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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Managing Editor: DALE SPRUSANSKY Contributing Editor: WALTER L. HIXSON Contributing Editor: JULIA PITNER Other Voices Editor: JANET McMAHON Middle East Books and More Director: NATHANIEL BAILEY Finance & Admin. Dir.: CHARLES R. CARTER Assistant Bookstore Dir.: JANNA ALADDIN Art Director: RALPH-UWE SCHERER Founding Publisher: ANDREW I. KILLGORE (1919-2016)
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LetterstotheEditor
BACKLASH TO RUSSIA EXPOSES AMERICAN HYPOCRISY
Recently, the United Nations General Assembly voted 93 to 24 to suspend Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council. Fifty-eight nations abstained from the vote. The resolution accused Russia of “gross and systematic violations and abuses of human rights” in Ukraine. President Joe Biden denounced President Vladimir Putin and said he should be charged for war crimes. But is the U.S. so innocent? Why has the United States long opposed the International Criminal Court (ICC), which was created by the Rome Statute? The statute has been ratified by 123 nations, but not the United States, Russia or Ukraine.
In 2020, former President Donald Trump even sanctioned senior ICC figures involved in investigating possible U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan. How quickly we have forgotten our government’s offshore black sites where detainees were subjected to the most gruesome medieval torture and then dispatched to Guantanamo Bay, or the “shock and awe” of our invasion of Iraq based on faulty intelligence which resulted in the death of over one million Iraqis and the destruction of much of their country.
If Biden is so incensed with Putin’s criminal behavior, shouldn’t he climb down from his lofty perch and adopt a uniform code of ethics in preventing wars? While we rightfully take aim at Putin’s brigade of criminals on the use of cluster munitions—whose only purpose is to create terror blowing up men, women and children into tiny pieces— why have we long used cluster bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan? They were also used extensively in prior wars by the U.S. in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
Is it not surprising the United States stubbornly refuses to ratify the treaty banning these hideous weapons? Let’s charter a new beginning by releasing the “forever prisoners” languishing in Guantanamo who have never been charged with a crime, offering them massive reparations and sending them back to their countries, saving U.S. taxpayers $13 million per year for each prisoner. Finally, let’s halt shipments of weapons to Saudi Arabia, which is waging a war on poverty-stricken Yemen that goes beyond the pale of extreme cruelty and ruthlessness.
Jagjit Singh, Los Altos, CA
The insincerity of U.S. foreign policy was recently magnified by a “gaffe” made by former President George W. Bush during a May speech. Bush was outlining the foreign and domestic offenses committed by Russian President Vladimir Putin when he committed the ultimate Freudian slip, condemning “...the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.” The former president quickly caught his mistake, saying, “I mean Ukraine.” But, he then appeared to mutter, “Iraq, too.”
While Bush and the crowd laughed at the mistake, it’s perhaps the closest a recent U.S. president has come to admitting his role in the violation of human rights and international law. As Ian Williams notes in this issue (p. 18), the U.S.’ outrage at the invasion of Ukraine is in many ways undermined by its own acts in violation of international norms, as well as its support for rogue regimes such as the State of Israel.
ISRAEL PUSHING FOR A U.S. WAR WITH IRAN
Israel, one of the strongest militaries on the planet (really the first with the U.S. guaranteeing back-up), is going after Iran, a country that originally signed the U.N. non-proliferation agreement (allowing U.N. inspectors in to prove they have no nuclear weapons). This is such a joke.
Israel will not allow U.N. inspectors to check out its nuclear weapons and has assassinated many of Iran’s scientists. Israel attacked Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981 and helped push the U.S. to war with the country in 2003. Israel, with the help of Russia and the U.S., is bombing Syria. Israel is also involved in wars in
Libya and Yemen, and of course is bombing the Gaza Strip repeatedly.
If Israel wants the U.S. to put the screws to Iran via further sanctions, and perhaps war, then the U.S. will do so. Think about who is in control of the United States’ foreign policy and at what a price: our blood and our treasure.
Barbara Gravesen, Lady Lake, FL CANADA MUST STOP SUPPORTING ISRAELI WEAPONS INDUSTRY Canada recently signed a $36 million contract to buy Hermes StarLiner drones from Elbit, an Israeli company that also manufactures the cluster bombs, bullets and corrosive white phosphorus shells used to attack both Hamas and civilians in Gaza.
The StarLiner is a civilian version of the armed drones the Israeli military employs to surveil and bombard Gaza and West Bank targets. It carries cameras and sensors instead of Hellfire missiles. Elbit also supplies surveillance technology for the illegal “Separation Wall” and produces parts for Israeli tanks and war planes deployed against Palestinians.
Transport Canada says that the new Canadian drones will be employed to “keep Canadian waters safe, and to monitor pollution.” Technologically-advanced Canada could easily manufacture and sell its own drones for this and other important tasks.
Canada’s choice of Israeli drones violates its obligations under the Arms Trade Treaty that forbids weapons sales with nations engaged in human rights abuses. It is wrong for Canada to support a foreign company that profits from supplying the weapons and technology required to sustain the illegal occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as the Gaza blockade.
Morgan Duchesney, Ottawa, Canada
For more on Canada’s relationship with Israel’s Elbit Systems, see Candice Bodnaruk’s column on p. 38 of the January/February 2022 issue of the Washington Report. THOUGHTS ON THE SLOGAN “FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA” I recently read an excellent elucidation of the popular protest phrase, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free,” which pro-Israeli groups claim is an antiSemitic or even genocidal slogan. Critics of the “river-to-the-sea” catchphrase argue that protesters who use the slogan are demanding the destruction of Israel and the cleansing of the entire region, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, of its Jewish population. I would hazard to guess that this is what most people actually believe is being said.
Yousef Munayyer (Jewish Currents, June 11, 2021) contends that the slogan is really only demanding “a state in which Palestinians can live in their homeland as free and equal citizens, neither dominated by others nor dominating them. When we call for a free Palestine from the river to the sea, it is precisely the existing system of domination that we seek to end.” So, rather than a call to genocide, the slogan should be considered one for the unification of Palestine and Israel where all citizens have equal rights and are “free.”
It is a good explanation, but the popular interpretation will be difficult if not impossible to overcome. The power of slogans to fan fires of opinion and fuel the human race’s apparent addiction to conflict cannot be denied. Slogans are read at face value, not by people attempting to determine what they actually mean. “From the River to the Sea” mirrors Israel’s call for “From the Sea to the River,” which seems to have also popped up in the media recently.
Both statements carry the “extermination of the other” connotations. Without a doubt, each side has their extremists
KEEP THOSE CARDS AND LETTERS who would love to see these COMING! ideas fulfilled. Such placard Send your letters to the editor to the Washington catchphrases stir up violence Report, P.O. Box 53062, Washington, DC 20009 and aid those who want continor e-mail <letters@wrmea.org>. ued division. Would it be better, then, for protesters to say, chant and proclaim what they really mean? “From the River to the Sea, Palestine and Israel Together will be Free” might be less inflammatory. Free from the institutionalized war and hatred, free from the hubris and entitlement, free to find solutions instead of reiterating the causes over and over and pointing fingers, free to douse the flames of conflict, free to think about what their slogans are really saying? It is food for thought. Ken Green, Cooper Landing, AK ■ OTHER VOICES is an optional 16-page sup pl e ment available only to subscribers of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. For an additional $15 per year (see postcard insert for Wash ington Re port 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.
Abu Akleh was a face familiar not only to the Arab world that devours news from Palestine, but to most of the Israeli combat soldiers who “raid”—a euphemism for attack—Palestinian communities such as Jenin.
The soldiers who shot at her and the group of Palestinian journalists she was with knew they were firing at members of the media. But there also appears to be evidence suggesting one or more of the soldiers identified her specifically as a target. Palestinians are rightly suspicious that the bullet hole just below the edge of her metal helmet was not a one-in-amillion chance event. It looked like a precision shot intended to kill her—the reason why Palestinian officials are calling her death “deliberate.”
For as long as I can remember, Israel has been trying to find pretexts to shut down Al Jazeera’s coverage, often by banning its reporters or denying them press passes. Infamously, last May, it bombed a tower block in Gaza that housed the station’s offices.
Indeed, Abu Akleh was most likely shot precisely because she was a high-profile Al Jazeera reporter, known for her fearless reporting of Israeli crimes. Both the army and its soldiers bear grudges, and they have lethal weapons with which to settle scores. “FRIENDLY FIRE” Israel’s suggestion that she was targeted by, or was collateral damage from, Palestinian gunfire should be treated with the disdain it deserves. At least with the advantage of modern GPS and satellite imagery, this kind of standard-issue dissembling is becoming easier to rebut.
The “friendly fire” defense is straight out of the playbook Israel uses whenever it cannot resort to its preferred retrospective rationalization for killing Palestinians: that they were armed and “posed an immediate danger to soldiers.”
That was a lesson I learned in my first months in the region. I arrived in 2001 to investigate events during the first days of the Second Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, when Israeli police killed 13 protesters. Those killings, unlike parallel events taking place in the occupied territories, targeted members of a large Palestinian minority that lives inside Israel and has a very inferior citizenship.
At the outbreak of the Intifada in late 2000, Palestinian citizens had taken to the streets in unprecedented numbers to protest the Israeli army’s killing of their compatriots in the occupied territories.
PHOTO BY PHIL PASQUINI A makeshift memorial for Palestinian‐American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh is seen at a rally to mark the Nakba, the “catastrophe,” at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC on May 15, 2022. They were enraged, in particular, by footage from Gaza captured by France 2 TV. It showed a father desperately trying to shield his 12-year-old son, Muhammad al-Durrah, as they were trapped by Israeli gunfire at a road intersection. Muhammad was killed and his father, Jamal, seriously wounded. On that occasion too, Israel tried its best to cloud what had happened—and carried on doing so for many years. It variously blamed Palestinians for killing Durrah, claimed the scene had been staged, or suggested the boy was actually alive and unharmed. It did so even over the protests of the French TV crew. Palestinian children were being killed elsewhere in the occupied territories, but those deaths were rarely captured so viscerally on film. And when they were, it was usually on the primitive personal digital cameras of the time. Israel and its apologists casually dismissed such grainy footage as “Pallywood”—a conflation of Palestinian and Hollywood—to suggest it was faked. We will never be able to conclude whether Abu Akleh died because of the actions of a hot-headed Israeli soldier, or because the shooter was given an instruction by senior officers to use an execution as a teaching moment for other Palestinians. But we do not need to know which it is. Because it keeps on happening, and because Israel keeps on doing nothing to stop it, or to identify and punish those responsible. Because killing Palestinians—unpredictably, even randomly— fits perfectly with the goals of an occupying power intent on eroding any sense of safety or normality for Palestinians, an occupier determined to terrorize them into departure, bit by bit, from their homeland. Abu Akleh was one of a small number of Palestinians from the occupied territories who have American citizenship. That, and her fame in the Arab world, are two reasons why officials in
Washington felt duty-bound to express sadness at her killing and issue a formulaic call for a “thorough investigation.”
But Abu Akleh’s U.S. passport was no more able to save her from Israeli retribution than that of Rachel Corrie, murdered in 2003 by an Israeli bulldozer driver as she tried to protect Palestinian homes in Gaza. Similarly, Tom Hurndall’s British passport did not stop him from being shot in the head as he tried to protect Palestinian children in Gaza from Israeli gunfire. Nor did filmmaker James Miller’s British passport prevent an Israeli soldier from executing him in 2003 in Gaza, as he documented Israel’s assault on the tiny, overcrowded enclave.
All were seen as having taken a side by acting as witnesses and by refusing to remain quiet as Palestinians suffered—and for
that reason, they and those who thought like them had to be taught a lesson. It worked. Soon, the contingent of foreign volunteers—those who had come to Palestine to record Israel’s atrocities and serve, when necessary, as human shields to protect Palestinians from a trigger-happy Israeli army— were gone. Israel denounced the International Solidarity Movement for supporting terrorism, and given the clear threat to their lives, the pool of volunteers gradually dried Family and relatives pray in a church in the Old City during the funeral of Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu up. The executions—whether Akleh, on May 13, 2022 in Jerusalem. Thousands of Palestinians from across religious and political committed by hot-headed backgrounds paid their respects as she was laid to rest in her hometown, Jerusalem. soldiers or approved by the army—served their purpose once again. Israeli police made a point of “raiding” Shireen Abu Akleh’s home in occupied East Jerusalem to disrupt the family’s mourning, demanding that a Palestinian flag be taken down. Another message sent. Israel is already insisting on access to the forensic evidence— as though a murderer has a right to be the one to investigate his own crime. There will be noises about an investigation. Israel will blame the Palestinian Authority for not cooperating, as it is already doing. Washington will express tepid concern but do nothing. Behind the scenes, the U.S. will help Israel block any meaningful investigation. For the U.S. and Europe, routine statements of “sadness” and calls for investigation are not intended to make sure light is shed on what happened. That could only embarrass a strategic ally needed to project Western power into the oil-rich Middle East. No, these half-hearted declarations from Western capitals are meant to defuse and confuse. They are intended to take the wind out of any backlash; indicate Western impartiality and save the blushes of complicit Arab regimes; suggest there is a legal process that Israel adheres to; and subvert efforts by Palestinians and the human rights community to refer these war crimes to international bodies, such as the Hague court. The truth is that a decades-long occupation can only survive through wanton—sometimes random, sometimes carefully calibrated—acts of terror to keep the subject population fearful and subdued. When the occupation is sponsored by the main global superpower, there is absolute impunity for those who oversee that reign of terror. Abu Akleh is the latest victim. But these executions will continue so long as Israel and its soldiers are shielded from accountability.
PHOTO BY AMIR LEVY/GETTY IMAGES
55TH ANNIVERSARY REUNION USS LIBERTY Friends, families and survivors of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty will meet from June 6-9 at the Holiday Inn in Arlington, VA. They will honor USS Liberty crew and U.S. Congressman Pete McCloskey (retired), who are working to establish June 8 as USS Liberty Remembrance Day. After Israel investigated their lethal attack they claimed they mistook the Liberty for an Egyptian ship and a decades-long coverup ensued. Survivors demand a Congressional investigation of the brutal attack that killed 34 Americans and wounded 171.
On May 12, school girls visit the site where veteran Al Jazeera Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot dead by Israeli troops while covering an Israeli army raid on Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on May 11, 2022.
By Hanin Majadli
I REMEMBER MYSELF as a girl after the Second Intifada, standing in front of a mirror holding a hairbrush or a remote control and imitating the deep, calm voice with which she ended her reports: Shireen Abu Akleh, Al Jazeera, Palestine.
That iconic sign-off, a catchphrase that every Palestinian child or teenager growing up in the shadow of the Second Intifada in the early 2000s associated with the new Al Jazeera reporter, took on a new meaning on May 11: painful, heartbreaking and bleeding. Who would have believed that the woman with this deep, courageous voice would leave us so soon, in such a cruel way.
As I read the eulogies, the social media posts and the reactions to her death, I came to know that there is hardly a girl in the Arab world who hasn’t stood before a mirror, a hairbrush or a remote control in her hand, and said those words.
Abu Akleh wasn’t just another very professional journalist or a great reporter, she was the voice of my generation. She shaped our political consciousness to a large degree, and over the course of two decades was a notable model for commitment, professionalism, honesty, humanity and quality. It’s no wonder that she became an icon.
Every time there was a military operation, or a war, or an incursion by the Israeli army into the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, her voice became our soundtrack. In the days before the communications revolution and smartphones, she was the lens through which we saw the Second Intifada unfold. In many respects, during those difficult times she was the most important Palestinian personality there was, the one whom the entire world heard and saw day after day and through whom they were exposed to the injustices of the occupation. For me, she was a presence even before I understood what the occupation meant.
It was from Al Jazeera and Abu Akleh that I first learned about the refugee camps. She brought us the faces, the people, the shelling—and, most importantly, the truth (everything that wasn’tbroadcast on Israeli television). I even saw the landscapes of the West Bank through her.
Today, I particularly recalled her reporting from the Jenin refugee camp—not only because her dispatches from there had made such difficult viewing for a young person, or because it was the place where she met her death, but rather because she made me aware of how kind its inhabitants had been to her. She had been with them for 20 years, and they insisted that her funeral procession leave from the camp. It wasn’t just that she had covered them, but that she had become their voice.
Israelis don’t understand the depth of our anger and sadness. For us, the Palestinians, Shireen Abu Akleh was a legend. The entire Palestinian nation, in its homeland that stretches from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, both in exile and in the
Hanin Majadli is a content creator and media adviser. She grew up in Baka al‐Garbiyeh, now lives in Tel Aviv, and is a participant in the Haaretz 21 initiative to promote voices and stories from Israel’s Arab community. This article was published in Haaretz on May 12, 2022. Reprinted with permission
diaspora, in villages, cities and refugee camps, feel a sense of collective grief. That is the reason for the many tributes, for the demonstrations everywhere. Shireen Abu Akleh was the voice of the Palestinian who has no voice. Her loss is so egregious and so profound that despite everything that has been written, I cannot adequately put it into words.
I will end with something she said in a video posted on Al Jazeera’s website in October: “I chose journalism to be close to people, and I knew that it wouldn’t be easy to change the situation. But at least I managed to bring Palestinians’ voices to the world.” The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh: So Now You’re Appalled? By Gideon Levy THE RELATIVE HORROR expressed over the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh is justified and necessary. It is also belated and selfrighteous. Now you’re appalled? The blood of a famous journalist, no matter how brave and experienced she was—and she was—is no redder than the blood of an anonymous high school student who was traveling home in a taxi full of women in this same Jenin a month ago when she was killed by gunfire from Israeli soldiers.
That is how Hanan Khadour was killed. Then, too, the military spokesman tried to cast doubt on the shooters’ identity:
“The matter is being examined.” A month has passed, and this “examination” has yielded nothing, and never will—but the doubts were planted, and they sprouted in the Israeli fields of denial and suppression, where no one actually cares about the fate of a 19-year-old Palestinian girl, and the country’s dead conscience is silenced again. Is there a single crime committed by the military that the right and the establishment will ever accept responsibility for? Just one? Abu Akleh seems to be another story: an internationally known journalist. Just this past A woman is holding words by Palestinian‐American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh during a march Sunday, on May 8, a more organized in Amsterdam, on May 15, 2022. Mourners held vigils and marches around the world. local journalist, Basel al-Adra, was attacked by Israeli soldiers in the South Hebron Hills, and no one cared. And a couple days ago, two Israelis who attacked journalists during the Gaza war last May were sentenced to 22 months in prison. What punishment will be meted out to soldiers who killed, if indeed they did, Abu Akleh? And what punishment was given to whoever decided on and carried out the despicable bombing of the Associated Press offices in Gaza during the fighting last year? Has anyone paid for this crime? And what about the 13 journalists who were killed during the Gaza war in 2014? And the medical personnel who were killed during demonstrations at the Gaza border fence, including 21-year-old Razan al-Najjar, who was shot dead by soldiers while wearing her white uniform? No one has been punished. Such things will always be covered by a cloud of blind justification and automatic immunity for the military and worship of its soldiers. Even if the smoking Israeli bullet that killed Abu Akleh is found, and even if footage is found that shows the face of the shooter, he will be treated by Israelis as a hero who is above all suspicion. It’s tempting to write that if innocent Palestinians must be killed by Israeli soldiers, better for them to be well-known and holders of U.S. passports, like Abu Akleh. At least then the U.S. State Department will voice a little displeasure—but not too much— about the senseless killing of one of its citizens by the soldiers of one of its allies. At the time of writing, it was still unclear who killed Abu Akleh. This is Israel’s propaganda achievement—sowing doubts, which Israelis are quick to grab onto as fact and justification, though the world does not believe them and is usually correct. When the young Palestinian boy Muhammad al-Durrah was killed in 2000, Israeli propaganda also tried to blur the identity
PHOTO BY ROMY ARROYO FERNANDEZ/NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES Gideon Levy is an Israeli journalist and author. This article was first published in Haaretz, May 11, 2022 © Haaretz. Reprinted with per‐mission
Israeli forces attack Palestinians carrying the coffin of slain Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh out of the morgue of the Saint Joseph Hospital in East Jerusalem on May 13, 2022. Israeli police would not allow her body to be carried on foot.
of his killers; it never proved its claims, and no one bought them. Past experience shows that the soldiers who killed the young woman in a taxi are the same soldiers who might kill a journalist. It’s the same spirit; they are permitted to shoot as they please. Those who weren’t punished for Hanan’s killing continued with Shireen.
But the crime begins long before the shooting. The crime starts with the raiding of every town, refugee camp, village and bedroom in the West Bank every night, when necessary but mainly when not necessary. The military correspondents will always say that this was done for the sake of “arresting suspects,” without specifying which suspects and what they’re suspected of, and resistance to these incursions will always be seen as “a breach of order”—the order in which the military can do as it pleases and the Palestinians cannot do anything, certainly not show any resistance.
Abu Akleh died a hero, doing her job. She was a braver journalist than all Israeli journalists put together. She went to Jenin, and many other occupied places, where they have rarely if ever visited, and now they must bow their heads in respect and mourning. They also should have stopped spreading the propaganda spread by the military and government regarding the identity of her killers. Until proven otherwise, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the default conclusion must be the Israeli military killed Shireen Abu Akleh.
Violence Then Peace: Shireen Abu Akleh Laid to Rest in Jerusalem
PEOPLE PILED INTO THE YARD outside the Saint Joseph French Hospital in East Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood on Friday morning, waiting for the body of slain Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh to leave the morgue.
Palestinian flags fluttered, despite a last-minute decision from Israeli authorities to ban and confiscate them. Ten or so rows of heavily armed riot police stood at the gates of the hospital.
In the days leading up to the funeral in her hometown of Jerusalem, the body of Abu Akleh, shot by an Israeli gunman on Wednesday while she reported on an Israeli military raid, was carried through Jenin, Nablus and Ramallah.
In every West Bank city the cortege visited, residents rushed to join the procession and help carry the casket to the next stop.
After Muslims finished prayers outside the hospital on Friday, word spread that the police had spoken to Abu Akleh’s family, Lubna Masarwa, Huthifa Fayyad and Frank Andrews are journalists for Middle East Eye. This article was first published in Middle East Eye on May 13, 2022. Reprinted with permission.
who are Christians. They didn't want her casket to be carried aloft in a procession, an effort to prevent a mass march along the roughly 2.7km route to a Roman Catholic church in the Old City. The police wanted her body to be transported in a car.
Mourners resisted, holding Abu Akleh's casket aloft as they attempted to leave the hospital yard.
Israeli police responded with immediate violence. An Al Jazeera stream captured officers beating mourners with truncheons and firing stun grenades into the crowd.
Another video captured a bald man in a grey t-shirt being kicked in the torso as he lay on the ground. Stumbling away from the oncoming security forces, towards a group of Palestinians falling over each other to escape the beating, he was kicked again and whacked in the side with a baton.
The man kept his eyes on Abu Akleh's casket, though, which was teetering as the men underneath it struggled to hold firm while Israeli forces continued to strike them.
Trying to evade the blows, the man, with a terrified look on his face, sprang towards the coffin as it slipped towards the ground and managed to catch the falling end. (See cover)
After the sudden overwhelming violence, Abu Akleh's family agreed for her casket to be placed in a vehicle. Police prevented mourners coming near the vehicle, beating back those who approached.
As the car left, security forces shut the gate of the hospital, trapping most of the mourners inside the yard of the building. Only once the car had reached the church were they finally allowed out of the compound.
A video released by the Israeli authorities showed police officers snatching Palestinian flags off Abu Akleh's hearse as it drove through occupied East Jerusalem.
THE CATHEDRAL AND THE CEMETERY
When her casket entered the ornately decorated Cathedral of the Annunciation of the Virgin, there was finally peace.
The building was packed with Palestinians of all faiths, among them diplomatic delegations, Shireen Abu Akleh's former Al Jazeera colleagues—including their head of news in his Qatari thobe—and her family.
In the Christian quarter outside the church, more and more Palestinian mourners gathered.
Among them lurked an unprecedented number of Israeli police officers, in uniform and civilian clothing. Several times, Middle East Eye saw people who were carrying the Palestinian flag or chanting Palestinian slogans—which were both outlawed for the funeral by authorities—being suddenly set upon, beaten and dragged away.
After the final prayers in the church, Abu Akleh was brought outside once again. Witnesses described a sea of people all the way to the Mount Zion Cemetery hundreds of meters away, which was to be Abu Akleh's final resting place.
It looked as if the casket was moving above the march, not the march moving the casket.
Many young people, desperate to get a glimpse of Abu Akleh's coffin before she was interred, climbed over the walls of the cemetery, as Israeli restrictions on Palestinians entering and leaving the Old City meant they were lagging behind.
A cross of flowers, carried in front of the coffin by Muslim and Christian crowds, also finally got to the graveyard.
Then, in an extraordinary moment, representatives from the Christian denominations in Jerusalem rang church bells in tandem for the first time in the ancient city's history.
They rang for more than 30 minutes, mingling with the Islamic religious chant of “God is Great.”
Draped—despite the Israeli restrictions—in a Palestinian flag, the coffin of Abu Akleh was finally placed into the ground in a plot alongside her parents.
Long after the burial was finished, mourners continued to come forward, putting down flowers and saying prayers.
UNITY
The death of the veteran journalist has united Palestinians like few other events in recent history.
Israeli restrictions make it extremely difficult for Palestinians to gather in Jerusalem in such large numbers, but this was the biggest Palestinian funeral in decades.
Many locals felt it was as big as—if not bigger than—the famous funeral of Palestinian leader Faisal Husseini, who was buried in Jerusalem in 2001; and bigger than Yasser Arafat's 2004 burial in Ramallah.
Palestinians from Jerusalem and the cities in the ’48 community came to the funeral, but no one from the West Bank or Gaza was allowed to attend.
The different faiths rarely come together as they did on Friday.
After taking part in Islamic Friday prayers at the hospital, Palestinian Muslims and Christians joined the procession and prayed side-by-side in the Roman Catholic cathedral for the beloved journalist.
“A nation united, raise your hands and raise your voices,” Palestinians had chanted earlier. “Muslims and Christians, raise your voice in union.”
What Binds American White Supremacists and Israel’s Brutal Assault on Palestinians
By David Rothkopf
AN 18-YEAR-OLD walks into a grocery store in Buffalo, New York and opens fire, killing ten. On the barrel of his gun is written a racist epithet so offensive that most media simply refer to it as the “n-word.”
Israeli police brutally assault mourners at the funeral of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. They rip the Palestinian flag off the hearse carrying Abu Akleh’s coffin.
Two events, worlds apart. What could they possibly have in common?
After all, the Buffalo shooter, Payton S. Gendron, was an avowed anti-Semite who feared that Jews and Blacks and people of color were seeking to “replace” whites. Another symbol on his gun, the number 14, evoked a white supremacist credo, “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” He was a criminal.
According to the Israeli police they were seeking to “facilitate a calm and dignified funeral.” What could their behavior possibly have to do with that of an unhinged racist who perceived those who were different from him as a mortal threat and, as a result, felt justified in turning to violence against them?
Gendron has been linked to a 180-page manifesto in which he praised other racist gunman including Robert Gregory Bowers, the man who attacked the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in which 11 people died and six others were wounded. How could he possibly have anything in common with a police force empowered to protect a people he deplored?
Yet, the underlying impetus behind both assaults was hatred fueled by fear of the “other.” Yes, both Gendron and the Israeli police acted with reckless disregard for human life or decency. Yes, the police and Gendron were both actively protecting a world view in which people of different races and creeds were seen as lesser, in which denying them basic freedoms, even depriving them of life, has become commonplace.
Yes, the white replacement theory espoused by Gendron was promoted by right-wing media like Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News. And yes, when Fox star Tucker Carlson was attacked for espousing “white replacement theory,” his defense was to cite the case of Israel: “It is unrealistic and unacceptable to expect the State of Israel to voluntarily subvert its own sovereign existence and nationalist identity and become a vulnerable minority within what was once its own territory.”
And as repulsive as Carlson’s comments were, the logic that brought him to cite Israeli views toward Palestinians was akin to American white supremacists' views toward non-Christians and non-whites is easily understood.
The racism and hatemongering of right-wing media in both countries is linked directly to political parties in the U.S. and Israel who have tapped into race hatred and fears to fuel their popularity, in the case of the U.S., the GOP, and in particular Donald Trump’s MAGA movement, and in the case of Israel, the coalitions on the right that supported Bibi Netanyahu and now support Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.
Indeed, these powerful political movements and their media benefactors, acolytes and amplifiers have worked to institutionalize their intolerance. That is the case whether it is manifested in the U.S. by efforts to disenfranchise voters of color, by a border wall, or putting children in cages, or if it is manifested in Israel by a system that has, accurately, been condemned as imposing a system of apartheid, of second-class citizenship, limited rights and serial violence against Palestinians.
No, Gendron was not working for the state when he committed his crime as the Israeli police were when they brutally and unjustifiably attacked grieving mourners. But his racism was directly linked to a powerful political movement in the U.S.—the same movement that put a gun in his hands—just as was the case for the Israeli police who clubbed pallbearers and denied a decent funeral to a widely respected Palestinian-American citizen who deserved so much better.
Of course, it is easy to link these two acts because both were indecent, repulsive, offensive to any standard of morality. And there is a danger in conflating events merely because they occur close to one another in time. It would be a mistake to do so if such analogizing minimized one crime or misrepresented another.
That said, it would also be a mistake to fail to see the similarities when the two acts are in fact associated with toxic movements that represent a profound threat to the countries in question, especially when those two countries are as closely associated as the U.S. and Israel.
Both acts flowed from irrational hate fueled by ethno-nationalist politicians who have made crimes like these ever more likely, offered the predicate for the attacks (even if the monstrous behavior was very different in nature), and one way or another made available the weapons used in the crimes. (And before you say no one died in the Israeli attack, how many innocent Palestinians have died without justification at the hands of the Israeli police or the military? We do not know exactly whose bullet killed Shireen Abu Akleh yet, but it is too easy to cite other cases. We also know that the investigation into her death is likely to be inconclusive and such crimes will continue, often as a result of an Israeli institutional calculus that regularly values Palestinian lives at a fraction of the worth attributed to that of any Israeli.)
I am well aware that some will discount such analysis as being the kind of American Jewish statement critical of Israel or Zionism that is often equated with anti-Semitism by those on the Israeli right. They, like those on the American right, are allergic to dissent and inclined to question the character of their opponents.
But if Zionism means supporting the sort of state racism that it was created to escape, then supporting it and turning a blind eye to abuses and the corrupted values behind them is in fact, the real act of anti-Semitism.
Just as in the Republican Party in the U.S., many in the right wing of Israel’s government have lost their way and are damaging their country more than their enemies could. And just as in the U.S., the cure is to set aside euphemisms and both-sidesism and excuses and to acknowledge that both our countries are suffering the institutionalization of forms of racism that runs contrary to our espoused values, even if it is hardly contrary to the actual truth of the history in either nation. ■
David Rothkopf is a podcast host and CEO of The Rothkopf Group. His latest book is Traitor: A History of Betraying America from Benedict Arnold to Donald Trump. This article was first published on May 16, 2022 in Haaretz. Reprinted with permission.
“the nationalistic, anti-Western tendencies in Russian opinion...restore the atmosphere of the Cold War to East-West relations” and would be “a strategic blunder of epic proportions.” History has now taught us the bitter lesson that Kennan was right.
Since he came to power in 2000, Putin’s rage has been fueled by resentment of the provocative decision to expand NATO eastward incorporating several former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact allies. Hardly purely defensive in orientation, NATO has engaged in large offensive operations, notably in Libya and especially the former Yugoslavia. Both NATO and the United States—along with their ally Israel—promote militarism through large-scale arms sales and development of all manner of weapons systems.
Russia could hardly be indifferent to an array of formerly allied states being armed with nuclear missiles on the same borders through which it was twice invaded in the 20th century. Just imagine the U.S. response if a hostile alliance attempted such a gambit in Canada, Mexico, or the Caribbean (recall the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis).
None of this justifies or excuses the brutal Russian invasion or the mendacious claim that Ukraine is part of Russia, but it does help explain the origins of the war and why most Russians support it.
Ultimately only a diplomatic solution— which if pursued more vigorously at the outset might have headed off the horrific war—can resolve the conflict. Meanwhile the military-industrial complex (the term may be hackneyed but the complex is thriving) is happily manufacturing weapons for Ukraine, while the Cold War adversaries arm to the teeth and face off with weapons of mass destruction. This situation is as scary as it is stupid, particularly in an era in which climate change, poverty, disease control and other pressing issues should be the top priorities in world affairs.
MEDIA MYOPIA
Compare the saturated American mainstream media (MSM) coverage of the war in Ukraine with the coverage of Middle East conflicts. Just imagine if Israel’s ongoing illegal and brutal repression of Palestine—the assassinations, massacres, illegal settlements, home demolitions, beatings and incarceration, including children—received remotely the type of around-the-clock media coverage and demonization of the aggressor, day after day for weeks on end, as we have seen in the case of the Ukraine war.
Well, you indeed need to imagine such coverage because U.S. national security elites and the MSM bow to Israel and its lobby in refusing to report responsibly the ongoing human rights nightmare in Palestine. What conclusions should we draw when U.S. national security elites and the MSM gloss over the repression and killing of brown-skinned Palestinians, Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians and Yemenis while offering saturation coverage of the victimization of white, European Ukrainians?
Western media condemns Putin, and rightfully so, as a war-making dictator who has plundered Russian resources, amassed a vast personal fortune, and is a ruthless autocrat who silences criticism and dispenses with political opponents through repression and murder. Well, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) embodies these very same “qualities,” including waging the endless, blood-drenched war in Yemen, which has produced vastly more casualties than the war in Ukraine yet receives little coverage in the MSM. Meanwhile, MBS remains an American ally whose human rights violations are routinely overlooked.
The United States has a long history of bolstering the dictators that it likes and condemning and seeking to overthrow those that it doesn’t. The MSM, and thus most of the public, plays along.
A more even-handed, human rights-conscious, and conflict resolution-focused foreign policy would lead to fewer wars and a much safer world. ■
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United Nations Report Remind Washington and Moscow: Law Isn’t a Now and Then Thing for the U.N.
By Ian Williams
WHETHER THE UNITED NATIONS can survive this “Special Military Operation” on a member state is a moot point. The invasion of Ukraine is a direct challenge to the whole 1945 world order enshrined in the U.N. Charter. And that is not good news for people like the Palestinians, whose advocates and diplomats have invoked the “unique legitimacy” of the U.N. and its refusal to authorize Israel’s acquisition of territory by force. The closest parallel is the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, where the U.N.’s response was entirely legal if perhaps ill-advised in subcontracting the details to the klutzes in Washington.
No friend of the Palestinians should wield “What about?” to justify Vladimir Putin’s illegal aggression on Ukraine, let alone the illegal and inhumane ways in which he has waged that war. But it is indeed legitimate to raise the questions in Washington, although the purpose should be to hitch Palestinian issues to the Ukrainian bandwagon, not to give Putin a “Get-out-of-The-Hague-Free” card in the Superpower monopoly game.
For half a century, the U.S. veto has vitiated the Palestinian cause at the U.N., so it was almost a coming of age for Moscow when the General Assembly vote on Russia’s veto against the Ukraine Security Council Resolution was as badly supported as previous U.S. vetoes on behalf of Israel. However, U.S. diplomats—and media— were making no such odious comparisons as they crowed about Putin’s lack of support. Admittedly the reportage usually added (very) small print to the self-congratulations, that General Assembly resolutions are “not legally binding.” Archivists in the State Department could remind them that the reason for their alleged lack of effect is that for 30 years the U.S. has eroded their standing by declaring them as “not legally binding.” That was, of course, because most such resolutions condemned U.S. vetoes U.N. Secretary‐General António Guterres and President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy protecting Israel. In the U.S. presentations, hold a joint press conference on April 28, 2022, in Kyiv, Ukraine. somehow the General Assembly resolution partitioning mandatory Palestine and setting up a Jewish state was indeed as binding and unalterable as the Laws of the Medes and Persians. But then, the Uniting for Peace resolutions were legally effective enough to fight the Korean War— until Palestine resurrected the procedure and Washington denigrated it. Washington is not alone in suffocating in the stink of its own hypocrisy. Russia claims its veto from the U.N. Charter, whose core principle is a ban on “the acquisition of territory by force” accompanying the principle that all sovereign states are equal. Of course, the veto means that some states are more equal than others, but the U.N. Charter did not give Russia a permanent seat on the Security Council. That privilege belonged to the U.S.S.R., which was with Ukraine (and Belarus!), a founding member of the U.N. in 1945. The U.S.S.R. dissolved in 1991, after which Moscow usurped the seat. There was no formal vote on it, but the diplomatic identity theft went unchallenged, but not un-noticed, at the time. U.N. diplomats did discuss it but, like abuse within the family, decided that discretion was the best path. Even so, albeit 30 years on, it is a useful point to make against Putin’s specious legalism of a “special military operation” against a state he claims is not really a country. However, it is not practical to
PHOTO CREDIT VOLODYMYR TARASOV/ UKRINFORM/FUTURE PUBLISHING VIA GETTY IMAGES U.N. correspondent Ian Williams is the author of UNtold: the Real Story of the United Nations in Peace and War (available from Middle East Books and More).
remove Moscow from the Security Council, although Russia’s removal from the Human Rights Council sets an interesting precedent for a challenge to its delegation’s credentials for the General Assembly.
Secretariat inactivity apart, U.N. agencies of every description have responded to the war with material help and facilitated the rescue of civilians under siege by Russian forces, but U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has ducked the chance to “name and shame” and has instead been the soul of wriggly circumspection. That might have been acceptable if he were keeping his powder dry ready for a big diplomatic push. A U.N. Secretary-General has a role, indeed a duty, to provide a ladder for preposterous politicians like Putin to climb down from the tree in which they have trapped themselves.
Sadly, it took several months to get Guterres to attend to the war in person, without a ladder, and then only after hundreds of former and present U.N. luminaries signed a letter demanding action. When he went to the region, he raised eyebrows—and hackles—by calling on Putin first rather than the obvious victim. The Russians showed their appreciation by rocketing Kyiv within hours of Guterres landing there. Anyone who thinks that was an accident will maintain that the Black Sea flagship Moskva was hit by a stray iceberg.
Belatedly Guterres gave the firm U.N. position that “in line with the resolutions passed by the General Assembly, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a violation of its territorial integrity and against the Charter of the United Nations.” He added “There is one thing that is true and obvious, and that no arguments can change: We have not Ukrainian troops in the territory of the Russian Federation, but we have Russian troops in the territory of [Ukraine].”
During the war, Russian troops have breached numerous international conventions with attacks on civilians, in voluntary transfers of population, looted cultural property and so on ad infinitum. Whatever you think of Russian military prowess, it is not a People’s War as Mao or Ho Chi Minh preached, and, as far as winning hearts and minds go, the Russophone Ukrainians in the East, who have borne the brunt of the Special Military Operation, have been vociferously inveighing against their aspirant liberators—in Russian.
One small bright spot was the successful move by Liechtenstein, ironically endorsed by the U.S., to trigger a General Assembly vote whenever a permanent member casts a veto. Almost ironically as he looked around at the ruins Russia had wrought of the U.N. Charter and the post-World War II settlement, Moscow’s representative claimed that “the division of powers between the Assembly and the Council has allowed the United Nations to function effectively for more than 75 years.” This “effectiveness” is indeed news to millions of people from Indochina to the Congo, the Balkans and the Middle East, whose lives have been afflicted by the “scourge of war,” unhindered by the U.N. Charter and the organization it set up to end it forever.
Consistently, as a frequent victim of the veto, the Palestine delegation was a cosponsor of the measure, leading to an Israeli delegate to protest that it was against the rules. But then the Israeli delegate compounded her obtusity, trying to reconcile the good vetoes that Washington used with the bad ones that Russia had wielded. “In some cases, the problem has been the text of the resolution before the Security Council, not the veto itself.”
Indeed, as she implies, the text of a resolution might well call Israeli actions into question and “in the case of a particular resolution in the Security Council that does not promote peace and security, the veto should be cast.”
From now on, supporters of Palestine can and should use every occasion of a General Assembly debate on a U.S. veto to relate American statements about Russian frightfulness in Ukraine with Israeli behavior in Gaza. Bombings of civilians, deaths of children, violation of boundaries, defiance of Geneva conventions, annexation of territories acquired by force: you would almost think that Putin had studied the Israeli blueprint, and as Adolph Hitler famously concluded over the Ottomans’ Armenian massacres, “they got away with it.”
It is a reciprocal learning process as the barbaric Israeli assassination of Al Jazeera’s Shireen Abu Akleh demonstrates. Who knows though, maybe the White House foreign policy team might also learn from the self-serving expediency and manifest ambivalence of Israel and the Gulf states to U.S. resolutions on Russia and let them know they cannot expect automatic diplomatic and military support.
And maybe the U.S. can once again realize that international law is not something you can turn on and off when Israel is involved: that you cannot preach effectively against annexations in Ukraine, while condoning land grabs in the Golan, West Bank and Western Sahara. ■
PHOTO BY SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Rescuers carry the body of Radio Liberty producer Vira Hyrych from a damaged apartment building in Kyiv on April 29, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russian strikes slammed into Kyiv on April 28, as U.N. Secretary‐General António Guterres was visiting.
Congress Watch Consolidated Appropriations Bill Includes Nearly $5 Billion for Israel
By Shirl McArthur
ON MARCH 9 AND 10, Congress passed the consolidated “omnibus” appropriations bill funding the government through the end of FY ’22. President Joe Biden signed it March 15 as PL 117-103.
Funds for most Middle East countries were not earmarked in the bill, but Morocco, Tunisia and Lebanon historically have received funds from the economic or military aid accounts.
As usual, the largest earmarked amounts are for Israel, $4.805 billion! This includes $3.3 billion in military aid, which can be disbursed immediately (so Israel can earn interest on it until it’s spent), of which $785,300,000 can be spent in Israel with no strings attached, $500 million for so-called “Israeli Cooperative Programs,” and $5 million for “refugees” resettling in Israel. After many failed legislative attempts to pass H.R. 5323, giving Israel an additional $1 billion, supposedly to replenish the short-range Iron Dome missile defense system used during the May 2021 fighting between Israel and Hamas, congressional Zionists managed to get it included in the omnibus bill.
For Egypt, the bill earmarks the expected $1.3 billion in military aid, but with conditions. The first is to withhold $235 million pending a certification related to democracy and human rights. A second condition withholds $85 million because of Egypt’s treatment of political prisoners. The bill does not earmark funds for the Palestinians, but the accompanying “Joint Explanatory Statement” includes $219 million for the Palestinians. The bill includes the usual conditions and restrictions, especially that no aid should go to any Palestinian government that includes Hamas. Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi sits between Rep. Adam Schiff (r) and U.S. ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides, during a meeting at the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) in Jerusalem Significantly, one non-appropriations-related provision on Feb. 16, 2022, a month before Congress earmarked $4.805 billion for Israel, with no strings attached. in the omnibus incorporated the previously introduced bills, H.R. 2748, sponsored by Rep. Bradley Schneider (D-IL) in April, and S. 1061, sponsored by Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) in March 2021, “to encourage the normalization of relations with Israel.” When the omnibus bill was passed, H.R. 2748 had 332 cosponsors and S. 1061 had 72. MEMBERS OF CONGRESS UPSET OVER POSSIBILITY OF NEW IRAN NUCLEAR AGREEMENT After reports that negotiators for a new Iran nuclear deal made some progress, five congressional letters were sent and five measures were introduced threatening to block any agreement. On Feb. 7, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), with 32 Republican cosigners, sent a letter to Biden reminding him that the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 requires the president to submit any Iran agreement to Congress for approval. His letter was followed by four similar letters, with the Feb. 14 letter initiated by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), gaining the most support with 163 House Republicans signing. Only one of the five letters, the March 10 letter to Biden initiated by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), had any Democratic signers, with 12. All the letters, either specifically or implicitly threaten to try to scuttle any agreement, no matter what it says.
PHOTO BY ABIR SULTAN/POOL/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES Shirl McArthur is a retired foreign service officer. He lives in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.
Two measures were introduced to block any Iran agreement by codifying then-President Donald Trump’s executive orders imposing sanctions on Iran. H.R. 7063 was introduced March 11 by Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) and four cosponsors. H.R. 7139 was introduced March 17 by Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX) with seven cosponsors.
H.Res. 990 was introduced March 17 by Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) opposing any revival of the Iran deal. It has 65 cosponsors. On March 16, Cruz with 12 cosponsors introduced S. 3857 “to terminate certain waivers of sanctions with respect to Iran issued in connection with the” Iran agreement. The companion House bill, H.R. 7159, was introduced March 18 by Rep. Darrell Issa (RCA), with no cosponsors.
HOUSE PASSES THE “STOP IRANIAN DRONES” BILL
On April 27, the House passed, under “suspension of the rules,” H.R. 6089, the “Stop Iranian Drones” bill. Introduced in November by Rep. Michael McCaul (RTX), it would expand the list of weapons covered by sanctions on Iran to include combat drones. When passed, the bill had 77 cosponsors. The Senate companion bill, S. 3421, introduced in December by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), now has five cosponsors.
Bills were introduced in the House and Senate aimed at preventing Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps’ designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization from being revoked. On March 17, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) with three cosponsors, introduced S. 3871, and on April 1, Perry, with four cosponsors introduced H.R. 7354.
On March 17, Issa, with no cosponsors, introduced H.R. 7129 “to prohibit the importation of crude oil from Iran.” And on April 5, Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-MI), with no cosponsors, introduced H.R. 7402 to, among other things, “prevent the International Monetary Fund from providing financial assistance to Iran, [and] to codify prohibitions on Export-Import Bank financing for the government of Iran.”
POSITIVE MEASURES MAKE SCANT PROGRESS
H.Res. 751, introduced in October by Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), “Condemning the repressive designation by the Government of Israel of six prominent Palestinian human rights and civil society groups as terrorist organizations,” still has 11 cosponsors.
H.R. 2590, the “Palestinian Children and Families” bill, introduced in April 2021 by McCollum, still has 32 cosponsors.
The new two-state solution bill, H.R. 5344, has gained a cosponsor and now has 45. Introduced in September by Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI), it aims “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.”
On May 16, Rep. Rashida Tliab (D-MI) made history by introducing H.Res. 1123, “Recognizing the Nakba and Palestinian refugees’ rights.” The resolution has six cosponsors.
The diluted “anti-Islamophobia” bill, H.R. 5665, introduced in October by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), “to establish in the Department of State the Office to Monitor and Combat Islamophobia” worldwide, passed by the House in December, is still stuck in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Since her bill was being weakened prior to passage, on Dec. 9, Omar introduced H.R. 6204, a “clean” version of H.R. 5665 that still has 56 cosponsors.
MEASURES OPPOSING A U.S. DIPLOMATIC MISSION IN JERUSALEM GAIN SUPPORT
The previously described measures objecting to reopening the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem have gained support. S. 3063, introduced by Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) in October, “to prohibit the use of funds for a U.S. Embassy, Consulate General, Legation, Consular Office or any other diplomatic facility in Jerusalem other than the U.S. Embassy to the State of Israel,” now has 40 cosponsors. The identical H.R. 6004, introduced in November by Rep. David Kustoff (R-TN), now has 124 Republican cosponsors.
A new, poorly drafted measure, S.Con.Res. 34, was introduced March 22 by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) with 11 cosponsors. It would “express the sense of Congress in opposition to the establishment of a new Palestinian (sic) consulate or diplomatic mission in Jerusalem.” (Note, a new Palestinian mission in Jerusalem has not been proposed or considered.)
NEW ANTI-U.N. BILLS INTRODUCED
Of the previously described anti-UNRWA bills introduced “to withhold U.S. contributions to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)” only H.R. 6155, introduced in December by Rep. Lance Gooden (R-TX), has gained cosponsors. Modestly titled the “No Tax Dollars for the United Nation’s Immigration Invasion,” the bill now has 20 cosponsors.
A new bill to withhold funds from UNRWA, S. 3467, was introduced on January 10 by Sen. James Risch (R-ID). It has six cosponsors. It not only attacks UNRWA, but also attacks Palestinian refugees.
After the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) indicated that it would not cancel its investigation of Israel for human rights violations during Israel’s May 2021 conflict with Hamas, Rep. Gregory Steube (R-FL), on March 24, introduced H.R. 7223 and 7224 calling for the abolition of the UNHRC and prohibiting any U.S. contributions to it. H.R. 7223 has three cosponsors and H.R. 7224 has five.
And on April 1, Sens. James Lankford (R-OK), Cruz (R-TX), Tom Cotton (R-AR), and Hagerty (R-TN) signed a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging that the U.S. withdraw from the UNHRC.
PRO-ISRAEL BILLS HAVE BEEN RELATIVELY QUIET, BUT A NEW ONE WAS INTRODUCED
On March 3, Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) again introduced the “Israel Anti-Boycott” bill, H.R. 6940. As with previous versions of the bill, it would attempt to criminalize supporting or calling for boycotts of Israel. Previous versions of the bill have been strongly criticized by the ACLU and other organizations as being blatant violations of free speech rights. It has 55 cosponsors. ■
Israel. Saban warned Clinton’s campaign staff (per leaked emails), that “thousands” of Israel supporters needed clear signals on her Israel stance.
The names of a few dozen high rollers are listed in the AIPAC super PAC’s fundraising report for the last 3 months—nearly $16 million! That’s a lot of money in a hurry. That’s why the New York Times called “Jewish donors” who prioritize Israel as the “elephant in the room” of our foreign policy. Or why a J Street panel said that the clout of Jewish donors in the Democratic Party is “gigantic” and “shocking.”
It’s also the reason that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (who raises a lot of money from Saban) said the Capitol will crumble and fall before Congress walks away from Israel. And why in 2016 and 2020 again, the Democratic Party removed any references to occupation from its platform—with Joe Biden personally intervening to remove the word the last time. Just as President Barack Obama personally intervened to put the words, “Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel,” into the party platform in 2012—infuriating the Democratic base.
The Democratic base doesn’t think the Israel relationship is at all important. Democratic voters put Israel at 9 on a list of allies. But this is a battle between the Democratic establishment and the base.
Haim Saban worked closely with the late Sheldon Adelson, Trump’s biggest donor, when it came to Israel, and is very friendly with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and chief envoy on the Middle East. But all that is forgiven when you’re talking about a key donor to the Democratic Party.
As for those congressional candidates who “may seek to undermine” the relationship with Israel, AIPAC is concerned that the Squad of progressive Democrats in Congress is going to grow.
AIPAC shares that fear of the Squad with Democratic Majority for Israel, an organization that began just three years ago, when AIPAC had become too close to Trump’s Republican Party and when the first Squad members got elected to Congress. DMFI’s trademark is to pour money into a race in an urban district where a progressive candidate of color is being critical of Israel so as to support Israel-friendly candidates. Ritchie Torres is their poster child—the Bronx politician who recently said, “I try to approach the [Iran] issue not from the perspective of an American, but from the perspective of an Israeli.”
DMFI helped defeat Nina Turner in a Cleveland primary last year for an empty seat. Turner ran again this year and got attacked repeatedly by AIPAC as “anti-Israel” because she is a Sanders Democrat who has offered mild criticisms of Israel. She was roundly defeated in her May primary. Turner says she is “heartbroken by the defamation” that she is anti-Semitic, adding, “Some of those attacks were funded by Republican interests and even Trump donors.”
Turner says the attacks are seeking to drive a wedge between the Jewish and Black communities, both of which have fought White supremacy in the U.S.
So, it’s O.K. in the Democratic Party to critique White supremacy in the U.S., but you get railroaded if you bring (Advertisement)
up Jewish supremacy in Israel. Several apartheid reports from leading human rights organizations have documented that supremacy—if you mention them, then you are smeared as an anti-Semite by a fellow Democrat on the House floor, because you “besmirched” Israel. However, the leftwing of the Israel lobby isn’t all that helpful when it comes to Israel policy. While J Street is fighting a good fight with AIPAC over AIPAC’s support for Trumpist Republicans, J Street is reinforcing some of the same red lines on Playgrounds for Palestine is a project to build playgrounds Israel. It says that supporting for our children. It is a minimal recognition of their right BDS is anti-Semitic, and it reto childhood and creative expression. It is an act of love. jects the conclusion of countless Playgrounds for Palestine (PfP) is a registered 501(c)3 non- human rights groups that Israel profit organization, established in 2001. We’re an all-volun- is an apartheid state. teer organization (no paid staff) that raises money through- This is a battle between the out the year to construct playgrounds and fund programs for children in Palestine. Democratic establishment and the grassroots. Twice as many Selling Organic, Fair Trade Palestin- Democratic voters want the ian olive oil is PfP’s principle source of country to take the Palestinian fundraising. This year, PfP launched AIDA, a private label olive oil from side as those who want it to take Palestinian farmers. Please come by and Israel’s side (17.9 to 9.5 percent) taste it at our table. according to the University of We hope you’ll love it and make it a staple in your pantry. Maryland. But their views are For more information or to make a donation visit: not being reflected by the party, https://playgroundsforpalestine.org • P.O. Box 559 • Yardley, PA 19067 because money is the mother’s milk of politics. ■
