WAGING PEACE

New U.N. Special Rapporteur Outlines Priorities

Palestine Deep Dive hosted a discussion with Francesca Albanese, the United Nations’ new Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, on July 13. An Italian international lawyer, Albanese began her six-year tenure this May.

Asked about Israel’s recent vow to not engage with her, Albanese chastised the country for trying to delegitimize a U.N. official. “It’s unacceptable that a member state doesn’t cooperate with a U.N. independent expert,” she said. “I’ve been mandated by the Human Rights Council, so whatever the perceptions, I should be respected for the role, for the responsibilities I carry.”

She added that Israel has no right to deny her entry into the West Bank to carry out investigations. In recent years, Israel has begun denying U.N. human rights officials entry into the occupied area. “Israel has no sovereignty over the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” she noted. “Which means that if I’m invited by the Palestinian Authority to visit the Occupied Palestinian Territory starting with the West Bank, Israel cannot prevent me or the Commission of Inquiry or the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights [from visiting].”

Albanese’s first report to the U.N. General Assembly will focus on the Palestinian right to self-determination. “International law demands and requests that any people realize first and foremost the right to self-determination,” she explained. “This is critical. Israel’s prolonged occupation is not compatible with the right of self-determination.”

Albanese pointed to Israel’s ongoing forced displacement of Palestinians, a war crime under international law, as just one violation against self-determination. “Forcibly displacing a population under occupation is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention,” she noted.

The lawyer also emphasized that international institutions, such as the European Union, need to apply pressure on Israel for its violations of human rights. “For example,” she said, “the European Union has a trade agreement with Israel that has a clause that refers to ‘serious violations of human rights’ as a course for terminating the agreement. I think that threshold has been crossed.”

Albanese emphasized that the West must stop viewing Israel as an exception to international law. “It’s leading to an erosion of the multilateral system and the multilateral order, which doesn’t afford for ‘pick and choose’ when it comes to international law and doesn’t afford for international law to be used more harshly against certain states and more leniently vis-à-vis allies,” she said.

On the micro level, Albanese is using her new office to focus on the situation of Palestinian prisoner Ahmad Manasra. In 2015, Manasra, then 13 years old, and his 15year-old cousin were accused of stabbing two Israelis in the Pisgat Ze’ev settlement in the occupied West Bank. Ahmad was hit by a car soon after and his cousin was shot dead at the scene. An Israeli crowd jeered at him in now-viral footage as he laid motionless, bleeding on the ground.

“His case has been haunting me since the very beginning, since I saw the scenes of this boy,” Albanese said. “No matter what he had done, no child should be treated the way he’s been treated—broken bones, lying on the ground under a barrage of insults, and then fiercely interrogated by an adult, chained to his bed and spoon fed by someone who is not his mom.”

Medical reports found that Manasra suffers from schizophrenia and human rights experts report that the harsh treatment he continues to endure, including solitary confinement, “may amount to torture.” Appeals for his early release were rejected earlier this year, despite a significant deterioration in his mental health causing him to be hospitalized.

“There have been so many irregularities [in his case] that I cannot go through them, but what I’ve done is to take this case as soon as I came into the job and do everything that is in my power,” Albanese said. “By writing letters, by joining the international advocacy campaign, this is a case that needs to be exposed.”

Albanese emphasized that Manasra’s case exists in the broader context of Israel’s regime of systematic detention and incarceration of Palestinians without trial. —Omar Aziz

YOUSEF MASOUD/SOPA IMAGES/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES Palestinians in the Gaza Strip hold signs, flags and pictures of children who were killed in the recent Israeli attacks on the besieged territory, on Aug. 17, 2022.

Breaking the Silence’s New Report On Inhumanity of Occupation

Joel Carmel is intimately familiar with the techniques through which the Israeli “military regime has been controlling people for decades” in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).

Formerly an Israeli military officer charged with carrying out Israel’s repres-

NASSER ISHTAYEH/SOPA IMAGES/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES A Palestinian child cries after the Israeli army raided and vandalized her home in the Balata refugee camp, in Israeli‐occupied Nablus, on Aug. 17, 2022.

sion in the occupied West Bank, Carmel is today a spokesman for Breaking the Silence, an organization of former soldiers who turned against the Israeli state oppression that they witnessed and enforced in the OPT. “We believe the occupation is not good for Israelis or Palestinians and should end,” he explained.

Carmel detailed the techniques used to repress and control Palestinians in an indepth Aug. 11 webinar, “Occupation Bureaucracy—A New Report on Israel’s Civil Administration,” sponsored by Americans for Peace Now (APN). The new report (available on the APN website) is especially revealing on the manipulation of the permit system in which Israel decides whether Palestinians under occupation can work, travel, seek medical treatment and otherwise carry out essential day-to-day activities. The permit system underscores that “there is no democracy” in the OPT, Carmel noted.

The occupation regime cultivates collaborators and informers by granting or withholding the permits required for daily life based on whether the applicant cooperates with the occupation regime by providing the information it wants. The military regime even offers “VIP treatment” to the “top tier who cooperate” while denying basic services to those who refuse to collaborate. The permit system “serves [Israeli] interests” even as it “tears Palestinian society apart,” Carmel explained.

Through the permit system, as well as other techniques of oppression, occupation authorities “manipulate reality” as they see fit, he said. For example, when Palestinian prisoners embark on a hunger strike, the army withholds permits from their family members—including the right to visit the prisoners until the strike is terminated. Occupation authorities can summarily ban various activities, with the bans applied to families and sometimes whole villages. They brand people “terrorists” merely for throwing stones. “It is very easy to use the reason of security for anything,” Carmel explained. “I had the ability as a low-ranking officer to make decisions…dramatically affecting people’s lives.”

Carmel, who served primarily in the West Bank, noted that even in areas nominally under Palestinian authority such as Areas A and B, the Israeli military exercises the real authority. “It is a myth that Gaza is not still under occupation,” he added, citing Israeli “control of the sea space and air space and electro-magnetic space” around the blockaded Strip. “We keep Gaza on a short leash,” reinforcing the domination through periodic bombardment of the densely populated Palestinian enclave.

Carmel described the “dehumanization process” that young Israeli soldiers go through in their training before they are sent in to enforce the occupation. The soldiers typically are young and devoid of Arabic so there can be no real understanding or communication with the area residents. They are also well schooled in “state propaganda” in which Palestinians are depicted as enemies and potential terrorists dedicated to the destruction of Israel.

Some soldiers turn against the occupation after witnessing the inhumanity of military repression. For Carmel the moment of awakening was when he went on routine night raids in which Palestinians were aroused from their sleep, had their homes searched and pictures taken, were often beaten and arrested arbitrarily, and sometimes had their home demolished. For Carmel the action of “waking up children in the middle of the night” and seeing the crying and terror on their faces began the process in which he turned against the occupation and later sought to expose it through Breaking the Silence.

By collecting testimonies of soldiers, organizing tours and releasing videos and reports, Breaking the Silence effectively exposes the cruelty and inhumanity of the Israeli occupation from the perspective of the soldiers who are charged with enforcing it. —Walter L. Hixson

Groups Challenge PayPal’s Refusal to Serve Palestine

Despite serving more than 200 countries, PayPal, the largest virtual payment system in the world, does not let Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip use its offerings. Several organizations, including 7amlehThe Arab Center for Social Media Advancement, SumOfUs and MPower Change, have launched a campaign asking the company to change its Palestinian policy. Thus far, the groups’ petition has gained more than 230,000 signatures.

To bring further attention to their campaign, the organizations held a webinar on Aug. 4.

Mona Shtaya, advocacy adviser at 7amleh, noted that the lack of access to PayPal deprives Palestinians of freelance job opportunities, since many companies use the platform for cross-border payments.

HAZEM BADER/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES An Israeli soldier enforces an order to close Palestinian shops in the West Bank town of Hebron, on Jan. 29, 2022. PayPal’s decision to block Palestinian merchants from using its payment processing services helps reinforce Israeli apartheid, activists argue.

This reality is particularly devastating for Gazans, she noted, as they often look for remote work opportunities with foreign organizations due to the high unemployment rate in the besieged territory. “When we don’t have access to PayPal, that means we are prevented from our right to work,” she explained.

Shtaya noted that PayPal has also blocked humanitarian groups from sending aid to Gaza via Venmo, which is owned by the company. She pointed out the sharp contrast with Ukraine, where the company took swift action to ensure its services were available to send assistance amid the Russian invasion.

PayPal has not been forthright in explaining why it does not serve Palestine, only saying it classifies Palestine as a “high risk” area. Shtaya noted that Palestinian authorities have taken steps in recent years to make sure their financial system complies with all PayPal regulations, but the service remains unavailable. There is now “no justification” for PayPal to withhold its products from the Palestinian territories, she said.

Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, noted that PayPal unreservedly offers its services to illegal West Bank settlers, who often live right next to Palestinians. PayPal is thus, “probably unwittingly,” advancing Israel’s “two-pronged effort to both isolate the Palestinians and to normalize and weave the settlers into the international community of nations,” she noted.

Friedman stressed that the campaign is not even asking PayPal to take a stance on Israeli settlers or the country’s treatment of Palestinians living between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Rather, it is merely requesting that the company treat all occupants of Israeli-controlled territories equally. “Asking PayPal to provide services to the Palestinians is a very soft ask,” she said. “The hard ask is saying you should be providing services to Palestinians and you shouldn’t be providing them to the settlers.”

Linda Sarsour, co-founder of MPower Change, emphasized that matters of economic justice should not be deprioritized amid the broader political struggles Palestinians face. “This campaign to get PayPal to extend services to the Palestinian people changes the material conditions of the Palestinian people right now,” she said.

Access to PayPal would enhance the lives of freelancers, businesspeople, employees and communities alike, she pointed out. As just one example, she noted that those living abroad wishing to buy large quantities of Palestinian handicrafts, such as pottery, jewelry or embroidery, are often forced to use services such as Western Union that have high fees that stymie business opportunities. Bank wire transfers, meanwhile, are often closely monitored and subject to freezing. —Dale Sprusansky

STAFF PHOTO PHIL PASQUINI The Museum of the Palestinian People in Washington, DC held a vigil on Aug. 8, 2022 to remember those killed in Israel’s most recent wave of attacks on the Gaza Strip. Attendees paid special honor to the 16 kids killed by the violence.

Palestinian Architecture as Resistance, Identity

On July 27, the Balfour Project, a UKbased organization which stands for peace, justice and equal rights in Israel and

A view of Jaffa from the Mediterranean Sea in 1895.

Palestine, held a webinar to explore the nexus between conflict and architecture in Palestine, from the British Mandate period to the present.

Abdalrahman Kittana, assistant professor at Birzeit University and co-founder of the Yalla Project, spoke on architecture and urbanism as acts of resistance since Mandate Palestine. “In the ongoing narrative of Palestinian resistance against the Zionist colonial project, architecture is actually an open signifier, and space is an instrument in this confrontation,” he noted.

Kittana cited the 1917 Balfour Declaration as a decisive moment in modern Palestinian architecture. “Everything in our life became part of this confrontation,” he said. “The British administration and the Zionists used architecture and urbanism as tools of control and colonization.”

For example, in 1918 Jaffa’s old town was redesigned by its British occupiers to accommodate its military and counter any resistance movement by the Palestinian people. “The war for Jaffa signifies a lot about the possibility of architecture and urbanism to erase one community and establish another community,” Kittana noted.

There were originally several Jewish neighborhoods around Jaffa which the planners of Tel Aviv called to be annexed to the borders of the new Jewish city. In trying to break the encirclement of Jewish settlements around Jaffa, the Palestinians petitioned the Department of Land Settlement to keep certain areas only for Palestinian development, Kittana explained.

Danna Masad, a faculty member in Birzeit University’s design department and co-founder of ShamsArd Design Studio, an eco-architecture firm, discussed the restoration of earth architecture, which is the architectural use of readily available and practical resources from the earth.

In 2012, ShamsArd began repairing buildings in Ramallah using compressed earth, since it allows for greater expanse, stabilization, durability and weather resistance. Such attempts at this type of architecture have been few and far between in modern Palestine.

In Jericho, one of the oldest cities in the world, remnants of ancient mudbrick structures still remain. Many of the early mudbrick homes are abandoned, partially collapsed and unrestored—contributing to the stigma of “earth architecture” being unreliable, Masad said. “There is not a lot of interest or attention being paid to the restoration of earth architecture. There is an urgent need for documenting and research of vernacular earth knowledge.”

In many cities in the West Bank, a law inherited from the British Mandate period and still in effect today requires that buildings be clad in stone. One of the consequences of this is the marring of landscapes by quarries in the West Bank, some of which are owned and operated by Israelis, despite being prohibited under the 1949 Geneva Conventions. ShamsArd, Masad said, is trying to find alternative building materials that Palestinians have control over and are appropriate for the local environmental, social and political context.

Khaldun Bshara is an architect, restorer, anthropologist and assistant professor in the department of social and behavioral sciences at Birzeit University. Since 1994, he has also worked at the Ramallah-based Riwaq Center for Architectural Conservation, which protects, preserves and restores historic Palestinian properties.

In 2006, Riwaq published a registry documenting 50,320 historic buildings in 422 towns and villages in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. The organization has restored more than 130 community centers since 2001, which have become spaces for social change. Riwaq trains architects, workmen, blacksmiths and carpenters in traditional techniques for the restoration projects.

“It is not a luxury to protect Palestinian heritage,” Bshara said. “It is one of the basic rights to protect heritage because it is this relation between heritage, identify and nation-building that is entrenched in the heritage, so we have to do it.” —Elaine Pasquini Diaspora Palestinian Doctors Give Back to Their Homeland

The Palestinian American Medical Association (PAMA) hosted a meet and greet on Aug. 25 at the Lebanese Taverna in McLean, VA. Founded in 2013 by Palestinian healthcare professionals practicing in the U.S., the non-profit 501(c)(3) charity is bringing improved healthcare and hope to Palestinians.

PAMA’s new executive director, Marwan Ahmad, welcomed attendees, and showed a brief film before introducing PAMA cofounder, Dr. Yousef Khelfa, who joined via Zoom from Northern California. Dr. Khelfa, an oncologist, earned his medical degree from Al-Quds University Medical School in Jerusalem and he is determined to help others back home obtain medical scholarships and training.

STAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY

Dr. Esam Abou Nahlah shows a photo of the first patient to use a new dialysis machine he bought in memory of his mother.

Many of PAMA’s board members practice and live in Palestine and understand the needs of their community. “There is zero tolerance for divisive politics or religion. This is the story of everyone of you,” Dr. Khelfa said to the room full of medical professionals in Virginia. “We have one goal. We won’t forget Palestine. They need our help.”

In addition to providing training opportunities, PAMA hosts medical missions to the occupied territories and sends medical supplies and devices to hospitals using local vendors.

Dr. Esam Abou Nahlah, a dentist, said he used to talk with his mother—who had diabetes, as well as heart and kidney troubles—in Gaza nearly three hours every day. When she died on Oct. 6, 2020, the world was locked down by COVID and he felt wretched. He decided to send a dialysis machine to Gaza in her memory. Patients like his mother need to spend four hours, three times a week, hooked up to a dialysis machine and there is a severe shortage. Dr. Nahlah called PAMA and within one hour they agreed to send a Hemodialysis machine to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. He was kept abreast of that machine’s progress every step of its journey from Germany to Gaza. Within four months Dr. Nahlah received a photo of the first person to use his machine, which is now serving patients like his mother.

All medical professionals (physicians, nurses, pharmacists, dentists, therapists and healthcare technology professionals) in the United States or Palestine who share PAMA’s mission are encouraged to join. Visit <https://palestinian-ama.org/> for more information. —Delinda C. Hanley

PHOTO COURTESY MECA Riders participate in the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA’s) first annual Ride for Palestine, in Berkeley, CA on July 17, 2022. The 11‐mile ride raised funds for MECA’s work to protect the lives, rights and well‐being of children in Palestine and the refugee camps in Lebanon. The post‐ride celebration included Palestinian food, music and dancing. The Washington Report helped sponsor the event.

Update on Beirut at ACS Reunion

The American Community School (ACS) Beirut held a reunion Aug. 4-7 at the Lord Baltimore Hotel in Baltimore, MD. The school’s triennial reunions are held in different locations across the U.S. and are open to anyone who attended, were faculty/staff, parents or friends of the school.

ACS first opened its doors in 1905 as a school to educate children of faculty teaching at what was to later become the American University of Beirut. It steadily expanded, adding a boarding department which attracted students who lived throughout the Middle East, North Africa and even Uganda and Kenya. A few of us came from the Greek island of Rhodes, where our fathers worked at the Voice of America delivering both Arabic and English programs.

Like schools around the world, COVID disrupted classes at ACS, and in 2020 the senior class had to hold a drivethrough graduation party. The new head of school, Thomas Cangiano, insisted students get back to normal classes that fall—and they did—kind of. ACS held a TEDx-Youth event, a model U.N., numerous community service projects and even hosted political panel discussions between Lebanese candidates running for parliament and students.

ACS has endured numerous conflicts, two world wars, Arab-Israeli wars and a tragic Lebanese civil war (1975-1990). In

fact, politics have been a long-time curse for the city once known as the “Paris of the Middle East.” While current ACS students train to be politically savvy future leaders, the ACS alumni association tries to leave politics at the door during reunions.

In the past, there were talks by ACS fathers (including Washington Report founders Richard Curtiss and Ambassador Andrew Killgore) and former teachers (such as ABC News correspondent Bill Blakemore). This year, former vice president of Anera, Philip Davies (class of 1973) narrated a PowerPoint slide show on Lebanon.

There was a moment of silence to mark the second anniversary of the Aug. 4, 2020 massive port explosion that killed 218, wounded 7,000, and left 300,000 people homeless.

In his report to alumni, Cangiano did not discuss politics, but he vividly described its severe effect on ACS. While Beirut was Cangiano’s fourth assignment as head of a school, the challenges caused by COVID, the port explosion and the current economic disaster made for an extraordinarily tumultuous first year. Like every member of his audience, he said he and his family are infatuated by Lebanon, its culture and history—despite its dire current situation. While ACS used to be a school for expats, today 65 percent of its students are Lebanese, he said. Very few are Americans since U.S. embassy employees cannot bring their dependents.

While ACS lost almost all of its American faculty, “we inculcate the best of American values,” Cangiano said. “We make sure our students learn the importance of being a citizen and giving back to their community.” Students strive to address challenges such as pollution and refugees. While ACS graduates are accepted at top universities around the world, Cangiano’s goal is to have them return to play an important role in Lebanon.

ACS was the first school in Lebanon to open in-person classes after COVID, but it still confronts huge challenges. According to the World Bank, Lebanon is facing one of the world’s worst economic and financial crises in the last 150 years. There is only intermittent electricity and fuel shortages make it hard to run the school generators. (While ACS has solar panels to harness renewable energy, it still needs electricity to power its grid and recharge its battery storage system.) Some students can’t obtain petrol to get to school. A 93 percent devaluation of the Lebanese pound means ACS employees, not to mention parents, can’t make ends meet.

Despite these huge challenges, ACS still has an outstanding pre-K to 12th grade program, Cangiano assured alumni, and he has great hope for the upcoming school year. He was delighted to hear from a parent who told him that his ACS children question him, speak their mind and challenge their teachers. That doesn’t happen in a lot of other schools in the Middle East. —Delinda C. Hanley

STAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY

Thomas Cangiano, the American Community School Beirut’s headmaster, describes the challenges facing his students and faculty.

Amid Controversy, Tunisians Approve New Constitution One year after Tunisian President Kais Saied consolidated power and dismantled democratic institutions, his newly drafted constitution was approved by voters in a controversial July 25 referendum. The new document shifts the government from a parliamentary to a presidential system, giving Saied broad unchecked powers.

On July 27, Washington, DC’s Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) hosted Monica Marks, professor of Middle East politics at New York University’s Abu Dhabi campus, and independent researcher and analyst Mohamed-Dhia Hammami to discuss the ramifications of the vote.

Marks noted that many questions surround the referendum vote, including the claim of the Independent High Authority for Elections (ISIE) that 94.6 percent of voters supported the new constitution. To learn the true results would require “a forensic audit that would include a comprehensive analysis of campaigning, preparation, voter awareness, polling and tabulation of results,” Marks said.

Regardless, Marks pointed out that the undemocratic nature of the election has been evident for months. For example, those advocating for a boycott of the referendum were threatened by the government with prosecution. “ISIE made a decision not to even dignify the boycott as a valid section of public opinion that deserved representation in campaigning,” Marks explained. The boycott appeared to have an impact, as voter turnout was a reported 30.5 percent.

According to Marks, Saied has been obsessed with his political vision for upending and reshaping Tunisia’s entire political system since he first took office in 2019. However, she believes his ambition to remake political and civil institutions is at odds with the people’s desire for an economic revival. “We have zero indication that he is thinking about Tunisia’s economy in any way, shape or form,” she said.

The vast majority of the population is not interested in power politics, but instead focused on jobs and providing food for their families, Marks added. “Saied is in a very vulnerable position because he has no choice but to focus on the economic problems that have bedeviled his predecessors, but he is showing absolutely no inclination to do that,” she said.

Hammami expressed doubt Saied has any comprehensive plan to fix the economy. “We know about his ideological orientations…and he is nostalgic toward the 1960s state-led development,” he explained. “But these are general ideas. When it comes to concrete policy solutions he doesn’t have that much to say.”