Washington Report on Middle East Affairs - January/February 2021 - Vol. XL No. 1 by American Educational Trust

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SOCIAL MEDIA HELPS ISRAEL COMMIT POLITICIDE

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TELLING THE TRUTH SINCE 1982

Volume XL, No. 1

On Middle East Affairs

January/February 2021

INTERPRETING THE MIDDLE EAST FOR NORTH AMERICANS ✮ INTERPRETING NORTH AMERICA FOR THE MIDDLE EAST

THE U.S. ROLE IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE ISRAELI OCCUPATION OF PALESTINE

On-the-Ground Realities for Biden in the Middle East— Three Views—Rev. Alex Awad, Rami G. Khouri, Matthew Hoh

14 16

Pompeo’s Settlement Visit Caps a Four-Year Effort to Destroy the Two-State Solution—Khaled Elgindy

LBJ Tops Trump in History’s Recount—Walter L. Hixson

2020 Election Shows Growing Split Between American Jews and Israel—Allan C. Brownfeld

As Israel Destroys EU Projects in Palestine, Europe Remains Impotent—Ramzy Baroud

Jonathan Pollard is No Hero: He Betrayed His Country For Cash—Two Views—Anshel Pfeffer, Gideon Levy

The Riddle of the Sands and the Sound of Silence —Ian Williams

Google, Apple and Social Media are Helping Israel Commit Politicide—Jonathan Cook

Gaza Entrepreneur Fights Spread of Coronavirus —Mohammed Omer

The Gaza Migrant Mystery: Drowned or Detained? —Asya Abdul-Hadi

40 48 71

Why Assassinate the Scientist?—Three Views— Gideon Levy, James North and Philip Weiss, Patrick J. Buchanan

U.S. Plans to Sell F-35s and MQ-9B Drones to the UAE Draw Congressional Criticism—Shirl McArthur

National Campaign Against IDF Recruiting Begins in Canada—Candice Bodnaruk

Dr. Saeb Erekat: A Driven Defender of Palestinian Rights (1955-2020)—Julia Pitner

SPECIAL REPORTS

America’s Devastating Legacy of Endless Wars in the

Middle East—M. Reza Behnam

Lebanon’s PM Struggles to Form Cabinet Amid Economic Crisis—Wael Taleb

Cyprus Heads Into Unknown Waters, As Turkey

Changes Tack—Jonathan Gorvett

Old Asian Jewish Communities: Reduced But

Hanging On—John Gee

ON THE COVER: Shatha, the daughter of 48-year-old Palestinian refugee Issa al-Loubani, looks out the window of their apartment in the Palestinian Yarmuk refugee camp, on the outskirts of the Syrian capital of Damascus, on Nov. 25, 2020. When Syrian authorities allowed Palestinians to return to the war-ravaged Yarmuk camp, the al-Loubani family quickly started repairing their wrecked home, covering the windows with plastic sheeting. PHOTO BY MOHAMMED ABED/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

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(A Supplement to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs available by subscription at $15 per year. To subscribe, call toll-free 1-888-881-5861.)

Other Voices

Compiled by Janet McMahon

Biden’s Israel-Palestine Policy: A Chance to Restore and Reset, Lara Friedman, www.responsiblestatecraft.org

OV-1

U.S. Diplomats Should Work For America, Not Other Nations, Khaled Saffuri, theamericanconservative.com

OV-3

The U.S. Starts an Arms Race Over Israel Normalization And Calls it “Peace,” Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, www.responsiblestatecraft.org

Documenting the Abuse of Palestinian Children, Chris Doyle, www.arabnews.com OV-7

OV-4

UAE and Israeli Settlers Find Common Ground in Jerusalem, James M. Dorsey, mideastsoccer.blogspot.com

OV-5

Stop the Hypocrisy: This Self-Proclaimed Racist Is a Suitable Pick to Head Yad Vashem, Gideon Levy, Haaretz OV-6

5 Publishers’ Page

6 letters to the editor

50 MusliM aMerican activisM:

Muslim Americans Step Up During the Pandemic

50 Music and arts:

Sam Husseini: “Invisibly

With a New, Uniﬁed Vision

Targeting Arabs and Muslims, Dr. James J. Zogby, www.democracyjournal.org

OV-12

Déjà Vu in France, Chandra Muzaffar, www.counterpunch.org

OV-14

The Cyprus Conundrum: A New Direction?, Serkan Birgel, www.aljazeera.com

OV-15

Reﬂect on Time in Arab World, U.S. Diplomacy

68 the World looks at the Middle east —CARTooNS

62 Middle east books revieW

Palestine Urged to Present Biden

OV-11

Former Ambassadors

Former AIPAC Insiders Condemn

52 Waging Peace:

What Would a U.S.-Iran War Look Like? One Word: Bloody, Ted Galen Carpenter, www.nationalinterest.org

doings:

69 other PeoPle’s

Lobby in New Israeli Documentary

OV-9

59 diPloMatic

Present/Visibly Absent”

51 FilM:

Covert Strikes Against Iran Recount Israeli Campaign Against Iraq, Ted Snider, http://mondoweiss.net

Mail

72 obituaries

73 2020 aet choir oF angels 21 indeX to

advertisers

“Purple Riverwalk” by Sam Husseini, acrylic on canvas, flora visible and invisible, see p. 50.

PHOTO COURTESY JERUSALEM FUND

DEPARTMENTS

Is Trump Exiting Afghanistan—To Attack Iran?, Patrick J. Buchanan, Creators Syndicate OV-9

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We’ve all seen them, dejected-looking people in endless lines, waiting for food or a COVID-19 test. Some of us have waited in those lines, feeling afraid and utterly powerless. Others are worried about eviction if they can’t pay their rent or wonder if a hospital has room if they get sick. So many have to choose between shelter, food, medicine or heat this winter. These are...

Problems in America...

PHOTO CREDIT AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Life Amid COVID

American Educational Trust

We Can’t Stop Now

It makes sense that no one in the world is safe from COVID-19 until everyone is safe. The same goes for health care, housing, education, heat and food. We cannot rest until everyone can rest. This certainly incudes the right of people in the Middle East to rest without worrying about more U.S.-manufactured weapons of war decimating their communities.

Life as a Refugee.

As we went to press, UNRWA USA sent a plea for funds as well as legislative action, warning: “UNRWA is facing a funding emergency so dire this December that millions of Palestine refugees living under occupation, blockade and in crisis are at risk of losing their jobs, their health care, education, protection and emergency assistance—all amid a global pandemic.” In the case of Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and in Syria, like the child on our magazine’s cover, they may have reached...

The End of the Line this Winter.

You’ll notice our steadfast advertisers, including ANERA, United Palestinian Appeal, Zakat and Palestinian Medical

Relief Society are all working feverishly to keep refugees safe this winter—amid the pandemic. It defies credibility that some Evangelical Christian, Jewish and Muslim believers, living in a “nation of immigrants,” supported an administration that cut off U.S. aid to desperate refugees and slowed immigration to a trickle. When the Biden administration raises the refugee limit to 125,000 per year, we know that bighearted Americans will spring back into action and help immigrants who have lost everything as a result of America’s “forever wars” in the Middle East. But we shouldn’t wait until Jan. 20, 2021 to get to work.

Here’s a “To-Do New Year’s List”

Read the articles in this issue’s Washington Report, and then call or write legislators, as well as your local media, to give them a piece of your mind. Effective citizens are active citizens and even though the elections are over it’s vital to stay engaged—even if you’re stuck at home. Send our postcard to your elected officials; You might help prevent another catastrophic U.S. war! Write President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, sending your letters to 1401 Constitution Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20230. You know the pro-Israel and weapons lobbies are already hard at work. Our future leaders need to know our views.

Help the Children

Defense for Children International-Palestine just released a report on the experiences of 108 Palestinian children, all boys aged 14-17, who were held in solitary confinement by Israeli authorities. Americans who were shocked by images of immigrant children separated from their parents and locked in cages should also be horrified that Palestinian children continue to experience widespread illtreatment, torture and the systematic denial of rights in Israel. H.R. 2407, Human Rights for Palestinian Children, introduced in April 2019, by Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), now has 24 cosponsors (see p. 41). Make sure your representative adds his/her name! For more information, please read Chris Doyle’s article on p. 7 in this issue’s “Other Voices.”

Israeli border guards detain a Palestinian child in Jerusalem’s Old City on July 17, 2017. Soldiers typically arrest a child at night when they are sleeping in their home.

that a vaccine alone won’t solve. It’s hard to believe that nearly 26 million American adults are hungry, according to the Washington Post, a number that climbs to more than 1 in 6 adults in households with children. “About 40 percent of the people who are showing up for food distributions have never before had to rely on charitable food assistance,” reports Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger-relief organization. It warns that more than 54 million may soon face hunger. Those somber numbers make it easier to imagine...

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

Publishers’ Page

Help Wanted: Holiday Angels

Please continue to buy meaningful gifts from our online bookstore, MiddleEastBooks.com. Think about taking advantage of our special $15 subscription price to give “the gift that keeps on giving!” That savings ends in January 2021! Please also send in your donations, postmarked in 2020, in order to be added to our final Angels List, published in the next issue. During these frightening times we are all counting on you to...

Make a Difference Today!

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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Executive Editor: Managing Editor: Contributing Editor: Contributing Editor: Other Voices Editor: Middle East Books and More Director: Assistant Bookstore Dir.: Finance & Admin. Dir.: Art Director: Founding Publisher: Founding Exec. Editor: Board of Directors:

DELINDA C. HANLEY DALE SPRUSANSKY WALTER HIXSON JULIA PITNER JANET McMAHON SAMI TAYEB NATE BAILEY CHARLES R. CARTER RALPH-UWE SCHERER ANDREW I. KILLGORE (1919-2016) RICHARD H. CURTISS (1927-2013) HENRIETTA FANNER JANET McMAHON JANE KILLGORE

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (ISSN 87554917) is published 7 times a year, monthly except Jan./Feb., March/April, June/July, Aug./Sept. and Nov./Dec. combined, at 1902 18th St., NW, Washington, DC 20009-1707. Tel. (202) 939-6050. Subscription prices (United States and possessions): one year, $29; two years, $55; three years, $75. For Canadian and Mexican subscriptions, $35 per year; for other foreign subscriptions, $70 per year. Periodicals, postage paid at Washington, DC and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, P.O. Box 91056, Long Beach, CA 90809-1056. Published by the American Educational Trust (AET), a nonprofit foundation incorporated in Washington, DC by retired U.S. foreign service officers to provide the American public with balanced and accurate information concerning U.S. relations with Middle Eastern states. AET’s Foreign Policy Committee has included former U.S. ambassadors, government officials, and members of Congress, including the late Democratic Sen. J. William Fulbright and Republican Sen. Charles Percy, both former chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Members of AET’s Board of Directors and advisory committees receive no fees for their services. The new Board of Advisers includes: Anisa Mehdi, John Gareeb, Dr. Najat Khelil Arafat, William Lightfoot and Susan Abulhawa. The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs does not take partisan domestic political positions. As a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli dispute, it endorses U.N. Security Council Resolution 242’s land-for-peace formula, supported by nine successive U.S. presidents. In general, it supports Middle East solutions which it judges to be consistent with the charter of the United Nations and traditional American support for human rights, self-determination, and fair play. Material from the Washington Report may be reprinted without charge with attribution to Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Bylined material must also be attributed to the author. This release does not apply to photographs, cartoons or reprints from other publications. Indexed by ProQuest, Gale, Ebsco Information Services, InfoTrac, LexisNexis, Public Affairs Information Service, Index to Jewish Periodicals, Ethnic News Watch, Periodica Islamica. CONTACT INFORMATION: Washington Report on Middle East Affairs Editorial Office and Bookstore: 1902 18th St. NW, Washington, DC 20009-9062 Phone: (202) 939-6050 • (800) 368-5788 Fax: (202) 265-4574 E-mail: wrmea@wrmea.org bookstore@wrmea.org circulation@wrmea.org advertising@wrmea.org Web sites: http://www.wrmea.org http://www.middleeastbooks.com Subscriptions, sample copies and donations: P.O. Box 91056, Long Beach, CA 90809-1056 Phone: (888) 881-5861 • Fax: (714) 226-9733 Printed in the USA

LetterstotheEditor ISRAEL DEMOLISHES HOMES AS ITS ALLIES WEAPONIZE ANTI-SEMITISM

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) recently destroyed yet another Bedouin settlement in the illegally occupied Jordan Valley on the pretext that the land was needed for a “military firing zone.” It could be suggested that the regular assaults on Gaza’s captive population already provide a lethal form of target practice that renders so-called firing ranges redundant. This “firing range” tactic has been frequently employed as a handy excuse to displace both Bedouins and Palestinians. Such actions are standard policy for a powerful nation that has declared itself the “Middle East's only democracy.” Unfortunately, the many benefits of Israeli “democracy” are mainly reserved for Israeli Jews, passive Israeli Arabs and senior members of the collaborationist Palestinian Authority. The factual basis for my observations is apparently irrelevant to those who support the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) “working definition” of anti-Semitism, which is supposedly designed to reduce hate crimes against Jews. However, the breadth of the definition suggests different goals. According to this expansive definition, those who dare offer a reasoned critique of Israeli policy are anti-Semitic, unless they simultaneously detail the sins of every other nation. This policy both excuses Israeli offenses and discourages dissent, creating a chilling effect on public discourse. It is worth noting that Jews in every nation are increasingly critical of Israeli state policy toward those Palestinians and Bedouins living under martial law in illegally occupied territories. Those deploying the IHRA definition are well-aware of this uncomfortable reality and may be seeking to delegitimize Israeli critics by accusing even Jews of anti-Semitism. Morgan Duchesney, Ottawa, Canada For more on this important topic, we encourage you to read Jonathan Cook’s article, “lsrael Uses Closed Military Firing Zones to Drive More Palestinians From Their Land,” in the September 2014 issue of this publication. In the article, he noted that “18 percent of the West Bank has

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

KEEP THOSE CARDS & LETTERS COMING! Send your letters to the editor to the Washington Report, P.O. Box 53062, Washington, DC 20009 or e-mail <letters@wrmea.org>.

been declared as Israeli military training and firing zones.”

ISRAEL’S HYPOCRISY IN DENOUNCING TERRORISM

In the Oct. 3 New York Post, Manhattan lawyer Neal Sher cited “an overwhelming amount of publicly available evidence” to suggest that Saeb Erekat, the since deceased chief negotiator for the Palestine Liberation Organization, incited terrorist violence by helping facilitate financial support to the families of Palestinian “terrorists.” It is so hypocritical for Israel and its defenders to make such claims when “terrorism” has deep roots in Israel’s history. Indeed, Israel is guilty of practicing terrorism while establishing its state. Among many other things, terrorists blew up the King David Hotel in 1946, killing 91 people, mostly British soldiers. Jewish terrorists also assassinated U.N. peacekeeper Count Folke Bernadotte in 1948. The individuals involved in this murder were rewarded, not with a pittance of money, but with important positions in Israel’s government. One such person was future Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, whose Stern Gang participated in Bernadotte’s assassination. Yet, so many in the world somehow accept Israel’s claim that this was all merely “freedom fighting.” Of course, Israel’s modern, U.S.-taxpayer funded military apparatus no longer needs to resort to such primordial methods of terrorism. It can simply deploy the might of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on the Palestinians who were dispossessed by Israel’s founding fathers. Doris Rausch, Columbia, MD It’s a sad reality that the powerful often write and share history in self-serving ways. But your letter is proof that these efforts can only go so far. The more we insist on sharing the unadulterated true history of the “conflict,” the less weight nationalist myths carry. ■ JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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Three Views

PHOTO BY JAAFAR ASHTIYEH/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

On-the-Ground Realities for Biden in The Middle East

Israeli soldiers and members of the Humsa Al Baqai’a Bedouin community, east of the occupied West Bank village of Tubas in the Jordan Valley, on Nov. 6, 2020, two days after Israel's army razed the village, including tents, sheds, portable toilets and solar panels, leaving dozens of people homeless.

Some Advice on How to Succeed Where Others Have Failed By Rev. Alex Awad

ADDING TO THE CHORUS of millions of peace and justice-loving people in the U.S. and around the world, I sincerely offer my heartfelt

Rev. Dr. Alex Awad is a retired United Methodist Missionary. He and his wife, Brenda, served in Jerusalem and in Bethlehem for more than 25 years. Rev. Awad served as pastor of East Jerusalem Baptist Church, dean of students at Bethlehem Bible College, and director of the Shepherd Society. Awad has written two books, Through the Eyes of the Victims and Palestinian Memories. Rev. Awad is a member of the Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace (PCAP). 8

congratulations to you, President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President- elect Kamala Harris. You passed through the election fray graciously, and you won. It will soon be time for the passing of the leadership “baton.” And it will be your cabinet’s turn, Mr. President-elect, to tackle tremendous tasks such as the pandemic, the economy, racism and global warming among many others. Most likely, sooner rather than later after you move to the White House, like all U.S. presidents for the past half century, you will be called upon to address the challenge of the Israel-Palestine conflict. I imagine you will have many advisers ready to help you develop your policy toward what seems to be an intractable conflict. I am a Palestinian who has lived through and experienced all of the stages of the Israel-Palestine conflict. When I was two years old,

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my father was killed during the first Arab-Israeli War of 1948, leaving behind a widow with seven children. Soon after his death, we became refugees. In 1967, while studying in Europe, I became a man without a country when Israel occupied the West Bank and Israeli authorities refused to repatriate me. Now I am an American citizen who yearns to see peace and justice both for my people and for all Israelis. I write to you because in the last half a century, I’ve observed U.S. presidents try again and again to tackle the conflict and observed each, in turn, fail miserably. Over the decades, several U.S. presidents concocted elaborate peace plans to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Scores of conferences and international peace conventions were organized by the U.S. and other major powers to resolve the conflict. Each and every one of them failed to achieve peace. Did they fail because peace in this part of the world is simply unattainable? Is the conflict simply too ingrained and complex for any world leader to have a chance at making a difference? No! The problem is that each U.S. president has been handling the issue along the same lines that didn’t work for the previous presidents. I pray that you, President-elect Biden, will succeed in breaking away from the pack and making real strides toward peace where all your predecessors did not. In the next few paragraphs, I will point out some of their strategies that led to failure and suggest a fresh way to deal with the conflict that may produce real peace and reconciliation. I urge you, Mr. Biden, to steer clear of summoning another peace convention—at least during the first year of your presidency. Rather than start with a convention, it would be much more effective to observe the daily facts on the ground in Israel and Palestine. Truly look at what is happening in the West Bank: the land confiscations, the home demolitions, the incarceration and torture of thousands of Palestinian youths, and the tightening of the noose around the Palestinian economy. Start by asking Israel, which receives billions of dollars in U.S. military aid annually, to stop violating international laws that call for the protection of people under its military occupation. Start by asking the Israelis to end the 13-year-old blockade of Gaza and to stop building Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Call on Israeli leaders to release Palestinian political prisoners. If you use your influence with Israeli leaders to achieve these measures, this will create confidence-building measures that will encourage the antagonists of the peace table to negotiate peace. Mr. Biden, please avoid the temptation of designing yet another peace plan that merely pays lip service to peace while ignoring the realities that are creating conflict and violence. Instead, seek to open channels of communication with the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah and Gaza and listen to them while you are listening to the Israelis. Let Palestinians share with you their vision of peace and reconciliation. In the last four years, the president of the United States, his vicepresident, and his secretary of state made declarations in support of the State of Israel that are counter to long-standing U.S. positions on the Arab-Israeli conflict and counter to long-standing U.N. resolutions. Examples of this are the declaration by Mike Pompeo that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are legal. In addition, the Trump JANuAry/FebruAry AugusT/sepTeMber 2021 2019

administration unilaterally declared the right of Israel to annex the Golan Heights. Such lopsided declarations that favor one side of the dispute deepen the conflict rather than resolve it. I urge you, Mr. Biden, to avoid such declarations. Instead, please heed international wisdom and existing international law. The U.S. cannot side with Israel and continue to assume that all 180 member nations of the U.N., who side with international law, are wrong. Presidents who came before you hired extreme Zionists to manage the U.S. approach to Israel and Palestine. Many of these diplomats cared more to have a U.S. policy that favors the rightwing government of the State of Israel rather than achieve a just peace. President Donald Trump hired Jared Kushner, David Freidman and Jason Greenblatt to oversee his policies for Israel and Palestine. All three are right-wing supporters of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. How can anyone expect justice from such a combination of advisers? Their Deal of the Century was viewed as the cruelest joke of the century by Palestinians. I urge you, Mr. Biden, to employ diplomats who will pursue U.S. policies that lead to justice rather than unabashedly favoring one side of the divide against the legitimate aspirations of the other. As a relief from the outgoing administration, I urge you to place Palestinian-American experts on your Middle East policy team. My people, who have suffered tremendously over the past 70 years and continue to suffer, are looking to you, Mr. Presidentelect, with the hope that you will be the president who finally manages to implement justice and only justice, to turn this ship around, and to usher in an era of true and lasting peace for Israel and Palestine.

Six Middle East Realities Biden Can’t Afford to Ignore By Rami G. Khouri

THE AVALANCHE of analyses of how President-elect Joe Biden will address the many Middle Eastern wars, confrontations and other issues, in which the U.S. is entangled, will remain entertaining speculation unless they do three things that every American government in the past half a century has failed to do: grasp the underlying (and worsening) realities on the ground in the Middle East, acknowledge their actual causes, and craft foreign policies that serve the U.S. itself, the people of the region and the wider cause of world peace and stability. We hear often that Biden’s 40 years of foreign policy experience give him an edge over other American officials who try to navigate our region. Those 40 years are most useful for him if he looks back and tracks how and why the current conditions and trends across the Middle East have changed so much, even since Biden was vice president four years ago.

Rami G. Khouri is director of global engagement and senior public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut, and a non-resident senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. Follow him on Twitter: @ramikhouri. This article originally appeared in The New Arab. Copyright ©2020 Rami G. Khouri, distributed by Agence Global.

WAshiNgToN reporT oN Middle eAsT AFFAirs AF-

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Issues like Israel-Palestine, Iran, Turkey, Russia, aggressive Saudi-UAE policies, sectarian conflicts and other current realities are best dealt with on the understanding that they are mostly consequences of deeper drivers of change in the region. An honest and comprehensive analysis of how the Middle East has reached its current violent condition would help interested policy-makers anywhere in the region or the world craft policies that actually make a difference in people’s lives. This is especially true of Middle Easterners whose thirst for dignity, development and stability remains largely unquenched—and widely ignored by Middle Eastern and foreign leaders alike. Now that Biden is heading back to the White House, here is my six-point list of the most important and consistent drivers of Middle Eastern events in recent history. All six remain active dynamics, not historical issues. In chronological order, they are: 1. Uninterrupted foreign military intervention in the Middle East since Napoleon, two-and-a-quarter centuries ago, stokes both internal turmoil and popular anger against foreign powers. Such militarism has significantly increased since the end of the Cold War 30 years ago, and now includes regional militarism (most notably by Turkey, Iran, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Israel) alongside international powers like the U.S., Russia, France and the UK. Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Palestine and Libya are showcases of the destruction and mass human suffering this causes, and this legacy continues and even expands these days. Replacing military action with diplomacy and economic development drives would be a sensible policy option across the board. 2. The Palestinian-Zionist and wider Arab-Israeli conflict has now entered its second century, and remains the most radicalizing and destabilizing political force within the Middle East. It helped trigger the advent of Arab military regimes in the 1940s to ’70s, all of which ravaged and bankrupted their own societies, cemented inefficient and repressive regimes, increased anti-western sentiments, and expanded regional conflicts, including new Iranian-Israeli-Arab tensions. It is a serious element in citizens’ lack of respect for their rulers across many Arab lands, especially as a few Arab leaders decide to normalize relations with Israel while it continues its colonization of Arab lands. Resolving the Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Zionist conflict equitably, according to the wishes and needs of the people of the region, rather than a handful of autocrats, is a major priority for anyone seeking to promote stability and dignity across the region for all its people. 3. The foreign militarism and Arab-Israeli conflict together generated a modern legacy of Arab authoritarian and autocratic regimes, all of which needed foreign support to survive. The cruel and incompetent regimes were also developmental failures that ravaged national economies and ultimately drove masses of the brightest Arab (and some Iranian, Turkish and even Israeli) men and women to emigrate. Middle Eastern autocracy must be removed if we wish to end our region's wars and despair. 4. Due to the three factors above, the Arab region's 440 million people today are mostly economically poor and vulnerable and politically marginalized and powerless. The steady pauperization of the Arab middle classes since the 1990s has aggravated all the 10

current destructive trends, including sectarian and ethnic conflicts, mass civilian uprisings, and large-scale emigration, displacement and refugeehood of millions of desperate families. It also hardens already vicious authoritarian regimes who reply to citizens' expressions of discontent and demand for rights with greater state violence, arrests and intimidation of peaceful protesters. 5. These trends have seen the Arab region and parts of Iran and Israel in recent years break out in sustained citizen protests against their increasingly autocratic leaderships. The Arab region in particular has witnessed ongoing protests in a dozen countries since 2010; only Tunisia has transitioned to a pluralistic democracy and Sudan is in the midst of a delicate threeyear transition. Polling evidence confirms large-scale, chronic citizen discontent with state institutions such as parliaments, the media, and the executive and judicial branches. Citizens and their ruling governmental authorities are increasingly distant from each other, which makes some states more brittle. 6. The Arab countries and people suffer the ultimate indignity of being subjected to the forces mentioned above: some have started to unravel as sovereign states, in at least two key dimensions. First, many have lost control over most of their borders and lands such as in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Israeli-occupied Palestine, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Iraqi Kurdistan and southern Sudan, to mention only the most flagrant. As non-state actors take control of some autonomous regions beyond the control of the central government, foreign powers also wage war at will in the country, directly or through local proxies. Second, they cannot make fully sovereign decisions related to their national security. Most Arab countries, for example, must get the approval of Israel to buy advanced American weapons. Some must get the approval of Iran, Turkey or Russia for their military or diplomatic moves. These and other examples represent a de-sovereignization of important dimensions of national life in Arab countries—probably a priority issue to grasp by anyone seeking engagement in the region. So the Biden administration and other foreign powers who look at the turbulent Middle East would do well to pause for a moment from their focus on Iran's nuclear industry, terrorism, non-state militia expansions, refugee flows and other important realities, and instead try to grasp how we reached this situation, and how we can get out of it. This is all the more important because the six drivers I outlined above continue to devastate our countries, where conditions will worsen more due to the COVID-19 pandemic, low oil prices and economic stagnation.

Biden’s Moral Hazard By Matthew Hoh

AFTER I RESIGNED from my position with the State Department in Afghanistan in 2009 due to that war’s escalation, I was asked to meet with the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB). One of the heads of the PIAB at the time wanted to know why the things I was saying about the Afghan war, echoed by military, diplomatic and intelligence officers he knew personally, were not being com-

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these wars reaches nearly 25,000. More The lies to elected officials and the Amermunicated officially to the president. The than 50,000 U.S. service-members have ican people continue. This month, Ambassimple answer was the honest answer: been wounded, with more than a half-milsador James Jeffrey explained to journalists President Obama was being systemically lion veterans permanently disabled by trauhow he intentionally lied to the President of lied to by the people advising him and runmatic brain injury and an equal number sufthe United States about the number of ning the war. fering from PTSD. Overseas, more than a troops in Syria. In case you think this is fine Next month will mark a year since U.S. million people have died, tens of millions because the president was Donald Trump, newspapers published the Afghan Papers, have been made refugees, and entire naremember it was the computers of Demoa mass trove of secret U.S. government tions have been economically, environmencratic Senators who were hacked and mondocuments that irrefutably detailed a coortally and psychologically devastated. The itored by the CIA in retaliation for the dinated effort by the U.S. government, running financial cost of the wars is $6.4 trilSenate’s investigation of the CIA’s torture through three presidential administrations, lion, to include almost $1 trillion in interest program. to lie to the American people and their and debt payments, while every year the When the numbers of military contractors elected leaders, about the war in U.S. spends more than $1.2 trillion on its killed and the deaths by suicide of Afghan Afghanistan. Of course, these lies of the military and national security. and Iraq veterans are included in the total, Afghan War followed the lies that made As the Biden administration begins its the numbers of young Americans killed in possible the U.S. invasion and destruction transition, names are floated of Iraq. The 2011 war in Libya (Advertisement) in the media for potential cabwas another war built on lies, inet and senior-level officials. as documented by the British Any of the names included for Parliament. Slips of the tongue positions at the Pentagon, and leaks by senior U.S. offiFoggy Bottom or in the Nacials, including the incoming tional Security Council are U.S. president, have shown those of men and women the U.S. and its allies’ role in who have been essential to the Syrian war to be in support the last 20 bloody years of of al-Qaeda and the Islamic catastrophe, chaos and conState. Lies, perjury and propafusion of American war policy. ganda characterize what the If someone walked into your U.S. people have been told workplace with a resume catwith regards to torture; intellialoging two decades of gence surveillance of their wasteful, counter-productive phones and computers; the inand malfeasant failures would credibly high rate of civilians you hire them? Yet, from all inkilled by U.S. drones, including dications from the Biden tranAmerican citizens; and the sition team, that seems to be presence of U.S. forces in exactly the plan. Africa, including hiding knowlJoe Biden has promised to edge U.S. soldiers have been Playgrounds for Palestine is a project to build playgrounds for our “be the most progressive killed and wounded in counchildren. It is a minimal recognition of their right to childhood and creative expression. It is an act of love. president in history.” If Biden tries that senior members of is serious about that, then his Congress had no idea U.S. Playgrounds for Palestine (PfP) is a registered 501(c)3 non-proﬁt progressivism must extend to troops were in. organization, established in 2001. We’re an all-volunteer organizaforeign and military policy and tion (no paid staﬀ) that raises money throughout the year to conMatthew Hoh is a member of the must address the mistakes, struct playgrounds and fund programs for advisory boards of Expose Facts, children in Palestine. follies and crimes of the last Veterans For Peace and World 20 years. Allowing those who Selling Organic, Fair Trade Palestinian olive Beyond War. In 2009 he resigned consistently and intentionally his position with the State oil is PfP’s principle source of fundraising. participated in the systemic Department in Afghanistan in is year, PfP launched AIDA, a private protest of the escalation of the lying that enabled these wars label olive oil from Palestinian farmers. Afghan War by the Obama adPlease come by and taste it at our table. means a Biden presidency ministration. He previously had begins burdened with moralbeen in Iraq with a State DepartWe hope you’ll love it and make it a staple in your pantry. fallacy and hazard, and only ment team and with the U.S. gives evidence the U.S. and Marines. He is a senior fellow For more information or to make a donation visit: the world are headed for https://playgroundsforpalestine.org • P.O. Box 559 • Yardley, PA 19067 with the Center for International Policy. more death and waste. ■ JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

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Special Report

Pompeo’s Settlement Visit Caps a Four-Year Effort to Destroy the Two-State Solution

Israeli winemaker Yaakov Berg holds a bottle of his red blend named after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the Psagot Winery in the occupied West Bank north of Jerusalem on Nov. 18, 2020. The hashtag on the label,”#madeinlegality” rejects the EU’s ruling that he makes his wine on a land where Israelis don't belong. Berg’s estate and vineyard are located on land owned by the Quran family, Palestinians who have no access to it. SECRETARY OF STATE Mike Pompeo made history, Nov. 18-20, by visiting two Israeli settlements; the Psagot Winery located on the outskirts of Ramallah in the heart of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and the City of David located in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan just outside Jerusalem’s Old City, the first ever such visits by a sitting American secretary of state. The visits were clearly aimed at legitimizing and normalizing Israel’s settlement enterprise, which is considered illegal under international law, in keeping with the administration’s approach of the last three years. Palestinian officials roundly condemned Pompeo’s visit, which they said “blatantly violates international law”—which of course is precisely the point. Since recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017, upending decades of U.S. policy and broad in-

Khaled Elgindy is director of the Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC and the author of Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, from Balfour to Trump, available from Middle East Books and More. Reprinted with permission of Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, Inc. ©2020 12

PHOTO BY EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

By Khaled Elgindy

ternational consensus, the Trump administration has worked assiduously to eliminate international norms, including the principle of the inadmissibility of acquiring territory through force, and destroy any last vestiges of a two-state solution. Pompeo’s latest gesture, however, went further than anything we’ve seen thus far and may not be easily undone. Unless the incoming Biden administration is prepared to reaffirm the centrality of international law and Palestinian rights as firmly and as explicitly as Trump has sought to eviscerate them, all of which entail a political cost, Trump’s scorched earth policies could yet succeed. Indeed, Pompeo’s settlement tour is yet another major gift to embattled Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who has been plagued by periodic protests, a looming corruption trial scheduled to start in early 2021, and the possibility of yet another election— Israel’s fourth in less than two years. Some have speculated that Pompeo may be laying the groundwork for his own presidential bid in 2024. Whatever his political ambitions, Pompeo’s gesture is consistent with other measures taken by the Trump administration, such as the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the State Department’s declaration a year ago that settlements would no longer be deemed illegal, all of which are designed to upend international norms, erase Palestinian rights and political aspirations, and consolidate Israel’s permanent control of all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. With the Psagot winery as a backdrop, Pompeo used the visit as an opportunity to announce even more radical shifts in U.S. policy. First, Pompeo announced that products originating from areas under the sole control of Israel, known as “Area C,” must henceforth be labelled as “Made in Israel,” including goods produced by Palestinians. In effect, this amounted to U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty over all of Area C, which makes up some 60 percent of the West Bank. At the same time, Pompeo doubled down on the administration’s stance that “anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism,” with the announcement that the U.S. government would blacklist organizations that engaged in or supported boycotts directed at either Israel or Israeli settlements. In other words, organizations—including human rights and humanitarian organizations—that choose to abide by the international legal requirement not to work with or legitimize Israeli settlements would be deemed “anti-Semitic” and denied U.S. funding. As such, the visit also lays bare the true intent of Trump’s now obsolete “Peace to Prosperity” plan, which was never really about ending the conflict as much as about consecrating permanent Israeli occupation and the “Greater Israel” agenda to which Pompeo, U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman, and their fellow travelers in the administration are personally and ideologically devoted.

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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (center-r) leaves following a security briefing on Mount Bental in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, near Merom Golan on the border with Syria, on Nov. 19, 2020. Pompeo became the first top American diplomat to visit a West Bank Jewish settlement and the Golan Heights, cementing Donald Trump’s strongly pro-Israel legacy. And this may not necessarily be the end. Given the administration’s ideological commitment to Greater Israel as well as its own denial about the results of the presidential election, the administration may have more surprises to deliver before leaving office in January. Indeed, we have already seen a major uptick in Israeli demolitions, evictions, settlement announcements and other “facts on the ground” since November 3, as Netanyahu and his allies in the settler movement seek to capitalize on Trump’s remaining time in office. On Nov. 15, Israel’s Ministry of Housing and Israel Land Authority opened the bidding process for 1,257 housing units in Givat HaMatos, a new Israeli settlement strategically located between Bethlehem and Palestinian East Jerusalem. Givat HaMatos, which some have labelled a “doomsday” settlement for its lethal effect on the prospect of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state, would permanently sever the Palestinian neighborhood of Beit Safafa from the rest of East Jerusalem, as well as prevent contiguity between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Less than two weeks earlier, on the day of the U.S. election, the Israeli army demolished the Palestinian community of Khirbet Humsa in the Jordan Valley, leaving 73 people, including 41 children, homeless, in what U.N. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

officials described as “the largest forced displacement incident in over four years.” As a lame-duck president with little to lose, Trump may bestow even greater gifts on the embattled Israeli prime minister and his allies in the settler movement. Netanyahu is said to be pushing the U.S. administration to greenlight yet another “doomsday” settlement, known as Atarot, located between Ramallah and Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. Moreover, having already secured effective U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty over most of the West Bank, it is not inconceivable that formal Israeli annexation of parts of the occupied territories would be back on the table at some point before January 20. President-elect Joe Biden has not commented on the latest moves by the Trump administration—and is unlikely to do so given the tradition of one president at a time. However, Biden has previously said he would reverse most of Trump’s policies that conflict with the goal of two states and established international norms, including, mostly likely, by reinstating pre-Trump U.S. policies. Therein lies the problem. Even before Trump’s arrival, U.S. policy toward Jerusalem, settlements, and other core issues of the conflict had already been severely eroded by previous U.S. administra-

tions. Simply reinstating an ambiguous or ambivalent status quo ante is unlikely to be enough to salvage a two-state solution. To effectively counteract Trump’s embrace of Israeli maximalism, Biden will need to be as explicit in reaffirming international norms, including the illegality of Israeli settlements, and the legitimacy of Palestinian political aspirations and rights as the Trump administration has been in eviscerating them. This could entail a political cost for Biden, as many members of his own political party are on board with aspects of Trump policy, such as the conflating of Israeli settlements with Israel and criminalizing boycotts of Israel. Meanwhile, recent decisions by the Palestinian Authority to resume security coordination with Israel and reform its policy of making payments to the families of Palestinians killed or imprisoned by Israel— both seen as gestures to the incoming Biden administration—could also inadvertently play into Trump and Netanyahu’s hands. The fact that the PA has made these gestures several months before Biden even takes office will further reduce the incentives for Biden to make the difficult choices that a genuine two-state solution requires. In which case, Trump and Pompeo’s attempts to destroy what is left of a two-state solution could yet succeed. ■

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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History’s Shadows

LBJ Tops Trump in History’s Recount

By Walter L. Hixson

PHOTO COURTESY LBJ LIBRARY PHOTO BY FRANK WOLFE

sanctions over Israel’s refusal to withdraw from Egypt, which it had invaded, together with Britain and France, in the Sinai War. As president in the 1960s, Johnson abandoned U.S. efforts to stymie the Israeli nuclear weapons program, enabling Israel to introduce weapons of mass destruction into the Middle East in direct violation of its promises and the U.S.-sponsored global Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968. Johnson failed to head off Israeli aggression in the June 1967 (L-r) Lady Bird Johnson, Arthur, Mathilde, their daughter Daphna Krim and President L.B. Johnson. The Krims war, during which he rehad a bedroom in the White House and exerted their influence on American policy during the 1967 war. Donald mained mute about the Neff wrote that Krim’s influence on the president “left himself more open to a passionately partisan voice than savage Israeli assault was prudent or even healthy during the accelerating crisis.” on the unarmed American spy ship, the USS Liberty, which killed 34 American sailors and ONCE AGAIN Donald J. Trump has finished in second place to a wounded 174 others. LBJ capped off his appeasement policies by Democrat. failing to force the Israelis out of the illegally occupied territories in I’m not talking about the 2020 presidential election—rather I’m the wake of the Six-Day War. Johnson thus enabled the prolonged referring to my ranking of American presidents who have done the occupation, repression and Zionist refusal to negotiate a just peace. most to appease Israel since the creation of the Zionist state in Instead, Johnson rewarded Israeli aggression with massive military 1948. In my judgment, Trump, though merely a one-term president, assistance, including the sale of supersonic Phantom jets. is the second most pro-Israel chief executive in American history. While Johnson is safely ensconced as the preeminent enabler In this “ballot” of history, Trump loses not to Joe Biden but to anof Israeli aggression, Trump, in just four years, did enough damage other Democrat—Lyndon Baines Johnson. Beginning with his youth to rank second on my list. Trump cut off aid to the Palestinians, recin Texas, Johnson nurtured a religious affinity for the biblical Israel. ognized Jerusalem as Israel’s “eternal capital,” recognized Israel’s In 1956-57, after entering politics and advancing to the post of illegal annexation of the Golan Heights while declaring that the Senate majority leader, Johnson came to the defense of Israel as United States also no longer considered West Bank settlements the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower threatened to be illegal, which they clearly are under international law. Trump’s farcical “deal of the century” peace plan entailed ramping up political History’s Shadows, a regular column by contributing editor Walter L. Hixson, seeks to place various aspects of Middle East politics and and military support for Arab regimes—the United Arab Emirates, diplomacy in historical perspective. Hixson is the author of Israel’s Bahrain and Sudan—in return for their recognition of Israel. Trump Armor: The Israel Lobby and the First Generation of the Palestine withdrew the United States from a multilateral agreement to contain Conflict (available from Middle East Books and More), along with the Iranian nuclear program, as it joined Israel and the Israel lobby several other books and journal articles. He has been a professor of in the demonization of Iran that complemented the racist disdain history for 36 years, achieving the rank of distinguished professor. 14

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shown for Palestinians and murderous repression in Gaza.

FROM THE BOTTOM UP

RANKING OF PRESIDENTIAL APPEASEMENT OF ISRAEL

to the lobby when he wanted to sell AWACS to Saudi Arabia in 1981, but spent the rest of his two terms enabling massive illegal Jewish settlement of the occupied territories. In the 1990s, Clinton sought a two-state solution, which led him however to preside over the disastrous Oslo process and then, in an effort to save the prime ministership of Ehud Barak, to blame the Palestinians for its failure. The final president on our list—the third most appeasing president—was George W. Bush, who worked closely with the war criminal and Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon in enabling the brutal repression of the Second Intifada as well as ongoing settlement construction and massive military assistance to Israel. “W” learned from his father’s experience that any effort to confront Israel would exact a political price, hence he gave the murderous Sharon and the Israel lobby a free rein. President-elect Joe Biden’s track record offers little hope that he will threaten to unseat Eisenhower or the first Bush president to be among the few presidents willing, even occasionally, to stand up to Israeli aggression and its routine violations of international law. A middle of the list approach may be the most we can reasonably expect from the Biden-Harris team. ■

1. Lyndon B. Johnson Flipping our approach from the top down to the bottom up, Eisenhower ranks as the 2. Donald J. Trump president most willing to confront Israel’s 3. George W. Bush aggression in the Middle East, although he, 4. Ronald W. Reagan like all the chief executives, was frustrated Richard M. Nixon 5. in the effort by Israel and the increasingly 6. Harry S. Truman powerful Zionist lobby. The next “least-ap7. William J. Clinton peasing” president was George H.W. Bush, who tried to bring a halt to illegal Israeli set8. John F. Kennedy tlements and secure a viable peace accord. 9. Gerald R. Ford The first Bush’s public confrontation with the 10. Barack H. Obama Israel lobby contributed to his failed reelec11. James E. Carter tion bid in 1992. Third from the bottom is 12. George H.W. Bush Jimmy Carter, who sympathized with the 13. Dwight D. Eisenhower Palestinians and labored for a comprehensive Middle East peace, but ultimately acquiesced to Menachem Begin’s intransirefugees and strove to contain the Israeli gence and the machinations of the lobby. nuclear program, but by the end of his Like Carter, Barack Obama offered abortive presidency he had failed at both rhetorical support for Palestine and a twoand had also caved to the lobby. Nixon, tostate solution, but ultimately succumbed to gether with Henry A. Kissinger, underIsrael and the lobby. Obama overcame inmined the U.N.-brokered Middle East tense opposition to achieve the Iran nupeace plan (Resolution 242), leading to the clear agreement and, at the end of his two1973 War and massive U.S. military assisterm presidency, declined to veto a U.N. tance to Israel. Security Council condemnation of Israel’s Just above Nixon in the appeasement illegal settlements. On the other hand, he rankings is Ronald Reagan, who stood up perpetuated massive military as(Advertisement) sistance to the repressive Zionist state. Although only a caretaker president in the wake of Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974, Gerald Ford confronted the Israel lobby over its stonewalling of peace efforts, Palestinian Medical Relief Society, a grassroots but he too was forced to back community-baseddPalestinian health organization, founded in down in the end. 1979 by Palestinian doctors, needs your support today. In the middle of our list we Visit www.pmrs.ps find Presidents Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Visit our Website <friendsofpmrs.org> to see our work in action and donate. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Truman, who shared Mail your U.S. Tax-Deductible check to our American Foundation: Johnson’s religious affinity for Israel, recognized the Zionist Friends of PMRS, Inc state in 1948 and tilted U.S. PO Box 450554 • Atlanta, GA 31145 support against the Palestinians. Kennedy tried to achieve For more information call: (404) 441-2702 or e-mail: fabuakel@gmail.com an accord on the Nakba JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

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Israel and Judaism

2020 Election Shows Growing Split Between American Jews and Israel By Allan C. Brownfeld ALTHOUGH PRESIDENT Donald Trump repeatedly proclaimed himself “Israel’s best friend” ever in American history, and pursued a series of policies in line with Israel’s right wing, such as moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, his efforts to attract Jewish voters failed dramatically. According to exit polling, Trump received only 21 percent of the Jewish vote to Joe Biden’s 77 percent. Only 5 percent of Jewish voters listed Israel as one of their two most important issues, down from 9 percent in 2016. Top voting priorities for Jewish voters were the coronavirus pandemic (54 percent), climate change (26 percent), healthcare (25 percent), and the economy (23 percent). Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, declared that, “Jewish voters have just totally repudiated Donald Trump and a Republican Party that has catered to the most far-right xenophobic elements of the country.” Israelis, on the other hand, favored Trump over Joe Biden by 77 to 23 in one recent survey. Chemi Shalev of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz writes that, “Israeli Jews have a blind worship of Donald Trump.” Discussing the growing divide between American Jews and Israel, Eric R. Mandel, director of the Middle East Political Information Network, writes in the Oct. 30-Nov. 5 edition of the International Jerusalem Post: “A recent poll of Israeli and American Jews regarding whom they favor in the American presidential election revealed results that were polar opposites. The overwhelming majority of Israelis favor the re-election of President Donald Trump...crediting him with moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, putting consequences on the Palestinian Authority’s incentifying of terrorist activity, and for the first time laid down a peace plan that prioritized Israeli security interests, while creating the diplomatic work for Israel’s first peace treaties with Arab nations in a generation.” On the other hand, writes Mandel, “American Jews overwhelmingly favor the defeat of Trump, prioritizing domestic progressive or liberal concerns over Israeli security concerns. It is no surprise there is a profound difference between the two largest Jewish communities’ perspectives....American Jews have a much more universalistic perspective, identifying Judaism more as a religion they have or had, and are uncomfortable with the survival issues of the Jewish state. This has led too many to not only criticize Israel but join with boycotters and delegitimizers who share their progressive values.”

Allan C. Brownfeld is a syndicated columnist and associate editor of the Lincoln Review, a journal published by the Lincoln Institute for Research and Education, and editor of Issues, the quarterly journal of the American Council for Judaism.

The division between American Jews and Israel has been growing steadily for many years. In his book Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict Over Israel, Prof. Dov Waxman of Northeastern University writes: “A historic change has been taking place in the American Jewish relationship with Israel. Israel is fast becoming a source of division rather than unity for American Jewry...A new era of American Jewish conflict over Israel is replacing the old era of solidarity...This echoes earlier debates about Zionism that occurred before 1948. Then, as now, there were fierce disagreements among American Jews and the American Jewish establishment...It was only after Israel’s founding that the communal consensus came to dominate American Jewish politics. Thus, from a historical perspective, the pro-Israel consensus that once reigned within the American Jewish community is the aberration, rather than the rule. Jewish division on Israel is historically the norm.” Beyond this, in Waxman’s view, the overwhelming majority of American Jews, while wishing Israel well, were never really Zionists. He writes: “Classical Zionism has never had much relevance or appeal to American Jewry. Indeed, the vast majority of American Jews reject the basic elements of classical Zionism—that Diaspora Jews live in exile, that Jewish life in Israel is superior to life in the Diaspora, and that Diaspora Jewish life is doomed to eventually disappear. American Jews do not think that they live in exile and they do not regard Israel as their homeland...for many American Jews, America is more than just a home, it is itself a kind of Zion, an ‘almost promised land.’ Zionism has never succeeded in winning over the majority of American Jews.” In recent years, sympathy for Zionism among American Jews has been in steady decline. A study by social scientists Ari Kelman and Steven M. Cohen found that among American Jews, each new generation is more alienated from Israel than the one before. Among American Jews born after 1980, only 54 percent feel “comfortable with the idea of a Jewish state.” The reason, Cohen asserted, is an aversion to “hard group boundaries” and the notion that “there is a distinction between Jews and anybody else.” Other polls show that among younger non-Orthodox Jews only 30 percent think that “caring about Israel is essential to being Jewish.” Slowly, it has become increasingly clear to American Jews that Israel does not share their values of religious freedom, separation of religion and state, and a citizenship that does not differentiate between people on the basis of race, religion and ethnic origin. After the elections, commentator Philip Weiss argues that, “Israel will never be a bipartisan issue again because Jews are divided.” He points out that, “This [election] cycle has seen the rise of a young

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progressive Jewish camp on the left. J Street’s survey of Jewish voters shows that more than one in five Jewish voters under 40 support boycotting Israel...The two organizations that represent Israel-critical Jews, Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow both back up Israel’s biggest critics in the House...IfNotNow is rallying its following in defense of Raphael Warnock, one of two Democratic Senate candidates in Georgia, from smearing over the fact that he criticized Israel for human rights abuses from the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church. IfNotNow is also trying to discredit AIPAC over its acceptance of Trump—‘AIPAC belongs in the dustbin of history, along with Trump.’” There is much speculation about how all of this will affect the Biden administration’s approach to Israel. Michael Koplow of the Israel Policy Forum believes that, “Not every single thing that President Trump has done in Israel is going to automatically be something that is opposed by the Biden administration.” But Biden’s election revisits the relationship between the U.S. and Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu and Joe Biden have a long history, not all of it good. When the Obama administration entered into a nuclear agreement with Iran, Netanyahu went around the White House and encouraged opposition to the deal in Congress and among the American public. He was widely criticized for interfering in American politics. Former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, now a Middle East specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations says, “They [Netanyahu and Biden] have two very different approaches and Bibi is going to oppose him [over Iran]. That is going to come up early on, and clearly that is going to determine the relationship far more than the question of how to deal with Bibi when he calls every other day and demands that the United States do this or that, which is what he does—very needy.” Biden has said he intends to rejoin the nuclear deal, conditioned on Iran’s compliance with its terms. The Washington Post reports that Biden is “likely to confront Netanyahu over Jewish settlements on land JANUARY/FEBRUARY2021

Palestinians claim for a future state, a sore spot from the beginning of the Obama administration. Biden is also expected to reverse Trump policies seen as punitive, such as a cutoff of humanitarian aid in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He is likely to try to reopen the Palestinian consulate in Washington...and to re-establish ties with the Palestinian government in the West Bank.” The history of relations between Biden

Biden will have on his foreign policy team Obama veterans who feel burned by their failures to get a deal

and Netanyahu is clearly mixed. On March 9, 2010, Michael Oren, then Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., was in Netanyahu’s motorcade pulling into an underground garage of Jerusalem’s David Citadel Hotel, en route to meet Biden. His American counterpart, Daniel Shapiro, rushed toward him with the news that Israeli officials had approved 1,600 new housing units in an ultraOrthodox settlement in East Jerusalem against U.S. wishes. Biden considered leaving immediately and kept Netanyahu waiting for more than an hour while the Americans prepared a response. In fact, shortly after Biden’s victory, Israel announced a rush of controversial settlement plans, including building 1,257 homes at the Givat Hamatos settlement outside Jerusalem. Netanyahu also remains angry at the Obama administration’s decision to allow a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements to pass in December 2016. In the past, the U.S. vetoed such resolutions. How Joe Biden will proceed in the Middle East is not clear. But there is no indication that Netanyahu will have the free hand in Washington he has had with Trump. In a feature article about Biden’s new chief of staff, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency said of Ron Klain, who is Jewish,

that, “Middle East policy is not Klain’s area of expertise, but when he weighs in he usually criticizes the conservative Israeli prime minister.” Ron Kampeas, writing in the Washington Jewish Week provides this assessment: “Biden will reinstitute the emphasis on the two-state outcome as an endgame, but don’t expect a major push for peace from his White House. Biden will have on his foreign policy team plenty of Obama veterans and they feel burned by their two failures (2010-2011 and 2013-2014) to get a deal. The sense on Biden’s foreign policy team is that peace has to be organic, and must be initiated by the Israelis and Palestinians...During the primaries, some Democratic candidates spoke of conditioning defense aid to Israel on its behavior. Biden repeatedly rejected that proposal outright. He intervened to keep the word ‘occupation’ out of the Democratic platform...Biden has said that he will reestablish the diplomatic ties with the Palestinians that Trump ended...Biden has also said he would resume the assistance to the Palestinians that Trump cut off.” Which direction U.S. Middle East policy will take in a Biden administration is, of course, not possible to know. What does seem clear, however, is that groups such as AIPAC are unlikely ever again to have veto power over such policy. The basis for their influence was largely the myth that it and like-minded groups spoke for American Jews. This was never true, but the growing division in American Jewish opinion revealed in the 2020 election makes this clear for all to see. Hopefully, the Biden administration will not fail to see the inherent problem with pursuing racial equality at home and embracing Israel’s policy of inequality with regard to both its Palestinian citizens and those in the occupied territories. Now, efforts to achieve a genuine Middle East peace and a Palestinian state have a growing Jewish constituency, as the election results show us. This constituency is likely to grow dramatically as demographic change alters the nature of the Jewish community, a new reality that is yet to be widely understood by many. ■

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From the Diaspora

As Israel Destroys EU Projects in Palestine, Europe Remains Impotent

Israel demolished a number of Palestinian homes it considered illegally constructed in the Sur Baher area of East Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank on July 22, 2019, in a move that drew international condemnation. BELGIUM IS FURIOUS. On Nov. 6, the Belgian government condemned Israel’s destruction of Belgian-funded homes in the occupied Palestinian West Bank. Understandably, Brussels wants the Israeli government to pay compensation for the unwarranted destruction. The Israeli response was swift: a resounding “no.” The diplomatic row is likely to fizzle out soon; neither will Israel cease its illegal demolitions of Palestinian homes and structures in the West Bank nor will Belgium, or any other EU country, receive a dime from Tel Aviv.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of palestine Chronicle. His latest book is these Chains Will be broken: palestinian stories of struggle and defiance in israeli prisons (available from AET’s Middle East Books and More). Dr. Baroud is a non-resident senior research fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) and also at the Afro-Middle East Center (AMEC). His website is <www.ramzybaroud.net>. 18

Welcome to the bizarre world of European foreign policy in Palestine and Israel. The EU still champions a two-state solution and advocates international law regarding the legality of the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territories. To make that possible, the EU has, for nearly four decades, funded Palestinian infrastructure as part of a state-building scheme. It is common knowledge that Israel rejects international law, the two-state solution, and any kind of outside “pressure” regarding its military occupation. To back its position with action, Israel has been actively and systematically destroying EU-funded projects in Palestine. In doing so, it aims to send a message to the Europeans that their role in supporting the Palestinian quest for statehood is vehemently rejected. Indeed, in 2019 alone, 204 Palestinian structures were demolished just in occupied East Jerusalem, according to the Euro-Med Monitor. Included in this destruction —in addition to similar demolition in the West Bank Area C—are 127 structures that were funded mostly by EU member states.

Washington RepoRt on Middle east affaiRs

JanuaRy/febRuaRy 2021

PHOTO BY AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

By Ramzy Baroud

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Yet, despite the fact that Israel has been on a collision course with the EU for years, Europe remains Israel’s number one trade partner. Worse, Europe is one of Israel’s largest weapons suppliers and also a main market for Israel’s own weapons—often touted for being “combat-proven,” as in successfully used against Palestinians.

THE CONTRADICTION DOES NOT END HERE

In November 2019, the European Court of Justice ruled that EU countries must identify on their labels the specific products that are made in illegal Jewish settlements, a decision that was seen as an important first step to hold Israel accountable for its occupation. Yet, bizarrely, European activists who promote the boycott of Israeli products are often tried and indicted in European courts, based on the flimsy claim that such boycotts fall into the category of “anti-Semitism.” France, Germany and others have repeatedly utilized their judicial system to criminalize the legitimate boycott of the Israeli occupation. And here, again, European contradictions and confused policies are evident with total clarity. Indeed, last September, Germany, France, Belgium and other EU members spoke firmly at the United Nations against Israel’s policy of demolition, which largely targeted EU-funded infrastructure. In their statement, the EU countries noted that “the period from March to August 2020 saw the highest average destruction rate in four years.” Because of the absence of any meaningful European action on the Palestinian front, Israel no longer finds the European position, however rhetorically strong, worrisome. Just consider the defensible Belgian position on the destruction of Palestinian homes that were funded by the Belgian government in the village of Al-Rakeez, near Hebron (Al-Khalil). “This essential infrastructure was built with Belgian funding, as part of humanitarian aid implemented by the West Bank Protection Consortium. Our country asks Israel for compensation or restitution for these destructions,” the Belgian foreign ministry said in a statement on Nov. 6. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

Now, marvel at the Israeli response, as communicated in a statement issued by Israel’s foreign ministry. “Donor states should utilize their tax payer's (sic) money towards the funding of legal constructions and projects in territories that are controlled by Israel, and make sure those are planned and executed in accordance with the law and in coordination with the relevant Israeli authorities.” But are Europeans violating any law by helping the Palestinians build schools, hospitals and homes in the Occupied Territories? And what “law” is Israel following when it is systematically destroying hundreds of EU-funded Palestinian structures? Needless to say, the EU support for Palestinians is consistent with international law that recognizes the responsibility of all U.N. member states in helping an occupied nation achieve its independence. It is, rather, Israel that stands in violation of numerous U.N. resolutions, which have repeatedly demanded an immediate halt to Israel’s illegal settlement activities, home demolition and military occupation altogether. Israel, however, has never been held accountable for its obligations under international law. So, when the Israeli foreign ministry speaks of “law,” it refers only to the unwarranted decisions made by the Israeli government and Knesset (parliament), such as the decision to illegally annex nearly a third of the West Bank, a massive swath of Palestinian land that is located in

Area C—where most of the destruction is taking place. Israel considers that, by funding Palestinian projects in Area C, the EU is deliberately attempting to thwart Israel’s annexation plans in this region. The Israeli message to Europe is very clear: cease and desist, or the demolition will go on. Israeli arrogance has reached the point that, according to Euro-Med Monitor, in September 2014, Israel destroyed a Belgianfunded electrification project in the village of Khirbet Al Tawil, even though the project was, in fact, installed in coordination with Israel’s civil administration in the area. Alas, despite the occasional protest, EU members are getting the message. The total number of internationally-funded projects in Area C for 2019 has shrunk to 12, several folds lower than previous years. Projects for 2020 are likely to be even lower. The EU may continue to condemn and protest the Israeli destruction. However, angry statements and demands for compensation will fall on deaf Israeli ears if not backed by action. The EU has much leverage over Israel. Not only is it refusing to leverage its high trade numbers and military hardware, but it is also punishing European civil society organizations for daring to challenge Israel. The problem, then, is not typical Israeli obstinacy alone but Europe’s own foreign policy miscalculation—if not an all-out failure—as well. ■

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United Nations Report

The Riddle of the Sands and the Sound of Silence

A group of Sahrawi demonstrators wearing face masks hold flags and placards in Malaga, Spain on Nov. 28, during a protest in support of the self-determination of Western Sahara. On Nov. 13 the Polisario Front declared war against Morocco after the Moroccan government broke the peace truce with Western Sahara. PALESTINIANS AND THEIR FRIENDS have every reason to lament the sound of silence about the Palestinians, but even noise about them is not necessarily that productive. The “Annual Resolution Fest” has just finished with the General Assembly passing the “traditional” resolutions on Palestine and the even more often overlooked Golan Heights. As always, it is geopolitically instructive to see who votes with the U.S. and Israel and thus against international law and previous U.N. decisions which their countries had originally supported. Even the abstentions are significant in their way, since in this context they usually mean “We agree with the resolution but we don’t want or don’t dare, annoy Israel and its big brother in Washington.” But lest we get too scornful of smaller weaker powers who bow to bullying, just remember that many U.S. congress people take a similar attitude when AIPAC’s lobbyists come calling! It is a source of wry amusement and consolation for the Palestinians that the tiny cabal of states, which actually side with Israel are, well...tiny, either in size or moral standing in the world. The assorted Israeli-allied atolls of the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Nauru are

U.N. correspondent Ian Williams is the author of UNtold: the Real Story of the United Nations in Peace and War (available from Middle East Books and More). 20

totally dependent on foreign aid, but this year they were not even joined by Palau, whose recent votes for Israel have always been a shocking fall from grace. The U.S. denied Palau, a former U.S. “strategic trust territory,” even nominal sovereignty for ten years for its principled refusal to come under the U.S. nuclear umbrella. The Pacific Islands, all threatened by climate change and sea level rise are happy to vote with Trump, the president who denies them. So it is perhaps not surprising that the other Trumpista states backing Israel form an “Axis of Intolerance” to immigrants and their own indigenous peoples: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Czechia, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary and Malawi whose tolerance for apartheid was always outstanding for an African country. Since 2004, Canada has been the epitome of unprincipled invertebracy and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau continued the floppy spinelessness of Stephen Harper’s regime under pressure from its vociferous domestic Israel lobby. Although its official positions agree with the U.N. resolutions on issues like the illegality of settlements and the wall, its weaselly excuse was that the resolutions were “one-sided” and directed disproportionately at Israel. This lobby-engendered trope of “whataboutery” completely evades the actual irrefutable Israeli violation of international law by implying that it’s rude and repetitive to

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

PHOTO BY JESUS MERIDA/SOPA IMAGES/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES

By Ian Williams

williams_r2-_20-21r1.qxp_UNITED NATIONS REPORT 12/3/20 4:56 PM Page 21

go on about it. So Canada and likeminded casuists do not defend Israeli behavior, but will not condemn it. This year, on the core issue, Ottawa had a lucid moment and voted with the majority, which is, possibly, a belated rediscovery of its principles, but perhaps also because of its equally belated realization that its proTrump, pro-Israeli votes had again lost it a term on the Security Council. To complete the cycle of unrighteousness, Nauru, a desolate island from which all the valuable avian excreta had been scraped, housed its own settlements of boat people dumped there by racist Australian governments. There is a pattern here. While one could make the pragmatic case that there are too many Palestinian resolutions, the Israeli effort and lobbying against them suggest it is worth keeping up the pressure. And similarly, the rapture with which the pro-Israeli camp greets the defection of the Saudis, Emiratis and Bahrainis does strongly reinforce just how damaging their treachery is. On the other hand, if people would remember, it was only a few years ago that part of the “whatabout” refrain from Israel lobbyists was the relative silence about the misogyny, cruelty and lack of democracy in the Gulf states. Fortunately, a vital pre-requisite for being an Israeli supporter is a conveniently short-term memory.

MOROCCO ALSO FLOUTS U.N., FOLLOWING THE ISRAELI EXAMPLE

On the other side of the Sahara, this publication is one of the few that has kept an eye on the plight of the Sahrawis and their Moroccan occupiers. Israelis just ignore U.N. resolutions and, in some cases, insist that their singular idiosyncratic interpretation holds against the unanimity of the rest of the world, while the Moroccans go the whole hog and claim, for example, that the International Court of Justice decision negating the Moroccan king’s claim means exactly the opposite, or that the Security Council has NOT repeatedly called for a referendum. To refresh memories, while some Sahrawis live in refugee camps, many still live inside the Moroccan equivalent of the separation wall, “the Berm”, under extreme surveillance and political persecution. We know their views because occasionally they JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

surface as political prisoners. We can also draw deductions from the refusal of Morocco to countenance holding the referendum there, even one including the Moroccan immigrants. Among the convenient memory lapses is, that when the Spanish withdrew, the Moroccans accepted and shared their claim to the territory with Mauretania to the south, and when the latter accepted defeat by Polisario, they blithely assumed the Mauritaian pretensions and claimed the lot. The ceasefire line, the Berm, left a strip of territory on the Saharan side up to the Mauritania border at Guerguerat, which just happens to straddle the major land route between North and West Africa. Technically the strip is demilitarized but the Moroccans have been encroaching and Polisario has been countering. It is a perfect combination of circumstances. MINURSO, the U.N. force which has for 30 years failed to fulfil its mandate to deliver the referendum, has been bribed, bullied and cajoled into quiescence by the Moroccans. It let the situation develop and watched Morocco launch an armed incursion into the territory without raising any alarm bells. It is probably significant that Morocco did this while the world was pre-occupied with the follies in Washington and assumed that it could get away with it. But this time Polisario had had enough. They declared an end to the ceasefire and began shelling Moroccan bases. One

cannot help but suspect that they chose empty ones to shell at this stage, but in any case the sound of silence is deafening. Once again, it is about countries standing by countenancing illegality. There are clear decisions, accepted by everyone except Morocco: ICJ decisions, and General Assembly and Security Council resolutions, European Court decisions and more, all reaffirm the need for self-determination for the territory. So while it is perhaps understandable that none of us want to pour blood and treasure into the Sahara, it is particularly pusillanimous that few (South Africa being an honorable example) will even mention that Morocco is breaking the law and burning through $50 million a year of the U.N. peacekeeping budget. And of course the Gulf states, so busily courting Israel, express their solidarity with Morocco. But then the Palestinians would rather court Morocco than support their fraternal refugees. The U.N. might not make countries do the right thing, but in its own passive way, it sets firm standards that everyone can fail. ■ (Advertisement)

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Two Views

PHOTO BY SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES

Jonathan Pollard is No Hero: He Betrayed His Country for Cash

Jonathan Pollard, the American convicted of spying for Israel, sits in a car after leaving a New York court house following his release from prison early, on Nov. 20, 2015 in New York. Pollard, who was convicted as a Navy intelligence analyst of passing suitcases filled with classified documents to Israeli agents in the mid-1980s, will be permitted to leave the country and move to Israel.

Israel Still Owes American Jews an Apology for the Jonathan Pollard Affair By Anshel Pfeffer

THOUGH NEARLY ALL the main players in the Israel-U.S. spy scandal of the mid-1980s are dead and the relationship between

Anshel Pfeffer is a British-born Israeli journalist. He is a senior correspondent and columnist for Haaretz, covering military, Jewish and international affairs. © Haaretz, reprinted with permission. 22

the two countries has long ago moved on, Jonathan Pollard still dominated headlines in November with the termination of his parole and removal of all restrictions on his movement. The former naval spy, today an ill and broken man, will soon immigrate to Israel, where most of the country’s leaders will greet him as a returning son. A hero even. So it’s important to remind everyone that Pollard’s story is one of betrayal. [See p. 63.] Not just the betrayal by Pollard of the country of his birth and of the U.S. Navy where he worked as an intelligence analyst. Not just Israel’s betrayal of its American allies and, after Pollard’s arrest, its initial betrayal of him and subsequent transformation by Binyamin Netanyahu into a political pawn, to be raised as a

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bargaining chip every time an American president tried to pressure him to make concessions to the Palestinians. All those betrayals are by now history. There is a greater and enduring betrayal of which Pollard is just one example. It’s naïve to assume that allies do not spy on one another. No matter the closeness and history of a strategic relationship, no two countries share exactly the same interests or are completely transparent in their affairs to each other. Collecting covert intelligence can be a way to keep the alliance stable, prevent undue surprises and confirm that neither country is seeing someone on the side. But it has to be done much more discreetly and with other means than those used to spy on a rival or enemy nation. Given the particular circumstances of the Israel-U.S. relationship, recruiting an American Jew employed by one his country’s intelligence services (and it doesn’t matter that Pollard was the one who approached his Israeli handlers, not the other way around) constitutes a double betrayal of trust—to the U.S. government and to American Jews. And while Israel profusely apologized to the Reagan administration and eventually went to extraordinary lengths to expiate that betrayal, it has never apologized to America’s Jews for putting them, as a collective and as individuals, in the invidious position of having to defend themselves from the suspicion of divided loyalties. That betrayal is ongoing. Not because Israel is still spying on the United States (it claims it isn’t, but the U.S. intelligence community doesn’t believe these claims and is probably right) or because it still uses American Jews as spies (there has been one such allegation since, but it wasn’t substantiated), but because the betrayal goes much deeper than espionage and has been worsening in recent years. Because of its massive political and diplomatic implications, the Pollard case may have been the most prominent and egregious example of Israel’s instrumental and callous use of Diaspora Jews. Whether or not Israel’s leaders in the 1980s—Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres—were aware of how Lakam, Israel’s Bureau of Scientific Liaisons (which was closed after the Pollard scandal), was using an American Jew to spy on his own government, is immaterial. And given Shamir and Peres’ backgrounds in intelligence and military technology, it’s hard to imagine they were unaware. Even if Lakam chief Rafi Eitan and Pollard’s handler, Israel Air Force Col. Aviem Sella, were operating rogue (and they probably were not), they were still operating out of the traditional Israeli mind-set that sees Diaspora Jews as useful only if they’re serving Israel’s purposes. It is a mind-set that goes back to the 1930s, when the leaders of both the left and right wings of the Zionist movement, David Ben-Gurion and Zeev Jabotinsky, saw the salvation of European Jews from the rise of Nazi Germany only through their potential as emigrants to the future Jewish state. January/February august/septeMber 2021 2019

And while Ben-Gurion and Jabotinsky can at least be partially excused by the fact that there wasn’t any other country willing to accept Jewish refugees in large numbers at that time, it is a mind-set that has persisted to this day when Jews in nearly every country of the world (with the major exception of Iran) live as free and equal citizens. It continued throughout the ’70s and ’80s when Israel sought to stall Jews leaving the Soviet Union from exercising free choice and emigrating anywhere else, and can be seen most recently in the outlandish predictions made by government ministers of a massive surge of Jews about to come to Israel in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. It is a betrayal inherent to Netanyahu’s foreign policy in recent years—a policy that has totally disregarded the concerns of Jewish communities and embraced and endorsed far-right governments, parties and politicians, ignoring the blatant way they have enabled the cause of anti-Semitic nationalists and supremacists. A policy whereby an agreement with progressive Jewish movements for use of a tiny, far-flung section of the Western Wall is thrown by the wayside but leaders of ultra-conservative evangelical churches, spouting beliefs that are abhorrent to the overwhelming majority of American Jews, are greeted in Jerusalem as the saviors of Zion. Israel continues to see the Jews of the world as nothing more than a potential demographic crutch, a target for fundraising and a source of unquestioning support and lobbying—no matter what the costs are for Diaspora Jews or what their views are on Israel’s policies. Pollard has paid a high price for his deeds, higher than most spies captured by the United States, and he should be allowed to live out his days wherever he chooses. He will receive the hero’s welcome that is not his just due when he arrives in Israel, which will anger many in America. But the main damage of Israel’s use of an American-Jewish spy was done over three decades ago. The ongoing damage of Israel’s self-centered, grasping ungratefulness toward the Diaspora continues—and no one is planning an apology.

One Is a Free Hero, the Other, a Hostage By Gideon Levy

ANOTHER FESTIVAL comes and goes: Jonathan Pollard seems likely to immigrate to Israel. He already earned Israeli citizenship while in prison, and he may of course take advantage of it—but let’s not make him a national hero, as the right would like to do. Pollard is neither a hero nor is he a nationalist. He’s a spy, an American Jew who betrayed his country, doing damage to both his community and Israel.

Gideon Levy is an Israeli journalist and author who writes opinion pieces and a weekly column for the newspaper Haaretz. © Haaretz, reprinted with permission.

WasHington report on Middle east aFFairs aF-

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The defense establishment in the United States did indeed treat him cruelly; but Israel has no right to complain. Its treatment of another man, a man with arguably more values than Pollard, Mordechai Vanunu, is much crueler. And yet—a torch has already been lit on Mount Herzl on Independence Day for the former, while the torture of the other hasn’t ended to this very day, and hardly anyone says anything in protest. It’s not fair to compare the two. Despite the efforts of Israeli media to fondly but meanly call him “the atomic spy,” Vanunu did not engage in espionage, but published information in his possession to express his legitimate anti-nuclear and anti-Zionist ideology. The campaign of vengeance against him was not due to any security damage he had supposedly done—it’s doubtful that he caused any—but aggressive political reasons. In fact, if any damage was done, it was by the cruelty toward him reported around the world. This is what will befall a person who tries to challenge the foundations of the state and breaks a total public silence imposed on the nuclear issue. Pollard said he acted on Zionist motives but based on published reports he offered his services to a few other countries as well, including the apartheid regime of South Africa, Islamist Pakistan and what was then known as Red China. That’s what his conscience was like. His actions were for monetary greed; he wasn’t a spy for hire. His Israeli handlers, the main ones to blame for the fiasco, were never punished—they were also hailed as heroes in Israel. It’s not hard to imagine what will happen in the current Israel if Pollard decides to immigrate: An official welcoming ceremony at the airport, noisy and groveling media coverage, free housing in a settlement, a reception at the prime minister’s office, honorary citizenship in the restive West Bank settlement of Yitzhar,

another torch lighting at Mount Herzl and perhaps even an Israel Prize awarded for lifetime achievement. Only a threat from the United States may prevent some of these farces from happening. Israel, who abandoned him and prevented him from fleeing to its embassy, will compensate him now by anointing him as a hero and martyr. Vanunu, who deserves much greater admiration for his courage, sacrifice and determined struggle, will never be hoisted on the shoulders of most of Israel’s left. Only overseas does he get the respect he deserves: He has won a countless number of international awards, including the John Lennon peace prize. Vanunu wants to sever ties with Israel. Israel prevents his departure based on false excuses which the court approves again and again. Vanunu is the real Prisoner of Zion of the two. Pollard who petitioned the High Court of Justice for the title, doesn’t deserve it. Vanunu served an 18-year sentence, including 11 in scandalous isolation, and Israel still doesn’t loosen the noose. It even sent him back to prison for “speaking to foreigners” and “moving to another apartment without permission”—oh, the democracy. We should trust history to fix the distortion. Vanunu will be remembered as a hero before his time, Pollard will not be remembered at all. Pollard deserves a life of freedom, but Vanunu, even more so. For years the security establishment threatened another ideological spy who was also tortured by the system, Marcus Klingberg, who was barred from leaving the country so that state security would not be compromised. Klingberg spent his last years with his daughter and grandson in Paris, and nothing happened. Now Pollard is free. Good for him. Vanunu will continue to be held hostage, and that’s a disgrace. ■

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cook_26-29.qxp_The Nakba Continues 12/3/20 9:17 AM Page 26

The Nakba Continues

Google, Apple and Social Media are Helping Israel Commit Politicide

By Jonathan Cook

WWW.IMDB.COM

A NEW NETFLIX DOCUMENbeen ritually rebuked for creating TARY, “The Social Dilemma,” a crisis of “fake news” and helping warns of the dystopian future “foreign interference.” awaiting us as tech corporations Political pressure is being exgain ever more control over what erted not to make the corporawe can say and think. Former Siltions more transparent and acicon Valley executives argue that countable, but to steer them Google, Facebook and Twitter toward enforcing even more ashave gathered vast quantities of siduous restrictions on the wrong data on us to better predict and kinds of speech: whether it be vishape our desires, and are gradolent racists on the right or critics ually consigning us to discrete of capitalism and Western govideological echo chambers in ernment policy on the left. which it becomes ever harder to For that reason, social media’s know how our perceptions are original image as a neutral arena being manipulated. of information sharing, or as a tool Given that nearly half of Amerfor widening public debate and inicans receive their news chiefly creasing civic engagement, or as via Facebook, the ramifications on a discourse leveler between the our political life are not hard to rich and powerful and weak and fathom. marginalized, grows ever more Through films like “The Social hollow. Dilemma,” Western publics are Nowhere are ties between tech starting to get a sense of the unand state officials more evident democratic power social media than in their dealings with Israel. wields over them—a lesson only That has led to starkly different too familiar to most Palestinians. treatment of digital rights for IsTheir treatment by the tech giants raelis and Palestinians. The over the past decade serves as a online fate of Palestinians suggest warning that these globe-spana future in which the already-powning corporations are not politierful will gain ever greater control cally neutral platforms. over what we know and what we Indeed, as politicians have inare allowed to think, and over who creasingly understood the power is visible and who is erased from of social media, they have wanted public life. "The Social Dilemma” documentary warns viewers that social to harness it for their own ends. media is gaining control of what we’re allowed to think. Israel was well positioned to exSince the shock of Donald ploit social media before most Trump’s election victory in late 2016, Facebook, Google and Twitter other states had recognized its importance in manipulating popular executives have regularly found themselves dragged before legattitudes and perceptions. islative oversight committees in the U.S. and UK, where they have For decades Israel had, in part, outsourced an official program of hasbara—or state propaganda—to its own citizens and supporters abroad. As new digital platforms emerged, these partisans were Jonathan Cook is a journalist based in Nazareth and a winner of the only too willing to expand their role. Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. He is the author of Israel had another advantage. After the 1967 occupation of the Blood and Religion and Israel and the Clash of Civilisations (available from AET’s Middle East Books and More). West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza, Israel began crafting a narrative 26

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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of state victimhood by redefining anti-Semitism to suggest it was now a particular affliction of the left, not the right. So-called “new anti-Semitism” did not target Jews but was instead related to criticism of Israel and support for Palestinian rights. This highly dubious narrative proved easy to condense into social media-friendly soundbites. Israel still routinely describes any Palestinian resistance to its belligerent occupation or its illegal settlements as “terrorism,” and any support from other Palestinians as “incitement.” International solidarity with Palestinians is characterized as “delegitimization” and equated with anti-Semitism. As far back as 2008, it emerged that a pro-Israel media lobby group, CAMERA, had been orchestrating covert efforts by Israel loyalists to infiltrate the online encyclopedia Wikipedia to edit entries and “rewrite history” in ways favorable to Israel. Soon afterward, Naftali Bennett, who is today a key minister in the right-wing government of Binyamin Netanyahu, helped organize courses teaching “Zionist editing” of Wikipedia. In 2011, the 300,000-strong National Union of Israeli Students established teams to “deepen and expand hasbara” for Israel on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Students were also encouraged to report “anti-Semitic content”—often posts exposing Israel’s human rights abuses of Palestinians. At the same time, the Israeli army declared social media a new “battleground” and assigned “cyber warriors” to wage combat online. In 2015, Israel’s foreign ministry set up an additional command center to recruit young, tech-savvy former soldiers from 8200, the army’s cyber intelligence unit, to lead the battle online. Many have gone on to establish hi-tech firms whose spying software became integral to the functioning of social media. An app launched in 2017, Act.il, mobilized Israel partisans to “swarm” sites hosting either criticism of Israel or supJANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

port for Palestinians. The initiative, supported by Israel’s ministry of strategic affairs, was headed by veterans of the Israeli intelligence services. According to the Forward, a U.S. Jewish weekly, Israel’s intelligence services liaise closely with Act.il and request help in getting content, including videos, removed by social media platforms. The Forward observed shortly after the app was rolled out: “Its work so far offers a startling glimpse of how it could shape the online conversations about Israel without ever showing its hand.” Sima Vaknin-Gil, a former Israeli military censor who was then assigned to Israel’s

strategic affairs ministry, said the goal was to “create a community of fighters” whose job was to “flood the internet” with Israeli propaganda. These initiatives are being constantly expanded and refined. In November, Haaretz reported that the strategic affairs ministry had recruited Israeli high school students near Gaza to “develop hasbara content” on social media for Western audiences to show their communities “coping with rocket fire”—by concealing the Israeli-inflicted suffering next door in Gaza. With advantages measured in personnel numbers and ideological zeal, in tech and propaganda expe-

TRANSCENDING THE ISRAEL LOBBY AT HOME AND ABROAD WASHINGTON REPORT On Middle East Affairs

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www.IsraelLobbyCon.org “What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Coercing Arab Nations to Establish Relations with Israel.” —As'ad Abukhalil, Cal State, Stanislaus “Palestine, Propaganda and the President.” —Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada “Censorship, Entanglement & Corruption: The Israel Lobby 2021 Agenda.” —Grant F. Smith, IRmep “Settler Colonialism from America to Palestine.” —Historian and Author Walter Hixson “Christian Zionism and Settler Colonialism.” —Reverend Don Wagner “American Jews and Israel: A Faltering Relationship.” —Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, JVP and Allan Brownfeld, American Council for Judaism “Israel Propaganda in the News Media.” —UMass Professor Emeritus Sut Jhally WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

rience, and in high-level influence in Washington and Silicon Valley, Israel was soon able to turn the social media platforms into willing allies in its struggle to marginalize Palestinians on the net. In 2015, after meeting senior Google and YouTube officials, Israel’s then deputy foreign minister Tzipi Hotovely, now the Israeli ambassador to the UK, issued a statement that the two sides had agreed to “strengthen” ties and would “build a collaborative partnership” to block “inciting material.” Despite efforts at the time by Google to distance itself from her comments, a year later a “cyber unit” in Israel’s justice ministry was boasting that Facebook, Google and YouTube were “complying with up to 95 percent of Israeli requests to delete content,” almost all of it Palestinian. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a pro-Israel lobby group with a history of smearing Palestinian organizations and Jewish groups critical of Israel, established a “command center” in Silicon Valley in 2017 to monitor what it termed “online hate speech.” That same year it was appointed a “trusted flagger” organization for YouTube, meaning its reporting of content for removal was prioritized. Israel added to the pressure on social media platforms by threatening to curb their activities locally. In early 2018, the Israeli parliament was on the verge of passing a so-called Facebook Law that would have severely restricted the firm’s activities in the region. Netanyahu stepped in at the last minute to scrap the legislation, voicing concern about the threat to free expression. But given that Israel has since intensified censorship against Palestinians, it seems more likely the proposed law was a shot across the bow meant to intimidate the tech firms into becoming more compliant. At a 2018 conference in Ramallah hosted by 7amleh, a Palestinian online advocacy group, local Google and Facebook representatives barely hid their priorities. Important to their bottom line, they conceded, was avoiding upsetting governments that had the power to constrain their commercial activities. That was true, they implied, even if, like Israel, those govern28

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Palestinian activist Leila Khaled speaks during a seminar of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in Cape Town, South Africa on February 13, 2015. Zoom blocked her from two scheduled appearances at U.S. conferences.

ments were systematically violating international law and human rights. In this battle, the Palestinian Authority carries no weight at all. Israel presides over Palestinians’ communications and internet infrastructure. It controls the Palestinian economy and its key resources. And Israel alone gets to define what counts as incitement and terrorism, even if it includes activities treated in international law as legitimate resistance to occupation. Since 2016, Israel’s justice ministry has suppressed tens of thousands of Palestinian posts, according Adalah, a Palestinian legal rights group in Israel. In a completely opaque process, Israel’s own algorithms detect content it deems “extremist” and then requests its removal by the social media corporations. Takedowns surged sixfold during the

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

next two years, with many tens of thousands of posts and pages removed by 2018. Hundreds of Palestinians have been arrested by Israel over social media posts too, chilling online activity. Rabea Eghbariah, one of Adalah’s lawyers, observed at the time: “The Ministry of Justice is suddenly transformed into the ‘Ministry of Truth,’ constitutional norms replaced with ‘Terms of Service’...All this is practiced without any legal authority or legal processes whatsoever, in the total absence of transparency, and while exploiting the state’s bargaining power as a potential regulator of these companies.” Human Rights Watch warned in late 2019 that Israel and Facebook were often blurring the distinction between legitimate criticism of Israel and incitement. Conversely, as Israel has shifted ever furJANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

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ther rightwards, the Netanyahu government and the social media platforms have done nothing to stop a surge of posts in Hebrew promoting anti-Palestinian incitement and calls for violence. 7amleh has noted that Israelis post racist or inciteful material against Palestinians roughly every minute. How readily the tech giants have accepted Israel’s stipulations was illustrated in 2018 when Facebook barred trailers advertising “Naila and the Uprising,” a film about organized civil disobedience among Palestinian women. The film had provoked the ire of Israel’s right-wing culture minister, Miri Regev. As well as excising tens of thousands of Palestinian posts, Israel has persuaded Facebook to take down the accounts of major Palestinian news agencies and leading journalists. By 2018 the Palestinian public had grown so incensed that a campaign of online protests and calls to boycott Facebook were led under the hashtag “FBcensorsPalestine.” In Gaza, demonstrators accused the company of being “another face of occupation.” Activism in solidarity with Palestinians in the U.S. and Europe has been similarly targeted. Ads for films, as well as the films themselves, have been taken down and websites removed. In September, Zoom, a video conferencing site that has boomed during the COVID pandemic, joined YouTube and Facebook in censoring a webinar organized by San Francisco State University because it included Leila Khaled, an icon of the Palestinian resistance movement now in her 70s. A month later Zoom blocked a second scheduled appearance by Khaled—this time in a University of Hawaii webinar on censorship—as well as a spate of other events across the U.S. to protest against her cancellation by the site. A statement concerning the Day of Action, said campuses were "joining in the campaign to resist corporate and university silencing of Palestinian narratives and Palestinian voices." The decision, a flagrant attack on academic freedom, was reportedly taken after the social media groups were heavily pressured by the Israeli government and antiPalestinian lobby groups like the AntiJANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

Defamation League, which labelled the webinar “anti-Semitic.” The degree to which the tech giants’ discrimination against Palestinians is structural and entrenched has been underscored by the years-long struggle of activists to both include Palestinian villages on online maps and GPS services, and to name the Palestinian territories as “Palestine,” in accordance with Palestine’s recognition by the United Nations. That campaign has largely floundered, even though 1.5 million people have signed a petition in protest since July and it has re-

Israel was soon able to

turn the social media platforms into willing allies in its struggle to marginalize Palestinians on the net. portedly attracted support from the singer Madonna. In July, she was shown on Instagram adding her name to calls to put “Palestine on the map.” Both Google and Apple have proved highly resistant to these appeals. Hundreds of Palestinian villages are missing from their maps of the West Bank, while all of Israel’s illegal settlements are identified in detail and accorded the same status as the Palestinian communities that are shown. The occupied Palestinian territories are subordinated under the name “Israel.” Meanwhile, Jerusalem is presented as Israel’s unified and undisputed capital, just as Israel claims, making the occupation of the Palestinian section of the city invisible. These are far from politically neutral decisions. Israeli governments have long pursued a Greater Israel ideology that requires driving Palestinians off their lands. This year that dispossession program was formalized with plans, backed by the Trump administration, to annex of swaths of the West Bank. Google and Apple are in effect colluding in this policy by helping to erase the Pales-

tinians’ visible presence in their homeland and to normalize Israeli “politicide”—the claim that the Palestinians do not amount to a people. As two Palestinian scholars, George Zeidan and Haya Haddad, recently noted: “When Google and Apple erase Palestinian villages from their navigation, but proudly mark settlements, the effect is complicity in the Israeli nationalist narrative that settlers came to ‘redeem’ and ‘civilize’ a ‘land without a people.’” Israel’s ever tightening relationship with the social media corporations has until now played out largely behind the scenes. But those ties moved decisively out of the shadows in May when Facebook announced that its new oversight board would include Emi Palmor, one of the architects of Israel’s online repression policy toward the Palestinians. The board will issue precedent-setting rulings to help shape Facebook and Instagram’s censorship and free speech policies. But, as the former director-general of the justice ministry, Palmor has shown no commitment to online free speech. Quite the reverse. She worked hand in hand with the tech giants to censor Palestinian posts and shut down Palestinian news websites in violation of Israeli rule of law. She oversaw the transformation of her department into what Adalah has called the Orwellian “Ministry of Truth.” For that reason she hints at how social media is evolving. The tech corporations are now the undeclared, profit-driven arbiters of our speech rights. But their commitment is not to open and vigorous public debate, to online transparency, or to greater civic engagement. Their only commitment is to the maintenance of a business environment in which they avoid any regulation by major governments infringing on their right to make money. The appointment of Palmor illustrates perfectly the corrupting relationship between government and social media. Palestinians know only too well how easy it is for technology to diminish and disappear the voices of the weak and oppressed, and amplify the voices of the powerful. ■

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Gaza on the Ground

Palestinian entrepreneur Heba al-Hindi demonstrates a locally designed and manufactured smart sterilization device in Gaza City on Nov. 16, 2020. The machine is to be deployed across various facilities in the Gaza Strip as part of efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19. Entering a Gaza City restaurant, customers are welcomed by a “smart disinfecting machine” spraying sanitizer while taking the client’s temperature. WHEN HEBA AL-HINDI, a 37-year-old mathematics graduate, launched Innovation Makers, a startup known for creating anti-coronavirus products, she knew that she wanted to create products that carry the name of Palestine on the label. Al-Hindi, a teacher who is married with one child, is currently pursuing a MA degree at the University of Leeds. As COVID-19 cases spiked in the densely populated coastal area of Gaza, which has few sanitization options, al-Hindi developed a multi-tasking disinfection machine for businesses. She says if a restaurant or shop is equipped with this machine, which tests temperatures and disinfects customers, it could help curb the community-spread of the coronavirus infection.

Award-winning journalist Mohammed Omer reports regularly on the Gaza Strip. 30

Dire economic conditions, a poor healthcare system and chronic electricity shortages, mostly caused by the blockade, made Gaza especially vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic. Gaza, one of the world’s most densely populated areas has difficulty maintaining social distancing, given extended families and limited space in villages and refugee camps. According to the Palestine Health Ministry, more than 14,000 cases of COVID-19 and 65 deaths have been reported in Gaza. The machine al-Hindi and her team invented is now prototyped in several stores and public buildings. It “will not allow you into the building if you did not sanitize your hands—and it has the ability to detect people with temperatures above 38 degrees Celsius,” (100.4 Fahrenheit), she says, adding “the machine also has an alarm that goes off in case the person has a high temperature,” to alert a medical team.

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PHOTO BY MAJDI FATHI/NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES

Gaza Entrepreneur Fights Spread of Coronavirus By Mohammed Omer

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Another machine she designed, now in use by one of Gazaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bakeries, sanitizes hands, detects temperatures and sprays sanitizers on the body from above. â&#x20AC;&#x153;My idea with the invention is to go on contactless modeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;all you have to do is to be close to the sensors,â&#x20AC;? al-Hindi explains. â&#x20AC;&#x153;An amazing innovation here,â&#x20AC;? says Fahed Khaldoun who went to the bakery and used the machine, as Gazaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s COVID19 cases continue to increase. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I saw someone with a high temperatureâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the red light went off, while also preventing the customer from entering the store.â&#x20AC;? This is an amazing tool to control the spread of the virus, he affirmed. Al-Hindiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s company has thus far sold dozens of machines to stores in Gaza. Depending on the technology used, prices range from $550 to $1,500. Despite the success of the machine, al-Hindi has noted that it has been difficult to get parts for scaling up production and adding more functions to the machine, due in part to Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

blockade imposed on materials entering the Gaza Strip. Yet, the team hopes that they can sell some of their products in other countries. The company is looking for a new opportunity for scaling up the development of the product, and perhaps, if political will permits, to be able to export it to neighboring countries. Among Gazans, there is a feeling of pride, or what Khaldoun describes as the positive vibes buzzing in the head, when they say, â&#x20AC;&#x153;made in Palestine,â&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;something new is being developed in Gaza.â&#x20AC;? Al-Hindi works with like-minded crews of engineers, including computer engineer Mohammad Natat, 23, who said he was proud to be part of the team that created the machine. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This was a great chance to get some work to do for a good cause,â&#x20AC;? says the young man who was once unemployed, but now works with a growing list of small shops requesting the machine.

After all, innovation has been a landmark of Gaza resilience, says Khaldoun, as he installs the machine in shops looking for ways to reassure local grocery shoppers. Their fear remains, but at least they can count on a machine doing its essential task before people are allowed into grocery stores. Another Innovation Makers product is meant to help older shoppers and people with disabilities, who will just hold out their arms while the machine does its job, and then lets them enter their local store. The team sees its machine as part of the diffusion of health technology innovations that will accelerate the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic in Gaza and the world. Until a vaccine finally reaches Gaza and begins to protect her people from COVID-19, al-Hindi wants to continue to create innovative machines. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The whole idea is to produce some human-friendly machines that do not intimidate people,â&#x20AC;? she promised. â&#x2013;

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Gaza on the Ground

The Gaza Migrant Mystery: Drowned or Detained?

By Asya Abdul-Hadi

FAMILY PHOTO COURTESY A. ABDUL-HADI

ternational Organization for Migration (IOM) reported a vessel was deliberately sunk in the Mediterranean. The organization obtained testimonies from two survivors from Gaza, who were rescued separately in Sicily, after days in the water clinging to flotation devices. The survivors said that their overcrowded vessel was deliberately sunk by enraged smugglers when passengers refused to be moved to a less seaworthy vessel. But in October 2020, news spread that the missing migrants may not have drowned on that vessel departing from Alexandria, dubbed the “September 6th ship,” but had instead been detained in Egyptian prisons. It turns out a different ship that left from Dumyat, Egypt the same day was deliberately sunk by traffickers. Did that ship stop in Alexandria to pick up more migrants? News about the missing migrants is completely muddled. Nael Baker, 27, was one of many migrants arrested in Alexandria on Sept. 6, 2014. “We Protesting families gathered on Nov. 8 holding pictures of migrants who went missing from the were around 85 migrants getting “September 6th Ship” in 2014. ready to board the ship when we heard shooting and then the Egyptian border naval guards arrested SIX YEARS AFTER receiving tragic news that their relatives us,” said Nael, who has 27 missing relatives. He was joining his drowned on a migrant ship, scores of Palestinian families from the father and two sisters, one of whom was pregnant, who had already Gaza Strip had their hopes resurrected that their relatives may still boarded the ship. After spending 48 days in detention, Nael was rebe alive. leased to return to Gaza. On Sept. 6, 2014, around 500 migrants including Syrians, EgypIn May 2015 the Baker family received a phone call from a nurse tians, Sudanese and Palestinians were said to have boarded a at Al-Azouly military prison in Ismailia telling them that their daughter, vessel that left the Egyptian port of Alexandria. Soon after, the InHala, 25, delivered a baby boy. “This made me suspect that the rest Asya Abdul-Hadi, a Palestinian-American translator and interpreter of my family members may also be in detention,” said Nael. “We living in Maryland, was born in Gaza. She worked for newsweek, went to Al-Azouly prison hoping to see my sister Hala and were told al-hayat, the independent and ABC News before becoming a Gaza bureau chief for the Jerusalem Media Communications Center. she wasn’t there.” 32

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The mother and sister of Muhammed Jamal Al-Rantisi, 29, posted a video on Facebook appealing for help to find the missing Gazan migrant men, women and children. Muhammad’s sister, Shimaa, urged viewers to imagine that their own brother or son had been missing for six years with no one knowing anything about him. Muhammad, 29, earned a Bachelor’s degree in technology and was granted a scholarship to obtain his Master’s and Ph.D. in Germany. He studied German for a year and then on Sept. 4, 2014, he, like so many others, left through the Egyptian border hoping for a better life. Relatives of Palestinian immigrants believed to have drowned at sea in one of Europe’s deadliest migrant shipwrecks, during a Sept. 21, 2014 protest in front of the Red Cross office in Gaza City. His mother, Sameera alRantisi, recalled, “Muhammad behalf of the families, writing letters appealhad mixed feelings and were crying and decided to leave Gaza and migrate by sea ing to the U.N. Secretary-General António laughing.” Their mother said that she recto Germany after the photography and Guterres, Palestinian President Mahmoud ognized her son from his eyes and sleeping video production office where he worked Abbas, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah elposition. was bombed and destroyed during the IsSisi as well as human rights organizations The al-Rantisi family contacted the raeli assault on Gaza in 2014. That and media outlets asking for help to find author of the report and he told them that summer, he also lost his friend.” She deand release their long-detained relatives. the photo was taken at the Al-Anfoushi scribed her son as “ambitious, wonderful Dozens of protesters held a sit-in on Nov. Youth Center in Egypt. and very likeable...He used to say, ‘let me 8, 2020 in front of the U.N. headquarters in The family became even more reassured get out and follow my path.’ He left and Gaza demanding the release of their relaafter posting the report on Facebook. “We never returned.” tives believed to be in Egyptian prisons. drew a circle around his picture and posted Families received conflicting reports “The time has come for those young people it on social media and everyone who knows about the whereabouts of their missing relto return to their homes and to rest hearts Mohammed recognized him in the picture,” atives from human rights organizations, exhausted from long waiting but still hopeShimaa said. “If the ship sank and the pasPalestinians returning to Gaza who inful,” said Abu Hajras, father of missing Ruaa sengers drowned, where are the bodies? formed them that their relatives drowned Hajras and her husband and daughter. There’s no body for any traveler or migrant and other prisoners released from Egyptian Rehab Ismail described the last time who boarded that ship,” she exclaimed. prisons who said that they were detained she’d heard from her son, Majd Ismail, 30. “There are other families who recogwith them. “He tried to leave Gaza four times through nized their missing children on the report In September 2018 the Global Detention the southern border with Egypt and every posted on Facebook. People should stop Project published a report on illegal mitime he was forced back. Then he paid a saying they died or drowned,” cautioned grants in Egyptian prisons. Al-Rantisi’s mediation fee and was able to enter Egypt Muhammed’s mother. sister Shimaa continued their family’s story: on Aug. 30, 2014. He continued to stay in The deputy chairman of the Palestinian “Two years ago, my sister was browsing touch with me and the last I heard from him Legislative Council, Ahmad Bahar, called online to learn about illegal immigration. was at 10:00 p.m., on Sept. 6, 2014, when on international human rights organizations She found that 2018 report on the Global he got to Alexandria. He assured me that as well as the Organization of Islamic CoDetention Project website in Geneva. She he wouldn’t board the ship. Then I don’t operation and the Arab League to act ursaw a picture on the report’s front page that know what happened. I heard rumors that gently to reveal the fate of those missing for she recognized to be Muhammad. She the ship sank. I’m sure he didn’t leave the past six years. started screaming: ‘Muhammad is still Egypt,” the mother affirmed. Mohammed Abu Hajras spoke out on alive!’ She woke us all up at midnight. We JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

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The Ismail family received confirmation that Majd was seen by a couple of prisoners who were released in June 2015 from the Al-Azouly prison, where the Baker family received news about the birth of Hala’s baby. Mahmoud al-Saidi, 30, who was imprisoned for three years, recognized Majd when he saw his pictures and told Majd’s mother that he’d been with him in prison. “He described to me how Majd looks and his habit of fixing his shirt collar,” said Rehab Ismail, who burst in tears. “I have been sending Majd messages to his two Facebook accounts since 2016 and to my surprise they’ve been read and his marital status has been changed from ‘engaged’ to ‘single’ on his profile,” Majd’s mother added. Majd’s sister, Nesma, was told, when she checked with a computer technician, that the IP address used for her brother’s two Facebook accounts was in Cairo, Egypt. Nesma said that she tried to call Majd’s WhatsApp number on Oct. 9, 2020 and received a busy signal and then “my number was blocked,” she revealed. Nesma collected the names of 120 miss-

ing Palestinians from families who believe that a relative is under enforced detention in Egypt. “Up to 26 Gazan families maintained the messages they sent to their missing relatives’ Facebook accounts were read as late as 2020. If they drowned, then their cellphones should have also drowned with them,” Nesma argued. The families of the missing formed the “Committee of the Missing on September 6th Ship” to put pressure on Palestinian and Egyptian officials as well as human rights organizations to reveal the fate of their missing relatives. The committee’s coordinator, Sameer Asfour, who lost four family members including his son Ahmed, stated that all the reports claiming that the ship sank are contradictory and unreliable. “We have not been officially informed by the countries concerned and until this moment we believe that a large number of the migrants boarding the ship are still alive,” he stated. Ahmed’s wife created a statue of Ahmed and talks to it daily reassuring herself that he’ll be back. “Ahmed called me at 5:30 a.m. and said he was riding the bus and I (Advertisement)

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told him when you arrive call me. As I was talking to him I heard shooting and screaming and the line dropped and I haven’t heard his voice since,” recalled Ahmed’s mother. Four to five days later, Ahmed’s mother heard that the ship sank. She said she addressed appeals to the Palestinian and Egyptian officials and all human rights organizations as well as the Red Cross to learn about the fate of her son, but in vain. “I want my son, I want my son, your absence broke my back,” the mother wailed. According to the London-based Palestinian Return Center, scores of Palestinian migrants have drowned at sea while several others have gone missing on their migration route. It is unknown how many vessels left for Europe from Alexandria on Sept. 6, 2014 or how many migrants have drowned, survived or have been imprisoned. Until the families of the missing receive solid evidence from official channels in Egypt or Europe about the fate of their relatives, the disappearance of those migrants will remain a tragic mystery. ■

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Three Views

PHOTO BY IRANIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY / HANDOUT/ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES

Why Assassinate the Scientist?

A ceremony held at the Imam Reza Shrine after the killing of Iranian top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh Mahabadi, in Mashhad, Iran on Nov. 29, 2020. Fakhrizadeh, who headed research and innovation at the defense ministry, was killed Nov. 27 in Damavand county near Tehran.

The Pride of Israel: Assassinations By Gideon Levy

ALONGSIDE DRIP IRRIGATION and cherry tomatoes, there are few areas in which Israel takes more pride than what it calls “targeted killings,” which are in fact acts of murder by the state. With the exception of the United States, Saudi Arabia and Russia, there are few states that murder their adversaries or their enemies, certainly not in the large numbers that Israel does. Since 2000, Israeli forces have murdered about 70 Palestinians, some of whom were clearly political activists and not militants, in planned, targeted killings.

Gideon Levy is an Israeli journalist and author. This article was first published in Haaretz, Sept. 2, 2020. © Haaretz. Reprinted with permission. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

The assassination on Friday, Nov. 27 of Prof. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh on Khomeini Boulevard on the outskirts of Tehran was also not the first assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist. Before him about a dozen scientists were murdered—most of them, if not all, presumably by Israel. How did Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu put it Friday, with a sly, knowing smile? “It’s been a week of achievements.” These “achievements” indeed fire the imagination. On Channel 12’s Friday night news program, a panel of giants debated whether these were “gunslingers,” as the military analyst argued, or a powerful explosive device, as the Arab affairs analyst claimed. There was only one issue that was not raised in this, or indeed in any other forum: whether these targeted killings are legitimate. The very question is considered a heresy, treason. Was it not legitimate to take out Dr. Thabet Thabet, a dentist and the head of Fatah in Tul Karm, in December 2000? Was it not permitted to murder Khalil al-Wazir (known as Abu Jihad) in his bed in front of his wife and

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children in Tunis in 1988? Don’t make Israel’s security cult laugh. Of course it was allowed. To Israel, everything is allowed. The Palestinians who planned the assassination of Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi were sentenced to life in prison. The murderers of Abu Jihad became cabinet ministers and heroes. Ze’evi spilled more innocent blood than Abu Jihad ever did. The question of the purpose and the usefulness of the assassinations is also barely discussed. The fact that the operations are so James Bondian and that the glorious Mossad and Shin Bet security service are behind them is enough to silence all such talk. If an operation is as successful as Friday’s, it’s a sign that it’s permitted and also worthwhile. All the other questions are simply subversive. And yet, it must be asked: What would have happened had foreign agents wiped out Profs. Israel Dostrovsky and Ernst David Bergmann, Shalhevet Freier or Shaul Horev, the Israeli historic counterparts of Fakhrizadeh? What would Israel have said then? And how would the state have responded? Would it have stopped its nuclear program? Would it not have launched a campaign of revenge all over the world? Amos Yadlin, a former Israel Air Force general who is the executive director of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, tweeted over the weekend about Fakhrizadeh: “The man dealt with all aspects of Iran’s illegitimate nuclear activities.” A question: Is there such a thing as Israel’s “illegitimate nuclear activities”? If so, does its planner also deserve to be killed? If not, doesn’t this say that Israel is permitted to do anything, including things that are not permitted to any other state? Communist Bulgaria assassinated people with poisoned umbrellas. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Netanyahu’s newest interlocutor, assassinated a man by dismemberment. The world views both as despicable actions by state agents. Israel is allowed. Israel gets a free pass. We made jokes about Iran’s “Black Friday.” Israel is allowed to rub out the “father of Iran’s nuclear program”—of course that’s what he was, just as every assassinated member of Hamas is a “senior figure” in the organization—just as it is permitted to use types of weapons and ammunition that are prohibited to other states. The question remains whether Friday’s murder will stop the Iranian nuclear program or, perhaps, accelerate it instead. Will it lead to a harsh reprisal attack? On this, the experts all actually agreed: Iran will certainly take revenge. And what then? Even then, will it have been worthwhile? Of course. After all, once again we showed them what we know how to do best, with the exception of drip irrigation and cherry tomatoes. To kill and to destroy.

Tail Wags the Dog, and Makes Biden A Chump By James North and Philip Weiss

THE PUBLIC does not know yet how it came to pass that the top Iranian nuclear scientist was assassinated outside Tehran Nov. 27, but experts say that Israel did it. What we do know is that Israel has a hidden motive: It wants to destroy any chance of Joe Biden re-entering the nuclear deal by envenoming relations between the U.S. and Iran and empowering hardliners in Iran. 36

Why would an Israeli attack envenom U.S.-Iran relations? Because Israel would only undertake such an attack with the O.K. of the Trump administration. (“While it’s highly unlikely that Israel would have carried out the assassination without a green light from the Trump administration, a more direct U.S. role cannot be entirely discounted,” according to Trita Parsi at Responsible Statecraft.) Now does anyone really think this was Donald Trump’s idea? No: Israel is acting to its own devilish ends, and the U.S. government is signing off. Binyamin Netanyahu has directly told Joe Biden he must not re-enter the Iran deal. Which goes to the essential tragic point here: “If an extraterrestrial arrived and looked at the U.S.-Israel relationship he/she/it would be right to think the U.S. is a client state of Israel.” The tail is once again wagging the dog. Because what is the likelihood that Biden will be able to exercise independent foreign policy in the wake of the murder of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh? That likelihood decreases by the moment. The president-elect’s hands are being tied by rogue foreign policy-makers on both sides of the Atlantic. He will have that much more work to do to try to restore the Iran deal. This tagteam has been at it before. As Scott Roth writes: Israel is trying to ignite a war while it still can. Israel likes these transition periods. Twelve years ago they started Cast Lead because they weren’t sure how an Obama administration would feel about bombing Gaza. And Obama let it go and we see how that went. Will Biden dial this back? I have low confidence that he will. The other tragic thing about this attack is that everyone knows all this, but it’s unsayable in Washington. Yes, Trita Parsi says some of it at Responsible Statecraft: Either way, the assassination (and other likely future attacks) will likely harden Iran’s position and complicate—if not ultimately cripple—the Biden team’s attempts to revive diplomacy. That serves Netanyahu’s interest as well. Repeat that point: Israel is crippling Biden’s foreign policy. But the New York Times isn’t going there, and neither is the Washington Post. To his credit, last night on the PBS News Hour, Nick Schifrin lifted the carpet a bit. The attack might only “create an incentive for Iran to pursue a nuclear program,” he said, then ventured, “Biden and his team say they want to re-enter the Iran nuclear deal— what do you make of the timing of this attack, just 54 days before inauguration?” But Schifrin’s interviewee was a tool, a former CIA officer named Norman Roule, who said: I think, for the Biden administration, looking at this deal, they’re going to have to respect the security concerns of regional actors to a greater extent to avoid other incidents such as this upsetting nuclear negotiations. Translation: the U.S. is Israel’s client state so forget about it. Let their “security concerns” drive policy. Mother o God. Our press and the Beltway seems to accept his crap. As

James North is editor-at-large and Philip Weiss is founder and senior editor of Mondoweiss. Reprinted from Mondoweiss with permission.

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Joe Cirincione of Ploughshares writes: I am very disappointed at many of my Washington colleagues who take a “on the one hand…” approach to Israel’s assassination of an Iranian scientist. Are they that afraid of being on the “wrong side”? Why do they fear condemning terrorism when done by Israel? Good question. Why? Because Israel is ensconced in U.S. hearts and minds thanks to the Israel lobby. The New York Times did quote that moral beacon, former CIA chief John Brennan, tweeting: [T]he killing was a “criminal act & highly reckless” and… it risked “lethal retaliation & a new round of regional conflict.” It’s pitiable really. The Iran deal was the signature foreign policy achievement of the Obama administration. President Obama spent huge amounts of political capital on it, gaining liberal Zionist support for the deal so that he could defy the center-right lobby and Netanyahu. Then Trump came in and trashed the deal to please his biggest donor, Netanyahu’s friend Sheldon Adelson. And now Trump and Netanyahu are murdering scientists to “sow the earth with salt between now and Jan 20, 2021,” and everyone just shrugs...

Has Bibi Boxed Biden in on Iran? By Patrick J. Buchanan

IF ISRAEL, as is universally believed and has not been denied, was behind the assassination of Iran’s leading nuclear scientist, questions arise: Why would the Israelis kill him? And why would they do it now? The scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, it is conceded, was a leader in Iran’s nuclear bomb program, but that program was disbanded in 2003. Under George W. Bush, in 2007, all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies declared with “high confidence” that Iran no longer had a bomb program. Four years later, the same intel agencies affirmed that finding. Since 2015, Iran’s nuclear facilities, under the Iran nuclear deal, have been subject to U.N. surveillance and inspections. And Iran has neither produced plutonium nor enriched uranium to the 90 percent level needed for a bomb. Israel claims Iran never stopped working on a bomb, but U.S. intel agencies and U.N. nuclear inspectors have agreed that the military nuclear program that Fakhrizadeh oversaw was ended in 2003. So, again, why would Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu authorize Mossad to send an assassination team to Iran to kill the nuclear scientist? And why now? If Iran is actually running a secret program to build a bomb in violation of the nuclear deal, why not identify the site of the violation, demand that U.N. inspectors visit, expose Iranian duplicity to the world, and kill the deal? Why kill the scientist? From Netanyahu’s standpoint, there are, however, many motives to make the call to kill Fakhrizadeh. To humiliate the Iranian regime. To demonstrate Mossad’s ca-

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever. Printed with permission of Creators website at www.creators.com. jANuAry/FeBruAry 2021

pacity to kill Israel’s enemies with impunity. To send a message to others working in Iran’s nuclear program that the regime’s security forces cannot protect them. To Sunni and Gulf Arabs who see Iran as a sectarian and strategic rival and adversary, Israel’s ability to punish Iran and its regional militias with repeated, unanswered strikes makes Israel a far more desirable ally and partner than ever before. But with this strike, Bibi was also sending a message to Joe Biden, who is seven weeks away from assuming the presidency. What is Bibi’s message? Mr. President-elect: This Mossad operation should tell you how seriously we view Iran’s determination to build a nuclear bomb, and how existential a threat that would be for us. And we intend to deal with that threat sooner rather than later. And if, on taking office, you try to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal and lift U.S. sanctions in return for Iran’s full compliance with the terms of that deal, then we will not be restricted in the actions we take to prevent that from happening. As President Trump put America first, we put Israel first, and Iran tops the list of threats we intend to face—preferably with you, but if necessary, alone. From Bibi’s standpoint, the killing of Iran’s top nuclear scientist seems to be a win-win-win proposition. Bibi’s personal scandals are eclipsed and put on the back burner. He is seen by Israelis as a man of action and a decisive protector of the nation against its greatest threat. Should Iran answer the assassination with a counterstrike, that could lead to Israeli retaliation, escalation and war. This could turn Bibi into a wartime prime minister like Winston Churchill and fulfill his dream of having America bring its full air, naval and missile power to deliver a crushing blow to the Iranian military and the Ayatollah’s regime. However, the assassination of Fakhrizadeh and Iran’s resolve to retaliate complicates—if it does not close—Biden’s path toward rejoining the nuclear deal and reconciling with Iran. If the killing ignites a war, Tehran knows there is a real possibility that America would align with Israel, as Donald Trump detests the Iranian regime as much as Netanyahu does. And if the “moderates” in Tehran fail to maintain the national honor by retaliating against Israel, that could result in a hardline regime winning in this year’s elections. A return of the hardliners could mean a total collapse of the Iran nuclear deal and a new cold war that could eventually end in the hot war Middle East hawks—in Iran, Israel and the USA—have long desired. As Trump showed with the assassination of Gen. Qassim Soleimani in his car coming out of Baghdad airport, he does not recoil from direct action against perceived enemies. Last week, the U.S. flew two B-52s out of Minot, North Dakota, to the Middle East. The USS Nimitz carrier group began moving out of the Indian Ocean toward the Persian Gulf. Four days before the hit on the Iranian scientist, Netanyahu reportedly met secretly in a Red Sea port city with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Was Pompeo told what the Israelis were about to do? Did the U.S. know of, approve of, or not object to the attack? Do Americans want this war that seems closer today? ■

WAsHiNgToN rePorT oN MiDDle eAsT AFFAirs

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Special Report

America’s Devastating Legacy of Endless Wars in the Middle East

By M. Reza Behnam

PHOTO BY MOHAMMED HAMOUD/GETTY IMAGES

on the region’s land, air and water caused by the military’s industrialized warfare. Additionally, as the major arms dealer, the U.S. has catalyzed conflict in a volatile part of the world. For decades, the U.S. military’s main purpose in the Persian Gulf has been to safeguard the flow of oil. It uses a massive amount of fossil fuel defending its access to the fossil fuel of the Gulf and in protecting the autocratic regimes that guarantee U.S. control. The Pentagon—the largest institutional user of petroleum—consumes more than 320,000 barrels of oil a day (not including fuel used by contractors). A man salvages what remains of a store full of vehicle oil and tires targeted by Saudi-led coalition airstrikes In protecting its investment, on July 2, 2020, in Sana’a, Yemen. the U.S. has wreaked havoc on the environment of the Middle East. Exempt from climate agreements, the Pentagon is one PRESIDENT-ELECT Joseph Biden has advocated for domestic of the world’s biggest polluters. Since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, policies focused on equity, decency, justice and climate change. it is estimated that the U.S. military has emitted 1.2 billion tons of These noble principles cannot be achieved at home if they are not carbon dioxide—blamed for global warming—into the atmosphere. practiced abroad. If the new administration is serious about estabAn environmental assessment, conducted by the United Nations lishing America’s moral authority in the world, it must change its beEnvironment Program after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, conhavior in the Middle East—a region that has suffered profoundly as cluded that, “Iraq’s environmental contamination is one of the more a result of policies that have been devoid of these ethical precepts. serious cases of conflict pollution that UNEP has investigated.” The Bush administration’s decision after the attacks of 9/11 to use The war has caused irreversible environmental damage not only force in Afghanistan, Iraq and in its “war on terror,” has damaged to Iraq, but to its neighbors. In its spurious pursuit of weapons of and destabilized a region already struggling with severe political and mass destruction (WMD)—a stated intent of the war—the U.S. has environmental difficulties. Although America’s endless wars have overwhelmed the country with the toxic remains from our own WMD. been a windfall for the Pentagon and weapons manufacturers, the Military debris including unexploded ordnances, spent cartridges, human toll has been enormous. abandoned military vehicles and depleted uranium from munitions, Less attention, however, has been paid to the devastating impact has contaminated Iraq’s soil, its water supply, and has been linked to an epidemic of birth defects and cancer. M. Reza Behnam, Ph.D., is a political scientist whose specialities Once the breadbasket of the Middle East, Iraq now imports 80 include American foreign policy and the history, politics and percent of its food. Its food chain has been disrupted by war-related governments of the Middle East. 38

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toxins such as white phosphorous, mercury and lead, which are used in making bullets and bombs. Destruction of military garbage in burn pits has exposed civilians, as well as U.S. soldiers, to dangerous toxins. Radioactive depleted uranium weapons were used in Iraq hundreds of thousands of times, and again during U.S. bombing assaults on Syria. Acute chemical pollution from the bombing of chemical, industrial and military sites such as weapons factories and oil refineries, which can burn for years, have further stressed the region’s natural ecosystem. In 2019, the U.S. dropped 7,423 bombs and other munitions in Afghanistan alone. Military bases are among the worst polluters. The U.S. currently has at least 35 military installations in nine Persian Gulf countries, including five in Iraq. Hazardous chemicals commonly used on military and air bases, such as solvents, pesticides, heavy metals, asbestos and jet fuel, often seep or spill into local aquifers, drinking water and soil.

U.S. PROVIDES LETHAL WEAPONS

America is the world’s largest arms merchant. The defense industry and its contractors are invested in militarizing the Middle East, saturating it with deadly weapons, from cheap lethal cluster bombs to costly F-35 stealth fighter jets. Washington provides lethal weapons to countries engaged in deadly wars or to some of the worst violators of human rights such as Israel, Egypt and the Gulf states. The Arab states buy a large number of weapons, often to curry favor with Washington. Concomitantly, the sale of these advanced weapon systems expands U.S. influence and leverage over Gulf client states since they require American training, support and logistical networks. The U.S. has yet to sign the 2008 U.N. Convention on Cluster Munitions, which bans their use. Cluster munitions disperse multiple bomblets over a wide area. Many fail to explode on impact and act like landmines, that can injure or kill civilians years later and are a deadly obstacle for agriculture. In 2017, the Trump administration reJANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

moved the 2008 Department of Defense directive which banned cluster bombs, replacing it with a policy allowing the use of existing cluster munitions. The U.S. military used cluster bombs in Afghanistan in 2001, 2002 and in Iraq in 2003. Israel dropped more than 1 million U.S.-provided cluster bombs on Lebanon during its 2006 invasion, and used them again during their attack on the Gaza Strip in 2008-2009. And the Saudi-led coalition has employed U.S.-made cluster bombs in Yemen.

ISRAEL ENJOYS UNRIVALED MILITARY SUPREMACY COURTESY OF THE U.S.

In 1987, Washington granted Israel the status of a major non-NATO ally, providing it with access to the most advanced weapons systems. The U.S. underwrites Israel’s military; over $3.8 billion annually, making it one of the most technologically advanced in the world. In addition to the arms it purchases with U.S. taxpayer dollars, Israel is allowed access to American weapons that Washington has stockpiled and stored there. American largesse has also helped Israel build a very profitable domestic defense industry, making the Jewish state one of the top ten global exporter of arms. A recently introduced bill in the U.S. House of Representatives would allow Israel to purchase a 30,000-lb. Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bunker busting super bomb, although it does not currently have aircraft capable of carrying the MOP. The biggest non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal carries more than 5,300 pounds of explosives. U.S. law currently bars foreign sales of this highly destructive weapon. In 2009, the United States secretly sold Israel 55 5,000-pound bunker buster bombs; and in 2012, the Department of Defense agreed to sell the Israeli air force 10,000 bombs, more than one-half were bunker busters. Israel claims it needs the MOP as defense against Iran if it should ever pursue nuclear weapons. Ironically, Israel refuses to declare its own nuclear arsenal, thought to number from 200 to 400 nuclear warheads.

The Israeli air force is one of the best in the world. In 2016, they acquired America’s F35 stealth aircraft, adding 50 to their existing fleet of 20. The F-35 is considered one of the most sophisticated fighter jets ever made.

ARMING GULF AND ISRAEL TO PERPETUATE CONFLICT

Saudi Arabia is Washington’s biggest weapons customer, importing $13.7 billion in arms from 2008 to 2018. The Saudis explain their arms purchases as a needed defense against Iran, but have used them instead in Yemen. After Saudi Arabia, the UAE is one of Washington’s largest arms clients. In November, the Trump administration notified Congress of its intent to sell approximately $23 billion in advanced weaponry to the Emiratis. The deal was green-lighted after the UAE agreed to normalize relations with Israel. In addition to 50 F-35 jets, the sale would include up to 18 potentially armed Reaper drones. The Israeli government gave the Trump administration “permission” to go ahead with the controversial sale if Washington promised to further upgrade Israel’s military capabilities. Until now, Washington has excluded Arab states from purchasing its most prized weapons systems. In 2008, Congress passed legislation requiring that arms sales to countries in the region, other than Israel, must not adversely affect Israel’s military superiority, or what is known as its “Qualitative Military Edge.” Conflict is essential to perpetuate the warstate and the global arms industry. And an enemy is needed to rationalize its continuation. The U.S., Israel and their Arab Gulf allies have settled on Iran as that enemy. Israel has campaigned relentlessly to paint the Islamic Republic as a conventional and nuclear threat. None of which, however, corresponds to the country’s military capabilities or danger. Iran’s military posture, shaped by its defense paucity during the 1980-’88 war with Iraq, is designed to deter an attack and to survive in an extremely hostile environment. The only threat Iran poses is to U.S.-Israeli ambitions to hold sway over the Middle East. Continued on page 47

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Congress Watch

U.S. Plans to Sell F-35s and MQ-9B Drones To the UAE Draw Congressional Criticism

By Shirl McArthur

WHILE THE AUG. 13, 2020 announcement that Israel and the United Arab Emirates had agreed to establish normal diplomatic relations drew strong support from Israel’s congressional supporters (see below), they were less enthusiastic over the State Department’s late October and early November notification that President Donald Trump’s administration plans to sell 50 F-35 stealth aircraft and 18 MQ-9B drones and associated supplies and equipment to the UAE. At least three bills were introduced seeking assurances that the sales would not compromise Israel’s so-called Qualitative Military Edge (QME). After reports that the administration was considering the sales, on Oct. 1 Rep. Bradley Schneider (D-IL) introduced H.R. 8494, “Guaranteeing Israel’s QME.” It has 19 cosponsors. In the Senate on Oct. 20, Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) introduced S. 4814 “to ensure that sales, exports, or transfers of F-35 aircraft do not compromise the QME of the U.S. or Israel.” Then, on Oct. 30, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), who is retiring at the end of the 116th Congress, and 12 Democratic cosponsors, introduced H.R. 8707 “to require certifications for transfers of certain U.S. defense articles and defense services.” The certifications would require several conditions, including one that “Israel and the U.S. would maintain their military advantage.” Following the announcements that Israel, the UAE and Bahrain had agreed to establish normal diplomatic relations, resolutions were introduced in the House and the Senate applauding the announcements. H.Res. 1110 was introduced Sept. 15 by Engel, and S.Res. 709 was introduced Sept. 17 by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Interestingly, both resolutions include a clause reaffirming “support for a negotiated, two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” After being strongly pushed by AIPAC, H.Res. 1110 has 383 cosponsors, and S.Res. 709 has 94 cosponsors. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) issued a statement on Oct. 22 saying that while he had cosponsored S.Res. 709, he disagreed with efforts to mandate a two-state solution. On Sept. 23, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) introduced S.Res. 713, which is like S.Res. 709, but without supporting a two-state solution. It has no cosponsors. Meanwhile, S.Res. 234 and H.Res. 138, supporting a two-state solution, still have made no progress. Although the Aug. 13 Israel-UAE agreement to begin relations included Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s agreement to

Shirl McArthur is a retired foreign service officer. He lives in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. 40

“suspend” his annexation plans, the next day, Aug. 14, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) introduced H.R. 8050, which would prohibit “a federal department or agency from recognizing, or implying recognition of, any claim by Israel of sovereignty over any part of the occupied West Bank in violation of international humanitarian law or customary international law.” It has 11 cosponsors.

NEW BILL INTRODUCED TO ASSURE U.S.-ISRAEL AGRICULTURAL COOPERATION

On Aug. 11, Sens. John Hoeven (R-ND) and Tammy Baldwin (DWI) introduced S. 4522 to authorize “appropriations for the U.S.Israel Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund (BARD Fund) for each fiscal year.” The two bills “expanding medical partnership with Israel to lessen dependence on China” continue to gain support. H.R. 6829, introduced in May by Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH), now has 242 cosponsors, and S. 3722, introduced in May by Cruz, now has 39 cosponsors.

MEMBERS OF CONGRESS EXPRESS SUPPORT FOR LEBANON

Following the Aug. 4 devastating explosion on Beirut’s waterfront, at least three letters were sent to Trump and administration officials expressing support for Lebanon. On Aug. 7, 86 representatives signed a letter, originated by Rep. Darin LaHood (R-IL), urging Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “to continue deploying needed humanitarian relief for the people of Lebanon.” On Aug. 19, 81 representatives signed a letter, originated by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), to Trump and Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf to immediately designate Lebanon for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) or Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) to provide a safe haven for Lebanese nationals in the U.S. And, on Aug. 19, five senators, led by Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), signed a letter to Pompeo urging the Trump administration “to lead a longer-term effort to address Lebanon’s worsening economic crisis, conditioned on Lebanon’s leaders committing to a clear set of reforms.” H.Res. 1077, introduced in July by LaHood, has gained support. It would express “the sense of the House on the continued importance of the U.S.-Lebanon relationship,” and would recognize “the role of Lebanon and its institutions as historic examples of democratic values in the Middle East.” It would also “support strengthening U.S. partnership with the Lebanese Armed Forces.” It now has 33 cosponsors. However, in a remarkable show of insensitivity, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) and 13 cosponsors chose this time to introduce another

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STATUS UPDATES

S. 3176 and H.R. 1837, Provide More Goodies for Israel.

against Iran. But S.Res. 509, introduced in February by Sen. Pat

reported to the full Senate in June, still has not been brought up,

expiring restrictions on Iran, has gained another cosponsor, and

S. 3176, introduced in January by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and

but it continues to get cosponsors and now has 45. The similar House bill, H.R. 1837, passed by the House last July, still rests

Toomey (R-PA), to urge the U.N. Security Council to renew the now has 57.

H.R. 550 and H.Con.Res. 83, No War Against Iran. H.R. 550,

with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. S. 3176 does not

amended by the House to include the text of H.R. 5543, intro-

president authority to give Israel any defense-related articles or

of funds for unauthorized military force against Iran,” as well as

include the provision included in H.R. 1837 that would give the

services, without any limitation of law and without congressional oversight.

S. 3775 and H.R. 7148, U.S.-Israel Cooperation. The twin

bills “to establish a U.S.-Israel Operations-Technology Working

Group” have made some progress. S. 3775, introduced in May

by Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) still has six cosponsors, but H.R. 7148, introduced in June by Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) now has seven cosponsors.

H.R. 2407, Human Rights for Palestinian Children. Intro-

duced in April 2019, by Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), now has 24 cosponsors.

duced in January by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), “to prohibit the use the text of H.R. 2456, introduced in May 2019, by Rep. Barbara

Lee (D-CA) “to repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iraq Resolution of 2002,” had still not been acted on by

the Senate. H.Con.Res. 83, introduced in January by Rep. Elissa

Slotkin (D-MI) after the ill-considered assassination of Iran’s Quds

Force Commander, Maj. Gen. Qassim Soleimani, was passed by the House in January. It would direct the president “to termi-

nate the use of U.S. Armed Forces to engage in hostilities in or

against Iran.” It was forwarded to the Senate and still is held in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC).

H.Res. 1062, Support for Iraq. H.Res. 1062, introduced by

S.Res. 509, Iran Sanctions. After Secretary of State Mike

Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX) in July “affirming the nature and impor-

right to “snap back” Iran sanctions, even though the Trump ad-

economic components of the relationship,” would call on the U.S.

Pompeo’s Aug. 20 announcement that the U.S. has the legal ministration withdrew from the Iran nuclear agreement, the Eu-

ropean partners to the agreement made it clear that they reject the U.S. legal interpretation. The U.N. Security Council rejected

a U.S. proposal to indefinitely extend the weapons embargo Lebanon sanctions bill. H.R. 8445, introduced Sept. 30, would impose sanctions “with respect to Hezbollah-dominated areas in Lebanon and Latin America,” and “with respect to senior political figures in Lebanon.” The previously described H.R. 3331, “Countering Hezbollah in Lebanon’s Military,” introduced in June by Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), which would limit the use of security assistance funds for Lebanon until certain conditions are met, has gained 16 cosponsors.

REPORTS OF SECRET SAUDI NUCLEAR ACTIVITIES DRAW CONGRESSIONAL ATTENTION

After press reports that China helped Saudi Arabia build a secret yellowcake processing plant, Senate and House letters were sent to Trump and Pompeo de-

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

tance of the U.S.-Iraq bilateral relationship, including security and “to provide continued support for Iraq and its citizens through

trade and investment, medical assistance, and stabilization efforts.” It now has 20 cosponsors.

manding more information about Saudi Arabia’s nuclear program and the Trump administration’s response to it. The Aug. 18 House letter was signed by Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Middle East subcommittee Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) and Reps. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) and Ami Bera (D-CA). The Aug. 19 Senate letter was originated by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and signed by Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Susan Collins (R-ME), Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Jerry Moran (R-KS). In an action also aimed at Saudi Arabia, on Aug. 6 Sen. Murphy, with five cosponsors, introduced S. 4474, which would “limit the export of certain unmanned aircraft systems and related equipment” except to the governments of a NATO member country, Australia, Israel, Japan or South Korea. ■

—S.M.

SEND A GIFT SUBSCRIPTION OR SAMPLE COPY Please help us market the Washington Report and Middle East and More Bookstore. Ask us to send a sample copy of the magazine to your coworker, relative, friend, teacher, favorite talkshow host or columnist. Or better yet, send a gift subscription! To subscribe visit wrmea.org/subscribe, or email circulation@wrmea.org or call (888) 881-5861. To send a sample copy email the address to samplecopy@wrmea.org.

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Special Report

Lebanon’s PM Struggles to Form Cabinet Amid Economic Crisis

By Wael Taleb

PHOTO BY JOSEPH EID/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Since then, the economic crisis has worsened and was exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic that left the country with massive hyperinflation, more than 50 percent poverty levels, and the depreciation of the Lebanese pound by more than 80 percent in a country that relies almost entirely on imports. After the Beirut port explosion on Aug. 4, French President Emmanuel Macron visited Lebanon and made the political elite promise to form an independent government that would achieve necessary reforms in what has been named “the French initiative.” But none of that has happened, and no government has been formed after the previous one was forced to resign following the port explosion. Patrick Durel, an adviser to A closed shop in the city of Jounieh, north of Beirut, on Dec. 1, 2020. Lebanon’s economy is sinking into a Macron on Middle East and ”deliberate depression,” the World Bank said in a damning report stressing the authorities’ failure to tackle North Africa affairs, visited the crisis. Lebanon on Nov. 12 and held a series of meetings with officials and heads of the eight parliamentary FRANCE, THE UNITED STATES and other countries’ stances blocs, including representatives of Hezbollah. Durel made clear that with Lebanon’s ruling class seem to be intensifying after the while France remains committed, “We will not bail them out unless latter failed to form a government that would pull the country out there are reforms,” Reuters reported. of its deep economic crisis. On the other hand, U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea, Back in 2018, Lebanon was promised an $11 billion aid package speaking at an online conference of Washington-based think tank at the Conference for Economic Development and Reform through CSIS [see p. 61] on Nov. 13, said the Beirut explosion was the last Enterprises (CEDRE) in Paris aimed at rallying international counstraw for a lot of middle class Lebanese who are fed up with the cortries for investment support to boost the country’s economy. The ruption and mismanagement—the kind that produced the port exfunds from CEDRE, however, were contingent on structural reforms plosion—adding, “There is no sense of urgency that I can detect to that were never implemented; hence, the money wasn’t given. get a new government in place that will be able to take the meanMass protests emerged on Oct. 17, 2019, calling for the stepping ingful decision on everything from reform to really tackling the corodown of the political elite that have ruled the country since the 1975navirus pandemic and dealing with digging the country out of the 1990 civil war, whom they blame for the economic collapse. huge hole that it’s in.” Wael Taleb is a Lebanese journalist based in Beirut. He writes about Shea explained that state failure has to be avoided first and forehuman rights, politics and other issues in the Middle East for various most, but “we can’t want more than they do”—referring to wanting publications, including al-Monitor. Reprinted with permission of al-Monitor. reforms more than the Lebanese. 42

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In the meantime, restructuring firm Alvarez & Marsal has quit its contract to carry out a forensic audit of Lebanon’s Central Bank—which is a key demand for international donors—because it did not receive the documents needed due to bank secrecy laws that allegedly wouldn’t make the audit possible, the country’s caretaker Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni said on Nov. 20. On the other hand, caretaker Minister of Justice Marie-Claude Najm had said on Nov. 10 that Lebanon's Central Bank Governor, Riad Salameh, is using bank secrecy laws and Article 151 as an excuse not to submit the documents. On Lebanon’s 77th Independence Day on Nov. 22, Lebanese President Michel Aoun addressed the nation and spoke about the country’s difficulties, saying that Lebanon “is a prisoner of corruption, political scheming and external dictations.” “If we want statehood we must fight corruption...and this begins by imposing the forensic financial audit,” he said, adding that he would not “back off” the issue. Meanwhile, designated Prime Minister Saad Hariri is struggling to form a government a month after being appointed. Hariri was renamed prime minister a year after stepping down under pressure from the October 2019 protests. “I don’t see a government formation until the [Joe] Biden administration engages in negotiations with Iran,” said Sami Nader, director of the Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs. Nader told Al-Monitor that Lebanon’s government formation is a pressure point from Iran against Western countries and particularly the United States, since Hezbollah is the most powerful party in Lebanon and can decide whether a government gets formed. He added, “The Lebanese-Israeli maritime border negotiations was a plan B for Hezbollah in case [Donald] Trump was elected president, and it is no coincidence that these negotiations have stopped now that Biden is the president-elect.” U.S.- and U.N.-mediated maritime border talks between Lebanon and Israel had begun in late October in an effort to resolve the dispute between the two countries on offshore land, which is thought to contain JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

natural gas that both Israel and Lebanon plan to exploit. Nader added that the country is heading toward catastrophic living conditions, especially after the lifting of the subsidy program expected to take place next month, which would leave the majority of Lebanese unable to buy food and medicine. “There is not going to be an injection of money from international donors without reaching an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which would [require] serious reforms,” said Nader. In the midst of its worst economic crisis, Lebanon had begun negotiations with the IMF in May to try to inject dollars into the country but had failed to come to any agreement after struggling to accomplish basic reforms. The negotiations were suspended in July.

If we want statehood we must fight corruption.

On Nov. 17, parliament member Elias Abou Saab from the Free Patriotic Movement—a Christian party that has the most seats in parliament and is allied with Hezbollah—said in a TV interview the reason government formation has not yet happened is because of a disagreement on the names of the ministers and their levels of competence. “It is hard to decide who’s competent and who’s not,” said Abou Saab, adding, “The crisis we are facing today is because of external pressures to change the positions of some.” On the other hand, parliament member Mohammad Hajjar from the Future movement led by Hariri said that a government with competent ministers will be formed and will achieve reforms in six months, as the French initiative demanded. Hajjar also replied to Abou Saab’s claims about ministers’ competence, saying, “People who talk about different standards for different parties are just using it as an excuse to obstruct government formation.” It seems at this point that the delay in government formation is in part due to the insistence of some parties to name the majority of Christian ministers in the govern-

ment as well as Hariri’s insistence on naming the ministers alone. According to reports, sources of the Shiite duo Hezbollah and Amal movements told Al-Joumhouria, a Lebanese daily newspaper, that “the mechanism for placing the names of ministers is the main node that continues to delay the agreement on forming a government,” stressing that “it is not acceptable for the president-designate alone to choose the names of ministers, whatever their sects, because such a matter implies a fundamental amendment of the rules of participation, and it constitutes a precedent that some people may arm themselves with in the future, turning the exception into a rule." The situation is not as black and white as it might seem when following a process in Lebanon; a lot of political inclinations and interferences come to play. What should be a clear process to follow becomes a politicized issue settled through partisanship and a fragile balance of power. Political analyst and the owner and editor-in-chief of Alkalima Online, Simon Abou Fadel, told Al-Monitor another intervening factor is the American demand to not include Hezbollah in the government, which Hariri takes into account. Abou Fadel said the recent sanctions on Free Patriotic Movement leader Gebran Bassil have complicated government formation. Bassil was sanctioned by the Trump administration on Nov. 6 on charges of corruption, although he is also accused of close ties with Hezbollah. Asked about the absence of protests against the political class who are acting as if there is nothing wrong in spite of a severe economic crisis, Abou Fadel said, “The people of Lebanon have gotten really frustrated after being faced with violence from security forces and party members whenever a protest takes place. It is no surprise that their only concern now is not starving to death rather than holding politicians accountable.” All major parties in Lebanon advocate reforms in order to resolve the country’s issues, yet at every chance for change, they seem to be driven by more seats and partisan disagreements rather than saving the country from its worst economic crisis yet to come. ■

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Talking Turkey

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus President Ersin Tatar greet citizens during ceremonies, on Nov. 15, 2020. ON THE AFTERNOON of Nov. 15, as thunderstorms rumbled across the troubled Eastern Mediterranean sky, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s motorcade finally swished into the Cypriot city of Famagusta, three hours behind schedule. Visiting for celebrations marking the 37th anniversary of the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), his visit was also scheduled to include a novel diversion; a picnic on the nearby beach at Varosha. For many here, however, that move—and the events that led up to it—were a far more disturbing thunderclap than any the weather could crack out that day. Indeed, by declaring on his arrival that, “There are two nations, two states,” on Cyprus and “a two-state solution based on sovereign equality needs to be negotiated,” Erdogan was upending nearly five decades of U.N.-sponsored negotiations aimed at re-creating a single Cypriot state. At the same time, too, by visiting the beach at Varosha—known as Maras in Turkish—he was also directly challenging a clutch of

Jonathan Gorvett is a free-lance writer specializing on European and Middle Eastern affairs. 44

U.N. Security Council resolutions. These declare that only the beach’s original, mainly Greek Cypriot, inhabitants—who all fled when Turkey invaded the island in 1974—have a right to return there, while also calling for the abandoned resort to be handed over to U.N. mandate. “After having seen the closed Maras,” Erdogan said, standing in front of a rake of ruined buildings and spools of rusting Turkish army barbed wire, “I thought ‘Why is this beautiful Maras area...kept closed to the local people?’” It was time, he said, “to open Varosha for all.” This was the nightmare scenario many Greek Cypriot former residents of one of the world’s largest ghost towns have always feared. For 46 years, these people—originally numbering some 39,000— have waited to go home. Now, if the island is to end up as two states, their homes would be forever on the Turkish side of the U.N.-patrolled buffer zone dividing the island, leaving their homes and properties facing a highly uncertain fate. Unsurprisingly, then, Erdogan’s remarks were met with outrage by Greek Cypriot leaders, condemnation from the European Union, consternation from the U.N. and criticism from the U.S. However, for many local Cypriots, both Greek and Turkish, Erdogan’s new

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Cyprus Heads into Unknown Waters, As Turkey Changes Tack By Jonathan Gorvett

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strategy represents only the latest twist in a decades-long tragedy and one which has recently seen repeated setbacks for their hopes of reunification. In addition, Turkish Cypriots—who have long prided themselves as different culturally and historically from their ethnic brethren in Turkey—are increasingly facing what many see as an existential crisis. “The question is,” says Professor Erol Kaymak from the Eastern Mediterranean University in Famagusta, “do Turkish Cypriots have integrity as a political unit now, or are we being governed colonial style by Turkey?” The question is a key one for the future of the Turkish Cypriot community—as well as the island as a whole—with the jury very much still out on the answer.

GHOST TOWN

The existential question Kaymak talks of took a more urgent turn in October 2020, when elections for “president” of the TRNC—which remains unrecognized by anyone except Turkey—were won by a whisker by Ersin Tatar. A secular Turkish nationalist, he replaced former TRNC president Mustafa Akinci, a liberal who had grown critical of Ankara’s role in Turkish Cypriot politics. Akinci was also strongly committed to the creation of a bi-zonal, bicommunal federation—a formula known as the BBF and the goal of U.N. talks since 1968. In 2017, Akinci had warned against Turkish “annexation” of Turkish Cyprus, if there was no deal on a BBF basis, and had even pursued a course increasingly independent of Turkey’s at the last round of U.N.-sponsored negotiations to reunify the island, in an increasingly desperate effort to again raise this goal. Those talks eventually collapsed, however, but had reached a set of general principles known as the Guterres framework—named after the U.N. Secretary General—that could form the basis of a reunification agreement. The talks’ collapse in 2017, however, left a long hiatus without further progress. Given this, Tatar, a nationalist and very much Ankara’s man, began to advocate JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

and campaign on a new approach; not one reunified state on the island, but two. “Two states is the easiest solution,” he told Turkish state broadcaster TRT World in a mid-November interview, “because we already have two states on the island.” Indeed, since the creation of the TRNC in 1982, two administrations have existed on Cyprus, with the internationally recognized, Greek Cypriot-dominated Republic of Cyprus controlling the southern twothirds of the island, while the TRNC controls the northern third. With Tatar’s election, both Ankara and the Turkish Cypriot leadership are thus now aligned in pushing for two states. Yet, with this, all efforts to reunite the island would become redundant. “We are now far from unification,” Okan Dagli, an activist with the Turkish Cypriot NGO Famagusta Initiative, told the Washington Report. “The resumption of negotiations under U.N. auspices can only be possible with the reaffirmation of the ideas outlined in the Guterres framework in 2017. It would be overly optimistic to say that this is possible now.” It is hard to see where talks would go now, or on what basis they could even start. “The two-state solution is not part of the U.N. mandate,” Achilleas Demetriades, a Nicosia-based human rights lawyer, pointed out to the Washington Report. Indeed, designed specifically to achieve the BBF, the U.N. has no agreed basis to hold talks discussing anything else.

great disappointment and have reacted against their leadership.” Indeed, a November 2020 opinion poll showed that only 10 percent of Greek Cypriots were satisfied with the way their government, led by President Nicos Anastasiades, was handling the Varosha issue. Some 75 percent were also critical of both the ruling and opposition parties in their approach to the Cyprus problem. The Greek Cypriot government “has made calculations that have missed their targets,” says Demetriades, diplomatically. “Their position is simply wrong.” Meanwhile, for Turkish Cypriots, “the election didn’t resolve our dilemma,” says Kaymak. “Now, we are polarized, with liberals fearing the annexation of Turkish Cyprus by Turkey and its Islamization.” While Tatar’s supporters might have a different view, there is a growing sense that under the shadow of Erdogan’s more assertive Turkey, Turkish Cypriot interests may be increasingly overlooked. “We fear,” says Kaymak, “that we are going to end up like some kind of lost tribe.” ■ (Advertisement)

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UNCERTAIN FUTURE

This leaves a big question mark over the future of the U.N.-sponsored negotiations —and thus, the whole future of the island. Yet, “Because the stakes have now been made higher,” says Kaymak, “we are no longer playing a diplomatic game that had, perhaps, become too comfortable.” In recognition of the greater odds, there is now a greater protest movement on both sides of the Buffer Zone. “Greek Cypriot residents of Varosha have repeatedly seen the city slip from their hands just when it was about to be given back to them,” says Dagli. “They are in

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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The Middle East in the Far East

Chen Jian, curator of Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum, sorts donated books on Jewish refugees during World War II in Shanghai, China, on Sept. 2, 2020. THE HISTORIC presence of Jewish communities in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa is fairly well known in the West. Less familiar is their presence further east, where they have declined in numbers since their heydays. Some communities have survived war, political turbulence and emigration to maintain a presence up to the present time. In the era of colonialism, communities grew up in centers of trade such as Shanghai, Jakarta, (then Batavia, in the Dutch East Indies), Hong Kong and Singapore, under British rule, but other communities had already been long established in Cochin, south India and Kaifeng, China. The earliest Jewish community in Cochin was probably established in the first century CE. The widely travelled Benjamin of Tudela, who visited Cochin in the 12th century, noted that the Jews there were black, just like the other people of the area. As the region was then known as the Malabar Coast, they were called the Malabari Jews. From the 16th century, when Sephardi Jews (who originated in Spain

John Gee is a free-lance journalist based in Singapore and the author of Unequal Conflict: The Palestinians and Israel. 46

and spoke Ladino, derived from Spanish) came to Cochin, locals knew the older community as the Black Jews and the later arrivals as the White Jews. When Jews from Ottoman-ruled Iraq came to Cochin in the late 19th century, they joined the Sephardi community. The Black and White Jews lived largely separate lives, never intermarrying with each other and attending different synagogues. The great majority of Cochin Jews migrated following the independence of India in 1947 and creation of Israel in 1948, but whereas nearly all the Malabari Jews went to Israel, the White Jews mostly left for Australia and other Commonwealth countries. One functioning synagogue survives, but there are also two museums dedicated to the history and daily life of the historic Jewish communities of Cochin. Jewish businesses had a good reputation in Cochin, and others who bought them from emigrating Jews, saw it as advantageous to retain the businesses’ original names. Jewish communities also grew in two of the major centers of British India: Bombay (now Mumbai) and Calcutta (now Kolkata). They were founded by “Baghdadi Jews”—Jews who migrated not only from Mesopotamia, but from neighboring areas of the Middle East too. Both reached a peak population of around 5,000 people by the

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PHOTO BY WANG XIANG/XINHUA VIA GETTY

Old Asian Jewish Communities: Reduced But Hanging On By John Gee

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beginning of the 1940s, before declining to around 20 at present, in Kolkata and a few more in Mumbai. In both cases, the population shrank first of all, through emigration to Israel and then through migration to other countries. Although the surviving population has aged, two synagogues built in the 19th century were reopened in 2018 following restoration work. However, the Jewish Girls’ School doesn’t have a single Jewish girl attending. Most of the 1,200 students are local Muslim girls, according to Nirmala Ganapathy’s article, “Preserving Jewish legacy in Kolkata,” published in the Straits Times, on March 17, 2018.

JEWS OF KAIFENG

The first Jews to make their home in China most probably travelled along the Silk Road from Iran around 600 CE, reaching Kaifeng, in the central Chinese province of Henan. Kaifeng was a prosperous trading city that became China’s capital under the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127). The Jews of Kaifeng evidently intermarried with locals, adapted Chinese cooking to Jewish dietary requirements and dressed in almost the same style as the rest of the population—even adopting foot binding for women. Many of the majority population soon had no sense of what being Jewish meant and thought, from their dietary practices and monotheism, that the Jews were Muslims. Departing from traditional Jewish practice, this community traced their ancestry through the father’s line, which has led Orthodox Jews elsewhere to reject their claim of being Jewish. Because of this the Kaifeng community became quite isolated from Jewish communities elsewhere. In the 19th century, the community’s synagogue was destroyed in a flood and not rebuilt, and the Torah scrolls were sold, ending up in museums abroad. Nevertheless, around 1,000 Jews still live in Kaifeng and 100 practice their religion as best they can. In the 20th century, they were isolated from the outside world by distance, war and politics, but occasionally foreigners would visit and ask about them. In 2006, an Israeli group called Shavei Israel managed to get the first group of Kaifeng Jews to migrate to Israel: only about 20 have migrated. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

Other Jews came to China much later than the Kaifeng community. Some arrived from Europe following the opening of certain ports to trade after the Opium Wars—not only establishing the beginnings of a community in British-ruled Hong Kong, but settling in Shanghai. Others migrated from Russia, particularly during the turbulent years of revolution and civil war. Many of these migrants were in a vulnerable position, with little or no money, and among their fellow Russian fugitives, anti-Semitic attitudes were common. In Harbin in Manchuria during the 1920s, 120,000 people—a quarter of the population—were Russian, including 13,000 Jews, who were subjected to abuse and physical violence by White Russians, many of whom were members of the Russian Fascist Party. Japan’s military expansion had a severe impact on the Jewish communities of East and Southeast Asia. Japan seized Manchuria in 1932, which precipitated the flight of many Russians, including Jews, from Harbin to other parts of China. In 1937, Japan’s occupation of Shanghai brought the community there under the control of a regime that was soon to form an alliance with Nazi Germany. After Pearl Harbor, when the whole of South-east Asia was occupied by Japan, some Jews were able to escape to Allied-held territory, including India, but most fell under Japanese occupation and were interned as enemy aliens. However, Japan did not embark upon a genocidal campaign against the Jews in the territories it occupied, despite calls from Germany for cooperation with its own policy. Huge regional changes followed the end of the Second World War: decolonization in India and Indonesia and the Communist victory in China in 1949, which led many Jews to feel that they could make a better life for themselves elsewhere. The creation of Israel in 1948 acted as a magnet for some, though others left for the U.S., Australia and Europe. Anti-Semitism was not the “push factor,” as there was no history of that in either China or India. Some communities disappeared, such as those in Harbin and Shanghai; others were left much reduced from their heyday, but maintain a tenuous existence, living reminders of a long and distinctive history. ■

Legacy of Endless Wars Continued from page 39

Israel and the Arab states spend about 50 times as much as Iran on their armed forces and on state-of-the-art weapons. Decades of U.S. economic sanctions have limited Tehran’s ability to purchase advanced technology, leaving it with outdated weapons and an air force that dates back to before the 1979 Revolution. With little air power and with neighbors able to carry out precision air strikes, Tehran relies on its expansive missile arsenal for protection.

AMERICA’S LEGACY

The war on terror has made vast parts of the Middle East uninhabitable and unstable. Washington has fostered conflict by its military buildup and imposing presence in the Gulf. U.S. weapons sales to Israel and Gulf autocrats have heightened tensions, set off an arms race, and have made cooperation among regional neighbors chimerical. At present, America’s legacy in the Middle East is one of widespread environmental destruction, militarism, and alliances with oppressive regimes. Hopefully, the Biden administration will begin to question how America uses its power in the world and moves away from militarism and environmental destruction toward peace, dignity and a healthy, sustainable planet. ■

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Canada Calling

Canadian ex-IDF soldier Gill Rosenberg shows a photo of herself in uniform on her mobile phone during a press conference at the Israeli Knesset, on July 14, 2015 in Jerusalem. Rosenberg went on to fight the Islamic State with Kurdish forces.

AN OPEN LETTER signed by more than 170 people, including Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges and Roger Waters, has been sent to Canada’s Justice Minister David Lametti asking him to launch a thorough investigation into illegal Israeli military recruiting in Canada. The Israeli Consulate in Toronto has recently advertised that they have an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) representative available for personal appointments for anyone who wants to join Israel’s army. The Canadian Foreign Policy Institute, Palestinian and Jewish Unity, Just Peace Advocates and others who initiated the open letter argue that Israel’s recruitment violates the Foreign Enlistment Act, which states that anyone in Canada who recruits for the armed forces of a foreign state is guilty of an offense. Jake Javanshir, a former Israeli of Iranian heritage, is currently

Candice Bodnaruk has been involved in Palestinian issues for the past 14 years through organizations such as the Canadian BDS Coalition and Peace Alliance Winnipeg. Her political action started with feminism and continued with the peace movement, first with the No War on Iraq Coalition in 2003 in Winnipeg. 48

part of the campaign. Around 20 years ago, he began standing in front of the Israeli Consulate in Toronto every Friday for regular demonstrations and leafletting. Then he joined a protest, ongoing since 2007, outside of Chapters-Indigo, Canada’s largest bookstore chain. In 2005, Chapters-Indigo CEO Heather Reisman, along with her husband, businessman Gerald Schwartz, started the Heseg Foundation for Lone Soldiers. The organization provides grants to former “lone soldiers” in the Israeli military to attend post-secondary institutions in Israel. “For Heseg to create a foundation for Canadians to join an army to commit war crimes, people shouldn’t buy books there,” Javanshir said. He explained that during the demonstrations outside Chapters-Indigo, activists handed out cards that illustrated Palestinian loss of land and also gave fliers to every passerby. “I am very much against what Israel is doing,” he said, explaining that Heseg is basically urging Canadians to be more or less mercenaries. In terms of the current campaign, he said that Lametti has basi-

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National Campaign Against IDF Recruiting Begins in Canada By Candice Bodnaruk

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cally washed his hands of the matter, and said that if anything, it’s a matter for the police to investigate. John Philpot, a lawyer and board member of Justice Peace Advocates and a member of BDS Quebec, said that Canada has long had a colonialist relationship with Israel, one that is similar to Canada’s relationship with its own indigenous population. “Canada should stand up against colonialism and apartheid like they did in South Africa. You cannot be proud to be Canadian or Quebecois when your country is supporting an apartheid system which is, as Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, worse than South African apartheid,” he said. Philpot remarked that in January 2020, Deborah Lyons, Canada’s ambassador to Israel, held a pizza party at her Tel Aviv residence for 33 Canadian soldiers serving in the IDF. During the event she said, “Canada is proud of Canadians serving in the IDF,” Philpot noted. Yet, Philpot said, Lyons was celebrating an illegal activity. “This is in violation of Canadian law,” he said of Israel’s recruiting activities in Canada. “The most important thing would be to have Canada change its policies with respect to Zionism,” Philpot acknowledged, adding that a lot of Christians in Canada support Zionism and that overall, Canada is home to too much anti-Muslim bigotry. “We live in a society with a colonialist outlook,” he said.

SURVEY FINDS OPPOSITION TO ISRAELI EXCEPTIONALISM

A majority of Canadians do not want Israel to be treated differently than any other country when it comes to being held accountable for alleged war crimes or human rights violations. That’s just one of the findings from the second half of a national survey, “The Double Standard: Canadians Expect Greater Impartiality Vis-a-Vis Israel,” conducted June 5-11, 2020. (See Washington Report, October 2020, pp. 44-45 for the article on the first half of the survey.) Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), Independent Jewish JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

Voices (IJV) and United Network for a Just Peace in Palestine-Israel (UNJPPI) sponsored the research. Michael Bueckert, vice president of CJPME, said his organization was surprised by the overall results, in particular the finding that a majority of Canadians don’t want Israel to receive special treatment. He added that it is encouraging to see that pro-Israel bias is marginal in Canadian public opinion. He pointed out that the vast majority of survey respondents, 84 percent, want to see Israel investigated by the International Criminal Court, just as they would for any other country. “I think we were actually relatively surprised at the results, that they were so solidly in favor of holding Israel to the same standard as any other country when it comes to investigating human rights violations and war crimes,” he said. “Politics is guided by a pro-Israel bias and at the political level it’s hard to tell if Canadians themselves hold those views or if politicians are out of touch with the electorate.” The survey also found that 80 percent of respondents do not want Canada to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Although there has been some support from Conservative Party of Canada leader Erin O’Toole for moving the Canadian Embassy to Jerusalem, Bueckert pointed out that even among Conservative Party voters, only a minority (46 percent) support a move. Furthermore, 80 percent of Canadians agree that accusing Israel of committing human rights abuses against the Palestinians is not anti-Semitism, while 76 percent of Canadians agree that comparisons between Israel and South African apartheid are not anti-Semitic. “We are incredibly encouraged by the survey’s findings, especially as pro-Israel groups continue to ramp up their efforts to conflate anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism. The data shows that Canadians know what anti-Semitism is and isn’t,” a CJPME press release said. George Bartlett, chair of United Network for A Just Peace in Palestine/Israel (UNJPPI), agreed. “The results show that Canadian public opinion continues to be

strongly in support of human rights,” he said. He added that the results are important because they indicate that the positions taken by Canada's current government related to Israel-Palestine are not in line with current Canadian public opinion. Bueckert said that conducting surveys on these topics is very important and does have an impact. “If we continue to publish Canadian opinion on these issues we can make politicians realize it’s not risky to take a position for Palestinian human rights—it’s mainstream public opinion,” he said.

PALESTINE AND CANADA’S GREEN PARTY

Lawyer and Palestinian human rights activist, Dimitri Lascaris, placed second in a recent bid to lead the Green Party of Canada (GPC). Since 2017, the Green Party of Canada has maintained a progressive policy on Palestinian issues—to an extent. On three separate occasions a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) resolution was adopted by a large majority of party members who voted on it, but the party leader at the time, Elizabeth May, threatened to resign over it. “It’s a resolution that enjoyed a huge amount of support. I mean hopefully we won’t reopen that debate, but if anyone tries to reopen that, I will oppose it,” Lascaris said. He added that he is concerned that the newly elected party leader Annamie Paul had also not signed the CJPME pledge sent out to all members of parliament, as well as candidates in the GPC leadership contest, asking them to oppose the annexation of the West Bank. “She was the only leadership candidate to not sign that pledge,” he warned. Lascaris also commented on how the media covered the leadership contest, specifically how they tried to depict him as anti-Semitic. Mainstream media “focused on my criticism of the pro-Israel political establishment. It...continues to ignore the suffering of Palestinian people, it doesn’t want to talk about the facts on ground, that Palestinians are being subject to a brutal apartheid regime,” Lascaris concluded. ■

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MUSLIM AMERICAN ACTIVISM Homelessness, hunger, poverty, and a lack of clean water, sanitation and health care aren’t just international problems. These troubles also exist in American neighborhoods. In fact, nearly half of all Americans live paycheck to paycheck. For decades, when local Islamic community centers across America have seen a need, they’ve responded by organizing food pantries, clinics and food drives for their neighbors. Contributing to charity is an integral part of Muslim religious practice. Islamic Relief USA (IRUSA), based in Alexandria, VA, organizes Day of Dignity events in communities, providing lowincome and homeless individuals with access to free resources, including hygiene kits, food, haircuts, medical screening, financial advice, resume building, school backpacks full of supplies and more. In November, IRUSA gave thousands of turkeys to people in need nationwide, as well as grocery store gift cards. Every year, American Third Pillar Charities and IRUSA team up with the District of Columbia to offer back-to-school supplies and Thanksgiving turkeys and food boxes. The Queens, NY-based ICNA Relief offers hot meal distribution to the homeless across America, and food box doorstep deliveries. They also offer telemedicine to the uninsured and pop up health fairs and clinics. This year Washington, DC’s Masjid Muhammad, known as “the Nation’s Mosque,” organized, packaged, delivered and distributed over 15,000 pounds of groceries to the needy in DC, with help from the El-Hibri Foundation and ICNA Relief and many volunteers The Zakat Foundation of America, headquartered in Bridgeview, IL, was one of the first nonprofits to provide assistance to the vulnerable undocumented community when the COVID-19 crisis arrived in the U.S. Zakat provides medical supplies, financial assistance, food packages and hygiene kits. American Muslims have also become a vital part of the U.S. disaster relief network. 50

PHOTO COURTESY THE NATION’S MOSQUE

Muslim Americans Step Up During the Pandemic

Volunteers at Masjid Muhammad, “the Nation’s Mosque” in Washington, DC, distribute food bags for the needy. After a devastating flood, fire or hurricane, Muslim volunteers can be found handing out food and water, cleaning up debris and helping rebuild. Muslim relief workers partner with the American Red Cross as well as faith-based efforts among Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, Lutheran, Latterday Saints and other Christian groups. This year as millions of their fellow Americans lost their jobs due to COVID-19, Muslims devoted even more time to living out their faith. More than 38 million Americans live in poverty, including one in five children. To help vulnerable families fight COVID-19 this winter, Muslims are raising funds for warm clothing, coats, gloves, socks, as well as food. —Delinda C. Hanley

MUSIC & ARTS Sam Husseini: “Invisibly Present/Visibly Absent”

The pandemic may have halted Dagmar Painter’s plans to spend time in Paris in 2020, but even COVID-19 could not stop the curator of the Jerusalem Fund’s Gallery Al-Quds from opening another fascinating exhibit—even if art lovers could only visit virtually or by appointment. Actually, COVID-19 did cause a monthslong delay in this intriguing show. Sam Husseini first loaded his art into his car on

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March 11, ready to deliver it from his home in Riverdale, MD to the gallery, right before Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser urged non-essential workers to stay home to “flatten the curve.” Jordanian-Palestinian-American writer and political activist Sam Husseini’s “Invisibly Present/Visibly Absent” show provokes just as many questions as his journalism. While his day job at the Institute for Public Accuracy seeks to showcase vital journalism that is missing in corporate media, his art applies paint to natural materials that disappear but leave a lasting imprint on his finished works. He connects his artistic and political work, pointing to “layers of lies” in the political realm and “layers of beauty” in art and nature. One of Husseini’s favorite techniques involves placing snow on a canvas and then applying layer after layer of acrylic spray paint on the snow even as the snow accumulates on the canvas. Next he brings the canvas inside and as the snow melts and the paint dries, intricate multicolored textures remain. Husseini also employs other natural elements, including decaying leaves, twigs, grass, hydrangea, flies and spider webs. Inspired by the nature paintings on window screens in old row houses in Baltimore, Husseini sometimes uses screens instead of canvas as well as other found obJANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 JUNE/JULY 2020

“Outside In” shows the vein-like patterns left after the snow has melted. “Such art brings the wonders of the outside world—where they are created—in,” says artist Sam Husseini. jects, including a car radiator, wood and metal sheets. “My art is of this world yet has an ethereal quality,” Husseini writes in his Artist Statement. “It rejects ‘materialism’ in the usual sense of the word—showing the beauty of the negative space of an object itself regarded as valueless. But it is completely materialistic in that it is about truly seeing the ‘everyday’ physical world before us that we often ignore or even deride. Many only experience freezing crystal structures as an annoyance on a car windshield they diligently scrape off. Such are rarely regarded as wonders to behold.” Husseini’s artwork shows us those everyday wonders. —Delinda C. Hanley

FILM Former AIPAC Insiders Condemn Lobby in New Israeli Documentary

A new Israeli documentary film condemns the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as a far-right-wing lobby that is more representative of President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and apocalyptic Christian fundamentalists than of broader Jewish public opinion. Following a premier in Tel Aviv, “The Kings of Capitol Hill,” directed by Mor Loushy, was screened in JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

“AIPAC uses the resources of wealthy people in the American Jewish community to enforce a kind of political orthodoxy on Congress, on the White House and on the media,” Rosenberg explains in the film. “Its purpose is to make sure that no one in a position of power deviates from the Israel line.” AIPAC’s longtime CEO Howard Kohr, Rosenberg adds, is a “pure rightwinger,” a Republican who operates in lockstep with Netanyahu. Dine, Rosenberg, and Kenneth Weissman, another disenchanted former AIPAC insider, charge that the shift to the right succeeded in undermining the prospects of a two-state solution of the Palestine issue and drove the persistent demonization of Arabs and Muslims. “Our [political] system is so easily manipulated,” Weissman declares in the film, adding that uncritical support for Israel “has become entrenched in American political discourse. AIPAC succeeded brilliantly. I don’t think it’s right.” Also featured in the documentary is Ben Rhodes, who served as deputy national

mid-November 2020 at the DOC NYC documentary film festival. Drawing on interviews with disenchanted former AIPAC leaders, the film condemns the lobby for its intolerance of dissenting views as well as its overweening influence over American Middle East policy. The AIPAC critics—notably former AIPAC executive director Thomas Dine, former executive assistant M.J. Rosenberg and former board member Ada Horwich—are liberals who decry AIPAC’s shift to the right, a process that culminated in the presidency of Donald Trump. In the film, the critics argue that AIPAC dominates Congress and has convinced much of the public that it is representative of American Jewish opinion, when in reality it is a right-wing organization working closely with Netanyahu and extremists such as casino mogul “The Kings of Capitol Hill” director Mor Loushy speaks about and financier Sheldon one of her previous films, “The Oslo Diaries,” in New York City, on Sep. 6, 2018. Adelson. DESIREE NAVARRO/GETTY IMAGES

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security adviser in the Barack Obama administration. “Anybody who pretends like AIPAC isn’t hugely responsible for the positions that are taken by Congress is just sticking their head in the ground,” Rhodes declares. He recalled the multi-million dollar campaign against the Iran nuclear deal and the effort to embarrass Obama by orchestrating Netanyahu’s appearance before a joint session of Congress in 2015. Obama ultimately prevailed in securing U.S. approval of the multilateral agreement—subsequently revoked by Trump. However, as Rhodes explains, “We spent so much political capital on the Iran deal that it foreclosed” efforts to revive peace talks with the Palestinians. In addition to Rhodes and the former AIPAC insiders, the film draws on interviews with young American Jews who were cultivated by AIPAC when they were high school and college students, only to come to the realization that the lobby reflected reactionary anti-Palestinian and anti-peace positions that they did not actually support. After breaking with AIPAC, some of the students joined alternative groups such as IfNotNow. “God bless them,” Dine declares in the film. “The Kings of Capitol Hill” also highlights the growing alliance between AIPAC and Christians United for Israel, with Vice President Mike Pence presiding over the union with American Evangelicals. The film suggests that the apocalyptic views of CUFI’s John Hagee, which entail the destruction of Jews to usher in the “end times,” are alienating Jews and empowering liberal alternative groups such as IfNotNow and J Street. But the film concludes with a defiant Kohr declaring, “Our detractors think we are vulnerable; that we will fold when we are pushed. But they don’t know what we are made of.” The former AIPAC insiders do know, however, precisely what AIPAC is made of, though they are now anxious to disassociate themselves from the Frankenstein that they helped create. Their hypocrisy notwithstanding, “The Kings of Capitol Hill” makes an important contribution to the 52

growing movement that is exposing AIPAC for the repressive and monolithic monster that it is. —Walter L. Hixson

“Gaza Fights for Freedom” Sheds Light on Great March of Return

On Nov. 23, the Palestine Foundation held a virtual film screening of “Gaza Fights for Freedom,” as well as a conversation with the film’s producer Michael Prysner and its director/narrator Abby Martin. The documentary was filmed in 2018 during the height of the Great March of Return. For two years, protesters gathered along the Israel-Gaza border demanding their right to return to the homes they were forcefully removed from as a result of Israel’s creation. First released in May of 2019, Prysner and Martin withdrew the film for further editing a few months later. When the new release was ready at the beginning of 2020, the outbreak of the coronavirus severely limited opportunities to screen the film. However, it was well received where it was able to be seen, such as in Los Angeles and San Diego. The film is now available online, at <gazafightsforfreedom.com>. When Prysner and Martin tried to enter Gaza in 2018, the Israelis denied them entry. They thus had to hire Gazan film professionals to do all the filming. “Making this film wasn’t an easy task since both of us weren’t on the ground,” Prysner said. The film focuses on the life and death of a young Gazan woman, Razan al-Najjar, a volunteer medic who was shot dead by

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an Israeli sniper on June 1, 2018 while assisting injured demonstrators near the fence separating Gaza from Israel. Despite her humanitarian role in the march, Israel attempted to portray al-Najjar as an enemy combatant and launched a propaganda campaign targeting the dead medic. Prysner and Martin hope the film’s footage and narrative will help both neophytes and long-time followers of the conflict to better understand the sordid reality on the ground in Gaza and the rest of Palestine. —Samir Twair

WAGING PEACE Palestine Urged to Present Biden With a New, Unified Vision

The Washington, DC-based Palestine Center held its annual conference virtually on Nov. 7. Titled “The Future of Palestine,” the event offered thoughts on how Palestinians ought to respond to the election of Joe Biden as U.S. president. Speakers repeatedly stressed the importance of Palestinians not embracing a revival of the fruitless decades-old “peace process.” Rather, they called on Palestinians to unify and articulate to the U.S. and the world a clear vision for their future. Mustafa Barghouti, the secretary general of the Palestinian National Initiative and a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said Biden is likely to take some steps favorable to Palestinians,

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such as reinstituting aid to Palestinian refugees and allowing the PLO to reopen its diplomatic mission in Washington. However, he thinks it’s unlikely the incoming administration will repudiate Trump administration policies that sought to change the facts on the ground, such as acknowledging Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. “That’s why I think what we will face is very risky and will not be less dangerous than what we faced with Trump,” Barghouti explained. “That’s why we need to have a clear and very determined strategy,” he continued. “What we need is a unified alternative strategy that could change the balance of power on the ground. I do not think anybody will come and help us unless we, the Palestinians, help ourselves.” Putting an end to internal divisions, most notably the Hamas-Fatah divide, is a prerequisite for the emergence of such a plan, he insisted. “We have to adopt a strategy that concentrates on us being unified in our national liberation movement, rather than continuing to have internal division,” he said. Barghouti said the Palestinian leadership must also diversify itself by inviting a wide range of viewpoints into the decisionmaking process. In particular, he stressed that young voices need to be elevated. “Most well-known Palestinian leaders [such as Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas] became leaders while they were young people,” he noted. “Why should it be now that somebody has to be at the age of 60 or 70 before being able to assume any leadership position?” Nour Odeh, the founder of Connect Consulting, Palestine’s first strategic communications consultancy firm, said Palestine’s many defenders across the world are eager and ready to support a new Palestinian-devised vision for peace and justice. “Palestine is a progressive universal cause, and we do have friends and we do have allies,” she said. “To continue to pretend that if we play by the playbook of the big boys we’re going to get something different from the sour deal we’ve gotten for the past 30 years is simply not smart.” JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

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Then-Vice President Joe Biden shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, on March 9, 2016. Israeli historian Ilan Pappe believes the incoming Biden administration will be a “dishonest broker when it comes to the Palestinian issue.” Palestinian author Ghada Karmi argued that the new Palestinian approach ought to be centered around demanding equal rights for Jews and Arabs living on land controlled by the Israeli state. “I think the de facto one-state reality Israel has created can be used against Israel, if we have the guts, if we can organize…and the rest of the world will support us,” she said. There must be, Karmi continued, “a strong campaign started by the Palestinians inside Mandate Palestine and supported by all those who wish Palestinians well, wherever they might be, for equal rights, a campaign that says to Israel… ‘either you give us equal rights with the rest of the people you’re ruling, or you get out of the territories.’” Ilan Pappe, a professor of history at the University of Exeter, said his fellow panelists are correct to worry that history is about to repeat itself. Israel’s leadership “[doesn’t] think that something fundamental will change” under Biden, he explained. “Maybe the talk will change, but not the walk of the American administration—it will continue to be a dishonest broker when it comes to the Palestinian issue.” —Dale Sprusansky

Tensions High Between Palestine and the Arab Gulf States

The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington (AGSIW) held a virtual event on Nov. 5 to analyze the current diplomatic friction between Palestine and the Arab Gulf states. Tensions rose earlier this fall after Bahrain and the UAE normalized relations with Israel, signalizing Arab Gulf abandonment of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which promised official relations with Israel only if the country ended its occupation of Palestinian land. “The official Gulf-Palestinian relationship is at its lowest point ever…and I think it is going to get even worse as we continue with this process,” said Emirati political scientist Abdulkhaleq Abdulla. “Officials on both sides are not talking to each other,” he noted, while rancorous fighting has broken out on social media between Palestinians and Gulf citizens. Abdulla maintained that the Gulf countries remain committed to the Palestinian cause, but have deep frustrations with Palestinian leadership. Gulf leaders, he said, are tired of internal Palestinian divisions, displeased that Palestinians have formed partnerships with Turkey and Iran,

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A member of an Israeli tech delegation meets with his Emirati counterpart in Dubai, on Oct. 27, 2020. The UAE has welcomed numerous Israeli delegations in recent weeks, including a group of businessmen from illegal West Bank settlements. terest in negotiations, but rather has publicly expressed its desire to continue appropriating Palestinian land. This, coupled with the power imbalance between Israel and Palestine, makes it highly unlikely that a fair peace deal can be reached, regardless of what Abu Dhabi insists, Telhami said. —Dale Sprusansky

Students Overcome Adversity to Advocate for Palestine

As part of their 13th annual convention, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP)

held a virtual discussion featuring students who have successfully advanced the Palestinian cause on college campuses. The title of the Nov. 27 panel was, “The Youth Front for Palestine: Student Success Stories.” Ahmad Awad, currently a J.D. student at Rutgers Law School, reflected on his efforts as an undergrad to launch a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Fordham University. Shortly after the student government approved the organization in 2016, the school’s dean vetoed

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believe Palestinians have taken Arab support for granted, and maintain that Palestinian leaders have mismanaged the Palestinian cause by making geostrategic blunders. University of Maryland Professor Shibley Telhami said these frustrations do exist, but do not explain the pivot to normalization. “These grievances are not the reason why these strategic decisions were made,” he said. “They’re now being used in order to rationalize an agreement which was done for strategic reasons.” These strategic reasons for normalization include greater economic opportunities, better relations with the U.S., regional security considerations and better access to weapons, Telhami said. Despite their frustrations, Telhami cautioned that Palestine cannot afford to sever relations with the Arab Gulf states, as doing so would likely have global repercussions. “The importance of the [Palestinian] issue to the rest of the world is probably predicated on its importance to the Arab world,” he said. In particular, Telhami said Palestinians ought to reach out to Arab Gulf heavyweight Saudi Arabia to discuss ways to move forward. Ambassador Marcelle Wahba, president emeritus of AGSIW and former U.S. ambassador to the UAE, said it’s likely Saudi Arabia will eventually join its neighbors in normalizing relations with Israel. “They’re going to wait for the right time… and will want something concrete they can point to for their regional standing and for their own domestic standing,” she said. “The UAE used annexation, and I think the Saudis will want something equal, if not larger, than that.” Abdulla echoed many Arab Gulf leaders in calling on Palestine to re-launch negotiations with Israel, claiming that the UAE stands ready to use its new diplomatic channel with Israel to push for an equitable agreement. He also repeated the popular Israeli claim that Palestinians have a history of being rejectionists. “They just sit there and reject everything that there is,” he said. Telhami, meanwhile, noted that Israel’s right-wing government has shown no in-

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(Clockwise) Zarefah Baroud, Tal Frieden, moderator Malak Shalabi and Ahmad Awad share campus advocacy success stories.

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members of the committee. “That type of back room lobbying is something that the other side does frequently and very well, and it was a concerted effort on our part to make sure we were having conversations at every step of the way to provide as much information as possible for the members of that committee,” Frieden noted. The investment committee sided with Frieden’s coalition in the fall of 2019, making it the first such body in the U.S. to officially recommend divestment from the occupation. The matter is now currently in the hands of the university’s trustees. Zarefah Baroud, a Palestinian-American filmmaker and AMP’s digital media associate, began her career as an activist at the University of Washington. She first appreciated how divisive this issue is on campus when she helped organize an event featuring speakers from the Rachel Corrie Foundation. (Corrie was a young American peace activist killed in 2003 by an Israeli bulldozer while she was trying to save a family’s home from being demolished in Gaza.) Baroud recalled the event attracting negative attention from the school’s administration. “They were honestly upset that the event was happening on campus,” she said. Baroud’s real breakthrough, however, came later in her undergraduate career

when her capstone film about her family’s experience in Gaza won an award for being the best documentary on campus. The film went viral, and even led to AMP offering her a job. She recalled being moved by the impact the film had on individuals uneducated about the Palestine issue. In particular, she shared how one student in her class became emotional after seeing the film and was in utter disbelief about the reality on the ground in Gaza. In an era when so many campus officials, including professors, are afraid to discuss Palestine out of fear of being attacked, Baroud said it is important for students to fearlessly raise the issue and pave the way toward a better tomorrow. “You have to crawl so that the students after you can run,” she said. —Dale Sprusansky

Biden Likely to Re-Engage Iran on Nuclear Deal

A plethora of foreign policy issues await President-elect Joe Biden when he moves into the White House on Jan. 20, including Washington’s tattered relationship with Tehran. With this in mind, several think thanks convened webinars in November to discuss how the president-elect plans to approach U.S.-Iran relations.

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the formation of the group, citing concerns that SJP would be too polarizing and make some students feel uncomfortable. Awad and his counterparts quickly contacted Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights. “We filed the first lawsuit in the country challenging institutional censorship of students advocating for justice in Palestine,” he noted. Two-plus years later, long after Awad had graduated, a court decision annulled the dean’s veto, allowing SJP to officially form in the fall of 2019. However, in January 2020, Fordham appealed the legal decision and the matter is again moving through the courts. Despite all the rancor, Awad said he has no regrets engaging in this fight. “When you’re advocating for something as basic as human rights, it’s a no-brainier to continue to push forward even through the adversity,” he said. Tal Frieden, a founding member of Jewish Voice for Peace at Brown University and a member of the campus’ SJP group, discussed the successful 2019 campaign to get Brown to divest from companies complicit in Israel’s occupation of Palestine. After students voted in favor of a referendum supporting divestment, the school’s committee on ethical investment practices was charged with making a recommendation to the board of trustees on how to proceed. Frieden noted that it took an all-out effort to persuade the committee to issue a favorable opinion on the matter. “This committee was established after divestment from South African apartheid, basically with the goal of stifling student movements for divestment,” Frieden explained. “Over the course of the 30 or 40 years that this committee has been around, they’ve only divested from a couple of issues, one of them being genocide in Sudan, another being the Hilton Hotel group, which was violating workers’ rights.” “We really focused on those prior examples of divestment as an example to show that Brown could in fact divest, and there was precedent for doing so,” Frieden said. The pro-divestment coalition also engaged in a lot of personal lobbying with

Then-Secretary of State John Kerry (l) and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (r) attend a bilateral meeting in Vienna, Austria, on May 17, 2016. With Joe Biden’s electoral victory, there is hope that the U.S. will rejoin the 2015 multilateral nuclear agreement. WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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Mogherini said Iran views this as a nonstarter. From Tehran’s perspective, she explained, Washington must prove its good faith by recommitting to its side of the original deal before any additional negotiations can take place. “There is no way in which any Iranian leadership can engage in a new negotiation, a new agreement, unless the JCPOA [the nuclear deal] is first fully implemented on both sides,” she said. In order to again comply with the deal, the Biden administration would need to lift all nuclear-related sanctions imposed by Trump. Barbara Slavin, director of the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council, said most of these sanctions should be easily reversible since they were implemented via executive order. While not all of Trump’s sanctions targeted Iran’s nuclear program, she said the context in which they were implemented ties them back to the nuclear deal—meaning Tehran will likely want them lifted. “All of these sanctions that have been dumped on Iran over the past couple of years, even the ones that have been categorized as related to terrorism or other issues, could be considered nuclear-related because they all came in the context of the United States quitting the JCPOA unilaterally when Iran was in compliance,” she said.

Meanwhile, Mogherini said the steps Iran has taken away from the deal in response to the U.S. withdrawal, such as growing its stockpile of low-enriched uranium, are easily reversible. She anticipates Tehran coming back into compliance with the deal if the U.S. resumes its compliance. —Elaine Pasquini and Dale Sprusansky

Can Arab Gulf Leaders Help Move the Region Toward Peace?

As part of its 29th annual Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference, the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations (NCUSAR) held a discussion titled “Geo-Political Dynamics of Arabia and the Gulf” on Nov. 18. Mohamed Al Hassan, Oman’s ambassador to the United Nations, began by outlining several ways he believes Arab leaders can move their region toward peace. First, he stressed the importance of making decisions in accordance with international law and not relying on the use of force or coercive measures to resolve differences. “Investing in peace is better than investing in war and conflict,” he said. The ambassador also encouraged countries to avoid approaching geopolitics with a zero-sum mindset. “Denying others’ rights to security, dignity, statehood and growth is a shortsighted view and will

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Hannah Kaviani, a journalist in Prague for Radio Farda, noted Iranians were closely following the U.S. presidential elections. “In my time as a journalist covering Iran I never saw this amount of anticipation and excitement and curiosity about what happens in the U.S.,” she told attendees of the Middle East Institute’s virtual Nov. 17 event. Jon Alterman, head of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), believes Biden will seek to reinitiate the multilateral approach toward Iran that Donald Trump abandoned by unilaterally exiting the 2015 nuclear agreement. “It’s clear that Biden thinks one of the biggest mistakes that the Trump administration has made in foreign policy is not working with allies,” he stated. Biden has indicated he is interested in re-engaging Iran on the nuclear deal, Alterman noted. As a starting point, he recommended the Biden administration lift the travel ban against Iranians and help the country obtain access to medical supplies and food, especially in the midst of COVID-19, which has devastated Iran. Alterman added that to re-engage Iran on the nuclear issue, “Biden will have to work with Europe...which wants a diplomatic approach.” Europe’s role in mending U.S.-Iran relations was the focus of a Nov. 18 event held by the Atlantic Council. Federica Mogherini, the former top European Union diplomat who played a key role in negotiating the 2015 nuclear deal, expressed relief that the agreement remains alive, albeit on life support, following Trump’s four years of hostility toward Iran. She credited the European Union for playing a critical role in safeguarding the agreement. “The Europeans have done their homework, saving the agreement and preserving it for better times,” she said. With Biden coming into office, Mogherini said Europe will again assume the role of bridge builder between the U.S. and Iran, so as to “recreate an environment conducive to results.” While there is commentary that the Biden administration ought to negotiate a new deal rather than rejoin the old one,

Members of the media gather on Nov. 21, 2020 in Riyadh to watch a broadcast of the G20 summit, which was hosted by Saudi Arabia. This year’s gathering of world leaders was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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clear the extent to which the various factions within the country, such as the rebel Houthis and secessionist Southern Transitional Council (STC), would be willing to work toward a unified country. The fact that the factions all have different outside benefactors—the Houthis being supported by Iran, the STC by the UAE, and the “official” government by Saudi Arabia—only muddles the possibilities of national unity, she cautioned. Dr. John Duke Anthony, NCUSAR’s founding president and CEO, said the U.S. can help facilitate a climate of peace in the region by focusing less on military sales, and more on diplomacy and people-topeople relations. The fact that the U.S. spends trillions on defense while allotting “paltry budgetary sums” to diplomacy “is wrong-head, wrong-minded, and the results are not going to be the positive, lasting, enduring ones that each side, each peoples deserve,” he said. —Dale Sprusansky

Did Trump Change or Perpetuate the Foreign Policy Status Quo?

The American Conservative held its annual foreign policy conference on Nov. 5 at the Ritz-Carlton in Tysons, VA. As always, the event called for an American

foreign policy based on restraint and realism, and featured speakers both highly supportive and highly critical of President Donald Trump. The conference’s final panel assessed President Trump’s foreign affairs legacy, especially as it pertains to his 2016 campaign pledge to undo the bipartisan foreign policy consensus. Daniel McCarthy, editor of Modern Age, gave Trump high marks for not getting the U.S. bogged down in new and costly foreign quagmires. “I’m inclined to give Donald Trump an easy A, and this is because in contrast to George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, we have not had new attempts at nation building, new attempts at exporting democracy by military force, and no new wars under Donald Trump—which is quite remarkable,” he said. McCarthy did acknowledge that Trump had a penchant for hiring “swampy” foreign policy hawks such John Bolton, but nonetheless gave the president plaudits for not letting such individuals lead him into wars. “They did not translate into the kinds of overreaching policies that they would have under any other president, especially any other Republican,” he said. Kelley Vlahos of the Quincy Institute of-

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never take the Middle East toward a brighter future,” he cautioned. “Peace can be sustainable only through understanding and everyone having a stake in it. Someone’s security cannot be built on others’ insecurity.” Looking forward, Al Hassan views ending the war in Yemen, better integrating Iran into the regional fabric and establishing an independent Palestinian state as crucial steps toward peace and stability. Al Hassan spoke approvingly of the UAE and Bahrain normalizing ties with Israel, but also affirmed Muscat’s commitment to Palestinian statehood. “The recent normalization of relations between Israel and some of the Arab countries is a step forward toward peace, however it should not be viewed as a substitute for peace between Israel and the Palestinians,” he said. “Peace is incomplete without a resolution of the Palestinian question.” Timothy Lenderking, the deputy assistant secretary for Arabian Gulf affairs at the State Department, said Washington is strongly pushing for an end to the yearslong fissure between Qatar and prominent Gulf Cooperation Council members. “It’s beyond time for the Gulf rift to be healed and for Qatar to be brought back into the fold,” he said. “The Gulf countries do not benefit, ultimately, from a rift within the Arab body politic.” Lenderking posed a pointed question to Gulf leaders: “How is it that the Arab countries of the region can make peace with Israel more readily than they can resolve the Gulf rift with Qatar?” Gulf leaders have offered conflicting comments about their willingness to reconcile with Qatar. Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE’s ambassador to the U.S., recently said mending relations with Doha is “not on anyone’s priority list.” However, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said in November that Riyadh is “willing to engage with our Qatari brothers.” Susan L. Ziadeh, the former United States ambassador to Qatar, noted that even if the brutal war in Yemen ends, the country still faces a number of existential questions. In particular, she noted it’s un-

A member of the U.S. military surveys wreckage at the Ain al-Asad military airbase in Iraq, on Jan. 13, 2020. Iranian proxies launched a retaliatory strike on the base following the U.S. assassination of top Iranian general Qassim Soleimani. More than 100 U.S. troops suffered traumatic brain injuries as a result of the attack. WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

fered a much more critical take. She gave Trump credit for initiating a critical conversation about U.S. foreign policy, but lamented his failure to pivot U.S. policy in a new direction. “I would probably give him an F under other circumstances, but I give him a C because I feel like he has ripped the varnish off the whole idea of the swamp,” she said. “We’re talking about it, he has an entire base of supporters who talk about it and want to see reforms in Washington….He’s at least started the conversation, and I’m happy for that.” However, rhetoric aside, Trump “has not changed the real dynamics of what makes the [war] machinery go—the military-industrial complex,” she said. “If anything, he has been a best friend to the defense industry. He has come in and almost doubled the amount of arms sales, for example, to other countries.” Trump’s embrace of the arms industry has perpetuated the U.S.’ military-first approach to foreign policy, she warned. “This is a major red flag, because as long as the top five defense companies in the U.S., which basically are the biggest arms dealers in the world, as long as they’re still finding reasons to pump out weapons and gear up for the next war, that keeps the swamp alive,” she said. Gil Barndollar, a research fellow at the Catholic University of America, was also critical of the 45th president’s inability to change the trajectory of U.S. foreign policy. “I’d give Trump a C-minus, and that might be generous,” he said. “The reality has not matched the rhetoric in any real way,” he argued. “You can hang your hat on no new wars, I guess, but ending endless wars has become just an applause line…there are more troops in the Middle East now than there were when Trump took office.” (Following the event, Trump announced plans to reduce U.S. troop levels in both Afghanistan and Iraq to 2,500 before he leaves office on Jan. 20.) Barndollar also noted that Trump’s bombastic foreign policy nearly led the U.S. into war. “We came very close to two wars, both with North Korea and with Iran. So, if 58

A Yemeni farmer harvests wheat in a field on the outskirts of Taez, on Nov. 2, 2020. you’re going to be an arsonist and then stomp out your fire, I don’t give a lot of credit for that,” he said. —Dale Sprusansky

Economic Trials Linger Ten Years After Arab Spring

Ten years after the Arab Spring protests erupted in North Africa and the Middle East, the social, economic, human rights and corruption issues that fomented mass discontent remain largely unresolved, leaving populations angry and frustrated. On Oct. 29, the Middle East Institute (MEI) hosted a webinar to address the current situation and challenges ahead for several of these countries, namely Syria, Yemen, Egypt and Tunisia. MEI senior fellow Charles Lister painted a grim picture of Syria, noting the root causes of the 2011 uprising remain, while new ones have arisen. “With 60 percent of Syria under its control, the regime, with its Russian and Iranian allies, is failing on almost every measure in terms of stabilizing—let alone governing—the country,” he said. The economic situation is the most important crisis facing Syrians today, Lister claimed. The Syrian pound, which was roughly 500 pounds to one U.S. dollar a year ago, has now risen to 2,500. “Today 90 percent of Syrians...live under the

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poverty line,” he said. “There are ongoing fuel and wheat crises and enormous queues for subsidized bread.” In addition, “corruption is increasing and there are more and more signs of elite level regime infighting,” he added. Critics of U.S. policy have argued that several rounds of sanctions implemented this year by the Trump administration have served to indiscriminately worsen Syria’s economic situation. The economic meltdown of neighboring Lebanon and the COVID-19 pandemic are also widely cited as contributing reasons for Syria’s economic struggles. Nonresident MEI scholar Nadwa alDawsari spoke on the Yemen war, prospects for a settlement and the country’s ongoing humanitarian crisis. “The U.N. peace process does not address the role of…the Saudis and Emiratis...or their proxies,” al-Dawsari said. “Corruption remains rampant in Yemen because the Arab Spring was hijacked by the corrupt political elite, and that hijack was re-enforced by the intervention of the international community.” The U.S. and the international community should focus on building stable local economies, she continued. “I think we should also break the cycle of relying on humanitarian aid. Yemenis cannot live on handouts.” JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

Like the other Arab Spring countries, Egypt’s economy is a major concern. Within a decade Egypt’s labor force is going to hit nearly 80 million, MEI senior fellow Mirette F. Mabrouk pointed out. “These are young people who are forging ahead in IT, technology innovation and climate change research, and are no longer willing to be told what to do. I think the next couple of years…will be deeply indicative of how the country decides to move forward.” Mabrouk said if the EU and the U.S. are interested in a stable Egypt, “then really what you are looking at is economic involvement. It’s not more military or more military funding, it’s economic involvement, economic investment.” The main issues in Tunisia are “keeping the democratic transition on track, attempting to save an economy in free fall and maintaining security in a very rough neighborhood,” said American University professor William Lawrence. In September, parliament approved its third government in less than one year, but “this democratic experiment has been the longest and strongest ever in the Arab world,” he pointed out. “It’s been kind of a story of two revolutions—a political one and a socioeconomic one. The political one has largely succeeded; the socioeconomic one has largely failed.” —Elaine Pasquini

Palestine’s Olive Trees Provide More than Delicious Food

Nasser Abufarha, the founder of Canaan Palestine, participated in a webinar on Nov. 9 to discuss the Palestinian olive oil business. The event was hosted by Zaytoun, a UK-based distributor of Palestinian artisanal goods. Canaan Palestine is known for its highquality organic olive oil, as well as other food items, such as spices, grains and tapenades. The Washington Report’s bookstore, Middle East Books and More, has proudly sold Canaan’s products for decades. Abufarha began by reflecting on what the olive tree means to Palestinians. “The olive tree in Palestine is the majestic tree,” he said. “For us, it’s a symbol of our idenJANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

PHOTO COURTESY CANAAN PALESTINE

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Nasser Abufarha (c) enjoying Canaan’s 2019 olive harvest festival in Palestine.

tity as a people….This is the home of the olive tree, it’s indigenous to the land, and so are we.” Many olive trees in Palestine are over 1,000 years old, with some even believed to be 2,000-3,000 years old. Abufarha said the longevity of the olive plant offers Palestinians a sense of timelessness and generational unity. “These trees have been living and feeding us for thousands of years,” he noted. “Past generations have planted so we can eat, and we plant so future generations will eat.” In an era of industrialized farming that abuses the earth and separates people from their food, Abufarha said he is proud that Canaan has helped Palestine maintain its traditional, environmentally friendly farming practices. Canaan’s methods also preserve culture and support independent farmers, he noted. “The whole idea is to allow the smallscale farmers to survive under the conditions of a modern economy that is mostly [centered around] industrialized agriculture…that is focused on bringing prices down as much as possible, often at the expense of farmers,” he said. “What we’ve done at Canaan is make traditional farming viable, economic,” he continued. The company promotes “a way of living that is real, a way of living that is harmonious with nature, a way of living that we can preserve into the future,” he added.

Abufarha boasted that after more than 5,000 years of cultivation, the Palestinian soil is still bountiful. This, he said, can be attributed to the care and respect countless generations have shown for the land. “We have an ecosystem that is ancient and still living and thriving and producing, and a community that is finding life, meaning and identity in nurturing it,” he said. Abufarha thanked Canaan’s customers from around the world for their willingness to pay a little more to support a company that uplifts farmers, protects the environment and sustains the culture of a people living under occupation. Of course, he noted that it’s easier for consumers to eschew mass-produced olive oils in favor of Canaan’s products given the “exceptionally high quality” product the company provides. While day-to-day life is never simple or easy in Palestine, Abufarha said being surrounded by timeless olive tress gives him continual hope and resolve. “When I look at the olive tree, I see strength, the capacity to live, the capacity to sustain and produce,” he said. —Dale Sprusansky

DIPLOMATIC DOINGS Former Ambassadors Reflect on Time in Arab World, U.S. Diplomacy

Six former U.S. ambassadors to Arab countries participated in a Zoom call with

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Then-U.S. Ambassador to Libya Deborah Jones arrives at a soccer event in Tripoli, on Feb. 26, 2014. Arab America on Nov. 19 to reflect on their time abroad. The diplomats began by sharing what struck them most when they first arrived in the Arab world. Patrick Theros, former ambassador to Qatar, said he quickly came to appreciate the complexity and diversity of the region. At the same time, he and the other ambassadors agreed that the people of every country displayed tremendous hospitality. “Even when I served in countries that were hostile to the United States, say Syria, my family never felt hostility from any of the people we dealt with,” he recalled. Elizabeth Richard, former ambassador to Lebanon, said she was struck by how

much the people of the region and Americans have in common. For instance, she recalled seeing similarities in the way both societies were grappling with how to address their young people’s disenchantment with the status quo. Deborah Jones, former ambassador to Libya and Kuwait, said her stereotypes of the region were quickly challenged by the powerful and well-educated women she met in Kuwait. She was also pleasantly surprised by the sense of safety she and her family felt while living in communities across the region. “We found it a very safe place, despite the image that is largely portrayed around the world,” she said. Asked how perceptions of the Arab

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world can be improved among Americans, the ambassadors stressed the importance of people-to-people connections. Gordon Gray, former ambassador to Tunisia, described student exchanges as perhaps the most effective means of breaking down barriers. Theros agreed, noting that personal travel experiences are often transformative. “The best public relations [for Arab countries] is getting Americans to come to the Arab world,” he said. The ambassadors acknowledged that they occasionally disagreed with U.S. foreign policy, but did their best to relay their concerns to the State Department. Richard Schmierer, former ambassador to Oman, said U.S. policy on Israel-Palestine and Washington’s approach toward governance and democratic principles were the two biggest challenges he faced while engaging others overseas. Theros said it’s important for diplomats to have empathy for the local population’s concerns, and to honestly convey these concerns back to Washington. Sometimes these communications do result in a foreign policy shift, but Theros said more often than not domestic political concerns triumph over the recommendations of diplomats. “We have struggled in ensuring that all of the voices from the region are heard, that their perspectives are understood,” acknowledged Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, former ambassador to Malta and former political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Israel. She, as well as the entire panel of ambassadors, encouraged young Arab Americans to join the Foreign Service, so as to better ensure that a wide variety of voices are heard on critical policy matters. “We all know that when there is a greater diversity of backgrounds, you get better outcomes, you get more solutions offered, and it’s absolutely crucial and key to our effective diplomacy,” she said. Jones noted that business leaders and non-governmental organizations also play a significant role in shaping perceptions of the region and determining how the U.S. approaches the Arab world. Richard seconded this, noting that the brain drain of the Arab world is in many cases caused by a lack of economic opportunity. Aside JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

from oil, there is “miniscule” U.S. trade with the region, she noted, meaning there is ample space for business leaders to move in and lay peaceful and profitable foundations for the U.S.-Arab relationship. Finally, Theros stressed the importance of prioritizing diplomacy over military action. The U.S., he said, has “increasingly disconnected diplomats from diplomacy” by utilizing a military-first “whack-amole” approach toward solving problems. A better strategy would be to develop a cohesive and nuanced policy toward the Arab world, he said. —Dale Sprusansky

U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Addresses Country’s Challenges

On a Nov. 13 webcast hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea discussed Lebanon’s economic, political, security and health crises. The Aug. 4 explosion at Beirut’s port exacerbated all of Lebanon’s ongoing problems, Shea pointed out. The blast was “the last straw for a lot of middle class Lebanese who are fed up with the corruption and mismanagement of the kind that could produce that explosion,” she said. Lebanon’s caretaker government has caused political paralysis, adding to the dire situation, she said. “There is no real sense of urgency [among the elite and powerful]...to get a new government in place to make the meaningful decisions on everything from reform to tackling the pandemic and digging the country out of this huge hole that it is in,” Shea lamented. Last March, the government defaulted on its Euro bond debt, which contributed to the currency losing 80 percent of its value, and resulted in many Lebanese losing much of their life savings. According to the World Bank, half of the population is living in poverty, with 25 percent facing extreme poverty. The World Bank predicts the GDP will contract by 27 percent in 2021. Inflation has increased 120 percent, while food prices are up 367 percent. Since the blast, the price of home furnishings and home goods is up 664 percent. The United States has made a large inJANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

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A United Nations vehicle patrols the Lebanese city of Naqura, located on the border with Israel, on Nov. 11, 2020. A U.N. peacekeeping base in the city recently hosted three rounds of U.S.-mediated maritime border talks between Israel and Lebanon. vestment in Lebanon for decades, trying to support sustainable development and help the country meet its massive humanitarian needs “while also calling out where they need systemic reform to end corruption,” Shea said. “We see a need to help bolster civil society, strengthen state institutions and combat the corrosive influence of malign actors like Hezbollah.” In addition, U.S. priorities include promoting the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary and helping the younger generation receive a quality education. Reforms that a new government should implement, according to the ambassador, include reforming the electricity and banking sectors, and conducting audits of the Central Bank, the finance ministry and other key sectors.

Of utmost importance, she stated, is to approve legislation allowing the judicial branch to be truly independent, passing a meaningful budget for next year and organizing parliamentary elections for the following year. Recently, under the auspices of the U.S. and hosted by the U.N., Lebanon and Israel resumed maritime delineation talks relating to gas fields. “There have been four rounds of talks in the past several weeks and this gives Lebanon a glimmer of hope, as no one knows what is out there in these gas fields,” Shea explained. “The Lebanese people have been appreciative of the role of the United States in their society,” the ambassador maintained. “When we stand with Lebanon, we are standing with the people—it’s not about the government.”—Elaine Pasquini

Buy Keffiyeh Masks Made in Palestine Middle East Books and More is partnering with Keffiyeh Masks <www. keffiyehmasks.com> to stop the spread of COVID-19. The bookstore will receive 20% of all sales when you use MEB2020 for the coupon code at checkout. Support the bookstore, Palestinian workers and culture during this difficult time! WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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Middle East Books Review All books featured in this section are available from Middle East Books and More, the nation’s preeminent bookstore on the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy. www.MiddleEastBooks.com • (202) 939-6050 ext. 1 The United States of War: A Global History of America’s Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to The Islamic State By David Vine, University of California Press, 2020, hardcover, 464 pp. MEB $29

Reviewed by Walter L. Hixson

In this in-depth account, anthropologist David Vine illuminates the role of military bases in fueling a largely unbroken history of American global intervention. The book is a sweeping indictment of the nation’s heavily militarized foreign policy, including the nearly incalculable costs, financial as well as moral, that have been exacted both at home and abroad. The United States of War immediately becomes the definitive account of the history of U.S. overseas bases and their role in the history of American militarism. Vine, the author of a previous study on Diego Garcia, a key U.S. military base in the Indian Ocean, devoted 18 years to researching and writing the book, including visits to more than 60 bases in 14 countries around the world. The study is supContributing editor Walter L. Hixson is the author of Israel’s Armor: The Israel Lobby and the First Generation of the Palestine Conflict (available from Middle East Books and More), along with several other books and journal articles. He has been a professor of history for 36 years, achieving the rank of distinguished professor. 62

plemented with a series of intricately detailed two-page maps illustrating American overseas bases across the globe. Vine is not the first critic to argue that the “state of war is the norm in U.S. history,” but his exhaustive study of the history of American military bases underscores the point. According to U.S. government sources, as Vine points out, “the U.S. military has waged war, engaged in combat, or otherwise employed its forces aggressively in foreign lands in all but eleven years of its existence.” In the overwhelming majority of these cases, he correctly notes, the United States initiated military conflict rather than being forced into it. The United States of War views military bases as “windows to understand the pattern of endless U.S. wars.” The bases provided “the infrastructure that made the wars possible.” Vine argues that military bases are thus “a particularly important cause” of American militarism, though he does not deny that economic, racial,

strategic, psychological and other motives also fueled the virtually uninterrupted history of intervention. Vine, ultimately, is less convincing about bases being the cause of American militarism than about them being an indispensable instrument embodying and carrying out the nation’s imperial foreign policy. To his credit, unlike many other authors who focus overwhelmingly on the postWorld War II period, Vine understands that American militarism is deeply rooted in the nation’s history—indeed, in its prehistory. The book is divided into five parts, the first of which centers on the deep roots of U.S. empire in European colonization followed by the brutal and prolonged subjugation of the indigenous people of North America. Part II, which analyzes 18th and 19th century U.S. empire, begins with a chapter chronicling militarization of the continental United States, appropriately entitled, “Why are so Many Places Named Fort?” After analyzing the burst of imperialism in the socalled “Spanish-American War,” including the establishment of overseas occupations and military bases stretching from the Caribbean to the Pacific, Vine focuses on the pivotal impact of the two world wars in the first half of the 20th century. Part IV hones in on the global intervention spawned by the post-World War II Cold War, while Part V pivots the narrative to the 21st century “global war on terror.” The book is well-organized as well as comprehensive, capably written and passionately argued. Vine is deeply concerned about the ways in which militarism undermines America’s putative democratic values both at home and abroad. He provides in-depth analysis of the ways in which U.S. bases function as outposts of imperialism undermining the sovereignty and ways of life of those under U.S. occupation, whether indigenous people driven from their homes or the residents of “developed” nations, which often only appear to have “invited” the Yankee occupation of their countries. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

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On the home front, Vine emphasizes the myriad constituencies that support and promote American militarism—the venerable military-industrial complex that President Dwight D. Eisenhower condemned in 1961. Vine unnecessarily renames this the “Military Industrial Congressional Complex,” whereas Eisenhower’s model always incorporated Congress, whose role in promoting militarism was well understood by the former army general turned chief executive, as well as subsequent critics. Fundamentally, however, Vine is on solid ground in emphasizing “the powerful forces that have shaped the permanent system of imperial war in which the United States is trapped today.” Currently, the United States operates some 800 bases in 85 countries and remains mired in the “forever wars” of the Middle East and south-central Asia. Covert operations—which have a long history, also effectively chronicled by Vine—continue all over the globe. Vine sees hope, however, in growing congressional and public antiwar sentiment, pointing to the unpopularity of endless wars and that Congress recently cut off funding for the U.S. support of the Saudiled conflict in Yemen. Even the otherwise belligerent superpatriot, Donald Trump, condemned the endless wars and advocated a demilitarized approach. The way forward, Vine avers, lies in “reducing the power of the Military Industrial Congressional Complex,” with the full understanding that this is a “particularly difficult challenge.” He calls for “dramatically increasing civilian oversight over contracts and every aspect of the operations” of the Pentagon. A combination of coercive antitrust laws, coupled with incentives to “defense” corporations to reorient from military production to civilian uses, could begin the process of breaking down the American war machine. In addition to structural transformation, Vine calls for a nationwide reckoning and program of rectification for countries and peoples damaged by American militarism. Sweeping change of this magniJANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

tude will require nothing less than a deconstruction and repudiation of the imperial mindset. The United States thus must decolonize not only abroad, but internally, even spiritually, as well.

Capturing Jonathan Pollard: How One of the Most Notorious Spies in American History Was Brought to Justice By Ronald J. Olive, Naval Institute Press, 2009, paperback, 320 pp. MEB: $18

Reviewed by Andrew I. Killgore

So eager was Jonathan Pollard to sneak American secret intelligence to Israel that he left his luncheon companion to obtain the telephone numbers of some pay telephones near his apartment. Pollard’s companion was Aviem Sella, a colonel in the Israeli air force deputized by Yosef Yagur of the Israeli Consulate in New York to check Pollard out. Sella had told Pollard that he would set up a communications link with a single Hebrew letter assigned to each pay telephone near Pollard’s apartment in Washington, DC’s Dupont Circle neighborhood. The colonel would call Pollard at home, give him the Hebrew letter for a designated phone, and Pollard would then go to that phone to receive Sella’s instructions. Andrew I. Killgore, 1919-2016, was the publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. This review was published in the May/June 2011 issue.

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Sella had discovered that Pollard was a nonstop, boastful talker. But to test how good he was, Sella told Pollard to provide him with a, presumably, top secret photo of Tuwaitra, Iraq, a nuclear facility which Sella had bombed in 1981. This Pollard provided at their next meeting, plus other highly secret material. Pollard, who liked to be called Jay, was the youngest of three siblings born in Galveston, Texas. His father, Dr. Morris Pollard, was a well-known research microbiologist who had attained a prestigious position at Notre Dame University while his son was young. The family traveled a lot in Europe, including Germany. Jonathan’s visit to the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau, near Munich, made a powerful impression on him and increased his already strong love for Israel. Pollard, who had been picked on in undergraduate school, graduated from Stanford University, where he told fanciful stories about being in the Mossad, Israel’s secret foreign intelligence service. He also claimed to be a member of the Golani Brigade, a prestigious Israeli military unit. Some of his fellow students said dismissively, “That’s just Pollard.” Pollard tried to get into the CIA, but was turned down. He did manage to get a top secret job with the U.S. Navy, however, and later received a SSI (special security) clearance. Throughout his life Pollard was considered to be very bright, but unstable and inclined to stretch the truth and lie. Pollard stole more than a million pages of highly classified material for Israel. By virtue of his clearances he could simply carry bundles of material out of his office. The Israeli Embassy rented a special apartment on Washington’s Van Ness Street, a few blocks from the embassy, for receiving and photocopying the purloined documents supplied by Pollard. Pollard and his girlfriend Anne made an Israeli-sponsored and paid-for trip to Europe and a separate trip to Israel, where they met Mossad chief Rafael Eitan and talked about what financial 63

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reward Pollard could expect. Pollard pushed for more, Eitan pushed back. Some “spy excitement” appears when Pollard calls Anne, now his wife, in November 1985 with two out-of-context words: “cactus” and “wedding album.” This alerted a frantic Anne that Pollard had been arrested, that she was to inform Sella and Yagur of Pollard’s arrest, and that she was to remove all classified material from their Dupont Circle apartment. Sella made heroic efforts to get from Washington to New York to Tel Aviv to avoid arrest and a possible prison sentence. He succeeded, as did Yagur. Meanwhile, Pollard seemed to believe that the Israelis had a scheme to protect him. Anne, a small woman, gathered up 70 pounds of secret material which she planned to throw in a dumpster in the alley. But she saw two men, whom she took to be FBI agents, parked in a car. She assumed they were after the Pollards—when actually they were looking for another spy. Anne asked a neighbor to take the sack to Washington’s Four Seasons Hotel. Not finding Anne there, the neighbor took the package back to his apartment and put it in his bathtub. The author of this book, Olive, who was the agent at the heart of the Pollard investigation, and his FBI colleagues had no idea of Pollard’s religion (he claimed he was a Presbyterian) or to whom he would deliver his stolen secrets. He had had a habit of offering secret material to various people, perhaps to bolster his ego. But when he ran for cover to the Israeli Embassy on Van Ness Street, a light suddenly dawned: It was for Israel that Pollard had stolen American secrets. Pollard had been instructed to stall for 72 hours if arrested. He never mentioned Israel during the first 72 hours of his interrogations—thereby enabling not only Sella and Yagur to escape, but also Erit Erb, Israeli Embassy secretary in Washington. Jonathan Jay Pollard was first of all arrogant. When his Israeli connection finally became clear, he rebuked his captors, 64

“You botched it, you thought it was the Soviet Union.” His passion was to help Israel, but he insisted on being paid. Israel did agree to $2,500 a month. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger’s 40-page memorandum to the sentencing judge about the enormous cost of Pollard’s theft and urging a harsh prison sentence made no impression on Pollard. He appeared to feel no remorse. The American team that went to Israel to “recover” Pollard’s stolen materials got a truly shoddy runaround fron the Israelis. When a prominent American member of the team was leaving Tel Aviv’s BenGurion Airport he was asked by a security guard if he had enjoyed his stay in Israel, and replied that he had “for the most part.” The guard then said in a cold, hard voice, “Good, because you will never be coming back here again.” His remark reflected the way the American delegation had been treated in Israel. Capturing Jonathan Pollard is recommended reading for those looking for the grubby details of Israel’s massive theft of U.S. secrets, and for an Israel that looked out for its own interests without a care for the interests of its patron and ally, the United States.

Archive Wars: The Politics of History in Saudi Arabia

By Rosie Bsheer, Stanford University Press, 2020, paperback, 416 pp. MEB $30

Reviewed by Eleni Zaras

In recent years, Saudi Arabia has been striving to rebrand itself. It has done this primarily through its “Vision 2030” program, replete with futuristic cities, the loosening of token social regulations like granting women the right to drive and through new arts centers such as a modern art museum publicized in 2019. These are just a few of the projects King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have orches-

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trated to promote an increasingly secular, modern image of the Kingdom. Rosie Bsheer’s Archive Wars: The Politics of History in Saudi Arabia reveals the significance behind these maneuvers and how they fit into a long, complex history of secrecy, historical manipulation and erasure in Saudi Arabia. Bsheer’s newest book offers unprecedented archival and on-the-ground research that traces the politics of history formation in the Kingdom from its establishment up to the present. Focusing first on efforts to create a national archive and then on the implication of urban space, Bsheer offers a plethora of new information on the mechanics of Saudi politics. Not only has the Kingdom been “occluding” the pre-1932 intellectual transnational and transoceanic exchanges since its foundation, but in the post-Gulf War years, Salman has been aggressively pushing a reframed secularized historical narrative. According to Bsheer, the country’s “archival performance,” marked by inefficiencies, sabotage and coercion, reveal its “conflicting visions of the past” and its, at times, tenuous grip on power. Eleni Zaras is the former assistant bookstore director at Middle East Books and More. She is a student in Near Eastern Studies at New York University’s Kevorkian Center and has a BA in the History of Art from the University of Michigan and a Masters degree in History from the Universite Paris Diderot. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

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Indeed, the royal family’s authority depended largely on American corporations and the U.S. government since its establishment, which “protected the ruling family from pervasive, if erased, domestic anticolonial and anti-authoritarian mobilizations as well as from regional rivals like [Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel] Nasser.” Yet the royal family’s struggle to maintain political legitimacy on their own accord signaled a need for a state-sanctioned historical narrative. The lack of centralized archives prior to the 1960s, though, resulted in individual departments across the country keeping or destroying their papers according to their own set of standards. Many functionaries also simply kept their own records at home. The regime’s seemingly sudden campaign to claim these documents was thus met with skepticism, and many ignored these directives to the best of their abilities. By tracing the non-official avenues of archiving and noncompliance as resistance, Bsheer also highlights the limits of the state. After the Gulf War, Saudi Arabia reinvigorated its efforts—in large part thanks to Salman—to revive the archival project. In his newly framed campaign, the archive became “a marker of modernity. It promised to ‘elevate’ Saudi Arabians to the level of other nations, something wealth and religious morality have failed to do.” Much to the chagrin of other family members, though, Salman pushed a secular version of the story, reviving the controversial legacy of Al Saud at the expense of his more conservative and often favored brother, Faisal. The archive was now only one small pawn in a much larger game that divided the royal family itself. Turning from the archiving of ephemera to the built environment, Bsheer outlines how, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Salman spearheaded massive development projects in, notably, Mecca and Riyadh to monumentalize his vision. In Mecca, Salman’s secularizing agenda produced ostentaJANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

N E W A R R I VA L S Masters of the Pearl: A History of Qatar, by Michael Quentin Morton, Reaktion Books, 2020, hardcover, 256 pp. MEB $35. Qatar is a country of spectacular contrasts: from pearl fishing, its main industry until the 1930s, to gas and oil, which generate immense wealth today; to famously being at the center of both triumph and controversy in recent years for hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Almost a lifetime since he grew up in Qatar, Michael Quentin Morton writes about the country’s colorful past and its astonishing present. The book is filled with stories about the people of this land: the tribes and the travelers, the seafarers and slaves—as much a part of Qatar’s history as its rulers and their wealth. The opaque Arabian world guards its secrets well, but Masters of the Pearl penetrates the veil to shed light on a country that until now has defied explanation. Understanding the War Industry, by Christian Sorensen, Clarity Press, 2020, paperback, 444 pp. MEB $29. Stunning in the depth of its research, Understanding the War Industry documents how the war industry commands the other two sides of the military-industrial-congressional triangle. It lays bare the multiple levers enabling the vast and proliferating war industry to wield undue influence, exploiting financial and legal structures, while co-opting Congress, academia and the media. Spiked with insights into how corporate boardrooms view the troops, overseas bases and warzones, it assiduously delineates how corporations reap enormous profits by providing a myriad of goods and services devoted to making war, which must be rationalized and used if the game is to go on: advanced weaponry, drones and nukes; invasive information technology; space-based weapons; and special operations—with contracts stuffed with ongoing and proliferating developmental, tertiary and maintenance products for all of it. It names the names—individuals and corporations—that weld it all together. No president, even if so inclined, can stop America’s permanent wars until and unless a mass movement comes to understand and then demand the roll back of corporate war profiteering, their deeply-rooted cause. This book provides a lever. Indigenous Medicine Among the Bedouin in the Middle East, by Aref Abu-Rabia, Berghahn Books, 2020, paperback, 232 pp. MEB $35. Modern medicine has penetrated Bedouin tribes in the course of rapid urbanization and education, but when serious illnesses strike, even educated people turn to traditional medicine for a remedy. Over the course of 30 years, Aref Abu-Rabia gathered data on traditional Bedouin medicine among pastoral-nomadic, semi-nomadic and settled tribes. Based on interviews with healers, clients and other active participants in treatments, this book contributes to the renewed thinking about a synthesis between traditional and modern medicine—to their reciprocal enrichment. WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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tious high-rises looming precariously over the Kaaba. Claiming religious sites for the wealthy pilgrims promised substantial capital returns, with the added bonus of undermining the religious elites’ authority. In contrast, his destructive and disruptive efforts around Riyadh paradoxically promoted a preservationist agenda, which claimed to save “traditional” adobe buildings from ruin in hopes of bolstering his story. Without any conclusion to this battle over history in sight, it is at least clear that the country’s projects are contested on multiple fronts, even if primarily in hushed tones. Bsheer does offer examples of resistance, sabotage and contestation, however the focus of her study remains primarily on the perspective and motives of the royal family. Through her powerful, yet unsensational account, Bsheer reveals a fragmented royal family whose members pursue their own economic and political agendas, often at the expense of other family members, regional and religious authorities and Saudi citizens. She also explicitly counters tendencies in scholarship that suggest a Saudi or Gulf exceptionalism, that often reductively attribute all forms of cultural erasure to Wahhabi iconoclasm. Indeed, Saudi practices of cultural erasure, dispersing documents, and curating a state-sanctioned historical narrative resemble tactics of “bureaucratic violence” honed by colonial administrations. To some degree, these Western European archives signaled to the Saudi government that a national archive is part of the infrastructure of power in a “modern” state. Although ironically, as Bsheer notes, the nation may arguably never want to succeed in opening a fully functioning archive in order to maintain secrecy. Finally, by situating the Saudi case at the nexus of cultural theory and economic histories of capitalism, financialization of real estate and the commodification of cultural heritage, Bsheer writes a com66

plex history of Saudi politics that more broadly contributes to scholarship on the instrumentalization of history and culture for state and subject formation. “The state is an effect of ‘ideological power,’” Bsheer asserts, “It is an effect whose dominance and legitimacy require ongoing reproduction and reification through the repetition of cultural practices.” Not just in Saudi Arabia, but across the globe.

B O O K TA L K S

Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe By Diana Darke, 2020, hardcover, 328 pp. MEB $29

On a Nov. 5 webcast, Middle East Institute (MEI) nonresident scholar Diana Darke discussed her book, Stealing From the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe, with Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, a London-based non-profit that promotes conflict resolution, human rights and civil society in the Arab world. As a child, Darke said, she was taught that Europe was “the center of the universe.” After she began traveling, she realized that “the Greeks got most of their ideas from further east. And everything goes further and further east until you get to the cradle of civilization which is be-

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

tween the Tigris and Euphrates where so many things were invented.” Pointed arches, trefoil arches and stained-glass windows—all recognizable features in Gothic cathedrals and buildings throughout Europe today—originated in the Islamic world of the East. “When I look at churches, I see Syria,” London-based Darke said. Stained-glass is one architectural feature prevalent in European cathedrals that originated in Syria, which was the world leader in glass, not only the techniques, but also the raw materials and the high-grade Syrian form of soda plant ash that was considered the best. Even when the Venetians took over the glass industry they insisted on “the cinders of Syria” because they knew that was the best quality. “The stunning colors of early stained-glass and the alchemy of how to create these colors—the techniques, styles and skills—all came out of Damascus,” she said. Darke was inspired to write her book after the fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. “I suddenly realized that most of the world simply does not understand the back-story of European architecture,” she stated. The word “Saracen” was in popular use centuries ago. The English architect Sir Christopher Wren, who designed St. Paul’s Cathedral in the 16th century, said “What we call the Gothic style should rightly be called the Saracen style.” Wren incorporated the Saracen ribbed vaulting and the Islamic double dome technique into his buildings. Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi also admitted to being influenced by Islamic architecture. He loved the lack of right angles, believing that “nature has no right angles,” Darke noted. Muslim Spain was the most influential and the earliest entry point of Islamic architecture into Europe. The first trefoil Elaine Pasquini is a correspondent for the Washington Report and the Nuze.ink online news service. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

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arches appeared in the 10th century Cordoba Mezquita mosque, she explained. All of these early Omayyad features were recreated in Spain. Architectural engineers examining the ribbed vaulting for the first time in 2017 were astonished to find such an incredible example of geometric perfection. “This is because of the supreme skill with geometry of the Muslim stonemasons,” she said. “Venice loved Islamic architecture,” Darke pointed out. “The Doge’s palace’s intricate, delicate work…is identified as coming from Seljuk buildings which the traders would have seen in their trade through the Black Sea.” “It’s wonderful to see that so many centuries ago all of these influences were finding their way to Europe, and that is what enriches everything.” —Elaine Pasquini

SUPPORT MIDDLE EAST BOOKSTORE/ COFFEE SHOP

Brick-and-mortar retailers are facing a challenge. Even before the pandemic, competition from Amazon forced a lot of independent bookstores to close. Thanks to your support, Middle East Books and More defied that trend! When it’s safe we hope to welcome you back to browse, shop, and gather our community together for book talks, club meetings and film screenings. We’re still selling books online (www.MiddleEastBooks.com) but we are also using this time to expand and add a coffee shop to the bookstore. Now that we’ve completed the architectural and engineering plans and selected the contractor, we’ve learned that renovations will cost more than $100,000. Please send a check to AET, 1902 18th St, NW, Washington, DC, with “bookstore” on the memo line to help make your favorite bookstore a special gathering place for our community. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

N E W A R R I VA L S Time’s Monster: How History Makes History, by Priya Satia, Belknap Press, 2020, hardcover, 384 pp. MEB $29. For generations, British thinkers told the history of an empire whose story was still very much in the making. While they wrote of conquest, imperial rule in India, the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean was consolidated. While they described the development of imperial governance, rebellions were brutally crushed. As they reimagined empire during the two world wars, decolonization was compromised. Priya Satia shows how these historians not only interpreted the major political events of their time but also shaped the future that followed. Time’s Monster demonstrates the dramatic consequences of writing history today as much as in the past. Against the backdrop of enduring global inequalities, debates about reparations and the crisis in the humanities, Satia’s is an urgent moral voice. Street Sounds: Listening to Everyday Life in Modern Egypt, by Ziad Fahmy, Stanford University Press, 2020, paperback, 312 pp. MEB $28. As the 20th century roared on, transformative technologies—from trains, trams, and automobiles to radios and loudspeakers—fundamentally changed the sounds of the Egyptian streets. The cacophony of everyday life grew louder, and the Egyptian press featured editorials calling for the regulation of not only mechanized and amplified sounds, but also the voices of street vendors, the music of wedding processions, and even the traditional funerary wails. Ziad Fahmy offers the first historical examination of the changing soundscapes of urban Egypt, highlighting the mundane sounds of street life, while “listening“ to the voices of ordinary people as they struggle with state authorities for ownership of the streets. Interweaving infrastructural, cultural and social history, Fahmy analyzes the sounds of modernity, using sounded sources as an analytical tool for examining the past. He contextualizes sound, layering historical analysis with a sensory dimension, bringing us closer to the Egyptian streets as lived and embodied by everyday people. Amazing Women of the Middle East: 25 Stories from Ancient Times to Present Day, by Wafa Tarnowska, Crocodile Books, 2020, hardcover, 112 pp. MEB $20. Discover Sheherazade, the famous storyteller, dive into the musical world of the beautiful singer Fairuz and meet Amal Clooney, an outstanding international lawyer. Feel inspired by 25 amazing women from the Middle East, who have created a legacy through strength of vision, leadership, courage and determination. Amazing Women of the Middle East is about breaking boundaries and empowering young girls. Written by awardwinning author and trailblazer, Wafa Tarnowska, this stunning collection of life stories is illustrated with vibrant and contemporary artwork by a team of internationally recognized artists. This book is an absolute must-have! This stunning hardcover edition has unique cover finishes that make it the perfect gift for children 9+. WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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The Irish Times, Dublin, Ireland

Correio do Povo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

CWS/CARTOONARTS INTERNATIONAL www.cartoonweb.com

Dagningen, Lillehammer, Norway

CWS/CARTOONARTS INTERNATIONAL www.cartoonweb.com

The Khaleej Times, Dubai, UAE

CWS/CARTOONARTS INTERNATIONAL www.cartoonweb.com

THE WORLD LOOKS AT THE MIDDLE EAST

AlAraby Jadeed, Amman, Jordan

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

www.Otherwords.org JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

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Other People’s Mail Compiled by Dale Sprusansky REPORT SHOWS GHASTLY COSTS OF POST-9/11 WARS

To The Register-Guard, Oct. 28, 2020 The catastrophe that is the U.S. government's involvement in Iraq is even more catastrophic than we realize. The Costs of War Project at Brown University has just released its analysis of the true price of our misguided obsession with 9/11 revenge. The “highlights” of the report are devastating. The budgetary cost through 2019 has been $6.4 trillion, with interest on the resultant debt estimated to be $8 trillion by the 2050s. The human cost, using the crudest measure—body count—has risen to 801,000 people killed, fewer than 1 percent of whom are U.S. service persons. The number of refugees attributable directly or indirectly to the U.S. government’s Middle East wars has, according to other recent reports, mounted to more than 37 million displaced persons. The environmental cost, which includes the 1.2 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases released by the U.S. Defense Department since 2001, is even more staggering when other forms of ecological assault are added in. If the enormity of these measurable damages is not enough, what will it take for America to shed our hubris and repent of our worship at the bloody altar of military might? Tom Stave, Eugene, OR

TRUMP RIGHT TO REDUCE TROOP LEVELS IN AFGHANISTAN

To the Los Angeles Times, Nov. 19, 2020 The war in Afghanistan has lasted nearly two decades, been overseen by three American presidents, cost more than $2 trillion and resulted in more than 22,000 U.S. casualties. Our troops are placed in the untenable position of fighting in a country during a civil war. (“Trump’s pullout from Afghanistan is rushed and self-serving,” editorial, Nov. 18) Your editorial states the U.S. has 4,500 servicemembers training, advising and assisting Afghan forces. It says the incoming Biden administration should decide troop levels in Afghanistan, not the outgoing JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

TELL YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS WHAT YOU THINK PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVE. NW WASHINGTON, DC 20500 COMMENT LINE: (202) 456-1111 WWW.WHITEHOUSE.GOV/CONTACT

SECRETARY OF STATE MIKE POMPEO U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 2201 C ST. NW WASHINGTON, DC 20520 PHONE: (202) 647-6575 VISIT WWW.STATE.GOV TO E-MAIL

ANY SENATOR U.S. SENATE WASHINGTON, DC 20510 (202) 224-3121

Trump administration. One could reasonably state that after nearly 20 years and $2 trillion, the Afghans are not learning from us or, as the adage goes, their country is indeed where empires go to die. The leadership of a new administration will not change that. Michael Rubino, San Pedro, CA

ISRAELI POLICY, NOT THE BDS MOVEMENT, IS THE REAL ISSUE

To The News & Observer, Nov. 23, 2020 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently visited an Israeli settlement and declared that the U.S. would consider any supporter of the boycott movement against Israel as “anti-Semitic.” I support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and I’m not anti-Semitic. Throughout the years I’ve had the privilege of serving alongside many Jews in social justice work, seeking truth, justice and love. Calling nonviolent advocates for Palestinian rights anti-Semitic is just a cheap shot done to divert attention away from the real problem, which is the rightwing extremists in the Israeli government who relentlessly grab land owned for generations by Palestinian families. It’s a right-wing government that fails to treat each individual who resides in Israel and Palestine as a human being who is owed basic human rights and dignity. Kathy Huffstetler, Raleigh, NC

POMPEO’S CYNICAL LABELLING OF BDS AS ANTI-SEMITIC

To The Washington Post, Nov. 23, 2020 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent comparison of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign to “cancer” is a reprehensible attempt to position himself for future political gain (“Pompeo calls boycott of Israel anti-Semitic, compares it to cancer,” news, Nov. 20). Following President Trump’s obsequious groveling to please big donors and right-wing evangelicals, Mr. Pompeo apparently sees the utility of this future voter bloc. Equating the BDS

ANY REPRESENTATIVE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WASHINGTON, DC 20515 (202) 225-3121

movement with anti-Semitism ignores the fact that major Jewish organizations, both within Israel and beyond, vocally support the BDS movement. The vast majority of the world has recognized that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories is legally and morally wrong. Mr. Pompeo’s visit and official recognition of an Israeli business built on stolen Palestinian land should be condemned as the craven political posturing that it is. Cynthia Favret, Williamsburg, VA

FALSE ALLEGATIONS AGAINST CAMPUS ANTI-ZIONIST MOVEMENT

To The Butler Collegian, Nov. 3, 2020 Over the past few weeks, Butler students all over campus have heard about issues related to Palestine and Israel. You may have learned about many of the violent human rights crises that Israel is causing in Palestine, as well as one of the most effective methods of protesting these crises: the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Unfortunately, over the past few weeks you have also seen countless attempts to silence Palestinians from speaking about their oppression. There have been social media campaigns to force the university to cancel events being held by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Here at Butler, several Senate resolutions were written in an attempt to suppress the free speech of Palestinians. Worst of all, there has been ongoing defamation of Palestinian students and their allies through false accusations of anti-Semitism. This strategy of personal attacks, defamation and the suppression of free speech is one that is being used by Zionist organizations on campuses across the country. The strategy, which inaccurately equates opposition to and criticism of the crimes of the Israeli government with antiSemitism, has sadly been proven to be an effective way to push Palestinians out of the conversation and suppress a movement for justice led by students of color.

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Here on Butler’s campus, those who oppose justice for Palestinians have worked to reframe this issue and label Palestinians as the aggressors—a tactic that plays on racism, anti-Arab bigotry and Islamophobia. For example, the recent controversial student government resolutions attempted to conflate anti-Zionism with antiSemitism. They directly attacked Students for Justice in Palestine and tried to weaponize a controversial and fallacious definition of anti-Semitism—a definition opposed by over 40 Jewish organizations— to condemn a nonviolent movement for freedom, justice and equality. This façade aims to pit Palestinians and their allies against the Jewish community. This week, we have seen evidence that this deceptive and spurious messaging, this false equivalency between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, has spread across our campus. Some students have broadly referred to those who supported these problematic Senate resolutions as “the Jewish community,” in spite of having the opportunity to hear a multitude of Jewish perspectives—including Jewish individuals who explicitly condemned these resolutions. Even a recent article in the Collegian has unknowingly pushed this misleading messaging out to the Butler community. Anti-Semitism is hostility, prejudice or discrimination against Jews because they are Jews. Anti-Zionism is opposition to a political ideology that supports a settler colonial movement for the establishment and maintenance of a Jewish state in Palestine. AntiZionism specifically opposes the ways that the Israeli government controls, oppresses and harms Palestinians living in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. The international movement to oppose Zionism is a multifaith, multi-racial and multi-ethnic movement where Muslims, Christians, Jews and others work side by side in the struggle for justice. Using the words “Zionist” and “Jewish” interchangeably is harmful to both Palestinians and Jews. Palestinians and their allies are fearful of speaking out against Israel’s human rights violations in fears of being labeled anti-Semitic. They do not want to be doxxed and defamed on campus. Similarly, anti-Zionist Jewish students do not want to be isolated and shunned by some members of their community and therefore are too intimidated to speak out about their political beliefs. It erases diversity within the Jewish community. It silences Palestinians. It creates an environment on campus in which people cannot share their political beliefs out of fears for their safety. 70

Importantly, it also fractures the progressive student movement on campus. We know that all marginalized communities must work together in order to defeat white supremacy and bigotry. Falsely labeling those who are fighting for Palestinian liberation as anti-Semitic simultaneously harms Palestinians and stifles the fight against anti-Semitism itself. It redirects attention away from dismantling white supremacy and towards the vilification of people fighting for justice. The fight against anti-Semitism must be linked to the wider fight against oppression—including the fight against Palestinian oppression. We are proud to be a part of an intersectional movement for justice and equality for we know our liberation is bound; and our fight for it must be as well. Students for Justice in Palestine, Butler University, Indianapolis, IN

“HISTORIC” AGREEMENTS WILL ONLY FURTHER VIOLENCE

To The Daily Gazette, Oct. 11, 2020 The Gazette has published news and opinion columns about the recent agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Words like historic, unprecedented, and spectacular are being used. Nonsense. Israel could have made a warm peace with all Arab and predominantly Muslim nations any time over the past 70 years by signing and implementing a genuine peace treaty with the Palestinians, whom Israel continues to cruelly divide and abuse on a massive scale, with U.S. government support. Since 2002, Israel has ignored (rejected) the 22-nation Arab Peace Initiative of durable peace with normalized relations in exchange for full Israeli withdrawal from all the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, justice for Palestinian refugees, and a Palestinian nation in the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Sadly, Israel would rather continue confiscating Palestinian land and water than make peace with the world. Enlarging Israel and preventing Palestinian refugees from returning home remain vital to Israeli leaders and U.S. Zionists. Israel is a vast laboratory of military and police surveillance and repression technologies and techniques, battle tested on Palestinians, that it will now sell to Arab governments to more effectively control and monitor their populations. The United States will gear up for increased weapons sales. Real peace leads to reductions in tensions and permanently

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

reduced military expenditures, something U.S., Israeli and UAE leaders oppose. Tom Ellis, Albany, NY

U.S. BIAS TOWARD ISRAEL AND THE SO-CALLED “PEACE PROCESS”

To the Centre Daily Times, Nov. 25, 2020 I believe we need to have international recognition of the state of Palestine. I believe that actions taken by the Trump regime, especially those of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have consistently undermined the efforts of the Palestinian people for legitimate recognition as an independent governing body. There has been an extreme toll on the citizens of Palestine who have been crushed under authoritarian Israel occupation. As a country we need to move to compromise and support agreements between Israel and Palestine for the mutual benefit of all people in the Gaza Strip and the Middle East as a whole. Actions taken by the Trump regime to broker peace talks between Israel and anyone without taking into consideration the Palestinian people, or even recognizing the atrocities that are happening at the hands of Israel, represent an obviously biased and disgusting stance under the guise of a “peace process.” Stephen Albrecht, State College, PA

RE-ENGAGE IRAN, DROP SANCTIONS

To The Islands’ Sounder, Oct. 19, 2020 Even before COVID-19, U.S. sanctions on Iran were the source of immense suffering. In addition to generally fueling poverty and stifling the country’s economy, new U.S. sanctions announced on Oct. 8 will only make it far more difficult for people in Iran to access critical medical equipment and humanitarian aid. Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign has meant maximum failure. U.S. sanctions only serve to strengthen hardliners in the Iranian government by allowing them to deflect blame for their people’s suffering, rally support against an external threat, and justify the repression of grassroots peoples’ movements for systemic change. To truly support the people of Iran, the U.S. must end its deadly sanctions. We urge elected officials to publicly speak up against the “maximum pressure” campaign. It’s time to re-engage in good-faith, multilateral diplomacy. Linda Ellsworth, Tom Rawson and Kim Secunda, Orcas Island, WA; Iris Graville, Jerry Graville, Charles Janeway and Ron Metcalf, Lopez Island, WA. The writers are members of the San Juan Islands Advocacy Team. ■ JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

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Special Report

Dr. Saeb Erekat: A Driven Defender of Palestinian Rights (1955-2020)

By Julia Pitner

PHOTO ABBAS MOMANI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

CONDOLENCES came quickly on Nov. 10, as news spread in Palestine that Dr. Saeb Erekat, 65, had passed away just weeks after he was diagnosed with COVID-19. What surprised a few Palestinians was the outpouring of sympathy from around the world that poured in. However, those in the international community, who have long supported the Palestinians in their struggle, expected no less. Dr. Erekat was known, both at home and abroad, as a tirelessly dedicated advocate and negotiator for peace and freedom for his people. Saeb Erekat was born in Jerusalem but grew up in Jericho. He was educated in the U.S., earning degrees from San Francisco State and a doctorate degree in conflict resolution from University of Bradford in Britain. Even while studying abroad, Palestine was never far from his heart and mind. At a time when the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) was illegal in the U.S., he Palestine Liberation Organization’s Secretary-General Saeb Erekat addresses the media joined the Arab Student Union. Returning to following a meeting in Ramallah with diplomats from contributing nations to the Temporary Palestine, he began teaching at An-Najah International Presence in Hebron (TIPH), on Jan. 30, 2019. University in Nablus, working his way up to the negotiations with Israel and foreign affairs both under Arafat and professor. It was during his time at An-Najah, said University of Marythen under Mahmoud Abbas. As such, he developed relationships land Professor Shibley Telhami, “…where his ideas, prolific writings with many world leaders, and was known for his ability to clearly and public commentaries were being noticed beyond the West Bank communicate Palestinian positions. Erekat replaced Yasser Abed and Israel.” Rabbo as the secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation OrganiBut, it was the first intifada that propelled him into politics as he zation (PLO) Executive Committee in July 2015, eight months after became part of the political committee for the Unified Command. ReArafat's death. membering Erekat, Telhami noted that, “His passionate, eloquent adThroughout his life, Erekat was a driven defender of Palestinian vocacy of Palestinian rights on ABC’s ‘Nightline,’ together with Hanan rights and, as his friend and colleague Hanan Ashrawi said, “Dr. Ashrawi, in 1988 brought him to the attention of a much larger audiSaeb dedicated his life to the service of the Palestinian people and ence.” As a member of Fatah, it was also during this time that Erekat cause. He was a part of many historic milestones in our people’s became close to Yasser Arafat, who later appointed him, over the ongoing struggle for liberation.” objections of the Israelis, to the Madrid negotiations team. InternaDespite his accomplishments and relationships, he is rememtional media often sought Erekat out to learn what Arafat was thinking. bered as a humble and unassuming man who was a fighter for Although he was not a “politician,” and perhaps because of that, Palestinian rights. He is survived by his wife Neameh, twin daughters after the Oslo Declaration, Saeb Erekat’s principal portfolio became Dalal and Salam, and sons, Ali and Muhammad. With flags lowered to half-mast and three days of national mournJulia Pitner is a contributing editor to the Washington Report on ing in remembrance, he will be missed. May he rest in power and Middle East Affairs and a specialist in Middle East politics and civil society. peace. ■ JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

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O• B • I • T • U • A • R • I • E • S Robert Fisk, 74, journalist, commentator and author, died Oct. 30 in Dublin, Ireland. Born in Maidstone, England, Fisk’s five-decade career in journalism focused on the Middle East, the last three of which as a foreign correspondent for The Independent. Before coming to The Independent, he worked at the Newcastle Chronicle, Sunday Express and The Times. Fisk, a self-described pacifist and sharp critic of Western intervention and imperialism, made clear who was to blame for many of the tragedies that played out in the Middle East during his career. He believed that the story should be told from the victim’s perspective instead of from those in authority. As a challenger of the dominant discourses crafted by militaries and governments, Fisk expressed criticism of “embedded journalism” and “hotel journalists” who did not actually go into the streets of the countries from which they reported. After earning his Ph.D. in political science from Trinity College Dublin in 1983, Fisk published his first book from his doctoral thesis titled, In Time of War: Ireland, Ulster and the Price of Neutrality 1939-1945. In 1976, Fisk arrived in Beirut and stayed there covering the Lebanese Civil War. He was one of the first journalists to arrive at the scene of the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Beirut. The culmination of his reporting during the civil war resulted in his 700-page book, Pity the Nation, published in 1990. Until his death, he maintained an apartment along Beirut’s corniche. Throughout the ’80s, ’90s and 2000s, Fisk also reported, among other events, on the Soviet-Afghan War, Iran-Iraq War, Gulf War, Kosovo War, Algerian Civil War, Arab-Israeli conflict, Bosnian War, 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Arab Spring and Syria’s Civil War. Fisk also had three exclusive interviews with Osama bin Laden in 1993, 1996 and 1997— well before bin Laden became a priority for foreign journalists to interview. Fisk later condemned the September 11 ter72

ror attacks while also criticizing the Bush administration’s response. According to The Guardian, Fisk shied from prime-time TV interviews, but rather preferred to address community groups about issues happening in the region. He was considered a hero in the Arab world for his critical reporting on Western foreign policies, military interventions and the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians which garnered both supporters and critics among colleagues at home. Regarding Fisk’s death, former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis stated that “With Robert Fisk's passing we have lost a journalistic eye without which we shall be partially blind, a pen without which our capacity to express the truth is diminished, a soul without which our own empathy for victims of imperialism will be lacking."

Jan Morris, 94, famous British travel writer, journalist and novelist, died Nov. 20 in Wales. Born in 1926, she began training as a newspaper reporter in Bristol as a teenager and was involved in interviewing victims of bombing raids during World War II. As an intelligence officer, she traveled to Palestine and Italy. After completing a fellowship at the University of Chicago, she visited every U.S. state and wrote her first of more than 40 books, Coast to Coast. Fascinated with the Arab world, Morris found a job at a news agency in Cairo, which then led to a position at The Times. In 1956, as the Suez crisis erupted, Morris left her position at The Times due to her disagreement with the editorial line of the newspaper’s coverage of the crisis. After leaving, she joined The Guardian and traveled to Suez to witness and report on the crisis herself. While in Egypt, she uncovered evidence that debunked allegations that Britain and France had secretly asked Israel to launch an invasion of Egypt, revealing instead that this was merely a front designed to give the two European nations a pre-

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

By Sami Tayeb text to intervene in the crisis and retake the canal. Morris saw first-hand the fighting in the Negev desert and the canal zone but had to flee to Cyprus due to Israeli censorship. During her travels in the region, French pilots had told Morris that the Israelis had used napalm in the Negev and that French and British pilots had been involved. Her report, published in The Manchester Guardian, caused great difficulty for the British establishment forcing both Britain and France to withdraw their forces from Suez. A few months later, British Prime Minister Anthony Eden resigned due to the embarrassment the revelations caused.

Prince Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, 84, the world’s longest serving prime minister, died Nov. 11 at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. During his fifty-year tenure as Bahrain’s prime minister, Prince Khalifa was a staunch defender of the royal family’s rule over the country, while suppressing critics of the regime. He survived the Arab Spring protests that called for his removal due to corruption. In 2017, Bahrain joined the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt in their blockade of Qatar under his watch. Considered to be part of the old guard of the regime—“rooted in royal privilege” and “personal patronage”— Khalifa shaped and built much of modern Bahrain. It’s been reported that “he had his own private island where he met foreign dignitaries, complete with a marina and a park that had peacocks and gazelle roam its grounds.” He was thought to have an off-the-books income and became entangled in a corruption scandal with British aluminum producer Alcoa in 2014. The U.S. position on his legacy was more cynical. Former U.S. ambassador Ronald E. Neumann stated, I believe that Shaikh Khalifa is not wholly a negative influence…While certainly corrupt, he has built much of modern Bahrain.” ■ JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

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AET’s 2020 Choir of Angels

The following are individuals, organizations, companies and foundations whose help between Jan. 1, 2020 and Nov. 13, 2020 is making possible activities of the tax-exempt AET Library Endowment (federal ID #52-1460362) and the American Educational Trust, publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Some Angels are helping us co-sponsor the conference “Transcending the Israel Lobby.” Others are donating to our “Capital Building Fund,” which will help us expand and add coffee service to the Middle East Books and More bookstore. Thank you all for helping us survive the turmoil caused by the pandemic. We are deeply honored by your conﬁdence and profoundly grateful for your generosity.

HUMMERS ($100 or more)

Ahsen Abbasi, Leesburg, VA Fuad Abboud, Calgary, Canada Dr. & Mrs. Robert Abel, Wilmington, DE Fahed Abu-Akel, Atlanta, GA Rizek & Alice Abusharr, Claremont, CA James C. Ahlstrom, Stirling, NJ Dr. & Mrs. Salah Al-Askari, Leonia, NJ Joe & Siham Alfred, Fredericksburg, VA Tammam Aljoundi, Saint Louis, MO Hamid & Kim Alwan, Milwaukee, WI Nabil & Judy Amarah, Danbury, CT Edwin Amidon, Charlotte, VT Nazife Amrou, Sylvania, OH Anace Aossey, Cedar Rapids, IA Dr. Robert Ashmore Jr., Mequon, WI Mr. & Mrs. Sultan Aslam, Plainsboro, NJ Ahmed Ayish, Arlington, VA Rick Bakry, New York, NY Allen & Jerrie Bartlett, Philadelphia, PA Joseph Benedict, Mystic, CT Bradley Bitar, Olympia, WA Elaine Brouillard, West Hyannisport, MA Sam Burgan, Falls Church, VA James Burkart, Bethesda, MD Prof. Mireya Camurati, Williamsville, NY John Cornwall, Palm Springs, CA Dr. & Mrs. Anton Dahbura, Baltimore, MD Robert & Tanis Diedrichs, Eugene, OR Dr. George Doumani, Washington, DC Ron Dudum, San Francisco, CA Sarah L. Duncan, Vienna, OH Dr. David Dunning, Lake Oswego, OR Dr. & Mrs. Hossam Fadel, Augusta, GA Steve Feldman, Winston-Salem, NC Dr. E.R. Fields, Marietta, GA Andrew M. Findlay, Alexandria, VA Joseph & Angela Gauci, Whittier, CA Ahmad & Shirley Gazori, Mill Creek, WA Michael Gillespie, Maxwell, IA Sam Gousen, Arlington, VA Doug Greene, Bowling Green, OH Michael Haddad, Toronto, Canada Dr. Safei Hamed, Columbia, MD Ibrahim Hamide, Eugene, OR Erin K. Hankir, Nepean, Canada Delinda C. Hanley, Kensington, MD ** Dr. Walid & Norma Harb, Dearborn Hts., MI Prof. & Mrs. Brice Harris, Pasadena, CA Angelica Harter, N. Branford, CT Mr. & Mrs. Sameer Hassan, Quaker Hill, CT JANuAry/FEBruAry 2021

Julester Haste, Oxford, IA Jim Hausken, Kensington, CA Gerald Heidel, Bradenton, FL M.D. Hotchkiss, Portland, OR Barbara Howard, Piscataway, NJ M. Al Hussaini, Great Falls, VA Mr. & Mrs. Azmi Ideis, Deltona, FL Bilquis Jaweed, West Chester, OH Jerusalem Fund, Washington, DC Issa & Rose Kamar, Plano, TX Timothy Kaminski, Saint Louis, MO Mr. & Mrs. Basim Kattan, Washington, DC M. Yousuf Khan, Scottsdale, AZ Dr. Mohayya Khilfeh, Chicago, IL Eugene Khorey, Homestead, PA Alfred & Dina Khoury, McLean, VA Tony Khoury, Sedona, AZ Gail Kirkpatrick, Philadelphia, PA Ronald Kunde, Skokie, IL Alison Lankenau, Tivoli, NY David & Renee Lent, Hanover, NH Edwin Lindgren, Overland Park, KS Erna Lund, Seattle, WA Allen J. Macdonald, Washington, DC Donald Maclay, Springfield, PA Dr. & Mrs. Gabriel Makhlouf, Richmond, VA Tahera Mamdani, Fridley, MN Ted Marczak, Toms River, NJ Charles Marks, Altadena, CA## Martha Martin, Kahului, HI Stephen Mashney, Anaheim, CA Carol Mazzia, Santa Rosa, CA Shirl McArthur, Reston, VA William McAuley, Chicago, IL Gwendolyn McEwen, Bellingham, WA Stanley McGinley, The Woodlands, TX Ray McGovern, Raleigh, NC Janet L. McMahon, Washington, DC Robert Michael, Sun Lakes, AZ Tom Mickelson, Cottage Grove, WI Curtis Miller, Albuquerque, NM Peter Miller, Portland, OR Maury Keith Moore, Seattle, WA Moe Muhsin, Honolulu, HI Isa & Dalal Musa, Falls Church, VA Joseph Najemy, Worcester, MA Sara Najjar-Wilson, Reston, VA Stephen L. Naman, Atlanta, GA Mary Neznek, Washington, DC W. Eugene Notz, Charleston, SC Merrill O’Donnell, New Westminster, Canada

Peggy Rafferty, Cedar Grove, NC Amani Ramahi, Lakewood, OH Marjorie Ransom, Washington, DC Kenneth Reed, Bishop, CA John Reinke, Redmond, WA Paul Richards, Salem, OR Ambassador William Rugh, Hingham, MA Hameed Saba, Diamond Bar, CA Dr. Mohammed Sabbagh, Grand Blanc, MI Irmgard Scherer, Fairfax, VA Dr. Ajazuddin Shaikh, Granger, IN Yasir Shallal, McLean, VA Qaiser & Tanseem Shamim, Somerset, NJ Dr. Mostafa Hashem Sherif, Tinton Falls, NJ Zac Sidawi, Costa Mesa, CA Ellen Siegel, Washington, DC Yasser Soliman, Hamilton Township, NJ Darcy Sreebny, Issaquah, WA** Corrine Sutila, Los Angeles, CA Mushtaq Syed, Santa Clara, CA Dr. Joseph Tamari, Chicago, IL Eddy Tamura, Moraga, CA Doris Taweel, Laurel, MD Gretchen Theobald, Washington, DC Thomas Trueblood, Chapel Hill, NC Tom Veblen, Washington, DC V. R. Vitolins, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI Majdy Wauwie, Rowlett, TX Hermann Weinlick, Minneapolis, MN Edith I. Welch, Warner, NH Thomas C. Welch, Cambridge, MA Duane & Barbara Wentz, Kirkland, WA Michael Wilke, St. Charles, IL David Williams, Golden, CO Robert Witty, Cold Spring, NY Dr. & Mrs. Fathi S. Yousef, Irvine, CA Mashood Yunus, New Brighton, MN Hugh Ziada, Garden Grove, CA Fred Zuercher, Spring Grove, PA

ACCOMPANISTS ($250 or more)

Catherine Abbott, Edina, MN Michael Ameri, Calabasas, CA Syed & Rubia Bokhari, Bourbonnais, IL Duncan Clark, Rockville, MD William G. Coughlin, Brookline, MA

WAShINgTON rEpOrT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIrS

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Dr. William Fuller, Valdosta, GA Susan Haragely, Livonia, MI Eyas Hattab, Louisville, KY Islamic Center of Detroit, Detroit, MI Rafeeq Jaber, Oak Lawn, IL Fahd Jajeh, Lake Forest, IL Bilquis Jaweed, West Chester, OH Killgore Family, Washington, DC * Dr. Muhammad M. Kudaimi, Munster, IN Sedigheh Kunkel, Santa Monica, CA Matt Labadie, Portland, OR Michael Ladah, Las Vegas, NV Tony Litwinko, Los Angeles, CA Nidal Mahayni, Richmond, VA Richard Makdisi & Lindsay Wheeler, Berkeley, CA Dr. Charles W. McCutchen, Bethesda, MD Curtis Miller, Albuquerque, NM Yehia Mishriki, Orefield, PA Museum of the Palestinian People, Washington, DC Claire Nader, Winsted, CT Nancy Orr, Portland, OR Hertha Poje-Ammoumi, New York, NY Phillip Portlock, Washington, DC Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, Bethlehem, Palestine Mary H. Regier, El Cerrito, CA Jeanne Riha, Brooklyn, NY Sean Roach, Washington, DC Rotary Foundation, Evanston, IL Sarah Saul, Portland, ME Dr. Abid Shah, Sarasota, FL

Bernice Shaheen, Palm Desert, CA**** David J. Snider, Bolton, MA William R. Stanley, Lexington, SC John K. Y. & Margot S. Taylor, New York, NY Benjamin Wade, Saratoga, CA

TENORS & CONTRALTOS ($500 or more) Sylvia Anderson de Freitas, Duluth, MN Dr. & Mrs. Roger Bagshaw, Big Sur, CA Helen Bourne, Encinitas, CA William G. Coughlin, Brookline, MA Andrew & Krista Curtiss, Wilmington, NC ** Mr. & Mrs. Majed Faruki, Albuquerque, NM Raymond Gordon, Venice, FL Alfred R. Greve, Holmes, NY Dr. Wasif Hafeez, W. Bloomfield, MI Masood Hassan, Calabasas, CA Virginia Hilmy, Silver Spring, MD Kandy L. Hixson, Akron, OH Brigitte Jaensch, Carmichael, CA Gloria Keller, Santa Rosa, CA Tom & Tess McAndrew, Oro Valley, AZ Darrel Meyers, Burbank, CA Audrey Olson, Saint Paul, MN Ramzy Salem, Monterey Park, CA Lisa Schiltz, Houston, TX James G. Smart, Keene, NH Anver Tayob, Saint Louis, MO Tom Veblen, Washington, DC Dr. James Zogby, Washington, DC***

BARITONES & MEZZO SOPRANOS ($1,000 or more)

Anonymous, San Francisco, CA Asha A. Anand, Bethesda, MD Lois Aroian, East Jordan, MI Barakat Family, Moorpark, CA### Graf Herman Bender, North Palm Beach, FL Edward Briody, Jackson Heights, NY G. Edward & Ruth Brooking, Wilmington, DE Forrest Cioppa, Moraga, CA Paula Davidson, Naples, FL Gregory & Nancy DeSylva, Rhinebeck, NY Nabila Eltaji, Amman, Jordan Dr. & Mrs. Clyde Farris, West Linn, OR*,** Ronald & Mary Forthofer, Boulder, CO Judith Howard, Norwood, MA Mohammed Jokhdar, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Ghazy Kader, Shoreline, WA Dr. Muhammad Khan, Jersey City, NJ Jane Killgore & Thomas D’Albani, Bemidji, MN* Damaris Koehler, Mannheim, Germany Jack Love, Kailua Kona, HI Robert & Sharon Norberg, Lake City, MN** Mary Norton, Austin, TX M.F. Shoukfeh, Lubbock, TX Gretel Smith, Garrett, IN Dr. Imad Tabry, Fort Lauderdale, FL Donn Trautman, Evanston, IL Young Again Foundation, Leland, NC

CHOIRMASTERS ($5,000 or more)

American Council for Judaism, Ponte Vedra Beach, FL Anonymous, Palo Alto, CA #

Dr. & Mrs. Clyde Farris, West Linn, OR*,**

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

John & Henrietta Goelet, Washington, DC William Lightfoot, Vienna, VA Estate of Jean Elizabeth Mayer, Bethesda, MD

* In Memory of Andrew I. Killgore ** In Memory of Dick and Donna Curtiss *** In Memory of Eileen Zogby **** In Memory of Dr. Jack Shaheen # In Memory of Rachelle & Hugh Marshall ## In Memory of Amal Marks ### In Memory of Adil Barakat

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

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A WINTER SH HIELD FOR REFUGGEES The Gaza refugee camp in Jor o dan is one of the most marginalized in n the countr y. More than 30,000 Palestinian a refugees lack essential servicees and are bracing themselves fo or a harsh winter. Many refugee families are exxposed to frigid conditions and frostbite. e. UPA’ As “A Winter te SShield e d for o Refuge e ugeFs” s ca campaign pa g iss working o g to repair epa aand d inst stall new roofs to protect refugee families. Yo our contribution will shield refugee children and parents from the harshest stretch of winter.

Donate today: act.upac . onnect.org/winterr2021 ACCREDITED AC CHARITY ®

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American Educational Trust Washington Report on Middle East Affairs P.O. Box 53062 Washington, DC 20009

January/February 2021 Vol. XL, No.1

Iranian children wearing protective face masks collect saffron crocus flowers on a farm in Razavi Khorasan province, about 593 miles east of Tehran, on Nov. 6, 2020. Iranians hope for the removal of sanctions and better relations with the U.S., so they can export saffron to more markets. (Photo by bilal Jawich/Xinhua via Getty)

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs - January/February 2021 - Vol. XL No. 1

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