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NETANYAHU’S JUDICIAL COUP IS THE BDS MOVEMENT’S DREAM
DISPLAY UNTIL 6/12/2023
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TELLING THE TRUTH SINCE 1982
On Middle East Affairs Volume XLII, No. 3
May 2023
INTERPRETING THE MIDDLE EAST FOR NORTH AMERICANS ✮ INTERPRETING NORTH AMERICA FOR THE MIDDLE EAST
THE U.S. ROLE IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE ISRAELI OCCUPATION OF PALESTINE
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President Jimmy Carter’s Legacy—Five Views —Walter L. Hixson, Allan C. Brownfeld, Kai Bird, Mohammad Javad Mousavizadeh, Dr. James Zogby
16 18
Twenty Years Later, Rachel Corrie Lives —Ahmed Abu Artema
Gazans in Swedish Village Face Devastating Coastal Erosion—Mohammed Omer
20 21
Netanyahu’s Judicial Coup is the BDS Movement’s Dream—Gideon Levy For Jewish Americans, the Idea of Israel as a Liberal Democracy is Rapidly Fading—Allan C. Brownfeld
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“Truth, No Matter What”: Why Watering Down Palestinian Reality Is a Crime—Dr. Ramzy Baroud
SPECIAL REPORTS
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A Safe Legislative Agenda to Launch the 118th Congress—Julia Pitner
28 30
Sanctions, Suffering and Syria—Hajira Asghar
Grief, Anger and (Some) Hope in Türkiye’s Earthquake Aftermath—Jonathan Gorvett
32 34
By Caving to Israel, Biden Opens the Door to War with Iran—Trita Parsi Changing Global Order: China’s Hand in the Iran-Saudi Deal—Mersiha Gadzo
36 40 44 46 49 73
Yemen, The Land of Millions of Mines—Stasa Salacanin A Requiem for a Lost Iraq—Connor Echols A Clash of Ignorance—George Aldridge Libya’s Missing and Murdered Women—Mustafa Fetouri Canada’s First Special Representative on Islamophobia Under Attack—Candice Bodnaruk James Abourezk, In Memoriam—Delinda C. Hanley
ON THE COVER: Syrian refugee Cafar Muhammed (52) sits at his tent in a Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) camp on Feb. 13, 2023 in Nurdagi, Türkiye. A 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit near Gaziantep, Türkiye, in the early hours of Feb. 6, followed by another 7.5-magnitude tremor just after midday. The quakes caused widespread destruction in southern Türkiye and northern Syria and were felt in nearby countries. See articles on pp. 28-31. (PHOTO BY MEHMET KACMAZ/GETTY IMAGES)
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(A Supplement to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs available by subscription at $15 per year. To subscribe, call toll-free 1-888-8815861.)
Other Voices
Compiled by Janet McMahon
Active “Neutrality”: Why Is Israel Struggling to Maintain A Coherent Position in Russia, Ukraine?, Ramzy Baroud, www.ramzybaroud.net OV-1 American Zionists Accuse Israel Of De-Judaizing the Jewish State, Joseph Massad, www.counterpunch.org
OV-2
Boycotters of Israel Were Denounced as Anti-Semites, But Now 255 U.S. Jewish Businessmen Threaten to Pull Investments Over Netanyahu’s Plan to Gut Courts, Juan Cole, Informed Comment
OV-9
Israel’s “Right to Exist” Challenged in Expert Testimonies, Nasim Ahmed, www.middleeastmonitor.com
OV-10
Israel Was Built on Burned Palestinian Villages, Yara Hawari, www.aljazeera.com
OV-12
OV-12
Where Are the Palestinians in Israel’s Protest Movement?, Yoav Haifawi, http://mondoweiss.net
OV-4
In Hawara We Saw Our True Face, Avner Gvaryahu, Haaretz
OV-6
Should Biden’s New Arms Transfer Policy Apply to Israel?, Jacob Batinga, www.responsiblestatecraft.org
OV-7
Could the African Union Push Israel into International Isolation?, Patrick Gathara, www.aljazeera.com
OV-14
Call to Boycott Team Israel at World Baseball Classic, Robert Ross, www.electronicintifada.net
OV-15
The Occupation Has Defeated The State of Israel, Gideon Levy, Haaretz
Israelis Still Expect The Palestinians Will Surrender. They’ve Never Been More Wrong, Daoud Kuttab, Haaretz OV-8
DEPARTMENTS 5 PUBLISHERS’ PAGE 6 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
CARTOONARTSINTERNATIONAL/WWW.GOCOMICS.COM
52 WAGING PEACE: Iraq Still Struggling 20 Years After U.S. Invasion 60 DIPLOMATIC DOINGS: Palestinian Ambassador Calls on UK to Recognize State of Palestine 61 MUSIC & ARTS: Re-Imagining Our Relationship to Land Through Art 62 ARAB AMERICAN ACTIVISM: Author Says Love, Perseverance Sustain the Palestinian People
Israel’s occupation regime and illegal settlements are destroying Palestinian dreams for peace, justice and equal rights. Read “Other Voices,” inserted in every magazine this issue. MAARTEN, LEIDEN, NETHERLANDS
64 MIDDLE EAST BOOKS REVIEW 70 THE WORLD LOOKS AT THE MIDDLE EAST—CARTOONS
71 OTHER PEOPLE’S MAIL 74 2022 AET CHOIR OF ANGELS
48 INDEX TO ADVERTISERS
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American Educational Trust Iraq 20 Years Later
Publishers’ Page
PHOTO BY HAZEM BADER/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
spent years categorizing pro-Palestine activists as This past March was the 20th ananti-Semites for endorsing niversary of the U.S. invasion of the BDS movement. This Iraq. Much has been noted about is further proof, Levy the false pretenses for the war and argues, that cynicism and the trillions of dollars wasted as a double standards underpin result of the U.S. occupation of the pro-Israel politics. country. However, as Connor Echols notes (p. 40), many AmeriRemembrances cans still view the war as a “mere policy blunder,” vastly underestiAs we went to press, mating the excruciating toll of the former President Jimmy invasion on Iraqis. While a good Carter was in hospice care number of Americans did fervently preparing for the end of his oppose the war in 2003, his gut- The manager of the Palestinian Super‐Tex textile factory, Hatem life. We devote the first wrenching account of death, de- al‐Saafeen, displays one of 30,000 cold‐weather sleeping bags he’s seven pages of this issue struction, displacement and social making for earthquake relief, at his factory in Hebron on Feb. 14, 2023. to reflecting on his legacy, collapse in Iraq post-2003 is a re- Palestinian mosques and schools collected donations to send to Türkiye especially as it relates to minder we must never let our lead- and Syria. Iran, Palestine and Israel. ers, media and other influencers Walter L. Hixson notes that swiftly lead us into a war of choice, lest we while Carter was unable to fully overcome noting that they impose severe limits on unleash hell on our fellow humans. the power of the Israel lobby while in the ability of Syrian civilians to provide for office, he did more during his lifetime (estheir families. Meanwhile, Jonathan Iran-Saudi Rapprochement pecially after office) than any other presiGorvett (p. 30) analyzes how the earthdent to advocate for Palestinian human quake might impact Türkiye’s presidential As the world was reflecting on the state of rights. On the Iran front, we have repubelection, slated to take place in May. Iraq, China stunned many by announcing lished an excerpt from historian Kai Bird’s it had facilitated an agreement between Irony in Israel book about Carter, which shows how Iran and Saudi Arabia to restore diplomatic Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign ties (p. 34). If the agreement holds, the Israel’s right-wing government is under worked covertly to prevent American prospects for peace in war-torn Yemen, heavy scrutiny for its proposed judicial hostages from being released from Iran where Riyadh and Tehran have waged a changes, which critics believe threaten the in order to undermine Carter’s bid for reproxy war for almost a decade, increase nature of Israeli “democracy.” While not election. This issue also features a reexponentially. Better relations between the supporting the proposed changes, Gideon membrance of James Abourezk (p. 73), two countries also reduce the likelihood of Levy noted in a recent Haaretz column the a former senator and pillar of the Arab a war over Iran’s nuclear program. Howcrass irony of Israelis suddenly caring American community, who died on Feb. ever, as Trita Parsi warns (p. 32), Presiabout democratic principles and human 24. Finally, we also have a reflection on dent Joe Biden is increasingly mimicking rights in light of their country’s decadesthe 20th anniversary of the killing of Amerthe hawkish Israeli talking points about long ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. “The ican activist Rachel Corrie in Gaza by IsIran, meaning that a confrontation with most terrible articles of Justice Minister raeli troops (p. 16). Tehran cannot be ruled out. This is yet anYariv Levin’s plan are glorious monuments other reminder that the anti-war moveto democracy compared to the occupation Other Voices for All ment requires constant vigilance. regime,” he writes. “Even if the Likud Central Committee were to choose all the With so much going on in the Middle East Earthquake Devastation Supreme Court Justices, one for each since the beginning of the year, we simply Likud voting district, that new court would could not fit every article in the standard The Feb. 6 earthquake that rocked parts be a beacon of world justice compared to 76-pages of this magazine. As such, we of Türkiye and Syria unleashed a massive, the military tribunals” Palestinians face. are offering our “Other Voices” supplement global humanitarian response. However, to all subscribers for free this issue. If you in part due to crippling sanctions imposed An Israeli BDS Movement? don’t already subscribe to “Other Voices,” by the U.S. and other Western countries now is a great time to see what you are against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, In this issue (p. 20), Levy castigates promissing and sign up! We are here to help aid was slow in reaching Syria, likely reIsrael groups and individuals for suddenly keep you informed so that you can... sulting in untold deaths. Hajira Asghar (p. endorsing boycotts and divestment from 28) makes a compelling case for lifting the Israel in response to the new government. broad U.S. sanctions targeting Syria, This comes after pro-Israel groups have Make a Difference Today! MAY 2023
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Contributing Editors: WALTER L. HIXSON
JULIA PITNER IDA AUDEH Other Voices Editor: JANET McMAHON
Middle East Books and More Director: NATHANIEL BAILEY
Finance & Admin. Dir.: CHARLES R. CARTER
Assistant Bookstore Dir.: HAJIRA ASGHAR
Art Director: RALPH UWE SCHERER
Founding Publisher: ANDREW I. KILLGORE
(1919-2016)
Founding Exec. Editor: RICHARD H. CURTISS
(1927-2013)
Board of Directors: HENRIETTA FANNER
JANET McMAHON JANE KILLGORE
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (ISSN 87554917) is published 7 times a year, monthly except Jan./Feb., March/April, June/July, Aug./Sept. and Nov./Dec. combined, at 1902 18th St., NW, Washington, DC 20009-1707. Tel. (202) 939-6050. Subscription prices (United States and possessions): one year, $29; two years, $55; three years, $75. For Canadian and Mexican subscriptions, $35 per year; for other foreign subscriptions, $70 per year. Periodicals, postage paid at Washington, DC and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, P.O. Box 292380, Kettering, OH 45429. Published by the American Educational Trust (AET), a nonprofit foundation incorporated in Washington, DC by retired U.S. foreign service officers to provide the American public with balanced and accurate information concerning U.S. relations with Middle Eastern states. AET’s Foreign Policy Committee has included former U.S. ambassadors, government officials, and members of Congress, including the late Democratic Sen. J. William Fulbright and Republican Sen. Charles Percy, both former chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Members of AET’s Board of Directors and advisory committees receive no fees for their services. The new Board of Advisers includes: Anisa Mehdi, John Gareeb, Dr. Najat Khelil Arafat, William Lightfoot, George W. Aldridge and Susan Abulhawa. The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs does not take partisan domestic political positions. As a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli dispute, it endorses U.N. Security Council Resolution 242’s land-for-peace formula, supported by nine successive U.S. presidents. In general, it supports Middle East solutions which it judges to be consistent with the charter of the United Nations and traditional American support for human rights, self-determination, and fair play. Material from the Washington Report may be reprinted without charge with attribution to Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Bylined material must also be attributed to the author. This release does not apply to photographs, cartoons or reprints from other publications. Indexed by ProQuest, Gale, Ebsco Information Services, InfoTrac, LexisNexis, Public Affairs Information Service, Index to Jewish Periodicals, Ethnic News Watch, Periodica Islamica. CONTACT INFORMATION: Washington Report on Middle East Affairs Editorial Office and Bookstore: 1902 18th St. NW, Washington, DC 20009-9062 Phone: (202) 939-6050 • (800) 368-5788 Fax: (202) 265-4574 E-mail: wrmea@wrmea.org • bookstore@wrmea.org circulation@wrmea.org advertising@wrmea.org • donations@wrmea.org Web sites: http://www.wrmea.org http://www.middleeastbooks.com Subscriptions, sample copies and donations: P.O. Box 292380, Kettering, OH 45429 Phone: (800) 607-4410 • Fax: (937)-890-0221 Printed in the USA
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LetterstotheEditor REMEMBERING JOHN GOELET I read Delinda C. Hanley’s remembrance of John Goelet in the March/April issue with sadness and interest. I can honestly say that John was one of the most interesting humans I’ve ever met. And that's not an exaggeration. First of all, there was his voice and accent. He spoke like no other person. A mixture of an East Coast aristocratic voice mixed with his French upbringing, and all the other influences. As you may know, his father, Robert Walton Goelet, lent the use of a farm on his Sandricourt estate during World War I to the American ambulance corps as a training base. My grandfather arrived there in May 1917 for training, and spent the winter of 1917-18 at Sandricourt. John was always helpful to descendants of the ambulance men, myself included. We corresponded several times, and he always said I should visit Sandricourt if ever I came to France. In January 2010 I did just that. I spent weeks tracing my grandfather’s footsteps around France, and the Goelets invited me to lunch at Sandricourt. John personally drove me around to the farm where the ambulance corps camped, and he drove me around the estate describing his various agricultural enterprises and talking
about his water projects for the Middle East. Then we sat down to a delicious lunch of lamb stew and red wine! I’ll never forget that day, or the Goelets. Peter Fifield, New York, NY Members of the Washington Report staff were honored to attend the March 15 memorial service for John Goelet in New York City. His friends and family recalled his adventurous, imaginative, forwardlooking, generous, jovial and kind spirit, which effected much change in the world and touched countless hearts. We were also thrilled to connect Peter with John’s children, who were touched by the impact their father had on his life. We, along with so many others, will dearly miss our lively interactions with John.
JIMMY CARTER’S LEGACY Thank you very much for your action alert email containing archived Washington Report articles about Jimmy Carter. Shortly after returning from Beirut and the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre, I sent a letter to Carter describing the suffering of the Palestinian refugees in the camps. I received a signed response from him thanking me, acknowledging the situation and hoping for a solution. I also remember years before demonstrating outside the White House during
An image of the Sandricourt estate from World War I, during which the Goelet family opened their property to members of the ambulance corps assisting the wounded. Nearly a century later, John Goelet still warmly hosted the descendants of the ambulance corps workers to tour the farm where their forefathers trained.
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
MAY 2023
PHOTO COURTESY GOELET FAMILY
Executive Editor: DELINDA C. HANLEY
Managing Editor: DALE SPRUSANSKY
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the Menachem Begin/Anwar Sadat and Muslim supporters in the U.S. KEEP THOSE CARDS AND LETTERS peace treaty event, due to the lack are more likely to support tradiCOMING! of Palestinian inclusion. tional values than the Zionists and Send your letters to the editor to the Washington Report, P.O. Box 53062, Washington, DC 20009 I believe many “common” folks their supporters here in the U.S., or e-mail <letters@wrmea.org>. like me have personal stories about which is another reason why conCarter. That is not something we servatives ought to support Paleshave with other past presidents. have never given up, despite the daily intine. If Evangelical Christians were to truly I appreciate you reminding us of his justices they have faced for more than 75 love Jews, they would also support Palesefforts. years. Their struggle will continue until tine because according to Orthodox Ellen Siegel, Washington, DC they are liberated. Jewish Law (which I observe), we Jews This issue has several views on Jimmy Essa Bishara, Greensboro, NC are forbidden to have a Jewish state Carter’s presidency, especially on his before the coming of the Messiah. CONSERVATIVE SUPPORT FOR handling of Iran and Palestine. Long I thank the Washington Report for PALESTINE before prominent human rights organibringing up this very important subject, I would like to comment on Dale Sprusanzations applied the apartheid label to which I and all conservatives should be sky’s excellent article in the March/April Israel, Carter was bold enough to warn very passionate about. issue, “Can a Conservative Movement for in his 2006 book that Israel’s policies Yehuda Littmann, Brooklyn, NY ■ Palestine Emerge?” I would toward the Palestinians in many ways rejust like to add, according to flect the policies of South Africa’s my information, one of the first apartheid government. books to come out here in the BOOKER, JEFFRIES AND U.S. U.S. in 1957 on the plight and SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL suffering of the Palestinians Your lead item on the Publisher’s Page of was a book entitled They Are the March/April issue, “Police Training,” Human Too: A Photographic ties in directly with Walter L. Hixson’s imEssay on the Palestine Arab portant article, “Celebrating Dr. Martin Refugees. It was published by Luther King, Jr. While Supporting Regnery, which was (and still Apartheid.” Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and is) a conservative publishing Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) share many company. And of course there positive qualities as skilled leaders, which are my great heroes, Pat Congress and our citizens desperately Buchanan and Ron Paul. Reneed. Sadly, they have declined to see member, it was Buchanan the glaring disconnect of receiving vast who courageously labeled donations from AIPAC and other lobby Capitol Hill as “Israeli-occugroups in exchange for turning a blind eye pied territory” and he was to Israel’s despicable apartheid policies, slandered as an “anticivil rights and human rights abuses and Semite,” but today many policing policies. thankfully acknowledge that People of color in countless American Capitol Hill is indeed IsraeliOTHER VOICES is an optional 16-page supcommunities are often on the receiving occupied territory. Sprusanplement available only to subscribers of the end of suppressive, vicious and violent sky also correctly mentioned police tactics learned firsthand at training The American Conservative Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. For facilities in Israel. To continue as elected magazine, which is willing to an additional $15 per year (see postcard leaders in Congress or higher office exchallenge Israel. I would also insert for Washington Report subscription pecting to win the trust and respect of like to add Chronicles magarates), subscribers will receive Other Voices voters, they would be wise to refuse any zine as another conservative and all future funding from the pro-Israel publication which occasioninside each issue of their Washington Report lobby. ally challenges Israel. They on Middle East Affairs. Gwen McEwen, Bellingham, WA were kind enough to publish Back issues of both publications are my letter to the editor where I PALESTINIAN STEADFASTNESS avail able. To subscribe, telephone (800) stated that supporting Israel’s Recent letters to the editor have spoken genocidal occupation of 607-4410, e-mail <circulation@wrmea. loudly and clearly about what is going on Palestine is not consistent org>, or write to P.O. Box 292380, Ketterin occupied Palestine. The articles in the with a pro-life position. ing, OH 45429. Washington Report also give a clear tesI would also like to add that tament to the fact that the Palestinians Palestinians and their Arab MAY 2023
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Five Views
PHOTO BY ARNE KNUDSEN/GETTY IMAGES
President Jimmy Carter’s Legacy
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter holds up his Nobel Peace Prize on Dec. 10, 2002 in Oslo, Norway. Carter was recognized for many years of public service and he urged others to work for peace during his acceptance speech.
Carter’s Mediation Produced a Separate Peace with Egypt and Broken Promises from Israel By Walter L. Hixson
idents since 1948 he was rebuffed by the Zionists and their lobby. Think about that for a moment: every American president since 1948 has succumbed to Israel and the lobby, which has kept the United States Congress in its pocket for 75 years. Carter took office in 1977, 10 years after the occupation of the West Bank, Golan, Gaza and the Sinai and one year after the
NO AMERICAN PRESIDENT identified more with the Palestinian cause and the quest for peace in the Middle East than Jimmy Carter. Granted, Carter did not fully embrace Palestine or sharpen his criticism of the Israeli colonial state until the decades after his one-term presidency, which became an exercise in frustration, but his heart was aways in the right place. Rivaled only by Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and George H. W. Bush in their willingness to challenge Israel, Carter strove for a just settlement of the Palestine issue, but like all American pres-
Contributing editor Walter L. Hixson writes History’s Shadows, a regular column which seeks to place various aspects of Middle East politics and diplomacy in historical perspective. Hixson is the author of Architects of Repression: How Israel and Its Lobby Put Racism, Violence and Injustice at the Center of US Middle East Policy and Israel’s Armor: The Israel Lobby and the First Generation of the Palestine Conflict (available from Middle East Books and More), along with several other books and journal articles. He was a professor of history for 36 years, achieving the rank of distinguished professor.
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explosive conflict with its Palestinian citizens from the Galilee to the Negev, believing that “the Arab-Israeli conflict should be given very high priority.” His ambitions ran headlong into the intractable Menachem Begin, the former Irgun militia terrorist who became Israel’s prime minister in June 1977. Begin was an uncompromising proponent of the Greater Israel objective and thus of advancing illegal settlements in the occupied territories. Recognizing that the Palestine Liberation Organization was prepared to accept Israel as a reality, Carter urged Israel to move toward acceptance of a Palestinian state but Begin had no intention of giving up colonial rule over “the Arab inhabitants of Judea and Samaria.” At the same time, the Israel Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (l) shakes hands with Israeli Premier Menachem Begin (r), as U.S. lobby mobilized what Carter’s advis- President Jimmy Carter looks on, at Camp David on Sept. 6, 1978. Egypt began peace initiatives ers called “a very intense domestic re- with Israel in late 1977, when Sadat visited Jerusalem. A year later, for 13 days at Camp David, Carter helped the two negotiate terms of peace between Egypt and Israel. Begin reneged on his action,” prompting the President to put promises to achieve a comprehensive peace and authorized a slew of new illegal settlements. the idea of a Palestinian homeland on the back burner. Carter complained privately that the surrounding Arab states “have been very cooperative and have given us some options” whereas Israel was being “adamant” and showed “no flexibility.” Hemmed in by Israel and the lobby, Carter had little choice but to By Allan C. Brownfeld let Egyptian President Anwar Sadat take the lead as he agreed to a separate peace with Israel, negotiated through Carter’s exhausIT IS IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER the brutal assault former Prestive mediation at the 13-day Camp David summit in 1978. In the ident Jimmy Carter faced from militant supporters of Israel and the final analysis Carter’s support for a Palestinian homeland had sucnumber of times there were attempts to silence him, claiming he cumbed to the recalcitrance of Begin, who reneged on his promise was “anti-Semitic,” the usual tactic used to silence criticism of Israel. to follow up the summit with efforts to achieve a comprehensive In Israel, this tactic is openly discussed. Shulamit Aloni, a former “Framework for Peace in the Middle East.” Begin went on to auIsraeli Minister of Education and winner of the Israel Prize, declared: thorize a rash of new illegal settlements, breaking yet another “It’s a trick. We always use it. When from Europe somebody criticizes promise to Carter in the process, and would later launch a brutal Israel, we bring up the Holocaust. When in the United States, people invasion of neighboring Lebanon. are critical of Israel, then they are anti-Semitic.” Overwhelmed by the Iran hostage crisis during his final 14 Carter dedicated himself to peace and human rights around the months in office, Carter’s dream of peace in the Middle East had world. He always insisted that Israel was obligated to suspend buildturned to ashes. He never abandoned the vision, however, and ing new settlements on the West Bank. He argued that settlements became openly critical of Israel in his post-presidential years. were a roadblock to a two-state solution and a peaceful resolution Carter had learned first-hand that Israel was an apartheid state of the conflict. He warned that Israel was on the road to apartheid. backed by an undemocratic domestic lobby. In 2006—and to his Dedicated to peace and human rights around the world, Carter’s everlasting credit—Carter finally said as much in his much-noted tireless efforts to bring Israel and Egypt together in a peace agreebook, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, which condemned Israel for ment during the 1978 negotiations at Camp David are widely viewed its repression and intransigence. as the most consequential contribution any U.S. president has made Carter went into his final days of life having failed to achieve his toward Israel’s security since its founding. This represented the first bold vision encompassing a Palestinian state and a comprehensive personally negotiated peace agreement since Theodore Roosevelt Middle East peace, but he left little doubt as to the responsibility of Allan C. Brownfeld is a syndicated columnist and associate editor of Israel and the lobby for the ongoing injustice in Palestine. It is perthe Lincoln Review, a journal published by the Lincoln Institute for haps not much of a legacy, but it was more than most other AmerResearch and Education, and editor of Issues, the quarterly journal of the American Council for Judaism. ican presidents could claim.
Jewish Community Smears Carter With Charges of Anti-Semitism
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successfully settled the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War. Even Menachem Begin reluctantly agreed that Carter “had worked harder than our forefathers did in Egypt building the pyramids.” Yet Carter was repaid for his success and for his commitment to both Israeli security and Palestinian rights with a consistent campaign of vilification by American Jewish leaders. Most of them never forgave him for the tenacity with which he pursued his vision of an evenhanded Middle East peace. In 1978, the American Jewish Committee’s Washington representative Hyman Bookbinder called Carter’s Middle East policy an “anti-Israel campaign.” The New York Times columnist William Safire titled a column, “Carter Blames the Jews.” Carter himself lamented that whenever an issue arose between the U.S. and Israel, “American Jewish leaders would always side with the Israeli leaders and condemn us for being even-handed in our concern for both Palestinian rights and Israeli security.” When he wrote the book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, which became a New York Times best-seller in 2007, the attacks on Carter became brutal. Deborah Lipstadt, then a professor at Emory University, now Special State Department Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, reviewed the book for The Washington Post and accused Carter of relying on “anti-Semitic stereotypes.” She charged that Carter “has repeatedly fallen back on traditional antiSemitic canards. When David Duke spouts it, I yawn, when Jimmy Carter does, I shudder.” At the time, the Anti-Defamation League’s Abraham Foxman called Carter “a bigot” and denounced him in paid newspaper advertisements around the country. Martin Peretz, publisher of The New Republic and an outspoken Zionist, called Carter a “Jew-hater” and “a jackass.” We could fill pages with the bitter assaults on Jimmy Carter by Zionist activists whose first charge against anyone who criticizes Israeli policy is “anti-Semitism.” The organized Jewish community should apologize for the manner in which it assaulted the good name of Jimmy Carter, even comparing him to David Duke. Now that more and more Jewish leaders are themselves critical of Israel, shall we suddenly discover that they, too, are anti-Semitic?
Excerpt from The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter By Kai Bird BY THE LATE SUMMER of 1980, Washington’s political class understood that President Carter’s reelection chances might well hinge on a last-minute resolution of the hostage crisis. Ex-governor Ronald Reagan and his vice presidential nominee, former CIA director George H.W. Bush, were 16 points ahead in the polls, but Republican campaign strategists feared that his substantial lead could collapse in the wake of a sudden and dramatic release of the hostages. Reagan’s campaign manager, William J. Casey, had a name for this nightmare scenario. He called it an “October Surprise.” 10
Bill Casey, 67, was managing the Reagan campaign from his corner office on the 53rd floor of the Pan Am building in Midtown Manhattan. A partner of the law firm Rogers & Wells, Casey had forged an unusual legal career over four decades. A devout, even fervent Catholic, Casey had grown up in Queens, the son of a civil servant. He went to Fordham University, a Jesuit University, and later got a law degree. But when America entered World War II, Casey joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor of the CIA. He finagled his way to London, from where he ended up running OSS agents whose job was to infiltrate Nazi Europe and aid the French Resistance. Casey learned in the OSS how to cut corners. General Eisenhower had forbidden the recruitment of prisoners of war—but Casey invented a loophole by labeling them “volunteers.” His years in the OSS gave him a lifelong passion for intrigue, spy craft and skullduggery. After the war, Casey returned to the law, inventing tax shelters for his corporate clients and dabbling in various venture capital schemes. Politically ambitious, he persuaded President Nixon to appoint him chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. By 1980, Casey was worth more than $10 million, but along the way he acquired a reputation for ruthlessness and a disdain for moral complexities. Former CIA director Richard Helms called him a “conniver.” John Bross, another old CIA hand, thought Casey was “capable of great kindness and great ruthlessness.” Yet another legendary clandestine CIA officer, Clair George, said, “I liked Casey. He was nuts.” There was nothing subtle about Casey. He told a New York Times reporter that spring that he thought Carter was willing to use the hostages as a political football. He cited the fact that on the morning of the Wisconsin primary the president had appeared on a news show to announce a “positive step” in the hostage crisis—and yet, while nothing developed, Carter won the primary against Kennedy. “We expect Carter will try everything to get elected—so we’ll be ready for everything.” “This campaign is ours,” said one Reagan aide after the Republican convention, “but it’s ours to throw away too….If [Carter] does something with the hostages, or pulls something else out of the hat, as only an incumbent president can, we’re in big trouble.” Casey soon put in motion a media strategy to inoculate the electorate, planting the suspicion that the president was “playing politics” with the hostages. If the hostages were suddenly released, he wanted voters to think that perhaps Carter had paid too high a price. Casey’s aide, Richard Allen, explained, “If we could do all that in advance it would automatically discount anything that happened. We could say, ‘See, right here we predicted it.’” It was a classic bit of psychological warfare.
Pulitzer Prize winner Kai Bird is the executive director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography. He is an historian and journalist whose work includes critical writings on the Vietnam War, Hiroshima, nuclear weapons, the Cold War, the Arab‐Israeli conflict and the CIA. This reprint is from pp. 551‐554 and 562‐563 of The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter, and is reprinted with his permission.
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Not surprisingly, Casey had help from David Rockefeller’s Project Alpha operation. Rockefeller was, after all, a lifelong Republican and now did what he could to derail Carter’s reelection bid. According to records found by The New York Times’ David D. Kirkpatrick, the Chase public relations team coordinated with the Reagan campaign to sow rumors about “possible payoffs” to win the release of the hostages. “I had given my all,” wrote Rockefeller’s aide, Joseph Reed, in a letter to his family in late 1980, to blocking any effort by the Carter administration “to pull off the long-suspected ‘October Surprise.’” At the same time, Casey sent a private message to the A grim‐faced President Jimmy Carter, seated at his desk in the Oval Office of the White House on April 25, Iranians that they could get a 1980, tells of the aborted rescue effort intended to get the 52 American hostages out of Iran. Carter said better deal from a Reagan the mission was scrubbed after an “equipment failure,” and eight U.S. servicemen were killed in a collision presidency. Casey knew from during their retreat. The hostages were not released for another 270 days, after President Reagan’s reading the newspapers that inauguration. the PLO’s Yasir Arafat had broThe PLO chief received a similar message from yet another old kered the release in mid-November 1979 of 13 of the hostages who friend of Reagan’s who contacted Bassam Abu Sharif, an adviser were women or African Americans. Arafat had garnered plenty of to Arafat. According to Abu Sharif, this unnamed Reagan friend “said favorable media coverage for his efforts and was indeed still using he wanted the PLO to use its influence to delay the release of the his Iranian contacts to broker a resolution of the crisis. Assuming American hostages…until after the election.” Abu Sharif claimed that Arafat still had influence with Ayatollah Khomeini, Casey dethat Arafat rejected both overtures, and 16 years later this was concided it would be advantageous to reach out to anyone who had a firmed by Arafat himself, who on Jan. 22, 1996, told Carter during back channel to Arafat. a visit to Gaza, “Mr. President, there is something I want to tell you. One such individual was Jack Shaw, a 41-year-old businessman You should know that in 1980 the Republicans approached me with who was helping Casey to raise funds for the campaign. A former an arms deal if I could arrange to keep the hostages in Iran until vice president of Booz Allen Hamilton, Shaw had done business in after the election. I want you to know that I turned them down.” Saudi Arabia, and that summer Casey reportedly asked Shaw if he Casey was dabbling in off-the-books private diplomacy. Sendcould use his contacts to send a message to Arafat. ing messages to the Iranians through intermediaries like the PLO Shaw subsequently had lunch in Washington with Mustafa Zein, was a gray area—not exactly kosher. Taking a meeting with a a Lebanese businessman who had access to Arafat. According to representative of the Ayatollah Khomeini to discuss the hostage Zein, Shaw asked him if Arafat was still trying to secure the freedom crisis would fall into an entirely different category of behavior. of the remaining hostages. When Zein confirmed this, Shaw bluntly Indeed, it could be deemed a blatant violation of the 1799 Logan asked if Arafat could be persuaded to delay his efforts until after the Act prohibiting private citizens from negotiating disputes with forelection. Shaw argued that the “Palestinian interest lay with a strong eign powers. president like Reagan, who would push for a just and lasting peace The Casey story is a disturbing and enduring mystery. President in the Middle East.” Zein first checked out Shaw’s bona fides with Carter at the time knew nothing of Casey’s backdoor diplomacy, John Shaheen, another businessman who befriended Casey when and in the years since, he has remained studiously agnostic. And the two men worked together in the OSS. “Shaheen confirmed to yet numerous journalistic investigations, several books, and one me,” Zein said, “after speaking directly with Casey, that Jack Shaw major congressional investigation make it hard not to conclude that was representing Casey.” In August, Zein flew to Beirut and passed whatever happened in the summer of 1980 also planted the seeds the message on to Arafat. MAY 2023
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for the Iran-Contra scandal of 1986. As such, it is a story that just won’t go away. [Bird goes on to detail Casey’s personal trip to London to present a paper, in late July 1980, and his conspicuous absence during most of that conference. Investigators wonder in retrospect whether his attendance at the London conference was a cover for a highly covert side trip to Madrid, Spain to meet with a representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The previous Thursday, July 24, Casey was photographed in Washington, DC, accepting a check for $24.9 million in public campaign funds from the Federal Election Commission. Sure enough, the hostages were released on Jan. 20, 1981, mere minutes after Ronald Reagan’s inauguration.] ...And then in 1986 the Iran-Contra scandal broke. The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward and Walter Pincus reported that “thenSecretary of State Alexander M. Haig, Jr., gave his permission in 1981 for Israel to ship U.S.-made military spare parts and fighter plane tires to Iran, nearly four years before similar shipments set in motion the controversy now besetting the Reagan administration.” The Post was at least insinuating that perhaps the 1986 arms-forhostages deal had originated with the “October Surprise” of 1980. Nevertheless, these further revelations seemed only to muddy the waters in the public debate. With President Bush’s defeat at the polls in late 1992, the public was ready to move on. Nearly two decades later, Robert Parry found entirely new evidence in the archives of the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library. Dated Nov. 4, 1991, the memorandum in question was written by President Bush’s deputy White House counsel, Chester Paul Beach, Jr., and it described the State Department’s efforts to collect documents in response to the House task force’s subpoenas for “material relevant to the October Surprise allegations.” Beach had just had a meeting with his counterpart at the State Department, a lawyer named Ed Williamson. “In this regard,” Beach noted, “Ed mentioned only a cable from the Madrid embassy indicating that Bill Casey was in town, for purposes unknown.” The cable is damning evidence that Bill Casey did indeed make that side trip from London to Madrid in late July 1980. And shockingly, the Bush White House deputy counsel knew of this evidence— but it was never turned over to Congressman Lee Hamilton and his October Surprise Task Force. Now we know why. Two days later, on Nov. 6. 1991, Beach’s boss, White House counsel C. Boyden Gray, convened a meeting to discuss how they should handle the new evidence. Gray said the “October Surprise” investigation was “of special interest to the president.” It was essential, he told his staff, that there be “no Surprises to the White House….This is partisan.” The Madrid cable was never turned over to Hamilton’s task force. When Parry eventually shared the Beach memo with Hamilton, the congressman expressed his dismay: “If the White House knew that Casey was there, they certainly should have shared it with us.” Obviously, Republican operatives close to Reagan, Casey and Bush worked hard to bury the story. But it kept getting resurrected. Many years later, in September 2019, Stu Eizenstat pressed James Baker about Casey’s alleged trip to Madrid. Baker—who served as 12
Reagan’s first chief of staff—replied, “Would I be surprised if Casey did it? There is nothing about Casey that would surprise me. He is a piece of work.” There the story rests, like a beached whale, dead and stinking. The implications for the Carter presidency were devastating. The Republican Party’s campaign chairman was negotiating with a foreign power to prolong the hostage crisis and thereby tip the scales in the November election against a sitting president. By any definition, this was an act of treason. But Republican operatives and Casey himself probably regarded it as mere hardball politics.
Carter’s Stumbles Tripped into Conflict With Iran By Mohammad Javad Mousavizadeh HOSTILITY BETWEEN Iran and the U.S. commenced in 1953, when the U.S. and UK instigated the Iranian army-led overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh to strengthen the monarchical rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. It intensified in 1979 after the U.S.-backed monarchy was overthrown while former President Jimmy Carter was in the White House. Some analysts believe that Carter’s costly mistakes in Iran played a significant role in the tensions between the two countries that have continued for decades. The Carter administration’s policies toward Iran were contradictory. While revolutionaries protested against the Pahlavi regime and President Carter publicly called for reform in Iran, his administration continued to sell weapons to Iran’s government, further enraging anti-American sentiment. Soon, Carter and other Western leaders realized the shah could not stay in power and began to distance themselves from the regime. The subsequent collapse of the Pahlavi regime facilitated the victory of the Islamic Revolution. According to a BBC report in 2016 based on declassified U.S. diplomatic cables, when the shah and his family fled the country on Jan. 17, 1979, Carter’s administration supported Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s return to Tehran on Feb. 1, 1979, after 15 years in exile, by ensuring the Imperial Iranian army would not launch a military coup. A catastrophic decision followed. President Carter had been adamantly opposed to accepting the deposed shah into the U.S. for medical treatment for cancer. Under pressure by Henry Kissinger and Chase Manhattan Bank Chairman David Rockefeller and other pro-Shah political figures, Carter relented. The U.S. paid an extraordinarily high price for that decision, which caused widespread outrage in Iran against the U.S. Some revolutionaries considered the shah’s presence in the U.S. as part of a possible plot to return Pahlavi to power. Protesters,
Mohammad Javad Mousavizadeh is a journalist and analyst in international affairs and foreign policy based in Washington, DC. He has written many articles for digital publications worldwide. He is also an English translator for Iranian newspapers and news agencies.
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prompted by angry hardliners in Iran, who wanted the deposed shah tried for his crimes, took to the streets, especially near the U.S. Embassy. Finally, they seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. Carter failed to solve the hostage crises and manage its consequences. Some analysts believe that Carter’s stumbles in Iran were a leading cause of his defeat in the 1980 presidential election. After the hostage crisis, conflict flared up between Iran and the U.S., and relations between the two sides have continued to worsen. In fact, Carter, when he was in office, lost a reliable U.S. security partner and turned the new regime in Iran into a sworn enemy. In his book, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President, Carter admitted that his administration was “slow to realize the depth and intensity of the religious and nationalistic passions that had been aroused in Iran, and that it underestimated the strength and appeal of the Islamic Revolution.” Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter headed a team of international election In a 2010 interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Carter observers, and told reporters in Jerusalem on Jan. 26, 2006, the Palestinian said, “We could have postponed the admittance of the shah parliamentary elections had been conducted fairly and peacefully. until after our embassy officials were released. That was what we wanted to do. But the advice that I received from my White tributions, reporters examine their records, and the public weighs House staff was that they thought it would be wrong to humiliate the in with their memories. shah by turning him away from our country when he was sick and Partisans also enter the fray, with each side attempting to elehelpless. And they also said that our Iranian allies, who had worked vate their favorites while working to discredit those with whom they so closely with us in the past, would abandon us and turn to the have political differences. At stake is more than the standing of Soviet Union as their protector. And I believed them. I was wrong.” the president. In saluting their heroes, activists are trying to elevate Carter, the oldest living former U.S. president and Nobel Peace their political philosophy and its currency. It is in this context that Prize winner, entered into hospice care on Feb. 18 to spend his reliberals and conservatives continue to debate the legacies of maining days at home. Some believe that the Islamic Revolution is Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. at the end of the line, too. I want to posit different metrics by which to judge the legacy of Today, President Joe Biden, who as a senator was generally critthose who have held the highest office in the land: humility and comical of some of Carter’s foreign policy decisions, particularly his hanpassion for others. Using those metrics, I judge Jimmy Carter, far dling of the Iranian hostage crisis, is in the office. Biden now faces and away, to be the greatest former president of the United States. the widespread protests in Iran that some analysts call the starting From the beginning of his race for the presidency, Carter—who point of a revolution. The country has erupted, and people have entered hospice care at the age of 98—came across as a refreshagain taken to the streets. The death of Mahsa Amini, the Iranian ingly different candidate. The public took note of the fact that he woman who died in police custody, has been the leading cause of carried his own suitcase, engaged in honest, humble and direct the widespread protests and the unstable situation in Iran. Recent conversations with voters on the campaign trail, and was never incidents in Iran have pushed Biden’s administration toward a washy about acknowledging his Christian faith, though not in a tershed moment to take fundamental steps toward Tehran. pompous, holier-than-thou manner. In this situation, questions continue to swirl about the future of Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, were a breath of fresh air in the American policy toward Iran. Will the China-brokered deal to re-esWhite House. After a few successful years, his presidency was tablish diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia have done in by domestic and foreign policy crises that he did not create, wide-ranging consequences? Can Biden turn Iran again into a reand which proved beyond his ability to control. When he left office, liable partner in the Middle East? Only time will tell. “pundits” were in agreement that he had failed and would be forgotten. That was not to be the case. On leaving the White House, one of the first things Carter did was to become closely identified with a nonprofit volunteer project, Habitat for Humanity. During its initial two decades, owing in large measure to Carter’s sponsorship, Habitat became a household By Dr. James Zogby name in communities across the U.S., building over 100,000 lowcost homes for over half a million people in the U.S. and in 60 THE BATTLE OVER THE LEGACY of an American president countries around the world. begins the moment they leave office. Historians debate their con-
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Well into their 70s, Jimmy and Rosalynn were still spending one week each year volunteering with Habitat. He became so identified with the group that when thinking of him, more Americans probably called to mind Carter in denim with a hammer in his hand than Carter in a suit in the White House. In 1982, just two years after leaving office, Carter further burnished his credentials as a great leader when he created the Carter Center, which described its role as “waging peace, fighting disease and building hope.” Many of the Center’s initiatives were led by Carter himself, including monitoring elections in dozens of countries; negotiating peaceful resolutions to conflicts in Africa, Asia and the Americas; undertaking programs to help eradicate dreaded diseases that plagued parts of Africa and Asia; and assisting farmers in Africa to increase their yield and improve Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn attach siding to the front their lives. of a Habitat for Humanity home being built by volunteers on June 10, 2003 in Working tirelessly to address these global con- LaGrange, Georgia. cerns, Carter established his legacy as the greatest where we discussed a number of hot-button Middle East topics. of our former presidents. He expressed his frustration that he hadn’t been able to do more My wife and I were invited to the White House lawn in 1979 to to secure Palestinian rights and noted the pushback he received greet Pope John Paul II on his visit to Washington. The wind was both domestically and in Israel for his efforts. And he told me of blowing that day, and the pope’s cape kept flying up over his his dismay that, in the years after Camp David, despite what he head. We were moved by Carter’s very humble gesture of standfelt were Israeli commitments to him, Israel continued to deepen ing next to the pope and holding on to his cape for the duration the occupation with settlements while successive U.S. adminisof his speech. trations “looked the other way” and allowed it to impede the After he lost his reelection bid, in 1980, I wrote Carter a note prospects for peace. expressing my disappointment at his defeat and thanking him While acknowledging that Saddam Hussein was a “callous for his efforts, though incomplete, to achieve a comprehensive dictator,” Carter was deeply critical of the U.S.-led sanctions Middle East peace. I was surprised to receive a lengthy response against Iraq, which he noted were “counterin which he expressed his regrets and his productive,” had resulted in the deaths of hopes to continue to work for justice for hundreds of thousands of children, and Palestinians. played into the hands of the Iraqi regime. I met with Carter on a number of other ocHe also took time to single out for commencasions in the next few decades. I had the We have multiple copies of dation the leader of the United Arab Emihonor of serving under his leadership as an recent issues of the Washington rates, Sheikh Zayed, for his role in building election monitor in Palestine in 1996. His Report for use as promotional his country and for providing extraordinary very presence was an inspiration to Palesmaterial at meetings, assistance to many important health care tinians, especially as he fought to ensure that conferences or educational projects across Africa. Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem would programs of appropriate With all this in mind, I took personal note be able to vote. organizations. If you would like of the news of Jimmy Carter’s decision to Most memorable, though, was a lengthy to request magazines to enter hospice and was reminded of a quote discussion I had with Carter in early 2001, distribute at no charge to your from a talk he gave to his church in 2019: “I group or class, email street James J. Zogby co‐founded the Arab Ameri‐ didn’t ask God to let me live, but I asked God can Institute (AAI), a Washington, DC‐based mailing information to to give me a proper attitude toward death. organization which serves as the political and <multiplecopies@wrmea.org> policy research arm of the Arab American And I found that I was absolutely and comor call (202) 939-6050 ext. community, in 1985, and continues to serve as pletely at ease with death.” 1105. Number of copies is its president. A longer version of his article was This is the legacy of Jimmy Carter: a great subject to availability. Please published on Feb. 27, 2023, on the AAI web‐ allow at least two weeks for former president who taught us how to live site. Views and opinions expressed in this ar‐ delivery via UPS. a life for others, and, as he approaches his ticle are those of the author and do not neces‐ sarily reflect the position of AAI. end, is teaching us how to die with grace. ■
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Gaza on the Ground
Twenty Years Later, Rachel Corrie Lives By Ahmed Abu Artema
COURTESY RACHEL CORRIE FOUNDATION
her conscience by protesting TWENTY YEARS AGO, on against global injustice in a March 16, 2003, an Israeli demonstration in America or military bulldozer crushed by calling for a boycott of the American solidarity activist aggressors. But her high Rachel Corrie to death a few sense of morality was not kilometers away from my satisfied with these symbolic home in Rafah in the Gaza gestures. Her conscience Strip. She was one of sevwould not rest without comeral International Solidarity plete involvement, without Movement (ISM) activists standing side-by-side with us. trying to stop the demolition T h a t ’s w h y s h e c a m e t o of Palestinian homes there. Palestine. Israel’s Prime Minister, She lived in Palestinian Ariel Sharon, had launched a homes threatened with democampaign to destroy thoulition. She endured the same sands of Palestinian homes difficult days and nights to to establish a buffer zone which Palestinian families on the Palestinian-Egyptian were subjected and heard the border. ISM activists arrived same sounds of indiscrimiin the area to express humannate gunfire from Israeli itarian solidarity with civilians tanks, yet she still risked her facing Israel’s occupation life so she could answer the machine. This machine was, call of her conscience. and is, generously supported Rachel did not pose any by the United States governdanger to Israeli soldiers who ment. At that early age, I was not Rachel Corrie (1979‐2003) showed Palestinians that her country’s conducted their daily exercise interested in politics, but pol- political leadership does not represent American citizens, many of whom of demolishing Palestinian homes. She was an unarmed itics isn’t optional for Pales- believe in freedom, justice and dignity for all people. woman, wearing a bright-coltinians. ored vest and shouting through a megaphone in front of the bullHouse demolitions, air bom-bardments and tank attacks on dozer. civilian neighborhoods were a daily occurrence. When I heard But the presence of Rachel and her colleagues posed an eththe news of Rachel’s death, my first thought was: “She is an ical challenge to the Israeli occupation because these solidarity American. Surely, she has good opportunities in her homeland. activists exposed the false Israeli narrative that it was conducting Why did she choose to risk her life and come to Palestine in solsecurity operations. The truth was that they were targeting civilidarity with people of a different ethnicity, race and religion?” ian families. Rachel was 23 when she was killed. She could have satisfied The intentional killing of Rachel Corrie was a message of intimidation to solidarity activists, telling them to stop hindering IsBorn in Rafah, Gaza Strip in 1984, Ahmed Abu Artema is a Pales‐ tinian refugee. An independent Gaza‐based writer and political ac‐ raeli soldiers during their daily ritual of demolishing houses and tivist, he has written the book Organized Chaos and numerous ar‐ killing civilians. ticles. He is one of the original founders and organizers of the Great Rachel’s parents sought justice in Israeli courts for the killing March of Return. He is currently a member of the group Palestine of their daughter. An Israeli judge at the Haifa District Court ruled Without Borders. This article was published by Mondoweiss on that Corrie’s death was an accident for which the state of Israel March 16, 2023. Reprinted with permission. 16
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was not responsible, and the Israeli Supreme Court agreed. Her family wrote that the court decision “amounts to judicial sanction of immunity for Israeli military forces when they commit injustices and human rights violations.” As I grew older, my awareness of Rachel increased. I listened to one of her clips on YouTube. She was a fifth-grade child talking about her dream in life: “I’m here for other children. I’m here because I care. I’m here because children everywhere are suffering and because 40,000 people die each day from hunger. I’m here because those people are mostly children, we have got to understand that the poor are all around us, and we are ignoring them. We have got to understand that these deaths are preventable, we have got to understand that people in third world countries are us. We are them. My dream is to stop hunger by the year 2000. My dream is to give the poor a chance. My dream is to save the 40,000 people who die each day. My dream can and will come true if we all look into the future and see the light that shines there.” I listened to the clip repeatedly. As a child, Rachel told us the exact reason that led her to Palestine—a child’s dream of a world where justice prevails, and people don’t die because of oppression. Rachel’s dreams have not been realized yet. Hunger in our world has not
ended, and the homes she tried to preserve in Palestine are still being demolished. But belief in that same dream has not ebbed. Rachel’s spirit inspired many believers who see the light of the future and continue to raise their voices against injustice and oppression. These believers now make up the grassroots movements worldwide that are opposed to the forces of apartheid and colonialism and understand the fight for freedom and humanity as their unified global fight. Rachel’s name is in my heart as a symbol of moral purity. Her most important message was that her country’s political leadership does not represent American citizens, many of whom believe in freedom, justice and dignity for all people. Although the United States is normally synonymous with its total financial and military backing of Israel’s occupation, Rachel’s example removed many of the negative connotations about the U.S. from the hearts of many Palestinians. When I got the chance to visit the U.S. in 2019 on a speaking tour, the first thing that came to mind was wanting to meet Rachel’s family. I asked the trip coordinator from the American Friends Service Committee about the possibility, and the organizers were generous enough to make it happen. I met Craig and Cindy Corrie in Georgia. We spent the day to-
gether and visited the Martin Luther King museum. I told Rachel’s parents that their daughter was generous. She came to our town in solidarity and paid with her life for the values she believed in. I told them that they were generous to me in our meeting with their true feelings of love and solidarity. Twenty years on, Rachel’s spirit still lives among all those who believe in freedom and justice worldwide. Sadly, the entry of activists into Gaza has become almost impossible, due to the tight restrictions imposed by the Israeli occupation. Yet the spirit of solidarity with the rights of the Palestinian people can be seen everywhere. Rachel’s spirit was present in the protests of May 2021 that took to the streets throughout the U.S. in support of Palestinian rights. These protests are a recent example that the official discrimination policies of the Israeli colonial state haven’t succeeded in killing the collective conscience of people and their belief in justice and freedom for all. Rachel’s case was cast aside by Israel’s colonial courts. But Rachel won. She became a worldwide symbol of freedom and a source of inspiration for everyone who dreams of a world of justice and peace. Israel may have killed her, but Rachel Corrie lives on in all of us. ■
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Gaza on the Ground
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Gazans in Swedish Village Face Devastating Coastal Erosion By Mohammed Omer
The Palestinian Ministry of Public Works and Housing uses the rubble from buildings demolished by Israeli assaults on Gaza to try to prevent erosion along the coast near Swedish Village, in southern Gaza Strip. A grant from Qatar funded this and other projects along Al‐Rasheed Street. “WE COULD HEAR the sea and wind at night, and it terrified my children to think of the damage it was doing just outside our house,” says Amal Ashour, a 42-year-old mother of five who was born and raised in Swedish Village. There has never been a harsher winter in the village than 2023, Ashour says. Winter storms and winds also pounded her inadequate housing the previous year. Her village, west of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, is one of Gaza’s poorest, named after Scandinavian soldiers who served there during a U.N. peacekeeping mission. Swedish Village is far from the main city of Rafah and the rest of the Gaza Strip, close to the no-go zone known as the Egyptian border. Before the Israeli disengagement, villagers were regularly shot and killed by Israeli settlers. Today they are forgotten by the rest of the world. While most areas in the Gaza Strip suffer from a shortage of potable water, residents in Swedish Village contend with salty and
Award‐winning journalist Mohammed Omer reports regularly on the Gaza Strip. 18
polluted water flooding into their homes. Residents worry that their village will one day be “eaten by the sea.” Climate change has made sea erosion around the world unavoidable. Everyone knows that rich people will have to move from their beach houses, but the poor have nowhere else to go and will suffer the most, losing their homes and livelihoods. Many years ago, village residents worried about the threat to the village posed by the sea, but few officials believed it would happen. When erosion became noticeable, the main Al-Rasheed Street, which connected the village with the rest of Gaza, nearly collapsed. In September 2015, a $29 million grant from the Qatari government reconstructed the road along with other projects. In addition to Swedish Village, the fishermen’s port and the municipal park are also in the erosion zone, and every year the zone gets bigger. Residents have appealed for international aid from development organizations but have gotten no response. The Palestinian Ministry of Public Works and Housing and the Municipality of Rafah came up with a temporary solution to slow
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the erosion: placing rubble from homes destroyed during Israel’s wars and giant concrete blocks along the shoreline.
A REAL AND IMMINENT DANGER The devastating earthquake in Türkiye and Syria that killed more than 50,000 people in February 2023 triggered trauma and anxiety among the people of Swedish Village. Amal Ashour says that as they watched the search and rescue efforts supported by so many countries, they feared what could happen to their own children in a crisis: they have limited capacities and no early-warning system in place, and they are under blockade. The idea of countries sending airplanes loaded with food and medical supplies to help them is unimaginable. “Israel has helped some nations in disasters, but they won’t help us next door,” Ashour says. Cement cubes dropped on clay soil along 170 meters (560 feet) of the coast between Swedish Village and the sea cannot provide much security to the 2,000 residents. All of them have family memories of displacement and trauma when Israel was created in 1948 and they had to flee their homes from other parts of historical Palestine under gunfire. Local experts say that a radical solution is needed within five years before the beaches disappear. The Gaza Strip has a coastline that stretches for 40 kilometers (25 miles), extending 15 marine miles. However, the annual erosion rate is high at 2 meters (78 inches) per year. Over the past 20 years, the beach has lost about 200,000 square meters (656,168 feet). Coastal erosion is directly related to climate action and is now felt by Rafah’s poorest farming and fishing communities. MAY 2023
FOOD SECURITY THREAT The people of Swedish Village and Rafah rely heavily on agriculture and fishing, both of which are disappearing due to deliberate policies. Fishing is heavily restricted to a small area depleted of fish, and fishermen are often chased and attacked by Israeli and Egyptian ships if they venture further. The Gaza Strip has been under an Israeli blockade since 2007, severely limiting the movement of people and goods in and out of the territory. The Israeli siege on Gaza, which has been in place for over a decade, severely restricts the movement of goods, including agricultural supplies, equipment and exports. The Israeli military also enforces a buffer zone along the GazaIsrael border, which takes up approximately 17 percent of the total land area of the Gaza Strip. This buffer zone prohibits farmers from accessing their lands, causing significant economic losses to the agricultural sector. This has resulted in a shortage of basic goods, including food, fuel, medical and building supplies, and has had a significant (Advertisement)
impact on the local economy. Many businesses have been forced to shut down due to bankruptcy. Unemployment is high, with around 50 percent of the population unemployed, according to the World Bank. In addition to economic challenges, people in Rafah and Swedish Village have also experienced a high level of violence and insecurity due to ongoing Israeli assaults over the years. This has led to the displacement of many families, the loss of life, and the destruction of homes, water and sanitation infrastructure near to the Egyptian border. Mohammed Al-Qin, a 50-year-old resident who was born and raised in the village, warns of approaching danger. “We are deprived of the sea, and the village has become uninhabitable.” “Unfortunately, the depth of the beach sand was 30 meters (98 feet) deep into the sea. Now the water is close to our homes, with only 10 meters (33 feet) separating it from us.” Al-Qin’s frustration and fear are palpable as he describes how his house near the coastline flooded three years ago and how he and his children fled their home again in January for fear of drowning. His neighbor, Raafat Hassouna, a 50-year-old farmer, also worries that the water may engulf their homes, as it did this winter in January. The concrete cubes placed 170 meters away have since been submerged. “It is scary. At any time, our village can be cut off from the outside world,” he says. Palestinian municipality officials say they have limited solutions because of the Israeli blockade of Gaza. Swedish Village has appealed to Egypt, Sweden and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah for help. But there has been no answer. ■
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Special Report
PHOTO BY EYAL WARSHAVSKY/SOPA IMAGES/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES
Netanyahu’s Judicial Coup is the BDS Movement’s Dream By Gideon Levy
A protester holds a placard during a demonstration in Tel Aviv, on Feb. 11, 2023, against the government’s judicial reform plan. Over 160,000 rallied for democracy for the sixth consecutive week against controversial legal reforms touted by Binyamin Netanyahu’s right‐wing government. Israel’s high‐tech sector has given employees time off to join the protests because their industry is in danger as international investors and dollars flee the country. THE BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement’s dream is rapidly materializing. A key manager in one of the country’s investment firms told me this week that the rate of money leaving his office and going overseas is currently 10 million shekels a day ($2.76 million), and growing. This person, who has always stayed away from politics and current events, is now walking around crestfallen. Politics have invaded his office. Anyone who, as I did, believed that it’s all talk and fearmongering was proven wrong. What is happening now is exactly what the international movement advocating a boycott of Israel wanted to achieve, but in another cause. What is happening may
Gideon Levy is an Israeli journalist and author. This article was first published in Haaretz, Feb. 23, 2023. © Haaretz. Reprinted with permission. 20
prove that the BDS movement was right all along: Only through money will it be possible to change Israel’s policy. Hit it in the pocket; the BDS weapon is the most effective one. The greatest achievement of the protest movement against the judicial upheaval thus far is its success in intimidating and driving to action a substantial proportion of Israelis, as well as most of the rest of the world. What the BDS movement and human rights organizations failed to do in the name of crimes and malfeasance, the protest movement succeeded in doing in the name of combating what it calls the end of democracy. This caught on like fire. It wasn’t the intifadas and wars, the descriptions of the horrors and laments, not the resolutions of international institutions or the United States which managed to evoke Continued on page 51
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Israel and Judaism
For Jewish Americans, the Idea of Israel as a Liberal Democracy Is Rapidly Fading
By Allan C. Brownfeld
PHOTO BY JACK GUEZ/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
SINCE BINYAMIN Netanyahu’s victory in Israel’s November election and the ascension to power of his far-right government, including openly racist ministers whose contempt for democracy is on constant display, even the strongest Jewish supporters of Israel in the U.S. are doing their best to separate themselves from what they call that country’s “retreat from democracy.” Among those who have issued strong statements critical of Netanyahu and his far-right colleagues are long-time AntiDefamation League leader Abraham Foxman, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, New York Times columnists Thomas Friedman and Bret Stephens, Reps. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Israeli and American citizens call for U.S. intervention during a rally against the government’s controversial Adam Schiff (D-CA) and a host justice reform bill, outside the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv on March 7, 2023. of others. The Washington Post it to be. This fact was well understood by Israelis. In an important published an article in February with the headline, “Some U.S. Rabbis article published in Haaretz on Feb. 6, 2023 with the title, “Over Forgo Prayer for Israel to Protest Far-right Government.” The Post Decades, Democracy for Israelis Has Been a Military Junta for reported that “Many American Jews are outraged by Israel’s new Palestinians,” correspondent Amira Hass, who lives in the occupied government and its anti-democratic leaning, which run contrary to West Bank, assesses the harsh realities which have always faced their liberal Jewish values. In [February], at least three petitions with Palestinians, both within Israel and in the occupied territories. Hass hundreds of signatures have emerged, each criticizing the new govobserves: “The present government is dangerous to many ernment and what many see as its potentially authoritarian bent.” Jews...but first and foremost it is dangerous for all Palestinians, on Rabbi Jill Jacobs, chief executive of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for both sides of the Green Line. It could carry out various expulsion Human Rights, noted: “Even rabbis who don’t usually take risks to plans, which its senior ministers—Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Benspeak about Israel, occupation and democracy, are taking a few Gvir—have been advancing openly.” more risks.” Rabbi Sharon Brous, in a sermon on Feb. 4 to the liberal The idea that Israel was a genuine democracy in the past is one IKAR Community in Los Angeles, said, “This moment of extremism that Hass shows to be false: “After all, long before justice ministers has been a long time in the making and our silence has made us acted to weaken the judiciary—which never stopped the dispossescomplicit.” She castigated Jewish leaders and communities who sion and discrimination—expelling Palestinians from their homeland have been reluctant to criticize Israel. was burnt into Israeli ideology and praxis as a realistic option. Even In fact, Israel has never been the Western-style democracy it before the state was founded, it viewed the indigenous people as claimed to be and which its American Jewish supporters believed an unnecessary surplus who in the best case are to be ignored and Allan C. Brownfeld is a syndicated columnist and associate editor of in the worst case to be gotten rid of.” the Lincoln Review, a journal published by the Lincoln Institute for The danger of the expulsion of Palestinians is real, in Hass’s view, Research and Education, and editor of Issues, the quarterly journal “because most of the protesters against the government are conof the American Council for Judaism. MAY 2023
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vinced that, until now, Israel was a democracy. They have been and still are willfully blind to the fact that their democracy for Jews has been a military junta for Palestinians. The dictatorship they are warning about has been operating already for… decades… Israel’s military regime over the Palestinians is a parliament, government, courts, jailer and hangman all together… We control a conquered population, deprive it of civil rights and…claimed everything was legal and proper…The worsening harm planned against the Palestinians has a Knesset majority larger than the size of the (Netanyahu) coalition…discrimination against the Palestinians is part of the consensus.” (Advertisement)
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JEWISH AMERICANS’ EMBRACE OF ISRAEL It is instructive to review the history of the organized American Jewish community’s total embrace of Israel and its obsession with defending whatever Israel has done. After the 1967 war, the American Jewish community turned its attention to Holocaust remembrance and the promotion of Israeli interests. The theologian Marc Ellis posited the birth of “Holocaust theology in which a Judaism emerges that fuses its religious and cultural heritage with loyalty to the state of Israel.” The rabbi and philosopher Emil Fackenheim, in his book To Mend the World, defined the defense of Israel as the “orienting reality for all Jewish and indeed all post-Holocaust thought.” There were dissenters, of course. Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf, a former assistant to Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and later a friend and mentor to a young Barack Obama, wrote a 1979 essay, “Overemphasizing the Holocaust.” In it, Wolf lamented the fact that in “Jewish school or synagogue …one does not learn about God or the Midrash…nearly as carefully as one learns about the Holocaust.” Worse, American Jewish leaders were using “the Shoah as the model for Jewish destiny, and so ‘Never again’ had come to mean ‘Jews first—and the devil take the hindmost.’” Historian Peter Novick argued that “as the Middle Eastern dispute came to be viewed within a Holocaust paradigm,” it simultaneously became “endowed with all the black-andwhite simplicity of the Holocaust”—a framework that promoted “a belligerent stance toward any criticism of Israel.” In 1972, a group of prominent liberal rabbis and intellectuals came together in a group called Breira (Choice). The group called on Israel “to make territorial concessions” and “recognize the legitimacy of the national aspirations of the Palestinians” so as to reach a peace agreement that reflected “the idealism and thought of many early Zionists with whom we identify.” Breira’s founding chairman was Rabbi Arnold Wolf. In March 1973 he wrote in the Jewish journal Sh’ma: “Israel colonizes the ‘administered’ territories without regard to international law or the rights of the indigenous Palestinians…Israel may be the
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Jewish state; it is not now and perhaps can never be Zion.” Breira came under immediate and bitter attack from the Jewish establishment. Reform leader Arthur Lelyveld accused Breira of giving “aid and comfort…to those who would cut aid to Israel and leave it defenseless before murderers and terrorists.” Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Simcha Dinitz, made it clear that all differences between Israel and American Jews should be aired privately. Commentary launched an attack calling Breira “a vivid demonstration of the inroads made into the American Jewish consciousness by the campaign to delegitimize Israel.” Breira was not able to survive. It fell apart by the winter of 1977-78. Rabbi Max Ticktin would observe in retrospect, “We were naive about the power of the Jewish establishment and that came out painfully when they began to attack us and limit our activity.”
ZIONISTS ARE SPEAKING OUT Netanyahu has made it clear that Israel is not the liberal democracy Jewish Americans thought it was. Self-proclaimed Zionists are speaking out. An article in The Washington Post carried the headline, “We are Liberal American Zionists. We Stand with Israel’s Protesters.” The authors are three prominent Zionists: Paul Berman, critic-at-large at Tablet and on the editorial board of Dissent; Martin Peretz, former publisher of The New Republic; and Leon Wieseltier, formerly literary editor of The New Republic. They write: “It is not just a matter of the proposed law restricting the power of the Supreme Court, the only check and balance in Israel’s system—a law that Netanyahu has proposed apparently for the corrupt purpose of rescuing himself from his own legal morass. A number of racists, misogynists, homophobes and theocrats have taken powerful ministerial posts in his government, and the whole spirit of their enterprise is visibly hostile toward the culture of democratic tolerance and rationality.” When it comes to Palestinians, the authors noted: “The new government threatens Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, who will face an ever more aggressive campaign to establish still more Jewish settlements. It threatens Palestinian citizens MAY 2023
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of Israel proper, who will face increasing challenges to their legitimate status in Israeli society…Israel…needs and deserves maximum political support for the Israeli protesters in the streets…” “Why the Pro-Settler Right Hates Israel’s Justice System So Much,” published in The Washington Jewish Week, was written by Susie Gelman, board chair of Israel Policy Forum, a group founded in 1993 that supports a two-state solution. She writes: “Israel’s democratic decay cannot be discussed without mentioning the Palestinian conflict. The Supreme Court is a critical pillar of Israeli democracy, but it is not the only one. Why, then, have would-be authoritarians and theocrats in the coalition taken aim at it first?…The obvious answer is that the court…is widely viewed on the Israeli right as an impediment to Jewish settlement in the West Bank and to an expansive vision of Greater Israel….In 1979, the court issued an important verdict barring the establishment of settlements on private land in the occupied territories.” Then, Gelman points out, “There was the ‘judicial revolution’ of the 1990s, in which the court…developed an approach more closely resembling judicial review in the United States and other countries—namely, the ability to strike down unconstitutional laws (or, in Israel’s case, the legislation that violated the quasi-constitutional Basic Laws). As the court’s reach grew, so did the fears of religious Zionists and settlers that it would stand in the way of their goals… The new government is not leaving much open to interpretation here. Alongside its intentions for the court, the coalition also entered into office following announcements of bold plans for legalizing hitherto unauthorized West Bank settlements.” In an important article, “The Agony of Liberal Zionism” published by the International Press Agency, Pressenza, Yakov Rabkin, professor emeritus of history at the University of Montreal assesses the growing crisis within Zionism. The author of the book What Is Modern Israel? writes: “The new government may destroy the last of the two illusions dear to liberal Zionists and instrumental in maintaining Western support for Israel. Over half a million settlers on the territories Israel conquered in 1967 killed the prospect of a two-state solution. It has MAY 2023
been confirmed dead and buried, even though Western governments continue to pay it lip service. The current Israeli government is casting a death blow to the second one, that of a ‘Jewish and democratic state.’ These two illusions have long been hiding the reality of Zionist supremacy over the Palestinians. Unlike the Tel Aviv protesters who decry the dangers to democracy, Palestinians have long known that Israel’s democracy is, in fact, an ethnocracy to oppress them.” In Rabkin’s view, “Ethnic supremacy is basic to the Zionist project. It was enshrined legislatively in 2018 when the Knesset adopted a basic law proclaiming that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people, rather than a state belonging to the people who inhabit it. This law offers legal protection to the well-established practice of discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel…Respectable human rights organizations in Israel and elsewhere have concluded that Israel practices a form of apartheid.” Zionism, Rabkin argues, is “a variety of European ethnic nationalism.” The extreme right-wing now in power, he declares, “reflects constitutive values of Zionism and is not shy to assert them…The current government undercuts the illusion of liberal Zionism, a political oxymoron.” Writing in The New York Times, Peter Beinart, Professor at City University of New York and an editor of Jewish Currents—and a former Zionist—headlines his article, “You Can’t Save Democracy in a Jewish State.” He notes that demonstrations in Israel against Netanyahu’s proposed judicial and other “reforms” include very few Palestinians. The reason, he suggests, is that “It’s not a movement for equal rights. It’s a movement to preserve the political system that existed before Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition took power and was not, for Palestinians, a genuine liberal democracy in the first place. It’s a movement to save liberal democracy for Jews.” The terms that are used when it comes to discussing Israel as a “democracy” are confusing. Beinart provides this assessment: “Democracy means government by the people. Jewish statehood means government by Jews…Jews comprise only half
the people between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea…For most Palestinians under Israeli control—those in the West Bank and Gaza Strip—Israel is not a democracy. It’s not a democracy because Palestinians in the occupied territories can’t vote for the government which dominates their lives…In 2018, the Knesset passed legislation reaffirming Israel’s identity as ‘the nation-state of the Jewish people,’ which means that the country belongs to Jews like me who don’t live there, but not to the Palestinians, who live under its control, even the lucky few who hold Israeli citizenship. All this happened before Mr. Netanyahu’s new government took power. This is the vibrant liberal democracy that liberal Zionists want to save…Ultimately, a movement premised on ethnocracy cannot successfully defend the rule of law. Only a movement for equality can.” ■
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From the Diaspora
“Truth, No Matter What”: Why Watering Down Palestinian Reality Is a Crime
PHOTO BY JAAFAR ASHTIYEH/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
By Dr. Ramzy Baroud
Palestinians confront an Israeli military vehicle during an Israeli army raid in the Jenin camp for Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank on March 7, 2023. The Palestinian health ministry said six men were killed, one aged 49 and the rest in their 20s. ON FEB. 20, 2023, the United Nations Security Council approved a statement, described in the media as a “watered-down” version of an earlier draft resolution, which would have demanded that Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory.” The intrigues that led to the scrapping of what was meant to be a binding resolution will be the subject of a future article. For now, however, I would like to reflect on the tendency of the so-called international community to “water down” the horrific reality in which Palestinians live.
Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. His latest book, co‐edited with Ilan Pappé, Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak Out, is available from Middle East Books & More. Dr. Baroud is a non‐resident senior research fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is <www.ramzybaroud.net>. 24
While we often rage against statements made by U.S. politicians who, like former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, refuse to even acknowledge that Israel is occupying Palestine in the first place, we tend to forget that many of us are, somehow, involved in the watering down of the Palestinian reality, as well. While reports by B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, dubbing Israel an “apartheid state,” are welcome additions to a growing political discourse making similar claims, one must ask: why did it take decades for these conclusions to be drawn now? And what is the moral and legal justification for “watering down” Israel’s apartheid reality for all of these years, considering that Israel has, from the moment of its inception—and even before— been an apartheid entity? The tendency to minimize, however, goes much deeper than this, as if there is a conspiracy not to describe the reality of Palestine and
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the Palestinian people by its proper names: war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, apartheid and more. I have spent half my life living in, and interacting with, Western societies while lobbying for solidarity with Palestinians and for holding Israel accountable for its ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people. Every step of the way, in every society, and on every platform, there has always been pushback, even by Palestine’s own supporters. Whether motivated by blind “love” for Israel, or by guilt over historical crimes against the Jewish people, or fear of “rocking the boat,” or offending the sensibilities of Western societies or outright retaliation by pro-Israeli supporters, the outcome tends to be the same: if not unconditional support for Israel, then, certainly “watered-down” statements on the tragic reality of the Palestinians. Naturally, a watered-down version of the truth is not the truth at all. Worse, it is unlikely to lead to any resolute moral stances or meaningful political actions. If, indeed, watering down the truth was of any value, Palestine would have been freed a long time ago. Not only is this not the case, but there also remains a true deficit of knowledge regarding the root causes, nature and consequences of the daily Israeli crimes in Palestine. Admittedly, the quisling Palestinian leadership exemplified in the Palestinian Authority, has played a significant role in watering down our understanding of Israel’s ongoing crimes. In fact, the “watered-down” statement at the U.N. would not have replaced the binding resolution if it were not for the consent of the PA. However, in many Palestinian spaces in which the PA holds no political sway whatsoever, we continue to seek a watered-down understanding of Palestine. Almost every day, somewhere in the world, a Palestinian or a pro-Palestinian speaker, author, artist or activist is being disinvited from a conference, a meeting, a workshop or an academic engagement for failing to water down his or her take on Palestine. While fear of repercussions—the denial of funding, smear campaigns or loss of position—often serves as the logic behind the MAY 2023
constant watering down, sometimes proPalestine groups and media organizations walk into the “watered-down” trap of their own accords. To protect themselves from smear campaigns, government meddling or even legal action, some pro-Palestine organizations often seek affiliation with “reputable” people from mainstream backgrounds, politicians or ex-politicians, well-known figures or celebrities to portray an image of moderation. Yet, knowingly or unwittingly, with time, they begin to moderate their own message so as not to lose hard-earned support in mainstream society. In doing so, instead of speaking truth to power, these groups begin to develop a political discourse that only guarantees their own survival and nothing more. In Prison Notebooks, anti-Fascist Italian intellectual Antonio Gramsci urged us to create a broad “cultural front” to establish our own version of cultural hegemony. However, Gramsci never advocated the watering down of radical discourse in the first place. He merely wanted to expand the power of the radical discourse to reach a much wider audience, as a starting point for a fundamental shift in society. In the case of Palestine, however, we tend to do the opposite: instead of maintaining the integrity of the truth, we tend to make it less truthful so that it may appear more palatable. While creative in making their messages more relatable to a wider audience, the Zionists rarely water down their actual language. To the contrary, the Zionist discourse is uncompromising in its violent and racist
nature which, ultimately, contributes to the erasure of Palestinians as a people with history, culture, real grievances and rights. The same is true in the case of the proUkraine and anti-Russian propaganda plaguing Western media around the clock. In this case, there is rarely any deviation from the message regarding who is the victim and who is the perpetrator. Historically, anti-colonial movements in Africa and elsewhere hardly watered down their approach to colonialism, neither in the language nor in the forms of resistance. Palestinians, on the other hand, subsist in this watered-down duplicitous reality simply because the West’s allegiance to Israel makes the truthful depiction of the Palestinian struggle too “radical” to sustain. This approach is not only morally problematic but also ahistorical and impractical. Ahistorical and impractical because halftruths, or watered-down truths, never lead to justice and never effect lasting change. Perhaps a starting point of how we escape the “watered-down” trap we find ourselves in is to reflect on these words by one of the greatest engaged intellectuals in recent history, Malcolm X: “I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” The truth, in its simplest and most innate form, is the only objective we should continue to relentlessly pursue until Palestine and her people are finally free. ■
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Congress Watch
A Safe Legislative Agenda to Launch the 118th Congress By Julia Pitner
PHOTO BY DANIEL SLIM/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Rights Council, and for other purposes,” including a prohibition of the U.S. from making any voluntary or assessed contributions to United Nations Commissions of Inquiries that relate to Israel and to eliminate the Commission of Inquiry on Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. In the face of growing attacks on speech critical of the Israeli government’s well-documented human rights abuses, the U.S. State Department withdrew its nomination of James Cavallaro on Feb. 15 to serve as a commissioner on the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights (“the Commission”). The decision came following reports by a fringe media outlet on CavPeople walk past the United Nations headquarters in New York on March 3, 2023, as countries try to over‐ come their differences to finally agree on a treaty to protect the high seas. Meanwhile, Congress allaro’s outspoken criticism continues to bash the U.N. and urge vetoes of any anti‐Israel resolution put to a vote before the U.N. of Israel’s apartheid against Security Council. Palestinians. Just a week later, on Feb. 28, Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) and Mike of 218-211, with Rep. David Joyce (R-OH) AS NOTED in the last issue, Rep. Ilhan Lawler (R-NY) introduced H.R. 1268, “To voting present and four representatives Omar (D-MN) was targeted for removal amend the State Department Basic Author(three Republicans and one Democrat) not from the Republican-led House Foreign Afities Act of 1956 to establish the position of voting at all. fairs Committee (HFAC). H. Res. 76, introSpecial Envoy for the Abraham Accords, While conflict escalates in Israel and duced by Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) on Jan. and for other purposes.” It was referred to Palestine as the most extreme govern31 with no co-sponsors, attacked Omar for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. ment in Israel’s history takes hold, Concriticism of Israel and accused her of antiNot to leave UNRWA untouched, on gress is focusing on how the U.N. is “unSemitism. The resolution was bolstered by Feb. 17 Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) introduced fairly” targeting Israel. House Republicans the remarks of some of Omar’s Democratic H.R. 1102 together with 24 Republican coin particular continue to try to silence U.N. colleagues, who accused her of anti-Semisponsors, “To withhold United States concriticism of Israel’s violations of internatism during the 117th congressional sestributions to the United Nations Relief and tional human rights and humanitarian law. sion. H. Res. 76, “Removing a certain Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in On Jan. 31, Rep. Gregory Steube (Rmember from a certain standing committee the Near East (UNRWA), and for other FL) and Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI) introof the House,” passed on Feb. 2 by a vote purposes,” which was referred to the duced in the House H.R. 687, titled the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. It is “United Nations Human Rights Council Julia Pitner is a contributing editor of the the companion bill to S. 431, the “UNRWA Reform Act,” requiring “certain actions reWashington Report. She lives in the Accountability and Transparency Act,” inlating to the United Nations Human Washington, DC metropolitan area. 26
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troduced on Feb. 15, sponsored by Sen. James Risch (R-ID) with 16, all Republican, co-sponsors. Underscoring their legislative seriousness on combatting U.N. “bias,” on Feb. 17 a letter went to President Joe Biden from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (RCA), Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) and HFAC Chairman Michael McCaul (RTX) urging him to instruct his U.N. ambassador “to oppose and veto any anti-Israel resolution put to a vote before the U.N. Security Council.” Taking a momentary break from U.N. bashing, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) with 51 bipartisan co-sponsors introduced H. Res. 132, “Responding to the earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria” on Feb. 17. In addition to expressions of sympathy and condolences to the people of Türkiye and Syria, the resolution called on the Biden administration to continue to use all diplomatic tools, including the United Nations Security Council, to “open all Türkiye-Syria border crossings for United Nations assistance” and underscored the need for international assistance to reach northwest Syria to assist with disaster relief. It was passed by the House on Feb. 27 under suspension of the rules by a vote of 414-2. However, on March 1 the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs (SFOPS) returned to the U.N. agenda with a hearing entitled, “Oversight Hearing— United Nations.” The sole witness was U.S.
Ambassador to the U.N. Linda ThomasGreenfield. SFOPS chair Rep. Mario DiazBalart (R-FL) opened the hearing attacking the U.N. over Israel and attacking the Commission of Inquiry and the International Court of Justice, as well as UNRWA. Staying true to her word of not being silenced on foreign policy issues, on March 8 Rep. Ilhan Omar introduced H.R. 1471, “To provide for the imposition of sanctions with respect to foreign countries that are in violation of international human rights law or international humanitarian law, and for other purposes,” with Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Rep. Alexandria OcasioCortez (D-NY) co-sponsoring. It was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, in addition to the Committees on the Judiciary, Intelligence (Permanent Select) and Homeland Security. In response, on March 10 Rep. Chip Roy together with 14 Republican co-sponsors introduced H.R. 1563, which would “prohibit contributions to the United Nations Human Rights Council, and for other purposes.”
MOVES TO REMOVE IRAQ WAR POWERS, U.S. TROOPS FROM SYRIA In a push to end to the use of the 2002 AUMF, on Feb. 9 Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) together with 27 bipartisan cosponsors introduced S. 316, “To repeal the authorizations for use of military force against Iraq.” Reported out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee without amendment on March 8, it subsequently overwhelming passed a
roll call vote on March 16 to place it on the Senate legislative calendar for a final vote. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) resubmitted the House version, H.R. 932, “To repeal the authorizations for use of military force against Iraq” on Feb. 9, which currently has 23 bipartisan co-sponsors. Perhaps hoping to ride the wave, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) introduced H. Con. Res. 21, “Directing the president, pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution, to remove the United States Armed Forces from Syria.” The bill had four Republican cosponsors and was defeated in the House on March 8 by a vote of 103-321.
A 2024 HEADS UP On March 16, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee PAC rolled out its first wave of more than 90 House and Senate endorsements for the 2024 elections, shedding some light on the group’s strategy in what are likely to be some of the most watched races in next year’s elections. AIPAC’s initial endorsement list includes a number of prominent House and Senate committee chairs and ranking members, as well as the top members of House Republican and Democratic leadership. AIPAC is again endorsing more than 20 Republicans who voted in 2021 against certifying the presidential election results. AIPAC’s affiliated Super PAC, the United Democracy Project, which spent millions in highly competitive Democratic primaries in 2022, has not yet outlined its plans for 2024. ■
Help make sure that the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs will be here for the next generation. By remembering the Washington Report in your will, you can: • Make a significant gift without affecting your current cash flow; • Direct your bequest to a vital purpose—educating readers about U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East; • Receive a charitable estate tax deduction & Leave a legacy for future generations. Bequests of any size are honored with membership in the American Educational Trust’s “Choirmasters,” named for angels whose foresight and dedication ensured the future of the Washington Report and Middle East Books and More. For more information visit www.wrmea.org/donate/bequests.pdf, contact us at circulation@wrmea.org, write: American Educational Trust, PO Box 292380 • Kettering, OH 45429, or telephone our new toll-free circulation number 800-368-5788 • Fax: 202-265-4574. MAY 2023
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Special Report By Hajira Asghar
PHOTO BY ZANA HALIL/ DIA IMAGES VIA GETTY IMAGES
Sanctions, Suffering and Syria
The clean up begins following a 7.8 magnitude earthquake on Feb. 6, 2023 in Idlib, Syria. FOLLOWING THE DEVASTATING earthquakes that hit parts of Türkiye and Syria on Feb. 6, the debate surrounding U.S. sanctions has reignited. More than 54,000 deaths have been reported in the two nations, and millions more remain displaced. The impact on Syria has been even more devastating in light of the country’s decade of civil war, accompanied by Western sanctions. As the global community coordinated direct humanitarian assistance toward those in need following the initial tremor, essential help failed to reach northern Syria in time. Assistance from the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination team was delayed because of bureaucratic roadblocks and cautious interpretations of international law, resulting in too little, too late. Many Syrians, already displaced and dejected by years of conflict, felt abandoned once again by the global community. While many have pointed the finger at the government of Bashar al-Assad for the
Hajira Asghar is a Washington, DC‐based writer and founder of Students Against Imperialism at the George Washington University. She is the assistant director of Middle East Books and More. 28
lackluster response, others, including Assad’s government, point to sanctions as the main roadblock to helping those in need and have renewed calls to have them lifted.
CAESAR ACT In June 2020, Congress passed the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act in response to wartime human rights violations committed by the Assad regime. Considered to be a very broad piece of legislation, the bill was designed to hinder Syrian government efforts to rebuild war-torn areas of the country. While certain exemptions exist to allow for humanitarian efforts, the Caesar Act created a climate of hesitancy and overcompliance from international banks, governments and financial institutions, which blocked the flow of critical money into aid channels. The sanctions have caused major disruptions in the Syrian economy, leading to a devalued currency, limited investment and isolation from the global economy. Today, 90 percent of the Syrian population lives below the poverty line with limited access to food, housing, electricity, clean water, transportation and healthcare.
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While the Caesar Act has been lauded as a major blow against Assad, the question of its efficacy and ethics has re-entered the geopolitical zeitgeist due to the earthquake. In an op-ed published by the Washington Post on Feb. 9, former State Department employee Wa’el Alzayat argued against lifting sanctions on humanitarian grounds: “The motivation behind these sanctions, especially those post– 2011, is straightforward: to limit Assad’s ability to finance his military and militias who have been implicated in some of the worst atrocities of this century...While sanctions have certainly contributed to stunting government expenditures and the Syrian lira’s depreciation, they have had no significant bearing on the delivery of humanitarian assistance.” Many similar Instagram infographics have circulated recently echoing this narrative, paradoxically attempting to use human rights concerns to dissuade individuals from advocating for a more open flow of resources to warstricken and devastated Syrians.
SANCTIONS AS A CRUTCH
Americans. Despite this, they are a crucial bipartisan tool, often referred to as a “peaceful alternative to war.” The question is, how peaceful can sanctions really be? During the Gulf War in the 1990s, the United States applied a comprehensive and crippling round of sanctions on Iraq. The intent at the time was to decisively stunt Saddam Hussain’s regime through a comprehensive financial and trade embargo. The results were utterly catastrophic for the population. An estimated 500,000 Iraqi children died due to malnutrition. When questioned if the human cost was justified in a 1996 “60 Minutes” interview, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright famously responded, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price, we think is worth it.” From Iraq, to Afghanistan, to Cuba, to Venezuela and to Iran, sanctions have immiserated millions of civilians, the collateral damage of U.S. foreign policy. Indeed, when sanctions are imposed, it is the civilian population which typically suffers the most. Data shows that in sanctioned nations, civilian caloric intake decreases, infant mortality increases and preventable diseases lead to preventable deaths. A 2019 study published by the Center for Economic and Policy Research reported that more than 40,000 Venezuelans have died as a consequence of U.S. sanctions since 2017.
In fact, sanctions are a form of collective punishment against civilians, who suffocate under their grip. Many human rights experts have argued that unilateral coercive measures constitute an unequivocal violation of international law and human rights. If regime change is intended through the enforcement of sanctions, they have been unsuccessful in achieving this goal. Sanctions are neither effective nor ethical, yet they continue to be used as a vital tactic of U.S. foreign policy. In an official statement following a 12-day trip to Syria in November 2022, U.N. Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan stated: “No reference to good objectives of unilateral sanctions justifies the violation of fundamental human rights. The international community has an obligation of solidarity and assistance to the Syrian people.” If human rights and international law are values the global community cares to uphold, the onus exists to call for an immediate end to unilateral sanctions as a matter of urgency. Yet as recently as March 6, Congress overwhelmingly voted in support of maintaining sanctions on Syria, a shamefully resounding commitment to upholding this punitive assault on a downtrodden civilian population. As international efforts try to help Syrians rebuild and rebound from yet another traumatic event, an end to the use of human lives as geopolitical pawns is necessary. ■
Sanctions have assumed a vital position in the arsenal of U.S. foreign policy in recent decades. Tactically enlisted against nations and individuals the United States has deemed adversarial, sanctions are used as a tool to coerce their target into compliance by way of economic and po(Advertisement) litical isolation. Otherwise referred to as unilateral coercive measures, sanctions create a punitive climate of overcompliance by organizations or nontargeted states, wherein any assistance or collabPalestinian Medical Relief Society, a grassroots oration extended to a nation descommunity-based Palestinian health organization, founded in ignated enemy status is assumed 1979 by Palestinian doctors, needs your support today. to draw the ire of Washington. Visit www.pmrs.ps to see our work in action. Sanctions stunt a nation or organization’s ability to import goods Visit www.friendsofpmrs.org to support our work and donate. such as pharmaceuticals and industrial parts vital to the function of Mail your U.S. Tax-Deductible check to our American Foundation: key infrastructure, from water sanitation to healthcare. Shrouded in Friends of PMRS, Inc dense legal jargon, sanctions rarely PO Box 450554 • Atlanta, GA 31145 make news headlines, and their For more information call: (404) 441-2702 or e-mail: fabuakel@gmail.com impact remains unknown to most MAY 2023
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Talking Turkey
PHOTO BY YAVUZ OZDEN / DIA IMAGES VIA GETTY IMAGES
Grief, Anger and (Some) Hope in Türkiye’s Earthquake Aftermath By Jonathan Gorvett
People walk in the street on Feb. 27, 2023 in Hatay, Türkiye. The death toll from catastrophic earthquakes that hit Türkiye and Syria has topped 54,000. WHEN THE FIRST earthquake struck on Feb. 6, 2023, Famagusta’s Turkish Cypriot children’s volleyball team was staying at the Hotel Isias in Adiyaman, southeastern Türkiye. In the horror that followed, the entire team of 25 children was killed, along with 10 accompanying adults. “Now, all of us—our whole town—is so sad,” says Okan Dagli, speaking from Famagusta, on Cyprus’ northeastern coast. Among the dead was the wife of one of Dagli’s cousins and her two children. In his closeknit town, there is no one who doesn’t know at least one of the victims. To date, over 48,448 people have been killed by the earthquakes in Türkiye, according to Turkish Interior Ministry figures, with 164,000 buildings collapsed or about to collapse across 10 provinces in a zone larger than the British Isles.
Jonathan Gorvett is a free‐lance writer specializing on European and Middle Eastern affairs. 30
The damage extends into neighboring Syria, too, where the U.N. estimates around 6,000 more people have been killed, many of them already made homeless and bereaved by over a decade of war. In Türkiye, meanwhile, around 1.5 million people have lost their houses, apartments and workplaces in what the U.N. Development Program Türkiye Resident Representative, Louisa Vinton, described on Feb. 21 as, “The largest earthquake disaster in Türkiye’s history and perhaps the largest natural disaster the country has ever faced.” The numbers are indeed colossal, while the loss is everywhere—deeply personal, individual. Even Turks who have luckily not experienced the loss of loved ones find themselves “suddenly standing there at home thinking how I have a house and heating, but they have nothing,” says Cigdem Ustun, Secretary General of the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM) in Istanbul. “It isn’t really
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possible to concentrate on anything,” she adds. Yet, in addition to grief and shock, there has also been anger, with many now beginning to ask what could have been done to prevent such a huge loss of life, even if nothing could have prevented the quakes themselves, in one of the world’s most active fault zones. There is also some stirring of hope, as an outpouring of solidarity and aid triggered by the catastrophe has reached across old political and ethnic fault lines. In particular, with the epicenters in southeastern Türkiye and northern Syria containing many ethnic-Kurdish majority areas, the rallying together of the region’s ethnic Kurds, Turks and Arab populations, might be a remarkable opportunity to address some long-standing antagonisms. “This is an historic moment,” Dr Arzu Yilmaz from the University of Kurdistan Hewler in Erbil told the Washington Report. “I really hope it will not be wasted.”
BREAKING THE RULES Where the anger is most prevalent, for now, is in the way the multiple catastrophes of the last few weeks were made far worse by years of poor governance. This is despite the fact that “we have all the regulations in place to make sure buildings can withstand earthquakes,” Ustun told the Washington Report. Many of those regulations were brought in after the devastating 1999 Marmara earthquake, which killed over 17,000 people in towns and cities south of Istanbul. “Yet, those regulations just don’t seem to have been enforced,” she adds, “with nobody coming to check on anything.” At the same time, there have also been seven “zoning amnesties” since the current government took power in 2002. Those “amnesties” involved a suspension of building codes—including those designed to prevent earthquake damage—in many of the areas that have now been devastated. MAY 2023
According to Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Deputy Secretary General, Dr. Bugra Gokce, some 3.1 million buildings had been granted such amnesties, across Türkiye, prior to 2018. Of these, he tweeted on Feb. 10, some 294,165 were in the 10 provinces impacted by the quake. These amnesties—designed to speed up new housing construction—came as the result of political decisions, often around election time. At one local election rally in Kahramanmaras in March 2019, for example, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself, leader of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), even boasted that his government had removed zoning restrictions in Kahramanmaras, Hatay and Malatya—all provinces badly impacted by the quakes. “We have solved the problems of 144,556 Kahramanmaras citizens with the amnesty,” he said. While such a junking of safety regulations was not the invention of the AKP, “The AKP came to power in the aftermath the 1999 quakes,” says Ustun, “when many were angry with the previous government, and so the AKP knew all about how dangerous amnesties are. Yet, they still passed seven of them.” Another source of anger has been frustration at what is widely seen as poor disaster management. The lack of trust in state institutions, such as the national disaster relief agency, AFAD, and the Turkish Red Crescent, led many to send aid via a multiplicity of civil society groups, fragmenting disaster response. An overly centralized decision-making process, in place since Türkiye adopted a presidential system of government in 2018, has also been blamed for the slow response times by state institutions. “The presidential system was supposed to speed things up,” says Ustun, “but instead, now everyone has had to wait for the ‘ok’ from Ankara.”
STRENGTH IN UNITY At the same time, the earthquakes have unleashed a huge relief effort from ordi-
nary people across Türkiye and beyond. Rescue teams from countries seen as traditionally hostile, such as Greece, Israel and even Armenia, have been on the ground, while European and U.S. governments have sent aid and promised financial support. Less well reported has been the aid also given by Kurdish organizations across the earthquake zone, which is heavily populated by ethnic Kurds. “The catastrophe has remobilized Kurdish people in Türkiye, Syria and Northern Iraq,” says Yilmaz. The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil has sent aid, while the Barzani Foundation—named after Northern Iraq’s former ruler, Masoud Barzani— was the first international aid organization to start work in Afrin, a predominantly ethnic Kurdish province of northern Syria badly impacted by the quakes. Yilmaz says that the quakes have also impacted grass-roots coordination between ethnic Kurds and Turks. “There is an emerging solidarity there, despite years of tensions,” she says. “We’re at a crossroads again—another historical moment for peace.” Indeed, the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been fighting Turkish forces since the 1980s for Kurdish independence in the southeast, declared an unofficial ceasefire in response to the quakes. Yet, the chance for a political sea change may be a slim one. Despite the PKK ceasefire, the Turkish military has continued its operations, while there is great uncertainty as to what the Turkish government might do, facing criticism of its earthquake response while also facing a general election, which must be called by the end of June. “For now, the [Turkish] government is not buying this great opportunity,” says Yilmaz. “But the Turkish people mustn’t allow that to be an obstacle to a great disaster turning into a great chance for peace.” Time—and the election calendar—will tell. ■
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Special Report
By Caving to Israel, Biden Opens the Door to War with Iran
By Trita Parsi
PHOTO BY HAMED MALEKPOUR/TASNIM NEWS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
strikes, let alone a condemnation. Instead, he offered what amounts to a defense and justification of the Israeli strike: “[It is] very important that we continue to deal with and work against as necessary the various actions that Iran has engaged in throughout the region and beyond that threaten peace and security.” A senior Biden administration official tells me that this does not signify a major shift in policy, but, without a public walk-back, such assurances leave much to be desired. From George W. Bush to Barack Obama to even Donald Trump, the U.S. government has sought to prevent Israel from bombing Iran Iranian mourners attend the burial ceremony of slain nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh at Imamzadeh since Washington risked getSaleh shrine in northern Tehran, on Nov. 30, 2020. Fakhrizadeh and his bodyguards were assassinated on ting sucked into that war— Nov. 27 in a bomb and gun attack on a major road outside the capital, heightening tensions once more and the end result would between Tehran and Israel. most likely be a severely destabilized Middle East and an Iran with a nuclear weapon. AS ALL EYES WERE ON Ukraine and Chinese balloons in the Bush Jr. refused to sell Israel specialized bunker-busting bombs sky, the Joe Biden administration seemingly shifted America’s longand denied giving Israeli leaders a green light to bomb Iran in 2008, standing opposition to Israel starting a disastrous war with Iran. U.S. effectively blocking the Israeli plan. President Obama made his opAmbassador to Israel Tom Nides told the Conference of Presidents position to an Israeli strike public, telling CNN in 2009 that he is “abof Major American Jewish Organizations on Feb. 19 that “Israel can solutely not” giving Israel a green light to attack Iran. The fear of a and should do whatever they need to deal with [in regards to Iran] surprise Israeli attack was so significant during the Obama years that and we’ve got their back”—a thinly veiled reference to military action. a senior Pentagon official asked to have the moon cycle included in These comments do not appear to be outliers. After Israel his daily intelligence brief since a unilateral Israeli attack was deemed struck a defense compound in Iran on January 29, the Biden admore likely to occur during particular moon phases. At one point, ministration uncharacteristically hinted to reporters that the Israeli Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took the unusual step of going to operation was part of a new joint effort by the U.S. and Israel to the podium in 2012 to condemn Israel’s assassination of an Iranian contain Tehran’s nuclear and military ambitions. When Secretary scientist due to its potentially destabilizing consequences. of State Antony Blinken was asked about it a day later, he offered And when the Israelis pushed American presidents to take milno criticism and no concern for the destabilizing potential of the itary action, various elements of the U.S. government pushed back—even under Donald Trump. According to Mark Milley, the Trita Parsi is executive VP of the Quincy Institute and author of Losing chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Israeli Prime Minister an Enemy: Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy. This article Binyamin Netanyahu urged Trump to strike against Iran after he was printed in Responsible Statecraft. Reprinted with permission. 32
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had lost the 2020 election. Milley resisted, telling Trump at one point that “If you do this, you’re gonna have a f...ing war.” A lot has clearly changed in the past years and months. Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear agreement, and, while Biden promised to return to it, the deal is still in limbo. Power in Iran, in turn, shifted back to the conservative hardliners, who fumbled the nuclear talks while increasing the regime’s repression of the Iranian people. This then led to widespread protests and the most significant challenge to the clerical regime in more than a decade. One thing hasn’t changed, however: War with Iran will be disastrous for the region, for the United States—and for the Iranian people’s struggle for freedom and dignity. Yet, this appears to be the direction in which the Biden team is going—perhaps inadvertently—by caving to Israel’s longstanding position to deal with Iran’s nuclear program militarily rather than diplomatically. (Incidentally, Netanyahu has been caught on tape boasting that it was
he who convinced Trump to quit the Iran nuclear deal.) This does fit a pattern, however, in which the one area where Biden has most consistently followed Trump’s Middle East policy has been on Israel. Biden has refused to reverse almost all major policy shifts in favor of Israel that Trump put in place—from moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, to recognizing Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights (which exposes the blatant double standard in Biden asserting that Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory threatens the “rules-based order”), to embracing and seeking to expand the Abraham Accords, a measure that put the final nail in the coffin of the two-state solution by explicitly “moving beyond” the Israeli-Palestinian conflict rather than seeking to resolve it. Despite this Trump-like deference to Israel—or perhaps precisely because of it—Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs did not mince his words slamming the United States after U.S. Ambassador Nides issued a benign criticism of ongoing plans
to weaken Israel’s justice system. “Mind your own business,” Amichai Chikli told the U.S. representative via Israeli radio. He later tweeted it as well, just to make sure the message was received by Washington. Ironically, that is good advice. An America that minds its own business—and by extension prioritizes its own interests—would not only stop undermining its own credibility in condemning Russian illegal annexations while enabling Israeli ones, but it would also block any Israeli attempt to drag America into a disastrous war in the Middle East. The United States already has its hands full with international crises. Between seeking to defeat Russia in Ukraine and battling China by strangling its high-tech industries, America simply doesn’t have the bandwidth for an Israeli-initiated war with Iran. As Harvard professor and Quincy Institute distinguished fellow Stephen Walt told me in an email, “This is lunacy.” Perhaps Biden should take to heart the true meaning of Minister Chikli’s dismissive advice. ■
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Changing Global Order: China’s Hand in the Iran-Saudi Deal By Mersiha Gadzo LOW RISK, HIGH REWARD FOR CHINA
PHOTO BY CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTRY/ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES
The two Gulf countries severed ties in 2016 when Saudi Arabia executed a prominent Shia Muslim scholar, triggering protests in Iran with protesters attacking the Saudi Embassy in Tehran. However, geopolitical conflict between the two goes back decades. Both sides have stood on opposing sides and engaged in proxy wars in many conflict zones in the Middle East. In Yemen, with the war now well into its eighth year, the Houthi rebels are backed by Tehran, while Riyadh leads a military coalition in support of the government. Since 2021, talks have been held between both sets of officials in Iraq and Oman, but no deals were reached. Robert Mogielnicki, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in WashingIran’s top security official Ali Shamkhani (r), Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (c) and Musaad ton, DC, said the brokered deal is evidence bin Mohammed al‐Aiban, Saudi Arabia’s national security adviser pose for a photo after Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to resume bilateral diplomatic ties in Beijing, China on March 10, 2023. of a growing Chinese presence and its increased interest in playing a role in the region. As the United States does not have good relations with CHINA’S EFFORTS in brokering a deal between Iran and Saudi Iran, China is “in a good position to broker an agreement,” he said. Arabia have been seen by analysts as broader signs of a “changing “It’s a relatively low-risk and high-reward activity for China to global order.” During talks in Beijing, Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed engage in because the Chinese are not committed to any particto re-establish diplomatic relations and reopen their embassies within ular outcome,” Mogielnicki observed. “Better diplomatic linkages two months. The March 10 agreement also stipulated affirming “the between Saudi Arabia and Iran will reduce the likelihood for rerespect for the sovereignty of states and the non-interference in ingional conflict and will reduce regional tensions. That’s a good ternal affairs of states.” thing for China, for the U.S. and for regional actors as well.” Iranian state media posted images and video of Ali Shamkhani, secSina Toossi, non-resident senior fellow at the Center for International retary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, shaking hands Policy in Washington, DC, said China has “a clear interest” in improvwith Saudi national security adviser Musaad bin Mohammed al-Aiban, ing ties and stability in the region as the Gulf is a vital source of energy with Wang Yi, China’s most senior diplomat, standing in between. for Beijing, which imports energy from Iran and Saudi Arabia. China’s role as a mediator in resolving longstanding issues In 2019, when Saudi oil facilities were targeted by the Houthis, between the regional foes had not been made public prior to the it temporarily affected the country’s oil production, leading to an announcement. increase in global oil prices of more than 14 percent over a weekWang reportedly said China will continue to play a constructive end, the biggest spike in more than a decade. Toossi said this was role in handling hotspot issues and demonstrate responsibility as a “the worst-case scenario for China, that a conflict in the Persian major nation. He added that as a “good faith” and “reliable” mediator, Gulf would affect its energy supply and economic interests.” China has fulfilled its duties as a host for dialogue.
Mersiha Gadzo is a journalist and online producer for Al Jazeera English, where this article was first published. Prior to joining Al Jazeera she worked as a freelancer in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the occupied Palestinian territories. 34
TAKING SIDES Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute, said that the U.S. has “increasingly pursued policies that simply make it im-
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possible for it to be a credible mediator. “The U.S. is increasingly taking sides in regional conflicts, becoming co-belligerent in regional conflicts which makes it very difficult for the U.S. to play a peacemaking role,” Parsi said. “China did not take sides between Saudi Arabia and Iran, has worked very hard to not get dragged into their conflict and as a result, could play a peacemaking role.” China’s breakthrough comes as various U.S. media outlets reported in mid-February that Israel and Iran were edging closer to war. Toossi said that while China also has substantial political and economic relations with Israel, the U.S. has “historically been giving support to Israel and Saudi Arabia against Iran, and so it has not been able to play that [mediator] role.” “I think this is a broader sign of the changing global order and how the period of America being the unchallenged global superpower—especially after the Cold War— is ending,” Toossi said. “[For] countries like Saudi Arabia in the past decades, America was the only viable partner. Now, these countries have other options. China can give them a lot of support—economic, political, military relations—and Russia can do that, too.” Parsi observed that after Saudi Arabia’s oil field was attacked, the U.S., under former President Donald Trump, made it clear that it would not get involved in a war with or for the Middle East. The Biden administration then tried to correct this by signaling that it will stand by its regional partners, thinking that this alliance would be instrumental in its competition with China. But, according to Parsi, by moving closer to both Israel and Saudi Arabia, the U.S. “further entangled itself in the conflict of these countries and made it MAY 2023
more difficult for itself to be a mediator, and China has taken advantage of this.” Iran and Saudi Arabia have fought proxy wars in the region for decades, affecting Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. While the now normalized relations between the two are not going to automatically solve their vast geopolitical differences, Toossi said there is now “an opportunity for increased and sustained dialogue that could help bridge these differences.” The trilateral statement also significantly mentioned the 2001 security agreement and the broader 1998 cooperation
agreement that Iran and Saudi Arabia had reached, a major breakthrough at the time after diplomatic ties were cut in the 1980s following the Iranian revolution. “By mentioning these agreements, it seems like both sides are trying to recapture the spirit of cooperation and collaboration… those agreements entailed a lot of economic, security, political cooperation and high-level diplomatic contact,” Toossi said. “Iran’s relations with Saudi Arabia were pretty good from 1997 until 2005-2006. There’s potentially a willingness, it seems, to go back to that.” ■
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Yemen, The Land of Millions of Mines
A SIX-MONTH U.N. brokered truce in Yemen ended in October 2022, with no agreement to extend it or bring an end to the eight years of civil war. Even though the conflict may escalate at any time,
because the numbers, as well as their locations, are not known. According to Marion Loddo, the editorial manager at Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, the most recent contamination esti-
In the Khokha district of the Hodeida province, Yemeni women teach children about the dangers of landmines and explosives, on Dec. 21, 2022. The conflict in Yemen has created what the U.N. has dubbed the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with almost every child in the country dependent on some form of assistance. U.N. OFFICIALS warn that the greatest threat to the people in Yemen for many years to come will be landmines. It is estimated that millions of landmines and explosive devices have been placed throughout the country, especially in areas near the front lines. Since the landmines were planted in a disorganized fashion, removing them has become extremely difficult. Yemen— along with Afghanistan, Angola and Somalia—has become one of the world’s most mine-contaminated countries. It is difficult to estimate the exact number of landmines in Yemen,
Stasa Salacanin is a widely published author and analyst focusing on the Middle East and Europe. He produces in‐depth analysis of the region’s most pertinent issues for regional and international publications including the Al Jazeera Center for Studies, Middle East Monitor, The New Arab, Gulf News, Al Bawaba, Qantara, Inside Arabia and many more. 36
mate made in 2017 was that 569 mined areas covered 200 miles (323 km) of land, with the heaviest contamination believed to be in the country’s southern and western coastal governorates. The contamination results from different armed conflicts, in the 1960s, 1970–1983, 1990s and, more recently, as a result of the conflict between the Houthis and the Saudi Arabia-led coalition, which started in 2015. Elsa Buchanan, a media consultant at Project Masam, a humanitarian landmine clearance initiative in Yemen launched by Saudi Arabia in 2018, told the Washington Report: “recently, 1.5 million detonators, intended for use in landmines, were interdicted and impounded off the coast of Yemen bound for Houthi-controlled Sana’a. If this number is indicative of regular shipments over the eight years of the current conflict, it could indicate the presence of millions of landmines in Yemen.”
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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PHOTO BY KHALED ZIAD/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
By Stasa Salacanin
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UNKNOWN NUMBER OF VICTIMS
PHOTO CREDIT SALEH AL-OBEIDI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
The ongoing conflict in Yemen and lack of access to affected areas have made it difficult to accurately assess the number of landmine casualties. However, it is estimated that thousands of people have been killed or injured by landmines in Yemen. Unfortunately, the majority of the landmine victims are civilians, Yemeni demining experts prepare for a controlled explosion to destroy explosives and mines laid by Houthi rebels including children, in the southern city of Aden, on April 5, 2016. and the number of victims continues to rise cult for them to provide assistance to afnitions from Saudi-led strikes, including as the war continues. According to figfected areas. some manufactured in the United States. ures verified by the United Nations, as of Elsa Buchanan said that Masam, which August 2021 “nearly 10,000 children HOUTHIS BEAR MAJOR is now in its fifth year of mine clearance opwere either killed or injured as a result of RESPONSIBILITY erations in Yemen, has not yet encountered the conflict in Yemen, and a large number a single mine that was not clearly identified of them were landmine victims.” Many sources claim that the Houthi side as legacy/pre-current conflict or was not loThe most affected regions are those has been largely responsible for placing cally manufactured using high-quality comareas that have been heavily contested most of the mines. Loddo told the Washponent parts supplied from Iran. during the ongoing conflict, such as Saada ington Report that according to Landmine While Yemen was the first Arab country Governorate, Taiz Governorate, Al-HudayMonitor research, antipersonnel mines, to sign the Ottawa Demining Treaty in the dah Governorate, Aden Governorate and anti-vehicle mines, victim-activated improearly 2000s and reportedly destroyed its Lahj Governorate. vised mines and other improvised explostockpile of anti-personnel mines, the use Some reports claim that up to one-third sive devices (IEDs) were used by Houthiof landmines dramatically increased with of Yemen’s landmine casualties were reassociated forces in Yemen in early 2019, the escalation of the conflict between the ported in Hodeida province, despite the primarily in battles on the west coast near Houthis and the Yemeni government. fact that the area has avoided a major conthe port of Hodeida. On the other hand, Yemen does have a legacy of mines laid flict since after reaching the ceasefire “The Monitor...has however documented by various sides during decades of conagreement aimed at protecting this strateuse of cluster munitions by the Saudi flict, but according to Buchanan they are gic port through which much humanitarian Arabia-led coalition.” easily distinguishable from those laid relief is delivered. Cluster munitions, like landmines, are during the current conflict as they are of On the other hand, according to humanbanned and widely rejected by the internaoriginal military manufacture and mainly itarian lawyer and human rights activist tional community because they indiscrimfrom the old Soviet era. Omar al-Hamiri, up to 2,000 civilians have inately kill civilians. The U.S. has refused She also noted that with very few excepbeen killed by landmines just in Yemen’s to sign the 1997 Ottawa Convention, tions the vast majority of mines laid in conTaiz Governorate since 2015. known as the international Convention on junction with the current conflict are “homeLandmines have also caused significant Cluster Munitions, that prohibits all use, made” using high-quality component parts economic and social disruption in Yemen, transfer, production and stockpiling of clusand “home-made” explosives: “Over five as they make it difficult for people to access ter bombs. The last U.S. production of clusyears Masam has built a working picture of their homes, farms and other vital areas. ter munitions was in 2016. how these deadly items are made, and They have also hindered the work of huThe Houthi side claims that in 2018 they where the component parts come from. manitarian organizations and made it diffiremoved 500,000 missiles and cluster muMAY 2023
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While the actual mines (and IEDs) are assembled in Yemen, the high quality component parts originate from Iran and are smuggled in, mainly via Hodeida port.”
TOOL OF INTIMIDATION The vast use of personal landmines in Yemen raises the question: have they been used to gain strategic advantage or as a tool of intimidation and fear? It has been long recognized that antipersonnel mines are not indispensable weapons and do not have high military value nor offer any military advantage. Buchanan observes that mines are rarely laid with any tactical intent and more often simply laid to deny civilian access to usable land. She also said that “whenever Houthi-held territory is liberated by coalition forces it invariably finds vast areas of land contaminated with tens of thousands of landmines. To date, Masam has cleared over 140,000 landmines and over 26 square miles (42 million square meters) of land.” In a similar vein, Loddo explained that the long-term humanitarian costs of land-
mines far outweigh any limited military utility: “These weapons are designed to injure or kill people and represent a threat to civilian populations for years and even decades, hindering development and socio-economic growth.”
COOPERATION IS IMPERATIVE Despite efforts to clear landmines in the country by international and regional humanitarian organizations, such as the government-affiliated Yemen Executive Mine Action Center, the Danish Demining Group, the Mines Advisory Group and the International Committee of the Red Cross, it is impossible to solve the mine issue in the near future. The ongoing conflict and fragility of Yemeni institutions just amplify the whole problem. While cooperation between all sides of the conflict aimed at clearing the country of landmines would be highly desirable, the ongoing conflict and lack of trust between the two sides have made it difficult to establish a joint initiative for clearing landmines.
Nevertheless, Buchanan observes that the United Nations Mine Action Service and United Nations Development Program, which are both active in mine action in Yemen, placed their headquarters in Sana’a and Hodeida, thus including the Houthi in de-mining initiatives, through their very presence and associated reporting in both cities. However, “by far the best way that Al Houthi may practicably be included in demining efforts in Yemen is for them to provide detailed maps of all landmines they have laid. This will greatly accelerate the humanitarian demining efforts throughout Yemen,” she noted. Because there is no baseline to determine the extent and impact of the mine contamination and the security situation, many years may be required to achieve clearance of the country. Loddo explained that according to Yemen’s clearance obligations under the Mine Ban Treaty, the deadline to complete demining is March 2028, but it is expected that an extension will be necessary. Until then, death will continue to lurk around every corner of Yemen. ■
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Special Report By Connor Echols
PHOTO BY ZAID AL-OBEIDI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
A Requiem for a Lost Iraq
Women hold pictures of their missing sons at the home of Um Ahmed, the mother of two missing men, in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, on May 10, 2022. Years of violence have made Iraq one of the countries with the highest number of missing persons in the world, says the International Committee of the Red Cross. NOV. 6, 2006 was a quiet morning in Baghdad. Noor Ghazi and her family had packed what they could into the car and jumped on the road as early as possible. It was Ghazi’s 16th birthday, but there was no time to celebrate. They had only one goal in mind: getting to the border with Syria. Since U.S. troops rolled into Baghdad three years earlier, the Ghazis had lived through the worst of Iraq’s brutal civil war. Noor remembered passing dead bodies lying in the streets during her walk to school. Grief became a regular part of the teenager’s daily life. Wherever Ghazi went, she paid close attention to her surroundings, knowing that at any moment a car bomb or stray bullet could set off chaos. “My school started getting emptier and emptier,” she said. “Every day, one of my friends would come in and say her last goodbyes because she was leaving the country.” Ghazi’s father had no intentions of following their lead. “My dad used to say that he would be the last person to leave Iraq,” she remembered.
Connor Echols is a reporter for Responsible Statecraft, where this ar‐ ticle was first published. Reprinted with permission. Echols was pre‐ viously an associate editor at the Nonzero Foundation, where he co‐ wrote a weekly foreign policy newsletter. Echols recently completed a fellowship with the Center for Arabic Study Abroad in Amman, Jordan, and he received his bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University. 40
But everything changed when her cousin died. It wasn’t the first time they had lost a family member, but this was different. Extremists had kidnapped him in the middle of the night, murdered him with drills, and left his remains in the street. Ghazi’s father was tasked with identifying the body, meaning he would have to look through photos of all the unnamed corpses held at the local hospital. After flipping through hundreds of images of maimed and disfigured bodies, he finally found who he was looking for. Noor’s cousin was number 167. It was time to leave Baghdad. As the Ghazi family passed near Fallujah, they came upon an impromptu checkpoint. Three gunmen jumped out of the car in front of them and demanded to see their IDs—no doubt a way to find out if Noor and her family were Sunni or Shi’a Muslims. Her mother, who is Shi’a, managed to hide her ID card, revealing only the ones that showed their bearers to be Sunni. The gunmen then moved on to the car beside them, which had a family with a small child inside. “It seems like they had the wrong last name,” Ghazi recalled. “After I heard the gunshots, I don’t remember anything.” It has now been two decades since the United States launched its war on Saddam Hussain’s regime in Iraq. Americans have largely moved on, but Iraqis are not so lucky. The 2003 invasion—and the crushing, U.S.-led sanctions regime
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that preceded it—set into motion a series of events that have torn at the very fabric of Iraq’s society, leaving at least 185,000 of its citizens dead and displacing 9 million more, according to the Costs of War Project at Brown University. Those who survived their country’s darkest moments now live with mental and physical scars that most Americans can scarcely imagine. “Violence destroys our ability to feel human,” said Ghazi, who now teaches Arabic and courses on peace and conflict at several universities in North Carolina. Indeed, it is difficult to find any measure by which life in Iraq has improved over the last 20 years. Rolling blackouts have made summers unbearable in much of the south, and the government remains far too weak to do much about it. (The daily high rarely drops below 100 degrees fahrenheit in Baghdad’s warmer months.) Once a regional leader in medicine and education, Iraq has now fallen far behind most of its neighbors. A recent poll found that 37 percent of Iraqis want to emigrate, and 81 percent say their country is headed in the wrong direction. Moral math is notoriously tricky. It’s difficult to pin all of Iraq’s ills on the U.S. given that the country has suffered under a panoply of villains, from Saddam Hussain to ISIS and everything in between. But Americans should be under no illusions that the war was a mere policy blunder, as Eamon Kircher-Allen wrote in a recent roundtable for the Century Foundation: “[W]hile Americans seem to mostly understand the Iraq War did not serve the national interest, it’s much less clear whether they grasp how the war was morally and legally wrong—in other words, that it was a crime.” After U.S. forces defeated Saddam Hussain’s army in the 1991 Gulf War, the U.N. imposed unprecedented sanctions on Iraq. What followed was nothing short of disastrous. During the 1980s, Iraq had managed to steadily grow its GDP to more than $60 billion per year despite a brutal (and ill-advised) war with neighboring Iran. When the comprehensive sanctions regime kicked in, MAY 2023
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Children walk past damaged buildings in Mosul’s Old City on May 2, 2022 during celebrations marking the feast of Eid al‐Fitr, that commemorates the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Baghdad’s GDP plummeted to less than $1 billion. Oil exports—which had long been the backbone of the country’s economy— dropped to nearly nothing overnight, and even humanitarian organizations struggled to import food and medicine. Many families pulled children out of school in order to make ends meet. “It became like we changed from a rich country into a poor country,” said Yanar Mohammed, a prominent Iraqi activist who emigrated in the 1990s in order to escape the impact of sanctions. To borrow a line from Ernest Hemingway, Iraq collapsed gradually, then suddenly. When U.S. troops finally rolled into Baghdad, more than a decade of sanctions had hollowed out the government, leaving little more than destroyed infrastructure and severely weakened institutions in its wake. Now, Washington was on the hook to fix it. American officials quickly established a provisional government and set the ambitious goal of transforming Iraq into a stable, flourishing democracy. As the military undertook its futile search for Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, President George W. Bush secured enormous amounts of funding to backstop his nationbuilding policy and enlisted former diplomat Paul Bremer to carry it out. Several decisions from the first year of the occupation would prove particularly consequential. The Bush administration disbanded the army and created a policy of “de-Ba’athification” that sought to remove
from power all officials who had served under Saddam. Washington also imposed a sectarian political system known as the “muhasasa,” which used quotas to divvy up power and resources between Sunnis, Shi’i and Kurds. Most analysts now agree that these policies fanned the flames of sectarianism, which would soon drive the country’s devastating civil war. But their impact would not end there. “The U.S. occupation of Iraq and the sectarian politics of successive Iraqi governments eventually led to the rise of the Islamic State,” wrote Zainab Saleh, a profes(Advertisement)
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sor at Haverford College, in a 2020 report for Brown University’s Costs of War Project. To make matters worse, U.S. forces engaged in a series of human rights violations, including multiple alleged massacres and a program of torture at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison. These abuses helped fuel anti-American insurgents and motivated extremists far from the battlefield, including the perpetrator of the 2015 attack at the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo. Women were the “biggest losers” of the post-2003 order, according to Mohammed, who returned after the invasion and founded the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq. What she saw was dramatically different from the country she had left just a decade before. “The women of Iraq lost the improvement of their wellbeing, their status, their women’s rights gradually, and went back to the status of our grandmothers,” she said. With the old regime gone, tribal and religious leaders became the key power players in Iraq, leading to a rapid rollback in women’s rights. According to Mohammed, Iraqi women faced a dramatic uptick in human trafficking and honor killings, accompanied by a drop in education and access to healthcare. Iraq is now the fifth worst country in the world to be a woman, according to the Women, Peace and Security Index. While political violence has gone down in recent years, 45 percent of Iraqi women say they have faced domestic abuse—the highest rate of any Middle Eastern country. Mohammed has fought for years to
change this backslide. Under her leadership, the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq created a network of shelters for women fleeing violence and other social ills. To date, she and her colleagues have sheltered 1,300 Iraqi women. But Mohammed faces an uphill battle. Iraq’s leaders have long opposed her shelter program, forcing her to work in secret. She has been dogged by government lawsuits and accusations of human trafficking—a particularly painful allegation for a dedicated women’s rights activist. “When our organization stands against [oppression], and we shelter women from that kind of abuse and violence, we are considered the crim[inals] here,” Mohammed said. In 2018, Ghazi returned to Iraq with a camera in hand. During her 12 years in exile, she had moved to the United States, had a child, and enrolled in a master’s program in peace and conflict studies. Now, she wanted to give back to the country that raised her. What she saw was harrowing. In just three years in power, the Islamic State’s totalitarian rule had reduced the once vibrant city of Mosul to ruin. “When I went to Mosul, I [saw] all the destruction. I [saw] how the entire civilization was destroyed under ISIS,” Ghazi recalled. “I lived for 12 years thinking that I would return one day, but it was not there anymore. It did not exist anymore.” Ghazi criss-crossed the city filming ruins of ancient monuments and conducting interviews with those who lived
through ISIS rule. Locals told her how extremists pushed out Mosul’s Christian community, massacred Yazidi residents and sexually assaulted countless women. At least 800,000 residents fled the city, and many have yet to return. Even Mosul’s liberation brought tragedy. In its efforts to flush ISIS from the city, the U.S. conducted airstrikes that killed hundreds of civilians, as journalist Azmat Khan has painstakingly documented for the New York Times. The deadliest single attack came in March 2017, when a pair of bombs killed two ISIS snipers and more than 100 civilians who had taken shelter in the same building in west Mosul. After returning to the U.S., Ghazi produced a documentary about her experience entitled “The Mother of Two Springs”—a reference to Mosul’s unusually temperate weather in the fall and spring. The film ends with a daunting set of statistics: 10,000 civilians died during the city’s liberation; 40,000 houses were left destroyed or in need of repairs; more than half of the city’s government buildings were flattened. Despite Iraq’s tragedy, Ghazi is optimistic about the future. In recent years, protesters across the country have taken to the streets to demand an end to the sectarian “muhasasa” system established during the U.S. occupation. Ghazi came back from a January visit to Baghdad “full of hope.” “The new generation, they’re educated, they’re aware, they have the courage to say, ‘let’s come to the table and have this discussion. Violence is not the answer,’” she said. “I do have hope for the new generation.” ■
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Special Report
A Clash of Ignorance
PHOTO BY TOSHIFUMI KITAMURA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
By George Aldridge
After winning the men’s 5,000 meters gold medal on Aug. 28, 2004, Hicham el‐Guerrouj of Morocco celebrates at the Olympic Stadium podium in Athens.
distance runner and had won the 1,500 and 5,000 meters at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, a feat only done once before. He was also (at the time of this conversation) the world record holder in five running events, including the outdoor mile, 1,500 meters and 2,000 meters. (He continues to hold the mile and 1,500 meters world record.) In short, he was Morocco’s and the Arab world’s greatest athlete. El-Guerrouj sought a visa to attend the 27th Chicago Marathon in September 2004 to cheer for countryman Khalid Khannouchi, a naturalized Moroccan-American from Meknes, who still holds the U.S. record in the marathon. “So we should have issued him a visa,” the consul general asked gingerly, explaining that the Moroccan sports minister, prefect of Casablanca, and other Moroccan bigwigs had called and faxed him, denouncing our decision to deny him a visa to the U.S. that morning. “Issue him a visa,” I chuckled. “We should have invited him in to meet with you and take photos with all the American and Moroccan staff—and everybody in the waiting room.” The CG still seemed perplexed. Again sports was not his forte. Then I reminded him of a huge poster that covered the wall of an office building a short distance from the consulate. “Sir, you know that poster of a handsome young Moroccan guy hawking Laughing Cow cheese (La vache qui rire) near the consulate?” “Of course.” “That is Hicham el-Guerrouj.” Later that afternoon I learned that the consular staff were dumbfounded, even appalled, when the vice consul failed to recognize the world-renowned Moroccan athlete and denied him a visa. They shared that she assumed he must be a nefarious character since his passport was packed with visas to other countries. She never turned to any Moroccan coworker to ask about him. Within a day el-Guerrouj was back at the consulate, getting his visa and spending time with the consul general and the staff. Naturally I got a photo taken with him. But the whole episode got me thinking about American awareness or lack thereof concerning Middle Eastern and North African contemporary personalities.
A NOTICEABLY PERTURBED consul general called me into his office. “George,” he said sharply, “have you ever heard of Hicham el-Guerrouj?” “Bien sur,” I replied agreeably. “He’s the Michael Jordan of track and field.” Not a big sports guy, the consul general stared back with the look that said, “Say what?” I proceeded to inform Consulate General Casablanca’s senior diplomat that Hicham el-Guerrouj was the world’s greatest middle
IGNORANCE IS NOT BLISS
A U.S. diplomat for more than 27 years, George Aldridge was consul for labor and economic affairs in Casablanca from August 2002 to July 2005. Before entering the U.S. Foreign Service in July 1990, he taught American and Texas government at three North Texas junior colleges and was executive director of the southwest office of the National Association of Arab Americans.
Despite the attention paid to the Israel-Palestine dispute, it was apparent to me that we are generally not knowledgeable about the region. I suspect that very few Americans know, for example, that Morocco was the first country to recognize the U.S., in December 1777, and that sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi modeled the Statue of Liberty after a robe-clad Egyptian woman.
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Aside from Iowans, I have met very few Americans who are aware that Elkader, Iowa is the only community in the United States named after an Arab—the Algerian freedom fighter and Islamic scholar Emir Abd el-Kader, whom Abraham Lincoln and Napoleon III, among others, hailed as a hero for religious tolerance and coexistence. While Americans know well Muammar Qaddafi, they typically give me a blank look when I mention the great Libyan freedom fighter Omar alMukhtar, best known as “The Lion of the Desert.” Everyone knows Yasser Arafat. Hanan Ashrawi? Not so much. Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid? Perhaps. Yemeni Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkol Karman—the first woman from the Arab world to win this prestigious award? No way.
HUNTINGTON’S HOKEY CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS It’s been 30 years since right-wing political scientist Samuel Huntington came up with his shallow and pernicious “clash of civilizations” explanation for the strife among nations post-Cold War—a prognosis that unfortunately was taken as holy writ in Washington, DC, for far too long (see Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993). But I am much more convinced of Edward Said’s retort in The Nation (October 2001) that many of our real disputes are tied to ignorance of one another’s cultures and our separate societies’ contributions to human development. In fact, Said named our mutual lack of knowledge across societies a “clash of ignorance.” After the Hicham el-Guerrouj incident, I tested out this theory on several occasions between 2004-2017, when I met with large groups of well-educated adolescents and young adults in Morocco, Tunisia, Sudan and Lebanon. The contingents in Lebanon included political activists, civil society leaders and college students from much of the Arab world—Arabs, Kurds, Armenians, Sahrawis and Amazighs—of various religious and political persuasions. I still test this theory from time to time. MAY 2023
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(L‐r) Gigi, Anwar and Bella Hadid attend the 2015 Global Lyme Alliance Gala on Oct. 8, 2015 in New York City. Bella Hadid has become increasingly vocal about her support for Palestine, the country where their father, real estate developer Mohamed Hadid, was born.
ALEX, I’LL TAKE FAMOUS ARAB AMERICANS FOR $100
To assess their knowledge of the broader Arab American community, I presented photos and short biographies of well-known persons such as consumer advocate and presidential candidate Ralph Nader, journalist Helen Thomas, pollster John Zogby, heart surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey (Dabaghi), MADD founder Candy Lightner, film director Moustapha Al-Akkad, TV personalities and philanthropists Danny and Marlo Thomas, Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham, actress and world famous poker player Shannon Elizabeth Fadal and radio Top-40 disc jockey Casey Kasem. Occasionally I’d add lesser known persons such as chess champ Yasser Seirawan, pop singer Tiffany (Darwish), the Red Rocker Sammy Hagar, men’s clothing mogul Joseph Haggar, Arab League U.N. Ambassador Dr. Clovis Maksoud (who was born in Bristow, Oklahoma), Heisman Trophy winners Doug Flutie and Johnny Manziel, Indy 500 winner Bobby Rahal, Dr. George Hatem, actor Tony Shalhoub and supermodels Gigi, Bella and Anwar Hadid. (To my son’s chagrin, I showed my own ignorance by failing to include actor Rami Malek.) Surely these in-the-know young adults would be hip to most of Arab America’s
biggest names. No, not at all. Even my personal favorite, Ralph Nader, was a revelation. On the other hand, a good number were aware that the late Steve Jobs’ biological father is Syrian, and they openly enjoyed learning about Candy Lightner’s role in creating Mothers Against Drunk Driving and Nader’s gutsy campaigns on behalf of American consumers. They learned that everyday individuals can make a significant difference in a society as complex as ours. But the quizzes revealed that Edward Said was unfortunately right: Americans and Middle Easterners would fail miserably at “Jeopardy”-framed questions pertaining to current-day personalities and recent events. This troubling lack of knowledge of one another has contributed to misunderstandings—sometimes with grave consequences. I’m reminded of the reported incident on TWA 847, hijacked in June 1985, when one of the exasperated and frightened passengers, tired of hearing the Shi’a hijackers denouncing the USS New Jersey for having (often erratically) shelled Lebanon on several occasions from December 1983 to April 1994, grumble to Allyn Conwell, the hostages’ spokesman, “What in the world do they have against New Jersey?!” ■
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Special Report
Libya’s Missing and Murdered Women
IMAGES FROM SOCIAL MEDIA
By Mustafa Fetouri
(L) Libyan Member of Parliament Seham Sergewa was kidnapped from her home in 2019. (R) Moments before her killing, Hanan Al‐Barassi had been broadcasting a live video on Facebook from her car. JUST BEFORE MIDNIGHT on July 16, 2019, Seham Sergewa, a member of Libya’s parliament and outspoken rights activist, was in her Benghazi home and on the phone as a panelist on a live TV talk show. She was discussing the already underway military operation launched by Libya’s eastern-based General Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) to take the capital Tripoli from the then Government of National Accord. She was critical of that afternoon’s parliament session that backed Haftar’s attack on Tripoli, allegedly to liberate it from the armed militias. General Haftar, blessed by then U.S. President Donald Trump and National Security Adviser John Bolton, attempted to topple the country’s only U.N.-recognized government. His campaign, which lasted for 13 months, was defeated at the gates of the capital.
A FATAL CALL FOR DIALOGUE Sergewa opposed the military attack on Tripoli and called for dialogue. A few hours after that TV talk show, her home was sur-
Mustafa Fetouri is a Libyan academic and freelance journalist. He received the EU’s Freedom of the Press prize. He has written exten‐ sively for various media outlets on Libyan and MENA issues. He has published three books in Arabic. His email is mustafa fetouri@hotmail.com and Twitter: @MFetouri. 46
rounded and her entire neighborhood was cut off from the rest of Benghazi. Unidentified armed men stormed her house, shot her husband in the leg while he tried to defend his family, and beat her 14-year-old son. Sergewa was taken away and no one has heard from her since. Three years later no one knows her whereabouts or even if she is alive. In 2021, in a leaked phone conversation, one of her colleagues can be heard talking about her murder. However, no one has claimed responsibility for her abduction, there is no confirmation of her death, investigations into the matter have led nowhere and no one has been charged. The kidnapping of such a high-profile member of parliament shocked the country. The former minister of interior in eastern Libya tried, without evidence, to cast the crime as “terror” related. Indeed, between 2011 and 2016 Benghazi was dominated by different terror groups including Ansar al-Sharia, which is accused of murdering the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi in 2012. By 2017 Haftar’s LNA had wiped out all adversaries, including extremists, and had become the de facto ruler of the entire eastern region of Libya. In April 2019 LNA marched on Tripoli itself, some 620 miles (1000 km) west. Empowered by such a costly victory, he and his supporters were in no mood to tolerate any
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dissent, let alone public criticism of the military operation. Sergewa never really stopped criticizing Haftar personally, and it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened. Many observers believe a group associated with LNA is responsible for her disappearance. Another female MP, Fariha Barkawi in Derna—further east from Benghazi— was killed on July 17, 2014. She was one of the few women elected to the parliament after the 2011 NATO-backed armed revolt that ended the rule of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011. Violence against women used to be a rarity in this mostly conservative Muslim country. However, after the 2011 Arab Spring everything changed drastically— alas, for the worse. The collapse of the Qaddafi government left a political and security vacuum, and all successive governments after 2011 have so far failed to solve that problem.
OTHER WOMEN VICTIMS The crime committed against Sergewa was not the first for a high-profile woman or activist. Salwa Bugaighis, another Benghazi lawyer and activist, was shot dead in her home after casting her vote in the parliamentary elections on June 25, 2014. No one has been held accountable for her murder. On Nov. 10, 2020, at around 2 p.m. on a busy Benghazi street, lawyer, campaigner, and single mother Hanan AlBarassi, known as the “Granny of Burqa,” was shot dead by unidentified masked men after she resisted their attempt to kidnap her. The “Granny of Burqa” (Burqa is the old name of eastern Libya) was famous for her YouTube videos in which she criticized corruption, nepotism and lack of security. The day before her murder she released one such video, apparently recorded while she was driving. In it she accused General Haftar and his two sons of corruption and interfering in civil affairs. She signed off that clip by saying that the people of Libya “do not want a family role” in public affairs. The Haftar family is MAY 2023
A COUNTRY AWASH IN WEAPONS The situation is made worse by a glut of arms and the failure of the police to carry out their duties, giving rise to armed militias and gangs who roam the country almost unchallenged. Most militias are assisted by foreign countries with stakes in Libya. Many legal experts believe as long as arms are within reach and the police and security agencies are weak and inefficient, crime will keep rising. The former U.N. envoy to Libya, Ghassan Salame, once said that there are about 20 million arms and additional ammunition circulating in the country. Another U.N. official estimated that the coun-
feared in eastern Libya and enjoys huge influence dominating life in the region. More than two years later, no one talks about who killed her and why. Many observers believe that her killers are linked to the LNA, which denies any responsibility. Some observers believe she was killed because of that video. The interior minister at the time, Ibrahim Bushnaf, ordered all security agencies to find AlBarassi’s murderers, but no arrests have been made and the case went into deep freeze. The day after her murder Human Rights Watch called for an urgent investigation and accountability. There has been a rise in homicide in the country compared to a decade earlier. In 2021 Libya’s ministry of interior reported 353 murders across the country, but observers think the real figure is higher. Hussein Ahmed, a Tripoli-based penal code specialist, said Libya is “awash with weapons while the judiciary is paralyzed and inefficient.” Accountability, he said, works both as a “deterrent and punishment.” According to the most recent 2015 World Bank figure, Libya has registered 2,500 homicides per 100,000 population. The overall crime rates, according to 2022 figures, have increased by more than 63 percent.
try has between 150,000 and 200,000 tons of arms, making Libya, he said, “home to the largest uncontrolled stockpile of arms in the world.” All U.N. efforts of disarming and dismantling armed militias and stopping the arms flow into the country have yet to curb the problem of arms proliferation in Libya. Relatively cheap and easily available arms have created a flourishing illegal weapons trade within the country and far beyond, inflaming other regional conflicts in countries like Mali, Niger, and Chad, in the south and southwest, and even Egypt to the east.
RISE IN HONOR KILLINGS The rise in homicide and domestic violence particularly targeting women has also increased over the last decade. In less than a week in July 2022, seven women were killed in seven different
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cities and towns across the country. According to the Ministry of State for Women’s Affairs in Libya, the victims were in their early 20s to 40s. Most of the
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killings were carried out by family members or relatives for matters related to “honor” crimes or drugs. Bushra and Yasmina Al-Tuwair, two sisters living in Benghazi with their mother, were shot dead by their estranged father on Eid al-Adha, July 9, 2022. It took the police some three weeks to catch him. He has been in jail ever since without being formally charged with the double murder. He claimed that his older daughter, married with children, had been having an extramarital affair. Zeinb Abedi, a legal expert following the case, blames Libya’s penal code itself for the lack of proper accountability and prevention of violence against women. She said that “Article 375 of the current penal code” mandates a maximum of eight years’ prison term for those who kill for their “family honor.” Honor crimes include murder of a woman accused of "fornication," whether she is married or not. Abedi thinks eight years or less in prison is too lenient a punishment; it is not a ”strong deterrent"
for potential murderers. She also pointed out that the mandated sentence for murder is life imprisonment, but not in cases of “honor crimes.” She said “murder is murder” even if it’s carried out for “family honor.” Family Law Professor Al-Hadi Ali, from the University of Zawia, thinks “family and criminal laws” are outdated and should be reformed “urgently.” In the past Libyan women, in general, were more empowered and more represented in the country’s political affairs. Today their overall situation is worse than it was a decade ago. Leaving home without a headscarf, for example, used to be normal in a country that does not have a dress code. However, this is not the case anymore, thanks to the rise and widespread religious messages propagated by more extreme Islamic preachers—something Libya never experienced before. Accountability and effective policing are rarely discussed by the dysfunctional legislature. Militias have thus become part of the state organs, accountable to no one. ■
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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
MAY 2023
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Canada Calling
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Canada’s First Special Representative on Islamophobia Under Attack By Candice Bodnaruk
Calls for the resignation of Amira Elghawaby, Canada’s newly appointed Special Representative on Islamophobia, reignite debate over the prevalence of anti‐Islam sentiment in Quebec. ACTIVISTS, ACADEMICS AND MUSLIM organizations are rallying around Amira Elghawaby, Canada’s newly appointed Special Representative on Islamophobia, after Quebec politicians demanded she not only resign, but that the position itself be eliminated altogether. Before her appointment in January 2023, Elghawaby was a contributing columnist at the Toronto Star and a frequent media commentator on equity and inclusion who delivered keynote presentations and workshops for a variety of audiences. The demand for her resignation comes in response to comments Elghawaby made about Islamophobia in Quebec in a 2019 article co-written with Bernie Farber of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, published in the Ottawa Citizen. Elghawaby has since met with Bloc Quebecois leader Yves-Francois Blanchet and apologized for her comments, but he still de-
Candice Bodnaruk has been involved in Palestinian issues for the past 14 years through organizations such as the Canadian BDS Coalition and Peace Alliance Winnipeg. Her political action started with feminism and continued with the peace movement, first with the No War on Iraq Coalition in 2003 in Winnipeg. MAY 2023
manded she step down. Quebec lawyers and human rights activists have also penned an open letter to support Elghawaby and push back against calls for her resignation. In the column, Elghawaby and Farber referred to the results of the May 2019 Léger Marketing poll conducted in Quebec. The poll found that only 28 percent of Quebecers had a positive view of Islam, while 37 percent held a positive view of Muslims. Among those who held negative views of Islam, 88 percent supported Bill 21 (Quebec’s religious symbol ban that prevents people working as teachers, lawyers, judges, police officers and other public servants from wearing crosses, hijabs, turbans and yarmulkes). Bill 21, which became law in 2019, is currently being challenged in the courts. Both Elghawaby and Farber also wrote that they are deeply concerned about restrictions on religious freedom in Quebec. “Unfortunately, the majority of Quebecers appear to be swayed not by rule of law but by anti-Muslim sentiment,” Elghawaby and Farber wrote at the time in response to the Léger poll results. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has continued to stand by his appointment of Elghawaby.
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Fareed Khan, co-founder of Canadians United Against Hate, said the poll results are a clear foundation for Islamophobia in the province. He added that Quebec premier Francois Legault, Bloc Quebecois leader Blanchet and, to a certain extent, Federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre are catering to white Francophone voters by scapegoating Muslims. “They are going after the racialized, hijab-wearing woman, and they are not even talking about Bernie Farber who was the co-author of that article,” Khan said. Khan said he believes Elghawaby was probably forced to apologize by the prime minister’s office and that she should not have done so. Before meeting with Blanchet, Elghawaby told reporters, “I understand that the words and the way that I said them have hurt the people of Quebec. I have been listening very carefully. I have heard you and I know what you're feeling and I'm sorry.” Khan said, “Frankly if I had been sitting in her chair I would have said ‘you can fire me, I am not apologizing for something truthful that I wrote,’ because what she wrote was not opinion, it was based on a factual poll,” Khan said. He explained that Muslims are an easy target and that there has also been no criticism of Farber, because that would potentially be viewed as anti-Semitic. Khan also said it was very cowardly of Farber not to speak out against the criticism and defend the article. The federal government appointed a special representative to combat anti-Semitism more than a year before they announced the creation of the special representative on Islamophobia position. Khan said at that point six Muslim men had already been murdered at the Quebec City mosque in 2017. “There was nowhere near the level of hate being directed at the Jewish community, but frankly there are financially well off members of the Jewish community who donate a lot of money to the Liberal Party. They have a very strong voice within the Liberal Party and therefore that was something that was given to them despite the fact 50
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Former Afghan MP Mursal Nabizada, 32, and her bodyguard were shot dead in Kabul on Jan. 15, 2023. that the biggest victims of hate in this country up to that point had been Muslims,” Khan said. Meanwhile, in an emailed statement to the Washington Report, Nuzhat Jafri, executive director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women (CCMW), said the organization is very pleased with Elghawaby’s appointment. Jafri explained the negative response to her appointment makes it clear why the position itself is necessary. “It demonstrates very well how misogyny and Islamophobia intersect to create antiMuslim sentiment in the province,” she said. Jafri added that having a dedicated person to fight Islamophobia with the Muslim community is important in order to find solutions and create safer communities for Muslims. Now, CCMW would just like Elghawaby to have a chance to fulfill her mandate. Khan pointed out that many Quebec politicians, such as the Bloc Quebecois Party, use prejudice, fear and myth to argue that the French culture and language is under threat. “This is very much Islamophobic and this is the strategy of these white Francophone Quebec nationalists who are toying in some ways with white supremacy,” Khan said.
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
He said while Elghawaby’s role is intended to be advisory and to bring communities together and raise awareness, he questioned the purpose of the position itself if she cannot speak freely and honestly about Islamophobia in Quebec. “Then what is she doing there and what’s the point, is it just a public relations move?” he asked. According to Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion, the government has listened to the lived experiences of Muslim communities in Canada, and Elghawaby’s appointment indicates it is taking action in the fight against Islamophobia. “As Canada’s first Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia, Amira Elghawaby will use her vast knowledge and experience as a human rights advocate to help guide and reinforce Canada’s efforts in addressing anti-Muslim hatred, systemic racism, racial discrimination, and religious intolerance,” Hussen said in a Government of Canada press release.
ALL PARTY COALITION URGES CANADA TO BRING FEMALE AFGHAN MPS TO SAFETY An all-party coalition of Canadian politicians that had been working to bring former Afghan MP Mursal Nabizada to safety in Canada is urging the federal government MAY 2023
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to take immediate action to bring eight remaining former MPs to safety. Nabizada was murdered in Kabul in January. “No female is safe,” the group wrote in a recent press release. Since October 2022 the joint all-party effort had been working to bring nine female Afghan MPs to safety in Canada. The Canadian group is made up of Conservative, Green, Liberal, New Democratic Party and and Bloc Quebecois MPs. The coalition points out that the Taliban’s brutal gender apartheid system is controlling every aspect of life for all women and girls. This is especially true for women MPs. They explain that the Taliban continues to show a complete disregard for human rights—through arbitrary arrests of those who oppose them, especially Afghans who had prominent roles in the former Republic, including parliamentarians. “As Canada has been involved in encouraging and mentoring women MPs in Afghanistan, we believe we have a moral responsibility to help them now. For the sake of the lives of these eight women, we urge the Canadian government to act on this matter urgently and take immediate action to assist in getting these women to safety,” the group wrote in a recent media release. Meanwhile, in a statement to the Washington Report, Stuart Isherwood, with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), called Mursal Nabizada’s murder a “horrific tragedy,” stating that the government is aware former Afghan women parliamentarians continue to face particular risks, given their previous work in the Afghan government and their fight for the rights of women and girls. “We are doing everything we can to help women leaders and their families, as well as other vulnerable people in Afghanistan, as quickly as possible. IRCC continues to process applications for Afghan nationals on a priority basis, and we have adopted facilitative approaches to expedite processes given the unique circumstances in Afghanistan,” Isherwood said. It continues to be both dangerous and challenging to get people out of Afghanistan. Isherwood pointed out that MAY 2023
although the Government of Canada has no military or diplomatic presence in Afghanistan, it is working with many partners, including regional and like-minded governments, NGOs and other referral organizations, to secure safe passage for Afghan nationals who are eligible for Canada’s immigration programs. He added that Canada was among the first countries to launch a special humanitarian resettlement program for vulnerable Afghans, including woman leaders, human rights defenders, persecuted and religious minorities, 2SLGBTQI+ (an acronym for Two-Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex) individuals, and journalists. “Despite the ongoing challenges, we remain on track to reach our commitment to bring at least 40,000 Afghans to Canada by the end of 2023, one of the largest Afghan resettlement programs around the world. More than 27,500 Afghans now call Canada home,” Isherwood concluded. ■
BDS Movement’s Dream Continued from page 20
such a storm. A month and a half of preliminary legislation is what did the trick. This is how the supporters of a boycott on Israel wanted things to unfold: a withdrawal of investments from Israel, a boycott of Israel’s economy culminating in international opposition, up to the imposition of sanctions. It did not work against the occupation. BDS chalked up some achievements in changing attitudes. It was the only game in town, the only movement which did not make do with empty condemnations, calling instead for concrete action against an apartheid state. However, its economic achievements were minuscule, with a singer cancelling a performance here, a pension fund fabricating a withdrawal there, with Israel continuing to flourish and prosper unhindered, to the dismay of human rights advocates. No price was paid for the crimes of the occupation or for the arrogant, insolent thumbing of the country’s nose at international law.
Yet, everyone knew that without practical steps, the occupation would never end. With Israelis not paying a price for the occupation and its crimes, as individuals and as a collective, there would be no incentive to end it. Up to a few weeks ago it seemed as if this would never happen. And now it’s happening, even if for the wrong reasons. Even if it’s for unintended reasons, some good may come of it. It’s surprising that the weakening of the justice system, which was apartheid-friendly in its characteristics, is the factor that caused the world and some Israelis to wake up. But by now it’s clear that the only thing that might stop the legislative stampede is economic damage to the country. Israelis taking their money out and international players not investing here constitute a game changer. Demonstrations, noisy and clamorous as they may be, will quickly dissipate and go the way of all protests. Petitions and letters will fade. Only the economic damage will pile up. This is the only thing which may stop the erosion. This is what happened in South Africa, when the leaders of the business community told the government that they cannot go on anymore, and this is what will happen here with the judiciary revolution. Only through money. One should obviously not become immersed in illusions. The link between the protests and the fight against apartheid is tenuous. Most protesters will make do with a cancellation of the clause allowing the Knesset to overrule court rulings and with the addition of public representatives to the committee for appointing judges, and will be completely satisfied when Binyamin Netanyahu steps down. As far as they’re concerned, apartheid can continue. But one may hope that the convulsion won’t be able to stop at the status quo ante. The tempest may reshuffle many cards on its course. When Israelis start paying for the follies of their leaders, they might find the time to reconsider the greatest folly of all: the apartheid state they live in, paying for it with the blood of their sons and with the image of their country. Only then will a new dawn break. ■
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WAGING PEACE
The U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003 irrevocably changed the fate of the Middle East and the U.S. by bringing death and displacement to millions of Iraqis, empowering Iran, facilitating the birth of ISIS, destroying America’s credibility on the world stage, wasting trillions of U.S. tax dollars, killing thousands of U.S. troops and contractors and leaving countless more Americans severely scared with post-war trauma. New America held a webinar on March 2 to reflect on the state of Iraq 20 years after George W. Bush’s costly war began. Simona Foltyn, a “PBS NewsHour” special correspondent based in Baghdad, noted that the impact of the invasion is still evident in Iraq. “For the American public, it may feel like the Iraq invasion is a thing of the past, but Iraqis continue to bear the consequences of the invasion every single day,” she noted. After the initial premise for the war—to find and destroy Saddam Hussain’s weapons of mass destruction—was revealed to be fraudulent, the U.S. pivoted to a secondary excuse for the occupation of the country: to bring democracy to a population that long endured despotic rule. Even here, the U.S. failed miserably, Foltyn said: “It really installed a [political] system that fueled corruption. What you have today is essentially a kleptocracy where different political parties across the spectrum—including Kurds, Sunni and Shi’a—see government positions really only as a means to line their pockets and fuel their patronage networks. This has completely hollowed out the Iraqi state. The bureaucracy that was once functioning is completely paralyzed and unable to deliver the most basic services to the population.” Foltyn did note that not every facet of the current Iraqi state is a failure. Despite the many issues plaguing Iraq, the country has conducted five free elections since 2003 and has enjoyed the legitimate transfer of power between elected governments. The security situation has also greatly improved in recent years in major cities, allowing 52
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Iraq Still Struggling 20 Years After U.S. Invasion
A demonstrator lifts a banner during a protest outside of Iraq’s Parliament in Baghdad, on Feb. 27, 2023. Iraqis to enjoy leisure time in public, she said. That being said, Foltyn pointed out that the country has seen its fair share of political violence and that many have lost faith in the democratic process. With healthcare, education and gender rights all regressing in Iraq, Foltyn noted that some young Iraqis are even pining for the return of a strongman who can restore order to the country. “You have all of these young Iraqis who have come of age in the last two decades who don’t really know Saddam, but who are yearning for some sort of strongman rule that will reinstate order,” she said. “It highlights the loss of legitimacy of the current system.” One result of the hopelessness felt by many young Iraqis is high levels of drug abuse, Foltyn noted. “Drug use has really become rampant among Iraqi youth,” she said. “There’s a lot of unemployment and disillusionment, and people are increasingly seeking escape in cheap crystal meth” coming from Iran, Afghanistan and also being produced domestically. She said drug abuse is even widespread within the security forces, making it nearly impossible for the state to crack down on smugglers, producers and distributors.
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
If the country has any hope of transcending its economic, political and societal challenges, it needs “a functional government, a government that actually represents the interests of its people, and not its elite,” Foltyn emphasized. Abdulrazzaq Al-Saiedi, a technical expert on Iraq for Physicians for Human Rights, reflected on the false sense of liberation the war promoted. “While the end of Saddam’s regime was the end of one fear, it was the beginning of a new fear,” he noted. In addition to the standard physical death and destruction caused by war, the invasion revived deep divisions between the country’s Sunni and Shi’a populations, sparking a civil war and a battle for control over the state. “With the liberation from Saddam, we might have gained our freedom, but we lost our national identity,” he lamented. Al-Saiedi concedes it is impossible to know what would have happened in Iraq had the U.S. not invaded and Saddam Hussain remained in power. That being said, he refuses to compare the merits of life under Saddam to the outcome of the U.S.-led war. “I think Iraqis deserve better than Saddam and the poorly planned invasion,” he said. —Dale Sprusansky JUNE/JULY MAY 2020 2023
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Following an 11th unsuccessful vote to elect a new president on Jan. 19, Lebanese lawmakers Najat Aoun Saliba and Melhem Khalaf began a sit-in inside the parliament building to call attention to the country’s stalled political process. Lebanon has been without a president since Oct. 30, 2022. On Feb. 9, the two parliamentarians joined Lebanese experts on a webinar hosted by Washington, DC’s Middle East Institute (MEI) to discuss the political deadlock. Speaking from her post within Lebanon’s darkened parliament, Saliba said the protest is a “call for reinstating some normalcy in the way we work in this institution that is the parliament.” She also criticized traditional establishment leaders for only focusing on laws that serve their own benefits and interests. “We’re still waiting for this miracle to happen, when Lebanese [leaders] start thinking about the interests of their country and the interests of the people,” she said. Khalaf echoed these sentiments. No one in office, he lamented, is addressing the needs of the struggling population, as prices of basic goods rise and the Lebanese currency slides. One U.S. dollar now equals about 15,000 Lebanese pounds. “We have to save democracy in Lebanon; this is our aim,” he said. Karim Emile Bitar, associate research fellow at the Paris-based Institute for International and Strategic Affairs, praised Khalaf and Saliba for their sit-in. “The Lebanese are in a very difficult economic situation presently, and morally they are going through a collective nervous breakdown,” he stated. With respect to the February summit in Paris of countries supporting Lebanon, Bitar said little of consequence was realized. “There were high expectations for the Paris talks,” he related, “but the returns were pretty low.” French President Emmanuel Macron “would like to be in the driver’s seat” and lead efforts to revive Lebanon, and he is well-versed in the country’s system of governing, Bitar noted. But MAY 2023
PHOTO BY HOUSSAM SHBARO/ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES
Lebanese Lawmakers Respond to Political Stalemate
A man holds a sign outside a private bank set on fire by protesters in Beirut, Lebanon on Feb. 16, 2023, following the freezing of people’s accounts. Similar incidents have occurred throughout Lebanon amid the country’s ongoing financial crisis. the French leader has lost some leverage within the region in recent years. While Paris engaged Hezbollah following the Beirut port explosion in 2020, France’s relationship with Iran (a major supporter of Hezbollah) has deteriorated since the uprisings in the Islamic Republic began last year, hampering Macron’s ability to bridge divides in Lebanon. The tension in French-Iranian relations is one reason Qatar is involved in Lebanon and attended the Paris talks, said Mohanad Hage Ali, director of communications and senior fellow at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center. Qatar is now coordinating closely with Saudi Arabia, and “part of the Paris meeting was to set the parameters for what Qatar can and cannot do in Lebanon,” he said. Riyadh has long opposed Iranian influence in Lebanon, and relations between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon cooled in recent years due to Hezbollah’s increased power. Regarding the United States’ interest in Lebanon, MEI president Paul Salem noted there were high-level meetings at the White House about Lebanon prior to the Paris meeting. In addition to being a longtime supporter of the Lebanese army and of humanitarian aid to Lebanon, the U.S. bro-
kered the maritime agreement between Israel and Lebanon, he pointed out, and Washington is now working on brokering a land agreement between Lebanon and Israel and advocating for Lebanon to join the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum. Salem ended the event on a positive note. He is pleased that Lebanon is drawing support from the international community and believes that “if Lebanon does what it should do…there are great economic opportunities coming down the road…[Lebanon] might have a bright future, but we have to do our homework.” —Elaine Pasquini
Will Elections Help Libya Move Forward? Washington, DC’s Middle East Institute (MEI) hosted a March 2 virtual panel discussion on the latest developments in Libya, specifically the appointment of Abdoulaye Bathily to head the United Nations Support Mission in Libya to focus on moving forward with elections in 2023. Taher el-Sonni, Libya’s ambassador to the United Nations, stressed the need for comprehensive and legitimate representation in Bathily’s new committee, with civil society members, tribal leaders and ex-
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Abdoulaye Bathily, head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, gives a press conference in Tripoli, on March 11, 2023. regime officials all taking part. “If the group is inclusive and reaches agreements, it will be difficult for decisions to be overridden,” he pointed out. Elections, which are supported by most Libyans, will bring change, but could also cause a backlash from those who benefit from the status quo. “The beneficiaries of the existing executive bodies—the circles around these executives—have maintained a certain level of power and influence,” el-Sonni said. Former special adviser on Libya to the United Nations, Stephanie T. Williams, presently a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, pointed out the necessity of resolving eligibility issues for presidential candidates. Going for another interim government is not out of the question, she said, as the ruling class likes to play “musical chairs.” Other problems to be addressed include the economy and human rights and international humanitarian law violations. “This is really key because the abrogation of basic human rights continues with complete impunity,” she stated. “There has been the specific targeting of women activists.” On a hopeful note, informal reconciliation talks, which started in 2021, have accelerated to bring former regime supporters and others together, Williams noted. “So, there is a lot of stuff already happening 54
quietly that I think can all help smooth the way forward.” Mary Fitzgerald, a nonresident MEI scholar, believes that Bathily’s efforts make the prospect of elections more likely, but it’s still an open question as to how soon they will take place. If elections do not happen this year, however, there is always the risk of a return to armed conflict and public unrest. In the past, Fitzgerald noted, some public protests were driven by young Libyans frustrated by the political stalemate and the direction of the country. “Discontent and frustration remain bubbling under the surface beyond the political dynamics,” she said. Everyone pays lip service to the idea of elections, but “muddling through” is not acceptable, she said. “Ordinary Libyans want elections, they want a reset. They want institutions that have a robust democratic mandate.” —Elaine Pasquini
Gaza’s Mental Health Crisis Dr. Yasser Abu-Jamei, a Palestinian psychologist and the director of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program, was in the Washington, DC area for several speaking engagements this winter, as part of a national tour to discuss mental health in Gaza. The talks were sponsored by the Massachusetts-based Gaza Mental Health Foundation, along with seven regional cospon-
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sors. His final presentation of the tour was hosted by the Jerusalem Fund in Washington, DC on Feb. 14. Abu-Jamei began his remarks by describing the living conditions of the population served by the Gaza Community Mental Health Program. He noted that two-thirds of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are refugees, 53 percent fall below the poverty line, 48 percent are children and about 47-53 percent of working-age men are unemployed (with a rate of 70 percent for women). In other words, this is a population that has experienced intergenerational trauma and impoverishment due to Israel’s blockade and constant air assaults. As a result, children in particular experience extreme insecurity, which manifests in conditions such as bedwetting and stuttering. Caregivers, meanwhile, feel that they are not capable of meeting challenges, adding to levels of societal stress. Abu-Jamei has been running the Gaza Community Mental Health Program since 2014. (That year, he lost 28 members of his extended family, 19 of whom were children, in a single Israeli missile strike.) In 2022 about 4,000 people were seen for severe or moderate mental health distress in the program’s three centers. Children, teachers and frontline workers are most frequently seen for depression, anxiety and stress. When asked to describe how they feel, the words they commonly use are “destroyed” and “broken,” he reported. The challenge facing mental health professionals in Gaza is to find a way to move people away from feelings of hopelessness and despair. The centers adopt a multidisciplinary approach to mental health. The staff of 70 psychologists try to educate school counselors and parents about the manifestations of stress in children. Much of their work is done through networking and capacity building. In addition to medication therapy, they offer TV programs for children, play therapy, art therapy and psychodrama (in which children act out events from their past). Sports are a part of the program, too. Through sports, children learn self-confidence and teamwork, skills that will serve them throughout life. MAY 2023
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Dr. Yasser Abu‐Jamei addresses an audience in Washington, DC. Abu-Jamei ended his presentation with the obvious: the centers can’t continue to operate under circumstances that continually (re)traumatize residents; they need an improvement in their living conditions. In response to a question about the impact of the Israeli blockade on daily life, Abu-Jamei described the ripple effects it has on a range of needs. The right to movement is suspended: patients who need to leave Gaza for specialized treatment and students who have acceptances from foreign universities are often prevented from travel. For patients, that can mean death. For farmers, the inability to export products means that the Gaza market is saturated. Factories that can’t get spare parts have to close, which increases the unemployment rate. As harsh as conditions have been, Palestinians expect that it will get worse with the new right-wing Israeli government. Abu-Jamei added, “I don’t know if we can rely on the international community to stop future disaster.” When asked how people in the United States can help, his response was simple: Keep Palestine in mind, and look for ways to help when you see an opportunity or occasion. Educate your friends and colleagues. Make use of the democracy you have. Write to your congresspeople about the injustices faced by Gazans. Demand MAY 2023
that Israel respect human rights. And if you can, donate to support the mental health program through the Massachusetts-based Gaza Mental Health Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization that forwards 100 percent of all donations to the Gaza program. Learn more at <www.gazamentalhealth.org/support>. —Ida Audeh
Decolonizing Ourselves: Learning and Unlearning Palestine On Jan. 30, the Foundation for Middle East Peace and Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network kicked off “Learning and Unlearning Palestine,” a four-part webinar series discussing and deconstructing dominant frameworks in understanding Palestinian liberation. In the first webinar, “Who Can Speak for Palestine?,” three Palestinian scholars addressed the question of who gets to take up space in conversations about Palestine. The academics began by noting that the existence of the Palestinian people is frequently omitted from dominant Western discourses. However, “Palestinians have the right to narrate, and they are claiming that right without asking for permission,” asserted Maha Nassar, a professor at the University of Arizona. Nour Joudah, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, lamented how the Western media frames Palestini-
ans and their struggle, and the public attacks they experience as a result. “The media becomes a reminder of the utter disregard there is for Palestinian lives,” she remarked. In media and academic spaces, Jewish and Israeli voices are often invited to talk about Palestinian experiences rather than Palestinians themselves. Nassar noted this “reinforces the notion that Palestinians aren’t capable enough to tell their own stories.” The conversation culminated in a call to action to combat these disempowering discourses. Dina Matar, a professor at the University of London, proclaimed that “it’s time to begin saying Palestinians are agents” in their struggle, and highlighting that Palestinians are producing their own narratives, “even under conditions of extreme violence and oppression.” Joudah noted the steadfastness (sumud) of the Palestinian people. “We’ve done more than survive and exist, we’ve also built, looked forward and resisted and continue to do so,” she noted. This resilience, she said, is ripe for enriching conversations about other indigenous liberation movements and other efforts to resist oppression. The second webinar, “Limited Paradigms,” held on Feb. 4, invited panelists to explore the limits of international law when it comes to delivering justice to the Palestinians. Lana Tatour, a lecturer at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, began by pointing out the imperial origins of most international institutions. Many organizations still maintain a neo-colonial, condescending attitude toward Palestinians, and “have completely rationalized Palestinians as incapable of deciding their destinies,” she said. Therefore, “we want to engage with international law,” she stated, “but we don’t want it to be governing or shaping our demands.” Author Muhannad Ayyash furthered these points, stating that because the International Criminal Court (ICC) addresses specific crimes but not the overarching reality of settler colonialism, “the law can never capture justice.” True justice, he emphasized, means an end to Israeli settler colonialism.
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Israeli occupation forces arrest a Palestinian near the town of Huwara in the West Bank, on Feb. 26, 2023. The panelists agreed that decolonization is needed in Palestine, but that international institutions aren’t structured to call for an end to Zionism. Yara Hawari, a senior analyst at Al-Shabaka, noted that decolonization is typically seen “as a metaphor, rather than a real and material process.” Tatour said decolonization is an ongoing process that forces us to confront difficult questions of how to “dismantle colonial structures” and “engage with the issue of [the right of] return.” The three emphasized that the complexity of this project shouldn’t be avoided. Ayyash added, “you have to be ready for a whole lot of unlearning” of what you “see as possible and impossible to really understand decolonization.” —Priya Aravindhan
policy” and reflects a “universalizing mode of thought imposed through colonial power and used to legitimate colonialism.” The JDA, formulated by a working group of seven academics and one journalist, was meant to provide an alternative to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, which many believe falsely correlates criticism of Israel with anti-Jewish hatred.
However, Salaymeh maintains the JDA also conflates criticism of Israeli policies with anti-Semitism, and thus aims to promote a Zionist political agenda. The scholar noted that she departed from the JDA working group before the document was finalized when she realized that the process was being manipulated to undermine criticism of Zionism. The JDA “distorts basic and necessary distinctions between Jews and Zionists and Israelis,” she noted. The declaration also obscures that not all Jews are Zionists, that some Zionists are not Jews and that not all Israeli citizens are either Jews or Zionists. The JDA further neglects to mention that Palestinians, rather than Israeli Jews, are the true victims of the settler colonial situation, she said. The JDA prescribes “Zionist definitions of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism” and “disregards the long and diverse history of Zionism,” Salaymeh explained. The declaration thus functions not as a defense against hate speech, but rather as a “significant tool of neo-colonialism.” The conflation of criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism ignores that “when anti-Zionists deny the claims of Zionists they typically do so based on the status of Zionists as colonizers, not on their identity as Jews,” Salaymeh noted. The JDA seeks to obscure the fact that “without being anti-Semitic, anti-Zionists can oppose the legiti-
At a Feb. 23 event hosted by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs in Providence, RI, a prominent legal theorist dissected the colonial roots and “unethical manipulations” inherent in the 2021 Jerusalem Declaration on Anti-Semitism (JDA). Lena Salaymeh, an Oxford University professor, explained how the JDA “perpetuates Israeli state 56
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Critiquing the Jerusalem Declaration on Anti-Semitism
Palestinians hold a rally against Israeli military operations in the West Bank, at the al‐Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem on Feb. 24, 2023.
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macy of the Zionist colonial state, Zionist colonial presence in Palestine and the individual or collective claims of Zionist settlers to be in Palestine,” she said. Like the so-called “war on drugs” and “war on terror,” the campaign to define antiSemitism, while couched in benign terms of legal liberalism, causes more harm than good, Salaymeh asserted. Like the “war on terror,” the JDA “contributes to vilifying Muslims” and enables “disproportionate targeting of people in the Global North and oppression of people in the Global South.” The JDA places a chilling effect on free speech while reinforcing militarism and the Israeli state’s “monopoly on the use of violence” through the exaggeration of security fears and sense of urgency that it seeks to generate, Salaymeh stated. Zionist discourse, of which the JDA is a part, obscures that the settler colonial occupation of Palestine is the actual urgent problem, one that “neo-colonial theology normalizes as intractable—and even mundane.” Salaymeh emphasized that the process of using the law to define hate speech is invariably politicized and fraught with danger of distortion and ill effects. The JDA serves as a prime example. —Walter L. Hixson
Plaintiff, Lawyer React to Supreme Court Passing on BDS Case In February, the Supreme Court declined to take up a case challenging an Arkansas law that requires companies doing business with the state to not engage in boycotts of Israel. The Supreme Court’s decision means the law, upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in June 2022, remains on the books. Just Vision, the Institute for Middle East Understanding and Jewish Currents held a webinar on March 2 to respond to the news. Alan Leveritt, publisher of the Arkansas Times and the plaintiff in the case, said his publication will not give in to the law, even though refusing to do so precludes the small publication from receiving critical advertising dollars from state universities. “We’ll continue to assert our First Amendment rights, and we won’t be signing pledges in return for money from the state of Arkansas,” he said. MAY 2023
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Protesters call for Palestinian rights and a boycott of Israel, in New York, NY on April 6, 2018. Brian Hauss, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who represents the Arkansas Times, said the Supreme Court’s decision not to take up the case does not mean the nation’s highest court has sided with the pro-Israel law. It also doesn’t mean that the court won’t hear the case in the future. “It’s really the court saying, for whatever reason, ‘We don’t have space on our docket to consider this issue and we want to let it percolate further in the lower courts,’” he explained. Hauss noted that most anti-BDS laws have been struck down by lower trial courts across the country, making the Arkansas appellate court case an outlier. As such, the Supreme Court does not have any federal appellate court decisions supporting the right to boycott Israel to contrast with the Eighth Circuit’s anti-boycott decision. If and when a federal appellate court sides with pro-BDS plaintiffs, “the odds the Supreme Court will take up the case increase dramatically,” he explained. “Often the court waits until it’s seen how different circuits have resolved the issues…they want to see how different judges think about this.” Hauss is confident the day will come when the court sees the need to take up the issue of free speech vis-à-vis Israel: “Eventually, I think at some point the Supreme Court is going to have to hear this issue, and when it does, we’re confident that it will
reaffirm what it said in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware [in 1982] and uphold Americans’ right to boycott.” Hauss also emphasized that the Eighth Circuit’s decision to permit state-level restrictions on boycotts of Israel only applies to the seven midwestern states that fall under the court’s jurisdiction. “Outside of the Eighth Circuit, Americans who don’t want to sign the pledge have a First Amendment right not to sign the pledge” and should contact an attorney if they are told they must do so in order to receive state employment contracts, he said. Dima Khalidi, the director of Palestine Legal, offered perspective on the Supreme Court’s decision not to review the Eighth Circuit’s ruling. “It took the Supreme Court almost 20 years to respond to the Mississippi boycott during the Civil Rights Movement,” she noted. “So, we know that the movement goes on, despite what the Supreme Court says or doesn’t say.” —Dale Sprusansky
Activists Protest Smotrich’s Visit to Washington Several hundred human rights activists demonstrated outside of the Grand Hyatt hotel in downtown Washington, DC on March 12 to protest the presence of Israel’s pro-settlement, far-right nationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich at an
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Protesters gather in Washington, DC on March 12, 2023 to condemn Israel Bonds for inviting Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to speak at their conference. Israel Bonds conference. Palestinian activists and their supporters—many from Jewish Voice for Peace, the organizing group—displayed signs calling out Israel Bonds, which helps fund the Israeli government’s illegal persecution of Palestinians in the occupied territories, for inviting Smotrich. Protesters also condemned the U.S. State Department for issuing the minister a visa. The demonstrators’ personal disgust for Smotrich was palpable in their signage and chants. On March 1, the minister called for the annihilation of the small Palestinian village of Huwara, which was recently the scene of a violent settler rampage described even by some Israelis as a pogrom. Smotrich first responded to international criticism by blaming the press for taking his comments “out of context.” He later expressed regret over the remarks. Around the corner from the JVP rally, a large group of Zionists carrying Israeli flags—and corralled behind police tape— also called for Smotrich’s removal from office and the boycotting of Israel Bonds. They voiced concerns about Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government’s march toward an “undemocratic” Israel. Israel Bonds, in an attempt to defend inviting Smotrich, issued a statement saying, “We are a nonpartisan financial or58
ganization, which sells Israel bonds issued by the State of Israel through its Finance Ministry…One of the organization’s most unique and paramount attributes is that it remains unbiased with regard to any political party or affiliation, enabling all to show unwavering support for the well-being of Israel and its people, through investments in Israel bonds.” —Phil Pasquini
Baroud, El-Kurd Call for Authentic Portrayals of Palestinians Despite efforts by Israel lobby groups to prevent their participation, Palestinian authors Ramzy Baroud and Mohammed ElKurd spoke on a panel titled “Authors Take Sides” at the Adelaide Writers Week literary festival in Australia on March 4. Both writers insisted that exposing the reality of Israel’s actions in Palestine is a matter of journalistic obligation, rather than an exercise in taking sides. Further, they cautioned that calls for objectivity are often thinly veiled efforts to downplay and obfuscate the suffering of the Palestinian people. “Objectivity seems to only apply to the oppressed,” Baroud said, noting that proIsrael reporting is rarely criticized for its bias. Palestinian writers have realized that objectivity is “a standard that only applies to us,” he added. Zionist attempts to silence Palestinians are increasingly failing, Baroud argued. “We
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are imposing ourselves,” he said. “We are not just part of this conversation, we are at the core of this conversation, and no discussion about Palestine can happen without us….Because of that, they are resorting to these old tactics that are not going to work anymore: smearing the Palestinian, silencing the Palestinian. One Australian newspaper compared me to Kanye West. They said, ‘if we had the courage to prevent Kanye West from having a visa, why are we allowing this guy?’ These are tactics of desperation.... they are now on the defensive, they are scared.” Going forward, Palestinians need to avoid reflexively responding to Israeli propaganda attacks and focus instead on reclaiming their narrative, Baroud said. This, he believes, includes ceasing efforts to present domesticized and sterilized images of the Palestinian people in a hapless effort to placate the inauthentic demands for civility of those who obstinately blame Palestinians for their own oppression. “This whole idea of trying to beautify ourselves and humanize ourselves and make ourselves more accessible—it does not work,” Baroud emphasized. El-Kurd, who participated virtually, agreed. “I think we have been engaging in kind of a failed strategy for the past few decades, in the sense that we overemphasize the women and the children, etc.,” he said. “We overemphasize our inability to commit violence, inability to feel rage.” He pointed to slain Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh as an example. It is not enough that she was a Palestinian shot and killed by Israeli forces occupying Palestinian land, he noted, so many felt the need to emphasize that she was a journalist, a Christian and an American citizen in order to engender sympathy. “We think by doing this, we are able to relate the Palestinian person and the experience of the Palestinian person to the everyday Australian or everyday American,” El-Kurd said. Gently trying to be humanized obscures the reality that many willfully choose to dehumanize Palestinians, he argued: “They see us as human beings and they choose to vilify us, they choose to demonize us.” MAY 2023
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A Palestinian protester waves the Palestinian flag during a demonstration against Israeli settlements in the West Bank village of Beit Dajan, on March 10, 2023. At 15 years and counting, we’ve trained dozens of runners and raised over $360,000 for Palestine through our two crucial partnerships with American 501(c)(3) organizations. One of these is with the Marathon Charity Cooperation (MCC), which helps our runners train for various races, typically longer distances like a half (13.1 miles) or full marathon (26.2 miles), or shorter races like a 5-kilometer (3.1 miles) or 10K (6.2 miles). The MCC pro-
The fact is that rage, disdain and anger are very real human emotions that Palestinians and all people should be permitted to experience, El-Kurd said. Rather than exalting or belittling Palestinians, the world should simply “allow [Palestinians] the space to be complicated,” he said. “I want to ask you to not burden yourselves with the obligation of assigning sainthood to Palestinians or to any oppressed people.” El-Kurd also encouraged supporters of Palestinian rights not to get bogged down in arguments over the exact nature of what Israel is doing, but to instead take action to change the reality. “Me and my friends have these arguments about, ‘it’s settler colonialism, it’s apartheid, it’s police brutality, it’s ethnic cleansing, it’s this, it’s that’—I don’t care [how it is classified] as long as there is a conversation happening in which the villain is portrayed clearly,” he said. —Dale Sprusansky
vides five months of training—every Saturday from May through October—including coaching and supporting our race day efforts at the Parks Half Marathon and Marine Corps Marathon in the Washington, DC metro area. To learn more about the MCC, visit <mc-coop.org>. Our partnership with United Palestinian Appeal (UPA) is focused on funding the educational projects that Iqraa supports. UPA—which provides a range of humanitarian and socioeconomic services for Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Jordan—oversees and implements the scholarships that Iqraa helps fund. Like the MCC, UPA is certified by the IRS in its charitable mission and has Charity Navigator’s highest rating. To learn about UPA, visit <upaconnect.org>. Iqraa runners pursue various approaches to fundraising. A common one is to describe the cause, which is to provide a university education for Palestinian students. Some runners also give generously from their own pockets to fulfill the fundraising commitment. After all, who doesn’t want to assist a great cause? Our active support for improved educational opportunities for Palestinians helps at multiple levels: it enhances the lives and futures of Palestinians, builds
Palestine has been increasingly isolated and subjected to rampant violence in recent decades. In 2008, however, Iqraa (“Read,” in Arabic) was born with an irrepressible mission of solidarity and support, proclaimed in our motto: “Running for a brighter Palestine!” MAY 2023
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Join Iqraa in Running for a Brighter Palestine
Marathon Charity Cooperation and Iqraa runners at their Oct. 30, 2022 warm‐up run, the day before the Marine Corps Marathon. WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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DIPLOMATIC DOINGS Palestinian Ambassador Calls on UK to Recognize State of Palestine In a pre-recorded online interview with Palestine Deep Dive (PDD) released in February, Palestinian ambassador to the United Kingdom Husam Zomlot called on the British government to recognize the State of Palestine and apologize for the ways the country has historically wronged the Palestinian people. Zomlot provided moderator Mark Seddon of PDD with four instances when he believes Britain failed to take a stand for Palestine. “Britain missed an opportunity in 1999,” he said. “Five years after the Oslo Accords concluded, there was supposed to be a [Palestinian] state. Britain and other Western powers should have said, ‘OK, the Palestinians and Israelis have signed this accord. They agreed to have two states after the end of this interim period. We recognize the State of Palestine and we give the two parties equal footing and we level the field.’ Britain did not do that.” Zomlot also listed 2012 as a key missed opportunity, when the UK sat on the sidelines as the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly voted in favor of according Palestine non-member observer state status. A total of 138 countries voted in favor of the resolution, with nine voting against (including the U.S.) and 41 abstaining (in60
cluding the UK). The ambassador noted that the British did at one point come close to recognizing Palestinian statehood. “In 2014, the United Kingdom’s Parliament voted overwhelmingly (274-12) to recognize the State of Palestine, including Conservative members and Labour,” Zomlot pointed out. “The UK government completely disregarded that [non-binding vote]—another opportunity missed.” “The fourth opportunity, unfortunately, was missed in 2017,” Zomlot said. “That was 100 years after the Balfour Declaration. Prime Minister Theresa May had an opportunity to say, ‘OK, 100 years on, we have seen all the agony and the suffering of the Palestinian people. We have seen the outcome of what has happened. We never meant this to happen and this is an opportunity to actually recognize the State of Palestine.’ Instead, Theresa May came out and said, ‘how proud we are to have issued the Balfour Declaration. Today, we celebrate it.’ She put salt in that deep wound.” Zomlot said the failure of countries such as the UK to hold Israel responsible for its actions is why the country is growing more belligerent, as seen in its new far-right-
wing government. “The key word in this whole discussion about the Israeli government is accountability,” he said. “You have all these convicted racists and criminals in the Israeli government in very high offices because of the lack of accountability. Why do we have lack of accountability? It's because of the U.S., sometimes the UK. The West in general, going out of their way to shield Israel from any scrutiny, any accountability…If you really want to change the dynamics in Israel, and if you really want to see the beginning of electing people who would actually produce a peace process and end this situation, you’ve got to associate illegality with consequences. And you’ve got to create accountability for all this wrongdoing for all these years.” Zomlot predicted the current array of extreme right-wing Israeli ministers, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (who describes himself as a “fascist homophobe”) and convicted criminal and Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, will seem “dovish” in five years’ time, “because the Israeli public, very comfortable, no cost associated with the illegality, will keep producing and electing even more extreme people.” —Omar Aziz
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the intellectual capital of Palestine and demonstrates our solidarity with the Palestinian people. Iqraa is a non-partisan running group with no political stance other than our deep commitment to a brighter Palestine. Refraining from politics allows us to seek support from the widest range of people and organizations. To learn more about Iqraa, visit <iqraadc.org>. Contact the Iqraa coordinator at kirkcruachan@yahoo.com with any questions. All are welcome to join us—as runners or donors—as we work for a brighter Palestine! —Kirk Campbell
Ambassador Husam Zomlot dissects the ways the British government has failed to support the Palestinian people.
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Re-Imagining Our Relationship to Land Through Art On Feb. 16, the Middle East Institute’s Arts and Culture Center offered a guided tour of its newest exhibition, “Perceptible Rhythms/Alternative Temporalities.” Curated by Maya El Khalil, in partnership with the Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation (ADMAF), the exhibition showcases 12 different Middle Eastern and South Asian artists and their visions for sustainability amidst the worsening climate crisis. Their works explore how extractive colonial industrialization has fundamentally altered cultural histories with and relationships to land. The artists also reconnect with past cultural histories to imagine alternative ways for humankind to attune to nature. The gallery tour began with Ali Kazim’s “Untitled, Ratti Tibbi Series” (2017-2018), a set of six watercolor paintings of meticulously layered terracotta shards. Kazim, fascinated by ancient Indus Valley pottery, paints minute details such as fingerprints and strands of hair to offer a portrait of the people who lived there thousands of years ago. “What do these fragments tell us about past, present and future civilizations?” El Khalil asked. Similarly, Maha Nasrallah explores themes of identity and memory in “Rebounce: A Personal Diary in Exile” (2022). Having left Lebanon during a time of crisis, the artist “stitches a connection to a place that was lost from her as she embroiders memories and feelings” into a collection of fabric softener, El Khalil said. This work serves as an homage to Nasrallah’s home and diasporic identity. Other featured artists like Sarah Almehairi, Christian Sleiman and Filwa Nazer investigate the undetected intricacies of the everyday world, inviting audiences to develop a new awareness for identifying with and learning from the environment. They imbue a deeply personal element into their works, exhibiting how our relationship to the environment becomes intertwined with our care for self and community. Other featured artists illustrate “how historical narratives of a place can organize MAY 2023
their realities as much as maps can,” El Khalil stated. Abbas Akhavan does this in his installation “Study for a Monument” (2014). Bronze casts of flora, native to the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, are arranged on a white cloth on the ground, recalling 19th century colonial practices of taxonomic record-keeping. The flora casts resemble dismembered corpses, beautiful and morbid, representing the memory of war and colonialSarah Abu Abdallah’s “Fortitude” (2020) uses real ism in the region and its effect heirloom tomato seeds from Saudi Arabia, a native crop on ecology. that almost disappeared due to rapid urbanization. Moza Almatrooshi utilizes same name, which is also displayed in archival techniques as well in “The AgriculMEI’s gallery. “Moon Dust” documents the ture School: Maktoom’s Honey Mountain” fate of Wadi al-Qamar, an agricultural (2022). As an ongoing project, the artist neighborhood in Alexandria, Egypt, after a uses photography, video-making and speccement factory was established nearby. imen collections to preserve local farmers’ Mahdy uses his artistic platform to reveal transgenerational methods of knowledge in the suffering of this “unseen community” in the UAE. She probes how food and farming worsening environmental conditions help nations develop identities. caused by the factory. The theme of preserving traditional prac“Perceptible Rhythms/Alternative Temtices through art is also present in the works poralities” is open until April 28. of Marianne Fahmy, Sarah Abu Abdallah —Priya Aravindhan and Nadia Bseiso. These three explore current realities and potential futures of cultural Ghnaim’s Tatreez Class Imparts destruction through environmental neglect. Palestinian Heritage Encapsulating intersecting themes of cultural identity, political conflict and environThe DC Metro Chapter of the Palestine mental crisis, Abdulnasser Gharem’s “CliChildren’s Relief Fund (PCRF) hosted a mate Refugee” (2022) serves as the tatreez class taught by Wafa Ghnaim at exhibition’s pièce de résistance. Gharem Middle East Books and More on Feb. 19. renders a map in colored rubber stamps to Organizers marvelled that within 15 minrepresent the concentration of climate utes of PCRF’s online announcement of refugees across the world. Embedded this fundraising event the class sold out! within them are phrases like “refugee That’s because a class with Palestinian recamps are optimal forms of mercy killings.” searcher, author and educator Ghnaim is a El Khalil discussed how the climate migrant, special opportunity for students to learn not legally recognized as a refugee by the about a tradition that is a vital part of PalesU.N., is dehumanized. “The perpetual reptinian identity. etition of laws, maps and artificial cultural Ghnaim began learning embroidery from differences,” she explained, “enforce a buher mother, award-winning artist Feryal reaucratic violence designed to tame and Abbasi-Ghnaim, when she was two years alienate people from the environment.” old. When she asked the attendees (who The tour was followed by a screening of represented multiple generations, ethnicities Mohamed Mahdy’s “Moon Dust,” a docuand even one man), “Who learned tatreez mentary following his photo series of the from your mother or elder?” she was PHOTO P. ARAVINDHAN
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pleased only a couple hands shot up, commenting, “no experience is better!” And sure enough, in just a few hours she had everyone grasping the basics of stitching uniquely Palestinian embroidery! They also took a break to get to know each other, drink tea and feast on maamoul and kunafah sweets from Amori Pastries in Vienna, VA. Interspersed with stitching moves, Ghnaim talked about the history, styles and traditional patterns of Palestinian thobes, including famous designs created in unique time periods between 1850 and 1948. She also disclosed various Israeli attempts at cultural appropriation, noting that flight attendants on Israel’s first national airline wore embroidered thobes until Palestinians rose up and said, “No!” Every generation of Palestinians in the diaspora is eager to express their identity by wearing their rich embroidery heritage, which is increasingly available online and in stores like Middle East Books and More. Many purchase directly from Inaash, an organization in Lebanon that labels their fashionable embroidery “Made by Palestinian women according to Palestinian designs.” Ghnaim pointed to a special embroidered dress we display in our bookstore, noting that it has six panels or branches featuring birds and a floral motif in the skirt. When times were tough the skirt had just a few panels, but when times improved the stitcher could add branches when she could afford the thread and material. After the huge disruption and physical and psychological trauma of the Nakba, women had no access to material or even their own dresses, which they had to leave behind as they were driven from their homes. In the 1950s their dresses were made out of flour sacks donated by UNRWA. They had no access to Syrian embroidery silk. Women continued to embroider in refugee camps without proper lighting and materials. Embroidery, nonetheless, helped women tell their stories and wear their protest art. During the First Intifada, from 1987 to 1993, Palestinians were not allowed to display their national flag. Women embroidered their resistance, slowly and patiently showing their sumud, as they embroidered the 62
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During her class at Middle East Books and More hosted by PCRF on Feb. 19, 2023, Wafa Ghnaim shows a thobe with a Palestinian flag motif as she describes protest embroidery stitched during the First Intifada, when Palestinians were prohibited from displaying their national flag. Dome of the Rock, rock throwers wearing keffiyahs, calligraphy and Palestinian flags. Stitching can affirm one’s identity and connect the Palestinian community scattered around the world, Ghnaim emphasized. People can stitch together in homes, virtually or even in a bookstore like Middle East Books and More! I overheard one new stitcher saying, “this has been the most relaxing three hours I’ve had away from my kids since they were born!” For more information read Ghnaim’s book, Tatreez & Tea: Embroidery and Storytelling in the Palestinian Diaspora, available at <middleeastbooks.com>. Ghnaim holds weekly virtual stitching circles— Thursday nights for Palestinians only and Friday nights for people of all backgrounds. Ghnaim is the Palestinian collections specialist at the Museum of the Palestinian People, which is currently featuring a new display of embroidery titled “Tatreez Inher itance,” next to our bookstore. —Delinda C. Hanley
ARAB AMERICAN ACTIVISM Author Says Love, Perseverance Sustain the Palestinian People On Feb. 21, Ramsey Hanhan, the author of Fugitive Dreams: Chronicles of Occupa-
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
tion and Resistance, gave a book talk at the Jerusalem Fund in Washington, DC. Fugitive Dreams is a fictionalized literary memoir that depicts 50 years of life under Israeli occupation. The book’s main character, Sameer, is born “on the ‘wrong’ side of the border” in Israel/Palestine and travels to America to start over. His experience as an immigrant in post-9/11 America is intertwined with the ongoing unrest back home, through themes such as school shootings, police brutality, human rights violations, activism and walls. He decides that he must take action for the sake of his daughter. Hanhan noted that there are many books on Palestine, often focusing on international law, U.N. resolutions or historical grievances. However, he believes Fugitive Dreams offers a unique and personal perspective. His novel’s theme is humanity and how “love is resistance.” “Only in the last 1,000 years has the world witnessed two world wars, colonialism, slavery, plagues and crusades,” he noted. Yet, the reason why we have survived and are here today is love, he maintained. He recalled that, like many Palestinians, his parents lost everything they had and were barred from the places they knew in 1948, when they were evicted from their homes in Ramallah and Jaffa. “Had they succumbed to defeat, I wouldn’t be here MAY 2023
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Palestinians buy decorations in preparation for the holy month of Ramadan at a market in Gaza City, on March 13, 2023. today,” he said. “Love made them rebuild and start a family, propelling me to where I am. Love is why Palestinians are still here. Love is humanity’s last hope.” Hanhan pointed to the First Intifada as an example of the ability of the Palestinians to
persevere. It was a challenge to get an education at the time, he noted, and he had to attend secret classes since Israel closed schools and threatened to demolish any building that was used for “unauthorized” educational purposes. “Years later I was horri-
fied at every school shooting in America,” he said. “It did not occur to me that I had repeatedly experienced school shootings; it was normal that they [Israelis] shot at our school.” Growing up, Hanhan said his father would take the family to the beach in Jaffa every Sunday. However, after the “peace process” began, the Israelis placed checkpoints everywhere to prevent Palestinian movement. Suddenly they needed permits, which were very hard to obtain. “They make it very difficult for Palestinians to travel anywhere, even within the West Bank,” he noted. “My understanding is that the whole point of all of these difficulties is to force us to leave—to make life so miserable that people just want to get out.” The author also discussed how he reconciles his identity as an American with the strong U.S. financial and diplomatic support for Israel. “For the average American, the federal budget is a political issue to be decided by their elected representatives,” he said. “For Palestinian Americans, American aid to Israel is personal.” —Aseel Abukwaik
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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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Middle East Books Review All books featured in this section are available from Middle East Books and More, the nation’s preeminent bookstore on the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy. www.MiddleEastBooks.com • (202) 939-6050 ext. 1101
The Untold Story of the Golan Heights: Occupation, Colonization and Jawlani Resistance Edited by Muna Dajani, Munir Fakher Eldin and Michael Mason, I.B. Tauris, 2023, paperback, 226 pp. MEB $35
Reviewed by Ida Audeh Among all of Israel’s many Arab victims, the Syrians in the Golan Heights are arguably the most unfortunate. Living under Israeli colonization since 1967 in territory officially annexed by Israel in 1981, the ethnic cleansing they endured and the ongoing moves by Israel to strip them of their ethnic and cultural identity never make it to the news. The Jawlanis, the Syrian residents who call the Golan Heights home “and adopted this name as part of their political identification post-1967,” have heroically and creatively resisted Israel’s attempts to transform them into a subjugated people. The Untold Story of the Golan Heights is the first academic study in English to describe Jawlani resistance to Israeli colonization. Before the June 1967 war, the Golan Heights was home to more than 130,000 Syrians and the site of about 131 villages. By the end of that war, the Jawlanis experienced their own Nakba: Israel had occupied two-thirds of that area and driven out most of the population; only 6,000-7,000 Syrians remained in four villages. The occupied area, about 1,200 square kilometers, was made a closed military area. By 2020, and in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, about 34 Jewish-only colonies had been set up, housing over 26,000 IsIda Audeh is a contributing editor of the Washington Report. 64
raelis. A roughly equal number of Jawlanis live in a handful of villages. The editors’ purpose in The Untold Story of the Golan Heights is to delve into “the processes of everyday colonization and the politics of the governed” in the occupied region. The book is divided into five sections, each consisting of a chapter on an arena of Jawlani resistance and one or two reflections with a related but more specific focus. Contributors explore the agency of the residents, especially after the application of the Golan Heights Law in 1981 (which applied Israeli law to the territory), by looking at their response to Israeli attempts to subjugate them politically, culturally, educationally and economically. The 15 contributors are Jawlani and Palestinian researchers. The story of Jawlani rejection of Israeli citizenship deserves to be widely known. It illustrates the determination of a small and encircled population to reject colonial domination, at real cost to themselves and with no hope of receiving meaningful international or regional support. After Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights, the entire population of Jawlanis went on strike to
reject Israel’s attempt to impose citizenship on them, and unambiguously asserted their Syrian national identity. To punish them for striking, Israel imposed curfews and prevented them from grazing dairy cattle. The strike and the text of the document asserting Jawlani rejection of Israeli colonization and identity with Syria are the focus of the first reflection that follows Chapter 2. Not surprisingly, Israel attempted to coopt the mostly Druze Jawlanis, as it did the Palestinian Druze, by emphasizing a distinct Druze identity and ethnicity that is separate from its Arab context. The Jawlanis rejected this minoritization policy ferociously, correctly identifying it as a tool of control and manipulation. In the Israeli educational system, Palestinian and Syrian Druze are seen as a single unit, brought together “through a newly reconstructed Druze identity” midwifed by Israel. As Chapter 5 argues, Israel’s approach to education in Golan Heights schools is designed to serve colonial logic. For years, Jawlanis countered omissions in the educational curricula through summer camps (“Syria camps”), but these have been suspended since 2011. Soon after the 1967 occupation, progressive Jawlanis established contact with Palestinians. Connections were made for economic needs (for example, to sell produce in Palestinian markets); not surprisingly, contacts were also formed in prison. Jawlanis and Birzeit University students established important bonds of solidarity in the 1970s, facilitated by Israeli professors who were members of solidarity groups with both communities. The book’s description of Birzeit voluntary work camps in the Golan Heights in the 1970s and 1980s reveals the political sophistication of both occupied populations, who saw their fates as intertwined. Unfortunately, these relations were undermined by the Oslo Accords and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. Chapter 4 discusses culture production as an area of resistance. After the public mobilization in 1982, Jawlanis started putting sculptures in public spaces that asserted their connection to the land and evoked the Syrian fight against French colonial rule. Chapter 6 describes transformations to the landscape after 1967 and MAY 2023
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Jawlani attempts to reclaim their connection to the geography despite ongoing dispossession. The 2011 Syria uprising split the Jawlanis politically—some regarded it as revolutionary, others as catastrophic. According to one author, it “led to nearly a complete paralysis” of Jawlani activity. Among many consequences, it ended the ability of Jawlanis to travel to other parts of Syria for education, as they had been doing. The struggle of the Jawlanis against daunting odds is both heroic and instructive. This collection of essays is an important addition to the literature on resistance to colonial domination.
Settling Nature: The Conservation Regime in Palestine-Israel By Irus Braverman, University of Minnesota Press, 2023, paperback, 362 pp. MEB $35
Reviewed by Mazin Qumsiyeh
I have long been aware of the prolific work of Irus Braverman and admired her methods of conducting on-the-ground research in the area of environmental justice. Thus, when I was offered the chance to review her latest book, I jumped at the opportunity. I simply could not put the book down, as it was highly readable, weaving together stories of how Israeli colonization works to both disconnect people from nature and wage war on elements of nature. Mazin Qumsiyeh is professor, founder and director of the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability at Bethlehem University. MAY 2023
I coincidentally started reading her book a week after I finished writing and submitting a desktop review and database of environmental injustice issues in the West Bank. When I started that project, I knew that it was a significant undertaking, but did not appreciate the magnitude of the endeavor (over 400 references were reviewed, including Braverman’s many books). But doing the work was fruitful and showed how we need more research and writing—such as Settling Nature—to cover myriad aspects of environmental injustice. The disciplines that are related to ecologies of settler colonialism are diverse: religious mythology, psychology, greed, materialism, neoliberalism, politics, law (international and local) and bureaucratic governance. The field is thus not possible to navigate through the prism of just one area of study. Being an Israeli, nature lover, social scientist and professor of law and geography equips Braverman with the unique ability to amalgamate data and observations across diverse disciplines into a cohesive book about Israeli environmental policy. The book’s preface takes us on a short autobiographical note explaining how the
author discovered truths about herself, and in the process about Israel’s and Zionism’s relationship to nature in Palestine (a country now called the state of Israel, or as Braverman puts it “Israel-Palestine”). The book, she explains in the preface, “brings attention to the ways in which colonial dynamics juxtapose between and thus alienate (certain) humans from (certain) nonhumans.” This is an understatement. The introduction lays cogent arguments for why and how settler colonialism and biopolitical warfare (“eco-Zionism”) impact both sides of the Green Line. There are three “territorial” chapters. Chapter 1 on Jabal al Jarmak/Mount Meron Nature Reserve in Galilee shows that taking land from locals under the guise of “protection” is part and parcel of the Zionist project. Chapter 3 highlights the dispossession and belittling of Palestinians and their property under the guise of excavating and restoring the structures of ancient Jerusalem. Chapter 5 brilliantly covers the techniques of dispossession in the West Bank’s Wadi Qana. Biopolitical issues are brought up in Chapters 2 (the reintroduction of biblical animals), 4 (how governments assign value to life,
www.MiddleEastBooks.com Nonfiction • Literature • Cookbooks Children’s Books • Arabic Books • Films Greeting Cards • Palestinian Solidarity Items Pottery • Olive Oil • Food Products Monday-Thursday: 12 p.m.-5 p.m. Friday and Saturday: 11 a.m.-7 p.m 1902 18th St. NW • Washington, DC 20009 bookstore@wrmea.org (202) 939-6050 ext. 1 WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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known as “necropolitics”) and 6 (transboundary issues of birds and “the intensifying connection between Israeli militarism and wildlife protection”). Braverman uses terms like “ecological exceptionalism” to describe the Zionist reshaping of “ecologies,” just as they did physical geographies and human demographics. Intriguing stories like Israel’s smuggling of fallow deer from Iran before the fall of the Shah juxtapose with intensive details of how Israel’s military colludes with so-called nature authorities to create the eco-Zionism that excludes the indigenous people and tries in convoluted ways to create a mythological biblical landscape. Highlighting welldocumented examples of biopolitical warfare, Braverman seeks to “plant the seeds for possible reimaginings of nature that transcend the grip of settler ecologies.” The author hopes that “the very act of writing this book can subvert [Zionist] logics and disrupt the violent juxtapositions of this place from within, performing an insider’s decolonization of sorts.” I think she has indeed brilliantly given us all tools (in this book and her previous publications) to decolonize our environment. Settling Nature is a necessary read for all who are interested in justice, human rights and a livable planet. Written in fluid, easy to follow language that weaves stories with facts, the book is also fun to read.
Palestine in the Victorian Age: Colonial Encounters in the Holy Land By Gabriel Polley, I.B. Taurus, 2022, paperback, 264 pp. MEB $35
Reviewed by Alex Bustos While the history of Britain and Palestine is much discussed, the scope of the conversation tends to be confined to the start of the 20th century. Covering the period from the 1830s-1880s, Gabriel Polley’s Palestine in the Victorian Age: Colonial Encounters in the Holy Land broadens the analysis by exploring a neglected era of PalestineBritain relations. Polley details how Victorians, buoyed by Protestant revivalism in Alex Bustos is assistant director at Palestine Deep Dive. 66
England during the 19th century, traveled to Palestine, with many documenting what they experienced when they arrived. Mining through travel accounts, newspaper articles and memoirs, the author analyzes these primary sources within the historical and political context of the time, bringing the era alive in vivid detail. Central to the study is the argument that the ideological roots of British support for Zionism in the 20th century stretch further back into the Victorian era. On top of this, rather than viewing the travel literature as being merely a record of a lost past, Polley convincingly argues that the production of that literature was itself part of a process that facilitated the eventual dispossession of the Palestinian people. Palestine in the Victorian Age is split into seven chapters, the first examining the travels of the explorer Edward Robinson in 1838 and 1852, who paved the way for later Victorian expeditions. The second chapter describes Victorian encounters with the city of Jerusalem and the contrast between the lived realities of its residents (both Palestinians and the small Jewish community) and the Orientalist and often overtly racist depictions of them by English travelers. The third chapter tells the fascinating story of Kerem Avraham, a farm built by James and Elizabeth Anne Finn, who raised money in Britain to support the creation of what became a prototype Jewish settlement. The fourth and fifth chapters shift focus toward the indigenous Palestinian population in the city of Nablus. The 1856 Nablus Uprising in chapter four and the life and times of the Samaritan Ya’qub Al-Shalabi, in chapter five, describe two different reacWASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
tions from Palestinians toward the colonial ambitions of Victorian travelers in their country. Far from being passive agents, Polley details how Palestinians used what little means they had to either resist, in the case of the 1856 Uprising, or, in Shalabi’s case, exploit imperial fascinations for his own personal advantage. The final chapter focuses on the role of Laurence Oliphant, who, having served as Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Quebec, Canada, where he celebrated the dispossession of Indigenous people, brought those same ideas over to Palestine. He would become a fervent advocate of Jewish settlement under British sponsorship which, as Polley argues, proved of great interest to early Zionist thinkers who read and drew on his theories. While today the interest of fundamentalist Evangelical Christians with the Holy Land is usually associated with the U.S., Palestine in the Victorian Age demonstrates that this really began in England. Contrary to popular belief, Christian Zionist fascination with ideas of a Jewish “return” to Palestine, often fuelled by overtly anti-Semitic theories, were not fringe ideas. In fact, as Polley shows, they enjoyed an audience among the higher echelons of the British political elite. Polley does not argue that Britain “invented” or directed Zionism. Instead, he indicates that there was already strong support among Britons for the removal of the existing Palestinian population to make way for the arrival of a more “suitable” people. This helped lay the foundations for the later colonization of the country. Palestine in the Victorian Age therefore illuminates how Britain’s role in that country has deeper roots than is often believed. The consequences of British actions in both the 19th and 20th centuries continue to have a profound impact on the Palestinians.
Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire By Caroline Elkins, Knopf, 2022, hardcover, 896 pp. MEB $37.50
Reviewed by John Gee During the First Intifada in 1988, Israeli troops were reported to have tied Palestinians to the front of their vehicles to deter MAY 2023
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N E W A R R I VA L S Black Foam: A Novel by Haji Jabir, Amazon Crossing, 2023, paperback, 224 pp. MEB $16.99
others from throwing rocks. Comparisons were quickly made to British practices during the 1936-39 Arab Revolt, when the previous occupier perched captive Palestinian Arabs on the hood of trucks or tied them to the front of trains as a precaution against ambushes and mines. Most of the means of repression deployed against Palestinians by Israel were used previously by the British: deliberately wrecking the contents of homes during searches, home demolitions, selective and not so selective killings, imprisonment without trial and obtaining information through torture. These tactics are intended not merely to punish individuals, but to penalize and intimidate into submission a whole people. Israel did not simply learn these British methods from counter-insurgency texts. Thousands of founding members of its army had experience and training with the British, and the Zionist colonies in Palestine were briefly (between 1945 and 1947) on the receiving end of British repression, though in a much less severe form than that inflicted upon the Palestinians. In Legacy of Violence, Caroline Elkins, professor of history and of African and African American studies at Harvard University, examines how Britain used violence to maintain its global empire while attempting to sustain a self-image as a liberal country, extending its benevolent rule over socalled “lesser races.” Elkins does not, it must be said, draw out the parallels beJohn Gee is a free-lance journalist based in Singapore and the author of Unequal Conflict: The Palestinians and Israel. MAY 2023
From award-winning Eritrean author Haji Jabir comes a profoundly intimate novel about one man’s tireless attempt to find his place in the world. Dawoud is on the run from his murky past, aiming to discover where he belongs. He tries to assimilate into different groups along his journey through North Africa and Israel, changing his clothes, his religious affiliations and even his name to fit in, but the safety and peace he seeks remain elusive. It seems prejudice is everywhere, holding him back, when all he really wants is to create a simple life he can call his own. A chameleon, Dawoud—or David, Adal or Dawit, depending on where and when you meet him—is not lost in this whirl of identities. In fact, he is defined by it. Dawoud’s journey is circuitous and specific, but the desire to belong is universal. Spellbinding to the final page, Black Foam is both intimate and grand in scale, much like the experiences of the millions of people migrating to find peace and safety in the 21st century. The Dispersal: A Novel by Inaam Kachachi, Interlink, 2022, paperback, 256 pp. MEB $17 Shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, The Dispersal is a timely and insightful novel about displacement, loss, poetry, war and migration from a leading Arab voice. Tashari, the title of the novel in Arabic, is an Iraqi word for a shot from a hunting rifle, which scatters creatures in all directions. In the novel, tashari expresses the scattering of Iraqis as a people across the globe and the separation from home and loved ones that envelops them. The Dispersal follows the career of Wardiyah Iskander, a physician working in the Iraqi countryside in the 1950s. But as the years pass, the upheavals the country faces continue to worsen. Her family, like many others, is pressed to leave. Iskander finally emigrates, arriving in France. There her poet niece helps her now elderly aunt to get settled and, reflecting on their family’s dispersal, to tell her story. Inaam Kachachi’s unhurried, spontaneous reflection on the closest ties of family evokes quiet power and beauty, relayed by the warmth of Inam Jaber’s translation. Iskander’s journey conveys her dedication to the healing properties of trust and belonging—treasures that are lost whenever one’s homeland falls prey to the beast of division and conflict. Sweet Love: Classic Baking with a Middle Eastern Accent by Iman Osman, Passionpreneur Publishing, 2022, hardcover, 198 pp. MEB $31.99 Sweet Love is a compilation of classic desserts handed down from one generation to the next. Stunning photography and step-by-step recipes bring together this collection of both classic and Middle Eastern sweet recipes. Cooking is how Iman Osman’s Egyptian family connects, sharing and making new memories. Every comforting recipe fosters bonding, love, appreciation and connection in families through the love of baking. This cookbook is a great way to gather your own family and friends together for some timeless, tasty and wholesome fun. WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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tween Israel’s current behavior toward the Palestinians and British imperial violence, but informed readers might easily do that for themselves. Elkins uses the term “legalized violence” to describe Britain’s barbaric acts that would have been widely recognized as reprehensible if used at home or in Europe. In Palestine and elsewhere, they were justified as being an exceptional measure for extraordinary circumstances. Powers were given to colonial administrators that essentially allowed them to permit whatever actions they thought might serve to suppress the resistance of the people over whom they ruled. For anyone who follows what has happened to Palestinians under Israel’s rule, the comparison seems to leap out: “the only democracy in the Middle East” violates international law and human rights conventions every day, but it is all rendered legal under Israeli law and military orders and enabled by supporters who are ready to accept the most convoluted and unreasonable efforts to reconcile brutal repression with legal standards. The British often imported individuals with expertise in violent repression from elsewhere in their empire to train and develop local colonial forces. In 1922, early in Britain’s rule over Palestine, veterans from the Black and Tans, Auxiliaries and the Royal Irish Constabulary—known for their violence during Ireland’s War of Independence—were brought to Palestine to staff the police force. They brought methods of repression honed in Ireland with them, as was well understood by the government in Westminster. Later, during the 1936-39 Palestinian Revolt, the number of British police in Palestine was boosted to 3,000, and ultimately some 20,000 British soldiers were also deployed. While Palestinian police officers either resigned in compliance with rebel demands or were relieved of duty, a Jewish “supernumerary” force of nearly 12,000 men was recruited. Charles Tegart, a Northern Ireland Protestant with experience in suppressing Bengali resistance, was brought to Palestine to advise on the full-scale reorganization of the Palestine police in December 1937. Under Tegart’s oversight, 70 fortified police posts were 68
constructed, where selected police officers tortured captive Palestinians to obtain information. In the summer of 1938, with much of the countryside under rebel control, Orde Wingate, an intelligence officer and ardent pro-Zionist, came up with a new plan to counter the Arab Revolt, particularly their attacks on the oil pipeline from Iraq to Haifa. From British and Jewish recruits, he created the Special Night Squads with the mission of wiping out rebels. During some raids on villages, Elkins writes, “Arabs were counted off, and every fifteenth man was shot dead; women and children were killed in their sleep.” As Elkins notes later, Wingate remains highly regarded in Israel, credited with developing tactics that are still used by the Israeli army. She quotes a March 2019 Times of Israel article that says, “few nonJews and even fewer British soldiers are regarded as highly in Israel as Orde Charles Wingate, a senior officer who became a legend here by shaping Israel’s pre-state military.” Legacy of Violence is a hefty size, but is well written as well as well researched, and it is to be hoped that it gains a wide readership. Its subtitle is “A History of the British Empire,” but Palestine looms large in it, with good reason. As Elkins writes of the 193639 Revolt: “Its three years had witnessed the efflorescence of legalised lawlessness and the consolidation of norms and logics that various British actors had honed elsewhere in the empire, whether in the air, on unconventional battlefields and interrogation sites, in domestic spheres, or on the floor of Parliament and in the cabinet’s smoke-filled rooms.” Elkins concludes that the revolt was a “crucial turning point in imperial convergences.”
Neither Settler Nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities By Mahmood Mamdani, Belknap Press, 2020, paperback, 416 pp. MEB $19.95
Reviewed by Walter L. Hixson This insightful study marries analysis of the past with a prescription for a future that would transform a world order that revolves WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
around the nation-state. Mahmood Mamdani’s radical reconceptualization has profound implications for the United States, Israel-Palestine and indeed for the world. For Mamdani, the obstacle in the path of peace and justice is the modern nationstate system, which has dominated world politics since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. The path to a more just and democratic world entails demythologizing and renarrating nationalist histories, setting the stage for a sweeping political transformation that would facilitate decolonization and the inclusion of repressed minorities. Mamdani, among many others at this point, frames the modern nation-state as rooted in violence and exclusion. The United States and Israel, for example, are settler colonial societies constructed on the subjugation and cleansing of native peoples. Political violence lies at the core of their national identities. Radical political reconceptualization entails replacing the identities of settlers and natives with a more inclusive vision in which everyone is a “survivor” of the nation-state system that has spurred internal repression and overseas imperialism, even as it has been wrongly exalted as the “end of history.” In addition to chapters on the United States and Israel-Palestine, Mamdani, a distinguished professor at Columbia University, includes chapters on Nazi Germany, apartheid South Africa and the partition of Sudan. He condemns the Nuremburg, human rights and International Criminal Court models of punishing perpetrators as a wrong-headed criminal justiceoriented approach in which individuals are blamed for mass violence and injustice that MAY 2023
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in reality inheres in the nation-state system. While the Truth and Reconciliation Commission comes in for the same criticism, Mamdani, a Ugandan of Indian ancestry, argues that the South African transition from apartheid to a deracialized democracy provides the model for the global future. At the same time, however, he rejects the reversion to tribalism in both South Africa and Sudan, which has been plagued by a series of civil wars and partition in the wake of British colonialism. He also condemns the repressive reservation system for “American” Indians. Political reformulation in the United States would entail state-sponsored reparations for Indians as well as African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Puerto Ricans, among others. As for Israel-Palestine, Mamdani’s prescription calls for an end to Zionism as well as the idea of an exclusive Palestinian homeland, as both are rooted in the failed nation-state system. All the residents of Israel-Palestine would be “survivors” and equal under the law. Just as whites in South Africa came to accept that they could live without apartheid, Israeli Jews will eventually come to the same conclusion. “The Palestinian moment will arrive,” Mamdani writes, “when enough Israeli Jews are confident that they will be counted among Zionism’s survivors.” Mamdani’s protean vision of a brave new postcolonial world might easily be dismissed; indeed, the author confesses that he is an “incorrigible optimist.” In Mamdani’s skillful hands, however, this seeming Panglossian view emerges as surprisingly clear and tantalizingly attainable at some point in the global future. As with any invention or innovation, it must first be imagined before it can be created. Few have done a better job of analyzing the past and imagining a better future than Mamdani has done in this stimulating book. ■ Contributing editor Walter L. Hixson is the author of Architects of Repression: How Israel and Its Lobby Put Racism, Violence and Injustice at the Center of US Middle East Policy, along with several other books and journal articles. He was a professor of history for 36 years, achieving the rank of distinguished professor. MAY 2023
N E W A R R I VA L S The Last Pomegranate Tree by Bachtyar Ali, Archipelago Books, 2023, paperback, 321 pp. MEB $24 The Last Pomegranate Tree is an extraordinary chronicle of war and a story of love between a father and his son from one of Iraq’s most celebrated contemporary writers. Muzafar-i Subhdam, a Peshmerga fighter, has spent the last 21 years imprisoned in the desert yearning for his son, Saryas, who was only a few days old when Muzafar was captured. Upon his release, Muzafar begins a frantic search, only to learn that Saryas was one of three identical boys who became enmeshed in each other’s lives as war mutilated the region. An inlet to the recesses of a terrifying historical moment, and a philosophical journey of formidable depths, The Last Pomegranate Tree interrogates the origins and reverberations of atrocity while also probing, with a graceful intelligence, unforgettable acts of mercy. A Landscape of War: Ecologies of Resistance and Survival in South Lebanon by Munira Khayyat, University of California Press, 2022, paperback, 286 pp. MEB $35 What worlds take root in war? In this book, anthropologist Munira Khayyat describes life along the southern border of Lebanon, where resistant human and natural ecologies thrive amid a terrain of perennial war. A Landscape of War takes us to frontline villages where armed invasions, indiscriminate bombings and scattered landmines have become the environment where everyday life is waged. This book dwells with multispecies partnerships such as tobacco farming and goat herding that carry life through seasons of destruction. Neither green-tinged utopia nor total devastation, these ecologies make life possible in an insistently deadly region. Sourcing an anthropology of war from where it is lived, this book decolonizes distant theories of war and brings to light creative practices forged in the midst of ongoing devastation. In lyrical prose that resonates with imperiled conditions across the Global South, Khayyat paints a portrait of war as a place where life must go on. An Elusive Common: Land, Politics and Agrarian Rurality in a Moroccan Oasis by Karen E. Rignall, Cornell University Press, 2021, paperback, 264 pp. MEB $19.95 An Elusive Common details the fraught dynamics of rural life in the arid periphery of southeastern Morocco. Karen Rignall considers whether agrarian livelihoods can survive in the context of globalized capitalism and proposes a new way of thinking about agrarian practice, politics and land in North Africa and the Middle East. Global market forces, government disinvestment, political marginalization and climate change are putting unprecedented pressures on contemporary rural life. At the same time, rural peoples are defying their exclusion by forging new economic and political possibilities. In southern Morocco, the vibrancy of rural life has been sustained by creative and often contested efforts to sustain communal governance, especially of land, as a basis for agrarian livelihoods and a changing wage labor economy. Rignall follows these diverse strategies ethnographically to show how land became a site for conflicts over community, political authority and social hierarchy, making the provocative argument that land enclosures can be an essential part of communal governance and the fight for autonomy against intrusive state power and historical inequalities. WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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CWS/CARTOONARTS INTERNATIONAL www.cartoonweb.com
CWS/CARTOONARTS INTERNATIONAL www.cartoonweb.com
THE WORLD LOOKS AT THE MIDDLE EAST
Lianhe Zaobao, Singapore
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CWS/CARTOONARTS INTERNATIONAL www.cartoonweb.com
Wiener Zeitung, Vienna, Austria
Correio Do Povo, Porto Alegre, Brazil
WWW.OTHERWORDS.ORG
CWS/CARTOONARTS INTERNATIONAL www.cartoonweb.com
Rome, Italy
www.Otherwords.org
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Leiden, Netherlands
MAY 2023
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Other People’s Mail Compiled by Dale Sprusansky
TELL YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS WHAT YOU THINK PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVE. NW WASHINGTON, DC 20500 COMMENT LINE: (202) 456-1111 WWW.WHITEHOUSE.GOV/CONTACT ANY MEMBER: U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WASHINGTON, DC 20515 (202) 225-3121
SIMILARITIES BETWEEN THE IRISH AND PALESTINIAN STRUGGLES
have to take it away. Richard McGowan, Madison, WI
To The Capital Times, March 15, 2023 In 1972, Paul McCartney released the song “Give Ireland Back to the Irish” after the Bloody Sunday massacre of 14 Irish civil rights protesters by the occupying British army in Derry, Northern Ireland. McCartney, who avoided protest songs up to this point, touches on a truth many fail to grasp: No people want to be occupied. The first lines of the chorus: Give Ireland back to the Irish Don't make them have to take it away. Today when I hear “Give Ireland Back to the Irish,” I can’t help but think that if we swapped “Ireland” and “Irish” with “Palestine” and “Palestinian” that it would reveal as much truth as the original. Like the Irish, Palestinians have seen their land stolen; in their case, it has been turned over to European and American Zionist colonizers who commit state-sanctioned violence against the natives. When Palestinians resist or retaliate, they are called terrorists, just as the Irish were for resisting their own occupation by the British empire. Tell me how would you like it If on your way to work You were stopped by Irish soldiers Would you lie down, do nothing? Would you give in, or go berserk? Palestinians endure humiliating military checkpoints, extrajudicial killings, land theft, political disenfranchisement, an apartheid legal system and genocide. Should they lie down and give in? Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Give Palestine back to the Palestinians. Don’t make them
BIDEN MAKING NO EFFORT TO HOLD ISRAEL ACCOUNTABLE
MAY 2023
SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 2201 C ST. NW WASHINGTON, DC 20520 PHONE: (202) 647-6575 VISIT WWW.STATE.GOV TO E-MAIL
To the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, March 3, 2023 The United States provides $3.8 billion annually in military assistance to Israel. This unparalleled support is predicated on the idea that the U.S. and Israel have a mutual commitment to democratic values. However, with the recent settler rampage in the West Bank village of Huwara, Israel has just minted its very own Kristallnacht (and the word “ironic” does not nearly rise to the occasion when used in any comparison of this recent pogrom to the events that occurred nearly 85 years ago in Nazi Germany). In any event, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his right-wing thugs have moved Israel far afield from any reasonable definition of “democracy.” Therefore, the U.S. should immediately stop all military aid to Israel and cease our diplomatic cover at the U.N. Security Council. Although this situation calls for decisive action on the part of the U.S., it is an indisputable fact that Israel is not Ukraine. In this instance, regarding Israel’s atrocities, President Biden seems to be striving mightily to do the least he can do. Obviously, the least he can do is absolutely nothing—except to trot out Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has expressed that he is deeply concerned about recent events. So, inexorably, and with the considerable assistance from the U.S., Israel will continue its efforts to seize and confiscate all of the land between the Jordan River
ANY SENATOR: U.S. SENATE WASHINGTON, DC 20510 (202) 224-3121
and the Mediterranean Sea. Such a dubious and decades-long initiative will require that the Israel Defense Forces be patient and keep its size 9, Made in the USA military boot firmly planted on the collective necks of the Palestinians. Unfortunately, and to state the obvious, our unconditional support of Israel’s misbegotten adventure makes the U.S. and its citizens complicit in Israel’s illegal activities against humanity. But, at the very least, and at long last, we finally have the answer to W.B. Yeats’ question that has vexed us all since 1920: “What rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?” Rick Boheler, Cheyenne, WY
THE U.S. FACILITATES ISRAEL’S VIOLATIONS To the Marin Independent Journal, Feb. 22, 2023 I want to congratulate authors David N. Myers and Daniel Sokatch for having the courage to write the recently published commentary that appeared in the Marin IJ (“Palestinians in Israel have new cause to fear for their future,” Feb. 13). As the recognized Israel lobby in the U.S., the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is perhaps the ultimate in “cancel culture.” It could be argued that makes it the most powerful lobby in the U.S. No one on either side of the political divide dare speak against it. What other lobby can say that? Israel is a successful, powerful economic and military power with little realistic threats to its security. We have asked them to move to end the West Bank occupation and move to a two-state solution,
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to end their settlement building, to end collective punishment and the destruction of Palestinian homes. All of these requests have been ignored with no consequences. It is no longer true that there are only shared values between the U.S. and Israel, that there is no daylight between us or that there is a special relationship. It is time we treat Israel the same as we treat any other ally. It is time the media bring into the light of day the actions of the Israel lobby. Israel cannot act as it does without the support of the U.S. It is time our policies reflect American humanitarian and security interests and not the interests of American politicians doing the bidding of a powerful lobby. Jack A. Rauch, San Rafael, CA
AMERICAN JEWS DON’T NEED A POSITION ON ISRAEL To The New York Times, March 10, 2023 Re: “American Jews, You Have to Choose Sides on Israel,” by Thomas L. Friedman (column, March 8): American Jews do not “have to” have a position on Israel any more than Muslim Americans have to have a position on ISIS or Chinese Americans on Communism. Certainly many Jews do, and as long as that position is based on each person’s conscience, that is perfectly good. But to require American Jews to choose sides on Israel because they are Jewish is just wrong. Irvin Cemil Schick, Newton, MA
FIFA SHOULD SANCTION ISRAEL An open letter to Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, March 9, 2023 Palestinians love football yet no Palestinian team participated at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Why not? Because the Israeli government has prevented Palestinians from developing into a competitive team by blocking Palestinian athletes from occupied Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem from practicing together and by arresting, murdering and maiming Palestinian football players. On Dec. 22, 2022, Israeli occupation forces in armored vehicles raided the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank to protect illegal Israeli settlers at Joseph’s Tomb. The Israeli military killed Ahmad 72
Atef Daraghmah—a 23-year-old professional football player with the Thaqafi Tulkarm football club—during civilian protests against the Israeli occupation. Israel has held Ahmad’s brother Adham in military detention since December 28, 2021. And his father, Atef Daraghmah, was a political prisoner in Israel for 12 years. By killing Ahmad Atef Daraghmah, Israel’s apparent goal was to murder a rising star and to demoralize his family and the Palestinian community by eliminating a source of great pride and joy. If Israeli forces are not murdering Palestinian athletes, they are intentionally maiming youth to destroy their dreams of becoming professional athletes. Israeli snipers gleefully tally the Palestinian knees they destroy with military assault weapons. Their sinister goal is to cripple Palestinian youth to prevent them from walking or protesting the illegal Israeli occupation of their homeland. Israel’s cruel policy also appears to be to devalue Palestinian males in their communities and families, since they often lack the financial, medical or moral support required to support the disabled youth. The Virginia Coalition for Human Rights (VCHR) joins the Palestinian national football team’s call for FIFA to condemn Israel’s system of apartheid, brutal occupation and the daily human rights abuses of the Palestinians. In addition, VCHR asks that FIFA establish training camps and workshops for aspiring Palestinian male and female football players in honor of Ahmad Atef Daraghmah. The spectators and players at the World Cup in Qatar overwhelmingly showed their support for the Palestinians’ struggle for justice and equal rights. VCHR asks FIFA to demonstrate its support for Palestinian human rights by providing activities to inspire and train aspiring Palestinian football players. The Virginia Coalition for Human Rights (VCHR)
20 YEARS LATER, MUTED MEA CULPAS ABOUT IRAQ WAR To the Chicago Sun-Times, March 20, 2023 The 1968 protests at the Democratic National Convention saw some 600 people arrested over the course of a week
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for marching against the Vietnam War. But this week marks the 20th anniversary of the largest mass arrest in Chicago history, of nearly 900 people in one evening. On March 20, 2003, more than 18,000 peace activists marched down Lake Shore Drive—with police permission—halting traffic in protest against the war in Iraq that began the previous night. Activists planned to go down Michigan Avenue, but at Michigan and Oak, a standoff transpired between police and activists. Police then trapped, attacked and arrested activists by the hundreds. At the time, peace protests—when they could get coverage—were widely mocked. And yet, the protesters’ warnings were proven correct. The war’s pretext of “weapons of mass destruction” unraveled, and the month-long war became a seven-year-long occupation whose long-term costs are slated to reach three trillion dollars. Plus the human costs: 300,000 Iraqis dead by some estimates, some 7,000 U.S. soldiers and military staff dead from the “War on Terror,” some 30,000 veterans dead of suicide in the past 20 years. The war also “radicalized a generation of American zealots who for years to come will inflict violence on the country they were supposed to protect” (to quote writer Peter Maass). It’s ironic that the war in Iraq took up so much attention in 2003, while its 20th anniversary will likely garner a tiny fraction of that attention—probably because history has vindicated those who opposed the war. That’s small comfort, given the growing costs and destruction in the war’s wake. Chicago peace activists did win a $6.2 million free speech settlement from the city, which took nine years to resolve. And activists also won the right to march down Michigan Avenue, where a march for peace took place in 2010. But the war in Iraq has on balance been a large and sad story, and frustrating to those who protested against it, myself among them. It is now a struggle to prevent the war and its aftermath, as well as those who protested for peace, from being forgotten and ignored. Mitchell Szczepanczyk, Ravenswood, IL ■ MAY 2023
abourezk_angels_r_73-74.qxp_MAY 2023 CHOIR OF ANGELS ABOUREZK OBIT 3/23/23 9:59 AM Page 73
In Memoriam
James Abourezk, the First Arab-American Senator (1931-2023) Delinda C. Hanley
PHOTO DEV O'NEILL/CQ ROLL CALL VIA GETTY IMAGES
WHEN JAMES ABOUREZK moved to Washington, DC in 1970—first as a U.S. representative and then, from 1973 to 1979, as the first Arab-American to be elected to the U.S. Senate— he didn’t know much about the Middle East. “It wasn’t an issue that anyone talked about very much back home in South Dakota,” he told the Washington Report in 1982. Abourezk had been brought up by his Lebanese immigrant parents on an impoverished Sioux Indian reservation in southern South Dakota, so he was far more concerned with the welfare of Native Americans than he was with issues faced by his fellow Arab-Americans or conflicts in James Abourezk in 1972. the Middle East. His first visit to his parents’ birthplace in Lebanon in 1973, along with other countries in the Middle East, was an eye-opener. “What I heard there about the problems of the Middle East didn’t seem to fit in at all with what I had been hearing in Washington,” he said. “I discovered I had been hearing just one side of the story. There was really no debate going on in Congress—because just about everyone had already taken the position that Israel was always in the right, and that was that.” In a subsequent interview with Janet McMahon, published in the December 1990 Washington Report, Abourezk described the situation of Native Americans and Palestinians as “virtually identical,” Israel being a “white settler movement” which, like the one in this country, “displaced, killed, maimed and imprisoned” the indigenous population. The solution for the Palestinians is for the U.S. to “stop paying for Israel,” he said. Then, unlike Native Americans, Palestinians will have their own state. To many Americans, Senator Abourezk became best known for his fierce advocacy of a “more even-handed” U.S. policy toward Israel and the Arab world, but he never became a “oneissue legislator.” He worked to reform the laws governing Native Americans and proposed the establishment of the American Indian Policy Review Commission to address problems in that community and grant tribes more autonomy in administering government programs. He also fought deregulation of fuel, pushed anti-trust legislation and supported environmental safeguards, to name just a few of his battles. He was a severe critic of the Vietnam War and urged friendlier relations with Cuba and
Delinda C. Hanley is executive editor of the Washington Report. MAY 2023
Iran, as well as U.S. recognition of the People’s Republic of China. Asked why he retired voluntarily after only one Senate term in 1978, he said, “Lots of personal reasons. But the main thing, I think, was that I just got tired of listening to so many boring speeches.” Senator Abourezk never retired from the battle to influence government policy and public opinion on the matter of Arabs and Arab-Israeli issues. In May 1980, he founded the American-Arab AntiDiscrimination Committee (ADC), primarily to combat the unfair stereotyping of Arabs in the media, as well as prejudicial treatment of Arabs by the U.S. government and in everyday life. After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, ADC broadened its scope and played a major role in organizing demonstrations, marches, press conferences and other public events to protest the invasion. Abourezk explained why ADC’s mission grew: “It’s all really part of the same problem. If Arabs were not portrayed by stereotyping as being less than human, some of the things that the Israelis do to them over there would not be so easily accepted by public opinion here.” After his retirement from the Senate, Abourezk worked as a lawyer and writer in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He wrote a column for the Washington Report called “Outside the Beltway,” including 30 timeless articles still available in our archives. He decried wasteful government spending on wars and bank bailouts while Americans are told we can’t afford single-payer health care and a national passenger rail system. In its obituary, The Dakota Scout noted his frequent criticism of Israel: “They are mean bullies,” he said of Israel in 2015. “They are like the Islamic State except they know better than to behead people on camera.” U.S. aid to Israel was also a favorite theme and he frequently asked, “what have we received in return?” His support for USS Liberty survivors never waivered. The deliberate Israeli attack on the ship, which killed 34 American sailors and wounded another 173 was bad, he often said, but “the continuing cover-up both by Israel and the U.S. government is an ongoing outrage.” Abourezk’s wife, Sanaa Dieb, runs Sanaa’s Gourmet Mediterranean, a restaurant in Sioux Falls, where according to a 2019 report in the Aberdeen News, Abourezk enjoyed holding court, telling stories of his colorful life and sharing his views on politics.
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AET’s 2023 Choir of Angels
The following are individuals, organizations, companies and foundations whose help between Jan. 1, 2023 and March 18, 2023 is making possible activities of the tax‐exempt AET Library Endowment (federal ID #52‐1460362) and the American Educational Trust, publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Some Angels will help us co‐sponsor the next IsraelLobbyCon. Others are donating to our “Capital Building Fund,” which will help us expand the Middle East Books and More bookstore. We are deeply honored by your confidence and profoundly grateful for your generosity.
HUMMERS ($100 or more) Miriam Adams, Albuquerque, NM James Ahlstrom, Stirling, NJ James Bennett, Fayetteville, AR Essa & Najwah Bishara, Greensboro, NC Raymond Doherty, Houston, TX Nile El Wardani, San Diego, CA Nancy Fleischer, Sacramento, CA Donald Frisco, Wilmington, DE Delinda Hanley, Kensington, MD**,****,# Akram & Lubna Karam, Charlotte, NC Mazen Khalidi, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI Akbar Khan, Princeton, NJ Eugene Khorey, Homestead, PA Nabil Khoury, Bloomfield Hills, MI Edward Kuncar, Coral Gables, FL Marilyn Levin, Ashland, OR Dr. Moosa Lunat, Stockton, CA* Allen MacDonald, Saratoga Springs, NY Lucinda Mahmoud, Oceanside, CA Gwendolyn McEwen, Bellingham, WA Bill McGrath, Northfield, MN Mounzer Nasr, McLean, VA James Abourezk died on Feb. 24, on his 92nd birthday, at his home in Sioux Falls, SD. In addition to his wife, survivors include Alya, their daughter; two sons, Charlie and Paul, and a daughter, Nikki Pipe On Head, from his first marriage; a stepdaughter, Chelsey Machado; more than 30 grandchildren; and several greatgrandchildren.
REMEMBRANCES Nick Rahall (D-WV), who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1977 to 2015, told the Washington Report that he and Abourezk shared their pride in their Lebanese heritage. “James Abourezk’s father was born in the same community of Kefeir in southern Lebanon as both of my grandfathers.” Future leaders often met in Abourezk’s office, Rahall recalled. “Before I was elected to Congress I worked for my Senator Robert C. Byrd. Before Tom Daschle was elected, he worked for Abourezk. 74
Hasan Newash, Detroit, MI Mary Neznek, Washington, DC Barry Preisler, Albany, CA John Robinson, Somerville, MA Rafi Salem, Alamo, CA Irmgard Scherer, Fairfax, VA V. Vitolins, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI
ACCOMPANISTS ($250 or more) Hertha Poje, New York, NY William Stanley, Saluda, NC Raymond Totah, Fallbrook, CA William Walls, Arlington, VA Lawrence Wilkerson, Falls Church, VA
BARITONES & MEZZO SOPRANOS ($1,000 or more) Asha A. Anand, Bethesda, MD Ghazy Kader, Shoreline, WA Jack Love, Kailua Kona, HI Bernice Shaheen, Palm Desert, CA *** Imad & Joann Tabry, Fort Lauderdale, FL Branscomb Family Foundation, La Jolla, CA
CHOIRMASTERS ($5,000 or more) Fatimunnisa Begum, Jersey City, NJ Goelet Foundation, New York, NY**** William Lightfoot, Vienna, VA
TENORS & CONTRALTOS ($500 or more) Michael Ameri, Calabasas, CA Raymond Gordon, Venice, FL Erin Hankir, Nepean, Ontario, Canada Brigitte Jaensch, Sacramento, CA Gloria Keller, Santa Rosa, CA
* In Memory of Farhana (Lunat) Rana **In Memory of Dick & Donna Curtiss *** In Memory of Dr. Jack G. Shaheen ****In Memory of John Goelet #In Memory of Andrew I. Killgore
From those early years we knew Jim Abourezk was a man of courage, boldness, and unafraid to speak his conscience. He truly advocated for human rights with no exceptions. It is the memory of this brave and courageous first ever Lebanese American U.S. Senator from South Dakota that I am proud to share with generations to come,” Rahall said. “My career would not have happened if it weren’t for Jim Abourezk,” said Daschle, recalling his time on Abourezk’s Senate staff, a launching pad for his own 26-year congressional career. “I think there are few people who had more impact on public policy in eight years than Jim Abourezk,” Daschle said. “He was courageous, he was outspoken...He was a lone voice for many years. He was a great storyteller; he had great humor; he was quick-witted and people loved to be around him.” Ralph Nader said Abourezk “was one of a kind. It was not that he was so hon-
est, so down to earth, or so engaging with friend and foe alike. Rather, it was his willingness to be a minority of one pressing into visibility the plight of the forgotten, the oppressed and the excluded....We found him to be the ‘go-to’ person in the Senate when time was of the essence. He took up consumer, labor and family farmer causes as a matter of duty.” Abed Ayoub, ADC National Executive Director, described Abourezk as “driven to create ADC after the FBI Abscam operation, in which FBI agents impersonated Arabs in stereotypical and offensive fashions. He mobilized the Arab American community, spearheading our nation’s first grassroots movement dedicated to advocating for the civil rights of Arab Americans.” Former ADC President, Albert Mokhiber wrote: “We lost a dear friend and mentor, a brave leader and the best that America has and hopefully will continue to offer.” ■
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American Educational Trust Washington Report on Middle East Affairs P.O. Box 53062 Washington, DC 20009
May 2023 Vol. XLII, No. 3
Children stand on a boat lying on the dried‐up bed of Iraq’s receding southern marshes of Chibayish in Dhi Qar province, on July 24, 2022. The reputed home of the biblical Garden of Eden, Iraq’s swamplands have been battered by three years of drought and low rainfall—which isn’t expected to break in the summer of 2023—as well as reduced river flows from neighboring Turkey and Iran. (PHOTO BY ASAAD NIAZI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES)