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

FUNDING ISRAELI APARTHEID

Those of us who believe in human rights, self-determination and fair play find Israel’s actions against Palestine’s population appalling. With absolutely no conscience whatsoever came the assassination of the brilliant PalestinianAmerican journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, and the beating of her pallbearers. Identified as a member of the press, she was shot in the head for being who she was.

Demonstrating against more than 70 years of brutal occupation by the Israeli military government, Palestinians are permitted by international law the right of return—but are not granted this right by Israel.

Israel is not the democracy it claims to be, but is an apartheid state of racial, religious and political discrimination.

When Israel says “never again” does that mean never again to everyone else except Palestinians? The term “anti-Semitic” is a tool used by Israel and its lobbying allies here in America to intimidate any criticism of the state.

By building cookie-cutter new construction for the influx of Jewish-only settlers and by building a separation wall to keep Palestinians out, Israel shows no respect for the ancient land it covets. Isn’t that one of the Ten Commandments of God to Moses? “Thou shall not covet...anything that is thy neighbor’s?”

Here in the United States, both Republican and Democratic members of Congress and administrations seem to defend and support Israel more than they do America. They enable atrocities such as Abu Akleh’s murder to continue without any negative consequences because of Israel’s undue influence on the American election system. Israel uses the United States government and taxpayers to get its way, so that its military and financial might can pre-empt and/or suppress opposition of any kind. And now, Israel as a foreign state receives $3.8 billion annually. No, the United States was never the honest broker for peace, as her bias for Israel and prejudice against Palestine, are evident. It is time for the American government and taxpayers to stop the financial, military and political spigot to Israel.

For the indigenous Palestinian people, it is long past time to call for civil disobedience that would force both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas to come together against Israel’s Zionist form of supremacy and oppression.

Judith Howard, Norwood, MA

RABBI ELMER BERGER AND THE AMERICAN COUNCIL FOR JUDAISM

We are pleased we could be a supporter of the March Israel lobby conference and glad that it is back in person. I just received the May edition of the Washington Report and look forward to reading all the presentations.

I thank you for the comments at the gala dinner about the American Council for Judaism (ACJ). It is prophetic that you mentioned Rabbi Elmer Berger in the context of the Council's founding 80 years ago, because Rabbi Berger was also a supporter of promoting peace and interaction among Jews and Palestinians well prior to the debacle of 1948.

It was this proactive approach that brought great derision upon him and the Council as so-called “Arab lovers” and “self-hating Jews,” all of which was orchestrated by the Zionist propaganda machine, which even in those early years was well organized and funded.

Subsequently, the Council was sanctioned by the leadership of the Reform movement which I have always held out as a badge of courage for Rabbi Berger and the ACJ founders. Eventually the Council chose a path of moderation trying to promote Classical Reform Judaism and the founding principles of the Pittsburgh Platform of 1885, and Rabbi Berger created American Jewish Alternatives to Zionism (AJAZ), an organization I also supported prior to Rabbi Berger’s death in 1996.

It is interesting to note that the AntiDefamation League (ADL) is once again calling anti-Zionism anti-Semitism!

Thank you to the Washington Report

and the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) again for all you are doing.

Stephen L. Naman, president of the American Council for Judaism

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MAYOR OF BERKELEY, CA ON ISRAEL TRIP Dear Mayor Jesse Arreguín,

In accepting being named Poet Laureate of Berkeley, I said:

“I [would] not wear my laurels lightly /in honor of the beloved city /to praise when it serves justice /to protest when it does not.”

On your reelection, I wrote a poem of celebration. You have led Berkeley in the pandemic and other crises with much wisdom, with justice, compassion, courage—for which we are all grateful.

Now I must ask about your recent ill-advised trip as mayor of Berkeley to Israel.

I can imagine the temptation of a paid visit to the “holy land,” but in light of the government of Israel’s continuous violations of human rights, its illegal colonizing of Palestinian land and its killing of Palestinians, I must say that your visit to Israel blemishes not only your reputation but betrays the City of Berkeley’s tradition of adhering to justice.

It behooves the Berkeley Mayor’s Office and the City Council to strongly and publicly denounce the Israeli government for the assassination of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by Israeli forces and the attacks on her funeral by Israeli police, and call for an international investigation into her killing. Nothing less will do.

Rafael Jesús González, Poet Laureate of Berkeley, CA TIME FOR AN END TO ANIMOSITY WITH IRAN The article “Iran Admits to raiding Greek Oil Tankers” in my June 4 local paper correctly stated that it was the U.S. and Greece that first seized crude oil from an Iranian-flagged tanker. The U.S. has also continued to apply harsh sanctions against Iranian civilians while assassinating their military officials. Meanwhile, Israel, with U.S. support, has bombed Syrian and Iranian targets in Syria over 1,000 times since 2017 and has also assassinated Iranian officials and scientists.

President Joe Biden promised to return to the nuclear peace deal with Iran when elected. The U.S. needs to dialogue and trade with Iran, a country that does not threaten our national interests, and become an honest broker for peace in the Middle East.

Ray Gordon, Venice, FL A CONTINUING INJUSTICE AT GUANTANAMO BAY Abu Zubaydah, a prisoner falsely indicted during one the darkest chapters in the war in Af ghanistan, sought to subpoena two CIA operatives in his defense. Abu Zubaydah was brutally tortured at a secret site in Poland. The case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

The justices were unconcerned of the merits of the case and Abu Zubaydah’s life-threatening ordeal, but only ensuring that the dark Polish torture site be kept secret.

The location of the CIA’s detention site has been acknowledged by the former Polish president, investigated by the Council of Europe, and proven “beyond reasonable doubt” to the European Court of Human Rights.

Abu Zubaydah, whose real name is Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, was captured in Pakistan in March 2002 and was initially thought to be a high-level member of al-Qaeda. A 2014 report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said the CIA later concluded that Abu Zubaydah was not a member of al-Qaeda. No apologies or reparations were offered for imprisoning and torturing an innocent man!

He was the first prisoner held

KEEP THOSE CARDS AND LETTERS by the CIA after the Sept. 11, COMING! 2001 attacks to be tortured, using Send your letters to the editor to the Washington methods based on a list of sug Report, P.O. Box 53062, Washington, DC 20009 gestions drawn up for use on him or e-mail <letters@wrmea.org>. by Dr. James Mitchell and Dr. Bruce Jessen, both psychologists. How noble of the good doctors! Abu Zubaydah was tortured multiple times to force him to confess to crimes he had not committed. A federal judge granted the government’s motion to block the subpoena, saying that “proceeding with discovery would present an unacceptable risk of disclosing state secrets.” Abu Zubaydah continues to languish in Guantanamo Bay, costing the U.S. $13 million annually. Jagjit Singh, Los Altos, CA ■ 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.

Special Report Abu Akleh’s Death Investigation Proves America Will Always Defend Israel By Gideon Levy

IMAGINE THE UNIMAGINABLE: Ilana Dayan (or Yonit Levi) goes out of her comfort zone in order to report on the occupation. She is caught in an exchange of fire and a bullet hits her in the neck, in the area between her helmet and her ballistic vest. She dies. What happens then? Israel very quickly captures the Palestinian “cell.” It doesn’t matter who fired, it’s entirely insignificant, all of its members are killed or sentenced to life in prison. Israel mourns the loss of its veteran journalist.

No one even considers forensic tests: There’s no need for them. It’s clear to everyone who killed the journalist. The United States doesn’t think to interfere with the investigation, only to censure the Palestinians and participate in the grief of the Jewish nation, and perhaps also to impose sanctions on the Palestinian Authority over the journalist’s murder. It is obvious to all that the Israeli journalist was killed because she was Jewish and because

she was a journalist. Her murderers—that’s what they’ll be called, of course—intended to murder her. Every Israeli child will understand this. But Shireen Abu Akleh was a Palestinian war correspondent, infinitely more courageous and determined than Dayan and Levi put together, and she was killed in Jenin. Israel washed its hands of any respon sibility, as usual. Washed its hands and obfuscated. All of the investigations that Palestinians take part in a demonstration following the death of veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Gaza City on May 12, 2022. Abu Akleh, who was shot dead on May 11, 2022 while covering a raid in the Israeli‐occupied West Bank, was among the Arab media’s most prominent figures and widely hailed for her bravery and have been published so far into the circumprofessionalism. stances of her killing led to a single conclusion: The Israel Defense Forces shot her. But Israel continued to obfuscate. And then came the forensic analysis, carried out in the presence of a U.S. military officer. And this is the result: The U.S. Department of State, which is concerned about the safety of civilians and is particularly shocked by harm caused to journalists, as proved in the Jamal Khashoggi case, announced that while it is impossible to determine with certainty who killed Abu Akleh, the gunfire likely came from IDF positions. And the punch line: “The [U.S. Security Coordinator] found no reason to believe that [the gunfire] was intentional but rather the result of tragic circumstances.” The damaged bullet that was removed from Abu Akleh’s head whispered to the United States that the shooter didn’t mean to kill her. It was the most elaborate ballistic test in history: a test that examines innermost thoughts, that discerns intentions. It’s difficult to imagine a more clumsy, unprofessional, ridiculous and even insulting mobilization in the service of Israeli pro-

PHOTO BY MOHAMMED ABED/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES Gideon Levy is an Israeli journalist and author. This article was first published in Haaretz, July 7, 2022 © Haaretz. Reprinted with per‐mission.

United Nations Report Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan Crows After His Uncontested “Election’’

PHOTO BY SAID KHATIB/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Women protest the appointment of Gilad Erdan, Israel’s perma‐nent representative to the United Nations, as one of the 21 Vice Presidents of the 77th session of the U.N. General Assembly, outside the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees center in the Rafah refugee camp on June 9, 2022.

OVER THE YEARS, Israel has sent a tag team of obnoxious racist right-wing ambassadors to the U.N. who shared a publicly expressed disdain for the organization, its Charter and its decisions. Last year, current incumbent Gilad Erdan lived down to his predecessors’ standards by tearing up the U.N. Human Rights report while on the podium from which he will now occasionally preside over the Assembly. Of course, he shared with them a brazen disdain for the Palestinians along with an obsessional need to be recognized and loved by the organization that, after all, had anomalously legitimized their settler state.

Notoriously, a diplomat is someone sent abroad to lie for their country and just like his predecessors, Erdan ostentatiously and consistently lives down to the job description. And like them, he does not blink at disparaging the U.N. while calling down its wrath on others, notably Iran. And oddly, along with the State of Israel, he crows at every tiny positional gain his renegade state makes in the organization.

Other countries think “so what,” but for Israel it is a diplomatic game of Go, where each piece positioned is an incremental gain in the long run. Despite Erdan’s manifest disdain for the Charter, U.N. delegates “allowed” this Goebbels- emulator to become one of 21 Vice Presidents of the General Assembly. Although the press reported that Israel was “elected,” this is stretching it, since the scofflaw state could only take the seat because of the fix in the “West European and Others Group” (WEOG), which meant no other country from that group dared run against it for fear of being penalized when its “turn” came round.

But as has been said in other contexts, not least the much-invoked Holocaust, for evil to triumph all it needs is inaction from bystanders. This means that most members of the U.N., and in particular the West European group, just had to acquiesce in Erdan’s “election,” implicitly condoning the countless crimes of the occupiers. Typically insouciant of reality, Erdan crowed that “this triumph sends a clear message to our enemies that they will not prevent us from participating in leading roles at the U.N. and in the international arena.”

The appointment was announced against the background of the U.N. Human Rights Commission’s conclusion that Shireen Abu Akleh was killed by the IDF. The same week The New York Times belatedly reached the same conclusion after almost every other news agency, including Al Jazeera, whose staff were actual witnesses, as well as the Washington Post, CNN, AP and many others, about the shooting. Along with Bellingcat, oft acclaimed for its work in ferreting out disinformation, the media concluded that it was the Israeli security forces who killed her, the same gang of “the most moral army in the world,” who then trashed her funeral as the world watched.

Indeed, their attempt to hijack the coffin could be seen as a calculated diversion for the settler mob that seized a Palestinian home in Hebron. In any case, shortly afterwards the IDF and police backed up a mob of hard Zionist pogromists ravaging the Old City, so it was indeed an incremental gain for the occupiers, who escaped with little or no public condemnation for their manifestly illegal barbarities.

If the VP vote had gone as a contested election to the whole General Assembly, then almost any other candidate would have won. Indeed, although the bumptious Erdan represented it as a pioneering triumph, in 2005, backed by brutal U.S. pressure, his predecessor Dan Gillerman had taken the seat when Israel was first admitted to the WEOG ranks. Nevertheless, Erdan’s cynical crowing was supported with hasbara from the state, amplifying his shameless self-promotion through a sycophantic and stenographic media.

The U.N. members know the real situation since they overwhelmingly endorsed the results of the Commission of Inquiry (COI) into Israeli practices in the Territories. With typical perversity, the pro-Israeli press headlined their vote as “21 countries lash U.N. report.” The headline writers’ inversion of the subject is indicative. When the numbers were inverted for the General Assembly resolution on the invasion of Ukraine, the headlines talked about the world’s condemnation of Putin, not about the flogging of the U.N. by Zelensky! A small harbinger of conscience was Australia’s new Labour government breaking the Anglo-Israeli axis whip when they refused to join this “lashing!”

Typically, the U.S. ambassador claimed that “the nature of the COI established last May is further demonstration of long-standing, dis-

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).

By Ian Williams

proportionate attention given to Israel in the Council and must stop…We continue to believe that this long-standing disproportionate scrutiny should end, and that the Council should address all human rights concerns, regardless of country, in an even-handed manner,” she said. “Regrettably, we are concerned that the Commission of Inquiry will further contribute to the polarization of a situation about which so many of us are concerned,” she shamelessly blathered.

Citizens of Canada, the Netherlands, the UK and other countries that supported the resolution are culpable. Imagine the outcry if their delegations to the U.N. had exonerated Putin!

Taking their cue from Washington, the assorted group of 21 client atolls and toadies who voted against the report did not contradict the facts in it, but rather squirmed to suggest that there were too many such reports about Israel.

None of them seriously contested the findings about Palestinian suffering, nor about Israeli crimes, which suggests their protestations of bias had all the ethical substance of Al Capone whining about anti-Italian bias in the FBI.

Perhaps those who look for “bias” should look at Secretary of State Antony Blinken unabashedly not conducting any inquiry into the murder of a U.S. citizen because he is waiting for the results of an inquiry by the murderers, who have made it plain that they had no intention of investigating. First they could nothing without the murder bullet, and then when they got it, their soothsayers concluded from a few battered crumbs of lead that there was no reason to infer murderous intent.

And, speaking of bias, these recidivist whitewashers have repeatedly found themselves innocent of every such charge. The good news is that many Democratic lawmakers have called for an inquiry despite being warned off by AIPAC, which claimed that “the circumstances of Ms. Abu Akleh’s death remain unclear despite the hasty conclusions of various media outlets.” For a reductio ad absurdum this is a bit like refusing to start the Nuremberg trials until we have the full names of all the victims. It is an insulting prevarication and should be denounced as such by the congresspeople to whom it was addressed.

Shireen Abu Akleh can draw some posthumous comfort from the timing, some 55 years after the murder of 34 other U.S. citizens, the sailors on the USS Liberty that Israel tried to sink in 1967, a crime which could have led to charges of a biased inquiry from Washington.

But the Israelis know what they are doing. Like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, they know that pre-emptive complaints about alleged bias, delivered in a bubble wrap of “what about-ery,” go a long way to head off criticism and make liberal and fair-minded critics ignore the substance of the accusation to simply count up the complaints and shout “bias.”

Blinken can at least exonerate himself of anti-Arab bias since he is now shaking the hands of the Crown Prince who ordered Jamal Khashoggi put through a meat grinder—and is refusing to support moves to isolate Putin. It is almost reassuring that there is more than one lobby mesmerizing the administration in Washington. But not really! The overarching message is not “bias” but that it is open season on American journalists across the world! ■

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Congress Watch A Flurry of Letters and the Art of Legislation Through Appropriations

By Julia Pitner

THE KILLING OF Palestinian American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, and subsequent media reports about the incident, energized several letters to the Biden administration. Reps. Andre Carson (D-IN) and Lou Correa (D-CA) immediately began circulating a letter calling on the FBI to investigate the killing. That letter was sent on May 19 with a total of 57 signers, all Democrats.

Another letter, with a slightly different tack was sent on June 3, with Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) leading the effort and signed by 25 House bipartisan members, embracing the Israeli government’s call for a joint Israeli-Palestinian investigation but then attacking the Palestinian Authority for its “obstinate position” of refusing to turn over to Israel the bullet that killed Abu Akleh.

On June 6, Sens. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) and Mitt Romney (RUT) added their letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, asserting that “The killing of a U.S. citizen and of a journalist engaged in the work of reporting in a conflict zone is unacceptable.” The letter concludes forcefully, stating, “We insist that the administration ensure a full and transparent investigation is completed and that justice is served for Ms. Akleh’s death.”

A follow up letter on June 23 to President Joe Biden by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), co-signed by 23 Senate colleagues (all Democrats), reiterated the request of the May 19 House letter, while noting the lack of significant progress and stating that “the U.S. government has an obligation to ensure that a comprehensive, impartial and open investigation into her shooting death is conducted.”

Unfortunately, it is now known what that report will say. On July 2, the Palestinian Authority handed the bullet to the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem and on July 4, the State Department issued the initial

PHOTO BY MEGHDAD MADADI ATPIMAGES/GETTY IMAGES

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell (l) meets with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir‐Abdollahian (r) during his official visit to Tehran, Iran on June 25, 2022. Borrell’s visit aimed at reviving the stalled nuclear deal, while members of Congress worked to stymie any deal. result of the “investigation” in a press release. It stated that ballistic experts determined the bullet was “too badly damaged to come to a conclusion” about the circumstances. But the U.S. Security Coordinator (USSC) did conclude that while “gunfire from IDF positions was likely responsible for the death of Shireen Abu Akleh,” there was no proof that it was intentional. Instead, it was the “result of tragic circumstances during an IDF-led military operation against factions of Palestinian Islamic Jihad on May 11, 2022, in Jenin, which followed a series of terrorist attacks in Israel.” It remains to be seen if Congress will have any further reaction or requests for the administration. MORE GIFTS FOR ISRAEL Ahead of President Biden’s trip to the region, 12 Senate Republicans sent a letter to the Biden administration on June 10, demandJulia Pitner is a contributing editor of the Washington Report. She ing it cancel “taxpayer funding for groups to investigate alleged lives in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. human rights abuses in Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza