LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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LetterstotheEditor

A SUGGESTION FOR THE STREET IN FRONT OF ISRAEL’S EMBASSY

In reference to the street in front of Saudi Arabia’s Washington, DC embassy being named after Jamal Khashoggi, the photo caption in the August/September issue’s publishers' page said, “We hope the street in front of the Israeli Embassy will be renamed in memory of Shireen Abu Akleh.” I have a better idea to show our love to the Jewish people: The street in front of the Israeli Embassy should be renamed for the Swedish diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte! Remember, he saved tens of thousands of Jews during World War II, only to be later assassinated in 1948 by a Zionist group in Jerusalem while attempting to mediate peace.

There are streets named after fellow Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg who also saved thousands of Jewish lives during the Holocaust, so why not for Bernadotte?

Yehuda Littmann, Brooklyn, NY

AIPAC GETTING WHAT IT WANTS

Former Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) has a record of sticking up for the Palestinians, and thus was attacked by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC’s) new political action committee (PAC). As a result, she lost her primary election this summer. It’s a sure sign of losing an election if one backs Palestine.

These are dangerous times. Americans need to speak out against what Israel is doing—both in Palestine and to our nation. We are supporting fascism, totalitarianism, human rights violations, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, racism, annexation of lands, massacres and a kleptocratic Israeli government.

All of this happens with the continued financial support of the United States, ensured by pro-Israel groups making large donations to their preferred candidates for Congress. As far as I’m concerned, we are under occupation due to who is pulling America’s strings in Israel.

Barbara Gravesen, Lady Lake, FL REP. ANDY LEVIN AND AIPAC’S ELECTORAL REACH

I am deeply disappointed and sad that Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI) lost against Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) in the 11th district Michigan primary. He was a true advocate of the two-state solution and human rights for Palestinians. For this reason, pro-Israel groups spent millions to unseat him.

The defeat of Andy Levin has sent the clear, intimidating message to all elected officials: you criticize Israel, you have crossed the red line and your days are numbered.

Despite being a pro-Israel liberal Zionist, AIPAC’s former president David Victor called Levin, “arguably the most corrosive member of Congress to the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

There is a growing list of names of progressive candidates, including Levin, former Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), Nina Turner (D-OH), Former Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) and Jessica Cisneros (D-TX) who have lost their primary just because they have not acquiesced to the far-right pro-Israel position.

Progressives like Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Alexandria OcasioCortez (D-NY), Jamaal Bowman (DNY) and many others are nervous about supporting Palestinian issues. If they do, they may risk losing their seats just like Levin and others.

Mega donors like hedge funder billionaire Paul Singer, Home Depot cofounder Bernie Marcus and media mogul Haim Saban have pledged millions to silence any dissent in Congress. This is a serious threat to our democracy. We need to speak out against the corrosive influence of dark money in our democracy and permitting millions of dollars to pour into elections to silence freedom of speech.

This is not democracy, but oligarchy rule. AIPAC has descended into a fullfledged war of McCarthyism on any candidate who speaks against Israel. It’s time for us to speak up! Silent no

more! Challenge Israel’s apar theid system by calling to end U.S. aid. Support the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. Stop saying, “I don’t have time, it’s all politics” or “I don’t know.” We need to act; don’t be complicit or remain silent.

Mohammed Khaku, Allentown, PA ZIONISM AND ANTI-SEMITISM Zionists have a new definition of “antiSemite”: anyone who believes that Palestinians are human beings and entitled to basic human rights. Israel and its apologists are desperate to conflate Zionism with Judaism so that anyone who criticizes Israel’s racism and apartheid is automatically guilty of antiSemitism.

This is ironic given that Israel’s behavior over the past 74 years has been the antithesis of everything Judaism stands for. Zionists appear to have forgotten the commandment to love thy neighbor as well as the admonitions against coveting, stealing, lying and murdering. If anything, it is Zionism that is anti-Semitic.

Clyde Farris, West Linn, OR DISSATISFACTION WITH BIDEN’S TRIP TO THE MIDDLE EAST On his recent trip to Israel/Palestine, President Joe Biden offered $100 million to Palestinian hospitals. This is in contrast to the billions the U.S. gives Israel each year.

As well as a hospital, Biden also visited the Church of the Nativity, but offered no comfort to Christians who are being harassed by the Israeli government. Biden, being a committed “Zionist,” is apparently not interested in supporting the Christian church there, even though he is a devout Christian.

After Israel, Biden continued his trip with a visit to Saudi Arabia, a country whose leader Biden had previously vowed during his election campaign to treat like a “pariah” for his human rights violations. Yet, the president seems to now be eschewing all of this punitive talk and going hat-in-hand to engage this apparently newly-purified “pariah” state. With actions such as these, I see Biden as perhaps the most pandering president we have ever had.

Doris Rausch, Tullahoma TN CANADA SILENT AS ISRAEL RAIDS HUMAN RIGHTS OFFICES The recent Israeli raid on Palestinian human rights offices reminded me that Israel employed secret evidence in 2021 to categorize six Palestinian human rights groups as terrorist organizations. This is hardly news, since the Israeli state routinely targets Palestinians who dare advocate for themselves.

Recent apartheid findings by Amnesty International and Israeli human rights groups have angered Israeli leaders and thus worsened conditions for Arab Israelis, occupied Palestinians in the West Bank and, of course, the Gaza Strip. In spite of this, it is worth remembering that the South African apartheid regime crumbled eventually.

While official Canada has remained silent, nine European countries consider these allegations of terrorism devoid of merit. Democracy is not served when any state uses overwhelming power to criminalize its critics.

The use of secret evidence against alleged terrorists and their supporters is not uniquely Israeli. The former Stephen Harper government in Canada quickly de-funded Kairos, a Palestinian Christian advocacy organization accused of anti-Semitism and support for terrorism, despite its ecumenical nature.

Throughout history, the terrorist label has presupposed that “we” (us and our allies) are incapable of terrorism while “they” (anyone who opposes us) rely on it, making

KEEP THOSE CARDS AND LETTERS them legitimate targets to attack. COMING! Effective opposition to Send your letters to the editor to the Washington Canada’s role in Israeli misdeeds Report, P.O. Box 53062, Washington, DC 20009 is hampered by mainstream or e-mail <letters@wrmea.org>. media coverage that routinely portrays even peaceful Palestinian resistance as terrorism. Alternately, the Israeli state is automatically presented as an embattled democracy whose noble intentions sometimes go awry. Canada’s official rejection of accurate criticism of Israeli conduct has little to do with supporting Zionism and everything to do with deference to the U.S. government’s military, financial and diplomatic support for Israel. Morgan Duchesney, Ottawa, ON ■ 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.

One of the recommendations by Arab officials was to support Arab boycott initiatives in accordance with the Tunis Arab Summit in March 2019, which resolved that “boycott of the Israeli occupation and its colonial regime is one of the effective and legitimate means to resist.”

Though one may rightly cast doubts on the significance of such statements in terms of dissuading Israel from its ongoing colonization schemes in Palestine, at least they demonstrate that in terms of political discourse, the collective Arab position remains unchanged. This was also expressed clearly to U.S. President Joe Biden during his latest visit to the Middle East. Biden may have expected to leave the region with major Arab concessions to Israel—which would be considered a significant political victory for the pro-Israel members of his Democratic Party prior to the defining November midterm elections—but he received none.

What American officials do not understand is that Palestine is a deeply rooted emotional, cultural and spiritual issue for Arabs and Muslims. Neither Biden, nor Donald Trump and Jared Kushner before him, could easily—or possibly—alter that.

Indeed, anyone who is familiar with the history of the centrality of Palestine in the Arab discourse understands that Palestine is not a mere political question that is governed by opportunism, and immediate political or geopolitical interests. Modern Arab history is a testament to the fact that no matter how great U.S.-Western-Israeli pressures and however weak or divided the Arabs are, Palestine will continue to reign supreme as the cause of all Arabs. Political platitudes aside, the Palestinian struggle for freedom remains a recurring theme in Arab poetry, art, sports, religion, and culture in all its manifestations.

This is not an opinion, but a demonstrable fact.

The latest Arab Center Washington DC (ACW) public opinion poll examined the views of 28,288 Arabs in 13 different countries. The majority of the respondents continue to hold the same view as previous generations did: Palestine is an Arab cause and Israel is the main threat. Apply the conclusion to 350 million Arabs across the region, and that’s a significant result.

The Arab Opinion Index (AOI) of late 2020 is not the first of its kind. In fact, it is the seventh such study to be conducted since 2011. The trend remains stable. All the U.S.-Israeli plots—and bribes—to sideline Palestine and the Palestinians have failed and, despite purported diplomatic “successes,” they will continue to fail.

According to the poll, the vast majority of Arabs—81 percent—oppose U.S. policy toward Palestine; 89 percent and 81 percent believe that Israel and the U.S. respectively are “the largest threat” to their individual countries’ national security. Particularly important is that the majority of Arab respondents insist that the “Palestinian cause concerns all Arabs and not simply the Palestinians.” This includes 89 percent of Saudis and 88 percent of Qataris.

Arabs may disagree on many issues, and they do. They might stand at opposite sides of regional and international conflicts, and they do. They might even go to war against one another and, sadly, they often do. But Palestine remains the exception. Historically, it has been the Arabs’ most compelling case for unity. When governments forget that, and they often do, the Arab streets constantly remind them of why Palestine is not for sale and is not a subject for self-serving compromises.

For Arabs, Palestine is also a personal and intimate subject. Numerous Arab households have framed photos of Arab martyrs who were killed by Israel during previous wars or were killed fighting for Palestine. This means that no amount of normalization or even outright recognition of Israel by an Arab country can wash away Israel’s sordid past or menacing image in the eyes of ordinary Arabs.

A most telling example of this is how Egyptians and Jordanians answered the AOI question “Would you support or oppose diplomatic recognition of Israel by your country?” The interesting thing about this question is that both Cairo and Amman already recognize Israel and have had diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv since 1979 and 1994, respectively. Still, to this day, 93 percent of Jordanians and 85 percent of Egyptians still oppose that recognition as if it never took place.

The argument that Arab public opinion carries no weight in non-democratic societies ignores the fact that every form of government is predicated on some form of legitimacy, if not through a direct vote, then it is through some other means. Considering the degree of involvement that the cause of Palestine carries in every aspect of Arab societies—on the street, in the mosque and church, in universities, sports, civil society organizations and much more—disowning Palestine would be a major delegitimizing factor and a risky political move.

American politicians, who are constantly angling for quick political victories on behalf of Israel in the Middle East do not understand, or simply do not care that marginalizing Palestine and incorporating Israel into the Arab body politic is not simply unethical, but also a major destabilizing factor in an already unstable region.

Historically, such attempts have failed, and often miserably so, as Apartheid Israel remains as hated by those whose governments have normalized relations as much as it is hated by those whose governments have not. Nothing will ever change that, as long as Palestine remains an occupied country. ■

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Lost Lives and Livelihoods: A Father, Daughter and Son

By Mohammed Omer

A Palestinian child salvages a toy from the rubble of his home, on Aug. 8, 2022, in the town of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. Israeli airstrikes destroyed 18 homes and left 68 others uninhabitable during the latest three days of conflict ahead of an Aug. 7 truce.

LONGTIME READERS of the Washington Report will recall my reports in the early 2000s from the Block J area, west of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip—a densely populated area that has had its share of agony, war and displacement like nowhere else I have seen.

Most families living in the Block J area have been split up since the wall between Egypt and Gaza was built. Families carrying the same surname live on the Egyptian side while others live on the Palestinian side. During calm days, they could shout across the wall to each other in conversations about everything, from what food they cooked, to who was to marry next, and even when Umm Walid will run out of washing detergent.

But not on Saturday, Aug. 6, 2022, at 9:30 p.m., the second of Israel’s three-day “Operation Breaking Dawn,” when the entire camp was turned into a bomb site, with the odors of death, smoke and fire from exploded missiles and burning human flesh. Early sleepers did not know this would be their last night before their death. This was the end of so many stories, shared memories and hopes for a future.

When an Israeli F-16 missile hit the crowded neighborhood, it killed seven people, and severely wounded scores of others. The missile transformed at least 15 homes into rubble. These are more than statistics—they are children, mothers and fathers.

Navigating through the smoke after the Israeli airstrike, no one knew who was alive or dead.

A bleeding father frantically ran into the remains of his house— Iyyad Hassouneh touched all the pieces of rubble with the hope that he would hear the voice of his missing 14-year-old son Mohammed Hassouneh.

ALIVE OR DEAD?

Ambulance crews worked all night and morning to find many buried family members under the ruins of their bombed homes. They were able to find Hassouneh’s daughter, Saud, and scores of others who were in bed when the missile hit them. His son Mohammed was still missing...

This is the Block J area, one of the most crowded areas in Palestine—where it is said that one can even hear your next-door neighbors’ breathing.

Not so many days before, the Hassouneh family threw a street party to celebrate the success of their daughter, Saud, who had scored a 94 percent grade in her secondary-high school exams.

Saud was her family’s hope to achieve a higher education and a successful career that would help get her family out of the camp.

The family got out of the camp—just not how they had imagined; they’re broken and heartsick, now housed in a tent after losing their home.

Medics finally managed to rescue Mohammed Hassouneh from the rubble in the morning hours. He was alive, unlike his next-door neighbors, including a child and two women, who did not make it.

Mohammed Hassouneh lay next to his sister, Saud, suffering with a traumatic injury. As their injured father, Iyyad Hassouneh, sat next to them, his eyes never left his two children. But it would be the last time he looked at his son. Mohammed Hassouneh was soon pronounced dead.

“Despite the fact that my brother was killed, our house blown up and my dreams stolen, I will get back to work even harder and be a doctor to save lives,” Saud declared, as she wept for her younger brother.

Israel and the Palestinian armed group, Islamic Jihad, declared a truce late on Aug. 7, after three days of heavy Israeli bombardment on the besieged Gaza Strip. At least 48 Palestinians, including 17 children, were killed and at least 360 civilians wounded, of which 151 were children, according to the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner.

U.N. Human Rights Chief Michelle Bachelet, on Aug. 11, expressed alarm at the high number of Palestinians, including children, killed and injured in the occupied Palestinian territory this year, including during those intense hostilities between Israel and the Palestinian armed group the previous weekend, as well as two more killed on Aug. 9, in Israeli “law enforcement operations” in the West Bank.

“Inflicting hurt on any child during the course of conflict is deeply disturbing, and the killing and maiming of so many children this year is unconscionable,” said Bachelet.

An assault like this doesn’t seem to reach mainstream media in the West, unless it’s a headline touting the number of rockets stopped by Israel’s Iron Dome. The names and faces of dead Palestinian children are barely mentioned.

This time Gaza feels the pain more than any time before. A father told me how he has no option left but to scatter his six children among different relatives, so they don’t die altogether in the same place.

In this latest assault on Gaza, 18 housing units were destroyed completely and 68 left uninhabitable, leaving 84 families (450 individuals) internally displaced. In addition, an estimated 1,675 housing units sustained moderate to minor damage, affecting 8,500 individuals.

In the extremely narrow, crowded neighborhood of Block J, the structure of the camp prevents ambulance crews or bulldozers access to the ruins to dig out bodies. Families have allowed their damaged homes to be demolished by fire department rescue teams so that ambulances could reach victims buried under tons of rubble.

Ashraf Al Qeisi allowed rescuers to destroy part of his house to allow in bulldozers to dig out people. “It’s a decision that I would never regret, as long as I am living,” he said, adding, “the lives of my neighbors and their children are worth any home or stone.”

Al Qeisi, who earns $2 a day from selling chocolate-filled pastries from a small trolly in the streets of Rafah refugee camp, concluded, “This is a difficult time for all of us, we want our children to live well and be happy. But they keep dying painfully and horribly.”

During an onslaught like this, street vendors like Al Qeisi can’t work, or else they could be a target. Markets in Gaza are largely shut. The reality is that during every military escalation, Gaza food insecurity increases because farmers are unable to access their lands during the bombardment.

Fifty-year-old Abdelqader Eid is an eggplant and corn farmer who had no possibility to make a living. “I could not reach my land to collect the eggplants,” he said, and by the time he was able to do so, he found that his land had been destroyed by military attacks on the farming lands close to Gaza’s border with Israel. Eid has been unable to water his crops for days, causing him lose the entire farming season and his livelihood.

Although Palestinian officials don’t yet have exact figures on losses and damage in the agriculture sector, the cost this time is doubly hard on those grieving their dead family members.

Grieving people cannot even eat properly with so many crops destroyed—and many believe this, too, was a deliberate act by Israel.

“We did not die, but we did not survive either,” said Layan Al-Qadri who went to check on her friends at Block J and could not recognize the place anymore. ■

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Special Report Israeli Prime Minister Admits Jews Don’t Have Freedom of Worship By Allan C. Brownfeld

IT HAS BEEN A KEY element of Zionist philosophy that “a full Jewish life” can only be lived in Israel. The campaign to stimulate Jewish emigration to Israel is based, in large part, upon this premise. In reality, that premise is false. In fact, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid declared in July that, “Israel is the only Western country in which Jews don’t have freedom of worship.”

What stimulated this observation was an incident at the Western Wall on June 30. A group of Jewish Americans were celebrating a bar mitzvah at the Kotel’s (Western Wall) egalitarian prayer space. Dozens of haredi (ultra-Orthodox) men and teenage boys entered the scene and aggressively harassed and intimidated the participants. They whistled and shouted at the worshipers, calling the gathered Jews “Nazis,” “animals,” and “Christians,” and tore up their prayer books. One smirking boy was filmed wiping his nose on the ripped pages of the prayer book.

The incident was only the latest in an ongoing series of harassments of non-Orthodox Jews by haredi men opposed to egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall and Israel’s other holy sites. Just prior to the bar mitzvah disruption, the activist group Women of the Wall had been blocked from bringing a Torah to the women’s plaza, as it seeks to do monthly.

Two things set the latest incident apart; its location, at the tiny, peripheral plaza that has been carved out as a safe haven for nonOrthodox Jews who want to pray in a mixed gender setting at Judaism’s holiest site, and that the crudeness was captured on camera. Those details have prompted especially strong and lasting actions and denunciations from Israel’s prime minister, as well as a debate over whether the U.S. State Department should treat harassment of Jews by other Jews as “anti-Semitism.”

Deborah Lipstadt, the Holocaust scholar and newly appointed State Department anti-Semitism monitor, suggested that what took place at the Western Wall was indeed anti-Semitism. “Let us make no mistake, had such a hateful incident happened in any other country, there’d be little hesitation in labeling it anti-Semitic,” wrote Lipstadt.

David Schraub, a law professor at Lewis and Clark College, wrote: “Is it anti-Semitic to attack Jews engaging in Jewish ritual at a Jewish holy site? When you phrase it that way, the answer is clearly yes. The only reason why it wouldn’t be is if you think it gets some sort of exception because of who the attackers are.” Arie Hasit, an Israeli Masorti (Conservative) rabbi working with the American bar mitzvah celebrant (who somehow managed to continue with his prayers despite the harassment), posted on Facebook in Hebrew that he was “broken” over the haredi youths’ treatment of the bar mitzvah group. “Some people hate me who are willing to hurt me because my Judaism is difAn ultra‐Orthodox youth wipes his nose with a page torn from a prayer book at the egalitarian ferent from their Judaism,” Hasit posted. section of the Western Wall on June 30, 2022. In the U.S., Union for Reform Judaism head Rabbi Rick Jacobs and United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal wrote to Prime Minister Lapid. They declared that “We represent millions of Jews who cannot tolerate such behavior, who are tired of being treated as second-class citizens at the Wall.” They called on Lapid to implement the so-called “Western Wall compromise,” a plan that would expand and make permanent the Kotel’s egalitarian prayer section, known as Ezrat Yisrael. The agreement has languished in the Knesset for years because it is staunchly opposed by the country’s religious right. The highly publicized harassment of non-Orthodox Jews at the Western Wall did nothing to alter the continuing assaults on religious freedom, and the Israeli government’s continued indifference to the actions. A month after the June 30 incident, another American teenager was harassed during her bat mitzvah on July 29 as haredi Orthodox protesters interrupted non-Orthodox Jewish prayers. Thousands of black-attired students, both male and female, swarmed a group of about 100 women and a dozen men who accompanied them to the Western Wall, where traditional prayers were to take place at 7 a.m., ahead of the bat mitzvah of Lucia da Silva of Seattle, who came to Israel with her parents and godparents to celebrate the event. Police and ushers hired by the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, the state-funded group that manages the holy site, Allan C. Brownfeld is a syndicated columnist and associate editor of did not appear to enforce Israel’s law prohibiting the disturbance of the Lincoln Review, a journal published by the Lincoln Institute for prayers, a crime that can carry a penalty of up to three years in jail. Research and Education, and editor of Issues, the quarterly journal News reports indicate that clutches of girls dressed in black set upon of the American Council for Judaism. the women, calling them “whores and heretics,” and hollering that they

SCREEN CAPTURE/MASORTI MOVEMENT ON TWITTER

should “burn in hell.” Some blew whistles to prevent the women from praying out loud. When asked about the commotion, which made any conventional sort of worship impossible, Eden Shimon, deputy head of operations for the Western Wall Foundation, replied, “Get out of my way, sue me.” Loudspeakers situated in the adjacent men’s section, but facing the women’s section, blared prayers intended to drown out the women’s voices.

Attorney Orly Erez-Likhovski, director of the Israel Religious Action Center and incoming chair of Women of the Wall, described the women’s section as “a lawless pit devoid of any government rule.” She said that “they see us as provocateurs,” pointing to the police officers standing near the entrance to the women’s section, “not as citizens exercising their rights.”

Recent months were marked by a significant escalation of the violence directed at women and non-Orthodox Jews praying at the Wall. At least five bar mitzvahs were targeted by violence in the egalitarian southern section of the wall, including that of Seth Mann of Las Vegas, whose mother, Sari Mann, is director of AIPAC in Nevada.

Writing in The Times of Israel, Mann’s father Joel wrote: “The police did little or nothing to stop the disturbance and sometimes violent attacks that occurred. The Israeli police stood there as the haredi teens attacked Jews. It was at this moment that my heart broke. I realized that not even in the State of Israel…am I allowed to pray freely and safely. My son, on his bar mitzvah, is told that he is not Jewish.” ISRAELI CONTEMPT FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM ALIENATES AMERICAN JEWS

The ultra-Orthodox establishment has a virtual monopoly on religious matters for Israeli Jews, overseeing life-cycle rituals like weddings and burials and using their political influence over matters like immigration. The Law of Return grants citizenship to anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent, while Orthodox law requires one to have a Jewish mother. These different definitions have allowed tens of thousands of people, mostly from the former Soviet Union, to immigrate to Israel, only to suffer from discrimination when seeking religious services from the state. Mixed couples, same-sex couples, and even couples in which one partner is not deemed Jewish enough (they must prove descent from an uninterrupted line of Jewish mothers) do not have a chance to marry in Israel.

The Pew Research Center has identified Israel as one of the countries that place “high restrictions” on the free exercise of religion and there have been limits placed on non-Orthodox Jewish movements, which are unrecognized. Pew ranked Israel fifth globally in terms of “inter-religious tension and violence.”

The Chief Rabbinate strongly opposes both the Reform and Conservative movements, saying they are “uprooting Judaism,” that they cause assimilation and that they have “no connection” to authentic Judaism. A survey of Israeli Jews published in 2016 showed that 72 percent of respondents said they disagreed with the haredi assertion that Reform Jews are not really Jewish. The survey also showed that a third of Israeli Jews “identify” with progressive (Reform and Conservative) Judaism and almost two thirds agree that Reform Judaism should have equal rights in Israel with Orthodox Judaism.

Israel repeatedly presents itself as a democracy, yet Israeli voters have never voted in favor of the governmental power bestowed upon ultra-Orthodox rabbis. The religious status quo was agreed to by David Ben-Gurion with the Orthodox parties at the time of Israel’s formation in 1948.

Ironically, David Ben-Gurion was an atheist and Theodor Herzl had never practiced Judaism. Herzl sought a Jewish state in which rabbis would have little or no influence. But Israel has turned its back completely on the values of religious freedom advanced by Herzl, the very values embraced by most Jewish Americans.

The theocratic ultra-Orthodox religion embraced by the Israeli state contrasts with the commitment by most American Jews to a separation of church and state and freedom for all varieties of religious expression. Israel’s contempt for such values is alienating more and more Jewish Americans who are coming to understand that Israel’s values are far different from their own.

When even Israel’s prime minister tells us that Jews in Israel have less religious freedom than Jews anyplace else in the Western world, he is proclaiming a reality that more and more American Jews are finally coming to understand. ■

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Congress Watch A Brief Overview of the 117th Congress and Middle East Affairs

By Julia Pitner

THE 117TH CONGRESS got off to, quite literally, a raucous start in January 2021. Although the major legislative focus and bills passed into law were domestic, driven by the pandemic and economy, the specter of the administration returning to the Iran negotiations created a flurry of letters both for and against, as well as a spate of legislative efforts to narrow the new administration’s diplomatic space. In 2021 alone, members of Congress introduced more than two dozen bills related to Iran. Showcasing one of the few areas of cooperation across the aisle, 13 of the 31 bills introduced in either the House or the Senate had bipartisan support.

The bills spanned a wide range of issues, but the majority focused on Iran’s human rights violations, support for militant proxies and nuclear advances, while nearly all of the bills recommended the enforcement or expansion of U.S. economic sanctions. Much of the language of these bills landed in the FY22 H.R. 2471 Appropriations Bill that was consolidated with the

Senate version to become Public Law 117-103, on March 15, 2022. The number of resolutions and bills against the Iran negotiations did slow for a time. However, when it became known in August that negotiations had once again become serious, four senators—Tim Scott (R-SC) with Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Bill Hagerty (R-TN) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV)—introduced S. 4746, the Solidify Iran Sanctions Act of 2022. This bill would abolish the “sunset” clauses of the 1996 Iran and Libya Sanctions Act, which are set to expire in 2026, and make them “permanent.” As an aside, this legislation is supported The U.S. Senate on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on Aug. 6, 2022, the day before the 117th Congress by lobbyists for American passed H.R.5376, the Inflation Reduction Act. Congress has introduced both positive and negative legisla‐ Israel Public Affairs Committion on the Middle East. Congressional voting records are reported on the Washington Report’s website. tee (AIPAC). The practical effect of the proposed legislation on U.S. policy would not be much as implementation rests primarily with the president, but rather on keeping the sanctions infrastructure in place indefinitely and therefore readily revived. However, this is one of the obstacles for Iran, which is seeking certain guarantees after the previous U.S. withdrawal. Iran is not alone in this Congress’ sanction legislation actions. In January 2021, H.R. 261 was introduced by Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), along with 11 bipartisan cosponsors (growing to 57 by August 2021). Its sister bill S. 1904, introduced in May 2021 by Marco Rubio (R-FL), along with 24 Republican cosponsors in the Senate, “to impose sanctions with respect to foreign support for Palestinian terrorism, and for other purposes,” aka, “the Palestinian International Terrorism Support Prevention Act,” was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs and to the Committee on Financial Services. Like the Iran sanctions, much of this language was incorporated into the FY22 Consolidated Appropriations bill. In fact, most proposed legislation on relations with Middle East countries did not become law until they were incorporated into

PHOTO BY ANNA ROSE LAYDEN/GETTY IMAGES Julia Pitner is a contributing editor of the Washington Report. She lives in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.

the FY22 Public Law 117-103. The rare exception was H.R. 5323 and S. 2830, the Iron Dome Supplemental Appropriations Act, providing an additional $1 billion to Israel. This funding was the target of procedural motions (mostly by Republican House members) that delayed the needed continuing resolution to keep the U.S. government running. Because of this, it was removed from the regular appropriations. However, in Sept. 2021, it was introduced as a “clean” bill and passed the House 409-9.

The same legislative process on foreign affairs has held true for the second session of the 117th Congress and the FY23 H.R. 7900. However, several bills of note made their way into the amendments process of the House and Senate negotiations in various committees, while others did not but remain in the various committees to which they were referred.

H.R. 7987 and S. 4366, DEFEND Act, made possible by the Abraham Accords (and another poke at Iran), seeks to create a Middle East regional “architecture.” Key provisions of the DEFEND Act, including the Middle East Integrated Air and Missile Defense initiative, have been included in both the House and Senate versions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), putting a major national security related initiative on track to pass into law without any hearings or scrutiny.

ISRAEL ANTI-BOYCOTT ACT

Another such effort was H.R. 6940, the Israel Anti-Boycott Act introduced by Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), which attempts to criminalize the BDS movement. Specifically, the bill attempts to federalize various state laws that prohibit government contractors and state officials and employees from a list of specified prohibited actions, including the act of furnishing information to any foreign country or international governmental organization that furthers an imposed boycott.

Under this bill, “a person who violates the prohibitions against such boycotts may be subject to a monetary fine or imprisonment; however, the bill removes imprisonment as a potential penalty for certain violations.” It currently has 59 Republican sponsors.

Although Zeldin’s efforts to incorporate the language into the final appropriations failed, the report accompanying the bill used to indicate intention does include a nod to the bill by leveraging it as a proAbraham Accords/normalization provision, which promotes a U.S. anti-BDS screening of USAID grantees—and includes erasing any differentiation between Israel and settlements.

TARGETING THE UNITED NATIONS

Various organs of the United Nations also continued to come under scrutiny from Congress members in 2022. While the House Appropriations Bill softened its stance toward the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), hinting that the U.S. might rejoin, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) was targeted for defunding, specifically for its International Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel. The COI was established following the May 2021 conflict with Gaza.

In March of 2022, Rep. Gregory Steube (R-FL) introduced the COI Elimination Act with 106 cosponsors. After the June 7, 2022 report of the COI was issued, the Senate followed suit, when Sen Tim Scott (R-SC) introduced S. 4389, with 6 cosponsors that mirrors the House bill.

The full FY23 Appropriations Committee voted on an amendment presented by Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) that “prohibits the use of funds from supporting the U.N. International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel.” The amendment was adopted by voice vote for the State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs 2023 funding bill before voting to advance the legislation to the full House.

What upset them was the inaugural report of the IOC in June 2022. In accordance with the mandate, their findings stated that “The continued occupation by Israel of Palestinian territory and discrimination against Palestinians are the key root causes of the recurrent tensions, instability and protraction of conflict in the region.” As Navanethem Pillay, chair of the commission said, “The findings and recommendations relevant to the underlying root causes were overwhelmingly directed toward Israel, which we have taken as an indicator of the asymmetrical nature of the conflict and the reality of one state occupying the other.”

Ironically, Reps. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) and James McGovern (D-MA), together with two cosponsors, introduced H.R. 8372, Protecting Multilateral Institutions from Coercive U.S. Sanctions, which aims “To prohibit the exercise of authorities under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act with respect to the United Nations and related organizations.” It was referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

ABU AKLEH INVESTIGATION

On a positive note, in the Senate’s FY23 State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Final Appropriations Bill and Report, specific language in its report was added stating, the “committee directs the secretary of state to submit a report to the appropriate congressional committees not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of the act on steps taken to facilitate and support an independent, credible and transparent investigation into the shooting death of Palestinian-American citizen and journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, including whether section 620M of the FAA applies to such case. The report shall detail which independent party conducted the investigation and the findings therein.”

So, this answers the question of whether the State Departments statement in July would satisfy congressional requests for investigation. It is also linked in sentiment and language to the protection of journalists and human rights activists’ provision in the H.R. 7900 appropriations bill. Similar to the DEFEND provision, it has a very good chance of becoming public law, but in this case for the better.

The 117th Congress has drafted and introduced both positive and negative legislation; more than appears in these pages. Legislative efforts and voting records linked to them appear in the Washington Report’s Shame and Fame Record online at <www.wrmea.org>. ■

That reality is unfortunate because the world desperately needs moral leadership (Where, oh where is the next Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr.? Will he or she please stand up!).

From an historical perspective, America’s history of enslavement, Native American removal, and more than a century of bolstering repressive regimes in every region of the world, calls into question its fitness for leadership on human rights. As for militarism, when you heap unprecedented destruction and kill millions of people in a series of senseless wars in Indochina, Iraq and Afghanistan, leadership in the service of a more peaceful world clearly is not your forte.

It would be one thing if these failures of moral leadership were confined to history but, unfortunately, they are not. Many examples of contemporary U.S. foreign policy could be cited, but nothing lays bare the hypocrisy and failure of American leadership more than the ongoing unconditional financial and “moral” support for the murderous, apartheid regime of Israel.

Here we can, at least, give the United States credit for consistency. As the French saying goes, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” Decade after decade since 1948, Washington has paved the way for Israel to wantonly kill and displace masses of indigenous Palestinians while destabilizing an entire region of the world. Regular homicidal assaults on the blockaded Gaza Strip; the relentless displacement of people from their homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem; the killing and arbitrary incarceration that includes children; the ongoing defiance of international law and the United Nations; all of this and many other acts of repression are just business as usual for the self-proclaimed exclusively Jewish, and therefore apartheid, state.

Lying squarely behind these decades of brutal repression, indeed making them possible, has been the United States of America, the supposed champion of freedom and democracy. Washington has not only enabled but has also funded decades of Israeli militarist repression, to the tune of more than $3.8 billion annually today and, overall, billions more than America has provided to any other country in the world. This fact alone—that the United States would fund a tiny yet highly developed country of fewer than 9 million people with more money than provided to

anyone else, money that is used to kill, maim and repress—is enough on its own to disqualify the U.S. from any legitimate claim to world leadership. If the nation hopes to reclaim even a share of global responsibility, to work toward a safer and more humane world, it could hardly select a better arena for change than Middle East policy. Bringing an end to unconditional U.S. support for a lethal apartheid regime would send a strong signal that the United States is serious, at long last, about equality, human rights and democracy. Until the demand for such change takes hold, the United States has no foundation to criticize Russia’s war in Ukraine, which, (Advertisement) by the way, Washington helped to provoke by spurring unbridled NATO expansion and has since escalated through weapons sales rather than seeking to mediate or bring the conflict to an end. We should also keep quiet about Chinese repression in Tibet or Xinjiang or the takeover of Hong Kong or the desire to “repatriate” Taiwan. We have no moral standing to condemn North Korea, Myanmar, Iran, the Taliban or Saudi Arabia for their religious and state repression. Mind you, all the countries cited above richly deserve moral condemnation and international pressure to reform. Playgrounds for Palestine is a project to build playgrounds for our children. It is a minimal recognition of their right The point, however, is that the to childhood and creative expression. It is an act of love. United States has sacrificed its ability to be taken seriously as Playgrounds for Palestine (PfP) is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, established in 2001. We’re an all-volun- an honest broker in efforts to teer organization (no paid staff) that raises money through- rein in these human rights and out the year to construct playgrounds and fund programs militarist transgressors. for children in Palestine. Unless and until America’s Selling Organic, Fair Trade Palestin- own militarism and hypocritical ian olive oil is PfP’s principle source of human rights policies are fundraising. This year, PfP launched AIDA, a private label olive oil from Palestinian farmers. Please come by and meaningfully confronted and changed—starting with a cutoff taste it at our table. of funding of the client in Tel We hope you’ll love it and make it a staple in your pantry. Aviv—the only sound we For more information or to make a donation visit: should hear from the United https://playgroundsforpalestine.org • P.O. Box 559 • Yardley, PA 19067 States on these issues is the sound of silence. ■

Iran was one of the first countries to sign the 1968 U.N. Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has vigorously pursued the establishment of a regional nuclear weapons-free zone. As a signatory, Iran is prohibited from developing, acquiring or using nuclear weapons, but it has the right to manufacture and enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. It has also signed the 1975 Convention on Biological Weapons and the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention.

Israel has never signed or ratified the Biological Weapons Convention and has signed but not ratified the Convention on Chemical Weapons. According to a 2022 report by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, Israel has developed and maintains active chemical and biological weapons programs.

Also, Israel—the only state in the Middle East with nuclear weapons—has the sophisticated systems to deliver the estimated 90 to 400 nuclear weapons it possesses. Furthermore, a 2018 Arms Control Association report states that the country has enough fissile material for 200 nuclear warheads. Unlike Tehran, Tel Aviv has refused binding international agreements and continues to oppose diplomatic efforts to establish a regional nuclearfree zone.

Another reason cited by Israel for its angst is Iran’s robust missile development. While Israel portrays Iran’s missile program as a regional menace, Tehran views missiles as critical to its national security.

Iran has a right to defend itself. The memory of the 1980-1988 war with Iraq, for which the post-revolutionary government was ill-prepared, is long and has shaped Iran’s defensive posture.

Nuclear weapons are a security guarantee that Iran has not sought. Instead, missiles have become the mainstay of the country’s foreign policy. While its neighbors procure state-of-the-art weapons, U.S. sanctions have left Iran with outdated weapons. Lacking a modern air force, it has embraced ballistic missiles to defend its people against attacks. Iran’s arsenal is in no way comparable to the combined military power of the United States and Israel.

A third factor in Israel’s threat narrative is the pervasive trope that its national security is threatened by Iran’s support for what it labels “terrorist” groups. Tehran’s alignment with national liberation movements in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon are integral to its defensive security strategy. The Islamic Republic has provided material support to groups it calls the oppressed, like Hezbollah and Hamas, whose anger is directed at the Israeli regime.

Finally, Iran’s so-called regional ambitions are central to Israel’s security angst. Unlike Israel, Iran has never invaded its neighbors nor stolen or occupied their land.

For years, Israel has attacked, invaded and occupied its neighbors: Lebanon in 1982 and 2006; the Syrian Golan Heights in 1967, annexing it in 1981. Israel occupied Southern Lebanon from 1985 until it was driven out by Hezbollah in 2000. Since 2017, Israel has conducted over 400 air strikes in Syria, with an attack in June 2022 that seriously damaged the Damascus International Airport.

In 1981, with impunity, Israel bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak and in 2007, bombed the Syrian nuclear facility at alKibar. It helped the United States carry out the Stuxnet cyberattack on Iranian centrifuges in 2010. And in July 2020 and April 2021, Israel neither confirmed nor denied launching attacks on Iran’s nuclear facility at Natanz. Israel has also neither confirmed nor denied its involvement in the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists.

ISRAEL DICTATES U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS

For decades, Israel has successfully peddled the contrived regional threat story, to such an extent that it has come to dictate U.S.-Iran relations. Considering the deadly array of forces aligned against it, it is Iran, not Israel, that is threatened.

Israel would like nothing better than to take military action against Iran. In addition to sabotaging attempts to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), it has continued to prepare for military strikes as it did during the regime of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Between 2010 and 2012, Israel came close to attacking Iran at least three times. In his 2018 autobiography, former Defense Minister Ehud Barak revealed that Netanyahu and he had pushed for military operations against Iranian facilities but backed down because of opposition from their own top security officials.

Interestingly, Barak also disclosed that he disagreed with Netanyahu that Iran’s nuclear program posed an existential threat to Israel. He was more concerned about the potential change in the regional balance of power if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons.

The Israeli regime intensified its “shadow war” against Iran following President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018. When Naftali Bennett became prime minister three years later, he initiated the “Octopus Doctrine” designed, in his words, to deliver “a death by a thousand cuts” to Iran. Bennett’s strategy was to go after “the head of the octopus” in Iran, not just its allies across the region in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Iraq. Israel has expanded its targets beyond Iran’s nuclear program to include its drone and missile programs.

As Washington works to weaken the global influence of Russia and China, President Joe Biden has been grooming Israel to assume more of America’s military role in the Middle East. The administration’s objective, according to Biden’s National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, is to “deepen Israel’s integration into the region.”

On June 26, 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that a secret, U.S.-initiated meeting was held in Egypt in March. Israeli and senior military officials from around the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, as well as U.S. representatives, assembled to explore ways to combat Iran’s missile and drone “threats.”

At the end of May 2022, the Israeli air force began a monthlong simulation of a wide-scale attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, dubbed “Chariots of Fire.” Reportedly, $1.5 billion has been allocated for a potential attack.

During a Knesset council briefing on June 20, 2022, Defense Minister Benny Gantz confirmed that, under U.S. auspices, Israel has joined a region-wide military partnership, dubbed the “Middle East Air Defense Alliance,” to combat what he described as the

(L‐r) Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz, U.S. President Joe Biden, caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid, U.S. Defense Attache in Israel Brigadier General Shawn A. Harris and Israeli army Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi pose in front of an Iron Dome air defense system during a tour at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv on July 13, 2022.

threat from Iran. It is under this agreement that the U.S. through Israel is providing the Iron Dome system to the Gulf countries that are signatories to the Abraham Accords.

Also, Gantz indicated that a permanent liaison officer from the Israeli navy will be assigned to the U.S. Navy’s Mideast-based Fifth Fleet in Bahrain.

Israel has been urging Washington to pursue a military option against Iran. To demonstrate his commitment to that policy, Biden, during his July 2022 trip, signed a pledge to never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon and to “…use all elements of its national power to ensure that outcome.” Despite that assurance, Israel has stated that they reserve the right to attack Iran regardless of how the current nuclear negotiations are decided.

Rapprochement between Iran and its Arab neighbors would stabilize the region—something Israel dreads. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has made improving relations with neighbors a priority of his government. In his August 2021 inaugural speech, he stated, “I extend a hand of friendship and brotherhood to all countries in the region...Foreign intervention in this region resolves no problem; it’s a problem itself.”

The United States, Israel and Arab autocrats are not threatened by Iran’s nuclear program. They are threatened, however, by Iran’s potential to transform the region. The carefully managed “Iran threat” narrative has, as planned, kept the region distracted, chaotic and vulnerable and has allowed Israel to maintain a monopoly of control in Palestine and the region. ■

Do Not Disturb: Israel is Battling Iran

By Gideon Levy

PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB ISRAEL—it’s busy fighting with Iran. The fight is to prevent Iran’s nuclearization, but no less than that it serves Israel in other realms. And so Israel will keep on fighting, will not stop trying to move heaven and earth, will not give up, even when the chances of success are nil, in the face of the agreement now being formulated.

And so Prime Minister Yair Lapid is acting the same way former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu did, with vociferous and uncompromising opposition to the agreement. On this level as well, there is no difference in their conduct. And that is because over the years the struggle itself has become fruitful for Israel, no less than the declared goal. The first to identify this was of course Netanyahu, the father of the war against the Iranian nuclear project. Gideon Levy is an Israeli journalist and author. This article was first published in Haaretz, August 27, 2022 © Haaretz. Reprinted with permission.

This is a war against the acquisition by a country openly threatening Israel with a doomsday weapon, but at the same time it’s also a campaign to lift what Israel considers no less of a threat— global opposition to the occupation.

Since Israel began the fight against the Iranian nuclear program, it has managed to turn the content of global discourse on its head. If before that, every diplomatic encounter dealt with the solution to the conflict, now it’s been pushed aside—with lip service and a photo op at the Palestinian Authority headquarters in Ramallah—and conversation moves to the really important matter: the Iranian nuclear program. Don’t bother Israel right now with international law and with apartheid—can’t you see it’s busy with Iran?

The Iran issue allows Israel to go back to its favorite position— the eternal victim, with an entity seeking its destruction; and when Israel shouts “destruction” who will not come to its defense? When the existence of Israel is threatened by another country, it can’t be bothered with the minutiae of the occupation, the settlers and human rights. And the world gives in easily. In any case it has no particular interest in solving the Palestinian problem, it has more urgent and resolvable issues. And so the conversation about Iran serves almost everyone.

For years it was Palestinian terror that served Israel—of course you can’t trust airplane hijackers and bus bombers. Hamas also played into Israel’s hands: After all, you can’t give in to the local branch of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Iran rose in the east; a great miracle was wrought.

Iran not only obviated the Palestinian issue; it also helped unify the ranks at home: An external threat and a fearmongering campaign are always good for those who rule, anyone who rules. And there’s no threat like the Iranian one to enrich the defense establishment with more and more funding and magnify its importance. Danger, war.

Iran also allows Israel to continue its starring role on the global stage: The Iranian nuclear project is a global matter, and Israel is playing the leading role, as the prime potential victim. All this is not to say that Iran does not constitute a strategic threat and that Israel is not a potential victim. Of course it is, but Israel knows how to squeeze the most out of every threat.

The most reasonable agreement possible to achieve is now being formulated—and Israel is already sounding the alarm and clamoring, at least to receive proper compensation from the United States. They’re already talking about more military aid in exchange for an agreement that will be good for Israel.

No matter how we present it, Israel benefits. We should supposedly be proud of a policy that benefits Israel and also protects it as much as possible. However, as in every deal, the Iranian deal also comes at the expense of something else. And that something else is the end of the occupation.

Iran certainly didn’t intend this, and neither did Israel, but in recent years nothing has served the Israeli occupation so much and so efficiently as the Iranian threat. Now all that’s left is only to hope that the agreement with Iran doesn’t take the matter off the agenda, perish the thought. Israel needs it like air to breathe. ■

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Special Report A Perpetual War for an Impossible Peace

By Marwan Bishara

THE SCENES OF VIOLENCE and chaos at the heart of Iraq’s capital Baghdad at the end of August were terribly disturbing but hardly surprising. Tensions have been building throughout this bruised nation over the past year; a formidable nation that has been deformed by war and violence over the past two decades and more, with no end in sight.

The immediate crisis began after the October legislative elections. Some of the Iran-backed parties blamed their losses on a “fraudulent election” engineered by “America and its clients.” They tried to paralyze the government and parliament until their demands were met, but when the prime minister ordered security forces to break their siege of the Green Zone that hosts the gov-

ernment buildings, he was targeted by a drone attack in a failed assassination attempt. It backfired. The decision of the country’s Supreme Court to certify the elections allowed their rival, the populist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose party won the most seats, to build a broad coalition along with predominantly Sunni and Kurdish parties in order to form a majority government. However, the constitution stipulates that the parliament must first elect the president, which requires two-thirds of members to be present, allowing the Iran-backed Coordination Framework to block government formation simply by absenting itself from parliamentary sessions. After a months-long impasse, the impulsive and angry al-Sadr ordered Supporters of Shi’a cleric Muqtada al‐Sadr gather inside a tent outside the Iraqi parliament building all of his 73 members to quit in protest in the Green Zone of the capital Baghdad, on Aug. 16, 2022. They are protesting the nomination of and called for the dissolution of para rival Shi’a leader for the position of prime minister. Two tent cities have sprung up as both blocs set up protest camps, complete with cooked meals and air‐conditioners against the blistering heat. The liament and the holding of new elecwar‐scarred country’s political impasse has dragged on ever since inconclusive October elections. tions. However, when the Iran-backed Shi’a coalition led by former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki tried to name a new prime minister in late July, al-Sadr’s supporters stormed parliament, leading to more violent confrontations. The security forces intervened and al-Sadr doubled down on his earlier announcement of quitting politics, putting the country on the path to the unknown. It may well get worse. In a leaked audio recording that sparked outrage in Iraq, al-Maliki, the leader of the Iran-backed Coordination Framework, warned that the country will descend into “devastating war” if the political project of Muqtada al-Sadr and his potential Kurdish and Sunni coalition partners is not defeated. Al-Maliki is supported by various militias that have reportedly been involved in acts of violence and political assassinations. Those Iran-backed militias, known as Hashd al-Shaabi—“The Popular Mobilization Forces”—were armed and financed by both Iraq and Iran to fight the so-called Islamic State (ISIL/ISIS). ISIL was destroyed after three years of fighting, but the war has left its ugly marks on Iraq, further bruising its society and devastating its attempts at recovery.

PHOTO BY AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES Marwan Bishara is an author who writes extensively on global poli‐tics and is widely regarded as a leading authority on U.S. foreign pol‐icy, the Middle East and international strategic affairs. He is a senior political analyst at Al Jazeera, which posted this article on Sept. 1, 2022. Copyright Al Jazeera.Reprinted with permission.