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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 OntheothersideoftheSahara,thispublicationisoneofthefewthathaskeptaneye ontheplightoftheSahrawisandtheirMoroccanoccupiers.IsraelisjustignoreU.N. resolutionsand,insomecases,insistthat theirsingularidiosyncraticinterpretation holdsagainsttheunanimityoftherestofthe world,whiletheMoroccansgothewhole hogandclaim,forexample,thattheInternationalCourtofJusticedecisionnegating theMoroccanking’sclaimmeansexactlythe opposite,orthattheSecurityCouncilhas NOTrepeatedlycalledforareferendum.

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 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

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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. ■

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Two Views 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.

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

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.

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.

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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The Nakba Continues

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

A NEW NETFLIX DOCUMEN-

TARY, “The Social Dilemma,” warns of the dystopian future awaiting us as tech corporations gain ever more control over what we can say and think. Former Silicon Valley executives argue that Google, Facebook and Twitter have gathered vast quantities of data on us to better predict and shape our desires, and are gradually consigning us to discrete ideological echo chambers in which it becomes ever harder to know how our perceptions are being manipulated.

Given that nearly half of Americans receive their news chiefly via Facebook, the ramifications on our political life are not hard to fathom.

Through films like “The Social Dilemma,” Western publics are starting to get a sense of the undemocratic power social media wields over them—a lesson only too familiar to most Palestinians. Their treatment by the tech giants over the past decade serves as a warning that these globe-spanning corporations are not politically neutral platforms.

Indeed, as politicians have increasingly understood the power of social media, they have wanted to harness it for their own ends. Since the shock of Donald Trump’s election victory in late 2016, Facebook, Google and Twitter executives have regularly found themselves dragged before legislative oversight committees in the U.S. and UK, where they have been ritually rebuked for creating a crisis of “fake news” and helping “foreign interference.”

Political pressure is being exerted not to make the corporations more transparent and accountable, but to steer them toward enforcing even more as-

siduous restrictions on the wrong kinds of speech: whether it be violent racists on the right or critics of capitalism and Western government policy on the left.

For that reason, social media’s original image as a neutral arena of information sharing, or as a tool for widening public debate and increasing civic engagement, or as a discourse leveler between the rich and powerful and weak and marginalized, grows ever more hollow.

Nowhere are ties between tech and state officials more evident than in their dealings with Israel. That has led to starkly different treatment of digital rights for Israelis and Palestinians. The

online fate of Palestinians suggest

WWW.IMDB.COM "The Social Dilemma” documentary warns viewers that social media is gaining control of what we’re allowed to think.

a future in which the already-powerful will gain ever greater control over what we know and what we are allowed to think, and over who is visible and who is erased from public life.

Israel was well positioned to ex-

ploit social media before most other states had recognized its importance in manipulating popular attitudes and perceptions.

For decades Israel had, in part, outsourced an official program of hasbara—or state propaganda—to its own citizens and supporters

Jonathan Cook is a journalist based in Nazareth and a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. He is the author of Blood and Religion and Israel and the Clash of Civilisations (available from AET’s Middle East Books and More).

abroad. As new digital platforms emerged, these partisans were only too willing to expand their role.

Israel had another advantage. After the 1967 occupation of the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza, Israel began crafting a narrative

ofstatevictimhoodbyredefininganti-Semitism to suggest it was now a particular affliction of the left, not the right. So-called “newanti-Semitism”didnottargetJewsbut wasinsteadrelatedtocriticismofIsraeland support for Palestinian rights.

This highly dubious narrative proved easytocondenseintosocialmedia-friendly soundbites.

Israel still routinely describes any Palestinian resistance to its belligerent occupation or its illegal settlements as “terrorism, ” andanysupportfromotherPalestiniansas “incitement. ” International solidarity with Palestinians is characterized as “delegitimization”andequatedwithanti-Semitism.

Asfarbackas2008,itemergedthat a pro-Israel media lobby group, CAMERA, had been orchestrating covert efforts by Israel loyalists to infiltratetheonlineencyclopediaWikipedia 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”andassigned“cyberwarriors” to wage combat online.

In 2015, Israel’s foreign ministry set upanadditionalcommandcentertorecruityoung,tech-savvyformersoldiers from 8200, the army’s cyber intelligence unit, to lead the battle online. Manyhavegoneontoestablishhi-tech firms whose spying software became integral to the functioning of social media.

Anapplaunchedin2017,Act.il,mobilizedIsraelpartisansto“swarm”sites hostingeithercriticismofIsraelorsupport for Palestinians. The initiative, supported by Israel’s ministry of strategic affairs,washeadedbyveteransoftheIsraeli intelligence services.

AccordingtotheForward, aU.S.Jewish weekly, Israel’s intelligence services liaise closelywithAct.ilandrequesthelpingetting 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 howitcouldshapetheonlineconversations aboutIsraelwithoutevershowingitshand. ”

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.

Theseinitiativesarebeingconstantlyexpandedandrefined.InNovember,Haaretz reported that the strategic affairs ministry had recruited Israeli high school students nearGazato“develophasbaracontent”on social media for Western audiences to showtheircommunities“copingwithrocket fire” —byconcealingtheIsraeli-inflictedsuffering next door in Gaza. With advantages measuredinpersonnelnumbersandideological zeal, in tech and propaganda expe-

TRANSCENDING THE ISRAEL LOBBY AT HOME AND ABROAD

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“What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Coercing Arab Nations to Establish Relations with Israel. ”

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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 govern-

PHOTO BY ASHRAF HENDRICKS/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES 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 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 fur-

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.

AmonthlaterZoomblockedasecond scheduledappearancebyKhaled—this timeinaUniversityofHawaiiwebinaron censorship—aswellasaspateofother eventsacrosstheU.S.toprotestagainsther cancellationbythesite.AstatementconcerningtheDayofAction,saidcampuses were"joininginthecampaigntoresistcorporateanduniversitysilencingofPalestinian narrativesandPalestinianvoices."

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 AntiDefamation 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 Julyand 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 Palestinians’ 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.

Theboardwillissueprecedent-settingrulingstohelpshapeFacebookandInstagram’scensorshipandfreespeechpolicies.

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. ■

Gaza on the Ground

Gaza Entrepreneur Fights Spread of Coronavirus By Mohammed Omer

PHOTO BY MAJDI FATHI/NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES 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.

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.

Another machine she designed, now in use by one of Gaza’s bakeries, sanitizes hands, detects temperatures and sprays sanitizers on the body from above. “My idea with the invention is to go on contactless mode—all you have to do is to be close to the sensors,” al-Hindi explains.

“An amazing innovation here,” says Fahed Khaldoun who went to the bakery and used the machine, as Gaza’s COVID19 cases continue to increase. “I saw someone with a high temperature—the red light went off, while also preventing the customer from entering the store.” This is an amazing tool to control the spread of the virus, he affirmed.

Al-Hindi’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 Israel’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, “made in Palestine,” and “something new is being developed in Gaza.”

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.

“This was a great chance to get some work to do for a good cause,” says the young man who was once unemployed, but now works with a growing list of small shops requesting the machine.

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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. “The whole idea is to produce some human-friendly machines that do not intimidate people,” she promised. ■

PALESTIN OUR CHI NE: ILDREN, OU R DUTY!

OVER 16 YEARS

Gaza on the Ground

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

SIX YEARS AFTER receiving tragic news that their relatives drowned on a migrant ship, scores of Palestinian families from the Gaza Strip had their hopes resurrected that their relatives may still be alive.

On Sept. 6, 2014, around 500 migrants including Syrians, Egyptians, Sudanese and Palestinians were said to have boarded a vessel that left the Egyptian port of Alexandria. Soon after, the International 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

FAMILY PHOTO COURTESY A. ABDUL-HADI Protesting families gathered on Nov. 8 holding pictures of migrants who went missing from the “September 6th Ship” in 2014.

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 were around 85 migrants getting

ready to board the ship when we heard shooting and then the Egyptian border naval guards arrested

Asya Abdul-Hadi, a Palestinian-American translator and interpreter living in Maryland, was born in Gaza. She worked for newsweek, al-hayat, the independent and ABC News before becoming a Gaza bureau chief for the Jerusalem Media Communications Center.

us,” said Nael, who has 27 missing relatives. He was joining his father and two sisters, one of whom was pregnant, who had already boarded the ship. After spending 48 days in detention, Nael was released to return to Gaza.

In May 2015 the Baker family received a phone call from a nurse at Al-Azouly military prison in Ismailia telling them that their daughter, Hala, 25, delivered a baby boy. “This made me suspect that the rest of my family members may also be in detention,” said Nael. “We went to Al-Azouly prison hoping to see my sister Hala and were told she wasn’t there.”

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.

His mother, Sameera al-

PHOTO BY NURPHOTO/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES 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.

Rantisi, recalled, “Muhammad decided to leave Gaza and migrate by sea to Germany after the photography and video production office where he worked was bombed and destroyed during the Israeli assault on Gaza in 2014. That summer, he also lost his friend.” She described her son as “ambitious, wonderful and very likeable...He used to say, ‘let me get out and follow my path.’ He left and never returned.”

Families received conflicting reports about the whereabouts of their missing relatives from human rights organizations, Palestinians returning to Gaza who informed them that their relatives drowned and other prisoners released from Egyptian prisons who said that they were detained with them.

In September 2018 the Global Detention Projectpublished a report on illegal migrants in Egyptian prisons. Al-Rantisi’s sister Shimaa continued their family’s story: “Two years ago, my sister was browsing online to learn about illegal immigration. She found that 2018 report on the Global Detention Project website in Geneva. She saw a picture on the report’s front page that she recognized to be Muhammad. She started screaming: ‘Muhammad is still alive!’ She woke us all up at midnight. We had mixed feelings and were crying and laughing.” Their mother said that she recognized her son from his eyes and sleeping position.

The al-Rantisi family contacted the author of the report and he told them that the photo was taken at the Al-Anfoushi Youth Center in Egypt.

The family became even more reassured after posting the report on Facebook. “We drew a circle around his picture and posted it on social media and everyone who knows Mohammed recognized him in the picture,” Shimaa said. “If the ship sank and the passengers drowned, where are the bodies? There’s no body for any traveler or migrant who boarded that ship,” she exclaimed.

“There are other families who recognized their missing children on the report posted on Facebook. People should stop saying they died or drowned,” cautioned Muhammed’s mother.

The deputy chairman of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Ahmad Bahar, called on international human rights organizations as well as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League to act urgently to reveal the fate of those missing for the past six years.

Mohammed Abu Hajras spoke out on behalf of the families, writing letters appealing to the U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah elSisi as well as human rights organizations and media outlets asking for help to find and release their long-detained relatives.

Dozens of protesters held a sit-in on Nov. 8, 2020 in front of the U.N. headquarters in Gaza demanding the release of their relatives believed to be in Egyptian prisons. “The time has come for those young people to return to their homes and to rest hearts exhausted from long waiting but still hopeful,” said Abu Hajras, father of missing Ruaa Hajras and her husband and daughter.

Rehab Ismail described the last time she’d heard from her son, Majd Ismail, 30. “He tried to leave Gaza four times through the southern border with Egypt and every time he was forced back. Then he paid a mediation fee and was able to enter Egypt on Aug. 30, 2014. He continued to stay in touch with me and the last I heard from him was at 10:00 p.m., on Sept. 6, 2014, when he got to Alexandria. He assured me that he wouldn’t board the ship. Then I don’t know what happened. I heard rumors that the ship sank. I’m sure he didn’t leave Egypt,” the mother affirmed.

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 missing 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) 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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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 Nimitzcarrier 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? ■

Special Report

America’s Devastating Legacy of Endless Wars in the Middle East By M. Reza Behnam

PRESIDENT-ELECT Joseph Biden has advocated for domestic policies focused on equity, decency, justice and climate change. These noble principles cannot be achieved at home if they are not practiced abroad. If the new administration is serious about establishing America’s moral authority in the world, it must change its behavior in the Middle East—a region that has suffered profoundly as a result of policies that have been devoid of these ethical precepts.

The Bush administration’s decision after the attacks of 9/11 to use force in Afghanistan, Iraq and in its “war on terror,” has damaged and destabilized a region already struggling with severe political and environmental difficulties. Although America’s endless wars have been a windfall for the Pentagon and weapons manufacturers, the human toll has been enormous.

Less attention, however, has been paid to the devastating impact 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

PHOTO BY MOHAMMED HAMOUD/GETTY IMAGES A man salvages what remains of a store full of vehicle oil and tires targeted by Saudi-led coalition airstrikes on July 2, 2020, in Sana’a, Yemen.

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). Inprotectingitsinvestment,

theU.S.haswreakedhavoc

M. Reza Behnam, Ph.D., is a political scientist whose specialities include American foreign policy and the history, politics and governments of the Middle East.

ontheenvironmentofthe MiddleEast.Exemptfromclimateagreements,thePentagonisone oftheworld’sbiggestpolluters.Sincethe2001invasionofAfghanistan, itisestimatedthattheU.S.militaryhasemitted1.2billiontonsof carbondioxide—blamedforglobalwarming—intotheatmosphere.

An environmental assessment, conducted by the United Nations Environment Program after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, concluded that, “Iraq’s environmental contamination is one of the more serious cases of conflict pollution that UNEP has investigated.”

The war has caused irreversible environmental damage not only to Iraq, but to its neighbors. In its spurious pursuit of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)—a stated intent of the war—the U.S. has overwhelmed the country with the toxic remains from our own WMD. Military debris including unexploded ordnances, spent cartridges, abandoned military vehicles and depleted uranium from munitions, has contaminated Iraq’s soil, its water supply, and has been linked to an epidemic of birth defects and cancer.

Once the breadbasket of the Middle East, Iraq now imports 80 percent of its food. Its food chain has been disrupted by war-related

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 removed 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.

TheIsraeliairforceisoneofthebestinthe world.In2016,theyacquiredAmerica’sF35stealthaircraft,adding50totheirexisting fleetof20.TheF-35isconsideredoneofthe mostsophisticatedfighterjetsevermade.

ARMING GULF AND ISRAEL TO PERPETUATE CONFLICT

Saudi Arabia is Washington’s biggest weap ons 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

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.

“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.”

Thetwobills“expandingmedicalpartnershipwithIsraeltolessen dependenceonChina”continuetogainsupport.H.R.6829,introduced inMaybyRep.ChrisPappas(D-NH),nowhas242cosponsors,and S.3722,introducedinMaybyCruz,nowhas39cosponsors.

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

S. 3176 and H.R. 1837, Provide More Goodies for Israel. S. 3176, introduced in January by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and reported to the full Senate in June, still has not been brought up, 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 with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. S. 3176 does not include the provision included in H.R. 1837 that would give the president authority to give Israel any defense-related articles or 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. Introduced in April 2019, by Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), now has 24 cosponsors.

S.Res. 509, Iran Sanctions. After Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s Aug. 20 announcement that the U.S. has the legal right to “snap back” Iran sanctions, even though the Trump administration withdrew from the Iran nuclear agreement, the European 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 against Iran. But S.Res. 509, introduced in February by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), to urge the U.N. Security Council to renew the expiring restrictions on Iran, has gained another cosponsor, and now has 57.

H.R. 550 and H.Con.Res. 83, No War Against Iran. H.R. 550, amended by the House to include the text of H.R. 5543, introduced in January by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), “to prohibit the use of funds for unauthorized military force against Iran,” as well as 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 terminate 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 Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX) in July “affirming the nature and importance of the U.S.-Iraq bilateral relationship, including security and economic components of the relationship,” would call on the U.S. “to provide continued support for Iraq and its citizens through trade and investment, medical assistance, and stabilization efforts.” It now has 20 cosponsors.

—S.M.

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 demanding 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. ■

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Special Report

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

FRANCE, THE UNITED STATES and other countries’ stances with Lebanon’s ruling class seem to be intensifying after the latter failed to form a government that would pull the country out of its deep economic crisis.

Back in 2018, Lebanon was promised an $11 billion aid package at the Conference for Economic Development and Reform through Enterprises (CEDRE) in Paris aimed at rallying international countries for investment support to boost the country’s economy. The funds from CEDRE, however, were contingent on structural reforms that were never implemented; hence, the money wasn’t given.

Mass protests emerged on Oct. 17, 2019, calling for the stepping down of the political elite that have ruled the country since the 19751990 civil war, whom they blame for the economic collapse.

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

PHOTO BY JOSEPH EID/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES A closed shop in the city of Jounieh, north of Beirut, on Dec. 1, 2020. Lebanon’s economy is sinking into a ”deliberate depression,” the World Bank said in a damning report stressing the authorities’ failure to tackle the crisis.

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 Macron on Middle East and North Africa affairs, visited

Lebanon on Nov. 12 and held a series of meetings with officials and heads of the eight parliamentary

Wael Taleb is a Lebanese journalist based in Beirut. He writes about human rights, politics and other issues in the Middle East for various publications, including al-Monitor. Reprinted with permission of al-Monitor.

blocs, including representatives of Hezbollah. Durel made clear that while France remains committed, “We will not bail them out unless there are reforms,” Reuters reported.

On the other hand, U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea, speaking at an online conference of Washington-based think tank CSIS [see p. 61] on Nov. 13, said the Beirut explosion was the last straw for a lot of middle class Lebanese who are fed up with the corruption and mismanagement—the kind that produced the port explosion—adding, “There is no sense of urgency that I can detect to get a new government in place that will be able to take the meaningful decision on everything from reform to really tackling the coronavirus pandemic and dealing with digging the country out of the huge hole that it’s in.”

Shea explained that state failure has to be avoided first and foremost, but “we can’t want more than they do”—referring to wanting reforms more than the Lebanese.

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 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.

Inthemidstofitsworsteconomiccrisis, Lebanonhadbegunnegotiationswiththe IMFinMaytotrytoinjectdollarsintothe countrybuthadfailedtocometoany agreementafterstrugglingtoaccomplish basicreforms.ThenegotiationsweresuspendedinJuly.

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 government 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. ■

Talking Turkey

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

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.

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

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 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.

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 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.” ■

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The Middle East in the Far East

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

PHOTO BY WANG XIANG/XINHUA VIA GETTY 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.

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

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.

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. ■

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

National Campaign Against IDF Recruiting Begins in Canada By Candice Bodnaruk

PHOTO BY LIOR MIZRAHI/GETTY IMAGES 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.

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-

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 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. ■