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ISIL itself had come out of a decade of war and sectarian violence following the U.S. invasion and occupation in 2003, which left the country in utter shambles. The American failure has also enhanced the influence of Iran, its nemesis in Iraq. As the U.S. rushed to exit the country after more than a decade of blunders, Iran doubled down, expanding its influence at the expense of Iraq’s stability and prosperity.

The last two decades of imperial, sectarian and civil wars were preceded by two other decades of regional war and violence. It started with the horrific Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the U.S.-led war to liberate it, followed by crippling sanctions throughout the 1990s. This has systematically drained the country’s manpower and resources, ruined its economy, torn apart its society and sapped the spirit of its people.

It is tiring to merely list these long episodes of war and violence, so you can imagine how incredibly exhausting and dispiriting it must have been for generations of Iraqis to live and die through it.

It is as if Iraq and the rest of this ill-fated region are doomed to live in perpetual violence after a century of Western colonial, imperial and proxy wars. The region has not enjoyed a single year, a single day without conflict and violence ever since.

At the heart of the Iraq and Middle East tragedy is a simple but serious misunderstanding about war in the West and the East alike. It is certainly easier to start a war than to end it, as the saying goes, but a conflict does not actually end when the fighting stops and smug leaders reach new accommodation. The tragedy and the mindset of war live on in the broken and impoverished society left behind.

Fear and violence continue to occupy and harden peoples’ hearts and minds, bruising their spirits, deforming their values and skewing their loyalties. In Iraq and much of the Middle East, this has meant people—especially the young— finding shelter in their clan, tribe, sect or faith; joining the local militia, gang or shady racket; basically, doing anything to overcome that dreadful feeling of constant fear and insecurity.

Soon enough, new and more violent faultlines are drawn, as societies flounder, and armed militias form political parties, paving the way to more vengeful conflict and violence. It is a perpetual war for an impossible peace, let alone a peace of mind.

These are the true “birth pangs of a new Middle East,” which U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice celebrated in 2006. That was after the U.S. global War on Terror and its invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq began to spill over to other parts of the Middle East, starting with Israel’s aggression first against Palestine and later against Lebanon. Gory and gruesome.

Indeed, Iraq and much of the region— including Syria, Yemen, Libya, Lebanon, Palestine, Afghanistan, Iran and Sudan—

PHOTO BY AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES Supporters of Muqtada al‐Sadr gather for a “selfie” group picture outside the headquarters of the Supreme Judicial Council, Iraq’s highest judicial body, in Baghdad on Aug. 23, 2022. They are demanding the dis ‐solution of parliament and new elections. continue to suffer from a variety of wars driven and shaped mostly by violent Western cynicism and rogue Middle Eastern authoritarianism. It is heart-wrenching to see Iraqis turn against each other again and again, as if politics is war by other means. It is not. If anything, politics is and must be the antidote for war and violence in the region and beyond. ■

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Two Views

Afghanistan Pays for Hosting al-Qaeda Leaders—Again

The sun sets on lower Manhattan and One World Trade Center in New York City as people walk through the Empty Sky 9/11 Memorial in Liberty State Park on July 19, 2022, in Jersey City, New Jersey.

The Assassination of Ayman al-Zawahri

By Jacob G. Hornberger

WHILE U.S. OFFICIALS and their acolytes in the mainstream press have described the U.S. national security establishment’s recent assassination of Ayman al-Zawahri as a great victory for President Joe Biden and the U.S. “global war on terror,” it is important to keep in mind that the assassination was just plain murder on the part of America’s federal killing machine.

Federal officials and their mainstream press have justified al-Zawahri’s killing on two grounds: (1) by claiming that al-Zawahri participated in the 9/11 attacks and (2) by claiming that the killing was simply part of their “global war on terror.”

Both justifications, however, are nothing more than rationalizations for a state-sponsored murder on the part of the U.S. national security establishment.

Let’s keep in mind something important: terrorism is not an act of war. It is a federal criminal offense. That includes the 9/11 attacks. As acts of terrorism, the 9/11 attacks were federal criminal offenses.

Consider all the federal prosecutions for terrorism that have taken place in U.S. district courts in New York, Virginia, Washington, DC, and elsewhere for many years. There is a simple reason for those prosecutions: Terrorism is a federal criminal offense. If it were an act of war, there never would have been those criminal prosecutions. Instead, there would have simply been prisoner-ofwar camps, like in regular wars. In regular wars, no soldier is criminally prosecuted for murder for killing an enemy soldier. That’s because in war, soldiers are legally entitled to kill the enemy.

In 1993, terrorists set off a bomb in the World Trade Center. The bombing didn’t bring down the towers but it did kill and injure multitudes of people. It was no different in principle from the later attacks on 9/11. When Ramzi Yousef, one of the people who committed the 1993 attack, was later taken into custody, he

Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. This article was published in Counterpunch on Aug. 24, 2022. Reprinted with permission.

was not placed in a prisoner-of war-camp. Instead, he was prosecuted in federal district court. Again, that’s because terrorism is a federal criminal offense, not an act of war.

Because the magnitude of the death and damage was so much greater with the 9/11 attacks, the Pentagon and the CIA succeeded in perverting and warping America’s founding judicial system. After those attacks, they established a torture and prison camp in Cuba. Why Cuba? Their aim was to establish a Constitution-free zone where they could bring any suspected terrorist in the world and do whatever they wanted to him, without any judicial interference whatsoever. That included such things as torture, indefinite detention, and extrajudicial execution.

The Supreme Court declared that it had jurisdiction over the Cuba center but then, in an act of extreme passivity, permitted the Pentagon and the CIA to establish a dual judicial system, one that would operate alongside the federal judicial system. The Pentagon and the CIA would have the omnipotent authority to decide whether to send terrorism suspects through the federal system or through their kangaroo military tribunal system.

The Gitmo system has always been flagrantly unconstitutional. But the federal judiciary has always been deferential to the Pentagon and the CIA. That’s why there are still prisoners at Gitmo who have been incarcerated and tortured for decades without even the semblance of a trial, in flagrant violation of the right to a speedy trial guaranteed by the Bill of Rights and the right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishments.

After the 9/11 attacks, the national-security establishment also claimed that it had the authority to assassinate anyone it considered to be a terrorist. As I document in my new book An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story, this power of assassination came into existence long before the 9/11 attacks, but by and large, it was kept under wraps and not publicized widely by the CIA and the Pentagon.

Not so after 9/11, however. At that point, assassination became a well-established, widely publicized power of the CIA and the Pentagon. From that point on, they didn’t have to bring suspected terrorists to justice, either in the federal court system or the tribunal system at Gitmo. They could just kill suspected terrorists on sight. That included American citizens.

There was always one great big legal problem, however, with their program of state-sponsored assassination: The Constitution, which not only does not delegate a power of assassination to federal officials but also, through the Fifth Amendment, expressly prohibits the federal taking of life without due process of law—i.e., without formal notice and a trial.

The Constitution, however, proved to be no obstacle to state-sponsored assassinations simply because the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary played their standard deferential and passive role by upholding this omnipotent, totalitarian, dark-side power.

It is worth mentioning that there is no indication that al-Zawahri was participating in any anti-American terrorist operation at the time of his assassination. His killing appears to be nothing more than an extrajudicial act of deadly vengeance in retaliation for the 9/11 attacks more than 20 years ago. It’s also worth mentioning that al-Zawahri was never convicted of participating in the 9/11 attacks. Indeed, as U.S. officials have slowly and reluctantly released their highly secret stash of evidence regarding 9/11 over the years, the great weight and preponderance of that evidence seems to point to Saudi Arabians as the orchestrators of the 9/11 attacks. Of course, the Pentagon and the CIA would have every incentive to protect Saudi Arabia given that it provides much of the oil that funds their massive worldwide military machine.

Our American ancestors brought into existence the greatest judicial system in history. It was a system that admittedly permitted some guilty people to go free, but with the aim of ensuring that innocent people were never punished, killed, tortured or abused. That system worked well for some 150 years. Unfortunately, the Pentagon and the CIA have destroyed it, as we have most recently seen with their extrajudicial murder of accused terrorist Ayman al-Zawahri. ■

U.S. Judge Says 9/11 Victims Not Entitled to Afghan Bank Assets

By Al Jazeera Staff

A UNITED STATES JUDGE has recommended that victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks not be allowed to seize billions of dollars of assets belonging to Afghanistan’s central bank to satisfy court judgements they obtained against the Taliban.

After the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, governments and international institutions froze the country’s central bank assets held abroad, totalling about $10 billion. About $7 billion of that was held in the U.S. and other countries hold about $2 billion.

Western governments have refused to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan and the money has remained in limbo. Non-recognition of the Taliban government undermines its ownership of the frozen central bank assets.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn in Manhattan said on August 26 that Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB)—the central bank— was immune from jurisdiction. Allowing the seizures of the bank’s assets would effectively acknowledge the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, something only the U.S. president can do, the judge said.

“The Taliban’s victims have fought for years for justice, accountability, and compensation. They are entitled to no less,” Judge Netburn wrote.

“But the law limits what compensation the court may authorize, and those limits put the DAB’s assets beyond its authority.”

This article was posted on <www.aljazeera.com> on Aug. 27, 2022. Copyright 2022. Al Jazeera Media Network. Reprinted with Permission.

Afghan children are seen with their mothers in Kabul, Afghanistan on Jan. 16, 2022. Rates of malnutrition are soaring in the country.

A young boy joins members of the local Afghan community and other Londoners to fly kites on Hampstead Heath in London on Aug. 20, 2022, to commemorate one year since the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban.

Netburn’s recommendation will be reviewed by U.S. District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan, who also oversees the litigation and can decide whether to accept her recommendation.

DEFEAT FOR CREDITORS

Nearly 3,000 people died on Sept. 11, 2001, when planes were flown into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon in northern Virginia and a Pennsylvania field.

The decision is a defeat for four groups of creditors that sued a variety of defendants who they held responsible for the September 11 attacks. Lawyers for the creditor groups did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Following the Taliban’s takeover last year, a group of families of about 150 U.S. victims of the September 11 attacks said they were owed some $7 billion from the Afghan assets held by the Federal Reserve of New York.

That sum was awarded by a federal judge in 2012 following a default judgment against an array of defendants—including the Taliban, al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Iran—who did not show up in court.

At the time of the attacks in 2001, the ruling Taliban had allowed al-Qaeda to operate inside Afghanistan.

The Taliban has repeatedly called on the U.S. and other governments and institutions to release the frozen bank funds, saying they are needed to stabilize Afghanistan’s ravaged economy and prevent a humanitarian crisis.

In an executive order in February, U.S. President Joe Biden ordered $3.5 billion of the bank’s assets to be set aside “for the benefit of the Afghan people,” leaving victims of the September 11 attacks to pursue the remainder in court.

The U.S. government took no position at the time on whether the creditor groups were entitled to recover funds under the U.S.’ Terrorist Risk Insurance Act of 2002. It did urge judges Netburn and Daniels to view exceptions to sovereign immunity narrowly, citing the risks of interference with the U.S. president’s power to conduct foreign relations and possible challenges to American property located abroad.

Shawn Van Diver, the head of #AfghanEvac, which helps evacuate and resettle Afghans, said he hoped the frozen funds could be used to help the struggling Afghan economy without enriching the Taliban.

“The judge has done the right thing here,” he said.

U.S. sanctions ban doing financial business with the Taliban, but allow humanitarian support for the Afghan people. ■

gram and whose connection to Canada has been verified are then referred to the IRCC by either Global Affairs Canada (GAC) or the Department of National Defense (DND).

“Of 18,000 spots available through our program we have received over 15,000 applications in various stages of processing based on referrals received by GAC and DND. The IRCC also continues to send out invitations and to reply to additional referrals,” Strickland explained.

The IRCC website currently states that Afghan nationals who had an “enduring relationship” with the Government of Canada, such as interpreters, people who worked at the Embassy of Canada to Afghanistan, as well as their family members, are still eligible for the program and that the Government of Canada is committed to welcoming Afghan refugees to Canada.

Yaftali insists the government’s decision leaves Afghans who had worked with the Canadian forces and NGOs, as well as others who worked with international NGOs and NATO, in real danger.

She said now is the time for the government to take immediate action and allow Afghan families who are already in Canada to sponsor their relatives who remain in Afghanistan.

In an emailed statement to the Washington Report, New Democratic Party (NDP) critic Jenny Kwan shared Yaftali’s concerns. Kwan said the IRCC is mired in bureaucratic red tape and that applications for the Special Immigration Measures have gone missing between different government departments with no clear explanation as to why.

“What is clear is that IRCC is in complete chaos,” Kwan wrote, adding that it is astonishing for 2,900 applications referred by the Department of National Defense (DND) to be “lost” between departments. She pointed out that only 900 applications have been confirmed and the whereabouts of the others is not clear.

Kwan said that the federal government’s decision to end the Special Immigration Measures program for Afghans now means those who assisted Canada may never make it to safety. In addition, women’s organizations that were funded by the Canadian government and worked on advancing women’s rights and democratic rights are also being left behind.

“As one of the vice-chairs of the Special Committee on Afghanistan, I have heard horrific accounts from witnesses of how the Taliban are trying to hunt down Afghans who helped serve on Canadian missions when our veterans were [there]. Now they and their family members are in grave danger,” she said.

Kwan pointed out that applications from former interpreters have also been ignored by the IRCC and DND.

She shared the story of a former Afghan interpreter with the Canadian Forces, who is known only as “Mr. X,” to protect his identity. He received a Certificate of Appreciation from Lieutenant Wayne Eyre for helping translators from the Canadian Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team.

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Students for Justice in Palestine, at the Israel pavilion of Folklorama, Winnipeg’s cultural festival, on Aug. 11, 2022, read the names of Palestinian children killed during Israel’s recent attack.

“Canada owes Mr. X a great deal of gratitude,” Kwan said.

Yet when he and his family were threatened by the Taliban, they got no assistance from the Government of Canada. “Mr. X” was eventually forced to flee to Pakistan and leave his family behind in Afghanistan. Last August he applied to resettle in Canada, yet after sending countless urgent messages to the IRCC, he has only received a series of automatically generated email responses.

He last emailed the IRCC in early July 2022 about applying for the Special Immigration Measures program and has yet to receive a direct response.

In the meantime, Yaftali proposes that the government offer special allocations through privately sponsored refugee programs for Afghans, so that families who are in Canada can sponsor their family members through the refugee sponsorship program.

Yaftali said it’s essential Canada remain committed to its promise of bringing those remaining in Afghanistan to safety in Canada as soon as possible, before they face persecution, harassment and even torture by the Taliban. She said it’s clear the international community has abandoned Afghans and Afghanistan again. “The repercussions of this decision will leave Afghans in the danger zone with no support from the international community, including Canada,” Yaftali concluded.

Kwan said the NDP is urgently calling on the Liberal government to lift the arbitrary cap on the Special Immigration program and to expand and renew the Special Immigration Measures for Afghans, so those who are eligible, but never got a reply, have an opportunity to get to safety in Canada.

VIGIL FOR PALESTINE RETURNS TO FOLKLORAMA CULTURAL FESTIVAL

Folk musicians sang “We Shall Overcome” as people committed to justice and peace for Palestine gathered once again at Folklorama, Winnipeg’s longest running cultural festival, to protest Israel’s recent attack on Gaza.

Organizers of the annual event at the Israel Pavilion also focused on the 8th anniversary of the 2014 51-Day War, the recent murder of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, as well as the recent decision by six human rights organizations to call Israel’s actions toward Palestinians apartheid.

It was the first time since 2019 that people held a Palestine solidarity action at Folklorama. The festival was cancelled the two previous years because of COVID-19.

This year organizers had asked Folklorama to suspend the Israeli Pavilion because of increased violence toward Palestinians, pointing out that the Russian Pavilion did not participate in the festival this year because of Russia’s ongoing war on Ukraine. The same could not be said for the Israeli Pavilion. Folklorama staff did not address or respond to organizers’ concerns about Israel’s participation this year.

People observed a moment of silence for the 16 children killed in Gaza between August 6-8. Members of Students for Justice in Palestine, a newly formed student group at the University of Manitoba, read out the names of the children.

Participants carried a variety of placards with messages like “Let Gaza Live,” “Free Palestine,” “Folklorama: Tell the Truth About Israel” and “This is YOUR Israel: This is What You’re Celebrating.”

Canada-Palestine Support Network, Independent Jewish Voices-Winnipeg, Peace Alliance Winnipeg, Winnipeg Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid and the local Palestinian community were all involved in organizing this year’s event.

WINNIPEG PROTESTS BRING ATTENTION TO ISRAELI VIOLENCE

People in Winnipeg have been holding public actions about Israel since the winter of 2021. This July 2022, participants gathered outside the city’s largest shopping center carrying placards with slogans like: “Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh Murdered by the Israeli Military May 11, 2022” and “Palestinian Children Face Torture in Israeli Prisons.” The event was an opportunity to engage with passersby who stopped to ask about their work.

Previous demonstrations focused on Canada’s weapons sales to Israel and Canada’s decision to purchase drones from Israeli weapons company Elbit Systems. ■

Local residents cross a temporary footbridge, on Aug. 31, 2022, after heavy rains in the Swat Valley in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

evident at the end of 2021, when the PTI lost a series of important elections.

Khan, however, remained adamant that his ouster was a conspiracy unrelated to domestic affairs. In 2018, Khan ran on a populist platform opposing corruption and proposing a new foreign policy that would give Pakistan a greater degree of autonomy from foreign influence, particularly from the United States and China. He claims that this foreign policy irked powerful governments who in turn made sure he was removed from office.

“Imran Khan talked about a Muslim bloc, that’s his sin,” former Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan insisted in a speech after the vote of no confidence. “Imran Khan talked about an independent foreign policy, that’s his sin…the Russia [visit] is just an excuse, the real target has always been Imran Khan.”

The reference to Russia became one of the PTI’s main talking points in their claims of foreign influence. On Feb. 24, hours after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, Imran Khan and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Moscow. Pakistan’s foreign office detailed that the two leaders discussed Afghanistan, Islamophobia and the finalization of a new gas pipeline in Pakistan. In Khan’s mind, the United States could not handle watching a leader meet with Putin, and this set in motion the events that led to his removal.

A month before the vote of no confidence, on March 7, Khan claimed that a Pakistani diplomat sent a letter detailing a threat toward the Pakistani government made by U.S. diplomat Donald Lu. The United States allegedly planned to bribe and corrupt both the opposition and members of the PTI. No evidence to substantiate this claim has been presented to the public.

Obviously, rising inflation, a historic deprecation of the Pakistani rupee compared to the dollar and unpopular loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) provided the opposition with clear evidence of Imran Khan’s failures. (Khan was said to have jeopardized a vital debt bailout deal with the IMF by cutting fuel and food costs.) It wasn’t as though he was removed because of a scandal or a crime like former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who in 2017 resigned and was subsequently given a 10year prison sentence for corruption while in office. Rather, the opposition was able to produce a united majority opposed to his vision for Pakistan.

This united opposition to his politics solidified Imran Khan’s commitment to a conspiratorial narrative of foreign interference. For those loyal to him, it was never an issue of poor policy making or economic failure. Instead, the narrative was that he had been targeted for his willingness to advance Pakistani interests by standing up to oppressive governments seeking to dictate the direction of the country.

Khan’s belief that foreign pressure forced him out of power was only the latest instance of the PTI claiming a conspiracy against Pakistan. Back in March, following the Peshawar mosque attack, which killed more than 60 people, former Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi alluded to the international “powers” behind the attack and discussed a larger conspiracy to disrupt stability in Pakistan. “Some powers can’t accept this,” he said. “They don’t want to see stability, economic revival and growth and foreign investment in Pakistan.” As it turned out, the Islamic State-Khorasan Province claimed responsibility for the attack, without any reported help from a foreign power.

Since his removal, Khan has been persistent in opposing his successor, Shehbaz Sharif (the brother of Nawaz Sharif), and has continued to claim there is an ongoing conspiracy against his party.

This aerial photograph, taken on Aug. 31, 2022, shows flood‐affected people taking refuge in a makeshift camp after heavy monsoon rains in Jaffarabad district of Balochistan province. Army helicopters flew sorties over cut‐off areas in Pakistan’s mountainous north and rescue parties fanned out across waterlogged plains in the south as misery mounted for millions trapped by the worst floods in the country’s history.

On July 12, days before by-elections for the provincial assembly in Punjab, Khan accused the election commission and the Pakistan Muslim League (the party of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif) of colluding to stifle the PTI.

In fact, the by-elections were a tremendous success for the PTI, fueled by Khan’s constant street rallies and highly publicized jabs at the legitimacy of the current government. The PTI won 15 of the 20 seats and reestablished its majority in the Provincial Assembly that it lost back in April when PTI members defected.

This strong resurgence in PTI support suggests that Khan’s current campaign strategy has worked, and we can expect to see claims of election rigging and foreign interference continue until national elections in 2023, when Khan could potentially return to power.

The downside of this strategy is that the PTI’s attention won’t be on altering the economic and political strategies that caused Khan to be removed from office, but rather on gaining support through questioning the legitimacy of his rivals.

HISTORIC FLOODS ADD TO WOES

The current government is facing serious economic problems, especially after the record monsoon rains that have devastated the country, killing more than 1,100 people, destroying crops and infrastructure, and wrecking one million homes. After three months of incessant rain, much of Pakistan’s farmland is flooded, which means the government will have to deal with food shortages.

The Balochistan province, in Pakistan’s southwest, has been one of the hardest hit areas, leaving many of the 12 million inhabitants without electricity, gas and internet. In addition, air, road and rail connections have been suspended, as much of the transportation infrastructure connecting the region to the rest of the country has been washed away or rendered unusable. A large amount of the country’s farmland and stored crops were in Balochistan, which will contribute to massive food shortages in the short term and decreased agricultural output in the coming years.

On August 20, when Khan’s aggressive campaigning cast doubt on whether the coalition that removed Khan from power would be able to prevent him from returning, the government charged him with terrorism, saying he’d threatened current officials and a judge at one of the large, boisterous rallies.

As Khan arrived at the anti-terrorism court in Islamabad to obtain “pre-arrest bail,” hundreds of his supporters rushed his motorcade chanting, “Who will save Pakistan?! Imran Khan! Imran Khan!”

Although he has been granted bail until Sept. 7, what will happen after that date is unclear. If convicted, Khan would be barred from running for office, which would drastically alter the identity of the PTI.

The floods have already affected 33 million people and resulted in damages costing billions of dollars, adding to the economic misery that the government initially committed to tackle. After Khan’s removal, the government revoked a petroleum subsidy and raised taxes in several sectors to secure a billion dollar loan from the IMF. The increase in gas prices was largely unpopular, and now the increase in food costs resulting from the floods will only add further pressure on the current government to perform.

Despite the current humanitarian crisis, the Pakistani government has chosen to directly confront Imran Khan’s explosive campaign strategy through the terrorism charges. Over the coming months, the government’s attention will be split between addressing the widespread economic and humanitarian impact of the flood and dealing with the large popular dissent surrounding Imran Khan’s removal.

It remains to be seen whether the current governing coalition can save the economy while remaining popular with the public until 2023. Despite his removal from office, Imran Khan remains a popular figure, and his commitment to antiAmerican and anti-globalist rhetoric may indeed be the political platform he needs to return to power.

Ultimately, the Pakistani people will have the final say in the matter. The concern with inflation and poor monetary policy is what led to Khan’s dismissal, and unless the new xxe guilty people to go free, but with the aim of ensuring. ■

My Country is Drowning

By Anam Rathor

PHOTO BY PAKISTAN ARMED FORCES/ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES

A THIRD OF MY COUNTRY is under water right now—bridges, roads, schools, and other critical infrastructure. At least 33 million people are displaced—that’s one in every seven Pakistanis. These are 33 million dreams broken, 33 million hopes shattered, and 33 million futures destroyed as a result of the havoc wreaked upon their lands by no fault of their own.

Pakistan accounts for just 0.67 percent of global carbon emissions, yet it has ranked among the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world for the past decade. The country faces warming rates considerably above the global average and more frequent and intense extreme climate events.

Every part of Pakistan has witnessed numerous extreme climate events this year alone. From March to June, the provinces of Sindh, Balochistan and Punjab saw record-breaking heatwaves. In the northern regions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan, melting glaciers caused glacial lake outburst floods (GLOF). Now the recent floods triggered by an unprecedented monsoon season have created havoc in all regions of Pakistan, stretching from Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to Sindh, Southern Punjab, and Balochistan.

This climatic catastrophe has wreaked devastation on the most marginalized, with millions still waiting for food, drinking water and shelter, while rescue teams struggle to reach these cut-off communities.

In a country already marred by its colonized past and seized by an economic collapse, the recent floods have exacerbated the devastation, leading to a steep rise in inflation and food scarcity of epic proportions as the floods have destroyed crops and killed livestock. The current climatic crisis is threatening Pak-

istan’s survival as an agricultural-based economy. As Pakistan mourns the destruction and devastation caused by the recent extreme climatic events, the industrialized and post-industrialized countries of the global north responsible for these catastrophes need to be held accountable. For us to survive and for the Pakistani people to live a dignified life, the climate crisis needs more attention than it is getting right now, especially from rich countries responsible for 90 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These high emitting countries need to take responsibility, but they also need to be held accountable for the death and destruction that directly result from their action. The blood of the dead is on their hands—the global north, the fossil fuel billionaires. The same high emitter countries of the global north colonized our land for hundreds of years, killing our ancestors and stealing our resources. Now they have colonized our atmosphere in their pursuit of wealth and development at the expense of our people's lives and environment. If this is what a 1.1 degrees C increase looks like for Pakistan; I am terrified to imagine what the future holds. The temperature increase may be linear, but the catastrophes are exponential. As Pakistan faces a catastrophic humanitarian crisis and an unimaginable financial crisis, the country is on the precipice of total economic disaster. It is time that high emitter countries pay for loss and damage. We are not asking for charity or another loan; we need climate reparations. The death and destruction Pakistan has suffered will not just be Anam Rathor is an avid social, political and climate justice organizer another negligible statistic in this for-profit greedy world. with a demonstrated history of working in the non‐profit industry. There are plenty of ways we can address the climate crisis, but Common Dreams Aug. 31. for now, if you'd like to lend a hand immediately, please donate. ■

Pakistan Armed Forces assist search and rescue operations in flood hit areas of Pakistan on Aug. 27, 2022.

Special Report UAE Legal Reforms Fail to Improve the Abysmal Human Rights Record By Stasa Salacanin

IN LATE 2021, THE UAE introduced the most extensive legal reforms in the country’s 50-year history, but many human rights organizations claim that legal changes failed to substantially improve the citizens’ and residents’ civil and political rights.

The UAE introduced 40 new laws and updated versions of existing legislation covering wide areas of business, labor, family, personal status, crime, intellectual property and e-commerce. The new legislation reforms were initiated to maintain the country’s position as a leading business hub and to attract foreign direct investments.

Despite progress in some fields, however, the rights groups have criticized the reforms, saying that they are just “consolidating repression.” Human Rights Watch (HRW) has been among the loudest, claiming that reforms “fail to address the longstanding and system-

atic restrictions on citizens’ and residents’ civil and political rights.” HRW has especially focused on two new laws, the crime and punishment law and the cybercrimes law, which came into effect in early 2022. According to a HRW report, Article 174 of the UAE’s new Federal Crime and Punishment Law imposes sentences of up to life in prison for any one who commits an act against a foreign country that “could harm political relations.” In addition, it also presumes a death sentence if the court determines that harm did occur. Workers clean the exterior of the Museum of the Future, which opened on Feb. 25, 2022, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The museum envisions what the world could look like in the future, with flying taxis, wind New legal provisions may farms and solar energy projects conducted in space. The poetry of Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid directly affect the work of Al Maktoum wraps the building in Arabic calligraphy. In the background is the Burj Khalifa skyscraper, the journalists based in the UAE. tallest building in the world. Article 178 provides a prison sentence (between 3 to 15 years) for anyone who collects “information, data, objects, documents, designs, statistics or anything else for the purpose of handing them over to a foreign country or group or organization or entity,” without first obtaining a license from the authorities. HRW experts claim that such articles may be easily used as a pretext to punish or intimidate anyone who tries to share information with international media outlets, including United Nations human rights experts. No less repressive is Article 217, which criminalizes publishing or sharing “false or tendentious news, statements or rumors” and spreading “propaganda” that may “disturb public security,” “damage the public interest” or “incite public opinion.” Finally, defamation is also heavily sanctioned under articles 425, 426 and 427 of the penal code, affecting the media freedoms but also private communications Stasa Salacanin is a widely published author and analyst focusing via non-public applications such as WhatsApp. on the Middle East and Europe. He produces in‐depth analysis of the region’s most pertinent issues for regional and international publications including the Al Jazeera Center for Studies, Middle East HRW claims that the UAE’s new cybercrimes law, Combatting Rumors and Cybercrime, contains numerous penalties narrowing Monitor, The New Arab, Gulf News, Al Bawaba, Qantara, Inside the possibility of any peaceful criticism aimed at the government Arabia and many more. and its representatives.

PHOTO BY KARIM SAHIB/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Article 20, for example, provides a sentence of up to life in prison for anyone who is using the internet “to advocate the overthrow, change, or usurpation of the system of governance in the state, or obstruct provisions of the constitution or existing law.”

Furthermore, Article 19 provides a prison sentence not exceeding one year or a fine for anyone who manages a website or a social media account that does not comply with media content standards issued by the relevant authorities. Article 22 stipulates prison terms between 3 and 15 years for anyone who provides information to organizations, institutions or agencies that is not authorized for publishing or circulating liable to harm state interests or damage its reputation. Under this provision, the UAE sentenced prominent human rights activist Ahmed Mansoor to 10 years in solitary confinement.

LONGSTANDING PATTERN

Charles Dunne, a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute and former U.S. diplomat, told the Washington Report that new legal provisions continue a longstanding pattern of tightening legal restrictions in the UAE in order to control political behavior. In his words, “the COVID pandemic provided Arab leaders an excuse to further tighten laws against free assembly and certain types of speech ostensibly in the interest of public health and safety, but really in the interests of increasing government authority.”

Dunne observes that under cover of improving economic competitiveness, these new measures would appear to strengthen laws that constrain freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and women’s rights. However, the trend of narrowing freedoms may negatively impact the aim of reforms.

While it is not yet clear whether foreign journalists will be subjected to these measures—and according to Dunne it is certainly possible—this may come with risks, including undermining the image of the UAE as a modern state and a safe place to invest. The UAE has been heavily criticized by Amnesty International after reports that Israel’s Pegasus spyware was used by the UAE to spy on international journalists, activists and some foreign leaders.

On the other hand, Andrew Gardner, professor of anthropology at the University of Puget Sound, recalls that these issues have not played an outsized role when it comes to attracting investors, as these conditions have been in place throughout the Gulf for decades. Nevertheless, he observes that there is a new set of forces— global public opinion—to which all states must now also be closely attuned. Having this in mind, it is possible that these questions “potentially metastasize into issues of global attention and concern,” he told the Washington Report.

MIGRANT RIGHTS ISSUES REMAIN UNSOLVED

The UAE reforms also fail to address the heavily criticized kafala system, which regulates sponsorship of migrant laborers. The UAE greatly relies on a foreign migrant labor force, which accounts for almost 90 percent of its population.

Gardner notes that the UAE has implemented changes to the kafala in the past decade, and some of these reforms have been fairly noteworthy and substantial in nature.

Indeed, public policy expert Reem Saeed, in her 2021 study titled “Human Rights Reforms: Natural Socio-Political Evolution or Positional Strategy?” said that over the past decade the UAE has ratified “nine key International Labor Organization (ILO) conventions related to workers’ rights, including six fundamental conventions, one governance convention and two technical conventions,” and introduced the Wage Protection System (WPS). The UAE also adopted regulations referring to the “banning of confiscating passports, physical abuse and travel rights.”

In practice, however, the situation is quite different. The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) believes that the new reforms fail to meet international standards for workers’ rights. The confederation’s annual Global Rights Index claims that the UAE has had “no guarantee of rights” for workers since 2014, citing a long list of abuses including the detention and deportation of 700 workers from Africa in June 2021, as well as contract violations and irregularities. The UAE charges workers thousands of dollars in fees, prevents them from changing jobs and engages in wage discrimination based on nationality. According to ITUC’s survey, the conditions in the construction sector remain worrisome as 50 percent of construction workers in Dubai revealed that they “did not receive their wages on time and were denied adequate overtime payments.”

In Gardner’s opinion, Qatar seems to have taken the lead in reconfiguring the kafala, by removing some of its most problematic elements. He thinks that “Qatar has allowed more research concerning the migrant experience and the changes in the policies that guide it than the UAE” and although “this has not fully insulated Qatar from critique, [especially as it prepares for the World Cup], the UAE remains much more closed to scrutiny and evaluation.”

Nevertheless, Dunne seriously doubts that there will be sustained pressure from outside governments to reverse these measures anytime soon; the energy crisis resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the perceived need for a unified front against Iran are likely to take precedence. ■

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The party was hugely successful in this, too, at least at first.

“When the AKP came to power in 2002, Turkey had the same infant mortality rate as pre-war Syria,” says Cagaptay. “Now, the rate is comparable with Spain. Erdogan delivered economic growth, lifted many people out of poverty, improved services and widened access to the economic pie.”

The AKP thus went on to win a dozen elections and referenda over the following two decades. Now, though, it is the AKP which represents that “old guard” to many Turkish voters, while the economy is once again a major problem.

In August 2022, inflation was around 80 percent, year-on-year, while the currency, the Turkish lira, had fallen 25 percent against the U.S. dollar since Jan. 1, 2022.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine and longer-term hikes in energy prices have also impacted the economy badly, as Turkey imports almost all of its oil and gas— much from Russia—and generally priced in U.S. dollars.

Indeed, Erdogan himself has said that the country’s energy import bill for 2022 is expected to be four times what it was in 2021, at around $100 billion. For ordinary Turks, this has meant a major shift downward in standards of living. Official figures for July 2022 showed prices for food and non-alcoholic beverages up 94 percent, year-on-year, while transport costs had shot up 123 percent. Wages have failed to rise at anything like these rates for most people, with real per capita GDP—in decline since 2013—accelerating downward.

Unsurprisingly, this has translated into a decline in support for Erdogan and his current coalition with the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), known as the People’s Alliance (PA).

A July Istanbul Economics survey showed 83 percent of respondents thought the current economic situation was “very bad/bad”— including 68.4 percent of AKP voters—while support for the PA was just 27.8 percent in July, also according to an Istanbul Economics poll. At the same time, support for the opposition coalition—the six-party Nation Alliance (NA) had risen to 33.1 percent. This is no small achievement for Turkey’s opposition, hamstrung as it is by AKP’s control of most of the media, a campaign of intimidation as well as arrests of opposition activists and government critics, and a long-term series of electoral defeats, leaving many exhausted and demoralized.

“The opposition has accomplished a lot,” Murat Somer, professor of political science and international relations at Koc University in Istanbul, told the Washington Report. “They have a joint platform that includes parties from the left and right and split-offs from the ruling AKP and MHP.”

The NA’s main two parties are the leftleaning Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the right-wing Iyi (Good) Party, while the coalition also includes former AKP economy minister Ali Babacan’s Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) and former AKP prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s Future Party (GP).

The NA also includes the Islamist Felicity Party (SP), the more conservative wing of the old Virtue Party, from which the then-more-liberal AKP split in 2001, and the Democrat Party, a reformed version of the old True Path Party (DYP), once led by Turkey’s first and only, so far, female prime minister, Tansu Ciller, back in the 1990s.

Keeping these disparate groups together has, indeed, been a major achievement. Yet, while the six have agreed on a joint platform, mainly advocating an end to the current presidential system and a return to parliamentary democracy, they have yet to agree on a joint candidate for president in 2023.

“All of the opposition leaders are more popular than Erdogan in opinion polls,” says Cagaptay, “except for the leader of the CHP—the largest opposition party.”

Uniting behind an unpopular presidential candidate could also be fatal, even if the opposition has widespread support. “There have been years of democratic erosion in Turkey,” says Prof. Somer. “How you recover from this is a global problem for opposition movements—what is the recipe?” A further obstacle to opposition hopes has been the president’s ability to use his international influence at a time of great uncertainty and conflict. This has had economic repercussions, too.

Erdogan’s August meeting in Sochi with Russian President Vladimir Putin secured a transfer of some $20 billion into the Turkish economy, along with agreements to pay for some Russian gas in rubles and boost trade. This was despite current efforts by Turkey’s NATO allies to tighten economic sanctions against Moscow.

At the same time, Russian oligarchs booted out of Western countries have been welcomed in Turkey, while many middle- class Russians have boosted not only Turkish tourism this summer, after a long pandemic downturn, but also Turkish real estate, buying up bolt-holes in Istanbul and on Turkey’s Aegean and Mediterranean coasts.

Erdogan has also been able to do this while maintaining ties to Ukraine. Turkish Bayraktar drones are now being manufactured under license there, for example, while Turkey also played a key role in securing safe passage for Ukrainian grain ships from Odesa.

The Turkish leader has likewise kept ties with the West. In June, Ankara was even able to force concessions from would-be NATO members Finland and Sweden over NATO membership in return for a crackdown on Kurdish oppositionists living in those countries.

“Erdogan is going to frame himself as a global leader who can talk to Putin, to Zelenskyy, and to Biden,” says Cagaptay. “He can present himself as the only leader who can protect Turkey from global insecurity.”

The coming elections, then, will be a tough battle for the opposition to win—despite their current lead and Turkey’s rocketing prices. Yet, “opposition success in Turkey,” says Somer, “could also provide lessons to those in other countries fighting democratic erosion.” Those lessons could have great value, from places such as Hungary, where the authoritarian Viktor Orban was recently reelected, to nations much closer to home. ■

Special Report President Kais Saied Rewrites Constitution, Upending Tunisia’s Political System

By Mustafa Fetouri

Tunisian electoral officials work at a vote‐counting center on July 26, 2022, following the Tunisian constitutional referendum.

IF POWER IS INDEED for the people and by the people then Tunisia’s president may have grounds to legitimize his agenda, according to recent polls. President Kais Saied, whose approval rating stands at 50 percent enjoys that power in the name of the people who voted him in, with over 70 percent of the total registered voters in 2019. Since then, he has been enjoying public support which Tunisia has never seen before. As soon as he took office, he went to work remaking the entire political system as his top priority.

In July 2021, he dismissed the government, suspended the parliament, lifted legislators’ immunity and took over the judiciary. He assumed complete power, based on his interpretation of the country’s constitution, and started running the country by decree, facing little or no legal challenge from his many opponents who lacked his popularity. Earlier in June, President Saied handpicked a committee of experts to draft a new constitution to replace the 2014 document that he had helped to draft before he even dreamt of becoming president.

He did not like what his committee handed him, so he went ahead and edited it himself. The man happens to be a constitutional law professor, who believes democracy is an empty slogan when people cannot find jobs, their government is paralyzed and corruption is out of control. In fact, he is echoing what ordinary Tunisians have been saying for years.

On July 25, he put his edited constitution to a public referendum that was approved by 94 percent of those who bothered to vote. Only one third of some 9.2 million eligible voters turned out to cast their ballots, but that is no problem for the president since the law does not require any threshold. A celebratory Saied joined his supporters in downtown Tunis when exit polls projected victory for him. Enthusiastically he declared that “there will be no turning back....This is a total break with a system forever rejected.”

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

While he was busy putting together his political agenda, Saied suffered his first pushback. After dismissing 57 judges in June, accusing them of corruption and covering up terror activities, on August 10, the country’s administrative court suspended the dismissal of 50 judges—effectively reinstating them. This was the first time, since July 2021, that there has been a legal challenge to President Saied’s authority in a country known for its relatively fair judiciary. However, it is unlikely to disrupt the president’s plans for Tunisia—the courts will no longer enjoy such power under Saied’s new constitution.

The issue is likely to become a protracted legal battle between the president and the judiciary, particularly, after the Ministry of Justice rejected the court’s decision reinstating the judges. None of the 47 dismissed judges has been able to go back to work. Whatever happens; the matter is unlikely to be settled before the December elections, minimizing any impact it could have on the legitimacy and legality of the polls .

Certainly, the new constitution gives the president too much power. His critics say that what Saied calls a “new constitution for a new republic” is nothing more than a coup aimed at accumulating all powers in his hands while stripping Tunisians of many of the gains they made after the 2011 popular uprising. The Arab Spring (also called the Jasmine revolution) ended the presidential system and created a new parliamentary governance, in which the presidency became a ceremonial post. Indeed, the new constitution creates a powerful presidency with almost no checks on how that power is exercised. Accordingly, the president can appoint and dismiss the government without any parliamentary consultation, present draft laws, draft the state budget, appoint and sack government ministers, and only s/he can propose treaties with other countries.

On top of all that, Saied can appoint judges, strip them of their right to strike and continue to rule by decree until the new parliament is elected. Although the president can only serve two terms, he can extend his term if he thinks the state is in danger—the same justification he used last year to take over the government. Furthermore, even after the upcoming parliamentary elections, he cannot be removed from office while his decisions on state matters are final.

Every indication points to the fact that the elections planned for Dec. 17, 2022 will go ahead, just as Saied wants, with little opportunity for the opposition to change the current course. In addition, the next elected parliament will have to share power with another chamber of “regions and districts.” This new elected chamber is meant to transfer some power to local governments in a decentralization attempt long supported by Saied.

Does the new constitution make Tunisia the burial place of the so-called Arab Spring, only a decade after its birth there? The president, who never publicly uttered the term “Arab Spring,” does not think so. True, the new constitution keeps fundamental freedoms untouched. Saied’s problem is the political system, which he wants to change, reinforced by his deep conviction that Tunisia needs a strong president.

This belief was strengthened by Tunisia’s political parties, however strong, which have had every opportunity during the last decade to deliver but failed. Instead they mushroomed into political fighting gangs making the parliament a place of senseless bickering and infighting, far from the sacred place it should be.

Many defend Saied’s actions by saying that this is what Tunisians want since political parties and the entire elite failed to gain the public support that could have pressured the president to hold a nationwide consultation on his constitutional amendments. In fact, most political parties opposed President Saied’s course of action from the start but faced with the huge public support he has garnered, they have failed to galvanize similar public momentum to gain any concessions from him.

This indicates that most of the president’s agenda in reverting to the presidential system is indeed a people’s demand. Even Tunisia’s powerful Labor Union left it to its individual members to decide how to vote in July’s constitutional referendum.

Public support for Kais Saied remains strong and his supporters point to the public’s approval of the new constitution and claim that Saied is an honest man who listens to the common Tunisian, who has nothing to gain from the kind of powers the constitution now gives him. However, they do not seem to consider what could happen when someone else is elected president once Saied is out of power.

The other side of the argument remains the economy. Saied has, so far, delivered very little in terms of tangible results to benefit the common Tunisian. People in the nearly bankrupt country still find it hard to make ends meet. They might reject democracy when it fails to put bread on the table, but they are likely to reject a president when he also fails. Much depends on what kind of parliament will emerge from the coming elections.

What is certain though is that after December 2022 a new Tunisia will appear that bears little resemblance to the one the world watched after the Arab Spring. If Tunisia gave birth to new era of democracy and a multiparty system in 2011, then Saied’s “new republic” is likely to return to the past Habib Bourguiba-style dictatorship, but in the name of the people and with their significant support. That’s just shy of becoming the Arab Spring’s cemetery. ■

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tion of ground water within Jakarta combined with the effects of climate change.

In August 2019, Indonesian President Joko Widodo announced that the site of the new capital would be in East Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo, and that construction would start in 2020, but COVID-19 put this plan on hold. In January this year, parliament gave its go-ahead for the planned new capital with the intended inauguration in August 2024.

Indonesia’s neighbor, Malaysia, retains Kuala Lumpur as its official capital but created a new administrative capital, Putrajaya, to its south, in 2001. The cabinet and government ministries relocated there, but parliament and the king’s palace remain in Kuala Lumpur, which continues to be a lively and diverse city and economic center, apparently little affected by the migration of key government institutions.

Decisions on the location and relocation of capital cities and their institutions generally raise political questions and controversy. In the Indonesian case, the new capital will likely result in an influx of people from the island of Java, currently home to 54 percent of Indonesia’s population, to Borneo. Conservationists worry that, as the city grows, it will encroach upon forested areas and threaten the habitat of orangutans and other forest animals, as well as the marine mammal, dugongs, in a nearby bay. The government has countered by claiming that it intends to reforest land in the region that had been cleared for plantations and mines.

A big new city is planned in Saudi Arabia, although it is intended to be a high-tech showpiece for the kingdom, not a new capital. This is Neom, to be built in a desert area near the head of the Gulf of Aqaba, close to the Jordanian border and the Israeli port of Eilat. Some local citizens are not happy with the plan. The land upon which it is to rise is the traditional home of a tribe known as the

SCREENSHOT BY NPR/NEOM Construction has begun on a futuristic Saudi Arabian megacity, part of the Neom project, which released conceptual videos showing the city’s high walls enclosing trees and gardens, and features vertically layered communities among work and recreational structures. Howeitat, who have a small place in the his- (Advertisement) tory of the First World War. Their most formidable leader then was Auda Abu Tayi, who played a major role in the Arab Revolt in the territories now comprising Jordan, including the campaign to capture Aqaba. In the case of the projected new administrative capital of Egypt, it has been speculated that the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi wishes to ensure that key governmental institutions are located away from potential sites of demonstrations and popular insurrection, following the experience of the overthrow of the Mubarak regime and the protests that greeted the military coup against his civilian successor. This follows the similar logic behind the establishment of Naypyidaw as Myanmar’s capital in 2005, in place of Yangon, where there was strong opposition to military rule. New capitals, which generally become prestige projects, can be very costly and demand expenditure that might have been better devoted to development in existing population centers. They don’t solve the problems faced by residents of former capitals, which still require heavy investment in infrastructure and employment creation if they are to be made more livable. Then again, that would be of less concern to any government that has found another home for itself rather than if it had stayed put. ■

Special Report Remembering the 40th Anniversary of the Sabra Shatila Massacre

By Ellen Siegel and Dr. Swee Chai Ang

LEFT: Ellen Siegel (l) and Dr. Swee Ang, in Jerusalem prior to testifying before the Kahan Commission, October 1982. RIGHT: The authors (l) Ellen Siegel and Dr. Swee Ang at Beirut's port, awaiting Pope Benedict's visit in 2012.

FORTY YEARS AGO, during the week of Sept. 12, we were working in a Palestine Red Crescent Society facility, Gaza Hospital, in Sabra Shatila camp in West Beirut. As health care workers, we were trying to heal the wounds and repair the mutilated and destroyed bodies of those injured by Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in June 1982. We had been working there following the evacuation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), mediated by U.S. Middle East envoy Philip Habib. Crucial to the evacuation agreement was the protection of the civilians left behind after the evacuation of the PLO, and Israel’s undertaking not to invade and occupy Beirut. With the guarantee of protection by the multinational peace-keeping force, thousands of displaced civilian war victims returned to Sabra Shatila to rebuild their homes and lives.

Unknown to these people who returned hoping to pick up and mend their shattered lives, the multinational peace-keeping force left West Beirut on Sept. 11, 1982. On the evening of Sept. 14, 1982, we became aware that the president-elect of Lebanon had been assassinated. Around the break of dawn on the following day, we heard planes flying low into Beirut. Within hours, sounds of heavy artillery and machine guns could be heard close by. It continued all day and soon the periphery of the camp was hit relentlessly.

We went to an upper floor of the hospital where we watched as flares went off, lighting areas of the camps, followed by gunfire. As hours passed, we hectically received and tended to the thousands of camp residents who fled to us or were brought into the hospital seeking emergency medical care, safety and security. The hospital ran out of food, water, medication—and blood for the wounded.

On Saturday, Sept. 18, along with the other international health care volunteers, we were ordered by the Phalangists (Lebanese Christian militia working under Israeli control) to assemble at the front of the hospital. We were marched, at machine-gun point, down Sabra Street, the main street of the camp—passing dead bodies, passing hundreds of women and children from the camps being

Dr. Swee Chai Ang is founder and patron of British Charity Medical Aid for Palestinians. She is author of From Beirut to Jerusalem: A Woman Surgeon with the Palestinians, updated and republished in 2019 by The Other Press, Kuala Lumpur. Ang was an orthopedic sur‐geon in Gaza Hospital Sabra Shatila during the 1982 massacre. Ellen Siegel, a Jewish American nurse, is a peace activist who has fo‐cused her activism on bringing awareness of the situation of the Palestinian refugees in the camps in Lebanon. She volunteered her medical services in 1982 during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. She was working at Gaza Hospital in Sabra Camp during the massacre.

Special Report Google Worker Who Protested Israel Contract Says She Was Forced to Quit

By Michael Arria

A GOOGLE WORKER who publicly opposed a company contract with the Israeli military has resigned from her position citing retaliation from her employer.

Ariel Koren, a product marketing manager at Google for Education who has worked at the tech company for more than seven years, explained the situation in her Medium post.

“Due to retaliation, a hostile environment and illegal actions by the company, I cannot continue to work at Google and have no choice but to leave the company at the end of this week,” wrote Koren. “Instead of listening to employees who want Google to live up to its ethical principles, Google is aggressively pursuing military contracts and stripping away the voices of its employees through a pattern of silencing and retaliation toward me and many others.”

Koren’s activism targeted Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract between Google, Amazon Web Services and Israel that helped provide cloud services to the country’s military and government. In October 2021 Koren drafted a public letter criticizing the agreement. “We cannot look the other way, as the products we build are used to deny Palestinians their basic rights, force Palestinians out of their homes and attack Palestinians in the Gaza Strip—actions that have prompted war crime investigations by the international criminal court,” it read. “We envision a future where technology brings people together Ariel Koren, former director of marketing for Google's educational products department. and makes life better for everyone. To build that brighter future, the companies we work for need to stop contracting with any and all militarized organizations in the U.S. and beyond.” Hundreds of workers at Google and Amazon signed the letter. Koren said that Google gave her an ultimatum the following month: either relocate to the company’s Brazil office or be fired. The move prompted Koren to file a complaint with Google’s human resources department and an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). A petition supporting Koren was circulated at the time and it was signed by more than 25,000 people. Google has publicly stated that they investigated the complaint and found no evidence of retaliation. Koren says the company’s HR team eventually admitted to her that the demand had been “improper and harmful,” but still refused to acknowledge that it came Michael Arria is the U.S. correspondent for Mondoweiss, where this article was posted on Sept. 1, 2022. His work has appeared in The Ap‐in response to her activism. In her Medium post Koren, who is Jewish, also says that Google peal, In These Times and Truthout. He is the author of Medium Blue: has “sustained a culture of silencing anti-Zionist Jews and creating The Politics of MSNBC. Follow him on Twitter at @michaelarria. toxic and unjust conditions for Palestinian, Arab and Muslim workers.”

PHOTO TWITTER

“Anti-Zionist Jews at Google will not stop speaking out against Israel’s injustices against Palestinians; but we acknowledge our privilege to do so safely while our Palestinian colleagues and friends are not afforded the same privilege to feel safe and be heard,” she wrote. “Our Palestinian colleagues deserve better than this; our Palestinian users deserve better than this. The general public deserves better than this.”

In a YouTube video, <https://jewishdiasporatech.org/voices>, fifteen other Google employees posted testimonials about the company’s treatment of Palestinians, policies of censorship and acts of retaliation. “Working at Google was always my dream job until I learned about Project Nimbus,” reads one testimonial. “I feel like I am making my living off the oppression of my family back home.”

“As a Palestinian, my feelings of marginalization only grew when I began seeing my coworkers issued warnings just for having empathy for Palestinians,” says another employee.

One worker says that they’re now “ashamed” to work for Google as a result of Project Nimbus.

A New York Times article on Koren’s resignation references “Google’s growing reputation for punishing employees who are publicly critical of the company is a notable change for an employer that once nourished an outspoken workplace culture.”

In November 2019, Google fired five workers over organizing. The NLRB filed a complaint against the company saying two of those firings had been illegal and that they had spied on multiple employees.

Koren’s Medium post also calls on readers to take action. She asks people to pressure the company to drop Project Nimbus, join the “No Tech for Apartheid” campaign, and amplify Palestinian voices. “Don’t be complacent or apathetic; take responsibility for your company and how your labor is used,” Koren writes.

For more information google “Ariel Koren quits google.” ■

PHOTO CREDIT HAZEM BADER/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

An Israeli soldier uses an unmanned surveillance drone to monitor Palestinians in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron in 2015.

Google marked Israeli legislative elections on March 2, 2020 with a special design. The company is offering advanced artificial intelligence and machine‐learning capabilities to the Israeli gov‐ernment through its controversial “Project Nimbus” contract. The Israeli Finance Ministry an‐nounced the contract in April 2021 for a $1.2 billion cloud computing system jointly built by Google and Amazon.

PHOTO BY ARTUR WIDAK/NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES

Special Report Podcasts on Palestine: By the Community, For the Community and Anyone Else Who Wants to Listen By Diana Safieh

Recommended podcasts (l‐r): Al‐Shabaka’s Rethinking Palestine, The Mondoweiss Podcast, Gaza Guy, author Diana Safieh’s podcasts, +972, IMEU’s This is Palestine, Stories from Palestine and IRmep’s How Israel Made AIPAC.

HAVE YOU JUMPED on the podcast bandwagon yet? Or are you, like my dad, still struggling to understand the concept? If so, let me explain it to you like I explained it to him. Imagine Netflix, but for radio shows. Podcasts are easily consumable on a phone or computer while commuting, going to the gym, doing housework, so it is no wonder they are one of the fastest growing media around the globe. Every news agency, channel and public figure is committing resources to podcasts.

The best (and worst) thing about podcasts is that anyone with a computer, internet and time can produce one. Of course there are high-budget podcasts with teams of production staff. I doubt former First Lady Michelle Obama or English comedian and actor Russell Brand edited their own podcasts using free audio software in their bedrooms. But anyone with something or nothing to say can start a podcast, and anyone willing to hear them can listen.

At the same time as podcasts are becoming easier to produce and consume, restrictions on movement in the occupied Palestinian territories is increasing, including for journalists, as the recent murder of Shireen Abu Akleh demonstrated. The rise of social media helped us learn about facts on the ground, and now podcasts can be used in much the same way.

So where do you start if you want to get into the wonderful world of English-language podcasts on Palestine?

Let’s start with Rethinking Palestine, produced by AlShabaka: The Palestinian Policy Net work, and hosted by senior policy analyst Yara Hawari. It starts with colonial mapping in Palestine, and how every such act results in the further dispossession of Palestinians. Why does it matter that Palestine isn’t on Google Maps? Why do settlements still exist even though they are illegal? Can maps tell lies? Fascinating right off the bat, this podcast is binge-worthy. Listen straight through, or dip in and out of whichever episodes take your fancy, such as ones covering President Joe Biden in the White House, the Palestinian leadership, the apartheid framework, the International Criminal Court or elections.

Let’s move on to Gaza Guy, a podcast by poet and journalist Moe Moussa. This podcast is absolutely by the community for the community, which is the ultimate true beauty of the podcast niche. It is rare to be able to tap in so directly into discourses concerning this region. Moe Moussa interviews poets, comedians, actors, activists and writers from around the world, and asks them their thoughts on Palestinian issues.

A highlight episode to get you hooked is “What is it like to be born as a political statement?” with Palestinian American writer Maram Jafar. She tells a very relatable story of which most Palestinians in the Diaspora have some version. She was asked by a teacher where she is from and then was told that Palestine doesn’t exist. These micro-aggressions are common for us, Palestinians abroad, as opposed to the macro-aggressions our brothers and sisters experience living within Palestine. It’s always less isolating, although frustrating, to hear you’re not the only one.

Diana Safieh hosts We Knew The Moon Podcast, on all things empath, spiritual, witchy, unexplained, creepy and spooky. She is a co‐founder of The Goddess Temple, Twickenham, which holds guided meditations and workshops, like Tea & Tarot and Make Your Own Smudge Sticks. She hosts a monthly webinar series on the situation in Palestine/Israel for The Balfour Project charity.

The next one on the list is The Mondoweiss Podcast, with the aim of recounting untold stories. Many of us, following the situation on the ground from overseas, will be familiar with Mondoweiss as a news resource. This podcast continues their ethos, with a focus on Palestine, Israel and the U.S., and covering politics, literary interests, Israelis, and confederation as an alternative two-state solution.

But on to my favorite podcast, Stories From Palestine by Kristel. Kristel is a Dutch lady who moved to East Jerusalem with her Palestinian husband about 10 years ago, raises a family there and serves as a tour guide. As the tourism trade suffered during the pandemic,

Kristel decided to start the podcast as a virtual tour of Palestine. This podcast takes the form of weekly episodes with interviews and audio tours of different towns and villages Kristel visits in Palestine.

Listening to this podcast is like pulling up a chair in a cafe in the West Bank and making friends and breaking bread with strangers. It is an endearing insight into life in Palestine, good and bad. There are even sounds of home in the background, such as the occasional goat and the call to prayer.

My favorite episode is the interview with Palestinian American comedian Amer Zahr. Not only is he super eloquent on the Palestinian issue, but if you need lessons on how to dance, make sure you take them from his “Dance Like an Arab” clip on YouTube.

Amer is a dream to listen to on the topic of the Palestinian Diaspora. He tells of how David Ben-Gurion claimed, “the old will die and the young will forget,” and how this is clearly not the case because “we might not live in our homeland, but our homeland lives in us.” The takeaway message from him is that “first and foremost, I am a Palestinian who is trying to make life better for our people,” and I related, because this is our guiding motivation, wherever we are and whatever we do. ■

elections both here and there, apartheid, refugees, human rights and normalization.

The episode that sticks out, though, is with Olivia Katbi Smith, the national organizer of the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions movement in the USA, on the terrifying collaboration between the rightwing Proud Boys and Zionists in targeting and silencing her.

Another gem of an episode features Professor Michael Lynk, the former U.N. Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories. Speaking on the expansion of the use of the term apartheid, he explains that it seems like the rest of the world is catching up to something we Palestinians have been saying for years.

Next is The +972 Podcast , from the magazine of the same name. Some of the topics are exciting because I had not seen them on any of the other podcasts, such as whether Palestinian citizens of Israel should refrain from voting as a means of protest, Ethiopian

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The orchestra was led by maestro George Adad and the show was supervised by Iraqi maestro Mohammed Othman Sidiq, who has lived in Jordan since the early 1990s and is one of Jordan’s most talented composers. He is knowledgeable in both Western classical music and Arabic traditional music and loves to combine the two forms.

The Jerash festival was launched in 1981 and quickly became a major cultural event in the region. “It takes place in this historical city which has so many monuments from the Roman era,” explained Jordanian opera singer Ady Naber. He performed during the opening concert of the festival.

About 1,500 artists and musicians from 18 countries participated in the 10-day event, which also featured 250 artistic, cultural, and craft activities. The festival featured renowned Arab performers from across the Arab world, with musicians from Iraq (Mahmoud Al-Turki), Palestine (Gharya Hob and the Siraj Choir), Jordan (Nayef Al-Zayed, Wissam and Hussam AlLawzi, Ramy Shafiq and Khaled Tawfiq, among others), Saudi Arabia (Majid AlRaslani and Rabeh Saqr), Syria (Faya Younan, the Takat band), Morocco (the Said Berrada Troupe), Lebanon (Ziad Bourji) and Egypt (celebrity Tamer Hosny). The festival attracts an audience from across the Arab region, and especially from the Gulf.

This year, a K-Pop band and a Swedish performer (Kristen Haggard) along with a German DJ were part of the lineup. The opening concert of the festival, which was by invitation only, was conducted by Jordanian composer Tareq Al Nasser, who performed a new piece entitled “Jerasia,” featuring vocalists Ady Naber and Natalie Samaan. Also this year, several Bedouin performances were part of the festival’s program. In 2018, UNESCO designated the Jordanian Bedouin al-Samer dancing, singing and poetry as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity.

I was among the reporters who were bused every day from Amman to Jerash and back. The bus trip was a prelude to the festival: It was one big party, with loud talking, music, smoking and joking that started the moment we got on the bus and ended only when we were dropped off in Amman hours later. Snacks, coffee, and cigarette stops along the way to Jerash were part of the fun; we were able to stop at a cheese shop that sold delicious Jerash cheese; vendors offered olives and shaninah, which is a mixture of milk and yogurt, sort of like the Turkish ayran.

The Roman amphitheaters and regal columns of Jerash put on a fabulous show of their own. The site is spacious enough to hold the five stages used during the festival.

At the festival, the most expensive concerts cost around 15 JD ($21); concerts on the smaller stages were free. Food vendors sold very affordable fast food (for about $1). Security was tight; attendees were checked as they entered the site and also at the entrance of the two main stages.

The Jerash festival allows Jordanians to enjoy performances by prominent artists for free or at an affordable price. It’s an opportunity to get together and celebrate the musical heritages of the region. The popular festival, returning after a two-year COVIDimposed hiatus, attracted 250,000 attendees including ministers, ambassadors, local politicians, residents, and visitors from neighboring countries. It reminds Jordanians that music and culture matter and that all the cultures of the region produce a fantastic diversity of musical styles worth celebrating and treasuring. ■

lined up and held at gun point by soldiers. We heard the chatter of ongoing communication from the militias’ walkie-talkies.

Eventually we were turned over to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) forward command post where Israeli soldiers were looking down on the camps with binoculars. We were driven out of the area by IDF vehicles.

From there, Ellen went to the American Embassy to report what she had seen and heard over the previous few days. Swee walked to the Commodore Hotel to inform the many journalists stationed there of what happened in the camp.

In the days following we learned that thousands of unarmed defenseless people were butchered while we were struggling to save those survivors brought to our hospital for treatment.

Within weeks, Gaza Hospital re-opened and we returned to practice our profession faithfully on those who survived, those who remained. We heard that an Israeli Commission of Inquiry into the massacre was being established in Jerusalem. We asked to go to Jerusalem to bear witness, to testify, to speak for those who could not.

We asked for justice at the Israeli Commission of Inquiry. But we knew that a greater universal justice beyond the Commission of Inquiry must be restored to the Palestinians. The Commission was only investigating the conduct of the Israeli army in the camp massacre. But even that justice has been denied.

Forty years have passed, and many generations later, the painful memories remain. Investigations, interests and questions continue. Israel claimed recently that the archives concerning the communications between the Christian militia blamed for the massacre, the Lebanese authorities and Israel have been lost!

There is still much to learn, and more information needs to come to light. Israel must be held directly responsible for this atrocity. The role and guilt of the U.S. has not yet been fully examined. The failures to allow the voices of the surviving victims of the massacre to be heard and preventing fair investigations to be held continue to obstruct the pursuit of justice.

To the survivors, we want you to know that we will never forget you, the massacre, your loved ones, your martyrs. We keep the memories of your land, your olive trees and orange groves, the keys that you still have to your homes in Palestine in our hearts.

We love you,

Dr Swee Ang, orthopedic surgeon at Gaza Hospital

Nurse Ellen Siegel, at Gaza Hospital. ■

Sabra Shatila Massacre

Continued from page 44

Soccer as Resistance and Hope: A Partnership Between Maryland and Wadi Foquin, Palestine By Susan Kerin

MORE THAN 100 MARYLAND soccer players met at Bullis Park, Silver Spring in late July to participate in the First Annual Soccer for Palestine tournament. Organized by MD2Palestine, a local grassroots organization, the playing fees and other donations from the tournament were to benefit the West Bank village of Wadi Foquin.

According to Yasmeen Abdelkarim, an MD2Palestine organizer of the fundraising event, “Soccer represents both the resistance and hope of the youth in Wadi Foquin so it became a natural choice for us to use that as an organizing fundraiser to help the village.” Abdelkarim was referring to the difficulties facing Wadi Foquin, not only in the construction of their own soccer field but in keeping their community’s land.

Located in the Bethlehem district of Palestine, the village is surrounded by the illegal settlements of Betar Illit and Hadar Betar. In addition to ongoing land confiscation orders, the village has seen acres of farmland destroyed and has endured sewage intentionally dumped from the settlements onto their crops and groundwater.

In 2015, village leaders initiated the construction of their own soccer field in response to the destruction of 1,300 fruit trees on land belonging to one of the Palestinian farmers, which followed a 2014 declaration that 1,000 acres of West Bank land was to be annexed to the State of Israel. A large portion of that land was in Wadi Foquin. The soccer field was built on Palestinian land vulnerable to confiscation, and as construction proceeded, Israel issued a stop work order. But the village proceeded to build it not only as a sign of resistance against land theft but also as a The First Annual Soccer for Palestine tournament, on July 30, 2022 in Silver Spring, MD, raised $3,500 to statement that their children dehelp the village of Wadi Foquin. served the same rights as any children in the world to play. The soccer project was developed in partnership with United Methodists, who committed to fundraise for the construction, while also fighting to protect against the illegal land appropriation and settlement encroachment on the small village. Rev. Michael Yoshii, who serves as the co-chair of the Friends of Wadi Foquin, notes, “Unfortunately, in the past year, there have been accelerated actions on the part of the Israeli authorities to annex more land, demolish olive trees and order demolition of properties belonging to farmers.” In addition to community development activities, Rev. Yoshii and Friends of Wadi Foquin have done advocacy on Capitol Hill to avert the disastrous erasure of the village and strangulation of life for the community. In October 2021, Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Congressman David Price (D-NC) wrote a letter signed by 20 congressional offices requesting the State Department address the land confiscation in Wadi Foquin. The State Department visited the village in December 2021 and issued a report expressing their concerns. However, just ten days after the State Department visit and Susan Kerin is chair of Peace Action Montgomery, a chapter of Peace during the Christmas holidays, the Israeli military accompanied a bullAction, the nation’s largest peace organization. dozer and demolished 45 olive trees belonging to a family farm. An-

PHOTO COURTESY MD2PALESTINE

other 30 olive trees were demolished in March and in May 2022, the Israeli military issued a declaration of annexation of 50 dunams (12 acres) in Wadi Foquin to become “state land” for Israel.

Ahead of the July 30 Maryland soccer tournament, the youth soccer team in Wadi Foquin held their own games and, despite the ongoing threats to their very existence, were still able to express hope and appreciation. MD2Palestine activists read a message from Adam, a youth in the village, to the Maryland soccer players. Adam wrote:

“Words can’t describe the feelings that we have when we see things like this tournament. For normal people this may only be a solidarity action, but it means the world to us and it gives us hope that one day the world will hear our voice, one day we will gain our dreams that we are losing everyday due to what we are facing. Everyday there is a new thing we lose to this ugly occupation which takes from us our land and now is taking our spirit.

This activity was the first for most of the kids you see in the pictures. They were very excited and energetic toward what you all are doing because they feel that there is someone who supports them and there is someone who cares for what they are facing. They are children with big dreams but also, they face a very hard life to get to what they want.

From our hearts we send you all our good feelings, our prayers and love from this soccer academy, from Wadi Foquin and Palestine. We send our love to you people in Maryland.”

The 5v5 Maryland soccer teams came from all across the state and represented a diverse group of players with team names like Goal-an Heights, Las Hormigas, Mighty Chondria, UMDOGs and Los Bandoleros. Even the food provided was an act of support and resistance. The lunch was catered by Marcelle Afram, an upcoming chef from the Palestine Diaspora who has opened his own business, Shababi Palestinian Rotisserie Chicken. In describing his role at the event, Afram said, “When the opportunity came up to help with the event, there were no second thoughts. There is, of course, power in numbers, and the more of us from the community who can come together to organize and create spaces of awareness for our cause, the stronger we become.”

As the Maryland soccer teams warmed

up for the games, the plight of Wadi Foquin stayed in their hearts and minds. Ahmad noted that the day was meant to show the youth in Wadi Foquin that “they are not alone.” Kian added, “we have to do more than solidarity. We need to work to liberate Palestine.” And 16year-old Omar’s response to his Wadi Foquin counterparts were just two words, “stay positive.” The youth soccer team in Wadi Foquin plays in a field surrounded by illegal Israeli settlements. Villagers built the soccer field on Palestinian land vulnerable to confiscation. A week after the tournament, Friends of Wadi Foquin partnered with MD2Palestine to meet with staff of U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) in the hopes he would add Senate leadership to the advocacy of Reps. Lee and Price. Whether it’s a soccer tournament or advocacy on Capitol Hill, Rev. Yoshii notes that the goal is the same. Americans are working collectively to ensure “that life will not be denied to the people of this village.” Hannah Shraim, founder and co-chair of MD2Palestine agrees, “In Palestine organizing, we are consistently facing a denial of our humanity. But the one thing that always grounds us is community.” And for one July afternoon, this collective teamwork, with soccer balls, nets and great love, unified around a besieged Palestinian community and the aspirations and sumud (steadfastness) of their youth. For more photos and information, please visit <md2palestine.com>. ■ A oject ofrP Alliances en’Middle East Childr

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