism as being fundamentally opposed to the Arab and Islamic values of hospitality, generosity and care for the weak.

Similarly, Abusalim pointed to the work of Palestinian intellectual Muhammad Najati Sidqi, who in 1940 published The Islamic Traditions and the Nazi Principles: Can They Agree? The book warned that “Nazism is an evil ideology that Arabs and Muslims shouldn’t adopt,” Abusalim said.

This history of fighting antiSemitism is often ignored by mainstream news outlets and analysts. While al-Husseini’s warm relations with leading Nazis should not be dismissed, it must be placed within its proper context by noting that he did not represent the consensus of Palestinian thinking, Abusalim emphasized.

The violent creation of the state of Israel in 1948 opened a new, complicated chapter in Arab-Jewish relations and did lead to an increase in anti-Semitism in the region, Abusalim acknowledged—though he again stressed that context is essential. Every day, he noted, Palestinians experience violence, oppression and occupation at the hands of a government that claims to represent all Jewish people. Despite this, most Palestinian individuals and entities reject anti-Semitism, but some inevitably fail to distinguish between Judaism and the acts of the Israeli state. “It can be challenging to promote this nuance while this violence is being committed in the name of this [Zionist] narrative and in the name of these ideas that say this is a Jewish state for the Jewish people,” Abusalim said.

The most prominent example of antiSemitism in modern Palestinian society is the 1988 Hamas charter, which borrowed from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion Abusalim believes the receptiveness to such anti-Semitism reflects the trauma and shock Palestinians felt after losing wars in

1948, 1967 and 1973 to the new Zionist state. “In a moment where people were trying to make sense of defeat” at the hands of a new country, such conspiratorial thinking gained traction, he said.

Abusalim said one tragic irony is that the expulsion and occupation of Palestinians by Israel separated many Palestinians from their intellectual tradition that opposed antiSemitism. “Due to the Nakba of 1948, Palestinians lost touch with this intellectual tradition, because we lost our newspapers…the Palestinian library was looted and destroyed in 1948,” he noted. Abusalim also pointed out that during the 1970s and 1980s, Israel heavily limited Palestinians’ ability to engage in political conversations, travel and read. “There are psychological and emotional factors behind why people who are cut off from the rest of the world, who don’t live in a place with a thriving cultural and literary scene can resort to such literature [as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion],” he said.

Hamas removed blatantly anti-Semitic language from its 2017 charter. The new document says, in part, “Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project, not with the Jews because of their religion.” This, Abusalim said, shows that Palestinian organizations do evolve and should not be forever tied to one view or statement.

Abusalim, who is completing his Ph.D. in the History and Hebrew and Judaic Studies joint program at New York University, concluded by emphasizing that incidents of Palestinian anti-Semitism must not be swept under the rug, nor be exaggerated or brought up in bad faith. “People still use the mufti while dismissing all the other examples of Palestinian resistance to anti-Semitism, to Nazism, to fascism,” he said. “I think these obsessions aren’t constructive in making sense of the Palestinian experience and why people make certain choices.”—

Dale Sprusansky

Egypt: In Need of Revolution or Reform?

The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy held a webinar on Jan. 25 to commemorate the 12th anniversary of the 2011 Egyptian revolution, which deposed long-time strong- man President Hosni Mubarak. Panelists discussed the state of the opposition movement within the country amid the repressive policies of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s government.

Nancy Okail, the president and CEO of The Center for International Policy, noted that Egyptians choosing to merely share testimonies and stories from the revolution is “an act of resistance,” since doing so often contradicts the state’s telling of history. After overthrowing the democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, via a military coup in 2013, Sisi has returned Egypt to authoritarian rule and worked to systematically stifle any space for political expression. As such, his government aims to suppress memories of the 2011 populist revolt against Mubarak. “The Egyptian government is still doing all that is in its power to dominate and manipulate the narrative about the revolution,” Okail commented.

Abdelrahman Mansour, an Egyptian activist currently living in exile, said that while Sisi enjoys near absolute control over the country, he is ultimately vulnerable due to Egypt’s struggling economy and the growing (albeit suppressed) sense of frustration among the country’s more than 100 million residents. Despite his revolutionary background, Mansour is encouraging the Sisi government to reform itself rather than step down. “We are not asking for a revolution,” he stated. “We are asking for this country to be in a better place—for the interest of everyone, including the army and Sisi.”

Just because there are not massive demonstrations in the streets does not mean people aren’t reaching a boiling point, Mansour cautioned. “People are collectively smart and hide when they think their lives are under any threat or risk” for speaking out, he noted. However, as 2011 demonstrated, frustrations can escalate into massive street movements quickly. Therefore, the government needs to “read the anger on the streets and be smart and wise” about addressing the concerns of the people, Mansour advised. Genuine civil and economic reforms are a win-win “moderate” solution that keeps Sisi in power and gives the people hope for a better future, he said.

Mansour emphasized that all actors in Egypt desperately need to adopt a forwardlooking approach, as he believes the country is stalled and lacks a national plan. “Sisi is stuck in 2011 or 2013, the Muslim Brotherhood are stuck in the moment of 2013 [when they were violently suppressed by Sisi’s forces] and some revolutionary groups are stuck in different moments,” he said. “To go forward, to create a new future, we can reflect, we can think, we can revisit our memories, but also there is a need to think about the future and our current crisis.” Under the failing status quo, he warned, “no one is protected in Egypt…even the people running the country are under threat.”

Rusha Latif, the author of Tahrir's Youth: Leaders of a Leaderless Revolution, refuted two myths about the 2011 uprising. The idea that the revolution was spontaneous is “ahistorical,” she said. In the decade prior to Jan. 2011, many opposition networks and movements formed and spoke up regarding myriad issues, “building up a culture of resistance in Egypt.” However, these groups were not planning to overthrow the government until the 2010/2011 Tunisian revolution provided an unexpected “trigger” for a revolutionary movement, Latif noted.

While the revolution was successful and untied cross-sections of Egyptian society, the lack of intensive planning for the event proved problematic once Mubarak fell, as there was no unified or cohesive plan for the country’s future.

Despite the post-revolutionary infighting and struggles, Latif said it’s incorrect to portray the revolution as leaderless. Leaders did collaborate with one another during the revolution, but intentionally took a back seat because they knew their countrymen were weary of potential strongmen after decades of living under authoritarianism. At the time “everybody kind of fetishized this idea of a leaderless movement,” she noted. Ultimately, this back seat organizing was not enough to thwart the reemergence of another strongman from the ranks of Egypt’s ever-powerful military.—

Dale Sprusansky

A Radical Idea to Save Lebanon

On Jan. 11, Dr. James J. Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, discussed political activist Ralph Nader’s radical idea to save Lebanon during his weekly Zoom “Coffee and a Column” session. Taking on U.S. corporations and lobbies to ensure consumer protections for safer cars, cleaner air and water wasn’t easy, but Ralph Nader got it done—and his radical proposal to save the failed state of Lebanon could also work, Zogby believes.

The two Lebanese Americans were confounded by a paper recently released by the American Task Force on Lebanon and the Middle East Institute that called for the Lebanese government, parliament, ministries and political parties to implement vital reforms to avoid a meltdown. “What’s troubling is the futility of calling on the very same corrupt sectarian leaders who have driven the country to ruin to reform themselves out of business,” Zogby wrote in a column published on January 9.

Nader’s memorandum outlining his radical idea states, Lebanon’s “staggeringly corrupt, sectarian government enriches a cabal of leaders…at the expense of the Lebanese people…Many of Lebanon’s political pathologies are enshrined in its Constitution which…prescribes sectarian divisions.” The Lebanese people hold the solution, Nader believes. “The people collectively retain the right to dispense with the current constitutional dispensation and provide for a successor better suited for their liberty, safety and happiness.”

Based on three decades of polling in Lebanon, Zogby has found that “substantial majorities of Lebanese, across all regions and religious groups, have little confidence in the traditional sectarian parties and lead- ers and, more importantly, want to rewrite the Constitution to provide for oneman/one-vote representative elections. We saw a manifestation of this during the October 2019 uprising, in which over one million Lebanese took to the streets demanding that all of the old guard elites go.

“The key to Nader’s proposal for saving Lebanon is the empowerment of two groups of Lebanese who up until now have been forced to sit on the sidelines while watching a country they love die a slow death—hemorrhaging its people, wealth and hope. The proposal provides the opportunity for Lebanese civil society to petition the U.N. and then vote on a referendum to write a new Constitution. And by engaging the Lebanese émigré community in the [Nader-proposed U.N.] Transitional Authority, the proposal invests this extraordinarily successful group of Lebanese by inviting them to help reform and rebuild the institutions of the country.”

Lebanon, one of the wealthiest countries in the 1950s, has become one of the poorest today, with people begging for food in the streets. Zogby and Nader say it’s time to draft a new Constitution that ends corruption, Lebanon’s extensive patronage system and the division of the country by sect. After Lebanon’s parliament held 11 unsuccessful sessions to elect a new president, some lawmakers staged a sit-in to demand their colleagues fulfill their duty to elect a president. Whether they succeed is unknown as we go to press.

Zogby concludes, “Some may dismiss this proposal as radical. But because Lebanon is worth saving, radical ideas, as improbable as they may seem, demand to be tried, if only because all other options have failed.” —Delinda

C. Hanley

Erdogan’s Populism at Home and Abroad

Gönül Tol, the director of the Turkey Program at the Middle East Institute (MEI), discussed Turkish politics and the ever-evolving political career of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at MEI’s Washington, DC offices on Jan. 17. Tol is currently promoting her new book, Erdogan’s War: A Strongman’s Struggle at Home and in Syria.

The scholar characterized Erdogan first and foremost as a “populist,” someone who frames politics as a “war between the ordinary masses and the corrupt elite.” Populists, she said, selectively define who “the people” are and claim to solely represent this disenfranchised majority. “This is exactly what Erdogan has been doing since he first came to power in 2002,” Tol explained. “He wanted to appeal to these marginalized groups and present himself as of the people and a true democrat.”

Over the years, Erdogan’s populist approach has resulted in him adopting many identities. He has gone from a conservative democrat to an Islamist to a nationalist, and as “a power-hungry politician….I do not think there is anything he cannot be to stay in power,” Tol said.

Erdogan’s rhetoric and actions, Tol noted, have exacerbated divisions within Turkish society. Additionally, his authoritarian policies have caused the flight of the secular population. One out of every four young Turks say they want to live abroad, she noted. In 2019 alone there were 330,000 people who left the country. “The brightest minds in the country do not see a future in Erdogan’s Turkey,” Tol said.

One reason Erdogan has managed to stay in power for so long is that he is “blessed with a weak and divided opposition,” consisting of secularists, Kurdish nationalists, liberals and others who all have “diverse agendas which at times cannot be reconciled,” Tol opined. “What unites them is their opposition to Erdogan, but they cannot come up with a strategy or common agenda that addresses the main problems of the voters.”

With a presidential election set for May, conditions in the country are ripe for an opposition victory, as inflation is surging, unemployment is high, corruption is widespread and voters are concerned about the millions of Syrian refugees in the country, Tol related.

When faced with domestic crises, Tol noted that Erdogan has often used foreign policy to reshape his image at home. “Erdogan’s domestic calculations are the driving force behind all of his foreign policy moves,” she said. “Erdogan’s foreign policy has… been first and foremost about his domestic strategy to keep his grip on the country.”

As an example, she noted that the Turkish military’s incursions into Syria have strengthened Erdogan’s image as a Turkish nationalist. “I would say foreign policy in general helped Erdogan build his autocracy, but I think that Syria was the crown jewel in his efforts to do so,” Tol argued.

“The war in Syria...heightened Turkish nationalism and Erdogan just rode the nationalist wave.”

Elsewhere, since Russia’s incursion into Ukraine, Erdogan has grown closer to Russian President Vladimir Putin (while maintaining a posture of neutrality toward the conflict) and “relies on Putin more than ever,” Tol said. Putin, via a state-owned company, injected $5 billion into Turkey last summer for the construction of a nuclear plant in southern Turkey, she pointed out. There are also many Russian oligarchs and draft dodgers alike residing in Turkey, she noted, “so Erdogan is making money out of this [war].”—Elaine

Pasquini

Weekly DC Protests Call for Regime Change in Iran

Over the past few months, thousands of demonstrators mobilized by the National Solidarity Group for Iran have taken to the streets of Washington, DC to condemn the Islamic Republic of Iran’s violent response to ongoing nationwide protests. The public marches have been held in numerous locations, including outside the White House, the U.S. Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial. “Every Saturday, we change the location of the demonstration in Washington, DC to inform public opinion and the international media about what is happening in Iran,” explained Siamak Aram, an organizer of the rallies.

In addition to local grassroots activists, the rallies have attracted some famous Iranian artists, such as guitarist Babak Amini and singers Faramarz Aslani and Ebrahim Hamedi (better known as Ebi).

Not aiming to merely secure concessions or reforms from the Iranian government, most of the protesters in Washington, DC have called for the toppling of the Islamic Republic. Chants at the rallies have included, “one solution, revolution,” and “we want freedom.”

While protesters have largely focused on Iran’s human rights abuses following (and including) the Sept. 2022 death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for violating the country’s hijab laws, they have also criticized the Biden administration’s policy toward Tehran. The rallies have included chants and banners demanding that the U.S. government cease nuclear talks with Iran, arguing that the negotiations give the Iranian government legitimacy, stability and an avenue to desperately needed financial resources.

Protesters have also targeted fellow Iranian Americans who support diplomacy with Iran, namely the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). Indeed, chants have included, “one, two, three, four, NIAC supports dictator.” NIAC has rejected such criticisms, stating that they do not support or receive funding from the Iranian government and view the nuclear deal as an important way to improve the everyday lives of Iranians by lifting stifling sanctions and preventing a devastating war.

So far, U.S. officials have not officially declared an end to the nuclear negotiations, however the talks appear to be, at best, on life support. Video has recently emerged of President Joe Biden telling a supporter that the deal “is dead, but we’re not going to announce it.” For now, the administration seems inclined to technically keep the talks alive while simultaneously showing strong support for Iranian protesters.

Given their momentum and deeply held beliefs, it seems unlikely the Washington, DC protesters will relent on their demands for regime change any time soon, especially if the cycle of protesting and repression continues in Iran.

Mohammad Javad Mousavizadeh

Human Rights

Protest Marks 21 Years of Guantánamo Bay Prison

In what has become an annual event, on Jan. 11 activists from Witness Against Torture (WAT) and the National Religious Campaign Against Torture held a “Close Guantánamo Vigil” outside the White House to mark the 21st anniversary of the extrajudicial prison’s opening.

Since it was first opened by the Bush administration in 2002, the facility has seen 779 detainees pass through, most of whom were never charged with or convicted of a crime. Of that total, nine detainees died while in custody, with seven deaths reported as suicides. Presently, there are 35 prisoners who remain there, 20 of whom have been cleared for release but continue to be held.

Beyond the terrible human tragedy and moral costs, the practical cost of operating the prison is $540 million per year, or $15.4 million for each of the remaining detainees.

Last year, the Biden administration approved five detainees for release, but only one detainee, Saifullah Paracha, a 75-yearold “forever prisoner” was released after having been detained since 2003 on suspicion of having links to al-Qaeda. Arrested in Bangkok, Thailand, Paracha spent 19 years in detention while never being charged with a crime.

Paracha’s son, Uzair, was convicted in 2005 of assisting an al-Qaeda operative, only to have his conviction voided in 2018, in what the judge characterized as a “manifest injustice” based on new evidence debunking the witness statements used to convict him.

At the Jan. 11 protest, 35 participants dressed in orange jumpsuits with black hoods assembled in Lafayette Park across from the White House, where they heard from Herb Geraghty, an organizer for WAT, who noted, “Guantánamo represents the worst of this country’s xenophobia. Its continued existence as an institution threatens to render meaningless Americans’ proclaimed commitment to human rights, the rule of law and basic ideas of fairness.”

Dr. Maha Hilal, co-director of the Justice for Muslims Collective, stated that Guantánamo is part of a larger post-9/11 effort to “demonize, criminalize and justify state violence against Muslims. And 21 years later—and four administrations later—we still have the problem of Guantánamo.”

James Yee, who served as a U.S. Army prison chaplain to detainees at Guantánamo, spoke eloquently from his own personal experience. Due to possessing documents from the prison upon returning to the mainland, Yee, a West Point graduate, was arrested and held in solitary confinement for 76 days and falsely accused of aiding the “terrorist enemy.” After an extensive investigation, all charges against him were dropped.

Yee spoke of how Amnesty International has described Guantánamo “as the gulag of our time,” while the American Red Cross has described the treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo as “tantamount to torture.”

The protest was closed by a prayer from Imam Saffet A. Catovic, noting how humankind is “made in the image of God and are the children of God, and as such are entitled to dignity and respect.” He further called for justice to be done here in America and throughout the world, and for Guantánamo to be finally shut down. “This stain on the conscience on humanity, this act of horror and criminality [must] come to an end with the closing of Guantánamo,” he said.

Phil Pasquini

Diplomatic Doings

Foreign Minister on Challenges, Opportunities in Pakistan

schoolchildren in the province from attending classes, Zardari explained. The agriculture sector—the backbone of Pakistan’s economy—was also devastated. “Our farmers had five million acres of standing crops destroyed during the floods, affecting rice and cotton crops,” he noted.

Pakistan is ready to “seize this challenge, seize this moment and ensure that we create an opportunity out of this crisis” to improve the lives of everyone affected by the tragedy, Zardari emphasized. “I am convinced that with hard work and consistent engagement, we will be able to overcome this crisis.” story for Pakistan 10, 20 years down the line is one of opportunity, and my pitch to everyone is: Get in now!”

Elaine Pasquini

MUSIC & ARTS

Memorial Connects Black and Palestinian Lives

Since mid-2022, the United States and Pakistan have been engaging on a variety of issues, including climate, technology, health care, business and agriculture, Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari told an Atlantic Council audience in Washington, DC on Dec. 20, 2022. Zardari is the son of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and former President Asif Ali Zardari.

Amid these forward-looking discussions, Pakistan is facing many ongoing crises: the lingering COVID-19 pandemic, a struggling economy, political strife, inflation and food insecurity. But the biggest challenge for the people of Pakistan right now is a “climate catastrophe of biblical proportions,” the minister stressed.

Not only have the unprecedented floods of 2022 created a health crisis, they have also prompted an educational crisis. “In my home province of Sindh, 47 percent of our educational infrastructure has been either partially or completely damaged as a result of the flood,” preventing 52 percent of

Looking forward, Zardari believes there is a lot of untapped economic potential for Pakistan. While expanding economic ties with the U.S. is a priority, he said Pakistan sees immense opportunity within its region. “We haven’t expanded the complete economic potential between Pakistan and China, let alone Pakistan and Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan— and through Afghanistan to the Central Asian republics,” he noted.

One definite advantage for Pakistan is its geographical location, which makes it a natural trade hub, particularly for Central Asian countries in need of seaport access. Zardari said he has had successful conversations with officials from Central Asian states on this issue.

While the continuing crises make it difficult to focus on economic connections, Zardari said economic development work must continue. “There definitely are questions about Pakistan’s political stability, economic stability, but that doesn’t mean we’re not trying to address it. Questions? Yes. Does it mean we’re shutting the door? No.”

Zardari concluded on an optimistic note: “I believe the

The “Black Lives Matter Memorial Fence Artifact Collection” exhibition is on display at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Public Library, in Washington, DC until Feb. 24, 2023. Nadine Seiler and Karen Irwin, co-curators of the original Black Lives Matter Memorial Fence, loaned and installed the exhibit.

The Trump administration erected a tall barricade outside the White House and Lafayette Park to restrict protests that erupted in response to the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020. From June through January 2021, activists hung signs, banners, T-shirts and more on the fence to protest the treatment of people of color by police. People also demanded resolutions to many social issues, such as racism, LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, the COVID-19 pandemic and more.

The White House fence thus effectively transformed into an artistic endeavor that allowed individuals to express their feelings, ranging from anguish to joy. The fence was vandalized, and Trump allies who disagreed with its messages almost completely destroyed it in late October 2020. Seiler and Irwin decided to protect, preserve and repair the fence, making sure people’s voices there were not erased.

On Jan. 30, 2021, the co-curators removed a number of items from the fence as part of a cooperative effort for historic preservation. Many of those inspirational items are now on display at the library.

Viewers of the installation can have no doubt that the Black and Palestinian struggles for liberation are connected. They go hand-in-hand, as both movements share the same hope and aspiration to live in a society where all are treated equally. It is hard not to notice how many of the signs spotted on the walls are similar to the ones seen at Palestinian protests. Some examples I spotted include:

• “No Justice, No Peace”

• “Abolish the Prison Industrial Complex”

• “We All Bleed the Same”

• “Stop Killing Us”

• “White Guilt is Your Conscious Speaking; Please Listen”

• “If You Are Not Outraged, You Are Not Paying Attention”

• “If They Don’t Give You a Seat at the Table, Bring a Folding Chair”

In July 2021, the National Park Service removed the barricades and replaced the fence, allowing people to once again visit Lafayette Park and walk up to see the White House. Perhaps one day, people will remove the walls and barricades in Israel and Palestine.—Aseel

Abukwaik

Now