WagiNg PeaCe

On Feb. 24, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) delivered a petition signed by more than 54,000 people to Facebook, opposing the social media giant’s apparent consideration of including the term “Zionist” in its hate speech policy.

Lobbied by Israeli-American real estate millionaire Adam Milstein and other proIsrael extremists, Facebook is considering whether the term “Zionist” is being used as a proxy for attacking Israelis or Jews and could therefore be considered hate speech under Facebook’s Community Standards policy.

“The proposed policy would too easily mischaracterize conversations about Zionists—and by extension, Zionism—as inherently anti-Semitic, harming Facebook users and undermining efforts to dismantle real anti-Semitism and all forms of racism, extremism and oppression,” declared the open letter petition from JVP.

Signed by leading human rights activists, academics and artists and cosponsored by 55 organizations, the petitions were delivered virtually as well as in person to 17 Facebook offices from San Francisco to Johannesburg. Prominent Jewish and Palestinian activists promoted the open-letter petition.

“As Palestinians, we cannot underestimate the impact of social media in enabling us to be seen and to actually tell our story,” explained Noura Erakat, a legal scholar and human rights attorney. “When I tried to share the story of how my cousin was killed by Israeli soldiers, Facebook took it down. This is why we have to fight.”

Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA), the U.S. branch of a Christian theological organization headquartered in Jerusalem, endorsed the petition drive and held a webinar in support of it on Feb. 22 that featured Rabbi Alissa Wise, deputy director of JVP. Wise declared that the proposed Facebook policy “to adopt ‘Zionist’ as a proxy for Jew or Israeli” would undermine freedom of speech and moreover have “real world implications for Palestinians, for Israelis, for Jewish people and Palestinian people all over the world.”

If the Facebook policy were to be implemented, “important attempts to hold Israel accountable through constitutionally protected political speech could be labeled as hate speech and removed from the platform,” Wise explained. “To conflate Zionism with all Jews is a very harmful assumption...because it’s premised on the anti-Semitic notion that Jews are uniform in our beliefs” and “fundamentally loyal to a foreign government,” and thus “don’t truly belong in our home countries and communities.”

FOSNA’s Jonathan Brenneman explained that the proposed Facebook policy would impede anti-Zionist Christian groups like FOSNA from shedding light on the oppression of Palestinians being enabled by other Christians. Brenneman declared there are “more Christian Zionists than Jewish Zionists, and they hold not only antiSemitic ideas but also extremely anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim beliefs as well.”

Also appearing on the FOSNA webinar, Palestinian law student Carmel Abuzaid noted, “We’ve had several posts taken down” on Facebook, including a photograph of a Palestinian child with a slingshot, even as other posts showing the Israel Defense Forces with tanks and automatic weapons went unimpeded by Facebook’s Community Standards policy. “Tactics to silence us,” she added, “are a reflection of how our work is effective and how we have to continue to push our narrative and not back down.”

Palestinian journalist Nour Odeh noted that the “targeting of Palestinian voices, Palestinian narratives” by Facebook mirrors the actual daily oppression on the ground in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. “There is a lot of intimidation out there,” she explained, noting that Palestinians are stopped and questioned and prevented from observing and filming events on a regular basis. “The root of this trend is racism. Palestinians are not allowed to be seen as humans of equal worth, as people who have rights that are being suppressed.”

Facebook made no comment on the JVP petition or the likelihood of revising its Community Standards policy. —Walter L. Hixson

PHOTO COURTESY JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE Activists delivering the JVP petition to Facebook’s offices in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Passionate Debate Offers Three Avenues for U.S. Role in Syria

On Feb. 26, the SETA Foundation’s Washington, DC office hosted a candid online discussion on U.S. policy in Syria. Panelists offered a wide-range of views as to how President Joe Biden ought to handle the Syrian conflict.

“I think there will be more continuity with the Trump administration than there will be change,” said Robert Ford, former U.S. ambassador to Syria, now a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.

President Biden is unlikely to reduce or withdraw American military forces in Syria, he said, because the administration believes keeping troops there provides “leverage” against the government in Damascus, and a withdrawal would hurt U.S. credibility with partners in the region.

Ford also doubts the Biden administra-

ANAS ALKHARBOUTLI/PICTURE ALLIANCE VIA GETTY IMAGES

Abdel Karim Junaid (l), 15, and Abdel Karim Hassan (r), 7, work at a dump center in Idlib, Syria that recycles the remnants of shellings and unexploded ordnances. Photo taken on March 1, 2021.

tion will reduce or remove U.S. sanctions against Syria, as they “have broad bipartisan support in Congress.”

Ford is an advocate for withdrawing all U.S. forces from Syria. He argued that the U.S. does not have any national security interest in who governs northeastern Syria, where several hundred U.S. troops are currently stationed. The sole U.S. concern in the territory is ensuring terrorist groups don’t use the area as a launching pad to conduct attacks on American targets, he noted.

The retired ambassador believes Russia’s ongoing intervention in eastern Syria is doing more than enough to cripple terror cells in the area. “I don’t know that it matters if it is U.S. forces…or Russian forces east of the Euphrates in terms of American national security interests,” he said. “It doesn’t cost the U.S. government any money for the Russians to be in eastern Syria,” he added.

Ford hit back at those who claim a U.S. withdrawal would give Russia a geopolitical victory. “Syria, dating back to the 1960s, has been much closer to Moscow than it ever was to Washington,” he noted. “It’s ridiculous to say that were the Americans to withdraw, the Russians would suddenly be predominant in Syria—they always have been.”

Ford believes the U.S. can also ease concerns about extremist groups by diplomatically engaging Turkey over its shared border with Syria. “The Turks played a very dirty game over the years by looking the other way and in some cases facilitating the movement of extremists back and forth across that border,” he said. This should be a point of serious discussion between the Turks and the Biden administration, he suggested.

Ultimately, Ford believes the solution to the Syria crisis must come from within. “I would look to the Syrians to be developing a national plan that has broad countrywide support,” he said. “I do not think the answer lies in Washington.”

Dima Moussa, vice president of the Syrian National Coalition and a member of the Syrian Constitutional Committee, a United Nations-facilitated constituent assembly process that seeks to reconcile the Assad-led government with Syrian opposition forces, argued that the U.S. has an obligation not to walk away from Syria. Given Washington’s participation in the country’s violence, it must now work to ensure peace and stability, she argued.

“Syrians are not waiting for the West to fix Syria,” Moussa asserted. However, she said, “Syrians are waiting for the U.S. to do its part as one of the major international players.”

Every country that has contributed to the Syria crisis is in one way or another part of the problem and “has to be part of the solution,” Moussa argued. “What the U.S. has not done for ten years is use its leverage...for political gains to push politically toward the solution,” she argued. When pressed by Ford to explicitly state what the U.S. ought to do, Moussa did not produce an answer.

While Ford called for a U.S. withdrawal and Moussa an escalation, MEI senior fellow Wa’el Alzayat argued for the U.S. to stay the course in Syria for humanitarian reasons.

The several hundred U.S. troops in Syria are there to project power, which is important for civilian protection in the areas where the United States is operating, he explained. Presently, the U.S. holds almost one-third of territorial Syria, he noted. In these areas, “civilians do not have to endure barrel bombs, or arbitrary arrest by the Syrian regime...or be bombed by the Russian air force,” he said.

Alzayat added that he understands the economic needs the U.S. faces at home, and the war-weariness of Americans. But, “when it comes to foreign policy and military involvement, this [U.S. military presence in Syria] is pretty damn cheap,” he argued. “For a relatively cheap engagement, in onethird of the country we have civilians who are protected.”

Ford was not unsympathetic to humanitarian concerns, but hit back at Alzayat’s proposal. “The operation in Syria is costing us in the neighborhood of $2 billion a year,” he noted. “Could we use the money in better ways? I think many people would say yes.”

In any event, all the panelists agreed on the need for serious U.S. diplomatic engagement in Syria, and that there is ultimately no military solution to the conflict. “It’s my hope that the Biden administration…puts a lot of power into diplomacy,” Alzayat said. —Elaine Pasquini

Biden Takes First Actions on Yemen

President Joe Biden’s Feb. 4 announcement that he was ending arms sales to Saudi Arabia for use in the ongoing war in

Yemenis register to receive a free medical checkup and treatment at a school temporarily being used as a clinic, in the capital Sana’a, on Jan. 31, 2021.

Yemen, and that he would be stepping up diplomatic efforts to end the bloodshed, was well-received by those working for an end to the devastating conflict.

On Feb. 11, Quincy Institute executive vice president Trita Parsi moderated a virtual discussion on these developments and other challenges affecting a negotiated peace settlement.

The president’s decision to rescind the Trump administration’s designation of the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization was particularly welcome news for aid organizations delivering desperately-needed food and medicine to Yemenis suffering from near starvation and illnesses.

Biden’s action allows donors to continue funding NGOs that distribute aid within Yemen, said Aisha Jumaan, president and founder of the Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation. “There are 24 million people in Yemen today in need of humanitarian assistance,” she explained. More than six million Yemeni children are experiencing severe malnutrition—one of the highest rates in the world—or complete starvation, according to the United Nations.

Jumaan urged the U.S. and the international community to ensure that the countries responsible for the suffering in Yemen contribute to solving the humanitarian situation and rebuilding hospitals and crucial infrastructure. “The Saudis and Emiratis need to pay their fair share,” Jumaan stated.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) noted that the U.S. has enormous influence on Saudi Arabia and the UAE. “They are desperate for relationships with the United States, as evidenced by their large lobbies and presence on the Hill,” he said. Khanna predicted that increased American pressure would help in getting the United Kingdom and other countries to also cease any support that they are currently giving. “Any country that is making the humanitarian situation worse in Yemen through intervention, bombing or funding should be condemned—loudly, clearly, morally—by every nation in the world,” he said.

Khanna hopes Biden’s moves are the beginning of a fundamental rethinking of U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. needs “a foreign policy that centers on human rights,” he said. In addition, more diversity among the U.S. foreign policymaking team is crucial, Khanna argued. “A clique of foreign policy elites is part of what has driven foreign policy decisions that have been mistakes and unjust. We need to allow many more voices in.”

Jumaan agreed. “They do not bring in people who understand these countries well and are willing to tell them they are wrong,” she said. “I hope they will do so.”

Pointing out that the Yemeni civil war predates Saudi intervention, Annelle Sheline, research fellow for the Middle East at the Quincy Institute, said, “Even if the U.S. convinces Saudi Arabia to stop bombing Yemen the war is still going to continue, so this notion that Biden ended the war just by withdrawing U.S. support is completely inaccurate.”

The impact of “a war economy in Yemen” is another factor, Sheline said. “It is crucial to stop the foreign funding pouring in that is contributing to that dynamic.”

Responding to a question on how the U.S. should restructure its relationship with Saudi Arabia, Sheline said Biden should “make it abundantly clear that the United States is no longer going to do the bidding of local actors on the ground, including Israel, and that it is in all of their mutual interests to come to a regional security agreement that allows them to spend less of their reduced budgets on the military and instead to focus on investing in people.” —Elaine Pasquini One Year Later: The “Afghanistan Papers” and the Two-Decade War

InDec. 2019, the Washington Post released a slew of government documents known as the “Afghanistan Papers,” revealing the U.S. government has long realized the 20-year war in Afghanistan is directionless. Nonetheless, the government has publically maintained the war effort must continue, at times willfully providing misleading statements about the war to the American people

Craig Whitlock, an investigative reporter with the Washington Post, led the paper’s years-long effort to obtain and analyze the damning documents from the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). On March 24, he joined the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft to discuss the impact of the papers.

Whitlock said the papers did not shock the American people, as much as they confirmed suspicions that the Afghanistan war has long been rudderless. It “solidified in the public’s mind just what went wrong with the war,” he said. “It showed in people’s own voices—generals, diplomats, aid workers,

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Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin (l) meets with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on March 21, 2021 in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Afghan officials—how they knew things were screwed up, and they went ahead anyway and the war kept going.”

At the very outset of the war, the objective was clear: to erase al-Qaeda’s footprint in Afghanistan. After a year, however, the group maintained an “extraordinarily minimal” presence in the country, Whitlock noted. Ever since, the papers show, the U.S. has been unsure of who exactly they are fighting—sometimes it’s the Taliban, sometimes it isn’t, other times it’s ISIS, or warlords, or drug traffickers, and so on.

“We’ve been fighting this war for almost 20 years, and in the vernacular of the troops and the senior people at the Pentagon, they don’t know who the enemy is,” Whitlock noted. “That shows you how screwed up the war is, if you can’t even really articulate who the enemy is.”

The mission has been further muddled by the lack of a clear objective, or rather an abundance of opaque objectives: eliminating terrorist threats, establishing a democracy, advancing women’s rights, clamping down on the narcotics trade, etc. Whitlock pointed out that these goals have been proffered without any clear goalposts for gauging progress. “What are the benchmarks for when we can leave?” he asked. “That’s never really been spelled out.”

The “Afghanistan Papers” also show that the U.S. has attempted to hasten Afghanistan’s progress by throwing money at development projects. Doing so has only fueled rampant corruption. “There was a real rush to spend as much as possible, and frankly it backfired, it didn’t work and it caused a lot more corruption in the long-term,” Whitlock noted.

Asked how the U.S. war in Afghanistan has been permitted to continue in such a wayward and costly direction for decades, Whitlock pointed to a lack of oversight by Congress as one explanation.

“There really never has been a public accounting of what happened in Afghanistan, why the war went off the rails and why it’s taken two decades and how we ended up where we ended up,” he noted. “The one portion of accountability that’s lacking is Congress. Congress really just doesn’t do much in terms of public oversight regarding the war in Afghanistan.”

Last year, the U.S. negotiated an agreement with the Taliban in which it promised to remove all troops from Afghanistan by May 1. However, the Biden administration has signaled it may not meet this deadline. —Dale Sprusansky

Biden Following Trump Policy on Iran, Nuclear Deal

Thus far the Biden administration is essentially upholding the Trump administration’s decision to abrogate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which had succeeded in arresting Iranian nuclear enrichment in return for sanctions relief.

Trita Parsi, an author and co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, declared during a March 9 webinar that Trump’s policy is “still the policy being implemented by the Biden administration.”

It was the United States that unilaterally withdrew from the international accord, which is supported by the European Union, Russia, China, and most of the rest of the world—but not by U.S. allies Israel and Saudi Arabia. Yet, the Biden administration now insists that “the ball is in [Iran’s] court

to see if they are serious about engaging or not,” as Secretary of State Antony Blinken put it in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on March 10.

“I am quite worried about the trajectory” of the JCPOA discussion, Parsi noted in the webinar sponsored by the Women’s National Democratic Club. The Biden administration is engaging in a “childish fight” in which “Iran has to go first,” an approach that could result in the “utter failure” of negotiations aimed at reviving the accord. The JCPOA was achieved through “real negotiations” that produced a “waterproof” deal in which Iran’s uranium enrichment could be carefully monitored to the point that there was “no way for them to cheat without being caught,” Parsi noted.

Trump’s shelving of the agreement and replacing it with a “maximum pressure campaign” has created a “much, much worse situation now,” Parsi declared. The approach “gifted the Iranians with more time to advance their nuclear program,” which is now reportedly within months of crossing a threshold.

Parsi believes, however, that Iran does not even especially desire nuclear weapons. The country actually started its nuclear program under the Shah in the 1970s at the behest of the Ford administration and specifically at the urging of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and U.S. corporations such as Westinghouse. Iran entered into the JCPOA because “lifting sanctions ended 40 years of American policy seeking to contain and isolate Iran.” More than anything else Iran wants “out of the doghouse” and to escape its “permanent pariah status” in world affairs, Parsi said.

Asked about the influence of Israel and the lobby on the administration, Parsi declared their impact will be “as important as Biden allows it to be.” Noting that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, nearly all Republicans and powerful Senate Democrats Robert Menendez (NJ), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) are against the JCPOA, Parsi acknowledged that Biden is “going to have to pay a domestic political price.” Even though “plenty of people will not be happy” if the United States reenters the Iran accord, reviving the JCPOA is in the national interest.

Parsi expressed concern that with Iran entering into the “silly season” of presidential elections, the JCPOA could become a political football in Iranian domestic politics. The deal could be exploited to the benefit of hardliners who can emphasize that there is no use in negotiating with the United States because it cannot be trusted to keep its agreements, he noted.

“We’re running a huge risk for reasons that are really quite inexplicable,” Parsi declared. —Walter L. Hixson

Rami Khouri: Lebanon Has Lost Its Distinctiveness

On a Feb. 2 webinar hosted by the Arab Center Washington DC, Rami Khouri, director of global engagement at the American University of Beirut, argued that Lebanon’s political and economic crises have left the country virtually indistinguishable from many other Arab countries facing similar circumstances.

“Lebanon is no longer a distinctive political system,” he said. “It was always somehow different from the rest of the Arab world, partly because of its serious pluralism—religious, cultural and political—partly because it was always more open, there was more freedom. That’s why, for many years, the great universities of Lebanon flourished, the media, publishing, theater, the arts—any activity that required using your full human brain or your full cultural and creative instincts—flourished in Lebanon, because people had that space to do so.”

Now, however, Khouri believes Lebanon is not defined by its distinctiveness, but is rather merely another example of failed Arab governance. “Lebanon has now become a full-fledged Arab country, in the sense that its population is politically helpless and pauperized economically,” he said.

While Lebanon has long faced economic challenges and political stagnation stemming from its confessional system of government, the depths of the current crises have left the country completely paralyzed, Khouri said. It’s believed that 5070 percent of the population is either living in poverty or on the edge of poverty, while the citizenry and their leaders have reached a political stalemate.

As in other Arab countries, recent popular protests in Lebanon have been met with heavy-handed force by the state. “It comes out of the same reality, which is that a political elite that is not accountable in any meaningful way has treated its people with disdain and has shown the citizens that it doesn’t really care about their wellbeing,” he said.

It’s unlikely the people of Lebanon will ac-

LFATHI AL-MASRI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Protesters in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli participate in protests, on Jan. 31, 2021. Tripoli has emerged as a flashpoint in Lebanon’s ongoing protest movement against government corruption.

quiesce to their corrupt rulers, setting up something of a showdown, in Khouri’s view. “This is quite an extraordinary situation where the state and the citizenry don’t want each other, but they don’t know how to come up with a better situation,” he said. Lebanon is facing “a terrible stalemate which is going to have to be resolved somehow in the coming year or two, but nobody knows how.”

While Lebanon is ripe to become another failed state governed by “tribal fiefdoms,” Khouri believes this fate will not befall the country. This is because Hezbollah, the powerful, Iranian-backed group with a large base of support in the country’s south, has enough power and incentives to stymie complete state failure. “Hezbollah cannot allow Lebanon to become Somalia,” Khouri said. “Nor does Hezbollah want to run Lebanon—which it can take over, in theory, it’s strong enough.”

While a sizable number of Lebanese detest Hezbollah, and the group has been branded a terrorist organization by most Western states, Khouri noted that its existence is inextricably tied to two fundamental issues that have crippled Lebanon: failed governance and foreign intervention.

“The issue of Hezbollah is an issue that reflects the collapse of the Lebanese state, the inability of the Lebanese state historically to take care of its people, which was one reason why Hezbollah was born, in terms of internal social equity, and in terms of Israeli occupation and harassment of the south of Lebanon,” he said.

Those bothered by Hezbollah’s existence as a powerful semi-state actor within Lebanon must thus realize that the group cannot be disassociated from the fundamental issues challenging the country, Khouri said. Ignoring or blacklisting the group is attacking the symptom of Lebanon’s collapse, rather than addressing its cause. —Dale Sprusansky

Iraqi Protests and the 2021 National Elections

On March 3, the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington (AGSIW) hosted a virtual event discussing the recent protests in Iraq and their impact on the upcoming Oct. 2021 Iraqi national elections. Geneive Abdo of AGSIW moderated the discussion between Sajad Jiyad of the Century Foundation, Lahib Higel of the International Crisis Group and Marsin Alshamary of the Brookings Institution.

Abdo began with an overview of the protest movement that reached its height in 2018 and 2019, but continues today. The protesters, she noted, share common grievances, including “high unemployment rates and deep corruption within the Iraqi government,” as well as the large role that external actors, particularly Iran, have played in the country since the 2003 U.S. invasion.

Two characteristics of the movement are particularly notable to Abdo. The first: “These are [mostly] Shi’i protesters opposing a Shi’i-led government.” The second is the use of violence by security forces against protesters.

“Things will only get worse,” Jiyad warned, because Iraq has a growing youth population and life is not improving for them because the government has not made any serious changes or reforms. Additionally, COVID-19, a precipitous decline in oil prices, and U.S.-Iran tensions have all added to public frustrations. He predicted that turnout for the national elections will be low due to the fact that many people have lost confidence in the political system.

Jiyad is also concerned that political elites are “closing ranks to push back against the protest movement.” He fears Iraq’s leaders have learned that responding in a heavy-handed manner to protests draws too much criticism and popular backlash. They may pivot, he said, and instead attempt to “co-opt or break up the protest movement through non-violent measures,” such as bringing people into political parties or offering superficial reforms.

Higel said the issue of overreach by the security forces is Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi’s biggest challenge, one he has thus far failed to tackle. “It is known in Iraq that we have an issue with impunity among all security forces,” she noted. Looking to the future, Higel warned that the protests are not over. “The frustration is still there and I think that the potential to mobilize again still exists.”

Alshamary analyzed the role of the clerical establishment in the protests. At first, she observed, a lot of people liked that the protests seemed to have “anti-Islamist rhetoric” since “there is a fatigue of Islamist parties” among many in the country.

However, she noted that this sentiment applies to religious political parties, not traditional religious figures (such as Grand

ASSAAD AL-NIYAZI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Anti-government protesters clash with riot police in Iraq's southern city of Nasiriyah, on Feb. 27, 2021. The protests followed a deadly day of violence in the city that left four antigovernment protesters dead and dozens wounded.

Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani), “whose authority and influence in society have only grown through the protest movement.”

Despite generally being viewed favorably among protesters, the respected apolitical religious class have a vested interest in the fundamentals of the country not collapsing, and thus reacted to the protest movement by pushing for “stability and non-disruptive change,” she noted.

Going forward, Abdo sees an existential rift at the heart of Iraqi politics: the animosity between the protest movement and the powerful Iranian-backed Shi’i militias operating in Iraq. They are “polar opposites, two great powers within the political system that are vying for control of the Iraqi state” and have very different visions for the future, Abdo noted. This struggle, she predicted, will continue—and escalate—the closer Iraq gets to national elections in October. —Alex Shanahan

New Government Brings Cautious Hope to Libya

Washington, DC’s Atlantic Council and the Tripoli-based think tank Sadeq Institute cohosted a Feb. 18 virtual roundtable to discuss a recently published report titled, “Libya: The Great Game. A Decade of Revolution, Civil War and Foreign Intervention.”

After ten years of civil conflict, a new Libyan interim government emerged Feb. 5 from United Nations-sponsored talks in Geneva. Preparing for presidential and primary elections on Dec. 24, 2021 will be the primary task for the new administration led by President Mohamed Al-Menfi and Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dabaiba.

“In 2011 there was a premature assumption that Libyans themselves could be the custodian to take Libya from this dystopian authoritarian regime into a new utopia and a democracy,” said Anas ElGomati, founder and director of the Sadeq Institute. The reality is that beginning with NATO’s 2011 intervention, powers including Turkey, the Gulf states, Europe, Russia and others have played a large role in shaping Libya’s narrative, he noted. Similar to Afghanistan, Libya has become an arena where global powers “scramble for influence,” he observed.

Roberto Menotti, senior adviser for international activities at the Aspen Institute Italia, pointed out Libya’s importance on the global stage.

A member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Libya possesses the largest oil reserves in Africa and the ninth largest in the world. The country’s high quality, low sulfur sweet crude oil is exported mostly to Europe.

In addition, Libya’s geographic location and trade routes are strategic. “It is a pathway to Europe from the rest of Africa,” he said. From 2014 to 2017, some 625,000 migrants from numerous countries have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe from North Africa, many using the Libyan coast to begin their perilous sea journey.

Steven A. Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations noted that Turkey asserts it intervened in Libya to support the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) and is pursuing “a foreign policy based on principles and values.”

The Turks have played an important role in stabilizing the situation and setting the stage for the recent successful negotiations in Geneva, he said. “That is a testament to the Turks’ diplomatic efforts there,” as well as military maneuvers.

FormerU.S.ambassadortoLibyaDeborahJonespredictedthatunderPresidentJoe Biden,U.S.foreignpolicyonLibyaisgoing tobefocusedlessonmilitaryactionandmore onrebuildingandleveragingalliancesin ordertoformaforward-lookingconsensus.

Jones hopes the U.S. will “play a more assertive role in preventing destabilizing actions in Libya by external players,” particularly when it comes to limiting the flow of arms and foreign mercenaries into the country.

Going forward, El-Gomati believes the big question is whether Libya will be a civilian-led state or one controlled by the military.

El-Gomati pointed out that Libya’s transition is ultimately about its people. “Libyans have the potential to reconcile,” he stated. “I think a deeper commitment from the West is one way to achieve it, but I believe we need to think of this now before the situation gets much worse.”

Menotti said a new generation of Libyan leaders are needed to change the country’s trajectory and that Libyan ownership of any peace process is absolutely crucial. “We should not forget that it should be a Libyan process and configuration that makes it possible,” he said.

XINHUA/HAMZA TURKIA VIA GETTY IMAGES

Libya’s new Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dabaiba (c) meets people celebrating the tenth anniversary of the country’s revolution in Tripoli’s Martyrs’ Square, on Feb. 17, 2021.

—Elaine Pasquini

Will Ireland Use its Security Council Seat to Challenge Israel?

On Jan. 1, Ireland began its two-year term as a member of the United Nations’ Security Council. Upon being selected to occupy one of the 10 non-permanent seats, the country said three principles would guide its time on the council: building peace, strengthening conflict prevention and ensuring accountability.

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Street art in Belfast, Northern Ireland draws a connection between the Irish and Palestinian struggles. Photo taken on July 30, 2014.

Comhlámh, a Dublin-based social justice organization, held a webinar on Feb. 3 to assess if and how Ireland will apply these principles to the Israel-Palestine issue.

Richard Falk, the former U.N. Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine, said Ireland should focus on holding Israel accountable for its “flagrant, continuing defiance of U.N. authority on the [illegal West Bank] settlements.”

Dublin ought to also raise the controversial apartheid issue, Falk said. “Ireland, by its experience, it has a credibility, probably greater than any other country except South Africa, to raise the issue of both settler colonialism and apartheid in the context of the ordeal endured by the Palestinian people for so long now,” he said.

Abeer al-Mashni, a social safeguards specialist at the World Bank’s office in Jerusalem, said Ireland should forgo promoting the failed, decades-old “peaceprocess.” The international community, she urged, needs to realize such an outcome has become a fantasy in light of the de factoone-state reality on the ground. “If Ireland would like to really take a step on this issue, they need to speak in the name of reality,” she said.

Eamonn Meehan, the former director of Trócaire, an Irish organization dedicated to tackling poverty and injustice around the world, sees no reason to believe the Irish government will use its Security Council post to push a radical new approach on Israel-Palestine. It’s “highly unlikely that Ireland will put itself out there in that place of danger, that position of being honest,” he said. “Frankly, I haven’t seen any evidence that they will do that.”

Indeed, the issue of Israel-Palestine was not included in a fairly lengthy list of topics Dublin said it would prioritize on the council.

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney did condemn settlements, express support for two states and condemn settler violence in his first Security Council speech. However, Meehan believes that such statements do “very little to take Ireland beyond anything that it has said over the last ten years, or indeed that the European Union has said.”

Recycling valid, but ultimately “platitudinous” talking points does very little to advance a just resolution to Palestinian suffering, Meehan argued. The international community can no longer just condemn settlements and de jure annexation, he emphasized. “There needs to be a complete change of the narrative, and Ireland could lead on this.”

If Ireland is serious about actualizing its “very strong commitment” to the Palestinian people, Meehan said it needs to be bold, push buttons and be willing to “put itself out there into a place of potential danger and criticism in support of Palestine.”

Meehan is keenly aware that any sharply worded resolution condemning Israel put forth by Ireland would almost certainly be quickly shot down by permanent Security Council members, most notably the United States. “But what’s the point in being there if we don’t try that?” he asked. “If you’re not speaking the truth, you share the guilt.”

Even if it’s dead on arrival, Meehan believes Ireland could help move the international discussion forward by introducing a resolution that clearly describes the reality of apartheid in Israel-Palestine. He also thinks Dublin should create an opportunity for Palestinian civil society organizations to address the Security Council about the realities they face on the ground.

Ultimately, Meehan thinks Dublin will not be willing to ruffle any feathers with the U.S., which has long shielded Israel from criticism at the U.N. “No Irish government is going to do or say anything in the public sphere without somebody at the minister’s shoulder whispering in his ear, ‘What will the U.S. think of this?’” Meehan also noted that many of Ireland’s closest allies on Capitol Hill are strong supporters of Israel. “There is a very strong pro-Israel lobby within the Irish Caucus in Washington,” he pointed out.

Falk urged the people of Ireland to pressure their government to speak clearly and honestly about Israel’s violations of international law. “It’s up to Irish civil society to make the government uncomfortable if it doesn’t make that case,” he said. “It’s not only the government that’s challenged by this election to the Security Council, it’s also the people of Ireland—do they care enough to make this issue a priority?” —Dale Sprusansky

Join Iqraa and UPA in Running for Palestinian Scholarships

We’re all looking forward to 2021 being “better” than 2020—and that includes the Iqraa runners!

I don’t need to recount the general difficulties of life during COVID, but most runners I know came to cherish our sport and lifestyle more than ever. While we couldn’t run in a throng of 30,000 strong in the streets of our capital city, as we’ve been accustomed to every October as part of the Marine Corps Marathon, we still ran.

For Team Iqraa, we ran every Saturday in any of a half-dozen venues on trails that