Washington Report on Middle East Affairs - January/February 2022 - Vol. XLI No. 1 by American Educational Trust

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ISRAELI SPYWARE COMING TO A PHONE NEAR YOU

DISPLAY UNTIL 2/28/2022

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TELLING THE TRUTH SINCE 1982

On Middle East Affairs Volume XLI, No. 1

January/February 2022

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

Muzzling Human Rights Critics: A Familiar Israeli Story—Four Views—John Gee, Jonathan Cook, Walter L. Hixson, Allan C. Brownfeld

On “Gassing the Arabs” and Other Diseases: Is Israel a “Sick Society”?—Ramzy Baroud

“The Fish Ate Us, Mom”—Mohammed Omer

A Brief History of Killing Children—Gideon Levy

Refugees in Their Own Land: Palestinian Life Under Israeli Zionism—Dr. M. Reza Behnam

Colliding Forces During the Christmas Season: A Sermon About the Situation in Palestine —Rev. Alex Awad

26 30

Zionism is in Retreat Within the American Jewish Community—Allan C. Brownfeld

Iron Dome Dollars for Israel Still Stuck in the Senate —Shirl McArthur

December Sees a Flurry of Middle East Resolutions —Ian Williams

SPECIAL REPORTS

Record Numbers of Muslim and Arab Americans are Running for Office—Delinda C. Hanley

Miriam Adelson Picks Up Where Late Husband and GOP Kingmaker Left Off—Eli Clifton

Dr. Henry Kissinger: The Myth of the Great Statesman—Walter L. Hixson

The Lockerbie Bombing: A 33-Year Search for Truth —Mustafa Fetouri

On Displacement and Threatened Heritage: The Case of Egypt’s Nubians—Toqa Ezzidin

Postcard from Varosha, Cyprus’ Ghost City —Jonathan Gorvett

Pushback to Canada’s Contract with Elbit —Candace Bodnaruk

ON THE COVER: A poster of 13-year-old Palestinian Mohamed Dadis was placed on his desk in his classroom, the day after he was shot dead on Nov. 6 by the Israeli army during clashes in the village of Deir Al-Hatab near the city of Nablus in the West Bank. The European Union called for the opening of an investigation into his killing and the continued use of disproportionate lethal force by Israeli forces. (PHOTO BY NASSER ISHTAYEH/SOPA IMAGES/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES)

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(A Supplement to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs available by subscription at $15 per year. To subscribe, call toll-free 1-888-8815861.)

Other Voices

Compiled by Janet McMahon

The Little Boat That Could, Andrew Mitrovica,

Even in Death, Palestinians Suffer Obscene

www.aljazeera.com

Indignities, Andrew Mitrovica, www.aljazeera.com

OV-8

OV-1 Christian Guesthouses Start Hosting Israelis,

Another Year and Still Hope Grows,

Then Notice Something Strange,

Shukri Abu Baker, notesfromshukri.wordpress.com

OV-2

Judy Maltz, Haaretz

OV-9

Supreme Court Should End “State Secrets” Shield, James Bovard, theamericanconservative.com

OV-3

Palestine Festival Fetes Films on Life Under Israeli Occupation, Al Jazeera Staff, www.aljazeera.com

How Many U.S. Jews Are There? Israeli Expert

OV-12

Offers Provocative Answer, Judy Maltz, Haaretz

OV-4

France and Algeria, a Long History of Distrust, Akram Belkaid,

Israeli Hyperbole: The Art Of Deception, Marwan Bishara, www.aljazeera.com

Le Monde diplomatique

OV-13

OV-5

Jerusalem’s “Liveliest Parties”: Has Biden Proved Different From Trump on Palestine?, Ramzy Baroud, www.ramzybaroud.net OV-6

Green Hydrogen: The New Scramble for North Africa, Hamza Hamouchene, www.aljazeera.com

OV-15

DEPARTMENTS 5 PUBLISHERS’ PAGE 6 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 50 ARAB AMERICAN ACTIVISM: Arab American Leaders Reflect on Their Successes

52 WAGING PEACE: Visualizing Israel’s Global Arms Hustling 58 HUMAN RIGHTS: Egyptian Activist Continues to Languish in Prison 58 FILMS: “Boycott” Warns Against Ceding First Amendment Rights to Israel

Come visit Middle East Books and More <www.middleeastbooks.com>. 64 MIDDLE EAST BOOKS REVIEW

74 2021 AET CHOIR OF ANGELS

70 THE WORLD LOOKS AT THE MIDDLE EAST—CARTOONS

47 INDEX TO ADVERTISERS

72 OTHER PEOPLE’S MAIL

STAFF PHOTO

51 MUSLIM AMERICAN ACTIVISM: CAIR Honors Rep. Ilhan Omar at Virtual Gala

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Where is the Accountability?

Publishers’ Page common good at home and abroad. In this issue, two candidates running for office, Huwaida Arraf and Saqib Ali, are profiled (see pp. 28-29). Both have pledged to show moral consistency between their domestic and foreign policies.

PHOTO BY HAZEM BADER/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

American Educational Trust

In recent months, Congress has held hearings to investigate how popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok adversely affect children (as well as adults). These hearings are by all appearances justifiLots of Changes in 2022 able, but we have to We have a new speedier wonder: Where are the Israeli soldiers detain Amer Ewidat, a 13‐year‐old Palestinian boy, at al‐Aroub printer as well as a new fulhearings on Israel? Unlike Palestinian refugee camp, north of the West Bank town of Hebron, on Feb. 11, fillment office. We hope both the publically traded social 2020. transitions go smoothly. as the junta regime in Myanmar?” media giants, the U.S. actively gives bilWith slowdowns in the U.S. postal system lions of dollars in aid to Israel every year, and COVID challenges, this year has been At Least Care About Children while doing very little to make sure that a tough one for our publication. Please let assistance is not inflicting harm on innous know how we’re doing. This has been the refrain of Rep. Betty Mccent children and adults alike. Collum (D-MN) as she and allied activists try desperately to get Congress to show Santa Gave Us an A+ What They Would Find Out any sort of sympathy toward Palestinians Middle East Books and More helped Santa (see p. 60). Yet, McCollum’s bill to hold deliver books, coffee, olive oil, spices, Given the power of the pro-Israel lobby, Israel accountable for arresting and detainposters, pottery and solidarity items that Congress rarely talks about Israeli malfeaing hundreds of Palestinian children every support the work of authors and Palestinisance, but evidence of the country’s misyear currently only has 30 cosponsors (see ans. In fact, a huge order of new pottery deeds is hard to evade. For instance, while p. 30). As Gideon Levy notes (see p. 20), from Jerusalem is arriving this week to reCongress was scoring cheap points off of Israeli violence against Palestinian children stock our shelves. Visit our independent social media giants, it was conspicuously often transcends arrest, and escalates to bookstore, <www.MiddleEastBooks.com>, silent about revelations that spyware sold murder. This provokes more questions for to find meaningful, educational and yummy by an Israeli company is being used by govlawmakers to ask: “Why does such a wellgifts, guaranteed to bring joy throughout the ernments across the world, including the Isarmed nation feel the need to kill children year. Why not start off the new year by raeli government, to spy on dissidents, jourin the name of national defense? And how spoiling yourself and buying something nalists and civil society groups (see pp. is it in the U.S. national interest to fund a special at Middle East Books and More? 8-15). A question Congress could ask: “Has shoot-first regime?” any U.S. aid been used by the Israeli military to target or harass Palestinians based on inFrankly We Could Use... Who Will Ask These Questions? formation gathered from this spyware?” Some holiday cheer ourselves. As you know, we’ve been publishing the WashingWhile Palestine has a growing number of And So Much More ton Report on Middle East Affairs on a advocates in Congress, the reality is that shoestring for decades. We have dreams Israel’s allies still occupy most high-rankAs Susan Abulhawa noted at this year’s of adding a coffee shop/tea room to our ing seats on Capitol Hill, making it unlikely Jerusalem Fund Edward Said Memorial bookstore. However, as our financial direcserious questions will be asked about the Lecture (see p. 52), Israel is the world’s top tor Charles Carter says...a little too often... U.S.-Israel “special relationship” anytime exporter of weapons on a per capita basis. “there’s a lot of money going out and not soon. But this doesn’t mean that we quit. This prompts another question for leaders enough coming in.” Please help us buy the As Egyptian political prisoner Alaa Abd Elon Capitol Hill to ask: “Why does Israel books and more you love and continue Fattah urged supporters in a 2017 letter need $3.8 billion in annual military aid when publishing the magazine. You can visit our from prison, we must “work to fix [our] own it has such a robust domestic defense inwebsite <www.wrmea.org> and donate democracy” if we have any hope of dustry?” And then there are the moral quesonline. Together we can.... moving mountains overseas (see p. 58). tions: “Why is Israel testing its military techThat means we must continue to elect nology on Palestinians? Why is it selling this leaders who genuinely care about the technology to nefarious governments such Make a Difference Today! JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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Executive Editor: Managing Editor: Contributing Editor: Contributing Editor: Other Voices Editor: Middle East Books and More Director: Finance & Admin. Dir.: Art Director: Founding Publisher: Founding Exec. Editor: Board of Directors:

DELINDA C. HANLEY DALE SPRUSANSKY WALTER L. HIXSON JULIA PITNER JANET McMAHON NATHANIEL BAILEY CHARLES R. CARTER RALPH-UWE SCHERER ANDREW I. KILLGORE (1919-2016) RICHARD H. CURTISS (1927-2013) 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 and Susan Abulhawa. The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs does not take partisan domestic political positions. As a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli dispute, it endorses U.N. Security Council Resolution 242’s land-for-peace formula, supported by nine successive U.S. presidents. In general, it supports Middle East solutions which it judges to be consistent with the charter of the United Nations and traditional American support for human rights, self-determination, and fair play. Material from the Washington Report may be reprinted without charge with attribution to Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Bylined material must also be attributed to the author. This release does not apply to photographs, cartoons or reprints from other publications. Indexed by ProQuest, Gale, Ebsco Information Services, InfoTrac, LexisNexis, Public Affairs Information Service, Index to Jewish Periodicals, Ethnic News Watch, Periodica Islamica. CONTACT INFORMATION: Washington Report on Middle East Affairs Editorial Office and Bookstore: 1902 18th St. NW, Washington, DC 20009-9062 Phone: (202) 939-6050 • (800) 368-5788 Fax: (202) 265-4574 E-mail: wrmea@wrmea.org bookstore@wrmea.org circulation@wrmea.org advertising@wrmea.org donations@wrmea.org Web sites: http://www.wrmea.org http://www.middleeastbooks.com Subscriptions, sample copies and donations: P.O. Box 292380, Kettering, OH 45429 Phone: (800) 607-4410 • Fax: (937)-890-0221 Printed in the USA

LetterstotheEditor COMPARING THE ISRAELI AND IRANIAN NUCLEAR PROGRAMS Robert Malley, the State Department’s Iran envoy, recently noted that President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken “have both said if diplomacy fails, we have other tools and we will use other tools to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.” It’s a shame that these same tools weren’t used when Israel was building its bomb, then there would be no incentive for Iran to build a bomb in order to achieve parity with Israel. (Actually, President John F. Kennedy expressed a strong interest in fully inspecting Israel’s Dimona facility in a July 1963 letter to Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol. At the time, Israel claimed, just like Iran does today, that its nuclear program was for peaceful purposes. Unfortunately, JFK was assassinated before he could follow through on this inspection.) Iran is a country which has never attacked any of its neighbors (except for Iraq, after being attacked, at U.S. instigation), while Israel has attacked, and gained territory, from all of its neighbors, of course including the defenseless Palestinians. Should the United States not be taking a hard look at who could be a real friend? As former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said: “Israel is an ungrateful ally” who gives the U.S. nothing in return for the massive amount of aid and high intelligence that we give to them. Surely Iran could do better than that, given half a chance. Doris Rausch, Tullahoma, TN Here’s an excerpt from the letter JFK wrote to Eshkol: “As I wrote to Mr. [David] Ben-Gurion, this government’s commitment to and support of Israel could be seriously jeopardized if it should be thought that we were unable to obtain reliable information on a subject as vital to peace as the question of Israel’s effort in the nuclear field....It would be essential...that our scientists

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

have access to all areas of the Dimona site and to any related part of the complex, such as fuel fabrication facilities or plutonium separation plant, and that sufficient time be allotted for a thorough examination.”

ISRAEL KEEPS PUSHING A WAR WITH IRAN The Biden administration demonstrates hypocrisy when it accuses Iran of accelerating the pace of provocative nuclear steps. Iran, unlike Israel, has neither nuclear weapons nor a weapons program, and has also signed the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty. Former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq Scott Ritter, wrote in his book, Target Iran, that the same lies that were told about Iraqi WMDs are now being told about Iran, and all of these lies originate in Israel, which has been trying to drag the U.S. into a disastrous war in Iran for over a decade. The U.S. should be willing to dialogue and trade with Iran, a country that does not threaten our national interests, while, at the same time, ending the billions of dollars that we wastefully give to the apartheid nation of Israel every year. Ray Gordon, Venice, FL

DON’T BE AFRAID TO CALL ISRAEL’S ACTIONS “TERRORISM” It’s time to call a spade a spade. Your authors must stop using the euphemism “settler violence” to describe acts of Jewish Israeli terrorism. While many of us avoid the agendadriven term “terrorism” that smears Muslims or describes legally-mandated Palestinian acts of self-defense or freedom, it is hard to find the term used accurately: The description of Israel’s state as well as non-state violence against its indigenous Palestinian population. If “Jewish Israeli terrorism” or “Israeli terrorism” became common usage, it would have a strong impact on the public’s understanding of the Palestinian situation Karin Brothers, Toronto, ON JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

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SYRIA COVER UP EXPOSES MORE U.S. WAR CRIMES

In a painstaking recent investigation, the New York Times reported the U.S. military killed dozens of civilians in an airstrike in the town of Baghuz, Syria in March of 2019. The U.S. then feverishly spent the next two-and-ahalf years covering up evidence of war crimes. The bombing was carried out by a classified special operations unit known as Task Force 9, but its sordid activities were never investigated. The U.S. military downplayed the death toll and classified civilian deaths after which it bulldozed the blast site. The Defense Department’s independent inspector general began an inquiry, but the report was heavily redacted to downplay culpability. In a complete mockery of lack of accountability and justice, the only assessment done immediately after the strike was performed by the same ground unit that ordered the strike. A conscientious Navy officer who worked for years as a civilian analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Counterterrorism Center was forced out of his job in a desperate effort to halt the investigation, which never occurred. As the New York Times report suggests, this is only the tip of the iceberg of massive abuses by the U.S. military. Human rights organizations report that the U.S. military has caused thousands of civilian deaths during the war. Hundreds of military assessment reports show that Task Force 9 was implicated in nearly one in five civilian incidents in the region. Even the CIA, which has a long history of human rights abuses, grew so alarmed over the task force’s strikes that agents reported their concerns alleging that in one in about ten incidents, Task Force 9 hit targets knowing civilians would be killed. David Eubank, a former U.S. Army Special Forces soldier who now runs the humanitarian organization Free Burma Rangers, walked through the area about a week after the strike. “The place had been pulverized by airstrikes,” he said in an interview. “There was a lot of freshly bulldozed earth and the stink of bodies JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

erning Taliban is a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group. Given that “the most powerful military in the world was defeated by men in sandals in a desperately impoverished country the size of Texas,” coupled with the fact that Afghanistan is not the only starving, freezing and war-ravaged place in that part of the world, the U.S. is way overdue for a “reflective discussion” about its policy in the Middle East. Thank you for your solid and longterm commitment, and your valiant efforts, to better inform us about what our tax dollars are doing, not only in Afghanistan, but in Palestine and the rest of the Middle East. Brigitte Jaensch, Carmichael, CA ■

KEEP THOSE CARDS AND LETTERS COMING! Send your letters to the editor to the Washington Report, P.O. Box 53062, Washington, DC 20009 or e-mail <letters@wrmea.org>. underneath, a lot of bodies.” The New York Times deserves credit for exposing U.S. military war crimes, but one can only wonder why it gained privy to classified documents while Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who exposed other U.S. war crimes earlier, has been silenced and locked in the UK’s Belmarsh Prison. Jagjit Singh, Los Altos, CA

THE U.S. OWES THE AFGHAN PEOPLE HUMANITARIAN AID In the wee hours of Nov. 16, I read the fine summaries of three presentations reported on in the Nov./Dec. 2021 issue (“Humanitarians Ponder Aid to Afghans Under U.S. Sanctions,” “The Afghanistan Conundrum: Where Does the Gulf Stand?” and “Iran Looks for Stable Relations With Taliban”). Each report focused on a different aspect of the continuing-to-unfold tragedy in Afghanistan. A few hours later, Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, was a guest on that same day’s “Democracy Now!” program and talked about the horrific situation for the country’s 40 million civilians. Afghans to whom Egeland spoke fear they will either starve or freeze to death this harsh winter unless there’s an enormous aid operation. This corroborates what Dr. M. Reza Behnam wrote in his article, “The Language of War and U.S. Policy in the Middle East”: “Fourteen million Afghans are at risk of starvation and 3.1 million children younger than five are acutely malnourished.” The Biden administration plans $64 million in aid, while preventing the release of $10 billion of Afghan central bank assets because the now-gov-

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

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Four Views

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Muzzling Human Rights Critics: A Familiar Israeli Story

France’s President Emmanuel Macron holds his mobile phones on Nov. 17, 2017 during the European Social Summit in Gothenburg, Sweden. Macron called an urgent national security meeting on July 22, 2021 to discuss the Israeli‐made Pegasus spyware after reports about its use in France emerged. A consortium of media companies, including the Washington Post, The Guardian and France’s Le Monde, reported that one of Macron’s phone numbers and those of many cabinet ministers were on a leaked list of potential Pegasus targets.

Israeli Spyware: Coming to a Phone Near You? By John Gee SIX LONG-ESTABLISHED Palestinian NGOs were designated as “terrorist organizations,” under Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Law of 2016 on Oct. 19, two days after it was discovered that the mobile telephones of several of their staff had been infiltrated using spyware developed by the Israeli NSO Group. The organizations are Addameer, Bisan Center for Research and Development, Defense for Children International-Palestine, Al-Haq, Union of Agricultural Work Committees and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees. None have any record of violent activity. AlHaq, probably the most well known of the organizations, was

John Gee is a free‐lance journalist based in Singapore and the author of Unequal Conflict: The Palestinians and Israel. 8

founded in 1979 and has produced many carefully researched reports on questions of rights and law ever since. The installation of spyware was discovered Oct. 16, after Al-Haq contacted the Dublin-based human rights group, Front Line Defenders (FLD), suspecting that the spyware had infected one of its Jerusalem-based workers’ phones. FLD was founded in 2001 to help protect human rights defenders at risk, who work non-violently in furtherance of any or all of the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. FLD confirmed that the Al-Haq worker’s phone and those of a number of other Palestinian NGO employees had been infected and that the spyware used seemed to be Pegasus, produced by an Israeli company, NSO Group. An FLD coordinator met members of the six NGOs named above on Oct. 17 and informed them of the spyware infiltration, and asked for more devices to test. While Israeli Minister of Defense Benny Gantz designated the six as terrorist organizations, no immediate move was made to shut them down. The Oct. 19 order, however, will be used to intensify pressure on European Union states and other bodies that have pro-

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vided funding for them in the past to cease doing so. Some of these organizations provide evidence and testimony of Israeli human rights violations to the U.N. The terrorist designation may also be intended to divert attention away from the question of the deployment of spyware against NGOs. In the public mind, organizations deemed to be terrorist are much more likely to be considered justifiable targets of intrusive monitoring than those that perform work that is regarded as legitimate under any political system claiming to be democratic. NSO Group had come to international attention in July 2021, when the UK newspaper The Guardian and 16 other media organizations released the results of the “Pegasus Project,” a ground-breaking investigation into the global use of NSO’s hacking software, coorTeam members of Forbidden Stories pose for a photo after winning the Daphne Caruana dinated by Forbidden Stories, a consortium of Galizia Prize for Journalism with the “Pegasus Project” in Brussels, Belgium on Oct. 14, 2021. journalists whose mission is to investigate “Pegasus Project” is an international journalism initiative under the coordination of Forbid‐ murdered, imprisoned or threatened journal- den Stories, a consortium of journalists whose mission is to investigate murdered, imprisoned ists. They discovered that when introduced, or threatened journalists. NSO’s Pegasus provides access to all the inboundaries between a company such as NSO and the Israeli govformation present on an individual’s phone. It allows a person’s ernment fairly meaningless. movements and conversations to be constantly monitored and can It is hardly surprising, in these circumstances, that NSO spyware be used to turn on the phone’s camera and microphone so that facewas discovered to have been used against Palestinians working for to-face conversations can be monitored too. human rights, development and women’s rights and well-being. NSO According to The Guardian article written by Stephanie Kirchstaff’s capabilities were no doubt honed in the fight to suppress all gaessner and other reporters, a leak revealed the phone numbers forms of Palestinian resistance and Arab opposition, while serving of over 50,000 people considered as people of interest to NSO to bolster Israel’s military and intelligence services. Group clients. They had not necessarily been hacked, although Israel was one of the first states to use Facebook as a tool of resome clearly had been. Those people identified “include hundreds pression, using it against the Palestinians. All NSO’s founders and of business executives, religious figures, academics, NGO employstart-up funders appear to have previous links with Israel’s cyber seees, union officials and government officials, including cabinet mincurity body, Unit 8200, originally set up in the mid-2000s for intelliisters, presidents and prime ministers.” gence gathering and hacking in the region—specifically against the At least ten governments were identified as being NSO customers, Palestinians and Lebanese. none of which are distinguished by a respect for human rights: AzerNSO faces court action by Meta (ex-Facebook) and WhatsApp— baijan, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, Rwanda, Saudi both widely used by human rights groups, journalists and NGOs in Arabia, Hungary, India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). NSO the Middle East and North Africa—for hacking into their user dataclients had selected telephone numbers in 45 countries for surveilbases. lance. A London court case has revealed that Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh NSO Group published a transparency report that contained exMohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, used NSO-supplied technology cerpts from contracts stating that customers must only use its prodto spy on Princess Haya, his ex-wife. ucts for criminal and national security investigations. The Guardian’s report notes that the NSO Group released a stateThis is hardly a defense, since repressive regimes—indeed, most ment through its lawyers in response to the investigation, saying that governments—tend to have very flexible and wide-ranging definiit “sells only to military, law enforcement and intelligence agencies tions of what constitute criminal or national security matters, which in 40 unnamed countries, and says it rigorously vets its customers’ can include divulging secrets a government would rather keep to human rights records before allowing them to use its spy tools. The itself, and seeking a change of government or policy by peaceful Israeli minister of defense closely regulates NSO, granting individual means that have been criminalized by law. export licenses before its surveillance technology can be sold to a In reaction to the storm over the NSO revelations, the Israeli govnew country.” ernment established a commission to look into whether its products The list of known clients suggests that the Israeli government is had been misused. much more concerned with ensuring that NSO Group sales are At the beginning of November, the Biden administration put NSO aligned with Israeli foreign policy goals than with human rights stanGroup on a blacklist that should make it more difficult for it to buy dards. A shared world outlook and government oversight make JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

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technology or services originating in the United States. Its grounds for the move were that NSO had acted “contrary to the foreign policy and national security interests of the U.S.” Another Israeli spyware company, Candiru, was added to the U.S. blacklist in November after Montreal-based researchers from ESET, a Slovak internet security company, found that its spyware technology had been deployed against the computers of targets in the Middle East and Britain. According to another article, published in November by Kirchgaessner in The Guardian, the ESET report revealed new information about socalled “watering hole attacks.” In such Sahar Francis, director of the Palestinian prisoner rights group Addameer (Conscience) for Prisoner attacks, spyware users launch mal- Support and Human Rights, speaks during a news conference at the offices of Al‐Haq Center for ware against ordinary websites that Applied International Law, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on Nov. 8, 2021. are known to attract readers or users Through the technologies developed and sold by firms such as who are considered “targets of interest” by the user of the malware. NSO Group and Candiru, people in many countries who may have The sophisticated attacks allow the malware user to identify charno particular personal interest in what happens in the Middle East acteristics about the individuals who have visited the website, inbut simply fall afoul of a repressive regime that happens to have or cluding what kind of browser and operating system they are using. want good ties with Israel, have been subjected to spying and, in In some cases, the malware user can then launch an exploit that some cases, put at risk of persecution or worse. allows them to take over an individual target’s computer. ESET said that it believed the hacking attacks had ended in July 2021, after researchers at Citizen Lab, cooperating with Microsoft, released a report on Candiru’s activities. Candiru was accused of selling spyware to governments that operated fake Black Lives Matter and Amnesty International websites that would attract visits from people interested or supportive of their causes and then permit By Jonathan Cook their computers to be infiltrated. Both organizations are perceived by Israel as a threat because of linkages to the Palestinian cause. ISRAEL HAS BEEN waging an aggressive, if seemingly evidencefree, lobbying campaign to persuade the United States and Europe that six of the largest Palestinian human rights groups are secretly tied to terrorism. The immediate aim, even Israeli officials admit, is to starve these Palestinian groups of international funding—a move that would effectively limit their ability to monitor human rights abuses by Israel’s occupation army. The majority of funding for the Palestinian human rights community comes from individual European states and the European Union. On Oct. 19, Israel’s defense minister, Benny Gantz, who is widely viewed as a force for moderation in a government led by the settler right, declared the six groups in the occupied West Bank to be “terrorist organizations.” Days later, the Israeli military outlawed the orPHOTO BY JOEL SAGET/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

A Familiar Playbook: Israel Accuses Six Palestinian Human Rights Groups of Terrorism

This studio photographic illustration shows a smartphone with the website of Israel's NSO Group which features “Pegasus” spyware, on display in Paris on July 21, 2021. 10

Jonathan Cook is a journalist now based in the UK and a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. He is the author of Blood and Religion and Israel and the Clash of Civilisations (available from AET’s Middle East Books and More).

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ganizations, thereby conferring on itself the right to shutter them and arrest their staff. Unusually, President Joe Biden’s administration appeared to be caught off-guard by the announcement, despite claims from Israel that Washington had been forewarned. Israeli officials flew to the U.S. in late October to share what they claimed was intelligence justifying the new “terror list.” The targeted groups include those assisting farmers and promoting women’s rights and democratic values, as well as others documenting Israeli violations of the rights of prisoners and children, and exposing war crimes. Israel offered no evidence that any Palestinian children hold posters of Mohammed el‐Halabi (l), the Gaza director of World Vision, a of the Palestinian lawyers, field re- major U.S.‐based Christian NGO, during a protest to support him in Gaza City on Aug. 7, 2016. Halabi has spent five years in an Israeli prison without trial. searchers, community organizers and press officers that staff these organiphones of three people working for the Palestinian human rights zations carry weapons or assist in making bombs. groups Israel has targeted. Shawan Jabarin, director of Al-Haq, one of the organizations listed, It is the first time evidence has been found of such spyware being noted the obvious paradox: “Gantz says we are a terror organization, used against Palestinian organizations, potentially implicating the when he himself is a war criminal.” Israeli government itself. Al-Haq has been at the forefront of efforts by the Palestinian After a wave of embarrassing disclosures about how NSO’s cyber human rights community to supply evidence to the International tools are being used by dictators to spy on journalists, human rights Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague on the Israeli military commanactivists and dissidents, the U.S. announced that NSO was on its ders and politicians who are responsible for war crimes against blacklist in early November. A month later, Apple alerted 11 U.S. EmPalestinians. bassy employees that their iPhones had been hacked with NSO Gantz, for example, was head of the Israeli military in 2014 when spyware. it laid waste to parts of Gaza, killing at least 1,450 civilians, including There is a twofold advantage for Israel in presenting Palestinian some 550 children. He later boasted that he had sent Gaza “back human rights groups as intimately tied to terrorism. The first is that to the Stone Age.” the intelligence it is supposedly relying on—given its classified So how exactly does Israel think Palestinian human rights activists nature—will be all but impossible for the organizations to refute. Israel qualify as “terrorists”? is not even sharing the information with European leaders. Israel has tried to construct a murky narrative for western capitals On Nov. 17, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borbased on secret evidence supposedly tying the organizations finanrell, said Israel had still not supplied any evidence that the targeted cially to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). It human rights groups had links to terror. Israel, it seems, expects the accuses the human rights groups of being “controlled by senior U.S. and Europeans to take its word for it. [PFLP] leaders” and acting as a “central source” of money for the This is a familiar playbook. Israel makes extravagant claims about PFLP by redirecting “large sums of money from European countries links to terror groups no one is in a position to check. If an investiand international organizations.” gation eventually takes place, by the time the truth emerges, everyNPR quoted an Israeli security official stating that the immediate one has moved on and the false impression is rarely corrected. goal was to convince European countries to stop funding the orgaThis is what happened when Israel bombed a tower block in Gaza nizations. If not, Israel would “seize the money.” The official added, in May, which served as a center for many media organizations. “In order to break the spine of the PFLP, we need to deal with these Israel claimed it also housed Palestinian militants, although it never six organizations.” produced any evidence to support such an improbable claim. In a further sign of how Israel is cracking down on the Palestinian It was also Israel’s approach after soldiers shot dead Ahmad human rights community, it emerged in early November that a conErekat in his car, in June 2020 at a West Bank checkpoint, as he troversial Israeli cyber firm, NSO, had installed spyware on the JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

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As in Fatah and Hamas, some believe liberation will require armed resistance, which is allowed under international law against a belligerent occupier like Israel, while others are committed to political struggle. Israel, of course, is keen to blur these distinctions and avoid any examination of the PFLP’s central political aspiration: a state based on equal rights rather than absolute rule by one ethnic group, imported by Israel into the Palestinian territories, through military occupation. Instead, Israel has issued a blanket proscription on the PFLP, hounding all its prominent members, which has inPalestinian lawmaker Khalida Jarrar visits her daughter’s grave in Ramallah on Sept. 26, 2021, cluded Khalida Jarrar, a PFLP legisfollowing her release after two years of detention in Israeli jail. Her daughter, Suha, 31, died suddenly lator, who was recently released by in July and Israeli authorities refused to let Khalida attend her funeral. Israel after two years’ imprisonment. Jarrar worked on Palestine’s application to the International Criminal Court. According to Human Rights was doing errands for his sister’s wedding. Israel said it was a terWatch (HRW), Israel “never claimed that she had any personal inrorist car-ramming. A reconstruction by experts, however, indicated volvement in armed activities.” that Erekat’s brakes had malfunctioned. There is no doubt that these six Palestinian human rights organiThe case of Mohammed el-Halabi is even more pertinent. A zations have prioritized organized, communal resistance to Israel’s charity worker in Gaza, he has spent five years in an Israeli prison occupation rather than armed struggle. without trial, accused of diverting huge sums of international aid Some, like the Union of Agricultural Work Committees and the money to Hamas. Israel’s claims against Halabi have proven so Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees, work to internally obviously unsupportable that even the Western media has started strengthen Palestinian society. They hope to make Palestinian comto doubt them. munities better able to withstand Israel’s relentless efforts to drive Secondly, Israel hopes that the central thrust of its allegations will Palestinians off their land to be replaced by illegal Jewish settlebe treated uncritically—that any connection by anyone in these ments—a process Israel ominously calls “Judaization.” groups to the PFLP can be cited as definitive proof of the organizaThese agricultural and work committees encourage a long-standtion’s ties to terrorism. ing Palestinian principle known in Arabic as sumud, or steadfastness. While Al-Haq insists on its staff leaving their politics at the door, But given Israel’s desire to ethnically cleanse Palestinians and deIsrael may be assisted by the likelihood that some staff in these stroy any hope of a future Palestinian state, steadfastness is easily human rights groups have an ideological sympathy or affiliation with equated in the Israeli imagination with terrorism. the PFLP—and for good reason. The other groups on the list, such as Al-Haq, Addameer, and DeMost Palestinian political leaders have either been co-opted by fense for Children International, have been highly effective at docuIsrael, as with Fatah, which is invested in a “sacred” security coopmenting Israel’s war crimes against Palestinians, from killing civilians eration, or they have prioritized a struggle that, through its Islamist and abusing Palestinian children and prisoners to its forcible transfer character, fails to represent all sections of the Palestinian population, policies and settlement building. as with Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The data collected by Palestinian groups is shared with internaThe only significant political alternative is provided by the PFLP. tional and Israeli human rights organizations such as HRW and B’TIts vision is of a secular, single democratic state offering all inhabiselem, both of which recently issued reports declaring Israel an tants of the region, Jews and Palestinians, equal rights. apartheid state. Israel has been targeting these groups too. That platform is growing politically more powerful for Palestinians Omar Shakir, the regional director of HRW, was expelled by Israel and solidarity activists as Israel makes it even clearer that it has no two years ago. Last year, Israel refused to renew work visas for certain interest in ever allowing partition of the land and the establishment U.N. human rights officials after they published an investigation into of a Palestinian state. the collusion of international firms with illegal West Bank settlements. But, as with most national liberation movements, there have been B’Tselem, Israel’s foremost occupation watchdog, and Breakhistoric divisions within the PFLP about how best to achieve its goal ing the Silence, a group of whistleblowing former Israeli soldiers, of decolonization and a single democratic state. 12

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are denied the right to speak in Israeli schools and are regularly vilified by Israeli politicians and the media. This assault by Israel on the entire human rights community—at home and abroad—is obviously explained. These organizations have been gradually making an unassailable case: both for Israeli leaders to be prosecuted at the ICC for war crimes, and for boycotts and sanctions to be imposed on Israel of the kind that were used against apartheid South Africa. That work is polarizing Jewish communities abroad, traditionally a reliable support base for Israel. And it is making an overpowering case for Israel to be shunned, exposing the yawning gulf The Muhammed Nassar family had to demolish their own home due to allegedly unlicensed between the expectations of Western construction in their Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem on July 14, 2021. Israel is seeking to publics and the inaction of their leaders. muzzle human rights organizations publicizing Israel’s egregious human rights violations. For Israel, all this is truly terrifying— ending their funding for the Palestinian human rights community. and therefore those responsible for it must be deemed terrorists. There have been signs of resistance so far. European officials Gantz’s suggestion that Israel has new information tying these have repeatedly pointed out that Israel has offered no credible eviPalestinian human rights groups to terrorism is belied by the fact that dence supporting its claims. But there must be doubts about whether Israel has been abusing them for many years. European states will ultimately stick to their guns or prefer to avoid Staff of these organizations have been arrested and jailed or a confrontation with Israel over the funding of the groups. denied the right to travel abroad. Jerusalem residency permits for Labelling Palestinian human rights activists as “terrorists” serves their workers have been revoked. And the army has raided their the same goal for Israel as labelling Western activists seeking to offices, seizing computers and documents. Those abuses intenend Israel’s oppression of Palestinians as “anti-Semites,” or lasified as these organizations have found more purchase at interbelling Jews acting in solidarity with Palestinians as “self-hating” national forums for their research into Israeli war crimes and and “traitors.” apartheid practices. Israel will bundle all this supposed “hate” into its existing narrative Israel will now be able to exploit its new “terror list” to justify intenthat it is facing a campaign from all sides to “demonize” the only sifying the crackdown. It will be even easier to find pretexts for haJewish state in the world and the only “democracy” in the region. rassing and jailing staff. The truth is that Israeli leaders are conflating their own terror at That was apparent in mid-November when, according to a plea being held to account for their crimes with an imagined “terrorism” deal, an Israeli military court sentenced a Spanish woman, Juana being waged by lawyers and researchers trying to show the reality Ruiz Sanchez Rishmawi, to 13 months’ prison and fined her. Bolof occupation. stered by the use of secret evidence, conviction rates are so high in these courts that most of those arrested are encouraged by their lawyers to make deals to avoid even longer sentences. Rishmawi, who is married to a Palestinian, was accused of unknowingly working for a separate human rights group that Israel claims transferred funds to the PFLP. By Walter L. Hixson There are other advantages for Israel in painting the Palestinian human rights organizations as supporters of terrorism. It will THE NATION OF ISRAEL’S ongoing assault on justice, human make it even harder for international and Israeli partners to colrights and freedom of speech reached new depths on Oct. 19, with laborate with Palestinian groups on exposing the crimes of Israeli Walter L. Hixson is the author of Architects of Repression: How Is‐ occupation. And undoubtedly Israel and its advocates abroad will rael and Its Lobby Put Racism, Violence and Injustice at the Cen‐ use the terror designation to further vilify these groups and dister of US Middle East Policy and Israel’s Armor: The Israel Lobby credit their findings. and the First Generation of the Palestine Conflict (available from Middle East Books and More), along with several other books and But perhaps the biggest prize for Israel will be using this new “terror journal articles. list” to try to bully European states and the European Union into

Israel Terror Designation Widely Rebuked

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the branding of six well-established Palestinian civil society groups as “terrorist organizations.” The designation has profound implications for the work of the human rights groups but has also produced a sharp backlash against the apartheid regime. Invoking the Counter-Terrorism Law of 2016, Israel’s Defense Ministry declared that the six civil society groups—which have long been active in legal, peaceful and entirely legitimate human rights advocacy—would henceforth be outlawed as terrorist organizations. The clear intent of the wholly unsubstantiated terror designation was to disband and destroy the groups, which for years and in some cases for decades have played a pivotal role, often working closely with the U.N., in publicizing Israel’s egregious human rights record and coming to the aid of the myriad United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet is seen on a screen de‐ livering her speech remotely at the opening of a U.N. Human Rights Council emergency meeting victims of Israeli state repression. on the occupied Palestinian territory including East Jerusalem in Geneva on May 27, 2021. “It is a watershed moment,” declared Michael Sfard, a prominent Israeli human rights attorney in a Nov. 8 webinar sponsored by Americans for A coalition of Israeli human rights groups led by B’Tselem dePeace Now. Criminalizing the work of the six NGOs is “the nounced the government designation as “an act of cowardice, equivalent of capital punishment. It's a death sentence” aimed at characteristic of repressive authoritarian regimes....Documenta“stopping all operations and existence of the designated entity. tion, advocacy and legal aid are fundamental activities for the Once an entity is designated as a terrorist organization, all its protection of human rights worldwide,” the Israeli groups demembers, of course, are members of a terrorist organization, clared in a statement, adding, “We stand in solidarity with our which is a criminal offense. The executive director becomes a Palestinian colleagues, and call on members of the Israeli govleader of a terrorist organization, and he faces up to 25 years imernment and the international community to oppose this deciprisonment.” The smearing and outlawing of the groups, Sfard sion unequivocally.” added, was equivalent to “the American government declaring Issuing a joint statement, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the ACLU and Human Rights Watch as terrorist organizations.” Amnesty International (AI) denounced the “appalling and unAfter receiving a private briefing, which included the presentajust” action as “an attack by the Israeli government on the intion of supposed “secret evidence” bolstering the terrorist desigternational human rights movement.” Palestinian human rights nation, the Biden administration refused to endorse Israel’s acgroups have long faced various forms of repression, but “this tions, although unlike several European governments, it did not decision is an alarming escalation that threatens to shut down openly denounce them. A State Department spokesperson, howthe work of Palestine’s most prominent civil society organizaever, declared that the United States backs the legitimacy of tions.” HRW and AI blamed the action on “the decades-long human rights organizations. None of the six targeted Palestinian failure of the international community to challenge grave Isgroups are on the extensive list the State Department has comraeli human rights abuses and impose meaningful consepiled of designated international terror organizations. quences for them.” More than 100 authors, actors and musicians denounced IsWIDESPREAD DENUNCIATIONS rael’s action in a signed letter. They included Roger Waters, Naomi Klein, Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon and Mark Ruffalo. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet imDespite the widespread condemnation, Israel showed no sign of mediately denounced the Israeli designation while defending the backing off on the designation. legitimacy of the civil society organizations and their work. “Claiming rights before a U.N. or other international body is not an act of ISRAEL’S DESPERATION terrorism, advocating for the rights of women in the occupied Palestinian territory is not terrorism, and providing legal aid to deSahar Francis, the longtime director of one of the targeted Palestained Palestinians is not terrorism," Bachelet, the former presitinian groups, the acclaimed Ramallah-based prisoner rights asdent of Chile, declared. sociation Addameer, views the designation as the culmination of 14

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a “long-term campaign of harassment and disinformation because of the importance of the work” that the human rights organizations perform in highlighting Israeli repression. She explained that recent events, including an International Criminal Court investigation into possible Israeli war crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT); the success of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement; and the designation by B’Tselem of Israel as an apartheid regime, combined to “cause the Israelis to be more worried because of our work on the international level. All this work is the reason we were attacked,” she explained on a Nov. 18 webinar sponsored by the Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia University and the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). The Israeli designation is intended to “terrify the donors and the banks” that facilitate financing of the Palestinian organizations, Francis pointed out. She added that the terror designation will stifle the work Addameer has performed for decades in publicizing wrongful imprisonment and harsh conditions suffered by prisoners and their families, including children, in the OPT. Maria LaHood, deputy legal director of the CCR, views the designation as the latest in a series of actions in which “Israel’s apologists have been increasingly alleging false ties to terrorism to intimidate and silence critics alongside their claims that BDS and criticisms of Israel in general are anti-Semitic.” The designation of the civil society groups as terror organizations complements ongoing Israeli and lobby tactics of smearing critics, filing frivolous lawsuits, pressuring financial services and web-hosting platforms, and other efforts to chill and intimidate opponents of the apartheid regime. LaHood advocated calling into question “the entire terrorism framework, which is entirely political” as there was “no evidence to support these designations.” She called on the U.S. government to “rebuke the designations and make that public.” In the meantime, the terror designation offered an “opportunity to put a spotlight on the repression” and they “refuse to be chilled” by an increasingly desperate Israeli regime.

A Draconian Measure to Constrain Human Rights By Allan C. Brownfeld ISRAELI ACTIONS against Palestinian human rights organizations have been widely criticized. The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker organization that has been working with Israelis and Palestinians since 1948, points out that, “The Israeli government has targeted these organizations for decades because of their human rights activism. They have arrested and detained staff,

Allan C. Brownfeld is a syndicated columnist and associate editor of the Lincoln Review, a journal published by the Lincoln Institute for Research and Education, and editor of Issues, the quarterly journal of the American Council for Judaism. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

raided offices and made similar accusations to the organizations’ donors.” Michael Merryman-Lotze, Middle East program director of AFSC said, “This is an outrageous and dangerous escalation of Israel’s attacks on civil society.” The U.N. Human Rights Office in the Palestinian Territories declared, “Counter-terrorism legislation must not be used to constrain legitimate human rights and humanitarian work. These designations are the latest development in a long stigmatizing campaign against these and other organizations, damaging their ability to deliver on their crucial work.” Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, which work with some of the targeted groups, issued a joint statement declaring that “This appalling and unjust decision is an attack by the Israeli government on the international human rights movement. For decades, the Israeli government has systematically sought to muzzle human rights monitoring.” In Israel, 25 human rights organizations, including B’Tselem, called the “terrorist” designation “a draconian measure that criminalizes critical human rights work.” In the U.S., a broad coalition of more than 288 social justice, civil rights and human rights groups called on the Biden administration to condemn the Israeli government’s “terrorist” designation. The statement was initiated by, among other groups, Jewish Voice for Peace Action. Among those joining this effort are Amnesty USA, Global Ministries of the Disciples of Christ, the Episcopal Peace Fellowship, the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and the Armenian-American Action Network. Israel, critics charge, hoped that a classified Shin Bet document would convince European governments to stop funding Palestinian human rights groups. On Nov. 4, the Israeli magazine +972 got hold of the dossier’s testimonies and found no evidence to justify Israel’s claims. It declared that “Israel has failed to present any documents directly or indirectly linking the six organizations to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) or to any violent activity…Contrary to the Defense Ministry’s claims, the dossier did not provide a single piece of evidence proving the six organizations diverted their funds to the PFLP or to violent activities.” European governments also found no evidence to confirm Israel’s charges against the human rights organizations. +972 reports that “Belgium’s Minister of Development Cooperation Meryame Kitir said, ‘Our investigation revealed that there is not a single piece of concrete evidence in the Israeli document that raises suspicions that there was fraud in these organizations…I have determined that there is no reason to freeze funding for these organizations.’ Dutch Foreign Minister Sigrid Kaag said, ‘There is no concrete evidence linking the organizations to the PFLP’…A senior European official we spoke to this week said, ‘The document provided to us by Israel in May was unconvincing, to say the least. We contacted the Israelis again immediately after the announcement to ask for more information, but…we have not received anything.’” ■

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From the Diaspora

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On “Gassing the Arabs” and Other Diseases: By Ramzy Baroud Is Israel a “Sick Society”?

Israeli workers fix a Menorah on top of the Ibrahimi Mosque, also known as the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a site that is believed to be the final resting place of the Prophet Abraham, a holy figure for Jews and Muslims, in the West Bank town of Hebron on Nov. 28, 2021, ahead of the visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog to the holy site. FOR WHATEVER REASON, some mistakenly perceive the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, as liberal, progressive and even “pro-Palestinian.” Of course, none of this is true. This misconstrued depiction of an essentially Zionist and anti-Palestinian newspaper tells a much bigger story of how confusing Israeli politics is, and how equally confused many of us are in understanding the Israeli political discourse. On Nov. 28, newly elected Israeli President Isaac Herzog stormed

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. His latest book is These Chains Will Be Broken: Pales‐ tinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons (available from AET’s Middle East Books and More). Dr. Baroud is a non‐resi‐ dent senior research fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) and also at the Afro‐Middle East Center (AMEC). His website is <www.ramzybaroud.net>. 16

the Ibrahimi Mosque in the Palestinian city of Al-Khalil (Hebron) with hundreds of soldiers and many illegal Jewish settlers, including the who’s who of Israel’s extremists. The scene was reminiscent of a similar occurrence where the late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had stormed, along with thousands of soldiers and police officers, the Haram al-Sharif Compound in occupied East Jerusalem in September 2000. It was this particular event that unleashed the second Palestinian uprising, Intifada (20002005), which led to the killing of thousands. Herzog’s gesture of solidarity with the Kiryat Arba settlers was identical to Sharon’s earlier gesture, also made to win the approval of Israel’s burgeoning and influential right-wing extremists. Only a few months ago, Haaretz had described Herzog as a “centrist, soft-spoken, ‘no drama’” person who had, at times, “felt

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out of place on Israel’s stormy and fractured political battlefield.” According to Haaretz, Herzog “may be exactly what Israel needs.” But is this really the case? Marvel at some of the statements made by Herzog as he visited a site where 29 Palestinians were massacred by a Kiryat Arba extremist, Baruch Goldstein, and where many more were shot dead by Israeli soldiers in the aftermath of the tragic event. Not only did many Israelis celebrate the memory of Goldstein with a shrine befitting heroes and saints, but many of Herzog’s companions during the provocative “visit” are ardent followers of the Israeli Jewish terrorist. “We have to continue dreaming of peace,” Herzog declared while marking the first night of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah inside the Ibrahimi Mosque compound, which was previously emptied of its Muslim worshippers. Proudly, he “condemn(ed) any form of hatred or violence.” Meanwhile, hundreds of Israeli soldiers were terrorizing 35,000 inhabitants of the old city of Al-Khalil. These Palestinians, who suffer daily violence at the hands of nearly 800 armed Jewish settlers in Kiryat Arba, along with an equal number of Israeli soldiers, were all locked in. Their shops were closed, their life was put on hold, their walls covered with racist graffiti. “If he had walked around the corner,” the Israeli news website +972 reported, referring to the Israeli president, “Herzog might have seen the graffiti on the walls reading ‘gas the Arabs.’” Chances are Herzog already understands—in fact, supports—such racism; after all, he was joined by the likes of Eliyahu Libman, who heads the Kiryat Arba regional council and Hillel Horowitz, the leader of the Jewish settlers of Al-Khalil. It is these two men who preach extremism and violence against the Palestinians as a matter of course. Aside from hosting the Goldstein grave and shrine, the settlement has a park that carries the name of Meir Kahane, the spiritual leader of Israel’s most violent extremists. In an emotional speech given by Horowitz in the company of Herzog, the settler leader announced that the Israeli presJANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

ident’s violent storming of the Ibrahimi Mosque “reminds us that we did not take the land of foreigners.” He followed with, “Your visit here strengthens our mission.” From Horowitz, Libman and their ilk’s point of view, their “mission” has been a great success. They have managed to steer Israeli politics almost entirely toward the right. Even the “centrist, soft-spoken” president is now fully embracing their sinister mission. But will Haaretz acknowledge this reality? That the “liberal” and “progressive” editorial line they have allegedly championed for many years has completely failed, and purposely so, to depict the truth about Israel. Compare Haaretz’s positive portrayal of Herzog with their coverage of the former right-wing Israeli President Reuven Rivlin. The latter, on various occasions, and rightly so, was criticized for his pro-Likud political line and for his divisive role that contributed to an already fragmented Israeli political scene. But when Rivlin, in October 2014, had declared that “Israeli society is sick, and it is our duty to treat this disease,” a Haaretz columnist lashed out, suggesting that “Rivlin’s comments are positively bursting with Jew-hatred.” “First he called Jewish society ‘sick’— dredging up anti-Semitic tropes about Jews as carriers of cultural and ideological disease. Then he asked whether Jews are ‘decent human beings’: Questioning their humanity itself,” the article argued. Of course, the sickness of “violence, hostility, bullying [and] racism,” that Rivlin had then pointed out, is very much real. Other symptoms of this horrible disease also include military occupation, apartheid and genocidal violence, like that frequently meted out against the besieged Gaza Strip. While this Israeli “disease” is becoming common knowledge globally, with such organizations as Human Rights Watch and many others describing it in the most honest and blunt terms, the vast majority of Israeli society, including their representatives and their “soft-spoken” president, remain blind to it, shielded from the truth by their own hubris, infatuated with their military power and intoxicated by the humilia-

tion and violence to which Palestinians are subjected to, in Al-Khalil, in Gaza, in Jerusalem and throughout occupied Palestine. There are no indications that Israeli society, government and media—“liberal” or right-wing—will, on their own, develop the necessary antibodies that will cure the disease of racism, military occupation and apartheid. Yes, it will ultimately be the Palestinian resistance that will make the decisive difference of holding Israel accountable. But that can only happen when the international community takes a courageous stance in advocating Palestinian rights and unconditionally supporting the Palestinian quest for freedom. Whether right-wing, left-wing or center, Israel is committed to its military superiority, its racism and to the military occupation more than ever before. The sooner we accept this fact, and quit subscribing to the illusion that change in Israel will happen from within, the sooner the Palestinian people will finally achieve the justice they need and deserve. ■

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Gaza on the Ground By Mohammed Omer

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“The Fish Ate Us, Mom”

An inner tube life preserver is seen after a boat carrying 19 migrants capsized off the coast of Cesme in the Aegean province of Izmir, Turkey on Jan. 12, 2020. At least 11 migrants, including 8 children, were killed. “MOM, WE DIED, mom, we are drowning in the freezing cold water,” Yahya Barbakh screams through a WhatsApp voice message that he sent to his mother in Gaza. Yahya’s boat had capsized somewhere in the sea between Izmir, Turkey and a Greek island. His mother heard his voice and burst in tears. Yahya was on a boat carrying 20 Gazans, attempting to make it from Izmir in Turkey to the Greek shores, and from there to seek refuge in other European cities. A few weeks after he left Gaza, around 10:30 p.m., his mother, Muhaisn Barbakh, received the voice message, and assumed he was calling to say he’d reached Greece. “I never expected they would drown!” she said. Yahya was among the few survivors but his voice message continued to bring a sad narrative for Gaza families who lost loved ones in mid-November 2021. People flooded into the Barbakh home to listen to Yahya’s message. “This is unfair—it is just unfair,” Muhaisn said, but even she could not stop her son from taking a risky route to travel from Gaza via

Award‐winning journalist Mohammed Omer reports regularly on the Gaza Strip. 18

Turkey in search of a life of dignity in Europe. As a father of two small children, Yahya had lost all hope of being able to financially support them due to the high rate of poverty and unemployment in Gaza. The Gaza Strip is enduring the worst humanitarian situation in years, Dr. Maher Altabaa, a Gazan economist noted. “The unemployment rate has surpassed 50 percent, while an international report classifies half of the population as living in poverty, with 80 percent of the population relying on aid provided by the United Nations,” he said. “Mom, ring Abdullah. Tell him, I saw Abu Adham dying…mom, his body dismembered as food to the fish. Mom he is gone, he died,” cried Yahya through the voice message he sent during the traumatic incident, the crashing sounds of waves in the background. “The fish ate us, mom,” screamed the 26-year-old son appealing to his helpless mom for aid in that shocking message. She is far away, locked behind walls and barbed wires, with Israeli warships shooting or arresting anyone who tries to cross beyond Gaza’s shores. Muhaisn, the mother of Yahya, did not know who to call or what to do. “I cry not only for my son, but for all the youth that were alive a few hours ago, and now they died in the sea,” she lamented.

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Yahya’s mother appeals to the world, “save us...save the lives of the youth facing unjust living conditions in Gaza,” Muhaisn pleads. “It has been a difficult economic hardship, and this was the only way to support his daughter and son,” explained his mom, as she shed tears, saying her son had limited prospects for jobs in Gaza. In 2014, after the devastating 51-day assault on Gaza that killed 1,462 Palestinian civilians, a third of them children, Yahya made plans to travel out of Gaza via Rafah, crossing to Turkey and from there taking a boat to Greece. “I had to hide his passport, so that he does not travel,” his mother recalled. But in 2021, his family’s living conditions got worse, and he could no longer afford to buy essentials such as milk or diapers for his two children. According to the latest World Bank report, 62 percent of Gaza’s population is food insecure. The report highlights a Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment that was conducted after the 11-day military confrontation in May 2021, which reveals up to $380 million in physical damage and $190

million in economic losses. Recovery needs have been estimated to be up to $485 million during the first 24 months and, if past is prologue, those needs will not be met anytime soon. So, like many before, out of desperation Yahya finally decided to take the risky trip despite his mother’s attempts to stop him. Although accurate data on Gazan migrants drowning in the sea is unavailable, according to the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, more than 2,500 people have crossed the Aegean Sea from Turkey this year, compared to over 9,700 in 2020. More than 100 people died or are missing in migrant boats that sank last year, the agency’s data show. Muhaisn tried to call Yahya back on his number, leaving four voice messages, but could not reach him. After the initial call, the phone that he used had been turned off. For days, she had to live with rumors that he may have been arrested by Turkish navy forces or worse. Then, the Palestinian Ambassador to Ankara, Fayed Mustafa, announced that

Turkish navy troops found the body of Nasrallah Al Farrar from the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis, while efforts continued to search for others. He indicated that some had been rescued and were in the custody of the Turkish navy. Families attempted to reach Yahya and the others who had been on board. A week after the frantic message, Yahya was found safe in Turkey. He told his mother in another voice message that a Turkish navy patrol vessel saved him and a few others. Yahya told her they had anticipated that the boat from Izmir to Greece would take 45 minutes, but with high, rough waves and fog, they went off course and the boat sank, leaving those who could swim in extremely cold water. The voice message from Yahya has created an online fury in Gaza, as well as a campaign, “we want to live.” Yahya tried to escape the waves of unemployment and poverty in Gaza, but the Mediterranean waves were also equally hard, sinking the boat and ending a dream for a dignified life for Yahya, his wife and two children. ■

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Special Report

A Brief History of Killing Children

By Gideon Levy

PHOTO CREDIT THOMAS COEX/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

More than 2,000 children in 20 years—100 children, three classrooms a year. And all of them, down to the last, were found guilty of their own death. Any Israeli would be happy to explain that they were terrorists and the soldiers, or the police had no choice but to execute them. In the alternative between the lives of the children and the sacred lives of the soldiers, of course we prefer the soldiers, although there’s almost always a third possibility: for no one to be killed. Last week the next phase was declared. Israel praises the killers of children; they are the new heroes. This never happened before. They were Israeli soldiers arrest a young Palestinian boy following clashes in the center of the West Bank town Palestinians, terrorists, but still they of Hebron, on June 20, 2014. Israeli soldiers killed 14‐year‐old Mohammad Dudeen in Dura, near were children. From now on, take the Hebron, the same day. life of a Palestinian child and be a hero on the front page of the newspaper or FIRST WE WERE ASHAMED, then we were shocked, and we even the top item on the TV news, including your daring picture, pixilated. investigated. Then we denied it and lied. After that we ignored and “The hero from the Old City”—a Border Police officer “took out a terrepressed it, yawned and lost interest. Now is the worst phase of all: rorist and prevented a major disaster,” according to Yedioth Ahronoth. We’ve started to extol the killers of children. That’s how far we’ve gone. No mention in the headline of the age of the dangerous terrorist, of The first child I remember wasn’t even a day old. His mother, Faiza course, but no matter. Abu Dahuk, gave birth to him at a checkpoint. She was turned away “Remember me well,” wrote 16-year-old Omar Abu Sab before he by the soldiers from there and from two more checkpoints, until she went out with a knife to stab a Border Police officer. A video clip rehad to carry him, all through a cold and rainy night. When she arrived leased by the police shows him approaching two officers from behind at the hospital, he was already dead. and attacking them. He was smaller and thinner than them, they could The matter came up at a cabinet meeting. An officer was dismissed have stopped him, they didn’t have to shoot him, and they certainly and a mini storm ensued. This was in April 1996, during the year of didn’t have to kill him, like they needlessly killed children with knives hope and illusions. Four years later, when the second intifada broke before him and after him. But to turn the shooting of a 16-year-old with out, soldiers killed Mohammed al-Dura in front of the cameras and a knife into a big story is the crossing of a moral red line. It will encourIsrael had already transitioned to the phase of denials and lies: Dura age the needless killing of more children, if any such encouragement didn’t die. Israeli soldiers didn’t kill him; maybe he shot himself, maybe was needed. The light trigger finger will become even lighter. If before he’s alive to this day. this there was fear of a sham investigation, now a medal of valor is Remnants of shame and guilt still clung somehow. After that came already in the works. 20 years of indifference and complacence. Soldiers and pilots have How words kill. When the killers of children and teenagers, even killed 2,171 children and teenagers, and not one of these cases when they’re armed with a knife, are extolled by the media and the shocked anyone here, or sparked a real investigation or led to a trial. commanders, this encourages the next criminal killing. There is no child with a knife that the well-armored Border Police can’t arrest withGideon Levy is an Israeli journalist and author. This article was first out killing. But the police are too cowardly. That’s how they killed Eyad published in Haaretz, Nov. 21, 2021. © Haaretz. Reprinted with per‐ mission. Continued on page 49 20

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Special Report

Refugees in Their Own Land: Palestinian Life Under Israeli Zionism

By Dr. M. Reza Behnam

PHOTO BY GIL COHEN MAGEN/XINHUA VIA GETTY

“You can cut all the flowers, but you cannot keep Spring from coming.” —Pablo Neruda FOR 73 JANUARIES, Palestinians have started the New Year under Israeli military rule with its attendant harassment, humiliation and denial of civil liberties. They have endured Zionist colonization, ethnic cleansing, daily surveillance and violence. The world has done little to mitigate their suffering. To legitimize and cement its claim to all of Palestine, Israel has labored to systematically erase every trace of the Palestinian presence and replace it with an exclusive Jewish one. For the millions who remain, Israel’s Airplanes at the Ben Gurion International Airport. The Palestinian town of Lydda was destroyed by apartheid system has made Palestini- Zionist forces in 1948 to make way for the airport. ans refugees in their own land. The Israeli regime has officially conferred the inferior ascription of “foreign created. To flaunt its hegemony and to humiliate, Israel has attached resident” upon Palestinians living in the occupied territories. the names of some of its most ruthless political and military leaders to What began as the gradual, covert acquisition of Palestinian land buildings, schools, parks, streets and public spaces throughout Palesexpanded into an historic land grab—the Zionist war of 1947-49. Actine/Israel. Most notable is Israel’s main point of entry, its first checkcording to Israel’s leaders, the war presented an opportunity to solve point, the Ben Gurion Airport, named for the country’s first prime minwhat they called their “Arab problem”—how to quickly rid Palestine ister and defense minister, Polish-born David Grün, aka Ben-Gurion. of its Arab population on a large scale. It is unlikely that visitors to Israel will learn that Ben-Gurion guided Clearly, Israel’s ongoing effort to erase Palestine and Palestinians Plan Dalet—the master plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine— from time and space is an act of state-sponsored terrorism. Since and ordered the destruction of Palestinian towns and villages, pre1948, Israel has used terrorist tactics to secure hegemony over vented the return of Palestinians to their homes and repopulated Palestinians living in the occupied territories, with routine attacks on Arab towns with Jewish immigrants. their lives and rights. They will not be informed that it was Ben-Gurion’s warlords and Shared symbols and representations are formidable instruments the country’s future leaders, Yigal Allon, Yitzhak Rabin and Moshe used by nation-states to construct a national identity, to communiDayan, who upon his orders, carried out massacres in Lydda, Deir cate power and to shape the future. Not only do they tell the story Yassin and other Palestinian towns and villages. And that in 1948, of a nation, they establish who matters and who does not in the over 500 Palestinian villages were destroyed and major cities atpublic mind. tacked by Zionist forces to make way for the Ben Gurion Airport and Israel has inhabited the landscape with the symbols of hate, domfor the establishment of the Jewish state. inance and exclusion—symbols foundational to the state they have Travelers will see no landmarks or signs to mark the Palestinian Nakba or catastrophe that Ben-Gurion orchestrated. They will, instead, see statues and streets immortalizing him and his ruthless Dr. M. Reza Behnam is a political scientist specializing in the history, generals. politics and governments of the Middle East. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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An ultra‐Orthodox Jew holding his baby pays a visit to the grave of Baruch Goldstein on Feb. 25, 1998, in the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba in the West Bank. Goldstein killed 29 Palestinian worshipers at the Ibrahimi Mosque/Patriarchs tomb in the West Bank town of Hebron in 1994. Palestinians have little choice but to live on streets named for symbols of hate and dominance—Herzl, Jabotinsky, Balfour, Weizmann, Shamir and many others. They have to travel on streets that celebrate the Irgun and Lehi terrorist organizations that committed numerous atrocities. There are countless other examples of Israelis willfully reshaping historical memory. Among the most egregious is the tomb/shrine erected in memory of American-Jewish terrorist Baruch Goldstein, who brutally murdered 29 Muslim worshippers and injured more than 100 in the Ibrahimi Mosque in Al-Khalil (Hebron) in 1994. Where Goldstein is buried is as significant as the fact that a site which extols a mass murderer as a national hero exists at all. He is interred in a park in Al-Khalil, in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba. The park is named for the late, racist rabbi, Brooklyn-born Meir Kahane, founder of the virulent anti-Arab Kach Party.

ESTABLISHING GREATER ISRAEL In carrying out its Greater Israel/Greater Jerusalem mission, Israel has been resolute in shaping a Jewish majority reality in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In October 2021, Israeli Housing Minister 22

Zeev Elkin stated, “Strengthening Jewish presence (in the West Bank) was essential to the Zionist vision.” That vision has included the use of state and settler violence to drive Palestinians out or to isolate them into impoverished and powerless bantustans. With the full assistance and support of the government, Israeli settlers exercise violence and intimidation against Palestinians on a daily basis. In November 2021, the Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, detailed how Israel has been using settler violence as a “major informal tool” to drive Palestinians from their lands. And that over the past five years, eleven square miles of land have been stolen. Palestinians in the West Bank have no civil rights, including the right to privacy. Under an Israeli surveillance system called White Wolf, Jewish settlers can at will scan a Palestinian’s identification card and check it against military, intelligence and settlement security databases. Israel has expanded the scale and scope of its surveillance with a program dubbed Blue Wolf, which uses sophisticated smartphone facial recognition technology to spy on Palestinians. Countless rows of identical settlements have altered the landscape and are monu-

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

ments to what Palestinians have lost. More than 680,000 Israelis currently live in at least 280 illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Occasionally Israel’s illegal schemes, like the forced eviction of Palestinian families from their homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, make their way into corporate news. Radical settlers, however, have been evicting Palestinians and entering their homes in Sheikh Jarrah for decades. Evictions are not unique to Sheikh Jarrah. Settlers have encroached into Palestinian neighborhoods all across East Jerusalem, including in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. An estimated 220,000 Israelis now live in East Jerusalem, pushing the 350,000 Palestinian residents into increasingly crowded, impoverished neighborhoods. The decision by current Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in October 2021 to approve over 3,000 new settlement houses in the West Bank garnered limited media attention and a perfunctory “deeply concerned” statement from the U.S. State Department. Palestinians have no recourse as Israel seizes their land for projects that fracture their neighborhoods and serve only the Jewish population. A current plan, for example, is to construct a string of theme parks for a so-called “Biblical Trail” in the south of the Old City. As part of its design, Israel has been willing to raze the dead. In October 2021, bulldozers began demolishing sections of the six-acre Al-Yusufiya cemetery near the Al-Aqsa Mosque. This centuries-old Muslim cemetery is one of four in occupied Jerusalem. One section being bulldozed includes the Martyrs’ Monument where the remains of Palestinian and Jordanian soldiers, who fought in the 1967 war, are buried and where relatives come to commemorate them.

CREATING ECONOMIC DEPENDENCY Israel is acutely aware that an independent and functional economy is central to Palestinian sovereignty and statehood. To force JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

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Palestinian dependency on its apartheid economy, Israel has stripped Palestinian communities of their natural resources, blocked free access to markets and destroyed agriculture and infrastructure. Economic survival has forced Palestinians to face the indignity of cooperating with Israel’s ambitions. The many unemployed have little choice but to seek disheartening work in Israel, which often involves constructing settlements that displace fellow Palestinians. According to the International Labor Organization, before the 2020 pandemic, 133,000 Palestinians worked in Israel and in the settlements. Additionally, in their daily commutes, workers can be delayed for hours at any of the 140 military checkpoints that dot the West Bank.

SHAPING A PROPAGANDA NETWORK Israel has been successful in fashioning a propaganda network in the United States to shape and control how Americans think—or do not think—about Palestine.

In October 2021, for instance, Israeli minister of defense, Benny Gantz, falsely designated six prominently established Palestinian human rights groups as terrorist organizations (see p. 8). Another target of the Israeli regime is the movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), which advocates for Palestinian freedom and equality. Israel sees this non-violent global movement as a strategic threat because of its efficacy against the apartheid regime in South Africa during the 1980s. Palestinian statelessness has been at the core of Zionism. Ironically, Jewish statelessness was the locus of the Zionist argument for creation of an exclusive state of their own. In carrying out the goals of its founders, Israel has been totally indifferent to Articles 15 and 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which read respectively, “…no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality...” and that “no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of property.” Military occupation chips at the soul of

the occupied and the occupier alike. It should end. All symbols of hate, dominance, exclusion and occupation need to be eliminated, starting with the Ben Gurion checkpoint. All stolen land must be returned, and the right of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to their homes and properties must be guaranteed. Al-Quds to Muslims, Jerusalem to Jews and Christians, must become an ecumenical city, much as it was prior to 1948. And to finally end the Nakba, the morally corrupt Israeli regime must formally acknowledge its abuses and the suffering it has inflicted on the Palestinian people. With each new year, Palestinians struggle to hold on to their land and to resist the destruction of their national identity. What Israel and its U.S. panderers fail to understand is that Palestinian identity is deeply rooted in the land and that they cannot be separated from it. Palestinians will never renounce their fundamental right to justice, freedom and dignity, and they will never be made invisible. ■

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Christianity in the Middle East

PHOTO BY API/GAMMA-RAPHO VIA GETTY IMAGES

Colliding Forces During the Christmas Season: A Sermon About the Situation in Palestine By Rev. Alex Awad

The Virgin Mary and Jesus icon in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. ASTRONOMERS TELL US that galaxies collide in the vast space and when they do, millions of stars explode while others are newly formed. They also calculate that our Milky Way Galaxy is speeding toward colliding with a galaxy called Andromeda. Our solar system would not survive the impact of that crash. The good news is that such galactic activities are not expected to happen in our lifetime or that of our children or grandchildren.

Rev. Dr. Alex Awad is a retired United Methodist Missionary. He and his wife, Brenda, served in Jerusalem and in Bethlehem for more than 25 years. Rev. Awad served as pastor of East Jerusalem Baptist Church, dean of students at Bethlehem Bible College, and director of the Shepherd Society. Awad has written two books, Through the Eyes of the Victims and Palestinian Memories. Rev. Awad is a member of the Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace (PCAP). 24

A careful reading of the stories about the birth of Jesus in the gospels of Matthew and Luke also reveals a collision of forces. On the one hand, the narratives demonstrate the divine force that is working in a dramatic way with ordinary people such as Zachariah, Elizabeth, Simeon, Anna, Mary, Joseph, an inn keeper, some shepherds and a few wise men. On the other hand, the narrative presents forces of darkness, represented by King Herod and the Roman Empire that he served, which were maneuvering and plotting to destroy the work of the Christ-child. Herod massacred children in and around Bethlehem in his obsession to kill Jesus. Matthew also tells the fascinating story of the star that led the wise men to the manger where Jesus was born. Was it a comet? A burning fraction of a star? A planet? Or was it a star sent by God on a mission to aid in the collision of the forces of light against the forces of darkness? I wonder! The main characters in the narratives of the incarnation were also aware of the collision that was taking place before their eyes, and they alluded to it as they responded to the divine initiative. Mary, the mother of Jesus, expressed this collision when she, inspired by the Holy Spirit, sang the “Magnificat” as recorded in the Gospel of Luke, in which she said: My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me— holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. In the last three bolded verses, Mary uses the terminology that describes the result of a successful revolution. The birth of her child, Mary says, scatters those who are proud, takes down rulers from their thrones, lifts the humble, fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty.

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Zachariah, another significant character the masses. The caravans of desperate miand Luke are stories of hope for the hopeless. in the first advent narrative, describes the grants at the southern border of the U.S. and Their message is clear: God comes to save, collision from the perspective of a people sights of the migrants traveling on flimsy rescue and redeem his people. He comes to who have been suffering from a foreign ocboats from Africa and the Middle East, and collide with the powers of political, military, cupation. Inspired by the Spirit of God, he whose bodies are washed up on the shores and economic structures that oppress the praises the Lord saying: of the Mediterranean Sea, are vivid illustrapoor to bring them freedom and peace. He has raised up a horn of salvation for tions of the collision between the poor and It is also clear from the incarnation narus the empires that refuse to give them a ratives that God uses ordinary men and in the house of his servant David chance to have a better future. women, whom he anoints, and sends out (as he said through his holy prophets of The collision of the forces is also well to do his work of salvation, rescue and liblong ago), demonstrated in Palestine, the birthplace of eration. salvation from our enemies the Prince of Peace. On one side you see Let us, during this holy season, sing with and from the hand of all who hate us— the forces of occupation carrying on with hope and enthusiasm the song, “Joy to the to show mercy to our ancestors their brutality against the Palestinian popuWorld,” Because: and to remember his holy covenant. lation. Daily, Palestinian homes are demolThere is hope today for migrants stranded (Luke 1: 68-77) ished, Palestinian lands are confiscated, the at our southern borders. Zachariah envisioned a collision of forces young men and women are shot at and There is hope for migrants sailing across that would address the cry of the oppressed killed or interrogated and tortured. Furtherthe Mediterranean Sea. and their hope of being saved from their enmore, Palestinian human rights organizaThere is hope for the starving masses in emies and freed from their fears “because tions are accused by the Israeli prime minYemen, Afghanistan and in Ethiopia. of the tender mercy of our God, by which the ister of terrorism, punished and ordered to There is hope for the persecuted Chrisrising sun will come to us from heaven to stop defending their cause. tians in Nigeria. shine on those living in darkness and in the Israeli apartheid is colliding with every There is hope this Christmas for the opshadow of death, to guide our feet into the aspect of Palestinian life and no earthly pressed Palestinians in the West Bank and path of peace.” (Luke 1: 78-79) power seems to have the strength or the will Gaza. Simeon, an old priest who was anticipatto put an end to it. And yet, on the other side, There is hope for all children, women and ing divine intervention, looked beyond the a growing number of Jewish, Muslim, Chrismen who suffer due to slavery, discriminabirth of Jesus in a manger and predicted that tian and secular human rights advocates are tion, persecution, racism, the pandemic and the collision would include the death of raising their voices and challenging the economic injustice. Jesus for the redemption of humanity. He apartheid system that Israel has created. God is here! He is equipping his people announced to Mary: The good news this Christmas is that the to triumphantly collide with the evil powers This child is destined to cause the falling stories recorded in the Gospels of Matthew of this world to bring peace on earth. ■ and rising of many in Israel, and (Advertisement) to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” (Luke 2:34-35) The collision of the divine forces with the forces of evil Palestinian Medical Relief Society, a grassroots continues as we celebrate the community-based Palestinian health organization, founded in birth of Jesus in 2021. Millions 1979 by Palestinian doctors, needs your support today. of people around the world Visit www.pmrs.ps yearn for freedom from poverty and political oppression and Visit our Website <friendsofpmrs.org> to see our work in action and donate. hundreds of thousands of activists are demanding justice for Mail your U.S. Tax-Deductible check to our American Foundation: all members of humanity. However, these longings and Friends of PMRS, Inc efforts collide with the powerful PO Box 450554 • Atlanta, GA 31145 forces of greed, racism, militarism, political corruption and For more information call: (404) 441-2702 or e-mail: fabuakel@gmail.com the economic strangulation of JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

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Israel and Judaism

PHOTO BY ANDREW LICHTENSTEIN/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES

Zionism is in Retreat Within the American Jewish Community By Allan C. Brownfeld

Progressive members of Brooklyn’s Jewish community hold a rally to protest Israel’s continued occupation of Palestine and its Zionist policies of apartheid, May 21, 2021 in the Prospect Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. WHEN ZIONISM FIRST AROSE in the late 19th century, it was a controversial minority movement within Jewish communities around the world. In 1897, the Central Conference of American Rabbis adopted a resolution disapproving of any attempt to establish a Jewish state. The resolution declared, “Zion was a precious possession of the past…as such it is a holy memory, but it is not our hope of the future. America is our Zion.” In England, when the Balfour Declaration was adopted, a Jewish member of Prime Minister Lloyd George’s cabinet, Secretary of State for India Edwin Montagu, insisted that Jews be viewed as a religious community. In a mem-

orandum titled “The Anti-Semitism of the Present Government,” circulated to other cabinet members on Aug. 23, 1917, Montagu used the term “anti-Semitism” to characterize the sponsors of the Balfour Declaration. Only with the growth of anti-Semitism in Russia and Eastern Europe, followed by the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust, did Zionism gain strength among Jewish Americans. Now, it is in retreat and promises once again to be a minority view. In his book, The Jewish American Paradox, Professor Robert H. Mnookin of the Harvard Law School writes: “It was once thought that pride in and support for the State of Israel would serve to unite a diverse American Jewish community and buttress Jewish identity in this country. Today I fear the opposite is becoming true. Certain present-day policies of the Israeli government now fuel intense conflicts among American Jews and reinforce deep divisions within the American Jewish community.

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In the words of Professor Dov Waxman, ‘Israel used to bring American Jews together. Now it is driving them apart.’” In Mnookin’s view, “At issue are two aspects of Israeli government policy: First, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the continued Israeli military occupation of the West Bank, and second the exclusive role of the Orthodox rabbinate in defining for Israel what is authentic Judaism. Both are political issues that illustrate what I see as Israel’s core challenge: managing the tension between being Jewish and democratic…In recent years the political center of gravity in Israel has shifted to the right on both issues, favoring increasingly ethno-nationalist and expansionary policies with regard to the West Bank and the treatment of Palestinians there as well as increasingly Orthodox views on Judaism. The political and religious center of gravity in America is very different, meaning that our Jewish community is no longer well aligned with Israel’s…Many are troubled by Israel’s continued military occupation of the West Bank, its continued expansion of Jewish settlements and its discriminatory treatment of Palestinians…” “Inside the Unraveling of American Zionism,” an article by Marc Tracy, published in the Nov. 7, 2021 issue of The New York Times Magazine, focuses upon the decline of Zionism in the American Jewish community.

RABBINICAL STUDENTS’ LETTER A letter signed by 93 rabbinical students last May, during the Israeli onslaught on Gaza, declared that Israel maintains “apartheid” in the occupied territories and called on American Jews who have taken on structural racism in the United States to oppose “racist violence” in Israel. The letter declared: “Blood is flowing in the streets of the Holy Land. For those of us for whom Israel has represented hope and justice, we need to give ourselves permission to watch, to acknowledge what we see, to mourn and to cry. And then to change our behavior and demand better.” The rabbinical students urged Jews to rethink their support for American military aid to Israel, which totals roughly $3.8 billion annually, and insisted that Jewish educaJANUARY/FEBRUARY2022

tors alter their teaching of Israel’s founding to convey “the messy truth of a persecuted people searching for safety, going to a land full of meaning for the Jewish people, full of meaning for so many other peoples, and also full of human beings who didn’t ask for new neighbors.” Tracy notes that, “The letter contained several provocations. It compared the Palestinians’ plight to that of Black Americans: ‘American Jews have been part of a racial reckoning in our community, and yet so many of those same institutions are silent when abuse of power and racist violence erupts in Israel and Palestine.’ It describes in Israel ‘two separate legal systems for the same region’ and called this system ‘apartheid.’ It arrived amid war, violating the imperative many Jews felt to stand with Israel as the rockets fly…” The 93 men and women, who signed the letter, are students at eight institutions that train rabbis and represent 17 percent of the students at those schools. The letter was published in the widely read Jewish newspaper, The Forward, on May 13, 2021. Lex Rofeberg, co-host of the “Judaism Unbound” podcast said, “This list includes future leaders of American Judaism.” One of the students who signed the letter, Leah Nussbaum, a student at Hebrew Union College in New York, was interviewed by Marc Tracy. She told him, “The modern state of Israel is a country like any other country. It has problems with discrimination and racism. That doesn’t reflect what I believe are Jewish values, even though it’s a Jewish state. And I think there can be a state that reflects Jewish values and ethics. Israel can do a lot better. I signed this letter because I feel it’s Jewish to also support Palestinians.” It is Marc Tracy’s view that, “The letter intimated not only that the pro-Israel consensus is fraying, which has been apparent for a while, but something else, too—that the primary cause of this fraying may not be something so straightforward as the actions of Israeli governments or the assimilation of American Jews. Instead, a generation of American Jews is confronting, head-on, the tension between universalist principles and the idea of Jewish particularity…For years,

American Jews could look upon Israel as a tiny state full of long-oppressed people with hostile neighbors, and even see themselves as underdogs…The letter entered this fraught terrain and asked American Jews to view the Middle East conflict structurally, as another instance of one powerful group’s oppressing the less powerful one. This was its most profound and destabilizing argument—that Jews, after two dozen centuries of dispossession, persecution and exile have the upper hand and the responsibility to act like it. Hannah Bender, a third-year student at Hebrew Union College, put it to me this way, ‘All of our texts were written during a history when we were the victims. What do we do now that we have power?’”

ISRAELI GOVERNMENT BEHAVIOR In the months since this letter by rabbinical students was written, Israel’s government has moved steadily away from traditional Jewish moral and ethical values. On Oct. 19, the Israeli Ministry of Defense issued a military order declaring key Palestinian human rights organizations to be “terrorist organizations.” The named groups include Defense for Children International-Palestine, Al-Haq, Addameer, The Bison Center for Research and Development, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees. The declaration effectively outlaws these groups. Israeli human rights activist Jeff Halper notes that, “The irony of a state that uses terrorism routinely against a civilian population held under conditions of imprisonment, robbed of their human and civil rights, robbed of their lands and lives, victims of a relentless policy of home demolitions, labeling a legitimate part of a liberation movement ‘terrorist’ is not lost on us.” In October, the Israeli government approved plans to build 3,000 more units in illegal West Bank settlements. The State Department issued its strongest opposition to the plans since President Biden took office, calling them “unacceptable.” The State Department also expressed concern about the publication of tenders for 1,300 settlement Continued on page 49

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Special Report

Record Numbers of Muslim and Arab Americans are Running for Office

IMAGE COURTESY OF HUWAIDA ARRAF

By Delinda C. Hanley

Huwaida Arraf is advocating for policies that protect and promote human rights. MIDTERM ELECTIONS are a year away, but candidates are already knocking on doors. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate will be contested. This election is important for Joe Biden’s administration, which is concerned that a Republican-heavy Congress will continue to fight tooth and nail to thwart his agenda. As the world looks for U.S. leadership on urgent issues like human rights, the rule of law, climate change and a global pandemic, members of Congress and the Biden administration are dithering. When it comes to both domestic and foreign policy, they’re battling each other and making political—not principled—decisions. This hurts the world’s perception of the country and doesn’t exactly instill our own confidence in democracy. The disparity between the global distribution of COVID-19 boosters and first shots to people in developing nations is a “scandal,” admon-

Delinda C. Hanley is executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. The candidates highlighted in this article spoke at previous Israel Lobby and American Policy conferences, co‐hosted by this magazine and the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy. 28

ished World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Nov. 12. There have been more boosters administered in the U.S. than first vaccines in African countries. The U.S. missed the opportunity to come to the rescue of the world and execute the massive production and distribution of COVID vaccines. These are only some of the challenges that convince more and more Americans, especially Arab and Muslim Americans, to run for public office. According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ most recent report card, a record number of 181 Muslim candidates ran for office in 28 states and Washington, DC in 2020. Of those Muslim candidates, 81 (44 percent) won their election. CAIR, Jetpac and MPower Change maintain a soon-to-be-published directory of more than 160 active American Muslim officials serving in office, according to Robert S. McCaw, director of CAIR’s government affairs department. Keith Ellison (D-MN) was the first Muslim elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2007 and served until he retired to become Minnesota’s Attorney General in 2019. André Carson (DIN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) are currently serving in the House, joining Arab American representatives Garret Graves (R-LA), Charlie Crist (D-FL), Stephanie Bice (R-OK) and Darin LaHood (R-IL), although LaHood’s district will be eliminated ahead of the 2022 elections. As of 2021, there are 10 Jewish senators and 27 Jewish members of the House. While one’s ethnicity, race, gender or religion doesn’t guarantee principled lawmaking, diversity can bring representation as well as valuable ideas and perspectives to the table. Here are two candidates, one a Palestinian American Christian and the other a Pakistani/Indian American Muslim, both seeking public office in hopes of improving dialogue and helping all Americans.

WHY HUWAIDA ARRAF IS RUNNING FOR CONGRESS I am the daughter of working-class immigrant parents. My parents left Palestine to make a better life for their family; to ensure that my siblings and I would know freedom, safety and opportunity. We didn’t have a lot growing up, but we had enough, and I am grateful for that. I am grateful for the opportunities that I’ve had and have long felt that I have a responsibility to give back and to advocate for the rights of others to have the same. This drove me to pursue human rights advocacy as a way to fight for those who are oppressed, disre-

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garded and forgotten, first as an activist and organizer in the streets, and then as an attorney (still in the streets). I spent years advocating for Palestinian rights, co-founding the International Solidarity Movement and organizing boats to challenge Israel’s illegal and criminal blockade on Gaza. Now living back in Michigan, where I grew up, and raising my two young kids here, I see rights abuses all around me. They’re different than those in Palestine, for sure, but they nevertheless deprive people of their right to life, dignity, freedom and safety. I am not a politician, but I have spent years knocking on their doors advocating for policies that protect and promote human rights. It’s clear that most Washington politicians aren’t working for these values, or for us. I’m tired of the rights of people coming second to the interests of mega corporations and special interest groups. I’m tired of seeing the wealth and dominance of the 1 percent expand while being told that there isn’t enough money to provide basic services to the rest of us. I’m running for Congress because every Michigan family (just like every Palestinian family) wants the same things: good, dignified jobs, quality schools, safe neighborhoods, healthy communities and opportunity...exactly what my parents came to this country looking for. I am running for Michigan’s 10th Congressional District seat, a district that is currently represented by Lisa McClain, a firstterm Republican congresswoman from Bruce Township. I hope to join the representatives who are truly fighting for the people in order to push forth legislation that will guarantee people’s basic rights, like the right to housing, the right to a living wage, the right to clean air and water, the right to adequate and affordable health care and more—policies that will not only help people survive, but that will allow people to thrive. That’s on the domestic level. On the international level, I will fight to put human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy. Currently we have an administration that asserts this but doesn't practice it. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

PHOTO COURTESY HTTP://WWW.ALIFORMARYLAND.COM

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Saqib Ali is running for office to fight human caused global warming.

WHY SAQIB ALI IS RUNNING FOR OFFICE I’m running for State Delegate in Montgomery County, Maryland. I am a software engineer and a progressive Democrat who focuses on government delivering services well. That is my track record. It was the case when I previously served in Maryland’s Legislature (2007-2011) and my legislative priorities will continue to reflect that. I was the first Muslim American elected official in all of Maryland, and I got there with a huge amount of help from my community. I helped make Montgomery County treat Muslim holidays the same way they treat Christian and Jewish holidays in school. I’m running because I want to make sure that our children inherit a Montgomery County with the best schools, roadways, public transportation systems and environment possible. I will continue to eliminate secret voting on any official matter by members of the Maryland General Assembly. All votes cast in the assembly (along with their attribution) must be posted online within 24 hours of being cast. I want to divest Maryland’s pension holdings from companies doing business

with genocidal regimes and require companies bidding on Maryland contracts to sign a pledge refusing to do business with the same. My first priority is to fight human caused global warming. I’ll throw every tool at this problem. I am also passionate about racial and social justice. Did you know that incarcerated citizens are paid $1 or so for their work? Those are slave wages. I will listen to everyone and be accessible. But then I’ll do what is right for the community, including raising taxes for the wealthy, if needed. I won’t just stick out my finger to see which way the wind is blowing. I’ll do what’s right. I come from an under-represented minority group. It’s time to fix the demographic inequality in Maryland. “Let America be America again,” quipped Iraqi American Anas “Andy” Shallal, as he introduced Ali at his latest Busboys and Poets restaurant/bookstore and performance space in Columbia, MD. Shallal, who ran for DC mayor in 2014, urged people attending Ali’s campaign kick-off party, on Nov. 21, to support him and other candidates running for office “to help make America the dreamer’s dream come true.” ■

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Congress Watch

Iron Dome Dollars for Israel Still Stuck in the Senate By Shirl McArthur

PHOTO BY DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES

date, the United States has provided over $146 billion in aid to Israel. In addition to Iron Dome the United States has helped Israel fund other missile defense systems as well. We spent $2 billion on David’s Sling and $3.7 billion on Arrow programs. That means the United States has contributed $7 billion to Israel’s missile defense systems...” Interestingly, Paul has not been attacked by members of Congress for blocking the Iron Dome bill, as were the few House progressives who objected to the funding or voted “no” or “present” on H.R. 5323. Of the several bills to pro(L‐r) Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D‐MI), Rep. André Carson (D‐IN), Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D‐NY) and Rep. Ilhan vide funding for Iron Dome inOmar (D‐MN) hold a news conference condemning Islamophobia on Capitol Hill on Nov. 30, 2021, after troduced by Republicans a video of conservative lawmaker Rep. Lauren Boebert (R‐CO) making anti‐Muslim remarks about Rep. intent on grandstanding for Omar circulated on social media. their Zionist donors and voters, only H.R. 3706, introduced in June by Rep. Michael Guest (R-MS), AS REPORTED in previous Washington Reports, after several has gained a cosponsor. It now has 38. H.R. 5311, introduced in failed attempts by congressional Zionists to get another $1 billion September by Rep. Chris Jacobs (R-NY), still has 10 cosponsors. appropriated for Israel by slipping it into other measures, House S. 2839, introduced in September by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), still has Appropriations Committee Chair Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) on no cosponsors, and S. 1751, introduced in May by Sen. Bill Hagerty Sept. 22 introduced H.R. 5323, the stand-alone “Iron Dome Sup(R-TN) still has five cosponsors. plemental Appropriations” bill to appropriate $1 billion for Israel. It passed the House on Sept. 23 under “suspension of the rules” by a vote of 420-9, with two voting “present.” REPUBLICANS OBJECT TO BIDEN REOPENING THE U.S. H.R. 5323 was referred to the Senate where it has not moved, CONSULATE IN JERUSALEM because it has been blocked by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) who wants Following reports that the administration of President Joe Biden it to be paid for by cutting funding for Taliban-controlled is planning to reopen the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem, which was Afghanistan. To that end, on Oct. 6 he introduced S. 2944, the closed by then-President Donald Trump, Hagerty on Oct. 26 in“Funding Iron Dome by Defunding the Taliban” bill. In arguing for troduced S. 3063 “to prohibit the use of funds for a U.S. Embassy, his bill on the Senate floor, he raised the objections of many House Consulate General, Legation, Consular Office, or any other diplomembers who do so privately rather than publicly so as to not be matic facility in Jerusalem other than the U.S. Embassy to the labeled “anti-Semitic.” He said, “the billion dollars under considerState of Israel.” The bill has 39 cosponsors, all Republicans. The ation today is on top of the more than $1.6 billion the United States identical H.R. 6004 was introduced Nov. 17 by Rep. David Kustoff has already given for Iron Dome, and that is not all. The United (R-TN) with 120 Republican cosponsors. On Nov. 1, 200 RepubStates provides Israel with just under $4 billion in aid annually. To lican representatives, led by reliable Israel-firster Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), signed a letter to Biden expressing their “strong opposition to the Biden administration’s proposal to open a consulate general Shirl McArthur is a retired foreign service officer. He lives in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. to the Palestinians in Israel’s eternal capital, Jerusalem.” 30

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PRO-ISRAEL BILLS CONTINUE TO MAKE PROGRESS The companion bills “to encourage the normalization of relations with Israel” continue to gain support. S. 1061, introduced in March by Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), which was reported out to the full Senate by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) on June 24, now has 72 cosponsors. Its companion bill, H.R. 2748, introduced in April by Rep. Bradley Schneider (D-IL), now has 321 cosponsors. Another U.S.-Israel military cooperation bill, H.R. 5302, was introduced Sept. 20 by Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) with seven cosponsors. It would “amend the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 to establish a United States-Israel OperationsTechnology Working Group.” The previously described U.S.-Israel cooperation bills have made scant progress. Of the identical “U.S.-Israel PTSD Collaborative Research” bills that were introduced in the House and the Senate in February, only S. 221, introduced by Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), has gained a cosponsor. It now has nine. The companion H.R. 852, introduced by Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL), still has 64 cosponsors. S. 2120, the “U.S.Israel Artificial Intelligence Center” bill introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in June, now has eight cosponsors, and the identical H.R. 5148, introduced in September by Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), has only five cosponsors. The companion bills that would again try to equate Israel’s colonies on the West Bank or Gaza with Israel have gained no support. H.R. 5356, introduced in September by Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY), still has four cosponsors, and S. 2489, introduced in July by Sen. Tom Cotton, still has eight cosponsors. H.Res. 557, introduced in July by Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), which specifically equates criticizing Israel with anti-Semitism, still has only four cosponsors.

POSITIVE NEW MEASURES INTRODUCED Following the Israeli government’s designation of six Palestinian human rights groups as terrorist organizations, Rep. JANUARY/ FEBRUARY 2022

Betty McCollum (D-MN) on Oct. 28 introduced H.Res. 751 “Condemning the repressive designation by the government of Israel of six prominent Palestinian human rights and civil society groups as terrorist organizations.” The designation makes the groups subject to several punitive actions, including freezing their assets and even forcing them to shut down. The resolution has 11 cosponsors. Previously, on Oct. 21, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) introduced H.R. 5665 “To establish in the Department of State the Office to Monitor and Combat Islamophobia” worldwide. The bill has 51 cosponsors, all Democrats, including Rep. Gregory Meeks (DNY), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The new two-state solution bill, H.R. 5344, introduced in September by Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI) “to preserve conditions for, and improve the likelihood of, a twostate solution that secures Israel’s future as a democratic state and a national home for the Jewish people, a viable, democratic Palestinian state, an end to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, and peaceful relations between the two states, and to direct the Department of State and other relevant agencies to take steps to accomplish these ends,” now has 40 allDemocratic cosponsors. This bill would call for several positive actions to be taken, and could be cause for optimism, but there is little chance that it will be passed. A new bill, S. 3155 “to impose sanctions with respect to individuals responsible for the death of Jamal Khashoggi, to protect human rights in the sale, export and transfer of defense articles and defense services to Saudi Arabia,” was introduced Nov. 3 by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) with two cosponsors. Unfortunately, H.R. 2590, the “Palestinian Children and Families” bill, introduced in April by McCollum, still has only 30 cosponsors. It is “to promote and protect the human rights of Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation and to ensure that U.S. taxpayer funds are not used by the government of Israel to support the military detention of Palestinian children, the unlawful seizure, appropriation, and destruction of Palestinian property, and forcible transfer of civilians in the

West Bank, or further annexation of Palestinian land in violation of international law.”

ANTI-HAMAS, ANTI-HEZBOLLAH BILLS GAIN SOME SUPPORT Although H.R. 261, introduced in January by Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), and S. 1904, introduced in May by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), which would sanction any person or organization that has anything to do with Hamas, have gained no cosponsors, the similar H.R. 3685, introduced on June 4 by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), now has 95 cosponsors. The previously described anti-Hezbollah measures have gained some support. H.R. 4230, introduced in June by Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) “to support the full implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, reduce Hezbollah’s influence in Lebanon, and address security threats to Lebanon” now has five cosponsors. H.Res. 558, introduced in July by Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) “Urging the European Union to designate Hezbollah in its entirety as a terrorist organization” now has 30 cosponsors. The identical S.Res. 377, introduced in September by Sen. Jacklyn Rosen (D-NV), has six cosponsors. H.R. 4073, introduced in June by Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), “Countering Hezbollah in Lebanon’s Military,” which would restrict security assistance to Lebanon, now has five cosponsors. Companion bills were introduced in the House and the Senate on Nov. 3 urging that the Muslim Brotherhood be designated a foreign terrorist organization. H.R. 5840 was introduced by Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) with 13 cosponsors, and S. 3151 was introduced by Cruz with two cosponsors. Of the companion anti-Palestinian/antiUNRWA bills introduced in July “to withhold U.S. contributions to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA),” only H.R. 4721, introduced by Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), has gained cosponsors. It now has 35. Among other things, it equates criticizing Israel with anti-Semitism.

BILLS TO RESTORE CONGRESS’ ROLE IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS MAKE NO PROGRESS S. 2391, introduced in July by Sens. Chris Murphy (D-CT), Mike Lee (R-UT) Continued on page 49

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Special Report

Miriam Adelson Picks up Where Late Husband and GOP Kingmaker Left Off By Eli Clifton

PHOTO BY AMI SHOOMAN/ISRAEL HAYOM POOL/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

single biggest funder of Republican Party candidates in the 2022 and 2024 elections. One of the couple’s final political acts, before Sheldon Adelson’s death on Jan. 11, was to fly Jonathan Pollard— a former U.S. Navy analyst who spent 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to spying for Israel—to Israel on one the family’s private 737s once Pollard’s travel ban was lifted. Indeed, foreign policy has been the key-defining issue-area of the Adelsons’ political giving. The Adelsons helped to support the ultra-hawkish pro-Likud, anti-Iran echo chamber, including, among other groups, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the Israeli American Council, United Then‐Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Miriam Adelson stand before the casket of Sheldon Adelson upon its arrival at Ben Gurion Airport, on Jan. 14, 2021. The widow spoke during the Against Nuclear Iran and Zionist Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) Annual Leadership Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Nov. 6, 2021. Organization of America—all of which the couple have financially IT’S BIG NEWS when a political party’s biggest funder announces, supported over the last two decades. They also provided tens of after a period of mourning for the death of their spouse, that they millions of dollars to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee will be continuing their role as the go-to funder for congressional over the years, but abruptly withdrew their backing in 2007 beand presidential candidates in 2022 and 2024. You also might cause of its support in Congress for an economic aid package for expect a discussion of how that donor expects to influence U.S. polPalestinians. itics with their campaign donations. You’d be wrong. Miriam, individually, made her views on Trump’s foreign policy On Nov. 7, Politico provided in-depth reporting on how “Republiknown—including support for moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel can mega donor Miriam Adelson—the widow of casino mogul and from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and withdrawing from the nuclear deal longtime GOP kingmaker Sheldon Adelson—is staging a return to with Iran—in a 2019 op-ed in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, a politics, positioning herself to be a force in the 2022 midterms and newspaper owned by the Adelsons. In it, she berated Jewish Amerbeyond.” icans for failing to prioritize the U.S.-Israel relationship by voting This is big news. Adelson, a U.S.-Israel dual national, is worth overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates. She wrote: $30 billion as the majority shareholder of Las Vegas Sands, a casino The world rallies to an America that is strong, and this strength and resort company with enormous business interests in Singapore is best shown by keeping faith with U.S. allies—of which Israel is and Macau, a Chinese Special Administrative Region. the best. Foreign policy, both in the Middle East and East Asia, is clearly By rights, Trump should enjoy sweeping support among U.S. a central area of interest for the woman likely to emerge as the Jews, just as he does among Israelis. That this has not been the case (so far—the 2020 election still beckons) is an oddity that will Eli Clifton is a senior adviser at the Quincy Institute and investiga‐ long be pondered by historians. Scholars of the Bible will no doubt tive‐journalist‐at‐large at Responsible Statecraft. He reports on note the heroes, sages and prophets of antiquity who were similarly money in politics and U.S. foreign policy for Responsible Statecraft, which published this article on Nov. 8. spurned by the very people they came to raise up. 32

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Would it be too much to pray for a day when the Bible gets a “Book of Trump,” much like it has a “Book of Esther” celebrating the deliverance of the Jews from ancient Persia? Until that is decided, let us, at least, sit back and marvel at this time of miracles for Israel, for the United States, and for the whole world. And in China, Sheldon Adelson already showed he was eager to influence U.S. foreign policy in order to further his casino business interests. In 2001, Adelson reportedly curried favor with the Chinese leadership and helped secure his initial casino license in Macau by persuading Rep. Tom Delay (R-TX), then the House majority whip, to halt a bipartisan resolution calling for the U.S. to oppose Beijing’s Olympics bid due to China’s problematic human rights record. That casino license is up for renewal in 2022, and the company, overseen by Miriam Adelson, has taken pains to tie itself closer to Beijing, including appointing Wilfred Wong, former member of the National People’s Congress of the People’s Repub-

lic of China, as CEO of its Las Vegas Sands subsidiary Sands China. Both Miriam and Sheldon Adelson received a public thanks from President Donald Trump at the January 2020 signing of the U.S.-China Phase One Trade Agreement. But none of this context was provided in Politico’s write-up of Miriam committing to carry-on the political giving previously conducted in collaboration with her husband. The only mention of the Adelsons’ overriding interest in influencing U.S.-foreign policy was in the 13th paragraph when the author, Alex Isenstadt, noted “Miriam Adelson shared her husband’s hawkish foreign policy views and his staunch support of Israel.” Speakers at the Nov. 5-7, 2021 annual Republican Jewish Coalition conference at one of Adelson’s Las Vegas properties, The Venetian, included former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Unlike Politico, the speakers were clear about what issues their audience, and their

host Miriam Adelson, cared most about. According to Jewish Insider, Haley attacked AIPAC, accusing the largest proIsrael group in the U.S. of being insufficiently supportive of Israel at the expense of pursuing bipartisanship. Cruz praised Trump’s foreign policy decisions to relocate the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and withdraw from the nuclear deal with Iran, while attempting to claim credit for his own roles in both decisions. And Pence boasted to the audience that “under the Trump-Pence administration, if the world knew nothing else, the world knew this: America stands with Israel.” While national political journalists may have chosen to ignore or overlook Miriam Adelson’s clear interest in steering U.S. foreign policy toward hawkish policies in the Middle East, at least inasmuch as the Republican Party can drive policy, the potential 2024 presidential candidates speaking at the event gave every indication that they understood the issues that motivate the Republican Party’s biggest donor: Israel, Iran, and promoting a hawkish U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. ■

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History’s Shadows

PHOTO BY RON SACHS/CNP/GETTY IMAGES

Dr. Henry Kissinger: The Myth of the Great Statesman By Walter L. Hixson

Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is sworn‐in to testify before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, in Washington, DC, on Sept. 22, 1992. The panel was investigating charges that POWs were left behind by the Nixon administration, of which Kissinger was a part, after the Vietnam War. AMONG MANY widely embraced illusions about the history of the Middle East and American diplomacy in general is that Dr. Henry A. Kissinger is or ever was a brilliant statesman. What Kissinger has always been, and remains at age 98, is a brilliant self-promoter. His more than 3,000 pages of self-aggrandizing published memoirs—a record unmatched in the annals of American diplomacy—reflect an ego trip befitting a man famous for his “shuttle diplomacy.” Millions of Americans have been taken in by Kissinger’s Harvard credentials, his deft manipulation of the news media and his grav-

History’s Shadows, a regular column by contributing editor Wal‐ ter L. Hixson, seeks to place various aspects of Middle East poli‐ tics 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 Gener‐ ation of the Palestine Conflict (available from Middle East Books and More), along with several other books and journal articles. He has been a professor of history for 36 years, achieving the rank of distinguished professor. 34

elly Old World-accent that supposedly resonates the wisdom of the ages. The latest of Kissinger’s easily duped admirers is the Israeli apologist Martin Indyk, the author of the recent book Master of the Game: Henry Kissinger and the Art of Middle East Diplomacy. In this astonishingly shallow book, as well as a recent webinar sponsored by the Middle East Institute, Indyk lauds Kissinger for his step-by-step approach to Middle East diplomacy, which he credits with giving rise to the Oslo “peace process.” The Oslo framework— a fraud that has enabled the ongoing and illegal settler occupation of Palestine—has been thoroughly discredited, yet Indyk argues with a straight face that it offers the only viable path to peace. None of this is a surprise, as Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, has long been a member in good standing of the Israel lobby and a cheerleader for Zionist state aggression and the repression of Palestinians. One can expect nothing less—he was first executive director of AIPAC’s think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). Even Indyk admits that when Kissinger entered the Nixon White House, he was a Eurocentric “Orientalist” who “didn’t know anything

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about the Arab world by his own admission.” On the other hand, Kissinger was a dedicated Zionist, which had led him to visit Israel six times prior to his executive appointment. Kissinger—like Indyk and a series of U.S. diplomats, from Dennis Ross to Secretary of State Antony Blinken today—sided unequivocally with Israel and against justice for Palestinians. Indyk showers credit on Kissinger for bailing out Israel in the October 1973 war and for his subsequent much glorified shuttle diplomacy, while glossing over the fact that Kissinger had sabotaged Secretary of State William Rogers’ peace plan based on U.N. Resolution 242, in the aftermath of the June 1967 war. By pushing Rogers aside, the ever-opportunistic Kissinger took over his job in the Nixon and later Ford White Houses. Indyk chides Kissinger for not pursuing a “Jordanian solution” to the Palestine conflict, but Kissinger had no interest in Palestine, which, as he explained in 1974, was “not an American interest, because we don’t care if Israel keeps the West Bank if it can get away with it. So, we won’t push it.” Here we see the real Kissinger— utterly disdainful of the U.N., the Palestinian quest for peace, justice and human rights, just as he disdained the cause of other dark-skinned peoples across the world, including millions of Asians, Latin Americans and Africans. In 1975, Kissinger expressed regret albeit privately, explaining, “I am sorry that I did not support the Rogers effort” to forge a peace accord. He acknowledged that a diplomatic agreement with Egypt could have been negotiated that “would have prevented the 1973 war.” Kissinger thus admitted that his ignorance and disdain for the Arab and Palestinian position had precluded a peace accord and brought on a major war. Failing to prevent war and further militarizing the Middle East conflict were the hallmarks of Kissinger’s failed statesmanship. Both Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford made sporadic attempts to act as honest brokers in the Middle East, occurrences that left Kissinger caught between the adJANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

ministrations and Israel. When Israel and the lobby publicly criticized Kissinger amid a dispute over military resupply during the short-lived Ford administration, Kissinger in a “crying voice” prostrated himself before the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Simcha Dinitz, pleading that he “was a Jew before I was an American and now you are making me the scapegoat.” He added—in a vivid example of the extent of Israeli influence over American diplomacy—“I showed you messages, telegrams and wires from the Soviet Union and Egypt,” only to be criticized publicly in return. In addition to his bungling Middle East diplomacy, Kissinger infamously greenlighted the undermining of Chilean, Argentinian and other Latin American democracies; bolstered apartheid in southern Africa; signed off on a murderous Indonesian assault on East Timor; and gave a thumbs up to Pakistan’s genocidal attack on Bangladesh. Even the much ballyhooed and long overdue détente with

Russia and China, for which Kissinger has claimed enormous credit, stemmed from a misguided hope that the great powers could compel the North Vietnamese to grant the United States “peace with honor” amid the massive, failed Indochina intervention. Nixon and Kissinger prolonged the Vietnam War for four years, achieving nothing but a wider degree of death and destruction in the process. Upon his death, Kissinger no doubt will be lauded, his mythical overseas accomplishments celebrated for days on end. But beneath the veneer of statesmanship the actual historical record reveals the true Kissinger: a deeply flawed diplomat who nurtured utter contempt for justice, human rights and peace. (Even Indyk admitted Kissinger had “quite a jaundiced view of peace,” but so does Indyk, so that wasn’t a big problem for him.) So, Henry, when the time comes, may you rest in peace—despite the utter disregard you showed for it throughout your life. ■

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

United Nations Report

December Sees a Flurry of Middle East Resolutions

By Ian Williams

PHOTO BY LUAY SABABA/XINHUA VIA GETTY IMAGES

first order. This very same inALONG WITH CHRISTternational community—speakMAS trees and lights, Deing through the principal politicember saw the traditional cal and legal organs of the flurry of Middle East resoluUnited Nations—has estabtions and the customary lished the widely accepted and signs of floppy spines from detailed rights-based framethe usual suspects among work for the supervision and delegations. resolution of the Israeli occuAs is typical, despite Israeli pation of Palestine. AccordAmbassador to the U.S. ingly, the protracted Israeli ocMichael Herzog’s fiery statecupation must fully end.” ments, Israel could barely All the rest is commentary of muster a minyan among its course, since the intensity of few supporters. For all the the occupation and the barbarcaroling about the Abraity of its implementation, not to hamic Accords, Israel’s Arab mention the settlement activity, allies either kept their heads has been “countered” by indown or ritualistically concreasing acceptance from deldemned the occupation of egations eager to seize any Palestinian territories while excuse for Israeli mayhem. consorting with the perpetraLynk deserves further circutors. It would be hopelessly lation for his incisive description optimistic to discern shame of the lack of action. “Regretas the motive for the Gulf tably, the international commustates’ failure to speak up for nity’s remarkable tolerance for their new ally, but realpolitik Israeli exceptionalism in its condictates that while Morocco, duct of the occupation has alfor example, can effectively lowed realpolitik to trump rights, trade Jerusalem for Western power to supplant justice and Sahara it cannot admit impunity to undercut accountopenly to doing so. ability. This has been the conAt least the unholy Abraspicuous thread throughout the hamic coalition did not abort Madrid-Oslo peace process, the Human Rights Council which began in 1991.” examination of Palestine the Fireworks explode in the sky during the lighting ceremony of the main He explains the mechanism way they did with Yemen, Christmas tree at Manger Square in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, as well: “Israel, with little resisand this allowed Michael on Dec. 4, 2021. tance from major international Lynk, the rapporteur, to actors, has been able to successfully insist that negotiations with report to the General Assembly that “the international community the Palestinians are to be conducted outside of the framework of has been perplexingly unwilling to meaningfully challenge, let applicable international law and the prevailing international consenalone act decisively to reverse, the momentous changes that Israel sus, notwithstanding the imperatives of the rules-based international has been generating on the ground. This is a political failure of the order. This has enabled Israel to maintain an obdurate bargaining stance, with the endgame of formalizing its claims to East Jerusalem U.N. correspondent Ian Williams is the author of UNtold: the Real and to most, if not all, of its West Bank settlements, while acquiescStory of the United Nations in Peace and War (available from Middle East Books and More). ing to a Potemkin statelet for the Palestinians that would enjoy nei36

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This is naturally a sensitive issue. There is a particular language of diplother meaningful territory nor sovereignty. Israel’s entire existence is predicated on matic cliches employed on such occasions. For the international community, this has Western acceptance of title claims alIsrael is, according to its supporters, the created a troubling paradox: while there is legedly validated in ancient history. For only “vibrant” democracy in the region, and no conflict zone in the world where the the Palestinians, to accept the point would any resolution condemning it is ipso-facto United Nations has pronounced with as be to validate those spurious claims, “unbalanced” and “one-sided.” Of special much frequency and detail on the framewhich have expanded from the Western note this round was the decision that the work for conflict resolution, this framework Wall to literally undermine the Muslim resolution on Jerusalem had to refer to the has rarely informed the various Oslo-resanctuary itself. There are solutions avail“Temple Mount,” as well as the Haram allated peace process initiatives...that have able in a give and take dialogue, but what Sharif. It was used as the excuse to abstain successively collapsed in the absence of has been clear is that Israel has been by many countries, who accordingly give any sturdy legal scaffolding and political will doing the taking. more significance to a building that was deto sustain a rights-based resolution.” To make a stand on such trivia shows molished 2,000 years ago than those that For his part, Palestine’s Ambassador to that too many countries have fallen for this have been visible there for the last 1,300 the U.N. Riyad Mansour reminded his conjurer’s diplomatic prestidigitation: years. diplomatic colleagues that Israel was conpeople are so busy trying to tinuing to construct “colonial (Advertisement) follow the moves that they settlements”— with more overlook that the rabbit has than 60,000 additional Isbeen stolen and eaten. raelis settled in the occupied The U.S. delegate actuPalestinian territory in the five ally made an advertently years since the adoption of valid point, saying that Security Council Resolution voting year after year on the 2334 (2016), on which Pressame resolutions does nothident Obama, in a rare ing to bring the international access of vertebracy before community closer to a negoleaving, had abstained. tiated two-state solution So, if the president of the since “most of those texts” U.S. thought it was a bold are “unbalanced.” move to abstain on a resoluIt is long overdue for the tion which simply restated inU.S. to answer the questernational law, one should tion, if calling a site by the perhaps be indulgent for the name the locals use for it others who, for varying de“undermines the prospect grees of right-wing ideology of dialogue and cooperaand a desire to appease the tion,” then how much more Israel lobby in Washington, counterproductive is evictabstain on these resolutions. Playgrounds for Palestine is a project to build playgrounds for our ing Palestinians and allowBullying and arm-twisting go children. It is a minimal recognition of their right to childhood and ing settler vigilantes, with a long way in the U.S., as the creative expression. It is an act of love. police and military backing, Saudis have demonstrated Playgrounds for Palestine (PfP) is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit to run riot? on Yemen. organization, established in 2001. We’re an all-volunteer organizaBut in the Through the Australia and Canada love tion (no paid staff) that raises money throughout the year to conLooking-Glass world of inIsrael so much that they are struct playgrounds and fund programs for ternational diplomacy, it is prepared to sacrifice their atchildren in Palestine. clearly unbalanced to tell tempts to win a Security Selling Organic, Fair Trade Palestinian olive criminals to stop committing Council seat by voting oil is PfP’s principle source of fundraising. crimes. But we have let the against a resolution on a This year, PfP launched AIDA, a private crooks write the laws and peaceful settlement in the label olive oil from Palestinian farmers. frame the debate for too Middle East. They were Please come by and taste it at our table. long. Perhaps the Palestinijoined by arguably anti-Seans should move antimitic but inarguably racist We hope you’ll love it and make it a staple in your pantry. apartheid style resolutions Hungary, as well as the U.S. For more information or to make a donation visit: calling for incremental BDS and its four banana atolls, https://playgroundsforpalestine.org • P.O. Box 559 • Yardley, PA 19067 measures until Israel withthe Marshall Islands, Midraws.■ cronesia, Nauru and Palau. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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Canada Calling

Pushback to Canada’s Contract with Elbit

STAFF PHOTO C. BODNARUK

By Candice Bodnaruk

Activists protest military cooperation with Israel, including its purchase of Elbit technology, on Oct. 22 outside Polo Park Shopping Center in Winnipeg. Protesters carried placards that said “Cancel Elbit Drone Deal” and “Canadian Weapons Sales to Israel Equals War Crimes.” Passing cars honked their approval. ALTHOUGH THOUSANDS of Canadians have made it clear that they oppose their country’s support for Israeli apartheid, Canada is nevertheless moving ahead and doing business with Elbit Systems, an Israeli company complicit in the country’s apartheid policies. Canada signed a $36 million contract with Elbit in Dec. 2020 for a Hermes 900 StarLiner, a “civilian” version of Elbit’s military drone, the Hermes 900. The Cana-

Candice Bodnaruk has been involved in Palestinian issues for the past 14 years through organizations such as the Cana‐ dian BDS Coalition and Peace Alliance Win‐ nipeg. Her political action started with fem‐ inism and continued with the peace move‐ ment, first with the No War on Iraq Coali‐ tion in 2003 in Winnipeg. 38

dian government has stated the drone will be used to monitor pollution and keep Canadian waters safe. Allison St-Jean, senior communications adviser and press secretary to Minister of Transport Omar Alghabra, said the drone contract was awarded to Elbit through an open, transparent, independent and competitive procurement process. “Integrating remotely piloted aircrafts into our fleet will make our surveillance operations more robust than ever and it is important that Transport Canada has the equipment to keep Canadian waters safe, and to monitor pollution,” St-Jean said in an emailed statement. So far more than 12,000 Canadians have signed a letter to Alghabra asking him to cancel the Elbit deal. Organizations such

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

as Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), Canadian Voice of Women for Peace (VOW) and the Canadian BDS Coalition have urged the government to cancel the contract for months. “Despite what Canadian officials would like to have us believe, this drone is a weapon,” said Michael Bueckert, vice president of CJPME. He added that the Hermes 900 StarLiner is a slightly modified version of the armed drones that Israel recently used against Palestinians in Gaza. The Canadian campaign against the Elbit contract “really took off” during the Israeli airstrikes on Gaza in May 2021, which killed at least 253 people, including 66 children, Bueckert noted. He pointed out that Elbit drones have also been used against Gazans in previous offensives. He added that Canadian taxpayer dollars should not be used to increase the profits of an Israeli weapons company that builds drones to monitor and target Palestinian civilians under occupation. Elbit’s technology is also used for Israel’s apartheid wall, and the company additionally produces white phosphorus, cluster munitions, parts for tanks and fighter jets and sniper bullets, all of which have been used by Israel against Palestinians. The idea that Canada intends to use the drone for environmental purposes in the Arctic does not change that fact, Bueckert said. Bueckert added that if Canada were complying with its responsibilities under the Arms Trade Treaty, it would ensure its actions are not contributing to human rights violations. “There is no such thing as doing ethical business with an Israeli weapons company,” he emphasized.

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO TRIES TO MAKE AMENDS The University of Toronto extended another job offer to Dr. Valentina Azarova in JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

June 2021, but she declined the overture. The new offer came after the university had cancelled Azarova’s hiring earlier in the year, because of her views on Israel. Zionist organizations, as well as a sitting judge who is a major donor to the school, interfered in the hiring process and pressured the university to rescind her employment contract. At the time, the University of Toronto stated it withdrew its job offer because of immigration issues, as Azarova was living in Germany. Azarova had originally been offered a position with the university’s International Human Rights Program. But the reality is that pro-Israel groups launched a targeted campaign to deny Azarova a position at the university. The Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), as well as federal judge David Spiro, a former director of CIJA, were involved in the effort to rescind Azarova’s job offer. B’nai Brith Canada also spoke out on the issue and went so far as to ask the federal government to deny Azarova a work permit, if the university did offer her a job. The University of Toronto’s decision to withdraw its job offer to Azarova was not without consequences. Once the announcement was made, several high profile academics cancelled speaking engagements at the school, including Canada’s former Governor-General Michaelle Jean, who is of Haitian descent and was scheduled to speak on systemic racism. In addition, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), in a 79-0 vote, censured the university in April 2021 for violating academic freedom. Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), along with a group of Muslim, Arab and Jewish organizations, including the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association, wrote an open letter to the university demanding that the school reinstate its job offer to Azarova. Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) also penned its own letter critical of the university. High profile organizations, like Amnesty International, also chose to distance themselves from the university. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

PHOTO BY EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

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Olives are processed to produce olive oil in a farmers cooperative in the northern West Bank town of Asira al‐Shamaliya on Oct. 25, 2021. Yet, David Robinson, CAUT’s executive director, noted that the president of the university insisted it was “business as usual” at the school. “But we saw immediately academics lining up,” he explained, adding that there was an excellent grassroots effort to ensure that people invited to speak at various university events were aware of the issue. “It was an incredible outpouring of support that the university really didn’t anticipate,” he said. He believes this public support “was absolutely critical to get the university to change its mind” and again offer employment to Azarova. Robinson said, although the University of Toronto’s second offer to Azarova included very strong academic freedom protections, he understands her decision to turn it down. “I think she felt that this is where it was a bittersweet victory. On the one hand, we got the university to change its mind and reverse course. On the other hand it was because of the experience that Dr. Azarova went through and the vilification that she experienced from outside groups, that she thought it was just too politically charged for her to accept the job at that point when she would be open to ongoing criticism,” he said.

Robinson pointed out that it’s unfortunate the groups who worked behind the scenes to stigmatize Azarova got their way in the end, since she didn’t accept the job. Educational institutions must learn that allowing donors and outside groups to dictate the parameters of academic freedom is a non-starter, Robinson urged. “What we have to guard against is the universities’ caving in to that kind of pressure,” he said. Dania Majid, president of the ACLA, believes pro-Israel groups have no plans to curtail their smear campaigns. “This scandal has not deterred those who wish to silence and censor the Palestinian narrative,” she said. “If anything they are even more adamant to do so and have intensified pressure on campuses to adopt the IHRA [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance] definition of anti-Semitism, which equates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.”

CREATING SOLIDARITY: ONE OLIVE TREE AT A TIME “My whole approach is that Palestine needs friends, so Zatoun creates friends for Palestine,” said Robert Massoud, founder of Zatoun olive oil.

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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STAFF PHOTO C. BODNARUK

mainstream media. Massoud saw olive oil as a way to bring “a real sense” of Palestine to people across the Atlantic, Palestinians and non-Palestinians alike. “Here in North America people can now participate with Palestine in a bottle,” he said. “If you can’t go to Palestine, it comes to you.” World events like 9/11, the Second Intifada, the killing of American activist Rachel Corrie in Gaza and the invasion of Iraq brought Massoud, who was born in Palestine, into the world of activism. He recalled thinking that he needed to do something outside of the typical activist agenda, such A Winnipeg activist protests home demolitions in the West as attending protests. As a Bank. The Israeli army bulldozes homes, shops and olive trees result, he launched Zatoun. to try to break the spirit and economy of Palestinians. Massoud said that from the very beginning Zatoun was intended to In a recent interview with the Washingbe more than just a product. Rather, it was ton Report, Massoud said he launched the created to be a pathway to tell the story of Ontario-based company in 2003 in an Palestine. To help fulfill this mission, Zatoun effort to bring Palestine closer to the people launched the “Trees for Life program,” of North America. which plants olive trees in Palestine. Growing up, he noted, the Palestinian diThrough Zatoun’s website, people are aspora in North America often felt isolated given the opportunity to purchase olive from their culture and unrepresented in the (Advertisement)

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

trees for planting in Palestine. Zatoun’s first program involved planting five olive trees for a $20 donation, however that was eventually changed to three trees for $20 due to increased expenses. Massoud said one of the main costs is providing water to the seedlings in the first few months of growth, which is crucial for the survival of the trees. “We started having to pay more for water because it had been diverted by Israel to the settlements,” he noted. The entrepreneur pointed out that olive trees are much more than an agricultural product to Palestinians. An individual tree often ties a family to a particular spot, he noted, providing them with a sense of “rootedness” to the land. This is why it is so devastating for Palestinians when illegal settlers or the Israeli military uproot olive trees or separate families from their land. “The rootedness and connection, that to me was the number one task of Zatoun,” he said. The project to plant trees is a long-term one, Massoud noted, given how long the trees take to produce fruit. “We have to recognize that an olive tree takes 50 years to show a mature yield,” he said. “Those trees are being planted for the future generations.” One of the problems Massoud has encountered in his work is crossing volatile divides and correcting presumptions about Palestine and Israel. “Palestine is a toxic topic that almost guarantees pushback and threats to one’s livelihood,” he noted. Yet, when people buy Zatoun for occasions such as family gatherings, there is an opportunity to showcase a humanizing side of Palestine that is often overlooked. “It creates an opportunity for someone to have that conversation with their families,” he said. He said Zatoun does not sell retail at the store level, because he prefers to deal with people on an individual basis. “When you are dealing with a person there is an exchange of learning and knowledge,” he explained. “When you buy something at the store it is a cash transaction. You are no further ahead of sharing the experience and knowledge, which Zatoun creates with direct person-to-person sales.” ■ JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

conference_ad_41.qxp_Conference Full Page Ad 12/9/21 3:38 PM Page 41

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fetouri_42-43r1.qxp_Special Report 12/9/21 7:38 PM Page 42

Special Report By Mustafa Fetouri

PHOTO BY JEFF J MITCHELL/GETTY IMAGES

The Lockerbie Bombing: A 33-Year Search for Truth

Mourners console one another during a memorial service for the 270 victims of the Lockerbie bombing on the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attack on Pan Am Flight 103 on Dec. 21, 2008 in Lockerbie, Scotland.

PAN AM FLIGHT 103 took off on Dec. 21, 1988, for a scheduled flight from the UK’s London, Heathrow Airport, heading to JFK Airport in New York. On board were 16 crew members and 243 passengers from over 20 nations. Only 37 minutes later the aircraft exploded in mid-air killing all onboard and 11 innocent residents in the small town of Lockerbie, Scotland. Over 33 years later, the actual culprits are still unknown and the truth of what happened is still deliberately hidden. The cause of the explosion, known as the Lockerbie bombing, was quickly believed to be a bomb hidden in the luggage area of the fuselage. The task of finding out what really happened and who could have committed such an atrocity fell to hundreds of Scottish police detectives, FBI special investigators, and secret service experts from the U.S., Scotland, and the UK. Additional investigation

Mustafa Fetouri is a Libyan academic and freelance journalist. He is a recipient of the EU’s Freedom of the Press prize. He has written ex‐ tensively for various media outlets on Libyan and MENA issues. He has published three books in Arabic. His email is mustafa fetouri@hotmail.com and Twitter: @MFetouri 42

teams and aviation experts embarked on endless searches for clues along the route of Pan Am Flight 103 before its arrival at Heathrow Airport. The doomed aircraft had already passed through Germany’s Frankfurt Airport after allegedly receiving an unaccompanied piece of luggage from Malta International Airport. This Samsonite suitcase is said to have contained the bomb that destroyed the aircraft. Frenzied media speculations, particularly from major U.S. media outlets, feeding on leaks from the George H.W. Bush administration, pointed the finger at Iran saying that the Islamic Republic had the motive and the sophistication to commit the mid-air mass murder. For instance, a Washington Post report, published on May 11, 1989, said that a radical Palestinian group, known as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), based in Damascus, Syria, carried out the attack on behalf of Iran. Why would Iran embark on such carnage? One plausible theory emerged. Less than six months before the Lockerbie tragedy, on July 3, 1988, a scheduled Iran Air Flight 655, flying across the Persian Gulf en route from Tehran to Dubai, was hit by two missiles fired from the USS Vincennes. The U.S. warship was protecting oil

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tankers transporting crude oil from Kuwait, in the midst of the bloody war between Iran and Iraq. The U.S. Navy admitted it had mistaken the civilian Iranian aircraft for an enemy fighter jet. The “human error” resulted in the death of 290 innocent passengers including 66 children. On Nov. 15, 1991, another narrative emerged, which would become the only “truth” the U.S. and UK would pursue. That narrative says that Libya, not Iran, is the culprit. On that day in 1991, U.S. Acting Attorney General William Barr told the world, during a news conference, that he indicted two Libyan citizens as the only perpetrators of the Lockerbie bombing. He named Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and his colleague, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, both employed at the Malta office of Libya’s state-owned airline. According to the indictment, Megrahi planned the attack in revenge for the U.S. bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi, two years earlier, in which Libya’s leader, Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, narrowly escaped the April 15, 1986 night attack on his home but which killed his adopted daughter and dozens of civilians. According to Barr, the plot went like this: Megrahi bought a few pieces of clothes from Tony Gauci’s Mary’s House boutique, a Toshiba radio cassette player and a Samsonite suitcase. He hid a small bomb in the cassette player, bundled it in the clothes before securing the bundle in the suitcase. His colleague, Fhimah, helped him access the Malta airport’s luggage area and deliver his deadly suitcase into the Pan Am Flight 103 luggage feeder, which was later loaded onto the doomed flight at Frankfurt Airport. The U.S. demanded that Libya surrender the two accused and Libya refused. After lengthy political wrangling and behind-the-scenes diplomacy, during which the North African country endured sanctions, economic blockade and a total ban on commercial flights, the U.S. and UK accepted a Scottish law professor, Robert Black’s, proposal for the two Libyans to stand trial in the Netherlands. Libya feared that holding the trial in the U.S. or UK would not be fair but welcomed one in a third JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

country. The entire population of more than six million Libyans paid dearly for a crime for which they proclaimed innocence. To end all the economic suffering, Libya finally agreed to extradite its two citizens—who never stopped protesting their innocence— to face trial. On April 6, 1999, the two men arrived at a specially built courthouse, located in a deserted U.S. base called Camp Zeist, near the Dutch city of Utrecht. On Jan. 31, 2001, the three Scottish judges found Megrahi guilty and sentenced him to life in prison. His co-accused, Fhimah, was acquitted. This was the first major flaw in the trial, which was quickly labelled as a clear “miscarriage” of justice by many law experts including the very man who designed the court, Prof. Black himself. Hans Kochler, the United Nation’s appointed observer, criticized the trial proceedings at Camp Zeist and cast doubt on its findings. Megrahi appealed but lost his first appeal on March 14, 2002 and was transferred to Scotland to start his sentence. He kept

Attorney General William Barr Announced a New Indictment

protesting his innocence to anyone who listened. One person in particular, was not only listening to Megrahi but believed him too. Dr. Jim Swire whose daughter, Flora, was on the doomed flight, would not only become friends with the single Lockerbie convict but start a campaign calling for retrial. Megrahi appealed again but he was diagnosed with cancer and told he had only a few months to live. Faced with the horrific prospect of dying in jail, he had to decide to either continue his appeal or drop it in lieu of a compassionate release, which Scottish law provides in cases of terminally ill inmates. On Aug. 20, 2009, Megrahi was freed on compassionate grounds and flew back to Libya where he was very warmly received. His release was met with outrage by some

U.S. victims’ families but not by many British families, who doubted his guilty verdict from the start. [Ambassador Andrew Killgore, publisher of the Washington Report, regularly interviewed Dr. Swire and wrote numerous articles on this subject. Killgore never doubted Megrahi’s innocence.] Once in Libya, Megrahi never stopped calling for a retrial because he, and hundreds of law experts, believed a retrial would find him innocent, given the mounting evidence pointing to miscarriage of justice during the first trial. Megrahi passed away in his home, surrounded by his family, on May 20, 2012—almost three years later— no closer to exoneration. However, Dr. Swire and many others in Scotland continued their campaign, pressing the UK government to release certain documents that would show Megrahi’s innocence. But for years, successive UK prime ministers have rejected all calls for public inquiry into the disaster and dismissed every defense request for some of the documents to be declassified. Never giving up, Dr. Swire teamed up with a volunteer Scottish lawyer, Aamer Anwar, and Megrahi’s son, Ali, who petitioned Scotland’s Criminal Cases Review Commission to review if Megrahi had a fair trial. In 2007, the commission decided to refer the case to Scotland’s highest criminal court. This meant that there were indeed, grounds for charging a miscarriage of justice. The defense team approached the commission again, asking for the total exoneration of Megrahi based on new evidence they had accumulated over the years. While the Scottish court was considering Megrahi’s appeal, 32 years after the Lockerbie bombing, on Dec. 21, 2020, William Barr, then Attorney General for President Donald Trump, announced a new indictment during a news conference reminiscent to the one he held in 1991, against another Libyan named Abu Agila Mohammad Masud. In his surprising announcement, Barr claimed that Masud is a member of Libya’s intelligence service with bomb making expertise and that he is the one who bought the clothes from Gauci’s bouContinued on page 45

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Special Report

On Displacement and Threatened Heritage: The Case of Egypt’s Nubians By Toqa Ezzidin

PHOTO BY KHALED DESOUKI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Nubians have a culture and language that is distinct from the country’s Arab majority. Their dark skin has made them the target of systemic racism, making it difficult to find acceptance in large cities such as Cairo and Alexandria. Racism is not the only obstacle Nubians have had to wrestle with, as their language, heritage and socio-economic welfare have also been under attack. While they are discriminated against today, the Nubians have played a distinguished role in Egyptian history. The Nubian’s own kingdom, Kush, ruled over Egypt during the 25th Pharaonic Dynasty. They created the largest Egyptian empire since the New Kingdom and reaffirmed Ancient Egyptian religious traditions, temNubian Egyptian women sell souvenirs in the village of Gharb Suhail near Aswan, on Feb. 5, 2020. Tens ples and artistic forms, while also of thousands of Nubians were uprooted from their homes to make way for the Aswan Dam in the 1960s. introducing some unique aspects of Kushite culture. EGYPT RELENTLESSLY attempts to portray its ethnic minorities Given this long history, the sudden displacement of Nubians was as kind, peaceful, welcoming, happy and equal members of society. particularly painful and took its toll on their language and culture, as As such, they are often depicted in the state’s tourism promotional both intrinsically depended on their nearness to the Nile River. This videos as picturesque and tremendously content. The reality, howdramatically changed when they were forced to move to newly-creever, is that the country’s ethnic minorities face constant discrimiated “alternative cities” such as Nasr al-Nuba following the creation nation and repression. of the dam. The Nubians are one of Egypt’s largest marginalized groups and These “alternative cities” did not provide Nubians with what their are descendants from a nation that once ruled over Egypt. For thouoriginal land offered culturally, socially and economically. Displaced sands of years, Nubians lived primarily in their ancestral lands in Nubians had few jobs available, thus the vast majority—particularly modern-day northern Sudan and southern Egypt. However, that younger generations—have abandoned these cities and moved to changed with the Egyptian government’s construction of Aswan’s rural areas in Upper Egypt and Northern Egypt, or emigrated to other Low Dam on the Nile in 1902, which initiated a decade of displacecountries. ment. The dam was later raised twice—in 1912 and then again in FIGHTING TO PRESERVE THE LANGUAGE 1933. With every expansion, Nubians lost more of their land, until In 2014, the new Egyptian government of President Abdel Fattah they were entirely displaced following the construction of the High el-Sisi set up the Committee on the Reconstruction and RehabilDam under President Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1960s. itation of Nubia to provide Nubians with land over the course of ten years. Three years later, the commission was dissolved. Toqa Ezzidin earned her master’s degree in intercultural and inter‐ Rania Salem of NubiYouth, a non-profit organization launched in national communication from American University’s School of In‐ Dec. 2019 to empower Nubians and preserve their culture, told the ternational Service (SIS) in Washington, DC. Ezzidin, now living in Egypt, is interning with the Washington Report. Washington Report that the biggest challenge to saving the lan44

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guage and culture of Nubians is not having the right to teach the Nubian language in schools—unlike foreign languages such as German and French. Mazen Alaa, a member of the Nubian Geographic Initiative that depicts the history of Nubia through photos, agrees. “The High Dam displacement was the biggest threat to the Nubian language,” Alaa explained. “Once people started leaving, they no longer practiced the language.” Various grassroots initiatives to preserve the Nubian language exist, and people are now investing their time and resources to learn the language. Nevertheless, Alaa believes that these individual initiatives cannot continue unless there is support from the government and solid sources of funding to ensure they thrive. Alaa added that one major obstacle facing the preservation of the Nubian language and culture is how history has been rewritten to either distort the role they played in the history of Egypt, or to bypass it altogether. Though not acknowledged in history books, Salem noted that the Nubian civilization was “one of the greatest and most innovative African civilizations to exist.” Alaa seconded Salem’s view on the distorted history of Nubians in Egypt’s history, saying that Egyptology as an academic field is Western-centric and has therefore tended to separate Ancient Nubia from Egypt’s history.

RACISM AND DISCRIMINATION

Nubian Geographic and NubiYouth are initiatives that have taken matters into their own hands when it comes to preserving

the heritage and culture of Nubia, as Nubians today live hundreds and even thousands of miles away from their indigenous land. Salem says that with the presence of social networks, NubiYouth—which launched in Washington, DC—has been able to reach Nubian communities globally under the commonality that they all want to educate and spread awareness about their history, culture and struggles. Salem believes that Nubian history should be included in school curricula as part of Egyptian history and NubiYouth attempts to instill a sense of cultural awareness and pride in children through fun games and activities. This should encompass all Egyptian minorities, because the case of Nubians is not unique, but rather largely emblematic of the challenges facing other ethnic minorities in Egypt, Salem said. Alaa believes that for any initiative to empower Nubians in Egypt, the government must show support. Private initiatives can do much to move the cause forward, but without government support the capacity for success is limited, Alaa noted. Furthermore, he believes that Egypt’s stubbornness against combating racism and granting Nubians their rights has led to a general reputation in other African countries that Egypt is biased against dark-skinned peoples—a charge that is politically used against Egypt and undermines its engagement with other African countries. ■

The Lockerbie Bombing

in an even more notorious U.S. jail in Guantanamo Bay. How credible could a confession be if it was extracted from anyone in a place famous for the torture of former Qaddafi officials? Another question directly pertaining to the merits of the Lockerbie bombing is how could two physically different persons (Megrahi and Masud) buy the same clothes from the same shop on the same day? It is also puzzling that Barr chose to make this new indictment in the last week of his tenure as attorney general. One reason could be that he wanted to come “full circle,” as he said in his announcement—since it was he who first officially announced the indictment against the two Libyans in 1991. As the thirty-third anniversary of the

Lockerbie tragedy approaches, there is growing doubt that Megrahi and his country Libya were involved. While waiting for the outcome from the UK Supreme Court, Aamer Anwar, Jim Swire, and Megrahi’s son, Ali, are considering their options in case the court rejects the appeal for the third time. However, there are three facts surrounding the Lockerbie tragedy that stand today. First, we are no nearer the truth about the Lockerbie bombing than we were three decades ago. Second, the UK/U.S. narrative has all but collapsed and they knew all along that an innocent man was jailed, and that collective punishment was imposed on the entire nation of Libya. And most importantly, third, that the U.S. and UK have not been truthful with Lockerbie families. ■

Continued from page 43

tique in which the explosive Toshiba cassette player was wrapped and placed in the suitcase that brought down Pan Am Flight 103. How did Barr know all this 32 years after the fact? He alleged that Masud made this self-incriminating confession in 2012 to Libyan investigators probing the car bombs used in the country’s 2011 civil war that ended, with NATO’s help, Qaddafi’s rule. At the time, Masud was incarcerated in a notorious jail controlled by Khalid alSharif, a top leader of the former terrorist group known as Libya Islamic Fighting Group. Al-Sharif’s former boss was Abdel Hakim Belhaj, who had spent a few years JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

When the Nubian displacement and internal migration to the cities took place, Egyptian movies started to portray Nubians and people with dark skin as doormen and hired help. They were made fun of, belittled and depicted as second-class citizens in these films. This depiction contributed to racism against Nubians in particular, and people with dark skin in general. “We’ve all heard the same racial slurs and have been discriminated against in so many ways just walking down the street,” Salem said. As a woman, Salem’s experience with racism against Nubians is even more troubling because it also often includes sexism and sexual harassment. “Being a woman is even scarier, the racial slurs have tones of sexual harassment. People do not believe we are Egyptian and that is only because of the color of our skin tone,” she said. “As if Nubians are a thing of the past. I’ve heard the worst racism occur in schools in Egypt. I have heard so many stories of children calling Nubian kids fahm (coal), soda (black) and other cruel names. Unfortunately, this happens in front of teachers with no repercussions for the students doing the name calling.”

PRESERVING THE HERITAGE

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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Talking Turkey

Postcard from Varosha, Cyprus’ Ghost City

PHOTOS BY JONATHAN GORVETT

Photos and Article by Jonathan Gorvett

The front of the ruined and abandoned Asterias Hotel on Kennedy Avenue in Varosha, Cyprus, Nov. 12, 2021. Varosha is home to dozens of abandoned hotels and apartment blocks, deserted since the arrival of Turkish troops in July and August 1974. THERE ARE SIGNS OF LIFE nowadays on Varosha’s Kennedy Avenue. The street has been freshly paved and a bicycle lane now runs from the hotel commandeered as a Turkish barracks all the way to the abandoned Golden Sands Hotel. On the way, the wide boulevard runs past the bomb-blasted reception hall of the Asterias Hotel, the shrapnel-splattered vacation apartments of Kennedy Court and the bullet-pocked Lordos and Argolis holiday flats. Go the other way, and you can also cycle or stroll back to the ruined Edelweiss Café, just below a U.N. observation post perched on top of an old, deserted office block. In the cafe, where Hollywood A-list movie stars once sipped cocktails, an old juke box has exploded outwards like a mechanical flower, while outside, a set of traffic lights is now just a series of metal hoops on sticks. Further on, a battered Coca-Cola sign still faintly promises, “It’s the real thing,” near a boarded-up and long-ago looted branch of

Jonathan Gorvett is a free‐lance writer specializing on European and Middle Eastern affairs. 46

the Bank of Cyprus. This is the forbidden zone of Varosha, or Maras in Turkish, which until 1974, was one of the Mediterranean’s top resorts. Home to thousands of mainly Greek Cypriots, it was also bustling with holidaymakers until, on July 20, 1974, Turkey invaded the island. This triggered a mass exodus of the population, with some 40,000 people fleeing from here, and the surrounding Famagusta area, in just a few days. Since then, no one has been able to return to their abandoned properties, hotel rooms and livelihoods. Many, indeed, never will, having passed away in the 47 years since those dark days. The 1974 Turkish invasion, launched after a Greece-backed coup aimed to unite Cyprus with Greece, split the island into a largely Turkish Cypriot north and Greek Cypriot south. Since then, negotiations under U.N. auspices have been trying to glue the two parts of the island back together—without success. In November 2020, the then new Turkish Cypriot leader, Ersin Tatar, announced that he was abandoning the idea of reunification and would instead now argue for international recognition of two states on the island.

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He also re-opened part of Varosha, which until then had been an abandoned bargaining chip in the reunification talks. Thus, the new pavement and bicycle lanes. Now, at the entrance to the once forbidden zone, security guards keep a careful record of the numbers going in and out, with the Turkish Cypriot authorities claiming more than 200,000 had visited by August 2021. Turkish Cypriot pop singer, Nihayet Elibol, even recently shot a video here, dancing on the sandy beaches to a backdrop of ruined and abandoned buildings. “Varosha is a very beautiful and touristic place for shooting clips and movies,” she tweeted after the video’s release. Surreal is a more frequently used adjective. “It’s a dystopic, zombie apocalypse-like place,” says Professor Erol Kaymak from the Eastern Mediterranean University in Famagusta, “but also oddly Disney.” Indeed, on the beach, next to the buckled and ruined King George Hotel, a line of brightly colored food carts serves fruit smoothies and ice creams. By a nearby boarded up Barclays Bank, a Turkish Cypriot security guard—one of many locals who have been given a Turkish police jacket and told to keep an eye on visitors—jests, “Sorry, the bank is closed today—and every day!”

THE FUTURE PAST When Tatar reopened the roadways, he also invited the former Greek Cypriot inhabitants to either return to their property or seek restitution for it, via the European Court of Human Rights’ recognized Turkish Cypriot Immovable Property Commission. The catch was, any Greek Cypriots who wished to return would have to do so as residents of Tatar’s Turkish Cypriot “state”—the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). Yet, recognized only by Turkey, the TRNC is anathema to most Greek Cypriots, whose leaders unanimously state they want reunification of the island, rather than anything that might give recognition to its de facto division. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

An abandoned and looted branch of the Bank of Cyprus in Varosha, Cyprus, Nov. 12, 2021. The U.N. talks—ongoing since intercommunal clashes led to the U.N. deployment on the island in 1964—are also based on the premise that both sides want to re-unite with each other, while Tatar’s move apparently making their resumption impossible. The Turkish Cypriot leader’s actions, however, are backed up by his close ally, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “Federation is no longer policy,” Kaymak says. “Instead, we have a completely negative agenda, where Tatar knows there are no takers for ‘two states,’ but he also thinks talking about a federation leads nowhere, too.” That latter point was recently underscored when Greek Cypriot newspapers printed leaked documents from U.N. talks at Crans-Montana in Switzerland in 2017. These strongly suggested that Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades had walked out when a potential deal was floated by the U.N. and Turkey. “The problem is, no one wants to solve the Cyprus problem except entirely on their own terms,” says Kaymak, “so a negotiated solution isn’t popular on either side.”

1970S THEME PARK For many who have campaigned for Cypriot reunification, this negative strategy is devastating. For them, reopening Varosha was long seen as a first step toward a reunited Cyprus, rather than “two states.”

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Miles of abandoned hotels and apartment blocks line the beach at Varosha, Cyprus, on Nov. 12, 2021. While most of the old resort has remained off limits to visitors since 1974, some roads were reopened by the Turkish Cypriot authorities in November 2020. “I wanted to throw up when I first saw it,” Mertkan Hamit, a member of the Turkish Cypriot pro-solution group, Famagusta Initiative, told the Washington Report. “It was like something from one dream had become hijacked by another—a nightmare.” Over the summer, and in collaboration with Greek Cypriot allies, the Initiative organized activities to protest the re-opening.

They had to stop these, however, when it became clear “it was quite painful for our Greek Cypriot friends to go there,” says Hamit. Indeed, for many Greek Cypriot former residents, a visit can be deeply traumatic. For other, younger Greek Cypriots, however, it can be difficult to recall what was lost—indeed, Varosha may not be a place they are familiar with at all.

“Some Greek Cypriots’ parents or even grandparents might have lived in Varosha, but have now died, leaving title deeds to a place their descendants never knew,” says Kaymak. “Those younger generations might think, well, if there’s never going to be a settlement and some developer will give me a few thousand for this title deed, why not?” Many pro-reunification Greek and Turkish Cypriots now fear that, little by little, Varosha will be bought up, demolished and rebuilt, largely by mainland Turkish developers, who are closely linked to Erdogan’s presidency. In this way, the division of the island would become solidified still further, in the fresh asphalt—and later, concrete—of a new resort. Indeed, back in July, Tatar announced a small section of residential property would soon be reopened for resettlement or restitution. “It’s a trial balloon,” says Kaymak. “They want to see just how many Greek Cypriots would accept.” For now, the gates are closing again at Varosha, as the night falls and the tourists are ushered out. For how much longer its streets will remain silent though, remains a key question for all Cypriots, both north and south on this divided island. ■

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History of Killing Children Continued from page 20

al-Hallaq, an autistic teenager. Real heroes would have arrested him, not shot him to death. But why bother if you can kill and become a hero? Most of the children that the army and the Border Police kill should not have been killed. Now it’s worth it to kill them, the media will crown you “the hero of the Old City.” These are your heroes, O Israel, the killers of children and teenagers. ■

Israel and Judaism Continued from page 27

units in several West Bank settlements. State Department spokesman Ned Price said, “We strongly oppose the expansion of settlements, which is completely inconsistent with efforts to lower tensions…and it damages the prospects for a two-state solution.” Axios reported that Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the Israeli Defense Minister, Benny Gantz, and told him that both the number of housing units and their locations deep inside the West Bank were “unacceptable,” according to Israeli officials. In October, Mondoweiss reported that, “Prime Minister [Naftali] Bennett comes from a far right-wing party that opposes a Palestinian state and backs the settlers. His government coalition includes several right-wing parties and the Israeli government, under a Constitutional law, holds that Jews have the ‘exclusive’ right of ‘self-determination’ in all the land between the river and the sea.” According to the International Jerusalem Post, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said that the plan to build new housing units in the settlements “‘puts the world, especially the U.S., in front of great responsibilities to confront and challenge the fait accompli imposed by Israel.’ He called on the international community to make Israel ‘pay the price for its aggression against our people.’” These Israeli government actions are helping to accelerate the retreat from JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

Zionism in the American Jewish community. Support for Zionism is, indeed, “unraveling” because it is widely seen as indifferent to the long history of Jewish moral and ethical values. A new generation of Jewish Americans is now rediscovering those humane values and finds Israel’s behavior, such as its assault on Palestinian human rights organizations and increasing its illegal settlements in the occupied territories—to be the opposite of what Judaism requires. Particularly objectionable is that such actions are committed by a state which describes itself as “Jewish” and claims to speak on behalf of all Jews, millions of whom are citizens of other countries. In an October 2021 interview with the International Jerusalem Post, Knesset Speaker Mickey Levy declared that “Israel is the home of the Jewish people and the Knesset represents the State of Israel and the entire Jewish world.” How long can Israeli leaders continue to make such claims in the face of Zionism’s decline in America remains to be seen. It is becoming increasingly clear that Israel’s behavior contradicts traditional Jewish values. There is no doubt that this reality will soon be reflected in U.S. Middle East policy. Zionism is finally becoming recognized for what it is, an ethno-national movement which is indifferent to Judaism’s humane prophetic tradition, a tradition a younger generation is now rediscovering. ■

NO NEW ACTION TO REPEAL AUTHORIZATIONS FOR USE OF MILITARY FORCE (AUMF) All of the previously described measures to repeal authorizations for military force that have been passed by the House still are stuck in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. S. 2835, introduced in September by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL), which would “terminate authorizations for the use of military force and declarations of war no later than 10 years after the enactment of such authorizations or declarations,” still has two cosponsors. S.J. Res. 10, introduced in March by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), to repeal the AUMFs against Iraq of 1991 and 2002, now has 46 cosponsors. S.J.Res. 22, to repeal the AUMF of 2001 after one year, introduced in August by Sens. Ben Cardin (DMD) and Durbin, has gained no cosponsors. H.R. 255, introduced by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) in January to repeal the AUMF of 2001 now has 86 cosponsors. ■ (Advertisement)

Congress Watch Continued from page 31

and Bernie Sanders (I-VT), “to provide for clarification and limitations with respect to the exercise of national security powers,” has gained no new cosponsors. The other measures to curtail the use of the War Powers Act also have gained no further support. H.R. 1457, the “Reclamation of War Powers” bill, introduced by Rep. James Himes (D-CT) in March still has only four cosponsors, and H.R. 2108 introduced in March by Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) still has 34 cosponsors. WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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ARAB AMERICAN ACTIVISM

The Arab America Foundation hosted the “CONNECT Arab America: Empowerment Summit” on Nov. 12-14 in Dearborn, MI. The event included panels and speakers from around the country and highlighted musical and artistic acts from Arab Americans of all backgrounds. Two Saturday panels specifically highlighted Arab Americans in public office. “Service and Solutions: Arab Americans Seeking Public Service,” a panel moderated by Al Jazeera’s DC bureau chief Abderrahim Foukara, brought together three government officials and one congressional hopeful. Susan Dabaja, an attorney and the first Arab American president of the Dearborn City Council, spoke about the expectations and goals that come with being both Arab and American, especially the expectation to get married and have children while also pursuing an ambitious career. “If there’s anything that I can drive to Arab American girls and women,” she said, “it is that we can achieve it all.” Bilal Hammoud, public engagement associate at the Michigan Department of State, reflected on Dearborn’s importance as the symbolic capital of Arab America. “What you do when you’re at that center is what defines you…they wanna see us slip, they wanna see us make a mistake,” he said, urging his peers to take advantage of the scrutiny. “Showcase what makes us great, showcase our culture…showcase why our community has so much talent.” Dabaja and Hammoud also discussed the importance of intersecting local, state and federal policy to expand Arab American culture and community outside of isolated pockets like Dearborn and into broader America. Assad Turfe, chief of staff to the Wayne County Executive Office, echoed Hammoud’s positivity, explaining how recent generations of Arab Americans have broken through into all different kinds of public life. “We have talent, we are assets,” he exclaimed. 50

PHOTO COURTESY ARAB AMERICA

Arab American Leaders Reflect on Their Successes

(L‐r) Mayor‐elect Abdullah Hammoud, Mayor‐elect Amer Ghalib, Mayor Bill Bazzi, Mayor Andre Sayegh and moderator Zenna Elhasan. Rana Abdelhamid, an activist running for New York’s 12th Congressional District, took a slightly more somber tone. Growing up in a working class community in Queens, Abdelhamid, 28, has experienced systemic discrimination, gentrification, racism and climate injustice throughout her life and was the victim of a hate crime as a teenager. She does not see increased representation as a success on its own, but instead believes that progress will be marked “in the moment when we…aren’t so afraid to exist in the cities we exist in.” The panel “Meet the Mayors: Arab Americans on Their Challenges and Triumphs,” moderated by Zenna Elhasan, general counsel for the Kresge Foundation, brought together mayors and mayorselect to discuss how their identities help them minister to and connect with their constituents. Amer Ghalib, mayor-elect of Hamtramck, MI, explained how being a Yemeni immigrant was a huge asset to connecting with the diverse constituency in his city, given his experience living in two very different cultures and speaking two very different languages. Bill Bazzi, mayor of Dearborn Heights, MI, explained that while growing up in a small Arab American community after leaving Lebanon, his mother taught him to always serve, look out for those around him and focus his energies on helping

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grow and develop his community. Andre Sayegh, mayor of Paterson, NJ, also emphasized how family impacted his politics and how he has used what he learned from his culture, parents and wife to inform the social programs he has pursued throughout his term. Michigan State Representative and Mayor-elect of Dearborn Abdullah Hammoud talked about the changes he has witnessed since becoming the first Arab and Muslim state representative. “I think success is actually not in being the first, it’s in demonstrating that Arab Americans can do as good a job as anyone else,” he said. Hammoud added that he is committed to diversifying his staff and appointees to empower future generations. “You have to be intentional,” he said, explaining that with a few changes to recruitment practices, “you’re going to automatically catch those Arab Americans who are highly qualified, who have been overlooked.” Speakers from both panels discussed the difficulties of running for office in a discriminatory political climate, but also offered messages of hope to young Arab Americans. Ghalib especially emphasized the importance of voting. “Your vote here in the United States is your weapon, you need your vote,” he said. He also encouraged everyone to “get involved and run for office” if they want to see change and progress in their communities. —Elisabeth Johnson JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022 JUNE/JULY 2020

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After many months of meeting on Zoom, the National Arab American Women’s Association (NAAWA) gathered in person on Oct. 23 to connect, catch up and continue to build a sense of community. There was a festive feel to the outside tent-topped patio at Bawadi Mediterranean Grill and Sweets Cafe in Falls Church, VA. It was a relief to see friends from Virginia, Maryland and DC again and eat delicious food. The event grew serious as community leaders updated the group on the work they’ve accomplished despite the challenges of COVID-19. It was back to Zoom for a speakers’ panel, “Arab-American Women Authors Reflect on Roles, Identities and Contributions,” on Dec. 5, moderated by NAAWA board member Hiba Kassab. The Zoom platform seamlessly connected panelists with viewers who discussed how books that delve into the journeys and identities of Arab-American women can “unmute our voices.” Egyptian-American Dr. Sahar Khamis, a professor of Communications and Women’s Studies at the University of Maryland in College Park, is the author of Islam Dot Com, Egyptian Revolution 2.0 and Arab Women’s Activism and SocioPolitical Transformation. She called for a solidarity movement across the fragmented Arab world to orchestrate change. COVID-19 has exacerbated hardships for women in the Middle East and closer to home because “women are the hardest to hire and the easiest to fire” during an economic downturn. Huda Al-Marashi, the Iraqi-American author of a memoir, First Comes Marriage, discussed the challenges she faced reconciling her personal expectations and those of her family, “frozen in the 1970s Iraqi diaspora community.” She admitted that her book took her 10 years to write because she was paralyzed by fear imagining terrible consequences, like being disowned or not being able to show her face in her local masjid (mosque). Al-Marashi discovered she had her own cultural JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

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NAAWA Meetings Strengthen the Arab American Community

NAAWA attendees pose after an invigorating lunch, on Oct. 23, 2021. stereotypes, believing that readers in the West would be more accepting of her work than Arab readers. She was completely wrong and was delighted to receive support in her own community, including aunties pulling her aside at weddings saying, “I see myself in your story.” Cross-cultural therapist and artist Hala Lababidi Buck, author of Bridge Between Worlds: A Lebanese-Arab-American Woman’s Journey (available from Middle East Books and More), agreed, adding it took her 14 years to write her own memoir. She, too, was worried about “putting herself out there in a world where you are the other” after the attacks on 9/11. As the Arab American wife of a diplomat, who moved every few years, Buck recalled always searching for a sense of belonging and hope. “When you write your own story to share with your children and grandchildren all of a sudden your life makes sense,” she said. Arab Americans are a human bridge with one foot in our adopted country and the other in our native land, Buck noted. That can be painful or a great gift, when you see the view of both sides from that bridge. “It’s our responsibility to help people cross over,” she concluded. ˆ—Delinda C. Hanley

MUSLIM AMERICAN ACTIVISM CAIR Honors Rep. Ilhan Omar at Virtual Gala The national office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) honored Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) as “American Muslim Public Servant of 2021” at its annual fundraising banquet, held virtually on Dec. 4. The Muslim congresswoman was recognized for her commitment to public service and courage in the face of anti-Muslim bigotry from fellow members of Congress, such as Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). While CAIR has called on congressional leaders to censure Boebert for her Islamophobic and racist statements, no action has been taken against her. “I know it has been a difficult week not just for me but for Muslims across the country,” Omar said, after thanking CAIR for the award. “We still have a long way to go before anti-Muslim hate and bigotry is fully recognized and punished in our political discourse.” “For far too long rhetoric like Lauren Boebert’s has been a routine part of our political discourse both in the United States and around the world,” Omar said. “The only

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Rep. Ilhan Omar addresses the Council on American‐Islamic Relations’ virtual banquet, on Dec. 4, 2021. way we will root it out is by using our voices and speaking up as loudly as we can against it. We will not win the fight for our civil liberties, for our civil rights and for our human rights by staying quiet and by not speaking out. We will win them by organizing and building solidarity for an America that respects everyone’s rights regardless of their religion.” Rep. André Carson (D-IN) praised Omar for being “an inspiration to Muslims across America and around the world.” Pointing out CAIR’s important work, Linda Sarsour, executive director of MPower Change, urged the audience to support CAIR, an organization that “will stand side-by-side with families or children who have been impacted by Islamophobia.” Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) thanked the organization for its efforts “to lift up the voices of the American Muslim community in the media, in the courts and in Congress…and in building a just future for the next generation of Muslim Americans and for all our communities.” The CAIR “Chapter of the Year Award” was presented to Sacramento Valley/Central California for, among other actions, its assistance to Afghans fleeing their homeland following the U.S. withdrawal of military troops from Afghanistan this past summer. Northern California is expected to receive the largest number of Afghans in the United States. The chapter also managed one of the largest census campaigns for the Muslim community in the country. 52

“CAIR chapters are as strong as their local community, which provides the board members, staff, volunteers and resources,” said Basim Elkarra, executive director of the Sacramento Valley/Central California chapter. “We have been blessed with amazing board members that have the vision to grow and support our work. I truly work with a dream team.” The evening’s array of speakers, including Gadeir Abbas, Zanah Ghalawanji, Rahim Sharma, Huzaifa Shahbaz, Ruqaiya Dasti, Zainab Chaudry, Robert McCaw, Edward Mitchell, Roula Allouch, Annie Torres and Dr. Omar Suleiman, discussed the important work CAIR has undertaken during the past year, which saw a dramatic increase of Islamophobia, bullying and discrimination against Muslims. “CAIR proudly defends the American Muslim community,” said the organization’s national executive director Nihad Awad. “We inspire American Muslims to be who they are. We defend their rights and we fight Islamophobia...which is not only at home, but is global.” —Elaine Pasquini

WAGING PEACE Visualizing Israel’s Global Arms Hustling Susan Abulhawa gave attendees of this year’s Edward Said Memorial Lecture valuable insight into how “Israel has created a business model of turning blood

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into money.” Widely known for her novels and poetry, as well as for founding Playgrounds for Palestine, Abulhawa said that for this lecture hosted by the Jerusalem Fund on Oct. 22, she returned to her scientist and researcher foundations. Abulhawa commented that although she did not know Edward Said personally, as a young activist she internalized his lament on the lack of Palestinian presence in literature and it was this that caused her to shift from working in pharmaceuticals to writing. However, she said this lecture in his honor is “not about literature, though it does have to do with narrative and perception.” Abulhawa’s spark for research into Israel’s global arms trade and exports came after “seeing a random statistic that showed Israel among the top exporter of arms in the world,” she said. As she got deeper into the statistics and history of its arms trade, Abulhawa realized Israel’s global arms industry history is a story inextricably linked to “its surveillance, diamond, and military or police training industries,” which are in turn tied to Israel’s oppression of Palestinians. She explained that this research is ongoing because even institutions like the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) that track arms deals underestimate Israel’s historically secretive arms industry. She also noted that SIPRI does not track small arms, illegal sales or banned weaponry—like the white phosphorus or bunker-busting bombs used against Palestinians—nor do they track drones, which are a major weapons niche for Israel. Through intrepid digging and a little math, Abulhawa discovered that starting in the late 1960s, Israel rose to become not only the leading importer of arms, but by the ’90s had also become one of the top ten global exporters. From 2016 onward, Israel was consistently the number one importer and exporter per capita of arms in the world. Abulhawa noted that it is very rare for a country to be first in both, but the rise in the charts could be linked to every major offensive against Palestinians and neighboring states. Simply, Israel’s economic growth is linked to conflict, both as a consumer and a supplier. “War is big business for Israel,” she noted. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

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A graphic from Susan Abulhawa’s dynamic presentation on the Israeli arms trade. This is underscored by the data. “In raw numbers, only three countries top both import and export charts—Israel, Germany, and China—but per capita, Israel holds the top rank in the world, followed by Norway,” she noted. But, as Abulhawa stressed, “Israel is in a league of its own,” with import and export peaks linked to its aggressions and wars against their neighbors and especially against Palestinians. There are three main factors that have fueled Israel’s arms industry growth. The first is that Israel, by design, is a militaristic society, evident in the fact that every Jewish citizen must serve in the military. Second, in its early history, Israel’s biggest exports were Jaffa oranges and cut diamonds. The diamond moguls of South Africa, Oppenheimer and De Beers, supported Israel early on with cash and money for settlements. Over time, the relationship grew into the trade of raw diamonds for cash and arms as the South African apartheid regime grew more repressive. It also provided entry into the African continent. By the late 1980s, Israeli arms dealers were heavily involved in blood diamonds and minerals in exchange for the weapons that fueled civil wars, genocides and war crimes. They also armed U.N. embargoed countries and often armed both sides of the same conflict. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

Third, Israel’s own occupation, conflicts and suppression of Palestinians allowed dealers to market its arms and surveillance technology as “field tested,” and to provide training grounds for foreign police and military. Because the Israeli High Court has given cover to the Israeli occupation forces for decades, it’s only natural that they continue to do so despite scandals involving the hard to distinguish relationship between the Israeli state and arms dealers. As Abulhawa noted, “As far as their high court is concerned, money flowing to Israel is more important than the truth.” Exploiting the cheap blood of Palestinians and Africans, Israel’s military industry has thrived and grown. Whether small or banned arms, nuclear and cyber technology, military and police training, “Israel has become the biggest arms hustler in the world,” Abulhawa noted. Today, the trade of diamonds and arms accounts for 30 to 40 percent of Israel’s exports. Israel’s overall economy is “predicated on the industries of arms and gems, both of which in turn are predicated on extraordinary human rights abuses, death, misery oppression and environmental degradation,” Abulhawa concluded. —Julia Pitner

Israel’s Systematic Surveillance of Palestinians How does the Israeli government’s reliance on cyber spyware and surveillance

technologies pose a risk not only to Palestinians and their supporters, but also the global community? This question underscored much of the discussion surrounding the webinar, “Welcome to the Panopticon: Israel’s Systematic Surveillance of Palestinians and the Implications for the World,” hosted by the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP) on Nov. 18. A recent Washington Post investigation, which demonstrated that Israel has been systematically increasing surveillance on Palestinians in the West Bank by building a database that integrates facial recognition, set the stage for much of the talk. Avner Gvaryahu, executive director of Breaking the Silence, remarked that he, along with his peers, were simultaneously “surprised and very unsurprised” by the revelations. In particular, the former Israeli soldier was surprised at how widespread and accessible these technologies were to everyday soldiers and even Israeli citizens. In fact, the Israeli government and certain universities provided extra credit to students to monitor Palestinian social media, while also encouraging Israeli citizens to take pictures of Palestinian adults, children and the elderly. Andrew Anderson, executive director of Front Line Defenders, highlighted Israel’s use of the NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware to track Palestinian human rights organizations. Anderson’s own organization, based in Dublin, found Pegasus present on six phones belonging to members of the human rights groups recently designated as “terrorist” organizations by the Israeli government. Anderson described Pegasus as “particularly pernicious” because the software gains “access to everything that’s on your device and also has the potential to compromise anybody else you’re in communication with.” Both Anderson and Marwa Fatafta, a policy analyst at Al-Shabaka, The Palestinian Policy Network, both emphasized that such surveillance not only entails political and security threats for Palestinians, but also works to hinder their free expression. As Fatafta emphasized, Palestinian activists and civilians often self-censor and are constantly worried that anything they send

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A man points at surveillance cameras in the Palestinian West Bank city of Hebron, on Nov. 9, 2021. Recent reports have exposed the magnitude of Israel’s surveillance program targeting Palestinians.

The Rise and Demise of Lebanon’s Financial System The World Bank has called the collapse of the Lebanese financial system one of the worst economic crises of the last 150 years. Dr. Hicham Safieddine, an assistant professor of history at the University of British Columbia, explored the history of Lebanon’s banking system, as well as the contemporary economic challenges of the country, in a Nov. 10 online interview with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Amid a round of austerity measures in 2019, Lebanon’s government announced

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or post could be used against them by Israeli authorities. Not only do these cyber technologies stand opposed to freedom of speech, the right to privacy and safety, and disproportionately impact Palestinians, they are also often misused to label Palestinians as terrorists. Sophia Goodfriend, who works with the nonprofit 7amleh that advocates for Palestinian digital rights, explained that the spyware relies on algorithms that do not pick up on the nuances of speech, underlying contexts or differences in dialect, and are programed to seek out “incendiary words” such as “martyr.” Toward the end of the conversation, each panelist agreed that the threat of these new technologies extended far beyond Palestinian borders. Governments are exchanging these technologies and software programs and can now track exiles abroad, including political dissidents. But as Anderson reminded listeners, we can attempt to counter this with “the continued support… of the legitimate work” of human rights defenders. “Surely this episode will serve as a stark warning against any deployment of the term ‘terrorist’ against any human rights defender anywhere in the world,” he said, “and renew efforts to rein in the use of spyware against human rights defenders, journalists and other civil society activists.” —Janna Aladdin

a “WhatsApp tax,” levying fees on the use of the popular messaging application. Hundreds of thousands of people subsequently took to the streets to protest the tax. Although the tax was ultimately rescinded, the people’s anger has not. “The ‘WhatsApp tax’ was only the straw that broke the camel’s back of an already broken fiscal and monetary system,” Safieddine said. Since then, there have been persistent crackdowns on protests by security forces, a total breakdown of the banking system, a currency collapse, a breakdown of basic electricity services, a fuel shortage crisis and a port explosion that killed over 200 people. “It’s hard to keep up with and make sense of all of these developments,” Safieddine noted. Banque du Liban, the country’s central bank, is at the heart of the crisis, Safieddine explained. Central banks perform four functions: They act as the government’s financial agent for the purposes of fiscal management, issue and manage a national currency, regulate the banking sector and encourage the growth of national money markets. Lebanon has a “deeply flawed problem” with some of these functions of the central bank, he noted. Established in 1964, the Banque du Liban’s creators had visions of it being “the bank of the Arab world,” Safieddine noted. Just like Switzerland is the “money warehouse for Europe,” they wanted it to act as the money warehouse of the Arab world.

Lebanese security forces secure the entrance of the country’s central bank after anti‐ government protesters broke down a construction barrier, on Nov. 11, 2019.

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Lebanon’s debt is also very problematic, Safieddine said. “The first [issue] is dollarization, which means that a substantive amount of the debt is in U.S. dollars,” he explained. This becomes a problem when a struggling country like Lebanon cannot pay the debt back. As to whether Lebanon might get help from foreign governments, Safieddine said, “For the people of Lebanon I don’t want corrupt politicians to get more money without some form of accountability.” Safieddine, the author of Banking on the State: The Financial Foundations of Lebanon, warned that the financial crisis is not going away and “we must not let… the agenda of the political actors who are…now plotting for the upcoming elections in 2022 dictate our analysis or our outlook on what is going on in Lebanon.” —Elaine Pasquini

Biden, Iran and the GCC: Prospects For a Return to Diplomacy On Nov. 3, the Gulf International Forum held a virtual session entitled, “Biden, Iran and the GCC: The Return of Diplomacy?” The session ran as part of the organization’s annual conference, with guests including Sir Richard Dalton, a British diplomat from 1970 to 2006; Dr. Mohammed Al-Rumaihi, a former adviser to Kuwait’s Council of Ministers; Dr. Sanam Vakil, deputy director of the Middle East North Africa Program at Chatham House; and Dr. Ebtisam Al-Ketbi, president and founder of the Emirates Policy Center. The discussion centered on whether the Arab Gulf states will turn toward a diplomatic approach in dealing with Iran, in light of recent attempts at rapprochement. Dalton identified several factors that have recently jeopardized stability in the region and make it difficult to attain a vision for a peaceful and shared future. “We should ask ourselves what underlies this regional disorder,” he said. “I would suggest [several] things. Power is highly personalized. There is a high level of emotion and ideology, including fears of the other, and norms of interstate behavior are set aside. Governments claim they are acting lawfully, but in fact we can see that JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

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Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani departs from multilateral talks in Vienna, Austria on Dec. 3, 2021. The talks failed, with the U.S. accusing Iran of not being serious about rejoining the nuclear deal, which was first violated by the Trump administration in 2018. they legitimize, subjectively, their self-interested actions.” Dalton added, “The Gulf region has no common sense security cooperation arrangement that would require transparency, consultation, confidence building and communication in crises. In the absence of that common power, states of the region have to create their own order.” According to Al-Rumaihi, the source of the problem goes back to the 1979 Iranian Revolution and Tehran’s ongoing quest to export the revolution to neighboring countries, including the Arab Gulf states. He offered a rebuke of what he believes is a theologically-based plan of Iranian aggression. There are groups loyal to Iran, such as the Houthis in Yemen, whose faith is based on Mecca’s demise in preparation for the emergence of the Mahdi, he said. “The problem of ideology: the Houthis, for instance, think that AlMahdi Al-Montazar, this gentleman who some of the Shi’i believe will come at the end of time, has to come after the collapse of Mecca. Their goal is to occupy Mecca and destroy it.” Al-Rumaihi summed up his position by saying, “I do believe that the governments of the Gulf are peace-seeking governments. They don’t want any problems or

any wars, but unfortunately it takes two to tango as they say, and the Iranians are pushing for an ideology which is not accepted by most of us.” Vakil argued that restoring the diplomatic path with Iran can be traced back to several causes, one of which is the new U.S. administration. “This is an administration that is trying to balance values alongside its interests, and, as part of that, the Biden administration has prioritized ending the Yemen war, and particularly tried to shift its support for that process by only providing defensive military equipment to Saudi Arabia rather than offensive equipment,” she said. “At the same time, the Biden administration has been significantly investing in diplomacy.” Other factors include the rise of new Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who wants to attain a tangible achievement that distinguishes him from his predecessors. (Despite this optimism, nuclear talks held in Vienna at the beginning of December quickly collapsed, revealing a deep chasm between Washington and Iran and rejuvenating talks of U.S. military action.) Al-Ketbi offered several points for an effective dialogue with Iran. “It will be helpful to start a dialogue with Iran, first [with] nonpolitical disputes, away from major out-

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standing issues,” she said. “Such a dialogue can enhance cooperation in security and politically sensitive areas, such as combating the spread of pandemics and countering organized crime and smuggling. Other areas of collaboration can include climate change, environment, water, agriculture, livestock, regional trade, transport, oil, gas and power.” Some participants expressed pessimism regarding the outcome of the dialogue. For example, Vakil said, “I am quite concerned that GCC states will see outcomes in Vienna as an excuse or another reason to return to patterns of containment rather than pursuing this sort of nascent engagement that we have been seeing.” In any case, one of the key events that we should keep our eyes on in 2022 is the cautious rapprochement between the Gulf states and Iran. —Mona Ali

North African Countries Struggle For Peace, Democracy On Nov. 10, the Middle East Institute (MEI) launched its North Africa and Sahel program with a virtual event on the internal dynamics of this geopolitically important region. Karen Sasahara, deputy assistant secretary of state for North Africa, delivered the keynote address, followed by a panel discussion. The Sahel and North Africa suffer from the same challenges that have contributed to popular uprisings such as the Arab Spring, including “unfulfilled democratic aspirations, socio-economic inequality and climate crisis,” Sasahara said. These issues remain unresolved and “will require both local leaders and policy practitioners to embrace change and undertake bold new approaches.” In Libya, the public is clamoring for elections, she said, while in Tunisia citizens are watching a crumbling economy and wondering whether they have seen the dividends of their ten-year-old democratic experiment. “This is a sober reminder that democracy is neither binary nor linear and backsliding is always a risk if citizens’ frustrations are not addressed,” Sasahara observed. 56

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A man votes in Algeria’s municipal elections, on Nov. 27, 2021, in the capital of Algiers. “One of the most significant threats to democratic governance globally, both in established and emerging democracies, is corruption and socio-economic inequality,” Sasahara continued. In North Africa, the spread of market economies has brought tremendous revenue to parts of the region, but also inadvertently expanded the gap between the haves and have-nots, she noted. “Democratic reform continues to offer North Africa and the world the best chance at a stable and prosperous future,” Sasahara argued. “It will not follow a linear path and advances and retreats are inevitable. New democracies will be particularly vulnerable as their systems race to catch up with citizens’ aspirations.” Climate change is one of the starkest examples of a problem that spans borders, and this is particularly evident in the Sahel and North Africa, Sasahara noted. The Sahara has been expanding by more than 2,900 square miles a year and is now 10 percent larger than it was in 1920. Drought has contributed to migrants from the Sahel moving northward, causing some to find themselves dragged into new political and military conflicts. Niagalé Bagayoko, chair of the African Security Sector Network, addressed the importance of diplomatic ties and diplo-

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macy between Maghreb countries and other Muslim-majority countries in Africa. “Morocco used to look at Europe…but under the leadership of [King] Mohammed VI there has been a very crucial shift in African diplomacy,” she related. “Similarly, the foreign policy of Algeria towards the countries of the region is very rich and has a very old tradition. The relationships between all of those states are much deeper than we Western actors tend to suspect.” Riccardo Fabiani, director of the International Crisis Group’s North Africa division, discussed the current tensions between Morocco and Algeria, pointing out the two countries have had troublesome relations over the past several decades. The current conflict between Morocco and Algeria stems from Morocco’s declaration of sovereignty over the Western Sahara, which Algeria opposes. The Trump administration’s decision to legitimize this claim in 2020, in exchange for Morocco establishing offical diplomatic ties with Israel, has hastened tensions between Algiers and Rabat. “These factors have led to a change in the status quo and increased tensions between the two countries because the previous balance was based on a frozen conflict and a de facto substantial equalJANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

ity between Algeria and Morocco,” Fabiani said. “There is a perception, particularly in Algeria, that they need to do something that will send a strong message to signal that they do not accept a change in the status quo and whatever the status quo is going to be will have to take into consideration Algeria’s perspective and security interests in the equation,” Fabiani explained. “There are fears of open war between Morocco and Algeria,” he added. —Elaine Pasquini

Exploring Morocco’s Occupation of Western Sahara On Nov. 3, the Campaign to End the Occupation of the Western Sahara, in partnership with the Institute of the Black World 21st Century and the Pan African Unity Dialogue, hosted a webinar on the ongoing Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara. The webinar, hosted by Bill Fletcher, the co-coordinator of the Campaign, focused extensively on the historical context and development of the occupation. Speakers brought together varied expertise and experience to answer questions posed by Fletcher, beginning most fundamentally with, “To whom does Western Sahara belong?” Ambassador Sidi Omar, the Polisario Front’s representative to the U.N., noted that the international community—represented by the International Court of Justice—stated clearly in 1975 that Morocco does not have sovereignty over Western Sahara. Such a statement was of course met with great resistance by Morocco and unraveled into war and later ceasefire, followed by a failed referendum and ongoing political strife. Katlyn Thomas, the first legal adviser to the U.N. Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), recalled being present when, in 1991, the U.N. negotiated a ceasefire to the 16-year war between the Western Sahara’s Polisario Front liberation group and the Kingdom of Morocco. MINURSO also laid out plans for a referendum on Western Saharan self-determination to take place in 1992, but the poll never occurred due to JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

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Thousands take to the streets of Madrid to demand self‐determination for Western Sahara, on Nov. 13, 2021. procedural disputes between Polisario and Morocco. Omar and Thomas explained that in 2006 Morocco proposed a resolution centered on regional autonomy but not selfgovernance for Western Sahara. Polisario rejected the proposal. The conflict thus remains ongoing, especially considering former President Donald Trump’s agreement to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in 2020. The announcement was followed by an uptick in violence and Polisario declaring an end to its ceasefire with Morocco. The questions, “why should anyone care” and “who are the international key players” underscored much of the panel discussion. Dr. Jacob Mundy, associate professor of peace and conflict studies at Colgate University, reminded the audience that Morocco received considerable U.S. aid during the Cold War, subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, and continues to receive U.S. funding today. Further still, he argued this is a question of selfdetermination, making it a pressing global justice issue. Omar similarly added that this dispute is a matter of political principles, and that Western Saharans ought to have the right to self-determination. The panelists noted that Spain, which

controlled Western Sahara until 1976, and France both maintain a large role in the Western Sahara dispute. Given their colonial histories, they ultimately favor Moroccan claims over the Western Sahara. Thomas explained that the U.S. also played a “nefarious role” in the Western Sahara, as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger supported Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara after Spain withdrew from the territory. As Fletcher pointed out, some audience members might question why Morocco endeavors to remain in Western Sahara, especially if natural resources—mainly fisheries and phosphate—do not seem to be the sole motivating factors behind its occupation. Omar believes that expansionism is central to Moroccan statecraft and ideology. In a slightly different vein, Mundy proffered that Western Sahara offers a central cause for Moroccans to unite around, creating a sense of national cohesion and aspiration. This is reflected by the seemingly scarce civil protest and organizing against the occupation in Morocco itself, across political and ideological lines. The panelists agreed that as the conflict continues it is likely to spill and grow into a larger regional conflict, hindering any progress toward peace. —Mary Murphy

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Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El‐Fattah gives an interview at his home in Cairo, on May 17, 2019. He was most recently arrested in Sept. 2019 and is currently being held in isolation as he awaits a trial on charges of spreading false news.

HUMAN RIGHTS Egyptian Activist Continues to Languish in Prison

On Nov. 18, Egyptian pro-democracy activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah celebrated his 40th birthday inside an Egyptian prison. El-Fattah has been in and out of prison over the past decade due to his outspoken advocacy in the authoritarian state. He is currently charged with spreading false news and is being indefinitely detained pending the outcome of a trial. According to reports, El-Fattah’s mental state is deteriorating as a result of his detention, worsened by his lack of access to his family and to reading material. To commemorate his somber birthday, Access Now and the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy held a webinar to share some of his writings, which have been published in the recently released book, You Have Not Yet Been Defeated: Selected Works 2011-2021. The collection of essays, letters and speeches is currently available in the UK and will be released in the U.S. at the end of March 2022. Ahdaf Soueif, El-Fattah’s aunt, read a selection from his 2017 essay, “A Portrait of the Activist Outside His Prison.” The ex58

cerpt focused on the need for activists to be defiantly in charge of their own narratives. “I’m in prison because the regime wants to make an example of us,” El-Fattah wrote. “So let us be an example, but of our own choosing….Let us be an example, not a warning. Let’s communicate with the whole world again, not to send distress signals, nor to cry over ruins or spilled milk, but to draw lessons, summarize experiences and deepen observations.” Wafa Mustafa, a Syrian journalist and activist, shared the poignant 2014 reflection entitled “I’ve Reached My Limit,” written inside Egypt’s notorious Tora prison. In this selection, the activist lamented the depravity of prison. “There is no dignity for a body that is deprived of the embrace of its loved ones,” he wrote. Ramy Raoof, an Egyptian technologist, shared a 2011 piece titled “Half an Hour With Khaled,” in which El-Fattah reflected on the chaos and moral righteousness of the Egyptian Revolution. “We race toward the bullets because we love life, and we walk into prison because we love freedom,” he wrote. Finally, Melody Patry, advocacy director at Access Now, shared a 2017 letter ElFattah wrote to RightsCon from his prison

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cell. “Fix your own democracy,” he implored the audience. “This has always been my answer to the question, ‘How can we help?’ I still believe it’s the only possible answer. Not only is where you live, work, vote, pay taxes and organize the place where you have the most influence, but a setback for human rights in a place where democracy has deep roots is certain to be used as an excuse for even worse violations in societies where rights are more fragile.” Marwa Fatafta, Middle East and North Africa policy manager at Access Now, concluded the virtual gathering by recognizing the unimaginable suffering El-Fattah, a public intellectual and technology guru, is facing under prolonged isolation. “When Alaa has an audience, he’s always willing and ready and eager to engage,” she noted. “The Egyptian authorities know this very well, and deprive him of access to books or exercising outside, pretty much losing that human connection.” —Dale Sprusansky

George Washington University Succumbs to Pro-Israel Pressure Amid a generalized global campaign by the Israel lobby of undermining freedom of speech on the Palestine issue, the George Washington University (GWU) has stooped to an “all-time low” by undermining support for its own Palestinian student population. Despite widespread criticism and a formal civil rights complaint, GWU is standing by a blatantly discriminatory policy that targets Palestinian students and undermines freedom of speech at the Washington, DC institution. It may be months before an investigation spawned by the civil rights complaint filed by Palestine Legal can compel the university to withdraw a decree summarily shutting down a program that offered virtual space and psychological support for Palestinian students. The civil rights complaint stems from the university’s arbitrary decision—sparked by complaints from the campus’ Hillel chapter as well as donors and at least one member of the Board of Trustees—to shut down services offered by the GWU Office of Advocacy and Support (OAS). In June 2021, in the wake of Israel’s most recent JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

PHOTO COURTESY PALESTINE LEGAL

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Students protest George Washington University’s decision to terminate psychological support for Palestinian students after receiving complaints from pro‐Israel groups and donors, on Nov. 19, 2021.

violent assault on Gaza and amid ongoing ethnic cleansing operations in East Jerusalem, the OAS offered a virtual space for GWU students to process and grieve the assaults on their community. Previously social media space for processing and grieving had been provided by the OAS for African American students in the wake of the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor killings in 2020, to Asian American students in the wake of the March 2021 Atlanta spa shootings, and to other students who had suffered a range of affronts ranging from discrimination to sexual assault. Only the social media and support space provided for Palestinian students has been challenged and summarily shut down by the university. The GWU action is a “clear cut case of discrimination and illegal activity,” said Radhika Sainath, senior staff attorney at Palestine Legal, which filed the civil rights complaint with the DC Office of Human Rights. “The law is really clear that educational institutions cannot discriminate against groups based on their national origin,” Sainath noted. To deny Palestinian students support “because their pain is inconvenient is not just wrong, it’s illegal.” On Nov. 22, 2021, GWU President Thomas LeBlanc said the university was investigating the complaint. He insisted that GWU valued “the health and safety of members of our Palestinian community,” JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

but he declined to lift the gag order on the OAS. “The statement is essentially meaningless without an apology and remedial action,” Sainath noted. GWU has stooped to an “all-time low” by continuing to single out Palestinian students and to deny them the psychological support that is available to other groups on campus, she added. The GWU action directly undercuts the work of Nada Elbasha, an advocacy specialist in the OAS who ultimately registered the complaint with Palestine Legal. Elbasha noted that the OAS was supporting Palestinian students in the same way it supports other groups “that don’t necessarily have a space or feel safe to convene.” The virtual support space was designed to “mitigate the long-term effect of the harm and trauma of witnessing what was happening overseas to family and friends in Gaza and elsewhere in Palestine,” she pointed out. “I felt it was important for OAS to reach out and provide support for Palestinians in our community.” Within 24 hours of announcing the processing space on social media, Elbasha’s supervisor informed her that the virtual event was being forcibly canceled and all social media posts pertaining to Palestinian suffering were being shut down by the administration. “We were being told the president’s office had received numerous complaints from donors and others” who falsely equated support for Palestinians with anti-Jewish prejudice, Elbasha re-

called. “It’s ridiculous and unfortunate that such a prestigious university with so much knowledge and resources” would embrace disinformation, an assault on free speech and undermine support for a marginalized group of students, she added. Elbasha, who is Palestinian, “has not been spoken to or recognized by the administration as a Palestinian person also affected by this action.” She was “not surprised” by LeBlanc’s refusal to lift the gag order and remains “offended about not being permitted into the discussion, having my own identity erased.” Elbasha continues to work in a climate of repression and uncertainty while the civil rights complaint is being investigated. Her office has received support from Students for Justice in Palestine and thousands of individuals who have publicly condemned the GWU action. “It feels very fragile here, but mainly it is worrisome that my clients, the students, will continue to suffer,” she said. —Walter L. Hixson

FILMS “Boycott” Warns Against Ceding First Amendment Rights to Israel If Americans think Israel is just another foreign policy issue, they are decidedly mistaken. The new film “Boycott,” directed by Just Vision’s Julia Bacha, catalogues how the contentious debate surrounding U.S. policy toward Israel has come to jeopardize the First Amendment rights of all Americans. In recent years, 33 states have passed bills that in some way regulate the extent to which individuals and private businesses can criticize Israel, especially as it relates to the non-violent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The film tracks the legal efforts of three very different people challenging the constitutionality of these laws: Alan Leveritt, the founder and publisher of the Arkansas Times; Bahia Amawi, a child speech pathologist from Texas; and Mikkel Jordhal, an activist and attorney from Arizona. The power of “Boycott” rests in its masterful use of these three cases to demon-

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“Boycott,” directed by Julia Bacha and produced by Suhad Babaa and Daniel J. Chalfen, debuted at the NYC DOC film festival on Nov. 14, 2021. strate how anti-BDS laws jeopardize the rights of everyday Americans, regardless of their beliefs. Leveritt is the perfect case study of this reality. He thought very little about Israel until he was asked to sign a government document affirming his newspaper would not boycott Israel. Despite his agnosticism on the politics of the issue, he refused to sign the pledge on principle. “Israel has no real bearing on Arkansas,” he says in the film, pointing out the absurdity of the state legislature passing restrictive laws regarding criticism of the foreign country. “The state has no business getting involved.” Amawi, on the other hand, is a Palestinian American who knows well the dynamics of the Israel-Palestine “conflict.” Her views were never the focus of public scrutiny until she declined to sign an antiBDS pledge the state required her and

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other public schools employees to endorse. As a mother, she felt compelled to show her children the importance of standing up for what is right, so she sued the state with the assistance of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Jordhal was prohibited from giving legal advice to prisoners as a result of his refusal to comply with Arizona’s anti-BDS law. A former activist against apartheid in South Africa who has seen firsthand the reality on the ground in Palestine, he simply could not comply with the law. Beyond following these cases, “Boycott” offers a plethora of information as to how pro-Israel networks in the U.S. operate. The film openly discusses the power of the Israel lobby, while also leaning heavily into cultural explanations for Zionism, such as Evangelical Christianity. In fact, the film begins with Arkansas State Senator Bart Hester (R) explaining how his religious convictions led him to introduce the state’s antiBDS bill. None of this background is particularly groundbreaking to those in the know, but it serves as a solid lay of the land for neophytes. This approach is understandable, as “Boycott” is ultimately a broad but pressing warning against ceding American values to any cause. In violating the precedent set by NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. in 1982, which upheld the rights of Blacks to engage in boycotts as part of their struggle for civil rights, anti-BDS laws jeopardize a fundamental First Amendment right. This, the film makes clear, is grounds enough to vociferously oppose such laws. The trickle-down effect of these laws is evident in the film. The Arkansas Times, a

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free local newspaper, is forced to surrender critical advertising revenue from statefunded institutions due to its failure to comply with the anti-BDS law. Amawi is forced to halt her work in schools, even though she is the only speech pathologist certified in Arabic in her school district. Meanwhile, prisoners in Arizona lose access to Jordhal, a trusted confidant and ally, due to their state’s anti-First Amendment law. Worse yet, the film shows how anti-BDS bills have served as a precedent to target individuals and corporations for their beliefs on other matters. For instance, Texas used the law as a template to bar the state from doing business with those who boycott or divest from fossil fuels or the gun industry. While the film leaves viewers to grapple with the ramifications of Israel’s assault on free speech in the U.S., it does end on a hopeful note, showing all three plaintiffs celebrating court rulings in their favor. It should be noted the Arkansas case is being appealed, and Leveritt told the audience at the film’s Nov. 14 premiere at New York City’s SVA Theatre that he is concerned the court will reverse the prior favorable decision. Regardless of legal outcomes, “Boycott” puts Americans of all stripes on notice: Abrogating the First Amendment for any cause is a slippery, dangerous slope. —Dale Sprusansky

Film Tells the Stories of Palestinian Children Detained by Israel In 1991, Israel ratified the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which stipulates that children must not be unlawfully or arbitrarily detained and must “not be subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Despite this, Israeli forces target Palestinian children for arrest; in many cases, Palestinian children are detained multiple times. In the first three months of 2021, 230 Palestinian children were detained by Israel. On average around 700 children face detention annually. According to the Palestinian branch of Defense for Children International (DCIP), 85 percent of the children arrested last year were “subjected to physical violence.” JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

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A Palestinian child explains his detention by Israeli forces.

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their own healing process while understanding that their stories would also help draw attention to the overall issue. She explained that many of the detained children continue to struggle with PTSD, depression and a lack of self-esteem as a result of their mistreatment. She explained that the separation from their families and the isolation in detention causes psychological damage that has long-term effects on the children’s’ development. For instance, the longer a child spends in military detention, the more difficult it is to reintegrate into school and resume their life. And, like their adult peers, the experience leaves lingering trauma from the psychological torture and physical abuse.

Voices From the Holy Land Film Series Continues in 2022 Voices from the Holy Land (VFHL) is a coalition of more than 100 interfaith organizations (Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Quaker and Unitarian) that began sponsoring documentary film presentations after the 2014 Israeli bombing of Gaza. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19

AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

As the new documentary “Caging Childhood: Palestinian Children in Israel’s Military Detention System,” jointly produced by DCIP and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) underscores, Israel’s violation of the CRC is common. The film follows the stories of 16-year-old Osama, who was held at gunpoint while Israeli soldiers knelt on top of him; 17year-old Qusai, who was arrested in his home at 3:00 in the morning; and 17-yearold Islam, who was forced to sleep outside in the cold overnight while he was being detained. Through their voices, the film highlights the various types of violence, arbitrary detention, arrest, mistreatment and torture the children endure, as well as the emotional and psychological impact of being targeted by Israel’s security system. The inaugural screening and virtual panel discussion took place on Universal Children’s Day, Nov. 20, as part of DCIP and AFSC’s #NoWayToTreatAChild campaign, which aims to end the Israeli military detention of Palestinian children. The panel was moderated by Zeina Ashrawi Hutchison, a Palestinian-American rights activist and community organizer, with discussants Manar Al-Amleh, international advocacy officer at DCIP, based in Ramallah, and Brad Parker, leader of DCIP’s legal advocacy efforts on Palestinian children’s rights. Al-Amleh explained that the film highlights the situation Palestinian children face and noted that the three children who agreed to tell their stories did so as part of

Parker explained that under the military court system, the children are not allowed to see lawyers for days and are often moved around to different detention centers in the West Bank. Families often spend a lot of money just to locate their child and to hire attorneys to secure their release. He pointed out that the most difficult thing for these children is not being allowed to see anyone who can help or advise them and the language of interrogation and “confession” being Hebrew. While both speakers acknowledged the efforts of a few in Congress, like Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), to protect Palestinian children, their hope is that the film will be used to activate and educate around the plight of Palestinian children. The group has also put together a discussion guide for hosting a screening of the film. Resources and the film can be accessed online at: <https://nwttac.dci-palestine.org/documentary_caging_childhood>. —Julia Pitner

“Gaza: Still Alive” will be the first film screened by the Voices from the Holy Land’s Online Film Salon in 2022. WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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pandemic in March 2020, we’ve hosted Online Film Salons. Each month, registrants receive a link allowing them to watch that month’s documentary at their convenience. Then, on a given Sunday, all registrants gather online to discuss the film with panelists. Smaller gatherings in breakout rooms wrap up the discussion. Some past discussions of note include: • Abby Martin wins lawsuit upholding the right to support BDS. Two months before our July 2021 viewing of Abby Martin’s film, “Gaza Fights for Freedom,” a court in Georgia ruled on a lawsuit in favor of the journalist and filmmaker, stating that supporting or promoting boycotts of Israel is constitutionally protected activity. The Georgia law is similar to others passed in more than 30 U.S. states aiming to suppress free speech in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement launched by Palestinians in 2005. • Muna and Mohammed El-Kurd: Changing hearts and minds. We met Mohammed in the short film “Home Front: Portraits from Sheikh Jarrah” (salon of May 2020). Twins Muna and Mohammed have become the faces of a global campaign to halt Israeli efforts to forcibly dis-

place Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah to make way for Jewish settlers. In September, the two were named on Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world. • Discussion in Delaware: “The Ruins of Lifta.” On May 20, a virtual film event was held by the Islamic Society of Central Delaware in Dover. The event, fostered by Voices from the Holy Land and a multifaith group of clergy and laity in Rehoboth Beach, was a big success. Discussion of the film “The Ruins of Lifta” (salon of October 2020) included the producer Menachem Daum, Imam Arqum Rashid and the rabbi of nearby Congregation Beth Shalom. Our upcoming salon will focus on mental health. “Gaza: Still Alive” is the featured documentary for the Online Film Salon on Jan. 9, 2022, at 3:00 p.m. ET. Visit <www.voicesfromtheholyland.org> to register and receive a link to view the film for free. The salon will feature: Samah Jabr, M.D., a psychiatrist and psychotherapist living in East Jerusalem who serves as the head of the Mental Health Unit within the Palestinian Ministry of Health. She is featured in the documentary film “Beyond the Front Lines,” and is a founding/steering committee

member of the Palestine-Global Mental Health Network. Harry Fear, an independent journalist and filmmaker, best known for his reporting on the European migrant crisis and his coverage from inside the Gaza Strip. He focuses on the experiences of communities and individuals stricken by conflict and oppression. Elizabeth Berger, M.D., a child psychiatrist living in New York and a founding/steering committee member of the USA Palestine Mental Health Network. She has been involved in clinical training and program planning with colleagues in Palestine for many years. The January 2022 VFHL Online Film Salon is co-sponsored by USA Palestine Mental Health Network, and PalestineGlobal Mental Health Network. Groups interested in organizing film screenings and discussions are encouraged to contact VFHL for help in finding the right films, obtaining screening rights and organizing the event. This article is an excerpt from the Fall issue of the SPOTLIGHT, edited by Jamie Jackson. Request the newsletter (as well as other announcements) from VFHL at <voicesfromtheholyland.org/contact>. —Steven Lapham

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Public Intellectual: The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim By Richard Falk, Clarity Press, 2021, paperback, 474 pp. MEB $29.95

Reviewed by Walter L. Hixson Richard Falk, 91, has written an honest and inspirational memoir about his life and lifelong work as a public intellectual—a “citizen pilgrim” dedicated to building a better future for humanity and for the planet. A distinguished professor of international law for decades, Falk is perhaps best known for his fearless advocacy of justice in Palestine. Beginning in 2008 he served for six years as the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Occupied Palestine. Driven by a determination simply “to tell the truth,” Falk issued a dozen in-depth U.N. reports on “the evolving nature of the oppressive Israeli regime of occupation, annexation, settlements and systemic apartheid.” Like other advocates for truth and justice in Palestine, Falk has been met with Israeli stonewalling in response to factual reporting. He has encountered Israeli and U.S. denunciations of the U.N. and efforts to withhold U.N. funding, as well as personal attacks. Over the years the United States invariably backed Israel in undermining the U.N. effort to promote human rights, peace and justice in the Middle East.

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 (available from Middle East Books and More), along with several other books and journal articles. He has been a professor of history for 36 years, achieving the rank of distinguished professor. 64

In response to his evidence-driven reports, Falk was repeatedly smeared as Israel and its lobby “portrayed me as an anti-Semite and extremist.” Marginalized within the academy as well as the public sector, Falk encountered “closed doors that had previously been wide open,” as newspapers, magazines and book publishers, formerly enthusiastic about his expert assessments rooted in international law, began to reject his work out of hand while public speaking invitations diminished. “It took me a long time to realize the degree to which refraining from serious criticisms of Israel, however justifiable, had become politically and socially mandatory in middle class urban America, especially among Jewish liberals.” Falk himself was born into a New York Jewish family, but he did not embrace either the religion or Zionism. Falk openly discusses a loveless childhood relationship with his mother and in later years his four marriages, culminating in an enduring relationship of more than a quarter century with a Turkish woman, Hilal Elver Falk, who like her husband is an expert on international

law. Falk enjoyed sports throughout his life and was a “closet poet,” but his enduring legacy flows from his “enthusiasm for and insistence upon American foreign policy shaped by international law and responsive to widely shared ethical principles.” Falk enjoyed a distinguished academic career, serving for more than 40 years as a professor of international law at Princeton after undergraduate studies at Penn. After graduating from Yale Law School, he enjoyed several productive years as a law professor at Ohio State University. Throughout his life Falk has repeatedly displayed the courage of his convictions by going against the grain of U.S. foreign policy. In the early 1960s he publicly defended Fidel Castro and in 1968 met with Ho Chi Minh and other North Vietnamese leaders as part of a delegation trying to bring an end to the Indochina war. Similarly, Falk traveled to Tehran to meet with Ayatollah Khomeini and others amid the tumult of the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Since his marriage to Hilal, Falk has been enmeshed in Turkish politics and international relations. Falk has never wavered in his advocacy of justice in Palestine, as he has spoken out repeatedly in support of binational coexistence based on equality, mutual respect and human rights. He explains, “No issue of our time is more ethically compelling for me, given my social location as Jew, American and progressive humanist, than the plight of the Palestinian people, and the responsibility of my country and its government for indefinitely prolonging this ordeal.” Late in life Falk’s work as a public intellectual and pilgrim has centered on “seeking to make the world more humanistic while becoming more ecologically oriented.” He rejects the concept of “world government” as impractical yet advocates adoption of a global system of ethics as rooted in the U.N. Charter. He calls for racial and gender equality under international law, combined with adoption of “more humane, less predatory versions of capitalism.” Falk condemns the U.S. and the West for the failure “to extend the human rights imaginary to economic, social and cultural rights.” While admitting that “my early hopefulness has been increasingly challenged by an avalanche of discouraging developJANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

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ments,” Falk insists that the true public intellectual and pilgrim should “die trying” to make the world a better place. Readers of this compelling memoir will put it down armed with renewed inspiration to carry on with the struggle for peace, justice and environmental protection.

The Dangers of Poetry: Culture, Politics, and Revolution in Iraq By Kevin M. Jones, Stanford University Press, 2020, hardcover, 320 pp. MEB $35

Reviewed by Janna Aladdin In July 1920, the renowned Shi’i poet Muhammad Mahdi al-Basir stood in front of a large crowd of Shi’i and Sunni mawlid (religious festival) attendees at the Hydarkhanna Mosque in Baghdad and publicly atoned for his former support of the British. His poetic exhortation for Sunni-Shi’i unity resounded through the mosque as he offered himself as a martyr for the sake of the watan (homeland). The British grew anxious over al-Basir’s performance, as his poetic recitations galvanized huge crowds into anti-colonial fervor. Rebel poets such as al-Basir take the stage—quite literally—in Kevin M. Jones’ engaging and ambitious book, The Dangers of Poetry: Culture, Politics, and Revolution in Iraq, which provides translations and analysis of their poetry from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Janna Aladdin, assistant director of Mid‐ dle East Books and More, is earning her Ph.D. in History and Comparative Litera‐ ture and Society at Columbia University. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

Despite their shared belief in the effectiveness of poetry as a catalyst for social and political change, these rebel poets came from different—often competing— ideologies and aesthetic positions, grew jealous over recognition, and sometimes cast poetic aspersions on each other. In placing rebel poets within popular culture, Jones makes a convincing argument for analyzing poetry as the very battleground over revolutionary politics, culture and freedom of expression. Rebel poetry, according to Jones, was both “the dominant cultural discourse and dangerous social practice of the long anti-colonial struggle in Iraq.” By providing a popular medium to debate hitherto taboo subjects such as gender, class and religion, Jones argues that rebel poetry opened the very possibility of confronting colonial structures of domination. Yet such poetic rebellion was inextricably linked to the dangers of poetry. The book’s title thus signifies the twofold nature of poetry’s dangers: on the one hand, rebel poets faced imprisonment, censorship, harassment and exile; on the other, shaking the colonial order often involved “bitter conflicts” between poets “over social interests and cultural values,” which devolved into partisan poetry. Jones situates less-recognized neoclassical poets including ‘Abd al-Muhsin Kazimi, Muhammad Hasan al-Haddad and Ibrahimn al-Tabataba’i alongside wellknown poets like Ma’ruf al-Rusafi, Jamal Sidqi al-Zahawi and ‘Abd al-Wahab al-Bayati. Central to his argument is the importance of reading rebel poetry as an event, one that called Iraqis, through public performances and emotive force, to partake in and to feel revolutionary culture. Over six chronological chapters, The Dangers of Poetry offers a panoramic discussion of the development of Iraqi rebellion poetry, staging the “encounter between poetry and politics” from the incipient period of British colonialism into the mandatory period and postcolonial rule, ending with the February 1963 coup. Toward the end of the 19th century, rebel poets were caught between the “poetry of jihad,” resisting the British invasion in support of Ottoman rule, and the “poetics of collaboration” recited against “Hamidian WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

despotism” and with pro-British sentiments. Yet as the brutal realities of colonialism set in, rebel poets such as al-Basir, ‘Isa ‘bd alQadir and Mullah ‘Uthman united in an emerging public sphere, drawing from a long tradition of sh‘ir al-tahrid (incitement) to chronicle colonial violence, impugn colonial claims of superiority and urge spectators into action. Following nominal independence in 1932, poet-intellectuals turned inward, critiquing both the post-colonial state and, more perniciously, traitors from within the nation. By the mid-20th century, rebellion also entailed breaking with poetic tradition, namely with the qasidah style of poetry of praise or mourning. Rebel poets enthusiastically experimented with new poetic forms to correspond to their revolutionary visions. The Dangers of Poetry effectively demonstrates the need to incorporate poetry into Arab intellectual and cultural history. By paying particular attention to the “historical context, popular reception and political consequences” of poetry, Jones departs from investigations of prosody and of the formal qualities of poetic forms. At times, however, Jones’ thematic investigations around religion, secularization, gender and tradition could have benefitted from a more robust engagement with the poems he presents. Further, a deeper investigation into the poems themselves will allow interested readers to follow competing aesthetic theories, taking seriously when poets like Badr Shakir al-Sayyab criticized other poets for their bad, even ugly poetry, without compromising the type of rich historical contextualization that Jones provides. These minor reservations aside, The Dangers of Poetry is incredibly well-researched and introduces readers to otherwise forgotten literary figures. Jones has surely invited readers to excavate the ways in which poets, as well as artists, writers and activists have challenged the reigning political order and hegemonic culture. Jones concludes with the tragic collapse of the legacy of rebel poetry following the 1963 Ba’thist coup. It is very appropriate, then, that Jones ends his conclusion with Sa‘di Yusuf’s reflection on poetry writing after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. In his reflections, Yusuf points to past poetry’s 65

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importance in inciting mass politics and documenting injustices, insisting that poetry is a responsibility that transcends politics. Like many rebel poets, Yusuf’s mentors eventually became exilic-poets and tragic-poets, subject to government censorship, while their poetry was bowdlerized of social and political critique. However, their rebellions lived on in the afterlives of their poetry. While poetry still poses immense dangers, as the death of poet Safaa al-Saray during the most recent Iraqi “October Revolution” demonstrates, the spirit of rebellion poetry lives on today. The Dangers of Poetry allows us to place these poets and their revolutionary efforts today in a rich and critical history.

Rifqa By Mohammed El-Kurd, Haymarket Books, 2021, paperback, 100 pp. MEB $16

Reviewed by Delinda C. Hanley Readers who are familiar with Mohammed El-Kurd’s extraordinary work, leading the ongoing resistance movement in Jerusalem, have been looking forward to his debut book, Rifqa, a compilation of his poetry. They won’t be disappointed. In fact, Rifqa is flying off the shelves of Middle East Books and More. El-Kurd, now 23, has been writing articles or providing commentary in the Guardian, the Nation, the Washington Post, MSNBC, the New York Times, CNN

Delinda C. Hanley is executive editor of the Washington Report. 66

and elsewhere, describing his family’s long history of displacements as well as the ongoing nature of the Nakba. In the Afterword to his book, El-Kurd says he has been writing this first collection of poetry to honor and immortalize his grandmother Rifqa, since he was 16 or 17. Rifqa, his “moral compass,” died at the age of 103, on June 16, 2020, but El-Kurd notes, “In truth, I am not ready to eulogize her. Even in writing this, I find myself having trouble with tenses. Some people cannot exist in the past tense.” He continues, “My grandmother taught me everything I know about dignity. She taught me how to launch my sentences like missiles, how to be resilient. Even in the face of displacement, monetary punishment, tens of trials, and threats of imprisonment, she persisted. ‘I will only agree to leave Sheikh Jarrah to go back to my Haifa house that I was forced to flee in 1948,’ she famously said, demanding her right of return.” In 1948, Rifqa “left her Haifa home meticulously clean, not knowing she was readying it for its colonizers.” She and her children finally settled in Jerusalem, only to be confronted with the Naksa and the theft of Jerusalem in 1967. In 2009, Zionist settlers, escorted by Israeli soliders, seized half the El-Kurd home, part of Israel’s effort to ethnically cleanse and dispossess 180 families in their Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. The settlers have waged a decades-long lawsuit, financed by American billionaires, to seize the El-Kurd home and wear them down, both financially and psychologically. “As I write this, our family lawyer is attempting to persuade a settler judge to rule against settlements: a zebra at the mercy of a jury of hyenas.” El-Kurd compares heavily armed Israeli settlers, thowing their weight around in Sheikh Jarrah, to the 17-year-old from Illinois, recently acquitted for driving to a protest in Kenosha, WI, and killing two men with his AR-15-style rifle. El-Kurd writes, “A dozen Kyle Rittenhouses patrol my streets. Cowards if not for their M-16s. They attacked us with rocks and dispossession. We retaliated with plastic chairs in lieu of the rockets...The settlers stole our chairs, and the cops sat on them. I call this collusion.” WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

When American solidarity visitors or reporters appeared at their occupied home, El-Kurd recalls, Rifqa, then in her 80s, would crisply present them with historical facts and tell them their country was largely to blame for her family’s homelessness and statelessness. “We don’t want your sympathy, we want your action,” she would say. Many of his poems immortalize strong refugee women warriors like his grandmother, including Mahfoutha Ishtayyeh, who chains herself to a tree, “olive skin on olive skin,” as she faces an Israeli bulldozer. El-Kurd carries bags of figs to the checkpoint for an old woman who fell asleep on his shoulder riding the bus. Her bags are “not as heavy as she’s lived,” ElKurd writes, and he imagines “she had a gun someday, hidden in a wheat bag and I know she hid a freedom fighter in her closet—warrior woman, za’atar diva.” His poem “Three Women” describes three women giving birth: One “black-haired and brown-skinned” in Atlanta “pushes out a statistic.” Another “olive-skinned and oliveselling” at a checkpoint in Jerusalem “pushes out a security threat.” The hospital bed is her home’s rubble” for a woman from Gaza who “imagines the umbilical cord, a noose.” In “No Moses in Siege,” El-Kurd laments the murder of four boys by Israeli naval fire while they played soccer on a Gaza beach in 2014. “What do you say to children for whom the Red Sea doesn’t part?” In “This Is Why We Dance,” El-Kurd’s father tells him what Black parents tell their children. “Anger is a luxury we cannot afford. Be composed, calm, still—laugh when they ask you, smile when they talk, answer them, educate them.” El-Kurd’s collection of unforgettable poetry delivers a hard-hitting punch meant to educate and challenge readers, move us to action and make us impatient for his next book.

In My Mother’s Footsteps: A Palestinian Refugee Returns Home By Mona Hajjar Halaby, Thread, 2021, paperback, 242 pp. MEB $10

Reviewed by Elisabeth Johnson JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

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N E W A R R I VA L S

Born in Alexandria to a Syrian father whose family fled violence and a Palestinian mother indefinitely barred from her home in West Jerusalem, Mona Hajjar Halaby herself faced displacement in 1961, when her family lost their home amid Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s nationalization program. Halaby consequently traveled to Lebanon, moved to Geneva and finally settled in California, but she ultimately felt a little lost in each new location. An inhabitant of everywhere but also nowhere, she eventually found a sense of home in her mother’s birth place, when she was invited to teach conflict resolution to middle schoolers in Ramallah for a year. “While in Palestine,” Halaby writes, “when someone asked me where I came from I never hesitated: ‘Jerusalem,’ I would say with pride, and didn’t have to say a thing. They understood.” The central themes of Halaby’s memoir are her relationship with her mother and her mother’s relationship with Jerusalem. Peppered throughout the book are letters written by her mother to Halaby during her year in Ramallah, which offer first-person accounts of her childhood in West Jerusalem during the British Mandate. “Everything is intertwined, I thought. Mama’s life is part of the fabric of the city. Every store, every building seemed to be part of my history. Nowhere else in the

Elisabeth Johnson is a student of political science and philosophy at the University of Scranton, where she is an editor for the school’s literary magazine Esprit. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

The Battle of the Ayatollahs in Iran: The United States, Foreign Policy and Political Rivalry Since 1979 by Alex Vatanka, I.B. Tauris, 2021, paperback, 264 pp. MEB $35. Vatanka explains the internal policy process in Tehran by following two regime personalities, Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani who, before his death in January 2017, held some of the most powerful political positions in Iran. No two men have been more influential in dictating the regime’s decision-making processes since 1979. Yet little is known about their competing worldviews and interests, their disputes, or their personal ambitions. Vatanka analyzes their own words and writings to reveal how the men shaped Tehran’s actions on the regional and international stage. Comprising primary and secondary Iranian sources, this book offers new insights into the present and future of Iranian foreign policy. Legacy of Empire: Britain, Zionism and the Creation of Israel by Gardner Thompson, Saqi Books, 2019, hardcover, 352 pp. MEB $25. It is now more than 70 years since the creation of the state of Israel, yet its origins and the British Empire’s historic responsibility for Palestine remain little known. In Legacy of Empire, Gardner Thompson offers a clear-eyed review of political Zionism and Britain’s role in shaping the history of Palestine and Israel. Thompson explores why the British government adopted Zionism in the early 20th century, issuing the Balfour Declaration in 1917, and using it as the cornerstone of their rule in Palestine after World War I. Despite evidence and warnings, Britain facilitated the colonization of Arab Palestine by Jewish immigrants, ultimately leading to a conflict which it could not contain. Britain’s partition of the land and a “two-state solution” has brought about neither two states nor a solution. A highly readable and compelling account of Britain’s rule in Palestine, Legacy of Empire is essential reading for those who seek to understand the roots of this enduring conflict. Arabicity: Contemporary Arab Art edited by Rose Issa and Juliet Cestar, Saqi Books, 2019, paperback, 160 pp. MEB $25. Arabicity reflects on four decades of the aesthetic, conceptual and socio-political concerns of contemporary Arab artists. Beautifully produced, it features more than 200 artworks by 50 Arab artists including Bahia Shehab, Ayman Baalbaki, Hassan Hajja and Raeda Saadeh, who explore their cultural heritage, and themes such as memory, destruction and conflict, with great warmth, humor and visual poetry. Whether through video art, painting, photography or installation, these artists challenge the confines of their identity, resisting stereotyping and reshaping the parameters of their cultural traditions. In their diverse media and subject matter, their works reflect the pulse of the region. In chaos they discover what endures.

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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world have I felt as anchored to a place as I have here in Jerusalem.” Armed with these letters, old photographs and family stories, Halaby makes it her mission to rediscover her mother’s past and tracks down her familial neighborhood of Baq’a, as well as her mother’s childhood home. As Halaby walks the streets of Israeli-controlled Jerusalem, she parallels her mother’s past and points out how the past 70 years of war and occupation have dramatically changed the ancient city and erased so many aspects of its history and culture. Halaby and her mother put faces to the stories of millions of displaced Palestinians and their descendants still yearning for their homes in Jerusalem, occupied Palestine, or what is now Israel. They also represent the cosmopolitan, multilingual, middle-class of pre-Nakba Palestine, a class of people often overlooked and excluded from the history of the nation. As Halaby revisits her personal history, she also takes the reader through the history of her people and offers a quick overview of the Israel-Palestine conflict, from Ottoman rule, through the birth of Zionism, the Balfour Declaration, the British Mandate, the Nakba and 1967 SixDay War. She also explores the current details of daily life under occupation and dedicates extensive chapters to her professional work in Ramallah and the deep psychosocial impact of violence and occupation on her young students. Halaby’s writing works best at moments of specific human interactions, such as when she navigates awkward encounters with Israeli citizens, participates in traditional funeral rights for her aunt, or attempts to parse out the difficulties her students face as they try to reconcile their childhoods with the stress and violence all around them. However, the true stars of the memoir are her mother Zakia Hajjar’s letters, which offer a bright, clear portrait of pre-Nakba Palestine and create a slew of interesting parallels between Halaby’s life and her mother’s. While it’s neither a history book nor a scholarly commentary, In My Mother’s Footsteps is honest, accessible and a good place to start for readers seeking an understanding of Palestine and its history. 68

B O O K TA L K S The Vanishing: Faith, Loss and the Twilight of Christianity in the Land of the Prophets By Janine di Giovanni, PublicAffairs, 2021, hardcover, 272 pp. MEB $28

Report by Dale Sprusansky Decades of war, persecution, occupation and extremism have posed an existential threat to Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities throughout the Middle East. Their plight is often viewed as a tangential issue, one overshadowed by geopolitical concerns and domestic policy debates. A seasoned reporter and author, Janine di Giovanni wrote The Vanishing in order to bring the existential challenges facing Middle Eastern Christians to the forefront. On Oct. 27, she joined New America to discuss her book, which tells the story of modern-day Christianity in Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Gaza. The book has its origins in a trip di Giovanni took to Iraq in 2002-2003, just before the catastrophic U.S. invasion of the country. She was granted rare permission by Saddam Hussein’s government to travel the entire length and width of the country, and was particularly struck by her encounters with Christians in Mosul and

Dale Sprusansky is managing editor of the Washington Report. WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

the Nineveh Plains. The Chaldean, Assyrian, Syriac and Eastern Orthodox Christians she met told her they were terrified of a U.S. invasion of Iraq, as they felt protected by Hussein. Their concerns were well founded, as the Christian population of Iraq today is estimated by di Giovanni to be just 150,000, compared to 1.5 million in 2003. Hundreds of thousands of Christians fled the country in the decade after the U.S. war, with another large wave being forced into the diaspora as a result of ISIS’ rise in 2014. The past century has been crippling for human diversity in Iraq, di Giovanni noted. Just a century ago, 20 percent of Baghdad’s population was Jewish, and 20 percent of all Iraqis were Christians. Today, many fear that Christianity will join Judaism as a relic of Iraq’s past. “To lose this really important component of society is just absolutely devastating,” di Giovanni commented. Similar to Saddam Hussein, the author noted that the leaders of Syria and Egypt also portray themselves as the protectors of their country’s Christian population. In Syria, most Christians supported President Bashar al-Assad during the country’s civil war, even though he was committing grotesque crimes against civilians. Some of this professed support may simply be a reflection of their fear of criticizing Assad, but di Giovanni believes many Christians “truly believed he would protect them, and they did not want a radical Sunni government coming in, which they saw as detrimental to their interests entirely.” The author noted that just after the civil war began, she visited the largely Christian village of Maaloula, just outside of Damascus. She was surprised to hear how the nuns at a monastery defended Assad, even when she pointed out the violence he was committing. “They literally loved him, they saw him as a savior,” di Giovanni noted. Before the civil war began in 2011, an estimated 10 percent of Syrians were Christian. There are no accurate numbers to estimate how many Christians remain a decade after the war prompted a massive exodus of Syrians of all beliefs. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

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While Egyptian Christians have not faced war and an ISIS onslaught over the past decade, they still face legal discrimination that limits their ability to build churches and participate in governance, as well as the threat of attack by extremist groups, di Giovanni noted. The likelihood of violence and discrimination is much higher in rural areas such as Upper Egypt and Sinai, she pointed out, although organized attacks have targeted churches in Cairo and Alexandria. Christians are estimated to comprise 10-15 percent of Egypt’s population. Perhaps the most interesting feature of di Giovanni’s book is her decision to profile the 800 Christians of Gaza, a group often overlooked in conversations about Christianity in the region. She described the enclave’s Christian community as “very small, very determined and very devout.” Like all Gazans, Christians are suffering from the Israeli blockade and the ramifications of a slew of wars, the most recent occurring in May 2021. “In Gaza, it’s really desperate,” di Giovanni commented. She added that Gazan Christians also fear the more extremist elements in their midst. “There is this fear that while Hamas claims to tolerate them and protect them that more radical fringes want to see the end of this tiny but hugely important and historic community in Gaza,” she said. One of di Giovanni’s goals in The Vanishing is to examine how these Christian groups survive in the midst of so many challenges. Her conclusion is that “faith and resilience” are the foundations of their fortitude. The book’s emphasis on faith is also in part a reflection of the circumstances under which it was written. As the world locked down due to COVID in 2020, di Giovanni found herself in an isolated village of 20 people in the Alps, along with her devout Catholic cousins. The author, who describes herself as a lapsed Catholic who has “always maintained a very deep faith,” said she was inspired by her cousins’ faith during the quarantine. As such, “the book became a document about these disappearing [Christians], but it also became a testament to faith,” di Giovanni said. ■ JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

N E W A R R I VA L S Arab Fairy Tale Feasts: A Literary Cookbook by Karim Alrawi, Interlink, 2021, hardcover, 200 pp. MEB $25. Award-winning writer and storyteller, Karim Alrawi, draws on his deep knowledge of Arab culture to create original stories that are a feast for young imaginations. Told with intriguing details, the tales take young readers on a delicious cultural journey and invite them to consider an Arab perspective. Each tale symbolically incorporates food and concludes with a traditional recipe, lovingly flavored with colorful folkloric illustrations, making this a literary banquet to savor with family and friends across generations time and again. This charming, whimsical and beautifully illustrated book will capture children’s fancy and will be enjoyed by the whole family. The Book Collectors: A Band of Syrian Rebels and the Stories That Carried Them Through a War by Delphine Minoui, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020, paperback, 208 pp. MEB $15. Daraya, a town outside Damascus and a site of peaceful resistance to the Assad regime, fell under siege in 2012. For four years, no one entered or left, aid was blocked and bombs fell, breaking the town into bits. A group searching for survivors stumbled upon a cache of books in the rubble. In a week, they had 6,000 volumes; in a month, 15,000. The young men create a sanctuary, a library, where people could escape the blockade. Journalist Delphine Minoui tracked down one of the library’s founders, and gets to know the young men who gather there exchanging ideas and imagining how to shape the future, even as the bombs kept falling. By telling their stories, Minoui makes a faroff, complicated war immediate and reveals these young men to be everyday heroes as inspiring as the books they read. The Book Collectors is a testament to their bravery and a celebration of the power of words. The Republic of False Truths: A Novel by Alaa Al Aswany, Knopf, 2021, hardcover, 416 pp. MEB $28. After decades under a repressive regime, tensions are rising in Cairo’s streets in 2011. No one is out of reach of the revolution. There is General Alwany, part of the government’s security agency, a pious man who loves his family yet won’t hesitate to torture enemies of the state; Asma, a young teacher who chafes against the brazen corruption at her school; Ashraf, an out-of-work actor who is having an affair with his maid and who gets pulled into Tahrir Square through a chance encounter; Nourhan, a television personality who loyally defends those in power; and many more. As these lives collide, a new generation finds a voice, love blossoms, and the revolution gains strength. With an unforgettably vivid cast of characters and a heart-pounding narrative, Alaa Al Aswany gives us a deeply human portrait of the Egyptian Revolution, and an impassioned retelling of his country's turbulent recent history.

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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CWS/CARTOONARTS INTERNATIONAL www.cartoonweb.com

THE WORLD LOOKS AT THE MIDDLE EAST

Correio Do Povo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

Süddeutsche Zeitung, Munich, Germany

CWS/CARTOONARTS INTERNATIONAL www.cartoonweb.com

The Khaleej Times, Dubai, UAE

CWS/CARTOONARTS INTERNATIONAL www.cartoonweb.com

National Post, Toronto, Canada

www.Otherwords.org

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Daily Star, Beirut, Lebanon

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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Other People’s Mail

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

Compiled by Dale Sprusansky

LABELING PALESTINIAN GROUPS AS “TERRORISTS” To The Press Democrat, Nov. 8, 2021 Israel recently banned six Palestinian human rights groups, based on the undocumented claim that they are associated with terrorism. Now, I know what disturbs the Israeli government is the bad publicity that comes from pictures broadcast across the world of its occupation of Palestinian lands. I particularly have in mind the images of new settlement construction in the occupied territories, which requires theft of Palestinian land and violation of international law. Indeed, the U.S., England and other European nations recently protested Israel’s plan to build more settlements in the occupied areas. Certainly, the government of Israel would like to end the spread of these negative images. By eliminating a place for Palestinian human rights groups in civil society, this objective becomes more nearly possible. But in taking this approach, Israel ends up linking all demands for Palestinian human rights with terrorism. All of which leads me to ask this question: Am I at risk of being arrested if I travel to Israel and, as a matter of conscience, express support for Palestinian human rights when I see them violated by the Israeli authorities? Steven M. DeLue, Petaluma, CA

U.S. CONSULATE IS NEEDED IN JERUSALEM To the Independent Record, Nov. 22, 2021 The Independent Record recently featured a story about a standoff between the U.S. government and the Israeli government. U.S. President Joe Biden wants to reopen the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett re72

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

jected the U.S. effort to reopen that consulate, which would once again address the needs of Palestinians. (Donald Trump made the Israelis happy when, as president, he closed the consulate, disappointing the Palestinians.) Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said Israel would allow the U.S. to open a consulate in Ramallah, but not in Jerusalem. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Brian McKeon said we need permission from the host nation before we can proceed. Will the U.S. reopen the consulate or accede to Israeli wishes? Now we come to why Israelis so dogmatically reject the notion of a U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem—they still harbor hopes of moving all Palestinians out of Jerusalem, it seems. Israeli soldiers continue to spray sewer/skunk water at Palestinian shops, vendors and people in Palestinian neighborhoods. Businesses are forced to destroy their damaged products. People shy away from shopping in stenchfilled streets. Many people report rashes, shortness of breath, nausea and headaches after being exposed to the foulsmelling odor. Odortec, a private firm which produces the product, says the product is biodegradable and ecofriendly. Israelis say its use guarantees safety and security. Palestinians say its use is meant to destroy the economy of East Jerusalem, forcing Palestinians to leave Jerusalem or remain prisoners in their own homes. Opinions aside, if someone sprayed skunk water into the Helena Farmers Market, that would be a punishable crime. How long would the Israelis’ criminal government policy survive if the U.S. Consulate were reopened in East Jerusalem and American eyes were opened? I trust not long, but Israelis have long scoffed at Amer-

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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

ican intelligence. At the very least Americans need to stop being apologists for the criminal acts of Israelis and reopen the consulate with an eye toward protecting the human rights of Palestinians. Dean Grenz, Boulder, MT

LAWMAKER RIGHT TO STAND WITH PALESTINIAN PEOPLE To the New Hampshire Union Leader, Nov. 30, 2021 In October, State Rep. Maria Perez (DMilford) was campaigning for Palestinian rights. She tweeted, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” The phrase was attacked as anti-Semitic and the Democratic Progressive Caucus unceremoniously kicked Rep. Perez off their executive board. Rep. Perez was calling for Palestinian freedom of self-determination, freedom of movement and human rights, which are denied to them right now. Rights for Palestinians equals anti-Semitism? Really? If your existence requires the denial of someone else’s human rights, you have serious soul searching to do. On the flip side, the Israeli prime minister, his party, and Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party proclaim their intention for Jewish Israel to expand from the “river to the sea.” Is this acceptable where the other is not? As I write this, Israel is actively forcing Palestinians off their lands to settle Jewish Israeli citizens. This is where our criticism should be focused. Sound bites and outrage won’t bring understanding or peace to anyone. For some, shouting is all they have. As Rep. Perez expressed, Palestinians deserve basic human rights just as much as their Jewish Israeli counterparts. She should not be punished. She should be applauded. Patricia Saenger, Temple, NH JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

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BDS ENDORSEMENT NOT AN EXAMPLE OF “BEING WRONG” To the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Oct. 23, 2021 [In response to the editorial, “Omari Hardy and the consequences of being wrong.”] Kudos to [congressional candidate] Omari Hardy for his brave and principled stand in support of the BDS movement, which seeks to hold Israel accountable for human rights violations in the occupied territories. Human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Israel’s own B’Tselem, have documented decades-long abuses which constitute apartheid practices, not dissimilar to the abuses suffered by the Black majority in South Africa. If progressives are to be consistent in their support of human rights at home and abroad, it is imperative to include the Palestinian struggle for justice and human rights as well. Michael McPherrin, Fort Lauderdale, FL

CONGRESS MUST ADVOCATE FOR THE CREW OF THE USS LIBERTY To the Times Observer, Nov. 27, 2021 As our elected representatives honor American veterans, it is important that they speak out in support of the USS Liberty veterans who survived Israel’s attempt to sink their ship with all men aboard. These veterans are still waiting for justice. These men never saw justice. It’s long past time for Congress to act. For too long, the Israel lobby has gotten away with calling these American veterans “anti-Semitic” for proving the attack that killed 34 of their shipmates was deliberate. For too long, the U.S. news media have gotten away with misrepresenting the attack that injured over 170 of these men. For too long, the American Legion management has failed to help these veterans, even though the membership has resolutions supporting these men. For too long, the U.S. government has helped cover this up, currently refusing to declassify hundreds of documents about the attack. While Congress members remember American veterans, it’s time for them to speak out in support of these veterans— one of the most decorated crews in U.S. Naval history. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

They must call on the U.S. government to declassify all documents on the attack, and they must demand that Israel, which has received billions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers, issue a full, truthful apology, and pay the full amount they owe us, with interest, not the tiny amount ($6 million for a ship valued at $40 million) that they dickered over for years. Neil Himber, Youngsville, PA

THE PERVERSE EFFECT OF EQUATING ISRAEL WITH JUDAISM To The Washington Post, Oct. 18, 2021 Regarding Elisha Wiesel’s Oct. 13 op-ed, “The church is honoring my father, Elie Wiesel—and his legacy includes unapologetic Zionism”: In light of the honor recently bestowed by the Washington National Cathedral, Mr. Wiesel might have employed his essay to celebrate the many achievements of his father, Nobel laureate and tireless human rights advocate Elie Wiesel. Instead, he engaged in an intellectually dishonest effort to suggest that criticism of Israeli policies is somehow anti-Semitic, ignoring the significant swath of American Jewish opinion that is critical of Israel. A recent poll of Jewish voters found that a quarter believe Israel is an apartheid state. The same conclusion was recently drawn by respected human rights groups B’Tselem and Human Rights Watch, powerful verdicts conveniently overlooked by Mr. Wiesel. Mr. Wiesel further had nothing to say about the millions of Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation and without civil rights under Israeli law simply because of their religion and ethnicity. It is most regrettable that efforts such as Mr. Wiesel’s to conflate Zionism with Judaism, by seeking to make Jews everywhere responsible for the system of brutal ethnic segregation in place in Israel and in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, may have the perverse effect of promoting anti-Semitism across the globe. William F. Simonds, Potomac, MD

DON’T ALLOW THE AFGHAN PEOPLE TO STARVE To the LNP, Dec. 7, 2021 The International Red Cross warns that half of Afghanistan’s population of 40 million may starve to death this winter because of international sanctions. Some $10 billion in

Afghan reserves are frozen in American banks. International aid is scarce. Insufficient cash exists to pay the country’s doctors, nurses, teachers, sanitation workers and engineers. A humanitarian crisis is underway. We waged a 20-year war resulting in the deaths of about 200,000 people, created an economy entirely dependent on American aid, then left the country in chaos. Our sanctions are meant to punish the Taliban, but the men, women and children pay the price. As Christmas approaches—our time of fellowship, feasting and reflection—we must reflect on this. Call [your members of Congress] and demand that the United States release these frozen funds to prevent mass starvation. The money can be directed to provide direct relief to the Afghan people. Instead of needless gift-giving, donate to the International Red Cross in someone’s name. We have done enough damage. We cannot allow the Afghan people to starve while we feast. Brad Wolf, Lancaster, PA

CONGRESS NEEDS TO HOLD BIDEN ACCOUNTABLE ON YEMEN To the Rutland Herald, Dec. 2, 2021 On Feb. 4, 2021, President Joe Biden committed to ending support for the Saudiled offensive in Yemen, which he called a “humanitarian and strategic catastrophe.” But on Nov. 4, he announced a $650 million arms sale to Saudi Arabia. This proposed sale makes no sense, flies in the face of Biden’s stated goal and will surely deepen the tragedy in Yemen. So, three cheers for Vermont Sens. Bernie Sanders (I) and Patrick Leahy (D), who oppose the arms move by Biden. Along with two Republican senators, Sanders introduced a “Joint Resolution of Disapproval” of the sale and Leahy recently signed on as a co-sponsor. There is a resolution in the House to the same effect. Thankfully, our Vermont senators are positive change agents. They demonstrate Congress’ decreasing support for the Saudis due to their relentless bombing of Yemen and continuing human rights violations. I appreciate and applaud our senators’ leadership. Mary Diane Baker, Brattleboro, VT ■

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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AET’s 2021 Choir of Angels

The following are individuals, organizations, companies and foundations whose help between Jan. 1, 2021 and Dec. 5, 2021 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 are helping us co‐sponsor the annual IsraelLobbyCon. Others are donating to our “Capital Building Fund,” which will help us expand and add coffee service to the Middle East Books and More bookstore. Thank you all for helping us survive the turmoil caused by the pandemic. We are deeply honored by your confidence and profoundly grateful for your generosity.

HUMMERS ($100 or more)

Robin Abaya, Palm Springs, CA Mai Abdul Rahman, Hyattsville, MD Marwan Ahmad, Manassas, VA Aglaia & Mumtaz Ahmed, Buda, TX Mohammad & Shaista Akbar, Orwigsburg, PA Hesham Alalusi, Hayward, CA Hani Ali, Beirut, Lebanon Anace & Polly Aossey, Cedar Rapids, IA Mr. & Mrs. Sultan Aslam, Plainsboro, NJ Salim Bahloul, South Yarra, Australia Nabil Bahu, Paleo Psychico, Greece William L. Bigelow, Chicago, IL Dr. & Mrs. Sarkis Broussalian, Santa Monica, CA Prof. Mireya Camurati, Williamsville, NY Sandra Cioppa, Moraga, CA John Cornwall, Palm Springs, CA David K. Curtiss, New Orleans, LA* Warren & Amal David, Washington, DC Lewis Elbinger, Mount Shasta, CA Kassem Elkhalil, Arlington, TX Albert E. Fairchild, Bethesda, MD Steven Feldman, Winston-Salem, NC Andrew M. Findlay, Alexandria, VA Claire Geddes, Salt Lake City, UT William E. Gefell, Tunbridge, VT Michael Gillespie, Maxwell, IA John Gordon, Santa Fe, NM Alfred R. Greve, Holmes, NY Dixiane Hallaj, Purcellville, VA Timothy Kaminski, Saint Louis, MO Robert Keith, Salt Lake City, UT Gloria Keller, Santa Rosa, CA Eugene Khorey, Homestead, PA Edwin Lindgren, Overland Park, KS Yehuda Littmann, Brooklyn, NY Jonothan Logan, New York, NY Erna Lund, Seattle, WA Charles Lutz, Richfield, MN Nidal Mahayni, Richmond, VA Dr. & Mrs. Aly A. Mahmoud, Oceanside, CA Tahera Mamdani, Fridley, MN Gwendolyn McEwen, Bellingham, WA Bill McGrath, Northfield, MN Susan Kay Metcalfe, Beaverton, OR W. Eugene Notz, Charleston, SC Cindy Percak, Cinnaminson, NJ Jim Plourd, Monterey, CA 74

Paul Richards, Salem, OR James F. Robinson III, San Angelo, TX Fred Rogers & Jenny Hartley, Northfield, MN Ambassador William Rugh, Hingham, MA Ramzy Salem, Monterey Park, CA Izzat & Jawad Saymeh, Charlotte, NC Richard Schreitz, Alexandria, VA Carolynne Schutt, Doylestown, PA William A. Shaheen III, Grosse Ile, MI Aziz Shalaby, Vancouver, WA Ellen Siegel, Washington, DC MaryLou Smith, Chapel Hill, NC Mushtaq Syed, Santa Clara, CA Thomas Trueblood, Chapel Hill, NC Richard Wigton, Mechanicsburg, PA Nabil Yakub, McLean, VA Dr. & Mrs. Fathi S. Yousef, Irvine, CA Munir Zacharia, La Mirada, CA Hugh & Yasmin Ziada, Garden Grove, CA Mohammed Ziaullah, Montclair, CA Fred Zuercher, Spring Grove, PA

ACCOMPANISTS ($250 or more)

Jeff Abood, Silver Lake, OH Hani Ali, Athens, Greece Dr. Robert Ashmore, Jr, Mequon, WI Candice Bodnaruk, Winnipeg, Canada Larry Cooper, Plymouth, MI** Dixiane Hallaj, Purcellville, VA Akram & Lubna Karam, Charlotte, NC Michael Ladah, Las Vegas, NV Mary Neznek, Washington, DC Hertha Poje-Ammoumi, New York, NY John & Peggy Prugh, Tucson, AZ Mazin Qumsiyeh, Largo, FL Paul Richards, Salem, OR Ramzy Salem, Monterey Park, CA Betty Sams, Washington, DC# Irmgard Scherer, Fairfax, VA Bernice Shaheen, Palm Desert, CA*** Mostafa Sherif, Happy Valley, OR Mashood Yunus, New Brighton, MN

TENORS & CONTRALTOS ($500 or more)

Concerned Citizen, McLean, VA Diane Adkin, Camas, WA Mohamed Ahamedkutty, Toronto, Canada Sylvia Anderson De Freitas, Duluth, MN

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Dr. & Mrs. Roger Bagshaw, Big Sur, CA James Bennett, Fayetteville, AR Patricia Christensen, Poulsbo, WA Forrest & Sandi Cioppa, Moraga, CA Raymond Gordon, Venice, FL Dr. Wasif Hafeez, W. Bloomfield, MI Virgina K. Hilmy, Highland, CA Dr. Muhammad M. Kudaimi, Munster, IN Tom & Tess McAndrew, Oro Valley, AZ Darrel Meyers, Burbank, CA Estate of Thomas Shaker, Poughkeepsie, NY**** David Williams, Golden, CO

BARITONES & MEZZO SOPRANOS ($1,000 or more)

Asha A. Anand, Bethesda, MD Joseph Daruty, Newport Beach, CA Gary Richard Feulner, Dubai, UAE Dr. E. R. Fields, Marietta, GA### Ronald & Mary Forthofer, Boulder, CO Dorsey Gardner, Palm Beach, FL Judith Howard, Norwood, MA Ghazy M. Kader, Shoreline, WA Jack Love, Fort Myers, FL Mr. & Mrs. Hani Marar, Delmar, NY Sahar Masud, Mill Valley, CA Estate of Jean Elizabeth Mayer, Bethesda, MD Mary Norton, Austin, TX Richard J. Shaker, Annapolis, MD**** Dr. Imad Tabry, Fort Lauderdale, FL Donn Trautman, Evanston, IL Young Again Foundation, Leland, NC

CHOIRMASTERS ($5,000 or more)

Anonymous, Palo Alto, CA## Dr. & Mrs. Clyde Farris, West Linn, OR *,# John & Henrietta Goelet, Washington, DC Dr. Letitia Lane-Abdallah, Greensboro, NC William Lightfoot, Vienna, VA * In Memory of Dick and Donna Curtiss ** In Memory of Diane Cooper *** In Memory of Dr. Jack G. Shaheen **** In Memory of Thomas R. Shaker # In Memory of Andrew I. Killgore ## In Memory of Rachelle & Hugh Marshall ###In Memory of Jayne E. Fields JANUARY/FEBRUARY2022

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American Educational Trust Washington Report on Middle East Affairs P.O. Box 53062 Washington, DC 20009

January/February 2022 Vol. XLI, No. 1

Palestine’s first‐ever amputee football team was launched in Gaza City on Dec. 3 to coincide with International Day for People with Disabilities. The squad of 20 young Palestinians, many of them shot by Israeli military snipers, uses crutches and prosthetic legs to play football and train to participate in the Amputee Football World Cup, scheduled to be held in Turkey in 2022. The Palestine Amputee Football Association national squad is supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). PHOTO BY MOHAMMED SALEM/ AL JAZEERA